With our very last breaths we drive on and on – as Armageddon comes

With our very last breath on the road to death

On the road to death with our very last breath

On the road to death with our very last breath

Exceptionally, my comments here are purely supportive.

While there are other sources of carbon pollution,

pushing us down Pope Francis’ “road to death”, mass

car ownership is one feature that locks high carbon

emissions into our everyday lives – even if we all

switch to electric cars: Their manufacture causes

high emissions and makes us work so hard to afford

them. Then we earn enough to fly around the world.

See Planning to be poorer, car free and happier

How can you make sense of a sentence like this?

How can you make sense of a sentence like that?

How can you make sense of sentences like those?

First get your degree in linguistics

And specialise cataphoric and anaphoric references

Then get your doctorate in philosophy

Specialising in Russell’s theory of types

A degree costs the same as a house

A doctorate the same as a mansion

If we could save some money on those

We could send me for lessons in scansion

Auntie Jayne (2024) writes:

In the early nineties when you wrote this Geoffrey,

the cost of a degree may have been the cost of a house.

Now, however, house prices have risen so much that

they easily exceed the cost of getting a degree, which

Times Higher Education puts at between £35,000

and £40,000. You can’t buy a house for that.

That’s unless you can get planning permission for a plot

of land and import one of Elon Musk’s Boxable Prefabs.

But that’s an unlikely scenario. Theoretically, you could

buy a plot big enough for a house for less than £1000

(at agricultural prices) then ask for permission to build

a house on it.

But that’s dreaming.

Information is a relation

Between two states of mind

I know your state

Or

You know my state

So far, that’s fine

It’s rather perverse

That entropy (its inverse)

Depends on one state

Not on two states

And, of course, the arrow of time

Makes this a puzzle to be rhymed

Interesting. That reminds me of and something you said about

Eric Idle’s Galaxy Song. It includes…

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;

As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the

… fastest speed there is.

Many of the facts in this brilliant song are about right with one

serious exception: The universe is actually expanding faster

than the speed of light. How can the universe expand faster

than the “fastest speed there is”? Even Josh doing his PhD in

general relativity doesn’t have a good answer to that.

Update: Josh has now given me an explanation, based on an

analogue of two currents in a current bun. As the bun is

cooked the space between the currents expands at a faster

speed than the currents are moving.

I’m still confused.

I always think it rather odd

That ontological considerations

Stop us giving the poor the jobs

To reduce their alienation.

A subsidised train is a real train

You’ll find that out if you lie on the track

A subsidised farm is real farm

Arable farmers will tell you that

A subsidised loan is a real loan

To buy mansion, house or even a flat

And subsidised art is real art

But some of us might argue with that

Subsidised trains carry Tory commuters

And subsidised food pays Tory farmers

Subsidised loans pay Tory voters

Subsidised art pays for Tory culture

But subsidised jobs offend Tory thinkers

They’d rather see the poor be poor

They’d rather pay them not to work

It gives them pride to sneer about

The layabouts that skive and shirk.

Pensive of York

Auntie Jayne (2023) writes …

Geoffrey, I know this is you. Haven’t you got a life yet? Still

harping on about your policy for labour subsidies paid by

rebates on VAT. OK, it might have been a good idea once

but it’s time you accepted it’s not going to happen.

I know you have been on about this since 1969 and got as

far as a grant from the European Union to fund Professor

Swales excellent report in 1995 [1] but even 1995 is nearly

30 years ago.

I liked your slogan “Subsidise jobs that use lots of labour.

Tax those that don’t” but it’s time to move on.

P.S. I hope you are ashamed of that first verse? It’s awful.

[1] The Employment Effect of Subsidies.

British Manufacturing Industry

Where it did work we fixed it.

We stopped the apprenticeships

To spite the union bosses

We started up community charge

To tame the looney lefties

We lit up the house price surge

To pay off our supporters

We stopped the apprenticeships

To spite the union bosses

Auntie Jayne (2023) writes:

I’d forgotten how house price rises have been with us for decades:

In the early 70s, the average house price was £4,975 and

by the end, it was £19,925. It was during this decade that

the gap between average wages and house prices grew

wider making homes less affordable.

See Have residential property prices always risen? by Insight Law

Let me mention Gary Stevenson here. He is an inequality activist,

economist, and former financial trader. In his Youtube channel,

Gary’s Economics, he tells of how government policies have

engineered an enormous transfer of wealth to the rich, particularly

via house price rises. Even the middle classes will find it difficult

to own their own homes.

Tony Hancock was The Rebel

He could make it rhyme

Thank you for a style like that

I think I’ll make it mine.

But if you don’t think it’s really ART

Just remember Piotr Zak . [*]

Talking to a composer about his work, Trevor said,

“The ear can’t tell the difference so why

alternate between 13/9 time and 14/10 time?”

“Because it wouldn’t be my music otherwise”, he said.

