All your life will ever be

The second instalment from Mr Cake in Japan now follows, with some redaction.

Communication is the only thing we ever do. If you're a Class-A war criminal like Tony Blair, you'd probably want some guy like Alistair Campbell around to make sure that people get the information you want them to get. If you're encouraging people to invade another country or accept policies that guarantee a darker future for all, then you certainly don't want your audience, that is, the entire population of Britain, to have any idea how communication works, do you?


So, what IS communication and how does it work? Basically, communication works as follows:

INFORMATION-------------------------> IDEA

And, the four basic skills of communication are:

DESCRIBING + EXPLAINING + ASKING + CHECKING

I would like to ask you, dear reader (and yes, I know no-one is really reading this, so I'll just take this opportunity to say: fuckshitwanker! City are rubbish! ) to ask yourself if, at any time during your experience of "education" anybody told you how communication works and the basic skills you need for it? Is the answer never? So nobody learns anything about THE ONLY THING WE EVER DO? Isn't this a problem?

In regard to the definition of "information" it is most basically defined as: everything in the universe. All language, all gestures, all actions, the clothes we wear, the football teams we support, it's all information. And anyone receiving this information will get ideas from it: he's not cool, she's trying to be, he likes me, she doesn't, he's a case, she wants to kill me. Communication is unavoidable.

If all this is true, then the massive failings of our education systems are clear to see. How often are children graded on their ability to ASK and CHECK? Is it practically never? That's 50% of communication right there that is simply ignored. Plus, are children taught how to DESCRIBING and EXPLAINING work? Clearly not. It can also be noted that IQ tests make no effort to measure peoples ability to describe+explain+ask+check.

It's important to understand that the fancy schools are just as bad. The graduates of top Universities the world over are not encouraged to understand how communication works . Thus, you get Oxford grads who spy for The Soviet Union. (The Soviet Union!!). Or you get former students from the prestigious Tokyo University joining Aum Shinrikyo, the apocalyptic cult that nerve-gassed the Tokyo Subway in 1995. A cult which used a photo of its leader "levitating" to recruit members.

Inevitably, the world is shitter than it necessarily has to be because of the simple fact that our leaders, our elite, are also thicker than they have to be.

As I define it, being thick is an inability or unwillingness to communicate, with intelligence being the opposite. In fact, we are born with innate communication skills that can be clearly seen if you spend any time in the company of small children. It's very common when interacting with under 5s to be struck by just how clever they are. The same thought is, to be generous, a rarity when engaging with adults. So what happens to people between the ages of 5 and 18? Do they go to school perhaps?

In a culture that understood and encouraged communication, people would have stood up and demanded of Obama, "What kind of change? Hope for what?" Instead of just crying and waving a flag.

In a British context, a BBC that appreciated communication would have as its flag-ship political programme: "Question and Explaining time."

Overall then, if you've ever wondered what the world would be like if it were run by dogs, wonder now longer. Just take a look around you.

I think we can do way better than dogs.

In future posts, I would like to expand on the topic of communication, and how the lack of it contributes to the detriment of everything we enjoy, including footy!. If that`s not exciting enough, I'll also impart important information about 9/11, the secret link between Kissinger and Zapruder, plus the answer to exactly WHY birds fall in love and sing so gay!

Push It

Thanks to Mr Cake for the last post, and there will be more to follow. For now folks, this is me. There's a lot of talk about porn at the moment. Time for me to get in on the sex act. I wonder if this page will attract as many views from Russia as the one entitled 'Whores'?

Porn is everywhere. It is the ‘new’ way for kids to learn about sex. No different to the old way in some respects. I used to find porn in the woods (such a cliché that it seems almost impossible to believe, but it really did happen, and – after taking a walk along the river recently – I can confirm that it still does) or under my uncle’s bed. Kids still find porn, but there are some key differences in the way they do it. Nowadays, they can get it online, all the time. It’s moving images as well, so that makes a difference. It’s free, and that’s also very relevant. Additionally, the sheer range of available stuff is mind blowing. Within a few clicks, it’s possible to navigate to some very dodgy areas indeed. My first introduction to acts out of the ordinary (or perversion if that’s what you want to call it) was amputee related sex. It was, needless to say, from a mag under my uncle’s bed (Whitehouse, I think) and induced shock and laughter in equal measure. At the age I was then, the very fact of sex was shocking in any case. Since then I think I have at least glimpsed most of the possible curiosities that people can indulge in. There is a disturbing prevalence of violence and rape imagery in much of the stuff online these days, and that is definitely not a good thing.

