Film Meander: Black Widow – Essay Review Spoilers

July 13, 2021 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

There was a brief period in the world of Metal (the music not the material) where the subgenre ‘female fronted’ was a thing. Not that there was a problem with women being in bands. There’s been women in Metal bands since the 80’s, but there was a period in the late 90’s and early 00’s where women fronting Metal bands was its own niche. Like it was an oddity or quirk that women would actually want to be fronting a band of (mostly) men and having them follow her lead whilst being centre of attention on a stage in front of hundreds, thousands, tens, maybe even hundreds (if you’re Nightwish) of thousands of adoring (again, mostly male) fans. Why would that be strange? Well, since men are, typically, the more aggressive of the two sexes, it seemed curious that women would want to get involved in a music full of chugging riffs, screaming solos, thundering drums and angry vocals. It’s not like women would enjoy that sort of thing, would they? Oh, wait…turns out they do. And swiftly, that subgenre disappeared never to be seen again. Bands like Arch Enemy started with a male vocalist and are currently on their second female vocalist. They’re not ‘female fronted’. They’re Arch Enemy who have had two astounding vocalists who happened to be women.

Anyway, what does this have to do with the latest product to roll off the Marvel Studios production line? Well, the film industry seems to be having its own ‘moment’ where it’s forgotten its own history. First, we had Black Panther in 2018 being declared the ‘first’ film with a black superhero. No doubt Will Smith (Hancock, 2008), Wesley Snipes (Blade, 1998), Shaquille O’ Neal (Steel, 1997), Michael Jai White (Spawn, 1997), Damon Wayans (Blankman, 1994), Robert Townsend (The Meteor Man, 1993) and Tobar Mayo (Abar, The First Black Superman, 1977) would say something to the contrary. Or was it that Marvel were just marketing their film to be politically aligned with the ongoing racial divisions that they decided no black superhero movies existed prior to Black Panther because, somehow, those films weren’t about black people as an oppressed race (despite Black Panter taking place in the most advanced country on Earth) and more about a fictional character that happened to be black? Fiction or warped reality? What’s more profitable?

Similarly, Hollywood did the same in 2017 when Warner Bros. released Wonder Woman. It was marketed as the representation women needed ‘right now’ in the world. But women have been in films since the beginning of the business and played all kinds of roles. Look at Doris Day in Calamity Jane. Just ask Meryl Streep or go and watch Marilyn Monroe in any one of her numerous films where she was the star. Or, more recently, speak to Jennifer Lawrence who fronted the $2.97billion grossing The Hunger Games franchise from 2012-2015. There are two entire categories at the Oscars for women. Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Funny that that’s the same number of catgories the men have. So, what’s all this ‘there must be more female fronted superhero films’ business all about?

Power and control.

There’s a reason it’s taken until the fourth paragraph to actually begin to discuss the topic of this post. Unfortunately, it seems that Marvel Studios are pandering to the political activists hellbent on forcing their agenda down the throats of people who just want to go to the cinema, be entertained for a couple of hours and go home.

The film itself opens with subtle messaging within the first few scenes. Awkwardly, the film begins in 1995 (Florence Pugh was born in 1996) in a typical Amercian suburban neighbourhood. We’re introduced to a fairly normal American family. Initially, a mother, a young daughter and…an older child. On first watch, I struggled to tell if the older sibling was meant to be a boy or girl with their multicoloured, multilayered Social Justice Warrior hair and androgenous physique and clothes. They look to be in early adolescence so, if a girl, there should be some signs of femininity. Turns out the older sibling is young Natasha Romanoff but she’s done up to, in my view, send signs of ‘representation’ that children should not be girl or boy and only choose their gender when the’yre older. This was the first turn off. Plus, this kind of thing wasn’t happening 1995 so the writers took some liberties with history here.

The rest of the opening sequence is fairly standard. Dad comes home, grabs a beer, the family have dinner then the proverbial shit hits the fan when the parents, who are really Russian spies, find out they’re being hunted after the father (David Harbour) has made a copy of a disk containing important information before burning its place of origin down. And now, the family have to leave.

Given the Cold War ended in 1989, the whole vibe of this subplot doesn’t sit well. Told you 1995 was an awkward place but with an age gap of 11 years between Pugh and Johannson in real life and their characters looking to be 4-5 years apart, more liberties were required.

Anyway, cue the family doing a quick pack-up before heading off to an airfield where, for reasons, a small plane is uncovered from some rubble in front of a hangar. The authorities have caught up to the family whilst the plane is in motion allowing for a fairly tense series of sequences allowing for the three eldest members of the family to engage in some heroics before managing to escape.

The rest of this opener plays out with the family being introduced to Ray Winstone’s Dreykov. His Russian is as convincing as Sean Connery’s but he’s no less watchable. Harbour’s Alexei hands the disk to Dreykov while his wife, Melina (Racehel Weisz), is loaded onto a military transport.

Seeing her mother being taken away, we see young Natasha’s training kicks in when the military attempt to take her sister. This sequence is interesting as it implies a very close bond between the pair. More on that later.

The opener ends with both girls being taken away and loaded into containers which leads into the opening credits where, in poor taste, we get another slowed down cover to take us through the montage. This time, Nirvana’s ‘It Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ AI found that to be anohter turn off since we’re watching young girls being forced into shipping containers and taken away from everything they know. But, hey. Marvel needs to show it can ‘serious’ and ‘edgy’, right?

We’re treated to news footage of the installation Alexei burned down along with disturbing images of the girls transformation into ‘Widows’. This raised another problem for me. Given we’ve only known of Black Widow since 2010’s Iron Man 2, why wasn’t the audience made aware far earlier in the franchise that Romanoff was an agent for a separate organisation? We knew she was an assassin but just now who she was doing hits for.

Montage ends and the film starts right after the events of Civil War with William Hurt’s ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross sending in a squad of elite troops to catch the Black Widow. The squad is complimentary as it’s the kind that might get sent in to subdue Captain America, Winter Soldier or Falcon. But Black Widow? Guess Marvel needed to show she’s a much bigger threat than she is. Romanoff is sly and it’s revelaed she’s actually on a ship travelling a Norwegian fjord and not in America about to be overrun.

Cue another change of scenery (this time MOROCCO since the audience can’t make educated guesses on locations anymore) and we now see multiple Widows in action where we’re introduced to Florence Pugh’s Yelena. We also get to see the villian Taskmaster who looks a bit like a mish-mash of Skeletor, the Terminator, Robocop, Kylo Ren and a Cylon but with none of the menace of either one.

We flick back to Natasha’s current location (NORWAY) where the radio kindly informs the audience she’s on the run because that wasn’t clear from two scenes earlier.

Up to this point, the general premise has been serious. It falls down when we meet Mason, Natasha’s ‘finder’. For a guy who is dealing with covert and undercover miliatry types whilst being one himself, he’s a bit…nice. A bit…soft round the edges. A puppy dog. The sexual tension between him and Romanoff is functional at best. He wants her and is doing his very best to impress but it’s clear she’s using for access to kit and a bit of ego stroking. The character is not written to be a tactical military fence but a wet paper bag.

Natasha apparently enjoys watching that other fictional spy, James Bond, whilst her film is currently emulating the style of Jason Bourne. Considering the Bond flick she watches is Moonraker and not a Daniel Craig Bond, take that as a sign for the general tone.

Taskmaster shows up (or SkeleTermiRoboKylon) and we get the first fight scene which is supposed to showcase Taskmaster’s ability to mimic their opponent but instead, shows they’re a bit crap at fulfilling their objective and taking the chance to kill Romanoff there and then.

One fight moves to the next. This time, Yelena against Romanoff in the Budapest safehouse. At this point, I have to agree with Gamespot’s review. The writers cannot decide what power level Romanoff is on. She’s not afraid of having a gun pulled on her. She’s happy to get slammed into a doorframe. Have a plate smashed into her face. Flung into a doorframe. But when a knife is pulled, she’s scared.

Naturally, as both women lay on the floor after calling it even, there’s not a scratch on them. If this was any male character, there’d be some signs of a fight but women are ‘strong’ and the writers are generously applying the liberties to prove it.

What’s really bizarre about Romanoff meeting her sister for the first time in years is that we don’t get that protective bond shown earlier. They fight, stop fighting then carry on like nothing happened. Where’s the history? Where’s the resolution? We don’t get any. Yelena knows of Tony Stark being her sister’s friend but not Hawkeye (his arrow marks are shown in the safe house) who’s her sister’s oldest friend. Odd thing that she wouldn’t know.

The sisters’ interaction is interrupted when a band of Widows bust into the safehouse (not really a safehouse then, is it?) and proceed to open fire in a covert, stealthy manner that wouldn’t make anyone think gang warfare had just broken out.

Despite being chased by those trying to kill them, there’s a point where the sisters are holding onto a falling chimney where a Widow jumps on to complete her mission. Rather than try and kick her off, Romanoff (see, I can’t call her Black Widow because she’s not the only one. Thanks Marvel Studios for ruining the oldest female character in your franchise) goes to save her. I suspect this is supposed to be an attempt to show her compassion. She knows what these girls have been through and that they’ve been conditioned and programmed to complete their mission at all costs. But showing this when they’re in mortal danger? Misplaced. Despite her attempts to save the Widow, she falls, seemingly, to her death.

Natasha gets the John Wick treatment and survives an unsurviveable fall with zero damage. Even at the end of John Wick Chapter 3, Mr. Wick was in a bad state but Natasha can just walk this off despite it not having been previously revealed she has a weaker version of the supersoldier serum like she does in the comics. So, as far the films go, she’s just a highly trained human.

The Widow that fell is also alive despite falling some sixty or more feet onto concrete. My disbelief has been fully unsuspended at this point.

We then get a brief motorbike sequence ending with the Romanoff sisters being chased by an armoured vehicle which has just smashed a car at speed before stopping to let the sisters get on the bike and set off so the chase can begin. This bit is like a point in some computer games where you’re in a boss area but the fight doesn’t start until the player does the thing needed to trigger the event. That’s what this bit is. All tension is removed when the big, heavy and fast armoured vehicle justs sits and waits when it should have continued relentlessly on towards the women forcing them to jump into action. Doesn’t happen.

What should have been a thrilling chase ends up boring and bland since, you know, the tension’s been removed and we’re ‘on-rails’ now. The sequence ends, predictably, with the women being thrown off the bike and down at least ten feet where some injuries should have been picked up after having been on a speeding motorbike. Nope. They just get up and steal a guy’s car and continue on because that’s what the childish writers of this script have put down. We get Yelena belting out misplaced and cringy humour about Natasha’s inability to drive a manual as opposed to ramping up the urgency at a time when their lives are in peril. The writers just don’t care and insist on slotting in cheap laughs where they’re not needed.

