Pterry

I've been reading Pratchett now for a quarter of a century, since I was in primary school.  I'm a Biologist today with responsibility for live animals (some of which we refer to as "students").  I've always said the difference between a scientist and a monster is ethics.  This is a line that a lot of people don't like for a lot of reasons.  Some haven't looked closely enough at it and think I'm being wantonly insulting, but that's not it.  For others it hits bone when they reflect on the past abuses: Pavlov, Mengele, and other, less notorious names and deeds.  It needn't hit bone, for you are not them and they are not you.  What separates a good and decent scientist from those I've mentioned is that we wouldn't do that.  Our ethics don't allow for it.  We have the same skill, the same power, but we don't use that skill and power in that way.  

What does this have to do with Terry Pratchett?  The words we read help form us.  Sorry Jacques, but there is an author and there is a reader.  Pratchett was a profoundly moral and humane author who railed against a world which oftentimes was anything but.  And I, a black-and-white reader in a grey world, latched on to his ethics.  In fact the only ethical standard that I have been so ready to assume is that of Bill and Ted:  be excellent to each other.  It is deceptively simple, in that simple isn't necessarily easy.  The hard way is hard, as Granny Weatherwax said, but not so hard as the easy way.  So I'm going to share some of the lines from Pterry's books which inspired my own ethics.  

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable. 

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. 

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—” 

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THELITTLE LIES. 

“So we can believe the big ones?” 

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. 

“They’re not the same at all!” 

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THENSHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. 

“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—” 

MY POINT EXACTLY. 

(Hogfather)

 This is perhaps the first step.  Ethics aren't real, they aren't tangible things, and there is no "ethics stick" with which to slap bastards, more's the pity.  It is an idea, a construct in your own mind.  It is a guide to right action, a way of achieving outcomes which at best do the most good, or at least do the least harm.  It isn't a thing unto itself, I'm sure there's an ontological word for that, but it is important nonetheless.  

Another huge influence from the Disc is Granny Weatherwax speaking on the nature of sin: 

"There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats.

“And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax.

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes . . .”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things . . . ” 

(Carpe Jugulum)

That's as fundamental as it gets.  Weatherwax here is talking with a priest, so she refers to "sin".  We could refer to unethical practice in place of sin and it would mean the exact same thing: the world and its inhabitants are not yours to take apart and play with like a Lego model.  Living beings have their own ideas, personalities, intentions, relationships, and these must be left alone wherever possible.  Where we must encroach, we must tread as lightly as possible and do as little harm as possible.  Even when we must inflict harm or take a life, we must do so no more than necessary and we must do so with the utmost respect.  

Sam Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, has this to say on the nature of crime.  Again, we can read "crime" as unethical practice: 

"Thief-taker, Rust had called him. The man had meant it as an insult, but it'd do. Theft was the only crime, whether the loot was gold, innocence, land or life. And for the thief-taker, there was the chase..."   

(Jingo)

We can add to that list safety, dignity, and health.  To deprive a sentient being of any of those is a form of theft.  We rob the creature.  Doubly so of a sapient being.  Stealing to eat is not a crime, stealing to survive is not a crime, but theft committed to any purpose bar those is downright criminal.  Note I'm making the distinction between a "crime" and a "breach of criminal law".  If I steal a loaf of bread to feed my family I am not a criminal, but if I steal a gold watch because it compliments my outfit then I am a criminal, irrespective of the law, and that actually is to do with things.  What of non-things?  The sentient and the sapient?  If I am to rob a creature it must only be to save life or prevent greater harm, otherwise I am a dirty thief.  

This is the difference between testing medicine and testing cosmetics.  Testing medicine is stealing to live, but that is still stealing.  It is an indignity that we must seek to remove ourselves from at the earliest opportunity, and in the meantime our victims must be as few as possible.  Testing cosmetics is more like stealing the gold watch and must never be done.  

