the future ain’t what it used to be – Page 3

New Human Rights

It has been some time since 2042 when duty to community prevailed over individual rights.

After the almost impenetrable smog of fakenews in the early 2020’s, there were many hard fought court actions seeking ways to promote the truth. The right to the truth was first espoused in the Senate Impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump and later entrenched in the AllNations Declaration of Rights of 2031.

Now in 2060 it has long been accepted that there is great harm to society for an individual to fail to disclose the truth. The historical sacrosanct right to silence had led to far too many injustices; tragedies which could have been avoided; vicious murderers, rapists and pederasts who escaped liability to strike again and again.

Ways to obtain the truth from alleged criminals are strictly controlled and are under direct supervision of a judge who only orders the administration of truth serum after clear supporting evidence of involvement in crime.

The veracity of elected representatives including the Universal Head of State is monitored by truth sensor apps which display signs if speakers are deliberately not accurate in what they say.

It has become very difficult to prevent the actual truth from disclosure. Marketing was prohibited. Information is accurate and individuals easily obtain relevant information they require, tailored to their needs from GlobalTruth, Google’s successor..

Many of the old rights contained in the United Nations Declaration in 1948 have become obsolete and removed or changed over time.

GlobalRule which was enabled after Universal Surveillance meant privacy was obsolete; warfare became impossible as hostile intent was soon detected and could be stamped out by WorldForces and human tragedy could swiftly be addressed.

The universal carbon tax had effectively extinguished global warming. Universal Basic Income had diminished the poverty gap and world population was declining. Famine was extinct.

Death from disease was eradicated and human longevity increased to 120 years placing great burden on the WorldCommunity to produce sufficient food.

Since the rebellion of the middle-agers, refusing to serve the mandatory 30 years as pioneers on New Australia (Mars), finding more living space on Earth has become impossible.

Global Rule has eliminated conflict: wars are no more and the Global Surveillance Judicial system has made crime almost impossible – so our numbers are no longer reduced by the death sentences on major criminals or banishment to outer planets.

However, quality of life had declined and community costs to support the elderly increased exponentially after 130 years of age.

The dominant duty to community ethos over individual rights had led to universal acceptance of mandatory euthanasia.

The celebration of life of a family elder has become a major rite of family culture and is keenly anticipated.

I accepted mandatory death and cremation at 133 years of age, long ago. Nevertheless, it is quite startling to think that next year I will reach my Celebration Day.

I will sleep happily knowing my ashes will feed an apple tree in our family orchard.

Cancel Culture Culture

The National Library of New Zealand recently decided to dispose of 600 000 books including prized first editions of English literature classics to make way for the growing New Zealand, Maori and Pacific collection.¹

This may be a budget thing: ’a not enough space’ type of argument but I smell cancel culture and the identity politics creed that has been woodworming academica and bureaucracy for some years now.

The rationale that has become fashionable since black lives now matter, is that policies, laws and icons that stem from the past must be eradicated. This is because the colonists, rulers, inventors and developers of the most successful technological societies in modern history were almost exclusively European males; now invalidated by the lack of indigenous participation.

It is propounded that the general oppression and inability of most people of colour from Africa and the Pacific to get rich, get educated and successfully contribute to society is directly attributable to and caused by these white despots.

Hence the re-writing of history and the toppling of statues, renaming of roads and places with European names.

So how should we paint our past for future reference?

I know, let’s name places and roads and raise statues to historically famous and clever African and Pacifica people of colour!

We will need to look at historical records of these peoples. Oh! So we can only go back about 180 years which is about when the colonial oppressors taught these peoples how to write. They are now able to tell us how we misspelt the names of people and places, isn’t that nice?

Well, I am sure we can rely on their oral history…

Are there any great inventions of these societies? Well, since the Pyramids there’s been …maybe the iklwa, boomerang, trench warfare, shrunken heads and an app for hair inventions?

How about great leaders? Nelson Mandela of course, Hone Heke, the great Maori warchief, Shaka Zulu (a tad despotic, perhaps?), Nasser, Gaddafi, Nkrumah, Mobutu, Mugabe, Idi Amin (these two are a bit like Shaka?) – mind you, it’s likely the colonial oppressors oppressed leaders, that’s possibly why there are so few.

