The Right Question

Seasons Greetings!

2011-12-18T12:21:00.004Z

Thanks for your good wishes everyone, and your on-line cards. Here's mine!

So has this been a fruitful year? First let’s celebrate the good news. Wrt my posts,

UK Government’s plan to privatise 650,000 acres of our forests was scrapped
planning permission for Nocton Dairies was refused.
the EU did not cut the so called ‘Pillar 2’ funding – this is the money available within the CAP to reward farmers who farm in ways that benefit wildlife and the environment.
European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard was instrumental in delivering something from the Climate Talks in Durban.

Now the bad. After Cancun and Copenhagen last year, at Durban the world’s negotiators just kicked the can down the road once again, leaving them further than ever from achieving their stated goal of keeping average global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — a commonly accepted threshold beyond which the planet’s climate patterns could be seriously destabilized.

Here are some observations

It is unacceptable that world leaders are still stalling on a global plan to cut emissions of carbon to curb the increase of temperatures. We witnessed in Durban wrangling and hair splitting over legal terminology, as well as bald-faced delaying tactics that threaten to derail the negotiations. The decision-makers must wake up to the fact that the lives of billions of people today and in the future depend on them to act in unison to respond to the global challenge that climate change poses (Mikhail Gorbachev, founding president of Green Cross International)

This deal is a lot better than no deal, not least because it scuppers George Osborne's push to gut domestic environmental action on the altar of international inertia. That said, we can't keep coming back to these annual talks to agree deals that fall so far short of what the science, rather than the politics, requires (Ruth Davis, Greenpeace UK chief policy advisor)

The brutal truth is that our leaders lack the political will to do what is necessary. The delay in Durban means politicians have deepened our titanic environmental overdraft (Damian Carrington, the Guardian's head of environment)

One crumb of comfort in Durban has been the emergence of a large coalition of high ambition countries, led by the most vulnerable nations and small island states, including many in Africa. It's good that the UK and EU have aligned themselves with this coalition (Keith Allott, Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK)

There may be a period in which we begin to believe that something real was accomplished here but let me be clear: this was not enough. Not even close. This was meeting expectations lowered beyond all expectations. Rescuing defeat from the jaws of worse defeat. In the long-run, Durban will be nothing but a footnote in a narrative of missed opportunities and willful ignorance.

The youth of the world cannot and should not accept what Durban delivered. We're sleepwalking towards calamity, and the world's governments just agreed to wake up at some point down the line. (Oliver Hughes, student activist at COP17 for SustainUS)

After 20 years of negotiations, my question is when are these people going to implement effective action to justify the carbon footprint they make, flying off to exotic destinations merely to talk? (Sir Percefal )

major revolt over planned cuts to solar subsidies?

2011-12-05T02:10:00.001Z

We’re waiting but it seems to be all talk and no action since it was announced.

I hope this is not a false promise by the Liberal Democrats that will further undermine the chance to stop the latest volteface by the ‘greenest government in history’.

'Hope I die before I get old'

2011-11-05T11:05:00.002Z

Being familiar with my story, you’ll know Sir Percefal can’t die till he has asked the Right Question. Well despite being over 1500 years old, at least I don’t age as generations pass and vanish with their dreams.

Nor do I have ‘My Generation’ to champion and compare the last one to (‘things they do look awful c-c-cold’) with the risk my songs come back to haunt me. The question I am asking today is whether Pete Townsend wishes his hope for an early death had come true.

The sad fact is you become querulous bored and grumpy the longer you live with all your best work behind you. While you can’t dispute that people should be paid fairly for the work they do, instead of grousing about iTunes profiteering from the Who’s catalogue, Pete should count his blessings. Thanks to this change in the law, he will benefit from copyright on the Who’s recordings till he dies.

If his pocket has been feeling the pinch, he should now be able to entertain us on tour again smashing up his guitars, knowing his royalties will cover him well into his dotage. For ordinary folk struggling to get by, life is enriched and eased by the inspiration of artists like Pete but the egotism of his reference here to flower sellers and Zeppelin grate.

I prefer Sir Paul’s attitude. When Michael Jackson bought up the Beatles catalogue from under his nose, Macca was gracious. He said we don’t own the songs we write. They already exist - songwriters just capture them out of the ether.

Does the CAP fit (the environment)?

2011-06-22T08:33:00.008+01:00

The EU is considering scrapping payments farmers receive to protect vulnerable wildlife on their land. Cutting this funding would mean that some of the UK’s most-loved farmland birds and wildlife will face an uncertain future, or even extinction. It is imperative that we step up for nature and call on the European Commission to safeguard this vital lifeline!

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) determines how our farmland is managed and, as over 70% of the UK's land area is farmland, also has a huge influence on our wildlife. This is not a choice between food production and wildlife - we can have both. The time is ripe to make the policy fit for wildlife, the wider countryside and for the future of farming.

Despite some positive changes in recent years, the CAP is still largely failing to support and encourage more environmentally-friendly farming. The vast majority of the CAP's taxpayer-funded €1 billion a week budget fails to deliver benefits for the environment and neglects farming systems which are inherently better for wildlife.

The EU's Agriculture Commissioner, Dacian Cioloş, is currently writing his proposals for how to reform CAP, but is being put under pressure by the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, who is considering cutting the so called ‘Pillar 2’ funding – this is the money available within the CAP to reward farmers who farm in ways that benefit wildlife and the environment.

It is vital that this doesn’t happen. The European Commission must take this opportunity to ensure these reforms to the CAP reflect the needs of the environment. A more sustainable, wildlife-friendly CAP which rewards greater numbers of farmers for the environmental services they provide will not only help the EU make its contribution to the global target to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2020, but will also help protect the raw materials - our soil and water - and ensure the long-term sustainability of farming itself.

As CAP covers the whole EU, the RSPB has joined forces with seven European BirdLife partners to ensure its campaign reflects the depth and breadth of support for a CAP with wildlife and the natural environment at its heart. By joining with others across Europe and speaking out together we are a much stronger voice for nature.

Please step up for nature and support the RSPB campaign by e-mailing the President of the European Commission today.

Is EU ban on natural remedies reasonable?

2011-05-05T10:06:00.004+01:00

After doubts about this campaign, I’ve decided to support it. While there are some unscrupulous purveyors of alternative medicines, I’m convinced the EU is being too restrictive if it bans remedies that have not been on sale for 15 years in EU already.

Key points:

1. The current EU Directive, aiming to introduce a simplified registration procedure for herbal medicines is seriously flawed, rendering many products completely ineligible for registration and erecting insurmountable hurdles for others.

2. Rules dictate that traditional herbal medicines cannot be licensed unless they have been in use for 30 years, 15 of which in the EU. The suspicion must be that multinational drug companies are applying some serious arm-twisting, as with Poppy for Medicine.

3. In several countries fewer than 5 herbal products have been registered during the 7 year period allowed by the EC. So far not a single non-European traditional medicine products has been approved. This means that ayurvedic, Chinese, and other Asian medicine with hundreds of years of use, now cannot be sold as medicines. This was recognised by the European Commission itself in a 2008 report, which urged extending the Directive to cover them. Nothing has been done about that.

4. Consumers will be forced to buy them from the internet, if they can’t find them in pharmacies. That will be less safe, as they won’t be able to get advice on dosage and possible side effects when mixed with other medicines. These regulations reduce consumer choice, while failing to bring in a comprehensive and effective safety regime.

Click here for a useful FAQ link and video

Click Avaaz to add your support

Why hasn't Japan invested in a national energy grid?

2011-03-17T13:16:00.005Z

While the nuclear industry has sucked in massive investment, renewable energy sources have been starved of it. Nothing new there but the outcome of Japan's earthquake shows how frightful the consequences are of putting all your eggs in one basket.

