Riggwelter

While out walking today we came across a riggwelter, a sheep stuck on its back and unable to right itself, possibly due to the weight of fleece in this case. Usually sheep seem to get back on their feet, but sometimes not.

This one had a big heavy fleece and seemed so knackered she had even given up waving her legs around, so we heaved her back onto her feet and she wobbled off without a bleat of thanks, as they do.

Unpleasant things can happen to sheep in this position. If you are interested in the gory details try Shepherd's blog.

Barren Old Trout Gambit Backfires

Did Andrea Leadsom really try to hint that Theresa May is a barren old trout and therefore lacking a full repertoire of touchy-feely sentiments so essential to modern politics? Possibly it wasn't meant that way, but surely the Useless Home Secretary gambit would have been more dignified.

From the BBC

A row has erupted after Conservative leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom was accused of suggesting that having children made her a better choice to be prime minister.

The Times quoted the mother of three as saying having children meant she had "a very real stake" in Britain's future.

She later said she was "disgusted" with the interview's presentation.

Leadsom may be disgusted with the interview's presentation but it's too late now. The move has been made. I don't think much of May but this all sounds desperately naive to me.

Chilcot

This morning I took a photo of a stinkhorn growing next to the old air-raid shelter at the bottom of our garden. We knew we’d find one because of the horrible stink, this being one of the ripest I’ve known. Conditions are just right with warm weather after lots of rain. There is plenty of rotting wood around too. From Wikipedia :

Botanist John Gerard called it the "pricke mushroom" or "fungus virilis penis effigie" in his General Historie of Plants of 1597, and John Parkinson referred to it as "Hollanders workingtoole" or "phallus hollandicus" in his Theatrum botanicum of 1640. Linnaeus described it in his 1753 Species Plantarum, and it still bears its original binomial name. Its specific epithet, impudicus, is derived from the Latin for "shameless" or "immodest".

Which naturally enough leads us on to Chilcot. All I’ve read are reports and comments, but an overall inference is pretty clear. We seem to have learned little that we didn’t know already, particularly the problem we have with egos and amateurism in our political elite, the problem of politicus impudicus perhaps.

We don’t attract enough pragmatic, hard-nosed people who see their job as identifying and protecting British interests. In part that is down to voters voting for political brands and woolly sentiment instead of the most worthy individual.

Unfortunately the problem loops back to Brexit and whether or not our home-grown political class is fit for purpose. Chilcot suggests not and Chilcot is very far from being the only clue we have.

Tory leader – does it matter?

The Prime Minister’s office is essentially a clearing house for political pressures promises and paybacks. Whether or not the actual incumbent matters is debatable, but one suspects not. Style matters so much these days...

...actually the candidates don’t have much style do they?

I’m stuck now. Can’t think of a reason why we have Prime Ministers, let alone why we think the choice is important. What on earth could it be?

??... ???... ????... scratches head...

...nope, this post has come to a premature end. I don’t have the remotest idea why the Tory party leadership battle is important. Of course the new leader has to come across as more capable than Jeremy Corbyn...

Strewth is that all?

Strewth.

Shuffles off for a drink think...

Exploding Pianos

An interesting story about exploding pianos, flour and the value of those pianos in an age of instant entertainment.

A matter of perspective

This is a view from the Tissington Trail near Hartington. As you can probably see, because of the perspective and lack of visual clues, a road on the other side of the valley appears to be much steeper than it really is.

It's a matter of perspective. 

Similarly this picture appears to show a random selection of shoppers who could be wandering around M&S looking for a good offer on socks. However, if you hold your nose and almost close both eyes, they could also be a bunch of candidates for the Tory party leadership.

It's a matter of perspective. 

A millionth of a ton

source

As many will know, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel WE influenced George Orwell when he wrote 1984. Set in a distant future, it was published before the crazed dictators of the twentieth century wrote their epitaphs in the blood of millions. WE is somewhat more alien and remote than 1984, but politically just as chilling. 

From Wikipedia

We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State, an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which assists mass surveillance. The structure of the state is Panopticon-like. Furthermore, life is scientifically managed F. W. Taylor-style. People march in step with each other and are uniformed. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society. The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State.

The logic of political behaviour is key and in my view just as disturbingly plausible as Orwell's Newspeak. Consider the two quotes below.

How good it is to know that a vigilant eye is fixed upon you, lovingly protecting you against the slightest error, the slightest misstep. This may seem somewhat sentimental, but an analogy comes to my mind—the Guardian Angels that the ancients dreamed of. How many of the things they merely dreamed about have been realized in our life!

Is it not clear, then, that to assume that the "I" can have some "rights" in relation to the State is exactly like assuming that a gram can balance the scale against the ton? Hence, the division: rights to the ton, duties to the gram. And the natural path from nonentity to greatness is to forget that you are a gram and feel yourself instead a millionth of a ton.

Yevgeny Zamyatin - WE (1921)

Few would admit it, but many people appear to desire this kind of world. Zamyatin’s imaginary dystopia is called the One State, ruled by the semi-mystical Benefactor. The Guardians enforce absolute discipline over every aspect of life, right down to sex, hours of sleep and even the number of times each mouthful of food must be chewed. Does the last one sound familiar?

Zamyatin’s key assumption on which he hangs his dystopian logic is that happiness is the absence of desire. Expunge desire and you have happiness. In some ways WE is more relevant now than 1984 because of Zamyatin’s use of dystopian logic.

Freedom and crime are linked as indivisibly as... well, as the motion of the aero and its speed: when its speed equals zero, it does not move; when man's freedom equals zero, he commits no crimes. That is clear. The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.

Do people think along similar lines? Of course they do and always have done.