Rugby Meander: Scotland At The 2024 Six Nations

There are times where it’s easier to be Catholic than a supporter of the Scotland First XV. For the last few years, it seemed that Gregor Townsend had been reinforcing and beginning to build on the foundations laid down by his predecessors, Scott Johnson and Vern Cotter. He’s had at his disposal the most talented squad this country’s seen since winning the final Five Nations in 1999. No longer have we had to kick and defend our way to victory relying on the boots of the likes of Chris Paterson and Greig Laidlaw. We’ve been scoring tries, pushing our opponents to the brink of implosion and playing strategic mind games.

And where’s it gotten us?

Currently, 6th in the World Rankings and a 4th place finish at this year’s Six Nations.

Why, Scotland? Why do you do this to us? We support you in the bad times, we cheer you in the good times and just as it seems you are beginning to take shape, you fuck it up.

Our World Cup campaign showed that we’re not quite ready to take on the big boys on equal terms yet. Physically, we’re more than capable but it’s the mental aspects that still need work, namely developing strategies to cope with rush defences a la South Africa and getting a killer instinct together so we make the most of a moment of weakness in our opposition.

Wales (26-27)

He’s only smiling cause it’s the first half. Wait ’til he sees the second.

The first half in our opening match looked like we’d developed a killer instinct. 20-0 at half time, we made the young Welsh side look rather amateur whilst we strolled on quite easily. We should have done it again in the second half and gone beyond 40 points for a comfortable try bonus win. Trouble is, we took our foot off the gas. And what happened? Wales came back, didn’t they.

In motorsport, if you’re leading by quite a margin, if you ease off the accelerator and start cruising, your opponents will catch up and start trying to pass you meaning you have to do all the work again when you should have just kept your foot hard on the right pedal and either maintain the gap or increase it. In rugby, it seems only certain teams understand this, namely the All Blacks, Springboks and Ireland. Yes, they’re totally different sports and cars aren’t racing at each other but the principle is the same.

Scotland did not keep their foot on the gas in the second half and were almost, rightfully some may argue, punished for their carelessness. The young Welsh side showed their teeth and came fighting right back because, it turns out, they have a killer instinct and were more than happy to exploit Scotland’s sloppy work. So sloppy that, in the second half, we conceded 14 penalties…IN A ROW! And right at the end, the Welsh were hammering at our try line as we scrapped and scraped our way out of a shock comeback and near defeat. Still, it was our first win in Cardiff in 27 years so that’s about the only positive to take away.

France (16-20)

Finn regretted his earlier comments as the ref decided on if Scotland should win or not.

France are very much a binary side. They’re either on it, in which case say goodbye to any hopes of an easy match, or they’re not, in which case say hello to an easy match.

France were not on it and Scotland should have pounced on the French and made them suffer. Except, we didn’t. We were ahead 13-10 at half-time at home when the scoreline should have read 27-10. Similarly, in the second half, we made the job hard for ourselves. As with Wales, we allowed the French to come back and start to play their game even though the game was not theirs to play. But this is what a Top 4 side can do. When it’s not their day, they’ll knuckle down and grind out an ugly win because that’s what they want and they want it more than the opposition. And ultimately, that’s what it came down to here. Scotland lacked the conviction to put France to the sword early on then pour salt on the wound in the second half. We played too gentlemanly, if anything. Rugby may be the ‘Thinking Man’s’ game but on the pitch you are supposed to be a brutal warrior with the heart of a conqueror and the mind of a tyrant. Off the pitch, you are a gentleman and a friend. If we had that mentality against the French we’d have won the game at least 20 minutes before the end and would not have had to rely on a last ditch effort to win the game which, quite unfairly in my view, was disallowed.

England (30-21)

Duhan was at it again. Squeeze, release and he’s off.

Here it is. Our World Cup Final. Four years on the trot, we whipped the English and 2024 saw a fifth consecutive whipping. I suppose the Calcutta Cup gives a good indication of just where our head’s at. We played with composure, discipline and experience. We took a good English side that turned up to play the game and left them wanting. Perhaps that’s one of the key problems with Scotland at the moment. We love beating the English and that’s about it. Every other game in recent years has been touch and go except the England game where we’ve now established a good track record of comprehensive victories. And yet, of all the Six Nations, England are the only World Champions from the Northern Hemisphere and managed to almost beat South Africa in last year’s World Cup semi-final with a fairly lacklustre squad and a much easier path. So, how come Scotland can ramp up their efforts to consistently beat such a side? If we can do it against England, surely we should be doing to everyone else, no?

I think the key difference here is that England look to the big picture. Okay, they get beat by the Scots once a year but their big efforts go into really competing with New Zealand, South Africa, France and Ireland. Maybe if Scotland adopted a similar mentality and focused on beating everyone else rather than just England then we’d be further forward. Even after match, it was the biggest celebration of a win I’d seen all tournament. You’d think Scotland beat England in the Final of the World Cup but we just beat them for the fifth time at the Six Nations. Yes, we should cheer but to celebrate it like we’d not won against them in over a decade is not something to be proud of. I think here there is a lot of spite and hatred in the victory. The cheers were poisonous and designed to fill the English with shame as if how dare they come to Murrayfield and think they could win. It’s not spoken but the implication is there.

Italy (31-29)

See, we only lost because we were in white. Too English, you see. Causes an identity crisis.
Bring back the salmon!

Oh dear, oh dear. I really wasn’t sure what I was watching with this game. We had come so far as to start using Italy to improve our points difference. What a turnaround. It seems that no one in the coaching staff watched the England game and how close Italy came to an historic first win and perhaps they were too drunk on Tennent’s to watch the France game where Italy should have been allowed to retake their last minute penalty which would have seen them win 16-13 instead of drawing.

No one in the Scotland squad expected Italy which is why we lost. Look back to the World Cup where New Zealand utterly steamrollered their way to a 14-try win and a score of 96-17 making Italy look utterly ridiculous and helpless. New Zealand did not walk on to that pitch that night and took an Italy victory for granted. They played their game and Italy couldn’t keep up.

Unlike Scotland. We walked on to that pitch expecting a win despite the warning signs from Italy’s first two games. Only Ireland got the job done in the manner expected of a Top 4 side with a 36-0 win.

Did we take heed? No. Instead, it got scrappy. We allowed it to get scrappy. For the first 15 years or so of the Six Nations, Scotland ended up playing at Italy’s level where all 30 players are city-dwelling seagulls and the ball is a leftover kebab. This had not been the case in recent years, but it was this year. And, oh my, what a horrendous sight it was.

The ball and the players were all over the place. There was no cohesion, no fluency to the game. It was literally human pinball where tries were scored based on opportunities created from the madness and not well-worked, structured plays. It was Scotland’s to lose and we lost in stupendously embarrassing fashion. And to make matters worse, the Italian victory ended a Scottish 13-year winning streak and by the slimmest of margins. The last time there was 2 points between the sides was 2018 where Scotland won 27-29. Ans, incidentally, the last Italian win was by a near equally slim 3 point margin in 2015 where they won, at Murrayfield no less, 19-22. Have we taken a step back?

Ireland (17-13)

You play like a young man. Admirable, but mistaken.

The final match for both Celtic nations and the narrowest Irish win all tournament having quite comfortably seen off all bar a surprisingly defiant England, Scotland really turned it up for the final match. But it just wasn’t enough. For some reason, we decided to play with the similar composure here as we did against England. It would indicate to me that we took this game, as with England, seriously. We were tight, gave away no penalties and really made Ireland work. It was the complete opposite to the Italy game. We played our game, which is similar to the Irish only the Irish are more disciplined and dedicated to their style of play and rarely allow anyone to bully them out of playing it.

I really thought this match would be the toughest to watch given the royal drubbing we’d received from, admittedly, a very good Italian side and the shock defeat Ireland received from England. I firmly believed the Irish were going to come out all guns blazing against their Celtic cousins. But they didn’t.

And why?

They didn’t need to.

Mathematically, neither England or France could have taken the title off of Ireland so Ireland had no need to come out with a furious display of rugby. Scotland, on the other hand, should have come out with a furious display to ensure second place with a try bonus win. Ireland didn’t even need to win to get the title but Scotland, whilst more composed and disciplined on the surface, I think took the time to wind down a bit once they realised which Irish side turned up. Not to say it was political, but I think it was certainly a calculated move on Ireland’s part to not risk a loss to Scotland and so toned things down to make sure they could secure four points rather than none. Still, my point stands. Scotland should have been riled up and played with fire. Had we beaten Ireland and secured five points (as big an ask that would have been since 2017 was the last time we beat Ireland), we’d have had 16 points and secured 2nd place in the tightest Six Nations for years. Yes, Ireland winning was no contest and, sadly, Wales getting the wooden spoon was no contest either, but 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th places were anyone’s guess.

More realistically, a non-try bonus victory was on the cards and we’d have secured 3rd place instead tying with France on 15 points but losing second on account of France winning the head-to-head. Still, better than the fourth we got for not really trying.

Scotland, yes, played more calmly but it still resulted in a loss. Losing, even with a bonus point, is still losing and even though it was our closest match against Ireland since 2013 where Scotland won 12-8, it was salt in the wound when you consider that Ireland didn’t need to do much to just get a win. Scotland didn’t fling everything they had at Ireland and we got what we deserved. A lacklustre finish for a side that really didn’t seem to know what it was doing.

Conclusion

Gregor’s thinking ‘If I can get 14 more like him and 5 spare, that’d be grand.’

This was legitimately Scotland’s best chance at a Grand Slam in a long time. So much was within our hands yet we gave it all away. Recent tournaments, you could argue mathematically that Scotland could have won if so-and-so hadn’t had that try disallowed or had that penalty gone through or had all the conversions been scored. Things like that are objective facts. They cannot be changed.

The truth of the matter this year was the Scotland allowed themselves to lose. Against Wales, they went from making the team look like nobodies to then find themselves batting the team away at the death of the game. Against France, we did not kill the game three quarters of the way through and snuff the French out completely thus not needing the rely on a TMO decision to go in our favour.

With England, all went to plan. With Italy, there was no plan and, amidst the scramble, Italy just scraped a shock defeat. Well, shocking to the Scotland team but not to anyone watching that understood what was going on.

Ireland was just a game. We didn’t really try to win and Ireland did just enough to get what they needed for a comfortable title victory. We were a soft landing. A nice wee cushion for the Irish to sit on after a long, hard but, ultimately, successful campaign.

This is not what Scotland should be. We should not be allowing other sides to dictate terms and threaten undoing all our hard work. Unfortunately, this year proved very much that even a poor Welsh side can throw their weight about and almost get what they want. This team is the most comprehensive team in a long time but the collective mindset is too cocky, arrogant and full of nonsense. This team is not serious enough about what they do on the pitch. Yes, they run around and score some pretty tries but playing champagne rugby is for charity events. It is not to be played when national pride is at stake. And, I’m sad to say, I do not think this side is playing with national pride. The jersey is just a jersey.

I would not be surprised if there were calls for Gregor Townsend to hand over his resignation. Frankly, I don’t think it would be warranted if he gave in to such demands and I doubt the SRU would accept it. His long-term strategy is starting to pay off but this crop of players, whilst undoubtedly talented, need to be reigned in more. Finn Russell in particular is a problem as he truly believes he’s a wonderkid when he’s just a talented arse. He could be a wonderkid if he spent more time honing his talent and less on being an arse. However, at 31, I think it’s too late and Gregor Townsend will likely be focusing on making sure his future replacements are moulded in the more appropriate shape. More focus on team and strategy and less on showing off. He could have been a true great a la Chris Paterson but Chris Paterson’s discipline and cool character won more games than not. Can’t say the same for Finn.

We are in the twilight of this current Scotland side. Within five years, most, if not all, will be gone and a new group will take their place. For their sake, I hope 2024, if the Six Nations is anything to go by, is just part of Gregor’s long-term plan and it required taking one step back this year. I just hope next year will see at least two steps forward.

Film Meander: End of 2023 Triple-Bill Review (Spoilers)

The Three Musketeers: Milady

Since we’re about to enter the fourth month of 2024, I thought I’d try and slow time down a bit by going back to December of 2023. I didn’t care much for films last year and, in fact, have barely been to the cinema post-pandemic. The standard of Hollywood’s output has been lacklustre bar Dune – Part One, Top Gun: Maverick and Oppenheimer. Even the typically reliable Mission Impossible franchise’s latest offering, Dead Reckoning: Part One, felt weak compared to its previous entries.

So, I thought I’d give the smaller, less American, productions a chance. First up was The Three Musketeers: Milady. Having seen ‘D’artagnan’ at the start of the year, I was cautiously curious as to how the story would wrap up. After all, this was the first French adaptation in over 60 years. Surely, the French, so protective over their history and culture, wouldn’t mess too much with Alexandre Dumas’ classic?

I’m afraid they did. ‘D’artagnan’ took the popular tale and failed to make it exciting. The innovative camera work (where it looked like the camera dolly didn’t track the action accurately enough and so caused a delay in what the viewer saw on-screen) just looked sloppy and confusing whilst the actors were too old for their characters. The political intrigue, espionage, courtroom drama, threat of war and camaraderie between the four men were given lip service.

‘Milady’ continues this. We have Eva Green, best known for being a Femme Fatale, playing, arguably, the original Femme Fatale and yet she comes across as a rank amateur. Within the film, it’s made clear she’s been doing Cardinal Richlieu’s work for some years and yet, she has about all the seductive prowess as a nervous teenage girl and all the subtle stealth capabilities of a neon sign. And whilst this second part is dedicated to Milady De Winter, we learn little to nothing of her and her relationship with Aramis nor do we get her seducing D’artagnan leading to him being conflicted over defending King and Country, his duty to his Brothers in Arms versus his growing feelings for a temptress that seeks to manipulate him for her own means.

Green does the best she can with what’s she’s been given which is not much. We see a woefully inept and desperate assassination attempt on the Duke of Buckingham at close quarters. This version of the Duke, black in keeping with ‘The Message’, is three times the size of Green’s Milady yet, for no reason within the context of the film, decides she’s going to walk up to him, pull out a pistol and try to shoot him there and then. Quick with his wits, the Duke promptly slams her head into the table. I honestly don’t know what the writers thought when putting that together but it just makes one of the most cunning, sinister and tragic characters in literature look horribly incompetent.

And yet, near the end of the film the audience is also expected to believe a physically and emotional wounded Milady can hold her own against the fully trained Musketeer of D’artagnan in a burning stable. Again, she could have used her feminine wiles to get his guard down, use her vulnerabilities to curry sympathy, weaponise his feelings for her then stab him in the shoulder or something.

Nope. She just gets on with the sword fight. Something we didn’t see any evidence of in the prior film, but we are expected to believe that she has the strength and skill to fight a grown man whilst sporting an injury and being starved of oxygen. I tend to struggle when a film nowadays pits men and women against each on equal terms as if to say that, secretly, women have similar upper body strength to men. Or even more.

Politics aside, I go back to my earlier point. This part is subtitled ‘Milady’ but we learn little about her. If anything, this is more Aramis’ film than anybody’s. The Three Musketeers and their relationship with D’artagnan is not forged; the relationship between France and England is not given its correct weight; the deceitful and treasonous acts of Richelieu are made trivial.

What the director, Martin Bourboulon, does instead is cast these huge aspects of the book and previous adaptations aside in favour of a revenge story between Milady and Aramis. Although, ultimately, the story panders to the feminist narrative that women are not bad, but they are made bad by men. In this version, Milady is seen in a flashback being abused as a young woman. Aramis’ crime? He took her away and gave her a home and a family, but she decided to run back to her abusive past except, this time, it would mean becoming a traitorous spy. I suppose the feminists would say Milady was ‘forced’ into an ‘oppressive’ life where she had to have a child and was denied her freedom and that her escape was her merely being her ‘true self’. I suspect that nonsense was discussed in the writer’s room because there was very little in the way of engaging characters or plot here. Even if all they had to do was take it from the book!

And as messy as it started, messy is how it ended. Instead of getting a conclusion, the film’s climax is a cliff-hanger with Milady stealing her son from Aramis’ estate. Initially, I thought, ‘Hold on. How can it just end when this is supposed to be the end?’. It turns out that Pathe are looking to expand out into TV to tie things up. Given the small budget this had and its poor box office returns, I doubt anyone will green light a TV series.

I had high hopes when the very first trailer dropped. A French adaptation of a French classic novel (a favourite since childhood) filmed in France, using French actors and spoken in French. I honestly believed it could not fail. How wrong I was.

Godzilla: Minus One

So, I had an all French production and the second of these three is all Japanese. Again, another childhood favourite, Hollywood’s treatment of Gojira has lacked the mystery and honour of the fabled creature. Instead, it’s been portrayed as another big monster.

So, like with the full French Musketeers, I had high hopes for this full Japanese version. Certainly, in my lifetime, every iteration that’s ended up on UK screens has been American so I was curious to see how the Japanese did it.

Well, unlike the French, they did not dishonour one of their most beloved stories. In fact, this has been one of the most enthralling and captivating films I’ve seen in a very long time. Where Hollywood tends to fill out the plot with stupidly pointless human subplots, Minus One fully merges the story and Man and Monster.

We are introduced to Shikishima, a failed Kamikaze pilot who is disgraced by his town for not doing his job. That job involved him being on Odo Island where the military operation he was part of was laid to waste by the giant monster, Godzilla. He comes across a young woman, Sumiko, and her baby. He takes them in and we see the beautiful blossoming of a potential family, however, despite her obvious feelings for him, Shikishima is weighed down by guilt of having survived and seeks revenge on the monster. From there, we see a rogue group of men being gathered to come up with a way to bring down the very apparent threat of Godzilla.

And, unlike Hollywood, the director, Takashi Yamazaki, knows exactly how much of Godzilla to show and when. And what an unnatural force this creature is. Not only is it truly monstrous, but it’s clever too. Able to take everything the humans throw at it and forcing them to come up with a truly innovative way to take it down, if anything, out of sheer desperation to survive.

Amidst the terror, we get the very human love story of Shikishima and Sumiko where the former’s desire to fulfil his honour and get revenge pushes the latter to the breaking point. Even when Sumiko saves Shikishima, during an early attack from Godzilla, and ends up hospitalised, he will not admit his feelings for her as the film makes it clear that he cannot be allowed to given he failed his country.

And so, the film seamlessly builds towards this ingenious method of taking down Godzilla whereby a team of boats, led by Shikishima in an experimental Kamikaze plane (filled with explosives and no ejector seat), would carry a large net held together by a series of explosive packages. However, attached to these explosives would be inflatables. Why? The plan was to fire the explosives which would drag Godzilla down to the bottom of the ocean fast causing his body to not only suffer extreme pressure changes, but temperature changes to. Once dragged down, they’d fire the inflatables to bring him back up just as fast as he went down with the hope being that the extreme depressurisation would be too much for his body and he’d die.

The plan kind of worked. Until Godzilla didn’t die. Enter Shikishima and his opportunity to complete his task. He distracts Godzilla with strategically timed bullet fire then waits for the monster to power up before flying the explosives-rigged plan into the throat of Godzilla sending it back down to the depths of the ocean.

Everyone is shocked. No one wanted Shikishima to actually fulfil his country’s duty, least of all Sumiko, and kill himself even if it ultimately meant defeating Godzilla.

And you are left lingering for a few moments thinking that Shikishima, who had been building up to his revenge all film long despite having others around him that wanted him to live, had been such an arrogant, or righteous, fool and actually sacrificed himself almost out of spite.

Fortunately, he did not die because, after all, an ejection mechanism had been built into the plane. The group are overjoyed that everyone made it out of the ordeal and we get a truly heart-warming reunion when Sumiko is given the news that Shikishima had died only for him to walk in knowing she was the reason he didn’t go through with it. It had me with a lump in my throat and a few threats of tears.

Of course, Godzilla did not die. He was merely set back a bit, but it means we can get at least another film of this calibre by Toho Studios because it was a remarkable achievement given it cost a measly $15million to make and grossed just short of $111million worldwide. Truly astounding and far, far better than a lot of Hollywood’s recent efforts where the budget is at least another $40million over the gross of Godzilla Minus One yet here, the cast and crew delivered a film that was not only jaw-dropping and heart-stopping but poignant and intimate and with an insight into a little bit of Japanese culture many here in the West are left ignorant too. The best of the December trio for me.

