Give Peace a Chance

I still don't know what to make of Jeremy Corbyn. It's difficult to make your mind up when you have two opposing parties, for and against Corbyn, shouting at full voice in each ear. On one hand you have the media which, in general, makes Corbyn out to be a serious danger to the security of the country. Whether it's not nodding in the right way or not being a fashion icon to far more serious concerns, it's clear they have it in for him. On the other side you have the supporters of Corbyn. Supporters who have gained a reputation for being aggressive going on psychopathic. If anyone in the media/public eye, in fact just anyone, says anything bad about Corbyn they're often personally attacked as well as being dismissed as a Blairite/Tory/Undercover lizard.

It's the aggression of these Corbyn supporters I'm trying to understand here. For a man who wanted introduce a new kind of friendly politics, many, not all, of his supporters have taken that as a sign of being extremely hostile to others. I admit it does put me off the new Labour leader. I try to restrict my views to his policies and what he actually does. Yet, people fearing to criticise him for fear of being shouted down, makes me want to criticise him. At the same time, I think I understand their anger. Deep down they know they're stuffed. The chances of Corbyn winning in 2020 are negligible unless the Tories do something spectacularly stupid. That's a possibility but even then, the public are not going to take that massive risk they see as voting for Corbyn. I mean, they saw Ed Miliband as a massive risk.

His supporters are also angry because the Tories are being very Tory at the moment. Cutting back on everything and attacking the poorest and most vulnerable in society. Corbyn supports know they are powerless to stop it through the ballot box. So they turn to more extreme measures. Ideally though, they should listen to their leader. Moderation would be the best way forward. People are indeed open to the idea of a new kind of friendly politics. In turn, they would even be more open to some of his policies. The sooner those over aggressive supporters of Corbyn realise this, the better they're chances are of seeing those miraculous headlines in 2020 actually happen.

The Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg Rivalry May Not Be All it Seems.

Apparently Lewis Hamilton is no longer friends with Nico Rosberg. When they definitively stopped becoming friends is unclear but there’s a good chance it happened during qualification for the Monaco Grand Prix. That was when Rosberg’s Mercedes suspiciously went down the escape road at the Mirabeau corner, before reversing back onto the track and causing a yellow flag. A yellow flag which ruined any chance Hamilton had of gaining pole position at a circuit where overtaking is exceptionally difficult.

After Rosberg  went on to win the Grand Prix, since then it’s become clear there is no love lost between the pair of F1 drivers who had been friends since childhood, but is it really the case? Are they really no longer friends and plotting to outdo each other with tactics borrowed from the Wacky Races? Earlier this week Alain Prost was brought in by Mercedes to give advice on how to avoid a problem similar to that of Prost and Ayrton Senna in the late 80’s. This rivalry resulted in a number of incidents such as, on separate locations, one driver deliberately crashing into the other. However, the fact we’re still talking about that rivalry today shows its interest and entertainment value to those looking on from the outside. Something Senna and Prost were only too aware of.

 So if Alain was indeed asked how to stop this rivalry between Hamilton and Rosberg, would he not say, ‘Why would you want to stop it completely?’. It’s great publicity for Mercedes and F1, particularly in a season where every race seems decided before the race begins due to Mercedes dominance.  Any rivalry is great for the sport such as that with Niki Lauda and James Hunt, which has just been made into a film. So I suspect the whole rivalry situation may be exaggerated as with a couple of boxers trying to talk up a fight. As long as they don’t do anything silly on track of course. If it wasn’t for that happening last weekend at Monaco, all we would be talking about is another ‘boring’ Mercedes one-two in a fairly average race. So the animosity between Rosburg and Hamilton will still be what is talked about most in the run-up to the next race in Canada; partly because regarding the race itself, barring a major upset, it will be another Mercedes one-two. Still, all said and done, there will be some rivalry between the Mercedes pair beneath the hype, and you could argue it still makes for a more interesting championship. Although, don’t be surprised that both drivers will probably be best buddies again as soon as this year’s title race is decided

Phone-ins and Constant Ad-Breaks. The Price of Modern TV.