That said, I’m not one for censorship in any form (though I have paused more than once when presented with material on TV with my kids present. Most recently, their imploring me to allow them to watch The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo led to some interesting discussions, let me tell you...). Context is vital, and part of this is talking to kids about what they’re watching, and not just allowing it to enter their consciousness willy-nilly.

In answer to the latest bout of hysterical bullshit from Cameron et al - get over it! We all masturbate. Remember that documentary repeated recently about the bloke with the small cock? He said he had never had a wank in his life. Wholly remarkable and very unusual. Apart from the odd curiosity like him, everybody’s doing it, etc. If we accept this, and accept that we can’t all have a sexual partner (indeed, even if we do, sometimes a solo performance is the preferred option) at all times, then porn is a useful aid in getting us where we need to be.

So should we change it? At the risk of being ridiculed, I would align – in some ways – with Alain de Botton on the subject. If it’s there, and if it isn’t going to go away, why not make efforts to change it? Is there decent material around already? This does raise rather a lot of questions of course. How do we cover the fetish areas? Where do we draw the line in acceptability of these fetishes? I suppose that the law isn’t much fucking use, so we would need to consider some arbitrary code of morality. When I say arbitrary, I mean, for example, some of the following:

Who am I to judge someone who likes being thwacked having a good time with someone who likes giving a good thwacking? Or someone who likes to pour on others – or have poured on them – non sexual bodily fluids? For example. Not only do neither of these activities interest me at all, they actively turn me off, but - hey - if you want to do it and you’re not causing anyone any harm, then go for your life. I would suggest that as long as the activities are between consenting adult humans then it’s OK. Anything which involves minors (‘18’ – yeah right! – seems to be the suggested age of majority) animals or coercion is not allowed. But what does that mean if we consider people who appear to be underage, but are in fact over 18? What of other ‘acted out’ scenarios? Are they OK? And does their erotic power decline for the fetishist by knowing that they are acted out, leading to an underground industry producing the real thing? Even if you do ban stuff, people still have these urges. They always did and always will. In any case, isn’t the production of this kind of material in contravention of the moral code, if not any legal one?

There are no easy answers. Are there ever? I think we can only try to allow our kids a bit of freedom to make up their own minds about this very complex area of human existence, and give them a bit of credit for trying to get through it. That doesn't mean simply banning all sexual imagery, does it?

We don't need no education

As promised, here is the first guest post for this month. A friend, who has posted on here before, will be presenting his ideas, and... well... that's it. Enjoy.

Tony Blair, the class-A war criminal, once gave a famous speech were he claimed to be most interested in: "Education, education and education." Cue huge round of applause from people that, in British culture, would generally be considered to be "well educated."


Not one person asked him how he defined education.

Noam Chomsky, a man who has dedicated a large part of his life to exposing the war crimes of his country, defines education as: "how things work." I don't know of a better definition of 'education' than: "helping people understand how things work." If anybody reading this has a better idea, I'd love to hear it. After all, it's just common sense isn't it? Wouldn't we be amazed to find out that the people at Honda didn't know how cars work? Wouldn't we be surprised to find out that the heart surgeon about to slice us open didn't know how the heart worked? Clearly, anyone who claims any kind of expertise in anything can tell you how it works, can't they? Except, apparently, in education. Last December I wrote to Ofsted (The office of standards in education ) and asked them for their definition of education. They replied by saying: "Ofsted has no definition of education."