There are many other lines I could quote, all on this sort of theme.  Fantastic discussions of the ethics of human nature, war, bigotry, violence and civics can be found in the above titles plus The Fifth Elephant, Guards Guards, Men At Arms, Monstrous Regiment, Small Gods, and of course I Shall Wear Midnight, a book which features a young girl having to give a decent burial to a forcibly-miscarried foetus and care for the injured mother because all the "grown-ups" are too busy wanting to hang the man who'd caused it that they can't see the real work that needs doing first.  Amidst the action is a wonderfully subtle lesson on the need to give what care needs giving first before contemplating harm, and to not let our feelings blind us to this necessity.  

I leave you with a wonderfully succinct line by Death, from Reaper Man.  It captures, beautifully and completely, the reasons why we must care for those we must harm.  I have this line written in the hem of my labcoat, though long before that it was carved into my soul.  

What can the harvest hope for, if not the care of the reaper man?

That's all you need to know.   If you would be as a god then it is as much your duty to give as to take away.  If you don't care for the lives you take then you've no business taking them.  End of.  

Gaun yersel Terry.  Go satirise the angels for not angeling right!  

Trigger Warning: FUCK TRIGGER WARNINGS!

I've been drinking so this will get fubar.

A friend (who I shan't name) reposted on facebook a rather charming quote by Richard Dawkins, to wit: "Atheists are a race.  Anyone who mounts an argument against atheists is a racist, atheophobic bigot."  With a comment to the effect that God should smite him.  I replied that Dawkins is a dickhead but that atheophobia is as much of a thing as theophobia.

My friend said that atheism is dominant in society and that theists are sidelined.  I countered that while this is true in the Left, in Queer spaces, and in the cold war USSR, it is not true of Britain as a whole.

  We are in fact a pseudotheocracy wherein the state religion (C of E), whilst not the only lawful religion, nevertheless has exclusive powers within the legislative process.  Literally, the head of the state religion, who is also the head of state, can lawfully veto any law without having to give grounds and is indeed above the law.  Other than the fact that citizens are not mandated to be C of E we're pretty damn close to a textbook theocracy.

  To add to that on a more personal note: as an adult I have been ordered on more than one occasion to attend church and to sing hymns on pain of spending time in the Glasshouse and ending up with a criminal record.  Yes in Britain, yes in the 21st century!  Do I need to go on?

  My experiences were compared first to crying heterophobia and then to toxic masculinity.  My friend then said that I was triggering them and that unless I agreed to disagree and to stick to that (basically to shut my mouth and never again say on facebook that atheophobia is legit a thing) then they would have no choice but to unfriend me for the good of their own mental health.

Go for it mate!

  See the thing about what we might call "the safer-space discourse", terms like trigger warnings and such, is that they started out about sensible things.  Rape, domestic violence, hate crimes.  The kind of shit that fucks people up real bad.  This is not a bad thing.  We need an accessible society where people who've been traumatised by these events can rehabilitate themselves, that's all to the good.  These days though you'll spend ten minutes getting chewed out for not putting a trigger warning on an article about spiders just in case it "triggers" the arachnophobes.  Half of those times it won't even be the arachnophobes saying it, just a daft prick wanting a fight!

  Trigger is a PTSD term by the way.  If you've not been subject to the kind of violence that can cause PTSD then throwing the word trigger around like that is appropriation, but I digress.

  These days also I see people using talk of triggering to play Oppression Olympics, or to shut people up whose views they don't like.  I see people using it when they've said something stupid and can't think of any other way of defending it.  I see people using it to score cheap political points.

I'm sick of it, fucking pack it in!

Safer Space Discourse is legit when there's a real need for it, like when discussing rape, domestic violence, hate crimes and the like.  You need trigger warnings when you might actually trigger someone's actual PTSD and do them some actual mental harm.  For all other purposes you can shove your trigger warnings up your arse, I'm done with 'em.  Grow up and have some fucking integrity, the lot of you!

I'm going to sleep.  Fucking internet liberals.

Winter

It sleeted the other day in Teddington, which I'm taking as a sign that the Wintersmith has stepped up for his turn at the dance.  As there's no planting or plant-activity left to do in the garden, I thought it might be an idea to just take stock of where me and my garden are at this year and what's planned for the quiet season.