One problem is that electricity demand is concentrated in the centre of Japan, while most potential wind power sites are located in remote areas where grid capacity is relatively small.

Limited grid access and the monopolistic hold over the power grids by regional electricity companies, who use variability issues as an excuse for not investing in more capacity, have hampered the development of wind generation. To harness its power the government needs to invest in a grid that will make wind power available to the wider population.

Nor have they built off-shore wind farms to the extent they should considering what a long coastline the country has.

My answer to the question, in deference to Japanese economy of form (haiku):-

nuclear past, unclear
future - Japan needs power
- why not wind of change?

Fun Theory

2011-02-12T15:44:00.005Z

This gets us using a bottlebank because it's more fun than a dumb one

but is it really a green option if it's consuming energy?

Can we have guarantees ancient woodland planted with conifers will be restored to native broadleaved woodland?

2011-02-12T13:36:00.011Z

Over 100,000 people have signed this Woodland Trust petition calling on the Government to Save England's Ancient Forests.

Existing rules allow the government to sell off up to 15% of the Forestry Commission's woodlands in England in each four year period.

Yesterday the government announced that it is putting the 2011/12 sales on hold so that it can review them in the light of the response to its consultation about the future of the entire Forestry Commission estate.

Says Sue Holden, Chief Executive Woodland Trust:-

"We welcome this decision as a positive sign that the government is listening to our "Save England Ancient Forests" campaign. We have been particularly concerned that the sales have included ancient woodland planted with conifers with no guarantees that they will be restored to native broadleafed woodland. Last year we persuaded DEFRA minister Jim Paice to halt sales of these sites in 2010/11. Restoration of planted ancient woodland is the biggest opportunity for woodland conservation in a generation. We are pleased that the 2011/12 plans will now be considered as part of the consultation over the future of the Forestry Commission estate.

Thanks to your help 128,000 people have signed our petition in 2 weeks, calling for protection of ancient woodland and safeguarding of access. We are optimistic that today's announcement is a signal that government will address these issues in its overall plans."

I have signed the petition, so if you haven't already done so, please encourage family and friends to sign the petition and add their voice to yours.

Thanks

Saving our forests

2011-01-24T19:34:00.009Z

After promising to be the greenest in history, the UK Government’s plan to privatise 650,000 acres of our forests has drawn massive condemnation as you can find out here, if you haven’t already seen the coverage and signed this petition.

It is important now to reinforce this by using this form to email your MP.

In personalising the template letter, it is worth adding the following from the Woodland Trust. They point out that if revenue from these sales goes to shareholders and “does not find its way back into Forestry Commission income streams, it could seriously threaten the Commission's ability to support the future planting of new native woodland, which is a major priority for us and for government response to the climate change agenda, as well as into restoration of planted ancient woods”.

Belo Monte be damned

2011-01-18T15:06:00.014Z

What, may we ask, is in it for President Dilma of Brazil that persuades her to press ahead with this mad dam (Madam?) proposal when her environmental regulator and other top officials have all resigned over its disastrous environmental impact?

The Belo Monte mega-dam would flood huge tracts of rainforest and displace thousands of indigenous people. The dam's backers argue that it will supply Brazil's growing energy needs. But a far greater, greener, and cheaper supply of energy is available: energy efficiency. A WWF study found that efficiency alone could save the equivalent of 14 Belo Monte dams by 2020. The benefits of a truly green approach would go to everyone, rather than a handful of powerful corporations.

The case is best put by someone you will recognise if you’ve seen the film Avatar. Here in Brazil with its director James Cameron, protesting against the dam,
Sigourney Weaver brings the theme out of fiction to confront the same forces she was up against in the film.

When you’ve watched 'Defending the Rivers of the Amazon', sign the petition opposing the dam and calling for energy efficiency instead to protect the Amazon, its people, and its species.

better to bee safe than sorry

2011-01-12T12:22:00.016Z

“If we were ever to see the extinction of the honey
bee”, said Einstein, “humankind would follow four years thereafter.”

Vanishing of the Bees is a film proposing that a family of pesticides, the neonicotinoids, is the real cause of the disappearance of honey bees.

And so it's time to be adding our voice to another petition (click here). If we lose such major pollinators we could lose one-third of the world's agriculture, and say goodbye to fruit and vegetables. At the very least, Vanishing of the Bees makes a convincing case for more research to prove beyond doubt the pesticide industry's assertions that there's nothing to worry about.

For a balanced scientific view, check buzzaboutbees which concludes there is sufficiently compelling independent research to indicate that neonicotinoids cause harm to bees. That’s enough to persuade me to vote for a ban till the evidence establishes otherwise. And that's unlikely as this wiki-leak (courtesy of Buglife) shows.

the biggest mega-dairy in Europe

2011-01-10T09:41:00.009Z

Tomorrow is the last day for objections to be raised against planning permission for Nocton Dairies, featured in the recent BBC Panorama programme (see my 'Methane again' post below).

Please click here to raise your objection .

Here’s mine on grounds of animal welfare and emissions.

• The proposed dairy is over 30 times the size of any existing dairy in the UK – this scale raises the question of whether the application is industrial or agricultural.
• Although the application is currently to house 3,700 cows, Nocton Dairies have said they plan to double the number of cows (8,100 in total). It is essential that the proposal before planning officers takes into account this planned expansion.
• The Lisbon Treaty requires EU Member States to “pay full regard” to animal welfare in agriculture. Likewise the Animal Welfare Act 2006 requires that an animal’s needs must be met, including the need to exhibit normal behaviour patterns.
• Intensive dairies rely on particular breeds of cow that have been genetically selected to produce vast amounts of milk. This predisposes the animal to many health problems including lameness, mastitis and metabolic diseases. Cows’ ability to express their normal behaviour is limited by this environment. Keeping cows with little or no access to grazing also increases the risk of these health problems. If they never move, not even to defecate as their waste drops directly into a slurry ditch, they will lose the use of their legs.
• Air Pollution - Emissions to atmosphere from the proposed dairy will include dust, methane and ammonia, as well as odour from manure spreading and storage, and livestock buildings. Let them graze naturally in the open: traditional ley pasture reduces the amount of methane the cattle produce.
Land Pollution - Digested slurry from the facility would be spread on the surrounding farmland, which is designated as lying within a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ).
• Water Pollution - The current application does not provide a complete assessment of the potential water pollution risks. The local water aquifer runs directly beneath Nocton Dairies’ proposed site, and it is at risk of leaching and ‘run off’ from the slurry application. There are additional risks of water pollution from day to day operations. Instead it should be composted so it could become a useful soil additive, instead of a threat to the supply of our drinking water, and mutations of fish generated by high hormone infusion.

Minoan Haiku

2011-01-04T18:42:00.023Z

Horned sun on view in
Crete ~ see why (before Coke) they
worshipped the bull there?

Seeing the eclipse this morning, I starting wondering if those Minoans didn’t start worshipping the bull because its horns so resembled the partial sun.

They had it tough after all. Earthquakes and fallout from Thera’s volcanic eruptions every 400 years made them keen to appease the gods with well-documented rituals including sacrifice. A partial solar eclipse would have been taken as a heavenly sign of where their devotion should be directed if they were to avoid catastrophe. They didn’t of course when Thera (Santorini) finally blew its stack, unleashing a gigantic tsunami and megatons of ash to bring their civilisation to its knees. The moral if there is one relating to my quest is that humanity shouldn't be taking risks with the environment when the Earth shows she's so capable of creating a wasteland herself.

What I like about this picture is the juxtaposition of the 'divine' eclipse and that symbol of Mammon, Coca-cola, paling by comparison. Not just the ancients who were overawed when the sun changed shape and put mankind's monuments in the shade, eh?