Doesn't this, logically, make it enormously difficult to measure the standards of something when you don't know what it is? Imagine someone getting a job at the office of standards in semprini. What would their first question be, I wonder? And, very importantly, why don't we wonder what education is? Why do the university graduates who work at Ofsted happily ignore the very nature of the thing they are involved with? Could the education system itself be responsible for people being thicker than they have to be? Doesn't the education system we have ignore the essential way people work? My own response is yes. But I'm prepared to accept I'm wrong. Am I wrong? Is the education system we have a wonderful perfect thing and we can't possibly do any better? Or, in fact, is the education system we have the same as it has been since it was established: a way to train people to accept their station in life. The proles will get basic skills to help them in the factory, and the elite will learn long words to encourage them to think they are superior. No evidence needed of course.

It is, of course, supremely useful for ruling elites to encourage people to ignore how things work. It makes less trouble for them. If we're being honest, we've all had the same experience. Lies to friends and lies to children just make it easier for us doesn't it? But the encouragement to ignore how things work gives us the worst of the world, and the illumination of how things work gives us the best. Who would prefer the rule of the priests versus the best of science? Who would prefer the crown to the people?

In Japan, where I live, members of the Japanese government are often roundly criticised, both within and without the country, for visiting a shrine that contains the souls of class-A war criminals. In my country, we just have class-A war criminals as a Prime Minister who later goes on to become the most highly paid private speaker in the world. Yet, consistently, Japanese culture is viewed from Britain's perspective as strange, yet the idea the Tony Blair should be on trial is seldom heard. How did we get to such a situation, where our elected leaders commit the same crimes that were condemned at the Nuremberg trials and walk away rich? Very simply, because education ignores how things work, our natural ability to communicate as humans, our birth-right, is robbed from us and we are left with the communicative ability of dogs. Our education system not only ignores how communication works, it actively works against it.

This is a problem because communication is the only thing we do. Isn't it?

Living is Easy

Well now that's out of the way, it's on to the summer, such as it is.

Euro 2012. No Euro in 2012. Who can tell?

A debate on 5 Live the other day focused on the lack of interest in England's tilt at the European Championships in Poland and the Ukraine this time around. As ever, all thoughtful comment was edited out, only to be replaced with the dimwitted foghorning of some idiot who was 100% sure that there was 'plenty of money about' and that the poor showing was all down to the incompetence of the FA. I'm no fan of the gentlemen from Lancaster Gate, don't get me wrong, and there are many things relating to the decline in the game in this country which I would squarely lay at their door. However, the fact that your average (insane, surely? I mean, where do they get their money from?) travelling England supporter is less likely to fork out thousands of pounds for a ticket to the latest circus is not one of them. More importantly, will there even be any sort of infrastructure left in Europe by the time the damn tournament comes round anyway?

That said, what are my thoughts on Roy's team selection? Ferdinand is no surprise - perhaps a mixture of pusillanimity over the racism issue (a disgrace) and pragmatism due to the fact that he's well and truly past it. Terry is also past it, and is - at the very least - a thug, so I find it hard to condone his inclusion in the squad. Richards' exclusion is difficult to fathom perhaps. Although he has been something of a second choice at City in the latter part of the season, he is still among the quickest and most powerful defenders in an admittedly strong field of defenders.

It's up front where I think we will struggle. Carroll. Defoe. Welbeck. Pube Head. Nuff said.

Ah well. This blog reaches its 5th birthday towards the end of June, and my avowed intent is still to reach 500 posts by then. I will need some help to do that, and am hopeful that there will be some guest bloggers on here in the coming days to help me out.

In a City Way

I found myself with a large whiskey in my hand just after Kun scored the winner in the 94th minute. I didn't know the bloke who gave it to me, though we had been exchanging the usual footy banter throughout the second half. In the melee, I leapt up and - on my second roar - elbowed the missus in a Joey Barton sort of way (though in my case it was accidental) leaving a small but discernible lump on her forehead. A Scouser came over to shake my hand, and told me that he had been ready to leave before we pulled that off. A Hammers fan who had been bleating on about his 80/1 punt on a draw/Barton sending-off combination said:

"You've just won the fucking league! What's the matter with you?"

