Fill In The Blanks

Professor Richard Bachmer Turner was born about forty years before you were. He was born in a North American city which is small enough to be credible but not so small that everyone from that place would have heard of him. Hamilton or Winnipeg are good bets as are Milwaukee or Newark on the other side of the border. He came from a family of well respected members of the profession you wish to enter who had risen to universal respect and prominence by overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds. His parents were similar to your own but their virtues were those you wish your parents had and their vices those you want to believe your parents have. In each case they were much more exaggerated than those of your own parents.

Professor Bachmer Turner attended the best known of the most distinguished local schools and although outstanding in every way only passed his examinations at the second or third attempt. Despite this apparent inaptitude for academia he was accepted as a student at a college your lecturers have heard of but not attended. Although no one recognised his true abilities he surprised everyone by graduating with the highest degree available in a subject fundamentally the same as your own but with a different title. He remained in the academic world and his subsequent teaching career brought him Associate Professorships at several smaller but heard of North American universities. He also undertook the occasional visiting professorship in the U.K. at other universities your lecturers did not attend at that particular time. He is usually thought to be dead but there is a possibility he might be living in semi-retirement or working for the U.S. or Canadian governments as an advisor in his field of study. He is known to have undertaken several similar assignments over the years but for reasons of national security no one has ever been made privy to the full details.

Professor Bachmer Turner was a prolific author of works which are not widely read. They are characterised by the broadness of their concepts and their opinionated but non-committal nature. Chief among his works is The Second Principle published around thirty years ago in which he expresses many ideas familiar to modern students. This was followed by The Third Principle in which he gives a deeper level of analysis to the questions he himself raised in The Second Principle. His other works include Truth and Fluctuation in which he both confirms and demolishes any idea that can be discussed and Maybe It Is in which he demonstrates conclusively that a proposition under discussion is either correct or incorrect simply because he says so. Naturally all of these works are now out of print and never appeared in a publisher's catalogue. Extensive quotations can however be found by the few students serious enough about their subject and sufficiently respectful of their lecturers to set about digging them out.

Professor Bachmer Turner was a deeply misunderstood man. His work is not widely respected because it can be used to prove or disprove anything at all and has indeed been used for this purpose. Such a superficial understanding of his genius however is fatally misleading. Professor Bachmer Turner's greatest achievement lies in creating a reasoning framework accessible to any student which enables them to convey their own ideas with clarity and conviction. Whereas other academics simply give you their own reasoned analysis Professor Bachmer Turner raises the opinions of his readers to the same level as any other and renders them equally important. Academics often feel threatened by this and consequently their opinion of Professor Bachmer Turner is often negative. He is however loved by students and his legacy continues to inform their work to this day. Indeed he was in every respect a defender of students against academics, parents, police and each other and was often seen around his university wearing the clothes you like to wear listening to your favourite music on his state of the art personal sound system. He also advocated free courses for all with all educational expenses to be paid for by everyone the student does not happen to like.

Is any of the above true? Of course. For several generations students have been quoting the works of Professor Richard Bachmer Turner in their essays. Ignorant lecturers have come to believe that by using this name the student is trying to pass off an unsubstantiated opinion of their own as the respected opinion of a distinguished academic. It is time to set the record straight.

The Vegetable Pig Scandal

Yes you read right. It is one of the most sinister pieces of manipulation to occur in our time. Nonsense? Read on.

We are all familiar with sausages. They always used to be made of pork but there are now beef, lamb and several other varieties. Most things in life have gone this way. We are used to diversity nowadays so we expect the diversification of things which once had one standard form. It does not matter what sort of sausages are made available or what is called a sausage as long as it appears to conform to the pattern of diversity we have embraced at the urging of manufacturers and stockists.

