Visitations From Outer Space

 

Visitations From Outer Space

OK, maybe it’s just ockdown getting to me but…………………….

 Like most people, I’m sceptical about UFOs and visits from aliens (as well as ghosts, poltergeists, the devil and God in my case). But again……………….

I’m becoming obsessed (oh,oh, lockdown) with recent archaelogical findings relating to 10,000 – 12,000BC that imply the existence of advanced machine tools during that era, and also a map (an actual map, not an implied one. The unexplained phenomena are how rocks weighing up to 150 tons got moved over significant distances and how they were cut/carved with extreme precision, like down to less than a millimetre of variance, showing no signs of having been worked by primitive tools. There are still some puzzles about how the Ehyptian pyramids were built but nothing on this scale. The map from the period has a very accurate depiction of the coastline of Antartica. It’s possible that Antartica wasn’t totally covered in ice then but, even given that, who at the time knew how to draw scale maps of large distances very accurately?

Some of these discoveries are quite recent so archaeologits haven’t had a lot of time to thiink about them. Anyway they would be wary of compromising their credibility in any explanation suggested; my credibility is always in doubt, even with myself. What is needed is a hypothesis that fits the known facts. Is it possible that a human society had reached such an advanced state of sophistication at the time and subsequently disappeared without trace along with its tools? In my view it hardly seems possible so we need an alternative hypothesis. Here is my crazy(?) one. Around 12,000BC or maybe before there was a visitation from outer space. The visitors might have been sentient beings but almost certainly included robots, maybe only robots. They pissed around the planet for a bit doing whatever took their fancy but also precision cutting stones in Europe, South America and Asia, and then got homesick or were recalled. Human beings were around at the time and must almost certainly have bumped into them. So how would these human beings have reacted? Most probably (in my view) they would have created god myths to explain them. There’s something about god and other myths that corroborates this; they nearly all contain a germ of truth (with a lot of doubtful elaboration around that).

There could be questions of accurate dating of these artefacts but archaeologists don’t seem to be raising any and they know more about dating methods than I do (no jokes about dating methods, please). Anyway, even given a millenium or so of variance in dating accuracy the anomalies still hold. Implications for current UFO sightings? Yes, why not? Maybe they just want to know what we did with their stones.

OK, it could just be lockdown and I’m going off my trolley but…….come up with a better hypothesis. And it’s got to conform to Occam’s razor.

What To Do In Lockdown

 

What To Do During Lockdown

This seems to have become the most common conversational topic recently, along with how your morale is doing. So this is a personal take on the questions.

Most of my time has been spent in front of my PC. You can find everything from the sublime to the ridiculous on the Internet and I have been wandering through the offerings, mostly via YouTube. Once I’ve woken up, drunk a coffee, done my wake-up-brain sudoku, looked at emails and perused the news via the news aggregator site I use, newsnow, I go to YouTube; hence my newly found interest in mankind’s early development. That apart I can’t say I have found any new interests. I bounce around between cooking, football, music, some science and linguistics, archaeology/anthropolgy of course, and watching steam trains. I can’t say I have found anything earth-shattering but I have, for instance, got some good new ideas on recipes and also been amazed at the singing abilities of some kids of tender age, 10-14.

What about TV and films, obvious possibilities? I’m not used to watching much on TV other than football and Channel 4 news and, for some reason, that hasn’t changed. French TV, the Arte channel apart, is more trivial even than British TV. Because of football crowd restrictions in the UK, more matches are televised which means I make less use of the dodgy Russian Internet site which tries to sell me Indian brides on which I watch matches I can’t get on TV. I suspect the site is run by the Russian mafia, so they do have their uses, and who cares if the commentary is in Serbo-Croat? I’ve got a second-hand subscription to Netflix but don’t seem to be driven to explore that very much. I haven’t got many DVDs I haven’t already watched but I do have loads that I’d quite like to watch again. But, mostly, I don’t watch them again. And for some reason I can’t get down to reading.

What about the world outside, the bit we are permitted to visit? My exercise has been more limited than it probably should be. Gardening is on hold. I walk frequently to the baker’s to get bread, since I love fresh bread, but the weekly or twice-weekly excursions for shopping don’t really count. And the weather hasn’t yet been conducive to long walks. My excuse is that there are 36 stairs in my house and that helps a bit. I can still invite friends to come to eat and I get invited usually a couple of times a week. That’s about it.

