Showing posts with label BORIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BORIS. Show all posts

Thursday, 4 February 2021

BREXIT BUGGERS BRITAIN

        February 4th 2021: BREXIT BUGGERS BRITAIN.

Dear Boris and the ERG,

Where is my Brexit Bonus and what are the Opportunities for me in your Brexit Sunlit Uplands?

Yours sincerely,

A Concerned Citizen and Voter.

Oxford - UK.

*******

City of London and Services Passporting Rights:-

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/what-does-the-brexit-trade-deal-mean-for-financial-services/

January 2021: "Meanwhile Rishi Sunak has the importance of enrolling finance into wider green economic recovery policies and supporting the development of digital finance.

He is right to note that the future of the sector is not just a London issue. It adds around £130 billion to the UK economy and 1.1 million jobs. For example, in Edinburgh around 10% of jobs are in financial and related professional services."

******

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_2532

On 1 January 2021, the United Kingdom will lose all the rights and obligations it had as an EU Member State and during the transition period under the Withdrawal Agreement. It will no longer benefit from seamless access to the EU Single Market and Customs Union, or from EU policies and international agreements (including its free trade agreements with other third countries).

This will create new barriers to trade in goods and services, and to cross-border mobility and exchanges that do not exist today – in both directions. While the new agreement will serve to limit disruptions compared to a situation without an agreement being in place, public administrations, businesses, citizens and stakeholders on both sides will inevitably be affected. The Commission has issued extensive guidance on how best to deal with these changes.

*******

Don't say we didn't warn you.


 30 November 2018

ANY BREXIT WILL COST 7.8 MILLION UK JOBS

UK BREXITS.   EUROPE ISOLATED

27th Feb 2019

UK government has revised its calculations of  the damage Brexit will do to the UK economy, increasing it to 9% of GDP (it was 8%). UK GDP (gross domestic product - all the work we do which adds value to the economy) is £1.73 trillion per year, multiply by 9% = £156 billion per year.  Convert to average  jobs at £20,000 wages per year = 7.8 million UK lost jobs - or equivalent reduction in wages. Well done ERG and Mrs May and Mr Corbyn - putting us well on our way to national bankruptcy. That will show those Brussels Bureaucrats that we Britons are not afraid of hardship. Bring it on! We survived the Blitz - and paid-off the USA War Loans. 


Thursday, 10 December 2020

BREXIT: BASED ON A FALSE PREMISE by Mel Cooper

 

WHY DO SERIAL LIAR BORIS & THE TORIES WANT TO
ISOLATE & BANKRUPT BRITAIN? 

BREXIT: BASED ON A FALSE PREMISE

 By Mel Cooper  - 10 December 2020. 

 Recently, Tim Stanley, an historian and journalist, who is a leader writer for the DAILY TELEGRAPH in London, UK, was talking about the wonders of Brexit on SKY News and how we would now get our sovereignty back at last. As a result, he stated, we would no longer be having laws imposed upon us by the EU.

 LAWS IMPOSED UPON US BY THE EU?!? I cried out, choking. I felt like screaming. “Listen, mate, we NEVER had one law imposed upon us.” Why, when people make these inane and illogical assertions does no one ever challenge them. For instance, can Tim Stanley name for me one law that was IMPOSED upon us? Can anyone?

 It cannot be done because we did not ever give up our sovereignty — we pooled it. Think about the difference. Surely it is not too subtle for you. Pooling Sovereignties! Which is, of course, the point of the EU. It is as much a collection of pooled sovereignties as the UK is a collection of four pooled sovereignties, so it is fairly rich that an intelligent, well-educated journalist and historian does not seem to see the parallels or get the drift.

 The UK had (and theoretically still has) the power to VETO all new EU policies and laws. Every EU law, every single one, was discussed, debated, and, guess what, sometimes we decided to compromise for good and sufficient reasons. Votes were taken in the EU parliament, just as they are in Westminster. Often we proposed the laws in the first place and even drafted them for the EU. We were as much part of the process, the third loudest voice, for 45 years as people in parliament who oppose a law, and then it gets passed by a majority, and then, hey presto, they do NOT consider that the law has been IMPOSED upon them! If so, then Brexit was imposed upon nearly 50% of this country and the people who voted against it should be allowed to exit the Brexit. 

