Theories and Things

It’s December 23rd 2008 and I’m back from a harrowing shop. I realise now I never knew before today what a harrowing shop was. Now I am older, wiser and beaten to a pulp. I’ve never seen so much harrow in one shop.

It was like pushing a milk-float through molasses in a high-street Patricks Day riot. Don’t stop or you’ll turn around to find the trolley bashed & overturned 3 aisles down under a mountain of knock-down, knocked-down tins of beans. Bend to pick up a sliced pan and chances are you have just avoided being slapped in the face by a flying duck as litle Johnny relieves the boredom of shopping by helping his mother in creative ways. Duck! If you insist on standing still for more than 10 seconds to source a decent sausage, take care to curl your toes and tighten your buttocks. It’s Christmas out there and the hordes (which, admittedly, I added to) mean to stock up for it. If that means cutting you off or cutting you up so be it. You’ll have deserved your just desserts if you get in the way of the business of festive good-kill.

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With head bowed in heartfelt sorrow I can at last come clean about something:

Before today I hadn’t been to a dentist for over 10 years!

I know this to be true because we moved into our current home eight years ago.  It was around two years before then that I visited the dentist. After the move, my ‘regular’ dentist was now around fifteen miles from my house -through heavy traffic most of the time. My teeth felt fine.

So I put off the visit. I know I could’ve gone elsewhere, but …y’know…

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I quite like the African tea I’m getting in Tesco for the past year or so. They don’t seem to have it anywhere else (but they used to). “Taste of Africa” I think it’s called. I don’t know if they have it near you, but I recommend you try it if they do.

I get a consistent high-quality pot of tea with it every time, but Mrs. Kaptiongod seems unable to do so. Her’s (bags from the same box) tastes like boiled socks -and no I don’t know what boiled socks tastes like, but I do after tasting her tea.

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising Science in any way nor am I advocating any kind of conscientious, intellectual or belief-system replacement for “Science”. All’s I’m saying is Science is an interpretation and a definition and a reduction of reality –necessarily so– and will never be nor have all the answers. This, again to be clear, is not to be critical. No good scientist would claim Science has or ever will have all the answers. Most good scientists would probably acknowledge this as a good thing too, since such a definition of Science would be to reduce it to a Religion (again, this is not to disparage Religion, but we’re talking here about Science so butt out).

It’s just that some scientists are as dogmatic as a fundamentalist preacher, when science is in fact a search for answers. Once an answer is found that satisfies enough conditions, it stops being science and becomes a black box or a child’s toy or a bomb. Science too is a measure of wrongness, through which eventually, some logical theories and rules can eventually be extrapolated. But these rules are likewise available for breaking and redefining and refining by Science as soon as someone comes along with the goods. Be open to receive it!

Science is essential and must go on looking and examining and delving and clarifying and discovering. Nothing is sacred nor can be sacred when it comes to logic and clear thought. But yet, in Science there are many sacred, unquestionable cows. But yet, Science is never the whole picture.

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Following a recent law here in Ireland, selling of alcohol was (slightly) restricted.
For many weeks/ months after, all around a certain supermarket there was a long, boring notice that ended with the words “This is in appliance with recent government regulations.”
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I didn’t say anything the first time I was in. I’m not that pedantic, honestly, but a couple of weeks later I was in there again and the signs were still up all over the shop. I stood there in front of one sign, looking confused (I’ve been perfecting that look for a while now), when I saw a manager type guy approaching. He seemed concerned and asked if he could help me.
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Following our recent extension work, I was left with a 1.5-foot gap in the cork tiles where the wall was knocked through (ie. some of the floor around the old wall was removed with the wall, which meant the cork tiles now ‘ended’ 1.5ft from the wall, leaving an unsightly concrete gap next to a doorway.)
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After the builder & co left I had some lino put down in the adjoining room and asked the person doing that to replace the cork tiles (using the spares I had) while he was at it. He pointed out the tiniest of gaps in the level of the floor (where the builder had removed an old levelling compound, making this ‘floor’ now lower than where the existing cork tiles were laid  …got it?)

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Anyway, he recommended this gap first be levelled with a skim of some floor levelling compound, otherwise the replacement tiles would be below the older ones by some millimeters.
“Right-ho” I agreed and left it at that.

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