More boring action follows when the armoured vehicle reappears to reveal the Taskmaster as its driver. More poor jokes only serve to highlight that Yelena doesn’t like Natasha much but we don’t know why. The sequence ends with a preposterous shot of the car the women are in being potted like a snooker ball down the stairs of a subway station. I tried to switch off at this point, but I put myself through the remainder to get this post out.

Taskmaster does a bad Captain America impression as they pursue Natasha and Yelena through the subway. After this, we get a ‘reveal’ moment which is meant to be serious and show the viewer what Natasha went through in order to defect to S.H.I.E.L.D but it doesn’t come across right since we had a sequence from a recent Fast & Furious film right before.

With both women on the run, we move into territory remiscient of some of the intimate exposition scenes from Bourne. Except, Jason Bourne wouldn’t discuss his killer past whilst in front of a civilian behind the till of a petrol station. Good moment. Poor placement.

Despite this, the film moves on to a truly intimate and caring scene between Natasha and Yelena but it’s let down slightly with Yelena giving more exposition on details Natasha would know but the audience does not. Yet, Yelena is talking to Natasha. After this slight misstep, there is genuine weight applied and the chemistry and bond between Yelena and Natasha gets to come through.

We cut to Russia where we’re reintroduced to Alexei who, for reasons unknown and unexplained in this film, is in prision and has been for some time. I’ve never been to prison let alone a Russion one, but there are a lot of inmates (male) walking around topless. Anyway, the reintroduction is rather cool with Alexei telling a highly embellished story about a fight with Captain America when he was the Red Guardian, whilst easily defeating all oncomers who dare challenge him to an arm wrestle. This quickly and efficiently shows Alexei’s egotisical nature as he wanders down a fictional memory lane whilst getting a new Red Guardian tattoo on his back to add a touch of narcissism.

He’s broken out by Natasha and Yelena in yet another sequence that would be more suited to Vin Diesel particularly the end where Alexei is lifted one-handed by Natasha whilst the prison blows up. Alexei being twice the size of Natasha, more disbelief is unsuspended.

Further more, during the breakout Yelena questions Alexei’s chances of survival. But Alexei’s a supersoldier. Yelena and Natasha are not. But, for the purposes of the politcial agenda, the ‘strong’ women must go and save the ‘weak’ man. Cue another unbelievable sequence where Natasha easily sends several very accomodating stuntmen over a railing. Add on top of this that Alexei (supersoldier and spy) is depcited as stupid enough to not understand how communication in a helicopter works. And on top of that still, we’re given more exposition by Yelena into how girls are transformed into Widows by way of degrading Alexei’s intelligence despite having once been the right-hand of the man who created the Widow program in the first place. This only serves to highlight that the writers don;t know the material or their own script and it doesn’t make any of the characters look good. Again, this is furthered when Yelena jokingly suggests throwing Alexei out the window because he points out that Natasha suffered no repercussions for killing Dreykov’s daughter whilst Alexei was imprisoned for life for no apparent reason.

Another daft ‘funny moment’ occurs when Alexei informs the pair that their ‘mother’ is working for Dreykov outside St. Petersburg. Yelena informs back they don’t have fuel for that journey then we cut to show the helicopter falling from the sky, landing quite softly and all three characters waking out unscathed. Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

It is followed, rather jarringly, by a rather touching, if morbidly amusing, moment with Alexei displaying genuine paternal pride over his adoptive daughters.

And, quite fortuitosuly, Melina is maybe a mile away conditioning pigs. Seems that helicopter had just enough fuel after all.

Another reflective and seemingly serious scene follows with the ‘family’ reunited for the first time in over twenty years. The tone is dropped with flirting and faux family interactions. Again, either the writers or director didn’t have the gumption to choose a tone and stick with it. This plays out throughout the time we spend at Melina’s house. But we do learn that Melina was a willing participant in uncovering the science that stops a being having any control over its body. This detail gets flipped later.

Once out of Melina’s cabin in the country, we’re back to typical spy stuff. The family are found out and taken to Dreykov’s ‘Red Room’ skybase a la Moonraker. Don’t know how they were tracked. Maybe something to do with blowing up a prison a scene back but without any tension-building details, we just don’t know.

The next detail, I have issues with. In the existing MCU, we are aware of two major secretive organisations on Earth. S.H.I.E.L.D and Hydra. The very presence of a skybase run by Dreykov strongly suggests that his Widow organisation/program/initiative is on par with the other two as, later on, Natasha gets Dreykov to reveal the size of the operation and we are shown thousands of Widows around the globe. Yet, there’s been no mention or hint that this has been on the radar of either of the two known MCU entities.

From this point on, the film moves into fairly standard territory for Marvel. Dreykov isn’t really a threat. There’s a fight high above ground. There’s a big explosion above ground. And we get a fairly weak CGI fest. All boxes ticked.

The reveal of the Taskmaster would come as no surprise if you paid attention to the credits or the regular mentions throughout the film. The fight between Taskmaster and Red Guardian isn’t as much of a test as it should be. Supersoldier vs augmented mimic should be quite even and a source of tension but, again, I think the writers bailed out as it’s effectively man vs. woman and able-bodied against disabled. Forget opposing sides, politics reigns supreme here and practically the whole fight is diffused with quick cuts and Yelena’s non-supersoldier self saving Red Guardian.

The one thing I did like during the finale was Natasha getting Dreykov to hit her. Not because I like seeing old men beating women, but because it was her (literally and figuratively) overcoming the hold Dreykov had on her. The ‘Queen Bee’ mechanic is interesting but comes across a bit naff with Dreykov revealing he controls the Widows through pheromones and the very smell of his forces a Widow unable to do him harm.

We’re also shown that the operation can topple governments and make economies crash. No explanation how. The audience is just expected to accept it.

We’re given a scene not unlike Neo vs all the Agent Smiths when the Widows come to Dreykov’s aid and start laying into Natasha. They all cut the same shape and fight the same. There’s not much distinct about them save the Diversity & Inclusion clause which, of course, even evil Russians have to follow.

The purpose of this scene is to allow Yelena to deploy the ‘red mist’ antidote she stole at the start which will counter the pheromone control. Plus, for Natasha to sever her link to Dreykov since he wasn’t strong enough to do it, she has to break her nose which should render her without the sense of smell and her ability to breathe. But, she just resets her nose and all is well. It’s also the only time we see Romanoff bleed after everything she’s gone through at this point. Women are so strong that only they can make themselves bleed. Nothing or noone else.

Just before the CGI fest, Yelena chases down Dreykov and inserts her fighting sticks into one of the engines of the helicopter he’s boarding. The helicopter catches fire and Dreykov dies off screen. So, why use the antidote if killing Dreykov was part of the plan? With him gone, who controls the Widows? No one.

Yet, somehow, the antidote still works as Taskmaster is freed from her murderous rampage against Natasha thus avoiding another fight.

What I’ve noticed is that Hollywood seems to be trying to create a trope of ‘all women are victims and only do bad things because bad men make them’. It happened in Wonder Woman with Doctor Death allegedly serving Ludendorff out of fear and devotion rather than actually enjoy creating weapons of murder. We had it in Captain Marvel with Carol Danvers being controlled and manipulated by the Kree officer Mar Vell (Jude Law). With roles reversed, men are held to account and called out for their actions. This trend, should it take off, has to be concerning for all.

The main part of the film ends with Natasha confusingly being surrounded by Ross’ government squad. He’s caught up to her. She can’t run, hide or escape. What happens? Well, the writers cut to black and we get ‘Two Weeks Later’. Utter copout. Literally reinforcing the point that a female spy can go off, do bad things (albeit to bad people) and face no consequences.

In the flash forward, Mason gets her a quinjet just to gain her validation and the film ends with a peek at the pink blossom subplot from the start. No resolution.

And that’s it. That’s Black Widow. A film that tries to have the gritty tone of Bourne and the latest Bonds but with the cool assassin aesthetic of John Wick mixed with the preposterous stunts of Mission Impossible and latter era Fast and the Furious. It succeeds at being neither in trying to be all of them at once. I think here, Marvel, once again, backed out of going all in with genuinely serious subject matter. They did it with Iron Man 3 in 2013. They should have gone full Al-Qaeda on Tony Stark with The Manadrin heading up the Ten Rings but didn’t. Meanwhile, with the same PG-13/12A rating, Christopher Nolan broke Batman in the Dark Knight Rises the previous year.

They’ve done it again here. I think they should have given Natasha’s full arc. Show the audience how she was forced into becoming a killer as a child. Show us how irredeemable she became as a teenager then show her path to redemption as she became an Avenger. Killer from childhood and on to saving the world twice before sacrifing herself for half the universe to be brought back. The mission showing her defection to S.H.I.E.L.D is where this film should have taken place. We know the rest.

I also found the inclusion of her adoptive family interesting but unneccessary. This should have been about Natasha. Instead, she seemed like a side character in her own film where no one was the main character. She’s a spy and an assassin, true, therefore she wouldn’t a main focus of attention anywhere but this is supposed to the full and final farewell. Yet, we find that she’s not that special and there are literally thousands of young women who all act and fight like her so, she’s easily replaced.

Which brings me to Florence Pugh. I liked her. I thought Yelena was tough, snarky and very much focused on her mission. There was good chemistry between her and Johansson and I think she’ll be an intersting fit in fute MCU films.

David Harbour was convincing as Red Guardian though I’d have liked to see him do more. Same with Rachel Weisz’s Melina. Such is the problem with bringing in this much talent to a superhero film. They don’t get the screentime they deserve.

Johansson seemed done. There wasn’t the same investment in the role as depicted in all her previous entries. If I was in her shoes, I’d struggle to play a character one last time knowing she was dead in the previous film. Doing things in a non-linear fashion like this doesn’t allow the audience or the actress to move on.

Another odd point with the placement of this film is that Natasha is supposed to be on the run. Why is she hunting down Dreykov and engaging in a mission that brings the authorities right to her as they do at the end? Hence, I think placing this before her S.H.I.E.L.D days would have been better to allow the audience to see how she changed from being a human weapon to being a human that uses weapons in service of humanity.

Ultimately, this was a missed opportunity to find out a lot more about an interesting character that was never really fleshed out from Iron Man 2 through Avengers via Captain America. All we really learned was that she wasn’t that special and her younger replacement is incoming. That’s a deeply disrespectful send off for any character let alone the original female Avenger.

However, in a twist of perverse irony, this is actually the perfect film for the character to end on. She’s used to furthering politcal agendas and ending political regimes. Given the current attempts to start a gender and culture war, who better to utilise and exploit than a beautiful white female assassin designed to manipulate whilst being manipulated? And best of all, she’s untouchable.

