Month: October 2023

God Is On Our Side?

At least, that is what Netanyahu and his cohort believes.  That wonderful book of unconditional love, The Torah, explains that other races are subhuman and not worthy of life. The Palestinians know this first hand. I cannot imagine what it will be like to know that my little cul de sac in a country town has been destroyed, let us say it was one of the bungalows, and another one might be destroyed at any time. How can you have even a semblance of peace?

I note that  one of the female reporters working in the area was told that if she and her family did not get out and move south, her life would be in danger ….. just for doing your job.   It is clear that the powers that be in Israel are egging the world on for a full-scale war and that is probably why both American and Russian warships are now present in the Mediterranean. Let us hope that common sense prevails and that Biden’s request for 100 billion dollars is blocked, so far anyway.

We have a lot to be thankful for. There are beneficent forces from above that look after us though they may not intercede  in the activities of free will of human kind.

• Today, to church for our Tuesday morning coffee event which is from 10 to 11:30.  On offer was a apple cake cooked in a Mediterranean-style with crunchy sugar on top and I thought this would be more acceptable to my stomach than the alternative, chocolate cake. This renewed my desire to make the perfect quiche. It depends on the quality of the pastry itself.

A lesson learned about older people

An older lady with a walking stick turned up to the coffee morning and said she had lost her glasses or left them behind at the service on Sunday. After a fruitless search we abandoned the project. George, the warden, asked me to take her home.  Due to road closures we had to drive about a mile to reach her bungalow. It made me realize how difficult it is for older people to get around, she could barely walk and could hardly get in my car and yet she would have had to walk that distance to get home. She thanked me not once but several times. The glasses were eventually found. Her cat had knocked them into a box.

It is easy to take physical fitness for granted but once you  experience partial loss of your legs the world becomes a very different place. It was a good lesson for me to learn consideration for other people.

A comment about management protocol

I heard over coffee a complaint about the vicar who decided that a woman’s evening could not take  place because another event, a Remembrance of the Dead, was due to take place beforehand. I made a mental note that before making a decision which affects other people to check it with them beforehand even if from my point of view what should be done is completely clear. People do not appreciate being ignored, or the perception of being ignored, and  conversely they do value being asked for their opinion.  It is very easy for administrators and organizers to run ahead of the pack and then wonder why people are hesitant about volunteering, or giving their opinion.

Listening to the advice of advanced off-planetary beings

This is a brief excerpt from the video (link below)

Question:  So we need to stay optimistic and  generate high vibrations to help this birthing process of this liberated Earth to go forward but there are others putting out information that the Earth is controlled by evil ones and the future is very much a doom and gloom and that we need a solar flash or some catastrophic event to reset everything.

Answer: you mentioned those who work with dark narratives. They are owned by the dark energy and work for them. They work for the enemies of humanity. Whatever delay in revelations is happening just observe that a delay allows you more opportunity to evolve consciousness and take all the deception and the harm that is done to this world. Take it as a tool to uncover the reality of your old consciousness. How do you react to this? how can you process this and see the higher picture that is behind the scenes generating this at the scale of the universe without  the comprehension of source?

The delays work in truth for the evolution of humanity; this is an opportunity that is given to humanity for understanding, and to be more prepared when the truth comes out. It may seem painful but at the end of the game it serves the human’s evolution. It prepares you better. The more the delays are stretched the more time you have to  gain the opportunity to prepare yourself, so this is a good challenge.

The Dark forces cannot win whenever they try to do something to bring humanity down in vibration so it serves the evolution of consciousness. Take whatever happens as a challenge and a tool and step by step.

Question – so my final question is what would you say to people who feel that they’re at the end of the road, that they’re at their limits, that whether it’s through financial difficulties or health problems or whether it’s emotional issues they feel they can’t wait anymore. It is the end of the line ?

Answer: Life is the gift from source and you need to own it and celebrate it when you see it.  It will create a hopeful future because it will be grounded into who you are.

See the full video here.

Feedback/ thanks or lack of it for my efforts

I do quite a lot of things for quite a lot of people.  I call it ‘looking out for other people’ but strangely and I think predictably, I very rarely receive thanks or even acknowledgement. This does not affect my engine since the intentions are to help the community and do anything that I can for people to help them on the way to truth and enlightenment. I only go where I am invited. In other words I don’t try to push open a closed door. If the door has been opened then I will enter.

A large part of people’s attitude is formed by indoctrination which includes absorbing the mainstream media. This is the most difficult thing of all to deal with, to convince people that they have been misled. For this reason I do not harangue or criticize people but ask people questions that hopefully will start a train of thought. That is all I can do.

There are exceptions to the taciturn approach of clients. I gave a reading to someone on Monday and heard from the mother as follows

Yes, we have both noticed some improvement, literally only in the last day or so: he’s been listening to his music again, he was using his online flight simulator again, he got up & dressed himself this morning and he changed the car clocks without being asked! All progress. Oh and he’s been standing his ground better with his brother’s frustrations with him.

It’s always gratifying to have it evidence that you are not wasting your time. I put my best out for everybody in blind faith you could say.

So let’s consider some reasons why people would not say thank you or acknowledge you.

# Maybe they feel foolish because they  feel they should have sorted the problem out themselves and in a way want to move on and forget about it.

# Maybe they did not want to absorb the implications of what I told them and do not thank me for waking up their still sleeping soul.

# Maybe they do not want to accept the challenge that I have given them in terms of facing their situation and dealing with people accordingly

#  Maybe they just had too much ‘on the go’ and could not give the time and attention to our conversation.

# Maybe they are being influenced by various technological factors such as wavelengths given out in the wireless broadcasting system, or indeed from those in their lives who do not want them to progress.

# Maybe they did not find the material relevant and cast it aside. This would then be my failing to perceive what they were able to take or receive.

