Halloween at the Flaxen estate

Tis Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, again. Some vague semi-religious Christian/Pagan festival hijacked by omniscient commercial powers. And yes I have a issue with trick or treating: a thinly veiled threat of demanding money with menaces. Any snot nosed kid(s) coming to the Saxon stronghold will receive no lollies mainly because I'm a miserable curmudgeon of a bastard. As I live in a nice middle-class neighbourhood the parents come along as well and stand at the top of the drive as their little darlings knock and attempt to see through the frosted glass. I can't hear them as I'm in my study listening to Wagner at full blast. Generally I'm dressed as a Valkyrie. The breast plate has an extension to allow for my third nipple. Otherwise it would chafe something awful- nuff said.





The dogs were later sacrificed to the elder gods

I managed to move my saggy, ragged arse, out for a Halloween Barbeque with the family at the weekend. I even got into the party atmosphere and dressed up as the grim reaper. Above I'm posing with  one of my legitimate offspring. I think I might have a mulatto kid somewhere. The family doesn't talk about it. For you nosy buggers who would like to know what I look like, then cast a glance at my son's visage. Although I confess, I'm a bit prettier. If you look carefully at the mirrored mask you might even catch a fleeting twinkle in my one good eye. Although no longer a young man, I'm still a magnificent specimen of manhood- women have been known to swoon in my presence. No doubt Dioclese will back up my assertion as he had the singular honour of meeting the man/god a couple of years ago. I even introduced him to my coterie of ferrets. As a mark of respect, the good ferret, Shagger, managed to rustle up a kiwi from the bush and drop the still twitching, blood bestrewn, form at Dioclese's feet. O we did chortle. Anyway, back to this Halloween thingy- its all a load of bollocks, isn't it?

Clinton vs Trump

Yea, this is my nod to the forthcoming American elections. World politics seems a little strange at the moment. I confess, I don't like either candidate. Hilary is a typical politician and oozes insincerity and she may even be a crook. Although to be fair being a crook does not preclude from seeking high political office.

Trump is many things but he ain't no politician. The only criterion required to run for the American Presidency, as far as I can see, is it that you must have squid doodles of cash. It worries me a little to think that this fella might have control over a large nuclear arsenal. He might have a bad hair day and nuke Mexico, or Tipton. Please make it Tipton. I'm rather fond of Tacos.

Achilles and a Tortoise

Zeno, a Greek philosopher, lived in the Italian town of Elea in the 5th century BC. Unfortunately nothing of what he wrote survives firsthand and we are reliant on philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle for a glimpse into his philosophical synthesis. We know that Zeno thought that it was unwise to rely on the senses and sense experience in order to obtain knowledge about the world. Instead he taught that 'true' knowledge could only be reliably obtained through mathematics and logic. In this regard he is truly right.

He is remembered mainly for a series of paradoxes. A paradox is a statement that appears to be self-contradictory or silly but may include a latent truth. Here is an example: ‘All Cretans are liars. I am a Cretan’. As you can no doubt see, these deceptively simple sentences harbour an inherent contradiction. Are all Cretans liars? Well according to the first sentence, yes. However, the second sentence casts doubt on the validity of the first sentence and we become stuck in a hopeless cycle of absurdity.

Although Zeno came up with many paradoxes, they seem to involve the same basic principle. Here is an example using the Homeric hero, Achilles, and a tortoise: A race is organised between the fleet of foot Achilles and a slow plodding tortoise. In the spirit of sportsmanship, Achilles allows the tortoise, Terry (for it is he) a head start of 10 metres. For the purpose of this example I'm going to assume that Achilles travels at the blistering speed of 10 metres per second. Terry, on the other hand, can only cover one metre in the same time. After the tortoise has been travelling for 10 seconds (10 metres covered), Achilles begins his sprint. By the time Achilles reaches the 10 metre mark the tortoise will have moved on a further 1 metre (11 metres in total). When Achilles reaches 11 metres the tortoise will be still ahead at 11.1 metres, and so on. According to this reasoning the Tortoise will always be ahead of the mighty Achilles by an ever decreasing amount. Therefore Achilles can never beat the tortoise and plodding Terry must win the race. Of course, all this is contrary to expectation and reality. Indeed, we expect Achilles to pass the Tortoise after an interval of just 1.11 seconds. So why does Zeno's argument suggest that Achilles never catches the wily reptile? Was Zeno an intellectual scamp and merely embroiling his audience in a clever piece of sophistry? In refutation, this conundrum was considered a serious problem by the ancient Greeks and occupied the minds of very smart men for over a millennia. The more we ponder the conundrum the more we come to appreciate its subtle, profound nature and its implications concerning notions of space and time.

