Monthly Archives: January 2012

PUB QUIZ

January 30, 2012 By in WORDS Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

Yesterday, I took part in a pub quiz. It was part of the London David Icke Discussion Group:

I can’t quite remember how I found out about the David Icke Discussion Group, but when I heard they were having a meeting at the weekend, I thought I’d go along. In fact, they meet once a month and the group has been going for almost a year. Originally, they met at a different pub, but apparently someone put some anti-New World Order stickers in the toilets and they had to move.

I didn’t really know what to expect and felt a bit self-conscious at the back on my own. However, everyone was very friendly and I was invited to join a group at a nearby table. One of the group had first started getting interested in “all this” after feeling “a presence” in his room one night and believes that Charlie Sheen was “replaced” after he spoke out about 9/11. Another had a young daughter who was a fan of Lady Gaga, despite her father warning her of Gaga’s Illuminati and Satanic symbolism. Like me, the third guy at the table had never been to one of these meetings before, but had read all of David Icke’s books and was keen to know more.

The meeting was supposed to start at 12.30pm, but an hour passed and nothing much had happened. The woman who organised the event seemed busy taking photos of “orbs” in the room, occasionally breaking off to say that the meeting would be starting in ten minutes or so. Say what you like about the New World Order, I bet their meetings start on time.

Eventually, the meeting began. There was a talk from Ben Emlyn-Jones, followed by a pub quiz. Ben is the founder of Hospital Porters Against The New World Order (HPANWO). For twenty years, Ben worked as a hospital porter. For the last few years, he has also run the HPANWO website. But then in October last year, the hospital where he worked received an anonymous complaint about some of the videos Ben had posted to Youtube and he was suspended from his role:

I have reason to believe that Ben Emlyn-Jones, one of your hospital porters is behaving in an unprofessional manner on the internet. I would not like to visit your hospital with this person as a porter in my care, or one of my family. I thought I would bring this to your attention. Thank you.

One of the videos mentioned in the complaint was titled “Microchip a Muslim Day” and was posted in response to the proposed “Burn A Koran Day”:

The complaint claimed that the video was racist, although it is quite obvious that it was intended as satire. Clumsy, clunking satire, but still satire. Obviously, the target is not Muslims or asylum seekers. The video is saying that 9/11 was a government conspiracy and that the resulting hostility towards Muslims is a smokescreen used by the political elite to introduce increasingly draconian security measures, first to be used against the vilified minority and later against the wider public. I don’t agree with Ben on this issue, but I don’t think it’s racist.

Having said that, I do think the video is slightly problematic. Ben works (or worked) at John Radcliffe hospital. His Youtube username is “benthejrporter”. If you work in a hospital, it’s probably not a great idea to post a video of you fiddling around with a syringe and joking about implanting stuff in people, and it’s really not a great idea to do that if your Youtube channel clearly identifies the hospital where you work.

During Ben’s talk, he repeatedly mentioned the timing of the complaint. The “Microchip a Muslim Day” video had been online for over a year, and had been viewed by many of his colleagues and no-one had complained. So why did this anonymous complaint appear last October? The week before the complaint was made, Ben had appeared in several newspapers. He was featured in The Sun, as part of their coverage of the Weird Conference in Swindon:

Hospital porter Ben Emlyn-Jones is so fearful, in 1997 he set up an organisation to expose the evil. It’s called Hospital Porters Against The New World Order (HPANWO) — although not all members are in his line of work — and it has a website where latest theories are debated.

After refusing to reveal his age — he’s part of the Ageless Movement — Ben reveals he has grave doubts over the official account of the New York’s World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, when two hijacked passenger jets smashed into the landmark Twin Towers.

Ben, from Oxford, says: “It was an inside job. I believe this because of the evidence. Look at the way the buildings disintegrated. Hardly anyone reports the fall of the World Trade Center’s third tower but it collapsed on the same day, in exactly the same way, as the Twin Towers. How did that happen when it wasn’t hit by an aircraft and only small fires were identified?

“The US Government was involved and used the devastation as a false-flag attack to gain support for further strikes on enemies of the USA around the world. You’ve got to ask yourself: Could they? Would they? Does the science add up? In each case, the answer is yes. I fear for mankind and the planet. The malevolence of the authorities is frightening.”

He also appeared in Wales On Sunday:

Ben also has grave doubts over official accounts of the Twin Tower attacks. He is convinced it was an inside job.

“9/11 seems to be one of those incidents that could be described as a false flag attack,” he said. These are covert ops designed to give the impression they are carried out by someone else. “It looks to me like 9/11 was one of those because the story we have been told does not really make sense.”

