(c) K Wicks
August 22 nature
Month: September 2022
Pubs, Inns and Taverns
It’s a pressing issue right now, and the tip of the iceberg for the decimation that seems to be in play. But lots of people seem to miss the point of how important pubs are and have been, especially in helping to shape our notorious ‘island mentality’. They have a rich, colourful history and have played an important role. But they are also social places, where if you put the consumption of alcohol to one side, has many benefits to the wider community. Of course, they have played their own part in nefarious activities in the past, and been haunts of all sorts of types, but on the whole they have been known as a place for the normal folk to enjoy each other’s company, food, a drink and a laugh. And information, and solace, and respite, and so much more.
But times they are a changin’. And what of the pub and the old ways that are on their way out by force, some people say they are outdated and there’s no need for them anymore anyway. People drink too much, it’s too expensive and doesn’t pose any continued social benefit. That it is clinging on to a bygone era and just because we always have, doesn’t mean we always should. And I agree with that, but not entirely on this one. Of course, it’s ridiculous that energy companies can be allowed to just hike their prices by 400%, and it shouldn’t be so, that people are forced out and the forced death of an industry, jobs, communities and more. Because it won’t just stop at pubs, it’s shops, bakeries, gyms, restaurants, care homes, hospitals etc. It’s crippling what they are doing and very real lives and livelihoods are going to be lost and under threat while they play their ‘virtual green game’. Because they do not do as they say, in fact the complete opposite. So, while you are meant to cut back, spend every penny of savings you have (and get in debt if you haven’t got any), sit in the dark and think of better times. They are not cutting back though, are spending others money like it is water and are lighting their own homes and lives at our expense. I suspect it makes others feel nauseous too just thinking about and seeing what they are doing.
But that is where we are being rendered mute, and helpless. Like you are in a big tub, and it keeps being filled up with water by someone. You say you’re going to drown, they just keep putting more in and shrugging at you. They are slowly pulling up the ladder at the same time, expecting you to just tread water until you run out of energy, then drown. It’s a set up, and one you aren’t meant to navigate successfully or survive intact. That is the point. Once you realise that, their choices and decisions make more sense, and you realise they need to be ignored, like the inane rantings of a madman should be.
Give thought to what jobs and industries there will be once the highstreet, towns and communities are changed even further beyond recognition. While they take away normal hardworking jobs, they are stealthily replacing them with tech jobs, monitoring jobs, enforcer jobs, security jobs etc. That’s how you split society further, by offering ‘new jobs’ to replace, and survival instinct works in different ways for different people. There will be plenty who decide those jobs are worth it so they can feed themselves and their family. Because most of the time, that’s the starting point for people, food, shelter, clothing. If you can get people at that stage, make them insecure and worried, you’ve mostly got them. Further in, thinking is not as malleable.
So, it may seem like just a pub, or just a bakery, or a library, or a gym, or a cafe, but they aren’t. They are a lifeline and part of the community at large and necessary. But when they are stripped back, minimised and corporatized, something quite soulless seems to creep in and is trying to take over that last pocket of freedom and trade. All of it.
(c) K Wicks
Giants
There has been talk of giants for generations, hundreds of years in fact across multiple continents in varying forms. It could just be that some tales are just too fantastical and stay with us for reasons unknown, or it just could be, that it’s because they were whispers of truth, turned into tales and stories to make sure they stayed with us. To help us to understand that there once was a different time, of giants and titans, of Myths, monsters and legends, when a different atmosphere was perhaps around us and these things were not so out of the ordinary. They seem so outrageous now because everything has been ‘normalised’ and scaled down, but who is to say we will not have a time like that again one day.
Frost giants and Azguard – mentioned briefly in the linked article above, but I had no idea how intricate the lore is, and how when it is read in the context of their being far away frozen lands, inhabited by giant unknown beings, it doesn’t sound as crazy as it once did. Stories of cities in the sky and other things start to link in as well, if you are so inclined to that train of thought.
Jack and the beanstalk – this one is just a children’s story, and fun to think there could be magic beans, but that is not what interests me about it. Take away the magic means and cow to market bit, and focus on the tall tree like structure that grows up into the sky, to the land above. Where there are giants.
Titans / Nephilim – going back to biblical times, and written in the books of Enoch there are titans (think of the film Clash of the Titans, where they are in their godly giant palaces above, tinkering with and setting the fate of man). There are also the Nephilim, which were supposed to be of giant stature and are part of the angels who were cast out and procreated with humans. Lots to unpack there.