How about we form a country within a country consisting of all the cities that voted not to leave the EU? Shall I start making the list?

 It is this kind of thinking and language as used by Tim Stanley on that program on SKY that is going to ruin this country completely in the end. It is this kind of illogical and lazy thinking that is a real danger for us all. Because of the insistence of Brexiteers that we somehow have given up our sovereignty by joining the EU, and because no one is questioning this nonsense properly, Brexit is based upon a total misinterpretation of and even a downright lie about how the system works. To take one example: we are about, for instance, to lose the whole freedom of movement for pets within the EU. That was a British initiative. That was something proposed by and fought for and then passed for the British! And the EU itself will continue to benefit from this idea for people travelling within its territories; but not the UK. It will not be so easy to take your mongrel or moggie to the South of France with you when you rent a summer cottage there. Indeed, it will not be so easy for you to travel within the EU any more either. Or for our kids to get educated at EU universities. And that is just a very tiny start to the changes we are about to have to live with. But hey, folks, that is what you voted for.

 What Brexit means to me, finally, is an act of betrayal. And do not kid yourself. It is not only that we are betraying the vision of a Europe united and at peace. Tim Stanley says that we should be relaxed because once we get our laws back inside our own country and are in total control of them, hey presto, no one wants to change any of the EU initiatives on better working hours, paternity and maternity leave, protection of workers’ rights, etc, etc. Really? Then why are we leaving the EU? Well, apart from demonizing the judiciary and trying to break international law in his internal market bill, PM Boris Johnson’s covert intelligence bill permits undercover agents to break the law. His use of statutory instruments allows him to evade parliamentary scrutiny. Boris Johnson wants to be the one to appoint judges, just like his idol Donald Trump; he is also setting up a review of the Human Rights Act. We are still waiting for Johnson to publish important things like vital independent reports, the Covid procurement contracts and the Brexit impact studies. Or have you not noticed any of these worrying examples, Tim Stanley? Boris and his cabinet are also fairly cavalier about appearing before various parliamentary scrutiny committees. However, maybe this has nothing to do with anything sinister. Maybe they are just all lazy.

 Brexit is not about the people or even about sovereignty. It is about authoritarian rule, unfettered government economic ambitions and isolating the UK from EU initiatives about offshore tax havens so that the UK can become the best, go-to place to launder international money.  Try reading a book called Britannia Unchained published in 2012 by Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Christ Skidmore and Liz Truss. Perhaps you should have read it before the 2016 Referendum? Are you actually aware of it? So here is a question: is Tim Brexit Stanley simply not aware of any of these activities; is he implicated in this effort of a Boris Takeover; or is he simply too naïve to notice? Personally I do not have a lot of hope in any of the members of the cabinet keeping the faith and not messing around with EU laws that protect workers and citizens’ rights.

I will tell you why. Firstly, because people like Jacob Rees Mogg have an already-declared agenda and are hoping precisely to erode the rights that they feel make them marginally less rich. And notably, we are all leaving the EU but Jacob has moved some of his headquarters to Singapore and Dublin; and Dublin is, emphatically, in the EU. Any thoughts about why? Are no alarm bells ringing?

For me the Brexit Project is about one simple thing: elitist authoritarian control by very far right Tories. And it was sold to voters for one simple reason. Take Back Control is a great slogan for people who feel deprived and challenged in various ways, who feel that they have been excluded. It was based on tweaking people’s feelings of xenophobia. And it feeds in to a strange Superiority Complex that still plagues the English and unthinking nationalists and would-be imperialists of all countries.

 I was very angry at Tim Stanley when I heard him spout the idea that, despite our powerful VETO, we have been having laws imposed upon us by the EU, but I am also very, very saddened that he cannot see how false that idea is. England has indeed been a great country in many ways over the centuries and produced some wonderful writers and scientists and actors and explorers and so forth. But it is now all in jeopardy. As is the whole EU project. And we were the ones to be in the vanguard of de-stabilising it. For centuries Europe has kept descending into wars because of countries that were looking out only for their own narrow and short-term interests and seeing themselves entirely as uncompromisingly at odds with all the other countries around them. So they formed alliances and reformed alliances and fought war after war after war. Whatever the flaws of the EU, the whole project was able for 45 years to avoid that mentality. And look what has happened since we, the UK, voted for Brexit? Right-Wing resurrections in Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic; France and Marine Le Pen and the damned fisheries. It is all starting up again. And Britain is already slipping from 5th richest to 6th richest to 7th richest. And look at how badly our government, so in love with the authoritarian and centralized approach, has handled the whole pandemic?