The news is generally depressing so I don’t spend a lot of time on it although I can get hooked on the evolving Brexit situation in Britain and its Teflon government. Whatever happens there with COVID the government can’t be blamed, as a recent survey showed; a quite large majority blame other people rather than the government for any failings. It’s people lacking common sense who are to blame. And neither can the government be blamed for any adverse effects of Brexit; people (lacking common sense?) voted for it. So who determines events, what happens next; who is in charge? It has to be the people lacking common sense. No wonder the country is f*****d.

So how is my morale? I’m not depressed but hardly full of the joys of life either. I feel I’m getting along OK, putting life on hold a bit but looking forward to the spring and, hopefully, less risk to life and fewer restrictions. What puzzles me slightly is that I seem to be feeling some kind of restlessness that shortens my attention span. Is that because life is on hold, lockdown or just advancing age? Maybe I’ll find out later on.

History: A New Perspective For Me

 

History

I’m not a history buff but through watching too much YouTube during lockdown I have become intrigued by some recent archaeological discoveries. There’s an analogy now between archaeology and fishing. Fishing boats no longer go out hoping they will find some fish; they go out, turn the radar on and locate the fish. Similarly, archaelogists no longer rely on a chance find as an indicator of what might be an interesting site; they peruse satellite images and know in advance what sites could be interesting. This greatly speeds the rate at which discoveries are made and there have been some intriguing ones recently. They pose some intriguing questions..

There’s an historical theory that around 3000BC human beings stopped being hunter-gatherers and became farmers, the dawn of agriculture. However, recent finds have shown agriculture being practised in some places around 11,000BC. Even more intruigingly, ruins originating around 3000BC recently investigated in different parts of the world show that a standard measurement was used in their construction that is a precise fraction of the world’s circumference. So somebody before that time had worked out the circumference of Earth. Moreover, this was in several geographically distant regions so it seems likely that this information was shared rather than being calculated separately and simultaneously in different places. So there must have been much more widespread travelling at the time than previously thought. There is evidence, for example, that the Chinese were in north America around 10,000BC There’s also evidence of some relatively sophisticated tools, such as powerful drills, used on hard stones well before 3000BC.

What does all this do to our understanding of humans’ early history? Well, it demolishes the idea of the neolithic revolution for a start. It also demolishes any general idea of stone ages, iron ages, etc. That all varies over time depending on what region and society you are talking about. It’s also clear that very primitive and quite sophisticated societies co-existed in different parts of the world many thousands of years ago, long before we realised. And that poses numerous intriguig questions. For instance, if superior knowledge was sometimes shared across large distances, why didn’t it become generally accepted and used? What happened when a relatively sophisticted society rubbed shoulders with a relatively primitive one? Most interesting for me is what a map of knowledge per century BC would look like. You would likely find, at any one time, a high degree of understanding of maths and engineering and probably town life similar in many aspects to what we know now in odd places in India, Europe and elsewhere, with people in other places living in caves and just learning to create stone tools.

Whatever this does, it smashes any idea of people across the globe progressing uniformly from cavemen hunter-gatherers to agriculture and then some form of more sophisticated society. It just couldn’t have happened like that. It must have been very much a stop-start rocess. It also smashes the notion I was given at school that knowledge discovered by the Greeks and Romans built the foundation of modern European society. Newton said that if he had seen farther than others it was because he had been able to stand on the shoulders of giants. The same must have been true of the Greeks and Romans. And, oh boy, wasn’t the history education I received at school blinkered by European eyes. So…….what exactly was happening and what had (some) people worked out thirteen centuries ago or even before? I guess we’ll have to wait for more archaeological finds.

Lockdown And History

 

If You Don’t Learn From History YouAre Doomed To Repeat It

There’s a tenable historical thesis that the «barbarians» (not the rugby side) always win. Brute force and inferior understanding always defeat more knowledge and understanding. The «barbarians» are not necessarily malevolent, nor necessarily savage nor ill-intended, quite possible benevolent, often good nd useful citizens. But they constitute an underclass in any society, an underprivileged class, less able to reason but also the majority. Their only power is collective.

If people in general were asked about the origins of civilisation/democracy/modern society, many would opt with apparent justification for the Greeks, pre-dating the Romans, who were at the time more «barbaric» than the Greeks.And the Roman civilisation was followed by what are commonly called the Dark Ages; the «barbarians» won again. But the Greeks in turn achieved their dominance by overcoming the Phoenicians, whose knowledge and civilisation were superior at the time. So the Greeks in this case were the «barbarians», overcoming superior knowledge by brute force. We know that this has happened many times in the past because we know that great civilisations existed millennia ago but that they were somehow enfeebled and that much of their knowledge was subsequently lost. In every case the «barbarians» won.