Auntie Jayne (2023) writes:

This is a reference to the film The Rebel

Hans Keller and Susan Bradshaw, concocted the deliberately

unmusical percussive piece as a hoax, pretending to be the

“modern music” of composer Piotr Zak. It was broadcast

twice on the BBC Third Programme on 5 June 1961.

Is There Really “No Proven Link”?

John Hutton MP on behalf of the Dept. of Health in a

parliamentary debate on benzodiazepines, states that

“there is no proven link between benzodiazepine use

and damage to developing foetuses.”

Benzodiazepine use and damage to developing foetuses,

Susan Bibby, Faxfn.org

Student: John Hutton MP

Practical Assignment : PQs on Benzodiazapines

Mark: 75%

Notes: John, we all know you’re not a lying bastard so why

use the old “there is not proven link” line. The Great British

Public still remember tobacco and BSE. Otherwise it was

a credible performance.

‘Architects’ is a short form for ‘successful architects’.

The ones that set the trends, who never noticed that

the best Prefabs estates surpassed any housing done

by graduates of the Architectural Association…

“Having lived the first 17 years of my life in [a prefab], this is a real

nostalgia trip! I lived in Porters Field Estate in Leyton East London

on quite a large prefab estate and it was simply the best community

that you could wish for. A safe haven for kids to be left out to play in

all day. Hated it when we were all moved out and dispersed into

tower blocks or low rise flats….Happy days!”

” They’ll stay in their squats” seems to anticipate the

excellent ideas of David Goodhart about “somewhere

people” and “nowhere people”.

See “The Road to Somewhere, The New Tribes shaping British Politics“.

Dear Mr Staines,

First let me point out your alias comes from a well worn urban myth.

Seaman Staines was not a character in the children’s television series

Captain Pugwash nor was Roger the Cabin Boy – this is clearly explained

here.

Secondly, your captain sounds like a pretentious misanthrope to me,

one of those selfish sorts who don’t do much good so they rail against

the state of the world to soothe their own consciences.

Anyway, I have answered your poem because you have described the

inner workings of a hurricane rather well. But I’m getting a bit fed up

with analysing global warming and related topics. This may be the last

one. For those of you that are really interested you can look on the

website of the US Government’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

Laboratory. It predicts some increase in hurricane intensity as the

earth warms.

But get a life! Next time send me something you really know about.

Describe the best brothels in the ports you have visited: a critique of

their hygiene standards would be most interesting.

Dear Mr Hot,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to criticise your poem.

Sadly, your third verse shows an unfortunate chip-on-the-shoulder

prejudice. Not all academics are purely academic, some of them break

free of the constant grind of having to spread one good idea over many

publications.

I will try to find out if your contribution can be posted on www.smugbastardsatthebeeb.org.uk, a pleasant lot, if a bit wacky.

I liked you first verse.

Geoffrey, you tell me that this was written in 2004 before Hurricane

Katrina in 2005. Really?

I have never crossed the association’s chair

I have never laid down drunken in the street

I have voted with my party all my life

It’s geography that’s lost my cherished seat

Those commuters on the other side of town

Will elect my most disreputable friend

He has more vices than the singers of the songs

But hypocrisy will get him in the end

Somewhere in the South East

Aren’t you bitter! You feel it is the Boundary Commission rather

than your constituency that will vote you out. But they have rules

which do not take types of voter into account. There is no consideration

of wealth, lifestyle etc. However, other geographic considerations

do have weight. For example, the Isle of Wight is under-represented

with one MP but it does not make geographical sense to allow the

surplus voters to vote in Southampton..

I would be very careful about any allegations you make. We may

suspect that some MPs do have expensive drug habits, although Noel

Gallagher is probably safe from being called to the House to apologise

for his “cup of tea” speech, accusing MPs of drug taking.

I like your hexameters.

I got off the bus near the station.

And bought an ice in Copenhagen.

One ice-cream in Copenhagen buys two ice-creams in Stonegate Walk.

One ice-cream in Stonegate Walk buys three ice-creams in Budapest.

One ice-cream in Budapest buys three ice-creams in Petersburg.

In Mogadishu it is hot.

They don’t eat anything a lot.

In Stonegate Walk I sip my tea

With currant buns in autumn sun

Languishing I hear the feet

Sound gently up from Stonegate Street

But Sarajevo’s getting cold

Bad for the young

Bad for the old

Bad for the ones that we can see

Nightly dying on our TV

One life’s worth in Stonegate Walk is fifty lives in Sarajevo.

One life’s worth in Stonegate Walk is a thousand lives in Mogadishu.

As the storms that ply the atmosphere

Move pressure lows around the world

The lows of life in Sarajevo

May swirl around our continent.

Our continent once so content

Is showing signs of Mogadishu.

But still it’s here I sip my tea

The autumn sunshine drifting down

Through roof-lights sheltering Stonegate Walk

Good for the old. Good for the young.

