People who struggle with sleep might be at greater risk of developing cardiovascular problems, according to Prof Hugh Markus, of Cambridge University.  Those (including the author of this posting) who are genetically predisposed to insomnia have a greater risk of heart failure and coronary heart disease.

I think I must have personally tried every drug and sleep aid available, and nonetheless can have frequent strings of four or five sleepless nights in succession.  Much time has been spent visiting puzzled sleep doctors. 

Latterly, I have developed two cocktails of fairly reliable sleep aids, one I use for about three weeks in succession, then, when it is feeling less effective, change for about a week to a second mixture.  Despite assaulting myself with weird blends of pharmaceutical, my heart is as strong as an oxen. So the problem of sleep- deprivation is similar to that of diet, that is, we are all different physiologically, and the answers can only come with determined experimentation, hopefully with safe drugs.  This is a do-it-yourself industry; sleep doctors focus mainly on sleep apnea, which they know how to treat.

In 1689 the Act of Settlement decreed that sovereignty lay with the King in Parliament.  By the turn of the last century the King had become a figurehead and Parliament reigned supreme.  Supreme over the executive as well.  More recently the executive has grown in power.  Why is that?  Because Parliament has allowed it to happen. In modern times, as long as MPs keep their jobs they have more or less voted according to Party, and if the Prime Minister disapproves of them their constituency party has fired them. By avoiding rocking any boats, the MPs collectively have empowered the Executive and diminished their own power.

Yesterday, MPs finally stood up to the government (that is, Boris).  The Commons voted 328 – 301 to take control of business for an anti-no-deal bill.  Even before that, one Conservative MP, Phillip Lee, quit the Tory party of his own accord, actually during Johnson’s speech, and joined the Liberal Democrats.  Clearly, principle is emerging, blinking in the light, from the thicket of inertia and amateurism. Corbyn, Labour leader, insisted: “There is no consent in this house to leave the European Union without a deal. There is no majority for no deal in the country … Get the bill through first in order to take no deal off the table”.  For the UK this looks like an overdue rebellion .

His authority temporarily shredded, the prime minister said he would hold a general election on October 15th, This will be a fraught affair.  It is quite possible that Johnson will get a bigger majority and will thereby be able to preside over the misery and chaos he dismisses as Project Fear. Prior to the referendum, neither he nor his Brexiteer friends ever had the foresight, thoroughness or intelligence to investigate and confront all the difficulties surrounding Brexit for the umpteen years the right wing was up in arms about the dastardly EU.  They just used emotion and shameless lies about it.  Now, many people “just want it over”. Contrary to some opinion the Brits are not a universally wise, educated and thoughtful lot (!).  Rather, put them down as gamblers, who don’t much like detail or having to think things through; they just want to concentrate on their own lives (and maybe avoid a Corbyn government).   My guess is that the Tories will increase in numbers in the House of Commons and that the British will have the excitement of a crash out of the EU, blaming the EU for being stubborn, of course.  Spoiled boys never take responsibility.

There.  I have done my reporting job.  Now I would like a nice, calm Epicurean day, without anxiety and without having to think about it.  I just want it over.

From the Daily Telegraph

“These days, all of us are engaged in politics. Fanatically engaged. Furiously engaged. Twenty years ago, when I was in my teens, apathy was all the rage. In the newspapers, practically every political column was about the lack of interest in politics. Anxious MPs thought apathy was a bad thing. They assumed it meant people felt powerless to change anything. Certainly that was true, for some. But maybe the rest didn’t actually want to change anything – nothing big anyway. Maybe they took no interest in politics because on the whole, they thought life wasn’t too bad. A lesson for the future. Mass engagement is a sign things are going wrong. In a healthy democracy, no one would vote at all.    (Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph)

Last night there was a live television debate between  Brexiteers and Remainers, an event that threw me personally into a  profound few hours of utter misery.  How, I thought, could anyone do this (potentially wreck the country, manfully doing the work for a delighted Putin in Moscow)? How could we have arrived at this position where a group of lazy-minded, irresponsible politicians  can impose this disaster upon the country, without ahead of time doing even a single morning’s work on the snags, the pitfalls and downsides – often known as “planning” – of what they were doing, nil, nada. That is, break up the United Kingdom, and, quite possibly, the EU itself?  Does no one know any European history?  No one has asked the British people if they want their country to become world No.1 tax haven, the Panama of Europe, welcoming every sleazy crook in the world, each a business opportunity for politicians obsessed with money; and meanwhile, reversing regulations on health, safety, job security, housing and help for the poor.  In the old days we executed those who did this much harm; now we install them in No. 10, Downing Street.