We can represent the problem in mathematical format as an ever decreasing geometric series, thusly: 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32............

This of course represents an infinite series and no matter how far you run your calculation the sum will never quite add up to 2, although at each stage it becomes just a little bit closer.

The ancient Greeks struggled with the concept of infinity and converging infinite series. Today we can do much better. While it is true that we can divide distance into an infinite set of intervals, we don't have to. Furthermore, the time involved in covering the distance is finite and it is this fact that explains the apparent contradiction. Is that it Flaxen? Is this your answer to the Great Mystery? Gentle readers you have a right to feel cheated and consequently I feel suitably chastised. I built up the paradox to an incandescence frenzy and then dismissed it with a single, glib, sentence. Mayhap you feel cheated. Unfortunately to express the solution in cogent technical terms I need to invoke some gentle mathematics. I'm not going to introduce calculus to this blog, otherwise you may get the impression that I'm weird.

A mind game is just that. It confronts our intellect and deflects it from our comfortable fluffy surroundings and makes us think, anew- if we are lucky. Otherwise what is the point?

The unexamined life is not worth living. Discuss.    

Pirate Power

Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of iced tea

Avast me hearties; wipe the parrot shit off me tunic; adjust me eye patch and give me wooden leg a quick rub down with worming liniment (two coats)! Although I’m not an avid follower of politics nor much of a political pundit, the following story is simply too good to miss.

It seems likely that the Icelandic Pirate Party will a win a majority in Saturday's national elections. As one party member so vividly stated: “Return to your constituencies, splice the main brace, keel haul the scurvy dogs and prepare for government”. Steady Flaxen, don’t overdo the pirate motif, or no one will take your article seriously; pieces of eight.

The party was inaugurated in 2012 by a disparate/desperate group of anarchists, hackers, libertarians and geeks. The founders had no idea that within a scant four years the party would emerge as the favourite to win the 2016 elections. Policy seems dictated by online polls and the Pirates' pathological aversion to state interference regarding internet privacy.

So what the hell is going on? Have the notoriously sensible and civilised people of Iceland (bit boring though) gone stark raving mad? Maybe not. There has been an undertow of political disgust and rebellion amongst the European electorate over the last few years- Brexit anyone? Are we seeing in Iceland an extreme form of this expression? The ‘strangeness’ of Iceland's politics is partly due to Iceland's small population and isolation. Political events can have disproportionate impact on a homogeneous and politically savvy nation of 330,000. However, the country wasn't isolated enough to escape the economic crash of 2008. The crisis had a profound effect on the small Icelandic economy and collapse was only averted by a large injection of cash from the IMF. Like the rest of the world the Icelanders rightly blamed their economic woes on greedy and rapacious bankers. Unlike the rest of the world they did not bail them out. Instead they locked them up; very sensible.

The Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January 2015 also had a profound effect on the Icelandic psyche. In the wake, the Pirate Party campaigned for the repeal of the country’s blasphemy laws and as a result these archaic laws were removed from the statute book in July 2015. Although mainly a reaction against Muslim religious intolerance it also reflected Iceland’s increasing secularisation. Anti-establishment feeling went incandescent after a financial scandal involving the Prime Minister’s wife became public. So fierce was the opposition that Iceland’s then-prime minister, Sigmugumbo Davíð Gunnlaugsson, was forced into retirement.