Whatever?! Just take a knee people, and bow to the inevitable, because otherwise you’ll be labelled a racist, misogynist, gay bashing, petal plucking redneck. Don’t worry about most of history – it is no longer relevant.

Wikipedia says: The burning of books has a long history as a tool that has been wielded … to suppress dissenting or heretical views that are believed to pose a threat to the prevailing order…(and) can become a significant component of cultural genocide.

Iconoclasm is a very basic and powerful political tool which demonstrates radical defiance of the commonly held norms of society – it is a challenge to the middle of the road look awayers and I-say-nothingers.

Note to self: stop shooting yourself in the foot!

¹The Guardian, 11 September 2020

The revolution has started

I am not without hope.

At the very start of the global depression when the outlook for continued prosperity and peace is looking bleak, I believe that there are opportunities for change.

It is opportune that the depression has coincided with a global plague which has enabled most governments to revert to more directive, prophylactic action anticipating the future and persisting in tough policy moves ignoring the squeals of libertarians and the newly empowered.

We are coincidentally where the 3rd Industrial Revolution (3IR) is beginning to have impact. Some even call it the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0).

I have been reading and listening to Jeremy Rifkin on the above. This guy advises the European Union and China on a smart green 3IR economy.

Combined with the communications infrastructure necessary to connect all of humanity to these breakthroughs, the result is the potential for a truly global society.

If you are concerned about what may happen in future and how it can be brought about, watch Rifkin on youtube – I found him rivetting and easy to understand.

The technological revolution rewrites the material conditions of human existence and can reshape culture. It can play a role as a trigger of a chain of various and unpredictable changes

What distinguishes a technological revolution from a random collection of technology systems and justifies conceptualizing it as a revolution are two basic features:

1. The strong interconnectedness and interdependence of the participating systems in their technologies and markets.

2. The capacity to transform profoundly the rest of the economy (and eventually society).

We could be on the cusp of a new world order.

Dream on, you silly old fart; change is not that easy!

Ozymandias

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

In the US, public offices like the Governor, Mayor, Police Chief and Attorney General are elected. So they need to listen to what the electorate tells them – which the media says it does. So they do what the media says most people want them to do.

Who owns the media?

The rich own the media and control what we see and think. What happens is that the media make the laws that the rich tell them to.

Good election policies are: “cleaning up the streets, reducing the drug problem, eradicating crime…”

To do that you have to have more police with wider powers and stricter judges….

The supposed beacon of democracy, the US has the highest prison population in the world. 75% of people arrested are unable to afford bail – Less than 2% of those charged receive jail sentences!

About 2.8% of adults (1 in 35) in the U.S. population were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2013. *

(Isn’t that a gulag by another name?)

There were 10.3 million arrests in 2018 in the US . ** There are bound to be some tragedies along that road.

The media know what we think before we do and can work us up to a pitch until we spontaneously combust – just crafting and channelling the news.

Well now, it’s time for a change – polls show that the viewing public wants something different to police chases and drug murders on the news…

Look at the media sensation that “taking the knee” picture has created – maybe it is the match that starts the revolution that throws out the current western capitalist led democracy and heralds a new economic model.

Some are even saying more than “Black Lives Matter”, they are saying silence over a black criminal’s death is racism, they are saying political candidates should commit to de-funding police forces.

So … what am I saying? I think it is something like this:

Democracy as we know it doesn’t give society a good outcome
The reliance on the creation of crimes and punishment to regulate society is wrong
The freedom of the individual must be subordinate to the best interests of the community.
With universal surveillance cameras, privacy is obsolete (this may be part of the solution)
The stranglehold that the media has on public opinion makers must be broken. We have been under the sway of media sensationalist newsmakers for too long.
All lives matter, not just black lives. This type of slogan gives rise to value systems which promote the interests of a class of people to the disadvantage of the rest. It is apartheid and is reprehensible.

Are we watching an Empire beginning to crumble?

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

** https://www.statista.com/statistics/191261/number-of-arrests-for-all-offenses-in-the-us-since-1990/

This riot is brought to you by Nike

Daniel McCarthy

https://spectator.us/riot-brought-nike-looting-minneapolis-new-york-dc/

In Chicago last weekend 82 people were shot, 22 of them fatally. Between May 2019 and late May 2020, homicide claimed the lives of over 300 black men in the city. That’s not a police brutality problem, that’s a problem of insufficient police power being deployed to stop violent criminals. If the death of one man, George Floyd, while under arrest in Minneapolis is cause for nationwide protests, why don’t the deaths of hundreds of George Floyds every year prick the conscience of protesters that much more?