# Maybe they are just plain thoughtless souls and have not been trained in good manners.

I also think that some people are just not ready for a reading. They present themselves because they were persuaded to by someone else, a relative or parent, and did not really want to come,  so they are going through the motions. I would say that only about one in 10 people that I saw at public New Age exhibitions were willing and ready to do what was required to make a change.

It is possible that our style, or indeed the style of anyone, needs to be looked at. When I have gone to seek  professional help I observed that therapists or counselors can speak at too fast a rate to absorb,  as the subject is familiar to them. They carry on with their conversation feeling that they have to deliver a certain amount of wisdom each session. I would counter that by saying that unless someone understands what you have said, there is no point in moving on to the next point. Hear – consider – absorb – digest.

Most of the people that I have worked with actually fear pauses in conversation. In other words if there is more than a few moments of silence they feel obliged to fill it in some way with a question or comment. I find that I need a few seconds or even perhaps  a minute of silence to consider my position especially if someone has put their finger on an embarrassing or tricky point.

A therapist does not get paid by the word but by the safe space that they create for others, to enable them to move forward.

A therapist can utter all the wisdom in the world and yet someone unable to receive it will feel under pressure or even bored or frustrated.  A therapist should consider that just one word or one phrase may be all that the analysand needs  to move them forward. The reason I object to people who have a full appointment book is that they don’t have enough in their psychic battery to detect if a person has heard and reacted to what they have to say.

For this reason I went on a coaching course and I’m a member of the Coaching Academy. This was a number of years ago but I have learned lessons about the need to let people work out their own situation.   If someone is trying to do a jigsaw puzzle my job is to show them the pieces, not to place them in position.

I can put this another way saying that from the moment I opened my mouth as a counselor or therapist I’m trying to work myself out of a job.  If I give road directions to someone I want them to take the directions rather than them standing still in one place or driving around in circles.   I find that with such people you are saying words that you should not have to say and you are trying to take over their free will and somehow control them, which is very wearing.  That is why I prefer clients who are open.

The same thing applies when I do gardening. I will not work with people who are closed and petty.  It is no fun at all and wears you out.

Come to that, the same thing applies when talking to someone on the phone. If they go on for half an hour just talking about themselves and do not listen to you why not switch a recording apparatus and leave them to it?

On that note, I close for today

A daily personal record of my life in Somerset (scroll down for latest entry)

Following the example of great diarists, you are invited to read my take on life as I see it based in the county of Somerset,  England and beyond. Feel free to add your own input to what is becoming a communal experience.

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Have a great day and may you have many more.

Brian Snellgrove,  Editor and diarist

NB A cork will float, irrespective of the depth of the water. Your spirit will keep you afloat. Listening to mainstream ‘news’ is unlikely to.

Times they are a changing

Courtesy of the change to our time to GMT we were ‘gifted’ with an extra hour in bed this morning. I always go through a mild existential questioning when I ask if the clock has gone backwards or forwards. Of course we will pay for it this evening but I think that’s livable with.

Why I write my diary, nth iteration

I’ve decided to mention on a regular basis the significant videos that I watch just for my own records to remind myself what has been an impact for me. Here is one that will  introduce a topic which we can call Exopolitics that  is all about other life forms indeed other humanity that exists apart from our planet Earth or Terra as it is called.

I’m going to throw you in the deep end and you can follow up if it is within your will and interest to do so.  The Jupiter Hub, Moon, Medbeds, Ukraine & Israel/Palestine – A Conversation with Thor Han Eredyon

I must do some more research on the motives of the diarists who have kept a record of their daily activities and thoughts. I wonder if my motive falls in line with theirs. My motive is to give a living and accurate picture of what it is like to be me, a human being in this age of war, lies and deceit. I write about the ups and downs, the doubts, the experiences, if I make what I call progress, it all goes into the pot. This is a good introduction to the topic.

I can sympathize with André Gide who said ‘ Whenever I get ready to write really sincere notes in this notebook, I shall have to undertake such a disentangling in my cluttered brain that, to stir up all that dust, I am waiting for a series of vast empty hours, a long old, a convalescence, during which my constantly reawakened curiosities will be at rest; during which my sole care will be to rediscover myself’

I guess he must have had many demands on his time because I do not find such a problem getting in to gear. I have trained my mind / brain so that my target of 1500 words normally comes about without difficulty.  The brain is the ultimate relational data base so it can do unlimited ‘joining of the dots’ and extrapolations so I don’t think I will run out of inspiration any time soon. It is INspiration not EXpiration by the way.

Dear reader, take from my material and make of it what you will. The readership is small. Sometimes I get 200 page visits per day, sometimes less that half that but it has never made any difference to the focus on what I write. Certainly the lessons I learn can be  transferred to other areas of my life, generally the result of discipline and increased awareness. I hope to start a diary group for anyone and everyone maybe early next year.

(Some of) the World at War

(I am jumping around here) I returned from church and we had lunch. After lunch we turned on Al Jazeera TV, one of the few reliable political commentary programs available, and we watched two hours of description of how the Gaza strip has been continually bombed and destroyed during the past three weeks starting October 7 2023.  . They are bombing human beings. They are bombing hospitals. Israeli troops are shooting teenage males in the genitals and girls in the vagina to stop conception of a population that they obviously consider to be animals,  or in their terms,  goyen. As an impassioned witness said, how many more people have to die or be murdered before the west takes any notice. I am embarrassed at our leaders here in the United Kingdom as they cannot bring themselves to condemn the violence and ask for a ceasefire.

The brutal violence  is in front of our eyes and yet we do nothing. This is not quite true because marches are taking place all over the world but unfortunately the Israeli government thinks that God wants them to run the world by quoting Ezekiel in the Old Testament and will not be deterred. Bombing a hospital full of 12,000 casualties and refugees means as much to them as swatting flies because the Palestinians are not human in their eyes.