Pete Postlethwaite RIP

2011-01-03T23:38:00.011Z

Knowing Pete Postlethwaite was so passionate about climate change, in memoriam, I have petitioned that Age of Stupid be broadcast

I would imagine Pete's response to the Daily Mail stating that global warming has halted would be these are just naysayer rantings.

Can someone give me the facts that refute such assertions, in particular that cyclical changes in water vapour - a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - may account for much of the 20th Century warming?

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T11:41:00.010Z

My New Year resolution is prompted by watching Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, from the Devil's grand-daughter Susan reading "Jack and the Beanstalk" to the children.

"And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy any more.

But he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you're a hero, because no-one asks inconvenient questions".

In my naive way, I shall endeavour to keep asking such questions, especially if the hero is an ecological terrorist.

Methane again

2010-12-23T23:51:00.010Z

Watching BBC Panorama 'What Price Cheap Food?' last night, I was horrified to see the future of livestock farming, dairy in particular.

The mega-dairy system was promoted as caring for livestock, suggesting the cattle were happy. Holy cow! Penned permanently indoors in a stationary position, they are fed a strict diet of concentrates and hormones. They never move, not even to defecate as their waste drops directly into a slurry ditch, so like battery chickens they will lose the use of their legs. They never go outside. It can’t be good for them, yet the ‘farm’ manager said they were properly cared for.

Bah humbug!

That off my chest, what about the ecology of this? Well, the effect of methane on climate change has got me going on curtailing livestock agriculture as you saw in my post on Cancun. Aside from the issue of how we treat cattle, whether as fellow sentient creatures or production units pumped up with hormones (kidding ourselves they are happy because they don't get exposed to the natural elements), there is an added benefit of letting them graze naturally in the open: traditional ley pasture reduces the amount of methane the cattle produce. It has been shown too that certain wildflowers in a traditional pasture mix significantly reduce methane emissions still further.

If the mega-dairies supported the idea of sustainability, we wouldn't be seeing the slurry as a waste product they are allowed to dump in the surrounding environment. They would be endeavouring to compost it so it could become a useful soil additive, instead of a threat to the supply of our drinking water. And more mutations of fish generated by high hormone infusion?

Scary

Seasons Greetings!

2010-12-19T19:39:00.013Z

Thanks for your good wishes everyone, and your on-line cards. Here's mine!

Well, I can't say it's been a fruitful year. If you were following my earlier posts, you will remember I figured Richard Holbrooke would be the man to implement Poppy for Medicine. It was not to be. Working closely with the Bulldozer became ever more frustrating as he was increasingly sidelined. Now he has passed away, so has a political solution to the Afghan conflict.

His last words were: "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan,” addressed not to me, the President or Hillary but to his Pakistani surgeon at the hospital where he died. It means sadly too that all hope for the Poppy for Medicine campaign has now gone and I will be seeking the Right Question in other places.

Egypt is favourite in the New Year as I’ve been advised by my old friend Bahauddin (see earlier posts) that a visit to Edfu will reveal all. Looks like a good spot to perch for some tardy research into Horus who features so prominently in my second novel Fields of Yaru as well as to escape the northern winter for a few days at least. Whether I first have to ask the right question is unclear..

Cancun - so much hot air?

2010-12-16T13:02:00.022Z

The Right Question for this posting can be found in the picture you'll see in this link to the Cancun Climate Change Conference (COP16). The report well summarises what progress has been made after the letdown we all felt after Copenhagen, while Friends of the Earth call COP16 a weak and ineffective agreement but at least a small and fragile lifeline for continued negotiations.

For an old soldier like me, the most hopeful sign was the efforts of the next generation, a global movement of youngsters called “Stop talking and start planting”.
Call them naive fools like Sir Percy but they so well challenge the procrastinating politicians who do their best to resist taking action and making constructive agreements. In view of the fact that more than half the greenhouse gas we produce comes from the livestock industry (methane from waste and flatulence warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide), I will put my knightly weight behind a campaign aimed at less wasteful use of land and energy by reducing animal agriculture and promoting vegetarianism.

Think of the effect such a campaign might have on reducing the volume of hot air at these conferences in favour of producing effective resolutions.

Call it “Stop farting and start acting”?

Hopenhagen

2009-10-16T15:06:00.011+01:00

Yesterday was Blog Action Day for climate change. I did my ha’peth of course (under comments on the FCO blog) but it was heartening to see the Prime Minister was active too, declaring the government’s intention to make serious changes at Copenhagen in December. One senses though that the PM is reluctant to go if the big players (USA & China) don't. Obama has not committed yet either.

On one of the other comments on David Miliband's blog you can see there’s a petition so you can add your voice to the growing chorus demanding concerted and equitable action by all governments.

Probably the unanswerable question:- How loud do we have to shout so the world's leaders don't duck the issue? Unless the answer is till we are blue in the face!

350 what?

2009-10-15T01:41:00.012+01:00

Scientists estimate that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity. Currently at 387, there is already need to mitigate the effects of climate change.

This month I’ve got caught up with supporting Oxjam. All across the nation musicians and poets are performing free to raise funds for victims of climate change. I’ve just been helping to steward the events in South Wales, where for example a gig at the Gate in Cardiff organised by Max Hoare raised enough by charging £2 entry to enable several families to raise their home above flood levels.

Particular mention must go to Susan Richardson who gave a recital of her remarkable poems on climate change. If you cannot support the live events, check out her book or broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live where she is a resident poet. She will be giving another performance on October 24th at Oxjam Brecon where bands are playing at half a dozen venues around the town as part of International Day Of Climate Action as part of the build up to pressurising governments to act with determination and commitment at the Copenhagen conference on December 7th.

Please come out and support it if you are local, or click the links to see how you can support the big push away from the Wasteland that beckons if we don’t get back to 350 by mid-century.

Twitter ye not?

2009-10-09T11:56:00.005+01:00

With apologies to Frankie Howerd, just getting familiar with Twitter after finding our Foreign Secretary was not updating his blog so often in favour of the new fad.

Glad to see the FCO is now following me too!

Anyone else?

That's how the light gets in

2009-10-05T20:11:00.021+01:00

Firstly, a brief progress report on Poppy for Medicine. Well, not much really. Nothing on the link as you can see nor response to my email but at least the US government has abandoned its policy of poppy eradication in favour of providing farmers with incentives for growing alternative crops.

So what have I been doing to ask the Right Question these last few months? On the premise the Wasteland has no prospect of becoming a fruitful basket of plenty for all if our planet is riven by war, I have been applying my knightly efforts in another region of cultural tension, the Middle East. Having done all I can to assist western policy on Afghanistan for the better, in my quest to build bridges I have been down to the Negev desert in Israel to see what is happening to bring Arabs and Jews together via the medium of cricket.

A favourite sport of mine, I have been making efforts to help the charity Cricket For Change whose purpose is to take the game to places you wouldn’t normally find it, beneath flyovers perhaps or on derelict land at the edge of some large city in the UK. Now however they are also out in the Israeli desert with plastic bats and wickets, tennis balls wrapped in electrical tape and Street 20, their particular brand of the game tailored for quick and easy application.

The rationale is that when children share experience with each other and get to know their fellow competitors as equals on the field of play, trust is built for their future together as adults determining how they should share the same land and resources. Everyone said it wouldn't succeed because there was no tradition of cricket in arabic Israel. But the result was the contrary. The Bedouin there took to it with great enthusiasm. Within 10 minutes of us entering the playground there were about 50 children playing. They loved it and they said they wanted to play with Jewish kids.