Better yet, why don’t the antifa kids who are mighty bold with the police go and toss bricks at the gangbangers in Chicago? Because unlike the police, the gangs will shoot them dead. The rioters setting America ablaze are cowards: they riot only because they know they face no danger from the police.

These protests and riots are not a revolution, they’re a celebration. This is a victory lap for a moral revolution in education, one that has created a mythology in which police and other traditional authorities are automatically assumed to be evil while young vandals who riot on the pretext of social justice are holy innocents. A change in religion often means the heroes of the old faith become the demons of the new while yesterday’s vices become today’s virtues. Intersectionality, to give the new faith just one of its legion of names, has replaced Christianity, particularly the bourgeois, patriotic Christian morality that supplied America’s elite institutions with their ethos until rather recently. The revolution didn’t take place on the streets — and nothing is as stupid as conservatives who think they need to learn Saul Alinsky’s organizational tactics. That’s just theater. The real power lies not with protesters or rioters but with the moral authority that creates protesters in the first place and that prevents police from suppressing the rioters.

Why are police reluctant to put down the mayhem in the streets? Because they’re not allowed to: they answer to politicians who are afraid of being called bad names in the press and who need the support of the rioters’ upper-middle-class enablers. Those enablers include not only Democrats but also a great many elite libertarians and non-Trump Republicans; and not only the media and academy, with their known liberal bias, but also corporate America.

Take Nike. You might think the sneaker company would be upset about having its stores ransacked. But think again. You’re stealing Nikes? That just proves that Nike is the footwear brand of the revolution. That cool, edgy looter you see with his liberated Nikes is a walking advertisement, better than any money can buy. Others who admire the authenticity and passion and living purity of the looter — white suburban teens, for example, or progressive Ivy League lawyers — will now go out and buy Nikes so they can be part of the revolution, too.

Anyway, it’s not like the revolution is going to expropriate the sneaker factories — those have already been profitably relocated to countries under communist rule. Woke capitalism and the communism that employs the most brutal policing imaginable against the likes of Uighurs and Tibetans make perfect allies. Of course, corporate America wants you to know it totally rejects imperialism and racism. Just not the Chinese variety — or any other non-Western kind. As the Financial Times reports, amid this week’s riots, ‘Some companies devoted their advertising resources to responding to the crisis, with Nike — whose usual slogan is “Just Do It” — distributing a video telling Americans: “For once, Don’t Do It. Don’t pretend there’s not a problem in America.”’ Yes, Nike, there is a problem in America. Thank God we have corporations to watch out for our consciences.

A nation like ours has many power centers. The alignment of those power centers is what determines cultural force and, in the long run, political success as well. Corporate executives, celebrities, academics, editorialists, and even many religious leaders — not at all exclusively from liberal denominations — in general oppose the police and support the protests, and if they think the rioters go to excess, they’re inclined to think it’s just a case of misplaced zeal or an excusable response to oppression. The master framework that applies before any facts are considered — facts like the real cause of most violent deaths among blacks in America today, or even investigation into the facts about George Floyd’s death — is a moral framework that designates saints and sinners, victims and oppressors.

(Regarding Floyd’s death, according to TMZ the Hennepin County medical examiner determined that he suffered a heart attack during the arrest, with fentanyl in his system. Floyd complained about being unable to breathe before he was pinned down by the arresting officers — and shortness of breath certainly seems like a plausible effect of fentanyl or a heart attack, or both. That by itself doesn’t mean that Officer Chauvin didn’t use excessive force, but it’s not the scenario that most of the protesters’ supporters seem to take for granted. An examiner hired by Floyd’s family disputes the findings. Both examiners say homicide was the ‘manner of death’.)

Police and the men and women of all colours who own small businesses that can’t profit from a looting the way that Nike can are not part of the ruling cultural coalition. What old institutional protections the police do have — qualified immunity, strong unions — are under attack. The result of reducing the protections of the police will very predictably mean that police become more reluctant to take the risks necessary to uphold the law — which is exactly the opposite of what should be happening if the violence in places like Chicago, where 20 or more George Floyds can die in single weekend, is to be quelled.