First, we have a new addition to the family.  Our Sam had a baby.  I've mentioned her before, her name is Ellie, she's turning 1 in December and she's already toddling at a run.  She's got a fair vocabulary up to now:

Miaow = Bill or any cat
Doos = Juice
Doyan = Diane
Durj = George
Door = Door
Edjig = Hedgehog
Mum = Mum
Nana = Nana
Chickenchickenchicken = Chicken.

I buried my Dad this Autumn, which was as hard as you might expect.  I might write more on that in the next few months, but I'm in a weird sixth stage of grief right now.  I've gone through the five as normal, but my mind still isn't at rest so I've been making a lot of jam and I've been poopsocking heavily on the xbox.  On the plus, I can now make lemon curd.  He liked lemon curd did our Cubby, he liked the Beatles too, so when I did a job up Hampstead the other week I swung by Abbey Road on the way home, spent some time sitting by the zebra crossing with my thoughts.

It seems I've been shortlisted for a job as a lab tech.  Won't find out until tomorrow.

The garden then.  The trees out front had a fungal thing but I've treated that organically by dousing the leaves with diluted milk and by adding calcium to the soil.  The new thornless brambles are making it easier to gather the fruit, and Ellie loves doing that.  She sits on my Mum's lap out on the ramp and picks the blackberries that grow along the handrails.  There'll be more planted on the other side too, but not just yet.  I want to get two more cherries in first.

The back garden is having its annual lawn die-off.  The back garden faces North so we can only keep a lawn for a Summer.  The fruit bed is doing well though.  The loganberry plant is halfway along the trellis now, chasing the last of the Sun.  The gooseberries are looking iffy, in that I can't quite tell if they're dead or just hibernating and I shan't know until Spring.

Out front the neighbours' fence is still a bit dodgy.  It was put up by cowboys and so in the first breath of wind it collapsed and damaged their car and my pear tree.  I've made some repairs to it (because it's cheaper than cleaning up after cowboys - the last time they came out to make repairs they dug a hole round the post, filled it with dry cement powder and buried it) but I'm still not happy, so when I get some dough I'll buy a couple 8' tree stakes and drive them 4' deep.  Against that fence I've got an elderberry and three kinds of raspberries.

I'm looking at ways to make my front garden more wildlife friendly.  The bark on the ground is attracting woodlice, I've got a log with holes drilled into it which attracts ladybirds in the warmer seasons.  Plenty of dead wood for beetles.  Once my dwarf orchard grows to size it'll start attracting bats, at which point I'll consider bat boxes in the eaves.

Now birds and hedgehogs...  My front garden has two plantable areas, which I term the Island and the Outside.  Here's a map, not to scale:

The North edge of the Island is already lined with rosemary and lavender.  I think I might continue those around the Western edge and then along the South edge.  I'll site a hedgehog box in the centre and fill out the middle of the Island with gooseberries and bush roses.  There's already jasmine and brambles growing against the railings, and together it should make for a dense enough hedge to support birds and hedgehogs.  

At the Northernmost end of the Outside, up against the wall I've got climbing roses, Etoile de Hollande, but as they grow the bottom will need cover to look nice.  I'm thinking Buxus sempervirens, maybe bush roses, maybe lavender.  This'll come out by a foot or so and again I can work in a hedgehog box.  I'll put blackcurrants in front of that.  Maybe I'll separate the blackcurrants from the rest of the bush with a little hidden chickenwire so that Ellie isn't grabbing rose prickles. 

I'll put a narrow path down the middle of the Western bit of the Outside, from the blackcurrants down to just East of the Westernmost cherry.  At the end of this path I'll put a wee storage thing in the shade of the front fence (where little else grows), while either side of that path I'll sow herbs and strawberries.  I'll also put in bee pots to encourage bees.  

Next year I'll fit windowboxes for basil and sage.  I'm gradually accumulating nice pots, some of which will house a mix of flowers and herbs, others will hold mint by itself because mint is the Britain of plants: it'll colonise the entire pot! 

