My alarm woke me again
this morning. I was in the midst of a rather vivid dream in which I had started
a business in which I was employing the local Nepalese community to be pumpkin
farmers to feed the inmates of a rabbit farm on the Moon because (since Nepal is *really* high and Gurkhas are
double-hard) the Nepalese didn’t need space suits. Neither did the rabbits
(for no adequately explained reason).
It was with a sense of relief that the alarm woke me.
That’s twice I’ve been
woken by the alarm.
Leaving "er indoors TM" and the dogs
asleep I watched an episode of “Trailer
Park Boys” over some toast, then sparked up my lap-top to have a look at
the Internet.
I saw several posts on
Facebook about the perils of walking dogs in the heat. There are those which show
paws with horrific burns from asphalt which is supposedly too hot for dogs. I’ve
taken my hounds out despite the heat - perhaps people feel I am an
irresponsible dog owner? They get very fractious if we don’t go out, and neither
Fudge nor Treacle will walk on grass if there is asphalt available. If either
was uncomfortable they would make it clear. They have certainly let me know if
they’ve twisted an ankle or got a thorn in the paw. And, as
Snopes says, “while it is
indeed possible for dogs to sustain paw burns under conditions of excessive
heat, it’s unlikely this situation would escape the notice of an attentive
walker.” Am I being over-sensitive in thinking people are having a dig at
me? Probably…
With no emails of note
I set off for work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were abuzz with the
news that the Brexit secretary David Davies had resigned overnight.
In his resignation letter (amongst other
stuff) he wrote "... as I said
at Cabinet, the "common rule book" policy hands control of large
swathes of our economy to the EU and is certainly not returning control of our
laws in any real sense...."
The
chap is absolutely right. The Government's proposals do amount to little more
than doing what the EU tell us. This *isn't*
what the country voted for. Mind you I think that what most of the electorate
voted for was a return to the colonial era when Britain ruled most of the planet.
and that ain't going to happen either.
I
think Mr Davis has done the right thing. He don't agree with what the Prime
Minister is doing and so has resigned.
There
were calls for Boris Johnson to
do the same. I did think he'd really left it too late to do so without
looking like he was pushed rather than that he was jumping, but as the day went
on so he too resigned
I've
said it before (so many times) Brexit has *not*
been thought out at all. With the Prime Minister now appointing a new Brexit
supremo with less than a year until the thing happens, disaster looms even more
than it did before.
During
breaks at work I found myself following a rather nasty squabble on the Facebook
“Geocaching in Kent” page. I’m sure
that no offence was actually intended but to give but one example from today’s
squabble: when one comments that one’s point of view is about “showing respect” the implication is that
those with a different opinion are disrespectful. The “debate” continued along those lines; one chap was trying to force
his idea by belittling others.
Over
the last few weeks I’ve been rather rudely criticized in that Facebook group by
this fellow for finding fifty caches in a day and for posting generic logs and
for my choice of wordings. He would do things differently to me, therefore I am
wrong. I have felt some of his recent postings have been in a very bullying
turn of phrase.
When
I was at the Hastings Academy for Budding Geniuses (in the mid-1970s) I was taught the fundamentals of reasoned debate.
The trick lies in presenting your idea and giving evidence to support it. The
fact that someone feel something is true does *not* lend it any credence whatsoever, as any reader of my rantings
can clearly see.
The
way to progress any disagreement is to say “I
disagree with you for the following reasons…” (and then give some reasons). Taking the line “I disagree with you therefore you are wrong” is confrontational at
best.
This
evening I saw he’d made what I could only describe as a “throwing toys out of pram” posting and had left that Facebook group.
Such
a shame – if only people could disagree without being disagreeable…
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