Why can't you close your ears?

As a man who appreciates great feats of engineering, I have to hand it to the great designer in the sky who created the human body, (that could mean God, Allah, Jehovah, whatever your preference) it truly is an amazing machine.

However, on a recent trip back from Turin sat on an aircraft prior to departure, it occurred to me that there was one huge flaw in the grand design. 

As human beings we have the ability to close our mouths, this prevents the ingress of detritus. We have the ability to close our eyes, this prevents irreparable damage being done to our retinas by mediocre saturday night television. We also have the ability to close our anal sphincter, this prevents the internals of our undergarments behind covered in excrement, a handy muscle to have been gifted I'm sure you'll agree.

Alas, after all this great forethought in design, we do not have the ability to close our ears!

Sat as I was on the taxiway, around the mid-point of the aircraft, I had the misfortune to sit within ear shot of two well spoken individuals, who were in the process of acquiring the admiration of a young lady.

As they attempted to woo her the conversation progressed to their occupations, it was at this point I began to wish I had the ability to close my ears.

Both males in question informed the young lady that they were both, "quantitative analysts", to which she immediately responded with, "what does that mean"?

This is the reply I overheard to the aforementioned lady's question.

"Well my dear, as a quantitative analyst it's my job to design complicated mathematical formulas to predict financial risk". 

He went on.

"I feel truly lucky to use the knowledge I gleaned at university in my everyday work, my background in mathematics helps me to determine the value of derivatives. Using algorithms I can predict the behaviour of markets and generate huge amounts of revenue from the stock market".

He hadn't finished.

"I can use my skills to invent all kinds of complex financial packages, such as credit default swaps, hedge funds, futures, leverages, the list goes on. But above all of this I can apply mathematical formulas to predict, and very accurately, the behaviour of the markets".

At this point I glanced between the seats to see the young lady looking a little perplexed, but let me tell you she needn't have, it's very simple, allow me to explain.

What the gentleman was trying to say is this.

Everyday I go to work in a big shiny steel and glass structure, it's all official though, because it's called Canary Wharf. Once safely in my office, which is also very shiny, I take out a set of tarot cards. I acquired these cards from a traveling Roma Gypsy, and she assured me they would allow me to predict the future. 

At around 10 a.m after I've given them a thorough shuffle I began to lay them out on my big desk, which is also very shiny. It's at this point that I begin to fill in various spreadsheets that people use to buy and sell shares in random companies. These companies are usually a long way away, and this is a good thing, otherwise they could hurt me or my family.

The gentlemen is also trying to say this.

Sometimes when I'm in my shiny building, sat in my shiny office, at my shiny desk, I'm forced to resort to extreme measures to allow me to predict the future.

Once I was sent to Africa on an extravagant, all expenses paid team building exercise. It was at this point that I acquired my secret weapon. I obtained at great expense to my company, a magic set of chicken bones from a Sub-Saharan witch doctor. 

When times are tough in my shiny office, I strip off to reveal a moose hide loin cloth. At this point I break in to a mythical, mystical, highly choreographed dance routine, similar in style, but not in rhythm, to the "Macarena".

My secret weapon has never failed to help me reach my quarterly target, this ultimately leads to me getting my annual bonus, which is several times the magnitude of my over inflated salary.

Now I have to admit, telling a girl that your a quantitative analyst is a new one on me. I've heard the usual ones, like a dolphin tamer, a biscuit taster, and even a trainee stuntman. Being in the Royal Air Force, the one I'm more accustomed to is, "I'm a fighter pilot"!

However, my favourite one has to be "I'm a lake leveller".

It's at this point an amorous young lady would ask, "what's a lake leveller"?

To which you would reply, "you know when you go to a lake all the boats are at one side"?

"Yes"

"Well that's because the lake hasn't been levelled yet"!

Anyway enough of all this joviality, as usual there is a serious point to all of this.

What an absolute waste of human talent it is that the most intellectually gifted people in the country, spend their lives furnishing the pockets of those who require no further furnishing. 

These men and women who've proved themselves learned, should be developing new forms of propulsion, finding alternative forms energy, developing martian colonies, anything that betters humanity.