Ferrari

Two great leads in Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz; a story about the founder of, arguably, the most recognisable car brand in the world; a budget of $110million; and a director whose last decent film was 2009’s ‘Public Enemies’.

Spot the weak link.

Michael Mann is one of those cult directors that has some sort of mythical status in Hollywood. It’s almost as though his films are so nuanced that it takes only a true auteur of cinema to truly appreciate the mastery at work. In reality, his films are hit and miss. He’s America’s answer to Ridley Scott although he’s not managed to put out anything as epic as Gladiator or as horrifically genre-defining as Alien.

With Ferrari, he tackles a man so legendary in the car and motorsport world that the company have not deviated much from their founder’s ethos – To design the perfect car as a testament to performance, design and emotional allure.

Indeed, early in the film we are shown a glimpse of this when Enzo is at the kitchen table of his mistress/second wife, Lina Lardi, where he is drawing the layout of an engine. He tells his son, Piero, that “When a thing works better, usually it is more beautiful to the eye.'”

And certainly, Mann shows us this in how Ferrari operates. Beautiful clothes, beautiful cars, beautiful drivers, beautiful women, the list goes on. Everything and everyone Ferrari surrounded himself with operated slickly for good or for ill. Our introduction to his wife, Laura, played wonderfully by Penelope Cruz, shows how passionate and savagely loyal she is when she intentionally misses him after unloading a few rounds of her pistol into a wall. And all because he was late.

For car fans like myself, the film shows more of the family man which we don’t get to hear or read about as it’s always the engineering, racing and business aspects we get.

However, we don’t get enough. We don’t get the more on the intimate details and how they effected Ferrari. Far car fans, we know that the Dino was dedicated to his son after his untimely death. We also know it was never badged a Ferrari despite being made at the Ferrari factory, but we don’t get more on why and the film never gives us an explanation. Maybe no one knows and the truth died with Enzo.

We also don’t get anything on why the relationship between Enzo and Laura broke down. Was it the death of Dino? Was it Enzo’s drive for motoring perfection? Was it Enzo’s need to make a stamp on the world? Again, Mann offers nothing and neither do we get any context as to why he has a secret second family. For a man of such standing to have another family, which he pays for, and have them kept under the radar is not strictly unusual, but there would normally be a very good reason. It’s implied that Laura no longer wanted or could no longer have children after Dino’s death but it’s not made clear nor is it made clear that Enzo desperately wanted a full family and an heir to his legacy. It seems that Mann forgot these elements which would have strung the emotional plot together in a far more cohesive manner and been more effective for it.

And this lack of cohesion spreads to the racing and business side of the plot. We have Ferrari’s company under threat of closure due to poor sales. His options are to sell to Ford or Fiat or win the Mille Miglia and get the coverage required to boost orders and keep the sales coming in. What we don’t get is how these options affected him.

We see the arrogant, driven and passionate man when it comes to his company. But only glimpses. I particularly enjoyed Driver’s delivery of Ferrari’s razor-sharp wit and keen enthusiasm when it came to seizing opportunities to make headlines. But, again, those more in the know will understand that this was more a performance to keep the media and his competitors at bay. Unfortunately, the film shows little of how the man operated behind closed doors. We mostly see what he’s like in public which is rarely a true reflection of anyone whose in the public eye.

And so, what to make of Ferrari? Well, if it were made for television at a tenth of the budget, I’d say it’s a perfectly decent way to kill a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. But for a big budget biopic with two big leads and a big director? This is mediocre. It looks and feels like a TV drama because it is. The limited CGI used is horrific (see Godzilla Minus One on how to create rather exceptional CGI on a small budget) and the plot has no idea whether it should focus on the family drama, the corporate drama or the racing drama. It could have successfully merged all three as all three come from the same man so the plot should have spiralled outward showing the interconnection to Enzo Ferrari, the man. Instead, it meanders across them and gives no depth to either.

When the trailer says ‘From the Director of Heat and Last of the Mohicans’, both made in 1995 and 1992 respectively, you know you’re in a spot of bother since those are really Mann’s two ‘classic’ films only films of note. Everything else has been alright to decent. Nothing outstanding, but nothing terrible either. And ‘Ferrari’ is the same which is not befitting of a man who gave so much to his chosen field and whose company continues to pioneer and innovate on the road and the racetrack.

Which is a shame as 2023 could have been the year of the blockbuster biopic with ‘Oppenheimer’ getting accolades across the board, ‘Ferrari’ too could have achieved something similar, albeit on a smaller scale, had it been made by a director more comfortable and familiar with the history. I have no qualms with the cast. The two leads give compelling performances though I’d question Driver’s Italian accent, but, otherwise, he was fine. I can’t see another actor doing wildly better with the script. For Cruz, whilst her screen time was limited, she put a lot of fire in her portrayal of Laura Ferrari. But, being Romantic herself, switching from her native Spain to Italy wouldn’t be much of a stretch.

For the purposes of using up two hours on a quiet Boxing Day afternoon, ‘Ferrari’ is, unfortunately, a film you can watch to ease your brain into winding down after a hectic Christmas Day. Which, really, is not what the film should be for.

Socio-Cultural Meander: She/male

Get used to it. This is they want you to find attractive. Will you give in?

As women have been pushed into the realm of the Masculine, the same forces have done so to men by demanding they move more towards the Feminine. For decades, Feminists and the Media have wanted men to become more in touch with their ‘Feminine Side’. Be kinder, more caring, compassionate, nurturing and help out more with the children and domestic chores.

And, as a general request, it seems fairly sensible. On the surface.

Since female reproductive mate selection is typically predicated on the idea that the father of her children would stick around, he might as well get involved. After all, going through nine months of physical and emotional stress, being made more vulnerable and more dependant on others to help with certain tasks is hardly worth it if the man that brought about this state isn’t going to hang about. It sends a terribly clear message to the mother.

She’s been rejected.

And so too has her child. This, to my mind, is the main tenet of fatherless children. I say fatherless, but I mean absent fathers. As the The British Psychological Society points out in this article, getting fathers involved in the mental health of their children is a struggle. And by absent, this can be physically, emotionally or both. The BPS’ article was regarding trying to get more fathers involved in the treatment of mental health issues in children.

And this King’s College London article looks into the relationships between father-mother and father-child in relation to wellbeing and mental health of both mother and child when the father is around.

I come back to the idea of rejection because I think a lot of the mental health issues plaguing Millennials and Gen Z stem from this at a deeply subconscious level.

As women have been largely pushed back into the workplace over the last century but with emphasis on entering into typically male domains, there are increasingly fewer places for men to be men. Most can’t exercise their masculinity at work; they can’t do it out of work and they can’t do it at home.

Similarly, boys aren’t allowed to express and develop their masculinity at school or in social settings. Recently, I was in the Highlands with my family over Christmas. We went swimming and, in the male changing room, I noticed that the young boys were very reluctant to get changed whilst there were men other than their father around. The father would be in the shower trying to encourage his son it was alright to get changed. Indeed, in my local gym, younger men (late teens to late twenties) tend to shower with shorts and flip-flops on whilst the older ones wear nothing but a towel on their way to the cubicle then go nude once in. These younger men are showering partially dressed. This shift towards a form of social and physical anxiety around other men concerns me. It suggests that men, particularly in the West, have been weakened to the point that they suffer from insecurities surrounding their own body in the presence of their elders. Much in the same way that women have for centuries, maybe millennia.

In my younger days, I played for the local rugby club and we were not shy in showering together after a game. There was nothing homoerotic about it. It was just guys cleaning up. Our bodies are functional and were treated as such. They had done a job and we were tending to them by washing them down and giving them clean, dry clothes before refuelling them in the clubhouse and engaging in banter with our teammates and members of the opposition.

But this current behaviour where young men and boys shun their own bodies is a sign that things have gone too far. The emasculation is all but complete and what will society do when its men have faltered? Falter also.

So, to come back to the topic of rejection, if the father has rejected the mother and left the picture entirely then the child will grow up wondering why daddy never loved them and their mummy enough to stay. It is my view that a mother’s love is predominantly automatic and thus never has to be earned. To be loved by one’s mother is the default. But the love of a father must be earned for he must earn his own masculinity for masculinity is structured extinction, that is to say a man must find a suitable reason to die. He must find a purpose to which he can lay his life down for. That is the essence of masculinity and it sits above his primary evolutionary purpose because his masculinity must feed back into it and so begin a self-sustaining cycle whereby a man’s purpose is fuelled by his family and his family fuels his purpose.

According to the Trades Union Congress, fathers earn up to 21% more compared to childless men in similar roles whilst mothers tend to see a drop in earnings up to 33%. This, I argue, is because of what I just mentioned; Purpose fuels family and family fuels purpose. Unfortunately, it can set up a perverse cycle of a father worker longer and harder to provide more for the family he rarely sees which then comes back to the previous idea of rejection. If the father works most of the time, does he love his wife and children or is it out of love for his wife and children that he works so long? One is a rejection and the other is a sacrifice. Unless, the father has figured out how to set up a stable home, maximise his income and minimise his work time. But, that’s very much the exception in today’s society.

WORK

Traditionally, manual labour jobs were seen as most attractive to women. Not only were some highly skilled, but they also had the capacity for high danger. Fireman, construction worker, miner, policeman, fighter pilot, soldier, plumber, the list goes on. These jobs tapped into, in varying degrees, the masculine need to face danger head on, tackle it, overcome it and come back home where any wounds can be tended to by his (I’m idealising here) loving and grateful wife.

However, this article from Cosmopolitan back in 2015 suggests a shift:

1. Medical/dental/veterinary (6%)
2. Legal (6%)
3. Teacher/professor (5%)
4. Financial services (5%)
5. Technical/computers/engineering (5%)
6. Executive/management (5%)
7. Self-employed (4%)
8. Sales/marketing (4%)
9. Political/government/civil service/military (4%)
10. Advertising/media (4%)

Some of those traditional areas feature, namely 1,2 and 9 (Military) which have long been seen as attractive to women and will no doubt remain so for many years to come. But if we look at the rest, there is a certain link between them.

Emotion and Psychology.

Where the traditional entries require a cool measure of stoicism to function, the others don’t require that to the same degree. You can get away with being more mouthy and opinionated as long as your work meets the required standard. You can be the epitome of professionalism one moment and the office clown the next. Or, more darkly, where traditionally attractive occupations rewarded strong, skilled and honest men with a wife, these current entries favour men who’ve mastered the feminine art of emotional manipulation to the point where they can get other people to do what they want without even touching them or raising their voice. And where some, 8, 9 and 10, aren’t necessarily high-paying, they do require elements of Jung’s Dark Tetrad (Previously Triad) of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy and Sadism for the roles to be done competently. A truly honest person would not last long in sales, advertising or marketing. You have to be able to bend the customer to your will to get the result. But, make sure they do so willingly.

This is not unlike the typical heterosexual relationship. The man tends to want to go off and do things his way. Whilst the woman recognises the man is stubborn and/or arrogant and that a physical confrontation is out of the question, she uses her ‘feminine wiles’ to get him to come round to her way of thinking.

At least, that’s how it was.

Now, with more masculine women, that level of emotional control is getting rarer which may be why we’re seeing women more drawn to men who can do what their ancestors did so easily.

PLAY

Whilst men haven’t exactly stopped engaging in physical activity, it has been decreasing, largely due to shifting nature of the work here in the West where we’ve largely moved away from agricultural and industrial economies to more service-based ones. Where it would have been men doing the bulk of the farming, mining, shipbuilding, construction, etc those types of jobs have not only reduced, but they’ve become less physically involving due improvements in processes and technology. And so, where men would have gotten exercise from work and play, many have to rely on some form of recreational activity to get their exercise. This study strongly suggests that men in physically demanding jobs live, on average, one year longer than their deskbound counterparts. In addition, their quality of life will be improved on account of being more physically capable.

So, with the increase in desk jobs over the decades and the significant increase in working from home during and after COVID, men are spending more time sitting than getting out and about.

But even in the recreational space, men are becoming less active.

Distribution of video game users in the United States as of March 2023, by gender

The above chart shows the split between male and female gamers in the United States. Currently, there are 212million gamers in the US. The population is around 332million.

Worldwide, 55% of gamers are male to which there are approximately 3.09billion and it’s men that, on average, spend the most time per week playing at over 6 hours versus women at 5.

Now, whilst video gaming has typically been something men have done since their rise to mainstream popularity in 1970’s, it’s only been in the last 15-20 years that women have drastically increased their activity to the point where they are almost on par with the men.

Now, let’s look at how this relates to masculinised women and feminised men. The masculinised woman will enter typically male gaming genres (first-person shooters, racing and role-playing games) and begin competing with them because masculine energy demands competition to determine who is most competent at the task. The feminised men will be most threatened by the presence of a masculinised woman because these men have worked hard in the game to earn a certain status. If the masculinised woman beats them then their status will reduce and hers will increase. And thus, we end up with those nasty trolls who resort to ridicule and insults in an ever increasingly desperate attempt to protect their position.

But why pick gaming for the feminised man and not something physical like I did in the last post? Well, quite simply because a feminised man wouldn’t typically enter into an arena where physicality was a measure of competence. Similarly, it suits the masculinised woman too as she also doesn’t have to physically compete with masculine men. Gaming levels the playing field as there are no physical barriers. Only strength of will, determination, good reflexes, coordination and good internet will keep you in the game.

And with the gap between the sexes almost at even split, if the perverse social engineering continues, we could be masculinised women and feminised men competing more and more in similar genres.

SEX

Sexual relations between men and women are, arguably, at an all time high. The commoditisation of the human form as something to simply exchange in mutual masturbation is almost complete.

Generally speaking, this trend has had a number of outcomes for both sexes. I looked at the Femcel and how, again, arguably, there is an increase in the number of women being used for short-term sexual encounters by the most desirable minority of men, but, subsequently, not given a loving, lasting relationship.

But what about those men that are deemed to be outside the desirable minority?

Well, there have been a number of movements in recent years for masculine men to try and reclaim some of their lost value in the sexual marketplace as well as regain some respect for themselves. Movements such as MGTOW (Men Go Their Own Way), Red Pill, Black Pill, The Manosphere, etc are all variations of a similar theme that is typically against the Feminist movement being against men.

But what about the feminised man?

This article looks in detail at thoughts I’ve had for some time after I became aware of what an Incel actually is. In short, it is a man who finds himself as Involuntarily Celibate due to not meeting, either actually or perceived, the criteria for traditional or contemporary masculinity. Ergo, he is cast aside as sexually and socially unworthy.

In long, I come to now.

If a man is deemed, either by himself or by women and society at large, to be so low in masculinity that they’re not worthy of the briefest of sexual encounters, let alone a relationship, marriage and children then it would come as no surprise that that would knock the wind out of a man’s ego to the point that he might might retreat so far into himself that the only solace he finds is in online groups of like-minded men.

The trouble with this is that, once retreated into and accepted by such groups, the poison is injected and the vitriol against women begins to spread. Because, you see, it’s all women’s fault that they’re not deemed attractive enough. It’s nothing to do with them. They’re the victims of the Feminist movement and the masculinised woman, you see.

At least, this is what they tell themselves in their online echo chambers, such is the danger of such things. And yet, the dream of the Incel, in the article, is to ‘ascend’ Inceldom and be in a relationship with a woman. So, the Incels hate women and Feminism yet their greatest desire is to be with a woman? Kind of beggars belief, wouldn’t you say?

But do these young, and they tend to be, men do any self-reflection or critique each other on how they could be better suited to the opposite sex?

No. Instead, they spend their time going over how women have it easy and how society is more geared towards them. Which, in some ways, could be argued as true but not to the extent these young men believe.

However, the biggest risk to the Incel is becoming feminised hence online gaming and social media platforms are used to display some form of mental and emotional masculinity where, typically, they may not have the physical traits that would make them desirable to women and respectable to men.

But if more masculinised women take part in the typically male online gaming genres then it would signal to the more typically masculine men in those games that they have been beaten by women. That’s never going to go well particularly when the Incel’s ego will be fragile to start with. Being beaten by a superior man is one thing; some may even take pleasure from it as a form of digital sodomy, but being defeated by a woman and then bitching about it would do irrevocable harm to their online persona.

So, how might an Incel go forward in improving their sexual relations with women? Well, one thing would be to focus on developing their career, their finances, hit the gym and eat a better, more protein and fat-based, diet. The latter would see them produce more testosterone which would help with muscle mass and bone density. They’d start feeling more ‘manly’ and, eventually, they’d start looking it too. Their attitude towards themselves would change and that would later project out towards others. The ideal result in this scenario is they’d become, more or less, a regular guy.

The darker and more disturbing route is they’d keep descending the pit of not just hatred of women, but hatred of themselves to the point where they’d feel so emasculated that they’d start presenting as a woman, almost as if they’d been denying themselves their ‘true’ identity and had been fighting it all this time.

Doing this would not only complete the feminisation, but could see the person engage in self-deprecating activities such is their deep desire for sex. Where the insecure woman, masculinised or not, will use sex straight away to get what she wants (validation of being desirable), this form of transitioned feminised man would offer themselves to satisfy the sexual needs of almost any man on the basis that, ultimately, they want sex and are no longer bothered about being the initiator and penetrative partner in such an engagement. Some may go so far to disregard their genitalia entirely and begin referring to their anus as a male vagina or ‘Mangina’, as I’ve heard it described.

This may cause significant problems within the sexual marketplace in the future. Where ‘slut-shaming’ is used by women against other women to try and keep the price of sex relatively high when certain women (usually of low self-esteem and self-control) are driving it down by granting access for very little in return, what do we think will happen when enough men start using feminised men to meet their sexual needs?

There appears to be a precedent which may well lead to this outcome.

Pornhub issue their viewing statistics every year. The latest is 2022 and, curiously, the Transgender category jumped five places over 2021.

Not only did it jump five places, but the viewership grew 75% to become the second most searched term on the site.

And if we also take that (according to this National Library of Medicine article) the rate of Male to Female versus Female to Male transitions are 2:1 then we can safely assume that (a quick search on any well known porn site will confirm) the bulk of transgender people in porn are Male to Female. Couple that with 60%, according to Pornhub, of viewing traffic being male and with Transgender being the eighth most viewed category by men, we can see there’s a trend skewing men towards wanting to have sex with feminised men. They may be watching it on a screen, but watching it repeatedly signals an internal desire. And, eventually, those men will want to make the desire real and they will go and seek out a transgender woman to begin sexual relations.

Now, here lies the problem. If insecure women get slut-shamed for driving the price of sex down, how low do you think horny, needy and insecure men posing as women will drive it?

If more men transition to becoming legally identified as women and find themselves having more sexual success as a woman than they ever did as a man, who’s going to keep them in check? Women aren’t as most won’t see them as one of their own and men sure as Hell won’t when they’re giving access to the very thing they want. The fact they have the same genitals would become inconsequential if they look feminine enough and are fully submissive which, given how little attention some of these men got from women, I can’t imagine why wouldn’t just let the man do whatever he wanted.

If this trend grows to a point where we start seeing men walking hand-in-hand with transwomen/feminised men with no fear of social recourse then we will be at a point in the West were Feminism has won as it will have begun a clear sexual divide where masculine, straight men see feminised men and transwomen as more sexually viable than actual women. I think it would also be fair to state that femininity would have failed in not providing men a space where they can be loved, needed, respected and understood just in the way the masculinised woman is a symptom of failing masculinity where the woman is not provided proper containment in a relationship to feel safe and secure enough to love unconditionally which would lead to submission within all aspects of the relationship.

LOVE

And from this perversion of sexuality, the ability to form deep, meaningful and intimate bonds is at stake. The feminised man deems himself unworthy of masculinity and so either seeks refuge within himself and others like him or becomes fully feminised and looking to be used by those he deems masculine.

Of course, these are extremes but they do exist.

And what of the average man?

Well, recent events seems to have put a halt on men wanting to get romantically involved with women. The MeToo movement was the spark followed by Time’s Up and the demand for more female-only spaces along with putting more and more women in typically masculine roles and is it really any wonder that the average man doesn’t approach a woman? If the message is that men are not wanted then it will be heeded by the majority and men will cease to engage. Except the very men that these movements and demands are supposed to be against; The ‘bad boys’, the rapists, the harassers, the abusers, etc. Those ones will still be available. In fact, with more men out the picture, these guys will treat the additional abundance of women like it’s open season.