My church service

Nothing of this was discussed at our church service this morning. I always rely on any and all meetings to give me inspiration for what I’m going to talk about. This morning was no exception. I met a visitor. G. who had not found a satisfactory church to inspire him from the point of view of doctrine and protocol. This I totally understood and listened to him with undivided attention. I’ve jokingly said that he was a difficult customer but we did agree that in any church setting we had to compromise. I could not agree more with this because I compromise with the Vineyard group where I do not fully identify with the asking Jesus to come into our lives as if by default he was not in our lives. We ask him to move whatever that means when it is us and our free will but has to do the moving. During these times, keep quiet and respectful and let them get on with it.

This calls me to consider my own position with regard to churches that I have attended. About 30 years ago I attended a church presided over by Dr Martin Israel who was a holy man, dislikes the church as an establishment, and was transparent about himself and his failings. I attended the church for about three years, it was in Kensington in London and attracted to congregation of about 50. I remember once when a couple with a child came into the church and the child started crying thus disrupting everything and no doubt his thought processes. He did ask from the pulpit that the child leave the church which they duly did. I talked with him afterwards about this and he said he felt bad about it but I said that the needs of the congregation come first and that the parents must have known that their child was being disruptive. In other words their behavior was selfish.

As I have described before, I attended the church of my father, St Andrews, Guilderfield Road, Streatham, London SW16 in a church now amazingly burnt down, We moved to Norfolk when I was 16 years of age and during this time I did not attend church. I moved to London to commence work and then at the age of 20 was accepted as a student of Saint Johns College, Durham, where they had a splendid Cathedral.  They were one of the few colleges that did not require Latin. I did not attend services at the Cathedral as was the daily custom of the whole school. Looking back, do not understand why I was a recidivist.

Only when I came to Somerset did I start attending church. I attended the Methodist Church in Midsomer Norton High Street for a couple of years and was impressed by the larger congregations and the down to earth nature of the officiant. They also had a served lunch for four pounds every Tuesday and I attended and volunteered in the kitchen to serve them. Unfortunately, there was a rather officious lady that came in to organize us and I found her tone off-putting so I quietly exited stage left

I attended Church of England services for 2-3 years at All Saints Paulton  but then the tenancy changed and the new vicar arrived, and was very keen on introducing new ideas which included getting rid of the organ and choir and relying on his own efforts with a guitar. What did it for me was that he allowed his children to run around the church during services, an action that I found very disturbing and made me unable to concentrate on what was being said. Regarding complaints about the noise of the children he did not respond.

The only manifestation of my interest remained meeting with a group of quite lively parishioners at the coffee morning every Tuesday between 10 am and 11:30 am. It is nice to exchange information with fellow believers even though the conversation is very local.

As with my new contact G, and myself, we seem to have the same type of problem. If it’s not the protocol that is wrong, it is the personality of the priest or vicar or the denomination or the actual faith type e.g. Salvation Army, Catholic, Methodist, Quakers even the Church of England. Are we both destined to be Rolling Stones going from one establishment to another?  From what my new friend described, it sounds as if he would have been better off in the early church environment where people met in secret in each other’s homes. He did say to me that he clams up when there are more than a certain number of people gathered together. Yes, my behavior changes too.

I think there are as many ways of worshiping as there are people on the earth and I suggest that we need as a methodology to identify what we wish to AVOID, in case so-called clappy people who put in shopping lists to God, plus ill discipline in the church, and doctrine that is plainly wrong. I would personally go for a quiet contemplative group where we can meditate on the important things of life and share our life experience. I get on best with people who are actually doing something and I reminded of the text, be doers of the Word and not just hearers of the word.

I’m not very good at evangelical matters. The idea of going up to people and ask them if they knew Jesus may work in some cases but for me I prefer to inquire about them in general and ask them questions which may or may not lead to curiosity about the Christian religion. I think with strangers, it is what I call ‘pushing it’ to mention Jesus at the first meeting without prompting. I would rather tell them what I’m doing and then say that it is prompted by a love of the community and following my faith and let them respond if they are so moved.

The address this morning was about the use of Sunday, describing it as a day of restoration and renewal. We were reminded that we should use our precious freedom to serve one another. I commented on the abjuration to ‘pray without ceasing’ which Saint Paul said and I said that we were not supposed to be on our knees all the time but having an attitude of mind of connectedness towards God so we would be effectively praying.

You may be also aware that I’m very good at talking to strangers and had developed this to a fine art but this has been written about elsewhere in this journal.

Back to the service itself. During this morning’s episode we had a testimony from one of the leaders, Drew, who described his conversion to Christianity. He had sat on the fence for many years and although he showed an interest, not committed himself. He finally responded in his own time and in his own way after promptings from his girlfriend now his wife. He announced his conversion and giving his life to Jesus via a text message. She called him up not having read the message as she was in Wales with very little signal. Finally she read the message and was overjoyed at his conversion. At times, he found it difficult to give the testimony without breaking down into tears but managed to hold it together. I do admire someone speaking from the heart even though it is difficult.

After the testimony we were invited to gather in small groups and give testimony to each other. Not a lot came out of our group but we did discuss the importance of authenticity, being aware at all times, and praying without ceasing which basically means that prayer is not a question of the mumbling of words but of an attitude of continual contact with our creator.

Our allotment

Mainly due to the enthusiasm of my partner Françoise, our two allotments are cultivated and today she bought home a great variety of greens, unsullied by artificial fertilizers with which we are happy to feed ourselves. The annual general meeting of our motley Crew of allotmenteers is going to take place next week. Due to the method of my enforced departure I feel no identity with it and shall not be attending. Basically I have said all I can say through my work and if people wish to continue with the work they will follow the example that I have set. Up to the membership in general, those who turn up, to make their points of you. RIP

My car

As you may have noticed, I re-designed the left rear door of the car through an encounter with a concrete post. I sprayed some paint on it which made it look even worse but today I went to get a paint solvent which would not skin the whole thing alive. You paint it on with the brush like a jelly and it makes the paint more like a jelly and you scrape it off.  I used a credit card. I went over the area at dusk this evening and low and behold the body work looks much better. Next week I will get the garage to unbuckle the door and hopefully we will have something that looks like it did before.