Instead they are lured to "The City", to make a quick buck for the few that the stock market actually works for. 

Can we blame them, probably not, maybe we'd all do the same given the opportunity.

For myself, the part I have particular loathing for is the message it relays to the next generation, that success is purely a number on a balance sheet.

The culmination of my own paradoxical realisation

The above picture was taken just outside Denver, Colorado. It was early morning, at a small diner. I was grabbing a spot of breakfast before heading out of the city, and on to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Wandering about randomly with my camera in tow this mural was adorned on the exterior of a nearby car park, it seemed to perfectly sum up my year long stay in the states.

Now that my "long strange trip" is over, I've been forced, very recently, to confront my own paradoxical realisation. For those of you who are expecting some earth shattering confession, you might be sorely disappointed, and others will probably say that you were aware of this fact all along.

So without further a do, here it is.

I am boring.

And not just boring, pretty damn useless too.

Any regular followers of my blog, and there are several, will know that what started out as an account of my experiences in America, has morphed into an anti capitalist, wealth inequality, environmental awareness tirade against the feeble inability of governments to stand up to the elephant in the room, otherwise known as the psychopathic corporate entity.

From that last burst of rhetoric I'm sure it's obvious to any new comers to my blog, that I'm more than slightly disillusioned with the shallow, at best, consumer culture we are belt fed with on a minute by minute basis. 

Now normally I try to keep my views under wraps, but once I've had a few beers my usual restraint flies out of the window. I have been known to turn into a choir preaching nuisance, and this is what  forced me to confront the fact that I'm a bore.

During recent nights out with close friends, upon consuming anymore than 3 beers, out comes the soap box and my posturing begins. What starts as a few casual comments about the homogeneity of the political parties, will progress as sure as tick follows tock, to an all out attack on the oligarchic state of the so called developed world. 

The look in my friends eyes is tangible, you can feel their apathy build, but more than this, you can sympathise with a complete disinterest in something they feel they have no control over. It's at this point I would be politely encouraged to change the subject, as boredom descends and their faces become waxed, I'm left with the harsh realisation that I am truly a bore. 

You probably think that would be enough to silence me, but no, I have an endurance for this kind of persistent cud chewing. As I continue to plough my trade and demonstrate my ability to endure, it turns out that fundamentally, they all agree with the basic principles of my argument. The democratically elected government which represents us, doesn't represent us at all, and instead is cherry picked to further the gains of a select few whom have all the money, and therefore all the power.

This brings me nicely round to my second, and maybe more damning realisation. 

I am also useless.

For all my relentless generation of warm air judgementally telling everyone how wrong the world is, and that we should all take to the streets, what do I actually do about it?

The apathetic attitude from my close friends is not arrogance or ignorance of any kind. It's a realisation that the deck is heavily stacked against you, and they're not wrong. So I should take my medicine like a good boy, and capitulate with all the calmness of a Hindu cow.

Yet the recent receipt of a section 172 notice informing me that I'd been caught speeding, ultimately lead me to redemption in the form of a speed awareness course.

Allow me to elaborate. 

As it was my first motoring offence, the good people of Thames Valley Police Force were decent enough to offer me a speed awareness course, this would mean forfeiting the 3 points on my licence, but this was a sacrifice I was willing to make in the name of education. I sat there early on a Saturday morning being bombarded with statistics, and graphic simulations illustrating the effects of speed in collisions with children. 

The course progressed to talk about attitudes to speed, and it was this point a gentleman named "Stephen Covey" was mentioned. The lady taking the course went on to explain how Mr Covey, spoke about how a simple change in thinking, without any real conscious effort, can effect a change in the real world. 

Now I realise this all sounds a little hippyish and other worldly, but it's really quite simple.

Just a change in your thought process is enough to effect a change. 

If we apply this to the reasoning of my friends and myself, then maybe just by recognising and acknowledging that there are deep fundamental problems with our democracy, and the balance of our hierarchal structures, we can all help redress matters.

If that's the very least we can do, don't we owe it to those less fortunate than ourselves? 

If that's the very least we can do, don't we owe to our neighbours, to the people that we haven't met yet, to those who are yet to be born, and even to those who are no longer of this world?

