Stores Wars

Hi Ali..

Thanks for your comment. The Transition Town idea is a great one. I hope it catches on more widely. What matters in this initiative is to gradually de-consumerise people and re-engage them with their own creative imagination. Once the mass of ordinary punters see the point, they will become wonderfully empowered, and will do great things.
But at the moment people are pressured, ignorant, confused and depressed. You will need to be cheerfully persistent for quite a while, I would think!

It seems to me that people are very slowly beginning to catch onto the social and
international implications of global warming and the degenerative weather we all seem likely to get.
We're already seeing a start of something that is likely to burgeon in coming years. I'm referring to the increased rates of starvation in Africa, caused by the rising cost of aid-wheat, caused partly by poor crops (caused by poor weather), but caused mainly by the mad scramble for the quick money to be made by converting land from food-cropping to biofuel-cropping.
As sure as night follows day, the increased starvation rate will lead to more thousands of desperate Africans risking all to get into Europe somehow, with all that that implies.

I do hope this craze for biofuel is short-lived, as it is plainly a ridiculous option, dreamed up by people who have never grown a plant in their life. It's a question of scale, mainly.
I've never come across any projected statistics, (perhaps an informed reader might supply some?) but as a grower of plants myself, I have a good idea of how many grapes, for example, you need to squeeze out a litre of juice. It's more than you'd think, and that's for getting plain juice from a juicy fruit. To get an oil from a plant, you need far far more biomass. Again, I don't have any figures (can anyone help?) but to grow enough biofuel plants to run an economical family car for a year (never mind a Chelsea Tractor or a Hummer) would require many acres of land. And it's not a question of just squeezing juice out, as it is for grapes. The mass would need mechanical cutting, loading, transporting, shredding, and then would need multiple chemical treatments in enormous factories to turn it into fuel, leaving a mountain of waste to deal with afterwards. Every one of these steps requires energy to carry out. A tonne of crude oil produces far more fuel, and needs far less processing and brute shovelling than a tonne of biomass.
Making alcohol-fuel is a better bet, but would again require shifting around huge masses.

But here's the real point: for almost every acre hurriedly planted with biomass, we lose an acre of food.
Already food prices in the west are rising because of this (which in moderation might be no bad thing as it leaves less surplus cash to waste on consumer Straight-To-Landfill tat). However, it is likely that, left to 'market forces' (ie 'greed') there will soon arise a double crisis of not enough fuel, and not enough food. Government may need to intervene to ensure basic food supplies and, heaven forfend, may need to consider rationing. You can smell the black market already.

Biofuel is a madness. Just think it through... yes, of course, we should re-use 'waste' oil from chip shops but we can't all do that. There aren't enough chip shops. And we can't all have 'cheap' biofuel because there simply isn't enough land to grow it on. Maybe the government response will be to build more chip shops? (Why aren't I laughing?)
And monocropping biomass would give wildlife and biodiversity yet another severe
kicking en route.

The answer to the fuel crisis must be sought elsewhere. All the boring but commonsense things like lift sharing, bus use, walking(!), scooters, bikes, blah blah. Proper insulation required by law for all new (and existing) houses; deposits on bottles; wearing a thicker jumper; micro-generation; heat-pumps.... there are thousands of brilliant and simple ideas out there to reduce the 'need' for energy, and every one of them is a better idea than biofuel. Transition Towns can get stuff like this moving.

On the broader front, Ali... yes, I'm afraid I do see civil unrest as a possibility. The first rumbling signs are with us already. Since WW2 the advertising industry, and its allies the magazine and television industry, have consumerised us all, and made us dependent upon their throwaway fashion-items, from phones and clothing to sofas and entire kitchens, not just for survival, but for a sense of PURPOSE in our lives. Religion no longer supplies us with purpose. Science tells us there IS no purpose.. and so the admen and the rest of the 'B Ark' move in to fill the vacuum, yelling at a miserable and bewildered populus that happiness may only be found via shopping, and finally 'achieving' a £2,000 handbag.
Cut the fuel and you cut the shopping. People will be bereft, with their only hope of 'happiness' gone. Already people expect cheap flights three times a year as a RIGHT. And huge plasmas; and the right to drive anywhere anytime; and dirt-cheap clothes; and, of course, dirt cheap food. Cut this dependence on 'stuff', while not replacing it with something of genuine value, and you will have a population in crisis.
What comes from this is anybody's guess, but having noted the general low level of
personal responsibility that people exhibit, in the fields of, say, obesity, speed limits, drunkenness, drug abuse, and collossal waste of all commodities (including, apparently one third of all the food we buy)...
...I'm not very optimistic in the short term. I can see a scenario of riots looming, with race riots close behind, because it's always easier to blame 'Wogs', 'Them', etc for your own problems; under these conditions, we might very well see a sudden growth of the BNP and other neo-Nazi 'easy answer' parties; things unspeakable will emerge from the woodwork, from Mad Mullahs to Little Hitlers, with all that that will call forth in terms of 'policing'.


