The Laws Being Flat: Hereditary Peers and the Monarchy's Exposed Flank

The Last of Their Kind

The news that the last 92 hereditary peers in the House of Lords were sitting for the very last time, following the implementation of reforms by the Labour government, left me quite saddened. [BBC News: Hereditary peers' last hurrah as 700-year-old system abolished]

The peerage system, which has effectively functioned as a kind of patronage, has existed for centuries, perhaps approaching a millennium. The very last hereditary peerage conferred on a non-royal was awarded in 1984 to Harold Macmillan as Earl of Stockton.

Born to Greatness

William Shakespeare, in 'Twelfth Night', Act 2, Scene 5, writes, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” That, to me, has always been the story of mankind; the way greatness or privilege arrives in a person's life is sometimes an indeterminable process, yet worthy of note.

For instance, the longest extant hereditary peerage in England is the Earldom of Arundel, created in 1138, which is currently held by the Duke of Norfolk. He also bears the ceremonial hereditary position of Earl Marshal, with the duty of organising state occasions such as the coronation of the monarch and the state opening of Parliament.

The family is Roman Catholic, with the pre-eminent non-royal function of serving a Protestant monarchy.

Peers and the Magna Carta

The Magna Carta, upon which many principles of our modern-day democracies and human rights are based, came about when the peers, hereditary barons, rebelled to limit the power of the king. A charter of rights was signed in 1215. The ordinary folk would never have had the clout and facility to rise against a king who, in those times, literally held the power of life and death untrammelled and was considered sanctioned by God.

That said, I recognise that the significance of hereditary peers had been waning for well over a century before their removal. In Victorian times, some peers served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, on more than one occasion.

Reform and Patronage

In the early twentieth century, the constitutional balance between the two chambers was formally and irrevocably redrawn. The Parliament Act 1911 stripped the Lords of the power to block money bills entirely and reduced their ability to delay other legislation to two years; the Parliament Act 1949 cut that delay to just one year.

The elected House of Commons, as the chamber that forms the government, had been established as the primary legislative authority, and the Lords' independent power had been reduced, step by step, to little more than a holding position.

The Salisbury-Addison Convention of 1945 settled what remained. Under that arrangement, the Lords agreed not to oppose legislation at second reading, nor to substantially obstruct any bill that the government had put to the electorate and won a mandate to implement. What had once been a chamber of real and rival legislative power had become, by stages, a revising chamber, its role defined more by restraint than authority.

Life peers were introduced in the United Kingdom through the Life Peerages Act 1958; this removed the hereditary component; a case of greatness being thrust upon one as part of political or influential patronage. The conferment stays with the person, and each individual earns that elevation for themselves alone.

The Winds of Change

My concern with the loss of hereditary peers, though some of that cohort have been given life peerages to sit in the House of Lords, is that the only hereditary component of the political system is now the monarchy. They stand alone, without the buffer of any other hereditary roles in our political system to shield them from the billowing winds of change. [The Guardian: Starmer restores powers to ousted hereditary peers in Lords shake-up]

The hereditary peers were, in a meaningful sense, the monarchy's constitutional companions. Both derived their place in public life from the same foundational principle: that certain roles could be inherited, carrying with them centuries of obligation, service, and a legitimacy built not on a single vote but on long continuity.

The presence of peers embedded in the political landscape normalised that principle within the constitutional system itself, making the monarchy less anomalous and less conspicuously alone.

With them gone, the Crown stands as the only institution in British public life whose authority rests on birthright rather than democratic mandate or appointment. It has not merely lost allies; it has lost the broader constitutional culture that once made the hereditary principle comprehensible and defensible.

It brings to mind a conversation in the play 'A Man for All Seasons', where Sir Thomas More was implored by his wife, his daughter, and his son-in-law to arrest someone.

Alice More (Wife): Arrest him!
Sir Thomas More (England's Lord High Chancellor): For what?
Alice More: He's dangerous!
William Roper (Son-in-law): For all we know he's a spy!
Margaret More (Daughter): Father, that man's bad!
Sir Thomas: There's no law against that!
William Roper: There is God's law!
Sir Thomas: Then let God arrest him!
Alice More: While you talk he's gone!
Sir Thomas: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas: Yes!
Sir Thomas: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
Sir Thomas: This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Sir Thomas: Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Sketch from A Man For All Seasons about Sir Thomas More from What Delicate Balance? by John Loeffler.

A sketch from A Man For All Seasons.

