The Internet, a window through which to see the world. But there’s another, a real window.
Spending time reading these articles and their comments often has me pausing to look out of my window.
What other windows are the others looking out of I wonder? Today, from mine, there are vans here and there, hammering, drilling, angle grinders sending sparks into the air. Two bathrooms and an extension I'm told.
A lifelong DIYer I've done my own bathrooms, only recently had one done by a ‘bloke’ from ‘Get a bloke in.com’. (Get a girlie in has different connotations). Is it the pressure of time that makes the new lads so noisy? Or was I as indifferent to my neighbours' snooze times? They are no more efficient, popping to the van for the correct size Schprudel valve as many times as Johnny DIY to his shed.
The nice man from Evri arrives, he has a newer car than mine. Has he opted out for a less demanding career? Fallen from corporate grace? He might tell me in the pub, but on the doorstep I notice the smoking soles of his trainers and wave him off; give him 5 stars on the 'How did your courier do..?' email that arrives the minute he's left.
Our old post lady who grumbled at our steps and wet undergrowth tickling her modern Royal Mail bare lower legs dress code has retired in disgust, replaced by a Ghanaian lad, as black as yer ‘at whose feet barely touch the steps. He who laughs like a drain when I remind him our streets are not paved with gold, rather potholes and why doesn't he go home where it's warm. My family had much to do with Ghana in earlier years, that’s not for today but at least he feels closer to home with me than some who think he’s the vanguard, a scout for some Zulu invasion.
We have my other half's small business running here. A plethora of deliveries from sources too tedious to mention here, by as diverse a motley crew a sociology study would wish. A gazebo in our front bit with such students taking notes, doing vox pop would reveal far more than any pontificating SW1 scribe.
Meanwhile no riots, no shipwrecks, nobody drowning. I saw a Police car once, before Covid.
However, I do avoid putting political posters up. No flags for me. Vexilology vexes me. A tribe’s as likely to put their own out for the leopards as sell them into slavery. Look at our politicians. Such is often my lack of faith in my fellow man.
***
My fellow man writes here expressing anger and fear of smart meters. They can turn us off! Fiddle our bills! They always could! Once, a man with a clipboard and a white dustcoat, electricity isn’t very dirty, in a humming room full of grey cabinets and flickering dials. He had a great Frankensteinian lever he could heave on to put us in darkness. More recently a computer nerd with a display wall like the control room of Battlestar Galactica. His keyboard and mouse, even a touchscreen, can turn a town off with Ctrl Alt Delete, or Cmd Shift esc, or a click on an icon. Once, a girl in a typing pool could bill you too much with a typo. Now, a young Mum WFH with an iPhone.
I have one of those Hive devices linked to Alexa. I can change the temp with my voice. If I go away and forget to set it low I can do it on my phone - hands free. On the way home, turn it all back on automatically by the magic of geofencing. 30 miles from home.
I had a job selling audio surveillance and detection gear. Not the trashy Mayfair stuff the rich Arabs buy to keep an eye on the wife or fellow Sheikh. The stuff governments use. One sneaky beaky told me once that my phone, debit card, credit card, loyalty card pinpoint me, could almost predict where I was going to be. That was 30 years ago. Even then the villains were posting spare unactivated sim cards to themselves at European addresses; buying burner phones to use once only and discard.
Tales to be told but, like Ghana, not today.
My fellow man includes those cultists who preach from a bible written in 1865 by a sponger who lived off capitalist wealth. No shortage of column inches for those so called ‘useful idiots’.
Hard to identify through the window, disguised in Mountain Warehouse coats and hats walking their normal dogs, the turmoil in their crazy heads hidden from view.
Here recently though, one who wants the enforced mass evacuation of immigrants. What brought them here? What would induce them away? That they are not welcome doesn't phase them at all. Out of my window on a cold wet grey Saturday in February I’d join the exodus. The millionaires are. £10 a pint, ULEZ and an insane Mayor is already a London tactic to keep the North away. Perhaps we could hide gold and diamonds in central Africa like some hide Easter eggs? (I know, Gordon Brown). They could make their fortune, Starmer would let them return, buy a nice house, add further to the pressure on Rayner's housing plans.
Another conspiracy, chemtrails. Some of my fellow man love it. If I wanted to introduce ‘substances’ into the population we have reservoirs, beer and wine, breakfast cereal. MacDonalds are already accused of killing us, albeit slowly.
I bought a car, modern enough to have a system which tells you a bulb's gone, tyre pressures low. Mine told me these things falsely. Handy hints.com said to disconnect both sides of the battery for a few minutes to drain away the negative wiggly amps. (Keep hold of your radio code).
It worked. Perhaps a useful metaphor to be applied. Drain away the negative hobgoblins like Starmer and Reeves who live in our heads. Drain them away into the void where all deleted texts and abandoned ideas go.
I have a lucky window to peer from. Others perhaps not so good. At least glance out now and again if only to confirm the worst. One day we may have to look out of our window to get a verification code that it really is ourselves. Not today though.