It wasn't that long ago that if you watched an hour long programme on ITV, that you'd expect to see about three advert breaks of around three minutes long. Now though, watch an hour and a half of The X-Factor or I'm a Celebrity on a Saturday night and you can expect to sit through six advert breaks with around twenty five minutes worth of ads in total. That's to say out of ninety minutes show time, twenty five minutes or nearly a third is adverts. But it's not only far longer and far more frequent ad-breaks you have to sit through whilst watching your favourite programme nowadays. Add in recaps, previews, phone-in competitions and all the rest, the amount of actual programme you get for your well-earned time is even less.

Almost every live programme on ITV for instance has a phone-in competition which the presenters will relentelessly plug at every ad-break. If gambling was supposed to be something discouraged then no-one's told ITV. These simple phone calls will cost at least a pound a time. And the odds of winning the prize are very, very slim indeed. A pound may not seem a lot but when you have people phoning up more than once to these competitions or entering two or three a week then it all adds up. Not to metion the profit the TV channel is making from these phone calls.

Because you have hundreds of thousands trying to win that one prize. That one prize. Yes, it may be a good prize, a holiday or car or whatever. But if you have one hundred thousand people phoning up, then your odds of winning are one hundred thousand to one. You may as well go down the bookies with your pound and stick it on a reasonably priced horse. At least you have a fair chance of winning some money back.

And the reason you have around one hundred thousand people entering is because these ABC phone-in quizzes they set are ridiculously easy by anyone's standards. It's usually along the lines of 'What's the capital of England?' Is it A- Norwich. B- London or C- Britney Spiers. Or it could be asking what's the name of the planet we live on? A -Earth. B – Jupiter or C – Britney Spiers. The question is deliberatly as easy as possible because the object is to get as many people phoning up as possible. Another unfortunate consequence of this is you'll have people who are not the brightest getting excited, phoning up immediately because they know the capital of England isn't Britney Spiers and they're fairly sure, not certain, but fairly sure they aren't living on Jupiter.

When I say 'not the brightest' people by the way I don't mean that in a disparaging way. I could say the most vulnerable. But it's no doubt, those in these hard times who can't afford to lose their money gambling who will do so. The most desperate. And the actual cost of the call is easily lost in the excited spiel of the voiceover. True, the price of the phone call is shown on screen as well. As well as the fact you can enter online for free a lot of the time. But of course the miniscule print at the bottom of the screen is almost impossible to read.
Daybreak, This Morming or Loose Women are but three daytime programmes which not only have phone-in competitions but at least a two or three minute segment shown every fifteen minutes to get you to gamble your money away by making a simple phone call. Only then can you watch the adverts and see what you can buy with any money you have left.

It's certainly not just ITV who does this. Cable TV channels are even worse for adverts. It seems that whatever commercial channel you're on, the adverts aren't built around the TV programmme anymore but the other way around.

Of course, adverts bring in revenue for the TV channel and are a necessary evil. And understandably perhaps, with ITV's recent record debts they have obviously decided to squeeze out every last commercial drop of value in each programme they show. And to be fair ITV's debts are now coming down, slowly but surely. In fact, the way things are going it's only a matter of time before they turn things completely around. They are a commercial organisation and are there to make money.

It seems however one of the main aims of any commercial TV programme nowadays is to get you not only to spend your time in front of the TV but to get you to spend your money as well. Yet the morals of the phone-in competitions alongside the ever expanding ad breaks mean that making money seems to be the overwhelming priority over making entertaining programmes. The balance between ads, phon-in and actual programme content is just about tolerable at this time. But any more swing towards making profit instead of just making programmes may mean that could change sooner rather than later.

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The X Factor and the Nice Factor.

It was good to see Little Mix win the X-Factor. They emerged I feel as the best vocalists which is always a good sign to see in the winners of a singing contest. But they also seemed to be genuinely nice girls too. And during the course of the series being a nice person also seemed to be an important part of having the X-Factor.

I mean it could be said that Misha B was one of the best vocalists in the contest as well. But even before the bullying allegations came along, Misha B didn't come across as likeable. Misha B may be a nice person in real life but she appeared otherwise under the media spotlight. And certainly one reason people didn't vote for her was that, rightly or wrongly, she didn't appear to have a likeable personality.

