This FOOT PATH - I mean FOOT "WAY" is closed...

Illegal signage!

I recently noticed the weird tendency for the local government to replace the ancient and universally understood term "footpath" with a new word - "footway" - on its signage. 

Decades of experience have taught me that there is always some covert agenda behind such apparently arbitrary changes to language - and I am now more than ever convinced of this*. 

Today I saw a sign stating "Footway closed" - but the word "path" had been crudely covered with tape, and "way" had been written over it with a marker pen. 

This demonstrates to my satisfaction that the change in name comes top down and has been imposed. 

And this tells me that the re-naming is part of some strategy for re-classifying the legal status of (what used to be) footpaths. 

I don't know what this strategy might be, but (given the UK local government zealous-obsession with the totalitarian "climate"-rationalized destruction of quality of life, and life itself); the strategy might be something to do with legally-allowing/ encouraging forms of transportation other than feet, and groups of movers other than pedestrians, to use those tracks that used to be foot-paths. 

Given the local government obsession with providing Rolls Royce (but nigh unused) facilities for cyclists (justified by climate-totalitarianism); and the recent de facto redefinition of cyclists to include electric motorbikes and scooters; I am suspicious that there may be a move towards including once-footpaths into the (already vast, all-but empty) network of "cycle tracks". 

Then pedestrians and women with baby buggies can be mangled and slaughtered en masse by buzzing hordes of 25-plus mph two-wheelers. Or, simply driven to stay at home cowering behind locked-doors... 

Result!

I await developments to see if I am correct. 

*NOTE: I have done a bit of "research" about this; however seems to be so much brain-washing, ignorance and dishonesty in what people say - that I found it pretty worthless. The only perhaps useful point was that apparently: "footway is regarded as a component of a road as a whole rather than a separate entity". Maybe this provides a helpful definitional "loophole" for whatever is intended? 

Understanding bicycle lanes - What is at the centre of the onion?

For the past decade and more, the road system of my ancient city (with London, the only modern major city in England that has been major since medieval times) is being systematically destroyed by the construction of more and yet-more bicycle lanes. 

(In fact, I should really write "bicycle lanes" in scare quotes - since they are nearly always empty of traffic). 

Recently, The Great North Road - that major artery which has, for hundreds of years, linked London to the south with Edinburgh to the north, has been reduced from two to a single lane of traffic; with predictable consequences. 

But the process is incremental and unrelenting, and affects roads of all kinds and sizes. Because the city is old, and expansion of roads often impossible, this sometimes involves making roads one-way (halving the traffic), blocking with bumps and chicanes, and sometimes removing pedestrian pavements - so cars and walkers are alike affected. Many, many roads of many sizes have been, are-being, closed-off, at great expense, for good reason or none. 

Congestion is worse, journeys are longer, fumes are worse, both driving and walking are more dangerous and less enjoyable. 

 

There are in fact extremely few cyclists, probably fewer than forty years ago; and those that are sighted are mostly sports and recreational bikers, or else people who have substituted cycling for walking. Extremely few people are able consistently to substitute a bike for a car (for many and - one would have thought - obvious reasons). 

And - cyclists being what they are (i.e. supremely entitled) they are more often to be found on the roads or 'sidewalks' than in their specially-contructed and allocated lanes.

So why are billions of pounds being spent on this transformation nationally? Peeling-off the excuses to find the core truth is an interesting exercise (unlike cycling!).

 

The official reason is to encourage cycling instead of motor vehicle usage, and thereby cut-down on CO2 (i.e. the gas of life) and thus 'save the planet'. 

The amount of CO2 actually saved is tiny or non-existent, and of course the entire Global Warming narrative is a Big Lie; but in such matters it is being seen to 'make the effort' that counts above everything.  

Behind this is a raft of legislation (mostly from the European Union) that pays local councils to install cycle lanes; regardless of the opportunity costs from lost time and wasted fuel (which would be even  more billions of pounds, if counted). 

Behind this is the archetypal leftist political activist of our day, those who staff the local councils - for whom Global Warming from CO2 is a religion, cycling is good in itself; and who hate-hate-HATE motor vehicles and will do anything, and spend any amount of other-people's money, to pursue this vendetta. 

 

And behind this? Well, eventually we have the Global Establishment of multi-mega-billionnaires, international and national politicians, and media moguls; who are making trillions from the Green Energy scam - its vast subsidies and the regulations that destroy rivals and centralise power and wealth in ever fewer hands. Their attitude to the planet and its people is expolitative - either they are indifferent to human and environmental destruction and death, or else they actually enjoy inflicting it.

Thus the The System is torn-down and pillaged for its resources. The two activities - deliberate economic collapse (currently by means of birdemic regulations) and the collosal spending on 'cycle lanes' from this rapidly shrinking economy - are merely two sides of the same coin. 

 

But what are these officially-looted resources to be used for? 