Is that what these Feminist movements were supposed to bring about? Less eligible men for women and a deeper concentration of the scum they detest?

Perhaps it was. Perhaps these movements were to speak to the rational, intelligent men who would recognise that dealing with women was no longer worthwhile.

And the big nail in the coffin? Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard.

Whilst that now in/famous case took place less than two years ago, it highlighted to men that even a man as rich, famous, influential and beloved as Johnny Depp could be brought to the brink of ruin by the machinations of an aggrieved woman.

But I’m not here to just bash the Feminists. Oh, no. I am discussing the feminised man here and the reduction of masculinity.

In relationships, I have watched men get so settled that they regress into being a teenager again and the woman becomes their surrogate mother. It’s sad to watch, but when neither want to marry and raise a family, something’s going to give. With women being conditioned to become more masculine, they believe they have to do everything to prove how much of a ‘boss’ they are. From running the relationship, the house, having a career, having ambition, doing DIY to cooking, cleaning and even paying for the holidays.

What does the guy do? He’s effectively the sleeping partner earning less and contributing what little he can because the woman in his life insists on doing all of it. Not unlike a traditional man. And the man is now more like the traditional woman except they don’t do much in the way of the domestic chores. They might build the odd shed or poorly plan a trip to the cinema, but these feminised men don’t do well in relationships with masculinised women. Sure, they may try to assert themselves, but their attempts end up coming across as feeble and whiny.

And then there’s the hissy fits; The tantrums when they don’t get what they want. It’s ugly watching a grown man go off uncontrollably over something trivial like not putting up a shelf straight.

Just how are these men supposed to function when they are not settled or stable within their own masculinity?

And how are they supposed to be when they enter a relationship with a masculinised woman that channels her maternal instinct towards him, treating him as the child since Feminism dictates that women should no longer bear children?

The problem with such a set up is that the man knows deep down he should be doing what he can to look after the woman, but is being outmuscled by the very woman he’s in the relationship with. It causes frustration, shame, humiliation and guilt over being unable to perform their masculine role, if that is indeed their natural role. It causes a severe imbalance as the feminised male struggles with the conflicting messages. On the one hand, they want to support their woman in everything she wants to do as they believe this is what the modern man should do whilst, simultaneously, struggling with their internal monologue that they should be engaging in the more ‘manly’ aspects of the relationship.

Ultimately, from my own observations, this setup tends to break down within two years. The woman does everything whilst the man ends up giving up trying and just goes along for the ride not unlike a traditional heterosexual relationship except that the woman has proven her value to the man by birthing children and taking care of the house. This doesn’t usually happen when it’s a masculinised woman and feminised man. The woman does the masculine and feminine tasks whilst the man tends to regress into an appendage. Put simply, feminised men are of no use to women and society in general as they have no inherent value i.e. the ability to give birth and be sexually desirable.
And so, within the context of a relationship, the feminised man is a source of resentment, lack of accountability, poor discipline and immaturity across the board. To me, this is the toxic masculinity the Feminists and the Media warn us about. A man with no purpose but full of rage, resentment and bitter, violent thoughts is a vile creature.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So, what to do? The gender experiment has gone on long enough, in my view. We’ve had about a century of gender-bending people and found what?

Well, the global economy, on the whole, has been doing better thanks to corporations being far more productive due to having men and women in the workplace. And that’s about it. Whilst the material world has been enhanced through improvements in technology and processes, men and women are, on the whole, more miserable.

And why should that be a surprise? The family unit has been degraded to a series of money-making scams whilst men and women are pitted against each in work, play and love which, ultimately, benefits greedy, soulless, destructive corporations. As I said in the previous part, I strongly believe governments around the developed world saw an excellent opportunity to exploit a bunch of disgruntled women, took it, included some big corporations and now, several generations later, people are less happy, they don’t want to date, they don’t want to have as much sex, in fact, they generally don’t want to engage with other people.

What we need is a chance for community to come back. For men and women to meet in more natural settings where they can meet each other as they truly are. Not the ‘go-getter’ at the office who’s adamant on climbing the corporate ladder or the gym bunny who thinks she’s too fat whilst everyone else knows she’s fine as she is or the gym bro who thinks he’s too skinny and needs to bulk up to be considered attractive to women.

In truth, we are not wired to get together in fleeting circumstances. We got this far as a species because we worked, lived, played and loved together. People grew with each other and learned to appreciate the person for exactly who they were rather than who they wanted them to be or whatever society and the media says they should be.

And, at present, the media, specifically the media, has been demanding women be more like men and men be more like women. Who do you think tells them to pump this shit? The same governments and corporations that started all this.

And all the while, it’s the average man and woman that suffers as we are forced into realms that don’t belong to us. I’ll reiterate, there have always been masculine women and feminine men. It’s the perverse conditioning of feminine women into becoming masculinised and masculine men into becoming feminised that I am against.

The problem now is getting both sides to acknowledge, admit and accept that it’s happened and is happening. Only then can we start to reconcile, reset and rebuild our relationship with each other.

Perhaps we should even bring religion back. That was another casualty that quietly died off in the prevailing decades of the Feminist movement. What else could stand in the way of women’s true liberation but a patriarchal organisation hellbent on serving God, Jesus and preserving the sacred union between man and woman. Heck, every religion, even Satanism albeit more carnal and debauched, values the sanctity of the bond between man and woman.

And I think we have it. Men with no purpose and women with too much purpose causes everyone feel more miserable. The answer to reversing this, it seems, is church or some contemporary variant. That coupled with allowing men to become masculine and provide that safety and security so that women can become feminine once again and embrace their need to be mothers and pillars of communities.

Maybe then, the world can be a bit more right as we’ll have righted the people in the world a bit more.

A WordPress.com site

About the blog

ThoughtfulMeanderings is a blog that discusses a wide variety of topics and issues, sometimes in ways not covered elsewhere. Don’t forget to follow me on:

Newsletter

Subscribe to my email newsletter full of inspiring stories about my journey that continues.

Designed with WordPress.com

Socio-Cultural Meander: Fe/male

A few months ago, I was given a recommendation to watch the documentary, Adult Human Female. I’ve included the video below:

Not what it says on the tin.

In my cynical optimism, I acted on the recommendation half-expecting the documentary to be about the celebration of all things female and feminine as well as the struggles of being a woman in modern times.

Instead, as fully expected, the documentary was a bunch of talking heads discussing the ‘trans issue’. That is, men who have decided, or are compelled, to identify, and live as, the opposite gender. I say gender not sex because sex is fixed at the genetic level. Gender is sex-based behaviour and, I believe, can be fluid since there have been effeminate men and masculine women for God knows how long.

The more I watched this documentary, which is around 90 mins in length so quite short, the more I realised why they were exclusively discussing the problems with trans-women.

They were feminists. Mostly academics at that, hailing from the social sciences. And because of that, they can’t talk about all that is female and feminine. It goes against ‘equality’, you see.

This has bothered me for some years but watching this documentary just condensed the issue in that concise runtime. For decades, the feminist movement has, in essence, been pushing women to become more and more like men. Women should work like men, be paid like men, have sex like men, own cars and property like men, run businesses like men, etc, etc.

This documentary distilled, quite unwittingly I’m sure, how masculine women have become. Or, at least, how masculine they have been conditioned to be. The complete absence of any discussion about femininity in this documentary should serve as evidence of that.

And it highlighted another issue that’s been floating around in recent years – the ‘trans movement’ is the response to the feminist one in that, if women are to be encouraged to enter traditionally male spaces, then why can’t men enter traditionally female ones?

It’s likely escaped many that, over the last several decades, the push has been uni-directional. Women are to operate in the male domains and yet, has there been a call for men to operate in the female domains? Where women are being encouraged to foster careers in business, finance, engineering, etc, where is the same call for men to become nurses, primary school teachers or run childcare services?

There isn’t one.

Why is that?

Without looking into it, the first thing that springs to mind is tax.

When the first wave of feminism was in its infancy, I believe governments in the West saw an opportunity. Here we have a group of disgruntled women who believed that they should be given the same rights as men. Why they think they should have them is unimportant to governments. Maybe they’ve been forced to live alone because men didn’t find them attractive; maybe they were too disagreeable; they may have been infertile and hated their functional sisters and their happy families. Doesn’t matter. The point is, the first right they wanted was the one to vote and to then take part in matters of public discourse. Did they seek to usurp men thinking themselves morally superior? Who knows.

But that there provided an excellent opportunity for exploitation.

First – a 19th Century definition of voting from the National Archives:

“In order to vote, a person had to own property or pay certain taxes to qualify, which excluded most working class people. There were also constituencies with several voters that elected two MPs to Parliament, such as Old Sarum in Salisbury.”

Now, that defintion doesn’t explicitly state that women weren’t allowed to vote. If rich enough to own property and pay these ‘certain’ taxes, it wouldn’t matter what sex you were. Governments aren’t sexist when money is concerned.

But in order for women to be given the vote, they’d have to pay tax. From 1869 in the UK, women started entering the workforce ergo they could pay tax thus providing the conditions to vote. In 1928, British women over 21 could vote under Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928.

To put this into context, let’s look at the following extract from this government table:

These are the figures for the female population in the UK in Mid-1928. The top row is the age range and the bottom is the population within that age range. Look at everything from 20-24 onwards. I won’t ask you to total it up because it’s 13,925,400. That figure would represent the potential maximum number of voters the UK government would have gained by having allowed women into the workplace since 1869. It also represents the additional taxpayers the UK government had gained since 1869.

It is here that I’d argue the decline of the feminine began in this country. The traditional contract was that the man’s work was to exchange his time, labour, knowledge and skills for money which would be used to allow the woman to carry out her work of being mother to her children and caretaker of the household. Here, she would nurture, nourish and encourage her children in areas relevant to their circumstances. Depending on the socio-economic status of the parents, the children would either, once old enough, be put to work at a mill or a farm or sent away to be formally educated.

But bringing women into workplace en masse saw the beginning of the end of the previously luxurious position of being able to give up working to focus on motherhood and raising a family. Something that working to middle class women were not previously afforded. Until Feminism.

It is not to say that there are no benefits from this venture. For the first time, the majority of women were not reliant on a husband to provide stable income. For the first time, the majority of women could pursue careers that allowed them to fulfill the upper eschalons of Maslow’s Hierarchy. Today, we have more female CEO’s, directors, entrepreneurs and managers than at any other point in recorded history.

Whilst that has helped boost the economies of the countries where such workplace shifts have taken place, it has made one thing abundantly clear.

Women have become men.

It has long been, and still remains, the domain of the masculine to have an external purpose that makes death worthwhile. Because men do not have the ability to create life, they cannot mature emotionally or mentally from within. Men must go out and face the dangers and struggles set by the world and either overcome them or die. That still rings true today. Men make up the bulk of criminals, addicts and homeless; the very ones who stood against the world and crumbled before it.

And yet, women are not men in this regard. They are more likely to get social housing, benefits, and access to food, water and medicine if they have hit rock bottom. On the streets of my home city of Glasgow, I look at the queues for the food banks and, I’d say, at least 70% are men.

So, at the very bottom of Western society, women are not men for the most part. At the upper end, it has become the case.

Work

I am a consultant and my clients are major organisations operating in various sectors. What I have noticed over the last 10 years or so is that there is little difference between how female managers act compared to male ones. They can be just as aggressive, assertive and arrogant, sometimes more so because they are, seemingly, having to over-compensate since they are still under the impression that they are a fairly rare entity in the business world and have to fight that bit harder to stay where they are.

My observations and experience have been quite the opposite.

From the age of 19, I have worked in Finance and I have had 9 female line managers and 4 male line managers. At my last client, (a major insurance broker) the bulk of the floor was made up of women. The Global Head was a woman; her deputy was a woman and all the team managers and assistant managers were women. Hell, most of the teams were all women. And that was one floor in their Glasgow office. If I spoke to anyone in London, bar my boss who was male, I’d be speaking to a woman. I worked in Special Projects and only myself and a Senior Finance Manager were men. The rest were women.

My current client (a major supermarket) sees me engaging with more women than men as well, however, the trend continues. It’s the managers that are female. The people that do the day-to-day running of things. The problem-solvers are men. The people that fix things to make sure they can keep running are men, myself included.

So, what does this tell me? Well, maybe women aren’t quite so much men after all in the workplace. However, I’m doing to disagree with what I just said because I know that a lot of those women don’t want to be there. They don’t want to have to lead and make big decisions. They’re doing it but I can see it drains them.

With my current client, I am helping a number of women. A project manager, a business analyst and several end users of various specialisms. They all defer to me when it comes to making decisions. With the end users, I expect that. They’re not supposed to know anything about what I’m helping with. The analyst and the project manager, on the other hand, do have a say in what gets done and how. And yet, I am being deferred to.

Now, to be fair, it is just as likely that it is because I have been brought in as an experienced professional that my advice is being sought after, however, it’s not my place to make the decisions since I don’t work for the company and don’t know it as fully as they do. And yet, I have been deferred to to make significant decisions. Indeed, the only other person who is deferred to is the Financial Planning and Analysis Lead. Another man.

Similarly, with my insurance broker client, the Global Head would confide almost weekly about how there was too much to do and that she was drowning in work (a phrase my ex used a lot, funnily enough). She wasted two half-days with meetings consisting of about 10 people (half flew up from London) where she proceeded to try and effectively do the job she’d borrowed me for. What was produced was a mess but that’s to be expected since she’s an accountant and not experienced in the breadth of business areas I am. And yet, she still felt the need to prove something. It didn’t work and I still had to go away and fix it which was the job she’d borrowed me for in the first place. The impression given was that she had to at least appear to be trying to do something to make the integration of a recently acquired company’s processes easier. I could tell she just needed someone to come along and fix it for her. I did because that’s why she borrowed me from the project I was supposed to be on which was having a delayed start.

During my career, I have heard a number of women in fairly senior positions express how they’d prefer to be at home or be a ‘kept woman’. Of course, such admissions will never make it to the papers since that would create a huge feminist backlash. ‘If women want to go back home then feminism hasn’t been done properly!’, I hear them cry.

And don’t take my word for it. This Time article looks at a survey showing that 56% of American women with children under 18 would prefer to stay at home whilst 39% with children over 18 had the same preference.

What does that say? It tells me that there are a lot women that do not want to be in the workplace. And why would they? Whether you’re a high or low earner, the situation is very similar. They are working for people that simply do not have the same level of care for them that a family would. Does a company find it amazing whenever Jean bakes her chocolate chip cookies? No. They are devoured but not treasured. A family would make an occasion over something so simple because it’s showing gratitude for an an act of love and care. That same act is not treated the same way in the workplace. Believe me, I’ve eaten many a homebaked cake, biscuit, pie, etc at work and it has not endeared those people to me in the same way as my gran’s shortbread or my mum’s mince pies. There tends to be an underlying agenda with baked goods in the office. To quote the excellent Valve game, Portal – “The cake is a lie.”

But I digress. In order for women to make it in the corporate world, they must adopt a masculine persona. This does not come easily to many and I have seen the strain it puts on them as they are drained of femininity. In fact, one senior manager at a previous client seemed to adopt a coping strategy with her clothes. On days where she was having big meetings, she would sport a black pencil skirt suit and heels. When she was not having meetings, she wore long, flowing skirts, pumps, frilly tops and lots of necklaces.

Now, we could argue that women would have a better time of it in the workplace if it were more feminine. Why must business, engineering, technology, etc be so masculine. The feminists would have us believe we’re all the same. That there are no differences between men and women.

This says different.

The article linked above discussed the gender-equality paradaox. That is, when a country becomes more gender-equal, the chance of sex-typical jobs being chosen increase. In large part, this comes down to the biology of each sex. Women are more people-oriented whilst men are more thing-oriented.

However, most people-oriented professions don’t pay well despite being of high social value. A nurse in the UK gets paid an average salary of £34,000 which, whilst above national average, is not on par with a doctor at an average salary of £76,000. There is certainly more risk and responsibility in being a doctor and it helps with the ladies.

That drive to be accomplished so that he may be deemed worthy of passing on his genes is a huge factor in why men aspire to be a high-ranking professional. Simply put…it’s sexy. Women are drawn to man who is competent, accomplished and can keep control of himself under pressure. Being a risk-taker shows a man’s willingness to assert dominance over any domain. Again, a highly attractive trait.

No man wanted to be a rockstar, surgeon, fighter pilot, actor or athlete purely on the virtue of the occupation alone. Getting laid by, preferably, numerous women is the subconscious objective.

So, why is there this push to get women operating in the same spaces and at the same level as men?

Without evidence, my bet is on companies wanting to increase their profitability and less to do with women actually wanting those jobs. They are told it’s great for them and they can be ‘strong and independent’ if they are in control of their career?

How many believe that?

I point now to this Harvard Business Review article from 2002 which discusses the myth of women being able to ‘have it all’. Over 20 years ago, this article was published yet its relevance remains today as nothing has moved on for women wanting children whilst also holding down a career.

The article states that, in the United States, 33% of executive women aged 41-55 are childless. That rises to 42% at corporate level. And yet, despite yearning for a child, they do not have one.

‘In the words of one senior manager, the typical high-achieving woman childless at midlife has not made a choice but a “creeping nonchoice.”’

Having read the article, I concluded that this adopting of a masculine persona masks a woman’s feminine nature and, therefore, her primary evolutionary purpose to the point that the gentle ticking of the biological clock becomes more a gong or air-raid siren the closer to menopause she is. And yet, for many, it’s too late.

Masculinising women in the workplace may indeed be good for business. After all, if you can double your high and low-skilled workforces, you increase your profits. On top of that, by utilising women’s more agreeable nature, a businesss is more likely to get what it wants in the way it wants it. In short, I see this century-old push to get women out of the home and into the workplace as nothing but a huge profitability exploit for both business and government. And who’s in charge of both?

Equal Is Not The Same

The ugly side of delusional feminism.

I’m now entering the meat of what I want to say. The video above is of a male team (Wrexham A.F.C) comprised of former and retired professional football (soccer) players against members of the current US women’s team. The match was 40 minutes of two halves of 20 minutes. I must note that, at the time, the USA were the women’s world champions and ranked number one in the world.

The result? 12-0 to Wrexham.

I have played football since I was boy on the school playground, in parks, on 5-a-side pitches and full size pitches. I can tell you that the men weren’t really trying. In fact, it looked like the men didn’t want to score.

And yet, before the match, the women’s captain aggressively stated that the men would be ‘going down’. Where, exactly? Hell, maybe since they fought against their nature for the sake of money.

But wait. We’ve got it all wrong. According to this article, the result was out of context. The US co-captain, Heather O’ Reilly, said, at half-time, that “We’re super proud, so happy to be here at this event,” and that “Hopefully we’ve proven to anybody, just go for it, just live.” followed by “What’s the worst thing that could happen? We could lose 16-0 to Wrexham? We don’t care. We’re living, we’re being bold, we’re being brave.”

So, it doesn’t matter. The loss means nothing because they are being ‘bold’, ‘brave’ and ‘living’. And if it was just a kick around, sure. A friendly Guys vs Girls match would just be a bit of fun. But when you’re a the number one professional women’s national team going up against male former professional players and competing for $1million then treating the match like it had no meaning is stupidly arrogant. Where’s the integrity and humility? Where’s the accountability for the loss and acknowledgment that you were beaten by a better team? If it were another women’s team, I’m sure there’d be generous amounts of honour but since this was a bunch of ‘old’ men, what does it matter? They don’t deserve any respect, right? Let’s just be disgraceful losers and rebrand our behaviour to justify it.

This attitude does not only occur in sport. It has been rife in mainstream Hollywood films and TV shows for the last 5-8 years. The latest Charlie’s Angels reboot, the all-female Ghostbusters, Netflix’s The Witcher, Amazon’s Rings of Power and anything by Disney from Avengers Endgame onwards.

They all have female leads that abandon femininity, embrace the worst aspects of masculinity and then proceed to go on a destructive path. If they were men, they’d be called selfish jerks at best. But, since they’re female, they are ‘strong, independent women’.

