"There is no Planet B": the anthropocene and today's youth

"The Anthropocene (Noun):

            a proposed term for the present geological epoch (from the time of the Industrial Revolution onwards), during which humanity has begun to have a significant impact on the environment."

                                                                            Source: Collins English Dictionary (online edition)

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Yes, the term was a new one on me as well - at least, until I read There is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years (Updated Edition) by British researcher and author Mike Berners-Lee recently.  I confess to buying it by mistake - I confused him with his brother Sir Tim, widely acclaimed as the Father of the Internet - but having read the thing I'm very glad I did.

Berners-Lee describes himself in the book as "a generalist", which is to say someone whose career has followed many different, mainly scientific, paths with unexpected turns (in one paragraph he lists many of them - and an interesting list it is, too), and not in any way an expert on climate change, global warming or any of the other terminology used for what is happening today.  But in recent years, his consultancy work with many leading international companies in a variey of disciplines has convinced him of the very real and imminent danger we all face, and inspired him to spend increasing amounts of time researching and learning all he can about it.  The book, together with two fore-runners that look at different aspects of the anthropcene, attempts to condense all of that acquired knowledge into a simple and entertaining narrative that anyone of average intelligence can understand, explaining in detail what is going wrong, providing details of potential solutions and suggesting ways in which we can all, in small ways, take action to contribute to that solution.

It's a cracking read.  The writing is light and simple, even when addressing the most complex topics, with unexpected bits of humour to leaven the dark prognoses.  There is a huge amount of information included, much of it grim and all illustrated by a selection of graphs and charts, but with a lot that is hopeful and encouraging, as well as detailed appendices and a glossary that dig deeper into the detail of most topics and terminology.  I am not going to attempt to summarise it.  Simply, this book should be mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in the future of this world, especially educators and politicians (with an emphasis on those in senior government office, no matter the country, who have a genuine duty to understand).  If they don't understand what we are going through, and what it is likely to lead to, they are simply not fit for public office (any Tory members reading this take note: neither of your candidates have any interest in the subject).  But some bits did jump out at me and stick.

For instance, there is absolutely no good reason why there are so many millions of people across Africa, south Asia, central and south America and even Europe and the other developed countries going short of food and starving, when the total food production globally is more than two and half times in excess of what is needed (in calories per day) to feed more than the current global population (currently 8billion and rising).  But most of the excess is used to make fertiliser, feed farm animals or make bio-fuels of at best questionable value.  Or simply thrown away in the trash.  The food production is also hopelessly unbalanced, with for instance the US able to produce many times its actual needs while countries like Ethiopia and Bangladesh much less than their most basic needs (and lacking the fertile land to do much about it).

For instance, even if the Paris target of 1.5C average temperature rise is achieved (and this in itself is highly unlikely) it will not alone solve the climate emergency but merely delay its final act - essentially the global extinction of virtually all life, including ours - by a couple of hundred years.  Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels by 2050 is only a start - and all the time countries like the US, Russia, India, China and even the UK conspicuously fail to be serious about meeting their agreed targets that too is highly unlikely.  Nor will it improve until not a single drop of oil or lump of coal is extracted from the ground and we perfect ways of extracting the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, to lessen their effect and give temperatures a chance to drop back, permanently.

For instance - and in my view this is THE most important point of them all - the battle (for it is a battle) cannot be fought in isolation: every country in the world MUST co-operate and join together if we are to stand a chance.  This means a complete overhaul of the way we live, the way we think, and the way we treat each other (and every other living thing).  Forget all the competing ideologies: Left v Right, Republican v Democrat, Christianity v Islam, black v white - all of that is just shit, of no importance or consquence when measured against the survival of our species: except insofar as their continuation will effectively guarantee our demise.  We need a total global societal change like no other in human history - and optimist though I am, I have a problem envisioning how the hell we are going to achieve it.

But I have not a shred of doubt we have to try!