So my attempt to ask the Right Question will not result today in the miraculous transformation of the Wasteland as the question is not mine. It’s more than relevant to my quest though. If the Cricket For Change project succeeds, it will provide a inspired answer to the famous rhetorical question asked by the writer CLR James: "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?"

My determination to move onto other things and not get paralysed by inaction as I became frustrated with the situation in Afghanistan was emboldened by some lines of Leonard Cohen:-

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Big change will come about by a series of small changes, as the children of Israel learn to have fun together. By happy chance, as if in answer to my meditations, the great man was playing a one-off concert in support of his Fund for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace just as I was about to fly out of Tel Aviv. This was despite Len collapsing on stage the previous weekend and having to overcome storms of protest from political forces as described in this article. You can read also about how uplifting the concert was, and get a flavour of the music by clicking the links.

New policy on Afghanistan

2009-03-23T14:36:00.001Z

The American Government will be announcing its policy on Afghanistan later this week.

Having left a message with the British Foreign Secretary on his FCO blog, I will keen to hear if he has passed my question on to Richard Holbrooke.

2009-03-18T01:08:00.004Z

With the volume of calls for an end to British involvement in Afghanistan getting louder, the question is what is the British Government’s current policy toward Afghan poppy cultivation? Now Bush has gone, perhaps the US-backed anti-narcotics strategy will be replaced by a program that will bring the war to an end.
It’s encouraging that President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke has been quoted as saying the Bush government plan to destroy the poppy crop "which costs around $1 billion a year, may be the single most ineffective policy in the history of American foreign policy. It’s not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan .”

Good on yer, Richard. Now let’s see if that leads to Poppy for Medicine which involves granting international licenses to poppy farmers in Afghan villages, where the crop would be turned into opiate-based medicines such as morphine or codeine, and then shipped out to the legal market. It would keep local farmers in business, deprive the Taliban of support and revenue and hasten the day when our troops can come home.

High on pi and phi

2008-08-30T11:34:00.004+01:00

Here’s another crop circle built according to pi but also on phi, the Golden Mean spiral, the mathematical ratio found in various natural forms, such as a sunflower seed head and pine cones as well as seminal works of art.

The Woodborough Hill 'sunflower' formation is a series of interlocking Fibonacci spirals. You draw a Golden Mean spiral by using a square and applying the phi ratio (1:1.618) to generate the various compass points required to grow the spiral.

My Sufi friend Bahauddin tells me in the case of the Woodborough Hill 2000 crop circle, this would have to have been repeated 22 times, reversed and then overlaid. Fourteen concentric rings would then have to be inscribed to complete the matrix. Then the crops would have to have been laid down in alternate segments. If you’re feeling a trifle lost here, then you’re getting the point. This is not a simple nocturnal task.

The entire 'sunflower' crop glyph consists of 22x2 spirals (clockwise, and counterclockwise), followed by 14 radial circles. Effectively this produces 44/14, or 22/7 – that other most significant mathematical ratio - the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry (3.141...) - or pi. Isn't this thrilling stuff, appealing to the aesthetic sense and intellect equally?

I feel I am getting close to an answer when something so coherent emerges from these fundamental principles.Bahauddin starts to lose me though when he refers to the Fibonacci curve being also a proto fractal, self-referential and mandala-like at any point down its curvature. For all my years spent on this planet trying to get my head around the right question, I'm still a boy who believes the answer will reveal itself to the simple mind as well as the clever.

P4M & Pi

2008-07-19T10:32:00.025+01:00

You might think a Knight of the Grail’s work is very high profile and sensational but actually most of it takes place unglamorously behind the scenes. I can’t actually call myself Sir Percefal in public and expect people to listen, you see, hence my only chance of stimulating debate about ways to stop the war in Afghanistan is to use my alterego as commoner. That way I ensure some success getting press coverage for the campaigns I wage as part of my quest.

It was a trifle frustrating though to see my last blog published in the South Wales Argus yesterday with the points omitted I was making about the Labour Party failing to live up to its Bevanite principles. The support of the European Parliament for “Poppy for Medicine” didn’t get a mention and so there went begging an opportunity to embarrass our party of government into defending its refusal to back P4M as EU policy. The Argus focused on the one point: how the poppy crop eradication policy is driving the impoverished farmers into the arms of the Taliban, thereby prolonging the war, if not making it unwinnable. Well, presenting half the argument is better than publishing none, so thank you, Argus.

Speaking of crops, it’s the time of year when those wonderful circles start appearing in the wheat fields of Wiltshire. I was interested to read this Times article explaining the numerical significance of the design of one that appeared last month, depicting the first ten successive digits of pi (3.141592654) by means of ten successive angles of rotation within a right-handed spiral.

Call me a naïve fool but isn’t there something going on in the sophistication and precision of these number theory demonstrations that’s not attributable to a gathering of engineering students with planks and string executing their designs in the dark during the short hours of our summer nights?

In one of my first blogs, I told you how it was that my Sufi friend Bahauddin, the Arabic genius with numbers, passed his lore to Fibonacci who brought it to Europe. Though from another tradition, like me Bahauddin is on a quest that means he may not die till it is fulfilled. The time has come I feel to catch up with him again and see if he has any insight into the significance of the numeric revelations in this and other crop circles that have appeared. This depiction of Pi I suspect is just a starting point.

Grave New Labour

2008-07-09T18:21:00.009+01:00

While the British Government continues to support the US State Dept policy of forced crop eradication being applied in Afghanistan that was already failing in Columbia against coca plantations, you will recall I took heart on discovering the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the ICOS proposal “Poppy for Medicine”. This is a trial scheme whereby farmers would be allowed to grow their opium and sell it as morphine, providing a much-needed supply to the 80 per cent of the world's population currently lacking access to effective pain relief. It could also help rural communities sever ties with the Taliban and the illegal drugs market. Now at last my MEP’s office has reported back about Labour policy on the issue. Not good news. Despite INI/2007/2125 being adopted by 368 votes in favour to 49 against, the Labour group of MEPs will attempt to block the EU Parliament’s recommendation from becoming EU policy.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of Sgt Major Michael Williams in Bedwas, my neighbouring village. Killed last month in a fire fight with the Taliban, he was buried with full military honours. It is probable that those he was fighting were villagers I had met in Helmand province this winter, whose livelihood making morphine was destroyed with no compensation or alternative income available. Will we still be witnessing such waste of life and opportunity ten years from now because the wise policy makers in Afghanistan and Strasbourg are pursuing a futile policy that drives Afghans into the arms of the Taliban and will not use their wit to try something different?

In Wales also yesterday, Labour leader and First Minister Rhodri Morgan was turning a clod to inaugurate the start of work on the £50m new hospital in Ebbw Vale, to be called Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan. Nye I am convinced would have supported the trial of Poppy for Medicine as it offers a reasonable chance of saving the lives of our soldiers, providing a living for poor farmers who have no compensation for the loss of their crop, and cheap painkillers for the sick in the developing world who cannot afford morphine at multinational drug company prices.

The great architect of the NHS was no doubt turning in his grave.

Red Flag on Mt. Everest?

2008-04-29T17:58:00.012+01:00

You may have been wondering what’s kept me from my blog these past weeks. Well I’m in Kathmandu at the moment nursing some sore feet after trekking through forests abloom with rhododendrons on the Annapurna trails. The views from Poon Hill were stunning as you can see.

Numb soles though still don’t stop me feeling the earth shaking from the Maoist election victory earlier this month. While their past struggle hasn’t shown them to have been entirely beneficent toward the rural population, the Maoists seem to have received an unprecedented democratic mandate to devise a new constitution. The civilized nature of the election bodes well for a smooth transition from a feudal society if the following article is to be believed. What also interests me is the parallel it makes between the victory of Maoism and the spread of Buddhism all those hundreds of years ago.