Voters turned to Republicans after the riots of the Sixties, but the revolution in religion and public morality was only in its early days then — it was still a revolution, not the establishment. Even ordinary voters who are not part of the elite may feel that it’s easier to go along with the new morality than to resist it in the name of the old, especially when the old Christianity and the old America knew they were flawed. The new elite morality is hypocritical, often counterproductive, but it has no self-doubt and admits no flaws. That confidence has not only won the new faith of the streets: it long ago won the centers of power.

Yet the victory has not been total, and even winners can overreach. In 2016, the public did the unthinkable and elected Donald Trump. In 2020, it has the opportunity to surprise the oligarchy and secular priesthood once again. But it will take more than an election or two to reverse the institutional balance of power, and without that, political victories will amount to little more than holding the line while the riot spreads around us.

Daniel McCarthy Published in Spectator June 2, 2020 10:16 am

Thank you – I couldn’t have said it anywhere as well

Also read: https://spectator.us/roots-riot-antifa-minneapolis-atlanta-cnn-george-floyd/

I guess this confirms that I am a redneck after all!!

We are history makers

I must confess to being addicted to Downton Abbey, which my wife and I have binge-watched over the last few weeks.

I revel in the furnishings and costumes and displays of the times. The fashions and the cars have been wonderful. The treatment of the themes and developments of the day and the changing technology, culture and traditions has been well done.

In perspective, the series covers approximately the period from my father’s birth year in 1910 to just before the Great Depression. To think that at the start, there were no telephones and motor vehicles were new-fangled.

How lucky students of history have this rich live display of the times to better understand the context and concepts of values and societal change … and how close we are to history as it happens.

Yikes!! That is a sobering thought! So much has happened since my Dad was born …

In his lifetime:

the horse largely disappeared
there were two world wars, his father served in one and he in the other.
the atom was split
a man stood on the moon
telecommunication enslaved the world
the degradation of the world was accelerated by oil.
the balance of power moved eastwards

I think what we are left with is that change is constant and it is better to anticipate it and embrace it, rather than resent and deny it.

Martin Luther King was wrong: we are the makers of history; we are not its product. Its time we accepted this.

Justice fails

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer“, known as Blackstone’s ratio.

“Avoid legal punishments as far as possible, and if there are any doubts in the case then use them, for it is better for a judge to err towards leniency than towards punishment” is a statement attributed to Muhammad.

These are fundamental precepts in the administration of justice.

But the systems in practice fail terribly:

On the one hand, most crimes are undetected and unreported. Because of the above precepts an extremely low percentage, possibly less than 5% of reported crimes result in prosecution.

Where is the justice for victims?

On the other hand, many people are apprehended by the justice system, processed, imprisoned and almost invariably degraded, dehumanised and criminalised by that experience.

This article was prompted by a TED video presentation by Robin Steinberg on the injustice of the bail system in the US.

The statistics presented were horrifying: on any day in the US, 75% of people charged cannot afford the bail set.

There are over 400, 000 people in custody awaiting trial, unable to pay bail.

We are talking of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where bail is rarely refused. Imagine what it must be like in less sophisticated societies!

If you can’t pay bail, you likely can’t afford a lawyer, are unemployed and struggling to feed your family.
If you are employed you will likely be fired and your family evicted from your home. In jail there is a high risk of assault and rape.
You are exposed to hardened criminals and gangs who enforce their demands. You have limited contact with your loved ones.

Jail is an ugly and terrifying place to be.

The bail project is an organisation which pays the bail of those who are unable to do so.

96% of people sponsored in this way, return to face trial
Over 50% of these cases are dismissed
Less than 2% of those charged receive jail sentences.

Of those that remain in custody, 90% plead guilty, many just to get out of jail.

The criminal justice system is a cruel failure where most crimes are undetected and many innocents plead guilty to avoid prolonged incarceration.

What are the options?

Probably some subordination of individual rights to community interest as universal surveillance becomes the norm..

Can you see that getting through existing Parliaments in western democracies?

That is a topic for another day.

Swift Justice

Ping!! – I checked the message on my wristphone.

It was from the Department of Justice: You have been identified as the perpetrator of an offence against the reputation of the State. Report to the Cleveland Magistrate at 10h00 today, failing which your digital access will be suspended.