Whisky Meander: Smokehead Islay Single Malt

July 8, 2021 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

Distiller and Bottler – Ian Macleod

Price – £35/£40 (£25 when on special offer)

Region – Islay

Strength – 43%

Colour – Overly caramel

When I saw this whisky on the shelves, I was still very much a Metalhead (Still am.It’s just not my only thing anymore) and the skull design on the metal tube made me think ‘Ah, ha! A whisky for me and my kind.’

That was some years ago. Things have changed. I’ve changed. I’m about to complete my third year of my self-imposed whisky apprenticeship and I’m currently drinking the Smokehead after seeing it reduced at my local Tesco some weeks ago. I didn’t buy it because of the design and its connotations. I bought it because it was reasonably priced and I was curious.

Not a lot is known about just what’s inside the bottle. For the uninitiated, they’ll be overwhelmed with the peaty aromas coming from the glass. That in itself would be enough to live up to the ‘heavy’ and ‘edgy’ promise of the branding. But, my more developed nose and palate says different. It’s certainly got the phenols from the peat smoke alongside some iodine, however, when I taste it and let my tongue have a good look at the liquid, there’s sweetness there too. Quite a bit. And some briny notes. This indicates to me that the whisky in this bottle is Ardbeg. Having only ever had the 5 and 10 year-old bottlings once before (distinctly memorable though), I can say with almost 100% certainty that Ardbeg is being used. An offshoot, of course. Either bought wholsesale from Ardbeg by Macleod to bottle when they choose or, potentially, lesser stock that Ardbeg wanted rid of without having to pay the disposal fees.

Not that this is a bad whisky, mind. It’s just not…there. For fans of Ardbeg, Islay and peated malts, this won’d do much to excite. It’s reasonable and perfectly acceptable if you’re new to peat and don’t want to fork out the prices of the official bottlings. There’s enough peat to overpower any beginner and give them the experience that they’re drinking a whisky with ‘punch’ and ‘fire’. But the sweetness (I think it’s overly sweetned by the addition of a decent chunk of the old E150a caramel colourant) is what helps make this more palatable because, let’s face it, no serious whisky enthusiast is going to buy a bottle with a pop-out gold skull on the bottle then find a load of caramel’s been used to make the malt look more appealing. This is very much for the ‘alternative’ market where black, skulls and bold ‘look at me, I’m edgy’ designs on their clothes are the thing. And that’s fine. It really is. These people want something that ‘belongs to them’ and the whisky industry’s giving it to them. Fair play. Everyone’s a winner in that respect.

I decanted this bottle over two weeks ago and, I must say, over time and with suitable gaps between drams, the smoky element does devlop. As I write this, I got a faint cigar note. Almost like a cigar that had been dipped in molasses before being dried and smoked. Might not sound appealing but that’s what I’m getting. You might be different.

And like any good peated whisky, the Smokehead does have a lingering finish but that sweetness remains as well to temper it down. Fans of the Ardbeg 10 will be disappointed that they’re not getting campfire ash remaining overnight.

On Ardbeg, a bit of digging around brought about the suggestion that this may be a 6 year-old malt being used. Having had the recently released ‘Wee Beastie’ 5 Year-Old, I can believe this may be a bit older but being diluted to 43% instead of the 5’s 47.4% ensures it lacks the strength of character and flavour of the official bottling. That’s if this is Ardbeg which I’m pretty sure it is. But we can’t know for sure since the whisky industry likes to be all ‘hush, hush’ about this kind of thing. Trade secrets and all that.

So, what is there to recommend this whisky. Unfortunately, not a lot. As said before, if you’re new to peat, live in the UK and see this on special offer then it’s worth a shot. At offer price, it’s not a lot to spend to find out whether you like or loathe peated whisky. At full retail, however. Well, the competition is stiff. The aformentioned ‘Wee Beastie’ floats between £30 and £35 and is a far superior dram to this offering giving much of the same flavours only amped up and more defined. The superlative 10 Year-Old enters the fray when it’s on special offer at £37.

Then, we have Laphroaig’s Select and 10 Year-Old which are no more than £40 and, whilst at minimum bottling strength of 40%, they provide a lot of peat, phenols and smoke to create a wonderfully characterful and heavy malt.

If you’re paying £40 for a peated whisky, you’re as well stumping a little bit extra for Bruichladdich’s Port Charlotte 10 Year-Old. Not tried it yet but it’s sitting in the cupboard demanding to be opened.

Of course, for lighter peat there’s Highland Park’s 12 Year-Old Viking Honour and recently re-released 10-Year Old Viking Scars. The 12 gives wonderful heather peat smoke, sherried fruits and a viscous, oily mouthfeel that requires you to chew. Like the Port Charlotte, I’ve yet to have Highland Park’s 10, however, once I saw this back on the shelves after an absence of two or more years, two bottles were purchased to be enjoyed and discovered at a later date. Both bottlings retail between £30 and £40, bottled at 40% ABV. When on special in the UK, they can be picked up for £24 for the 10 and £25 for the 12. Both are aged differently in bourbon and sherry casks respectively.

Then, there’s Bunnahabhain who, just last year, brought their Moine single malt. The name is Gaelic for ‘peat’ and is supposed to be rather good coming from a distillery not traditionally known for peated malts depsite being from Islay. Expect to pay around £35 and find a bottling strength of 46.3%. Got one of these too and will get around to it.

In conclusion, there’s a lot of competition at the price point that this Smokehead is operating at. The malt is young as confirmed by the thin, runny legs and doesn’t hold up against what I’ve tasted from Ardbeg, Highland Park and Laphroaig. It’s competent and, in all fairness, will suit non whisky drinkers more. It’s a tourist or occasional whisky. Not something the experienced dram sippers will buy more than once including this blogger. I’m enjoying this for what it is and, when I’m done, I’m done. Not another will be bought. Curiosity satisifed.

And so, it really comes down to marketing. As with many things that aren’t great where the producers know it, they market the crap out of it. Whether it’s a bland film, song, beer, burger, you name it, if it’s rubbish, it will be marketed to the High Heavens to ensure people buy that product above all others. Just to get the money back. That’s perhaps a bit harsh on this malt, but given what it’s up against, it needs to stand out from the crowd and the actual product won’t do the talking. So, pop-out skulls, edgy name, metal tube, slightly above average bottling strength and suitably wishy-washy wording on the back are what’s needed to get this malt noticed. The fact it’s still on the shelves shows the strategy works because the commentators certainly don’t rate it highly. Another case of style over substance.

Sport Meander: Scottish Football – It’s a funny old game.

June 24, 2021 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

And that’s it. 23 years without a major tournament and Scotland crash out in a similar way to how their 1998 campaign ended. A valiant loss followed by an unlikely draw followed by an excruiating knockout blow. Back in France ’98, the team suffering that valiant loss were up against none other than defending champions Brazil, where we were beaten 2-1. The unlikely win came against Norway with a solitary goal proving enough before being thrashed 3-0 by Morrocco. Rankings back then were as follows:

Brazil – No. 2

Norway – No. 16

Morocco – No.17

Scotland – No. 23

It’s bizarre that the squad could prove a threat against Brazil, beat Norway then lose so terribly to the second lowest ranked team in the group.

But this is no one-off. This is the Scotland way. If we take Euro 2020, the results are almost as baffling. A 2-0 defeat to the Czech Republic, a draw against England then a right good thumping at the end with a 3-1 loss to Croatia. Rankings for this group are:

Czech Republic – No. 40

England – No. 4

Croatia – No. 14

Scotland – No. 44

Between these two tournaments, we can see a bit of a pattern. The highest ranked side gets the biggest effort whilst the lowest ranked gets less effort. The variance is that Croatia were the only ones who, rightfully, thrashed Scotland whereas Norway should have as well, if we go purely on rankings.

It’s something Scotland’s footballers have excelled at. Playing the gallant loser. The almost winner. The supporters and commentators don’t help much either with comments along the lines of ‘We’d have have won that game if only…(insert arbitrary reason).’

The national rugby team went through this phenomenon as well. After winning the final Five Nations tournament in 1999, the team spent the next 15 or so years being dismal to watch yet, somehow, managing to pull out enough good results against better sides to mostly keep their Top 10 spot. I’m glad the First XV have been on the up in recent years.

The same can’t be said for the national football squad. The lack of major tournaments and exposure to tougher opposition since France ’98 has seen them slip down the rankings hard, the worst of which being 88th in 2005 before a brief resurgence under Alex McLeish saw them as high as 13th in 2007. Since then, the national side has been floating around somewhere between the two.

I want to get back to the ‘Scotland way’ I mentioned earlier. What I mean by it is that there is this tendency, mostly in sport, to look like we’re trying really hard…to not lose by much. Great effort is made to throw bodies at attacking opponents only for those opponents to, just, get past and score. It’s a bizarre mentality where the implication is that Scotland could win if theywanted to but rather than actually do so, we deceive ourselves into thinking we’re letting them win. It’s this false nobility that costs us dearly in football and a very grave lesson should have been learned from this latest attmept at a major tournament. Scotland didn’t want to win.

Anyone watching the Scotland-England game who is of neither country would most likely be bemused as to why the Scotland fans would celebrate a draw. My flatmate, who’s Russian, certainly thought Scotland had won when she heard all the commotion outside our city centre flat in Glasgow. When I explained we drew 0-0 against England, her query was “And they celebrate that?”

Yes. Yes we do. Because, in football, the bloody-minded Scots are ecstatic when England don’t win. And when England don’t win against us, forget the Euro trophy, because that, to the fans is the only result that mattered. England didn’t beat Scotland at football. Whilst no player or manager would admit it, I think it’s the only result that mattered to them too. The facts speak for themselves. Scotland played their best against the team they hate the most and have the most history with. It is this narrow-minded mentality that will continue to plague Scotland as a footballing nation. We have been emabarrased by the farmers and fisherman of the Faroe Islands and humiliated by Kazakhstan who were, as of April 2019, 117th in the FIFA rankings. The Kazakhs beat Scotland 3-0 at a time when they were 50th. Such a beating by a lowly side says little about how the Scots conduct themselves on the pitch. In the same year of 2019, similar thrashings were dealt by far superior sides. Belgium (Ranked 1st) played Scotland twice and beat us both times 3-0 and 4-0 respectively whilst Russia (Ranked 44th) managed gubbings of 2-1 and 3-0. That was June 2019 and Scotland had risen to 45th. You see why I find Scotland’s results baffling. A team outside the top 100 can thrash with the same score as the world’s best side whilst our ranking equals also manage similar feats. Why didn’t Belgium put twelve passed us? Why didn’t we put twelve passed Kazakhstan? And why weren’t the games against Russia less one-sided when they should have been are best chance for victory?

My answer. I come back to mentality. Sloppy, lazy, complacent mentality. Against a lower ranked side, they don’t think they need to make any effort whilst that lower ranked side plays their hearts out and gets a much needed result. Against the higher ranked sides, we put in more effort but are beaten by lack of discipline and a desire to win. And when it comes to those pretty equal in rank? Your guess is as good mine.