Freely available nowadays are something called vegetarian sausages. Clearly these are not made from vegetarians. They purport to be combinations of vegetables, herbs and spices. No meat. There is one problem. Take a look at the European Community or U.S. food regulations which are binding in all the countries which produce these sausages. They state clearly that nothing can be called a sausage unless it contains a certain amount of animal content. Animal vegetables? Of course. Somewhere in the world there are vegetable pigs wandering around being slaughtered to produce sausages. Think about it. The Jewish and Moslem communities in particular have long sought a version of that animal their religion does not declare unclean. A project to create vegetable pigs would easily obtain the funding it needs from these sources. We ought to be celebrating this great biotechnological advance and promoting these vegetable pig farms as tourist attractions. Indeed it is a wonder no one has thought of this before. Or maybe they have. Maybe they have thought of much more than we wish to believe.

No one has ever announced the creation of the vegetable pig. It is therefore being surreptitiously introduced into our diet. There is a reason for this. Despite the end of the Cold War we still live under threat of imminent destruction from the vast nuclear arsenal governments spent millions developing. The weapons are still there and governments need to justify their existence and the sums spent on them. In the event of a nuclear war plants rather than animals are better equipped to survive. If a nuclear war took place the few people left alive would have nothing to eat but vegetables. The closest remaining thing to our previous staple diet would be vegetable animals. Governments are getting us used to vegetable pigs now so we can eat them more in the future. The great powers are planning armageddon under our very noses.

Why go about it this way? There are sneakier ways of introducing vegetable animals into our diet. One simple reason. The European Community and any other political alliance is held together by regulations. Remove the regulations and there would not be common ground between member states on any issue. The only thing the members of a political alliance have in common is adherence to the regulations of their alliance. The more they are seen to be adhering to these the more influence they have on the rest of the alliance. Producing things called 'vegetable sausages' from vegetable pigs is a way of demonstrating that you are adhering to these regulations more than other nations. If there is going to be a nuclear war you want your country to be better placed than others to decide when to press the button and who will die as a result. Vegetable sausage producing countries battle for supremacy through their red tape. Those who want to wrap all politicians in red tape and throw them off a cliff fail to realise that they are already wrapping themselves in red tape in order to throw the rest of us off the same cliff.

What can be done? Boycotting vegetable sausages will achieve nothing as more surreptitious methods will then be used to subvert our peace and freedom. All we can do is wait. No politician wants to take responsibility for something which will lose them votes. Would you vote for people who want to destroy you? Sooner or later the politicians will create their absolution. If people can create vegetable pigs they can also make them talk. If the scandal is exposed politicians will be able to find a fall pig who will claim responsibility for the whole thing. The fall pig will claim that the pigs created themselves and the nuclear plot was their idea. Ridiculous? Thomas Edison was always claiming to have invented things he did not invent. Every single one of these inventions was then used in a destructive war by the same government which sheltered him. If a rational human can be bought off in this way how can we hope for a pig to swim against the tide?

Next time you see a vegetable sausage think of the death and destruction that will follow from their existence. Will you be one of the fortunate few? Of course if you handed all power in the world to the Jewish and Moslem communities there would no longer be any point in concealing the existence of the vegetable pigs as these communities would be too busy imposing their power through them to destroy their world. Give up power and live? Retain power and die? The scandal has only got as far as it has because that is a question nobody wants to face.

The Great Ethnographic Mysteries

The human race is unpredictable. Just when you have worked out how it works some strange thing happens which shatters your preconceptions.

Take the Vikings. These brave warriors went all over Europe in their longships putting people to the sword and raping and pillaging their way to a substantial empire stretching from Scandinavia to Italy. One of the most aggressive and bloodthirty peoples in history. Where are the Vikings now? They have become the Swedes and the Danes and the Finns and the Norwegians. Moderate, democratic, neutral, peace-loving peoples. Politically correct and socially responsible. No threat to anyone. What happened? Are they trying to conquer with boredom what they once conquered with violence? All of these nations are fine and upstanding but something serious must have happened to make them prefer designing furniture to running amok.