How does this relate to current affairs? Must the periodic historical dominance of the «barbarians» continue? Or can it be countered so that society in general progresses continuously. Must society always at some time take a step back? Nowadays we are not (hopefully) talking about brute force. Brute force on a global scale now means nuclear weapons and liely the end of human civilisation as we know it. Nowadays we are talking about economic force and the «barbarian» majority. Two brute force world wars were backward steps, can economic force now gain the support of this majority in order to rule? Since reason will not do it the obvious inference surely is that this majority must be fed with emotional messages that it is receptive to, that won’t be examined by reason. The appeal has to be purely emotional. So by an appeal to emotion the «barbarians» can still apparently win and so history can repeat itself. The society concerned takes a step back. Progressive civilisation is reversed, as it apparently always has been in the past. Does this have to be the future?

Lockdown

Travel is supposed to broaden the mind and may indeed do so but that is not;necessarily the case; people can remain effectively confined in their own cultures. At the time of the EU referendum I assumed that because so many Brits took holidaysabroad, quite apart from those who worked abroad, the British would have a positive appreciation of foreign cultures. Yet xenophobia was clearly a factor in the referendum result and, anecdotally, appears to be evident in the UK today,encouraged by some popular media and even the government. So my assumptionwas wrong. Physical masks, perhaps worn reuctantly, may filter out viral droplets but virtual masks worn voluntarily can filter out anything foreign. It seems that many free people freely create their own prisons/confinement of a sort

Autumn

Autumn

Autumn has definitely settled in now, evidenced by the weather, the countryside and the clocks. We’ve had a few weeks of decent rainfall and the river Ouveze in front is now looking much less like an apology for a stream. The pots and garden have all benefited as also have I in having to water only those under the balcony. Weather at the moment is similar to classic April weather in England. There is still a fair amount of colour out front from pansies, fuchsias, busy lizzies and the argyranthemum by my front door (photo). There is colour too in the countryside, not spectacular but muted yellows, browns and greens enlivened by the occasional drift of vines turning dark red. My plants will have fewer blooms with fewer hours of sunshine as we advance towards winter but most will continue until the first severe frosts, some time in December. 

 

New COVID-related restrictions, specifically a 9.00pm to 8.00am curfew, mean that eating with friends will have to be at lunchtime for a while. I have no problem with that except that I find if I have a solid meal at lunchtime I can kiss goodbye to doing anything very active in the afternoon. France is experiencing a similar rise in infections to that in the UK and the government measures here are no more popular than they are in the UK. At least most people seem sensible in their attitude to them and at least the government here is not overtly corrupt.

Fewer daylight hours mean less outside activity but I have books and DVDs aplenty and there is a lot of football onTV to keep me happy. My attention turns particularly to cooking, especially as salads and light meals no longer seem appropriate to outside conditions. Last week I made a Provencale casserole, similar to any beef casserole but with olives and bacon included and this week I’m making a rabbit, chicken and bacon pie (with lots of sage) fromleft over bits; stews, casseroles and curries will no doubt feature throughout the coming months, as also will pies. The French don’t seem to do meat pies and I miss them. I generally cook only one main dish a week, occasionally two, as there is usually enough left over for another meal for me and then I’m invited out in return a couple of times. In between I experiment with Asian stir-fries or do something simple.

It’s mushroom season with many varieties in the shops and markets that I’ve never seen in England. Apart from the ubiquitous button mushroom there are cèpes, chanterelles, pieds de mouton, lactaires, girolles and trompettes de la mort (the last sound deadly but aren’t). I’ve included them from time to time in dishes in a minor rôle but never found any way to really do them justice other than in a risotto. I’ll have to search more recipe sites. I’ll also make some English sausages. French sasages can be very good but they are intrinsically different and I also miss English sausages. I have the skins from a local butcher and a mincer but the mincer motor is not powerful enough to force the meat mixture into the skins. So my daughter bought me a «sausage stuffer» for my birthday and now I’m ready to go.

I feel that the reduced hours of daylight together with the COVID sitution do need something to enliven them and cooking is one way I do that. Fortunately, the fish and cuts of meat I like are reasonably priced and vegetables are cheap. Let’s cook!

