THE BOOK OF THIS

By John Williams and Andy Lord

We journey into history and reason and science. For people with autism, a religious cannon fires upon the medical canon and obliterates it. And we realize finally and irrevocably that faith is doubt and doubt is faith and that the doubtful can be the faithful and that the faithful can be unfaithful. We'll overturn many accepted conventions, and in doing so, we will uncover a quiet beautiful truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781470992453

John Williams

John Williams was born in Cardiff in 1961.He wrote a punk fanzine and played in bands before moving to London and becoming a journalist , writing for everyone for The Face to the Financial Times. He wrote his first book, an American crime fiction travelogue called Into The Badlands (Paladin) in 1991. His next book, Bloody Valentine (HarperCollins), written around the Lynette White murder case in the Cardiff docks, came out in 1994. Following a subsequent libel action from the police, he turned to fiction. His first novel the London-set Faithless (Serpent's Tail) came out in 1997. Shortly afterward he moved back to Cardiff, with his family, and has now written four novels set in his hometown - Five Pubs, Two Bars And A Nightclub (Bloomsbury 1999); Cardiff Dead (Bloomsbury 2000); The Prince Of Wales (Bloomsbury 2003) and Temperance Town (Bloomsbury 2004). He has edited an anthology of new Welsh fiction, Wales Half Welsh (Bloomsbury 2004). He also writes screenplays (his ninety-minute drama, A Light In The City, was shown by BBC Wales in 2001). An omnibus edition of his Cardiff novels, The Cardiff Trilogy, is to be published by Bloomsbury in summer 2006.

Book preview

THE BOOK OF THIS

John Williams

Copyright Year: 2022

Copyright Notice: THE BOOK OF THIS by John Williams. Some rights reserved.

The above information forms this copyright notice: © 2022 by John Williams. Some rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781470992453

This book is written within Australia. In the spirit of reconciliation we acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart.

I support the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

We should walk further still.

We have been given heart; where are our hearts?

A new constitution saying who we are.

My Statement from my Heart

Hurt her and you hurt me, because she is the one of mine.

No living person is described within my book, apart from myself. If there are character descriptions which have similarities to living people, these were by mistake as I sought to avoid this. I have sometimes referred to leaders by name or people by name.

This should have the same force as any other declaration of this nature, since this would be an honest deceleration - my view is that every writer draws on their personal experience – what else is there to draw on? Are there any writers who can honestly say that they do not?

I am like everyone else, when you meet with me, except for my not getting innuendo and allegory, and many of you may have to get to know me well to realise this. Unlike you, I know I live within my bones and my flesh and that reality is an illusion.

This book is my venture into only a small part of who I am and how I think. I typically live well within our reality which is a shared illusion.

This book takes you to other places within my own illusion.

Lucifer

I am the broken surface of the unwell.

Do not look beneath;

Do not stare into my chasm;

Walk past; walk by and do not stop.

Love your family and friends;

Spend time with your children;

Help your community.

I am not someone who you should see.

I am no one and I am everyone,

And I have done unspeakable things.

If you peer within, who will you see?

I fear, you will only

See me.

Cry alarm!

Strike a bell!

Call for help which doesn't come.

Within the pure, deep waters,

Blindly search for your heart;

Encounter yourself, see yourself.

Your all seeing eye will be mine.

When you swim with me,

I will restore your soul.

My forge remakes you with me,

And we are beautiful,

And we will be who we will be.

Except for the fact that I am very quiet these days, contrary to how I was before I realised that I could not speak or understand English. These days I typically just get on with my life.

As my books are your only knowledge about me, you may gain the impression that I am living somewhere different to our shared illusion, somewhere else entirely. Even though it tires me to live within the lies, I succeed in living within the real illusion, our shared illusion, but sometimes I choose my personal illusion and sometimes this is thrust upon me. Mostly I choose this for you, so I am able to tell you about what the universe is and about how we should live well.

Stars

I love to look at the stars and to dream about what is out there. I have been like this since childhood. I have never lost my curiosity. Now I am old and tired and I have the knowledge of the whole of existence, I still wonder.

One day a small few will be the first to explore the stars. What will they find, when they do? How will they feel to leave earth, knowing they will never return?

I sympathise with them.

I am here from the future – it turned out my faith in my mind and heart taking me somewhere beautiful wasn't misplaced. Give it time and you will realise the beauty isn't my self-satisfied arrogance.

QUIET IS ALLOWED

Paradise

I was once told,

There was one place

Where a soldier could rest,

Weary after war's travail,

Hidden behind a cloth

Of death.

When one Para dies,

Fighting the wrong

fight of the right,

It is where they lie,

With us.

Paradise

Who are you?

I do not know you.

Leave me here

Within hell's cold embrace.

I did that,

I did that.

No.

Know you are mine.

Rest with me,

Feel my care,

Know my love.

I will be here with you.

Can you feel this?

We are here.

I did that.

I did that too.

You know I am here;

I will stay with you.