But if this is the type of conditioning that young women are being exposed to then the coming generations will be in trouble. Having a generation of women raised to become narcisisstic, crass, vulgar, emotionally numb and deepy insecure does not make them strong or independent. It makes them weak and scared but they lack the emotional intelligence to recognise and acknowledge it and so will just carry on like it’s everyone else’s fault.

And, on the other side, we have boys raised by single mothers who become what previous generations cried out for from a man – Being in touch with his Feminine Side so he’s comfortable being emotionally vulnerable. But when you have a emotionally mature, kind, caring and, dare I say, soft man come up against a woman whose best male role models were abusers, rapists, harassers and manipulators, then it won’t end well for either. The man will be emotionally and mentally bruised, if not scarred whilst the woman flees and eventually regrets her actions but thinks she’s unworthy of forgiveness and redemption and therefore just goes deeper into the pit of despair. I’ve seen it all too often.

In days gone by, such an interaction would have been the other way round. It would be the woman trying to soften the hardened man, scared she may be rejected but is strong enough to risk it out of deep care. And the man would have been hardened by either war or work where he’s seen his fair share of things going fatally wrong that he shuts himself off and becomes a drone. Now, we have emotionally stable men trying to let emotionally unstable women know the world can be safe and comfortable. That they can relax. But many of those women have been too scarred and just think it a trick on the man’s part to gain control of her. It’s Beauty and the Beast gender-swapped and perverted.

And that, dear reader, is a failing on many of the societal structures that played an integral part in keeping the relationship between men and women strong and healthy. Whether it be religion, schools, communities or families, they’ve all been broken down to the point where that sacred relationship is now fracturing.

For women, the focus is less on marriage and family but career and fun. The trouble is that fun is the domain of children and career the domain of men. Many women have jobs. Few have a career as that requires motivation to keep moving up the ladder whether in one organisation or across many. In my experience, the highest I’ve seen women go has been to senior management level and even then, it’s not many compared to men. I’ve never met a female director. When we talk of the glass ceiling, I don’t believe it’s an invisible barrier placed by men to ‘keep women down’. I think it’s the point at which most women decide to stop progressing in the workplace. And the reason for that, I’d argue, is twofold – One, they realise the workplace does not make them as fulfilled as they were led to believe and, Two – they want to start a family.

But a lot of the women I’ve encountered who have stagnated career-wise haven’t switched over and started families. They’ve concentrated on fun. Go see how many women you can find who are over thirty-five, single, not had a promotion since their late-twenties but insist on having fun. It’s a lot more than you think.

As I said earlier, fun is for children. It is where you can safely engage in an activity where there are no consequences or drawbacks. No real commitment is required either since it’s not serious. Fun doesn’t matter once it’s over.

And hence, I say any woman who regards herself as ‘fun’ should be treated with caution. For this is another aspect of the modern female I’ve observed where they engage in behaviour that is similar to men but without the context. Men may well be enthusiastic when it comes to taking part in activities whether it’s getting hammered with the boys, playing sport, watching games or films, playing computer games together or talking about their favourite things over a drink. What the modern woman fails to realise is that these interactions are all competitions because men are competitive and combative. As the more aggressive sex, we challenge each other when together. If that challenge is met competently and calmly, that man will earn the honour and respect of the others. On the outside, some of these activites may appear mindless (Take any Top Gear challenge, for example) but the purpose is to check that each member of the group is capable of taking on a real challenge when it comes and whatever form it may be in. Yes, the men may have real fun doing it but it only becomes fun when each group member pulls their weight.

And these tests continue until death. How many women would actively engage in being tested by their peers in such a manner? Not many, I’d wager.

And so, having groups of women acting as if they’re ‘having fun’ just like a group of men is akin to a group of battle reenactment actors going up against an actual army. One group might like to think they’re soldiers whilst the other actually are soldiers.

Having spent their teens and twenties at university and, presumably, holding down a job, many women get to their thirties and forties and find themselves in a stalemate – Give up the career or give up on being a mother and grandmother. Which would the biggest regret on their deathbed, I wonder? Working longer and harder to become a department head of a company that doesn’t care or mother to children that love and cherish her existence?

This article looks at the ever decreasing spiral that is Western birthrates. Whilst I agree with most of what it says, what it fails to address, or admit given the author is a woman, is that by abandoning the basic function of being a woman, the feminist movement will, ultimately, if nothing is done, see the human race wipe itself out. Encouraging women to act more like men will not result in any liberation except for the liberation of existence.

And this is another facet of being a man that women are getting wrong. A man’s career is his purpose. It is his way of protecting and caring for his wife and children. If the woman is also in the workplace, who’s looking after the children? By being in the workplace along with the men, they are being put into direct competition with those they are meant to love, honour and protect.

Men are part of the Artifical Order, therefore, through the creation of artefacts, we provide value to the species. From spears and fire to roads, paper, buildings, computers, cars, etc, a man’s labour culminates in the creation of something that, ultimately, doesn’t occur naturally.

Women belong to the Natural Order meaning they belong to the creative force which is Nature since their primary purpose is to bring about the next generation of humanity. What Feminism is doing is eroding femininity in favour of masculinity which will, if it continues down its chosen path, see the human race extinct through women actively choosing to not perform the single most important job in all of humanity.

To give birth!

With declining fertility rates in 97% of countries, the population will age rapidly in the 2040’s and it will be partly down to women being encouraged to forego having children. In reality, we need to learn to reembrace, support, celebrate and love the Mother rather than continue to shun Her. To not do so will ensure annihilation.

Sport

By conditioning women into this masculine persona, the erosion of male and female relations has been occuring. Take the football example from earlier. By so blindly believing they can beat men at physical activity, it highlights to serve that some women are so far removed from their femininity that they may well believe themselves to be men. And if that is the case, then maybe feminism has achieved an element of equality albeit misguided.

And misguided it is. In 2013, Serena Williams (then women’s tennis no.1) went on record to say that she’d never play Andy Murray (then men’s tennis no.2) as he would ‘destroy’ her. She acknowledged the differences between the men and women’s game and accepted that men are nastier and more brutal.

However, as a teenager, Serena and her sister, Venus, did play against German male tennis player, Kaarsten Braasch, in 1998. Both teenagers, they played Braasch (then ranked outside the Top 200) for one set each and lost to the German.

Serena has famously, or not so, played against Roger Federer. In 2019, the pair played against each other in a mixed doubles match for the Hopman Cup tournament. Switzerland beat the USA in straight sets.

Setting aside single instances, it’s concerning that these physical contests between men and women seem to be on the increase as though driven by this same deranged mentality that there are no differences between the sexes. In WWE, there are mixed-sex matches, however, the women get to hit the men whilst the men must restrain themselves against the women. Here’s an example.

All’s fair when the man can’t hit back.

In this match, not only is the male opponent smaller than the female but he actively assists in helping Rhea Ripley perform her manoeuvres. On top of that, he doesn’t attack or defend himself and spends the whole match being used by Rhea.

It’s also equality when the woman hits back against a woman.

In the above match highlights, forward to 3.45, Rhea Ripley does not show the same strength when performing a similar move against her female competitor, Liv Morgan. Yet, in the match I showed against Akira, go to 2.36, she lifts him with ease. Note, Akira pushes against her so he’s actually supporting her to complete the move.

I know WWE is hardly a standard bearer for gender relations but the fact that this is going on in such a popular entertainment format begs the question – What happens when young girls see this and start picking fights with boys thinking they can just throw them around?

Glad you asked because it’s already happening:

Equality until it isn’t

There’s a plethora of these Man vs Woman videos about but this won had decent variety for it’s reasonably short length. The point here is to illustrate that, even in the military, most of the time, the man is beating the woman. The only times a woman beats a man is if she’s professional and he’s not or she has a significant weight advantage over the man i.e. she’s twice his size or greater.

And what you’ll notice when you go an watch such videos is that, going by the footage, the men involved are good men. How do I know? They’re not humiliating the women straight away. They’re being gentle and letting the women they’re going up against be cocky. But there comes a point in each encounter when the woman thinks she has the man and that’s when he steps in and puts her down. He’s a gentleman until she stops being a lady.

In 2007, Wimbledon was the last of the major tournaments in tennis to offer equal prize money for men and women. Both winners get £2.35m whilst the runner-up gets £1.175m. Great for equality but then, equality doesn’t always mean fair.

Where the women play best of three sets, the men play best of five so, already, the men are effectively underpaid as they are doing more work and have been since the ‘Open Era’ of tennis started in 1968.

The men

This is a dangerous and stupid road we’re heading down. In my home city of Glasgow, it’s the women that are becoming more and more aggressive to the men. Shouting, screaming and hitting. I see it on the streets. The men, for the most part, just take it because they can. They take it because they have to. The consequences for retaliation are more severe since, as mentioned previously, the laws are made to predominantly keep men in line because men know how violent men can be.

But how far does it go with female aggression that it becomes reasonable for a man to retaliate without recourse? Why does it even have to go far at all? Are women seeing themselves so much as men that they believe they can start being verbally and physically aggressive? Going from what I see more regualrly and footage I’ve found, it seems so.

And why is that?

Simple.

Men have an instinct to protect women. I’ll rephrase that. I like to think that most men have a protective instinct since there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary to say that all men have this.

For those that do, how much of that is being eroded?

Over the last five years, I’ve found myself less likely to step in when a woman looks to be in a vulnerable state. The amount of harassment cases in the press (how much of it is spin is uncertain) makes it less worthy of a man’s time now to stand up and help a woman out when it’s clear she’s in need of help, even in danger. The endless messaging of how women now are ‘strong and independent’ and ‘don’t need a man’ have been blasting over the PA of the Internet loud enough that many men have heard it loud and clear and packed up and shipped off where they can be on their own and at peace.

The current MGTOW (Men Go Their Own Way) and Red Pill movements have been a direct response to the aggressive feminist messaging of recent times. If women don’t need a man, fine. The supply of men will be voluntarily reduced by those that don’t need the hassle of such a woman. It’s not that they don’t a want relationship. Many do, but if all they’re going to get is hounded and harassed for not living up to the standards the woman has set then, in their eyes, it’s simply not worth it.

And the trouble with such messaging is that it’s predominantly the good men that hear the messages and take action to avoid women as much as possible. And if more of those good men take heed then women end up with a pool of the kind of men they don’t want for a relationship but can be a lot of fun for a night with potentially lifelong ramifications.

Equality’s alright if he looks like a woman, I suppose.

One woman. One man. One ring. Okay, most men will have disowned this excuse for having the gall to enter a ring with a real woman and pretend he’s not a he. Which, by willingly having a fight with a woman, he ain’t. He can stay trans but that’s providing the women take him which, based on this, I don’t think they will.

The male (going by the alias, Alana Mclaughlin) was untrained and unskilled in Mixed Martial Arts and went up against Celine Provost, a skilled female amateur.

For most of the match, the male, I’ll call him Alan, was clumsily reluctant about engaging his female opponent.

Between minutes 12 and 14 is where Alan let go and left Celine crouching above a pool of her own blood whilst the commentator declared the match ‘a victory for the trans community’.

Really? Watching a man beat up a woman for sport is now a victory? And why is it?

To be dealt with in the next part.

The troubling thing here is that Celine did go along with the match. I have no information on why she did so I can only assume she thought it would raise her profile. If you look at her expression when the referee declares the winner, she looks utterly baffled by what’s happened to her. It seems clear she’s never been hit the way Alan hit her. And neither she should have.

I’ve purposely avoided mentioning the ‘T’ word again as I’ll go through it more in the next part. But, I wanted to use that instance to show that men (albeit heavily diluted ones) are being pitted against women for sport.

Where to from there? It’s already happening in cycling, swimming, running, netball, basketball, volleyball, etc. Men, under the disguise of Trans identification, are taking over women’s sport.

To Be So Equal, It’s Unequal

One arena where there has been a huge push for more women is Formula One. Already, a highly exclusive sport where, in a given season, there are 20-24 spots available. There, gender isn’t a direct barrier. Money, talent, skill, discipline and determination are as much the barrier as physicality. Women have tried and, in its 73-year history, only five women made it to the grid. In 1980, Desiré Wilson won the Brands Hatch round of the British Aurora F1 Championship, a UK-specific offshoot of F1 proper.

Aside from that sole victory, the most successful proper female F1 driver has been Lella Lombardi who made 12 starts from 17 entries and managed to score points.

The last woman to enter F1 was in 1992 where Giovanna Amati drove for Brabham. She made three entries but no starts.

What’s interesting about Giovanna is that she never won any of the lower formulas. Ordinarily, you have to win the feeder series’ before getting a shot at F1. Giovanna was somehow signed with no titles to her name.

In the 21st Century, there have been concerted efforts to get more women on the grid of F1. Scotland’s Suzie Wolff came close and even got to test a Williams F1 car and eventually signed as a test and development driver in 2012. Another high profile figure was Carmine Jordá who signed a deal with Lotus in 2015 to have a run in the car.

Of all the efforts to get a woman on the grid, none have made it. The situation got so tense that demands were made to grant a woman a place. Bernie Ecclestone, then owner of the sport, wouldn’t allow it and instead another solution was to be found. The result was the W Series. A womens-only formula.

That is to say that segregating the women from the men to then allow a woman to compete against the men in the most elite motorsport was the only solution that could be found?

Why not just have them do what every man has done? Go out and compete against the men fair and square. Is that not equality? As I mentioned, in that sport, if you have the money, talent, skill, discipline and determination then you take your shot and make the most of it. Thousands upon thousands of men and boys have tried and failed to get into one of those hallowed seats, so why should women be any different?

“I think any platform that gives females an equal opportunity, that is great. Or even just a leg up, because we haven’t ever had it. Women deserve a leg up, and the W Series provides that and I have no issue with that. The best drivers will come out of it and hopefully it will then make [F1] team bosses see them a bit more.”

That was Claire Williams back in 2021. She’s the team principal of Williams Racing, a team founded by her late father, Frank. I couldn’t find any elaboration on why she thinks women specifically deserve a leg up in F1 when it doesn’t actively exclude women as proven by the very fact she is the team principal of a Formula One team. But then, she did inherit the position from her father after he’d built it up to being one of the most successful teams in the history of the sport, so…

With Jamie Chadwick winning all three W Series championships and with sponsors struggling with the feasibility of the championship, the series went into administration in the middle of June 2023.

And yet, Alice Powell, an original entrant from the inaugural 2019 season, insists “W Series DID NOT fail”.

Why?

She said, to the BBC, “At the end of the day, W Series got me out racing again, whether you agreed with the championship or not.”

Well, as long as she got some racing from the hundreds of millions spent that, ultimately, went down the drain. She had some fun, didn’t she? That’s all that matters. How can it have failed if they all got some racing out of it?

Because it failed in its objective of getting a woman a seat in F1. No matter how many prominent male and female figures backed this series, it did not achieve what it set out to do.

In addition, not only did the sponsors deem it unviable, so did the fans. Averaging 710,000 viewers, it compared poorly against F1 and its average of 70.3million viewers with cumulative figures of 1.54billion. Formula 3, W Series’ equivalent, has enjoyed a peak of 188million. Couldn’t find stats on average viewership though.

So, why continue to push for something that neither sponsors are willing to back and viewers aren’t willing to watch? F3 and F2 are lower tier race series but they are still watched by millions around the world. Granted, they are older than the W Series but, in reality, viewers aren’t as bothered by that as sponsors.

It all comes down to racing. If it’s good enough, people will watch regardless of whether it’s men or women in the cars.

I’ll go back to tennis. Huge numbers of viewers for both men and women’s iterations. Clearly, audiences love seeing the best women go against each other just as much as they love watching the best men try and win against each other. But not motorsport. Not football. Not rugby. Not boxing. Yes, to MMA and WWE but no to basketball.

What’s the common denominator?

I’ll tell you. The sports where, at elite level, women are trying to compete with men, they fail because women cannot compete at that same level. The WNBA is the peak of female basketball but that peak is not the same peak as the NBA. With W Series, Jamie Chadwick may have wiped the floor with her competition but that does not mean she can compete in F1.

Going back to Serena Williams, she has stated that she sees men and women’s tennis as two separate sports based on differences between men and women. That’s fair, reasonable and healthy and should be the same across all sports. There’s no shame in being the best woman in the world at a sport. Why this incessant need to push into men’s territory? It will only, and has, come back to bite them.

Relations

The creep into men’s sport and workplaces has one thing in common – Status.

The shift has been in that direction of high-status positions which come with equally high pay but also, if you’re not careful, high pressure and consequences for failure.

The trouble is that, in pushing women in this direction, we see a further erosion of their feminine nature and this has had serious consequences on their relations with men.

In order to operate at such levels, you need to be competitive, combative, cooperate, aggressive, assertive, driven, clever, strategic and devious as well be able to deliver results on time under immense pressure. In top level positions, you fail once, you’re gone.

This is, and continues to be, the way men operate. We operate like this because we need to show our potential female mate that we are the best mate for her. In doing so, she might grant us the opportunity to pass our genes on thus fulfilling our biological evolutionary purpose. We also do it to show our male peers who’s top dog.

But women don’t have that same purpose. So, what happens when women act like men but then still seek a male partner to have a relationship with and, potentially, start a family with?

In essence, the man ends up dating someone who, whilst physically and biologically female, is emotionally, mentally and spiritually male. Thus, we have a man with XY and a man with XX chromosomes.

The two rarely go together and, I’d argue, it’s the underlying reason for a lot of failed relationships and divorces. They may not know it on a conscious level, but a career-driven woman is only going to try and outdo her career-driven man. Similarly, a career-driven woman will only love a man of little to no ambition or prospects for a time as he’ll feed one aspect of her femininity; That aspect being her maternal instinct. This is problematic but it’s unfortunately common. Instead of having a family, the man ends up being the surrogate child to the woman creating a perverse Oedipal relationship. He takes from her as he’s largely useless but is charming enough to make her blind and she gives because her insecurity keeps her from finding someone who would make her a real wife and mother. Perhaps, on some level, such a woman fears a secure and stable man because that would then cause her to confront her lost femininity. It would also mean she couldn’t control him.

Equally, two driven partners will only go to war against each other as both try to take the wheel of the relationship. In the end, neither win and the relationship runs off the road, crashes and burns. The man, trying to assert his masculinity, is going up against a woman who denies her femininity and tries to assert her masculinity also.

A way I like to think about it is this – You and a partner have started a business. One partner looks after finance and operations and the other looks after sales and marketing. In the beginning, the business is doing well with both partners doing their assigned roles. They’ll discuss matters relating to those roles but don’t interfere in the running of them. But, one day, the sales and marketing partner starts trying to tell the finance and operations partner how to manage the books and structure the company. Initially resistant, the finance and operations partner either gives in or starts hiding things from the sales and marketing partner. With trust broken, the company starts a downhill struggle to which it will never recover. And all because one partner thought they could tell the other how to be better at something they don’t know anything about.

This is the crux of the issue. Women, under feminism, are effectively trying to tell men how to be men whilst trying to be men themselves. But Hell mend any man that tells a woman to be a woman.

For relationships, it’s going to be failure after failure. With loneliness on the rise, feminism has its part to play in this social epidemic that no one is talking about. What’s needed is a return to traditional feminine roles.

But the governments of the world have us pegged there too. Here in the UK, it’s still possible to raise a family on one wage in moderate comfort. That wage is £40,000 and would put the earner into the 75th percentile or bottom of the top 25% of earners, before tax. See how the whole tax and workforce thing from a century ago has come back to haunt us? Now, only one in four people have a chance of the traditional family, economically-speaking. This tradition has only been eroded in the last thirty years or so. And with the manipulation of prices, the wedge between men and women will be driven even deeper until such times that only one in four people can actually support themselves let alone a family.

But is there a more sinister and dangerous objective that drives feminist women to high-status roles?

Let’s play Devil’s Advocate for a moment. One of the tenets of modern feminism is: All women are oppressed.

It’s a blanket statement and it’s one I’ve seen fairly ordinary women believe. The alleged Glass Ceiling is just men keeping women from achieving higher positions and surpassing them. Meanwhile, we’ve had Queens, female Prime Ministers, CEO’s, entrepreneurs, singers, actors, scientists and inventors. Granted, in some arenas, women are not as abundant as men but surely that’s merely down to the differences between men and women?

This leads to another tenet: We’re all equal.

