War in Heaven

Johnnie Andy who was our neighbour in Glencolmcille would not let water into his house - as another old man put it, 'aren't we all our lives trying to keep it out!, meaning out of their old thatched cottages. However, much more rashly I would have thought, he did let in 'the jigger', which was his name for the television. Now one day I came up with some bright-but-trite anti-war comment, as we absorbed yet another bit of footage of people trying to blow each other up, but I was stopped in my tracks by old Johnnie's comment - 'Ah well now war's allowed. Sure wasn't there war in Heaven?'

     Let us hope that, if war there must be, it should not be a matter of trying to blow each other up; because I'm afraid the forthcoming general election in the UK does have to be a matter of war. It will be a generational battle to determine the nature of the outfit for years - a battle, one might say, for the soul of the nation.

Another frontier.

     Who am I to say such things, or care as I swan around the Gannetsway? It should be obvious to all by now that, not for the first time, this battle is liable to be largely fought out in or over Ireland. It was in 1969, in the wake of British troops, that I first went there in earnest, trying to figure out what was going on, as opposed to sailing about the place or visiting a friend. It was above all the British attitude to Ireland that made me baulk at the idea of spending my life banging my head off those old brick walls.

       One little illustration of what I mean will suffice, that an Irish seaman forwarded to me from his FB page:-

In disbelief that people could still think like this, I asked was this someone just trying to take the mickey or stir, but was assured that this is the way that a lot of the Brits he works with really do think, they now think that their wretched xenophobia carries endorsement on high, and moreover there's much worse stuff going around in the dark recesses of Facebook. It is one of the more nauseating habits that the Brexiteers have, invoking ww2; mostly by people whose actual idea of it was derived from those dreadful whizz bang take that Jerry AAAch Himmel actung the English svinehunds! comics of the '50s. People like my father who actually fought in the war were much more inclined to value the European movement and regard it as a degree of consolation for all the misery that brought it about.

     For my part, I find myself irreversibly Europeanised, and I suppose there are not a few people like me in that. It is simply unthinkable that we should revert to an English nationalist mindset. Cosmopolitan elite be damned - we just know where we came from, where we like to go, and cherish peace. The same can be said from an Irish perspective. It should be obvious by now that the fragile equilibrium which has been built in Ulster is very much dependent on the EU. If this stupid deal of Johnson's goes through, it is going to cost lives in Ireland.

     There is another side to all this, intimately bound up with it. It is no coincidence that Brexiteers are inclined to deny the climate crisis. I saw a nice lady representing the People's March talking to Mr Farrage the other day on LBC. Having gone through the usual rubbish, trying to cast doubt on the science, he said 'anyway, we only represent 2% of the problem; what can we do about it?' The lady really missed a trick when she didn't respond with - 'that's one big reason why we need the EU'!

     So how can this battle be fought, with such fragmented forces? Mr Corbyn, bless him, is not the man to lead the fight, and at the moment there does not appear to be anyone else who can either. There is no time to go trying to found a new political party, even if it were desirable. The basic issue however is  simple, and of such importance that it must come before any party loyalty or ideology. My name for what is needed is the European Solidarity and Environmental Movement - ESEM or even just SM. I hasten to add that I do not mean 'solidarity' in any exclusive sense. 

     Coupled with environmental degradation is a rising tide of human misery in the world. The challenge is to address both. ESEM should work in tandem with Mrs Gina Miller and RemainUnited*, but go further and find a leader with the potential to form a Government on the twin essentials of ESEM. After all the rest is largely hot air, especially so if the country insists on impoverishing itself (and the air keeps getting hotter!).

     

     Increasingly as old age creeps up on me, I sometimes feel saddened at the prospect of my old country going down the tubes, and even regret that I did not find a way to 'fight the good fight' back in the day. I'll see if I can do a bit for it now by pushing this idea. Will you, dear reader, if you like it, please do the same; send it on and let us see where it goes! Tell them about it, post a comment below if you would support it, and let's see if there is a catch to be made!

Bringing Home the Catch.

*https://www.remainunited.org

Anyone up for some 'technical adaptations'?

Sometimes it seems that the only viable attitude to the world is... silence - at least as far as any meaningful response to what passes for politics these days. We can be grateful to the Brits for spelling it out. All that pomp and circumstance attached to the Queen's speech, setting out the program of a zombie government that everyone knows is on its last legs!

     That Government clings desperately on to whatever little credibility it retains by dangling the prospect of 'getting Brexit done'. It is astonishing how we all tend to get sucked into the farce. Even if this famous deal is cobbled together, by means of a classic piece of the Sulk's favourite food - cake kept and eaten - a border down the Irish Sea such as the Maybot claimed 'no British prime minister could accept', it is obvious that the Brexit saga will in fact only be beginning. So far we have only been in the preface, exactly as happens to be the case with the climate crisis.

     Insofar as the Sulk has a policy in both cases, his priority appears to be to find any way at all of enabling his electorate to get their heads back in the sand. How on Earth can any serious progress be made by any one country on its own? How can we plausibly make progress unless it be in cooperation with our neighbours? The challenges of building international and environmental responsibility, of enabling the requisite global responses to our global problems, are all essentially one and the same, and the European project is but a step on the way to such a global ambition. 