On the broader front, yes I can see a possible scenario for eg Water Wars. Wales has
water and England needs it. Wales still feels aggrieved by the English flooding Welsh villages to supply water for Liverpool etc. If Wales becomes further aggrieved by some clumsy oaf in Westminster putting Wales last (as usually happens) when resources start to get tight, then hotheads will demand retribution by cutting off the water. In go the troops.
Tensions rise. Protests are made and clumsily 'policed'. Massacres, real, manipulated, and imagined will follow, and you have another Balkans waiting to happen.
Ridicuous? I hope so. Exaggerated? I certainly do hope so, living in Wales myself! But water wars will almost certainly take place elsewhere in the world.

Other areas and social groups will have similar responses, egged on by our trashy 'news' media, who will feign horror but who will really take self-important delight in showing more and more videophone pictures of protests, riots, and looting, thus legitimising-chaos-by-exposure to hundreds of other distressed and opportunistic lost-and-lonelies looking for a bit of.. wait for it.. PURPOSE in their vapid and packaged lives. Now, at last, they will have a purpose! And a fight, into the bargain! A justified struggle against THEM! In fact, a sort of holy war! Yippee!

Extreme stuff, all this... and, with any luck, people will prefer the habit of civilistation over the excitement of insurrection and chaos, but Peak Oil really IS going to mean The End of The World 'as we know it'. There will definitely be ructions and storms of some sort before we work out how to live without our current obscene levels of waste and pollution.

It strikes me, for what it's worth, that Humanity, at least in 'the west', is in the middle of its teenage phase: it thinks it knows it all (to a large degree thanks to the arrogant and intolerant doctrines of Scientific Materialism) and doesn't have the imagination to think it may possibly be in error in any way. It also thinks that as life has no purpose, there can be no point to anything, so why bother? Let's all smoke skunk for breakfast, get blasted on industrial vodka every night and to hell with the consequences.
As always, there are a few people pointing out the error of this 'philosophy', but as ever, the majority don't want to think things through. For a start, they don't know HOW to think because nobody has ever taught them, and anyway, getting wasted is much more fun because famous slebs do it, and they can't be wrong, can they, coz they have their pix in Hello and everyfink doanay?

Thus, we move closer and closer to the precipice, stoned out of our responsibilites on cheap oil, stupidity, and selfishness.

Doomed? Shurely, Captain Mainwaring... we're all DOOMED???
No.. not at all!
I'm optimistic, actually, especially in the long run. But there may well be tough times ahead in the short run, I think, before Man really does realise that Humanity must hang together or we will all hang separately.

'What should we do about it?' you ask. I can think of no better response than the
Buddhist one of 'live your life mindfully', meaning that we should weigh up the value and cost of every single action we take (and encourage others by our own example). It only takes a moment to realise that 'mindful' equates powerfully with 'green' in these urgent times.
We each need to look beyond our own personal or selfish 'wants'; government needs to
start extending its sense of responsibility beyond the next election; and business must look much further beyond 'the bottom line' than it does at the moment.
In short... we all need to think ahead more, to think of others more, and to grow up... fast.


Have a great day, Ali! Your contribution to sanity via your Transition Town work is a shining example for us all.... mindfulness in action! Wonderful!

***

Did anyone else see 'Horizon' the other night? 'A Scientist' set out to tell us the truth about various things ranging from superfoods, through anti-bacterial cleaners, to probiotic yoghurts.
One of the things she found against was 'organic food'. She began by admitting that she didn't know what 'organic' meant. This from a middle-aged professor, who clearly had a respectful opinion of her own theories and opinions.... but after twenty years of increasing market share, and after many scientific papers published showing that organic food is more nutritious, and that kids stop being anti-social little rats when fed organic food.. she still didn't know what the word meant. How had she mananged to avoid it for so long,one wonders? And was she thus a suitable person to judge the merits or otherwise of organic food, even?