The Giants Causeway – In Ireland there is geological wonder called the giants causeway, literally names after a Giant called Finn MacCumhaill. And if you look around the whole British Iles, there are a strange number of tales and folklore about giants, things named after them and records of them. Makes you wonder if they really are all just made up, well, makes me wonder anyway.
Long Meg – There is a tale of a Giantess at the time of Henry VIII, who lived in London Town but came from the countryside. Most might think nothing of it, but having visited a site up north of what is claimed to be large neolithic stones called, Long Meg and her Daughters, I wondered. And we all know it’s fairly easy to make something either stick, or drop from history. Through the cunning use of inquisitions, burning, torture and ridicule, they usually got everyone singing the same tune, if you catch my drift.
Slight side note – I looked up where April Fools came from the other day, as I have been looking at different calendars around the world and in the past. I already knew we have moved the year from April to January, as the tax year is still running to the old one. New year’s eve used to be at the end of March, and April marked the start of the new one. Then some bright spark decided to change it to January (you see where they can then change time, add things, take it away), and everything changed. 1752, they moved it. But not everyone remembered or was on board, so they took to mocking anyone who celebrated new year on April 1st. Calling them fools.
Six fingered giants – Afghanistan, it seems we have recent stories of giants too, not just old school myths. This one during the Afghanistan conflict, where soldiers encountered a six fingered giant in the mountains they say and a number of soldiers were killed rather gruesomely. There have also been a few strange stories emerging from the desert regions, so who knows.
Patagonia – many a traveller and explorer wrote of there being giants in Patagonia, they are named as such and drawn on maps of that time, talked about in local lore, stories, paintings, legends etc. So, I do wonder if they simply were eradicated and then removed from history as much as possible. To make the world an ordinary, scaled down, small version of itself. To hide the true size and fantastical past of this realm, and what it and we are capable of? Perhaps.
BFG – A fictional story by Roald Dahl, and a very enjoyable one I read and watched as a child. And although is meant to be purely fictional, made me think of other lands inhabited by other creatures, lands just above us, or below us. And dreams are another kettle of fish, but the strangeness of this story did not pass me by. It’s not just a simple story about giants, there is more to it, but for this article, it’s about giants.
The Selfish Giant – a moral tale for children, but doesn’t just feature an old grumpy man as with Ebenezer scrooge, no, this one is a giant. Could just be as with the BFG, a story for children and nothing more.
There may be nothing to the tales and legends, and it could all be nonsense. But sometimes I can’t help thinking it isn’t…
I have also recently written a new fictional short story about giants, which can be found here – In the mountain
(c) K Wicks
More drops – new batch
Been having some fun again with oil drops and cool lighting.
(c) K Wicks
Changing Into What Exactly?
They make no secret of it; it is not some wild conspiracy and is, in fact, being implemented in front of us and around us. Changing humans from what we are, into something else. Augmented humans seem to be on the horizon, as well as disrupted, corrupted and spliced humans too. A mixture of fiction and fact is always at work, so I try and dissect one from the other, to work out what is happening, what is likely, and what really is, still total fiction.
The Island of Dr Moreau – it’s been a difficult read to be honest, not an uplifting story by any means and somewhat of a chore to get through, but get through it I did. I haven’t seen or read any other version having avoided the movie, and have gone for the original story by H.G Wells. It’s bleak and cruel, and highlights an obsession with making animals more human through ‘medical intervention’. It is what it is, but makes me think of current people we have at the head of institutions who also seem to be instigating and overseeing terrible experiments of animals and humans. I wonder if they are trying to do the opposite at all, to make humans more animal like?
Pig Hearts in people (surgery) – this was hailed as a breakthrough, and for some I’m sure it is. But for me, it was another step forward in the weird landscape we call society. Firstly, I wondered how it is that we can be compatible for such a major organ with just an average animal, leading to thoughts of wondering if there has been some tinkering previously. Could it be that we have actually engineered all the domesticated animals around us already? Or that pigs originally came from humans? Sounds wild I know, but I followed the thought, realising that if it were so, it would be a very good reason why you weren’t supposed to eat them (religions of Judaism and Islam). And as usual, I will put in a movie reference here which started the idea forming all those years ago for me. Willow. The witch put a curse on the invading army soldiers and turns them all into pigs. Simple, yet enough to get me wondering.
Animal cells used in medications, notably Monkey kidney cells used in vaccines, recent and of old. There being a particular incident in the 50’s where millions of Americans were given contaminated polio vaccines, which were infected with a simian virus SV40, which can cause tumors and cancers. Turns out Monkeypox didn’t occur in the wild as a side point, it developed in macaque monkeys held in a facility being used for testing in central Africa. So much has developed under the watchful gaze of mankind, and by their hand.