 And so here we are, ready to leave the EU on 31 December 2020 as it turns into 2021. Even if we get a deal, it cannot be as good as the EU deal we have that we voted to abandon. Does that not say something important?

 And I suspect strongly that in the future, when the history of this low decade (dominated by Conservatism in this country and Donald Trump’s style of Republicanism in the USA) is written, that Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg, Dominic Cumming, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and the whole self-serving lot of them will be perceived as traitors to their country that they truly are, people who put their own narrow, blinkered interests before their country’s good; and people who betrayed the rest of Europe to boot - just as Putin and Trump want. They are Quislings, the lot of them, and they do not give any kind of damn for the less privileged citizens of their country.

 But I fear there is no point trying to debate with them or convince the average voter of any of this. You see, Brexit is based on that stupid, proud Superiority Complex of theirs and for the Ruling Elite of our country it is based on their Daily Telegraph approach to their own wealth. They do not give a damn about educating the country. And they do not, I think, speak sincerely or truthfully if it is going to go against their private wishes and secretive agendas. I am sure they are intelligent enough, some of them anyway, to work out the logic behind a false statement like “taking back our sovereignty”. They know perfectly well that every idea they sold you to get Brexit was ultimately based on the false premise that we had given up our sovereignty, not that we had pooled it, which is the truth of the matter. I am certain that they can figure out the difference between giving up sovereignty and pooling it for the common good of all concerned. So if we allow them that much intelligence, they are people totally and completely without integrity or any sense of idealism; and they are liars.

 Thus, my question is: does Tim Stanley believe what he says, has he fallen for it; or is he one of the liars too? And if they or he cannot see it, then they truly are too stupid and incompetent to be believed in any way. Mind you, there is nothing to say that these two things are mutually exclusive — the mind can hold two things at the same time. They can believe in the totally illogical and false while at the same time knowing that they are conning us.

 And so there seems to be nothing we can do, fellow citizens. If we scream, yell, or articulate any protests, all that happens is that the people who can see it agree, but the Make Britain Great Again-ers call what we are saying Project Fear to deflect from the fact that it is actually Project Due Diligence. And they will never change their minds any more than people who wanted to see Dreyfus go to Devil’s Island could be convinced, even after all the evidence that he was innocent was before them; or people who thought six months of Hitler in power would lead to cleaning up the country as he promised and then he could be got rid of. But do not kid yourself. Once people like Boris Johnson and his cohorts get the power, it is very hard to get rid of them. And once they start progressing towards their true, hidden goals that dare not be articulated properly, they go forward step by step eroding all that Britain has stood for democratically and intellectually for a good four hundred years. And so, as in so many things, we are following the USA and just lagging behind it. Think of our Conservative Party as becoming more and more like the Republicans or the Tea Party, in the USA. And think of Boris as being Donald Trump Light. And that is what this country voted for.

 So please tell me at last: what law was imposed on us? Give me one example in the last 45 years of a law that was imposed by the EU against our will, against our sovereignty? One example of a law made by the EU that we did not participate in considering, debating, formulating, voting on, passing and even writing up for the parliament of the EU to ratify? We had a VETO on every decision that impacted on Britain.

 Oh, and then there is the other important thing you might want to think about: that there was no real Opposition at the time of the Referendum. Because life-long-Leaver Jeremy Corbyn and his intellectually limp gang had control of the supposedly opposing party and undermined the campaign to maintain our membership in the EU. I blame Corbyn, his cohorts and that ineffably old fashioned dinosaur Len McCluskey (Labour’s flip side of the Dominic Cummings coin) as much as I blame Boris Johnson and his people.

 But right now I think I am going to go out and sing Christmas carols in the street and cheer myself up by hibernating, probably for up to a decade. When I re-emerge, we will see who was right about Brexit and immigration – me or Priti Patel.