On the other hand, although it's good for getting votes, some people may say too many nice people on one show is not necessarily good for viewing figures. And sure enough, viewing figures for the final between the nice Marcus Collins and the even nicer Little Mix and was down by about four million viewers on last year. It seems in the same way the public like to cheer or indeed vote for the good, they like a baddie to boo just as much.

Nevertheless, that's what I liked about this years X-Factor overall this year. Being a good person did seem to be a factor in whether an act was popular or not with the public. You may think this is obvious. But in many other reality TV shows nowadays, being a good person can be something which appears to be frowned upon, mocked even. Being a nice person is for losers. Many could learn however that apart from having talent, you don't have to be ruthless, self-centred and arrogant to be a success. That like Little Mix, having talent and being nice with it, in other words having a likeable personality, can be an essential part of having the X-Factor.

Life in Modern Britain. Playing By the Rules.

You do your best. You go to work. Pay your taxes. Play by the rules because you believe it's the right thing to do. You believe it's the right thing to do because you're a good,honest,hard-working person. You know the difference between right and wrong. And yet, every day it seems there's more and more obstacles put in your way. Taxes go up. Food prices go up. Electricity goes up. Gas goes up. Fuel goes up. The only thing which doesn't go up is your bleedin' wages. 

And as time goes on, more and more you begin to ask yourself just who the hell are you really working for? Yourself? Your family? Or in reality is it more the government you're working for? Or the banks? Or the company shareholders who live the life of Riley on the back of the hard slog you put in every day? 

And then you read the papers or watch the news and it's the murderers, rapists and everyday thugs of this world who appear to be the only ones who are being looked after. Whilst those in power abuse the system for their own benefit. Politicians and their expenses. Bankers and their bonuses. Company directors and their million pound pay-offs. And all the time you're just struggling to survive. Trying to live an honest, decent life.

But the fact is you haven't time to think about the unfairness of the world because you have to get up tomorrow at 6:30 am to go to work. To go on a daily commute on an overpriced, over-crowded bus or train or travel on a jam packed road in a car that you know, if things continue as they are at least, you won't be able to afford much longer.

Nevertheless you do your best. Because it's all you can do. Because you have a family to feed. A mortgage to pay. But more and more through no fault of your own your life is like a silent scream. Because no-one's listening to the honest, genuine people like yourself. So you go to work. Pay your taxes. Play by the rules. Because you believe it's the right thing to do. And that's what I thought. Once. But not any more. Not any more.

Universal guides help us realise our destiny.

The aim of our life here on Earth is to find our own destiny. In simple terms that destiny is to be happy. We can only truly be happy once we realise who we are and why we were born on this earth. By realising that there's a God (whatever God means to yourself) and that we're part of creation.

That doesn't mean we can't be happy until that we find our ultimate destiny. Happiness on Earth, in the real world, can mean finding your true love, having financial security, a fulfilling career or just living a peaceful, spiritual life. Whatever happiness means to you in the long-term and in the short term, then that is your destiny in life. It is the aim of your Universal Guide to help you find that destiny. To help you find that happiness.

Universal guides are all around us. It may not seem like it but trust me, they're there. Usually you can't see them, feel them, hear them. They're totally invisible if you're just going about your daily business and if you are spiritually unaware.

In some respects, it is natural to go through our own lives unaware of guides helping us along in our daily lives. This is because we're in the material world and they're in a non-material world. Not to mention the fact we can be so preoccupied by the problems of our individual lives to be aware of anything else. Yet, universal guides can still influence our lives in the subtlest of ways.

Take coincidence for instance. You may think that the little coincidences which happen in your life are just that. Nothing more than chance. But the fact you met your true love or found the perfect house or became who you are in general has been aided by your guides. Ultimately you are the one who did this, who created your own style of life. But your guides influence events as best they can, if they think it would be helpful to you.

Having said that, they can't just flick a switch and make everything all right with yourself. Make you win the lottery or find your soul-mate. They need your help. Your help is the willingness to change your life for the better. Which is why so often a positive attitude can end in positive results.