Here we approach the point where the noisy, polluting, expensive and misery-inducing destruction of my local roads; links-up with the Grand Strategy of the real rulers of this planet.   

Bad roads means that personal transport becomes more difficult, more expensive and ultimately almost impossible - and this needs to be achieved within the next decade, according to Agenda 2030; explaining the frantic, unprecedented and accelerating rate of destructive activity - even as the rest of the economy is strangled and collapses around it. 

Soon we really will not 'need' these roads, because there will be nothing allowed to drive on them, and anyway driving will not be allowed (except by specific permission for specific and approved reasons - enforced by enormous fines, arbitrarily enforced and without appeal). 

But neither will cycles be allowed, since the population will (again) be confined to their houses. 

(Of course, this was already the case for several months in early 2020, so we know what it will be like; and it will again be the case again soon; and soon permanently.)

 

The destruction of roads/ construction of empty bike-lanes are part of a multi-pronged strategy towards a world where the mass of people are confined to their allocated living quarters; except when a minority of them are (compulsorily) engaged in officially-approved activities - under constant monitoring and psychologically separated by walls, distance, masks, whatever... 

Again we ask why? And now we begin to approach the deep, underlying reason; we begin to cross the line between human and demonic agency. Humans (most of us) need some kind of 'good reason' to do evil - although admittedly, some people don't need very much of a reason. 

But in the end, at the core of the onion, we reach supernatural, demonic evil - for whom evil is the explicit goal, and whose purpose is for Mankind to live in mutual resentment, fear and despair; in accordance with their system of value-inversion - in which bad is good, ugliness beautiful, and lies are truth: all this more-comprehesively and more-extremely so, with every passing day.

(Because there is always more evil work to do in God's creation.)

 

By which point (so the demons intend) the mass of Men - self cut-off from God and the spiritual, communicating only by censored electronic media, fed only demonic propaganda - will choose to reject Christ's salvation, refuse repentance, embrace Satan's goals; and thereby choose damnation. 

Thus can be seen that the proliferating yet empty cycles lanes of Newcastle upon Tyne are a microcosm of the Grand Strategy of evil on this planet; and their unrelenting expansion (with its multiple, layered and ramifying consequences) is an index of the triumph of Satan in the world today.   

Which is the single most Entitled group in the modern West?

Cyclists - obviously!

There is a lot of competition - but there's no real doubt about the winners.

Cycling is just a minority hobby pursued by boring monomaniacs; yet my home city has spent hundreds of millions of pounds, and subtracted hundreds of millions of man-hours from the lives of its resident, to accommodate the whims of this tiny cadre of selfish, over-indulged pin-heads.

Cyclists are also arch-enemies of the mass majority of sensible, decent, real people: salt of the earth: the pedestrians. 

Falling out-of-love with cricket...

My earliest blog (that wasn't merely a repository) was about cricket - it was called The Doosra, and was somewhat focused on the question of how this method of bowling was being attempted by a new breed of offspin bowlers.

I came late to an enjoyment of cricket - it was the summer of 1992, the 18th June, second day of the Lord's Test Match - and I was listening to Test Match Special on the car radio as I drove back to Glasgow in Scotland (where I then lived) from an overnight stay in Kircudbricht. I think the only reason I was listening is that - in this rather remote part of Scotland, Radio 4 Long Wave was the only accessible channel, and that was broadcasting cricket...

My original interest was to discover what 'leg spinner' meant; and this proved surprisingly difficult! But after that my interest in cricket grew rapidly, and was mostly focused on the craft of spin bowling.

(I can't do it myself; and never have been able to bowl or throw without shoulder pain - even as a kid; so the interest was purely theoretical. Indeed, I was permanently put off playing cricket as soon as we were compelled to use a hard leather ball instead of a tennis ball, from about aged 10 - due to repeated finger injuries. Yet the fact that in India and Pakistan (especially) they uses a duct-taped tennis ball for cricket up to semi-professional level doesn't seem to have impaired their prowess one whit.)

Anyway, my love of cricket became integrated with daily life - and (as for many people) reached its peak in the famous 2005 Ashes (i.e. England versus Australia) series; then had a second peak when England won the beat Australia-at-home in 2010-11. 

When T20 (20 overs per side) cricket was invented, I at first enjoyed it a lot; although I immediately saw that the bowlers should be allowed five overs maximum, each, instead of the current four, if the game was to retain the proper balance.

But domestic franchise T20 cricket (led by the Indian Premier League; IPL) became a vast money spinner, as a monochrome slugfest of about 8 runs per over or more; while 50 overs-per-side one day cricket and 5-day test match cricket have dwindled.

Currently I find the IPL unwatchable - a huge, dull, fake; and test matches duller and more depressing with each series; and am only really engaged by good 50 over cricket in the context of a five match competition or the World Cup...

