I may be demented but I'm the sanest person here

 The Dunning-Kruger Effect

I've always looked up to people more intelligent and better-read than myself, which is a huge portion of the planet.

With whatever it is I have (ADHD being the trendy excuse - or laziness in old money) I am more open to verbal persuasive evidence-based argument than reading stuff in a dusty old book.

I always wanted to be more intelligent than I am. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm not an academic. At the same time the memory is its own arbiter - it makes the decision of what is remembered and what is not. In my case it's a variety of not necessarily useful information.

I read something or remember something I heard, then can't remember all of it, but it moved me and resonated at the time. Damn - I can't explain why I have this opinion yet I know it's right!

That's me. I yearn to be super intelligent, but I ain't. I wish I had all this evidence to hand when in an argument or discussion with someone of opposing views. Maybe I did in certain subjects once upon a time. I certainly don't in most cases now. I find it very hard to draw on material now - it simply pops out of existence when I try to grab it from my mind, like memory-bubbles.

If someone asks a question I'll usually have a go at answering - I think this is because certain teachers or bosses I had would have a go at me if I didn't know something. So I feel I should know. 

These days I still give it a go but I am more willing to shrug my shoulders and say 'I dunno!'

I -  Geraint Davies -  am the Dunning-Kruger effect in person!

The Goebbels family from Droitwich 

That moment you sit down with people you've been introduced to who you spent a drunken evening with and you accidentally mention you were listening to News Agents USA and Page 94 on podcasts, and they end up being UK QAnon nutjobs and tear into George Soros (the Jewish Billionaire) and immigrants, even though the faceless billionaires who are paying The Telegraph and the Conservative Party to toe their line and keep bleating the message that poor people and immigrants are the problem, and then....

then...

then...

"You don't believe we're not being replaced?" 

I.e. you don't believe us white people are being replaced by browns/blacks/Muslims?

Goodbye, you conspiracy nutjobs. 

Let's analyse this. Who are the 'deep state'? Why would they do this? Why, in spite of your education, do you believe this?

Who is organising this replacement? How are they doing it? What is in it for them? Do you have names, societies, political parties? Any evidence whatsoever?

Of course not. It's circumstantial at best isn't it? And the gaps are knitted together in a Graham Hancock "I believe this..." type of way. 

Bollocks.

Educated, functional humans who, despite their clean, trendy, healthy outward appearance, and pleasant dispositions are actually as bigoted as it gets.

It's like John Carpenter's "They Live". 

Conspiracy theories are on the surface plausible arguments which serve to justify people's bigotry or low-self esteem, usually offering simple solutions to some very complicated issues.

Almost all fall by the wayside when challenged. But even when debunked, people return to them. 

Why, is another matter altogether.

And no matter which conspiracy hole you choose to go down, all conspiracies end up at the oldest one in the book - that the Jews are behind everything.

Games

I'm thinking of getting a gaming PC. I have a budget of about £2k but I'm umming and ahhing a bit.

I realise I should really go and take some exercise rather than just sitting on my backside in a virtual world for months at a time. 

I walk Tomos for at least an hour first thing every morning. But I should do more.

So I booked 3 sessions at the local public school for use of their pool during the summer hols. I haven't swum for years so I'll be very tired after that. It'll be good for me though. I love swimming and it's my favourite flow-activity.

Also coming up are the Pilton kids' sessions of D&D so I'll have to prep something for that. 

Maybe I can have both swimming and the PC. 

Yes! I want it all!!!

D&D tonight at Seager Hall. Must do some prep. Finding it harder to motivate myself these days. 

Flip-flops

I love the smell of new flip-flops. I guess it reminds me of summer holidays when I was a kid - smell is the most evocative of the senses.

Regard my flip-flops. Are they not magnificent?

Anyone who knows me will tell you I like a flip-flop. I seem to sublime these days from big winter boots to flip-flops. I guess my recent trainer acquisitions are the solution, but flipflops, are really where it's at.

I hear some people struggle with the flip-flop.

I for one do not.

I am an expert flip-flop wearer.

Dove Soap (rant)

How can it even exist? It's a mild detergent with 1/4 of oil. Eh? 

It's like trying to wash yourself with a Hag Fish. 

I have to use some WD40 and a wire brush to get the bloody stuff (Dove soap, not Hagfish) off my hands.

Just use a traditional soap and put the moisturiser on afterwards if you need it. 

