I COULD BE WRONG

 So here am I at 2.19 (almost 2.22 in the morning) that paladrom again, All the twos.. dreaming about how Trump gave all the US secrets away to Putin, his ego betraying not only himself but his country and the west to the contempt of a man who has been a politician for far too long and believes the rhetoric of his own press release.   

He has acted by the playbook and will use chemical weapons, just as he did in Syria, flattening a country and a people, which initially the media covered, until a Royal or Spice Girl did something and the attention went else where.   I remember when studying for journalism, a lecturer asking me to put in order of news items I would cover.   It would always be any news related to the death of someone British.  It could be just one, but if it was one British person, that would be of more interest than say, a train crash in India, or cyclone in Fiji.   Even then in my twenties I thought this was odd. This jingoistic view nurtured by media, under the guise of this is what the people want.  The media has never thought of its punters as part of a global community unless of course it was in their interest - not ours - for it to do so. 

I watch the reportage of the news in Ukraine. At any hour of the day or night when I can't or won't sleep.   The news reporters being made courageous, intrepid in their own right, when really it is their job.   Having reported on items which probably made them despair about why they entered the profession in the first place (anything to do with celebrity meltdowns), they have had plague and now war to speak and write pithy and inspiring.  I watched as reporters stood in front of scenes where the evacuees where dazed at a train station or warehouse where they were finding shelter, wanting, someone to tap them on the shoulder and shout. 'Will you stop filming and fucking do something'.  It will only be a matter of days when a film crew will be bombed, shot, accidentally as the Russian media will report it.   For both sides are organising the propaganda.  Unfortunately the media in this country have been stirring something out of nothing for so long, they don't know what to do when there really is something to report on.   

I presented a talk to a group of PhD students at Cambridge yesterday on the use of lateral thinking in the real world.  An alarmingly obtuse title, especially for PhD students and spent the first ten minutes dissecting that title.  What is real?  Is it truth or perceptual truth?  Is there such a thing as perceptual truth? (no).  Is there such a thing as perceptual thinking (all thinking is perceptual).  Is lateral thinking a good thing? (yes, portfolio careers, no gaslighting, and finance).  Tapping into what the late and great Ken Williamson says about education squeezing out creative instincts, reading a poem about the language used by academics which the first time I heard it thought was a foreign language (dominant hegemonic discourse - knowledge is power) wondering why they need to use it, but then realising that is why they do.  I also shared De Bono's thoughts on the media, interested in clash and controversy, attack, human interest and gimmick, all of which fall into the plague and war that have been going on in the past years although they have always been going on somewhere in the world, just that they haven't affected the British punter.  So they don't count as 'news' of value and substance to a paper that knows if they put Princess Diana on the cover, it will sell more. 

I remember being in an interview for the BBC journalism course (I should have pursued that) and having a first interview being asked about the order of the news again.  By that time, I had worked in radio and some freelancing on the Mail on Sunday, where I had a scoop finding Brits who had escaped from Kuwait across the desert when the country was annexed and Maggie (Thatcher) sent in the troops.  I was confined to my page three byline only by pictures of large phallic missiles. Sex and violence in once phrase.  One of the interviewers asked me in what order the radio, TV and print journalists would cover the story.  I replied the newspaper would cover all the stories, taking the risk, the radio would cover it, bleeding off the newspaper reporting, with 'real' people (anyone who isn't a journalist or a PR), and the TV wouldn't report it eventually but only after the paper had taken the first step. 

For ultimately media lacks courage and curiosity. It is left to documentary makers to go in depth, and step over and through the red tape, everyone terrified of what they might find out on their way to uncovering one story as they realise they have found many others which would lead to people in power, having their ego and livelihood damaged. 

I listen to LBC and turn down when someone comes on and gets ripped to pieces by James O'Brien, who loves the sound of his own voice and laughs at his own jokes and mentions he has listening figures which have grown exponentially, Ive noted he likes that word. 

I told the PhD students to write clearly, simply, making their language accessible, because unlike most of those I have met outside academia, they really know their stuff rather than they pretend to know their stuff. They have integrity of thinking, while those outside have fluency of style, when both are needed.  

I told them the concept of 'real' world, is a misnomer. The real world is nothing more than an illusion, in and of which we are complicit for example in advertising and most certainly in politics, and also again the media who shine a light on issues because people want to know human interest, gimmick, attack, clash and controversy.   Actually they don't, but that is what they are fed. That stuff is bad for the soul as well as the brain and 'be careful the stories you tell, children will listen (into the woods) is as relevant to the adult punter as it is to the child listening to a fairy story about a prince rescuing a princess, because a lot of women grow up thinking they need to be rescued and a lot of men grow up wanting to be the princess.   Personally, I never wanted to be in that fairy tale. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, lacking in kindness (think of the Duchess calling the baby 'pig') and decrying the fact cooking is a relaxing and rewarding past time, and the pompous caterpillar who fails to blossom into a butterfly and the empty dinner party full of empty chairs. How relevant to life that story is.  How observant Dodgeson was, although highly dubious as well reading about him. How he observed everyone and looked at what they said and how they said it, manipulating the light to fall on them. Where angry ugly women want to decapitate their underlings, but looking closer its men in drag, paper thin shallow superficial, good at playing the game of life.  

How much Alice's Adventures tell you about life. More than any socio psychology text book or website on how people live could and more effectively and playfully provocatively.  I am doing the same with a book I am writing - Size Six - which has the same back story of how things are reported, observed and if you don't fit, like Alice into the doors into paradise, you have to change shape because you are never enough.  And we are all animals with a thin veneer of sophistication which goes completely to the wall when we are in war. What does Putin care about all the sanctions, when he wins the war he will get it all back again.  They will forgive and forget and the protectionism which previous generations have fought so hard to tap away at over the decades, making us realise we are a global nation, has now entrenched into small states, much easier to attack.  Divide and conquer. We should be rescuing the Ukraine, and the images are hitting those psychologically more than they are physically.   False evidence appearing real I said to the students, that is what the 'real' world encourages, as does finance, as does insurance, as do politicians, as does religion.  The one area it is exempt is education. They do question and do have to research their stuff, and they do focus on evidence - although how much of that is perspective again, they need to take into account. Everything is perspective. and that is why Edward wanted to teach learning how to think in schools because he realised advertising politicians would become so sophisticated at influencing not only what we perceived but how we thought if we didn't realise what was happening. He listened to the Etonites who hold the power in all industries, at strategic positions at the top of the pile.  The papers like the New European and TV like Al Jazeera report more fluidly about events because they see the bigger picture, they zoom in and zoom out.  And they spend time investigating.   

So Trump gave up official secrets his ego stroked, and China is invading Taiwan and flattening the rebels in Hong Kong as the eyes of the world are directed onto Ukraine where they are taking the wheat and nuclear and strategic positioning.   Playing the long game while the west play the short game, as they always have.  Chemical war fair will be used, and everyone is hoping our government are far more intelligent and fast moving and long sighted than they appear.   The class system, with talk of the working class and the elite is alive and kicking thanks to the media and politicians who keep those words in play. 

Because it is our language that limits our ability to think, the windows to communication or symbols in their own right. It is humour that taps into the multiple perceptions and breaks down dogma and ideology more effectively using playful provocation than earnest text books which disempower although they remit their brief as empowering. 

Mental health would be vastly improved if it focused on teaching people how to think rather than going on about the psychobabble and I teach yoga in schools.  Even I recognise that. 

And the travel industry will never be sustainable until it stops flying and staycations will never be value for money because we don't respect those who serve.  Amazing what happens when you stand back and start to think. 

But I could be wrong.