If you’re oppressed, you’re not equal. You’re less. If you subscribe to feminist rhetoric, you are saying that, if we scale it right down, your best friend is also the person who’s been bullying you all your life. One of those is true and the other is denial. You can’t have both.

What can be true is to concede that some women are oppressed. Especially in the Middle East. You do not hear women from the Middle East complain about oppression precisely because they are oppressed and scared for their own lives as well as those of their female friends, mothers, aunts and daughters. A more open, democratic society allows honest discourse and here we have feminists abusing the system, which men built, to demonise the very sex that has granted them the means to speak their mind.

I come back to the video at the top of the post. At 43m 10s, we hear a woman tell of her time in the fire brigade where she ended up leaving because the men ‘made her feel uncomfortable’. She does not go on to explain why or give examples to back up her statement. It is to be accepted. However, by not offering any reason, she’s left herself open to interpretation. Feminists will believe her outright without question whilst others, like myself, would like to know more.

My guess is that, yes indeed, she was made to feel uncomfortable but not because she’s a woman as she alludes to. I’d wager it’s because she wasn’t able to pull her weight and the men had to step in and compensate before something serious happened. In the world of Men, if you’re a liability, you’re gone. Yes, Men will help each other but you must have proven yourself competent first. From my understanding of women, there seems to be more leniency due to a tendency to be more compassionate, caring and understanding. With this woman, I reckon she wasn’t up to whatever task/s were set for her but the men were told to help her since HR, in all likelihood, wanted her there to prove diversity works.

I’m sorry, but I do not see that woman swinging an axe in a burning building and breaking down a door in one go to then go and pick up a 100kg man who’s collapsed from smoke inhalation. All while not panicking.

Which brings me to the third tenet: Believe All Women.

Amber Heard, anyone?

How about Lucy Letby?

Former UK Post Office CEO, Paula Vennells?

Former Natwest CEO, Alison Rose?

Elizabeth Bathory?

Mary I of England?

Amanda Knox?

Hancock Prospecting CEO, Gina Rinehart?

I guess their actions were the fault of Men.

It’s eight examples of women across varying timelines and occupying various echalons of society, but they all know/knew what they were doing. No man had to tell them a thing.

Back in June, I was in Switzerland to see one of my favourite bands, Rammstein, play in Bern. The week of the concert, the media published news of frontman Till Lindeman being alleged to have drugged a female fan to get her to have sex with him. The fan accused him on Twitter of touching her then ‘getting angry’ when she refused to have sex. This all took place at a private, invite-only pre-show event called ‘Row Zero’ where fans get the chance to spend time with the band prior to a show.

On the day of the show in Bern, I turned up to the Wankdorf Stadium to see a crowd of feminist protesters holding placards, shouting and throwing things at the fans. Bare in mind, no investigation had been opened. Only allegations had been put forward. But the protesters not only deemed Till Lindemann guilty, but the crowd too. It seemed that fans, as far as the protesters were concerned, turning up to an event, booked months in advance, and who would have had no idea that allegations would have been presented, are just as at fault as the man who may/may not have done anything.

To make it worse, the police did nothing to move the protesters away from the crowd. They stood and watched as abuse, as well as bottles and cans, were hurled at people, some of whom were young children, who just wanted to see a good show. It was evident the police had chosen a side when they’re job is to maintain social order not encourage and allow social disorder.

The concert itself seemed tainted well before it started and due to the allegations. The crowd were not enthusiastic and the band, whilst they played competently, were not as Teutonically passionate as I’d seen them in previous times. Till himself was uncharacteristically vocal and seemed to get upset with a stage hand who came on to take the pot lid away during the song ‘Mein Teil’, shouting ‘NEIN!’ into the microphone and stomping on the lid to stop the stage hand from taking it away. It was odd behaviour for a man whose entire stage presence is one of stoicism and professionalism.

As it turned out, the female fan backpedalled and said nothing happened which begs the question, why accuse someone of something so serious as attempted rape induced by drugs if nothing happened? Why did Berlin police open a case against Till Lindemann shortly after the Bern concert only to drop it two and a half months later due to a ‘lack of evidence’? One allegation affected, most certainly, one show and no doubt many others as well as the fans, the band, the crew and Till himself.

Rammstein played their remaining 19 shows and concluded their tour on 5th August while the investigation continued before concluding itself on August 29th. Till and the band played to over half a million people to keep their promise to fans whilst the other members of the band stuck with Till to show solidarity and keep their friendship alive. A man’s entire livelihood was threatened, his image to be tarnished and fans , if Bern was anything to go by, may not have gotten Rammstein at their consummate best. All because one woman said Till touched her and got angry. But, then, maybe he didn’t.

This is the severity that many high-profile men have had to deal with, guilty or not. Till Lindeman, and those that follow and support him, all suffered repercussions of one form or another yet were expected to handle them whilst the woman who made the allegations has had no action taken against her despite admitting nothing happened.

Again, this woman offered no explanation to back up her claim. She expected her statement to be taken as fact. And, again, I have to wonder why she would make such a serious claim only to withdraw it completely later.

My guess would be that she went to the Row Zero party with the expectation of trying to get Till to herself. By that, I mean, she wanted to have sex alone with him. I saw some of the women at Bern enter Row Zero and how they were dressed. They were not there intent on discussing music or philosophy.

I reckon that Till may well have wanted to have sex with his future accuser but not alone. Maybe with other women or maybe a mix. She refused, seeing the image she’d dreamed of shatter and got upset and so chose to lash out on Twitter rather than either take the rejection and accept it or accept his terms of engagement. That’s how I think it went down but we’ll never know for sure.

All that being a long-winded way of saying that, no. Not all women should be believed no more than all men should be believed. Not blindly, by any means, that’s for sure.

And so, how does this all fit in with relations? Well, it seems we’re entering a new form of tyranny. One where women get to be both perpetrator and victim at once. In the case of Amber Heard, Johnny Depp did not make her pay the $18million the court said she owed him so she got off exceptionally lightly and will be able to continue to have a life albeit probably not one in Hollywood.

The case against Lucy Letby is already one of softness. Despite murdering babies and denying mothers and fathers their own children, experts have been talking about how she’ll spend her first few years in solitary confinement since other inmates do not take kindly to crimes against children. She will likely be protected initially before being released into the general prison populace and even then, she may get special protection afterwards.

And the Rammstein fan? After an initial backlash on Twitter, it seems her life has returned to normal. The same cannot be said for Till Lindemann and Rammstein. They are touring in 2024 but we’ll see if anymore allegations come to light.

The crux of this is that relations between men and women are becoming more fractured. Men are increasingly not approaching women, either in a sexual or romantic context, precisely because they see cases like those aforementioned and think if it can affect the high status men, it would ruin an ordinary man and so, they do not bother.

And, meanwhile, I see increasingly that more women are perpetuating the notion that ‘all men’ are rapists, cheaters, abusers, etc. It’s hardly surprising since that’s about all the men left available after all the good, single men have decided to not bother with the hassle of having their entire livelihood ruined because one woman took something the wrong way. Better to avoid than suffer the potential consequences.

And if this continues, we’ll find ourselves at a point where men and women do not engage at all.

It’s this aggression and insistence that ‘all men’ are X,Y,Z that is helping to divide the sexes further. And men simply have no way to tackle it since the accusers have all the outwardly intent of a man but as soon as they’re caught and questioned, retreat into female vulnerability. It’s guerrilla warfare of the mind and soul and it will, if allowed to continue, tear us apart.

And where has it come from? Generations of gradually fracturing family units, which brings me to –

The Failure of Men

The masculinisation of women, I think, has as much to do with women as it does men. Specifically, the failure of fathers and husbands. All the abusive, neglectful, hateful, spiteful, bitter, violent men that did not do their duty and love and care for their wives, mothers, daughters, etc. It’s these men who have had a huge impact on the erosion of femininity and the increase in the masculine among women.

I have known women raised by their father who ended up struggling to reconcile their feminine nature with the masculine persona that’s been projected on to them; Or women abused by an uncle who turned to martial arts so they could toughen up and make sure they don’t get taken advantage of again.

There was a woman who’s been through a traumatic childbirth but ended up being treated as nothing more than a child by her father instead of being allowed to rest, heal and grow.

Such actions build resentment in women and I can certainly understand their reluctance to trust a man when their impression of masculinity has been one of control, neglect and abuse.

However, that imprint stays with a lot of young women and they end up attracted to the very same type of man that they hate. They have been programmed and conditioned to be turned on, aroused, get butteflies, the ‘feel’s, however you want to call it, by these destructive male role models only to then want that in a sexual/romantic partner.

Which brings me to –

The Macho Woman

I’m not talking about Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor here. Those women adopted a masculine persona to survive the Hell they’d been put in. But they were naturally feminine women.

I’m talking about this.

The kind of woman who goes out, parties hard, drinks harder, likes to get fucked then goes and picks a fight with another woman so hard the police have to get involved.

Sound familiar with a certain type of man?

The kind that thinks he’s strong, tough and has a way with the ladies, but, in reality, is deeply insecure and only preys on less secure women to make himself feel better.

For the last twenty years or so, we’ve had the female version, the ‘ladette’, here in the UK and she’s in a similar vein. Likes to think she’s strong, tough and can drink as hard as the boys and likes her sex to be fast and rough.

As far as career goes, the macho woman follows suit with her male counterpart. Likes to play up what she does for a living and make herself sound big and important when she’s earning a low to middle income and has no real aspirations or skills to go higher.

And she’ll pick fights for the sake of it just to make sure she’s right.

In truth, she’s broken.

Sex

Integral to relationships between men women is sex. We are now in an age of hookup culture where, just as sixties feminists wanted, women get to fuck like men.

Or do they?

The Pill has all but taken consequence and accountability for a woman’s reckless actions away from her. Historically, if a woman had sex during her fertile period, she’d fall pregnant and it was game over. If she was married, she had a husband to take care of her and her child. If she was married and the child was not her husband’s, she’d either be turned out or her husband would turn cuckold and raise a child that wasn’t his. Neither situation would be ideal as the former could lead to destitution whilst the latter could lead to social ruin.

A woman having a child out of wedlock was frowned upon as the child had no stable home environment.

Now, though it’s alright. A woman can sleep with who she wants, get pregnant and either, kill the embryo or, if she decided to keep it, get state mandated funding from the father. Or just child benefit from the state itself. There are subsidies for childcare if she can’t get her parents or his parents to look after the child while she works, if she works. If she doesn’t, her benefits will increase as a result of the child.

All this is to say that the consequences of unprotected sex are far less severe than they used to be for a woman in the Western world. For a man, they’re the same. Either raise a child you didn’t intend on having and sacrifice some of your time, energy and money or sacrifice a slice of your wages as mandated by the courts. If a man has no intention of being with the mother of his child, then he must be held to account and made to pay. But what of the woman? She was equally irresponsible.

But, no. How could she be? She’s just an innocent woman who was taken advantage of.

Sure. In some cases, that will happen. But there are plenty of instances where such an outcome could have been avoided and plenty where it was planned.

But how does it happen in the first place?

The example I like to use is the case of the insecure man meeting the insecure woman at a bar.

The insecure woman is out with her girlfriends looking for a night of drinking and dancing i.e. that ‘fun’ thing I mentioned earlier. But also, be in consciously or not, she is seeking validation and affirmation as an attractive woman.

Enter the insecure man. His objective is, yes, to be out with the boys for a few drinks and a laugh but it is always to be ‘on the pull’. He is actively seeking validation and affirmation as an attractive man.

But an insecure man differs from a secure man in a number of ways. Where a secure man will look at his surroundings and see if there is a suitable opportunity to naturally approach the woman he’s interested in, the insecure man will either bottle it or throw caution to the wind. If it’s the former, nothing happens and he’ll feel even more insecure. If it’s the latter, he’ll be far more abrupt and forceful.

He spies a group of (macho) women in the bar, steadily drinking themselves into oblivion. A secure man would never approach such women except to maybe get them a taxi. For the insecure man, such a group presents a prime opportunity.

Maybe he has an eye on woman in particular. Maybe, he’s not fussy. Either way, he’s going over with all the tricks of the trade in his head and in his swagger. Faux confidence is full to the brim,

The insecure woman is, as part of the group, out with her friends for good night out, just like her male counterparts. But the main goal for tonight is to have a good night out. No one wants to pull.

However, should an insecure man on the prowl say the right things and push the right buttons, an insecure woman could be swayed to allow herself to be pulled whether she wants it or not.

Why is that?

Well, women want validation of desirability. That desirability is driven by their youth, health and fertility. And in order to get access to that, a man must be able to negotiate his way to it. And in order for him to do that, he must display his masculine traits as well as his dedication to his chosen female.

Now, an insecure woman is easy prey for an insecure man because she’s unsure of her inherent feminine worth. An insecure man is playing at being a genuinely masculine man and so will be reliant on the insecure woman not being able to weed him out.

He whispers sweet nothings, buys her drinks, maybe some food then coerces her back to his place. The pair have sex. He feels great. She…less so. He’s achieved his goal. She feels used.

And she’s right to. Because she was.

The primary evolutuionary purpose of a woman is to give birth. For that, she requires the stability and security offered by a man. She needs that because she’s vulnerable during pregnancy and for many years after giving birth where her child will be dependent on her for care. She needs a man that stable and secure because she needs to be looked after in order for her to look after the child.

In short, she wants a relationship. Something an insecure man can’t offer.

And, as an important addition, the macho woman persona of today’s women conflicts with their femininity. Add on any insecurities and you have a woman that is cripplingly unable to handle the very thing she desires. This has given rise to…

The Femcel

This movement of women, whose male counterpart will be looked at in the next post, is comprised of those who deem themselves to be undesirable and unattractive enough to the men they want that they believe those men will not have sex with them let alone have a relationship with them. In this regard, they have deigned themselves to be involuntarily celibate to the men they want most to have relations with. Instead, they choose to have sex with men they’d rather have nothing to do with just to feel some inkling that they are desirable.

It was this Elle article that gave me some more insight although, I’d had plenty as a younger man debating with women my age on how one-night stands were just masturbation with another human being; cold, mechanical and generally there to serve the needs of an insecure man. Now those women will be in their thirties, I wonder if their views have changed on the matter. Maybe some of them are femcels now.

My point here is that being reduced to sleeping with men you don’t like is not much of a choice. As the article puts, it would be ‘akin to choosing between starving and eating poisoned food.’ The picture is clear. Women want to be desired and some are willing to stoop low to be that. But should they and why are they unwillingly entering into masochistic relations?

If the previous elements of this post are taken into account – Feminism; career over family; status over virtue; the Macho Woman; and an increasing lack of decent men raising decent boys and girls then it could stand to reason that this creates a melting pot of discordance within the female psyche that rejects so much that it becomes rejected but refuses to change to become accepted and so will hatefully accept the scraps of desire offered but will then blame that on being rejected.

What we end up with is women that reject feminine qualities of health, fertility, kindness, softness, nurturing and beauty because they want to be seen as equal to be men, but, to do that, must adopt that masculine persona so hard they think they are men when pursuing a career. However, when it comes to finding a partner to build a family, they come up short because no masculine man wants a masculine woman ergo they end up drawing the short straw in having to suffer less-than-ideal men for sexual encounters only which fuels their hatred of the men that rejected them whilst also fuelling their hatred of themselves for allowing themselves to be used by men they reject, except they can’t reject themselves because women aren’t wrong so it must be the Patriarchy.

I think I got it.

And all because women are less inclined to be women.

Part two is next.

Rugby Meander: France 2023 Rugby World Cup – The Final Review

Well…

Not what I expected.

What I did expect was a tough battle against two titans of world rugby as they duked it out for the honour of becoming the first ever four-time world champion.

What we got was certainly the latter part but not quite the former. Whilst the score read 12-11 in favour of the Springboks, only the All Blacks turned up to play. They were the only side that regularly attacked and the only side to actually score a try (it would have been two but I’ll come back to that).

South Africa, on the other hand, did the same as they did against England and France. They didn’t really attack and instead tried to force as many penalties as they could to which they gained their 12 points.

It’s an odd change in tactics given they’re so famous for their fast-paced, fluid and bold style of rugby. We saw it in the pool stages but where the All Blacks just played more and more like themselves at each stage of the competition, South Africa held back. A lot.

Many said it was a great final but I felt cheated. I felt cheated because I suspect foul play. The red card for Sam Cane so early in the match was something that’s been see many times throughout the tournament and I truly believe it was him just going for the tackle whilst Jesse Kriel changed direction and lowered himself. Not one commentator called out potential foul play on Kriel’s part and were all in favour of Cane getting sent off. It was certainly feasible that Kriel directed his head into Cane’s shoulder looking to get him sent off. It certainly happened.

We then had a suspect knock-on brought to referee Wayne Barnes’ attention within 90 seconds of New Zealand scoring the first try of the match. Aaron Smith had crossed the line thinking he’d just given the All Blacks a much needed boost when it was struck off by the TMO’s despite Wayne Barnes saying there was no knock-on. Footage showed No. 8, Ardie Savea, slightly tapping the ball forward but only after a South African hand had intervened. Whilst Barnes acknowledged the Springbok infringement and awarded New Zealand a penalty (which was missed) the try should have remained as the referee had already made an on-pitch decision. I do not think it’s correct for the TMO’s to interfere when the referee has already stated he’s happy with the flow of play. For me, that was the second piece of suspicious activity.

The third came from Faf de Klerk who was indeed faffing about with the All Blacks No.1 at a breakdown when he more than ample space to run around the man and get the ball. Yet, a penalty was awarded.

The final suspicious thing that happened came was Springbok, Eben Etzebeth. Four times!

One, this beauty right in front of the referee on All Blacks captain, Sam Cane, minutes before his own red card. Etzebeth went unpunished.

Two, for running passed the New Zealand scrum half during a ruck and causing an obstruction which was not penalised.

The third was for being clearly offside during a ruck.

And fourth was for a high-diving tackle at head height.

Now, if the TMO’s are so eagle-eyed that they can deny an All Black try for a teeny-tiny tap of a ball, they can certainly get involved when a near-as-dammit 6′ 7″ Springbok plays fast and loose with the rules and the physical health of his opponents.

The Rugby World Cup official Youtube channel has this final as the “Most DRAMATIC Rugby World Cup final ever”

Wasn’t Lying

I’d say it was one-sided with the all-English officials being in favour of South Africa. Yes, they got their penalties and yellow cards but this final was not in the spirit of the game of rugby. It had a very ominous air of Formula One about it. To the untrained eye, it was a spectacle, but to those who look beyond there was something artificial in how things played out.

New Zealand would have certainly won had Richie Mo’unga converted their try and had Jordie Barrett scored that penalty in the last ten minutes. But even then, there was something uncharacteristic with how those kicks were executed.

And then the strangest thing was that this was three finals matches where South Africa won by a single point.

Against a rampant France, odd penalties were given to disrupt Les Bleus and against a cool yet conservative England, more odd penalties landed in favour of the Springboks.

And here, at the final in 2023, certain curious behaviours goes unchallenged if committed by a Springbok compared to an All Black.

The last time I remember odd decisions affecting the path to a World Cup final was in 2015 when my beloved Scotland were denied a place in the semi-finals against Argentina over a dubious decision made by the referee after a lineout. An alleged knock-on saw Australia awarded a penalty and Australia went on to face Los Pumas then the All Blacks in the final.

The winning margin that night? One point.

Had Scotland been allowed to win, they’d have beaten Argentina and faced off against the All Blacks in their first ever final. However, I suspect World Rugby wanted Australia in there to increase viewing figures.

And so too, I think South Africa were granted clemency to set up an historic final. The All Blacks didn’t help help as they held out against Ireland then steamrollered Argentina. The Springboks, however, should not have won against France or England but I suspect World Rugby deemed neither team worthy of bumping up the viewing figures and raising the profile of the sport around the globe.

You’ll have noticed I’ve not spoken much about the actual rugby. That’s because there wasn’t much rugby being played. Instead, I fear the Rugby World Cup is succumbing to the temptations of higher viewership’s and the cash that follows.

I pray the Six Nations and Rugby Championship do not follow suit.