When Laws Fall Flat

Taking the hereditary peers as the laws in More's analogy, the Labour Party have done precisely what William Roper threatened; they have cut them all down, leaving only the monarchy standing. When the devil of republicanism rears its head in a swell of revolutionary fervour, I do wonder how the Crown can be defended against the onslaught.

We have seen this before in England, where political conflict between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians led to the conviction of Charles I for high treason and his execution in 1649, ushering in the Commonwealth of England and the Protectorate, but the monarchy was restored in 1660.

Patronage and Its Limits

Hereditary peers were born to their positions of greatness and should not, in general, be beholden to political influences that do not serve their interests or the purposes of a life of public service, if they choose that path.

Life peers are appointed through patronage that may carry elements of nepotism, cronyism, and corruption; they are a means by which a Prime Minister could tilt the balance of the House of Lords by stacking the chamber with loyalists and sycophants. The core revising function of the chamber can easily be lost, reducing it to a rubber stamp for poor government policy.

In all, having an appointed or elected House of Lords without the hereditary element does not augur well. Even as we aim for a more egalitarian society, the source of greatness will always come by birth, by achievement, or by conferment. Hierarchies will always exist, no matter how we try to abolish them.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

I've got everything left to achieve

Building for Life

Baron Foster of Thames Bank turned 90 on June 1st. He has left his mark on the architectural landscape of the world, collaborating with fellow architects and many designers. One cannot help but be in awe of how imagination on paper becomes the realisation you can behold.

In one of his iconic buildings, where I used to have lunch in the 1990s, the Willis Building in Ipswich, with black curtain walls contrasting with a yellow and green interior, went on to become the youngest Grade I listed building in the UK.

I remember visiting Berlin and observing how a Foster and Rogers project in that city seemed like you hire Norman Foster to transform a monument into a modern masterpiece, as he did with the Reichstag building, and Richard Rogers to create a monument by building a modern masterpiece, as he did with the Daimler complex.

Everything left to achieve

Architecture has always interested me, but that is not the primary focus of this blog. Interviewed for the Architects’ Journal in May, this last exchange—question and answer—offered an insightful perspective on the man himself.

Gino Spocchia: You’re about to turn 90, an achievement in its own right. As an architect, do you feel there is anything left for you to achieve?

Norman Foster: I've got everything left to achieve. That’s an impossible question. [Architects’ Journal: Norman Foster at 90: ‘I have everything left to achieve’]

My journey to this interview was influenced by listening to Richard Rogers on Desert Island Discs yesterday; he was interviewed in March 1990, and he spoke about his early partnership with Norman Foster, then winning the Pompidou Centre competition with Renzo Piano, and Su Rogers. [BBC Sounds: Desert Island Discs – Richard Rogers]

Propinquity to serendipity

In the 20 years I have visited Paris and sat for brunch on the first floor of Café Beaubourg that overlooks the space in front of the Pompidou Centre, I have only observed people and never entered the centre itself. Richard Rogers passed away at 88 in 2021.

I suppose one first considers the blessing and fortune of good health at such an age, to continue to have zest for life and a purposefulness that suggests you believe you still have much to do and give.

Thinking of continuing potential

For Norman Foster, advanced age is not an end; he embraces a philosophy of ongoing potential, rejecting the cultural narrative that achievement belongs primarily to youth. Meaningful accomplishment remains possible at any stage of life. Retirement is not a part of this man’s vocabulary.

For someone turning 90, this perspective embodies:

• A refusal to be defined solely by past accomplishments
• An understanding that wisdom and experience create unique opportunities
• A rejection of artificial timelines for meaningful contribution
• An embracing of new goals suited to current capabilities
• Finding purpose in mentorship, creative expression, or personal growth

I am deeply inspired by this mindset, as I contemplate returning to university to learn from and engage with youthful insights and young minds. I am convinced of the importance of lifelong learning and continuous engagement with a world of possibilities.

Norman Foster exemplifies this life-affirming stance beautifully; if we have consciousness, will, health, and resources, we retain the capacity for meaningful achievement. It is clear he enjoys what he does and will continue for as long as he can. Belated happy birthday, Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank.

References

20^th Century Architecture: Norman Foster

20^th Century Architecture: Richard Rogers

Desert Island Discs: To Be Young, Gifted and Black

Young, Gifted and Black - Aretha Franklin (1972)

Stories and selections

Listening through the back catalogue of Desert Island Discs on the BBC Sounds app has been a journey into enlightenment and recognition. Whether the stories told or the selections of music chosen by the guests, not only do you learn something about them, but you might also come away with insight and inspiration.

It was not until I was listening to the episode where Yvonne Brewster was a guest in 2005 that I began taking notes. I felt I should do a once-over of everything else I had listened to, but I did not have the presence of mind to do so.

