Money can't buy you love-or votes!

Just a little thought here: BBC Radio 4 told me yesterday that the Tories received £1.46 million in donations in the first week of this election campaign, and the Lib Dems received £20K... If we assume the donations are all being spent on campaigning (oh, and we do the maths), we can see that each percentage point of support is costing the LibDems (on 30 percent) about £665 and the Tories (on 33 percent) more than 66 times as much!

The silly side of surveillance

Mark Thomas/FeelgoodTV - Video Surveillance

I've been thinking about surveillance (oh, no particular reason, Officer).

And when you think about it - which, let's face it, most of us would prefer not to - there are a lot of different possible responses to the fact we are all being spyed on. People whose lives are boring and/or self-satisfied tend towards the "Well, I've got nothing to hide" point of view. But the rest of us are often either worried, afraid or scandalised.

Mark Thomas, however (bless his cotton socks!), does a fine job of exposing the ridiculous side of surveillance, as well as its outrageousness. As this video clip shows, if you choose to meet sneaky, covert operations with open, honest communication, and a polite-but-mischievous refusal to play by their rules, then the Powers That Be end up looking rather foolish.

Which is only to be expected, I suppose, when the key words that the establishment spies listen out for include artichoke and badger!

Oops, I've said 'em now! No doubt Echelon has already noticed ...

Flow x

Ten things I didn't know last week

I've just found a lovely page on the BBC website - 10 things we didn't know last week. And since Learning New Things is one of my favourite pastimes, I thought I'd give you my own list of things that I didn't know last week ...

* 97% of the world's money only exists electronically - only 3% exists as notes or coins.

* Loads of corporations are richer than countries: for example, Toyota and General Electric are richer than Portugal and Iran; Wal-mart, Exxon and Ford are richer than South Africa and Saudi Arabia (ibid).

* If a school holds incorrect information about your child, the Data Protection Act says they have to put it right.

* When my local Chinese takeaway says food could take "up to an hour", they actually mean one hour and 47 minutes.

* Solar noon (the time when the sun is highest in the sky) is at exactly noon on Christmas eve , for the one-and-only time this year.

* Google Earth also lets you look at the sky above your location, including stars, sunrises and sunsets (I've tried it - it's fun!)

* Our local Council doesn't want yoghurt pots because they don't have facilities for recycling polypropylene - not because they're fed up with unwashed, mouldy tubs.

* Burger King is marketing a men's perfume with the scent of meat. (YUCK! Please don't add that one to your Christmas lists, boys!)

* Galileo thermometers measure temperature by using little balls filled with liquids of slightly different densities, which change pressure as the liquids expand and contract, and so float up and down in a tube of water at different rates ... and they're pretty, too! (That's what's shown in the picture above - courtesy of Wikipedia).

* 'Mince' means 'coin' in Czech ... so are mince pies popular in the Czech Republic?!

So ... what would be on your list of new things you've learned this week?!

Flow x

Zeitgeist

Have you heard of the Zeitgeist Movement? If not, let me introduce you!

It's a new and growing movement that wants to change the world. It calls for shifts in human awareness and behaviour, so that we can all live creatively and positively, enjoying the good things in life.

It celebrates human potential and existing achievements. Particularly, it talks about the technology that already exists to provide us with all the power, transport and leisure we want. It critiques the economic, political and social systems we currently live within, and presents arguments and evidence about how these - but especially money, the drive for 'profit' and debt - harm us all and prevent us from living the lives we deserve. It offers concrete suggestions for how we can get involved and play a part - yes, you and me too! - in changing the world.

The Zeitgeist Movement is hugely idealistic - and I mean that as a compliment: isn't it about time for a new global movement that shakes us all up a bit and encourages us to (how can I put it, hem hem) go-go with the flow?!

The Zeitgeist website isn't as good as it could be. It is full of jargon and ideology that will put off many visitors before the ideas can hook 'em. But the Zeitgeist movies are compelling. If you only watch one documentary this year, make it Zeitgeist Addendum. It weaves together information and ideas about money, politics, big business, American interventionism, war, international 'aid', technology, 'green' energy, transport, the Venus Project, labour, leisure, sustainability, creativity, religion, human nature and consciousness ... and ends with a call to action!

(I tried to embed Zeitgeist Addendum here, but it wouldn't work - I may try again later, but meanwhile, click on the movie link above to go to Google Video).

And last year's Zeitgeist movie explored links between the global banking system and international terrorism, and put forward the best 'conspiracy theory' I've heard, arguing that 9-11 was a put-up, 'inside job'. Very interesting!

You don't have to agree with everything the Zeitgeist Movement says to rejoice in the fact that someone is out there saying it! As the filmakers say themselves, "We must be open to new information at all times, even if it threatens our belief systems and identities".

Personally, I am absolutely delighted to have stumbled upon this evidence that there are other people thinking things that I've been thinking: people who care about the world, who have some faith in human beings, who are happy to try to change even if it's scary or difficult, and who are passionate enough about these ideas to make a couple of non-commercial movies and start a global movement.

"We must become the change we want to see in the world" - Mohandas Gandhi.

Yup, the Zeitgeist Movement has captured something important - and it may well be the 'spirit of the age'. I hope so!




Flow x

No clangers from the Clangers!

There was a sad bit of news today: Oliver Postgate - the creator of the 1970s children's TV classics The Clangers, Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine - has died.

If you're my sort of age, you will probably remember the Clangers and their swanee whistle voices, and the gargley Soup Dragon (and all those other programmes too), with very fond nostalgia. I was four when the Clangers started, and I loved them. Their gentleness, music, and liking for strange contraptions seeped into my consciousness - I identified with them and wanted to be a Clanger too!