So maybe all of my boring uselessness is not boring or useless at all?

My seemingly boring rhetoric is actually nothing of the sort, it's simply an awareness of what's wrong with the world, and further more, what's needed to right it. The year I spent in America gave me the ability to leave the bubble of day to day living, and allowed me to view life from the outside looking in. For receiving this truly amazing gift I feel I have a responsibility to highlight, and raise awareness of issues that are affecting people the world over.

My apparent uselessness is also nothing of the sort, it's simply a recognition of how I can contribute, even if it's in a very limited way. I do believe it's possible just by recognising that things are wrong, to effect a change in the world simply through the interactions we have with others and our environment. 

And here in lies the paradox.

It's possible to change the world simply by doing nothing (well almost nothing).

So called civilised?

I've been back in the UK for a few months now, and one of the first things I wanted to do when I got back was to catch up with friends and family around the country. What I decided to do was take a mini road trip up the west side of the UK toward Scotland, then down the east side, ultimately back to Oxford. My trip lasted 7 days, it was really good to share a brew and a conversation with friends, but also to photograph some of the beautiful spots around the UK. 

The following post is based on conversations I'd had during my road trip, and illustrated with the stills I'd managed to take in between the rain showers.

A close relative of mine who was in-between jobs decided she wanted to take on some part time work, but instead of working in a clothes shop or a coffee shop, she wanted the chance to do some good, and in her words, "to put something back".

The profession she decided upon was caring for the elderly, this particular direction was chosen out of a love of talking to the elderly, and learning from their experiences. This is a very demanding line of work. The job involved travelling to the houses of the elderly and tending to their basic needs. In addition, a great deal of patience is needed when working with those who are potentially suffering from mental or physical illnesses, or even both.

It's often the case that elderly people living on their own only come into contact with other human beings when their carers come to visit, so it simply can't be understated how important this job is. Carers often have to bathe their clients, feed them, get them dressed, and even administer their medication. And all of this is done for not much more than a pittance.

The work proved to be very distressing but not for the reasons you're thinking. After several months my close relative felt she could do this job no more, and so it was with great sadness and frustration she handed in her notice. In a phone conversation I was told which straw had broken the camels back.

One of the elderly patients my relative had on occasion cared for was a lady who was unable to get out of bed of her own accord. She was on prescription meds that she was only to take on an empty stomach. The problem was the carers were only allotted 10 minutes a day to tend to this old lady, and in this 10 minutes the carers had to wash, clothe, and feed the patient.

When my relative got to the patient on this particular day, the lady had been in her current clothes for nearly 3 weeks. In her allotted 10 minutes she did her best to get her up, wash her, and change the dirty clothes she'd been in for around 20 days. But the other choice she had to make was whether to feed her and not give her her medication, or to give her the medication and not feed her.

She chose to feed her and leave the medication because she didn't know when the lady would eat again. By the time my relative had done the basics for this lady she was well over her predetermined 10 minutes, but she was so sickened by the neglect shown to her fellow human being she stayed for a few hours to simply keep her company.

The next conversation I had was with a good friend of mine's fiancée. She's a school teacher in the North East of England. She told me how teachers were hamstrung by a constant fascination with statistics. The government league tables can classify both schools and teachers as failures simply by how they perform statistically. What this leads to in reality is a culture that teaches to pass exams. 

There is no reward for how inspiring teachers are, or how inventive they are in their ability to motivate young people. They are so restricted in what they can teach in this never ending pursuit of statistics, that it can be quite demoralising. But far worse than this as my friends fiancée pointed out, is that children as young as 6 can be branded failures.

My friends fiancée went on to tell me about a visit she had to a school in Denmark when she was a student. She said the first thing that struck her about this Danish school is that it didn't have any fences, gates, or locked doors. When she asked how they kept the children in, the response was elegantly simple:

The Danes said, "why would they want to leave?"

She went on to tell me how the children's school day was about discovery, and how they were still free to play and have fun. In Denmark they don't begin testing till the age of 14, and yet they still appear higher in the OECD education league tables.