The price of life is not in our talk

Life’s price is high in Stonegate Walk.

In Mogadishu it is low.

But from the south the winds will blow.

Have you seen TraumaZone by the BBC’s Adam Curtis about the

failure of the Soviet Union and the subsequent failure of the

democracy experiment in Russia For those of you that refuse

to pay a TV licence to the BBC, much of it is available on Youtube .

It makes your poem seem very lightweight

On PoliticsJoe, Adam Curtis said

What Russia was like 30 years ago – the Soviet Union then – was

completely different from us but its collapse opened the door to the

chaos we now have everywhere.

But it was different and one of the reasons I made these films is because

I don’t think that we in the West understand or fully comprehend what

millions of Russians went through at that point 30 years ago.

What happened to them was that their whole world collapsed around them.

What they experienced was the collapse of an empire. The British Empire

collapsed – it took 80 years. Theirs collapsed in just a few months and then

they were promised a new world: democratic capitalism. Within 8 years that

had collapsed in total corruption.

Their whole institutions had fallen apart. People were living in forests,

underground & nobody could buy any food – most people couldn’t buy

any food & the system was being looted by a small number of very rich people.

I don’t think we understood what that did to millions of people.

An article Russian Privatization and Corporate Governance: What Went Wrong?

by academics from Stanford, Harvard and Maryland Universities, tells how advice

from economists from the West helped the failure of Russia’s experiment in

“democracy”.

In Russia and elsewhere, proponents of rapid, mass privatization of

state owned enterprises (ourselves among them) hoped that the profit

incentives unleashed by privatization would soon revive faltering,

centrally planned economies. The revival didn’t happen …

First, rapid mass privatization is likely to lead to massive self dealing

by managers and controlling shareholders .

Russia accelerated the self dealing process by selling control of its

largest enterprises cheaply to crooks, who transferred their skimming

talents to the enterprises they acquired, and used their wealth to

further corrupt the government and block reforms that might

constrain their actions.

Welcome, economists, to the real world of crooks with skimming

talents and governments that are influenced by wealth.

OK Geoffrey, now you have reached 80, perhaps we could allow you

to tell us a few of your ‘achievements’. In the context of this book stick

to those that might have political or moral impact but it’s a fantasy of

yours that your views will be taken more seriously because you are now 80.

In the late 1960s, I made a (fully costed, revenue neutral) proposal to

create jobs without inflation. It suggested raising the nominal rate of

VAT but giving employers a rebate for every person they employed. It

would subsidise goods that use lots of labour and tax those that don’t

making it cheaper to employ lower paid workers and at the same time

raising their pay. Because of savings on the dole, the total VAT charged

would be reduced.

Employing high paid labour and use of capital would become more

expensive so their income wold be squeezed. It could still work.

See A macroprudential proposal for employment.

Since the mid 1960s I have campaigned against the rise of the motor car

which has taken over the space outside peoples homes, where people used

to meet and children play. On moving to York in late 1970. I put together

evidence against York Council’s proposal for an Inner Ring Road, an urban

motorway surrounding York City Centre. The Inspector of the public inquiry

said that my evidence (“drastic traffic suppression”) was the only workable

alternative.. See In 1972 I stopped the York Inner Ring Road. Secretary of

State, Anthony Crossland cancelled the scheme.

Many of my proposals have since been implemented

In 1992, with some neighbours, I founded The Pollution Tax Association.

We pay a subscription which were related to our estimated carbon emissions.

In the 1990s, I ran conferences for the Co-op Party and Fabian Society,

typically on the theme of “Jobs and the environment” and started my first

website faxfn.org in order to support the conference at the time of the

European Finance Ministers meeting in York in 1997.

For two years in the early 2000s, I presented my own show on York TV,

“York Investigates”.

In 2004, I started The Green Ration Book website with a grant from

UnLimited, The Millennium Charity. With the help of friends and

neighbours, I formed the Fishergate Environmental Panel. We made

judgements on every day goods and services to asses their carbon

footprints based on available research.

Now, Professor Mike Berners-Lee’ book “How Bad are Bananas” may be

a better source. However, the idea of having a panel to make judgements

still has merit as there are many sources that don’t agree and judgement

must be used to choose the best ones.

In 2008, I started the No Miles High Club. The Press reported “Climate

change campaigners from York are setting up a club for people who vow

not to travel by aeroplane for a year.”

The No Miles High Club was not particularly successful. Flight Free UK have

done a much better job,

I’ve been attending various meetings and conferences for several decades

and have met and corresponded with many important players in politics,

climate and planning policy, particularly through the All Party

Parliamentary Climate Change Group when it was run by the excellent

Colin Challen, MP. It was a great shame when the parliamentary seat

which should have been his was given to yet another PPE.

Colin’s book Too Little, Too Late: The Politics of Climate Change can be

ordered through Amazon.

Do look up FaxFn, BrusselsBlog and DontLookNow, my main three websites.