Rugby Meander: Rugby World Cup 2023 Quarter and Semi-Finals Review

Well…I was half right with my predictions. Argentina did indeed win by magicking a couple of tries from thin air and taking Wales by surprise; Ireland and the All Blacks was one of three finals we deserved; England against Fiji was touch and go but I did predict English discipline would see them through; and the French gallantry just about got them within touching distance of a first World Cup, only for the Springboks defence to hold up and force an error at the death.

The quarter finals went largely as I expected then. We had two games with four teams that really shouldn’t have been there and two games with four teams that really did but, ideally, should have progressed to the semi-finals to give us two serious, heavyweight matches before the final.

So, a quick summary of each of the four quarter finals:

Wales v Argentina

I said in the previous post this was the only actual quarter final. Upon watching it, we got two sides whose past forms were capable of something befitting a World Cup battel but whose current forms just aren’t up to the standard required at this stage in the tournament. I did think both sides would step up and give something more but, instead, we got more of the same. Neither side were particularly disciplined and the flow of play wasn’t really there. Essentially, the game was one by the side that made the least fumbles and could hold on to the ball the longest. That happened to be the Pumas. Even their breakaway try at the end seemed little more that Wales not paying attention enough. High-scoring, yes, but not high entertainment.

Ireland v New Zealand

Jesus.

If World Rugby was watching this match, I hope they took notes on how to not mess up for 2027. The first of two gladiatorial battles last weekend and there was so little between the two sides. There really isn’t much more to say other both sides gave it over 100% which was deeply impressive that they could dig in deep and still bring more out. The difference being, I think the All Blacks gave it 135% to Ireland’s 130%.

That 5% difference?

Why, dear God, did Johnny Sexton kick those two penalties to the corner when he could have given Ireland 6 guaranteed points instead of, maybe, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14 or none? As it turned out, Ireland got the latter and I think that showed poor judgement and a lack of respect for the opponent on Sexton’s part. If he’d kicked the six, Ireland would have likely won by two and not lost by four. The man retired, hailed a hero and legend, yet no one’s called him out for costing his country a place in their first ever semi-final. Shameful.

England v Fiji

It was good to see Fiji get this far and really bring it to England who remained largely unchanged in their approach. Where Fiji tried to be blistering, powerful and fluid, England remained solid. That was it. Nothing fancy. They were there, they moved the ball around and Fiji’s lack of discipline cost them once again. Like the other quarter-final that shouldn’t have been, high scoring but not the battle worthy of this stage in a World Cup.

France v South Africa

Repeat the first paragraph of Ireland v New Zealand to yourself and add the monstrous French attack. Right from kick-off, France had the Springboks on the back foot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a side spring such a violent and bold amount of attacking play right from the start. And it wasn’t the only time. France kept at it but, like the All Blacks, the Springboks defence is that bit more capable of holding out against even the strongest of attacks. And, like Ireland, France were forced into an error at the death which cost them a final chance. Unlike Ireland, Les Bleus took their point scoring opportunities however they came hence there was one point in it. Truly spectacular to watch and should have been semi-final number two. Maybe next time.

The Semi-Finals

Argentina v New Zealand

This one went as I expected. I’m just surprised the All Blacks didn’t put over 50 points past Los Pumas. Argentina were nowhere and were made look third-rate. Their defence was strong, at one point withstanding 17 phases of All Black attack before crumbling, really their defence and attack were merely delaying the inevitable. They lacked any real strategy on how to tackle this monumental match and were put to the sword over and over. This was a pool game not a semi-final.

England v South Africa

Bloody Hell! As a Scot, I was rooting for South Africa, and, like Scotland of old, they made it very difficult to watch. But, I doth my cap to England. They didn’t impress in the pool stage or the quarter-final but they turned up last night and gave the Springboks Hell. The rain helped too and I found myself asking several times throughout the match, why-oh-why don’t the Springboks train in the wet? They were made to look very amateur whilst England look clinical and intent on putting South Africa out the tournament just to spite their critics.

But whilst England maintained their discipline and solidity, they severely lacked ambition instead choosing to kick points and try and hold a lead rather than attack and attempt to score tries to gain a bigger lead whilst simultaneously suppressing Springbok hope and ambition. And it was precisely this conservative approach that cost them. Being eight points ahead is nothing when you’re against a side like South Africa who did indeed got a very well deserved try after several muscular attempts to force their way over the English line. It took to the 68th minute but South Africa put themselves in touching distance.

And Pollard. Unlike Sexton, this man should be hailed a hero and legend for keeping absolutely cool in order to drive that penalty well beyond the posts and giving South Africa that one-point lead with two minutes left. England swapping Farrell for Ford in the hope of a drop-goal was confounding. The Springboks had possession and did Steve Borthwick really think bringing another kicker on was going to help when the first task was to get the ball off the Springboks who’d just stolen the lead. It baffled me and, ultimately, proved fruitless since the Springboks did hold on to kick the ball out the park and claim a place in the final.

But that was a semi-final. England pushed South Africa and yet, despite not being their best, the Springboks held on to their belief in themselves and forced a win to meet the All Blacks next weekend and for only the second time at a World Cup final.

The Final

I have nothing much to say. Both sides are the only triple World Champions and both are more than capable of beating the other. This was the third and final permutation of a worthy final for 2023. The other two would have been historic in their own right regardless of who won. If it was Ireland or France, they’d be only the second northern hemisphere sides to win the cup whilst being the first time for themselves. For New Zealand and South Africa, it would the first time one nation has won the cup four times. Either match would have been not only one for the books but a sight to behold. We have the latter to look forward to and I sense it will be beyond special.

Best of luck to both teams and future congratulations and commiserations to victor and loser.

As a footnote, England have proven themselves worthy of third best. Argentina should be sent home to rethink their entire way of playing rugby.

Rugby Meander: World Cup Pools Round-Up and Quarter Finals Preview

It’s quarter finals day of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France and I thought I’d write a post on the completed pools stages and share my thoughts.

Pool A

France: The French have played some magnificent rugby particularly against New Zealand and Italy making both sides look far lesser than they’re capable of. The skill, determination and flair are all present but what remains is their instability. The match against Uruguay demonstrated this when they struggled not only to win but failed to get a bonus point victory. Meanwhile, the All Blacks and the Azzurri got the job done more convincingly.

New Zealand: How the mighty All Blacks were humbled by Les Bleus on the opening match. But they are the All Blacks and they came back and put in damning performances against the rest of the pool. Against Italy, they took the World Number 11 and made them look like part-timers. Uruguay and Namibia were mere training exercises. France were a blip but the All Blacks are in fighting shape once again.

Italy: The Azzurri have been showing promising signs of progress over the last 2-4 years but France and New Zealand have reduced them to amateur wannabes this World Cup. The side that’s threatened to overturn, and sometimes beat, the French was nowhere to be seen and has likely retreated off into some vineyard. Will they be seen again? We’ll find out in next year’s Six Nations.

Uruguay: Showed some real heart and grit against overpowered opposition yet struggled to beat Namibia. Maybe a case of throwing too much at the big games and not focusing on the realistic prospect of victory against a peer. They showed potential to be on a similar level to their South American brothers, Argentina, in a decade or so. Let’s see.

Namibia: Like Uruguay, they showed a lot of heart and spirit but didn’t have as much of the grit or will to fight against superior opposition in the same way. Unlike Uruguay, they did keep some energy for their main game and damned near won but Uruguayan grit ensured they faltered. Still playing basic rugby with no signs of progress from the last World Cup.

Pool B – The Pool of Death

Ireland: What can be said about the Irish at this point? They kept their cool against the Springboks, devastated Romania, outplayed Tonga and choked out Scotland. They have strategies and tactics for every style of play and back that up with skill, discipline and talent. World Number One for a reason. World Champions? Only Ireland can stop themselves at this point.

South Africa: Acting like Ireland’s badly behaved brother at this point. The Springboks have skill and talent in abundance. They play with a lot of belief because they’ve delivered so many times against tough opponents. But unlike the Irish, they see no problem in playing dirty which cost them victory in this pool. That and their inability to kick their penalties. If they keep it up, tomorrow will be their last day in this World Cup.

Scotland: I could write a whole blog on my country about how the timing of the draw had given us a deeply improbable task. Having three of the world’s top five in one pool in any sport’s World Cup is always going to look unfair but should have also given fans the prospect of some exhilarating matches. It didn’t. Well, not when Scotland were playing. Gregor Townsend should have known that Ireland and South Africa would stamp us out and prevent us playing our game, which they know to be dangerous. Unfortunately, Scotland had no plan on what to do against South Africa and we were snuffed out scoring a measly three points. Against Ireland, we played our game for twenty minutes and got two converted tries. Imagine if we played for the whole eighty against both? A lot of positives but if Scotland are going to move beyond number five, we need to come up with ways to play against teams that will shut us down. Why didn’t Finn Russell precede George Ford and just keep kicking drop goals against the Springboks when he saw it was a stalemate? One of many questions I think will go unanswered.

Tonga: Entertaining. Passionate. Fired-up. Physically tough. Tonga, like their Pacific Island brothers, love nothing more than running into you. Unfortunately, they haven’t added much else to their game beyond that. They are extremely good at mowing down the opposition but that’s no good when the opposition is extremely good at avoiding you. As entertaining as it is watching fifteen big men knock a lot of other men down, it’s one-dimensional. Tonga have traditionally lacked tactics, strategy and discipline which have stunted them. No change here.

Romania: Never gave up but were hopelessly outmatched and outgunned in this pool.

Pool C

Wales – The Welsh have been on a downward trajectory the last few years but, for this World Cup, they seem to have regained their mojo. Against Fiji, they played the kind of fast and flowing rugby they’d become synonymous for albeit without the same level of skill and discipline which damned near cost them them game if it weren’t for Fiji’s lower skill and discipline levels. Not much else can be said about Wales since they had no real competition. This afternoon will be the first real test.

Fiji – Like Tonga, only more precise and with more variety to their game. Heavily entertaining to watch and have come here vastly improved. However, despite throwing everything at Wales, they cost themselves the game; they only just beat a poor Australia and were beaten by the poorest team in the pool, Portugal. The lack of discipline has manifested in inconsistency. They have the skills, the talent and the motivation to win but they are their own worst enemy. Second in a weak pool isn’t much to shout about.

Australia – Never have I seen the Wallabies in such dire straits. They look like they’ve forgotten how to play one of their national sports. A lot of blame has been placed on Eddie Jones’ shoulders but he’s barely in the door. Meanwhile, the Australian government has pulled a lot of sports funding over the years meaning there’s not as much state investment going to rugby. Its impact is evident and I fear the Wallabies downward spiral may have just begun unless something miraculous happens.

Portugal – Unlike Australia, Portugal has been investing in taking rugby out of its universities and into the public. Their performance this World Cup has shown they’ve laid a solid foundation upon which to build. Unlike the other members of this pool, Portugal can use this as a platform to test the fruits of their labours with no pressure of expectation. And my, how they delivered. Wales weren’t allowed to run all over them; Georgia couldn’t edge them out; Australia failed to obliterate them; and Fiji couldn’t beat them. Portugal have arguably been the biggest surprise and most improved of the lower-ranked teams this World Cup. I look forward to seeing them in 2027.

Georgia – At this point in their development, expectations are growing. A few years ago, there were demands to have Georgia replace Italy in the Six Nations by the virtue of their performances against the Azzurri. At the time, they’d have deserved a chance but now, I’m not so sure. The weakest team in the weakest pool is no advertisement of progress. Georgia will have to lay low and do some serious development before they open their mouths about the Six Nations again.

Pool D

England: Like Wales, they seem to have found some of their mojo again but there’s been nothing in this side that says they deserve to be in a Quarter Final. Again, the timing of the draw has given England this chance of a fairly easy path to a semi-final. They have shown no drive to win but their discipline and sheer stubbornness has seen them top this group. If they get to the Semi-Finals, they will be blown out the water as they are lacking in every other area just now.

Argentina: I seriously thought Los Pumas would have topped this group given the state of the opposition. I was wrong. Lacklustre against a lacklustre England and allowing themselves to be beaten by the boot of George Ford, Argentina have not been all that convincing save for being the only team to actually whip Chile where the others didn’t. They struggled against Samoa and their last game against Japan looked like a game of club rugby on a Sunday afternoon. Which it was. Against Wales, they will have to tap into older form if they are to progress.

Japan: The Cherry Blossoms have not been in full bloom this World Cup. They’ve gone backwards somewhat from their surprise win over the Springboks in 2015 to topping their group in 2019, Japan just haven’t been able to put together a convincing display in a pool of teams that haven’t been convincing. Once, they were a breath of fresh air. Now, I think Japan needs to seriously consider how they want to move forward as a rugby nation.

Samoa: Too many similarities with these Pacific Islanders. Almost beat Argentina, England and Japan but their lack of discipline and variety cost them. Gave Chile too many points when they should have run all over them.

Chile: South America’s Namibia this World Cup. I actually forgot they were in it, they made that much of an impression.

Quarter Finals

In less than an hour, Wales will take on Argentina in the first Quarter Final and this is where the nature of the draw will highlight the issues with not only the draw but the current state of World Rugby. We have four teams that are not playing anywhere near their capabilities and we have four that that are operating at near-maximum capacity. Unfortunately, the first four are in two Quarter Finals together and the other four make up the two Quarter Finals. This will make the Semi-Finals something of a farce if the weaker teams don’t show up which would then mean the Final should be an occasion.

This is how I see each of the next four games:

QF1: Wales v Argentina – An Actual Quarter Final

QF2: Ireland v New Zealand – A World Cup Final

QF3: England v Fiji – A Summer Test

QF4: France v South Africa – A World Cup Final

Only one of these fixtures should be taking place at this stage in the tournament. One shouldn’t be happening at all and the other two should be the last game of the tournament.

By making the selection back in 2020 using 2019 rankings, World Rugby allowed too much time to pass for change to happen. And change did happen. Ireland became Number One , Scotland became Number Five whilst England, Australia, Wales and New Zealand took tumbles.

Had the draw been done a year ago, the top 12 would have been spread like this:

Pool A – France, England and Australia

Pool B – Ireland, Scotland and Japan

Pool C – South Africa, Wales and Samoa

Pool D – New Zealand, Argentina and Fiji

Using the IRB World Rankings from 3rd October 2022, already the pools are more balanced and would have given us more exciting games as the lower ranked teams would raised their game to take on the higher ranked ones. While the teams that would top each pool would be clear, the second team to qualify would not be so clear as the mid-ranked teams would have to ensure they held off the lower-ranked ones who would be more determined to try and win.

By holding the draw so soon after the last World Cup, we’ve been given a tournament that’s delivered little in the way of spectacle.

Moving to the Quarter Finals, I think we’re going to get two types of game; QF’s 1 and 3 will be fast flowing, frantic, high-scoring and entertaining whilst QF’s 2 and 4 will be tough, low-scoring, physical and serious.

We will lose two worthy competitors whilst two mediocre teams get to progress to a Semi-Final. It’s unfair and has denied the teams and spectators any kind of dazzling spectacle.

As to who I think will win each game:

QF1 – As much I’d love my Celtic brothers to win, I think Los Pumas may edge them out.

QF2 – I’d love both to to win but that’s not possible. I think there’ll be so little in it but Ireland will just sneak the win.

QF3 – Neither deserve to be here but on virtue of their pool games, I’d like Fiji to win but reckon English discipline will win out.

QF4 – Like QF2, we have two very similar teams. Both rightfully deserving of a place in the Final but I suspect the Springbok’s inability to kick a penalty will be seized by French gallantry.

And with minutes to go, let the games begin.

Musical Meander: Eurovision 2023

For the first time in years, I actually watched Eurovision. Generally, I avoid it because it’s too much of a farce. Last time I remember watching it was probably when Lordi won back in 2006 which was, arguably, in my opinion, the last time an actual song won.

But, I was visiting family and my parents had it on so, I thought, why not. Let’s watch it and see what’s come of the competition.

It’s largely the same.

The problem with this competition, if you can call it that, is that there are two elements – Music and Politics. These don’t mix as one will undermine the other. In the case of Eurovision, it’s the latter undermining the former and this has been the way of things for many years. Arguably, from the little bits of information I’ve checked over the years, this has gotten worse.

Music –

Generally speaking, this year’s entries were quite palatable. Not too much cringe and the performances were largely competent with good choregraphy. Nothing spectacular (once you’ve seen a band like Rammstein blitz a stadium, stagecraft takes a very different meaning) but perfectly adequate for its purpose.

I think the main issue is that a lot of the songs weren’t that distinctive which only served to highlight a larger issue within mainstream music – lack of diversity.

Ironically, in this age that’s all about ‘diversity’, this competition could have done with some. Nightclub beats and autotune were quite predominant. The only entries that hinted at their country of origin were Moldova’s Pasha Parfeni and Norway’s Alessandra. Both appeared in less functional versions of their culture’s native garb from their respective mythologies; Pasha dressing very much like a Balkan prince whilst Alessandra looked like she was a Valkyrie on a night off singing for Odin in the halls of Valhalla. Though, I understand her costume was based on Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I.

Regardless, both looked and sounded like they were from their respective countries. Moldovan whimsy and romance coupled with Norwegian might and power.

But what of the rest? I’ll go over some of my highlights.

Käärijä – Cha Cha Cha: Finland’s entry looked like a BDSM rentboy but whilst the song started off a bit dark and edgy, it got all Euro-camp with some autotune thrown in for good measure. Turns out, it was all a ruse as the song was about how drinking your problems and stresses away is, somehow, a good thing. And this finished second?

Loreen – Tattoo: The Moroccan-Swede did win and, in so doing, became on the second entry to win twice and first female entry to do so. Her had her looking like Edward Scissorhands’ less extreme cousin whilst the song itself wasn’t all that remarkable. Some say it was a cynical vote to a) Get a female double-winner and, b) make sure Sweden host next year for the 50th anniversary of ABBA having won with Waterloo. Will they get the fab four to perform? Guess we’ll find out in 2024.

Noa Kirel – Unicorn: Israel’s ‘Jennifer Lopez’ didn’t make that much of an impression on me. Maybe I’ve just been around too many narcissistic cock-teases but Noa seemed to rely too much on cheeky winks and ‘look at me, I’m sexy’ dance moves. The lyrics were suggestive, passive-aggressive and defensive. Awfully confusing concoction.

Anyway, despite looking like Twitch camgirl on a night out to a fetish club, the song was quite sterile despite its subject matter. No matter, I’m sure she’ll be a big hit on OnlyFans. They love unicorns.

Voyager – Promise: The Aussies gave a crowd-pleasing performance. I don’t actually remember how the song went but the stage production looked like Mad Max via Miami (Sydney?) Vice. Flashy, cool but, ultimately, lacking the emotional oomph.

Lord of the Lost – Blood and Glitter: Ah, the Germans. One of the ‘Big Five’ in terms of funding the contest but came dead last. Why? They didn’t go full German. The outfits wouldn’t have looked out of place in Berlin’s KitKat and they had a bit of pyro going to wow the crowd. But the song.. it wasn’t filled with Teutonic rage, pomp or camp. It was…safe? Not angry enough to thrill the audience; not powerful enough to sweep them away; and not pardodical enough to be worthy of European nightclub dancefloor. It attempted all three and failed.

Alessandra – King of Queens: I know I’ve already gone over this song but, for me, this was the best song of the night. The Norwegian came on stage dressed like a Valkyrie performing a contemporary dance tune for Odin in the Halls of Valhalla. Imperious, majestic, catchy and straightforward. How…Norwegian. Perfectly encapsulated Norway and Eurovision whilst throwing a trendy feminist message. It did well with the crowd but the judges didn’t like it that much. A bit too perfect, perhaps?

Mae Muller – I Wrote A Song: The British attempt at surpassing Sam Ryder from last year went in the polar opposite direction. From second-top to second-bottom, the brief high of 2022 proved to be short-lived before normal service resumed. What happened? Well, in my opinion, there was simply too much choice when it came to attractive women singing songs with a feminist message. Where Mae went wrong was in choosing the very English (we Celtic Nations are too passionate) response to breaking up. Passiveness and dismissiveness. In any other European (Please include Ireland, Scotland and Wales) country, if a man mistreats a woman, she will respond to the scale of said mistreatment. It’ll be passionate, angry, hateful and maybe even psychotic. It could be all verbal, physical, emotional or psychological, maybe a mix of the whole lot, but she won’t just write a song. She might do that after she’s got her revenge to calm herself down but not as a way to get back at her ex. I just don’t think it translated well hence it ended up where it was.