I place my power

In your service.

You are mine;

Rest with me.

We will be hereafter.

Me writing this book – it is me allowing my mind to wander freely and to wonder freely about everything. I really do not know where it is going. I have an idea and then I put this down on paper. The Paradise poem came to me because I was listening to Coldplay's song. I sat down with the word and that was what I wrong.

I did not mean to write wrong when I wrote write.

Am I being told not to write the wrong fight?

I wondered about this, when I wrote the Paradise poem earlier today. I left the word because I felt that soldiers do fight against what is wrong – unnecessary special military invasions and such like. But I know it has a double meaning because I do believe war is wrong.

British Paras – well they won't need my help to get where they are going, because they are the righteous sword of democracy. The Royal Marines, you as well and all those who serve in the armed forces of thriving democracies. Fight within the rules of war and you won't need my help – you will reach the other side and you will understand.

I am cut adrift. Where is Lionel Sharpe? What am I to do? I miss him, terrible, terrifying man who he was. Where I used to have him as my crutch, my excuse for not existing, now I have no plan, no drive. I felt similar when my Trojan friends departed, but not like this. Back then, I had real people to play with, too. Now there is nobody.

Writers learn to love their characters. I loved Lionel Sharpe and I will always struggle to believe he was your real poet within our shared illusion.

And I did love writing about the Trojan War and I also loved the real and imaginary characters who populated my Trojan Chronicles.

Empty

Nothing.

Black.

What will I fill my life with? Other people do not have this quandary – they have each other and they know each other. They made sure that I would not know them, by not telling me how to talk with them, by keeping me in the dark. The dark is mine; I will bring my inky light to it and I will make it shine – it is my black and empty space and I will it will be full with me and mine.

Too much? I think so. Me, I am dry; I want my life to be wet.

Too O O.....

Best change the topic – I am going to do the school run. And I have to mash potato

My Lover Said

My lover said to me,

To be sure, five's even.

Know this

And we are beyond

The mathematical.

Tee He He.

I call my mate,

And say,

Seven's even.

Even now,

I

Am thinking,

Odd -

A mother's love is

Uneven, startlingly bright.

As if there is another who would write a poefy for me like this. Ring an alarm for a lama all alone without followers.

Follow where? No where.

Here on this world together, why are we all alone?

See, I said pithy.

I have been thinking, which is a worrying habit. I am very flawed and not the right man to be saving the world, multiple worlds, it seems. Though how many did I accidentally break?

And I am still annoyed with the universe – I like the universe, love it. I love life. I have dead plants and live plants in vases above my kitchen sink – I know which I prefer. Death is the absence of life. But why did we bother to make death? Bloody silly thing to do, really – I do not assume binary opposites are necessary.

Saving the universe is all very well, but why can't I find my way to having people in my life? It is very, very lonely. Every time I keep saying I will be who I will be, but doing this on my own is very, very dull. I look around and I think, aha, I am saving the universe. Well bloody done me!

And my live plants in pots above my kitchen sink – well they die.

And sometimes the universe makes very funny jokes, but not enough. Many are despairingly bad dad jokes.

But why? Why bother? It is an illusion and you are an illusion, so why do I make my choice to care for the world and for you? You do not get to be able to see the truth that you are an illusion; why should I be blessed with this curse?

Why did we do this to me? Why bother? Why not make my life a very pleasant life filled with people and sunshine and happy times? I should be better with acting upon my forgiveness but then I would be far too much like Jesus. Though I doubt his friends did this to him. On the other hand, crucifixion couldn't have been much fun.

Maybe I am within the middle and I am unable to hang with the good, the people, and I won't live with the bad, the people who keep annoying the hell out of me who I much prefer to spend my time with. But the good are bad and the bad are good, all on their spectrum. And the bad pretend to be good and, less often, the bad, like me, pretend to be good.

The plants on my kitchen sink – they are not coming back to life. Stupid, stupid, stupid universe, but not as stupid as you or me. See annoyed as hell. Yet the universe keeps trying to get me to understand something that is missing from my understanding.

I keep telling the universe that if this is that I have to live like Jesus, well it hasn't got me yet. And if this is telling me I have to meditate and spend my time seeking calm enlightenment, well there is no chance of that. And when I die, I will tell it not to be so very silly, and me and Jesus and Buddha will enjoy a laugh with you. They may have to visit me in hell, but they will bring the light with them – who could doubt this, if they are there?

I am going for a coffee, one too many, and then this evening I will probably have a few beers – three.

I am not equal with Jesus and Buddha – to be clear. Who they were and are is beyond me? But I believe they will share themselves with me and with you.

And after writing the whole book, the book which will change the world, the book of the life of Lionel Sharpe, and looking and looking, I realise that 'only' is the anagram for lyon. It was the lion's one lie. Me, I am slow, whilst Sharpe, well he was Sharpe.