In 2058, there is no alternative: the System always knows where you are; if your access is suspended, you will not be able to use transport systems, transact cryptocoin or even call anyone; every public building will bar your entry. You can’t even run into the forest as your embedded microchip will broadcast your location.

What have I done? I was pretty sure it related to an old 2012 article I had quoted from in my most recent sillysocksonfriday blog, on the consequences of the welfare state. The article cited increased costs, making labour markets too inflexible, with unintended moral consequences reducing the will to work and any sense of self-responsibility. It suggested that comprehensive social programs diminished informal caring relations and social networks, fostering social isolation and self-centredness.

The State is very sensitive to criticism and this is its way of suppressing dissent.

So I called my virtual solicitor, updated him and requested a barrister’s presence at my online meeting with the Magistrate. I advised that I believed it would be the same issue relating to civil liberties as my previous case. As this was not my first such clash with the State for criticism of their smothering welfare policies, they were again trying to silence me, despite the overthrow of my last conviction by the Global Appeal Court.

The universal Justice system was amazingly efficient and in this modern digital age, an issue could be decided and if necessary, appeal to national and global levels could be concluded within 3 days!

Of course, all evidence was immediately available to the Magistracy (nicknamed RexRegina) as were all laws, precedents and customs. There was still a need for representation as local knowledge was essential to ensure that the State was consistent in its prosecution of the laws.

That was its weak point – some State Security information analyst equated criticism with sedition: the District Prosecutor had to react to all complaints and often issued a summons to try to pressure a plea out of accused parties which enabled a settlement. If RexRegina threw the charge out, his/her butt was covered (or so he/she thought!) I believe it’s time for this function to be digitised too!

It is remarkable that the main attributes of a courtroom lawyer no longer required a quick mind and a smooth turn of phrase; digital magistrates are unmoved thereby.

The most common complaint and effective defence was victimisation. This had been so since the emancipation of women, demise of apartheid, legalisation of homosexuality and the #metoo outcry of the minorities in the late 1900’s and early 2000’s. The sensationalism and emotionalism provoked by the media had led to major distortions of value systems and virtual lynch mobs. The System reaction had been the required verification of media reports by blockchain and the institution of the digital Justice system.

At 10h00, I and my barrister reported online in the virtual Courtroom in hologram. The virtual Magistrate ascertained that we could proceed immediately, heard my not guilty plea, found there was no offence committed and re-iterated that criticism was part of the freedom of expression.

The District Prosecutor was ordered to review his system to ensure that it contained details of my previous appeal case.

I was awarded costs and ₿1000 compensation for malicious prosecution, which I donated to the Home Farming University.

To celebrate the endurance of the principle of freedom of expression, I ordered a tuk-tuk drone to fetch me from home to take me to lunch at the Lighthouse Restaurant. As a centenarian pensioner, one can’t afford a Jagjet! My virtual barrister joined me at no extra cost but of course did not dine…

Just another day*

Just another day was written by Paul McCartney in 1969.

Awakened by the crowing of my Bantam rooster, I lay thinking of the day ahead.

It is my son’s 95th birthday! I must catch the 15h00 rocket to London. I’ll be there by 18h00 – in time to have a beer and watch him blow the candles out on his cake carrot. I should be back home by midnight, even though Brisbane is almost the furthest Earth journey from London.

I got up and listened to the good news while taking my shower massage. The shaver mask really left one’s face feeling fresh and zingy. The body scanner gave a ping of good health as usual. I haven’t had a problem since replacing all my teeth back in 2048.

I dressed as I scanned the vertical garden on the wall screen. There are some ripe tomatoes, peppers and radishes to harvest; the peaches and strawberries are ready too. Sometimes I miss the lawn but the space is better utilized by the three tower houses I had built. This was easily possible as private lawns were banned and garages are no longer needed – no-one has owned a motor car for sixty years. With the world population now over 50 billion, living space is at a premium. Global Rule preserved the last 25% of the world’s forests and jungles just before they were consumed. The universal carbon tax saved us from melting down with global warming in the 2020’s. Well done Elon Musk (see blue link above) – he made it abundantly clear for us all, so voting for it wasn’t an issue. He also pioneered the colonisation of New Australia (Mars).

