A∴A∴

Craig Ferguson Speaks 

From The Heart

Bligh

The Captain Bligh Conspiracy

History Channel Documentary 

looking into Captain Bligh,

The Royal Navy's most infamous mariner, 

but was he really  the nasty brute 

that popular culture portrays? 

On the trail  an Australian descendant of the man  

endeavour’s to uncover the truth.

Haiti

Toussaint L'Overture and 

The Haitian Revolution  Paul Foot

Talkie

Talkie, Talkie-Talkie, Happy-Talk --

Talk about Things You Like to Do....

Does Anyone Want Any Toast? | Red Dwarf | BBC

      

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Red Dwarf - White Hole: Genius Holly & Talkie Toaster

Beat

“We’re Organ-Donors 

for The Rich —

If We TRY to Play 

like The Yankees in here —

We Will Lose 

to The Yankees

out THERE —

and I HATE to Lose —

I Hate to Lose even more than 

I like to Win.”

“As William Blake wrote at the start of the nineteenth century, ‘For the eye altering, alters all.’ 

Existentialism also flowered in the United States, but American existentialists were considerably more engaged with life than their Irish and French counterparts. Jack Kerouac was an athletic, Catholic-raised writer from Massachusetts. He gained a scholarship to Columbia University on the strength of his American football skills, but dropped out and gravitated to the bohemian underworld of New York City. This subculture inspired his book On the Road, the most famous of all the Beat novels. On the Road was written during an intense three-week period in 1951. It was typed, single spaced and without paragraph breaks, onto a continuous 120-foot-long scroll of paper that had been made by taping together separate sheets of tracing paper. Kerouac hammered away at the typewriter for long hours at a stretch, fuelled by amphetamines and not stopping for food or sleep. The scroll meant that he did not need to stop in order to insert a new page. 

The result was a stream-of-consciousness outpouring of pure enthusiasm which had the rhythms of jazz. It was as if he was constantly ramping up the energy of his prose in order to outpace and escape the nihilism of the world he wrote about. Kerouac’s writings are peppered with references to the Buddhist concept of satori, a mental state in which the individual perceives the true nature of things. The true nature of things, to someone experiencing satori, was very different to the true nature of things as perceived by Sartre or Beckett. 

It was Kerouac who coined the phrase ‘the Beat Generation’. The name arose in conversation with his friend John Clellon Holmes. As he later recalled, ‘[John] and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost Generation and the subsequent existentialism and I said “You know John, this is really a beat generation”; and he leapt up and said, “That’s it, that’s right!’’’ 

Although many people in the underground drug culture of the 1940s and 1950s self-identified as both ‘hipsters’ and ‘Beats’, the term ‘Beat’ has since gained a more specific definition. The phrase ‘Beat Generation’ is now used mainly to refer to the American writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and their muse Neal Cassady. Original nihilistic Beat writers such as Trocchi are left out of this definition. 

There are also attempts to include the American writer William Burroughs in the Beat Generation, despite Burroughs’s unique ability to escape from any category he is placed in. 

This narrowing of focus has led the American poet Gregory Corso to remark ‘Three writers do not a generation make.’ 

Kerouac had originally picked up the word ‘beat’ from a street hustler and junkie who used the term to sum up the experience of having no money or prospects. Kerouac’s imagination latched onto the word because he saw another aspect to it, and one which complemented its original meaning of referring to a societal outcast. 

For Kerouac, the word implied beatitude. 

Beatitude, in Kerouac’s Catholic upbringing, was the state of being spiritually blessed. Shunned outcasts who gain glimpses of grace and rapture are a constant theme of Kerouac’s work, and the word summed this up in one immediate single-syllable blast. The word became attached to the wild, vibrant music that the Beats were so attracted to, and it was this connection to ‘beat music’ that lies behind the name of The Beatles. 

Unlike the more nihilistic European Beats, the American Beat Generation flavoured their version of existentialism with Eastern mysticism. By the middle of the twentieth century a number of Eastern texts had become available in Western translations. Richard Wilhelm’s 1924 German translation of the I Ching was published in English in 1950, for example, and the American anthropologist Walter Evans-Wentz’s 1929 translation of the Bardo Thodol, better known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, gained widespread attention following its 1960 reissue. 

These texts described a spirituality that differed greatly from the hierarchical monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity, with their subservient devotion to a ‘Lord’. They talked about divinity as being something internal rather than external. They viewed spirituality as a matter of individual awareness. 

