Marmite

Here’s a blog to jumpstart the old brain cells, or kick them into touch. A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in how we think about and understand life, the universe and everything. The replacement of Ptolemy’s earth-centred universe with Copernicus’ sun-centred system is one example; Newtonian mechanics given the heave-ho by Einstein’s relativity is another. If you prefer, it’s when the ultimate answer is no longer 42; it’s 51.

I don’t like Russell Brand. I find him crude, creepy and cretinous. Well, he is a fan of Jeremy Corbyn.

One year ago, her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died. One day ago, my friend H asked me to write a blog about Britain’s disappearing, or disappeared, work ethic. The late Queen’s work ethic was unparalleled. She never retired. She studied her briefs. She was an example to everyone. The Daily Mail marked the anniversary of her death with accounts of the day, as told by senior guardsmen at the heart of the preparations for her funeral.

In my last blog ( Jelly on a Plate ) I decided that I didn’t “feel sufficiently confident to decide for definite or comment publicly on just how bad the relaxation of the Nutrient Neutrality rules is.” The last couple of days, I’ve read the exchange of letters between the Government and the Office for Environmental Protection (OfEP), extracts from the Levelling up and Regeneration Bill (comically dubbed ‘LURB’) and scanned countless commentaries and soundbites from ‘environmentalists’ that collectively compete with a parrots' enclave. Honestly, I nodded off over my nutrient-loaded, roast (British) beef sandwich. Yes. Beef. Half of the critics of the Government’s environmental policies would cancel Britain’s beef industry and rewild thousands of acres of sweeping pastures with totally inappropriate habitats misinformed by a simplistic ideology that flies in the face of science, history, systems' thinking and pragmatism. 

I had a wobble the other day. A sanity one that is. I went for my usual walk, or at least that’s what I intended to do. Down the lane, round the road, up and down another lane, up and back down a road then retrace my steps home. All on tarmac, albeit Bucks’ tarmac – pockmarked worse than a teenager’s worst nightmare. Not this time. I started off down the lane but, instead of walking past a field opening, I swivelled right and yomped along a farm track, then along a field margin, a few of those actually, until I realised I didn’t know where I was or where I was going. And neither did anyone else.