One of my friends mothers who's been a teachers for several decades, has spoken on occasion about how she's seen education change over the years, and generally not for the better. Her basic argument comes down to this, "teachers aren't free to teach anymore".

The last conversation was one I had with another good friend of mine, he's been a housing officer for over 10 years. He works for a company that bought up a huge chunk of council housing in the North East, during a government encouraged sell off scheme. He told me how the company had bought tens of thousands of houses for what worked out to be a mere 7000 pounds per house. 

I found this figure to be totally shocking, you can't even buy a new car for 7000 pounds. It's even more shocking when you consider we are constantly told there is a shortage of housing stock in the UK.

Our conversation then went on to discuss how he's seen things change since the austerity measures were introduced by the current government. His description was painfully clear.

He said, " ten years ago you had people who wouldn't pay their rent, but now you only have people who can't pay their rent". 

"For far too many people now it's literally a choice between, heating, eating, or paying your rent". 

"Which would you pick?"

He went on to tell me about the controversial scheme, nick named the bedroom tax.

He told me sad stories of widows who had been moved out of a house they may have lived in for up to 30 years when their husbands passed away. Up rooting someone at that potentially late point in their lives to save the council maybe 100 to 200 pounds a year, which is a mere drop in the ocean especially compared to the emotional damage it can do. 

I asked if these were views shared by all housing officers, and if so how come this message hasn't got back to the local authority. He told be it was, but the harsh reality is that council housing is ran by private contractors, and so as long as they are still making a profit no one cares.

It also seems obvious to me that as long as the government are perceived to be being hard on "welfare scroungers", then the tabloids are happy and so are the people who read them.

The above stories are by no means unique, these stories of neglect, contempt, and statistical cover up occur all over the country. 

In the first story, the inhumanity we display to our elderly is utterly shameful. The local authorities set aside "X" of cash amount for the care of each person. This is then out sourced to a private company who's sole job is to work out they can extract as much profit from this "X" as possible. What you're left with is a token gesture of "care", the carers themselves perform a truly amazing job, but they are hindered at every angle by a private firm who's main concern is the contentment of their share holders. 

Just recently Jeremy Hunt said that we should follow an Asian model for care of the elderly. What this means is that the burden of care should be placed on the children of the elderly. So now as well as having to work all the hours God sends to keep a roof over your head, and food in your children's stomachs, you need to find time in your day to care for your parents.

This is a mere pipe dream from the mouth of an over privileged and out of touch Tory minister. Doesn't he think that if people had the time and resources to care for their own relatives, they'd already be doing it?

I recently read an interview with the journalist and author David Simon, the creator of the HBO smash "The Wire". In the interview he talks about society needing an alternative metric to measure success by. The second story illustrates this perfectly.

At an early age we teach our children that to succeed you need to have the highest scores, they are taught that the only thing that matters is being better than the next person. As soon as statistics are brought into the equation people are encouraged to fudge the figures, after all the person at the top wins all.

This theme runs through everything from school league tables, to the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US that triggered the collapse of the global economy. Poor performance is massaged statistically to look like gold, and then sold on to the highest bidder.

Is this what success looks like?

What's wrong with letting children just be children?

What's wrong with rewarding people for putting something back in society?

What's wrong with instilling an attitude of social responsibility from an early age?

The third and final story can be summed up in just a few lines:

"The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats it's most vulnerable members"

Ghandi

It saddens me deeply to hear about people in the UK who have to choose between eating, heating, and paying the rent. I recently read an extremely sad story about a food bank in Oxfordshire.

The article was constructed around a middle aged man who ran the food bank. He told the interviewer that people visiting the food bank would refuse food parcels that required cooking, instead insisting on items that could be eaten cold, or straight from the can because they couldn't afford to pay for the energy to cook.

This is the state of the forgotten in the UK today.

This is the result of Mr Osborne's austerity measures. 

The average Joe in the street has been squeezed to breaking point, whilst the top earners have never had it so good. Banker bonuses are back to the levels they were before 2008, before the banking crisis, and we are currently taking the EU to court to prevent a cap on corporate pay.

Just recently the Archbishop of Canterbury called for what he described as a "social licence". What he means by this in my opinion, is that services we have no choice but to rely on should be operated on a non-profit basis, or with consideration for those at the thin end of the wedge. This would apply to fundamental services like energy and health care. 