The Icelandic situation represents a Europe in miniature. The electorate are sick of an entrenched political system mired in lies and deceit. Politicians have always been big on rhetoric and short on results and they have always connived and lied. What has changed is that Europeans have become more sophisticated, educated and critical than previous generations and are less willing to accept the untruths which drip from political leader’s mouths, as truths. No longer do we uncritically absorb the blatant biased propaganda promulgated by the government led press. No news is true without critical appraisal. The unprecedented access to news and views provided by the internet has exposed the masses to alternative interpretations and realities. If this has proved confusing for many it has enabled an increasing vocal minority to realise that the truth, while out there, is never simple and never pure, especially where politicians are concerned.

In a nut shell: Folk are as mad as hell and ain’t gonna take it anymore and are more than willing to exercise their franchise to kick the establishment in the bollocks (or arse for that matter).

Aha, Jim lad?

I'm not a pirate, just irate

Mug shots of Doom II

Another lazy Sunday afternoon in New Zealand. Tis spring in Kiwi land and the sun shineth like a shiny thing. My wife is out shopping and I'm supposed to be doing the gardening. Instead I'm sitting on the deck with the hounds drinking beer and writing my usual crap. So for today's edification and enlightenment I thought I'd share some mug shots of the mad, the sad and the bad. If a picture paints a thousand words, these piccys state: I will go to gaol, a thousand times. And let's be honest, would you want these miserable miscreants roaming your neighbourhood? Lock them up I says, without trial and definitely without parole. Burning them alive is the cheapest option. Petrol is cheap at the moment and our darkest nooks require light. The dark holds terrors of things unseen, at least when viewed straight on. They always lurk on the periphery, on the edge, never quite in focus. Always fleeting and hard to accommodate. I'm starting to digress.

A startled giraffe, anyone? I bet he is great at peering over tall fences.  

Where did he go? He went that a way, perhaps. Is it wrong to mock folk with lamentable deformities? Yes.

"My felon has got no nose." How does he smell?" He can't as he's lost all his olfactory apparatus."

I'm guessing he was arrested at the barbers.

OUCH. That's what happens when you are tardy with the house work. I bet she was asking for it. 

Arrested on the way to the dentist....

Yes, I know I'm a bad seed, but very successful nonetheless. Insight is not a path to recovery. There is no anodyne for what ails me. I say what people think. That's what happens when you are infested with a mind full of daemons. Arse.

Coulrophobia: The quickening

O woe is us

Breaking news from the inter-webby type thing. In response to the wave of suspicious clowns sweeping the nation, MacDonald's, purveyors of tasty comestibles (?surely some mistake), have decided at an historic/histrionic board meeting to place their iconic mascot, 'Ronald MacDonald' on hold. No longer will the breathtakingly inane clown take to the highways and byways promoting the company's extensive repertoire of succulent sweetmeats.

Amid concerns

People who talk loudly in restaurants predict that this momentous event precedes the much sort after apocalypse. Soon the earth will gape asunder and the dead, and not very well, will walk the earth looking for succour in a world groaning under an unrelenting miasma.

Shagger waits for the call

If MacDonald's had used a vicious ferret rather than a dozy clown none of this calamity would have occurred. And the good folk of the civilised nations would not be labouring under the indignity of a world bereft of its favourite fast food buffoon. I even suggested a name for the talisman ferret, 'Shagger'. O foolish CEO!    

Guess who forgot to pick up his prescription from the pharmacy?

The event was predicted by the 16th century seer, Nostradamus. Read the following quatrain and all will become manifest and clear. It will be as if two well grilled patties (onion rings, optional) have been lifted from your eyes.

When clowns walk the earth

Ronald MacDonald will take a break

Lo the fast food giant will be led by a ferret called, Shagger (possibly)

The burgers will still taste crap though

See, I told you it would work- "Go Shagger"

Monkey Business?

Prostitution has been described as the oldest profession. You could argue that sex is a commodity just like any other. There is nothing 'concrete' given by the prostitute, he/she clearly gains monetary reward for services rendered, which for the purpose of this post will be deemed pleasure. Pleasure means different things to different folk, but most of us can experience the sublime pleasure of sexual experience, fleeting though it may be. Although it is to be acknowledged that a small minority of the population are denied the sexual impulse and therefore these individuals are unlikely to procure the services of a hooker.