There is also the case of the rail workers. When America started building its railway network on the east coast most of the workers were Irish. By the time they got to the west coast most of the workers were Chinese. No one has ever satisfactorily explained what made all the Irish people turn Chinese. Was it the diet? The climate? The nature of the work? Some peculiar combination of these? The most likely explanation is that as the line stretched further and further the workers had to look further and further into the distance to see their colleagues and do their jobs. They did this by squinting and thus developed slitted eyes. To avoid racist abuse from fellow Irish they then adopted Chinese identities and found a new home with genuine Chinese who were beginning to work on the railway. Impossible? Compare the sound of Chinese names to the sounds made in Dublin pubs by the local inebriates and judge for yourself.

But the greatest ethnographic mystery also concerns the Irish. We are all used to jokes made by one race about another which may offend but are not intended to cause serious harm. The Americans have their Polack jokes for example which are not intended as wholesale attacks on Americans of Polish origin or an excuse for negative attitudes or discrimination of any sort. The Germans make jokes (yes) about the French and the French make jokes about the English. The English tell jokes about the Irish and the Irish tell jokes about the Kerrymen. Who do the Kerrymen tell jokes about? Maybe it is Corkmen as some have claimed. So who do the Corkmen tell jokes about? Are they the end of the line? What would happen if the Corkmen doubled back and told jokes about the other end of the line? Is this indeed the point of the exercise?

Someone somewhere knows who started the national jokes and what the other end of the line is. I suspect that there are a few Kerrymen sitting in their villages who know the secret. Revisionist history claims that Celtic nations came from everywhere except where the last expert says they came from. Maybe all nations are Celtic and all nations therefore part Irish. Every nation is laughing at itself by laughing at others. And if the buck stops at the Kerrymen they are the one serious nation left on earth and the revolution is quietly ushered in. Impossible? Remember the Ayatollah?

It's All Starting Again

Some sad soul wanted me to write about backgammon. Here is the first attempt.

Backgammon is played with dice. There is a reason for this. Take a look at them. Horrible ugly things they are. They are made out of a solid material which would hurt you if it fell on you. They have corners and right angles which are a threat to health and safety. Try going into an office and putting two dice on the floor. You are very likely to be sacked for wilfully endangering the safety of your fellow workers.

They are designed to destroy us. We have all seen it happen. We would all be world champions if these monsters did not conspire against us. We can make the most brilliant moves time and again only to be dashed by those evil creatures. ‘Lady Luck?’ She ain’t no lady to me. Maybe it is because she is supposed to be a lady that polite gentlemen let her get away with the things she inflicts on us through her twisted sexahedric slaves.

You have to leave a blot somewhere. It can be either behind five of your own points with the nearest enemy brick nine away. Or it could be on your six point with seven well distributed opposing bricks bearing down on you. Furthermore you have to separate your runners to make the riskier move. So you make the safe one. The dice say three and six. Four and five is no move but three and six is the end of your blot. You have 50% chance of re entering but take three rolls to hit the required numbers by which time you have a 33% chance and the point is not available anymore. The offending brick that removed your blot does the damage itself by filling a neat row of ten before you finally get your brick back on. Of course it is on the one. The last opposing brick breaches your five point phalanx just at that moment. Prime waiting to happen. Gammon city at the very least. Why you? What have they done? If Scotty from Star Trek played backgammon he would have different views about the laws of physics.

Most backgammon commentators tell you to learn how to make the best moves. By this they are implying that they can defeat the evil dice by their genius. Rubbish. There is only one way. It is truly said that the outcome of games between players of equal strength is ‘written in the stars’. Go to the dice making factory. There you will see seedy little men in wire specs jealously guarding scraps of paper. What are these? Banknotes? No. They are the dates of birth of the dice. Will they ever let you see them? No. Because if you knew them you could influence their movements. The sources of all evil are protected by the same faceless functionaries who give us the wrong weather and the wrong husbands and wives. Why do we need nuclear war when dice manufacturers operate in every corner of the globe?