Although these stories leave us with an extremely bleak outlook there is still some hope, and it comes from the first story.

My close relative, 10 years my younger said she wanted "to put something back". If this is the attitude of the majority of today's youth, then maybe it's not as bad as it looks.

If we all had an attitude conclusive to an interconnected big society, but also the means to practise it, then surely a time will come when the balance is reset.

However, it's still my belief that until we find an alternative yard stick for success, the disparity between the under class and the top tier of society will increase, and with ever more disturbing consequences.

What the Yanks do best!

From what I've posted on this blog over the past 12 months, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd had a good time in America, and I did, it was phenomenal. While I was over there, there never seemed to be any lack of things to do, but crucially things to do that didn't cost a fortune. And this brings me to the topic of this weeks blog, "what the Yanks do best".

In my opinion what the yanks excel at is cheap, wholesome, family entertainment. Some of the pictures in this blog were taken at the Mid America Raceway, Iowa, just over the river from Omaha. For just 20 bucks you were treated to a full days entertainment, everything from top fuel drag cars, to jet trucks, and racing quads. 

The drag strip had cheap food and drink, the racing started around midday and continued well into the early hours. There was plenty of parking available, the access roads were more than adequate to handle the visiting traffic, and people were free to roam around the cars and talk to the drivers.

Now just the other day someone said to me again, "but isn't it boring just watching cars go up and down a straight section of tarmac?" I answered the same way I did about NASCAR. It's all about the atmosphere. At the drag strip it was the noise, the smell, especially of the cars running nitro methane, but also the enthusiasm of the crowd.

But if we forget about the drag racing for a minute and concentrate on all forms of entertainment in America. When I was in the states I saw more live music acts and attended more sporting events than ever, and the tickets were as cheap as chips as well. The Killers were 30 dollars, Ice Hockey 20 dollars, Baseball 15 dollars, MotoGP ticket 50 dollars, entertainment really is accessible to all. 

In addition to the issue of cost you can't neglect the stress factor. While away I was given free tickets to a famous Air show in the UK, as I was obviously unable to use them I gave them to a good friend so he could take his kids. Now after the event I was told the Air Show was indeed very good, but my friend also told me he would never go again.

The reason for this....Traffic!

He told me that although he only lived 40 minutes away, he ended up queuing for 4 hours, and when you've got two small children in a car on a hot day, that's no joke. 

I know it probably seems obvious to all reading this, but at some point in America someone decided that if you build a huge shopping mall, stadium, or any kind of sporting venue, you're going to have to think about infrastructure.

In the UK we don't believe in this, our planning officials and businessmen think this is pure distraction. A simple task like going to the shops of a weekend can be turned into a major undertaking lasting several weeks. Buying tickets to a large motor sport event means factoring in 2 days travel time so you don't miss the start. 

Just recently I was unbelievably stuck in a traffic jam, when I actually reached the source of the problem it was roadworks. That's not the funny part, the sign that was at the side of the road said, "delays possible from Nov 2013 for 3 years"!

What on Jesus's fair planet could they be doing that would last three years? 

My initial thought was that they were replacing the A46 to Cleethorpes, with the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz, but on my reckoning this would take just a little over 2 years, so who knows?

Anyway, after that short vent let's move onto the Indianapolis Motor-speedway, and what some consider the original speedway. This huge facility has the largest seating capacity of any venue in the world, some 400,000, it even has an 18 hole golf course!

During the MotoGP weekend motorbikes conquer the city. I've never seen so many motorbikes in one place, and all kinds too, from cafe racers, to custom show bikes, to easy riders. The heart of the city beats to a familiar V-twin thump, and the air is filled with the smell of hot engine oil and exhaust.

The track was easy to access, parking readily available, the whole experience was stress free. Even though the numbers attending the MotoGP were huge, you never got that feeling of claustrophobia, the only feeling you were left with was of open space.

So this brings me full circle. This is what the yanks do best, entertain us! 

Now I know that straight away people will make the obvious case that the Americans aren't constrained by space. Yes this is true, but aren't we the people who conquered the world, didn't our Empire cover every corner of the globe. 