For humans, and most animal species, sex is the great motivator driving their existence. Without sex there is no continuation of the species. Thus sexual pleasure ensures that individuals indulge in sexual activity thus producing generations ad infinitum.

Researchers at Yale conducted an experiment where they attempted to teach capuchin monkeys the concept of money. Shiny aluminium discs were distributed amongst the troop and after some effort the researchers managed to train the monkeys to exchange the tokens for food from the handlers. Could this behaviour demonstrate the monkey's ability to understand the basic concept of barter using an item of no intrinsic value, money? If so, it would demonstrate that the capuchin have the capacity to assimilate and understand abstract constructs, at least at some fundamental level. A facility, usually denied our animal brethren. Chimpanzees and Dolphins are possible exceptions.

So what has all this got to do with prostitution? Is it possible that your gracious and perfectly formed host (third nipple included) has lost his tenuous grasp on reality and slithered arse first into the gaping bottomless pit that is frank insanity-wibble bottom? Money is a versatile tool and wouldn't it be great if the researchers could show the capuchins using the tokens in a more human like way, for instance purchasing a service.

On one occasion the researchers noticed a male monkey offering a female capuchin a token after which she allowed the male to copulate with her. Immediately afterward and without waiting to say goodbye to her erstwhile paramour, the female approached the handler and exchanged the token for a piece of fruit. The researchers were triumphant and concluded that the monkeys were engaged in the exchange of ‘money’ for sex. Perhaps the oldest profession is older than we originally thought. Maybe eons ago a hominid ancestor exchanged coloured pebbles for ‘services rendered’. The researchers suggested that perhaps this behaviour was fairly normal and widespread in wild capuchin troops. Of course, in the wild, hard currency is hard to come by, but ripe fruit is a potent aphrodisiac, especially bananas. Or are the researchers exploiting some other form of behaviour? Are we really observing monkey behaviour analogous to human prostitution? Before we all go ape, here are a just few points to reflect upon:

The situation described appears to be a single instance. In science it is unwise to establish conclusions on a limited data set. For the observation to be valid it should be observed many times and in many individuals. Furthermore, for the observation to progress from hypothesis to conjecture to theory, independent verification is required. That is, other researchers should be able to replicate the initial results. As far as I’m aware this has not occurred; cold fusion illusion, anyone? Of note, the two prominent researchers in the study are not scientists: Keith Chen is an economist and Laurie Santos a psychologist. Perhaps they are not familiar with the usual experimental rigour required when handling empirical data?

The capuchin 'troop' under investigation was far from the natural social dynamic favoured by these monkeys. The experiment consisted of seven unrelated individuals. Capuchins normally live in groups of about fifty and the females in the group exhibit some degree of genetic kinship. The mature males are interlopers and therefore usually unrelated. Thus these domesticated animals were living under artificial conditions and any attempt to explain and extrapolate their behaviour in terms of ‘wild behaviour’ has to be tempered accordingly. The point: it is virtually impossible to draw conclusions about normal capuchin behaviour under these contrived conditions.

Capuchins in the wild and in captivity use sex and mounting as a means of cementing social dominance, diffusing tension and promoting trust between troop members. Not all sex is motivated by procreation. About 50% of all sexual mounting is between individuals of the same sex.

As humans we like to uncover motivations which reaffirm or are in accord with our preconceived notions and prejudices. Why not impose human like qualities on our intelligent and nearest evolutionary animal cousins? It is very tempting to see complex human patterns and repertoires of behaviour in intelligent animals. I suspect the so called economic activity observed in capuchins is nothing more than an extension of tool use in this species. If you watch long enough you can mould the monkey into whatever you like. An economist will see innate monkey behaviour through the lens of an economist; observer beware.

This research was first published in 2005 and sadly to the chagrin of economists and psychologists everywhere, the initial findings have not been replicated. Therefore it is unlikely that a monkey 'Red Light' district will be appearing anywhere soon.

There goes the neighbourhood.

Elephants will be flying next, ya big dumbo