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Most of the bad stuff has happened in the last 120 years or so, since the start of the 20th century.  And yes, I know the Industrial Revolution dates back to the 18th - but since the invention of the internal combustion engine, the development of cities more or less as we recognise them now, mass transportation and a decline in agricultural societies the pace of it has accelerated dramatically.  Put simply, the more power we generate, in whatever fashion (wood burners, coal fires, petrol engines, atomic, wind and solar.....it makes no difference), the more we demand (as opposed to need).  The more stuff we have - radios, tv's, cars, mobile phones, houses - whatever: even food and clothing - the more we want.  The more money we have, the more we want to (and do) spend, and the more debt we create. It's human nature, I suppose, but with the huge inequalities in the world - most of which are fairly recent developments - causing so much anger and resentment, we somehow have to change.  Boris Johnson calls it Levelling Up and even created a Cabinet Ministry to achieve it during his ill-fated Premiership, as well as a Clinate Czar - but both have achieved virtually nothing during this Parliament  If one relatively small country fails at this challenge, then what hope is there for a global change?

It seems to me a generational problem.  By that I mean that older people are more set in their ways and hence more resistant to change, whereas younger generations will happily embrace the most daunting challenges and major changes.  Look at any news footage of street demonstrations to call for climate change action, and you will see the vast majority of participants are in their 20s or younger: Greta Thunberg, 16 when she hit international headlines, being a perfect example, and she is not alone.  Sure, there are older people there, including people of my age - nearly 70 - and older, but we are very much in the minority.  

The Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement has been in the headlines several times with their peaceful protests, in particular those that involved sitting down on the M11 motorway amd closing it (by police action on safety grounds: quite rightly).  I saw very few people, certainly in the news reports I read, that were supportive of their actions, but it was noticable that the most swingeing criticism - the calls to just drive over them, or drag 'em off and lock 'em up for life - came from we older people.  I may be generalizing here, but I know that I can be impatient and intolerant about some things that younger people do (notably time spent gaming rather than playing sports or doing something more active - because that's what I always did) but I do try to understand why this is so and (sometimes grudgingly) respect the young's right to do their own thing - as I used to. But I have never doubted or criticised the XR activists for their actions, and fully accept and defend their democratic right to do so.  It's ntoable as well that the British press generally portrays XR as a local student and unemployed mob of anarchists out to cause trouble, when it is nothing of the sort.  It's a global organisation, active in 84 countries, with over 1100 affiliated groups, with a very clear and distincg ethos that goes far beyond supergluing yourself to the tarmac in the fast lane of the M11.  I seriously urge you check out their website at  Extinction Rebellion | Join The Fight Against Climate and Ecological Collapse for more information: with no imperative to agree with them or join in

Peaceful protest is historically a prime mover for peaceful change.  The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) recognized this 50 odd years ago, with marches at Aldermaston and elsewhere in their campaign to remove nuclear weapons from the UK.  Eventually, they won a partial victory in that since then there have been many international treaties signed that have vastly reduced the number of nuclear weapons in existance and arguably made the world a safer place, but some still exist on British soil. Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela led similar movements in India and South Africa respectively that used by and large peaceful protest to gain their independence (in India from British rule, in South Africa from apartheid).  Earlier still, the Suffragettes won the right to electoral votes for women in Britain and elsewhere.  These were all major societal changes that came about as the message eventually reached a majority of people and won their mass acceptance.  And they were all movements that in their earliest days were roundly denounced as madness, their leaders victimised and imprisoned and demonised as terrorists.  I suspect in time the same will prove true for Extinction Rebellion.

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There can be little argument that the last few generations have made a right royal fuck up of running this world and its society.  I would argue my own and the one before - popularly called The Best Generation, in honour of their wartime exploits: rightly so - have done more to create the mess we are living through, usually for what they genuinely thought were the best of reasons, and it would be wrong to be too harsh in criticism.  The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing but not available when you're decision making, and the scientific knowledge and technology we now possess wasn't available then to guide.  

But such has been the "progress" and so universal its adoption that we have managed, in little more than a century, to reach a stage where our formerly pristine and naturally wealthy planet is now in a dreadful state.  Air pollution chokes the inhabitants of cities and countryside alike.  Rivers and lakes and oceans are choked with the detritus of human society made from materials, notably plastic, that will take thousands of years to fully decay, and that, broken down into microscopic particles is already entering the human foodchain (with still uncertain consequences) as it is ingested by the animals and fish we eat.  The stuff has even been found in creatures that typically live in the deepest parts of the ocean, and Coke bottles spotted on the floor of the Marianas Trench, the deepest point anywhere on Earth.  And no-one knows for certain how long the stuff will be with us, nor even the vaguest idea about how to manage it.