Should you bizarrely not know Lionel Sharpe, I will begin to tell you about him. Should you not know how Lionel Sharpe changed the world and how he will change the world, you must be one of my very earliest readers. You should read our book – Lionel Sharpe – it will alter the unreal world. This book without Lionel Sharpe will sound one way; with Lionel Sharpe it will sound sharp.

And later still, today which is now and not many yesterdays ago, I saw that one lie is lion with two spare Es.

And Sharpe's family name, Littleton, is the anagram for Lionel with three letters left over – TTT.

And Littleton also gives to us Lion and Leon.

I spotted two errors in Part 1 of Lionel Sharpe already – I won't amend them. Mistakes are what makes the world beautiful. Anyway, Sharpe was sin. Perfection wasn't his way; the triply and quadrupily sublime was.

Lionel Sharpe was the source for Queen Elizabeth's Tilbury Speech. The Tilbury Speech - he wrote it, thought it, when England needed her hero.

- -

Copyright – It should be made right to copy.

For the free exchange of ideas and thoughts – quotes should be ok, without permission and copyright should only last for five years from when total net earnings from the right exceed $1,000,000.00, when owned by anyone or anybody who has a total net worth of over $1,500,000.00.

It should be non-transferable.

Books and articles and research papers and such like – that is what I am talking about.

I should be with my children – what am I thinking writing now?

He he. Cold hands.

Inappropriate juxtapositions should be separated.

Lawful porn; unlawful partying.

Vote Neil Parish back in.

Every representative who condemned Neil Parish should support a bill to protect sex workers in a reporn porn industry and to protect us from revenge porn.

Who hasn't looked at porn at work?

We will protect workers in porn at work.

It wasn't like it was often – just once to my recollection - and in the early days it became clear it would leave a trail. Perhaps the question would be, who wouldn't look at porn at work, if they thought they could get away with it?

From tiny acorns pronounced change comes and a mighty oat tree is born.

Perhaps.

Inappropriate juxtapositions would work and be a very comely diadem to wear.

Seer here is going to spend time.

Too many pithy lines ape seasoned writers

Mmm – its just me and our keyboard.

Or sink into the black depths of our souls.

Its a dad as swimmer; its fab; a dad joking with eternity.

Hope the water isn't piffy.

I wish it wasn't piffy.

Thank the lord the ark is here – bored.

Obtuse.

Choose to be.

I meant what I said – I am lost without Sharpe. I get why people create our wonders and then produce some self-indulgent, contemptible writing. Here you are getting my mind and my heart wandering without purpose towards an indeterminate future.

It will be my heart and my mind and it will be my future and by God I will make it glorious.

I think I was guided to write this.

Darn universe.

I haven't much to tell it.

It knows it already.

Where does that leave me?

I am going to watch TV and drink a beer.

Or two.

Turned out to be free.

Within myself, I do not know what to do with myself. Partly I am thinking that the news has to break soon. Then my life will be something entirely new.

It is a simple thing to tell the world that I will tell the world what I choose to tell the world; it is a very different matter to be faced with the consequences of this, of my having written Lionel Sharpe. Then I will truly be alone, with no where to go to hide and no one to go to. I was prepared for this. But I was told to find someone to help and I tried, but each time I was messed with by the universe. I am resigned to having to face this on my own. We are all alone. Except I have everyone with me who I could possibly want with me.

Still, it is very off-putting, planning your future, when you know that you are fairly likely to be faced with notoriety and terrible celebrity. I know, I will buy a new doom, a cover for life today – doesn't cut it, does it? Right down to making a new conversation; I am treading on old ground.

I have passed the ball and I do not know if it will ever come back to me.

I can wonder.

The universe – its very, very big!

And tiny, minutely tiny, really very, very small.

Many times, I read a book to my son called I am big and I am small or about this. In fact, the title is You Are Not Small by Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant.

BOO

K.

I think I will die very soon; I hope not; I like living. Death seems very much as though it is death to me. This me, this I, has only one life to do with as I am destined to be.

I do not know whether or not I like being just a tiny thought in the beyond infinite consciousness of the universe – it seems inadequate for me and yet it is enough.

What do you think?

I think is awesome.

My life is lies; a seagull without its kink.

Our Black Dog

My black dog lies,

Wearing his orange colour,

Curled up against the wail,

Head tucked in against its tail.

Ears flop back, unwishing to hear

Our darkest bark challenging

Pale existence with fire.

Eyes shut, unwishing to look

Upon us and what we took.

Betrayal is beyond feeling.

Why did we take a bone

And stick it to the wet earth?

Why did we destroy - soil?

Where will he live in us,

When I am gone?

The blackest night is coming.

Without I able to be one,

what will there be?

Head down, my dog wails.

He is wild with his own power.

We hear him cry in the wilderness.

We know we fornicated

Our lands, our waters.

Colour.

Our black dog's light is out.

Understanding's Rainbow

Rain falls on the iridescent grass,

Washing the word clean,

Giving life to the people.

The water falls as power.

Fully informed minds

Allow the spirit to grow.