With Euro 2020, the Czech Republic were Scotland’s one and only realstic chance of a win. They gave it away. The fight they put up against England, whilst valiant, came to nothing when a shock win was on the cards. And then Croatia. Oh, Croatia. They put Scotland right in their place. At the very bottom.

Why? Because Scotland, in the end, will have spent more time celebrating their return to a major tournament more than focusing on embracing that opportunity. An opportunity they got through the back-door entrance. I don’t think they deserved to be there if the only thing the team and the fans can take from it is that England didn’t beat us. If Scotland is to truly return to the international football stage, it must expand its collective mind and learn from those at the top. That’s what the rugby team started a few years ago and, this year, required them to score 8 points in their games against Ireland (3) and Wales (5) to win a Grand Slam. Next year, they might do it. But to have raised their game so much, they brought in coaches from Australia and New Zealand before settling on the home-grown talent of current head coach, Gregor Townsend. But his coaching team are all former international players from Scotland and France. And I think that’s a key thing the football team is missing. Coaches who were players at international level.

Another issue that plagues Scottish football is the monopoly of Rangers and Celtic. In England, the Premiership is big enough to allow several top flight clubs to exist alongside some very good to good clubs. The competition is real. Years ago, Manchester City were the poor sibling to Manchester United, but that’s changed. Middlesborough and Chelsea used to be rivals fighting it out around the middle of the league. Chelsea went up and Middlesborough have left.

In Scotland, the changes aren’t as regular. Yes, Rangers were sent all the way to bottom rung of the league ladder, but they came back a few years later to continue hashing it out with Celtic, who were winning everything since their only true competition was absent. Other than that, it’s Rangers won this or Celtic won that. Not since Alex Ferguson led Aberdeen to win the league in the 1984-85 season has anyone outside the Old Firm won the league and fourteen of the last twenty Scottish Cups have been won by one of the Old Firm. For that trophy, you have to go back from 1960 and beyond where it wasn’t at least 80% likely Rangers or Celtic would get their hands on that piece of silverware.

And that level of sustained dominance causes problems. Like a forest with two overgrown trees, there’s little resource left for the others to allow them to grow and flourish. This leads to less competition and the overgrown trees getting a further foothold in the forest to the point where they start to control everything. There was talk in the early 2000’s of sending the Old Firm to England and allow the Scottish Premier League to grow and thrive. Unfortunately, Scottish football is in such a sorry state that, without Rangers and Celtic, it would only wilt and die as it’s the Old Firm that sustains this particular forest.

The other issue is that many of the players for the Old Firm aren’t Scottish and tend to use the Scottish league as a place to cut their teeth before moving down south to play for clubs they really want. I have no issue with foreign players coming over and playing but it’s at the expense of opportunities for home-grown talent to really develop. A foreign player is more exotic and will draw in the fans compared to a pale Scotsman with a familiar name. Growing up, the only Scots of any real note were the ones on the field in 1998. Ally McCoist, Andy Goram, Colin Hendry, Jim Leighton, John Collins, etc. But put them up against their club teammates like Jorg Albertz, Paul Gascoigne, Mark Hateley, Henrik Larsson, Brian Laudrup, Marco Negri and, every lady football fan’s favourite, Lorenzo Amoruso then they seem plain, somehow. Even when I was at school, the boys spoke more of the foreign players than the Scottish. In retrospect, I wonder why.

Certainly, in rugby there’s a big push on supporting and nurturing home talent with the vast majority of international players playing for Scottish teams with only a few playing in England, Ireland, Wales or on mainland Europe. Scottish football could follow this model, but it’ll likely see the destruction of the game in its current form due to those overgrown trees. It could be argued that the Old Firm’s grip has polluted and corrupted the state of Scottish football and I’d be inclined to agree. I enjoy playing it but I can’t stand watching it. Grown men, allegedly athletes, spending most of 90 minutes walking around, missing goals then falling down dramatically when someone runs by them. But when you’re being paid upwards of tens of thousands a week, why bother? Where’s the incentive to be a team player or have any kind of sporting integrity. This doesn’t just affect Scottish football. That’s an issue with football in general.

Anyway, back to Scotland. I was sad to see them out. When Scotland played in France ’98, I was at primary school. Euro 2020, I’m 34 and an established career man. Christ knows where I’ll be if it’s another 23 years.

There’s a wee saying I’ve developed over the years and it goes: ‘It’s easier being Catholic than a Scotland fan. At least your faith is rewarded more.’ After that latest display, unfortunately, I’ve been proven right. However, credit where credit’s due. Scotland has been through a lot but did manage to scrape their way in. It’s a start and long may they continue their journey upward.

Motor Meandering: The Rolls-Royce Boat Tail

June 22, 2021 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

The Rolls-Royce Boat Tail. A trilogy of unique, one-off bespoke creations by the coachbuilders of Crewe. A testament to quality, detail and craftsmanship. Four years of painstaking design and labour went into making these. They are truly monolithic. More so than the Phantom, in this writer’s opinion. Looking more like they were carved straight out a giant node of metal ore rather than bolted together out of bits and pieces that only mere mortals can manage. The simplicity of the design is astounding and only adds to that weight of presence. The long, continuous shoulder line that tapers off to the rear is elegant and refined, but muscular and imperious.

It’s a shame, again, in this writer’s opinion, that what must have been an astonishing effort to create, has a rather novelty purpose.

You see, tucked away in that boat deck of a rear lies all you need for an exceptionally fancy picnic. Crystal glasses, silver cutlery and exquisite crockery. Bottle holders not only keep your finest-of-fine champagne secure but chilled too. It all seems rather anti-climactic.

All the engineering that’s gone into the folding rear panels and the built-in and swivel-out carbon fibre tables just so the owners can sit and have a glass of bubbly with their foie gras. Rolls-Royce even engineered their own parasol solution. As neat as it is, it just seems all rather over-the-top for a picnic hamper on wheels.

But then, at £20million a piece, everything needs to be over the top. And that’s been my issue with this car. I have no problem with the design on its own. The clients went to Rolls-Royce and commissioned them to create a boat for land and that’s what they’ve delivered. The below comparisons highlight that.

The same continuous shoulder line to that of a Riva. The smooth, sculpted sides. The elegant tapering to the rear. All very seafaring.

But that price tag. It didn’t shock me. It made me wonder. Sure, Bugatti put their La Voiture Noire out in 2019 for around £12million and I couldn’t see where all that extra money went especially since it’s based on the existing Chiron.

The Boat Tail is also not a completely new creation either. It’s based on the Phantom which baffles me all the more when it comes to these highly priced vehicles. There just doesn’t seem to be any sense in them.

Of course, that’s subjective. I do not have £20million spare lying around to shell out on one custom vehicle. But even if I did, I’d want it built from the ground up and not sitting on the chassis of a vehicle that has a base price (not that there’s anything ‘base’ about a £350,000 car) that’s around 57 times less.

I suppose that’s the trouble with the ever increasing wealth of people. What do you make that they would want to buy? If I were Rolls-Royce, I’d lock myself in an elegantly comfortable soundproof room, so that I could laugh to my heart’s content whilst watching the company’s income statement go up by £60million. Because, on the face of it, seven figures for a car and a bunch of shiny glasses, knives and forks doesn’t add up. I don’t care how bespoke something is. It’s a Phantom on holiday.

And then I got thinking. Maybe the car itself isn’t the full price tag but is part of a bundle. What do wealthy people like more than spending money? Getting healthy returns on investment so they have even more money to spend.

And that’s where I think this Boat Tail makes sense. If seen as a direct investment in Rolls-Royce, then they can make up whatever figure they like. The car might, realistically, be worth £3-£5million and the rest is investment capital. True, BMW are the parent company, but Rolls-Royce has been relying less and less on its parent since it was taken over by the German marque. Where the first Phantom made under BMW ownership sat on a modified 7 Series and used a lot of the tech from that car, the current generation is practically all Rolls-Royce. The infotainment is still BMW but it’s been given enough of an overhaul to look like Rolls-Royce’s own. There’s also debate as to whether any of the switchgear has been lifted from the 7 Series. Again, if it has, Rolls-Royce has done enough to overhaul it that most buyers couldn’t tell the difference.

And so, with the three Boat Tail’s, I see these as £20million investments with a car bundled in that will appreciate in value. Rolls-Royce gets a nice cash injection that sees it less reliant on its parent; its reputation bolstered even further from all the pomp and hype these cars have generated; and the clients get an asset that will generate a return as well as them being truly unique. Of course, saying it’s £20million now means it is £20million and shall therefore be sold higher than that in the future. But then, when you’re dealing with one-off creations, no one really knows what the value of a thing actually is. And when you’re wealthy enough, do you even care?

Seven Deadly Sins – The Fourth and Final Part

November 6, 2019 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

So, what do all of these have in common? From my own understanding (having experienced, as I think we all have at some point, all of these), I see these emotional attributes having one overarching theme.

They bring about isolation.

Pride can make you overconfident which would stop you utilising resources around you. Others will see that you’re not performing as best you can and could be heading straight for disaster. You still think you’re great at your job. Disaster strikes. You can’t handle it. You’re made to look incompetent. No one wants to work with you.

With envy, there’s a fixation element. A person will be stuck on, generally, one person but rather than aspire to be like them, they instead develop an unhealthy obsession over what the other person has versus what they don’t.

Rather than try to progress themselves to become better and, maybe, get to a similar level of the object of their envy, they build up a lot of resentment towards that person and themselves.

Again, this leads to a person being isolated because they’ll stop being present in their own lives and will always be comparing themselves to their target. Paranoia and cynicism can set in where you can start trying to find any dirt and pin it on your target so you can get some kind of perverted satisfaction out of knocking them down a few pegs.

Ultimately, if envy starts to leak out into your life where you start picking on people that you perceive to be better, others will pull away because they don’t want to be associated with you and, more importantly, don’t want to be infected with your toxicity.

Gluttony can manifest in a number of ways depending on a person’s disposition. If they’re a foodie, they’ll eat too much and get fat. A fitness freak will spend too much time at the gym. A shopaholic will buy way too much stuff. You get the idea.

Gluttony, the first of the sins of desire, is, in my eyes, an outward projection of how a person sees themselves and they will justify their actions accordingly despite them being unhealthy in other ways. In the case of the shopper, they will likely tell themselves they have enough money and have ‘worked hard’ to earn themselves a little reward. But what about savings, investments and pensions? Are they over-exerting themselves on driving a fancy car on lease rather than buy an equally fancy car used?