Yesterday, I suggested that one should try to remain optimistic when all around you are in despair, rationing the intake of depressing news. Whatever helps one achieve ataraxia.  Clearly, the writer is wrestling mightily to restore that magic moment!  Understatement of the morning.

There is a problem with the current physics .  We have quantum theory for very small particles, relativity for the big stuff, and the Standard Model, which includes all the weird particles discovered by physicists all over the world.  All seem true individually, but relativity and quantum theory contradict one another and the Standard Model doesn’t seem to work- if you plugged it into the universe  the universe would apparently vanish.  Physicists can only study approximately 4% of a vast universe, the rest being dark energy and dark matter, and we don’t know yet what exactly these two phenomena are.  All in all we are still in a state of stupendous ignorance.

The current plan is to build the Future Circular Collider, 60 miles liong under Lake Geneva and costing 20 billion pounds.  When we are faced with huge problems of climate, population movements, water shortages etc should we be concerning ourselves about physics?

My answer is an unequivocal “yes”. The reason is that politicians and the voting public are simply not going to solve or ameliorate the problems of Planet Earth. There is too much money at stake and too little will-power.  If anything is to improve it will improve through advances in science that  help everyone, from the young to the old, from the poor peasant to the fat cats, the rich, and the selfish.  Just as long as the science isn’t politicized, because the nationalists and self-styled “strong men” politicize everything for their benefit, if they can.

Ignore the ignorant and self-obsessed and let us gather as much knowledge of the universe as we can, trusting that the scientists can repeat their successes, such as creation of the internet.

The following is based partly on an article in the Financial Times:

On July 20th Martin Wolf, wrote in the Financial Times:  “No one knows what kind of Britain will emerge from the “Brexit earthquake”, but my increasingly clear conviction is that the outcome will be ugly and the damage long-term. “The UK that “the world thought it knew – stable, pragmatic and respected – is gone, probably forever. Failing to agree a smooth Brexit due to fears over the Irish backstop is a national folly – since that backstop only prevents Britain from making trade deals that are either “less important than maintaining good relations with the EU”, “probably unavailable” (China and India) or “abusive” (the US)”.

My comment: We now face the prospect of an un-thought-out, no-deal Brexit, multiple constitutional crises, the suspension of Parliament for a record five weeks (preventing Parliament from taking action to avoid crashing out of the EU), and the probable break-up of the UK. We also we have the prospect of the most divisive general election ever,  a choice between the irresponsible fantasist, Boris Johnson,  and Jeremy Corbyn, arguably the worst Labour Party leader ever.  As Martin Wolf comments: “Can Britain really be this lost, dithering between Ayn Rand and Leon Trotsky? What’s happening is not worthy of a serious country. The conclusion? We no longer are one”.

P.S  The Queen agreed to a five week suspension of Parliament.  One assumes she took the best advice and had no choice but to agree.  If so, the rules need a big change.  This executive coup makes a mockery of Parliamentary government, and is reminiscent of the treatment King Charles I dealt out to Parliament in the 17th Century, a disaster at the time, leading to civil war.  But the long- term effect was to reduce the power of the monarchy and make Parliament supreme.  When did the Constitution change, allowing this unelected bighead with dictatorial leanings, to steal the power from the elected parliament?  Britain needs to return power to elected representatives.  Pronto!

Ataraxia! Where are you now we need you more than ever?

The Trump administration last week reauthorised the use of controversial poison-filled traps to kill wild animals, such as coyotes and foxes, that prey on livestock, despite strong opposition from environmentalists. The spring-loaded devices, dubbed “cyanide bombs”, eject a capsule containing sodium cyanide. The Wildlife Services’ use of the traps, which last year killed 6,500 animals, more than 200 of which were unintended targets, was being reassessed after a teenage boy was injured and his pet dog killed by one in 2017.

On Monday, in a move lauded by industry, the government also announced changes to the way the Endangered Species Act is implemented, weakening protections for threatened species and allowing, for the first time, “economic impact” of factors such as lost revenue when deciding if a species warrants protection.(The Week, 18 Aug 2019).

The concept of sharing seems to be alien to the current regime in Washington DC.  We share the planet with a host of other creatures, most of whom, if they are not already on the endangered list, soon will be. They all play their part in the ecology of the Earth, and pose very little risk, if any,  to humans.  We are, or should be, custodians of this corner of the universe.  But no, anything that affects the ability of business to make increased profits is being scrapped.  Which is curious, because I always thought conservative government was about creating a level playing field and ensuring a fair deal for all living creatures.  But that was the old Republican party, which was cautiously conservative, but, as I saw it at the time, cooperative and honorable, Nixon apart.  Now we have people in power for whom money is god, and who care for nothing except the magical bank balance. What empty people they must be!