This was before I went back to the beginning of the existing recordings, of which many have been lost or barely rescued in the first 25 years of broadcasting the programme.

It is a shame that no one at the BBC of that time thought this cachet of guests and interviews, many speaking with a received pronunciation accent harking back to a bygone age, should be recorded and preserved.

Pioneering, gifted and black

Yvonne Brewster was a pioneer as the UK’s first Black woman drama student; born to an upper-middle-class Jamaican family, she came to England to attend drama school at the Rose Bruford College where the proprietress thought she would unlikely find dramatic work in Britain, only for her to go on to achieve a distinction in drama and mime at the Royal Academy of Music.

Her achievement is exemplified in the third track she chose, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which was recorded by Nina Simone in 1969. I was more familiar with the cover version by the Jamaican duo Bob and Marcia, however, the version recorded by Aretha Franklin won her a Grammy. [Wikipedia: Young, Gifted and Black]

While I knew of the music, I was not as familiar with the lyrics until I heard it clearly, a few weeks ago. From the 1950s onwards, we began to see such amazing talent and achievements from the global Black community, even as the civil rights movement took hold, and many African nations pursued the goal of independence from colonial rule.

We must remind ourselves

Blacks became known beyond the field of entertainment to academia, science, engineering, business, and politics. This was both a shock and a surprise to many Caucasians who thought otherwise.

I recall that my father’s white colleagues in the late 1960s sought to be derisive of his becoming a chartered accountant, having excellently passed his exams and had come third overall in England and Wales, along with winning the Foulks Lynch Prize. They sneeringly said they didn’t think he was that brilliant.

Yet, against all odds, we have striven, risen and shone, but that fact still needs to be instilled in us and our children, at every turn, it needs to get well beyond James Brown’s Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud, to the point that we know without a doubt from within ourselves, what it is To Be Young, Gifted and Black.

That is who we are, and too many times, we forget that we each have to be reminded, “Your soul's intact, And that's a fact!” No matter what age in life, this is our truth, one to live by and live out.

To Be Young, Gifted and Black

Young, gifted and black
Oh what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black
Open your heart to what I mean

In the whole world you know
There's a million boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black
And that's a fact!

You are young, gifted and black
We must begin to tell our young
There's a world waiting for you
Yours is the quest that's just begun

When you feel really low
Yeah, there's a great truth that you should know
When you're young, gifted and black
Your soul's intact

To be young, gifted and black
Oh, how I've longed to know the truth
There are times when I look back
And I am haunted by my youth

Oh but my joy of today
Is that we can all be proud to say
To be young, gifted and black
Is where it's at

Is where it's at
Is where it's at

Songwriters: Nina Simone / Weldon Irvine – Source: Musixmatch

YouTube: Nina Simone - To Be Young, Gifted and Black (Audio)

YouTube: Bob & Marcia Young, Gifted & Black (Official Audio)

Thought Picnic: In showing is the shown showed

Preparing enough for things

Preparation can easily become the excuse we use for not getting some things done. Decisions on what needs to be done and how to get it done whilst trying to ensure once the process has started, it is not impeded by some unintended issue or circumstances.

How this can so quickly exacerbate procrastination is another thing we rarely acknowledge. A task suddenly seems onerous and the path to accomplishment literally insurmountable. The journey of a thousand miles never gets started because we see the thousand miles ahead rather than begin with the first step and see how each step brings us closer to our destination.

Indeed, we must prepare for the obvious even as the clichéd saying sounds in my ear as I write, “Those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” Some knowledge and insight is useful, experience gained from different sources can help too.

Accomplishment must be the goal

The direction of travel should be towards some achievement or accomplishment, bringing things to conclusion or completion would show that whatever effort has been applied to something has something tangible at the end.

Our thoughts are vehicles of many ideas that may never see reality, yet it is our ability to imagine that gives the foundations to the things we build or produce.

The power of the imagination to create worlds of fantasy that become fantastic worlds lived in, is one feature of humanity we fail to exploit and even when we know how the divine can bring to pass the apparently impossible, we limit ourselves to the perfunctory, lost in dreamland with wishes rather than faith.

Showing shows completed activity

The other day, I saw someone with such big ears. I was afraid my thoughts about the ears might be heard by them. I tried not to consider that possibility even if it could be scripted into a science fiction fantasy film with interesting or thrilling storylines.

Then, the many stories or things we have written that never left the draft stage, they are in an incomplete state, they represent activity without accomplishment. We can be satisfied something was done but there is nothing to show others that we have done anything. It is like an assignment done but not submitted for scoring. You cannot get grades for work not given up for vetting.