Think about it. If the dice are Cancer they are happier being thrown sideways and will thus give a better result that way. Capricorns should bang against the edge of the board and Pisces come out in opposite directions. Young dice are affected by humming music which is either fashionable or not and old ones are set in their ways and roll the same numbers more often. Those born in the morning get tired and are less effective during night games whilst the opposite is true of those born after the 9 p.m. watershed. Indeed that is the real reason the watershed is at that time. There is little more pornographic than the moral obscenities of so called bad luck.

Still we play and try to conquer. We are barking up the wrong tree. Our dates and times of birth are matters of public record. Only by ensuring that the same applies to dice will we compete on equal terms. If that means an armed struggle then so be it. If George W. Bush wants to spend his time fighting wars on terror here at last is the appropriate target.

Birmingham Strikes Back

It’s great being a Brummie exiled in London. Everywhere you go you are reminded of the natural superiority of the Brummie to the ignorant Londoner. You soon come to realise that your purpose in living in London is to show Londoners what they need to do to become part of the civilised world.

Londoners think they live in a big city. Poppycock. The City of London has hardly anyone living in it and the City of Westminster is too crowded for anyone to want to live in it. The rest of the so-called London is a collection of boroughs. Each one of these is a completely independent unitary authority with the same status as a county. Do we claim Worcestershire or Leicestershire as part of Birmingham? Ours is by far the biggest city in England and has one city centre. Greater London is a lot of villages strung together which developed separately because they did not want to be together. Apart from the ancient Borough of Sutton Coldfield I don’t recall any mass protests from the outlying suburbs of Birmingham at being joined together as part of our great city. Londoners are so ashamed of themselves they have to form separate authorities to hide themselves away. They are then so ashamed at being ashamed that they pretend to be part of London.

Londoners think the world begins and ends at the M25. All the ‘national news’ on the local stations is about London. Apparently the M25 is surrounded by a stone age forest called “The Country” which is put there for them to enjoy and for no other reason. They think every place they have heard of in The Country is a little settlement of around 200 people. They simply cannot understand great industrial cities. They think their jobs and food come from some mystical golden cloud rather than being created by the drive and labour of Brummies. Name me one London job that would be there if the industrial fathers of Birmingham had not created its industry and its tools? No I thought you couldn’t.

Londoners go on about their tube system. Even in Birmingham you can hardly buy a diary or atlas without a map of the London Underground on it. What they will never admit is why they need an underground railway. In Birmingham we can get around by bus and car and train and see where we are going. In London you cannot rely on buses to get anywhere within the stated time and you can forget about trying to drive cars. Trains are for those who can stand in six inches of space twice a day. The underground is only there because you cannot travel in London above ground and would not want to see the place anyway. Walk? They think you are mad. With all the pollution you need a face mask to go the shop round the corner. In Birmingham most of us have never even seen one and have no reason to hide our faces anyway.

There is a reason Birmingham is right in the middle of England. It holds the country together by allowing its natural quality to radiate outwards to all parts equally. Where is London? Stuck down south on its ugly grey river in a different world entirely to the north and midlands. Once it needed the river for trade. Strange how the superior Brummies never needed one. London could never have existed without the Thames and has no reason to exist now the Thames is no longer the heart of its trade. We always did better than any other place on earth without decent sized river or sea. The way to improve the country is to move the capital to Birmingham at the earliest opportunity.

I could go on forever. But there is one more thing which must be said. London like Birmingham has inhabitants who originate from every corner of the globe. Exactly as it should be if the place is worth bothering with. Talk to a Londoner whose ancestors come from Asia or Africa and you can tell their origins as soon as they open their mouth. Do it in Birmingham and the same people speak with a broad Birmingham accent. Why? Because the Brummie gene is dominant. Londoners all talk about back home. In our great city everyone is first and foremost a Brummie no matter where they came from. Why should they be? Come to London and see what they might otherwise have ended up as.