It tumbles and churns within.

We hear thunder's peel,

Inching closer to our secret base desires.

The lightning strikes understanding's rainbow,

And we feel the drops on our skin

And within.

We are why.

Formless

I have seen fear beyond.

Death

Dims age's wings.

Our ends

Sing of lost days,

Empty of meaning,

Destroyed and bereft,

Between unreality and unwellness -

Incongruence.

Without land, air and space and vastness,

Without water, emptiness and nothingness and absence,

Lies a terrible horror within.

We do not understand; we do not know;

Our science has no explanations.

Fear, freer, freer, freer.

Life is more wonderful,

Greater and vastly empty of meaning,

Than ever our hearts could feel.

I will miss life's more than possible journey,

When I know death's heat.

We love life.

It is what is between.

I was being told that my balance had gone with what I just wrote. I liked it, and I thought I should leave it. I was thinking, perhaps, that I had overemphasised death and horror and not talked about beauty and love enough, but that felt wrong. There are too many people already telling everyone how wonderful life and love is – it gets repetitive and boring, the peace and the love.

Then I realised I was defining life by death, as though they are opposites. They are not; they are the same. The beauty is in death and in life; the wonder is that they are the same; we are death and we are life and we are evil and we are love. We are this.

My journey was into terror and fear and death and I wore this and I will miss this. It is this vast and finite and terrible life which I will regret leaving behind.

Now I think I was being told to keep alive and to stop abusing my body, which is my temple.

I very rarely swear in life. I told someone today that swear words are for the most extreme situations. They are for when we face terror and death and terrible pain.

It is because my book is about all these things that I swear far more than usually in it.

It is the same with my real life. I am sorry to people who have no idea I have faced this. It isn't real, so I do not talk about it, just as a I rarely swear.

And it is terrible and terribly real and it is everything. And everything will be what we make it because my everything is my everything and I make it light.

My Twinkling Eyes

Look into my eyes;

You see nothing;

Blank and empty.

Look deeper, be still;

See sadness and loss;

Terrible dark pain.

I will light my life,

With a twinkle within.

Do not think I mean that it is okay to venture into the darkness from choice and to declare that you are between or in the middle, merely accepting what we all have within. Do not go there. Look upon the unimaginable and understand, but do not visit.

I went there, but not through my choice, and I am fortunate to have returned. Here, on this earth and in this life, we want the peace of love to pass all understanding; here we are to be love.

In simpler terms, I find a tarantula eating its prey beautiful, but I do not want to be a tarantula and I do not want to be its prey. I would pray not to be that. I want to be human and to be beautiful and to love. When we miss this, we are taking the wrong path and we are ugly and hateful and inhuman.

I have felt the power that goes with the dark and it is beyond being inhuman. I look upon it as I would a friend who has taken the wrong path. When I begin veering towards it, I forgive myself and resolve that I will not be that. I will be colour and light and love and this.

I write about fear, but should you never have experienced utter and complete terror, you have no idea. I do not believe there are many people alive who have seen the fear that I have seen, the total and utter horror. Human terror is limited. Inhuman terror is beyond humanity and it is beyond anything you may imagine it might be.

Terror isn't anything like you think it is is. It isn't a beating heart and fear or terror for your life. Your life is nothing. It isn't even an eternity of terrible pain or loneliness. Eternity is nothing beside terror which is the terror I am talking about. Terror is beyond eternity, in the gap between infinity and nothing which doesn't exist. Face this and do not wear fear and you will be well.

Face this and tell it that you will choose love, which you do not have and do not know exists, that you will choose life, which is almost meaningless, and then you will learn to right your life.

My faith is that you will not have to wear this fear. I think I am paying for you to only have to face human terror, and only sometimes, I hope.

I took it for you.

Mining Regulations

I have six simple proposals for the better regulation of mining:

1.  No new mines are to be authorised by State or Commonwealth where there is any more than minor risk of environmental damage;

2.  All entities who operate mines are to place into ring-fenced trust funds now the funding that environmental groups say will be required to clean up all the mines that the company or individual operates;

3.  These trust funds should be kept under annual review and topped up as and when necessary;

4.  To ensure that two and three happens, the mining company will not be allowed by law to pay dividends or to pay directors' salaries or bonuses until these funds are in place and protected and neither will they be able to receive their mines' profits;

5.  If the mining operator says that these protective funds are too high, they should be reminded that the amounts they pay into these trust funds are going to be invested and that they will be repaid out of the trust fund the balance, should this turn out to be true;

6.  To prevent short cuts being taken with environmental and safety issues, completely independent third parties should perform biannual checks, with the power to issue big fines for working practices causing moderate or severe risks to people or the environment, whether or not the risk eventuates.

If you do not know Lionel Sharpe, you will wonder why I am bothering to make proposals like these. Lionel Sharpe's roar will mean that I am heard.

This should mean that no new mines are authorised where there is a moderate or severe risk of environmental damage and that companies and mine operators have an incentive to keep the clean up costs after mines close very low, so they should operate in a more environmentally safe manner.