If they’re at the gym all the time, why are they there? Are they a bodybuilder or athlete? Ballet dancer? There’s a difference between someone doing exercise as part of an occupation or hobby compared to general fitness compared to an unhealthy obsession. I see lots of women at the gym chasing the ‘big booty’ and lots of guys looking to get ‘ripped’. A few weeks ago, I renewed my gym membership. I went and did my first strength session in three months. My first exercise was a lateral pull down. I started with 30kgs either side to see how it felt. Felt easy so I went and piled the weight on to 55kgs each side. That felt manageable. After the set, a guy asked if I was done. I said I had one more set. He asked if he could hop on whilst I rested. I agreed and let him get on with things. He didn’t change the weight but as I watched this guy (who looked a lot fitter than me), I saw him struggle. His form was poor, he was jerky and uncontrolled whereas I had been slow, steady and smooth. He finished and asked if I wanted another 10kgs either side. I did so he put on the weight. I sat down, did eight reps at 65kgs each side and finished. I had pushed heavier before stopping the gym, but this was me pushing the limit of my first week back.

The guy got on again and I watched him for a bit as he struggled with poor form yet again and all I could think was, Why? Was he in competition? Did he have something to prove to himself? Did he not like that a seemingly less fit looking guy was pushing more than him? Whatever the reason, I saw it as potentially unhealthy behaviour. How did he get so toned yet struggle with a moderate weight for the given exercise?

Anyway, I’m rambling. My point here is, to bring it back to gluttony, is that if a person looks fit yet can’t perform an exercise that looks well within their capabilities then have they achieved the look through other means? Exercise is certainly an important way of achieving a certain look, but actors speed up the results using steroids and other drugs.

So, if a person is obsessed with achieving a particular body shape then what other unhealthy behaviours are, they indulging in to achieve it?

In the case of the foodie, if they have gotten overweight, are they happy like that? Some will be and will accept how they are or will recognise they need to trim things down but don’t put too much pressure on.

If they’re not happy then what is the food replacing and why do they ‘need’ so much of it? Is it a lack of self-control and self-discipline? Are they unhappy in their own skin but, being a foodie rather than a fitness person, do they look to food as way of getting the dopamine hit? If that’s the case, then a vicious cycle begins because they won’t do exercise to burn the calories and they won’t watch what they eat from lack of self-control, so they just get bigger and bigger.

Are they unhappy in their relationship? Do they feel neglected? Has sex disappeared? Food is a common substitute for intimacy but it’s certainly a poor one.

Gluttony isolates in a similar way to envy only the unhealthy obsession is with yourself rather than another person. The term ‘glutton for punishment’ is appropriate because gluttony is an act of self-harming regardless of how it looks on the outside. Only the glutton knows the real reason why they indulge so much on one thing.

Greed, the second, is similar to gluttony, however, I see it as the polar opposite. Greed is about being consumed by the pursuit of the material and the superficial. A person may try to feed themselves with wealth, property, cars, clothes amongst other things but ultimately, will be unfulfilled. Yet, because they have no meaningful pursuits or no way to identify what is meangful to them, they continue to obtain more and more. Eventually, they become overwhelmed and end up being controlled by a lifestyle that is, realistically, not sustainable. The pursuit of such things deters anyone who previously wanted to engage and connect thus isolating the greed-ridden person only to leave them to their unquenchable thirst and impossible chase. The endeavour will consume the afflicted and their life will be controlled by that which they desire.

Lust, on the other hand, isolates by turning a person into an object or a fetish. If sex, and all its accompanying components, is their obsession, then you have to wonder if they can look beyond the chemistry and look at the person underneath? Can they form a relationship? Are they mature enough to commit? Are they responsible? Like gluttony and greed, there is an issue with self-control. A person engaging in lustful activities can end up spreading themselves too thin to the point where it’s no longer people having sex but more about what’s going in where. The human aspect disappears and the focus in using a certain body part to achieve pleasure. It’s why one-night stands can feel so cold afterwards.

Recognising how sloth isolates is much easier. The person can’t be bothered to make an effort. Social engagements, work, family commitments, eating habits, you name it, it’s all too much effort for a sloth. No matter how much encouragement, patience, understanding or support is given, if they can’t be bothered to recognise the help then why should others bother to offer help? Eventually, they’ll stop, and the sloth will be alone. At some point, they’ll see but it may be too late to do anything by then.

Wrath is also fairly easy to see how it isolates. Anger generates fear or more anger which leads to some steering clear and others trying meet the Wrath head on. Fighting fire with fire only creates more fire and pulling away gives more space for the fire to spread thus increasing the radius of isolation. The more angry a person is perceived to be the more distance is put between them. Either that or people get burned if they fail to put the fire out.

For the bonus, naivety brings about isolation when others recognise you’re an easy target. Like sloth, people will be sympathetic at first and offer help in showing you the ropes. But if you’re not picking it up and just not displaying any kind of intelligence or awareness then you’ll just be seen as incompetent. Showing a willingness to learn is one thing but you must be able to retain knowledge and use it in your current situation even it’s a new one to you. Being able to adapt is a skill and shows others you can stand your ground and assert yourself. If you keep wandering blindly into things, you’re going to make a mess and end up doing harm.

Yes, people make mistakes through lack of knowledge. That’s fine. That’s human. But continuing to make the same mistakes shows a sheer lack of concern, respect and ability to learn. Therefore, the good and capable people move away from you because you’re beyond their help. Once you’re exposed, the sharks move in and that’s when you end falling prey to your own stupidity.

If you’ve read this then you have my appreciation and gratitude. If you have any points of discussion, please leave them in the comments section.

Seven Deadly Sins – Part 3

October 23, 2019 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

Wrath

Wrath and Lust are fairly close bedfellows. Both can get a person heated and passionate; both are powerful and direct when strong enough; and one can be a trigger for the other.

Wrath, or anger, however, is fostered by rejection rather than a feeling of acceptance which creates a sense of love. When a person is angry, they return the rejection many times over because the initial rejection wounded them so badly. If that rejection is never overcome, then it changes a person’s perception of emotional connections. They can become very distrusting and will actively reject any and all who try to form some kind of relationship. If they continue on that path then they’ll end up alone and isolated, but they may blame the world for that because they can’t handle admitting that they couldn’t accept the rejection at that time or indeed, overcome it later.

Anger is possibly the most potent and destructive of the sins because it can be caused by the other six but the other six aren’t really caused by anger except lust as looked at earlier.

So, if we imagine anger as a pressure cooker or a volcano and the other sins as being fuel or elements that add to that build up then you end up with a highly destructive and unpredictable force that can do a lot of damage to itself and others. It’s the mix of other volatile elements in that pressurised container that makes anger so terrible.

The frustration and rage can be devastating if left alone to fester. A person may suppress it and, on the surface, come across normal but, once you start digging a bit deeper, you’ll see signs of someone who really doesn’t like the world. And the thing with anger is that, in many cases, it’s irrational.

You may have had a poor relationship with your parents and that has, understandably, affected how you interact with people. Maybe your father was a very aggressive and violent person leading your mother to live a life of fear dragging you along too. As you grow up, that resentment grows and the repressed emotions fester. Usually, a child will act out because they don’t know exactly why they’re angry. An adult, on the other hand, should know why and should manage it maturely. However, some will project their anger on to others making them feel they are to blame for the angry person’s predicament when, in fact, the anger is being displaced on to them and has come from a completely different place. Therefore, those who have experienced anger projected at them can feel confused, upset and even be angry back. Unresolved anger is a disorientating animal.

And so, the explosive element of anger is what gets in the way of a person making good, constructive progress in their lives. That broadening scope of who gets burned can become all-consuming if left unchecked. But then, if you’re afraid of getting burned yourself, would you go near the fire and try to put it out?

Naivety

I’m throwing this one in as a bonus. Naivety or…ignorance, to me, is not just a person’s lack of experience, skill or knowledge in a given situation but it’s also their inability to learn from being manipulated and exploited. If a person isn’t smart enough to use their intelligence or any other attribute (listed in the previous three posts) then they’ll remain the clean slate or the blank canvas to be used and abused by others how they see fit.

If you go about blissfully unaware of what’s going on around you then you’ll never learn how to avoid getting into bad situations or, if you can’t avoid them, how to come out of them better and stronger thus putting you in a position to deal with them more effectively in the future.

Ignorance is not bliss. It’s a failure to see the bigger picture because you either don’t want to see it or can’t comprehend what’s in it. Either way, it doesn’t paint well for you.

So, what do all of these have in common? Please come back for the final entry in this series of posts to find out. �

Seven Deadly Sins – Part 2

October 14, 2019 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

Gluttony

Greed is the most obvious thing we think of when we look at this sin/attribute. The ‘need’, the desire to have more than is necessary. Today, it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry. Capitalism, consumerism and materialism can all be traced back to this simple attribute. The only difference now is that it’s widespread and therefore accepted. We ‘need’ a new phone every year. We ‘need’ a new car every three years. We ‘need’ new clothes every month.

The trouble with gluttony is that it’s a drain on resources and our resourcefulness. It’s only when we can’t get what we want that we start to utilise them more effectively.

When it comes to personal progress and success, the need to get more money so we can buy a better lifestyle gets in the way of the more important things. We stop getting to know those around us who might actually be able to help us achieve what we want. The probably with that is, it requires a form of selflessness and, well, gluttony is selfish. It can’t allow anyone else to take a cut in what it believes is rightfully its own.

Its almost like an unquenchable thirst or never ending hunger. No matter how much you think it’s satisfied, it always wants more. Whatever you have. Whatever you’ve given it, it’s not enough. You then start making irrational choices. Taking out multiple credit cards and loans. Hiring supercars so you can feel rich and hope to impress the ladies (that’s a thing now). Or gamble what little money you have on the dream of getting back a hundred-fold more so you can live out an unrealistic lifestyle.

The trouble with gluttony is just that. It’s idealism magnified but with all the rationality, maturity and wisdom removed. It’s a child who acts like a king but hasn’t earned his throne then demands the treasury pay for banquets, dances and royal visits when there’s a war on.

Lust

I think this can be characterised by the hyper-sexualisation of today. More people starring in film and television are unrealistically attractive; Music videos and porn are almost the same thing ; and the race for physical ‘perfection’ is becoming more common whether it’s through cosmetic surgery or hitting the gym to get that ‘lush booty’ or a big set of ‘guns’.

The point is, we are becoming more and more obsessed about becoming desirable and being desired. People ‘must’ look, sound, act and smell attractive at all times. Why? My thoughts are that, with an ever increasing and aging population, there are more people becoming more insecure about not mating. Maybe because they think they don’t have much else to offer besides being attractive so they work on it more so they can get a good wife/husband who fills in their blanks.

I see it at the gym and around the city. What passes for women’s gym wear/running gear is verging close on exhibitionism. I see girls on the treadmill all dolled up seeing how many guys are checking them out or hoping that ‘one guy’ has spotted them.

