22/07/2010 by paul.

Just thinking about some of my favourite quotes: 

“And crawling on the planet’s face , some insects called the human race.
Lost in time,  and lost in space  And meaning.”    Richard O’brien

“fates of men….we play and are played and the best we can hope for is to do it with style“  Terry Pratchet
 

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08/07/2010 by paul.

One of the many blogs that I have been reading, is
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
which is very much concerned with atheist v christian right issues (evolution v creationism).

My sympathies do not lie with the christian right (nor with any idiotic religious views) and I felt that it all came together the other day, when sitting in a traffic jam. I was looking at the boot of the car in front, when I observed a snail, crawling up the boot lid of the car. Clearly, the owner of the car had been to the local tip the previous day and left behind, after the garden waste had been removed from the boot, was the snail. It occurred to me, that the snail, whilst crawling up the lid of the boot, had no more idea or understanding as to the nature of its immediate surroundings, as we have to the nature of our existance, meaning of life (if there is one) and all the rest.  Any attempt by anyone to impart to the snail, an understanding of the nature traffic jams etc. would be a futile as any attempt to explain the nature of our existance to us.    

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25/02/2009 by paul.

I often catch up on the (somewhat USA orientated) blog view on events, on “You are Dumb” and I think that yesterday’s post on the current financial “crisis” is a lot more accurate than most (if not all) of the many more academic views on offer elsewhere.
See here   http://www.youaredumb.net/archive/2009/2/24
brilliant !

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30/11/2008 by paul.

I have been working in the electronics industry for 40 years and 2 months…I know that because I have just seen it on the redundancy settlement that I have received.            Now I am not shedding any tears over this, since I have seen it coming for a couple of years..and I stress that it has nothing to do with the ‘highly spun’ current recession.  What is weird, is the reaction of others to the news (of my redundancy, not the global self inflicted recession).     As soon a I tell anyone that I am being made redundant, they immediately adopt a sympathetic posture and voice a high degree of concern …., so I immediately have to re-assure them that it is no real deal to me.         In fact I have just been to the hairdressers and as part of that often forced convesation that takes place as ones hair is being cut, the young girl asked by if “I was on holiday today”, “just popped out of the office”  and whether” I would be leaving the office early today” (being a friday).      So, I just said “no” “yes”  and “probably” in that order, rather than saying that today was the last day of 40 years working for a multinational company and that today was the last day that I would be driving 100 miles on the motorway to get to/from the office. Also the last time that I would frequent that particular hairdressers.                                  So for the first time in a long, long time, I have just had to buy myself a car and a mobile phone (the later being a lot more complicated than the former), and on Monday …..well, I am not quite sure what happens from Monday.

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13/03/2008 by paul.

I have just seen that London has been declared the dirtiest city in Europe. I am not surprised, since everytime I go there, my heart sinks at the state of the place and the litter lying around.  Equally, I don’t know if it is the time of year or just me getting a bit more cranky, but there seems to be a lot more litter lying around everywhere. With a bit of luck, as the leaves grow on the country roadside bushes, all the poly bags and coke bottles will disappear…. to re-appear in the autumn.
There is an importer of food stuffs, just up the road from the office, and many lorries park up whilst waiting to gain access to the unloading bays. It is not unusual to see a load of plastic bags, neatly tied up and left by the roadside, after the lorres have departed.  So the truckers go to the trouble of putting all their bottles and fast food containers into a plastic bag, then tie it up and leave it by the side of the road. What on earth do they think is going to happen ? Is the litter fairy going to come along overnight and clear up ?  What is the problem with keeping the bag in the cab and putting it in the litter bin at the first motorway services they stop at ?
Equally worrying is the amount of lager and cider cans that seem to lie around on the roundabout that is at the entrance to the estate. I just cannot get into my head, an understanding of the mentallity of the dumbo,s that just sling all their litter out of the car/lorry window.
I thought I had a great idea…. then I noticed that Clarkson had beaten me to it, in last week’s Sunday Times. 
Instead of some of the looney, politically correct ideas proposed by some of the the current batch of govenment ministers, why can’t they propose something usefull (and earn their liberal expense regime) by making all suppliers of fast foods, responsible for the disposal of all their branded packaging. The suppliers would winge and lobby, but if the government held firm, then most of the excess packaging would soon disapear.     
Mind you, perhaps there is help on the horizon…in the unlikey shape of the ‘church of Rome’. I also read that the church has decided that there are now a few more “modern” …”mortal sins”…which include polution and damage to the environment.
Interesting to note that they have also added “excessive wealth” to the list….Oooops!, bet the cardinal who added that one will get a bit of a ‘career talk’  and be told to quitely drop that one off the list

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