Ben, brought up in Lampeter, pointed to the collapse of the often overlooked Building Seven, a World Trade Center tower that collapsed without being hit by a plane. “It’s the third building people never talk about. It sustained moderate damage from flying rubble. But it almost turned to dust, like the others did. And it left behind a surprising amount of rubble considering the size.”

Meanwhile, the other towers did not leave enough. “There was too much dust and not enough rubble,” Ben said. The dad of one, who works at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, had no idea why. “But one thing it could not have been down to was the impact of an aircraft or fire,” he insisted.

Surely, Ben argued, the timing couldn’t just be a coincidence? Was he being punished for speaking out against the New World Order? Well, no. It isn’t a coincidence. Of course the complaint had something to do with him appearing in the papers. But that doesn’t mean there’s an attempt to silence him, it just means someone read about him, had a look at his Youtube channel, thought it was a bit weird and complained to the hospital.

Ben believed that the complaint had been worded oddly. Normally, letters from the public are long and rambling. This was short and to the point. Who wrote the complaint? Someone from within the NHS who wanted him out? Was he set up? As the complaint was anonymous, there’s not really much point in speculating. We’ll never know. He’s right to be angry that twenty years of service can be outweighed by a single anonymous email, but the fact is that a complaint was received and once received, it has to be dealt with. Coming up with elaborate theories about who might be trying to set him up doesn’t change anything.

His story was frustrating to listen to, because he quite obviously has received shabby treatment. Ben was suspended for “gross misconduct”, which seems extreme given that the charges related to entirely harmless, entirely lawful activity carried out in his own free time. Also, he was suspended barely a week after the complaint had been filed, whereas (Ben claims) typical response time in dealing with complaints is around two months. But it seems Ben’s conspiritorial mindset kept getting in the way and stopping him from building any kind of defence. He ignored his union representative’s advice by refusing to remove any of the videos, as he didn’t want to “play along” with the management’s demands, instead he was convinced someone was out to get him because of the things he talks about.

And so there is no surprise how his disciplinary hearing ended, and the decision his management came to:

You clearly believe that you are the victim of some kind of conspiracy [...] But we’re not here to listen to a defence based on your beliefs; we are here to consider these allegations based on agreed facts and nothing else; therefore you have not defended yourself at all against these allegations. So therefore my decision is that you are to be deseconded from the company and dismissed from the Oxford University and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust.

After telling his story, there was a question and answer session. One man raised his hand to say that Ben shouldn’t trust his union because “they’ll be complicit in it”, that Ben should check his internet connection (“There’s potentially evidence that the Murdoch thing isn’t just hacking phones, they’ve been hacking the internet as well. And it’s not just Murdoch, it’s the whole lot”). Later, the same man suggested that the original complaint wasn’t just the result of Ben appearing in the newspapers, but he’d been “chosen” to be in the paper in the first place so that would then create a reason for the complaint which would then be used to get rid of him. “For god’s sake, you’re not helping” I felt like shouting.

Anyway, our team won the quiz afterwards.

PRIME MINISTER’S QUESTIONS

January 26, 2012 By in VIDEOS, WORDS Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

During yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron (the prime minister) responded to a question from Ed Miliband (leader of the opposition) by saying “as usual, he writes the questions before listening to the answers”:

As usual, he writes the questions before listening to the answers.

I found this quite a confusing statement. Surely it is impossible to do anything else? It is a consequence of the question/answer dynamic that the question must come before the answer.1 In fact, the answer only exists once there is a question to which it can be attached. An answer without a question is not an answer. It is just some words or numbers. The words may contain facts, or opinion, but they are just facts or opinion, not answers. “Kiki Dee” is just Kiki Dee. She is not an answer. She is a human. Someone needs to say “Which female singer recorded the 1976 hit single Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with Elton John?” first2.

Questions come first. Questions, then answers. Sometimes there aren’t even answers. The questions just float around, alone, for all eternity. Questions can exist independently of answers. This is why questions are best.

Of course, I have only shown part of David Cameron’s response in the above video. Here is another video which shows his response in a wider context. It’s a bit longer, but worth watching in full as it shows the standard of debate which takes place in the very heart of our democracy and the civility with which our elected leaders conduct themselves:

I imagine that what David Cameron meant is that Ed Miliband had written the next question before listening to previous answer. But “next” and “previous” are important words here. They are the difference between a statement making sense and a statement being gibberish. It would have been nice if just one Conservative backbencher, amid all of the jeering and cheering3, had shouted “Hold on, what the bloody hell are you going on about?”4