Likewise, a blog not published is well, not a blog, because no one knows what you have done until it is shown for others to see. So many lights hidden under a bushel, talents buried instead of flourishing makes the reticence to show what you have the gift of not entirely one of shyness that we assume we have but it could also be seen as in the parable of the talents in terms of the unprofitable servant too. {Bible Gateway: Matthew 25:14-30 (NKJV)]

Thought Picnic: That honour rarely comes

We live for others

We grow and yet we do not grow up in the eyes of some usually out of proximity and familiarity or distance and estrangement. We seem to be caught in the amber of time, fossilised in the peat of an eternal past that has never changed. We are seen in the prism of light that no longer reveals or reflects who we are.

For all the journeys and experiences of life we have acquired, it is meaningless as those who never really journeyed with you through the wildernesses and the triumphs are totally unaware of how you have changed and who you have become. Jesus Christ painted that picture clearly; “A prophet is treated with honour everywhere except in his own hometown, among his relatives, and in his own house.” [You Version: Mark 6:4 (The Passion Translation)]

With achievement and recognition garnered from many endeavours, appreciation and praise greeting you as you navigate the fields of toil away from home, you are to them the boy, the kid, the child, the son, stripped of all standing and respect, reviled and contemned with belittlement and contempt, if you crave it, your disillusionment and disappointment will be great with the pall of disconsolation.

Continue in what you know

Yet, you must stand, if not to be heard, at least not to be stymied in the expression of who you have become. Be unrelenting in the resolve that has brought you the success you have earned through the sprinkled ingredients of example, training, experience, guidance, or even indifference.

The thought I started with as with many of my blogs has been lost in the flow of this snippet of self-appreciation. When you realise how impactful the little you do is to others, it matters less whether your kith and kin acknowledge you. If they eventually do, it is a bonus. If they never do, do not let your goals be defined by those who only see you in the past and have never moved beyond it.

Thought Picnic: Those who resort to bastardry should answer for their claims

Refusing to bear the slur

It has occurred to me that there must be a time when you must divorce yourself from illegitimacy and the hold of bastardry predicated on an assessment of your situation with little regard for your lived life and achievements.

Obviously, there were circumstances where children born out of wedlock were considered illegitimate, but it is no fault of the child that they were born into that situation. Unfortunately, the label might dog them in terms of inheritance or entitlement, but what cannot be denied them is the right to live their own lives and set their own course to create their own story.

Other uses of the word bastard might come from attempting to address the child in terms of what they have failed to achieve for wanting of ability and sometimes it is just adversity or misfortune that can happen to anyone, just that someone somewhere seems to be keeping score.

Invariably, anyone can be a bastard, choose to be one or be seen as one. For those who for all sorts of reasons are declared so but refuse to let it define them, the path before them is clear as the light of day. Provenance is helpful, but without it, you can still go on to become the best of who you can ever be for the betterment of people and communities that see you as you are rather than where you are from.

Let them answer for their claims

It is interesting that even royal bastards even with their illegitimacy were rarely without honour or title and many were quite prominent in society without attainder for being born out of wedlock. A child of whom they have been born remains the child of, whether recognised and accepted or not.

If then after so having reached adulthood there are some that seek to lay that unfortunate appellation on you, it is for them to then support that with the evidence of why illegitimacy is their refuge of discourse apart from whatever else you have done and achieved.

Smarting from an encounter that elicited reference and allusion in the mistaken need to trigger a response to attendant concerns, it is not the need to continue engagement that comes to mind even if some advice has suggested a bit more circumspection to limited spheres of adverse commentary. 

Rather, one is inclined to cut off communication for the time being, for once again, a line was crossed and if bastardry was a last resort for one, it became the last straw that broke the laden camel’s back for another.

Blog: Thought Picnic: Battling a dimension of legitimacy

Nigeria: The exodus of 'I have only one life' Nigerians

Our early privilege

Around the time we left secondary school, we were children of middle-class and upwardly mobile parents who were at or approaching the pinnacle of their careers. Many of them, our parents were educated abroad where they had us, children, typically in their mid-20s.

At that time, there was no particular desire amongst us to leave Nigeria, tertiary education was of the standard that was quite competitive and engaging. That we had NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) teachers who had studied abroad did not necessarily make us yearn for an exit, Nigerian seemed to present opportunity and prospect, some of our colleagues spent the summer holidays abroad and still returned to finish their school.