Politics –

And that’s it. That’s all I remember from the 37 entries as far as songs go. It hasn’t changed that much from when I last watched it. It’s just not a place to go for new music. Is it an event? Sure. For what? Heck knows. Few of the winners have gone on to have dazzling music careers. Even Loreen, back after winning 11 years ago, isn’t known outside of Eurovision. Unless you’re ABBA, the only truly known acts are the ones that were already established in their specific genre.

So, just what is the point of Eurovision if it’s not a gateway to musical stardom via representing your country?

A common argument in the UK is that it’s a political scorecard. Maybe, but the UK viewers have only been saying that since it started performing poorly as of 2003 where they finished outside the Top 20 for the first time. Sam Ryder (2022) and Jade Ewen (2009) aside, the UK has failed to finish in the Top 10 for all of the 21st Century.

But it wasn’t like that until the turn of the Millennium.

Since its inception in 1957, the UK has finished outside the Top 10 a total of 22 times, 20 of which have come from the 21st Century.

So, what happened? Well, I believe it’s down to the change in music that the UK produces. In the second-half of the 20th Century, Britain was at the forefront of music. We had The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Kate Bush, Sioxsie and the Banshees, The Spice Girls, Blur, Oasis, Enya, Take That, Robbie Williams, Muse, Radiohead, The Pet Shop Boys, the list goes on. From pop to rock to punk to metal to sensual, sexual, spiritual and electronic, the UK produced icons across all genres right up to the end of the last century.

And where are the new icons?

We don’t have any. Simple as that. The UK music scene no longer has the devil-may-care attitude embodied by the likes of The Who, The Sex Pistols or The Clash. We don’t have new version of The Police to give us an effortlessly cool fusion of rock and ska. There is no new Dire Straits to provide ridiculously wonderful guitar music. No new larger-than-life figures like Motorhead’s Lemmy or Bowie. The best we have just now is a pale, chubby Glaswegian and an Englishman that wants to be a woman. And I don’t mean Boy George. Culture Club were cool too.

I’m a metalhead and the metal icons of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden are still going strong. But even in Metal, there is nothing from the UK that says there’s someone to safely take the place of these god-like entities. When they’re gone, Britsh Metal might be too.

I think it’s as simple as that when it comes to the UK and Eurovision. The music just isn’t good enough and that’s saying something given the general standard of Eurovision entries.

Another point, which I inferred earlier, is that the UK has long seen itself as not really part of Europe. Prior to Brexit and joining the ‘Big Four’, relations may have been smoothed over with the quality of our entries. But since becoming a major funder and leaving the EU, things haven’t gone so well. Not only is the music not making an impression but it seems the goodwill of our European neighbours may have gone too.

To which, I come to another common complaint from British viewers. Why not leave the competition entirely and use the money for something better like, the economy?

But those doing the complaining just haven’t looked at how much it costs. As host nation, the UK’s BBC, according to i newspaper, is reported to have spent in the region of £8-£17million on the event with a further £10million given by the UK government. Outside of the host, the combined total from all entrants is around £5million to which the UK, as a member of the ‘Big Five’ contributes around £300,000 though this figure was from 2012 as no further figure has been reported. If true, than that’s about £400,000 today adjusted for inflation.

So, let’s take the top-end hosting figure of £17million. As the fifth richest nation in the world, the UK’s GDP is about £3.1trillion.

That top-end figure equates to 0.0055% of GDP. Nothing. We can afford to host Eurovision without an issue as well as pay less than half a million to help fund it.

Who knew Boy George had turned Belgian? And what’s he got back there that’s caught the dancer’s eye?

But why?

Audience ratings. That’s all. Hosting aside, as a member of the ‘Big Five’, the UK pays less than half a million to enter the contest. In return, the BBC got an average viewrship of 9.9million with a peak of 11million. According to the EBU, 162 million viewers watched the contest over 144 countries which also voted.

And take a look at this from the EBU’s own figures:

  •  4.8 billion views of #Eurovision2023 on TikTok
  •  540 million views of official videos on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
  •  Official ESC 2023 playlist on Spotify – most-streamed Spotify playlist globally on Sunday 14 May

That’s a lot of traffic generated by a one-night, annual event. But, in essence, the politics of Eurovision is the politics of funding. It’s a hideously cheap night for broadcasters that has huge scale with its international appeal.

By comparison, here in the UK, comparable music/entertainment shows are The Voice and Britain’s Got Talent, each reportedly costing £650,000 and £1million per episode respectively. And with the UK being a major economy, scale that down for our European cousins and their evening equivalents.

So, whilst the host city and broadcaster have to foot the bill, it’s very likely they’ll recoup that and then some through the increased footfall generated by the event.

According to this CityRise article, Liverpool, as host city, is expected to gain an initial £30million profit with a long-term boost of £260million by 2026 thanks to the exposure from hosting the event.

So, there are significant gains to be had from hosting a major event especially one that provides such outstanding value as Eurovision.

I think I’ve cleared up the political side. But what does it take to win?

Well, last year, being invaded by Russia is what it took for Ukraine to win. Their third win (previous wins were 2004 and 2016) and I’m sure not a welcomed one. I can’t speak for the nation but I’m fairly certain if the UK was invaded by Russia, France, Spain, the USA or whoever, winning Eurovision as a symapthetic token of solidarity wouldn’t mean much to the public.

Invasion aside, this year’s winner seemed to be going for a tortured artist stuck inside mummy bandages or kinky asylum attire.

I had to look up the lyrics since Loreen’s delivery on the night suggested she’d had a few before going on stage. But there seemed to be three elements:

  • Melodramtic feminist messaging
  • Bonkers/weird stage set and/or costume
  • Overly dramatic performance

Ultimately, Loreen’s Tattoo is about her doing anything for love, even if it’s not the right kind, because the object of her affection is so imprinted that she doesn’t want to be apart from them. For maximum political points, she could have had some non-binary person with brightly-coloured hair on stage with her to get more votes from the LGBTQ+ crowd.

I didn’t particularly like it. As I said, Alessandra from Norway was my pick of the bunch but being a Valkyrie and a decent singer might have been too close to perfect for the judges.

She had the best vocal range and performance of the night as well as flawless choreography. And she gave us this:

Valhalla’s goblets would tremble.

Anyway, she didn’t win and got less than half the points of Loreen. But then, Norway are already in NATO. It’s Finland that need encouragement. Thank goodness they finished second. The Finnish government must be working hard on their application.

Well, here’s to 2024 and 50 years since ABBA won. I’m sure their 3D holograms will be getting dusted off whilst the fab four sit back and drink in the accolades, nostalgia and money. Lots of money.

Streaming Meander – Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Spoiler Review Essay

Boldly going…down the drain.

I never considered myself a fan of Star Trek or a Star Trek nerd or a Trekkie. I watched every series as a boy with my parents on BBC2 here in the UK. I remember going to a Star Trek exhibition in Edinburgh in the early 90’s (I would have been 5 or 6) and seeing Deep Space Nine revealed as the next chapter in Star Trek’s history. I remember enjoying the shows especially the huge space battles. When ‘Old Trek’ offically ended after series five of Enterprise, it certainly was an ending. The Roddenberry style of Star Trek was over. His vision captured across 6 separate shows (I’m including The Animated Series), 31 series, 10 films and 5 decades. The characters and ships have had a huge impact on popular culture across the world. It seemed that, after such a long run, it deserved to rest in peace.

Then, in my twenties, we got the start of ‘New Trek’ with J.J. Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’ released in 2009. Unlike, ‘New Who’, which came out 4 years prior, this was not a continuation of the era of Captains Picard, Sisko and Janeway. No, Abrams (Whose father George worked on the Original Series. Make of that what you will) decided to go in a new-but-old direction. Going back to the beginning with Kirk et al, but with a modern twist. Flashy visuals (with enough lens-flare to give the blind back their sight), contemporary dialogue, fast-pace, cheap gags, loose tongues and looser plots. This was the start of a more insidious form of storytelling. The kind where it looks like the previous stuff but is actually an insult to the original creator and previous shows because it doesn’t uphold the core principles which it represents.

And the audience lapped it up.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/jzgn6x/star_trek_movies_from_1979_to_2016_domestic_box/

14 years later, it’s still the highest grossing Star Trek film ever (adjusted for inflation). It’s clear that by the time ‘Nemesis’ was released in 2002, ‘Old Trek’ had run out of dilithium as had, most likely, the actors and crew.

And so, Abrams ushered in the new era with much fanfare and fan-service. For loyal viewers of ‘Old Trek’, there were plenty of references, member-berries and an extended cameo from Leonard Nimoy (Original Spock) to help with the transition and reminding those fans that the writers hadn’t forgotten about the old stuff. They just didn’t care.

Because Abrams ‘Kelvin Timeline’ version of ‘Star Trek’ allowed for less faithful versions of the older characters. Kirk was all action and no reason; Spock was more impulsive and less logical; Bones more whiny and less convincing. Uhura went from being a consumate professional to an officer that priortised domestic disputes over her captain’s orders. Whilst I enjoyed the film and its two sequels, as man in in my mid-thirties, I see now that this era of Star Trek is a reflection of the state within Hollywood and beyond.

Abrams directed ‘Into Darkness’ which was just a ‘Wrath of Khan’ ripoff but it served as the final stepping stone to the directors chair he really wanted – Star Wars. In 2015, ‘Episode VII – The Force Awakens’ grossed over $2billion worldwide and handed Abrams a sizeable paycheque.

With Abrams out of Trek, it was director Justin Lin who had to finish, what’s still, the trilogy. Coming out in 2016, ‘Star Trek Beyond’ was the lowest grossing of the Kelvin-era films but still ended up sixth-highest grossing Trek film overall. Oddly, it was the lack of Abrams that saw saw this film feel more like traditional Trek. Was that the reason for audiences not liking it as much? Who knows.

With three new films, it was time for Star Trek to return to its home – the small screen. 2017 saw the first new Trek show appear in over a decade with ‘Star Trek – Discovery’.

I watched the first series and was…confused, frustrated and unimpressed. The episodes moved along at breakneck speed, I heard the crew talk but not speak thus I got to know none of the characters. The protagonist (singular as this show focused on one person, not a crew), First Officer Michael Burnham, shot a Klingon Torchbearer which ended peace with the Federation and started a new war. She also shot her captain after disobeying her orders and assumed command of the USS Shengzhou. Both captain and ship were lost. Burnham was tried for mutiny and sentenced to life in prison but only served six months before serving on the USS Discovery. That was episode 1 and I gave the rest of the show a shot.

I found the storylines so weak, I don’t remember them. Same goes for the action, characters and dialogue with the exception of constant talking, swearing, disrespect and insubordination. And crying. Lots of crying. I remember wondering if there was a twist coming where the crew were actually pirates who had stolen the ship. Nope. This was a Starfleet crew, apparently.

I had issues with the ship too. Far, far too advanced for pre-Kirk era Trek.

Anyway. Minor rant over. I’ll get on with the main topic.

When I watched the final episode of the final series of Picard, I was…underwhelmed and relieved. This was better than series one (which I couldn’t finish) and I believe it’s far better than series two (which I didn’t watch). But it’s ‘better’ in a relative sense. It’s like being utterly ravenous and your only options are fast food places. It’s two in the morning and it’s a choice of McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC or the kebab shop. All are equally as bad. You know it. They know it. But you must choose. Picard series three is the kebab shop. It has the illusion of nourishment but it’s likely going to make your stomach hurt just as much as the booze you had too much of.

Firstly, it’s been 20 years since the cast of The Next Generation played their characters with the major exception of Patrick Stewart and the minor exceptions of Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes who briefly reprised their roles in series one.

Physically, they all look in very good health which is nice to see. However, I couldn’t buy into their characters anymore. Too much time has passed. 20 years of not doing something does that. If I stopped driving now at 35 and picked it back up at 55, I will not be as good then as I am now. I could do it, but I wouldn’t be able to do it in the same way I do it now.

The actors can look back at footage and dig into their memories to help invoke the spirit of the character but that’s it. You get the spirit of, not the full flesh and blood being. I felt I was watching nothing more than echoes of once beloved characters.

Now, to get round this, I tried to imagine the actors were playing their characters as separate entities. After Nemesis, the crew went their own ways and didn’t really talk to each other which I struggled with since this crew were very close-knit and went through a few lifetimes worth of adventures. Even if they hadn’t spoken to each other in two decades, they should have fallen right back into their places just as if they were back on the Enterprise.

But they didn’t. Not quite.

The fact here is that the cast haven’t done much since Nemesis, again with the exception of Patrick Stewart altough most of his roles are voicework now. Barring a cameo in the last Doctor Strange film as an alternate timeline version of Professor Charles Xavier, his last big screen outing was also reprising that role in 2017’s Logan and there. In both films, he was largely confined to a wheelchair and didn’t have many lines.

I looked at the IMDB listings for the other members of the cast and it’s very much the same story. Since Nemesis, there’s a lot of voicework and straight to TV/DVD film and TV roles. Marina Sirtis was in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time of all things; Jonathan Frakes took quite a few uncredited roles; Levar Burton was in Rise of the Zombies; Michael Dorn has also done a lot of voicework and managed a recurring role in six episodes of Castle; Gates McFadden…a lot of voicework; Brent Spiner…some TV episodes and the obligatory voicework.

Series three of Picard must have looked pretty damned good. I say nothing else.

And at their time of life, I can’t blame them for, what’s likely, a last hurrah in the spotlight. If only the hurrah was worthy of being the last.

I can forgive the actors. They do a good job after all this time. I didn’t like Worf. Can’t buy him as a pacifist with no reason given for being so. I can buy him as a Buddhist Monk Warrior who would rather not fight but will whip you if you bring the fight to him. That’s the older Worf I see. I also don’t buy his instant friendship with Raffi. It’s simply not earned.

I felt Picard had been allowed to regain his authority this series as there were a number of occasions where his assertiveness shone through. Riker was, more or less, the same and Troi had become considerably more maternal and nurturing which is hardly surprising since her and Riker had a child.

Dr. Crusher had changed substanially but the story allowed for the reason to play out. Gone was the caring and, sometimes, timid doctor and in came a no-nonsense version. Still caring but only when she had time to be. This Crusher was far more focused and no wonder. Her son (later to be revealed as Jean-Luc’s too) was being chased by the first of the series’ antagonists.

Geordi was largely unchanged with the exception of being a father to two 20+ year-old daughters who are both in Starfleet. There were moments towards the end where we saw him wrangle with being a high-ranking Starfleet officer and a father. Something I think most fans wouldn’t have expected given his luck with women on TNG. We never found out who the mother was.

And then there’s Data. By far, to me, the most enjoyable new iteration of a TNG character. Essentially, he is a 3-in-1 having incorporated the personalities of both Lore and Adam Soong, brother of Dr Noonian Soong. When he’s up and running, he’s very much a rounded character. Still has the logic and innocent curiousity of Data but there’s a temperance that comes from Lore and Soong which, ultimately, helps make Data human.

Outside of the TNG cast, I did actually like this series’ version of Seven of Nine. I found the badass lesbian from series one to be a bit too hollow. In this final series, she’s matured as a character and there seems to be some of the Starfleet officer from Voyager melded with the more rebellious version. A decent compromise.

Second – The effects, whilst far improved over the older shows, couldn’t always compete with the traditional models.

Third – Why do all Starfleet vessels have dark interiors? Is it supposed to make the show ‘edgy’? Imagine working in an environment with poor lighting and gloss black everywhere. You’d go mad!

Fourth – The story structure. The mystery box form of writing is very boring and very predictable. Things shown in the first three episodes but not revealed until episode nine ended up lacklustre and underwhelming since I’d already guessed them by the time they came round to be being shown. The writers really need to bring things forward much earlier to make things a bit more unexpected then take it from there. But, that’s asking too much of the writers who, let’s face it, are being pushed by the executives to write in a way that gets people hooked and therefore, they’ll subscribe to Paramount+ or Amazon Prime.

You know what else gets people to subscribe to your streaming service? A good, compelling story. Not cliffhanger after tease after cliffhanger until you’re so numb that you just want the show to end. And it was only ten episodes. Old Trek ran for 20-22 episodes a series with a similar runtime but there were no mystery boxes. You’d get an overarching story in the shape of the Borg or the Dominion War but plenty of episodes were dedicated to letting you know how each character functions when they’re not in a crisis as well as having standalone stories that were event-driven.

Current Trek doesn’t have that luxury. Despite having ten episodes, it doesn’t cram much in when it really should. We could have had more character development as opposed to mindless plot points or silly action sequences like watching the Titan thrownan asteroid at another ship. There was so much dead air and wasted opportunity. It could have truly been a great final voyage.

Fifth – The big one. The story itself. We largely follow the journey of Jack Crusher – son of Beverely and Jean-Luc though, for reasons not explained satisfactorily, in my opinion, Picard doesn’t know about his son until about halfway through.

Jack and Beverley are being chased by a formidable ship called the Shrike.

If a giant, futuristic, space-travelling, mechanical spider and scorpion had a baby.

It’s rare that we see Federation vessels having to run and hide as the only way of dealing with an enemy but the Shrike is a rare enemy ship. Unlike many of the enemy ships seen in Star Trek, the Shrike is a dedicated hunting vessel, armed with all manner of things to capture its prey including a subspace portal weapon to stop a ship running away.

The Shrike’s captain, Vadic, (played with full camp by Amanda Plummer) is after Jack. Turns out he’s needed by Vadic’s boss –

Same but different? If it looks like a ‘Insert Baddie Name Here’, sounds like a ‘Insert Baddie Name Here’ then it must be a ‘Insert Baddie Name Here’, right? Oh, wait until Episode 9, you fools! Stop guessing so early!

Yes, it’s a Borg. And the crew of the Shrike are Changelings including Vadic.

Jack, being son of Locutus, is able to transmit commands to the Borg Collective. I’m skipping to the end because there are several episodes of fluff with him having visions and dreams of black vines (Borg nanotubes) leading to a red door. The Borg Queen needs Jack so he can be plugged into the Collective ahead of Federation Day where all of Starfleet’s current vessels will be at Earth. Quite stupidly on the Federation’s part (and conveniently for the writers), the whole of the current fleet is networked and therefore can act as a single unit. It’s like they just never learned what not to do after dealing with the Borg, isn’t it?

Coming back to the first half of the series now where Vadic and the Changelings end up despatched, seemingly killed. I had a major problem with this. The Changelings and the Borg are working together to bring down the Federation from within. On paper, sounds wonderfully insidious and terrifying. In reality, the Changelings stole Picard’s genetic code from the Daestrom Institute where it could be encoded into the transporters so that everytime crew used it, their code would become entangled with Picard’s (which has a receiver gene from the Borg). Jack would then transmit Borg commands to the assimilated fleet.

Do you see the problem? It requires a lot of convenient things to happen conveniently. First off, the Changelings need to break into a maximum security facility. Which they do, with ease. Second, Jack needs captured and coerced into plugging into the Collective. Which he does. Plus, someone has to then break into a master transporter server of some kind to then upload Picards’s genetic code so it can be scrambled with any crew member that uses the transporter. Assuming the entire crew of every single ship uses the transporter, which the writers have assumed here. We did not see infected crew members go round assimilating other crew members. They became Borg and immediately focused on terminating the unassimilated, i.e. any crew member over 25. Again, no specific reason given for this though I’d assume it’s to ensure longevity of the organic components of the new drones since the Borg were seeking to rebuild.

Hardly compelling and unpredicatable when the story revolves around plot points that only work when the required character slots neatly into the required situation regardless of how moronic it is.

And also –

That’s a Borg HyperCube (I’m calling it that because it’s ridiculously larger than a regular Cube) in the Eye of Jupiter! Starfleet didn’t notice this thing on their doorstep?! C’mon! Jean-Luc points it out having spotted it with his own eyes whilst it was a green speck. The writers seriously couldn’t come up with a better place for the remnants of the Borg to hide out except for the backdoor of the very adversary that defeated them over and over again? Bullshit.