There’s then, of course, the damsel in distress. The woman who ‘needs’ a big, strong man to lift something for her or remove some of the weights from a machine so she can do her next exercise. She might try and get him to show her how to do some movements so she can look at those big, strong arms and imagine how safe she’d feel all wrapped up in them. Or…how wanted she’d feel when those arms pin her to the wall so she can be kissed passionately.

The men aren’t much better. Okay, most guys don’t wear terribly skimpy outfits, but they do over-exaggerate their movements. The gym may be a place to get some cardio or weights done for some people but for others, it’s a place to get yourself laid.

The issue with lust is it brings out a lot of insecurities in some. Too many feelings of worthlessness that drive them further to becoming something they’re not which, in turn, makes them less happy, less confident and, therefore, less desirable.

The flipside of lust is that you can be too desirable, and you can be too generous with it. Your ego is getting regular boosts from prospective mates who all want to wine and dine you or be wined and dined by you. You’re all too aware of how much you’re wanted so you start to play games. I’ve seen some women setting men off against each other just for the satisfaction of knowing that she’s so wanted that several men are directly competing against each other for the right to date her. It’s a fairly disturbing thing to watch from the outset. Seemingly rational, reasonable men who might even be friends getting up to all manner of deception and betrayal just so they can have the privilege of planting their seed in a female they all value so highly. Imagine if David Attenborough did a documentary on modern human mating rituals? It may uncover a number of things about us we wouldn’t want to see.

So, my experience of lust is that it can drive a person to madness or depression. You can lose your humanity and be overwhelmed by the base animal instinct that simply wants to fuck or be fucked and all context is thrown out the window if the desire is strong enough. For me, lust is driving the current trend of narcissistic behaviour.

Sloth

Or just plain laziness. Sloth will kill your productivity thus killing your chances of ever moving in the direction you want in life. We can also call this procrastination which is a bit more than being lazy because you’re actively, consciously avoiding the very thing you need to do and doing something that may well be useful but, ultimately, isn’t important right now. If you’re an aspiring writer, the goal is to write as often as you can. Ideally, every day. Same goes for any aspiration. Do something every day. But, if you’re spending more time washing dishes, playing games, watching Youtube videos and chatting to friends in real life or on social media then you’re either not that bothered about that writing career or you’re too lazy to the put the work in.

The thing with sloth is that I believe it’s symptomatic of a person’s unwillingness to step up to the challenge.

What challenge?

The challenge of improving themselves. For many, it’s far easier to create an amazing avatar in a video game than it is to level themselves up and create an amazing life. They’d rather speak hypothetically to their friends about what they ‘could’ have rather than doing something about it and getting it.

Sloth is passive. Sloth is a time sink. Sloth will take you by the neck and slowly wring out any want and desire you have for bettering yourself.

If you’re noticing yourself being consumed by this then find a way to give yourself a kick up the rear and get going because you’re on this planet once so, make it count.

Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Ways to Win…

September 22, 2019 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

‘Seven Holy paths to Hell and your trip begins’ as the song goes.

So, if the nine attributes that allow you to succeed (however that looks to you) are money, resourcefulness, assertiveness, attractiveness, submission, communication, networking, intelligence and smart then what counters them?

I think the Bible still has a lot to teach us (I’m not overly religious but, from an analytical standpoint, religion is on to something) when it comes to how we should conduct ourselves. Ultimately, the fight between the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Holy Virtues (as depicted in the fifth century Prudentius poem, Psychomachia) is about balance and how we achieve harmony not just with each other but within ourselves.

And that’s partly the reason behind the previous three blogs. I feel that we, as a species, had an equilibrium with ourselves for a time but it’s now out of kilter. There’s a disturbance in the Force, you might say but I believe it’s true. A lot of things that had meaning have lost it and what’s replaced it has little to no meaning or, at the very least, a superficial meaning. Social media, we could argue, has replaced religion to some degree only instead of finding faith and being given a sense of belonging and purpose whilst also being treated and known as an individual, it’s been replaced with an online scramble for attention. To me, it’s like the adults have left the room and the kids are fighting over who has the best toy. We had something representing order, structure and discipline. A communal template where we walk our path to maturity and adulthood. And now, I see a lot of things in disarray. Yes, people still get things achieved but it seems messy and uncertain.

When I was looking at those nine attributes, I couldn’t help but think of the Seven Deadly Sins as their mirror images. Attributes that would hinder rather than allow you to chart your path to success. I have added one more that I believe to be of similar weighting. Let’s go over the originals.

Pride

Over-confidence. Arrogance. Vanity. You could throw in narcissism as well since it’s very much a focal point of modern Western culture through Facebook, Instagram, etc. The problem with pride is that you’re blind to other things around you that can actually be of use. When you truly think you can lead that project, score that goal, develop that idea or carry out any other task completely on your own then you’ve just set yourself up for failure. ‘Pride comes before the fall’ and it’s very true. If you’re not aware of your surroundings and fixate on achieving that one objective that you just know will get you noticed, then you’re not going to see the cliff until you’ve fallen off it. Others will see you mindlessly moving towards it but because you thought you could do it all on your own, people will let you fall.

The other issue with pride is it stops you asking for help. As Darwin said, ‘Arrogance breeds confidence’ and so you probably won’t even think to ask anyone around you for support. Or, if you have, then you’ve decided they’re not good enough and you’re the only capable of completing the task.

Pride makes you stupid. It stops you using your intelligence and seeing what’s around that could make you do the job better.

Envy

Pride can be positive in certain contexts. Your child does well at school, or your SO gets a new job or a promotion. The same can’t really be said for envy. If you’re envious then you’re spending too much time focusing on what someone else has that you do not. This, from my experience, comes from feelings of insecurity, low self-esteem and low self-worth. A person can be completely capable of doing all the things another can, but they just don’t believe it. And that disbelief turns into a toxic mix of anger, depression and, in some cases, hatred. A person can be angry because they see another as being able to do or have something, they perceive themselves as unable of achieving or obtaining. They become frustrated because they’ve worked so hard and have nothing to show for it meanwhile someone else has a seemingly easier time and has gained more rewards. The more this goes on, the more the envious person gets trapped by the thoughts and, eventually, depression sets in and sends them down a destructive path which may manifest into hatred towards the other person where it may be projected onto them.

Envy is dangerous to both yourself and others.

Artificial Selection Redux: Part 3

July 27, 2019 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

Intelligence

So, you’ve received a message but what do you do with it? That’s up to your intelligence. Like money, intelligence is a resource and, as with all resources, just having it isn’t enough. You need to do something with it. I’m sure most of us know someone who is ‘full of useless information’. Someone who’s accumulated seemingly random bits of knowledge here and there then stored them to be accessed when the time is right. I’m also sure a few of us have wondered how such a person might better themselves since they clearly have the capacity to take in information, process it, understand it then store it.

The problem is intelligence. They might have a good memory but they’re not utilising it effectively. Intelligence would allow them to do something with that ability. Stephen Fry, for example, has said he’s not really smart but he has a good memory. If that’s true then he’s used his memory intelligently to get to where he is. That and his comedic talent.

Intelligence gives us the facility of self-awareness. It allows us to measure ourselves against our peers as a benchmark to see if we’ve reached our peak in a certain area or do we have further to go? If we conclude we have further to go, then we seek the next objective and work towards that.

Intelligence allows us to recognise when things are going right or wrong for us. Through the balancing of logic, reason, emotional knowledge, sharpness, etc we can determine if our current trajectory is productive or not. This ability of foresight also comes under the banner of intelligence.

In short, intelligence allows us to know who we are, what we can do and where we need to go to achieve a certain goal. It allows us to evolve and change as we age.

Let’s say you have two sets of grandparents. Both are in their seventies but both lead very different lives. One set leads a fairly mundane and predictable life. Grandpa tends to the garden, reads a paper, watches TV and goes to sleep. Grandma does cooking, cleaning and goes walks. And that’s it for them. The other set plans world cruises, regularly has meetings with a financial adviser to mange their pensions and investments and generally keeps themselves active and sociable.

Who’s aged better? Who’s being more intelligent?

Correct. It’s the latter set because they have enough intelligence to know that looking after themselves, maintaining relationships outside of their marriage, going to new places and keeping on top of their finances all contribute to being able to have a good life for longer.

You want another example? Go look up any older actor working today. Let’s say, 50+ years old. Look them up on IMDB and see how many projects they’ve got on the go. Then go and watch an interview with them. When I say interview, I don’t mean a press junket for a new film they’re promoting. Go find an interview where they are being allowed to talk about themselves and their career on their own terms (A good one for starters is Terence Stamp). Look at their body language and how they express themselves. They’re animated, funny, coherent, compelling and articulate. Just from watching, you can see that this person has made a lot of decisions for themselves and learned a lot from them regardless of outcome. That’s intelligence in action. And you can see that in a number of areas.

I remember giving an interview for an Honours student at my old university and I talked about how students are more willing to do grunt work (call centres, waiting tables, working at fast food chains, etc) compared to, say, non-students. What I highlighted was that these people were intelligent enough to know that they weren’t going to be there for long. This wasn’t the end of the road. It was the beginning. And the skills and behaviours they learn in these places can be used once they’ve finished their degrees. I know this because I did it. I worked in a call centre for three years whilst I was studying. It wasn’t great (frankly, it was soul destroying but it was good money for being a student and evening hours allowed me to attend uni and work. It was a good deal) but I always told myself it was temporary because I was going to graduate and move on to something better. I knew, through intelligence, that I was more capable than the job I was doing. I just didn’t have the experience yet. The same can be said for now. I’m currently unemployed but I’m not sitting idle. I’m writing this blog because I have a novel I’m working on which I want to use to launch a writing career. That’s my long-term goal. The short to medium one is to build a readership. The even shorter one is tweaking my CV, searching daily for new roles and regularly using my network of recruitment agents. Intelligence also allows planning and creativity.

I’m not sitting about wallowing in misery. That’s not a productive use of time or energy. Did I need a break after over six years of not really having any? Yes. Did I want to do it this way? Heck, no. But the opportunity to find something I want to do has been given so, using intelligence, I’ve deemed it a wise move to get stuck into the thing I’ve neglected for some time. Writing.

So, intelligence is an excellent resource. It’s like having an OP superpower only much more toned down for us mere mortals. We can use it to see likely outcomes from a set number of options; we can reflect on the past to ensure anything negative isn’t repeated; we can make the most of the present by recognising the opportunities it offers and we can take all that information, weigh up the pros and cons of all the options using sound judgement and reasoned arguments to come to a clear, concise decision and plan of action.

You can see why the animals and plants don’t stand much of a chance. An overabundance of intelligence is deadly when channelled properly.

Network

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” is the old saying. There’s a lot of truth to it. I’ve seen it in action. When I was at Retail Bank HQ, we had a guy come in who just looked completely out of place. Long, wavy hair, uber laid back and overly friendly. He was like an uncomfortable hippy. Partly because he was. He’d just come from being a butcher in Tesco and, somehow, wound up having a job at one of the world’s biggest financial institutions. How does that happen, you ask.