And yet.......and yet there is hope.  It lies, not with my generation, nor that of our children, but more likely with our children's children.  Whatever happens, they and their own children and succeeding geenerations are the ones who will face the worst of the climate crisis that we are beginning to experience now.  They are the ones who will have to adapt their lives to a world that will be very different from the one we live in, and find and master the solutions hinted at in Berners-Lee's book, and find even more workable solutions.  If they fail, then we really are coming to the end of all things...

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Earlier this year, my youngest boy hosted a party for a bunch of his school friends, all 17 and 18 years old, all Polish and speaking almost fluent English as well, so we were able to chat over a beer or three.  They shared the same desires and ideas as I did when I was their age, back in the dim and distant late 60s and early 70s Hippie Era - which is to say as much sex and booze and rock'n'roll as they could lay their hands on.  They just wanted to have Fun (with a capital F) and not worry too much about school and Uni and exams and what the rest of their lives might bring, not that night anyway.  Some of them had visited England on holidays and school trips, and we had a lively discussion about whether Polish sausages were better than English (they aren't),  was fish & chips and cottage pie really the best grub in the world (it isn't but I love 'em both anyway), and why British beer tends to be warmer than Polish beer (and nowhere near as strong).

Of course, we touched on politics.  None of them were fans of the current Polish government; there was complete condemnation for Putin's Special Military Operation; most thought that Brexit had been a disaster for both Britain and an EU that in their view was badly in need of reform; and all were concerned about the continuing after effects of Covid on our health and national economies.  We didn't agree on everything, of course not, but I left thinking that they were all really bright and sensible kids with promising futures, no matter what crap they inherit from my generation and that of their parents (who all seem of an age with my eldest son, give or take a couple of years - which is a sobering thought: I could easily have been their grandad).

They were all much more international in their outlook than I was at a comparable age, and wanted to travel and see the world before settling down (but responsibly). They understood what was happening with the climate crisis better than I (it was before I read Planet B...) and I could easily envision them joining a ER demonstration somewhere, and perhaps going into a career that offers the chance to contribute to building a better society and world.   In my day we were more concerned with nuclear proliferation but hadn't got a clue what to do about it and left it to our "elders and betters" - a concept thankfully absent from today's youth.  And thank goodness for that!

The future, for better or worse, is theirs, and I sincerely hope they will do a better job with it than my lot did with our inheritance.  I have a feeling they will. 

The Premier League? No, thanks!

 

 

 

So here we go, another epic Premier League season.  As Sky continues to trumpet, the 30th since they "created" it, launched the "Premier League Era" and changed the face of British - and arguably world - football forever.  Another season where billions of pounds are pumped into the Beautiful Game (or at least The Premier League: how much of it filters down through the pyramid to the smaller clubs, whose full house crowds of a few hundred probably number less than the bloated press and tv crew that covers even the smallest EPL fixture, is a point for serious debate!), and even the worst PL team, relegated after a season of huff-and-puff incompetence, goes away with a hundred million or more  in "prize money".   Is there a competition anywhere else in the world where the rewards for being absolute shit are higher?  Can't think of one myself.

It will be another season of hyperbole, with commentators yelling their heads off at very little in an effort to create excitement, of players falling over at the slightest (often imaginary) touch and rolling around as if shot. Of managers who couldn't pick their noses never mind a winning team bemoaning a perceived incompetence of the match officials (sometimes justified, to be fair) or VAR and/or seeking to defend the indefensible when it comes to their own performance and that of their players.  A season of fans paying obscene amounts of money for the Matchday Experience (whatever the hell that means).  A season of endless over-analysis  in press and on television by under-qualified hacks and overpaid pundits, only some of whom were decent players back in the day.  

