Propopissbiotics

Have you popped your daily dose of ‘Bio-Co-Enhancing Propopissbiotics’? Which I gather is simply fancy talk for some sort of slightly fermented municipal run-off.

You have to admire the confidence of wellness influencers (and by 'influencers,' I mean some dodgy merchants selling crystalline tinctures from suspiciously large vials) suggesting that one can, via dietary osmosis and placing a drop of said tincture on the moon, somehow ensure that after your five millionth dose you'll achieve ‘optimal seminal viability.’.

The concept itself is baffling; as if the biological output of a decent night’s sleep were merely an annual tax return requiring aggressive pruning. We are now expected to pour over the nuances between 'l-arginine,' 'zinc bio-complexes,' and whether consuming fermented hummingbird milk 2 to 50 times a week constitutes adequate anti-oxidant coverage.

I was supposed to be preoccupied with the structural integrity of my nether regions, not the optimal ingestion sequence for testicular vitality - although with the bone shaking which occurs in many of the underground lines, I'm surprised balls haven't fallen a clatter at many a grinding section. At some point, surely, this pseudo-medical beautification 'maxxing' phase - is going to hit the buffers where they just recommend quitting sex entirely and sticking your parts in a boiling gold vat of yoghurt instead.

Meanwhile and long overdue, in Alternate Reality 45823...

The dust from the last great Bust & Hype Tech fallout cycle has, almost, settled down leaving only the faintest skiddy scent of burnt ambition, watered down artisanal coffee and a swathe of tech bros who have been uncharacteristically absent from the public eye for months.

It's now 2042 and in a small café Brenda and her friend are having problems with their Eye Pendants which have become utterly ubiquitous. Simply strap it to your collarbone and a little glowing beacon of synthesised intelligence, manages your ambient emotional throughput.

"Mais non," hisses Brenda, adjusting the little chrome piece on her companion. "The pendant just told me I need to generate more 'wholesome serendipity' by staring at decorative pebbles for 20 minutes this evening. It's exhausting."

"Mon Dieu, Brenda," her friend replies, whilst sipping her lukewarm tea. "At least it’s efficient. Earlier today my pendant kept urgently pinging. And what did it want? It was simply flagging the inefficiency of your emotional bandwidth. Apparently, you’ve been spending far too long dwelling on the banality of your existence."

The Eye pendants are a universal requirement now. Everyone needs a bespoke, wearable, micro-miniaturised cognitive adjunct to tell them exactly how deep and meaningful their meandering consciousness truly are and whether they're keeping on track. Who knew that the only requirement for true happiness was a stylish little bauble.

Why is it called the Eye pendant? Initially it was called the AI pendant, but too many people found themselves being impaled in their eye by them.

In the name of Coxits*

Let's begin in the before years. When the dynamic duo of iron & gipper more or less declared society was dead. Long live the individual, and all he/she (it was a time before gender pronoun liberation) can plunder! Knowing that it would be their mates, and every dodgy second hand used bank salesman out there, who would go on to pocket quite a pretty penny/cent, or two!

Everything in the uk was for sale. The americans had a bit of pride and in those days a bit more sense, so ensured some things had to remain off the sales ledger and in the cubbyhole of national silver; but since most of the stuff wasn't public anyway, it really didn't make that much of a difference.

Fast forward a few decades, and in the sunny slowly morphing dystopian uplands of the uk, many of your favourite companies have being hoiked off to the highest bidders, in a process known by that reverential title of: under new management. For example, superdrug is owned by a.s. watson, who are part of ck hutchinson holdings, a chinese company. Boots did a dance, to be finally consumed by an american company and is now a part of the megcorp walgreens boots alliance which had 2019 revenue of $137 bn, with 2020 potentially being a very nice bumper crop for them - which makes more sense after looking at the prices in their online store. A company which of course loves the nhs - just ignore a subsidiary being one of the top five american health insurers providing lovely affordable healthcare, which is lovely. Now do remind me why so many americans wish they just didn't need to go bankrupt to live?