Dove soap does not work. And apparently it's full of chemicals that your skin can have a bad reaction to. 

Bloody rubbish.

Music

No1 in the hit Parade, 1926. That was someone's act for 50 years.

My friend David used to go to the last Music Halls in the 1960s and knew these songs off by heart. I had to look this up. He knew all the lyrics. 

Those annoying songs with "Whoops" in the title, as they said on Blackadder goes Forth.

Have a good 'un me sonners, as they say in these 'ere parts.

2023 be damned!!

Lowlights of the year

The invasion of Ukraine continues in a First-World War-style meatgrinder-stalemate

Hamas butchers 1200 Israelis of all ages at a pop festival. Israel's reactionary government retaliates by flattening Gaza and killing over 10 times as many Palestinians

Despite him being a lying, narcissistic sociopath, Trump is getting more popular in the States and unless he is sent to prison in time, will be the next POTUS. Which of course will be a disaster not only for the US but globally.

Liberal democracy around the world is under attack from China, Iran, Russia and other half-witted regimes such as North Korea who sow misinformation on our social media, fuelling conspiracy theories.

The world seems to be getting even more stupid - ever more venal and corrupt politicians reaching either the wrong conclusion or just lining their own or their friends' pockets.

And they will be replaced by more of the same, as the people who should be our politicians have zero incentive to go into it.

So what's the bloody answer then?

One idea I feel very strongly about is abolish the post of Minister of Education. Every minister of Education who comes in says "I had a brilliant education - so everyone will have what I did" introduces another one-size-fits-all system, oblivious that most kids aren't academic.

As a result of Michael Gove's reforms English became a dissection class of fronted adverbials, which is enough to put almost everyone off the subject for good, when really a child's imagination is one of the most precious things in life, and as I've said before, the one thing that the education system pulverises.

Replace with a permanent committee of high profile educators and adopt a German style system (as Beveridge originally recommended) of grammar, technical and secondary schools. 

Stop trying to be a second rate China with this obsession with maths, and start being a first rate Britain. We're a really creative people in all aspects of life. After all, the wealthiest Chinese send all their children to Public schools here. Critical and independent thinking is what's needed, not a bunch of mindless automatons who have only been taught how to pass exams, instead of being educated.

And maybe abolish the internet. It's handy for the discussion of ideas and nonsense like this, but it's been fuelling stupidity and misinformation for 30 years or so. It's only effectively policed by totalitarian regimes, and it's just too easy to manipulate in liberal democracies.

I'm only scratching the surface here, but I should also stop NOW.

What about me???

In August I moved in with my parents who very kindly accommodated me. It wasn't as bad as any of us feared.

I've come to the realisation that I need to make a distance between my old life and new life, at least for the time being. I know time is a healer and certain enmities and suspicions that are harboured by both parties will gradually cool down.

I don't think it's worth the time and stress to talk over and over things we can't do anything about, despite the fact that modern life suggests this is the only way approach these things. 

When I have fallen out with people in the past and met them decades later, it's instantly water under the bridge  - it takes too much energy to keep enmities going for years at a time. And I spent years doing that with at least 2 people.

Saying that, there are people I don't want to see ever again of course. And some I wish were dead. And I have no qualms about that at all.

I miss the dogs and my friends. I miss being part of a family.

But I have made new friends here in Wells and reacquainted myself with old schoolmates.

Life for me is in the main, believe it or not, one of contentment. 

My Problem with booze

I've been drinking way too much. Drinking every night. I have a problem with alcohol. I can go without it but rarely do. The last time I drank was 3 days ago on the 30th.  In all, that day, I had 8 pints of strong beer: a UK gallon. I'm only small too.

A small Bailey's please.

So I think about going to the gym and getting really toned, but then I remembered I've had enough of gyms for one incarnation, so just walking loads and perhaps some swimming. I like flow-activities. Good for the brain.

I will have to stop buying booze at the supermarket. Get back into non-alcoholic beers. But only in pubs and bars.

So I guess that's my New Year's Resolution.

The boring bit about games

I'm really looking forward to playing RPGs 3 times per week or more. Katy's asked me to run a game for some teenagers in February on their half-term. I'm pretty sure I want to run the classic funhouse dungeon, White Plume Mountain.

1981 version

The session is intended to be a one-shot (completed in one session). That may be slightly ambitious with WPM, but it's full of puzzles, magic and combat. It makes no logical sense whatsoever - every room is entirely random - but if you can buy into this it's great fun. 