However things turn out in Nepal I sense I have witnessed a moment of history, even if it meant we were obliged to leave Kathmandu to start trekking earlier than we had intended to. A splendidly inspiring trek in such good company though it was, my poor feet at least have more time to recover before I head up to Afghanistan again. As well as monitoring the politics of the coming poppy harvest in Helmand province, I shall be looking to see how UN sponsored repairs to the Buddhas of Bamyan, the largest examples of standing Buddha carvings in the world that were destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, are getting on.

The Wastewater

2008-03-27T22:21:00.002Z

I know my mission is to restore the Wasteland but let’s not forget about the water. Plastic waste in the oceans poses a potentially devastating long-term threat to the food chain, according to marine scientists, by attracting toxins like DDT and other pollutants. The question is do those chemicals get released to marine organisms if they eat the plastic? If so, the poisons will reach the polluters eventually as they move up the food chain. We reap the watery harvest we sow.

And what about space? I was appalled to hear people are making funeral arrangements to have their ashes sent to the moon. What a massive waste of our living planet’s energy, to burn tons of fuel just to consign ones dusty remains to a dead world! Are we so conditioned to accept the inevitability of the Wasteland we can think of nothing better than to be associated with it for eternity?

Monstrous talk

2008-03-23T09:09:00.009Z

While Easter traditionally heralds good news, the broadcasts this year have been hijacked by cardinals and bishops putting pressure on MPs to oppose the government's human fertilisation and embryology bill. Talk of hybrid embryos becoming Frankenstein's monster seems designed to scare folk but embryologists are surely using their godgiven brains to investigate how cells of organic origin, whether human or animal, can be made to alleviate disease.

Since it's Easter Day, my question today is aimed high. God, aren't you pleased to have created people who are using their intelligence in the noble cause of saving lives? If the answer is yes, please call off the dogs.

Blushes for blue ignoring red trying to be green

2008-03-21T23:58:00.008Z

It was gratifying to see the leader of the Conservative Party looking the fool today for taking liberties with the traffic laws. A journalist had filmed Dave breezing through a red light, just one of his several misdemeanours. I do it all the time of course (play the fool I mean, and not just on the odd illicit cycling shortcut) but for all his naughtiness, we should give David Cameron credit for showing the genuine nature of his green credentials, that his cycling to work isn't purely for publicity purposes.

It's refreshing to find a politician who is not afraid to be viewed as a cyclist. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, in the UK and America you are what you drive and cyclists are considered by the policy making elite as lower class citizens. Which is why we are so poorly provided with safe cycle lanes here.

Another of Cameron's crimes was to cycle the wrong way down a one-way street. These are designed to be one-way due to their narrowness for cars, not bicycles. Cyclists should be allowed to use them in both directions. My question today therefore is will Dave ensure we see such radical measures as part of Conservative policy in the next manifesto? Or will he just resort to the ungreen limo from now on to hide his blushes?

Too busy at the trough?

2008-02-24T22:23:00.005Z

‘I am also keen to make this blog a real dialogue.’ So says David Miliband on his FCO blog but I’ve had no response from him. OK, he’s been a busy chap explaining how HM Gov were conned (Condied?)over rendition and why we can’t have a referendum on the European constitution, but why shouldn’t we expect his officials to respond? Nor have I heard from my MP nor 4 MEPs in response to my petitions for information about Poppy for Medicine. I’m souring about the motivation of those running our democratic institutions. I fear the FCO blog is just a publicity vehicle for pushing the HM Government line - that is not open government. Where is the evidence of a real intention to consult?

Some observers have attributed such lack of response to a failure to take seriously the petitions of someone claiming to have been born in 524 A.D. I take the point but these parliamentary representatives I have petitioned know me by my alias, a tax-paying resident of the borough of Caerphilly born 1953, not as (Sir) Percefal. In light of the current news, I suspect they’re too busy filling out their inflated expense claims to be quick off the mark addressing obscure foreign policy initiatives that might just help bring the troops home, on the prompting of a Grail Knight or his alias.

Mastermind

2008-02-15T08:26:00.021Z

With India still in mind, I bumped into a chap yesterday who'd reached a Mastermind semifinal, subject Clive of India (a relative apparently). A tortured soul, I met the first British Emperor once. Not on the battlefield - the Code of Chivalry forbad me fighting imperial wars - but sailing back to England after Plassey in 1757 (my Grail quest in India is an annal in itself for future publication). Poor fellow was taking excessive doses of opium to ease the abdominal pains that afflicted him throughout his career. I think of him sometimes when I mingle with those blessed herders addicted in Afghanistan I told you about.

Manic depressive too Clive might have been but this Mastermind chap said he was an inspiration in the heat of conflict. His genius was the art of surprise and he led by example, persuading his men to follow him willingly into battle against dreadful odds. The subject of my friend's first round was Bob Marley so I asked him what in God’s name have they got in common? Charisma he replied. Bob and Rob could get all types of people, implacable enemies even, to follow them anywhere.

Earnest though this Mastermind fellow was, he really didn’t know diddly-squat general knowledge. But then I’ve the advantage of several hundred more years learning about the world than any Mastermind contestant. It wouldn’t be principled I know but I could surely win that cut glass trophy, with the Holy Grail as my specialist subject.

The program is being shown next Monday Feb 18th on BBC2 7.30

The Maharishi Effect

2008-02-14T19:36:00.013Z

As the situation in Darfur gains prominence again, I marvel to see Mia Farrow spiritedly berating the Chinese government for their support of the murderous regime in Sudan. A fellow traveller of the Beatles to Maharishi’s ashram, she looks no older than she did in 1968. Living proof of the effect of Transcendental Meditation?

Preoccupied with her campaign, Mia didn’t say anything about his Holiness who departed his mortal coil last week. Having trained with Maharishi to be a teacher myself at the time he was courting the Establishment by turning the Spiritual Regeneration Movement into the World Government for the Age of Enlightenment, I checked how the transfer of authority was being handled after his death. Despite his reputation with notables such as Deepak Chopra and Amma as an enlightened being and the greatest of all teachers of meditation, I still have misgivings about the Global Country of World Peace organisation he set up around him, run by westerners adopting eastern honorific titles such as ‘raja’ (king).
(Link to YouTube)

TM was introduced as a simple technique to improve the health of the masses, energise their chakras and enhance their prospects for a life in balance. My attempt at the Right Question today is shouldn't it be available on tap like the water supply, not just expensively bottled pabulum for consumption by a preposterous elite?

Perhaps then we will really see evidence of the Maharishi Effect (Link) as the conflicts in Sudan, Afghanistan and elsewhere all subside at the same time.

Stepping back from the Wasteland

2008-02-12T08:31:00.000Z

Good news for Afghanistan. My sources tell me the US backed strategy for poppy eradication using aerial spraying of glyphospate happily will not start this year. It seems the US has bowed to pressure presumably at least because the European Parliament has had some influence after they voted massively in favour of Poppy for Medicine (it would be too much to think that after reading Percefal's posting on his FCO blog, David Miliband was persuaded to talk Condi Rice round as they flew down to Kandahar last week!). Whatever influence was brought to bear, the country will be spared more misery to its ravaged land and the health of its population.

I am trying to get confirmation of this from MEPs and HM Government (see link to FCO blog opposite for my questions). I will be badgering them now, as I would expect a response after almost a month. Or is their blog just an empty gesture in open government?

If you too feel strongly about this issue, please add your voice by petitioning your government, particularly if a member of NATO as Poppy for Medicine will weaken the Taliban and therefore shorten the war.

I may recommend using snail-mail if I don't get some response from blogging it to them.