Of fans - ah, the fans! The lifeblood of the game! - trading insults and opinions, loves and hates, opinions and self-congratulation in equal measure on social media, even if it comes down to racially abusing players and their families and threatening all kinds of dire consequences for "that open goal you missed, you useless [insert epithet of choice here]!"   Most of it, of course, is mere delusion, not to be taken seriously - but it will be, by press and tv and other fans because, well, it's the Prem....

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It will be a bit different this season, because it stops in the middle to allow for the first ever "Winter World Cup", hosted in Qatar in the Middle East, "where it's simply too hot to play in the summer", say FIFA.  There is so much nonsense written about how hot it's going to be, and how it will harm the players (never mind the fans, but then there probably won't be too many there, given pricing).  But here's the thing (well, a couple actually): the Qatari organisers have invested billions into building genuine state of the art stadia, complete with closable roofs and air conditioning to help players and spectators cope with the heat.  And secondly, having spent a winter working in Doha a few years ago, I can speak from experience when I say that, although it's hot, mid to high 20s C in the November/December I was there, that is actually no hotter than it is at the moment here in Northern Europe, and with today's fitness levels that is something players should be able to handle.  In fact, they do, happy to play here, and on summer tours (simply money spinning operations with team building and fitness secondary concerns) in the US, the Far East, Australia and elsewhere, in temperatures and humidity to match anything Qatar can offer in winter.  Not that the press would ever say that - they are too busy bleating on about sportwashing.......

That is a term that seems to have crept in lately, to describe any sporting event in which a foreign source, typically Middle Eastern, Chinese or Russian, has invested a significant sum of money.  The allegation is that "they must be hiding something..."; "how do we know it's clean money?"; "what about human rights, they've got a terrible record.....".  At which point, if I'm drawn in to reading an article on the subject, I switch off, from a boredom overload.   Because all the complaints are essentially complete and utter bollocks.  Shall we discuss some?  Of course.....

"They must be hiding something".  "How do we know it's clean money?"  Typically comments like this are aimed at wealthy businessmen, say Russian oligarchs or American tech multi-billionaires, or Chinese online entrepreneurs. Well, yes, I suppose there may be the odd bad apple investing his (un)earned billions into a club, but then London, or more correctly the City, has been nicknamed the Laundromat for years now: it's an open secret.  But you could argue that the successive governments, largely but not exclusively of the Blue interest, that have allowed this culture to develop, allowing the more exclusive areas of the city to be sold off to shady networks of shell companies hiding the true beneficial ownership, in return for substantial donations to party funding (generally rewarded by a peerage, like the ex-KGB officer who has a seat there....) are actually responsible for the sportwashing more than any club.

"Human rights."  A bugbear of mine: what exactly are they, and in what way are/have they been abused by, let's say, Qatar?  Or Abu Dhabi?  Or Saudi Arabia?  All of whom have bought Premier League clubs more or less successfully in the recent past.  What exactly are "human rights", for a start?  I would suggest the right to life and a decent education - but even those are questionable, as the recent Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision and its fallout show.  If a decent education is a "human right", then define "decent education" - and prove that every kid in Britain is not having his human right to that abused on a daily basis because not every kid is getting a decent education.  What about health care: is that not a basic human right?  Ask any poor American with inadequate insurance, dying from cancer as a result, or for that matter the guy dying for want of a transplant that cannot be carried out because of yet another NHS crisis, whether his "human rights" (that to life itself) is being violated. 

It seems to me that allegations of sportwashing are merely another way for the green-eyed monsters who support a club not taken over by wealthy owners (of whatever nationality or provenance) and hence less likely to win something, to express their irrational dislike of the clubs that have been fortunate.  It's not even a new activity, as far as I can see - go back a hundred years or so, and there were ample cases of wealthy businessmen - bankers, mill owners and others - buying their local football clubs, professing to be "lifelong supporters" and being applauded for doing so.  Rarely were questions asked about the treatment their workers received in their factories, mills, coalmines or whatever, nor about the low wages earned for 16 hour working days from the age of 14 or 15.  It seems to me the only difference between some of them and today's buyers is that the older generation were invariably white and local, rather than of a different skin colour and from overseas - that old Britisn parochialism again.