Perhaps I missed something, but that seems to me to be sufficient in terms of streamlined and better regulation with regards to the environmental impact of mining.

The mining industry will have clarity. Supporters of mines have children and will want their children to live in a clean environment. Most miners should be behind the idea that their industry should not cause moderate or severe damage to the environment.

Should I have missed something, my purpose is to ensure that mines cause not more than minor environmental damage and that this environmental damage is fully cleaned up after mines stops operating.

For me, minor environmental damage is localised to the mine site and can be remedied by the clean up.

Let's get rid of microwaves entirely; they are not necessary and they harm the environment.

Director's salaries

We will fix these unhealthily high salaries, as well as the living wage problem, by making it law that directors cannot be paid more than ten times their lowest paid staff member's salary, including bonuses etc.

Online News

Facebook, TikTok and any other online news providers should have to declare in bold in the title for their news posts whether or not the story has been fact checked. If it hasn't been fact checked, they should have to declare this. If it has been fact checked it should say this and the outcome should be marked in the title.

This story has been fact checked by and the facts are accurate; or

This story has been fact checked by and the facts are unreliable – you should not rely on this article; or

This story hasn't been fact checked and the facts could be false – you should not rely on this article.

It should be made unlawful to bring a claim against the fact checker or the news provider for an inaccurate declaration.

These organisations should have to pay a trusted news provider, like the BBC, to fact check their news stories. Stories which are getting the most views should be prioritised. This should apply internationally, particularly at important times in other countries, such as during the lead up to elections. Thus, for example, stories getting the most views domestically, in the country where the election is taking place, should be prioritised.

All reasonable people should realise that mainstream news providers work to professional standards and this increases their costs of operation. They compete with what are in effect online news providers that do not have anywhere near the same costs because they are not working to professional standards.

That is why the online news providers should have to share these costs with mainstream news providers.

Any news article which has facts which cannot be verified should go into the news feeds of all people who viewed the article before it was fact checked who should be provided with the opportunity to be informed that the article may not be reliable.

There are reliable independent news providers who operate online. They should be able to pay a small fee for their past work to be checked and for them to be given the status as a trusted news provider, which their articles should declare – this should travel with the person providing the news as well as their website.

Infants die in hot cars

I can imagine forgetting my child – I forget mine many times.

One mistake with leaving a child within a hot car could kill them, when they are infants, and would kill them, when the weather is hot. Children die like this every year, unnecessarily.

We then prosecute the grieving parent for a crime. Deliberately leaving your child in a car unsupervised, and thus causing your child moderate or severe injury or death, should be a crime. But when it is a terrible accident, whose fault is it?

Is it the fault of the exhausted or stressed father or mother, or is it the fault of the people who will not make us pay more to make it so that alarms that can prevent this are fitted in all cars which parents of young children buy? Is it the fault of the people who will not pay a little more for their car, knowing that because they do this there will be infants who die in hot cars?

It is time we had alarms fitted which prevent these accidents in all cars bought by parents with young children and make it unlawful for parents of young children to own a car without an alarm fitted. And the same for all buses which carry infants. These costs should be subsidised by the government.

Unsupervised should mean when you are unable to check on your child sufficiently regularly.

The same for cameras and alarms which allow us to see children behind our cars.

If I thought my child would die, I would pay millions and millions and millions for their lives. I would bankrupt myself for them. Why don't we all just pay a little more so that I never ever find myself in this position, with my child dead in a car seat or lying crumpled beneath my car and me destroyed?

Sometimes I speak plainly.

Anagrams are history.

Rash people say they know his story.

I do not know what to do. Intermittently, I look up Sharpe and find new things. There is lots of evidence I missed that people were afeared of his poison and were being kept in check by his poison. But I will not venture further in that direction – for now.

I think it would be very nice to have a partner to be dancing with on life's journey. With me, it would be a hell of a ride.

I am feeling pretty filthy right now. What is it that I am expected to be able to see? And why would it matter? I am not real.

Real people dance with their shoulders to the Scissor Sisters.

Keep those legs on the ground; keep those shoulders moving.

Give it.

I might light my fire tonight.

Come on baby, remember, I am very literal.

See behind the wheel

To be me is to be all seeing.

In my blindness, ever

Lies before me -

A glorious empty vista,

Black beyond colour,

Is everything there can be.

Cold, empty and dark,

I can see within

What is without.

Cut adrift with no where to go,

I will go wherever I want.

The road will be my home,

My view will never change.

Do not drive this road.

With me, it won't end well.

Wit hinders nothing,

But I am blind behind

The wheel of life...

Worryingly, I am leaving to do the school run. One and a half hours on the wet road to... Wish my luck.

Few people understand why.

I do not understand why gay and lesbians and others cannot adopt children within Christian countries. The Christian way would be to let people adopt. Christ would not have worried about people's sexuality. Christ was love.

