A Cure for Human Stupidity

Well, not that any of us has any choice in the matter, now that it is all long over and done, as Harold pointed out at the time, though, they were very dangerous things and could easily have someone’s eye out if they were not careful where they were pointing them.

Still, that’s history for you – but it is all in the past now. After all, we are living in the future now and things are… well, they are better in many ways, but no-one – as yet – seems to have found a cure for human stupidity.

Which, for most of us, is lucky.

Otherwise, how else would we make a living?

After all, this is the only species on the planet that has invented TV, shopping malls, religion, cheese that tastes more like plastic than the plastic wrapper it came in, collectable plastic figurines and computer operating systems.

It sometimes seems that despite all the arts, sciences, fish and chip shops and all the other great advances of humankind, up to and including all those… er… interesting sexual practices, none of them ever, no matter what we discover, make or create - or even find new erotic uses for the strawberry and the croquet racquet - will ever eclipse the seemingly inexhaustible natural human need to make utter arses of ourselves.

Which, for most of us, is lucky. I – of course – speak as one who knows….

The Sky Enfolds Us

The Sky Enfolds Us

(Chaucerian Roundel)

We see the sky enfolding us
Around our lives like blankets tight
Through day and tight through every night.

Horizons tuck the ends in thus
To keep the sky and world just right.
We see the sky enfolding us

With nothing now we can discuss
As reason itself takes to flight
Towards a sun that shines so bright
We see the sky enfolding us.

Battle-Ready Marmalade

Now the No First Use Of Battle-Ready Marmalade Treaty has been signed by the world’s leading powers, the hope now is that it will see the end of those small battle-ready catering portions of marmalade that cased so much trouble and frustration during the now infamous battlefield breakfasts of both world wars.

The disasters of the battlefield breakfasts of the First World War now seem obvious in hindsight. It is said of that war that tactics had failed to keep up with technology. This was certainly true of battlefield catering, especially the essential front-line breakfasts. Both sides suffered massive losses of toast and butter, and the British suffered heavily from not being able to get a nice cup of tea to the front line in time. Hence, in the latter stages of the war, the invention of the tank, this was meant to be a massive self-propelled tea urn capable of crossing those muddy battle-scared shell-holed battlefields to get tea to the front line while it was still hot. Both sides had experimented with artillery delivered toast with mixed results, often with the toast ending up uneaten, muddy and soggy in the quagmires of the western front.

However, by the time of WWII, many of the technological and logistical problems of the trench-based battlefield had been solved, leading many military strategists feeling that war between any of the major powers would no longer be possible.

However, the change of tactics in the Second World War to concentrate on movement meant that the marmalade needed to be ready for immanent toast application within minutes of an offensive being launched.

However, once the British boffins developed the shrapnel-proof biscuit, it was more or less all over for the Axis forces, especially when the might of the American War machine began producing overwhelming quantities of toast.

Once WWII was over, the cold war began with the ever-present threat of mutually-Assured marmalading. However, such was the West's overwhelming superiority in breakfasting technology – leaving aside the woeful under-substantial Continental breakfast, of course, - that after only 30 years of attempting to match the West's increasingly sophisticated range of marmalades, the Soviet Union conceded defeat when NATO produced its first intercontinental Three-Fruit Marmalade, ready for deployment. Only a few days later the Berlin wall collapsed and some claimed history had come to an end.

Another Wasted Day

It was slow, heavy and hot; one of those days where the hours seem to hang there as the minutes slowly drip of into the pool of another wasted day. She did not know what to do. There had been – once – a time in her life when she knew where she was going and what she would do once she’d got there. She’d had a life of possibilities and dreams. There had been a feeling that she would end up somewhere special, looking back on a life that had been full of chances taken and achievements made.

Now, she looked around the room, the breeze hardly shifting the hot heavy air of what once she would have seen as a summer of possibility. The wallpaper was old; yellowing and beginning to peel at the edges. The shelves were dusty and home to a mishmash of times she had just left there to gather a layer of dust of their own. The furniture was tired; defeated by the weight of the years it had stood, waiting for something to happen in this room.

She sighed and wondered if it was really worth it, really worth the effort - and the eventual disappointment – of trying to begin yet again. She remembered the story of Pandora’s box and that after all the bad things had fled the box, how the last thing left in there had been hope, and she wondered if that – hope – wasn’t the cruellest torment of all.

The River is an Endless Rope

The River is an Endless Rope

All through this slipping of time
The river flows sedately onward,
An endless rope pulled by the sea.
Sometimes, though, the river swells,
Swells in anger, as it tries to twist
Break free from the grip of the sea.
But the sea’s grip is too strong,
Holding tight onto this river’s tongue
For millions of long winding years.

In all that time, the churning sea
Has not let the river drop once,
Not yet, and - perhaps – not ever.
Days flow on, pouring into the past
Like water back into deeper seas.
The river ties the rain back home
To the deeper distant seas,
Connecting now to then to now
Like rain to water and sea.

I spend a great deal of time
Walking along by this river,
Watching its steps, marking its moods,
Taking every day it brings
And trying to hold on, like the sea
Holds tight to its own rivers
Pulling them back towards it
Fearing that too much freedom means
They will one day break free.

 

[Taken from: The River is an Endless Rope – poems by David Hadley. Available here (UK) or here (US).

 

 

The Breath of a Moment

But then the dreams we held so gently in our cupped palms were easily broken. It only took the breath of a moment to blow them away to shatter irreparably on the hard stony ground where we spent our days waiting for the night.

We wandered these bare, broken lands all through the unforgiving heat and light of the day, looking for shade, looking for shadows where we could sit with our cupped palms at the ready, waiting for a dream to creep into them.

The day dreams, though, were far less substantial than the night time dreams, easily torn apart by the dust storms blowing all around these ruins of what used to be our great civilisation, before we learnt the power of dreams.

Now, all we can do is tend the delicate day dreams, keeping them as safe as we can while we wait for the protecting night to cover us with its blankets, so we can – at last – open our hands and watch the dreams dance across the darkness of the night, weaving their way around these ruins and almost touching the stars that sit looking down on us, like the gods they used to be.

The dreams turn and twist, turning these ruins back into towers and palaces, letting the wasting river flowing in full flood as boats, ships and barges ply their trade in our bustling port, all while the slaves and servants busy themselves with our comfort, so we can sit back and dream.

MPs Call for Privacy Legislation

Even though not many people are aware of just how often the Houses of Parliament have been bought to the point of actually doing something useful for this country, the UK’s MPs have decided that they need yet another new law. This law: The ‘Mind Your Own Sodding Business Regulatory Powers Act’ will enable the government and MPs to prevent the general public, those journalists yet to be given a knighthood, and other busybodies from poking their noses into things that don’t concern them.

MPs, even before the last election, have long felt that it is rather unhealthy in a mature democracy for anyone outside the tightly-knit and incestuous political world around Westminster to have any interest in what MPs and the government really do on the people’s behalf, rather than what they pretend to do, or claim to do whenever it is time for yet another tedious election.

Therefore, the government has had no alternative but to create a new criminal offence to prevent anyone, especially those tiresome bloggers and journalists who refuse to mind their own business, to find out what is really going on in government.

After all, as several MPS have pointed out, neither the government itself, nor the MPs in the Houses of Parliament has a clue as to what they are doing, and – so – it seems deeply unfair and contrary to the business of the House for anyone, especially outsiders, to attempt to find out.