Mark Carroll's Journal

My sleep has not been great. Today, I awoke before 5am then was distracted by a tedious work issue with Discord and crypto wallets and suchlike. Unusually for me, I went back to sleep later in the morning, on our drawing room sofa. Our dog L. pawed at me sometimes, R. wonders if because worried by snoring, but I fell back to sleep each time.

What awoke me properly was what seemed to be a good few hundred Sikhs, we have quite a centrally located flat and their nagar keertan, with walking and music, passed by outside. I had not realized that Vaisakhi has come so I got up to see what was going on.

While I slept, R. had made lunch. After that, we took L. walking on Glasgow Green where there were even a few people sunbathing. We have been enjoying quite the unexpected consistent bout of sunny weather. Sometimes there is a cold wind too but today we were spared.

( Listening to old music )

( Playing more with AI/LLMs. )

( Money is tight. )

It occurred to me to try to remember all fifty states of the US. I thought I would do better, I could recall only forty-seven, my daughter did better and faster. I shan't disclose which I forgot in case a reader wants to try. It was annoying to note those I did forget: a reader here lives in one and I was open to moving to it a few years ago, and I used to work with a couple of people who hail from another.

It was interesting to hear of the flight chaos caused by London Heathrow's power loss, so many flights diverted and passengers ending up all over Western and Central Europe. That must have caused all sorts of problems and taken the airlines quite some effort to recover from.

We had a pet food delivery from Amazon (insert hisses and boos to taste) shortly after half-past seven on a Sunday morning which impressed neither me nor R. At a glance, I failed to find a summary on their website of when they think is reasonable to make residential deliveries but at least we now know that it may happen again.

A few years ago, I wrote here that the Brexit vote may have partly been a fearful escape from absorption into an incipient European superstate, a memory of how people voted for the EEC yet ended up with the Maastricht Treaty. In recent days, it has been interesting to read analysis of how the question of Europe has fractured the Conservatives for much of my adult lifetime. It feels related that andrewducker draws our attention to an article that opines how, over recent decades, the UK failed to invest in industry, green or not, then blamed the economic consequences on outsiders.

Boris Johnson, like Donald Trump, feels very much a symptom of divisive populism. The more level-headed Conservatives are largely now gone, certainly from the front benches, mostly rather further still and some time ago. It is difficult not to draw a parallel with the evolution of the Republicans in the US over a similar period as the GOP now alienates all but the psychopaths and sycophants. In neither country does a better-founded successor, a conservative party with intellectual credibility and a foot in reality, seem to be waiting in the wings.

The hollowing out of our governance reminds me of watching a car crash in slow motion. Past administrations long ago also made serious mistakes but they had the excuse of having rather less information than we now wield. There is no excuse for the harm to so many people yet it is so difficult to change course.

At least there is some light relief: Sky News' person-on-the-street coverage pops up a "New Prime Minister" banner together with their interviewee's occupation and name, e.g., singer, single mother, whatever. It appears to be announcing a surprising variety of new prime ministers.

When George W. Bush first campaigned for the presidency, I was surprised that he was considered electable but, sure enough, he was proved to be so. Perhaps a larger surprise was that he, also Liz Cheney, would later look relatively good, after Donald Trump came along.

A related story has unfolded in Britain. One could see how Jeremy Corbyn was elected to lead his party, consider whom he ran against. That flash of populism should have warned me that perhaps Boris Johnson might look electable, against his competition. And, indeed, we had the same succession of surprises: Johnson was actually elected, assembled a gaggle of the similarly worthless, now the prospect of Liz Truss might actually make us miss him.

For all the upset over Margaret Thatcher's legacy, far too little of it has seen reversal: Tony Blair seemed to buy into a fair bit of it, now Liz Truss seems to be doing her best Thatcher impersonation.

When I was maybe twenty years old or so, I'd sometimes get my hair cut by an older Danish man who would tell me how Britain had gone downhill in the many years since he had moved there. I would like to not be feeling the same. Perhaps we will indeed get to live north of the border and see how much of a consolation that is. In that regard, at least Scotland recently managed to deliver a small victory for women.

I would be counting down to the next General Election except for not being much more impressed by the Opposition. Perhaps something good will yet emerge from somewhere. I suppose I should see how Ed Davey thinks the current water infrastructure issues ought to be addressed, not that his party has traction where I live. Then again, at one time, David Cameron looked fresh-faced, full of inspiration and energy, and look what happened there.

There are many fluently multilingual people in the world, I have met and worked with plenty myself. One thing that still surprises me is the apparent difficulty of well-resourced organizations in managing to hire any of them.