I know, I know, I say this many times, but who could doubt this? I remember my upbringing and being told repeatedly that God is love. What is most important – love. Away with the Pharisees' rules and in with love.

I do not believe there needs to be more justification. I do not believe there should have to be any justification, but its worth repeating – love.

I am expecting every Christian to step forward as a warriors of Christ to ensure their governments make it so that people can adopt children who need parents.

Worship

I keep hearing that I got what I said about worship wrong within my book on Lionel Sharpe. It isn't what I said that was wrong but the tone – how I said it. And it wasn't clear that, in the specifics, I was and I am only talking about Christian worship.

Do not worship me.

Feel free to worship but make sure that works are your priority.

You are free to ignore what I am saying you should do and rightly so.

For me, my balance would be to meditate once or twice a day for about ten minutes and to try to keep my mind focussed on life as I go about my day. As I get better with this, you might say that I spend much of my day in worship.

I do believe that we should all be able to get to nirvana or heaven without going down on our knees to worship.

I just realised that my chairs have been removed to make my children a base in my bedroom, so I wrote all of this about worship whilst on my knees. It amuses me; I hope this amuses you.

What I said before, I think it was correct, but I was too harsh in my tone and how I said it. Still, I am not sure how I could have said it any kinder.

The established churches should spend much more time working with people who are in need and much less time on religious ceremony and disputes about the obvious rightness of gay and lesbian priests within the Christian Church. For Christ's sake, Christ is love and he fed people.

The message was clear that the church is ill, but after that I made the choice to repeat the message without adjusting the tone. I did not exercise wisdom.

Me, I am you and I am tired and still annoyed with my God and still asking, what am I missing? I think nothing.

And everything.

Fallible – flawed.

My knees hurt.

You got me.

I am expecting my book to be recognised and worrying about that. That horse has bolted, I believe.

I feel the spirits of seagulls flying north for winter, over stormy seas, unleashing their wild waters into the wind. Without any room for doubt, within faith, we are all sardines to the hunter lost on the ocean's waves. Within these lines, the greatest secret lies, lost and alone, which is where it aught to be.

Bloody Sunday

If the community allow this, the Paras should march to the site of the massacre and should formally apologise to the Northern Irish community. They should march unarmed with representatives of the Catholic community.

They should walk together to the site of the Omagh massacre.

The Paras should never have been sent into a peace keeping role in Northern Ireland.

I imagine that making this march would be extremely difficult for the Paras. Many may not like me for my suggestion that they march unarmed. I think I will be someone who avoids public events. I will attend this with you.

My fire won't light. What am I failing to understand? Are fires environmentally unfriendly?

From the future which is here:

Do not fire;

Ceasefire!

Life

There is a reasonable possibility or probability that children being born today will live until medicine discovers how to turn off the aging process.

People will still die of disease and accidents, but over time the risks from the former will diminish to the point where they are virtually non existent. Eventually we will find ways to rejuvenate people and not merely to turn off the aging process.

In other words, some people born today could live for thousands of years.

We had better figure out how to populate space. And think about what we want. Do we want indefinite life within this existence?

If this happens within the next hundred years, there is only a very low likelihood we will have the capability to populate our solar system. With our finite resources on earth, there will be tremendous decisions to make about who gets to live. It should not be disproportionately the rich and powerful; we should manage this fairly. Our democracies should make it so that the rich and wealthy are not treated differently to everyone else, when it comes to our life spans.

Except me. Accept I am the one who wants to live. The one who lives should be me. Except we will have to accept that there should be no exceptions.

Imagine me living for ever. Lucky you.

I am still here, giving it.

I am feeling

Annoyed – but it is something.

Why have I been chosen to live this life? Why is that everything I do to try to change, to be able to be with people, fails? Something gets in the way, every time. I think I am required to be alone to discover myself. Brilliant idea, because I do not want to discover myself.

I just want to have a happy life with my family who love me and who I love. And I want people in my life who I love and care for and who communicate and behave with me in a reasonably honest and moral way.

Frankly, I will lower my standards to the point where pretty much anything that isn't horribly hurtful would do me just fine. It would be great if there was someone who shared my sense of humour, too.

I live. You?

I am a total shit; I know that;

I wish it were clearer.

The storm is coming.

Is this my life?

Our children are enough.

The free daisy saw weak bees of flight in the dark.

Inflation

When there is high inflation, the poorest people in our society pay for this. Their salaries are already being spent on just keeping their heads above water. When inflation causes prices to go up and their salary doesn't go up in line with inflation, this creates real problems for people.

The argument goes that, should we increase the minimum wage, this would increase spending and therefore demand and therefore inflation.

When there is inflation, to reduce the money in the economy, so as to keep inflation down, there would likely be increases in interest rates payable by home owners, who are either just above the bread line or not very wealthy or only moderately wealthy.

But why not avoid doing this? How?

In order to discover an answer, we must examine the causes of inflation.