The road to hell

2008-02-10T23:58:00.001Z

Oops – that was a foolish prediction of mine. Expecting harmony would arise from the Archbishop’s announcement certainly now sounds naïve in the extreme. But then foolishness is what has traditionally been expected of Sir Percefal, if not from the leader of the Anglican Communion.

If his intention was to foster good inter-faith relations, the Archbishop's heart may be in the right place, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I see he has got some stick for focusing away from his flock but I wonder if his agenda isn't just special pleading for religious interests (Christian included) in the application of the law?

I’m glad he’s made clear at least he is not advocating ‘parallel’ jurisdictions. That’s a lesson from history he should have learned from his gospel studies. When Pilate could not find Christ guilty of any offence against Roman law, he pandered to the prejudices of the crowd urged on by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish judges who found him guilty of blasphemy, and condemned him to death. Imagine modern elections being run on similar lines to secure special interest votes - one shudders!

Imbolc

2008-02-08T01:48:00.000Z

The priestesses are all gowned in white, one with a woollen waistcoat appropriately for a festival to celebrate Imbolg, the old pagan word for ewe’s milk. Greeted with a blessing bestowed with a swan’s feather, we invoke the Goddess in the various forms she takes throughout the year.
Before a figure of Bride (pronounced Bridie), the Goddess' first manifestation out of the depth of winter, we turn to face northeast and mantrically chant her name before turning clockwise toward the centre of the temple. After following the same process for each compass point, the priestess calls on the energy of Morgana Le Fey, the ninth Goddess aspect who spins the Wheel of Life from its centre.

The door opens and a procession of white-clad children approach the south facing altar with offerings as we sing songs to Bride and recite poems that will summon her presence. It is all very heartening, this centring of the light. Another priestess gives a healing meditation exhorting us not to be wintry harsh in the way we judge ourselves but release the light hidden behind the dark veil of our subconscious, nurture it so it can be carried out into the courtyard and bring peace to the world beyond. We file out and down the steps to take a candle from the children serenaded by the singing priestesses, leaving just one of them alone in the temple to close the circle and keep the energy quietly harnessed.

As if in response, next day is bright. On top of Black Down with clear views across to Dun Ceri, Glastonbury Tor and the Welsh coast, we keep an eye out for frogspawn, Red Admiral and Purple Emperor in flight but they are not in evidence. We had heard a radio news bulletin reporting such unseasonable sightings as we motored up the potholed lane, signs not of Bride’s emboldening light but of the false spring whose life may be snaffled out by the frosts yet to come. Our poor Earth groans as her rhythmic cycles are disturbed so.

A word about Morgana le Fey, revered at Imbolg as chief of the ‘Nine Morgens’. You may know her better from Malory and the late romances as the sorceress of Avalon and seductress of Arthur. Not till after the mortally wounded King Arthur passed to the isle of Avalon did I think of her as anything but a real person, certainly not a goddess. She was someone I knew well and respected in my youth, kind and compassionate if wily and fierce at times, but subsequently much maligned, as it was she who tried to stiffen Arthur’s resistance to the encroachments of the Christian priesthood.

As I mentioned in my earlier blogging, Arthur had sent me out on my final errand so I didn’t witness all that happened but when I returned to Camelot to find the Round Table had disintegrated, she was still there, doing her best to keep the old religion alive. What made me question whether she was more than human, albeit a psychically powerful one, was her insistence she escorted him out of this world to Avalon where she helped heal his wounds. She might have just gone a little mad of course, from missing him so much (very close they were but no more than what was natural between brother and half-sister). Reports of her ministering in the woods or from some strange labyrinth in the heart of the Tor carried on for years after I last saw her as an old lady.

My last memory of Morgana funnily enough was one Imbolg, sometime well after 700 AD. I remember her upset because the new priests had co-opted the Imbolg festival as Candlemass, not to celebrate Bride of course but the purification of the Virgin Mary. The old crone was furious that the most significant female in the new religion should be considered unclean because she had borne child, that Imbolg could be so effectively hijacked by a male priesthood repulsed by the natural behaviour of the female body.

When the priestesses now invoke her, at the heart of the Wheel of Life, I smile to think of what I recall her saying she would like to do with the unused body parts of the celibate priests. And no-one derided their champion Sir Galahad more than she. But oh how she underestimated the power of the priesthood. They elevated Galahad to be a reflection of their idealised selves, purified of earthly desires. Ironic isn't it that people were led to believe it was he who achieved the quest for the Grail, symbol of the Divine Feminine, when in reality he was so uninterested in her earthly counterpart.

The Archdruid again

2008-01-29T23:35:00.000Z

There are rumblings from my contacts at Lambeth Palace about an imminent announcement from the Archbishop of Canterbury next week. It’s apparently to do with inter-faith relations, an initiative I have been keen to support for centuries now, ever since Bahauddin spared my life during the 3rd Crusade in Egypt.

Impressed by the Archbishop’s reverential attitude toward nature in his Christmas message (see earlier posting), I expect this new one similarly to have a healing intention. In a world so troubled by the gulf of mistrust between these religions which dominate the lives of so many people, my question is what do they have in common that they can share together? One can offer a cynical response about the way they have both historically treated the feminine but Bahauddin always insisted the Sufi tradition, too often overlooked even by Moslems, embodies a unifying principle without any element of force.

Meanwhile, I know where I like to get my refreshment best at this time of year. February 1st coming up and it’s back to my pagan roots for Imbolc.

If my faith in the enlightened vision of the Archdruid of Canterbury (as some of my Celtic friends refer to him) is borne out, we will have the ground work of a common understanding between the Crescent and the Cross in place this time next week, for the benefit of all, religious or not.

Kings, dragons (Ospreys?) and the White Hart (Bride revisited)

2008-01-29T10:56:00.001Z

Well that was a fine welcome home. They broadcast The Fisher King (Link)just as I got in from the airport (did they know I was coming?!) A clever and compassionate adaptation of my tale by Terry Gilliam set in New York, where the roles of the wounded king and the Grail knight (called Parry not Percy nor Parzifal) blur and interchange. The Grail is won but I didn’t hear the Question. Does anyone have a recording of the film?

I’m back on home soil for the usual reason at this time of year (the Feast of the Goddess (Bride) on February 1st) but also in pursuit of my mission to get British Government support for Poppies for Medicine. I’ve had no response from the Foreign Office nor the International Narcotics Control Board but I hear the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of adopting Poppies for Medicine so I thought I ought to be based locally for a time to press the advantage. I’ll pass on news when I have some response.

And then there’s the anniversary of the battle between the red and white dragons (remember Merlin’s prophecy that saved him being sacrificed by King Vortigern?), as played out on the rugby field this time at Twickenham. There is great hope as usual in Wales at the prospect of victory under the new coach, if some are bemused by the preponderance of Ospreys in his selection (being a Kiwi, perhaps he thinks they are some kind of dragon?). I shall be watching the encounter on Saturday eagerly amidst the usual convivial company at the White Hart if Bride lets me get away from the Imbolc celebration in time, more of which you’ll no doubt hear about in my next posting.

Devilish torment

2008-01-16T12:52:00.000Z

The herder was too far gone to want to take the analgesic we had brought. Not from the cancer eating at his gut but the opium he was addicted to. The black tar accumulated from years of burning yak dung dripped onto my face from his roof, bedevilling my efforts at falling asleep till the clouds of psychotropic smoke he was exhaling muzzed me into a state that at least helped me forget the cold.

When the call to prayer came I emerged from this torpor believing I was back in north Africa, not lying close to the roof of the world in winter. The muezzin though was the objectionable Afghan trader with whom we were sharing accommodation, chanting harshly into my ear from a distance of no more than three feet. Our host was unconscious now, crashed facedown onto the rug on the other side of the fire. Apart from the embers, the only light was afforded by the still-glowing opium pipe that had fallen from his grip as he fell.