I was stunned, a sort of smile playing on my lips and the whiskey glass cradled in my hand. Worried about the lump on the missus' head, still hardly able to believe what I had just witnessed, I didn't know what to do. Just a couple of minutes earlier, I had put on my jacket, determined to stay till what I was sure would be the bitter end, but keen on getting away from the place as quickly as possible after the final whistle. Dzeko's goal, I was sure, was too little too late, and there was no hope of pulling this one off. Every ball into the box seemed to either hit a QPR player or miss everyone, every shot was blocked or missed, and nothing would fall for us.

We had 19 corners, 44 shots off target (Update - 17/5/2012. Given my predilection for numbers, I'm a little shamefaced to say that it took an article in the New York Times to make me realise the significance of this statistic. There you go...) and 15 on target. For most of the first half, the 'Super Hoops' were reluctant to step outside their own penalty area, and yet here we were staring down the barrel of a gun, about to gift the Rags their 20th title in a way which would never be forgotten.

Now it will be remembered for all the right reasons. When the coach pulls into Corporation Street this evening, and the thousands of Blues cheer on their heroes, and for long after, the whole of football will be talking about how we won it in 2012.

In a City way.

Cups

It was one of those days which seemed to develop a theme of its own volition. The theme was litter, and it started in the early (ish) morning on my way into the office. A couple of guys were walking towards me and one of them casually tossed a small crumpled ball of paper on the floor, into a space at the foot of a balustrade. He smiled and walked on, laughing with his friend. Just behind me, a man who was probably a civil servant wearing a suit and trainers snorted in disgust:

"Litter bug!" and looked back in stern disapproval at the men. He turned back to look at me and said:

"Did you see that? Disgraceful!"

I nodded, clutching my Pret a Manger coffee cup in my hand and he went on:

"I hate that!"

"So do I," I mumbled and watched him stomp away in his trainers, shaking his head in disbelief.

I perched my now empty coffee cup on the bus ticket machine and left it there.

On the way home, as I was walking along the road, a chap came out of one of the shops and simply tossed a waxed paper drinks cup into the street. A small woman noticed him and said:

"Don't you have a bin?"

The man simply shook his head, smirking as he did so, and this response certainly got the woman's dander up:

"Disgusting!" she spat out, placing her hand on her hip in a challenging sort of way. I saw her point - frowning, imploring - toward a bin not 20 yards distant. This did not elicit a response from the loutish yob (whom I took to be something to do with the shop) in the doorway.

She carried on remonstrating with the belligerent shopkeeper as I moved out of earshot, surreptitiously tossing my empty pack of crisps to the floor as I went.

Straining

A big win, they said. A decent match, though we could - and should - have banged more goals in. The Geordies didn't threaten over much, but sometimes looked dangerous on the break. Yaya is clearly the man for the big occasion, although I'm already thoroughly sick of hearing that he is 'worth every penny' of his transfer fee and the massive pay cheque he receives each week. But, he is a thing of beauty on the pitch, an enormous brooding presence that can suddenly burst into life and run the length of the pitch, or get off a sublime shot from 25 yards out.

Now all that stands in our way is the Ruabon soul dancer, that alumnus of the Rags, of Chelsea, of Wales, of Blackburn, of Fulham, and of course - of City. Sparky's boys, fighting not to go down with the chicken men and the Wolves, complete with Joey Barton and SWP for resonance, as well as Taarabt for possible goal danger. Can we do it? Will the Mackems, now without the ever pliant Steve Bruce, stand up to the dejected Rags and do the job for us? Kick off time on Sunday can't come soon enough.

My heart is all a-flutter at the prospect, let me tell you. I fear for us against the Hoops and am beginning to regret making mention of Stan Bowles in a previous post (though in the style of Private Eye's Andrew Neil Brillo shot, I think I should put that picture up again). What I am trying to keep in mind is: 'win or lose, it's City for ever'. It doesn't matter if we are pipped at the post, because we've given our all this season, and it's been a mighty good one in terms of entertainment value. Still, eh? One in the eye for old Fergie and his merry men will top things off nicely.

COME ON CITY!