If I or you were called upon to make pronouncements on eg 'cloning', and did not
previously know what 'cloning' meant, despite the subject having been examined in
hundreds of newspaper articles and tv programmes over the past decade, we would make
quite sure we were well-prepared for the task, by mugging up before-hand, would we not?
But the professor apparently did not feel the need for such preparations. One can only wonder why.

It came as no surprise to find that she decided organic food was a waste of time and
money. Why? Because chemically-speaking, it was no different from chemically grown
food. Chemically-speaking, a dead acorn is identical to a live one: but one will grow into a huge tree and the other won't. There IS a difference. Chemistry is NOT the be-all and end-all. But chemistry was enough for the learned professor who was much too content to need to challenge her Materialist paradigm.

And by the end of the programme, despite interviewing various organic growers, she
seems not to have grasped that the essence of organic growing is 'sustainability': the capacity to continue growing quality food when the oil that enables the chemical
fertilisers and cheap haulage, processing and packaging, finally runs out.
She had learned nothing. Pity.
More to the point... what will viewers have 'learned' from her? And why did the BBC, and the once highly thought of 'Horizon' strand, allow such a tacky and one-sided 'analysis' to be screened?

Hi again, Duke..

Hi Dook....

Good to hear from you.
Atheism? Wow! The easy ones first, eh!

My Grand Oeuvre will be about how Science and Religion might be quite easily reconciled; but guess what? I'm having a terrible time in getting it started. I've made six different attempts so far.
This is not because I don't know what I want to say, but because it matters terribly which order I say it in... and that's giving me endless headaches, because there are six different things that all need saying FIRST.
Well.. having said that, let's have a bash...

The first thing I would suggest, if you are seriously interested in the whole God/no God business, is to please re-read 'The Tale of the Kale'.. the last chapter of 'Scenes from a Smallholding'. I spent longer on writing that chapter than on the whole of the rest of the book (and that's the chapter the publisher most wanted to cut out, naturally!). The chapter has been called various things by various readers, all the way from 'brilliant and incisive', to 'pointless philosophical ramblings'.
'Incisive' or not, it is written as clearly as I am able. What it is NOT is 'philosophical ramblings'. In the first place, it is not philosophical (ie, 'extended opinion'), but logical (ie, based upon simple premises, leading to a rational conclusion). And it doesn't 'ramble'. It follows a clear consistent path.

Having said all that.. what is the essence of my argument in 'Kale'?

Deep breath........
First of all, forget any dispute about evolution. Nobody seriously doubts that some form of evolution may have or could have taken place. (If you do dispute evolution, please don't write and tell me. I'm not interested.)
The REAL issue is 'origin of life', and NOT 'evolution'.

Dawkins and co are Materialists, which means they believe that Matter/Energy came first in the universe and everything else came from out of Matter/Energy. This includes Life, which, they say, spontaneously arose from chemicals and lightning (Matter/Energy), and maybe cosmic rays (Matter/Energy) or similar. They have no proof of this, despite having tried to synthesise Life from inert chemicals etc for over fifty years. Millions of dollars spent have produced NO Life from base Matter/Energy.

So.. no proof, or even evidence.
What is more, there is no reasonable theoretical backing for their assumption that Life developed spontaneously from Matter/Energy alone (note the essential word 'alone' here.) Here's the problem:
If Life arose spontaneously from un-alive chemicals (Matter/Energy), where did the Life in the living form come from? It MUST have been present (as some form of potential) within those un-alive chemicals, must it not? Because, if there is ONLY chemicals (Matter/Energy), there can be nowhere else for it to have come from. Do you see the logic of this?
What's more, the Materialists claim that not just Life, but Mind and eventually Consciousness (and Self-Consciousness, the mark of Man) in turn arose spontaneously (and by random accident) from... well.. just from chemicals (Matter/Energy). Thus, if the universe is made up only of Matter/Energy/chemicals, these entities must all or severally contain the potential for Life, Mind and Consciousness within themselves (as there is nowhere else for them to have come from). See the logic?

What's more... if there is nowhere else except M/E/c for L,M,C to have come from, it stands to reason that every atom of Matter, and every pulse of Energy must contain ALL Life patterns (from an oak leaf to an elephant), because, again, there is nowhere else for these patterns to have come from, and as Materialists tell us that the universe is all one big accident, there can be no way of knowing in advance which little drop of Matter/Energy is going to become a giraffe and which will become a microbe. Thus, every quantum of Matter/Energy must contain ALL the plans and patterns of ALL living things, if more than one form is to arise by spontaneous accident, as they claim. Do you see the logic of this?