The nhs is underfunded, over-managed, and dying by hundreds of ideological cuts; becoming ripe for the plucking – seeding growing public anger, which once sufficiently massaged and perceived to be no longer behind the nhs, will allow them (those in power) to deliver the coup de grâce and finally allow the vultures to heartily tuck into the spoils.

Holland & Barrett, a health food chain (akin to the usa’s whole foods but way smaller -  especially as it’s now part of amazon), is owned by a russian billionaire who bought it from the american private equity firm the carlyle group. BA is spanish, most of the uk’s utilities and water firms have overseas owners. Trains are run by the french and germans. Chocolates are owned by american, or swiss companies, with a light sprinkling of a belgian company, or two nicely shaken into the mix. The technological marvel that was arm was allowed to be flogged off to japan's softbank group which would be the equivalent of america allowing intel, nvidia and amd to fall into overseas hands, without giving more than a shrug. Even the quintessential dyson vacuum cleaner is manufactured in malaysia and headquartered in singapore, whilst the allure of his singaporean penthouse must increase his need to visit sunnier climes; far away from the wash, or the unwashed, now they’ve served their purpose! Newspapers are owned by non-domiciled billionaires, so it’s no wonder they want a neutered bbc. And the conservatives want to hoike nuclear reactors off to the chinese, whilst our strongest weapons (nukes on subs) actually belong to the americans.

And most of the above was before brexit and covid struck. So with all that in mind, precisely which sovereign bit of the UK did those who voted leave, believe they were saving?

Now, where’s the covid file...

 

* Take your pick: Cockup and Brexit. Covid and Brexit. Crapshoot and Brexit.

In alternate reality 45823...

The dust from three years internecine warfare across the Channel has finally settled. Birds are haunting as the morning quiet of an exclusive Parisian neighbourhood, is rudely broken by a national anthem ringtone.

“Monsieur Président. C'est lui, de l'autre côté de la Manche, au téléphone!”

“Sacrebleu! Que veut l'idiot blond maintenant?”

The return

Sometimes, there's nothing better than taking a little break away. To refresh the mind. Fill the lungs with fresh only semi-polluted air, and- Oh merde! Sommes-nous encore en train de parler de Brexit?!

Dreaded Drug Decriminalisation

For the majority of people when they hear the term drugs they are more in mind of those substances which alter consciousness and states of mind, and of course which may or may not be hallucinogenic, make us feel good, love our fellow species members, make us look better, question the bollocks we're fed on a daily basis and realise the nonsense of contemporary power structures and paradigms; and are subsequently banned, excoriated and war'd on.

In our modern society drugs are taken by the majority of people, in one form or another, at some stage or another, for things that are now so routine we forget that only 50 years ago, without them would either mean a certain death or being the recipient of severe life-shortening disability. We’re including vaccinations in that pantheon too, as vaccines are also drugs.

Drugs have had a bit of a mixed audience over the centuries, suffering ups and downs along the way. A way to keep the less fortunate sophomoric and their better offs giddy with delight. But who can forget wandering along the Thames river in the Victorian era and popping into an apothecary to get a vial of cocaine to help with that pesky cold?

Since Jenner and his smallpox vaccinations there have been problems with drugs along the way. With Governments (USA) doing experiments on their third class citizens with STDs, or governments (USSR/Russia) being early proponents of gender swapping, as long as it only (okay mainly) involved sports women! Of course it’s understandable why people would prefer not to have their children vaccinated in the hope of saving them from one of the many dreadful side-effects that may impact them, or saving them from deliberately introduced side effects just to see what impacts there might be. But apart from the few highly reported incidences regarding adulterated vaccines, the improvement in global improved life-span, over only a few decades, hasn’t just being down to improvements in food, nutrition, and improved water supplies, all of which played a huge part, but mainly the ability of medicine to bring to heel once terminal illnesses and diseases.