This year we were sufficient in three things: rosemary, bay leaves, and blackberries.  Next year we ought to be sufficient in those plus sage, raspberries, verbena, loganberries, blueberries, gooseberries and hopefully thyme.  Thyme's tricky though in my garden.  Within the next three years we should become sufficient in those plus strawberries, basil, mint, blackcurrants, elderflower, elderberry, figs, and seasonal stonefruits (apples, pears, cherries).  

And that's been my year!

I have invented something amazing!

After much tinkering, I reckon this is the ideal mix for a Baileys Malt:

Into a blender add

• 1/3 of a tub of ice cream, 
• 1/2 a bottle of baileys, 
• 4dsp ovaltine, 
• 2dsp cocoa powder, 
• 1tsp vanilla bean paste, 
• milk up to the max line.  

Whiz it up until smooth and serve ice cold.  The genius thing is that it lines your stomach and gets you pissed at the same time!  I've had two and a half mugs today.  Big mugs.  I should probably sit down now :)

Mayday

Today is the first of May, and it's a bit of a crossroads on the calendar.

May Day is a spring festival.

International Workers' Day is a celebration of the working class, who generate all wealth and build all things.

Beltane is a Celtic festival that marks the halfway point between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice.

Today has been a good day for a party for thousands of years.  Today also marks me being out for ten years now.  I wouldn't normally mark the day, but ten years is a hell of a thing.  So at the bar last night I spent time with old friends and new, ate my fill of pork and drank my fill of cider, and everybody had caterpillar cake.  We shared tales of good times, epic nights and acts of sheer lunacy.  It was a great night, one of the best this year.

I love my mates, they're amazing :)

Roll on the weekend!

So the first of my sledgehammer wounds has healed over, leaving a patch of rough skin.  The second keeps catching things and reopening, but it'll heal eventually.  The bones no longer hurt, though the joints and muscles are still problematic.

Saturday I'm going to Kew again.  Sunday I'm resuming light work in the garden.  Monday I get to pick up the xbox again - Commander Shepard has been at a loss without me!

The care work is at an end thanks to a restructuring of how budgets are assigned - Tory bastards - so I'm looking for work.  Squires, Homebase or Wickes would be ideal for me, but anything's alright.

I've been passing the time by revisiting The Kingkiller Chronicles.  Honestly, there's scarcely such thing as too much of that dodgy little Ruh bastard.  I've also been taking bets on the events of The Doors of Stone, such as:

Lorren is involved with the Amyr,
Meluen is Kvothe's aunt,
Denna dies,
Ambrose kills Simmon in Kvothe's place, Kvothe kills Ambrose,
Kilvin was a boy soldier,
Arwyl sponsors Kvothe to El'the
The plot somehow turns on Elodin.
Not a clue what happens with Wilem, though again I doubt he survives.
Kvothe doesn't manage to kill the Seven.

We shall see.  In the meantime I'll be picking up the second half of A Dance with Dragons shortly.  I've no idea where this one's going so spoilers will be nutted.

On complaints

It's needed saying for a while now: you have an absolute right to complain about the behaviour of another person.  You do not have an absolute right to see that person punished if they've done nothing wrong.

Now in this oft-repeated story there are two stereotypes who crop up again and again.  We have the Grumpy Granny, and we have Daily Mail Bloke.  The victim can be practically anybody, though teenagers, ethnic minorities, the working class and the poor all seem to have a greater than average tendency to fall victim to this.  Note that the name Daily Mail Bloke refers to the mindset of your average Daily Mail reader rather than the Daily Mail itself.  Although...

Scene:  A sunny Saturday afternoon.  A bunch of teenage boys are sitting on a park bench, discussing Life, the Universe, and Everything.  Alright, they're discussing football and women.  A constable approaches...

Copper:  Alright lads, do you mind telling me what you're doing here?

Boys:  Just talking with my friends, passing the day.  

Copper:  I'm afraid we've had a complaint from the Grumpy Granny, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave.  

Boys:  But we haven't done anything, we're just sitting here.  

Copper:  Yes, but we've had a complaint, you see.  We have to do something because we've had a complaint.  