——-

NOTES
1. The quiz show “Jeopardy!” attempted to reverse this question/answer relationship, but really, the dynamic remained the same; it just involved a reworking of the related sentence structures to disguise questions as answers and vice versa (answers as questions).
2. This possibly isn’t a great example as I imagine someone has already said this. The answer is Kiki Dee, by the way.
3. I hate the way MPs always jeer at everything anyone ever says and pretend every retort uttered by their leader is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Even if it made sense “As usual, he writes the questions before he listens to the answers” would be a rubbish comeback. “Yo momma is so fat she writes the questions before she listens to the answers.” “My mother-in-law, my mother-in-law. I wouldn’t say my mother-in-law is ugly but she writes the questions before she listens to the answers.” Rubbish. Even Anne Robinson wouldn’t accept a line like that “Whose dog taught them to say ‘sausages’? Who gets fed by the pigeons? Who writes the questions before listening to the answers? It’s time to vote off the Weakest Link.” (both the “taught to say ‘sausages’” and “fed by the pigeons” lines are genuine by the way. Anne Robinson actually said that on television, and someone was paid to write it for her).
4. A question which is always worth asking.

LOST BAGUETTE

January 20, 2012 By in PICTURES, WORDS Tags: , , , , , 11 Comments

Sitting on the train this morning, I looked out of the window and saw a baguette lying on the opposite platform:

It’s not a great photo, I apologise, I had to take it quickly before the train pulled away.

I have no idea how the sandwich appeared there, I assume it was dropped by accident. I suppose there’s a possibility it was left there deliberately. A rejected baguette. Unwanted. But that seems unlikely. If you were throwing away a sandwich you didn’t want, you’d either put it in the bin, or sling it over the fence or into the bushes, or kick it onto the tracks, you wouldn’t drop it like that, right in the middle of a train platform.

Assuming it was an accident, what happened? Was it someone getting on or off the train, the baguette in their hands when it slipped? Getting on the train seems more likely. Again, if they were getting off the train, they wouldn’t leave it lying there. It suggests someone getting on the train and being separated from their lunch as the doors closed. Their forlorn face pressed up to the glass. A tear rolling down their cheek as the train left the station. A journey filled with regret. The day ruined.

Or maybe the sandwich fell out of their bag unnoticed, and some poor soul spent the morning thinking about how much they were looking forward to tucking into their baguette. Finally, at lunchtime, they opened their bag only to find it empty. Then the questions, the confusion. “I swear I put that baguette in my bag. I remember doing it, I definitely remember it. Where did it go?” A colleague walks past, eating a baguette of their own. Accusations of theft, deceit. A friendship over. Lives altered forever.

I suppose there is also the possibility, although remote, that the sandwich wasn’t actually lost. Maybe it had got to the station independently. A sandwich on its way to work. Unlikely, I admit, but it would explain where the baguettes in Upper Crust come from and why their branches are so often located in train stations.

NAMBY-PAMBY

January 20, 2012 By in WORDS Tags: , , , 7 Comments

When I was at university, I remember one night lying in bed and – very clearly – hearing a voice say my name.

James

I didn’t think much of it at the time. There were five of us living in the house at the time, and four of them (including me) were called James, so I assumed that one of my flatmates must have still been up. Actually, two of my flatmates would have had to have been up, unless the one flatmate was talking to himself, which seems unlikely. The voice only said one word, “James”, and unlike my flatmates, didn’t have a northern accent.

It’s quite possible, almost certain in fact, that I said it myself. Drifting off to sleep, for whatever reason, I said my own name out loud. Loud enough, in fact, to wake myself up from my half-sleep. What was odd though, is that it sounded like the voice had come from the corner of the room, but I was only half-awake, so maybe I just dreamt that bit.

For the last few weeks, again as I’ve been lying in bed, my head has been filled with voices. They are often familiar voices, but all speaking at once. As soon as I’m able to identify a voice and try to hear what they are saying, they fade out. I can make out fragments of sentences sometimes, but usually it’s gibberish. Some are voices of people I know, some are voices of people from the television. Everyone talking over everyone else. These voices have no manners.

There’s an episode of Jon Ronson On… which is about “voices in your head”. Josie Long and Graham Linehan describe something similar to my experience. I’m not alone. There’s also the story of what happened to Eleanor Longden.

Auditory hallucinations “may be associated with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia or mania, and holds special significance in diagnosing these conditions”, although I don’t think I’m psychotic.

Auditory hallucinations have been known to manifest as a result of intense stress, sleep deprivation, drug use, and errors in development of proper psychological processes.

It’s possible there have been some errors in the development of my psychological processes.

The other night, as I was going to sleep, I distinctly heard a robotic voice say the phrase “namby-pamby”. The voice came from behind me, so it would, had it been real, have been coming from the wall. I don’t want my bedroom wall to start insulting me in a robotic voice as I’m trying to go to sleep. It’s rude. Be nice, wall. Be nice.

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