Shapeshifters/Changelings – we have many legends about these, and of there being something else that lives amongst us, sometimes looking like us, but through mimicry. I sometimes wonder if it really could be possible to have a being that can alter themselves at a molecular level, but then I think how stupid, now we are talking T-1000 or X-men type stuff. Both of those in particular about liquid metal being part of the skeletal frame, or the basic material for the structure. Yet still I wonder and although a slight deviation from the man/animal theorem, it still seems relevant when you think of the new obsession of assimilating us with chips and implants.
Following into their want for human beings to be ‘plugged in’, as many a movie reference has inferred, hooked up and integrated with the mainframe. A certain international organisation seems to have a nominated mascot who is the mouthpiece of how they want us to be bio-mechanical beings essentially, being constantly monitored, tested, observed and upgraded. Weird huh? Yet they gleefully put these plans forward and explain how and when. Just not really covering the why, or at least the real reasons for it. But you can make up your own mind on what their purpose really is, but what is out there for everyone to see, is that they do want control. Of your daily activities, thoughts, fears, aspirations (if there are any left), and generally of your future. So that is where you do get to take an active role, unless you already consider your life forfeit and have already accepted their new regime and landscape. But if you do not and have not, and you have chosen to live, then now is the time…
(c) K Wicks
Painted lady on buddleia
(c) K Wicks
So many now choose… (poetry)
So many now choose
To focus their thoughts
Efforts and time
To more than we’re taught
Because it would seem
That the system they teach
Is more to control
And gain greater reach
It’s not about learning
And indeed never was
But spreading their ethos
And ideals just because
It suited their purpose
To condition a nation
To give them the keys
To the whole population
So when the time came
It appeared in the bag
But as it unfolded
There seemed a big snag
It started as small
Then started to grow
Numbers got bigger
And started to show
Something was wrong
And not what they said
More started digging
And pulling the thread
~
And it all began to unravel
(c) MKW Publishing
Gloucester Cathedral, a walkaround
You can see why they used parts of this Cathedral in the Harry Potter films, it’s lovely. Here are a couple of vids of walking around it if you would like to see what it looks like inside and out.
(c) K Wicks
Not all the same
Another of Grandpa’s analogies that helped me understand how things are and why things cannot be as we wish, or as we may have perceived them to be. I guess I must have been in my 20’s when he put this one to me. I believe we were talking about socialism and people on benefits, possibly because I had not quite grasped yet the finer points of people, yet thought I knew about society. I didn’t understand why people just wanted handouts, really wanted them on an ongoing basis. Here is what he said
You have three people who start equal in wealth, and have a farm each to grow beans.
The first farmer works really hard and gets a good crop, the second farmer has not such a good year, but still worked hard enough, but got less. The third farmer couldn’t be bothered and didn’t grow any beans.
Socialism = the first farmer must share out his good crop, benefitting the lazy farmer as well as the second farmer. So each year, there is no incentive for the third farmer to do better, and can make the first and second farmer not want to bother.
Capitalism = first farmer buys out third farmer and owns more.
Communism = All farmers must grow the same, lazy is not an option.
That’s a black and white view of what was put forward or at least how I viewed it. Because the lines become a bit blurry it seems between socialism and communism. And as I have gotten older, capitalism appears to be so very heartless, therefore it doesn’t seem the way forward if we are to benefit as a group.
I asked someone once I knew who was on benefits for a number of years after a MH incident, which was valid initially. But after 5 years or so I asked “when are you going to get back out there, into the workplace?” The answer disappointed me very much. It was this “well, I’m just going to stay on benefits for a bit, to work out what I want to do with my life”. I was shocked, not gonna lie. This was someone close to me in my life at the time, so not what u was expecting. I was working really hard, trying to build my business, paying taxes and employing people, and was a bit disheartened by that attitude. That the taxpayer was there to buy other people time to sit back, let their kids have no structure and be paid for by handouts and ‘take their time’. Not me. I didn’t like that attitude at all, and chose to not be around it after it becomes obvious you can’t help them along, they will only hold you back. Harsh, but true.
I am not foolish enough to think we can have some utopic society where we are all the same, and have the same wants, needs and goals and it’s all smiles and laughter. That would be weird, but there does need to be some balance to it all. And it woukd be nice to just have unlimited time and resources to be what you want, but whose time are you wasting? Yours.
While we are the whim of a corrupt prevailing attitude from the people on the ground to the people at the top who run the show, there will be no cohesion or way forward. Not yet at least anyway…
(c) K Wicks
Gerbera
(c) K Wicks
MKW Publishing 