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There is a column in The Guardian newspaper's football section, dedicated to The Premier League and headed "10 Talking Points from the weekend's action", with Comments invited from readers about the journalists' talking points.  It's always worth a read, rarely of much relevance to what actually happened and as fine a forum for taking the piss out of opposing supporters or simply letting off steam as you can find.  I thoroughly enjoy it, even though it's all nonsense.  Yesterday, there was a bleat from a guy in response to the Manchester United talking point, quoting a friend of his, a United supporter, who after ONE game was apoplectic, calling for the manager's head (he only joined the club in June and is highly successful and repected) because United will never win anything...... The supporter demands that the club is "expected" to win every year, he cares nothing for cup competitions or any European competition except the laughably and inaccurately named Champions League because "they're an irrelevant waste of time and money".  I can't remember ever reading such a bunch of tripe in all my life, and like others I took him to task.  I commented as follows:

Thing is, the Prem isn't really football. It's a glossy, media fuelling business full of over-paid, egotistical overpaid clowns - and that's just the managers. It's no surprise that clubs like Mans U and C, Liverpool, Chelsea, the Arse and so on attract similar followings - viz. glory hunters. There are 92 clubs in the Prem + Championship, EFL and 2, and only a handful of trophies to win, or European competition spots to fill. The majority of clubs are living from hand to mouth with little or no propsect of winning a damned thing and more concerned about surviving for another season. The lower down you go the more of them there are and the harder it is. The people who loyally spend their hard earned pennies to watch Sutton Utd, or Bristol Rovers, or Leyton Orient and their peers (and I mean absolutely no disrespect to any of those clubs or supporters, quite the reverse in fact) - THAT is football. Not the plastic nonsense rammed down our throats on Sky or the sports pages of any news outlet.

This is a simple and obvious truth that any football fan with two brain cells to rub together would agree on.  It is the way football has always been, and was part of its excitement.  Even the lowliest of clubs could dream of winning something, and had something to play for.  The most famous example is probably Wimbledon: I saw them play at my then local club, Tonbridge, back in the late 60s, when I was a kid, and they were horrible.   But something wonderful happened: they were bought by a Lebanese businessman - and I remember no questions beings asked about the provenance of his wealth, nor accusations of sportwashing - and in a relatively few years the club rose all the way to the First Division (as The Premier League was then called), established themselves as a force there and even won the FA Cup by beating Liverpool, then the best team in the country.  They were still horrible, and the wheels eventually came off, they were sold, moved out to Milton Keynes and deserted by their original fanbase plummetted back down the leagues, but as MK Dons (a limp nod to their Wimbledon roots). The local fans eventually formed another club, called AFC Wimbledon, started at the bottom of the pyramid and have worked their way right back up into the league.  Neither club is likely to reach The Premier League, given today's financial inequalities - thank you, Sky!  - but it remains a brilliant story.

It's a story every lower league club, including my own, aspires to.  The sad thing is that with every passing season it becomes less likely it will ever be repeated. Perhaps that is just the price of progress, but it seems to me a hell of a price to pay.  A goverment enquiry a year or so ago into football governance and finances made a large number of recommendations to help the grass roots game.  Unfortunately most of them were dependent on The Premier League's support and co-operation.  It's been very quieot on the subject for months now - which is no surprise.  It's like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas......

The Premier League Era is, in my view, killing football.  And that is not something to be proud of, Sky, BT Sports, Chelsea, Mans U and C, the Arse or anyone else involved.  This is not a 30th anniversary to be celebrated.

It is quite simply a sporting tragedy.

Where would I be without You Tube?

 

 

 

 Retirement.

It comes to us all, like death and taxes (to paraphrase Sam Clemens), but I'm betting I'm not the only one to neglect planning for it. But it happened, incredibly four years ago already, and without a backward glance I walked away from the workplace with a spring in my step (as far as dodgy knees and hips allow, in any case).

A weight fell off my shoulders. I had plans, places to go and things to do. A backlog of books to read. Others to write and one to (finally) publish. Time to relax a bit away from the business treadmill - time for myself. Sure, money would be tight, but that was inevitable: I had been very well paid for several years so was bound to take a bit of a hit because, in retrospect foolishly, I hadn't saved as much as I should have. But that was ok, I decided, I'd manage.