Thus the Materialist argument contains a huge paradox: that un-alive Matter, which supposedly gave rise spontaneously to Life, Mind, and Consciousness, must itself be alive, mindful and conscious (in some potential way) as there is absolutely nowhere else for LMC to have derived from.
In other words, Matter/Energy is both un-alive and alive at the same time, thus breaking the first rule of logic, that a thing can not be both A and not-A at the same time.

This is why I find Materialism to be literally a non-sense: it is irrational, and there is no supporting evidence for it either. Why people who call themselves 'scientists' still give it house room is a mystery to me. (Well, actually, it's no longer a mystery to me at all, but that's another tragic story altogether. Again, please re-read 'The Tale of the Kale' for starters).

So what is the alternative to Materialism? Philosophically speaking, it is 'Idealism'. 'Idealism' is the technical term for believing that Mind came first, and Matter came later, somehow created by Mind.
All religions are idealist philosophies of one kind or another. They all disagree in detail for various reasons. The two main reasons are firstly, that people have a tiresome gift for misunderstanding and messing up simple helpful ideas like basic 'Christianity' (be nice to each other), for example, or 'Communism' (why not share things?), or, I would say, even 'Science' itself (build your theories according to all available evidence) (see my argument re Materialism above).
'The Life of Brian' showed this gift for messing things up magnificently, both on the religious front ('Follow the shoe!' 'No... follow the gourd!') and politically (The People's Liberation Front of Judea vs The Liberation Front for the People of Judea etc etc etc....).

Secondly, if we propose, as Idealists do, that Big Mind somehow created what we think of as Life, Lesser Mind, Consciousness, and for an encore, the physical universe, then it's only reasonable to assume that this Big Mind is considerably more powerful than yours and mine, and that therefore its motives and methods must necessarily be beyond our comprehension. As a parallel, try explaining why you're doing a crossword to a dog. Better still, to a flea. There ARE layers of Mind. We all know this. Thus it's no big deal to assume that there might be layers above us to the degree that we are above a virus or a daffodil.

Is there any evidence for the Idealist view? It all depends on what you call evidence.
For a Materialist, such things as ghosts, psychokinesis, telepathy, visions, etc must all be unthinkable nonsense. Therefore, he says, as they are all nonsense by definition, there can be no such thing as evidence for them, so it is a waste of my valuable scientific time to even look at this so-called 'evidence'.
This is the standard 'scientific' position, believe it or not. 'Unless events fit into my pre-conceived notion of Reality, (ie, the Materialist doctrine), then they simply don't exist.' Lunacy.. and bad science, of course.

As I hope I've shown above, the Materialist doctrine is fatally flawed according to the two scientific pillars any theory needs to sustain it (theory and evidence), therefore this 'It CAN'T exist, therefore it DOESN'T exist' nonsense is.. well... non-sense.

The Idealist view (that Mind is superior to and preceded Matter) may be harder to understand, but it does not contain the same gross paradox that Materialism does, and thus DOES allow for such things as ghosts and telepathy etc to occur: it allows a framework for non-material essences to exist and operate in, in other words.
If you need some examples of the non-physical oddities that occur from time to time, (actually, far more often than people brain-washed by Materialism think) try reading Lyall Watson's 'Supernature' and 'The Romeo Error'; Colin Wilson's 'Mysteries'; Matthew Manning's 'The Link'; and JG Fuller's 'Arigo: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife'.

I will go into all this in more detail in my book (if I ever get it finished!), but I hope this might give you some food for thought, Duke.
Please note that to accept that Idealism is a more rational philosophy than Materialism does NOT mean that you then have to accept any dogma whatsoever along with this. All the world's religions are Idealist-based, but they are all confections to various degrees, and have accumulated all sorts of rubbish down the centuries. I look into this issue in a little greater depth in 'More Scenes from a Smallholding' .. why not re-read that passage too, Duke?
Meanwhile.. don't believe any of these religions! Read.. think... and always follow the path of logic. Don't follow the gourd! Look deeper. Logic will take you a very long way, and keep you from being brainwashed into the bargain.

Please note too that the issue of 'First Cause' remains a problem for both philosophies. For the Materialists, it's presented as 'What came before the Big Bang?', and 'What came before whatever it was that came before the Big Bang?' etc etc. ad infinitum.
For the Idealist it presents as 'What came before God, or whatever you want to call It?'
It's 'a constant', as scientists say: a common issue to both sides and can thus not be used as an argument for or against either of them.

