CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Most of you got this one. It was, of course, Scandinavia. In the nineteenth century the Danes and Swedes started developing sets of physical exercises to improve soldiers' fitness and which involved various breathing techniques. These were taken up sporadically by other armies including the British in India.

There some swamis, always on the lookout for new stuff to spellbind the faithful, adopted and adapted them, giving them fancy Sanskrit names. In the early twentieth century when Indian mysticism was all the rage in the west, some of the swamis came west too and set up schools of yoga, under various names. It would all have fizzled out in the time honoured way of these crazes except for... that's your next question.

[Mick Harper]

You are all ahead of me. It was, as everyone thundered with one voice, the British evening class. As many of you will have experienced first hand, these curious state-subsidised social activities have proved immensely popular, mostly to well-heeled, middle-aged women seeking a safe and convivial night out other than the pub or bingo. Consequently the authorities were always on the lookout for new 'subjects' to satisfy this burgeoning demand.

Early experiments offering various kinds of keep-fit classes proved particularly popular but some way had to be found to make them 'educational'. Yoga fitted the bill but then there was the problem of finding suitably qualified teachers. Some quiet noises off led to the formation of various semi-official diploma-awarding bodies and a worldwide phenomenon had been born.

[Mick Harper]

I received some bad news yesterday. It's called the 'happiness curve'. Apparently human beings experience a sustained increase in happiness for the first twenty years of life, then it starts to decline reaching a nadir in the late forties, whereupon it starts going up again, peaking in the late seventies. This is true for all genders, all cultures and all higher primates (both chimps and orangutans report the same effect). So why was this news so devastating for yours truly?

I thought I was doing it all under my own steam.

[Mick Harper]

I'm in big trouble now. I got offered some spiffing deal by Virgin during Covid because I complained I was paying for Sky Sport and there was no sport. Basically it meant I got Sky Movies for free. Anyway, the deal comes to an end on Dec 31st so I phoned up to say I wanted everything as is, except for the Sky Movies. [Which by the way are well worth it until you've watched all the ones you want to watch but not after that, since the new ones being added aren't worth paying the biggish bill.]

I should have known it wouldn't be as simple as that. After half an hour of discussing various packages (apparently the one I'm on is not 'available' now) with the very nice but not entirely logical woman at the other end, I discovered that all kinds of things had changed e.g. TNT Sport (ex-BT Sport) doesn't come as standard any more and I'll have to start paying for it now. Anyway various mildly alarming figures were being bandied around until finally, citing some computer needing twenty-four hours to update this or that, the woman told me to ring back tomorrow to find out what I'm going to have to pay. Meanwhile I got an email saying I wasn't signed up to Netflix any more and then my internet was turned off! It's on again now.

All I want is to be left alone, watching what I always watch, paying a bit more every year in line with inflation (plus an extra pound or two lobbed on, that's fair). How naïve I was. By tomorrow I suspect I'm going to be a lot poorer and watching a lot less.

[Mick Harper]

For you teccies. She mentioned something about mbps being 270 and when I enquired why it wasn't 650 she said casually I wasn't on that package any more. I didn't even know I'd changed packages but checking with Sam Knows Best, she was as good as her word. This was after the revelation that I didn't have 'two boxes' after all. "Oh yes, I see a technician attended your home earlier this year." (She wanted me to send one of them back!) Apparently I've saved myself six pounds a month by mentioning this. Or something. Kee-rist, it's complicated.

[Mick Harper]

But the one thing I thought we had agreed was I'd have TNT Sports at any price ('cos they've got a lock on Eurofootie). I turn it on to find I haven't got TNT, and their computer can't do anything about until Friday. Arsenal may have perished by then without me.

What makes it worse was it was all my own fault. I should have grun and bore it during Covid instead of trying snivelly little ways of getting round it. I have paid for my lack of patriotism. And thinking I could beat City Hall. In the long run, you never do.

[Mick Harper]

Here is an interesting exchange on Medium that illustrates a wide gulf in what I find interesting and what Medium people find interesting. It started with this being sent to me by the Medium algorithm

[Mick Harper]

After three days of mysteriously losing most of my channels including the three days of Eurofootie on TNT despite my package price actually going up from £125 to £140, somebody from Virgin got in touch. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I have got all my channels back. The dude insisted I would have to carry on with Sky Movies which I reluctantly agreed to on hearing that my package has actually been reduced to £120. I don't know what I did but by God I did the right thing.