********

11 DEC 2020 Letter to The Guardian:

The Guardian headline  “Johnson tells ministers to prepare for no-deal Brexit” 11 Dec 20, and your several commentaries forecasting 2% fall in GDP, “But we plucky Brits will get through it” are ridiculously optimistic. Prepare how? Prepare for what? They must be penned by people who have never built a business, marketed exports or financed a payroll. All respected global agencies from the Bank of England to Bloomberg have consistently warned of 8% drop in GDP and 15% - 20% fall in Sterling – for any Brexit. That translates to 5 to 7 million UK job losses or equivalent reduction of wages. 

Any Brexit, spurning our share of “The largest and richest market – ever” will bankrupt Britain. It is what Rees Mogg and chums in their tax-havens are betting on; they will blame the calamity on Covid-19 but Covid will have a V shaped recovery. Cafes, Pubs, Hairdressers, Nail bars, Theatres, Vacations etc. and other pleasures will quickly switch back on, accelerated by the Internet-Revolution. 

Basic, essential, serious agriculture, engineering and City of London services, our exports, sabotaged and fragmented by Brexit, will be swallowed whole by competing nations. Our only hope is to stop and abandon this idiotic, moronic, suicidal Brexit. – Noel Hodson, Oxford.

 Noel Hodson - Director

Tax Reconciliations, 16 Brookside, Oxford, OX3 7PJ UK,

From Tax-Havens to Safe Havens

Tel +44 1865 (0)760994 Mobile 07713 681216 

Noel Hodson Blog


Friday, 12 June 2020

MODERN SLAVERY - STATUES - BLACK LIVES MATTER


India - Many females are enslaved in modern India.

BLACK LIVES MATTER : Protesters have very good cause to take to the streets against USA police violence and arbitrary public killings of arrested "suspects", which is a stain on any and all civilised nations. The Ku-Klux-Klan and similar vile fascist organisations were thought to be disbanded. Apparently not.

I strongly believe, as Isaac Asimov wrote, that "violence is the last resort of the incompetent". It should never be  a sociopolitical action. It reduces us and all citizens to beasts.

BUT, when governments  deliberately and arrogantly ignore mass demonstrations and marches, they provoke the escalation of peaceful, thoughtful citizens into angry crowds - and invite and incite violent mob reactions.

I cite just two such mass protests in the UK: One-Million people marched through London protesting against Tony Blair's 2003 Iraq War. He ignored them and  sent in troops to kill tens of thousands of innocent middle-east civilians; men, women and children. That was horrible State violence.

In 2018 One-million citizens marched through London protesting against Brexit. Six Million signed a Stop Brexit petition. Sixty-percent of voters voiced their anger. Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings ignored them all. As Brexit departure looms, 31st December 2020, and 7 million jobs are threatened as the UK sabotages half of its exports by spurning and insulting the EU - there is likely to be violent, desperate protest. Dominic Cummings welcomes such disruptive chaos. Who is the most violent - the Tory Brexiters or the silenced, ignored marchers who may well smash windows and surround Westminster? 

However, hi-jacking Black Lives Matter as a protest against historic slavery is a sly, daft and ill-advised piece of theatre. Tearing down statues and re-writing history in The 1984 Ministry of Truth is plain silly. The real history, part shameful, is recorded; protesters can publish it and make films etc.

Most African tribes practised slavery, some still do. The Israelites were Egyptian slaves - then in turn they owned slaves. The Old Testament is full of slave stories. Britons were Roman slaves. Chinese were Japan's slaves. Arabs conducted the North African slave trade for hundreds of years. It was ubiquitous world wide. To now, in 2020, ascribe slavery to Old White European Men is disingenuous - and futile. Name ten African leaders who used cruelly treated forced labour. Throughout history and herstory - millions of peaceful families were enslaved. 

Today, if the anti-slavery activists truly want to eradicate slavery - then forget the past millions and concentrate on the modern billions - about 1.5 billion - cruelly treated, deprived of rights, forced into labour, denied human rights and regularly beaten and raped - females. Turn your righteous anger against the religions, politics, economic forces, socio-cultural customs that abuse females. In many parts of the "civilised" world - women and girls are the most discriminated against populations. 