My last few gardening jobs for 2023

Animals live in harmony with nature.  We are part of nature but we are not animals.  I find myself responding very strongly to the seasons. I am winding down my garden work now and will probably do two or three more jobs then  I will watch while nature goes to sleep and then reinvent itself next year. There may be the odd winter job but I can see myself starting in April May 2024.

Synchronicity  Symposium given by the Galileo Commission ‘Synchronicity and the Nature of Consciousness’

I have been writing recently about how the ideal lecture series or symposium or gathering should take place in terms of protocol and content.

The Scientific and Medical network of which I am a member together with an associated entity The Galileo Commission has put this together.  It is extremely refreshing that this whole event has been put on for no charge. I will not pay more than a nominal amount for any information because so much is free. I have admired David Icke over the decades – not just the years –  for his courage, his prodigious output of books, and his stubbornness in not giving up in spite of having been ridiculed. The only thing that does not ‘fit’ with this is him charging for premium videos in his IKONIC group, if I recall the annual fee is close to £100. I feel that public resource information should be made available free of charge or at a reasonable price. The Scientific and Medical Network charge me £60 a year or five pounds a month which I’m more than happy to pay.

Anyway, I signed up for this symposium a few days ago and was told that over 500 people were expected but in the event we had around 180 people. This does show the fickleness of the general public because it is not every day that an event of this quality is offered free of charge. The first two talks were about personal experiences of synchronicity, people popped up just when you needed them, isn’t life wonderful and magical etc. Perhaps I am the wrong target but I started to get bored. We were given various names and appellations to phenomena on various levels but when all said and done we all have one consciousness and automatic communication via our higher self should happen automatically and regularly without so much as raising an eyebrow.

I ask myself the question, ‘do I remember more of the lecture or talk if I see images’. Some of the most impressive people I have ever heard used illustrations, some did not.  I am most drawn to the magnetism of a particular person and the relevance of what they say and I really couldn’t care less about the images and sometimes I find them a distraction. I reckon if something strikes you at the brain level or indeed the soul level, it bypasses all the imagery. Comics do not have visual backup but they are funny and memorable never the less.   Why not create images in people’s minds.

We had a 30-minute break after the first speakers plus question and answer. There was a host and a couple of co-hosts. The chap who was giving the presentation just walked out of his room and we were faced with looking at an empty chair for 10 minutes. People requested that there could be a facility for us to chat to each other rather like zoom meetings when it always happen but someone had forgot or did not consider it important to flip a switch. That switch would have been to unmute people and change the view to gallery. That means that we could have spoken to each other. There was some frustration at not being able to share and we had to content ourselves with writing remarks in the chat.

I keep on asking, in vain, for all speakers to meet and have a dress rehearsal to make sure everything is alright technically. One of the speakers had his microphone on a very insecure foundation and when he moved the table the whole image shook and that was distracting. After a time, one host had to ask him to be more careful but the rocking did continue. It is not technically difficult to assemble speakers 15 minutes before, go through all the technicalities of ZOOM to remind people what they should and should not do. This means that the audience will have a better experience

I may watch some more tomorrow but I’m more likely to flip through the thing at high speed when I get a copy of the event in a few days time. I have enclosed some of these live images that I photographed using my camera and I have made some comments.

I like this first slide, I call it a ‘slide’ but that shows how old-fashioned I am. It is of course an electronically produced image. It is quite common these days for speakers to show some text and then read it through as if we could not see it. I used to think that this was overkill but now I believe it is a way of focusing people’s attention on something that they maybe unfamiliar with. I do not think it is patronizing or insulting to their intelligence. We may just need to hear some things again and again and so many demands are made on our attention and indeed our time.

One size fits all is less effective

This image has the heading of Universal Consciousness. Some features are described in very simplistic ways but I wonder how much people can move on in there understanding. It is so easy to give a nod to the jargon without looking for example at dimensionality. Which dimension or dimensions do we live in?

This is a very bold and I think naive statement. Are we saying that the ideal matching factors are the psychic and a physical state or event? How do we know that they have no causal relationship to each other when we cannot see energy and where our observations are mainly confined to the physical plane.

A key signature concept in Jung’s vision of the world, synchronicity was defined by Jung as ‘an acausal connecting principle, whereby internal, psychological events are linked to external world events by meaningful coincidences rather than causal chains’.

Others would describe spiritual synchronicities as ‘strategically orchestrated and perfectly aligned events to deliver a message, provide guidance, or provide reassurance that we’re on the right path’. This is a description not an explanation

Another one ‘the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality. used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung.’

Note to speakers – find out the level of your audience before you do a visual presentation. If necessary, talk to the organiser.

This image was obviously written for a popular audience and this brings me to the topic of know your audience. If a group of people have been studying spirituality for years, they know all this and I for one do not expect such floppy language as in item three ‘ strings of things like 11:11’. I assume she is referring to the clock time.

This example is most confusing, scatter-gun approach, and hastily put together,’ sometimes media mirror your mind’ is questionable English and ‘songs reflect your current experiences’. Well that’s a broad church if ever there was one but I’m not quite sure how this is supposed to help us in our quest.

This image shows signs of being hastily put together,  I am not quite sure what to make out of ‘can be funny or aesthetically pleasing’

Synchronous events are one of the many factors to indicate that you might be on the path that is right for you. Experientially, I would disagree with the inclusion of this as a confirmation factor. Sometimes I receive no synchronicity apart from a feeling that a particular action is correct and this is found to be true after the event.

As a Christian, I would be guided by the spirit of God, or let us say the Holy Spirit, that spirit is about bringing people closer to together, many souls into one spirit. If you’re orientated in this way you will get one set of results but if you are orientated towards separation and conflict and warfare, will get another set of results.