Like a D&D advent calendar.

I hope the kids like it - it's different to modern D&D as the new adventures are more focussed around a narrative.

I for one am loving being a player in Temple of Elemental Evil which we do on Wednesday afternoon/evening. It's so cool doing a Dungeon Crawl. It was also the second module (adventure) I bought in 1985. It blew my mind. It's great playing it.

The New Age

Back to London

So on Sunday Dad drove me to the bus station with my suitcase and backpack to get the coach to Hammersmith. Just like being a teenager again. 

It should have been in Wells by 8.55 but it didn’t get in until 9.20, which meant we hit the traffic on the A303 (past Stonehenge) and arrived in Hammersmith at 13.00. I then missed my connection to Norbiton and was late for D&D at The Willoughby. 

(I get quite flustered and stressed by the thought of travel these days, but I never used to when I was , er, normal. Still, I still have the wherewithal to travel on my own, get tickets and plan an itinerary.)

It was great to see the pub so full. Rick, the landlord, has been brilliant to us gamers and allowed us to play on Sundays and Tuesdays as well as storing bulky terrain. Covid was like a nuclear winter to the hospitality industry so it’s great to see a renaissance in customer numbers. We’re regularly numbering 20-30 on Sundays upstairs, and now the Premiership has restarted customers were abundant.

It was great to be back in Greyhawk again (I’m talking about the D&D session now) where we encountered more cultists, but don’t worry: we killed them :)

Did I tell you I now have a group of D&Ders back in Wells? They are fantastic and we started a session last week. They are super nice and super enthusiastic. I can’t wait for the next session, but more to come on that.

Woken by scuttlin’

I stayed at Adrian’s house on Sunday night. I stayed in the room where he keeps all his exotic pets - you know the types, Amazonian tree frogs, hermit crabs, spiders, poisonous toads. 

My new bestie.

I put in my earplugs, put on my eye mask and went to sleep. I slept for ages only to be woken up at 3.30 by very loud scuttling of the hermit crabs in a tank. Little buggers.

The older I get the more I love nature. The yellow and black dart frogs are fascinating and beautiful - and barely 40mm long. The toad (about 50-60mm) has a bright yellow belly which I didn’t get to see which it bares to predators to say “ I die - we both die!” 

The hermit crabs so alien and weird  - scuttlin’ bastards. Fascinating nonetheless - picking up discarded shells as their new homes. Isn’t nature ceaselessly amazing? 

The Light Newspaper

Whilst in Wells, my friend Mark was visiting his Mother there. We were in The Crown, which - as anyone who enters there will be aware as it’s rather shouty about it - featured in the Edgar Wright film, Hot Fuzz.

We were enjoying a pint and Mark found a copy of The Light, secreted somewhere as though hidden with the intention it be found like a dirty magazine!

If you’re not aware of it The Light newspaper is a conspiratorial rag were QAnon theories meet the New Age. All MSM (Mainstream Media) is part of the deep state, scientists are too, 5G masts are there to activate the Covid vaccinations within us, and the usual stuff about Jews. 

This piece of toilet paper is sold on Glastonbury High Street, and I’m told the vendors are quite aggressive if you don’t buy a copy - which reminds me of Scientologists when you question their ‘religion’.

I left this particular copy with Adrian, and while we may laugh at its contents, there are enough lunatics who believe the wildfires on Maui were government made in order to clear the whole island so they can build a new ‘Smart City’ and control us all.

Despite the fact there is ZERO evidence to back any of this SHIT up.

Slumming it in Hertfordshire

I’m spending this week with my friends in Herts. They have a beautiful house, the sun is streaming down, and dragonflies, butterflies and buzzing insects are abundant.  In the distance past the swing hanging from a branch, Canadian Geese munch the grass. A lone swan and coot swim in the river by the weir, periodically a kite and a buzzard vie for airspace.

I’m sat at the magnificent dining table made by family friend Jim Distortion of Metal Machine UK. To my right is the beautiful designer kitchen. Bisto the enormous brown Labrador is somewhere around…

I made this promotional video earlier. Take a look: 

Another 3 days of this. Ghastly.

Then a few days in Kingston where I will see Jacqui and the dogs. Apparently Tomos is already missing me. 

I love dogs, but I’m also blessed with very kind human friends.