For me the decisive moment was the year the Doosra was banned - 2015. (Especially the banning of the world's premier spinner - the immaculate Saed Ajmal.)  It was banned (rather than modifying the laws of cricket to accommodate this delightful innovation, as had happened often in the history of the game) essentially because the batters found it too hard to deal with when trying to hit sixes, and it limited the colossal run totals in T20...

Anyway, I have fallen out of love with cricket. The essence of cricket is personality; and the longer forms of the game provided unmatched opportunity to see personality unfold in a competitive context. Cricket really could be a microcosm of Life. But with its commercialisation and simplification, that has ceased to be the case - and cricket players in context of actual matches have become almost as dull as tennis players, swimmers and cyclists; and nearly as thuggish and graceless as footballers...

Plus, political correctness has, and it took a long time, finally penetrated and permeated the heart of cricket; destroying truthfulness and integrity, and making everything beautiful into a political/ bureaucratic attitude - as it always does...

I still watch in hopes - and there are still highlights (the England versus New Zealand series recently was good, far better than The Ashes - although the 'crowds' watching were tiny). But the fact is that the love has dwindled, the magic has all-but gone. 

"If you build it - they will come" - The bureaucrat's delusion

However differently it may have been in the past; nowadays, new building signifies neither prosperity nor progress - indeed, it is a sign of the opposite. 

Bureaucrats operate on the delusion that "If you build it - they will come"; the delusion that if you construct a shell, then the necessary people will flood into it. So we get new office blocks, research laboratories, 'traffic calming' speed-bumps etc. on roads, bike lanes, solar panels and 'wind-turbines'... 

Or lavish updates and restorations when that is not possible. 

There has been an orgy of 'construction' since around the millennium - in-line with the bureaucratic takeover of everything; and where has it got us? 

New buildings are supposed to bring Good People, bike lanes are supposed to encourage cyclists 

This is actually just a manifestation of self-serving, short-termist managerialism - because New Build is the best way for managers to buff their CVs. New Build is better than Good people - especially when there aren't many Good people...

Especially when the bureaucrats don't even Want Good people because you are focused on Affirmative Action Group Preference Quotas (which only exist because there are not enough Good people in the categories being affirmed).  

And New Build is not even Good Build, because the priority is never functionality; but domination and virtue-signaling. 

So the New Build is all extra-expensive, extra-gimmicky, pseudo-environmentalist, fake-sustainability - and horrible to behold and dwell-within. 

This is why my city - and everywhere else I visit, even deep countryside - has been a frenzied maelstrom of building for the past decades; which only accelerated with the birdemic. 

New Buildings are a visible symptoms, and anti-personnel method, of the totalitarian bureaucracy which has taken over The West. 

But as the evil-affiliated leadership swings from managed Ahrimanic-bureaucracy towards sheer Sorathic destruction - we shall, I predict, see the slowing, cessation, and reversal of this mania*.

But not in a good way, because not for good reasons.  

*(...Although the dismantling of so much concrete and steel is too difficult and expensive to contemplate - so the hideous hulks and crumbling shells of 21st century construction will continue to pollute the world for many generations to come - if there are generations to come.) 

Note: Expanding Churches that have been subjected to managerial takeover will tend to focus on New Build - projected as a (fake) sign of spiritual growth and thriving. Or else - like the Church of England, which has more buildings than it can use for religious purposes - they might evolve towards repurposing as a 'cathedral'-based religion; by adding-to and extensively adapting beautiful old buildings into tourist attractions with cafes, restaurants, shops, exhibitions, brochures and tours - and making spaces to hire for secular/ political purposes.   

Sam Gamgee no more! Noise, stench and rush: the pseudo-gardeners of 2020

 

The archetypal gardener is Sam Gamgee, quietly and leisurely clipping the hedges or lawns of Bag End; or - at this time of year - raking leaves. Gardening was associated with peace, and absorbed contemplation. Gardeners were usually slow thinkers - but wise with an earthy common sense; borne of slow, sustained, tranquil tasks. 

Not any more! The gardeners of 2020 - whether professional or hobbyists, have made gardening into a variant of all that is vile in mainstream modern life. 

Raking the lawn, while enjoying the smells and sounds of autumn; has been replaced by a frantically hurried operative, deploying an ear-splitting 'leaf blower', muffled with eye- and ear-protection, and surrounded by the acrid stench of a two-stroke engine. Neighbours for a raduis of half a mile are compelled to share in the broadcast pollution. 

Even worse are those wood-chippers into-which allegedly 'eco-friendly' gardeners feed twigs and branches to make a crude mulch. Some of these are as noisy as a pneumatic drill, spray high velocity particles like a fragmentation grenade... and again there are billows of exhaust fumes. 

Hedge-trimming is another urgent, noisy activity replacing a thoughtful one; and the gentle boc boc of a woodman's axe is replaced by the screaming chainsaw. 

Gardening has become just-another busy, loud, smelly, expensive, meaningless modern chore; and as of 2020, gardeners - as a species - are very-nearly as smugly entitled as... cyclists.