I soon discovered it wasn't quite what I had expected. I'd not done my sums right at all, maths never being my strong point, and my income plummetted far more than I had anticipated when the salary was replaced by pensions. To make matters worse, during the good years I had failed to msake voluntary contributions to top up the funds, too busy having good winter and summer vacations with my family and enjoying good meals out. Investing in the present rather than the future is never a good idea...

Then Covid came along and blew the entire planet out of kilter - and of course my life too. Travel basically stopped, people worked from home or lost their jobs altogether, economies collapsed and everyone was stuck indoors for safety (or had to wear masks and sometimes gloves when going out, say for shopping) while the scientists and doctors fought to engineer a cure and save lives respectively. It took a couple of years but they managed it, by which time I had been quite ill with the virus myself (and I'm still carrying the consequences in various ways), and everyone tried to get back to normal. All things considered, I, and my nearest and dearest, didn't fare too badly.

Economies were inflated by governments injecting huge sums of money to support struggling businesses and the new unemployed - and I'm not being critical at all, it was needed - , and that has inevitably caused inflation rates to jump alarmingly. I'm no economist, obviously, and I'm sure there are yet other reasons for the parlous state of European and British economies (not least Bloody Brexit and the War in Ukraine) but what I do know is the costs of everything have shot up and my pensions haven't. The result, inevitably, is that it doesn't go far enough.

Times are indeed tough, but we're managing.

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But my retirement plans have been shot to Hell in a handcart.

The reading is going ok, slow but sure (like many things, that Covid hangover has had an effect, in this case focus issues), and the writing improving. The books are still either unfinished or unpublished, but after a very slow couple of Pandemic Years I'm getting back into the swing of it (as this ramble demonstrates: the words come at odd times and not how I originally envisaged them - this is my fourth re-write of a relatively small piece - but at least they do come) so I'm happy with that.

I have time to myself, though not as much as I want or expected. Partly this is because I still have my family responsibilites (and thank God for that!) and they have increased with the acquisition of Lulu, a soppy but adorable English Bulldog who demands my attention too. The kids are old enough to be left to their own devices, whether during term or vacation time, but Lulu - not so much. She needs exercising and feeding at certain times that don't always coincide with the kids being here (my Beloved is at work full time) so I can't hop on a train to, say, Białystok for a wander and a change of scenery for a day or two - even going into town to meet a mate for lunch can be a challenge.

In any case, money is still tight. Besides the inflation stuff (currently 13% here and rising) that I mentioned, there is another major issue that I'm not going to detail here - at least not now: maybe in the future - that is also very restrictive. Trips anywhere are difficult to organise and even more difficult to fund, at least for the moment. I'm hoping we'll be back to relative normality come 2023 and I can dig the passport out again. Despite all the Bucket List items I had, and indeed have added to over the past months, since my retirement I've made only a handful of out of town trips: a couple to the Baltic Coast, a couple to England and one terrific two week trip to Switzerland (I wrote about that at length in earlier blog posts). Nowhere near what I had planned and to nowhere new - the Bucket List has nothing ticked off yet. So I have some ground to make up.

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I've watched a couple of videos on YouTube recently about retirement planning (not the financial variety). They were both from a channel that carries an extensive catalogue of videos from the TEDTalk series. This is an organisation, I believe American, that runs a program of big conferences with an extensive range of short and invariably entertaining lectures on every subject under the sun. I watched a few relating to mental health and coping with problems therein a year or so ago and found them helpful.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across one given by a retired University professor that was funny and serious and pertinent all in one go. He basically talked about the importance of (non-financial) retirement planning - about setting goals beyond spending every spare moment on the golf course (which I can't afford to do and in any case don't play); not cutting yourself off completely from friends and family by, for instance, moving hundreds of miles away to be by the sea and achieving the ambition of permanent vacation; of finding things to occupy both your mind and body; and above all about meeting other people and finding new interests. He gave some examples that work fine in your home country perhaps but must be difficult elsewhere, when language issues creep in. But it was a good talk, and gave me food for thought because I had done little of that.