Getting through the blah blah on the war on drugs in the USA, we quickly realise that it’s not really a war on the perceived horrors that impact poorer sections of communities, but a war on many other fronts to ensure that power remains in the hands of those who believe they know better! A Nixon aide famously said that the reason for the war on drugs was basically to divide and conquer, with a healthy dose of racism thrown into the mix. Three of his colleagues have poured scorn on the whole idea, but as jailed prisoners are unable to vote, what better way of killing many stones with the one policy. That was before gerrymandering really took off, which makes imprisoning an unnecessary throwback to a more barbaric time. Make black people and hippies who consume marijuana appear to be the bogeyman of all that’s right and just, and those who support them being just as bad. So why not help such perceptions along by ensuring gang wars, supplies can get through, and the media reporting like the good boy’s that they are. Once people have a conviction for drug possession they become forever a felon. Felons are not allowed to vote. So the war on drugs disproportionately affects black men, many end up in prison as part of the money making venture that is the prison industrial complex of a privatised prison system. Then when they get out they are not allowed to vote. Which helps with gerrymandering, especially as they would only vote democrat anyhow.

In the 1930’s the drug war was against mexicans, Will Randolph Hurst was a politician, owned a lot of newspapers and also a lot of paper producing companies. The target was the evil hemp, “reefer madness” 1936, with white women being seduced by reefer smoking black jazz musicians. As that was so successful a similar war on drugs was enacted a few decades later, using crack as the weapon of choice for Ronald Reagan, ans targeting the black community because white people tended to do powder cocaine. Before reefer madness there was a campaign against opium because the Chinese were smoking it!

Of course in about 1900 you could legally buy cocaine, morphine, cannabis. Queen Victoria used cannabis for period pains.

Why do we care here in the UK? Well ever since the master and servant roll was reversed, the UK has slavishly followed whatever US policy they can get away with implementing.

Over the years, the US policy has helped limit and hold back research into the use of LSD or molly MDMA for sufferers of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Ergo, a lovely catch 22. No research, no proof that it works. So cannot (legally) be used for treatment. Even internationally, politicians prefer people (poor) to die of cancer in Africa and India, than for them to get morphine to relieve their pain.

Hypocrisy much? As society guzzles vast tankers of alcohol with terrible damage to individuals, and a community cost of pub fights hospital bills, prison, it is rarely viewed as a drug that shouls be banned, as it brings lots of money in to the chancellery, and those with power do enjoy the off tiple. Whilst prescribed opiods have more people becoming hooked on them, and deaths from their use increasing. But, have one person (out of millions that week) unfortunately die, who popped a pill to enjoy themselves and it’ll be plastered across the headtops for weeks to come.

That time of year already.

Happy 15 shopping weeks of Christmas!

In alternate reality 45823...

The latest edition of 'Democracy for The End Times', lands on the desk of the British Prime Minister. "Are you a PUSSY LICKING DRUGKING, or PROGRESSIVE LOVING DATER?"

The PM smirks, and licks his lips. He hadn't tasted the good stuff in quite a while. And with all those paparazites outside, it might be a while before he would again. As for the other stuff, his young fillies were doing rather well. Jeni even beat the bookies with a 100 yards to spare at the Goodgrove races

He looks down his to-do list and maniacally mutters. "Scuppering Parliament, check. Drowning the Speaker in a grab the apple contest, in progress. Hanging out promises of a better tomorrow without jam today, that's our mantra. In the record books, even as the shortest serving PM since 1827, by Jove still on track!"

As financial, social, and international storm clouds gather in growing intensity, the asymmetric flapping wings of destiny ferociously beat towards an approaching darkening maw.

Lounge of green borders

Ah good evening.
It is Tuesday.
Have a care.
Our army of beetles, spiders and exploding ants,
Vicious vipers, poisonous pythons and bristling badgers,
Are all ready to defend the borders of my fine realm!
Now leave me in peace.
Let me lounge.

A hit to the twitbix

Being tasered more than twice, involves a little bit more than bad luck!