I overhear this same discussion once a week around here.  It's ridiculous that people think like this.  We are all citizens, we all have a right to enjoy our city in whatever lawful way we see fit, yet half a dozen citizens at a time can have that right impinged upon by the authorities because the Grumpy Granny says she doesn't like the look of them.  It's a joke!

Radnor Gardens, the wee park at the bottom of my street, is routinely used by anglers fishing in the Thames. A couple months ago, Daily Mail Bloke walked up to an angler to tell him that he didn't like the look of him.  The angler - quite correctly - told Daily Mail Bloke to piss off.  Daily Mail Bloke went home and complained to the council that "the fishermen in Radnor Gardens are all very rude and antisocial".  Again, the word of one man against the characters of many.  Sure enough, fishing was banned for a fortnight in Radnor Gardens.

Are we serious?  Are we as a society so hellbent on ensuring that no complaint goes unremedied that we are willing to suspend all rights to leisure time just in case the oversensitive, bigoted sensibilities of the Grumpy Granny and Daily Mail Bloke are slighted by our presence?

No, but nor will we do anything about it.

 

 

 

 

On Steubenville

Trigger warning

The Steubenville gang-rape has brought an important fact to light: women should not get drunk, lest they be raped.

Okay, I'll bite.

Ladies, don't be drunk,
don't be sober,
don't walk alone at night,
don't go out in broad daylight.
Don't be a granny,
don't be a baby,
don't wear skirts,
and don't wear trousers.
Don't be straight,
don't be gay,
in fact don't even exist,
or else take some damn responsibility for what happens to the rapist.

As you can see, it's very hard for a woman - men too, but mostly women - to live her life without handing some manner of ammunition to a rapist, sometimes even after she's done living her life.  The internet is alight with discussion as to how this case is a lesson to young men about the perils of social media - a sentiment echoed by the judge himself - when it should be a lesson to young men about how it's wrong to go around raping.

CNN has lamented the fact that the boys will have to sign the sex offenders' register and have that looming over them, but they raped somebody!  At the time that they raped her, they admitted they weren't even sure if she was alive or dead, but they raped her all the same then urinated on her body when they were done.  They carry hatred and contempt for women to such a degree that it makes them a great danger to any woman within striking distance yet CNN finds it uncomfortable that others be allowed to know this fact in order to maintain public safety.

Others have said that the whole thing is just an attack on Ohio's football program, an attitude which makes them scarcely less dangerous than the two rapists at the centre of all this.  This attitude stems from the behaviour of the colleges themselves, who will gladly expel a rape victim to protect her rapist in order that he keeps on making them money from ticket sales.

In reacting to this case, society has once again put money and status and testosterone above women's bodily autonomy.  Excuse me while I rampage and break things.

The joy of sales

Today I got a knitted fleece, a weatherproof fleece, and a fleece-lined goretex jacket all for £80.  I haz a warmz.  Slightly disconcerted that I now take a size 14 in outdoor jackets.  I don't mind, but it's weird.  I'm 9½ stone just now, at my heaviest I was 11 stone, yet at 11 stone I took a size 10 and at 9½ stone I take a 14.  How in the hell does that make sense?!

The Burchill Fiasco.

Read this,

and this,

and then this.

To those involved on the ground it's a game of Oppression Olympics, but to those running the Observer it's clickbait.  The controversy brings in readers, and the spike in traffic bumps up the Observer's advertising revenues.  That's it.  All the pain and the upset, the division, activists making enemies of those who should be friends, the abuse, the hounding, the forced-outing, the public harassment; it's all so the Guardian group can make a few extra quid.

Shifty bastards.

In defence of schools

Schools are too quick to close these days.  When I was a kid we trudged through a foot of snow...

But what's changed?

When I was a kid, the buses and trains were run differently than they are today.  Buses worked in the snow. Trains had a limit, but when that limit was reached the Men In Orange would be out on the line with shovels. Transport did what it said on the tin back then.  Today the trains shut down with no prior notice whatsoever once the snow gets past an inch.

Insurance was different too.  Snow cover is hard to afford these days.  Slipping on ice is now a suing matter, while back then it was one of those things. 