As a nation we like to think of ourselves as cleverer than our American cousins, but surely if we were we would have engineered our way out of a lack of infrastructure?

For the past three decades we have relied on the extra capacity we built into our transport system in the seventies. Unfortunately that's all now been absorbed, and what we are left with is what we see every day on the motorways of the nation.

As with all things in America they always think big, and it's this is that makes it a good place to live for the average Joe.

The new World Champion.

Could this be the start of something special...

Moab...Where?

I was sat in my hotel room back in Omaha wondering where else in America I'd like to visit, and so I asked good old Google. I typed in, "top 10 places to visit in the U.S.", and what came up amongst the search results was a page showing alternative cities to visit.

Looking down the list I saw some pictures which immediately drew my eye, the stills on the webpage were for a place called Moab. Now I don't know about you but I'd never heard of Moab before, never the less the images associated with it meant I simply had to go there.

Months later I flew into Denver and got a connecting flight straight to Moab which is located on the east side of Utah. It was a regular flight into Denver on some kind of standard Boeing commuter jet, but the flight into Moab was on a 12 seater turboprop aircraft, and what a flight that was.

The tiny aircraft flew pretty much straight through the canyons on it's way to Moab, the views from the larger than normal aircraft windows were phenomenal, it was almost as if you could reach out and touch the scenery. 

Another advantage of being on such a tiny jet was that the cockpit was open to the passengers, on approach to Moab airfield you could watch the pilots at work as they battled the cross winds and thermals being thrown up from the canyon floor. 

After I landed I collected my luggage and made for the hire car lot. I'd booked the cheapest car they had, but after flashing my military I.D. I was upgraded to a Jeep Wrangler with the addition of a, "thanks for your service". 

I headed out from the airfield and just a few miles down the road, I was greeted by the impressively red rock that surrounds Moab. Steep sided canyon walls dictated the direction of the main highway into town, which sat like an island of convenience at the edge of a murky ribbon, otherwise known as the Colorado River.

Arriving at my accommodation I found it difficult to absorb all of what I could see. I don't think I've ever stayed anywhere that is so humbled by it's surroundings in every single direction. But with two huge national parks to see, slick rock mountain biking to do, I snapped out of my dumbfoundedness and headed out to the first port of call, Arches National Park.

As I headed deep into the park it was well above 100 degrees, and the sandy desert like floor reflected the intense heat straight back into my face. Taking a 4x4 trail I headed out to Tower Arch, and a 4 mile trek in the arid scorched air of the day. Carrying only one litre of water in my rucksack it was probably pushing it to be honest, but against my better judgement I cracked on.

I arrived at Tower Arch and took some respite in the shade provided by this huge sandstone formation. In that kind of heat your sweat evaporates instantly and so has a pickling effect on your body. Maybe one litre wasn't enough after all, and getting lost on the way back through the sandstone fins could literally be fatal. 

Careful navigation on the way back ensured I got to the car just in time to chug down an American staple, Gatorade. Feeling refreshed but also a little wary, I pushed on through the park taking in the aptly named Fiery Furnace, Double Arch, Balanced Rock, and the ultimate show stopper, Delicate Arch.

The next morning with the mercury still well into triple digits, I collected a mountain bike from a local shop and cycled the ten miles up hill to the Brand Trails. This network of trails caters for all abilities. There's family friendly up and down riding, but also a mixture of technical slick rock, some extreme rock clearing stunts, and steep switch backs. 

I spent the next four hours in the saddle in the baking sun, I rode most of the trails on offer but the heat was taking it out of me, and so I headed back into town. Once back in town I jumped into the Jeep to make to make the most of what light was still available, and headed into Moab's second National Park, Canyonlands.

The author Edward Abbey, described the Canyonlands as "the most weird, wonderful, magical place on earth - there is nothing else like it anywhere", and trust me he's not wrong. Driving around the canyon rim and stopping off at all the view points along the way, I struggled to take in the vast openness of what I could see.

This colourful landscape was carved by two rivers, the Colorado River and the Green River. What's left behind is a complex relief pattern of mesas, buttes, and canyons, all presented in a rich deep red sandstone.  

