Noah

Today's thoughts have centred around all the unhappy people of Britain who have been flooded out of their homes. Understandably they are angry. They want to kick the government for not preventing the floods.

But some of the problems with flood defences include: a) they make water move faster and give it more energy and therefore destructive force; b) the don't stop floods; just move them somewhere else, downstream.

On the news they lamented the great clean up once the rain subsides. But what if it doesn't? Imagine if we have huge swathes of wetlands again like their used to be; the fens in the East; and somerset was once pretty much under water.

It's ironic that we are told that the current wet weather and floods are not unusual and have happened before. True. But in the old days people were not as useless as we are today. Witness the chaos with electricity, water, and food hoarding that is happening in the south.

Imagine if the rain doesn't stop. Imagine if the rain brings the average local temperature down. Imagine if later in the year as the Earth moves away from the sun that the continuous rain turns to snow. Imagine that the snow never melted. How long would it take for an ice age to start? It would not be unusual and it has happened before.

And then there is all the talk about new housing: build it all on flood plains but put in adequate flood defenses (to move the floods somewhere else). I see new houses everywhere. In every nook and cranny of Britain there is a housing development. There must be millions of the fuckers.

At first I couldn't work out why: where were the houses that were being replaced? But of course it does make sense in the short term: keep a steady supply of properties fed into the market and the bubble burst will be delayed. And of course there are the 9 million immigrants to Britain who've arrived over the last five years.

Sometimes I have thoughts now that would have horrified my younger self. That last sentence in my previous paragraph is a perfect example. It almost smells of something horrid. But, you see, I have no innate dislike of Eastern Europeans. We're all genetic and cultural brethren, so why should I? Even if we weren't, why should I dislike them? I'm not that sort of person.

And besides, those people are prepared to come here, to this grey unpleasant land, and work hard, pay taxes, buy houses, and thus subsidise the digital lifestyles of all the native British who have ideas above their station and wouldn't do those jobs anyway even if they wanted to, and who are otherwise too busy spending the living-that-they-feel-is-owed-them, paid in dole, on drugs and the latest mobile gadget technology or wide-screen TVs.

Do you ever get the feeling that we're being led by the government into a state in which xenophobia is acceptable?

When I got up this morning I looked out of the window and saw the rain. It always makes me laugh how people salve and pamper their consciences with the argument that, actually, global warming is not our fault and that it is somehow a natural process. Well, lack of evidence has never been proof of a contrary in the book of logic. "All swans are white" was ostensibly true, until someone went to Australia where there are black and black-and-white swans as well as white ones. But that's human nature for you.

Personally I'd rather that it was our fault: at least then there is hope that we can do something about it. But people can't bare the thought of having to get rid of those mobiles, wide-screen TVs, and four-by-fours. And saying, "it's not our fault. We can't do anything to stop it." is indeed the perfect excuse to carry on fiddling while Rome burns.

I hear too that the head of ITN has had to resign because of the companies involvement in these phone-in scams. People feign shock that a well known corporation could be dishonest. I have to smile. Business Studies students upwards know that deception and dishonesty are the stock-in-trade of success. They're all doing it darling. And they always have done, right back through history.

There have always been people who have taken things unfairly from others to improve their own lot. It's all a part of our simian nature and being competitive. The man at ITN who has had to resign is just unlucky and hapless: wrong place at the wrong time. There are very few businesses that are not acting unfairly: all is fair in love and war. And commerce.

And just when I'd started to sound as though it is all doom and gloom here, I want to point out the Robot Fly. Unfortunately instead of realising what a delightful, exquisite and pointless triumph of humanity this is, they've gone and spoiled it by stating that it can be used to "provide discreet surveillance, detect hazardous materials, and disrupt battlefield communications."

You see, no matter how like angels in apprehension we become, we can still never resist the temptation to mark our territory with steaming ape shit, screech and woop, and wave sticks at the other monkeys across the river. We are still stupid, selfish, and primitive. One day, evolution will bring some sort of nemesis upon us. That's the way of nature.

Twinkle twinkle little star

A couple of nights ago I was staring up into the night sky when I saw a flash of light. It was in, or around, the position of the star Theta Aquilae. At first I guessed it must have been a spinning satellite that flickered, but it wasn't; it was a singular event. Very bright too.

So was it an iridium flare or not? It didn't appear to move; that's the trouble. Most satellites I see are sustained across some portion of the sky, or at least a flashing trail a little bit like a slow high white aeroplane.

I had seen an extremely fast meteor shortly before, heading in a Southerly direction. Obviously the radiant would be different but it did occur to me that this might also have been a meteor that just happened to be aimed directly at me.

Or maybe it was something altogether stranger.

Modern

When I open my electronic mailbox I am usually greeted with the usual signs of the pointlessness and emptiness of typical modern existence: offers, in poor English, of cheaper drugs that might help me to remain aroused when I am otherwise lacking arousal or too unfit to get it up; shares in some far eastern business that are about to go "big"; quality fake watches at a good price. It's very underwhelming.

You know my take on virtual things (making a clear distinction between flights of the imagination and sheer pay-as-you-go preconceived-by-someone-else virtual reality).

This morning I've started to read a new book. It's philosophy from the thirteenth century. The prefatory note comes by way of an apology by the editor in which he attempts to say that there is something worthwhile in investigating a set of works that are based upon thought that is acknowledged by everyone who does not wonder at the shape of the clouds (my italics and quote) as being substantially wrong.

I speak of the dichotomy between metaphysics and empiricism; religion and science; feelings and facts; emotion and reason; care and competition. You dig my drift, I hope.

I have never had a problem squaring the circle and accommodating both belief sets into my world picture. I like to think that perhaps I am a bit of a freak in that way, but probably it is just vanity on my part.

But the thought is that perhaps I am going to find something rather lovely in the cobwebby outmoded thoughts of this man who lived in the middle-ages.

In the meantime, on my way to work, I derived great pleasure from imagining my hands around the neck of the driver who behaved so aggressively and unreasonably in trying to get one car space in front of me. Hands around neck, until their face turns blue, and all the naughtiness pops out of their skull along with their phallus-pumped popping eye-balls.