But you might like to ponder on which philosophy (Materialism or Idealism) has the better answer to this one, however unsatisfactory!

Is this any use to you, Duke?
There's obviously a whole lot more to it. My book will look at how we've come to the sorry state of having Religion and Science stand on opposite sides of a great big fence, glaring and snorting at each other, and show how the two might logically be reconciled. It just requires a bit of clear thinking.

I make a couple of predictions, based upon my own thinking and analyses:
* In 20 years' time Richard Dawkins will be seen for the dinosaur he is, over-stating, as he does, his irrational and unproven theories as Scientific Truth. (OK.. 50 years... but it will come one day.)
* Life will never be synthesised from base Matter/Energy ALONE. (Current DNA/cloning technology depends upon the genes being transferred into an already living cell. Nobody will ever make a living cell from base Matter/Energy.) Wanna bet? Feeling lucky?!
* And while we're at it: Materialist science can never come up with their Holy Grail of 'a Theory of Everything', primarily because the Materialist paradigm chooses to ignore whole libraries full of evidence for events that are usually called 'paranormal' (ie, not explicable in Materialist terms). If you miss thousands of effects out of your calculations, you can't possibly come up with anything even faintly approaching a Theory of Everything, can you?

If anyone other than Duke should read this, and finds it interesting, I do urge you to read 'The Tale of the Kale', to be found in my book 'Scenes from a Smallholding'. There are plenty of used copies out there on the net, but if you're feeling generous you can buy your very own Fairtrade first edition direct from the author at www.thirdleafbooks.co.uk . Mention the word 'Kale' in your PayPal order and I'll be happy to give you a 10% (£1) discount. Oh.. and I'll be happy to sign or dedicate your copy too if that's of any interest.

Whew!
That's enough for today. My brain hurts. Time to go and saw a bit of wood I think.

All best wishes to all out there...

OK, Dook….

I've just had another comment in, this time from the Duke of Rochdale, chastising me for not writing this blog more often. Ok, Your Dukeness… I apologise. It really is partly a question of busyness, partly a matter of expense, believe it or not, and partly because I still find it hard to believe that anybody actually reads blogs.

The good news, for anybody who does want to read more, is that we should be getting broadband next week. We can't really afford it, but we did our sums and realised that it would actually be cheaper (if we picked our supplier carefully) than sticking with dial-up. This is because of the grotesque amount of spam I'm getting recently. Yesterday, for example, I got 122 emails, of which only one was legit. I use MailWasher, which helps cut down processing time a bit, but it still takes a lot of online time to eliminate all the crap.
We've decided to go with the Post Office in the end. They're offering a line service, plus line rental, plus <8Mb broadband for £22 (and three free months if we join before April). There's a couple of other tempting freebies too, but what attracts us is that it's being heavily marketed as simple, sensible and honest. After years of abusive and shifty treatment by BT, this sounds too good to be true. Let's hope it isn't. I'll let you know how we get on, especially before April.

Does anybody understand the mentality of spammers? Do they really think I'm more likely to buy their rubbish if they try to cheat my filter by offering Vi*aggr/a, or Dik Turnip penis extension tablets? (..you sew them on, apparently). They must have brains the size of the pills they are trying to sell me.
These superbrains are mainly Americans it seems, with names like Yolanda McTavish and Jesus Schnittermeister, but some of them are Japanese. These particular geniuses are even cleverer. They know that by ensuring I can't tick their wretched little messages (in Japanese, mark you) as 'To Be Blacklisted' or 'Bounce This'.. well.. I'll be absolutely certain to buy whatever rubbish it is that they can't be bothered to explain to me that they are apparently selling (in Japanese).
The Human Race progresses very slowly, it seems to me (but see below).

Not much success on the publishing front yet. I'll give more details when the broadband arrives.

Meanwhile the Irish organic mag I write for ('Organic Matters') is about to publish its 100th issue. I've written my column ('Odds and Sods') around this. I'll attach it below. Maybe it might raise a smile or two.. and allow you, Your Dukosity, up in Rochdale, to doss off work for a few extra moments. I guess you must know the Marquess of Oldham, do you? We used to go duck shooting together as kids. The park keeper hated us.


Odds and Sods, Organic Matters Issue 200, July 2025
(A preview)

Well, well… 2025, and I seem to have made it into my eighties after all, despite what they said at the clinic back in 1972.