 

Checks And Balances

Checks And Balances

Checks and balances play a latge part in life on any scale, be it personal or national. My last post was about all that I love here and why I love being here but I have to admit that I wouldn’t have liked being here when I was in my early 20s at all. Why? Because when I was in my early 20s I thought the world was my oyster and I wanted above all to explore it, to explore all the possibilities. Here the life can be idyllic but the possibilities are very, very limited. Worse, because the possimilities are so limited, the temptation is to enjoy what is here and not seriously consider other possibilities: the death of all wider exploration and ambition. That is fine for me now but wouldn’t have been when I was much younger

How do others achieve appropraite checks and balances, suitable compromises? One way that is very evident here is that people who have grown up in the village have left to further their goals in life but returned to retire here. There are numerous cases of this that I know of. What happens to those others who remain? Essentially they seem to become artisans of one sort or another who find a consistent demand for their services or they lose their way and become, in gnereal parlance, locus eaters. On a oersonal level It’s a question of finding the appropriate checks and balances for a specific period in one’s life. On a wider national or international level……..?

Pragmatism Vs Dogma 

On a national level, a case that comes to my mind is the NHS in the UK. Dogma says it should be free at the point of delivery and not privatised, although it already significantly is. Proponents for privatisation can point to France where the French equivalent is entirely privatised in terms of delivery and superficially looks like the American system. . But……..the French equivalent is very significantly controlled by the government, which says what it will pay for any drug or treatment and reimburses a percenatge, large or small, dependent on the case; it’s called a «concention». It is not a free market, as it might appear, because any service or drug provider who steps out of the government «convention» stands to lose around 80% or more ;of its potential market, so most clinics and hospitals stay within the convention. Checks and balances, pragmatism rather than dogma. The most important question is not a dogmatic healthcare should/shouldn’t be privatised but what are the practical effects, how healthcare is made affordable in the general case.

Rain 

It rained last night, which wouldn’t be news if it weren’t that it hasn’t done so for almost ten weeks now. It didn’t rain heavily but enough for me to forgo watering today, a welcome relief. The temperature today also dropped by around 10 degrees, which meant I could comfortably play boules in the afternoon. Evenings are becoming darker sooner also, so signs of autumn approaching are all around and, frankly, welcome. There was also a large fire last night, about 8km from the village, which was not that surprising considering that the countryside around is dry as tinder. Firefighters from 60km away were called upon to join up with local forces as were 5-6 planes to drop water on the blaze. There were no causalties but around 150 hectares of farmland and woods were destroyed. My friend Steve likes to say that the temperature drops by10 degrees at the end of August, the younger tourists all leave and the wrinkly tourists arrive. That happened a couple of weeks early last year and appears to have done so this year too.

Lucky Me

Lucky Me

My son, Carl, returned to England last Friday, taking with him one of the masks provided to me by the village authorities. I have to hope he will use it and be sensible about contact in the UK. In many ways it was good having him here but 4 months is quite a long time, he doesn’t speak French, my friends are much older than him (and mostly French) and he was missing his friends in England. It has been a question of choosing an appropriate time for his return to that madhouse of a country and last Friday seemed to be it. I hope that was a good decision.

This evening, having played (and won!) three games of boules I sat out in the Cafe des Sports and thought how lucky I am to be here. The evening mercifully lowered the temperature (it has been very hot and dry here for a month now – August weather and we are not in August yet) so I had a couple of beers with friends before coming home to attack the watering necessary front and back to keep plants alive. I feel I have everything I want, everything I could reasonably ask for, here and now I also have my house back to myself. Carl did a few jobs that would have been difficult for me while he was here so the house and outside are in better shape than they would otherwise have been.

One thing that lockdown did was to focus my mind (and Carl’s then) on cooking; what else, other than gardening was there to do? Hopefully my friends invited to eat will reap the benefits. I use a lot of herbs and spices in cooking and have a herb patch outside my front door with mint, parsley, oregano, winter savory and sage in it. The parsley has run to seed but is easily obtainable all year round in shops and the same goes for the mint. But the hot weather has allowed me to dry a lot of sage and winter savory for later use. Rosemary is perennial and ubiquitous here and so are bay trees so that sees me set up for winter cooking. Fresh coriander can be a problem but Algerians and Moroccans in the markets in Buis and Vaison normally have a plentiful supply for just a few cents a bunch. Most dry spices, other than esoteric Indian and Indonesian ones, are available in both markets so I’m very adequately supplied.

Given that my life here consists mostly of socialising with friends, gardening, playing boules (and whatever else is buzzing through my puzzled mind) I think that I am very lucky. I don’t lead (can’t afford) a very luxurious life but don’t feel the need for one, love what I have and find it affordable. Lucky me.