A sudden scarcity of power supplies causes increased costs in the mining of raw material and in manufacturing causing inflation. Demand also increases inflation essentially because it increases the demand for the resources with which we make goods – the raw materials and the cost of power and so on. The manufacturer has to make more to supply the demand so it requires more of raw materials/power and this demand for raw materials/power pushes up prices.

Additionally the manufacturer may have limited manufacturing capacity, so it may as well push up prices in line with demand and make a bigger profit.

The very wealthy spend a lot on themselves but only a very small part of their overall wealth, especially in comparison with the poor. Thus they do not drive inflation particularly.

But we may use their wealth to drive inflation down. When there is high inflation, we should increase wealth taxes on the very wealthy and use these funds to subsidise the cost of raw materials and power with a view to keeping inflation down. At the same time, we should look at where these subsidies are being spent and on how to replace the raw material or power with a cheaper substitute or supplier.

These funds could also be used to give grants to small businesses who are suffering from paying higher wages – for no more than two years. During this time the business should either find a way to pay for itself as a viable business able to pay reasonable wages, or it isn't a viable business able to pay reasonable wages.

When there are periods of high inflation, large international companies and domestic manufacturers and service providers should have to show cause to the Tax Office why they are increasing prices and how it is justified by increased overheads. Should they not be able to justify price rises, raising their prices should be unlawful.

In this way we should be able to avoid increases to interest rates.

I am not an economist, but this would seem to me to be a different way to reduce inflation which doesn't target the very poor – the people on the minimum wage. And it doesn't target the middle classes. It targets the very rich instead.

Are women allowed to serve within the Paras as yet?

The SAS?

What about people like me?

Not me though – I am old and not righteous.

There are many rock songs which are protest songs drawing attention to righting wrongs, which is very important. But where are the rock anthems and songs that remember the men and women who serve us?

Whenever there is the need, the Paras are sent into the face of death first. They face off against death as an every day part of their lives.

And the Royal Marines – you too. You serve us.

The first shall be last and the last will be first, but where are the songs to remember our debt to you?

I will never forget my grandfather Edward Williams and his friends who fought and died in the First World War, and the boys who I was at army school with who went on to serve. How many of my grandfather's friends died? They did not want to die.

U2

Your music is beautiful and has served our world. What you sung about about Bloody Sunday is beautiful and right. Sunday Bloody Sunday is the protest song about sectarian violence and unnecessary and wrong bloodshed. I agree with pretty much everything I have read where you talk about violence and war and the wrongness.

Sunday Blood Sunday is a fantastic anti-sectarian violence song, but your only song about the British Paras. Will you make peace with the Paras?

The Parachute Regiment made us free with six major parachute assault operations in the Second World War, usually landing behind enemy lines. Many, many, many Paras died for freedom.

Ireland may not be a member of NATO; Ireland should be. It is the Paras and their equivalents in our and our allies' armies who stand between every Western European country and authoritarianism. They will be the first to die, should the shit ever happen; they will die for you; they will stand in front of you, too.

John

And the Royal Marines;

And the Welsh Guards;

And all the British Army;

And the Navy;

And the Royal Air Force.

This is my commandment. That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love have no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15.

I am back again from the future which is now. It is difficult to defend the Paras, 3 Para, as a result of your recent history. When we dishonour our history, people do not like to write about it.

You are on the wrong page.

3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment

During Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem during Second World War, I have read that the Battalion wasn't just decimated, it was nearly wiped out.

Operation Torch

Operation Fustian

Operation Slapstick

Palestine

The Battle of Mount Longdon

Helmand

May Majella O’Hare rest in peace.

Fifty-one men from the Parachute Regiment were killed in service in Northern Ireland.

May they and all who have died in our service rest in peace.

I do not want to die.

If I am to die, should I not get to live first?

It is my choice whether I live.

I am not alive.

I do not know how to be you.

I will need help to be you.

I want you to help me and mine.

They are mine – the people with autism. They are mine and they will know what I know, and you will learn to be respectful to them.

In you ends our abuse; innuendo is our abuse.

If you have read Lionel Sharpe, you will know why. However your failure to explicitly teach us innuendo, to communicate with us about innuendo, enables our abuse.

Abuse.

When we talk in innuendo in front of us, knowing we do not get it.

When we talk in front of us about us in innuendo, knowing we do not get it.

When people insult us in innuendo in front of us, knowing we do not get it.

When people take advantage of us, because we do not get it.

We enable this, because you never communicate with us about tit.

It is time we learnt it and you taught us how to know it - knowledge.

In the face of the wind

You swim with no ledge,

To help you fly ashore.

You see your danger;

You struggle in white water.

You laugh knowingly,

Joke mercilessly, with mates,

Standing on the shore.

One dives in for you.

He is your friend,

For life is precious.

Sharp rocks throw you back;

Waves pound around you.

Your fear roars for safety,

Now is all there is;

Tomorrow may not be;

You cannot be before.

You are lost; you know it.

Your energy spent, sinking.