( I experience all manner of unnatural English from major corporations' professional communicators. )

( I don't know why they can't hire better. )

Maybe I am supposed to be more inclusive in some sense, I'd have just thought that people whose English wasn't at all natural wouldn't be getting the major jobs, that they would lose out to the many who, while maybe not being English, at least speak a version of the language comfortably, even if their own accent shows through. Maybe not.

I do not welcome the arrival of daylight saving time. Actually seeing some daylight helps human brains to wake up in the morning, and I get up early enough to shower, eat, commute, etc. in time to park at work at around 8h. Now I get to do that early stumbling about when it's wholly dark outside and year-round daylight savings would make that even worse for winter. A darker evening is good if it helps me to become sleepier earlier. I hope not to have to shift my arrival at work into even more darkness as campus repopulates in the apparent aftermath of the pandemic that isn't actually over, we'll see how the queue of vehicles at the security perimeter develops in length.

An unfortunate aspect of politics is that things that ought not matter, actually can. I am reminded, for instance, of Margaret Thatcher thinking it worth getting vocal coaching. More proximately, I was disappointed to find that Kamala Harris talking about Russia's actions regarding Ukraine reminded me of Liz Truss talking about cheese imports. Of course, they both went to Munich, though I've not also caught video of the latter's warnings on Russia. It's not an issue with the words themselves, I don't know what it is, but I do think it would have landed with more impact if delivered by, say, Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren, maybe also Madeleine Albright though my memory's hazier on her manner. I wonder if it's not just me feeling this trying to sound serious, and if acting classes could make all the difference, given how performative politics is. At least she probably still did better than Ed Miliband would have.

I remain ongoingly irritated by the news coverage of cloth masks versus surgical masks or N95s. It reminds me of the red meat / white meat research that tends to be vague about pork or, if mentioning it, doesn't distinguish between cured or not, etc. Anyhow, sure, I would expect that many cloth masks suck. I'm using cloth masks made from densely woven fabric that sandwich many square inches of edge-to-edge HEPA-rated filter and with a wire for the bridge of my nose. How do those compare? Given the popular reporting's vagueness, I have no idea, but I am struck by how loosely some surgical masks fit. Though, for events like grocery shopping, I wear an FFP2 underneath it anyway.

One thing that often annoys me is organizations arguing for good things but appearing to go incredibly far in how they do it. Perhaps I am becoming a blindly entrenched part of the problem but I commonly start thinking, that would be good progress, and end up thinking, I don't want to touch you wild-eyed people even with a bargepole.

Unions sometimes say things that go too far for me. ( Employees should not be wholly immune from consequences. Using 'Defund the Police' as a slogan is another example. )

The latest example that reminds me of all this comes from the Cornish Greens. Stuff like, No-one gets into a rubber dinghy to cross the English Channel in November unless they are truly desperate … By closing down safe routes to asylum, Patel and her government have played into the hands of the criminal gangs who exploit people's desperation to reach a place of safety.

( Government immigration policy does need to be kinder. )

However, ( the refugees did not have to flee mainland Europe. )

The Green Party's brazenly excluding the middle makes me wonder if that kind of rhetoric wins more sympathizers than it has readers dismissing them as loons. There is a compelling story on how those who need to be afforded asylum should be treated far better and that Greece and Italy should have their burden shared, we also still have a long way to go on how the US treats refugees despite the change in administration, but that story is persuasive only if it seems to be true. ( Whatever they were thinking, ) the Greens' press release would not have changed my mind, it just seems to play into right-wing talking points.

Initially I was enthusiastic when Scotland dropped the quarantine requirement for vaccinated visitors from the US but, on reflection, booking travel feels like too great a risk. In initially coming here, it was me moving away from the family and living alone, if I arrived infected then I would not pass it on to them. Now we have the delta variant, contagious and dangerous, with cases rising, I cannot be bringing it into their household. Having received my Pfizer vaccine some months ago, I don't know how effective it was originally nor if that may have declined since. After multiple flights in current circumstances, it feels plausible that I could still become contagious after the journey. Given past form, I also don't trust Her Majesty's Government not to reintroduce quarantine requirements, and for my airline to be unsympathetic to my then rethinking travel.

Maybe once the positive case rates look better, or after further vaccinations or whatever, I will be able to visit family members again. Perhaps even this year, especially if shorter-notice airfares are reasonable. For now, it feels responsible to continue my relative isolation. No longer do I have an officemate when I do work on campus: given current trends, they had us adjust our schedules to not be on site on the same day.