Staff who work with students have less autonomy today.  This is partly understandable; endless paedophile scandals and the general underfunded crapness of social services has led to overtightening of rules.  Where it gets to the point where a teacher cannot help a child put on sun cream, or hug a child who is distressed, I for one think it has gone too far.

Yesterday, the buses would run, kids could be gotten home safely.  If the worst came to the worst and a freak blizzard of biblical proportions snowed the town in at the last minute, the kids could be bedded down in the school hall and the cafeteria set to the bulk output of hot chocolate.  It never happened, but if it did then the teachers would get on with the job and be praised for it.

Today, the buses won't run, parents will need to leave work early and drive their kids home (if they can).  If the kids are kept in and our hypothetical blizzard happens, the teachers will be slammed for failing to foresee the unforeseeable, parents will become hysterical, the Sun will screech "but what if there'd been a paedo in there?!?!?!", and somebody will get sued into next Tuesday.

Headteachers today must - with no warning whatsoever - pre-empt the point at which the trains will shut down, the buses will stop running, and get the kids out with time enough to get them home.  Heads must judge if it will snow enough to shut the transport the night before, and decide if the two hours teaching they'd get done are as good as a wasted day.

You'd need a masters in geology and the wisdom of Solomon to balance all this and, inevitably, the balance will be gotten wrong.  It is natural therefore to err on the side of caution.  I don't envy them the task.

Bored now...

Snow is keeping me from doing anything in the garden with my offtime and I can't get near the Xbox alone for RPG-ing.  Cue me killing time on Minecraft, working out how to run a points system for a map-wide rail network using improvised XOR and XNOR gates.

In other news: Our Squeaky aced her GCSE Maths exam.  So proud :)

Cool Animal of the Month, 01/13: the Harlequin Toad

Xmas with my lot

The thing about spending the Winterval with my family is that...  it works.  The thing with big families is we pull together, roll up our sleeves and build the thing.  The younger ones bake, Diane and I hang things, then discuss the way I've hung them.  Mam used to do all the cooking and the cleaning when we were younger; it was our day off, and she's always been very much the Matriarch of the Sept.  These days she's a lot less able, so increasingly me and Diane do the bulk of the work.

You mustn't take me for grumbling, far from it!  We've never had much money; but we've a roof over our heads, we don't owe nobody nowt, the house is warm and dry, we don't lack for food or love.  We're rich where it counts.

Some people have Christmas catered, or eat out, or book into a hotel.  If that suits them then fair enough, but I'd hate it.  We cook our food to our taste, and spare no effort.  There's enough of us to spread the work  thin, but feeding your family is a labour of love on the most average of days.

I haven't said blessings in a lot of years, being more of a lapsed Catholic these days, and I don't really have a deity these days to be thankful to, but I'm thankful.

The motto of the Glencoe mob is contentious.  Officially we haven't had one since the clearances.  We lost that and our arms, and can only use those of Clan Donald.  Unofficially, however, it is Nec Tempore, Nec Fato, or "there is no time, there is no fate".  This is true enough.  Time and fate grant no boons, elbow grease does.  They don't take either, people do.  It all comes back to the lives you touch, and those that touch yours, for good or ill.

So I'm thankful to my family.  For them, yes, but also to them.  This day is nice because we make it nice.  Family life works because we make it work.  There's nothing in life worth anything that you don't build with your own hands, and I'm grateful to have such wonderful colleagues in this project I call existence.

Right, cider.  I leave you with the Muppets:

Woodcare pt. 2 (plus a rant)

  I'm going to share this article, as with all the talk over the shooting of those schoolkids it is worth remembering that most people with mental ill-health do not go on to become killers.  I live with depression, I'm also autistic, I even have the so-called "warrior gene", yet I struggle to think of any situation in which I could murder.  Such a thing is either in a person or it is not, but most forms of mental ill-health do not contribute to it.  The panic which follows such events will inevitably lead to some poor sod with hyperactivity or autism or mutism - or even just someone who is unusually shy - who has never harmed a person in their life getting lynched by a bunch of eejits (egged on by the Sun) who confuse different with dangerous.  The problem has chiefly to do with culture.