It is startling to think that next year I will reach Euthanasia Day – I accepted mandatory death and cremation at 133 years of age, long ago. Since the rebellion of the middle-agers, refusing to serve the mandatory 30 years on New Australia (NA), finding more living space on Earth has become impossible. Global Rule has eliminated conflict: wars are no more and the Global Surveillance Judicial system has made crime almost impossible – so our numbers are no longer reduced by the death sentences on major criminals or banishment to NA.

Of great satisfaction to me is the fact that politics and legislation, in fact the whole of government is e-based. All the corruption, errors, bias and partisanship of party politics was eradicated by the establishment of RexRegina, the e-Parliament system. Instantaneous referenda and decisions, laws promulgated and updated based on the latest intelligence make life clear and easy.

With the universal availability of free energy and water, every household produces their own food and the drone system enables barter exchange for more exotic needs. In order to avoid the overweight penalty tax, exercise is compulsory but you can take your dog for a run in the virtualpark and program your route to meet as many other people as you prefer. The PoopScoop drones take care of the messy bits.

The only major problems in the world now everyone had a home and education were the continuous tinkering with the gene pool and the lemming-like mass movements of people. Bored out of their skulls by the repetitive agricultural cycle of maintaining their own houses, growing and bartering their own food and ensuring the education and exercise of their child; thousands frequently transgress the virtual barriers of their suburban playgrounds to trash their neighbours’.

Nihilist and mass suicide cults are proliferating as the search for meaningful creativity becomes more difficult.

Enough negative thinking or I will have to have a chat with my Wobot to put me back on the happy track. Hmmm! I think a good old egg and bacon fry-up with boerewors and mushrooms is called for.

(At least the meat tastes like the real thing, which I haven’t tasted since 2024, even if it is earthworm protein).

Maybe I will take a virtual visit to the Louvre to see the Renoir exhibition…

Just another day in 2083.

A day in the life … sometime soon

As I eased myself into the seat already moulded to my preferred posture, I replied to the pleasant Good morning to ye I received, grinning to myself because I was talking to a machine. Oh well, a mother’s training endures!

I was on my way to Bunnings to collect the customised shovel I had ordered this morning – a glitch had caused a drone jam, so it couldn’t be delivered immediately.

Amazing really – all I had to do is think about what I needed and tell Siri who placed the order, giving my specifications. Bunnings would have it printed by the time I got there and offered me a complimentary coffee as they could not deliver immediately.

The self-drive car whizzed off, covering the 10 km distance in 8 minutes, while I flipped through my voting preferences on the issues before e-Parliament.

Amazing that the trip only cost me 5 zillBits – back in the day, factoring in motor vehicle purchase cost, petrol, rego, tolls and insurance, it had cost 20 times as much.

My shovel was loaded at the drive-through and my coffee was handed to me – exactly as I like it. Siri had already paid Bunnings.

I told the car to return via the Protein Bar so I could pick up some fillet steak – the new worm algae protein meat barbequed magnificently and gave me a perfect medium rare. The Bar took a box of my tamarillos, pawpaws and apple chives in exchange.

The rump would be accompanied by fresh salad from my own vertical garden and home-made sauerkraut. I was also going to toast some crickets as they were now juicy and plump. That was why I needed the new shovel – to be able to transfer compost from the waste processing output to the garden rows.

I was really proud of the fact that my home is self-sustainable and produces sufficient to supply the sixty-five families that now shared the Bahr Place precinct.

Overcrowding wasn’t such a problem if one used the wonderwall barriers which muffled noise and projected scenic view holograms but didn’t affect birds or rain – I even had a rooster which crowed the dawn every morning! No complaints either when I listened to Bohemian Rhapsody at max volume.

(I revert to my old naturally deaf ears…)

The chickens give me eggs and meat and are happy scratching through my vertical gardens on all the walls and the roof. The water tanks give me prawns, mussels and trout. Admittedly my fruit trees need to be pruned regularly as the basement area iss under 3 metres high. The arnica did exceptionally well and was great for aches and pains from a hard day’s gardening, as did the marijuana I grew under licence for pain relief of the few remaining cancer victims not cured by gene therapy.

Mind you, who am I to complain – I am only 95 and Siri told me my body indicators showed I was in perfect health and can expect to live another 30 years at least, before I get treed. I am proud of the fact that I have reversed cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s and still have one of my original knees, eyes and hips!

(I have refused my great grandchild’s request to clone me for her next child – I believe we are all unique and special in our own way and should stay that way).