Journal of the Plague Years

"On The Beach" (Nevil Shute): After nuclear war, in a doomed Melbourne, an evangelising church mounts a banner which reads, 'There Is Still Time'. As the banner is raised, it must seem that there are still lives to be lived, choices to be made; even more so at the meeting beforehand, when the decision is first being taken to place an order for the banner to be printed. The point is, of course, that it was already too late even as the book started, that events would take their implacable course whatever anyone might choose.

At the end, the banner is still up, but all the world is dead and the only movement is litter blowing in the wind.

With regard to pollution, population and, most of all now, climate change, we are being told that there is still time...

I am not alone in this: I fear for my world, for the environment; and I fear for my country, for its body politic.

The questions are much the same in both cases:

• Are they broken? If so, how, and what can I do about it? Or;
• Are they at risk of being broken? If so, how, and how can I help to prevent it? Or;
• Am I worrying unnecessarily? If so, why?

Before anything else, that is what this site is about.

Apart from that, it's my space for a good general rant.

I do everything that I can, write all I can, speak with all my heart.

I feel, too often, that I am spitting in the wind, along with so many others. On Blair's war, for example: 1 000 000, marching against that war, were ignored; a 23% vote for his party (2005) was taken by Blair to be an overwhelming mandate and (as he was careful to say) an endorsement of his war.

(After that election, it is no wonder that so many Muslims, perceiving the government of Britain to be their enemy, are forced to consider that the people of Britain are, too.)

So what do I do now? If I were to take up the role of bomber, that at least would have an effect (so how can I condemn those - more afflicted by Blair's war than I am - who find it hard to find alternatives to violence when they seek to respond?)

[It is interesting to reflect that,

although I am trying - in words - to make sense of the impossibility of finding any channel for my anger,
and although I am writing philosophically rather than politically,
and although I do not condone violence - which is why I loathe Blair and his minions so profoundly,

I, a Londoner (a Freeman of the City, as it happens, with paternal forebears - FitzWalters - here in the 12th century*), put myself at risk of imprisonment by what I have just written.]

* Barring the odd 19th century milkman or 18th century rake, of course... who can know these things?

• This web journal is, I think, the only way I can put myself on record.
• Even though I have no right to assume that anyone will even visit the site, let alone read this passage.
• So why do I do it? I think I sense, as many do, that one day I will be judged: I do not wish, when asked, to say I did nothing.

Family note: A great aunt, Mary Butler, is credited with having invented Sinn Fein... so perhaps I have a tradition to live up to.

So you know what to expect if you stick with this, my, site; here you may find:

Saving The World - mainly the environment and population.
Saving My Country - England, by the way - no party politics, but plenty of cutting insights...
Making Sense Of Everything - some thoughts and homilies on the future of the 21st century.

It's very definitely a site under construction so I hope you will visit from time to time to see how it develops.

Warning: I am using a freebie to build this site, so it is very basic and the navigation is primitive. There is no way yet to leave comments (or even to count whether I get any visits at all). As I learn about building a website, and gather a body of material - and some references to support my more outrageous assertions - I intend to progress to something a bit more sophisticated.

This is a personal site, which is to say that I am using it to try to develop my own ideas and to put them into some sort of order. I hope that as you move around the site, it may become clear what has led me to this. In another age, these scribblings would have been written in a notebook: but I obviously want to join all the rest of the bloggers, or I wouldn't be here...

If you live in Britain, I hope this page might interest you: Civil Liberties : 16 down and counting.

To see a list of all pages: Site Map

I hope that you'll use this site.

But if there's one real gift I can offer... it is to recommend to you the following, if you have not already met them:

1: Visit www.medialens.org. Established in 2001. David Edwards, David Cromwell and Olly Maw look at the world by looking at how it is reported. They analyse the links, often too friendly, between the media and the world's vested interests - and in the process often winkle out what is really happening. Without this site, the full gravity of many events in Iraq might never have reached us. [International.]

• If you use only one source of awesome research (but free of academic and political jargon), it should be this.
• Awarded the Gandhi International Peace Award, 02 December, 2007.

2: Read "Private Eye", established in the 1960s and published every two weeks. Famous as a satirical magazine, but worth reading as a paper of record. Under some humour, it's deadly serious. The front half reports on the shenanigans of (UK) government, local authorities, businessmen and the media. The back pages look at specific matters in more detail. Occasionally produce supplements or supplementary magazines. Not (too) afraid to make mistakes, but makes very few. Loathed by a large but select group people who have plenty to hide. [UK focus.]

Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, has given Humankind
a 50-50 chance of surviving the present century.

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