Having keyless cars for years now, unlocked and locked by the fob, I find myself annoyed that I have to put my shopping down to unlock the house door.
Apropos Mind Control, I've been stuck in a SciFi Kindle book involving, for once, friendly aliens possessing telepathic and telekinetic powers, transferable to us humans. I say stuck because I, as an apprentice author, am fascinated at the lack of plot holes. Stuck, because it challenges my atten...spa... It's several books strung together presumably because the author can only give it away on Amazon. I know the feeling.
The transference of telepathy to humans is of course limited to the protagonists, the other 8 billion occupants deemed, wisely, to be untrustworthy with such responsibility. The humanoid aliens likewise share their abilities sparingly among their own race for the same reasons.
Another story from early SciFi introduces personal teleportation at will across distances varying by presumably IQ. 'Jaunting'. A scientist sets fire to his lab benches and 'jaunts' to the fire extinguishers and back. The fire out, his colleagues take note, grab him and subject him to awful life-threatening scenarios. He survives, jaunting to safety every time. Gibbering, he never jaunts again.
No spoilers should anyone be interested.
There you have it, why the subject interests me. I did mention, from the comment I made that inspired Tom to ask if I'd like to expand; that my son and I share a joke about sending 'a bode of awareness' if we haven't been in touch; and the phone rings. Spooky, I can only think I'm in his bad books lately, he hasn't called. I must have sent a bode of irritation and annoyance by mistake.
Among many things such sociology fascinates me. If I could jaunt, there's the motor industry deader than the electric version has brought about. Jets? If I never go through security again... 'Pop!'.
Telepathy. What if I had a good idea? I couldn't sell it. Patent Pending Pointless.
The GSM network voice transfer would be redundant. It's almost there with the kids already.
Voting? Street fights would break out between the pro and anti Trump folk. Would more wars start? Or stop?
Doctors would have to hide in lead lined Faraday cages, their brains literally burning out if they went out without a similar helmet. Tinfoil hats indeed.
How do we train for this new world? How to stop teenage boys unworthy thoughts about the pretty young French teacher? Unwelcome approach from a promiscuous gay? The bars and clubs are bad enough already.
One minute a Ukraine soldier sees a Russian, 'Pop' he disappears, reappears behind and shoots him in the back. Bit like the EU.
In Court you plead guilty with extenuating circumstances and apologise.
"No, you're not sorry, two years, take him away." (Starmer)
"Up yours guvnor, try and catch me!" 'Pop!'
Minority Report's worth a watch if you haven't. Empaths in vats linked to a master computer predict murders and direct the police to prevent them.
***
To partly get back on track why are aliens naked, bald with big eyes and decline clothing? Large craniums but the eyes, like a cat's, still take up a large space. Small mouths, have they outgrown biting and chewing? Talking? Barely any nose. What are big noses for? What use does Caucasia have for a big nose where Africa and Sino Asia do not?
Our SciFi aliens have long proby fingers. Stop it! Even we have touch sensitive controls. Are they telekinetic wands? Antennae to direct beams of significance?
A visiting alien might view our planet as being dominated by the Plant Kingdom photosynthesising its life drawing minuscule amounts of the Carbon the weirds are so afraid of from the air. They turn it into leaves to repeat the process, excreting nasty Oxygen (Greek for poison gas) and water in their lofty transpiration or from algaeic crony colonies beneath the sea.
I hear they communicate through the Mycelium Undernet. The mycorrhizal network
Reproduction by insect and bird slaves, lured by sweet sugary energy fruits from the same sources they live on themselves. Like women with chocolate.
What are the frantic other creatures chasing about with their endless frenzied need to crisscross the planet? The poison and inert gases keeping them going. Interpretation of the vapour trails messages transmitting their Keep Out warnings very rude indeed.
On the Plant Kingdom. There are forecast to be many other Goldilocks planets. What if the algae in their seas were to combine into a vehicle, float up into space on hydrogen power, carrying water and nutrients for a journey to pollenate the galaxies? Free power from the suns, asteroids for minerals, other vegetable wanderers to mate with.
Motive power? They cracked photosynthesis, warp drive a doddle. Besides what's the rush?
Visit Earth, why? 70% of it is salty water, tedious to osmode. Snow, Ice, mountains and desert. The plants cling on, some closing for the winter season, the vertebrates struggle by on less than 10% of the planet surface and exploit the plants terribly.
The Carbon easily available is scarce at 425 parts per million. The atmosphere 76% Nitrogen which needs fixing. Stuff that we left behind. Oxygen? Nah, got loads, can't get rid of it. 99% The rest Argon. Plants don't need lightbulbs.
Earth? A hell planet. No thanks.
References:
Undernet; https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/underground-mycorrhizal-network
Jaunting; https://archive.org/details/starsmydestinati0000best
Minority report;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG7DGMgfOb8
Photosynthesis; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g78utcLQrJ4
Hothouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hothouse_(n