A couple of days later, a similar talk popped up, this time by a younger psychotherapist and counseller, that was equally interesting and thought provoking (if not quite as funny). It said much the same thing only without the golf analogy. The conclusion in both talks was that the people who enjoyed retirement most, and who benefitted from a long happy and healthy life after retirement tended to be those who had actually done some planning, set out their goals and interests and plans properly before leaving work. Half-assed walking away with some vague ideas but none about how to realise them was simply not the way to go. But it's basically what I did.

So I'm doing a bit of re-planning right now: I have some ideas that, maybe, one day I'll achieve and chronicle here. So watch this space.

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And mention of YouTube brings me finally to what this piece was supposed to be about (see what I mean about the words flying off in unexpected directions?), when I first had the idea and jotted down some notes: "Where would I be without YouTube?"

Now I realise the platform deservedly has come in for a lot of criticism (and still does), and is certainly not perfect. It's the primary repository for scare mongering, misinformation, conspiracy theories and assorted other social ills that in my view are making a right mess of society these days. But in my view, calls to regulate it more closely are misplaced: the internet was designed to be the home of free and unfettered information - good, bad or indifferent - for everyone - and I have no problem with that. There's some wonderful stuff there but also a whole lot of pure shite.

And, yes, I accept that's a matter of personal taste - which is what makes policing it next to impossible, in my view. In any case, I truly believe the internet is like Pandora's box: once the lid is off and the stuff inside - good and bad - has escaped, you'll never get it back in and close the lid again. What's done is done, and we users must police oursleves rather politicians police the web.

I spend a lot of time on the platform. For a start there is the subsidiary YouTube Music, dedicated to, well, music. It's owned by Google (not exactly a plus point but still...) and a year or so ago became the replacement for Google's own music streaming platform: we users were effectively forced to transfer our library of music, whether down-loaded or ripped from CDs as much of my own was, that was stored in Google's cloud service into a similar storage in the YouTube Music bit of the cloud and into your own account (of course with your main Google account sign-on). Bit of a chore, but what the hell - before I did so, I looked at YouTube Music as a guest, tried a few searches for obscure 1960s prog rock stuff and was nicely surprised by its content. So I duly opened my account, moved my Library over, created a shortcut on my command line and use it quite a bit (though perhaps not quite as much as Spotify). Parenthetically: I've just dipped into YTM and there is absolutely no sign of all "my" stuff, the Library I moved over from Google Music - Christ only knows where it's all gone but it's a good job I kept a copy on my hard-drive....

The real pleasure for me in YouTube is the range of video content on the platform that covers, quite literally, every subject I can think of (which is a lot) and many more besides. But you knew that already. As someone with, I like to think, a decent range of interests, it's been a Godsend these Covid years, especially as my travellin' days ground to a halt. For a start, I can get my football fix, my club's match highlights, player and management interviews quickly - it's the only way, given the Vanerama National League South is not covered by any tv or satellite channel operating in Poland. I can dig out documentaries on some of my favourite bands; arguments about who was the better drummer, Keith Moon or John Bonham (IMO technically Bonzo but for creativity and unpredictable genius Moonie); old Monty Python tv shows; WW2 documentaries; movies about why DeLorean failed; which is the best browser today; commentary and opinion pieces on the parlous state of British politics; and old and forgotten sci-fi movies. It's all there, in black & white and living colour, and much else besides.

What makes it indispensable for me is that I can browse it and find so much travel related content to not only entertain me but inspire me too. I ignore stuff by airlines or travel companies or tourist boards - the professional stuff - because all of that is essentially there to sell a product or a country and hence is nowhere near objective. OF COURSE Lufthansa is going to plug its Business Class as being the best in the skies (it isn't), OF COURSE WizzAir is going to push its low fares (but check the small print on the website for all the extras and understand its refund policies), and OF COURSE SNCF is going to say its TGV service from Paris to Milan is the best (ignoring competitor services offered by rival private train operators at a lower price for an identical but sometimes faster journey).