Floppy bits

I had an email pop in regarding the exciting news of “going from a couch potato to 5k in just 9 weeks".

Why?I wondered to no one in particular. I neither have a couch, nor do I wish to run 5k - never have done. Plus there’s hardly enough hours in a day to get a dot of what I wish to, and the bits that I do are interspersed with bouncing between walls before bed. Time to run? Hardly time to gather thoughts and firmly tie them down with coherent ropes of logic and reason.

For those out there who do 5k’s, you are an inspiration. Keep up the wonderful work, but remember that couch potatoes exist, so everyone else can feel good.

Rocking it like Methuselah

There is an increasing amount of research being published relating to the possibility of extending life by tinkering with the inner workings of genes. Soon the question may well be when can you take the age adding serum, rather than if; as societies will start to experience citizens leading longer, healthier, happier, and more fulfilled lives!

However, not to be outdone, rightwing think-tanks are working to swing the pendulum back on life expectancy, by flexing their ideological control over governments and swathes of societies across the globe - their snake-tongues finding fertile ground. Whether it’s the burning of the rainforests, selling arms to rival groups, or whittling away the remaining safety nets leaving nothing but bare concreted ground. They will have a solution to your problem which will decimate those with the least in your society. But that stark eventuality is at least a generation or two removed from coming back to bite anyone implementing the measures, so really, where’s the harm?!

One such think tank has already instigated the disaster which is Universal Credit in the UK. The very same organisation, with chief snake Ian Duncan-Smith, has recently being blowing in the wind their latest wonderful idea of increasing the retirement age from 68 years to those reaching their 75th birthday. With every increase in the average lifespan, such bodies will always exist trying to ensure that people (the undeserving poor, the disabled, the workshy, the skivers, the menials, the unwilling, the lazy, the febrile, the mentally unwell, and the IQ challenged) will work for as much of that time as possible. That, after all, is simply their lot in life.

People are, rightly, grumbling a bit. But that is only a seven year increase, with a possible working life range of 59 - 66 years - for those lucky enough to be in fully paid/perked/benefitted employment, or successful self-employment, or atop black market income stream verticals. If you think retiring when you are 75 might put a spanner in your idyll of a happy pension everafter, just imagine being alive centuries from now, when the retirement age has (after consultation) been raised to 540, only to find that on your 539th birthday a new legislative directive has been automatically implemented raising the retirement age by another 50 years. So your retirement party and presentation of a golden teapot, for 500 years good service, has been postponed until you reach the tender age of 590! On a positive note, after 570 years of working imagine the size of that pension pot, which will just be enough to buy a broom cupboard on the empires farthest off-world outpost.

All of the above currently sounds nothing but far-fetched grandiose nonsense, but if the species doesn't kill itself, or significantly regress its ability to build on incremental medical and technological advances being made, we can only imagine how things will look in 500 years time. The first recorded use of a firearm was under 700 years ago in 1364. First passenger jet airliner entered service in 1952, mobile phones in 1973. Ultrasound guided nerve blocks (pain blockers for us lays) for anaesthesiology in 1978. Will be a remnant homosapien rump scratching out an existence amongst the wreckage of its fall, or will it rise beyond the always-on-display-of-itinerant-pettiness, towards a future only restricted by its ability to imagine.

In the life extension experiment simply blocking the expression of one gene increased the lifespan of a test subject (a nematode, is still a test subject) by up to 25 percent. If a similar extension could be enabled in humans, then potential life expectancy could be pushed up to 143 - for those already lucky enough to be living towards the top end of human life expectancy. For those on the other end however, it would at the very least provide an extra few months of existence, regardless of how grubby and miserable that existence is. How many years of endless grind would society deem acceptable? Or would another enlightenment take place and consign such ideas to the periods of barbarism.

Okay 550 years is hardly a dent on Methuselah’s fictional lifespan. But if you had to work over 500 years of your life, just what would that look like? Surely you wouldn’t be working for the same company, that would be tragic! But then again, if the company rotated roles, offered stock options and flexible possibilities, became more dynamic, and less static, was 100% open and transparent, why not? Apart from seeing the same 50 people, over and over and over and over and over and over again!