The dream that died

Somehow, has the democracy of the second republic transitioned into military rule, that apparent Nigerian dream was becoming a nightmare. Obviously, the connections we had through the networks of our parents gave us access, be it nepotism or favoritism, a helping hand, and good word here or there, hurdles were smoothed away, but the incumbency of the middle-classes was beginning to shift for even more egregious corruption.

At a point, not even merit coupled with any level of preferential treatment to get you anywhere in Nigeria, the system was gummed up by bureaucracy, corruption, and rent-seekers. In the space of a decade, our accents and apparent privilege got us nowhere. Nigeria was no more working for us and there began the exodus, the exit to where at least we believed more than when our parents were abroad that we could not only thrive, but a semblance of meritocracy gave us a fighting chance.

The first mass exodus

Some of us armed with first degrees or just citizenship by birth knew that the promised land that our parents returned to was not the promised land where we could with grit, talent, and daring begin to live our best lives. Besides, the strictures of tradition, culture and control that stifled our freedom of expression in Nigeria was to be broken out of when we escaped.

From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, we left Nigeria disillusioned young people to begin new lives abroad just as the government was running a losing battle about losing us to a world that appeared to need us, or so we believed. I would suppose many of us who were born abroad in the 1960s and the 1970s left Nigeria and probably never returned.

The new brain drain

There is a new exodus in play, just as the one we can remember that those in government today were the same faces that could not convince us of the Nigerian dream then. They might not be like those of us of the other exodus, but I would suggest they are the “I have only one life” cohort. They have decided that in the scheme of things the possibility of a different Nigeria is probably remote or impossible and they need to act to provide opportunity and dreams for themselves and their children.

Many of them are highly qualified Nigerians in a Nigeria that is not working for them as they realise there is a global talent market yearning for them and the diversity in expertise they can bring to environments that allows for competition and is rarely gamed by overreach or the abuse of power, where the rule of law, at least in the letter of it appears to be respected and the powerful or influential cannot mess you up on the whim of megalomania.

It still works for some

You still have to give it to those who still believe in the Nigerian dream and seem to thrive in Nigeria despite the lack of ease of doing business, a rotten and intemperate regulatory system that thwarts rather than encourages initiative and innovation, corruption, crumbling infrastructure and the security challenges.

Many Nigerians are thinking, I have only one life and I doubt I want to waste the best part of my productive years daydreaming about a different Nigeria when there could be any other place where my achievements and abilities can find the scope to thrive. For some, even from Nigeria, the world has been their oyster, but for others, they have jumped at the opportunity to emigrate with the feeling that when pit against obstacles abroad they have a more probable chance of coming out on top than struggling in Nigeria.

Use the opportunities that come

This is not to celebrate the exodus from Nigeria of talent and brains, but I left Nigeria over 30 years ago and I know what that had given me in life and experience. It might well be that on balance Nigeria does not deserve many of its youth because the system gives little credence to what they have to contribute.

The world however needs amazing brains and Nigerians constitute a pool of talent the world cannot do without. Maybe after making it abroad, some might return to be honoured at home.

You have one life, take it to the world and make history, that is my treatise to every young Nigerian.

As I was saying

Order to the chaos

There is much to be thankful for, the uncertainties that greeted the beginning of this month eventually found a useful and beneficial resolution. Back into the mix of things that have hardly changed from when we left, one can only hope that opportunity will come to do much more.

As my desires fluctuated between offers that did not represent the newness of things required, the greatest support through times when days passed listlessly away with little to review of what might have been achieved came from Brian. His inimitable self-deprecation usually unaware of how central he is to my sense of purpose and being.

Doing the undoing

Then again, the month has been lazy if not uneventful, the furthest I had been from home was on my walk to Chorlton Water Park some 9 kilometres away which included a 2-kilometre walk by the River Mersey. The promise I tacitly made to get out a bit more undone by occasional restlessness.

The most productive time was on my test lab, slow and painstakingly, I wandered like a sloth with very little deliberation. My notes might suggest I got more done than I give myself credit for.

Significantly the other

June is assigned the Pride month even though the Pride marches I used to attend would have been in Berlin in July and outside my door in Manchester at the end of August. Berlin, I have not visited for 3 years already, and Manchester presents discovery and the mundane in equal measure, the pandemic still affecting us more than anywhere else in England.

One constant has been Brian, his voice, his smile, his sweetest messages that characterise amazing inspiration and talent I aspire to. To love with a love that dares speak its name and feel that no one else can begin to fill that sense of belonging and companionship is wonderful. The answer to the many questions is Yes and yes, I am happy too. Thank you.