Another walks with you,

Giving you a reassuring wave.

Powerful forces grab you;

A current flies you in

The face of the wind.

Drives you to a safer place.

A wave grabs you, lifts you.

You are ashore, ingloriously secure;

The eternal rock is solid,

Steady, light under foot.

Now you are safe.

You thank the Lord.

Who watched over you?

When friends dive in to save you, walk with you to shore, keep them close, never let them go, and never stop - forgiving them everything for giving you everything.

I wrote that poem in Greece to go in my next book. But I was wondering, why does no one dive in and save their friend who doesn't get it?

I believe people with autism will be for giving to the world.

We are back, though our day snails forth with understanding. Snails wearing the hard armour of understanding's lightning rays. Do not forget that what is standing under our amour is just as hard as.....

Autism

I rambled on about autism previously, so simplicity should clarify my meaning:

Identify who we are;

Explicitly teach us how you communicate;

Protect us with the law and against the abuse of the law.

People abuse the power of our not knowing;

We hurt us when you do not inform us.

In you ends our abuse.

I bet that's a relief – brevity was never my strong point.

One more thing –

Just kidding.

If you can, focus on my meaning here, but do not fornicate us.

I know, but I am me.

Cheeky devil.

And I very much like long hill walks in Snowdonia.

Its okay because I may reassure you that I return to discuss autism later. I am the gift who keeps on giving. It gets more acerbic, you will not be pleased to hear. But its very, very funny, I think.

Better to laugh than to cry?

Ho ho ho, feebly and without much sincerity.

My Christian friends and my friends who are good and kind people won't be happy. In my experience, it is the cluster B personalities who are more accepting of me and who love me as one of theirs. They talk easily with me and without judgement and laugh and joke with me and are good with me. They accepted me when I spoke my very blunt truth and did not condemn or exclude me.

My understanding would be that Christians have to love their neighbour as themselves. The only people I know who did this for me have cluster B personalities.

Ave to the narcissists and the borderline and the antisocial people. Sorry but it seems I have established your virtuosity and Christian credentials. I think you might not like that, but it is the truth.

I am on my own because I have not processed it yet. Will I ever? But I know that when I return to them, they will be there.

I hope you do not get annoyed with my presumption. Everyone's patience has limits.

The resources put into the investigation of the death of Sarah J. Langenkamp should be significant and independent of usual channels. She was head of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Section at the Kiev embassy. She was lost to her family in an accident on August 25th 2022. Accidents happen, but for people like her, who do the work she did, we should expect our governments to properly rule out unfortunate accidents.

May Sarah J. Langenkamp rest in peace.

Thank you, Sarah.

I have thought a lot about how much the social more about refusing to communicate about innuendo was created by Lionel Sharpe. Innuendo did exist before him, but I believe his power and his fear may have made it almost impossible to talk about it. It is fitting that the man who discovered Lionel Sharpe should reveal what he kept hidden and make it okay to talk about it.

See – tit.

Welcome back tit.

Titty tit tit tit. Don't like to get it?

Tough titty.

I am giving it to you. In your face.

Don't like me telling you that I am sucking with you.

Tough titty.

TT

There may be something wrong with me.

My thoughts are the art of my writing.

I clearly have what you might have called Asperger's or ASD or autism, I think. I am not diagnosed and I do not want to be diagnosed. But it isn't the man who identifies as having autism who got it wrong.

I did not get innuendo; you did.

He wrote seed and TT!

None of you had the balls to declare that the man wrote TT. How does that work?

I am twerking in your face.

Kindly and with compassion and without modesty.

I got it.

Again, read about Lionel Sharpe to know what I mean.

I can't twerk.

I can't work properly, when I drink.

Too honest.

Elysse Morgan – thank you.

The first time I ever saw someone who appeared not to understand innuendo and allegory being interviewed by a professional, who appeared to deliberately avoid talking in innuendo and allegory during and right after the interview.

You did not give it to him; your kind are alright.

John

Online Contracts

Right then, its assuredly time to talk about online contracts. In business terminology, no one I know reads them; everyone ticks a box to declare they have. Only one tick and we are tied to a contract.

Tick box online contracts should only be enforceable in relation to the protections they provide to the service provider – for example in relation to being sued for negligence. As regards the other party's obligations, they should only be enforceable in relation to modest payments, for example small monthly subscriptions that may be cancelled at any time.

Should the contract be required to authorise more than modest payments, then this should have to be signed through a dedicated contract signing app, which highlights significant terms.

Refunds

All refunds should be in credit which is transferable to other providers. For example, should one flight booking company provide credit, this should be usable by all flight booking companies.

This should ensure that the company has a financial incentive to offer good deals to people who hold their credit.

I think my friends working for Webjet might agree.

Voiding contracts

I read today about how an insurance company sought to deny a home insurance claim for a house fire because Justin Uebergang and Verity Metcalfe did not inform the company that they sold eggs at their gate. There are a lot of chickens in the photo I saw. It may or may not be