Mum’s the word.

No, really. His mum got him the job. You see, she’d been working at the bank for years and was pally with the head of my department so, through that, her son got a job. Was he any good? Not really. He wandered in late most mornings, hid behind the parade of incompetence shown by his Greek colleague (who was actually very nice and more competent than him) and had to get bailed out by the more senior and far superior member of the team.

The behaviour continued for months. Under normal circumstances, such a show of unreliability and ineffectiveness would have seen this guy shown the door. But it didn’t happen. To be fair, he did suffer from anxiety and depression but so did I and I managed to come in on time and do my job so I don’t know why this one couldn’t. Maybe it was the steep learning curve of going from a butcher’s assistant to working with the HR systems of one of the biggest and most complex organisations on the planet. Again, under normal circumstances, he’d have been escorted off the premises.

My firm belief was that it was the politicking going on between the mother, head of the department and the manager that kept this guy in a job. The team complained about him (privately and out of earshot of anyone who might report it) and he didn’t really seem to improve. Within the first month of him starting, he tried to make friends with me (I already had him at arm’s reach so was on guard) and he revealed something I really don’t think was a good move.

“I don’t care how many arses I have to kiss. I’ll do it.” he told me.

That was the crux of his career right there. And from then on, I could see how he tried to make friends with senior managers and keep his own manager sweet as well as the department head. Generally, it didn’t work too well because he wasn’t mature enough to hold a deep and meaningful conversation with adults. So, he resorted to being the office idiot. When I watched The Big Lebowski for the first time, I realised this guy modelled himself exactly like Jeff Bridges. The attitude, tone of voice and, for the most part, the attire. It was insane how close this guy was to inhabiting the character. And he did sort of bumble his way into things. This kind of worked for him but, ultimately, no one took him seriously so no real work went his way. What worked more in his favour was getting a haircut and changing his attitude. He started coming in on time and wasn’t trying to be quite as pally with his manager but more showing he could take orders and see them through. In short, he either decided to become a competent worker or, I suspect more likely, to be competent at rimming.

What I learned about this person was that we wasn’t particularly good at networking in a corporate environment. In general, he wasn’t that good to talk to. Not enough variety of conversation.

And that’s a key component of building a wide-reaching network. Not just being able to talk about a variety of subjects but to have thoughts and opinions on them too. It allows people to find common ground with you which, in turn, may lead to admiration, respect, friendship and so on.

The ability to create a network makes many aspects of life much easier. A loving family will support and guide you no matter what. A good group of friends will share in your worst moments and celebrate in your best. A set of well-selected colleagues will make your life at work much more bearable especially when the proverbial hits the fan.

Knowing who to go to in a given circumstance is a key strategy for personal growth and maturity. You can have all the knowledge, talent, skills and resourcefulness going but they mean nothing if you don’t know someone who can provide a channel. Imagine if Lewis Hamilton didn’t know where his car went for repairs and maintenance. Or if Serena Williams didn’t know who supplied her gear. It would make them look pretty ignorant and arrogant since they have to work with those people to ensure they perform at their best.

Let’s go two or three decades back. Imagine if their parents never cared enough to seek out ways to get their talented children a shot on the world stage? We’d be deprived of two of the best athletes the world has seen.

Or imagine if Bruce Dickinson decided not to meet manager Rod Smallwood at a tent during a festival where they discussed him joining Iron Maiden as the new frontman. The band would have likely never made it out of the 80’s. Instead, they became one the biggest bands on the planet.

The point I’m making here is that your connections help determine your path. We’re told that the main reason people leave their jobs is because of poor culture and poor managers. It’s true but the reason it’s true is lack of connection. If you don’t feel like you belong to a place, you end up isolated and wayward. Lack of a good, supportive network can send people on dark and lonely paths and because they’re not in the network, no one sees them so it can get worse unless they bump into someone else who happens to have gone astray. And, depending on how they got astray, will help determine if that person forges a positive connection or continues alone and unconcerned for.

A network of people offers a mirror of yourself. You look at other people and you know why you get on with them. Because they have a piece of something that’s already within you. And vice versa for them. Our network represents us no matter how big or small.

And how you go about creating one is down to the final attribute.

Smart

This is the big kahuna. If the previous attributes were all weapons this would be John Wick.

To me, being smart is not about intelligence as many people seem to think. If that were true, all the intelligent people would be in far better places than they already are. Academics would be running the show and not politicians. Education would be of a far higher standard and…

Education. That reminds me. I read a BBC article (This one – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46019429) last year and I wasn’t surprised with its findings. The article says that there’s an increasing number of medical students who lack dexterity. Tasks like sewing fabric or cutting wood which were traditionally taught at home or at school are no longer done so. This led to a generation who didn’t really know how to use their hands ergo the students had to be taught these skills first before being taught how to sew tissue or cut through bone.

Intelligent people yet not so smart. The smart thing for them to do would be to have learned these skills ahead of time which, in turn, would have saved valuable time being used training said skills and teaching the skills they’re supposed to really learn.

Smart is being prepared so you can be more efficient when it comes to doing a particular task.

Smart is knowing the levels of all your other attributes and knowing which one to use and when. If you have an attractive personality but are also assertive, a smart person would use their personality more when at a party. Vice versa when in the office negotiating a deal. A not so smart person would suck at both.

Let’s take musicians. Many of them know that they’d never be where they are if it weren’t for talent. They knew they had it and were smart enough to work on it. They gave up all other pursuits and submitted themselves only to the music; They worked with what they had available be it cheap instruments, a garage or someone’s basement; They worked on the music and nothing but the music; They worked on making music they wanted to play but also people wanted to listen to; They drew in other people to get them listening to it; They made connections with the right people to get shows so more people could hear their music; And they let everyone around them know what was going so they could collaborate on all aspects of the music.

That example there shows all attributes being used and you can apply that to pretty much any scenario involving someone you think is successful or is on their way to success.

No matter what you think of Trump, he was smart enough to get himself elected. How it happened, we may never fully know but you don’t get the White House without being smart. I’m not going to turn this section into a vehicle for hating on Trump but you do have to hand it to him. The opportunity was there and it was taken.

He may not be the most articulate, humble, diplomatic or respectful leader but he was elected at a time when America wanted some real change and the Democrat candidate wasn’t convincing enough. So, for Trump, it was probably the best time to run for office.

Where was I headed with this last section? Oh, yes. Utilising your best attributes is a sign of being smart. Part of this, I believe, comes from the fact that we, as a species, have outgrown our environment. We went and created one of our own and so I use the term ‘smart’ in a holistic and evolutionary sense. In the way the smartphone has gone beyond the ability of making and receiving phone calls. It can still do that but it can do a heap of other stuff too.

We have gone beyond our relatively simple purposes. Yes, we still need to eat, breathe, drink, reproduce, sleep, etc but we do it now in a very different way than we used to. The bar was raised. We, in almost every sense, separated ourselves from our animal kin. They are no longer the competition. We are.

And it’s only really been in the last few centuries that we’ve been competing against each other. The fights started out over land, food, water and people. Then, when we could build, we fought over property.

Since there hasn’t been a conflict like WWII in over 70 years, we’ve had to compete in new ways and these attributes are becoming more and more crucial. People on decent wages are having to fight over where to live because people with property to sell charge higher prices than is perhaps reasonable.

We compete for jobs and have to show we’re driven, passionate, determined and innovative.

We even compete over popularity now. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Youtube are the platforms we use to determine whether to follow you or not regardless of whether your content’s any good or not.

Yes, to some extent, we’ve always done that but generally there was real meaning behind it. You’d follow a particular faith because you believed it would take you on a better path. You followed a company because it would give you security for life. You’d dedicate your life to a cause because it was a vocation and not because it looked good on your CV. Now, companies demand loyalty and commitment upfront which makes the competition even harder.

It would seem that thinking only about ourselves is a misguided notion to believing we’re making the smart choice.

Wrong.

By not being smart and utilising our attributes effectively, I believe we’re heading for a lot of uncertainty. If anything, I think we’re reaching a level where our artificial structures are starting to fail. Take the US presidential campaign and the UK referendum on the EU. In both instances, we had people desperate for change who voted for uncertainty over nothing. That’s a scary prospect and I think it will have a number of repercussions.

A big contributor to the respective political situations has come from people in positions of great power and influence with access to vast resources thinking they can play another game. They are thinking they can be above the selection process and it’s backfiring. Why? They’re not submitting to the will of their people; They’re not popular in any real way; They abuse the funds the people have handed over through taxation; They are wasting resources rather than being prudent, efficient and clever with them; They are not being clear in what they tell the people; And they are abusing any and all networks to cover themselves and cast themselves in a better light.

Go on. Apply those attributes to those two very current situations and tell me how you don’t get failure. What’s going on there isn’t smart. It’s dumb. Horrendously so. Painfully true as well.

Another problem with not being smart is that, if you have one, some or all of those attributes and you don’t use them then you’re not just a liability to others but you’re a liability to yourself. If you have the raw materials for success then go and refine them and turn them into an asset.

Take the character Forrest Gump. He wasn’t intelligent but he was smart. He built an influential network of people who were genuinely invested in him as a person. He did communicate clearly and he put himself through an awful lot which drew him a big following. The culmination of which saw Forrest being given a lot of money from his share in the investment of Apple Computers. He used that money to renovate his local church, build a medical centre for Bubba whilst giving Bubba’s family enough money to never have to work again. And he did these because he knew he wanted to.

These are smart decisions because he gave back to those who gave him what he needed to get to where he eventually arrived. From what I can recall of the character, he had six of the nine attributes (Money, Assertion, Network, Submission, Communication and Attractiveness) and made as best use of them as he could.

I want to end with this. The reason I called this ‘Artificial Selection’ is because we have subverted the natural order. People who have been placed differently in the natural world are able to get higher in our world. That’s great if you have a disability because you can achieve more of your potential as opposed to being left to suffer and wither. But what about those who may be less deserving of their place? They can use the world to their advantage to hide, plot and manipulate. The natural world is cruel but fair. You have to be strong to survive. In our world? Not so much.

The former CEO of RBS, Fred Goodwin, was able to get that spot through greed, narcissism and egotistical agendas. He was anti-social and, if you read the book ‘Shredded’ by Ian Fraser, you’ll learn he treated the banks’ resources like his own. Such a thing can only happen in a world where all the components can be moulded to fit your purpose. True, he had money, a network, a clear trajectory, intelligence, was articulate but the two main attributes missing for his role were attractiveness and submission. Being reclusive and controlling didn’t make him popular with shareholders, investors or clients. I believe these are two key attributes that make a great CEO and, with them missing, played a major role into why Fred Goodwin caused RBS to collapse and take ten years to turn a profit.