By unexpected determination

Willing and unable

For weeks, I was concerned for my lack of productivity, self-development somewhat moribund and the firefighting activities going on at work not advancing any knowledge or insight. Things appeared to be stagnant as motivation faded into lethargy.

At other times, I would have tried to gird myself into focusing on achieving something, but there isn’t enough going on for that kind of realignment. However, just after watching the church service on television on Sunday, I decided to read through some documentation I downloaded during the last week to see if there was some information to guide me through linking my home environment to the cloud.

Learning by doing

Pieces of work left unfinished in snatches of time had begun to come together. After finding the chapter that could help me through, I began the process of sorting out the hybrid cloud setup, encountering issues that needed resolution, and learning as each issue got solved. A few missteps, a near catastrophe deftly recovered.

Soon, the basics were done with the essential synchronisation between my home test environment and my personal company cloud environment. The next day, I started on fixing the management components on systems I did not cater that well for as a unit. Having completed that, I continued with the cloud integration process, gaining more insight.

Knowledge all ways

Back at work also, some seemingly intractable problems revealed much more about the root cause in the myriad logs we need to pore through to find a resolution. The breakthrough there was quite good. Just as at home, each day, I was trying something new out for a couple of hours and recording my findings on OneNote.

It would appear that much has been accomplished this week with a good crossover of knowledge elements between work and home. I feel quite happy with this and it means I can move on to the next tranche of experiments and testing. I guess that is how confidence built and expertise is acquired.

Taught what wrought not

Taught what wrought not

Pertaining to the things that I ought,
Even in the presence of much thought,
The pressures of battles I have fought,
Making me feel quite overwrought.

The creeping fear of losing the plot,
Avoiding things done falling to rot,
Using my wits and wiles is all I got,
To ensure nothing at all goes to pot.

Finding the stream in which to be caught,
To make for a rather better case and lot,
Even if for the work success can’t be bought,
We still strive beyond what we sought.

It’s walking and it’s walking - V

Breaking to press on

As I informed of yesterday, I did not go out for my walk on Sunday and that became a break, in the streak of walking at least 10,000 steps daily from the 30^th of July. I guess I was demotivated by not getting an acknowledgement of my 100-day day streak which should have arrived on the 6^th or at worst the 7^th.

This morning, I was out of the door at 6:05 AM and I slightly varied my route because the daylight had not arrived over 4 kilometres into my walk. I was a bit concerned that for my slow pace that 9’24” per kilometre, my heart rate was in the extreme region where the maximum heart rate for my age should be 166 beats per minute (bpm).

A heart in a race

Of the 1:49:55 hours I took to complete 11.69 kilometres, 82 minutes were above 149 bpm and peaking at 184 bpm with the final 27 minutes falling to the anaerobic and aerobic heart rate stages. I put it down to my apparent lack of sleep overnight where I barely go 3 hours in.

I then began to gather the evidence to make a complaint to Huawei about the discrepancies in the walking records of the last week of November, that aggregated the tally but was only showing in one day as the average for the week, rather than discretely tabulating the steps for each day.

Proof, I did it

As I clicked on the chat button, there was a popup on my phone, the achievement medal I was waiting for, was delivered, and it indicated I had completed my feat today when it should have been on Friday. I guess that they have confused the date of attaining the achievement with the date of the granting the award because my streak was broken yesterday.

However, I am not complaining that much, the medal has arrived and the next goal that will take a while is the medal for completing 10 million steps. I wonder if I will have any legs left by then. Getting an achievement boosts encouragement and helps one unto higher goals. I hope to be back with more evidence of, It’s walking and it’s walking.

Blog- It's walking and it's working

Blog- It's walking and it's working - II

Blog- It's walking and it's working - III

Blog- It's walking and it's working - IV

 

Thought Picnic: Making days matter

Losing the snooze

Each day appears to be unstructured without the routine that demands the alarm rings in the morning. Not that when the alarm stirs you out of slumber you jump out of bed that the first sound. For some reason or the other, some sociology or psychology when into electronic alarm clock design, it is called the snooze button.

That button you press once to silence the alarm, originally for about 10 minutes, but now, there is a variable duration for which you want the snooze to last before the next alarm strain sting your eardrums into an ambulatory response. Mine is set to 7 minutes, whilst the first alarm time is set irregularly rather than to exactly the quarter points of the clock at 00, 15, 30, or 45 minutes past the hour.

Living free of it

My alarm is musical, never monotonal and I have been conditioned to knowing that the music is an alarm rather than my radio playing back an obscure classical composition of dubious provenance. Yet, in reality, my life is not as regulated by alarm clocks except in uniquely exceptional situations, I would probably be awake before the alarm goes off then wonder if there is enough time for a power nap to the time of the alarm.