  I found this quote.  It's attributed to Morgan Freeman, but then a lot of quotes on the internet are attributed to Morgan Freeman just because it gives them a measure of authority:-

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

Whoever actually wrote this has gotten it bang on.

Okay, pictures of finished things now.

And I've succeeded in fucking about with the heliotropic behaviour of a bramble.  Hooray!

Rosie and Jim Go Outside

Finishing revisiting childhood in 3... 2... 1...

I'm back.

So we've got some new additions to the garden this morning.  Rosie and Jim are from Rubus 3 and they've taken up residence on the roof of the Strawbrary.

Bill is vaguely interested in the mysterious floating plant pot.  George is convinced that it's here to kill us all!  Meanwhile, the experiment's own page now comes up top on Google when you search for The Rubus Experiments, which is pretty awesome.

Winter Is Coming!

I won't really have much to do in the garden between Xmas and mid-January, so I might not blog much.  I tried to find a way of explaining how interesting my life is about to become, and then I found this on the internet:

ENOUGH SAID!

Racking the cider

  First a gripe about the state of humanity.  Me and mine went to the Xmas thing in Hampton like we do every year.  Lovely as ever.  Someone got hurt up by the Uxbridge Road and an ambulance was coming up from Fulwell. It ended up slowed to a crawl behind a shuffling crowd outside the bakers' who were not so dense that they'd be harmed or even greatly inconvenienced by getting out of the way.  So I shouted "ambulance!", which should have caused some reaction, but nobody moved.  I shouted again "AMBULANCE!", and a few people moved.  So I took a fortifying glug of hot wine and yelled "There is an ambulance behind you with blue lights on!  Move into the right hand lane or onto the pavement!  This is no longer a request!"  That shifted them.

  I recall a similar set of circumstances five years ago in Heiligendamm, only there the whole crowd took up the cry of "rettungswagen!" and immediately parted like the Red Sea from where I was to the horizon and beyond my sight.  They were so good that the krankenwagen never had to go slower than 10 mph.  THAT is how people are meant to behave!  I despair of my compatriots.

Okay, on with the cider!

If you haven't yet read the start of this keg of cider then you'll find it here.

  Racking is the practice of transferring your unfinished wort from one vessel to another whilst fermentation is still ongoing.  You do this after the first 1-2 months or whenever your sediment starts to look a bit dense.  A little sediment is a good thing, it gives it a complexity of flavour.  Too much sediment impairs the flavour.  When you rack cider (or beer, or wine, or mead) into a new keg you leave the bulk of the sediment behind in the old keg.

  The keg is meant to spend as much time sealed as possible; so if you wish to add ingredients that weren't in season or were too impractical or expensive when you laid down the cider, or top up with sugar or yeast or nutrient, then you wait until racking time to do this.  Today I've added rhubarb and enough yeast and nutrient to begin a secondary fermentation.

  It smelled as it should, which is not to say it smelled good.  This stuff is not cider, but a half-fermented apple wort.  Essentially it's a tub of rotten apples.  It'll be another month's maturation before I dare call it a cider.  Still, it had the beginnings of the right overtones and undertones. I reckon it'll be alright.

  Proper rhubarb cider is hard to get in London.  The commercial stuff is pale and crap, and the decent stuff from Kent and Somerset seldom leaves Kent and Somerset.  If you want good cider in London then you have to either go five miles to find a niche pub that gets it in, or you have to brew it yourself.

As you can see, the sediment has gotten deep.  

1) Sterilise the second keg and equipment in hot water and chlorine, as per the original. 

2)  Add any supplementary fruit (such as the rhubarb) to the second keg with a little nutrient before the wort is racked.  Be sure to whiz the new fruit through the blender with some water and sugar to extract the maximum flavour from it.  

3)  Pour the wort from the old keg to the new keg via a towel in a sieve.  

4)  When it gets to the point that you're pouring as much sediment as product, and the liquid itself is thick, opaque orange, this is the time to stop.  Tip the rest down the toilet.  