Like I stated previously, the beauty of coming to National Parks in Moab is the lack of tourists (present company excluded). I traversed the whole park and never saw more than a couple of dozen other visitors, and this quietness made my visit a very personal experience.

Toward the entrance of the park I'd noticed a small trail that was only for vehicles with high ground clearance, and due to the generosity of the lady in the car hire shop, today that was me. I took a metalled track which snaked down toward the canyon floor.

It was a track like you see on TV, it was just wide enough for a car with a drop of maybe 1000ft to one side. This gave me the perfect opportunity to drop the Jeep into 4 wheel drive and pretend that I was Colin McCrae. With a boot full of throttle, a good amount of opposite lock, and a clear view out of the side window, I was Colin McCrae. 

That day I spent off roading in the Canyonlands has to be one of my best ever days, and I can't recommend Moab enough. I know it's slightly off the beaten track but it's worth the extra hassle. From the flight into Moab, to driving the canyon rim, to mountain biking on the red sandstone, it has to be one of my favourite destinations to date.

And just to cap the day off the apartment I was staying in had an outdoor hot tub. I sat outside soaking my tired bones and enjoyed the light show as a thunder storm kicked off (good idea/bad idea, you decide).

Moab, make sure it's on your bucket list.

Pandora's box

According to Greek mythology, Zeus gave his daughter Pandora a small box with a giant lock on it. The key for the lock was given to her husband Epithemeus. Zeus left strict instructions with him that the box must never be opened.

Even though Pandora was very curious, her husband heeded the warning from Zeus knowing all to well that Pandora's father could be quite cunning, and so he wouldn't allow the box to be opened.

Pandora's curiosity got the better of her one day when Epithemeus was sleeping, she took the key and opened the box. Hate, envy, disease, and sickness flew out of the box, all the bad things that had ever been experienced. Pandora tried to close the box but it was too late, just as the lid was closing out flew a small bug. The bug was "hope".

As a result of the opening of the box evil had now been unleashed unto the world, but also, and more importantly so had "hope".

This blog is a follow up for the last blog which took a light hearted view into the internet and social media. It's not set out to form any conclusions, it's not designed to offend anyone, it's simply here to raise a few questions, and hopefully encourage discussion.

Whilst I was in America I became heavily reliant on the internet for communictaing with the UK, and also for keeping up with what family and friends were doing. One of the main things that stood out was how many poeple would post pictures of their children on social media. On several occasions I saw the children of people I'd never met before simply because I was friends with someone who'd commented on, or liked a picture. 

I started to wonder to myself if it was right that I could see the children of people whom I'd never met. On other occasions I saw pictures that some people might describe as inappropriate, inappropriate in the sense that they were semi-naked pictures which could possibly be seen by the wider public. 

This got me wondering who else could see the pictures we post online, is everyone in your contact list someone you have regular contact with, or maybe just someone you used to know a few decades ago, and are your security settings adequate?

In addition to this, certain sites have a licence to use your content in anyway they see fit, and even if you deactivate your account it's nigh on impossible to remove your images completely. 

When I read the article with the headline, "People exist on social media before they've even taken a breath", it all felt a little wrong to me, and I wondered what the guidelines were?

According to most of the children's charities that I researched, Facebook's content isn't suitable to anyone under the age of 13, although it also said most children simply lie about their age to open an account anyway, and often with the aid of an adult. 

Most of the pictures of children I've seen posted on social media, are of children a lot younger than 13. Does this count as inappropriate exposure to sites not recommended for those below this age?

However, I feel there are other issues concerning social media and the young that need to be looked at.

A lot of the content on social media seems to have a lot of one upsmanship inherent to it. We've all seen people putting pictures of their new car on the net, and then immediately post how much it cost. We've all seen the pictures of people extreme skydiving on an ironing bored whilst juggling porcupines, is it all not just a bit self centred and false?

If so, then isn't this spreading a message to the young that it's all about self gratification and what's in it for you?

Many friends I know who've stopped using social media recently have done so for the very reasons I've described above. One friend who has a young child put it to me that some people seem to post endless pictures of their children to prove how much of a good parent they are.