Thousands of millions - billions - are daily abused. Often the LAW protects the largely male abusers. I cite below a few well known regions that are notorious for terrible crimes against females. But you can supply hundreds more examples:  

Forget Nelson, Baden Powell, serial wife-killer, syphilitic, obese Henry VIII, forget dead plantation owners and the rest. Get out and arrest the contemporary villains and sexual abusers. Some of our great modern leaders are the worst offenders. Tear them down - and LOCK THEM UP. 

INDIA - 128,000 rapes per year.


"Yet while the horrific crime has prompted hundreds to take to the streets, and calls for lynching and hanging in parliament, it was far from an isolated incident. According to statistics, a woman is raped in India every 20 minutes.
India is the most dangerous place to be a woman, according to a survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation last year, and the stark reality of this was brought to the fore this week. As well as the Hyderabad case, there was the abduction, gang rape and murder of a young lawyer in Jharkhand; the rape and murder of a 55-year-old cloth seller in Delhi’s Gulabi Bagh neighbourhood; and a teenager in the state of Bihar was gang raped and killed, before her body was set on fire on Tuesday."
AFRICA & USA
The ten countries with the highest rates of rape (number of incidents per 100,000 citizens) are:
  1. South Africa (132.4)
  2. Botswana (92.9)
  3. Lesotho (82.7)
  4. Swaziland (77.5)
  5. Bermuda (67.3)
  6. Sweden (63.5)
  7. Suriname (45.2)
  8. Costa Rica (36.7)
  9. Nicaragua (31.6)
  10. Grenada (30.6)
South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world of 132.4 incidents per 100,000 people. According to a survey conducted by the South African Medical Research Council, approximately one in four men surveyed admitted to committing rape. Although the Parliament of South Africa enacted the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act in 2007 attempting to amend and strengthen all laws dealing with sexual violence, the rates of reported rape, sexual abuse of children and domestic violence have continued to rise.
The United States has a rape rate of 27.3. As in many other countries, rape is grossly underreported in the United States due to victim shaming, fear of reprisal, fear of family knowing, cases not being taken seriously by law enforcement, and possible lack of prosecution for the perpetrator. Only 9% of rapists in the US get prosecuted and only 3% of rapists will spend a day in prison. 97% of rapists in the United States will walk free.
Focus your righteous anger in 2020. Protect your women folk from crudely "being grabbed by the pussy"; and far, far, far worse. These are truly enslaved world citizens. 

Thursday, 26 March 2020

LOCKDOWN UK CITIZEN NO. 63,567,109 writes:


Covid-19 is not alone.
This deadly virus emerged in 2012
from melting Arctic permafrost.






Update 7 April 2020


UK LOCKDOWN - FUEL SAVED
07/04/2020

NCH Oxford



01-Jan-20
FROM

07-Apr-20
TO

97
lockdown days

7
days per week

14
weeks

5
usual weekly commute

69
commute days lockdown

65
average journey time of 65 minutes each day

57%
commute by car

27,000,000
workers

33,600,000
drivers

7,900
average miles p.a. (assume energy for all travellers)
42
average mpg (assume energy for all travellers)

4.5
litres per UK gallon

365
driving days. Assume distance equally spread

22
miles per day

4.8
litres per day

161,607,306
all drivers litres per day

15,675,908,676
litres all drivers - all lockdown days

112
pence per litre - pump price

£        17,557,017,717
Cash saved by travellers
£          17.56
Billion

180
Exhaust multiple as fuel burns

2,821,663,561,644
Exhaust litres saved
28,217
Billion litres


£                           33.50
BRENT CRUDE per barrel
07/04/2020

159
litres per barrel

98,590,621
Barrels

£     3,302,785,790.18
Saved - imported?
£            3.30
Billion








Update 3 April 2020 
Trump keeps the gun-shops open. Americans will seek out and shoot the virus. Or, shoot the unemployed. Or, shoot all the 10M infected. Civil War will fix Covid-19. 


CNBC - April 2nd

Initial jobless claims surged to more 6.6 million last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That brings the two-week total to about 10 million due to the coronavirus-induced economic shutdown.
_________________________

The Guardian.