5)  Finally, add any supplementary yeast (made up the same way as the starting yeast) and seal the keg.  If you use the same type of airlocks as I do then you can tell when the keg is airtight because twisting the keg lid any tighter causes the airlock cap to jump high enough into the air that it clears the chamber and pops off.  

6)  Leave it in the bath and run the hot tap to a quarter full.  Let the revised wort warm up to between 25ºC and 30ºC in order to give the yeast a favourable starting point.  Then remove the keg from the bath, dry it off and put it back where it normally lives.  

Easy peasy.  This lot'll be racked one last time, about a week before it's due to be drunk.  The final racking is done to clear any scum from the top (resulting from the stringy bits in rhubarb, which are indigestible to yeast), and to introduce Campden tablets which halt further fermentation.  Overbrewed cider is even worse than underbrewed cider.  I'll then stash it away somewhere cold so that it tastes lovely and fresh when it's needed.  The final rack is also when I'll draw some off for lab testing.  

Fingers crossed!

I shouldn't have to say it!

Grr!  The world is annoying me tonight!

My gamertag is SixAgileFingers and I believe that sexism in gaming is BULLSHIT!

That is all.

Flies, bats, other stuff

The composter is attracting flies, even as we are fast approaching the Winter.  This must mean the composter is generating a certain amount of warmth, which is nice.  Getting rid of the flies is something of a must, however.  I don't mind flies, they do their jobs in the ecosystem and the world keeps turning; but they encourage spiders, which I personally quite like but which my sisters get freaked out over.  It's bad to put house spiders out in Winter as they won't last the night, so I resist doing that, but I don't want to swell their numbers by letting a fly explosion run unchecked.  The solution is to assert a biological control over the flies. More spiders are out of the question.  Frogs are crap.  Wasps scare the living shit out of me.  Birds can be great, but there's quite a spread with birds and you don't know when putting in a bird box whether you'll attract the sort of bird that likes flies or the sort of bird that likes your crops.

I've decided on bats.  London has many species of bat, and Strawberry Hill comes alive at dusk with the tiny, leathery sound of pipistrelles in flight.  I'm picking up a pair of bat boxes tomorrow which I'll fit high up in the big Maple just as soon as I can get ten minutes use of an extension ladder.  Eventually I'll set up BatCam as part of the BirdCam project, but for now the priority is pest control.  It's also nice to be able to offer shelter to an endangered species.

I'll need to stain the bat boxes so as to protect the wood from the elements.  Should I stain them a blending colour like green or brown?  Red like the fences?  Something like purple or blue to be bold yet stylish?  Something that really sticks out like a neon pink?  Or should I stain them black and then paint a little batman symbol on the front?  Decisions decisions...

Mike's doing well.  The beans are doing well.  The strawbs are doing well.  The lawn has a hole in it.  Those Thymus are doing well, though I still never figured out that 'lilac' business.  The brambles seem to be doing alright, to the point that two of them have shown overt growth while a third is budding.

I'm getting a budget from the household in January to make improvements to the garden, which should be sufficient to finance a shed, the beds, and a greenhouse tent.  This is awesome!  I mentioned before that the ramp out front is bridging the DPC and needs to be replaced, well so too does the patio out back.  This'll put the shed, beds and greenhouse on hold until it's done, but it should be done fairly quickly.  I think I'll stain the shed blue an paint the trim (corners, door frame, window frame) white.  I think that'd be bold, but look nice.

In other news: there was some kind of magpie turf war going on in the Buddleia earlier today.  It was quite intense, more so when a shitload of parakeets and a raven got involved.  Bill stayed indoors for that one, and of his own volition too, which I guess means he's smart enough to value his eyeballs.

I need more tea.  Down the bar last night...  Okay, it's a bit of a long story.  Jesse disappears for donkeys' at a time because of work.  When we see him again; he, Liam and myself have a thing of sitting about the bar in our boxers and drinking.  I don't normally have more than two pints on a night out, three at most, so now my head feels like it's been carpeted.

On the other hand, it isn't every day that one's arse gets a round of applause.

Bye xx