For now. I observed in the small print in an email attachment that my monthly bill will go up to £171 after month nineteen. I'll cross that mountain when it comes.

[Mick Harper]

Medium.com stats are unreliable -- they show my stories getting hardly any attention for instance -- but I found this example particularly baffling. I had decided to reply to a wordy response with a simple 'OK'. This got three 'views' but only one 'read'.

[Mick Harper]

I wish I could work out how Medium calculates my money. If I slave away for days and put up a long and considered piece, I might eventually get twenty or so reads/views/claps/responses and earn $1.15. But if I put up a squib that takes all of ten minutes and gets three views, as I did last week, I get $1.75. Fifty cents per reader is what you might get in the old days for whole books.

So do me a favour and go here https://medium.com/@mickxharper/we-know-how-to-deal-with-hamas-df1eb009dc42, make sure it's on your computer screen for at least thirty seconds and I'll watch what happens. The stats show anybody coming from applied-epistemology dot com. [I'll put it up here too in case you're not allowed to read it all there but do not, repeat not, do the one without doing the other.]
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We Know How To Deal With Hamas
We’ve done something similar before

“I’ve called you in today, gentleman, to discuss ways of killing, capturing or neutralising the Nazis, following their designation by the UK as a ‘terrorist organisation’.”
“Certainly, prime minister. Could you give us some guidance about what exactly you mean by Nazis?”
“Does it need spelling out? What are the numbers, Chief Statistician?”
“Well, thirty or forty million have voted Nazi in various elections and plebiscites.”
“Obviously not. I’m talking about actual card-carrying members.”
“Eight million, sir.”
“No, no. That’s quite impractical, we’re not monsters. How many actual decision-making cadres?”
“Well…”
“All right, let’s just say the top thousand of the bastards.”
“Right you are, prime minister.”
“Good. Glad that’s cleared that up. Let’s hear your proposals. CIGS?”
“We could invade, occupy the place. Dig them out. Those who hadn’t disguised themselves as ordinary people. Or gone off to Argentina or somewhere. More of a police action though, prime minister. The army isn’t really geared up for this kind of work.”
“First Lord?”
“The navy can blockade and starve them out. Though I suppose the top thousand Nazis would be the last to starve.”
“Air Chief Marshall?”
“We could bomb the whole place back to the Stone Age but there’s no guarantee we’d get the top Nazis. They’ll be in bunkers, I expect.”
“Okay, do it.”
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PS You can suggest improvements. With only three views, it's not set in stone.

[Hatty]

[Mick Harper]

How could I miss gentlemen so many times? It would not be so much overegging as misdirectional. When the matter was being discussed it seemed positively surgical.

[Mick Harper]

Here's an example of me overegging. It's in reference to the introduction of workhouses because the Speenhamland system was proving wildly expensive. Notice how the last para spoils the overall effect

[Mick Harper]

I have received my first Christmas card. The 7th of December, is that early? For someone who tends to get more Christmas cards from local takeaways than from people -- possibly because I haven't sent one in my entire life -- I seem to have a lot of trouble with them.

This one, for example, is from someone called 'David'. No further clues internally and envelopes seem not to be postmarked any more. When did that start? I must say it's a bit of a cheek assuming I would only know one David but nevertheless I am now obliged to investigate and it is always embarrassing asking people if they've sent you a Christmas card. Whether the answer is 'Yes' or 'No'.

The only practical use for Christmas cards I have ever come across was courtesy of my mother -- something of a Christmas card fiend. "Oh yes," she told me when I asked why she was still hard at it, "it's the only way you know when someone's died."

[Mick Harper]

Back to Medium pricing structures. My latest -- a near word-for-word retread of my AEL piece on the NHS blood scandal -- has generated one read and $1.68. A disappointing uptake all things considered but, pro rata on time taken, more than the national living wage. Take that, Danielle Steele.

PS If only I had been born with such a grabworthy name.