I’m sure synchronistic things happen to malefactors as well. In other words it is a universal system that works for everybody if only they would choose to observe. It is so easy to walk along the streets with our headphones plugged in listening to some music and completely ignoring all the symptoms and signs of what is going around us.

Maybe synchronicity is just a fancy word for saying ‘union of consciousness’

Quotes of the day

Although I became frustrated at certain times I carried away many valuable snippets including

Can we share and delight in our own voice mixing with others and be one with this light

My consciousness has to change to meet the highest

Let’s the light in US meet the divine light

The human in the Divine, and in the human

In our preparation for our next life, remember that heaven is not an actual place on this earth it is a state of mind

A science is a particular type of imagination

We need to recover a richer sense of our community

Question – what can we creatively contribute to manifesting the truth while remaining aware of the nonsense around us

Can we be the expression of the Divine in the world

Rowan Williams the former Archbishop of Canterbury said that we should know about what we love

Live in joy that flies, this is guide and the way to eternal life

Grace perfect nature. We are all called to be active – which opens up to more

Mark Vernon, one of the speakers remarked on the richness of Dante’s Inferno. I did a quick search on my second screen and found a PDF version. The text is enormously rich and symbolic and I reckon it would take a good six months, for say half an hour a day, to grasp some of the meaning

Dent in my car

I did it very silly thing on Thursday and backed my car out of Halfords next to our petrol station here in town and I scraped a concrete bollard and of course the car came off worse. I have redesigned the rear passenger door. I immediately ordered two panel pullers from Amazon, one small and one large, and neither of them worked so I shall get a refund from Amazon. If I claim on the insurance I’m sure it will be the better part of 500 pounds because it is a model Volvo that is 20 years old and a new door from Volvo would be impossible to get so the answer would be to find a breakers yard and see if someone can take a door off an old Volvo for me. Otherwise, I will just leave it and spray over the obvious scrapes.

I continue to be amazed by the profundity of saintly people with a vision, and no axe to grind; these people see things for what they are, that we are portable versions of God or God in physical form or an aspect of God which can be  partly seen in physicality. The criterion for an absolute truth is that it should be simple to understand by every living being and this is about as clear as it gets. A great way to start the day (well, my day anyway).

Features of a boring person

Anyway, to our main topic of our discussion today. One of the topics that came up in myself and John’s rather anarchistic discussions were ‘what is the definition of a boring person?’ I think it is worth a deep dig.

What is the origin of the word ‘bore’?

From 1778, “thing which causes ennui or annoyance by dullness;” earlier “state of boredom, fit of listless disgust” (1766); of persons who cause boredom by 1812; usually said to be a figurative extension of bore (v.1) on the notion of “move forward slowly and persistently,” as a boring tool does, but OED has doubts and early evidence suggests a French connection.

Le secret d’ennuyer est celui de tout dire (The secret of being a bore is to tell everything) [Voltaire, “Sept Discours en Vers sur l’Homme,” 1738]

We also have a french equivalent which does not quite translate into English.

mal du siecle (n.)

by 1884, from French mal du sìecle, “world-weariness, atrophy of the spirit, aristocratic boredom, deep melancholy over the condition of the world,” supposedly a characteristic condition of young romantics in Europe in the early 19c. It answers to German Weltschmerz.

We are normally bored with boring people. The word boredom can be used when you yourself have nothing to do. ‘ I got bored waiting around for so and so to come’.

Off the top of my head, boring people have these characteristics: They are mainly interested in the themselves and the way they see the world, they go on and on about trivial subjects and their attitude is unvarying and predictable, if other people make recommendations as to how they could change, those recommendations are ignored, the boring person will not listen to you and simply wait while you are speaking for an appropriate trigger word which they will then use to jump in with a continuation of their own point of view.

Other types of people related to boring people are snobs. They really look down their nose at you and may regard you as a lesser being depending for example on the way you are dressed or some other characteristic of you. They think of themselves as being superior. Their superiority may or may not be their intellect. I have noticed that some of the kindest and most gracious people have been the ones with the greatest intellect but they do not flaunt it.

A characteristic of boring people is a person who always sees the negative side of things and a person who complains constantly. if the proposal, someone will think of a way why this is not a good idea.

Another characteristic is that if a person doesn’t know much about the topic, instead of joining with you in your inquiry or discussion, they remain impassive and unexpressive,  plus you could almost expect them to speak in a monotone.

Another type of irritating person is someone who at a social event looks over your shoulder in case they miss something else that is interesting. I don’t know whether it’s because they are bored with you or whether it’s just bad manners. Perhaps a bit of both.

Another type of boring person is there false chameleon-like attitudes. They will agree with someone wholeheartedly and then someone else will come along with a different opinion and they will agree as well. There are also what I call nice bores – they complement other people too much and say that everything is terrific.

A boring person cannot engage with you except on their own terms. I knew a radio ham once who spoke about nothing but he’s world of Long Distance radio communication. They have this great habit of turning topics around two soup themselves without having to go outside their safe territory.

Another type of boring person will tell the same old joke and stories time and time again and the poor partner has to suffer. This is basically due to living in the past and not meeting new people with a view to updating your ‘library of funny jokes’ for example.

I find people without a sense of humor very boring and I frequently associate them with obsessive adherence to certain political causes.

How to avoid being boring

It may be that a bored or boring person is in with the wrong crowd. You cannot be the life and soul of a party if everyone else is interested in gardening except you.  Maybe the answer to being bored is to find a group with similar interests.

How about reading a book? Have 2 or 3 books on the go so you always have something fresh to talk about. Dont read to impress people but to form the basis of a back and forth conversation about something meaningful.

You have lost your sense of wonder and have become cynical.  Poor little me. Who loves me? What can I do that is useful for others.

You spend too much time on social media, recycling information at a down to earth level and trying to get ‘likes’ through venting your opinion.