Happy 20- oh f'it

We are well past the midway point of 2019, and weather records across the globe are being broken like each lane in a bowling alley scoring record after record. With the Gulf Stream slowing, Greenland ice sheets and glaciers experiencing record melting, plus a slew of scientific data indicating that we’re more or less fucked. What are governments around the world effectively doing to alleviate the awaiting crisis of having many of their populace sploshing around halfway through the night?

So far, it seems not much. There’s a lot of PR and marketing guff doing the rounds, but when it comes to the nitty gritty day-to-day reduction in waste, inefficiency, switching from fossil fuels to renewables, a whole bucket of snails would beat these hares in a race, and that’s only if the race covered a 10 yard stretch.

There is an increasing awareness amongst the general populace that there is a growing issue taking place with the climate, simply from the increasing reports even on their favourite TV/cables nesshows, that the 500 year and 100 year occuring records now appear to being broken on a monthly basis.

Of course the Gammonistas take it as a matter of pride to ignore all these warnings. As we know, we don't need experts (Mr Gove), regarding anything we know nothing, or very little about. Naturally this is taken to extremes in america, rolling coal, with your breakfast quadruple burger? Helped of course by Trump and his minions taking great pride in rolling back environmental protections. With methane as one of the potent greenhouse gases, what better thing to do than relax the regulations regarding their emissions from oil & gas drilling, as that might save up to $19m a year. With methane approximately 30 times more potent a gas as carbon dioxide at trapping heat, show that you understand the calamity the species is heading towards, by pouring more fuel on the fire. Perhaps they are reptilian after all, and their evil plan is working towards warming the planet up, so they can increase the size of their clutch eggs.

Bolsanaro in Brazil carries on as a mini-me henchman, encouraging the burning of the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon, often called the vital lungs for the world. If burning your lungs weren’t bad enough, we find out that the Democatic Republic of the Congo, home to the largest Ebola epidemic and 38 private armies all battling each other, now has more fires than the Amazon basin. This is a country which is as big as Western Europe… Oh, and it also happens to have the biggest measles epidemic which has so far killed about 5 times as many kids as the Ebola epidemic has killed people. There appears to be no end in sight for any of these catastrophes, and the list only seems to be getting bigger. Any help from the west? Well, there are lots of tut tutting, action plans and promises. Which, as we all know, is the battle nearly won.

Unconventional Carnival attire

Notting Hill Carnival (c) 2019 DCMORR

The Overton window

The Overton window, no not the Oval window, nor the square window, nor the round window - from Rainbow (may it r.i.p), nor is it any other type of window constrained by those pesky general laws of physical dimensionality. The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse at any moment in time. “But,” you say. “What the fuck,” or for those out there with a more gentler constitution, “WTF, does that mean?” Here’s a contemporary example from British politics. Jeremy Corbyn is described as being on the extreme left by many commentators, and especially those with many column inches to fill in today's billionaire-owning newspaper class. But when you look at him in context, he is an ordinary lefty from the 1970s. It's not that he is so extreme, it's more that the Overton window has shifted to the right since the 1970s.

With each passing decade the ideology in the UK, indeed of the Tory party and successive governments have been in chasing the right so hard, they have become fascistic. We don't hear that discussed much amongst the everyday news fare of celebrity toenails and trump's latest tweets, as we’re rummaging through our mornings breakfast offerings do we?

You might find yourself muttering that you really don’t care that the window has light-speeded to the right of politics. After all, it’s served you well. You’re sitting pretty. Retirement and pensions are all planned out. Income from rental or at the very least money from AirBNB and equity dividends are doing great guns. You could retire now, if you wanted to, and let all that money flow in. But then what? What about the future? What about a society where people don’t have to work 50 hour weeks, or three (predominantly in the USA this one) jobs just to sleep in a car at night? What about the future of the species and where it's potentially headed? Do you really want to leave behind a narrow focused, work until we drop, dystopian society - along the lines of Elysium? Sucks to be you, you non-quintillionaire.