Now the BBC has released a fragment from a missing Clangers' episode, and re-awoken great memories. This was the last-ever Clangers programme, and was a four minute election special broadcast on October 10, 1974. It was considered controversial (What, politics in children's telly? How appalling!) and has never been shown since.

As I remember, the Clangers lived in a kind of peaceful anarchy - arguably much preferable to any political system known to us today! In the fragment, the narrator tries to explain politics to the incredulous Clangers, who shake their heads in disbelief at it all. And their episode Treasure is a parable about how very silly it is to get obsessed with money!

So let's call on the BBC to release the whole of the 'missing' episode. Perhaps the Clangers have some wisdom that will get us out of our current economic and political messes!

.

.

Flow x

The end of flat-packs and pick'n'mix

Bear with me today, folks: this blog starts with misery, and moves on through rant, but it ends with some hope!

So, Woolworths and MFI have gone bust.

It's big news, and it has put the wind up a lot of people. And indeed, it's hard to imagine the high street without Woolies or the retail park without MFI, isn't it? A Britain without flat-packs and pick'n'mix!

These retail giants follow the Banks, as the latest victims of the credit crunch. And it seems likely that they won't be the only ones: PC World and Comet are apparently at risk too. "Weep for Woolies" says the BBC's political editor Robert Peston today, rather too sentimentally for my liking. Personally, I don't give a toss for the corporate casualties. It's the human casualties I'm sorry for: at least 30,000 individuals will lose their jobs as these companies go bust. And they will suffer all the more, no doubt, because almost all of them are already in debt.

Now beware, listen to the sirens blaring: here is a Rant Alert!

The trouble is, for the past decade or more, we've built our whole society on credit. Almost all of us do it: mortgages, loans, overdrafts, hire purchase, credit deals, credit cards, store cards ... we've got into the habit of casually building up debt. We've got so used to it that we don't even think any more about what credit really is. Let me spell it out: credit is money we haven't got.

If that's not shocking enough, here's something worse: the collapse of the banks and big business makes it frighteningly clear that they, too, have too much debt and not enough money. And if we haven't got the money, and they haven't got the money, then there's only one conclusion to draw: the money isn't there!

Yup, this is the bizarre truth behind the credit crunch: we have all been spending non-existent money! No wonder we're in trouble!

But this (at last!) is where I begin to feel the little first flickering flame of hope.

Andrew Lansley wasn't allowed to say it but I can (I am not a Tory politician AND I earn a lot less than the UK average wage, so I can say what I want) ... Recession might be good for us.

Of course, it's going to be Bad for many individuals. It's going to be Bad for those who lose their jobs or their houses. It's going to be Bad for those who suffer with stress and stress-related illnesses. And I'm sorry for all of them.

But maybe, just maybe, there will be some Good side-effects.

You see, I think we've been spending money we haven't got (and that's never a good thing) on things we don't need. So many of us have got into the habit of believing we need that second car, or that conservatory extension, or those designer clothes, or those packaged ready meals, or that wide-screen telly, or that extra games console ... and we don't. Really, we don't.

Now, I'm not a puritan. I'm all for splurging on wine and chocs and holidays and fun and beautiful things. And I wouldn't complain - not for one moment - about all this unnecessary consumption if it was doing any good or making people happy, but it isn't.

.

Huge numbers of people - probably the majority - work in jobs they hate to pay for these things that they don't need. Huge numbers of people are perpetually anxious, worrying about whether they can re-pay the credit they have accumulated. Huge numbers of people are miserable, and all their extra possessions do not make them happier.

So maybe, just maybe, as the recession bites and we have less money to spend, some of us will wake up and remember: "Hey: money won't buy me happiness, and money can't buy me love!"

.

And if so (since I'm really a hippy and anarchist at heart) then I say maybe this credit crunch will be the end of the world as we know it... But I'll feel fine! Because a Britain without flat-pack and pick'n'mix is hard to imagine right now, but it might just be a better one!

Flow x

The sun HAS got its hat on!

Don't you just love it when the doom-mongers are wrong?!

First up is the weather forecaster on Thursday, who told me I could expect heavy rain again today. But as I write, I'm looking out my window at the blue sky and fast-scudding white clouds of a perfect autumn day ... well, HAH!

And just a couple of months ago, plenty of heavy-weight commentators were saying Obama couldn't win the US presidential elections, whether because of his race or because some other dirt could be dished that would spoil his chances ... well, HAH again!

And then there are those famous - or infamous - gloomy brickbats. Like the IBM chairman who, in 1943, so modestly speculated "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers". Or the DECCA music company executive who rejected the Beatles demo in 1962, saying "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out". Or - perhaps the most pessimistic prediction of all time - the World Health report in 1989 that claimed "There will be one million cases of AIDS in Britain by 1991". In fact there were around 8,000.

Why DO we seem to have got into such miserable habits? It's time for some more GOOD news stories! There are a few US sites, of which the best (by which I mean least schmaltzy and/or religious) seems to be http://www.happynews.com/, but I haven't found a British or European equivalent.

So here are my headlines... They're all TRUE, though it's just possible that not all of them made the national news.

• Mortgage rates now lowest since 1965!
  
• Youth rescues trapped dog by jumping in canal!


• Thief sends apology and £100, years after stealing cigs!


• "Tiggers Don't Like Honey" sketch fetches £31K at auction!
  

And if your taste for good news stories stetches as far as a willingness to listen to semi-amateur rock bands, then you might like to check out 'Canary Wolf' http://www.myspace.com/canarywolf . Their new song 'Credit Crunch' is at least as much about carrots as finance. As their lead singer says "It's not the end of the world, is it? There's benefits. We were all — myself included — spending money on things we didn't need".

They certainly know how to go-go with the flow!



Flow x