There are distinct differences in the definitions of words like satori, beatitude, enlightenment, grace, rapture, peak experience or flow, but these terms also have much in common. They all refer to a state of mind achievable in the here and now, rather than in a hypothetical future. They are all concerned with a loss of the ego and an awareness of a connection to something larger than the self. 

They all reveal the act of living to be self-evidently worthwhile. In this they stand in contrast to the current of individualism that coursed through the twentieth century, whose logical outcome was the isolation of the junkies and the nihilism of the existentialists. 

But interest in these states, and indeed experience of them, were not widespread. They were the products of the counterculture and obscure corners of academia, and hence were treated with suspicion, if not hostility. The desire for personal freedom, which individualism had stoked, was not going to go away, especially in a generation that had sacrificed so much in the fight against fascism. 

How could we maintain those freedoms, while avoiding the isolation and nihilism inherent in individualism? Reaching out towards satori or peak experience may have been one answer, but these states were frustratingly elusive and too difficult to achieve to provide a widespread solution. 

The writers of Casablanca had difficulty finding the right ending for the film, but the script they turned in at the last minute created one of the great scenes in cinema. 

It takes place at Casablanca airport during a misty night, and includes a waiting plane, a dead Nazi, and a life-changing decision. Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine makes the decision not to leave Casablanca with Ilsa, the love of his life. 

He instead convinces her to leave with her husband and help him in his work for the Resistance. 

‘I’m no good at being noble,’ he tells her, ‘but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.’ 

This is the moment when he admits that there is something more important than his own individual perspective and desires. Although he previously declared that he stuck his neck out for nobody, he now risks his life and liberty in order to allow the Resistance leader to escape. 

Rick ended the film leaving for a Free France garrison so that he too could fight the good fight. 

Hollywood movies fought off nihilism by offering hope, either through personal love, symbolic escape or the vaguely defined better future of the American Dream. 

Occasionally, they would offer warnings. Oscar-winning films such as Citizen Kane, There Will Be Blood or The Aviator were tragedies which depicted the ultimate isolation of those who got what they wanted. 

Casablanca’s screenwriters were helped by the fact that the film was set and made during the Second World War. This gave them a clear ‘greater good’ which they could appeal to. Rick was able to leave his spiritual and personal isolation in order to dedicate himself to the anti-fascist cause. 

But the film continued to resonate with audiences long after that war had been won, because Rick’s escape from nihilism remained powerful on a symbolic level. The promise that there was something better than individual isolation was something that audiences craved. 

That something better, whatever it was, would take effort, and involvement. But that effort would make it worth working towards. 

Existentialism lingered in Europe, but America was too industrious to navel-gaze. As the Second World War receded into memory, the United States was about to show the world exactly what mankind was capable of. 

It was time, President Kennedy boldly announced, to Go to The Moon....."

Another.

“The emotion of Love is an act of 

personal identification with an 

external Other, when the awareness of that person is 

so overwhelming that any 

illusion of separation between 

The Two collapses. 

There is a reason why 

the biblical term for 

physical Love was 

‘To Know’ someone. 

As such it is distinctly different from the isolating Individualism so dominant in the rest of the century. What it is not, however, is 

an easily extendable organisational principle 

that can readily be applied 

to Society as a whole. 

Christianity had done its best 

to promote Love during the 

previous two centuries. 

The Church ordered 

its followers to Love, 

through commandments 

such as ‘Love Thy Neighbour’, 

as if this was reasonable 

or possible. 

But ordering people to Love 

was about as realistic 

as ordering people 

not to Love. 

Love just doesn’t work that way, 

and it doesn’t inspire confidence 

in The Church that it 

seemed to think it did. 

It is noticeable that the more individualistic strains of American Christianity, which bucked the global trend of declining congregations, put less emphasis on that faith’s original teachings about Love and Social Justice. 

The love culture of the hippies was brought low by the egofuelling cocaine culture of the 1970s and 80s. Attempts at describing a non-individualistic perspective were dismissed for being drug-induced, and therefore false. The hippies’ stumbling attempts to describe their new awareness had been too vague and insubstantial to survive these attacks and they were written off as embarrassing failures by the punks. Yet slowly, over the decades that followed, many of their ideas seeped into the cultural mainstream. 

One way to understand the Twentieth Century’s embrace of Individualism is to raise a child 

and wait until he or she 

becomes a teenager. 

A younger child accepts their place in The Family hierarchy, but as soon as they become a teenager their attention shrinks from the wider group and focuses on themselves. Every incident or conversation becomes filtered through the ever-present analysis of ‘What about Me?’ Even the most loving 

and caring child will exhibit thoughtlessness and self-obsession. The concerns of others become minor factors in their thinking, 

and attempts to highlight this 

are dismissed by the 

catch-all argument, 

‘It’s not fair.’