Americans have responded to the coronavirus epidemic with a record-breaking number of gun purchases, according to new government data on the number of background checks conducted in March.
More than 3.7m total firearm background checks were conducted through the FBI’s background check system in March, the highest number on record in more than 20 years. An estimated 2.4m of those background checks were conducted for gun sales, according to adjusted statistics from a leading firearms industry trade group. That’s an 80% increase compared with the same month last year, the trade group said.
________________________________
TESTING TIMES - update 2nd April 2020
Nothing new under the sun.


THE BLACK DEATH - 200 YEARS OF PLAGUE
The beak contained herb filters to protect medics.
2/3rds of the population died.



From the Spectator

Dr John Lee


How deadly is the coronavirus? It’s still far from clear

There is room for different interpretations of the data

(READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE) From magazine issue: 28 March 2020

In announcing the most far-reaching restrictions on personal freedom in the history of our nation, (UNITED KINGDOM) Boris Johnson resolutely followed the scientific advice that he had been given. The advisers to the government seem calm and collected, with a solid consensus among them. In the face of a new viral threat, with numbers of cases surging daily, I’m not sure that any prime minister would have acted very differently.

But I’d like to raise some perspectives that have hardly been aired in the past weeks, and which point to an interpretation of the figures rather different from that which the government is acting on. I’m a recently-retired Professor of Pathology and NHS consultant pathologist, and have spent most of my adult life in healthcare and science – fields which, all too often, are characterised by doubt rather than certainty. There is room for different interpretations of the current data. If some of these other interpretations are correct, or at least nearer to the truth, then conclusions about the actions required will change correspondingly.

The simplest way to judge whether we have an exceptionally lethal disease is to look at the death rates. Are more people dying than we would expect to die anyway in a given week or month? Statistically, we would expect about 51,000 to die in Britain this month. At the time of writing, 422 deaths are linked to Covid-19 — so 0.8 per cent of that expected total. On a global basis, we’d expect 14 million to die over the first three months of the year. The world’s 18,944 coronavirus deaths represent 0.14 per cent of that total. These figures might shoot up but they are, right now, lower than other infectious diseases that we live with (such as flu). Not figures that would, in and of themselves, cause drastic global reactions.


______________________________________________________________


1st April 2020


APRIL FOOLS



London’s “Nightingale” 4,000 bed new hospital in a Conference Centre by The Thames, is not ready. It’s reassuring that our traditional CAN’T- DO managers are still empowered to cull thousands of the sick and elderly by simply applying inertia. If we wait long enough, problems solve themselves.

Ditto, the massive funding package to rescue our small businesses. HM Gov have (tongue in cheek) announced immense grants/loans. The banks are blocking it by insisting on mortgaging the business owners’ homes. “You will not only lose your business and livelihood, you and your feckless family will also be homeless.” 

This morning the BBC say that 800,000 of our SMEs will rapidly go bust. SMEs employ 60% of our workforce. The medics and MPs need a lot more justification than Covid-19 for the redundant millions who will die in despair, due to the lock-down.


NOW is the time to develop a better national strategy. 1st – ditch this dopey useless government and the NHS senior managers. It is significant that both Boris and his strange familiar, Dominic Cummings, have disappeared; hoping to re-enter, blameless, after the current cock-ups, conspiracies and gross-stupidities have run their course.



_____________________________________________________________


27th March 2020 - 3 pm - London.

Subject: DAILY EXPRESS - DOMINIC CUMMINGS NOT TO TAKE OVER GOVERNMENT

Dominic Cummings 'does a runner' from No10 as Boris Johnson says he has coronavirus


https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1261272/Dominic-Cummings-coronavirus-uk-boris-johnson-latest-video-covid-19-update-death-toll

DOMINIC CUMMINGS has "done a runner" from Downing Street after both Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced they have tested positive for coronavirus.


PUBLISHED: 14:26, Fri, Mar 27, 2020 | UPDATED: 14:26, Fri, Mar 27, 2020


___________________________________________________________________


26th March 2020

“Do we need food?”

My body type - until I hit 60..
by Alberto Giacometti

Locked-down under Coronavirus-home-arrest, aged 77 and a quarter, I find that when I crouch down and bend to tie my shoelaces (I spurn Velcro fasteners and Trainers), I can no longer breathe easily. In-depth critical-analysis has tracked this disability, having dismissed dozens of blame-worthy external culprits, to the fact that I am simply too fat. 

