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.

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Hey.. Wolfie! Are you still out there?