To bring in analgesics to the Kyrgyz community and get his patient to a hospital were the reasons I had accompanied Dr Trevor Armstrong on this journey higher into the Pamir mountains. Visitors to what passes as a guesthouse in these parts can’t choose their bed partners in winter as everyone presses together around the fire for warmth like the sheep penned in the stone corral outside. You could hear them shuffling around, nervous of being taken by a wolf.

The trader and I weren’t on best terms. Introducing himself to me as ‘Sultan’ Muhammed during the evening he had proceeded to rail against ‘tourists’ like us for our lack of education, and inability to read the Qur’an. With the advantage of such long association with my Sufi friend Bahauddin, I asked him in Arabic how his reading was. This quietened him down (very few Afghans understand Arabic) until he got his revenge by bellowing his prayers in my ear as sleep was at last beginning to envelop me.

What really irked me though was that in their keenness to get livestock for a knockdown price from the herders, like Trevor’s cancer patient, traders like the Sultan here dealt in opium. Not that he showed me the drug but I caught sight of his bag packed full of pipes which gave his game away. Trevor tells me that 90% of the population of Sarhad Boroghil are addicts, and the cost of the habit is slowly destroying the Kyrgyz herd numbers as they are forced to sell to feed their addiction. I could now see with my own eyes how the opium trade eats away at life in the Wakhan valley.

My Question? Recalling what Lucinda was telling me the other day (see earlier post), I shall be bombarding the International Narcotics Control Board with more than one when I get back to base.

Sir Ed - the knight who found his Grail

2008-01-12T01:11:00.000Z

Speaking of the value of education in these deprived parts, it was sad news about the passing of Sir Edmund Hillary. During his last expedition in the Himalayas he asked the Sherpas what he could do for their village. They replied they needed their children to go to school. That request became the inspiration for the next phase of his great career - helping to improve the health and educational conditions of the Nepalese people.

I didn’t know it when I met him on his return to Nepal in 2002 to hand over control of his Himalayan Trust to the Sherpas but he was christened Edmund Percival Hillary. Had I known of course I can’t imagine I would have resisted the foolish impulse to tell him who I was. A modest man, it’s nice to think he was named after me, the irony being that in one lifetime he succeeded in fulfilling his quest, finding the Holy Grail of mountaineering widely perceived as an impossible aspiration, while I am yet to peak after soldiering on for so many years.

Of course, if you believe in reincarnation (dying would be a useful start in my case) he presumably prepared for his great feat over several lifetimes. As said Ang Rita, a devout Buddhist and the first graduate of the first of 26 schools opened by Sir Ed, “He has done so much for us. If he is incarnated he can again continue to do good work for the human beings”.

After retiring from climbing, he became hugely popular in Nepal when he devoted his energy and the resources from his own fundraising efforts to helping the Sherpa people through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded to build hospitals, health clinics, airfields and schools.

The airstrips though had the unforeseen consequence of bringing more tourists and would-be mountain climbers to the remote region. I met Sir Ed in my capacity as a project manager for the Himalayan Foundation, a non-profit body that helps improve the ecology and living conditions in the Himalayas. The Nepalese were cutting down ever more of their forests to provide fuel for the mountaineers, rubbish was piling up around campsites and the children were learning to beg. Sir Ed became so concerned about the degradation of the environment, he persuaded the Nepalese government to pass laws protecting the forest and to declare the area around Everest a National Park. The Nepalese couldn’t afford to fund this project themselves and had no experience in park management, so Hillary used his great prestige to persuade the government of New Zealand to provide the necessary aid as well as becoming the Honorary President of the ecological organisation I was working with.

And Sir Ed would want us to remember he didn't get to the top of Everest alone. While his first words on his descent to his friend George Lowe who set out to meet him from the party below were "Well, we knocked the bastard off", Jamling Tenzing Norgay in his book Touching My Father's Soul gives us the fundamental mountaineering lesson learned from his father: Everest "must be approached with respect and with love, the way a child climbs into the lap of its mother. Anyone who attacks the peak with aggression, as a soldier doing battle, will lose." Which reminds me of the instruction we were all given as Grail knights setting out on our quests: the Grail cannot be won by force.

If you’d like to support the good work Sir Ed started, you can make a contribution to his Himalayan Trust by clicking the link opposite.

One Wakhi family

2008-01-07T08:49:00.000Z

Here’s another of those rugs I brought from Helmand. Nice to see the local artisans weaving helicopters into their traditional craft. I love the way they contemporise it. Perhaps I’ll find one with a Chinook when I return to Kabul.

Well despite all the extra blankets and rugs I brought I barely slept a wink last night. Hell, it’s BITTERLY cold up here! The Armstrongs live in a typical Wakhi one-roomed mud hut with no running water or drains, a pit latrine, no beds and little food other than the local bread, some bartered rice and whatever they managed to cram onto the one truck that drove up from Kabul last year. The sole concession they have as the doctor’s family is the only electricity supply in the village which is how I am able to blog you tonight in an effort to bring on sleep (for me not you hopefully!).

The Armstrongs' intention is to pass best medical practice to the local population, particularly to reduce the dreadful infant mortality rates. Leaving the comfort of their Sussex hometown, they have brought daughters Rachel, three, and two-year-old Lauren with them. When he is not distracted by the demands of curly-locked Rachel to climb onto his shoulders, local man Gulmarjan is at Trevor’s side, taking in all the knowledge he can absorb from the English doctor. The girls have taken to the lifestyle as pure adventure though the plan is not to stay here beyond school starting age. For Trevor, it’s a joy to have the ice peak and blue sky backdrop instead of suburban surgery walls. My hat goes off to them. I can only applaud their dedication to the cause of improving the lot of these people.

The fight against the privations the community suffers under is on two fronts, medical and educational. In tandem, they do seem to be having an effect on the mortality rates, Trevor with his medical skills and Lucinda doing her best to educate the women. The Wakhi now use contraception, allowing women to leave more than a year between child-bearing; they have disavowed too their taboos on breast feeding from birth and learned that infants born to first cousins have more than double the odds of dying.

The effect of education has a wider impact though. I was discussing this with Lucinda.
"There are major benefits if a girl has just five years education: birthrates and infant mortality go down, and the quality of life for the whole village, from health to happiness, goes up. Something else also happens. Before a young man goes on jihad, holy war, he must first ask for his mother's permission. Educated mothers say no."

Like my mother forbad me training to be a knight, if you remember. So where does the funding for schools come from?

“The locals provide labour but most of the funding is provided from the profits made from opium. The government has now committed to destroying the crop but not to building schools. Opium can't be eliminated. These villages are desperately poor. They're utterly dependent on this income. Eliminating opium farming will only cause more poverty and more hopelessness, which will cause more killing and more wars."

So is there a better way?

“Yes. In 2005, the U.S. allocated about $774 million to the effort to eradicate poppy farming in Afghanistan yet India is already licensed by the International Narcotics Control Board, an independent watchdog group that monitors the trade of illicit and medicinal drugs, to grow opium and produce generic pain medication for developing nations. Afghanistan could do the same. The cost of creating such a program has been estimated at $600 million. Ideally, the farmers would get cash, the drug lords would get cut out, the developing world would get more pain-relief medicine, and the major demand for the global traffic in heroin could be drastically reduced.”

This made me think of the wider question - do you face up to reality on the ground or fight it from a position of pure principle? You can’t take an absolute moral line against opiates — they relieve pain. People like the Armstrongs need support as they are in the best position to focus on what works, rather than deal in moral abstractions.