And what a change we've seen in the Green/Organic world since 2008! At last, the circulation of Organic Matters is beginning to drop, as almost everybody finally seems to have got the 'organic message' and doesn't need shouting at any more. At last, our food is most likely going to be edible.
What have the key events been over the last 17 years? Let's see… in my opinion…

November 2008 Mr X, a government Minister, wonders aloud over a cup of tea whether anyone else has been struck by the logical impossibility of infinite economic growth on a finite planet. His two companions are deeply impressed by this shaft of prophetic wisdom and vow to try to remember it tomorrow.

January 2010 One of Mr X's tea-drinking companions is suddenly struck with the notion that infinite economic growth is a childishly stupid concept. He is so shaken that he spills his tea on his lap, and (historic moment, this) wipes himself down with the paper napkin tucked into his collar instead of grabbing a fistful of fresh napkins from the dispenser. This triggers in him the notion for which he has since become world-famous: that we can re-use things instead of just grabbing more and more.

March 2012 Battery farming of chickens is utterly outlawed in Europe. Crate-rearing of any sort is also under huge pressure. Meat consumption declines, and the vegetarian movement 'grows apace', even in Texas, where according to ex-President Bush 'some down-home families ain't eating but five, six, steers per head per capita these godless pinko days'.

January 2013 Mr X's other tea-drinking companion is suddenly struck by the idea that catching the free minicab service to take him from his place in the Ministry parking lot to the doors of the Ministry gym, might be.. well… replaced with walking the two hundred yards involved. He formally submits a paper based upon this insight to the newly-formed 'British Isles Commission for Possibly Considering Possible Action on Green Issues and So On and So Forth'. It is enthusiastically greeted by the Isle of Man, and after intense lobbying is eventually supported by all other delegates except England (on the grounds that it might in some way offend 'our colleagues in the business community').

December 2014 Throughout the EU, all plastic bottles now carry a €50 deposit (except in the UK, where the idea is deemed to be an infringement of civil liberties). Glass bottles carry a €2 deposit. All shops selling bottles are required to accept and redeem empties (except in the UK where the Health and Safely Executive succeeds in getting all glass products banned, replacing them with plastic, steel or brick, as appropriate.)

July 2015 National Downshifting Week (www.downshiftingweek.com) finally gains government support in thirty-seven European Union countries, including Ireland, Norway and Tadjikistan. This leaves Britain even more isolated. Prime Minister Labooty al Hazaar-Smythe promises an official enquiry 'some time soon'.

January 2016 After the lights suddenly went out during the month-long OPEC conference in Las Vegas, it is agreed that oil should be strictly reserved and rationed out fairly amongst all the peoples of the world, and used only for projects where nothing else would do. Car and aviation fuels to be taxed at the same global proportion, linked of the GDP of each country. America accepts an increase from $0.75 per gallon to $15.60 without demurral, except for localised rioting and insurrection throughout the continent.

June 2017 Official figures show that road miles have declined from 50,000 per kilogramme of spuds delivered, to 'under 500' in Ireland (which is agreed to be a special case). In England the mileage has stabilised at 'approximately 32,000 miles per kilogramme: a huge step forward in only fifteen years' according to the 'Road Miles Rolling Commissariat' group speaking from their official Lear Jet somewhere over the Caribbean.

May 2019 It finally becomes a constitutional requirement for all prospective MPs to have done 'at least one proper week's work in his life, not counting lawyering or property developing'. After a decade of relentless pressure from the green/organic movement, many of them are dragged kicking and screaming onto a farm for three days where they are initially sedated and tied to a chair while it is explained to them in very very simple words why unpredictable genetic mutation of the plants we depend upon to live is just a tad foolish; and that allowing foreign monopolists to control the seed supplies of the world is way beyond criminal. Almost all prospective MPs are persuaded, and many 'wish that someone had told them all this before.'

July 2022 Japan agrees to reduce its cull of whales for scientific purposes to 150,000 a year and to remove the torpedo tubes from all its whalers after the unfortunate series of accidents involving the Greenpeace fleet in recent years. Prime Minister Bushido graciously accepts the Nobel Peace Prize for these initiatives, but only if it is formally acknowledged by the Intergalactic Union of Space Brothers that Japan took no part whatsoever in WW2.

April 2024 A consortium of Irish MPs, led by the famous 'Inspirational Three' spearhead a campaign to ensure that 'safe and sustainable food production' be given top priority in Irish and then European society. 'A triumph for common sense,' one of them says. 'I'm proud to have thought of it,' says another. 'I am actively considering selling my shares in Monsanto,' says the third.

Slowly, we move forward… but we do move forward.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Hey.. Wolfie! Are you still out there?