And that’s the problem. The mechanics of our world are human. The stock market is driven by emotion. If a favourable announcement is made, market sentiment pushes the value up to reflect excitement. A less favourable announcement pushes it down out of fear or panic. The stock market, like humans, is irrational and thus responds accordingly.

So, if we are to succeed whether individually or collectively, we must utilise our attributes as best we can.

As the saying goes, ‘Keep It Simple Stupid.’

Now, that would be smart.

Artificial Selection Redux: Part 2

July 12, 2019 by The Thoughtful Meanderer

In the second part of this blog, I will be going over the next two attributes I think we need in order to be selected for success.

Submission

It may sound contradictory but submission is an extremely useful behaviour to have in our man-made environment. Trade, debate, favours, negotiation, collaboration, conversation, hospitality all involve submission to varying degrees. What submission teaches is compromise and it promotes harmony because every transaction is mutually beneficial and is either redeemed now or later in the future through delayed gratification.

In romantic relationships, emotional availability is a key component to healthy interactions between both partners. If one or neither submits their feelings or is willing to give themselves for the good of the other then the relationship is in serious trouble or doomed to fail

Arguably, the most successful political regimes are submissive ones where an appointed or an elected leader must carry out their duty with the good of their country and their people at the forefront. They should not be there to run their own agenda. That would be domination because power, resources, influence, etc is being taken away with nothing being given in return. The only place, in my view, where we should be seeing domination is in sport. That’s where the art of competition comes alive and we want to see the battle between two sides to see which one comes out on top. It’s thrilling and exciting but that behaviour, if used outside of sport, comes with terrible consequences.

Going back to submissive regimes for a moment, if you look at monarchies, they married into other royal houses. This was, typically, the most successful way to expand and strengthen a kingdom. One family would submit a female member to a prince or king so they could produce an heir and, in return, they would get land, titles, maybe money, and the protection of the realm. Hence one act of submission (gain of a fertile princess or queen) results in another (gain of wealth and protection). A trade is done because the prince or king knows they can (excuse me for making this sound inhuman. I’m breaking the example down to base level components) create something better with the new element than it would be able to on its own. In other words, with his chosen female, he knows he can create a better kingdom.

In democratic nations, we can take the progression of each one and compare against those under tyrannical rule or dictatorship. For the most part, a democracy will allow a person to choose where they live, where they are educated, where they work, where they socialise, shop, etc. They are given civil liberties and social freedoms. Their views can be expressed (submission) but they cannot be forced upon others (domination) as other people are entitled to their views. The same cannot be said under tyranny or dictatorship. From what I’ve reasonably observed, people in these regimes are told what to say, what they cannot say, where to go, when they should be at home, where they can work, where they can be educated, etc. In others words, dominant societies end up oppressing, suppressing, repressing and depressing their people. They cannot express themselves how they’d like and they cannot do as they please. This causes anger but that anger cannot be expressed because of a larger, overshadowing emotion.

Fear.

Dominance brings about fear. Usually, a fear of loss whether that be land, property, income, family or your own life. Being dominated (in the truest sense) creates a lot of fear which creates a lot of stress and people who are stressed don’t function well. But that’s fine if you’re a dictator or tyrant because you want control of all the people, land, property, resources and wealth anyway. Your country, in turn, won’t do very well. Just look at Africa. How many billions in aid has been sent over the last thirty years? It should have made a significant difference but it hasn’t. Yes, those countries are improving but not at the rate they should have. Part of the reason is financial domination. The corrupt governments take the money and either use it to buy weapons and drugs to sell on the black market or…they invest it back into the countries that gave them the money; Make money on the world’s stock exchanges and become even richer without having to spend a penny of their own cash.

Take families. If parents don’t submit themselves to being a parent then the child will grow up neglected. That neglect will likely manifest into fear which, as they get older, usually turns into resentment and anger. That’s dangerous. The same happens in romantic relationships. Devotion and commitment are submission in different forms and we all know that you must invest (another form) in order to make a relationship grow and flourish. Same can be said for so many things.

In democratic nations, people are generally more relaxed and able to enjoy life more. For the most part, this culminates in improved productivity hence its generally democratic nations that are currently the wealthiest and most powerful. Why? I would say because by submitting a large part of control to the people, they will feel more thankful. This, in turn, creates loyalty which is another form of submission. As the saying goes, ‘You scratch my back, I scratch yours.’ Like any healthy relationship, there must be give and take. Anyone who’s had a controlling partner will know the amount of trauma and stress that comes with such a person.

But the relationships aren’t always that clear. Take the current Brexit goings-on here in the UK. The government performed an act of submission by allowing the people to vote on whether to stay in or leave the EU because there was enough demand for it. The people voted to leave and, for the last three years, the UK government, from what can be seen, has not successfully submitted itself to the will of its people. Instead, it looks like it’s trying to dominate the people by not delivering what was voted for. The result? Chaos. The UK government is falling over itself partly due to too many small agendas. Whilst we will probably never know what they are, we have a good idea that most people who enter politics now rarely do so with the good of the people at heart. Why bother with that when there’s money, power, influence and a level of non-accountability to be gained?

Brexit is a great example of the submission practice or, rather, lack of it. The general unwillingness of the electorate to see through what was voted for is the government effectively telling its people their vote doesn’t matter. And yet, their attempts to dominate proceedings are failing as well because they’re showing the world that the fifth most powerful government in the world cannot act as one cohesive unit regardless of personal feelings.

I could meander into the current US administration but I think I’ll leave that for another post.

Perhaps, the most egregious example of dominance is Hitler. His hatred of ‘imperfection’ led him to want to dominate the world and eradicate any and all people that didn’t fall under his view of perfection. If you didn’t fit his model for the ‘Arian Race’ you were hunted and killed.

In fact, the Second World War was perhaps the last major effort of one group making a concerted effort to force all others into their way of thinking and living.

I say that because it was the last effort of intentionally trying to dominate the world. Nowadays, things are quieter. More subtle. More sinister. Terrorism had a go but the organisations are too small, too poorly organised and not well funded or equipped enough to make a real dent on the Western World – 9/11 aside. They cause upset and panic but, in reality, they’ve had little effect. So little that we don’t really hear about them now.

Fundamentally, submission is the path of least resistance to success. I don’t mean material gains because you don’t need those to feel successful.

Let’s look at this from a more unconventional viewpoint. In the world of BDSM, it’s quite common for a ‘submissive’ to visit a ‘dominant’ to have their bodies used in any way they see fit. But who has the real control? Yes, the dominant is using and abusing the submissive in a variety of ways but who asked for it? Who encourages it? Who says it’s OK? Who has the safeword? The submissive. Hence, in this context, the idea of submission allows that person to get exactly what they want. A person relinquishes control over to the ‘domme’ and, in exchange, they get their wildest fantasies fulfilled. But if they don’t give in then the experience isn’t fun for either party.

To end this section, I want you to think about this. Think about the most successful person you know. They don’t have to be rich or famous. At least not on the world stage. Could be a neighbour, friend, colleague, family member, etc. What did they do to get the car they wanted or the house or the loving family or the fantastic lifestyle or the self-sufficient business?

Work.

They gave themselves over to work. They submitted their skills, talents, knowledge, personality and expertise in exchange for something they wanted and they got it because they kept submitting.

Let’s flip that around and imagine they dominated. They’d most likely not have any of what they wanted because they’re mindset would narrow. They might tell themselves that they’re ‘too good’ for where they are but won’t make the effort to improve. But then, they’d only do that for the ‘right’ people or place. We’ve all met people like that. Those who like to be grander than they are. They have the ideas but not the inclination or conviction. ‘Something’ always gets in the way.

The problem?

That word again. Fear.

They dominate their own minds because they are scared of either success or failure just from the thought of trying. An act of submission takes real courage because you don’t know the outcome. To give yourself over to an idea, a person or a group takes a lot of faith and trust in who or whatever is on the other side.

And if history has taught us anything about tyrants and dictators, it’s that, deep down, they were afraid and so they sought to control.

And history also tells us – it never works.

Communication

A major reason why submission is so scary is lack of communication. Whether it’s lack of will or means, poor communication stops things progressing because communication is how we transact information. How can you give yourself over to something or someone if you’re unsure of their intentions?

Clear and concise exchanges are needed to ensure we’re all of the same understanding and in agreement regardless of the context. If we don’t know what’s going on then how are we going to know what to do?

I’ll take myself as an example. My partner and I do have some communication problems. She tends to miss out important details and I tend to not ask for them thinking she’s given me all I need to know. Last year, we went to a wedding and all she kept saying was things like “When we go to Dumfries…” or “When we’re in Dumfries…”.

So, to my mind, the wedding was in Dumfries. When we set off, I was given a Dumfries postcode so all things pointed to Dumfries. As we got 16 miles out, my satnav kept telling me to turn off the main road. I ignored it as I hadn’t updated it and kept going.

We maybe travelled three or four miles before my girlfriend pointed out we were going the wrong way. My satnav had been correct all along.

I turned round and went back to the nearest junction where my satnav previously told me to turn off the main road. We drove through a few hamlets until we reached the hamlet of Tynron. My satnav showed our destination as being a house at the corner of a junction. After we parked up, met our host and got settled, I remember being a bit annoyed. I had been under the impression that Dumfries was our location when it wasn’t. It was a hamlet in Dumfries and Galloway. The county not the town.

That episode was a fairly minor thing but it’s something that happens all too often in our relationship. Small but important details get missed and it results in something happening that could have easily been avoided. All through not having been clear and articulating exactly what is meant.

I learned my lesson. My girlfriend doesn’t do geography or navigation so, as the driver in the relationship, I get all details ahead of time so I can plan my route. We have less trouble as a result.

And so, communication is a vital element in success. A clear message that can be easily read and understood can make the difference between life and death and clear any unnecessary frustration and stress.

Being as crystal clear as possible will make you more efficient in all areas of life which, in turn, will make you more successful. The ability to articulate in simple terms is highly valued. It makes you easy to understand but also easy to talk to. From my own observations, this is why I believe highly educated and talented people who can ‘talk to the common man’ are more attractive (i.e. more popular) than those who can’t or won’t. By being able to engage in conversation with people at all levels whether they’re a CEO, retired gardener, supermarket assistant or a celebrity, if you can talk to all of them at their respective levels then you will create better connections which may prove useful later on.

Communication is a direct reflection of who a person is at a given point in time. How they do it gives you an indication of their internal workings. Of course, we can’t know exactly how a person thinks (until someone invents brain hacking then we’re in trouble) but their way of communicating gives us an idea.

Conversely, how a person receives and interprets a message also says a lot about the next attribute which you can read about next time.

Thoughtful Meanderings

Topical Essays On Anything and Everything

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