Back to the present and the sharp end (almost)

2007-12-28T15:40:00.000Z

After bringing in supplies to Helmand province, I’ve been spending Christmas with Charlie Company whose camp is the most isolated British outpost in the region. Operational duties carry on but once the presents arrived, there’s been plenty of festive activity. Like decorating plastic Christmas trees with bunting made from the red and white tape used to cordon off landmines but most surreally, swapping helmets for Santa hats while the boys were out on patrol carrying their heavy machine guns, mortars and grenade launchers. There was no alcohol or turkey but we all managed to enjoy a sliver of Christmas cake and within the enforced limitations, to share some cheer.

As news reaches me of events across the border in Pakistan though, my natural optimism has clouded considerably. Healing being so much part of the Grail mission, it’s despairing when events seem to be taking us further in the wrong direction. Some of the last advice Gawain gave to me was that I should test my intentions and questions by presenting them at the sharp end. Well I thought performing my knightly duties in Helmand province was as close as I could get but the sharp end yesterday had moved to Rawalpindi.

The murder of Benazir Bhutto makes us all fear for the future of the region even more. I shan’t be steered off course though. My quest seems to be driving me toward finding a Question that relates to the commonality between east and west, not the differences that divide them. I’m convinced too it will be related to Fibonacci's numbers somehow. Anyway, I'm working on it so more later.

Fibonacci

2007-12-26T22:18:00.000Z

Excuse my irregularity but I’ve been distracted this past couple of weeks. A bit feeble you might think when I’ve only posted one blog but I’ve been preoccupied restoring the use of my kitchen after leaving my wooden chopping board on the hob. Returning from my evening walk, I found the place on fire - I’d left the electric ring on. Galahad used to mock me for the scrapes I got into, saying such impracticality goes with the terrain of being a naïve fool. It is true I’m prone to accidents which to my disappointment occur a lot more frequently than the epochal events I’ve witnessed, one of which I will endeavour now to describe.

Let me say first though how pleased I am Gillian was allowed to come home in time for Christmas and is now back in the bosom of her family. The correct Koranic interpretation prevailed (or was it common sense or just political convenience?).

In exploring the justification for Gillian’s detention, I referred in my blog to my Sufi friend Bahauddin ibn ‘Arabi with whom I have attested some seminal moments in world history since starting out on my quest back in the 540’s. I realised soon after meeting him that the magic of numbers was always a subject of more than passing interest to Bahauddin (my last blog makes reference). Here’s an account of how significant was his interest.

I had met Bahauddin sometime around 1190 I think, while crossing the desert to find the monastery of St. Macarius at Wadi Natrun in Egypt where I had heard the monks were custodians of the Grail. I was staying with him in Bugia where he lived on the Mediterranean coast when the event took place. We were absorbed in disputing the finer points of Sufi metaphysics when a bell sounded across the courtyard. As Bahauddin opened his front door, the morning light flooded in with the aromas of the medina - fresh mint, lamb and argan oil with its intriguing blend of hazelnuts mixed with peanuts. From Bahauddin’s parlour I watched a flurry of rose petals float up on the breeze while his servant ushered the visitor from the gate to a cushioned seat beside one of the fountains that freshened the surrounding plants. As one petal found its way over Bahauddin’s head across the threshold where he was standing, he turned to me where I sat.

“It is a good omen, this petal,” he said. “Something of great beauty, yet of simplicity too, is passing from where it was nurtured to a place shut out of the light.” His musing over, he didn’t wait for my obvious question. “Please excuse me while I talk to my visitor,” he continued. “We won’t not be long. He has a boat to catch within the hour.”

I knew this visitor must be important. Bahauddin would not normally allow our metaphysical deliberations be interrupted. After weeks of probing and subtle debate within the more mystic traditions of our respective religions, we were converging on a common point of understanding. As a Sufi, he held the highest value of his religion was direct experience of God. Where we could not agree was in identifying a method, a key to unlock the door to allow that direct connection.

Waiting for Bahauddin to return, I reached for the book that still lay on the rug where we had sat to deliberate. It was open at a page that showed the spiral of a sea shell, measured and annotated with numbers that were strange to me, not like the Roman numerals I was used to. Turning the page, the numbers were arranged in a linear series and analysed with Arabic commentary. My knowledge of Arabic at that time was rudimentary but there was obviously some relationship between the number series and the size of the spiral. So absorbed was I in turning the pages that I didn’t notice the stream of light from the courtyard was being blocked. A young man wearing a Tuscan hat was standing in the doorway with Bahauddin.

“Percefal, allow me to introduce you to my brightest pupil, Leonardo filius Bonacci, the Al Dabaran of my firmament. He is going home to Pisa now and I am going to give him the book you are reading.”

Young Bonacci was carrying an abacus, a beautiful thing with eight rows of pearls sliding on gold wires set in a walnut frame. Laying it on a table he bowed and smiled as he took the book.

“Though my abacus might be one of the most ornate you will find,” he said as if in response to another of my unspoken questions, “it has limited use in my country where bankers and tradesmen increasingly need faster ways to convert currency and calculate their profit and interest. If I had a thousand such objects I'd gladly give them all to Bahauddin in return for one of his books.”

Bahauddin was typically gracious in his response. “And if my book looks sketchy and battered,” he said, “may its principles be the seeds that bring a flowering to your homeland as it struggles to be born again from the womb of its dark age.”

I wondered what sort of gardener filius Bonacci was.

Dreaming of a green Christmas

2007-12-26T22:12:00.000Z

I was impressed yesterday with the reverential attitude toward nature shown by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas address. It wasn’t always so. I remember arguing with Galahad about this, in particular his view that the earth was a resource given to us by God to exploit for our material enrichment regardless of its cost and irreplaceablity. How could we attain spiritual grace, I asked, if we used up all the resources nature provided and die of disease and malnutrition in the process? Good question but in 561 AD perhaps too premature to stop the slide toward environmental disaster.

So Galahad’s view was to prevail, as my foremost place among King Arthur’s knights was supplanted. From being a receptacle of divine blood to nourish life’s biological systems, the Grail became a trophy to capture (like those tigers’ heads in the Maharajah’s palace banqueting room at Udaipur I visited before such callous butchery was outlawed) that would guarantee its hunter prestige and the coveted Siege Perilous at the Round Table.

Still a lot more people are now questioning the wisdom of the unsustainable consumption we exhibit in wrapping and shifting vast quantities of boxed up yet often undesired goodies around the world. This is something I’ve been harping on about for ages, such that it has even been claimed the word 'sourpuss' has its origin in my name (Sir Perce). Well that's bunkum, and hardly a fair epithet for an innocent fool!

The Innocent Fool

2007-12-02T19:40:00.000Z

In their mythologizing, the romancers condemned me to second place as favoured Grail Knight because I was a fool, albeit an innocent one. Well, I won’t argue about my reputation just now, acknowleding I've made more than one serious blunder in my long life but what would they make of Gillian? The girl’s after Percefal’s heart (like me, I mean, naïve).

My Sufi friend Bahauddin told me the proper interpretation of koranic law depends on intentions and Gillian's were honourable. Didn't she see the warning signs though, when all that anti-infidel fever got whipped up about some Danish newspaper cartoons? You would have thought the agency that got her the job might have advised her to tread delicately around the local customs, albeit the name was of a schoolboy and the animal only a cuddly semblance of a species not native to Sudan.

Well I just hope it’s remembered that of the 99 most beautiful names that belong to Allah, the Compassionate One is just as important as any of the others. The romancers tell that my Fisher King’s wound can be healed only by an innocent youth made wise through compassion, asking the right question. I may not be so young after all these centuries of endeavour but if I ever find the king again, he should find me wiser than he did before. Then I knew nothing about compassion nor the right questions to ask so my mouth stayed shut. No longer as you will see.