Not noticeably overweight, viewed from the front or back, I don’t yet need two airline seats, but my profile reveals a distinct and persistent paunch. A layer of quite solid fat on my belly. It is this unsightly, useless, heavy, stubborn lump that as I bend double presses upwards into the territory of my lungs – and makes me breathless. I have never before been fat. For much of my younger life I was distinctly a Giacometti figure; unfailingly gaunt rather than tubby. This has changed. 

Further analysis, recently informed by our listing and stock-piling 2020 Coronavirus food supplies, demonstrates that what is causing these unwanted deposits of strangely firm blubber, is food! My dear wife speculates that it might come from an excess of alcohol in my now regular glasses of evening wine; and urges urgent, Puritan and total temperance. However, three of my brothers considerably shortened their lives with vast excesses of alcohol – which had the reverse effect; they each wasted away with each drink, losing body-mass month by month, until they were thin enough to pass through The Eye of a Needle, and Meet our Maker in the realm of the Heavenly Jerusalem. No; the paunch is definitely caused by excess, unabsorbed foodstuffs.

Which leads me to the Big-Question: Do we, hi-tech 21st century mankind and womankind, person-kind, politically-correct “guys” need food?

We spend vast amounts of energy, money, anticipation, preparation, pleasure and risk ill-health consuming food. All of us, or our agents, grow, breed, shepherd, harvest, cull, seek, kill and cook food. Half of the food never makes it from farm to plate. It is prodigiously wasted. The half that we do eat is disassembled and dissolved in our hundred metres of guts; inner-tubes that extract trace chemicals to refresh our cells and power our needs and desires. 

Ninety-percent of what we consume is excreted as waste – that revolts us and has to be washed away in sewers. The sewers, blocked with fatbergs, need constant cleaning and maintenance – that takes human energy – that requires food – that creates waste – and requires endless amounts of work to repetitively replace. We are slaves to the thrice daily process of creation, consumption, extraction and excretion of – food! Pause the process and our active battery-life is at best 20 days, before we start eating each-other. But we rarely pause. Then, as the body balancing mechanisms start to malfunction, as we age, we, many of us, get fat.

Including children, there are seven-billion folk, averaging 10 stones, 140 pounds, wobbling around on the Earth’s surface – 70 billion stones of humanity – three-and-a-half billion tons of flesh. If we all congregated on say, the Isle of Wight, or Manhattan, would our combined mass give the Earth a wobble, create an imbalance that could distort the planet’s orbit round the Sun – and plunge us into that fiery orb? It doesn’t bear thinking about. It is too awful.

We spend, arguably we waste, a lot of our short lives, our three-score-years-and-ten on this business of feeding. Farming, shopping, mealtimes, abluting, cleaning up, gyms, jogging, visiting the dentist, going to the doctor. Do we really need it?

Let’s get down to basics. We now have the capability of creating and mass-producing a single daily pill that would feed us all the nutrients we require. A pill that we would absorb and burn-off entirely as energy, without waste. No more toilet-breaks. Think of the impact on GDP (gross-domestic-product). In fact, we probably don’t even need a pill. Science can calculate the precise amount, the quantum, and form of electromagnetic energy needed to replenish the chemicals of our cells. We could plug into the central electricity generating board supply while we sleep – and recharge our cellular-batteries.

The daily Pill or E-Charge would do away the need for teeth, most internal plumbing, bowels, spare-tyres, paunches, subcutaneous-fat, and a whole mess of troublesome inter-testine organs. I mean, who needs them? Where airlines now squeeze three overweight paying passengers in a cramped row – they could cram in six guys. Think of the profits.

We don’t need to wait for Darwinian Evolution to adapt our bodies to the new regime; the super-rich can immediately have super-rich-person-surgery to remove all the stuff we no longer need or want. The middle-class and struggling-poor will have to wait – and weight – for nature to confer on them fashionable Giacometti figures.

“You can never be too rich or too thin.” Said Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, wife of Edward the Eighth. And it didn’t do her, or her career, any harm.    

Duchess & Duke of Windsor.
"You can never be too rich or too thin."