When I have abused the snooze button, I would have probably preferred to have a mallet to smash the clock to smithereens, but the said clock is usually my mobile phone, as so, I would hate to be as destructive as sudden inclination might aspire me to.

Do the day well

As to what to do with the day, you need to find purpose and achievement, the direction that brings benefit. From the poem Today, by Thomas Carlyle, which I have known more as a hymn, my spirit demands, “Think wilt thou let it slip useless away.” For each that that comes, there is much to learn, formally and informally, there is a lot to understand better, there is the possibility of the creative that we rarely tap as much as should be done, for the satisfaction is rarely in any tangible reward, so we let it slide.

The mind cannot idle without function and application, we rise to deploy thought, deed, talent and resourcefulness to things that matter, to change things for the better, in person, in event, or in ideas, it could be in all those things at the same time. A day must bring a new kind of fulfilment, whether it can be measured by others is beside the point. You know that by the time the day has become part of the eternity past, you have left a mark, not to regret the one that follows on.

Opinion: Regardless of our sexuality, our past and future is our whole story

We are still learning

The issue of sexuality is a very complex subject that too many of us still have to get our heads around. Across the spectrum of moralism through to science, people hold as many views as they can about what determines why people turn out the way they finally decide they should be.

In some parts of the world, we have in the last hundred years reached a level of acceptance on the matter of human sexuality and the relationships that ensue from such, yet, in other places, persecution, prosecution, animosity and danger bedevils people who just happen to be different.

I have seen people got from seemingly fulfilled heterosexuality to bisexuality or homosexuality and the other way round. The preponderance of heterosexuality weighs heavily on those not so inclined that absurd views and therapies are deployed to convert or change people to a particular ‘norm’ causing more harm than comfort. It is gratifying that such activities are now being outlawed.

Transsexuality is their reality

One area we all seem to struggle the most with is transsexuality, the case of people with one sex who seemed to be wired as the opposite sex.

The fact that people have been changing from the sex of their birth to another is hardly a new one and there are processes and procedures that allow for that. What has gotten people talking is the very prominent people who appear to have fully expressed lives in one sexuality and gender going public about changing their sex.

I visited the issue of Kellie Palace Maloney last year, but the one of Bruce Jenner becoming Caitlyn Jenner has elicited much commentary, some positive and some negative.

A seething transphobia, it is

What got to me was a petition to have Caitlyn Jenner stripped of the Olympic gold medal she won as Bruce Jenner, the decathlete at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. The screaming preposterous absurdity of the idea left me utterly exasperated and the arguments put forth were but for the Englishman’s politeness in me ready for risible condemnation and that would have been the start.

Tearing away the veneer of faux righteous indignation of the petitioners you are presented with shameless and deplorable transphobia, a clear fear of the unknown to the seething anger that a bastion of some presumed norm had deserted that profile leaving others somewhat vulnerable.

I will not promote those arguments here, rather, my case was simple. Regardless of the fact that Caitlyn Jenner always thought of herself as female even when she competed at the 1976 Olympics 39 years ago, ‘she in her head’ and ‘he in his body’ competed fairly, won the competition handsomely and was justly rewarded with the laurel of Olympic champion. That fact of history can never be expunged, erased or repudiated.

See the person first

To use the ‘she in her head’ argument to suggest she competed as ‘she in her body’ and thereby was ineligible to compete will be to persecute and punish someone for what is invariably a thought crime. One cannot begin to imagine the conflicts and struggles to remain one thing when you really think you are another. For those able to come to a full expression of themselves and live that realisation, no greater victory could have been won in their lifetimes.

Thankfully, I found someone to help buttress my case, Ayo Sogunro elevated the discussion by saying the person won the medal and their current iteration should not impact on that clear evidence.

@gboukzi That's not the issue I see. To me: Who won the medal? The person that won it owns it--whatever their current iteration. @forakin

— AYO SOGUNRO (@ayosogunro) June 4, 2015

I am glad that the International Olympic Committee has rejected that petition, Caitlyn Jenner will keep the medals she won as Bruce Jenner, that is part of her life story and long may this reasonableness continue. The issue should never have been up for discussion in any case, but that is the kind of world we live in.

The story is never lost

In the same vein, I was glad to read that Kellie Palace Maloney has returned to the career she made as Frank Maloney and has taken two boxers into her stable as a boxing promoter. As a person, Kellie Palace Maloney has 30 years’ experience as a boxing promoter, nothing can take that away from her. Her decision to restart boxing promotion with a low profile will not suddenly make her a neophyte, she comes with a life story that people in boxing cannot ignore.