But surely, things really aren’t that bad? Apart from a few retail casualties, job losses, and mutterings of boardroom coups, not only can you still buy your wonderloaf for 57p, but you can marvel at the artisanal Bakeries latest offerings and plump for a freshly baked loaf for only £15. How many artisanals can you, or anyone else for that matter, purchase from, that would redress the issue of work and pay? The reason an increasing number of jobs are paying less isn’t down to immigration, that’s just a useful sop used by capitalism to trip up the unwary, If pay had kept pace, even just with inflation, people would be earning much more whilst also being able to work far less hours, and enjoy a decent work to leisure balance. Subsequently many more people could be employed. More money would be distributed amongst communities, potentially allowing communities to resist the empty houses yet homeless syndromes too.

How bad? Doctors believe that if there’s no change in which window the country keeps popping through, then the NHS will, to all intents, be private within a decade. And for those who believe that an American style healthcare system can’t be all that bad. Of course it isn’t. If you never have to use it. If you don’t have pre-existing medical conditions. And having your employer, part paying for your insurance, checking up on you to make sure you haven’t broken any of their purity test conditions along the way. The introduction of university tuition fees where, just like the USA, students are facing large debts before they’ve even started on a career, let alone thinking of buying a house - which that money grabbing generation has also fucked for them. Universal Credit, almost the antithesis of the very idea of the welfare state; instead of caring for you from cradle to grave, the emphasis now appears to be quickly bury you from the cradle so saving on all those unnecessary middle bits. Any and every company is up for sale for the right price, actually any price will do. Just sponsor/buy UK Blue. National security? Pffft, who cares about such sacrosanct nonsense - which makes the wibble over Huawei even more brown-nosing than normal.

So that's it in a nutshell. Politics has shifted so far to the right that Corbyn, within the context of the Overton window, is now an extreme evil Marxist waiting to steal all your money and give it to the next terrorist organisation desperately mewling in the wings. Whilst the Tories, are just jolly public schoolboys and gals, who want nothing more exciting in life than to run through fields of wheat gently squealing as they’re poked by the beards, so don't mind them. All the while the BBC, the majority of the newspapers and commentators have been dragged along on this trip. All without any hint of a meaningful discussion amongst their ranks. This has been described by Noam Chomsky as “Manufacturing consent”. I have mentioned this before? Good lad! Or Lass, choose your own pronouns. It’s nice that you're paying attention.


If we were truly living in a democracy Noam would receive as much mainstream air time and analysis on the major broadcasting channels as the latest snowball in congress, or at least the same as the week’s breaking headline on the latest celebrity to dabble with a toenail disaster. His insights could be seriously discussed and compared to the current paradigm. Instead of mainly being confined to YouTube channels, or Russia Today.

Let the words...

Brief quotes from the years.

Caligula

"I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Let them hate me, so long as they fear me."

Hitler

"Who says I am not under the special protection of God? The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. Strength lies not in defence but in attack. How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think. It is not truth that matters, but victory. Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice. If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."

Trump

"We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism. You have to think anyway, so why not think big? I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. People love me. And you know what, I have been very successful. Everybody loves me. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow. The problems we face now - poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad - will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them in the first place."

The magic money tree - update.

Will there ever be a use for magic money trees: M.M.T.

Somewhat overheard - August 2019

There's nothing worse, during the fading summer months, than sleeping with the window open after the witching hour has passed. Whilst local members of the inebriation society, with slow and meandering deliberation, make their way back to their respective roosts.

Just as you finally feel yourself dozing off, for the briefest of moments you believe that you have been transported back to the 1930's, as you hear in the distance the lilting tones of closed doors being banged on, or kicked, and furious male voices raised in unison bellowing "Let me in! Open the door you cow! This is my house!"

In alternate reality 45823....

In alternate reality 45823....