You are too occupied with your own problems. You have been for ages. You dont have the incentive to break out and find someone who can assist you. In other words you have become introspective.

It may be that you are stuck in a comfort zone and it is just too comfortable.  Where and what is the challenge?   Is it not exciting to meet people who are involved in a challenge, for example to change an aspect of society or to make life more pleasant for someone else?

Some people may be boring because they are in a rut.  They are waiting for a life changing event that is not happening.

Famous Quotes

Let us see what famous (and not so famous) individuals have to say about boredom.

She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald, The Collected Writings

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”
― Émile Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise

“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.”
― Louis C.K.

“The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“The writer’s curse is that even in solitude, no matter its duration, he never grows lonely or bored.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Boredom is the conviction that you can’t change … the shriek of unused capacities.”
― Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

“The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.”
― Hugh MacLeod

———

I think that will do for the moment. There is certainly more to boredom than meets the eye (or the brain at first glance). Good luck everyone. My tip is to annoy or stimulate at least one person each day preferably with an outrageous comment.

Thoughts on leaving as a guest.

I have known my friend John for about 40 years and there aren’t that many people that I can say that I have had relationships of such duration. People often drift away from each other and although they might meet occasionally to say hello the duration tells its own story and speaks its own message. I have another friend called Gregory who I met at the age of about 20 through a grill at the Streatham (London) sorting  post office.   This relationship has lasted a similar time.

In a way I want to return to get back to familiar surroundings, and in a way I would rather stay because whenever I am with John I always get stimulated with looking at the same subject from different points of View. For example, I shall be writing later  about the difference between soul and spirit. We also discussed whether we tolerate people who have different views then ours, or those who have a limited willingness to learn. Is it worth spending time with these people in the hope that they will change?

I have discovered a fault in my car, not an actual fault but a defect in the drivers tyre. There are wires that have been exposed and I suppose it makes the tyre illegal but the annoying thing is that the tread conforms to the specification so I wonder how safe the car is to drive. On the way across country I dropped in to a Quick Fit  garage, I had a look at the car, and decided that the situation was not bad enough to interrupt my journey so I proceeded home.

By way of a refreshment break, I stopped off at the Organic Farm Shop, originally called Abbey home Farm, 2 miles from Cirencester in Gloucestershire.  You will gather that I askew the M4. I like to drive fairly slowly but even in the slow lane  I tend to annoy people and I find the whole thing a bit of a strain so I’m very happy to go cross country from Banbury to Bath and enjoy the scenery, stop as I like, see the entertaining pubs and shops along the way, and admire the countryside.

It was 11:30  when I turned up at the shop where there is an excellent cafe. It was only 11 30 and they only start serving lunch at midday. I decided to have a latte with almond milk and was quite shocked to be charged a (to me) record price of £4.25 for the same.  I was quite shocked by this since it wasn’t even a particularly large cup of coffee but you have to understand that the background of this is the clientelle of what I can describe as quite a snobby and choosy clientele.  I  rang home and said that I would not be having lunch which actually turned out to be the best decision. Main courses are now about £15 

As if the coffee was not expensive enough, I have never come across six eggs for £3.25.  All the food is very good quality and the vegetables are all locally grown, many of them in the adjoining farm project itself. If people are willing to pay £3.25 for eggs then so be it  and good luck to the sellers but I find it’s a bit disproportionate, bordering what I call silly money.

I wandered around a bit and had a look at the poly tunnels. They must be about 50 meters long and they were growing many crops relevant to the the cafe including salad of course but also leeks

The whole venture is actually quite exciting consisting of a farm, with the subheading ‘experiential learning’. A testimony reads thus: there have been so many positives spin-offs for the young people but I would summarize it in the following way : each of the children now has the seed of an idea that life can be different.
A participant says ‘I did things I thought I would never do in my whole life’ this is a young lady of 11 who lived in York

However, if you look at the whole venture, for me it represents the microcosm of society. In case you find this notice difficult to read, the monika is the land is not ours but belongs to the future and it is our responsibility to leave it in good heart. We are committed to re-establishing the connection between nature, farming and food and believe that, as Farmers and land stewards, we have a responsibility to efficiently produce food for the local community while protecting our soil and creating and maintaining biodiversity.

There are various headings which are expanded on the website including family history, history of the land which we find dates back to the Bronze Age. We read about organic practice and principles and find that organic agriculture is based on the principles of health, of ecology, of fairness, and of care. We then read about animal welfare and the farm and find that they rear hundreds of dairy cows, beef cows, 600 sheep, 350 laying hens, pigs and even a boar.

We then learn about the Organic Farm Shop and cafe which sells over 200 varieties of fruits come a vegetables and flowers. I bought an excellent loaf of bread for £3.25. There is a slogan thanks to the earth, thanks to the farmers and growers, and thanks to the sun and the rain. They also do woodland walks with the theme ‘sit in the woods and be still for a moment’. They also have eco venues and accommodation where you can choose from a variety of accommodations to get back to nature.

They also give talks on soil, geology and climate, and they also emphasize wildlife, listing what animals and birds can be found on the farm. They also talk about conservation and biodiversity, quite a lot about renewable energy though I don’t quite know what they’ve done in this respect and finally access and education. It is quite clear that this example or model has an influence that spreads far and wide. I do wish the announcement was a little less weather worn as it was difficult to read which is why I will refer you to the website which is here.

There is a subsidiary website   www.thefarm.education

Arriving Home

Arriving home from anywhere after a break is always a pleasure. When I first see my house I’m glad that it is still standing and has not been broken into. Although the rates of burglary are quite low in this part of the world you never know who would want to get up to what.  I find that houses with burglar alarms are almost an invitation because it implies that there is something valuable inside.

When I first arrive I find that for a couple of hours at least I have not arrived so I do various mindless things like unpack, glance over mail if any, see how the garden is, have a snack to eat, and of course greet my other half with a summary of my trip.     I then settle down to writing my diary. With longer breaks when holidays occur, I write the current day while it is in my immediate memory straight away, and then start from day one and move forward.