So we each have our own individual guide. Other people may call them your spirit guide or your guardian angel and these are as good as any terms. However, I prefer the term universal guide rather than spirit or angel because to guide is what they do. I use the word universal because you mustn't just think of them in terms of Earth but as in everywhere, all-existence.

These guides are part of creation, of the Universe and everything in it. The whole aim of these guides is to help guide you in the right direction. The right direction is towards you fulfilling your destiny as seen before. So what happens if we don't find our destiny? Then we live a variation of the same life over and over again until we do.

You can find evidence of living this same life all around you. To take just one example, the fact we can sometimes take an instant like or dislike to someone for no apparent reason. We just have an in-built love or hate we can't explain. It can be because we have had a bad experience with this person in our past lives. What we're actually doing is remembering the future of our past lives. And in turn feeling what's going to happen in our present life. This is partly what intuition is. We somehow know in the future that we're going to have a good or bad experience.

This is no more true than when you meet your soul-mate. It is an overwhelming feeling which hits us. We immediately know that this is the person we are meant to be with. It's because our soul-mate is the person we have lived many, many lives with before. It is one of the reasons we don't feel truly happy until we find our soul-mate. True love between you and your soul-mate is not just to do with this life, but all the lives you have both spent together before or will spend together in the future. It is more than desire, more than just love, it is an overwhelming need we cannot be truly happy without.

So having a feeling that you've met your true love is not just based on intuition but recognition. It's what we have experienced in our past lives which also shapes our present lives. And our present tastes. Like when we feel drawn towards a specific country for example. It may be because we've been there before in a previous life. We'll even say 'it feels just like coming home' when we go there. That's because it probably was your home at one time in your past life.

Living your life before is also why we experience deja vu, literally translated as 'already seen'. That's because it's when we experience deja vu we have indeed already seen what's before us. It's slightly frightening when it happens because at the time it's unexpected and seems inexplicable.

Yet the fact is we sometimes have crossover points when what we've seen in the past is exactly what we're seeing in the present. It usually only lasts a split second and as time moves on, the fleeting feeling is gone as quickly as it arrived. But the fact is deja vu is a glimpse of the life we've lived before.

Yet each life we live is slightly different from the one before. Depending on whether we've progressed towards our destiny or regressed, our lives are better or worse. This doesn't mean we are physically 'punished' for living an unenlightened life before. What we are physically is not what's important. It's what we are spiritually that matters and is a true reflection of who you are.

And just to note here, do not think that being poor is a pre-requisite for being good. We can be spiritually progressing and still be wealthy. As long as we use that wealth in a positive enlightened way. Yet the fact remains only once we've reached that stage of spiritual awareness and happiness can we truly move on to the next, less difficult stage in our existence. That ultimately our last life on earth as a human is the one when we find our destiny. Then we can move on to become guides ourselves. To let others learn from our own experience.

It's important to note that these guides will not give us all the answers we seek in life. Whether we find our own destiny, finding the answers is down to the individual choices and decisions we make. Otherwise there would be no point in being alive. We would have no freedom. Everything would be decided for us. But we do have choice. And we exercise this choice by making decisions which comes down to our sense of responsibility towards our own well being, the well-being of those around us as well as the world.

However, they also need people to be willing to change their lives and to be spiritually aware. By reading this, you have given indication that you have both qualities.

The Diving Bell, the Butterfly and the Number 61 Bus.