     Logically, the Brexiteers would rather leave the planet; the Sulk may well tout his British space project! Here is another instance of the Brexit delusion, that it could be better than playing a full part in the European one! Is it so very hard to see that the individual nations thrive by playing in the game? At the same time, an effective global response is one that would empower individuals and local communities. But what's logic got to do with it anyway, you say? Very well, wait till you see! Meanwhile, I shall mainly hold my silence on our peaceful little island, though beavering away in my own little way on the practical level.

Doggie Heaven

     It's taken years, but our little extension is nearing completion at last, and with no loan attached to it - just buying a few materials here and there as we go along, and with the support of friends. When that's done, I intend to concentrate on the sea-faring end of things, and getting the Anna M going again in a carbon-neutral mode. I will head for Portugal again next week, saying byebye to some lovely autumn weather here on Sherkin, but I hope to return two weeks later with a little hydrogen generator to test out.

     Kevin Davis, a lecturer at the Cork Institute of Technology, has pointed me in the direction of an excellent resource for accessing research papers - www.sciencedirect.com - with regard to using a diesel/hydrogen mixture in an internal combustion engine. One can find there, for example, 'A review on the technical adaptations for internal combustion engines to operate with gas/hydrogen mixtures', 'Hydrogen combustion in a compression ignition diesel engine', and 'A review on the technical adaptations for internal combustion engines to operate with gas/hydrogen mixtures.'  This research is encouraging, but there remains a chasm between such work and actually rolling out practical applications. 

     Given all the hype about the 'Extinction Rebellion' and so on, one might have expected that it would be easy to garner support for any such effort. Such is not my experience. Even more than our politics, our financial structures are out of kilter with the real challenges, so much so that according to Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, existing global investment carries the implication of global warming 'probably north of 4C'.*  Something is going to have to give! 

     If anyone out there is interested in participating in a little effort to power a boat without contributing to this catastrophe, and helping in some little way to build an alternative future instead, please get in touch - email gannetsway(at)gmail.com
*see https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/15/bank-of-england-boss-warns-global-finance-it-is-funding-climate-crisis

'Escape to the Mountains'? On Staying Sane When the World Is Mad.

The impulse to escape to the hills is as old as humanity, but received a particular edge through Jesus' warnings of the end times. As he says in the 24th Chapter of St Matthew's Gospel, 'when you see the disastrous abomination..., then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains.' 'In Noah's day before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept them all away.' Yet 'as for that day, nobody knows it, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father only.' Jesus' conclusion? - 'So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming.' St Luke adds - 'praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.'

     The advice to 'stay awake and survive' at least is encouraging. All through history, there have been times that felt like The End, as famine, plague, persecution, war or natural disasters swept the land and evil seemed to triumph. In my young days, it was widely expected the human race would finally blow itself up entirely, a threat that has by no means gone away though we are on the whole looking another way. Anyway, here we still are, with a new wave of apocalyptic foreboding sweeping humanity. What constitutes a sane response - an alternative to going mad ourselves?

     We need to begin by recognising that such is in fact the human condition. The Earth is but a passing home, yet this is by no means a reason to disown it. Referencing simple, practical things like giving someone a glass of water, Jesus goes on to urge us in the strongest language to care for those who are already actually suffering the breakdown of human society - the hungry, the thirsty and the homeless - they are the very ones with whom the Son of Man identifies - 'whatever you do to them, you do to me'. The challenge of the 'End Times' is the very challenge to live fully human lives. Jesus characterised the terrifying events as 'the beginning of the birthpangs'. Yet their coming is associated with that of 'many false prophets'.

     How do we recognise false prophets? By their fruits of course, but these can take a while to come in! Possibly it will do to reject anyone who claims to have The Answer, to offer salvation, short of the Son of Man, who when he does come will probably catch us by surprise, and yet be the unmistakable culmination of the human project. We Christians accept that the end will come, even look forward to it, albeit rather hoping not to be there when it happens, as Spike Milligan said about death. But let there be no doubt - in the meantime, we are committed to living life to the full.

     So how did leaving all the 'fleshpots' of London behind, and going to live in the hills of Donegal in 1973, work out for Fiona and myself? Well you can read about it if you delve into this blog, especially the From the Fractal Frontier reports - but in a word, for all its difficulties, very well. It is fair to say that we have lived through the disintegration of the cultural set-up we were born into, even if we now look out cosily from our kitchen window on Sherkin with an old hurricane rattling away at it. It's definitely a good idea to be behind glass this morning, rather than out there on the sea, the mountains or King Lear's heath!

     The truth is that, culturally speaking, we find ourselves back in many ways to where we came from, but nothing like as dismayed as we were when we started out. I am sure that some people encountering us would consider us way behind the times. I'm inclined to the conceit that we are way ahead of them. Anyway our lives have been very good, though of course full of difficulties to be overcome and so by strange, unforeseeable ways to help us on our way. 

     This is the first storm in a long time when no drops of water have been getting into our house somewhere, in which respect we have just had some great help from a young American from Virginia, one of those wonderful Americans who combines intelligence with practical ability - a wonderful antidote to the Ducky's antics. Sadly, one needs to keep reminding oneself that the current President does not represent the USA, any more than the Sulk represents the UK*. Meanwhile we can make a start in

overcoming the madness of the world by concentrating on the basics - food, shelter, power - and taking as much of their production as possible into our own hands, which in turn provides a good basis for the essential business of enjoying life and good company!


  *If you don't know who The Sulk is, see John Crace's articles in The Guardian.