Practical Thoughts

Dear Reader, India, a nuclear power, is the world's largest and democracy and developing at an extraordinary rate. Yet the country's Prime Minister since 2014, Narendra Modi, works 18 hours per day and lives as simply as his station will allow. His family, meanwhile, are even greater examples of simple living. In a country where politicians and senior bureaucrats are reputed to pass large benefits to their family members in terms of jobs, contracts and wealth, here is the Prime Minister whose brothers and cousins live a life of struggle, barely making ends meet. Here's what the brothers and cousins of Narendra Modi do for a living: Please note: Less than 100 rupees make one British pound. 1. Amrutbhai Modi : Elder brother of Narendra Modi, he worked as a fitter in a private company. After retirement, he draws a pension of Rs 10,000 per month. Though his family has a small car, he still travels on a scooter. No one from his family, including his sons, have ever pers...

Dear Reader, The once-famed BBC dropped another brick last night in trying to pin Jeremy Corbyn to the wall. Simply because Corbyn asked some perfectly legitimate questions in the Commons - about "what evidence is there?" (questions still not answered) - he's being touted as being out of touch. Please read this. I would throw the question back at May and Johnson: "Please give real proof as to why you think Putin is to blame" rather than we being treated as though those that don't follow the Tory line are somehow traitors to the UK. The more that the government pursues this line the more I think they're trying to deflect their poor record on Brexit and in dealing with poverty and also the NHS. And something else? This government is incompetent, there's no other word for it. The real sadness is that though I can see the positive aspects of Corbyn, I somehow don't trust him as a future prime minister. But - there again - who else is there?...

Dear Reader, What is really going on in the west in their attitude towards Putin? In particular, is the west right to accuse the Russian government of the nerve agent attack at Salisbury? Where's the evidence, particularly in the light that Russia are by no means the only possessor of the agent. It would behove us, I feel, to look more closely at what's been going on. Firstly, I learn that the secret service departments in Russia still carry on as they have done since Soviet days, so could it be they who master-minded the Salisbury attack (and other attacks) without the knowledge of their government (the Kremlin)? There was a book written in 2014, entitled: "The War Against Putin: What the Government-Media Complex Isn't Telling You About Russia". The Amazon site tells you: In the West, politicians and journalists of all stripes have referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "thug", a "tyrant", a "murderer", a "C...

Dear Reader, Two days ago, before May's government's ultimatum to Russia, I asked for this message to be posted on the 'Letters To The Editor' page of the i newspaper: Dear Sir/Madam, As I believe something like 16 countries have a supply of the nerve agent apparently used in the attack on Skripal and his daughter, how is it that May seems convinced that Russia is the culprit? It does seem to me that attacks on Russia are often created against them even though the evidence is weak. There is also the related attack on RT, which (in my opinion) provides one of the best news outlets around. Interestingly the Mail ran an editorial on Saturday about how wonderful BBC News is (I don't rate it!) just before May's speech yesterday. Are we observing a carefully contrived smeer attack? Though Russia's ways are different to ours, and sometimes questionnable by our standards, it does not make sense to me that the World Cup finals are to be held there thi...

Dear Reader, The announcement of the death of Billy Graham came as a shock to me in some ways, even though he was aged 99.  He was one of those people who you might imagine might live forever, such was his imprint on the western world from the 1950s onwards. Listening to a phone-in show on the radio this morning, the subject of Billy Graham came up just as I switched on, and it is clear that listening to the testimonies of those that knew him, he was a man not just to be respected but even loved. One of those testimonials stated that what he said he lived - Billy Graham had complete integrity. For my part I think he helped enormously to re-awaken people to the existence of religion and God in a new way. I know of quite a number who followed the gospel he taught and the way of life to accompany it to considerable success. However, it is doubtful that Billy Graham did anything to bring the world's attention to the fact that there is only one God, a God that can be call...

Dear Reader, I feel conscious that a change of some great significance will soon be on us (i.e. Planet Earth). What form it will be I cannot say: it may involve many things. To that end, I felt moved to create an additional blog, which I am calling 'Perspectives'. Whilst I shall still write on this blog about specific issues, 'Perspectives' will be an ordered series of papers (starting at the beginning) about a philosophy that I believe we will all need to reflect on, to help tackle forthcoming changes. There is no compulsion on anyone's part to read them, of course. But they will be there, added to every week or two, for your interest and maybe even your comment. In fact, I hope you will make some comment, for the benefit of all readers. Unless the comment is rude I shall not intervene. So, please click here to read the first 'paper' in this new blog called 'Perspectives'. See you there, perhaps!

Dear Reader, The New Year is settling down and is clearly showing us that whatever negative issues existed in 2017 seem to be escalating this year. I am particularly drawn to the news from Oxfam that the gap between rich and poor seems to be exponentially increasing, We are told that this past year has seen "the fastest rise in the number of billionaires ever recorded", and out of a £7.3 trillion increase in global wealth, £6 trillion went to only 75 million people, while the bottom 3.7 billion people received no benefit (reported in i, January 22, 2018). But that's just the economic figures. With the advent of Brexit and Donald Trump, we can clearly see that there has been a swing back towards old methods towards generating revenue. Brexit supporters chortled that "Britain can make itself Great again" as it once did, but I wonder if they realise that Britain's separation from Europe is pushing us to develop arms deals with questionable regimes and...

Dear Reader, Another year is on us! For me time seems to gather pace at an extraordinary rate, but maybe that's to do with the fact that we always seem to be active in something or other. And many a time I seem to find a 'Eureka moment' which attracts my deep attention and soaks up time. One such 'moment' occurred just a few weeks ago when I discovered the extent of the work of children's author W. J. Corbett, who, unknowingly to me for many years, was born in and lived in the area of my upbringing. And this past year or two I've been drafting a history of that area of Birmingham. A few weeks ago I had come to the end of the main body of the book and was looking into finding something appropriate to begin the book, and, lo and behold, Corbett provided the very answer for which I was looking. For those who are unfamiliar with Corbett, his first book ("The Song Of Pentecost") won the Whitbred Award for children's books in 1982, and his work...

Dear Reader, Hello again. The past 3 months or more have been taken up with so many important things that something had to give way. So this blog had to give way. In future, I will try to post at least once a month rather than weekly. I have been doing a kind of bird's-eye review of what's been happening these past 3+ months, and what I see is more of the same, if not worse! Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the other day he felt that the Brexit matter would come to a climax by the middle of next year (2018), and he thought that it would not be the result that the leavers hoped for.  But I see not just that but many other issues coming to a climax as well - notably the viability of the western system of economy. The Church of England's chief primate (Justin Welby) has said that the western economic model is "broken". And I well believe him, especially as the very rich get very much richer while the poorest are more squeezed than ever before. What has...

Dear Reader, On July 19 (just gone) I began to think more deeply about the weather we have been experiencing in this area of the UK, and how the weather forecasters just do not seem to be too accurate about their forecasting. They say they have built bigger and better computers to process the data more accurately - but do they? In particular, the bursts of wind under perpetually gray skies seemed to be odd; plus the fact that summers of old just did not seem to be of the order we've been experiencing this past year or two. And what about the freak weather conditions in Cornwall just a few day ago?  Oh, yes - it's "climate change" isn't it? Well, yes, I'd go along with that, but I'm beginning to suspect a lot more. Perhaps I'm just a suspicious type, but I looked into the strange weather phenomena and saw this photo of the sky over Zurich when the CERN Large Hydron Collider was being powered up: Other news in July 2016 proclaimed that the ...