Apparently, the boxers, macho and male as they seem recognised that and sought her out to help their careers and that is the right thing to do, if you have the skill, the know-how and the ability to mentor and manage people, that you have changed your gender does not mean you have lost your well-earned experience.

We can’t lose our history

In her own words, she said, “I have achieved a lot as Frank. I could never totally lose him.” In my view, that is what stories are about, we achieve a lot as our younger selves, we do not totally lose that, we build on it. Women can achieve a lot with their maiden names and they never lose that because they adopt a married name.

Consequently, a person can achieve a lot as one gender and they should never have to lose that because they have changed their gender. The ability, the knowledge, the experience and person will still be there, that they have changed from male to female or vice versa should never ever be used to persecute, prosecute, purloin or punish them.

We can’t lose our history, but we can gain a great future.

That is the kind of world I want to live in, one that lives and lets others live their lives to the full.

Thank you.

The day ... now happy

The day can pass,
The day can last,
What you can,
Even not to plan,
Time goes always fast.

To work at that,
To pore at tasks,
Learn something new,
Like he often knew,
To revel he basks.

For night wore him,
He awoke to ache,
Much tea he took,
In pain he shook,
And pills he did take.

An hour now gone,
Long past crappy,
Lessons go by,
Things to apply,
He is now happy.

Putting Obama dreams into perspective

Trail-blazers are not templates

If I see another inane blog that tries to ride the Obama success wave into passing the need to achieve to the next generation, I would most probably become violently sick.

Senator Obama in his achievement is a trail-blazer that reveals just another opportunity to achievement, he is not the way or the path to success – in fact, his path to success was so unlikely, there were unbelievers up till the very moment that victory was declared.

Why not you?

I find it mischievous and silly that suddenly most parents who have written about their child being able to reach the heights that Senator Obama has reached are probably much younger than Senator Obama who is 47.

If I recall, Senator McCain at 72, was about to become the oldest ever first term president, so it goes without saying that those parents might well aspire to high office rather than already conceding to a defeatist complex and immediately passing the mantle of high ambition to their children.

Now, if those parents really do see their kids aspiring to the highest office, I hope they are already breaking their backs giving their kids the best education in the best development environment, having them mix with leaders and commoners alike and charting a clear course to this high office since they can now see the future – unlikely.

So, who came after?

We dream but rarely walk or run towards that dream, we are full of fantasies and hopes which are fine for determining a course but never really engage on that course, rather we hope that we would be translated to the new place by miracles, accidents, luck or chance.

What am I saying here? There are many English mothers who would have dreamt when Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, their daughters could become great leaders too, but 29 years on, there is no woman in the horizon going for that post.

Role models are just stars

Imagine how many pathways we would all be looking down if for every first and highest achiever we decided our kids would one day become one and every of those achievements.

A good example is in the week that Senator Obama became the first African-American President-elect, Lewis Hamilton became the first black F1 champion – I should think parents would now enrol their kids in presidency and F1 School?

I do not think so, people like Tiger Woods, Venus & Serena Williams, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Nelson Mandela and many more who are high achievers and first amongst equals are role models, but being a role model does not mean that they are ready for cloning – they are not templates for success, they are revelations of possibilities.

When Tiger Woods won, I would not have been surprised that some parents might have booked golf lessons for their kids without knowing if a birdie or a bogey was a bird, a score or a joke.

They are stars, they allow us to look up, see an array of lights in the sky, point to significant situations and aspire. They are not dies through which we can force our kids so that the resulting mould is a clone of the role model.

The open doors is usually far off

These possibilities only become realities to individuals who capture a vision of what the successes of their role models mean and find a way to work harder and excel at whatever they do.

These trail-blazers might open doors, smash glass ceilings, bring down hurdles and reveal what is possible, but they usually do not have hordes riding right behind them through the openings they have created – we can all aspire to be president, we would not all become president.

The danger is not getting sucked into a do-or-die ambition where the quest for great achievement takes away our humanity and turns us into cold and calculating malevolents.

We can and dream and should dream, we can ride the waves of the successes of those who have gone before us, but one man’s great success does not suddenly confer that victory and status to every child who witnesses that day.

At most, it reveals what is possible, what happens in a lifetime might not get us to the gates we have aspired to pass through, the ability to re-evaluate and reconsider our situations in relation to where we are should lead us to become the best we can become – nothing is impossible, but do we know what is possible and what we can make possible for ourselves?