And let’s just continue with the antagonists. They have the last vestiges of the Borg and the Changelings in the same series. Working together except they’re not. It was apparent that Vadic was in charge of the Changelings and she appeared to be taking orders from either the Borg Queen or a high-ranking Borg drone but it was never explained or shown just who she was reporting to. It was also never explained why the Borg and Changelings were working together. It was inferred that they were teaming up to destroy the Federation since both factions had been reduced to shadows of their former selves from the events of First Contact, Voyager and Deep Space Nine.

Instead, we got Vadic as the antagonist for the first eight episodes before the final two have the Borg as the antagonist. The switch was clunky and awkward and kept the two factions very much separate.

A far more terrifying prospect would have been that, with reduced resources, the Borg and Changelings created a sub-species which could imitate the appearance and physiology of anyone in Starfleet but have Borg nanoprobes running in its bloodstream. All you’d need is one of these new sub-species to infiltrate each Starfleet vessel and convert the officers into more of the subspecies. With the Changelings having developed the ability to imitate physiology and the Borg having refined their nano-technology to operate without implants, the pair would have had the perfect means to attack Starfleet without them knowing until it was too late. Both factions could sit back and relish their revenge playing out as Starfleet destroyed itself.

Not the original, but maybe the best?

I’ll move on to the issue I had with bringing back the Enterprise D. Not that it wasn’t lovely or heartwarming to see the old girl again, but there was another ship at the Fleet Museum that would have better served the plot. The only Federation vessel that scared the Borg and was capable of tackling a small fleet of Cubes without much hassle.

Voyager.

Yes, we had the TNG crew and so it would have been odd for them to take Voyager into battle. However, we had Commodore La Forge say that he’d spent 20 years working on the Enterprise D. He could have also done some retrofitting to other ships in the museum. After all, Geordi was known for having some clever contingencies up his sleeve in case certain scenarios arose. It would not have been out of character or scope of the story that he’d made some tasteful modifications to all vessels in the museum in case the main fleet was ever compromised. Just imagine what a powerhouse the Enterprise could have been with the Voyager tech on-board.

This would have then allowed for a great story and fan opportunity. You’d still have the gloryshot of the TNG crew back on the bridge of the Enterprise D but, afterwards, they’d meet round the conference table and discuss which ships to take and who should take them.

This would have then allowed for another plothole to be resolved. Geordi mentioned that he had some drones loading torpedoes in the torpedo bay. But that was it. I agree with Dave Cullen that it is unfeasible for a Galaxy-Class starship to be manned by a skeleton crew of six when its full crew was between 1,000 and 6,000. This is where Geordi could have easily said he’d deployed drones to critical areas like Engineering and that he’d do the same for the other ships chosen as backup.

And on to those ships. The obvious first choice is Voyager with Seven as captain and Raffi as pilot. The next choice would have been the HMS Bounty with Worf as captain and Geordi as pilot. The Bounty would support the Enterprise against the Hypercube whilst Voyager supported the Titan. Whilst having Voyager and the Enterprise work together would be very cool, I think it would take some of the spotlight off the Enterprise since the Borg are very aware of Voyager.

The Enterprise, as flagship of the makeshift fleet, would be captained by Picard with Riker as Number One, Troi as Counselor whilst Data would pilot and Beverley could provide additional tactical support as well as medical.

But if Seven’s on Voyager then who would captain the Titan after Shaw died?

Commander Ro Laren.

It seemed the writers wanted to bring her back but didn’t know what to do with her so killed her off after one episode. It wasn’t an overly noble or heroic death either nor did we get a complete reconciliation between her and Picard. By keeping her until the last episode, more time could have been spent with her passing the intelligence she had on the Borg and Changelings as well as allow her and Picard to heal their divide. Then, she could have gone into battle with the Titan, it could have been destroyed saving the rest of the fleet or Laren could have been killed in a last stand against her newly converted crew. Either way, the character could have gone out memorably having earned it and fans would have felt she’d been redeemed. Plus, we’d have had the death of a main character which didn’t happen in this show.

Speaking of worthy deaths of main characters, I was not a fan of Captain Shaw. Some commentators thought he was a great foil for Picard and Riker. I’m not sure how since my take on the character was another attempt to gaslight the viewer into thinking that two exemplary Starfleet were anything less than that.

The character of Shaw was weak, paranoid, contrived and contrary. Qualities that should not be present in a captain. He reminded me of the captain that took over from Admiral Cain (Another memorable Michelle Forbes character) on the Pegasus in the Battlestar Galactica reboot. An engineer and only high-ranking member left after Cain’s mutinous and murderous betrayal, he couldn’t handle command and defaulted to his engineering background and kept trying to fix things himself instead of, well, commanding.

To be a foil, Shaw should not have been captain. He should have been first officer with Seven as captain. A captain needs to be fair, just, balanced, objective and optimistic as well a brave and daring in times of crisis and great need. The first officer can play bad cop and present alternatives to the captain. In this role, Shaw would have been good. But I guess we needed another straight, white male character in an ‘oppressive’ role whilst Seven was in the ‘oppressed’ role. It wasn’t heavy-handed but the subtext was there.

But blurting out his personal issues with Picard in Ten Forward was pathetic and showed a complete lack of understanding that Picard had been taken by the Borg and was no longer Picard. This lack of emotional maturity further weakened the character in my eyes. The better thing to do would have been to have summoned Picard to his ready-room and express his initial issues with having the former Locutus of Borg on board but to then explain how he got passed them and now accepts that Picard is Picard. This would have been the behaviour of a captain rather than spewing his problems out in a bar whilst other members of his crew are around.

His death had some nobility but didn’t redeem the character much, in my opinion.

Titan – Lesser than the God-like Enterprise but no less worthy.

The final issues I had were relating to the Titan. A ship which punched well above its weight, it became a little favourite of mine. Like an unassuming small dog that’s spent its life amongst larger dogs, this thing used its size to its advantage and made sure to out-manoeuvre the Shrike when it couldn’t outgun or outrun it.

At the end of the final episode, we’re forwarded a year on from the Borg being defeated to where Seven of Nine shares a few moments with Captain Tuvok who reveals she’s being promoted to Captain. This was correct, I felt. The character genuinely has all the makings of a great captain given her tutelage came from Janeway and Picard. But in Shaw’s recommendation, he specifically states that his reason for promoting her was, in part, because she’s reckless. And yet, he was criticising Picard and Riker of the same thing hence the chip on his shoulder. Seven is not a pirate, mercenary or some other kind of nefarious space-traveller. She’s smart, brave, objective, calm and is capable of making the right decision in a crisis even if it’s not ‘by the book’. That doesn’t make her reckless. It makes her competent with a willingness to bend the rules if the situation dictates it. I get the sense that the writers were trying to keep the current trend with ‘New Trek’ that insubordination is a desirable trait. It isn’t. Enough said.

It’s a bit like saying your Fiat is now a Ferrari because it’s in the same family. Just not very convincing.

We then join Jack Crusher who is being dropped off by his parents to his first official Starfleet posting as Special Counselor aboard the new Enterprise.

But the main fleet would still have, presumably, been in tatters a year on. They had the Enterprise D at their disposal. It could have remained the flagship until a real Enterprise G was built to retire the D…again.

And to give Jack Crusher such a senior position at the age of 23-24 appears to be another attempt by the writers to rub it in about how they likely got this gig. When approaching the Enterprise, there’s a discussion about how Jack got the post due to nepotism on having two Admirals and legendary officers as parents. Jack himself is the one who utters the line ‘Names mean almost everything.’ after revealing the Titan had been rechristened in his father’s honour.

Which is another odd thing I found. Picard had no connection to the Titan. The Enterprise D was his ship. Riker was in command of a previous Titan. If anything, a more fitting act would have been for Jean-Luc to hand command of the Enterpise D over to Riker so he could serve as captain of the temporary flagship. That way, the Enterprise D and Riker could retire together.

Command of the current Titan would have remained with Seven and would have been fitting for her character’s development. I understand Star Trek: Legacy is in the works and is likely to be about the further adventures of the Enterprise G. I will not be watching.

So, to sum up, I felt that this final series of Picard was better than what I saw of the first series. And that’s it. Yes, it may not be as cheesy as early episodes of TNG but this was contrived and designed with a cynical agenda in mind – To keep people subscribed to Paramount+. I hope people wise up to this model of programming and start unsubscribing until the quality of said programming increases significantly.

Until that happens, there is always ‘Old Trek’ to go back to. I still have the rest of Deep Space Nine to watch on Netflix followed by Voyager and Enterprise. ‘New Trek’ is just a pale imitation.

Star Trek is dead. May it live long and prosper.

Economic Cultural Meander: Subscribing Into Poverty – Part 3

If you’ve never been loved, nurtured or encouraged, how do you know who you are? You don’t.

Destabilised From The Inside

Before I even discuss emotional poverty, I think it’s best to direct you towards a definition. I found this from a book by Dr. Ruby Payne called ‘Emotional Poverty in all Demographics: How to Reduce Anger, Anxiety amd Violence in the Classroom’. Her definition is thus:

‘when the integration and regulation of the brain are underdeveloped, the inner self is weak, and bonding and attachment is unstable

Whilst that book is for professional devlopment, what I’ve taken from it is that an overall lack of structure and cohesion creates emotional detachment which results in an individual becoming fractured and fragmented. This breaking up of the psyche can lead to destuructive and isolating behaviours.

But what causes this?

This article by the Mom Collective references Dr. Payne’s book and it suggests that things like the death of a parent, bullying, racism and moving (house) a lot are some of principle reasons.

If such events are not addressed at a young age then the child will grow into a less stable adult. I believe it’s one of the main reasons therapy in young adults is so high nowadays. The parents of the last forty years aren’t there for their children in the same that the parents born in World War 2 and back were there for their children. The Boomers appear to have been the catalyst for emotional decline as being the first where both parents could choose to work with neither staying at home to tend to their child, instead relying on the school to do the bulk of the care work.

In the 21st Century, I’ve seen a significant drop in emotional health between my generation (Millenial) and the current Gen Z (birth years circa 1995 – 2010 and Generation Alpha (birth years circa 2011 – 2026). There’s a sense of unassuredness masked by a veneer of false confidence in them which I believe comes from not having having been raised correctly.

I think I was part of the last generation that was encouraged to go out and play in parks, forests, fields, etc and be home in time for dinner. When I visit my home village, I hardly see any children playing. There’s either not enough of them now or they’re encouraged to stay indoors and play on a tablet, console or watch TV in their room. They’re given a prison out of compassion in an attempt to protect their children from the ‘dangers’ of the outside world at a time where it’s far safer than it’s ever been. All this does is create a crutch for them in the future where emotional resilience forms the bedrock of being able to tackle real world problems effectively as an adult. You don’t learn much from scripted events in games, films and TV shows compared to developing and maintaining connections with your peers.

But let’s get back to the aforementioned definition. How does an inner self become so weak that the attachments and bonds created with others is unstable?

From my own experience, I can say that neglect is a major factor. Parents that take a very hands-off approach to raising their children can create a lot of emotional problems. If parents show little to no interest in their own children, it should come of little surprise that that child will grow up with a low opinion of themselves and end up over-exerting themselves to make as big an impression as possible on people just to earn the slightest bit of attention.

Conversely, I’ve experienced children that were so spoiled with material items, but not truly disciplined, that they grew up to have little-to-no respect for their parents. It seemed the parents wanted to be popular with their children rather than respected. This has been the case with a childhood friend. She and her younger brother got anything they wanted despite being absolute brats. Now adults, the parents have been enslaved into acting on every whim of their adult children. Needless to say, they have been aged significantly by this and, I’d argue, robbed of any real quality time with their grandchildren. But then, if you don’t spend real time with your children don’t expect them to want to spend time with you when they get older.

I never kept in touch with those children after finishing secondary school but I get reports that their lives are not steady and structured. The son is on his second child with two different women, has no employment or financial stability and doesn’t seem to be able to provide a home for his children. His father has built a second shed in his garden just to store his son’s excess stuff.

The daughter has subscribed to the alternative lifestyle. Hair of various shades, sexually ambiguous and promiscuous (always was) and seems to have turned her boyfriend into becoming a neutered ‘they’. From what I’ve gathered, her job situation is also unstable having had 17 jobs since 2010.

I think what these examples serve to highlight are how important it is for parents to attach and bond to their children.

It’s become all too common now for parents to give up on the actual parenting and outsource it to technology, the government and other people. You’re not a parent if you think a child can be looked after by a screen and a controller or anyone that isn’t you. What you are is neglectful of your child and your duties towards them. It should be a pleasure and privilege to have a child to take care of. To love, support and watch them grow into well-rounded individuals with a sense of self. But how many see their children as an expense they say they can’t afford? How many tell their children they gave up on their dreams because of their children? How many don’t say these things but project them? Too many, I’d wager.

It’s not the child’s fault they were born therefore the blame cannot be passed on to them because the lives of the parents have now been deemed as disrupted.

This study from the Guttmacher Institute may give some insight as to why Millenials onward are the most likely generations to develop emotional problems.

Source: Guttmacher Institute (2022) – Unintended pregancy and abortion

The graph above is for the UK and shows that, over a 29-year period, an average of 35% of pregnancies were unintended and, of those, an average of 13% end in abortion. The Institute doesn’t provide figures until its graph for 2015-2019 where it stated that there were 1,150,000 pregnancies annually. That must be an average but they don’t state it so I’ll take them at their word. In that four-year period, 545,000 were unintended and 197,000 ended in abortion. Again, they don’t state but this must also be annually.

If we believe these figures to be a true reflection of the percentages of unintended pregnancies and abortions then it stands to reason that, on average, a third of children born during the assessed timeframe could develop mental and emotional problems because they were not planned or, even worse, not wanted but had anyway.

How do I come to this conclusion?

Let’s take an abortion. Woman is raped and unwillingly impregnated. She gets rid of the foetus. She finds a man worth having a child with but hasn’t dealt with the trauma of her previous pregnancy. Second pregnancy goes to term and the child is born. That child, through no fault of its own, is not bonded with its mother. In fact, its mother rejects it because all she can think about is the rape. She’s not emotionally healthy therefore the child grows up resented and neglected by its mother. It may well be cared for well enough by the father but living with a mother that hates you because of what you are not is a very scary and confusing environment for that child to grow up in. The child will, in all likelihood, develop problems with their image, worth, abilites, etc because they do not have the backing of two supportive parents. This will create a multitude of problems as the child gets older and requires more sophisticated guidance and, possibly, treatment.

It’s a made-up scenario but it’s entirely feasible. An unintended pregancy can be a double-edged sword. For couples that have been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, it’s a Godsend. For those that didn’t want children or had them already, it could change their minds or just be a surprise and welcome addition. Conversely, it could be a burden.

A child is a responsibility and should be a privilege. Never a burden. To treat one as the latter only does harm.

And if the child is treated as a burden then you have to look at the environment that’s being provided. If they were unintended and unwanted, the enviornment the child grows up in will not be one that fosters a whole individual. Instead, they will become fractured and unsure of who they are and why they are here which can lead to a whole host of problems.

This blog post from Psychotrauma Practitioner, Vivian Broughton, is full of insights. I’ve copied over the bullet points from the Catch 22 section:

  • the mother doesn’t want to get pregnant and have a child
  • the pregnancy was a mistake
  • the conception was violent, or by rape
  • the conception was coercive, unpleasant, boring, unemotional
  • conception was seen as a duty
  • the mother hates the father
  • pregnancy is unpleasant and the mother is often sick
  • the mother is ambivalent about having a child
  • the mother is frightened of pregnancy and giving birth
  • the mother has been told many frightening things about having children
  • due to her own childhood trauma the mother is still psychologically a child and sees her child as a rival for satisfaction of her wants and needs
  • the mother sees children as a nuisance, a drain on her resources and opportunities
  • the mother may suffer from her own trauma from being unwanted, even hated, by her mother
  • she may unconsciously see her child as, finally, someone weaker than her that she can take revenge on for her own victimisation
  • if the mother has been abused as a child she may see her unborn child as a potential abuser
  • for many reasons the mother may prefer a child of the opposite gender, not wanting the child as he/she is

This list is neither exhaustive nor does it include the reasons a father might not want a child. However, across the sexes, the reasons are quite similiar.

What this post does discuss is the fact that a child unwanted by its parents will pick it up…eventually. They will become consciously aware of the fact that at least one of their parents didn’t want them. Once this thought has embedded itself into a child’s psyche, it will dominate to the point that the child may disassociate themselves from their parents in a number of ways. They may become more introverted and isolate themselves; their behaviour could become more erratic and violent; or they may become overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness.

The problem with mental and emotional poverty is that it’s arguably the worst kind because it is largely invisible. It requires objective observation and granting the affected person the space where they can feel comfortable to openly discuss their experience.

If they even realise what’s happened.

Then the problem becomes a person that wanders through life without even knowing they’ve been deprived of a decent upbringing. And even if you’re sure of it, you cannot force awareness to the affected person as that will unsettle their psyche to the point where they may be unable to function properly. Whilst they might be concsiously aware, they can still be deluding themselves to the point they create an illusion of stability to the public and themselves. Breaking that illusion could send the person into a downward spiral of destruction.

So, what to do?

Accept it. Rather than subscribe to a delusion, subscribe to reality. The parents should be confronted about the nature of their child’s conception and the effect it’s had on their lives. It’ll be tough. It’ll bring about feelings of anger, guilt, shame, betrayal, hate, etc but, by getting the truth out in the open, the child and their parents can at least move forward honestly however that may look be it together or apart. The main thing is gaining some closure over how the child came to be in this world. Then they can go about the rest of their life with either some or all of the void filled.

If this happened more then, perhaps, we’d have far less young people wandering around seeking some semblance of structure however loose it may be. I can only think they’d be all the healthier for it.

Because that’s all any child really needs, isn’t it? Some structure. A structure forged out of love, responsibility and a duty of care. Without it, we become wayward and end up falling into all kinds of emotional traps later in life which can lead us down very dark paths. Some may find/fight their way back to a worthwhile path but many won’t. Of course, that can happen to those who had a good upbringing. The difference there is that such a child is likely to get themselves back on a good footing and avoid such traps in the future because they’ve been taught.

But then, the unfortunate truth is that it’s fashionable to not look after children anymore. At least, in the UK.

Speaking of emotional traps.

This BBC article highlights the childcare subsidies for parents in England. They are expected to come into force in between April 2024 and September 2025. The main points are:

  • Eligible working parents of two-year-olds will get 15 hours of free childcare per week from April 2024
  • Children between nine months and two years old will get 15 hours of free childcare from September 2024
  • All eligible under-5s will get 30 hours of free childcare from September 2025

So, parents will effectively be paid to not look after their children. The state shall provide a carer who will, in all likelihood, become the person the child has the strongest bond with during these crucial early years.

And once it’s done? I imagine the child will have a similar relationship with their parents as those who are sent to public school in England (private in Scotland).

This article from Brighton Therapy Partnership discusses the effects of ‘Boarding School Syndrome’. Whilst it’s not a medical condition, it’s effects are quite real.

One such effect is losing the ability to form relationships with parents and other family members. And it’s not surprising. The child is at home and is then sent off to live with strangers for several months only to return for holidays. In some cases, the child is away for years. It can help some if the parents are in an abusive relationship. For the children that aren’t, it can cause depression, confusion and a sense of loss. They may think they’ve done something wrong to deserve being sent away.

That’s just one effect. Now, let’s take the UK government’s childcare proposal. The child is under five and the parents leave whilst a stranger comes to look after them. Imagine the problems that could cause.

Of course, rather than pay a stranger to spend 15-30 hours a week looking after someone else’s children, why not give that money to, I don’t know, the parents? If the mother/father wants to stay at home with their children then why not have that be their occupation for a few years? If the parents would prefer to split things, then the money gets divided.

Ah. But that would be giving power back to parents and communites and we can’t have that, can we?

I’ll not divert in the political direction. That’s a whole other topic.

I will, however, finish by saying that being emotionally malnourished does not allow someone to function well in the world. You can come from a rich background, have gone to the best schools and a great university where you received a top class degree which landed you an excellent job at a reputable company. But if you weren’t loved fully by your parents, none of that will matter. I’ve seen it in big organisations. These people are cold but not because they’re evil but because human intimacy is alien to them.

Conversely, I went to school with a guy who was highly intellectual. His mother was a housewife and his father a postman. He became a lawyer. Why? Because his parents loved him enough to give all they could so he could achieve a life beyond his upbringing. And he did.