As I stand at the bus-stop in Maryhill Road, an overweight man puffs his way by, completely drunk. Bent over, he walks along the level pavement as if he’s walking down a very steep hill. The woman standing next to me turns round and says ‘Is that no’ terrible? At this time in the morning. Ah’m tellin’ ye, Glasgow’s getting worse, so it is’
The fact that she herself is totally pissed seems completely lost on her. Her breath stinks, a cocktail of stale and fresh booze. She sways on her feet. As she talks, her head swivels unsteadily up and down and from side to side. I begin to worry that it will fall off completely. And if it does fall off, what should I do? Should I try to catch it? Or should I just let it bounce on the pavement, act as if nothing has happened? Is that rude? Would there be an awkward silence? Should I pick it up and hand it back to her, saying here, I think you dropped your...Before I have time to decide however, my bus appears at the top of the road.
I sit near the back. Not at the very back because I don’t want to get trapped behind the druggies and drunks who are sure to get on this bus as always. I take my book out. A proud act of defiance against my surroundings. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. A wonderful book about a man who suffers locked-in syndrome. That’s to say he’s completely physically paralysed yet at the same time is totally lucid inside that body. Anyway, it is only a hundred pages long but I still can’t finish it due to my inability to block out my surroundings. I try once again. No good, my attention is drawn to the sound of two Polish chattering away on the seat in front of me. Not speaking Polish myself, it sounds like gibberish. The sort of language people talk when they‘re very drunk. Slurred incoherent gibberish. Still with the huge number of Poles now in the city, this gibberish is now the constant background music to the Glaswegian nonsense you would normally hear otherwise. And I know, it’s only a matter of time, evolution, before the Polish gibberish and Glaswegian nonsense will merge into a curious babble no-one but the severely inebriated will be able to understand.
A man in a donkey jacket gets on and sits in the seat opposite me. I can’t help noticing he opens up the free paper and immediately reads the football pages. I find this annoying. This town’s obsession with Rangers and Celtic. How I would love to take his paper and throw it out the window. ‘Get a life!’ I would shout. ‘Get a bleedin’ life!’ Why don’t you try to read a book like me? That’s culture mate. Not Rangers and Celtic. I mean do you really care? Do you really care about footballers who earn more in a week than some of us will earn in three years?’ I don’t say that of course because if I said that I may end up suffering from locked in syndrome myself. And what would be the point in that? No. That’s right. No point. I look out the window and see the bus has already reached the city centre.
A mobile phone rings. A well dressed man in front of me takes the mobile phone out of his inside jacket pocket. It’s ringtone is clearer now. A sectarian song from one side of the Old Firm. I don’t know which. It’s just another form of gibberish. A couple of faces turn round and glare at the man. Others like me don’t bother. Don’t want the bother. It’s just some more background music on the way to work.
At the next stop a couple of guys in tracksuits get on the bus continuing a conversation from outside. ‘...ye’re kidding me, Malky’s in the digger just for stabbing some guy in the face with a screwdriver? That’s no real man’. The conversation is as much for everyone else to hear than themselves. To let other people know they think stabbing a guy in the face with a screwdriver is no big deal. Aye, very good. Very good. Twats.
We reach the East End. I don’t know why there’s such a hooha about these TV programmes where people are trapped in the seventies and eighties. If I want to travel back to the seventies, I just visit the East End of Glasgow. Gap sites long since developed into modern chic flats in other parts of the city remain gap sites in the East End. Shops which closed down in the seventies remain closed but still displaying the same shop signs they did from that time. East end fashion as it is, remains, parkas, long hair, even flares. The East End. Life on Mars.
We pass Parkhead Stadium. Home of Glasgow Celtic. A impressive and imposing Green cathedral resplendent against a brave blue sky. The car park is filled with Porsches, BMWs, and the like. So much wealth in an area of so much poverty. Just like it’s counterpart in Ibrox. Yet, just like it’s counterpart in Ibrox this place is worshipped. Can’t the people see the irony? How wrong it all is? Is it just me? I find it all so annoying and try to get back to my book once more. But not for long. I look out the window.
Near the addiction centre, one man in particular catches my eye. A white skeletal face so ravaged by heroin that it is barely more than a skull. He genuinely looks as if he has died and has just risen from the grave. It is frightening and shocking, painful to see and desperately sad.
I put the book back in my bag. It’s no use. I’m so full of rage myself. I want to shout and scream at the top of my voice at the injustices and inequalities of the life I see around me. But I stay silent. Like I’m suffering my own form of locked-in syndrome. I can only stay silent. And watch. And listen. And then maybe, someday leave. Move to a nice small town in England or abroad. That’s the dream. The hope. The dream which flutters in my mind against the diving bell of my everyday existence. Never mind, here’s my stop. I get off the bus and go to work.