I'm not saying this is or isn't the case. I'm not saying social media has a positive or negative influence. I simply want to know what the rules are, where are the guidelines?

As I thought deeper into the issue of guidelines for social media, I began to broaden my search for answers about the internet as a whole. I wondered at what age you should give a child an iPad (other tablet devices are available), I assumed it must be around thirteen, the same as the age for opening a Facebook account. After speaking to some of my friends who are themselves parents it turns out I'm woefully out of touch, a good friend told me the other day it was more like 4.

I still can't quite get used to this idea. At the age of 4 I was busy throwing my own poo around, and urinating in my mothers pot plants when she wasn't looking (that last part is actually true and they were in the living room). 

The internet is an amazing technological achievement, it's helped make communication instantaneous and affordable. It's helped produce huge scientific achievements by facilitating the work of labs all over the world. It's helped to bring down borders and even governments. It's educational value and content are simply unparalleled. 

All of this advancement has however come at a price. The very freedom it wields so readily can be hijacked for the most inhumane causes.

During the recent Kenyan Mall siege, al-Shabab live tweeted from the mall attempting to legitimise and justify in real time the indiscriminate killing it was carrying out. Although we of course find this sickening, there are others out there who sympathise and even champion their cause. 

A report from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre on digital hate speech from May 2013 said there's been a 30% increase in online hate forums and terrorism over the past 12 months. 

There are literally hundreds of reports on internet bullying, and the disgraceful practice of "trolling".

70% of young teens have been victims of cyber bullying, and the craze of "sexting" has claimed many lives through suicide in North America and Europe.

So with all of this potential negative influence should we still be in such a hurry to expose the next generation to the internet?

Now I can hear some people reading this saying to themselves that it's the parents job to police their child's exposure to the internet, and that if they were responsible they would know what their children were looking at.

I think this is a very simplistic way of looking at things. The pressures of modern life where both mum and dad have to work just to keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food in their bellies can feel insurmountable. Hence it's not always that easy to find the time to constantly supervise their offspring.

In addition to this, we shouldn't neglect the responsibility of the markets. Tech firms have made millions from the growth in the internet, but in the main this is to further their bottom line. Corporations spend huge sums of money to employ whole teams of experts, who's sole task it is to influence what you, and your children wish to consume.

The influence of the internet is without bounds, and so I believe it's unfair to simply imply it's down to the parents to police it.

So now I should imagine you're thinking if I have children I'll move to a log cabin at the top of a mountain. Well that would never work anyway with Google's proposed project "loon" (Google it). 

But that wouldn't be the answer, to restrict or even forbid your child's contact with the internet would only stifle their development. Today's modern industry demands that people are in the main, I.T. fluent, and this is only going to increase as fibre optic cables tighten their choke hold on the modern world. 

In the last decade or so the pace of change has been so rapid, that in some respects I don't think we've had the opportunity to stop and take stock of the situation. Market forces who've moved in are so powerful that this kind of pause is not in their interest, and so a debate would have been ridiculed and left to the lobbyists to dispose of. 

This all takes me back to my earlier question, where are the guidelines for exposing the most vulnerable in society, children, to the internet?

Shouldn't theses guidelines radiate from government, and shouldn't they then be implemented in close partnership with the I.T. industry?

And after all, if government doesn't govern with the best interests of it's electorate at heart, then what's the point of government?

All of the above stills are from Moab, Utah. There will be a blog post about one of the most amazing places I visited during my time in America next time round.

But for now, I'll leave you with several things to think about.


Mark Zuckerberg hopes that eventually there will be no age restrictions on Facebook, and no doubt he'll get his way.

What if one day the fruit of your loins decides that they never wanted to be on social media because it's not cool anymore, but now they can't remove their data as it's no longer their property?

My generation approaching their mid-thirties are statistically the worst offenders for posting pictures of their children on the internet.

As with the storey of Pandora's box the internet brings with it "hope" for the world. Unfortunately this "hope" comes served with a huge side order of pain, but you only need look at the Arab Spring from 2010 to see how it can liberate.

And lastly, the irony of me writing a blog criticising social media that's advertised on social media is not lost on me.