No, I search out the army of vloggers, independents like you and me, that travel at their own expense on these trains and airlines and coach companies and cruise lines (and in the odd occasion when the ticket is provided by that airline or train operator, own up to the fact) and provide warts-and-all films of their experience, good or bad. And in a non-boring entertaining way.. I have a list of perhaps a dozen Channels that are my Go-To's, and they rarely, if ever, disappoint. I've subscribed to them all so get Notifications for their weekly output.

Some focus on airline travel - be it Economy Class exclusively or Business Class (or a combination thereof). They give detailed videos: toilet and lounge reviews, good food or inedible, lie-flat beds or cheap seats, legacy carriers or the cheapos like RyanAir. I don't always agree with their opinions (and why should I?) and tell them so in the Comments: had some fun dialogues doing that. Favourites here include Simply Aviation (it does what it says on the tin: flying only, mainly Economy Class); DennisBunnick Travels (Aussie tour operator tours the world in Business and First Class - something I will never do now); and, now and again, NonStop Dan (Swedish/American kid uses only Business or First Class and whinges about how BAAAD it is...).

Others focus more on rail travel, and provide similar videos to the flight ones, again in an invariably entertaining way. These are probably more relevant to me, since the prices and locations are more likely to be within reach - from Warsaw I can get trains to pretty much anywhere in Europe (after a bit of research). For these vlogs, my Go-To channels are Superalbs Travels (young English guy who is very good indeed at foreign place name pronunciations - even Polish and Turkish...); Dylan's Travel Reports (young Yorkshire bloke and his girlfriend go all over the shop in trains); and The Man in Seat 61 (close to an industry sponsored channel, but the routes covered are the kinds of rides I want to take and the linked website is a great source of booking informations and prices).

Coach travel is another popular category, and many vloggers combine all three for often entertaining films where things go wrong. Here, try Planes, Trains, Everything (Scottish guy tries a Paris to London trip using pre-Eurostar routing - train to Calais, ferry to Dover, train to London - and is beset by line closures in France, restrictions on foot passengers on the ferries and train strikes in Britain); Noel Phillips (English guy suffers stomach and heat problems in India and Africa and the US while journeying on awful airlines, filthy trains and Greyhound buses - but eats a lot of chips and curries), and, slightly more upmarket, WinginIt!Paul Lucas (former civil servant does flights and long train trips, typically in First or Business Class, but sometimes Economy - and some of the train trips have been epic....lucky bugger!).

There are others I dip in and out of when something pops up on my feed that catches my eye - notably Tips for Travellers and Emma Cruises (middle aged Englishman and young English woman who specialise in cruise vacations: not sure I fancy that - the thought of being stuck on a ship with two or three thousand strangers for a fortnight does not appeal to me at all - but perhaps a trip along the Rhine or Danube on a smaller vessel and only a hundred other people might be fun).

I had a good find a few weeks back where a guy tried to explain how far back in time an Englishman could travel before being unable to understand the English being spoken - turned out to be soon after the Norman Conquest. Another compared and contrasted provision for cyclists between Swiss cities like Zurich and Geneva and Basle with Canadian cities like Calgary and Windsor Ontario - the Canadians did not fare at all well. He made a similar film relating to the Swiss rail system and the Canadian, and once again the Canadian system fared poorly: surprisingly Calgary, one of the biggest cities in Canada, isn't served by a single transcontinental rail service - it doesn't even have a station for freight. Gas guzzling cars and trucks rule the roost there.

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Go to YouTube, type in a random search query - Firefox, say (since I'm giving that browser another run out, and liking it: it's definitely been improved lately): I just tried it, and the top choice was a clip from the classic 1982 Clint Eastwood film of that name (it's a top-secret Russian stealth plane that he is sent by the CIA to steal), followed by a film about why the browesr and its Mozilla Foundation must survive for the sake of the internet, followed by another clip from the movie, then a guy explaining why he's ditching the browser for something else.......and so on. Pages of suggestions.

And its the same for pretty much everything. It certainly beats the hell out of daytime tv here because I know I will definitely find something I will enjoy, something new that I haven't seen before, rather than an umpteenth Top Gear or Doctor Who re-run or awful local soap opera.

"Where would I be without You Tube?" Climbing walls, quite probably.