There is a neurological basis for this 

change. Neuroscientists report that adolescents are more self-aware and self-reflective than 

prepubescent children. 

Aleister Crowley may have been on to something when he declared that The Patriarchal Age was ending and that The ‘Third Æon’ 

we were entering would 

be The Age of 

The Crowned and 

Conquering Child.”

Madness

Psychoanalytic Theory 

posits that Narcissism is related 

to attention-seeking behaviour. 

In The Theory, 

an excessive need 

for attention or admiration 

is termed narcissistic supply.

A 2019 study on adolescents with narcissistic tendencies and the use of social media explores this relation between Narcissism and attention seeking behaviour. 

In the study it was found that adolescents’ social media behavior was used as a means of gaining acceptance, validation, 

and attention. 

The research suggests that 

the need of motives behind 

social acceptance 

mediated the link 

between social media use 

and narcissism. 

The research also found that attention seeking behavior increases when these adolescents experience social rejection or threats to their ego/self-image.

Henry Irving married 

Florence O’Callaghan 

on 15 July 1869 

at St. Marylebone, London, 

but his personal life took second 

place to his professional life. 

On opening night of The Bells, 

25 November 1871, Florence, who 

was pregnant with their second 

child, criticised his profession : 

“Are you going on making 

A Fool of Yourself 

like this all Your Life?” 

Irving exited their carriage 

at Hyde Park Corner, walked 

off into the night, and chose 

never to see her again. 

He maintained 

a discreet distance from 

his children as well, but 

became closer to them 

as they grew older. 

Florence Irving 

never divorced Irving, 

and once he had been knighted 

she styled herself “Lady Irving”; 

Irving never remarried.

Hysteria

hysterical (adj.)

1610s, "characteristic of hysteria," the nervous disease originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus; literally "of the womb," from Latin hystericus "of the womb," from Greek hysterikos "of the womb, suffering in the womb," from hystera "womb," from PIE *udtero-, variant of *udero- "abdomen, womb, stomach" (see uterus). Compare hysteria.

“By the time Harry Bull returned to Borley to work as a curate, His Father’s eyesight and coordination had begun to deteriorate. As Reverend Bull became increasingly immobile, his son took on more parish and social responsibilities. 

Finally the Reverend went blind, and he died in the Blue Room at the Rectory on 2 May 1892 at the age of 59. The cause of death was recorded as locomotor ataxia, a neurological condition affecting the spine, which results in blindness and a loss of motor skills – the symptoms of syphilis. 

Syphilis was the much-feared, unspoken corruption at the heart of Victorian Life. The creeping terror of this disease was not only in its symptoms, but in the stealthy, undetectable nature of its progress. Invisible during the early stages, untreated it spread throughout the body, progressively destroying the skin, the mucous membranes, bones and internal organs – inflicting horrific mutilations on those who suffered from it. 

Ultimately, a softening of the brain would then lead to insanity. It was particularly prevalent among middle- and upper-class men. The social stigma of the disease meant that the voluntary hospitals remained unsympathetic to sufferers and many resorted to ineffective remedies from chemists and quacks. Ignorance about the nature of the infection led many men to put their faith in superstition, some believing, for instance, circumcision to be a cure. 

In 1884, a man in Liverpool defended himself against a charge of raping a fourteen-year-old girl, believing that by having sex with a virgin, he would cure himself by passing The Disease onto her. 

‘Quack doctoresses’ in a Liverpool brothel were also said to provide such cures, providing disabled children for the purpose. 

Syphilis could be transmitted to the next generation and some of the signs of infection passed to children were deafness, saddle-nose – where the bridge of the nose collapses – inflammation of the cornea and Hutchinson’s teeth, a malformation of the incisors. 

Following Reverend Bull’s death, the Rectory and the patronage of the living passed to the main beneficiary, his eldest son, Harry, with an implicit understanding that he would make provision for his sisters, though £100 was left specifically to Dodie. 

Reverend Bull was buried in the churchyard, touchingly alongside his son Cyril, who had died in infancy. As a memorial to his father, Harry commissioned a stained-glass window that was placed to the south of the nave in the church, celebrating the relationship between the rector and his congregation: ‘I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.’ 

At twenty-nine, Harry Bull was tall and athletic with a heavy moustache. Like his father, he enjoyed outdoor pursuits – shooting, hunting, walking and tennis. In contrast to his father, he seemed to have little interest in women or family life and appeared to be very much a confirmed bachelor. He was especially fond of boxing and would pay the local boys to spar with him. 

