An unusual post.

This morning I was due to give the above short talk to a local group I’ve been a member of since its inception. Instead, I’m at home typing up this piece.

All was fine until 3 days ago when I discovered my talk was, in essence, being censored, not on the basis of the talk text, since they had no detailed idea of what I was going to say, but because of one image in particular, which was spied, like unexploded ordnance, benignly sitting amongst all the other PowerPoint slides. I was left with a decision – accept such censorship, make last-minute changes, and somehow pull off what was always going to be a tough ask in the time (whilst now seething). Or, though this wasn’t suggested in the email, I could decline to give the censored talk (had they even thought or hoped that this might be the result?)

I chose the latter option.

And what might this incendiary image be, you might reasonably ask. An image of the prophet? No.

Something obscene or pornographic? No.

The answer was this book cover.

Actually, a very clever and clear book cover image, I’d always thought, since not only does it include a question mark over an image of a melting world, but also clear text outlining what the author is going to be talking about. This image sat amongst a very few other images related to both our currently changing climate, past significant epochs of the world’s more extreme climatic phases, and one considering the huge problems with longer-term Met Office predictions.

I’d always thought that there was a great double entendre in this title – firstly, that the subject was (perhaps?) Unsettled – i.e. by no means all scientists agree. But also that once you’d read it (as, of course, I have from cover to cover) the reader might be left feeling a little unsettled, having had their previous worldview certainties intelligently challenged.

I now realise, however, that some people clearly feel there is perhaps a third sense of disquiet – that others might view the mere fact that anyone could write a book about this important subject as deeply unsettling. And thus, in today’s brave new world, to even show such an image in a public forum might be problematic, unsettling or provocative.

At this point, I should add that I’ve included the text of my talk, and some of the images at the end of my Meadow Musings webpage. I don’t want to include it here, since many, though not all, of my thoughts and images have already been included piecemeal in previous blog posts. For the same reason, I shan’t include all the many images which were included in the talk – they’d all been laboriously upsized by me for better projection quality for the talk, so they’d gobble up my data allowance, unless I spent yet more time downsizing them for this webpage.

As an addendum, I’m giving a little more context below to explain how I came to offer to do this talk, how the title was chosen, and how it was that the images came to be reviewed by others in advance of the talk – with hindsight, perhaps a risky idea for a speaker to agree to these days!

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Brief background to the talk:

A call had gone out at the previous spring meeting for contributions. Knowing that few offers ever materialise, I benignly suggested about 2 months ago that I could give a short talk about our moles and the impact of the drought on their numbers. This was considered by the group, and in response it was suggested I could widen the topic to what we had learned from the drought.

Initially I declined, knowing that would be a huge topic; I wasn’t really an expert, and anyway I’d struggle to put it together and prepare it in time. I was persuaded to give it a go, and on reflection thought I might be able to produce something interesting and informative, though I’d struggle to keep to a 15-minute brief, and in any event realised that it would have to be a personal insight – others would no doubt have learned/noticed other things. Hence my addition to the title of “thoughts and questions from a meadow steward/gardener.

Down to work… ideas, initial drafting, tweaking, word counting and speaking time checks, more re-editing, trawling my image database, image selection, image text addition, image re-sizing, final tweaking, practice read-throughs, PowerPoint creation, practice slide show, final actual talk-throughs with pointer and no text, collating and printing a few handouts for anyone keen to follow up on the links I rushed through. Phew! Clearly a huge amount of effort for a no-fee, volunteered contribution.

Of course most people don’t take so much time over a talk, but I’ve always tried to cram a lot in to prevent people nodding off. And the many images are also there to help me as visual prompts to remember (roughly) the text – I have no training as an actor, and attempting to ad-lib a limited-time, complex data-influenced presentation is a recipe for massive time overruns. 

At this point, confident I was nearly ready, I liased and checked whether I needed to bring my laptop or just a USB with the PowerPoint on the day. It was suggested I send the PP file via WeTransfer for more seamless running and integration with other talks from a single laptop. Great – all done and sorted. The initial response was “beautiful pictures”. A few days later, I got a follow-up comment of concern that there were a lot of slides – would I get through them in time? I replied that my practice runs confirmed I could manage it in 17 minutes – if this were too long, then maybe cut off the introductory slides, but just let me know? Then the bombshell long email that the WeTransfer file had been forwarded to one or more other members to review, and someone had done a quick cut-and-paste of selected critics’ reviews of the Unsettled book, repeated in the email to me in red to ensure that I didn’t miss the points, and that the book clearly did not agree with the “scientific consensus”. Of course, the many scientific achievements or award recognitions for the author or his areas of research were not included in the email’s text. I was asked to consider removing all references to it and modify the talk at this late stage.

Cue considerable unsettling days for both myself and Fiona, that such a censorious approach should be adopted, from simply a review of images, with no attempt to establish what the textual context for those images was. And this for a meeting that was meant to be a forum for discussion, as well as informative presentations.

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I am also going to include a short post and poem I wrote almost exactly 2 years ago, shortly after I’d joined The Free Speech Union. Every week I receive their excellent newsletter, often with many examples of how ordinary people in Britain now come up against myriad attempts to suppress open, intelligent comment or debate. Click here for some very recent examples, many of which you’ll probably not have heard about elsewhere.

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(From almost exactly 2 years ago on November 4th 2024:

“The Last Man in Europe” was the alternative title George Orwell was considering for his last book, before finally settling on “1984”).

Earlier this week I received a letter with a strange small knobbly item lurking in the envelope. I tried to work out what it was by feeling it. I couldn’t see any obvious sender identification on the letter, and without telling Fiona, chose to open it outside.

It turned out to be a welcoming letter from the Free Speech Union, with a single clear page of their statement of values, and my membership number. The knobbly item was a faux gold lapel badge. I noticed some tiny text on it – in fact, the same logo and text is on their website, though I hadn’t donned reading glasses before to work out what it said:

‘Audi Alteram Partem’. For any as poor at Latin as I am, this summary of its meaning and significance is taken straight from Wikipedia:

“listen to the other side”, or “let the other side be heard as well”…

A very appropriate phrase for the FSU, I’d say. As well as this hard copy, I receive a weekly and monthly update of what they’ve been up to as an organisation recently. Including the interesting news today that their membership numbers have soared by 43% since the UK’s general election in July. (It’s now nearly 3 times as great as then!) So it seems I’m not alone in feeling a need to support their work.

The above Wikipage also has an interesting link to the familiar first word of this phrase –  Audi, and why nearly everyone in the UK would be able to link this to something. Together with recent events, this got me musing, and this short post and poem is the result.

  

The Last Man in Europe (2024)

 

When we’re told what we ought to think

When we’re shown what we ought to see

When we’re fed what we ought to eat

Should we question if we’re really free?

 

When our words are corrupted and changed

When our trust in the law seems constrained

When our parliament’s questions are gagged

We’ve been hooked, and our lifeline’s been snagged

 

When the rules mean the rules for the rest

When free tickets and clothes clad the best

When the snake oil of populists burns

Are we woke, will we wake, will we learn

 

That history reminds us to strive

The dates might have changed, not the vibe

Will we sink, will we drown, will we swim,

Will we gain, will we lose, will we win?

 

When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine

When the batteries won’t charge and the heat pumps won’t run

When ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ seems hollow and vain

Change era, switch tongue, chant ‘Audi Alteram Partem’ – in time.

 

Then resist all the grey, all the gloom, all the flags

All the woke ideology, sex madness wags

Dust off your copy and check out the dates

Orwellian prophet – our own fate awaits.