Closing ceremonies are distinctly lacking. When I say goodbye to my host I tend to say the right things and exhibit gracefulness for what they have done for me in terms of their hospitality. I try to be an ideal guest and leave the room where I slept in as tidy a condition as possible and I always strip the bed and bring the sheets etc downstairs to be washed.   I had an arrival ceremony where I went out and bought a bottle of red wine and gave some reflections of my visit to Francoise.   I feel much better after a closing ceremony and an opening ceremony, I don’t just want to lurch into something and get on with it.

I was shocked this morning to hear how refugees are treated in terms of the generosity of the UK Government – and our tax money. I was told that in August this year 175,000 refugees  had arrived on these shores.  Not only to they get free board and lodging, but they get if I can remember, £45 a week, free phones and bill payment, free National Health Service treatment, free travel home and return once every two years, free visits to the doctor, and if they want it a free Green Card to go to America.

I can hardly believe I’m writing this.  All the while, English nationals are homeless and suffering, and I can only see this as a part of a deliberate plan to introduce alien people who have no empathy with Brits and in my view will be used as a standing army to reinforce legislation should it ever come to this stage. I also understand from three or four sources that ammunition has been supplied to some of the refugees in their accommodations. Some of what I hear from trusted sources is beyond understanding, and this is one of them.

I was invited to join my hosts in a cafe in the middle of nowhere. This is English for saying ‘it’s not near a well-known landmark or town’. However in the belief that you my reader will want to visit this place, the details are as follows:

Eydon Road Woodford Halse, Unit 1 Dairy Farm, Old Stratford, GB NN11 3RG Phone+44 1327 260818   https://www.harleycountrylifestyle.com/

they recently got an award for something or other. The French manager certainly displayed his frenchness and moved around like a ballet dancer if a trifle affected.

I ordered a quiche, John ordered a croissant and Jeanie ordered an avocado and salmon sandwich. I was amazed by the amount of salmon that Jeanie received. When my Quiche arrived I can say it was the most delicious and well cooked example I have ever had.  On the spot I decided to make one just as good.  The pastry was not too crumbly and it was a soft, melt in the mouth stuff.

John’s croissant was certainly enough to keep him going. There were only about 30 covers so they must have to work hard to earn their money. Horsey people will appreciate it as they sells livery in another part of the building. I was so enthusiastic about the main course that I decided to have a cake which was walnut and something which again melted in the mouth.

On leaving, I mentioned to the French maitre’ D that you could taste the love in the food but he must have been busy as I did not get a meaningful response. Never mind, I put it out there.

Today, a brief diary entry as our conversation was private.

I came out of my room to go down and have breakfast and a woman approached me and said, ‘you must be the author of one of the Alice in Wonderland follow up books. I gave it to my nephew and he did not put it down having read the whole thing at one sitting’. I did not tell her that I hadn’t got a clue what she was talking about but acknowledged gracefully and said that it was a pleasure.

I had a leisurely breakfast and I estimated there were only about half the number of people that there were on a Saturday night. I was approached by a chap I’ve known for many years called John Kitson who was very upfront about his Christian Faith and offered to help me with my website Home page / landing page. In the next breath he said he was going to see his girlfriend in the Philippines and would call me in a few days. At first I thought he was playing around but I realized that the internet is Worldwide and you can do whatever you want wherever you want so long as you have an internet connection. In that sense I am grateful for technology.

My friend lives near works for that amazing white elephant, HS2. They have been working in the same area for the last year now and goodness knows how many millions of pounds have been spent on the area that I can see with my own eyes. It must be about two miles in length. Recently they have cancelled the Birmingham to Manchester part with the sop* that they will develop local services. They do not expect the line to be operational until 2042 and even then it will end up at the west of London in Old Oak Common thus necessitating another journey to the Center of London. The whole thing is barmy and I wish they’d spend money on upgrading the salaries of teachers and nurses.
* sop = something unimportant or of little value that is offered to stop complaints or unhappiness:

My friend John is renovating his house to bring it up to standard, repairing the roof and making the house attractive to his wife who is not as mobile as she once was. When I am with John I’m very picky about words and phrases and we discussed the term ‘ beyond the pale’ obviously relating to people’s behavior.

We also had a lively discussion on what makes people boring so later on this week I will write an article on the definition of boring which I look forward to

We also discussed the meaning of the expression,

“beyond the pale,” is to describe the appalling actions of others. It’s a description that they took their actions or words too far, pushing the limits of acceptable behavior. It’s a popular term among politicians who use it to defame opponents’ actions. The origin of “beyond the pale” goes back to the 14th century in England and Ireland. The four eastern counties of Meath, Louth, Dublin, and Kildare were the “obedient shires” and the only part of Ireland remaining under the control of the English crown. People would mark the “King’s perimeter” using wooden fencing known as “pales.” The settlement would fortify the boundary over the centuries, providing protection against cattle and livestock feed ransacking.

And so to bed.

Normally, the Alternative View conference had an annual  weekend conference but on this occasion, the first after Covid and after a 2  year break, we were destined to have a long single day starting at 8:45 a.m. and finishing at about 7:30 p.m.  I decided to have breakfast early and got up for seven am. To my surprise the queues were so great that all the seats were occupied. I discovered that  two groups of travelers were going to leave early in the morning so they had to have breakfast first thing. However, I returned in about half an hour and the crowd had cleared.

Do I have to describe a buffet breakfast? At £12.50 per head it was just about value if you had a lot of croissants, cheeses, porridge, and such fruit as was on offer apart from of course from the cooked dishes which had fairly decent sausages and of course the usual scrambled egg beans etc.  Coffee was obtained from the machines  of which there were four.  Things seem to go smoothly enough. I just sat down wherever I felt like it and had a chat with whoever was sitting opposite me. That’s the nice thing about conferences, you have something in common with others

I know that the conference will be recorded so | don’t need to write any notes so I just jotted down keywords  on my mobile phone. I can also dictate them if I wish but you can’t do that while a talk is going on.  I got to know a fellow delegate fairly well. I went to the back of the hall as I am a bit claustrophobic with crowds and I met he, a fellow sufferer who decided to sit right in the corner away from everybody else. I sat a few places away from him wanting to respect his space.