One curious incident took place, when he had been visiting the East End of London. He was set upon by two thugs. Whether this was a street robbery – or even a sexual pick-up gone wrong – is unclear. But he was able to hold his own and knocked the two assailants out cold. 

He had a dog, Juvenal, and also began to collect cats, between twenty and thirty of them, which he adored, calling each one by name. At the same time, he’d feed countless strays, which he never turned away. Though regarded as eccentric by the locals, he was a popular ‘puckish, lovable man’.

At his first Christmas as the rector, he hosted a supper of roast beef and plum pudding as well as turning the drawing room into a miniature theatre at New Year, complete with footlights and scenery. The family presented a play, Why Women Weep, in which Harry took centre stage as the leading man. His brothers having forged lives away from Borley, the Rectory was now dominated by women : his mother and seven sisters, all unmarried – ‘old maids’, as Dodie had predicted.

Borley Rectory, once vibrant with the energy of a large growing family and their friends, had assumed the air of a convent.”

The Ghost Hunters

The Ghost Hunters  - 1975 BBC Borley Rectory Documentary

Originally broadcast Thu 4th Dec 1975, 

22:15 on BBC One London

Ghosts abound in Britain. 

Thousands of people have seen and heard what they believe to 

be phantom footsteps, abnormal phenomena, and ghosts of all 

shapes and sizes, sometimes even moving above ground level.

In tonight's documentary 

Hugh Burnett visits some of the people 

who have tried to track them down, 

or heard and seen things they cannot explain. 

The film ranges from a haunted house, a haunted inn, 

even a theatre haunted by a butterfly - to Borley Church 

where many strange occurrences have been recorded.

Contributors

Film cameramen: Fintan Sheehan

Film cameramen: Eddie Best

Film cameramen: Tony Leggo

Film recordist: Chris King

Editor: Don Fairservice

Producer: Hugh Burnett

Colour-Sergeant Spence

“In late summer we were shipped to Wales and put through a punishing exercise called Long Reach. A nonstop march, yomp and run over several days, up and down barren countryside, with a load of gear strapped to our backs, equivalent to the weight of one young teenager. 

Worse, Europe was suffering a historic heat wave, and we set out at the crest of the wave, the hottest day of the year. A Friday. 

We were told that the exercise would run through Sunday night. Late Saturday, during our only enforced rest, we slept in bags on a dirt track. After two hours we were awakened by thunder and hard rain. I was in a team of five, and we stood up, held our faces to the rain, drinking the drops. It felt so good.

But then we were wet. And it was time to march again. Sopping wet, in driving rain, marching now became something altogether different. We were grunting, panting, groaning, slipping. 

Gradually I felt my resolve start to give way. At a momentary stop, a checkpoint, I felt a burning in my feet. I sat on the ground, pulled off my right boot and sock, and the bottom of my foot peeled away. Trench foot. 

The soldier beside me shook his head. Shit. You can’t go on. I was gutted. But, I confess, also relieved. 

We were on a country road. In a nearby field stood an ambulance. I staggered towards it. As I got close, medics lifted me onto the open tailgate. 

They examined my feet, said this march was over for me. I nodded, slumped forward. My team was getting ready to leave. Goodbye, lads. See you back at camp. 

But then one of our colour sergeants appeared. Colour Sergeant Spence. He asked for a word. I hopped off the tailgate, limped with him over to a nearby tree. 

His back to the tree, he spoke to me in a level tone. It was the first time in months he hadn’t shouted at me. Mr Wales, you’ve got one last push. You’ve literally got six or eight miles left, that’s all. I know, I know, your feet are shit, but I suggest you don’t quit. 

I know you can do this. 

You know you can do this. 

Push on. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t. 

He walked away. I limped back to the ambulance, asked for all their zinc oxide tape. I wrapped my feet tightly and rammed them back into my boots. 

Uphill, downhill, forward, I went on, trying to think of other things to distract myself from the agony. We neared a stream. 

The icy water would be a blessing, I thought. But no. All I could feel were the rocks in the bed pressing against the raw flesh. 

The last four miles were among the most difficult steps I’ve ever taken on this planet. 

As we crossed the finish line I began to hyperventilate with relief. One hour later, back in camp, everyone put on trainers. For the next several days we shuffled about the barracks like old men. But proud old men. 

At some point I limped up to Colour Sergeant Spence, thanked him. He gave a little smile and walked away. 

57.