The problem about sitting at the back is that you are more aware of the doors opening and closing as people come in. It was handled very well but at the interval I had to tell the girls at the reception desk which was behind the door that we could hear every word that they said. One of the girls was from Burnley in Lancashire and had a very penetrating voice. It was not so much irritating as disturbing because my threshold for background noises is very low.

It is not possible in this short time to summarize a whole day of wisdom but one of the moving spirits behind the conference, Brian Gerish,  who used to be in the Navy described how he first started on his mission.  He was rung up by an old friend of his saying that he must come and meet me. Brian said that he didn’t have the time to come all the way down to Cornwall.  The man insisted so eventually he went down and was met by a lady, the caller having apparently gone for a walk.

The lady said that she had to give Brian a message that ‘he must share the truth about things and it was very important for the world’.   She did not know why she was saying this.  Shortly afterwards a gentleman that Brian knew turned up  at his home saying, ‘I don’t know why I am doing this but I think you will need a projector’ and gave him one together with a screen.   Brian has never looked back since.

Brian drew our attention to the term ponerology  which is the study of evil and it’s out-working.  Major subdivisions of the study are the nature of evil, the origin of evil, and evil in relation to the Divine government

Alistair Crowley, the black magician, understood many features of life. Black magic is trying to interfere with someone without asking their permission. In the world, the pendulum has swung too much and it must return.There is a reason for everything behind what we are told. Why should we remove carbon? We need carbon dioxide. It is nature’s fertilizer. But just suppose we wanted to make an atmosphere more comfortable for aliens and they cannot take a high carbon level so we would have to remove it if we wanted them around. It may sound daft but if you look at the logic of today’s government decisions they make no scientific and logical sense at all.

We are told that we must take down trees to reduce carbon dioxide though this is counterproductive to any real science. The real  reason is that trees stop wifi and particularly 5G so we take them down.

So, in general, there is the given reason and the real reason.

The new gospel is ‘you will decarbonize, you should not laugh, you cannot strike back even with an innocent joke.  Humor is banned. You need a soul to understand satire. Battered-down people are easier to control.  It is not necessarily a good idea to hate people but we can despise the government and feel contempt for the government when you see them on television.

There was a note of optimism. Natural law is returning. Don’t Wreck It by being angry. From the spiritual side if we align with the universe and take one step forward the universe will take two  steps towards you. We are supposed to be a pain in the back side. Personal  hubris is doomed to fail in long term. If black magic on the part of those who rule the world fails then the whole thing will collapse so we have our eternal souls versus the dreadful deliberacy of destroying the human being  which is their aim to be achieved by 2030.

Andrew Bridgen’s recent campaigning in the House of Commons has been a success because it has shown the fear of other MPs to listen to the truth and most of them must know that the science is wrong here or rather than there is no science.

These are keynotes –  words which I accept are mainly for me and do not bear much of a resemblance to the whole content of the day. Next week I will be getting a recording of the whole thing so I may reach back and change certain things, on the other hand I may not. It is after all a diary not a literal historical record.

At the various tables at the conference there were leaflets describing various campaigns and good causes with which we were invited to associate ourselves. I won’t burden you with the whole material but these were the leaflets as I could find them which will give a good impression of people’s priorities.

# 15 minute neighborhoods. Do you want to stay within 15 minutes of home? Forever? Act now before it is too late

# the Madness of Net Zer Is this the future you really want for your family? Travel, holiday flight restriction, purchases controlled via carbon credit system, digital energy use controlled and restricted via smart meters

# what’s really going on? Notice how cash is being sidelined. Regular use of cash offers us all freedom, disability, convenience. Cash is good for small businesses on the back of the leaflet was a list of useful websites

# the pharmaceutical industry knows vitamin D saves lives and reduces death from many diseases including covid, flu, cancer,  and many more. If you take around 5.000 iu per day or vitamin D3 your chances of  dying from covid are almost zero

# Stealing your rights through Bills. For example, the Online Harms bill, the Public Order bill, the national security bill, The Education bill, all of these are designed to limit our freedoms

# there was another leaflet that said that UK governments have been captured and are now working for a hidden group consisting of the United Nations, WEF, and WHO who call the shots. Politicians no longer represent our interests

# a climate emergency? Is the earth really so fragile how come it’s been here for a very long time and are we so important to it?

All these leaflets gave us the opportunity to research and draw our own conclusions. I could almost say, let facts speak for themselves and ‘those with ears to hear let them hear’.

So the conference came to an end about 7:30 with much applauding and congratulating and thanking the team. Most of the people left to get home but about half to people’s stayed and were engaged in animated conversation. My head was buzzing with so much information so I decided to go to Wetherspoons and have some good old fish and chips. I like this chain because you know exactly what you’re going to get, what the price will be, and give or take a bit, the quality. One of the things they don’t get right is porridge. I used to order porridge for breakfast and it was always under cooked and I always had to send it back. This is the problem with cooking by numbers.

I was having my drink in Wetherspoons when two staff people announced that there would be a quiz night with prizes totaling 80 pounds. Entry was free but you had to download an app. Well, I really am in the 21st Century.  I fiddled with the app without much success and decided I would leave it anyway as there were 20 minutes to go before the event started.

I returned to the hotel, noticed that many people were still actively engaged in conversation, decided that I’d had enough so I retired to my room, watched TV for a bit and then – to sleep.

PS The hotel had a very nice touch with regard to provision during the conference. There was tea and coffee available at all times. We were served by machines but there were three of them so the queues were not too long during the breaks.