We have had a general election. A new government is now in power. What have we learnt? That our electoral system is not fit for purpose. That a government with a landslide in terms of MP's elected had a lower share of votes when it had far fewer and was deemed to have failed. A government that, despite its perceived mandate, will continue largely with the failed policies of the last gopvernment that was so unceremoniously kicked out of office. What does this mean for us as the British people, and our country? The future both for geopoilitical reasons and the internal failings does not look bright. We need to look at a system that is both more representative, more focused on the needs of our people and nation, and more independent in its world view. Otherwise, we will end up a small, grey island on the outskirts of Europe locked into an ever increasing spiral of decline.

We are living at a time of great change and signs of degradation and collapse in our countries. One of the main reasons is the lack of leaders with vision, integrity and a desire to work for the greater good. Ironically, while all this is going on, we are constantly being assailed by the word 'Leader' being applied to all and sundry people in senior position regardless of their incompetence as if using this word somehow makes you a leader. Besides, who needs leaders that are basically technocrats or bureaucrats. It's a contraction in terms. We are being led by liars, chancers, opportunists, fake, paid-for hacks, in all aspects of our lives. Unless we change that, we as a nation, and we, the collective West, are heading for a collapse. We need leaders, in a new system, with integrity and honour whose main motivation is not self-interest and greed. It is the only way to a better future.

We are living in a dystopian, dysfunctional world. Reason for that is simple. The American financialisation model where everything in society is seen as a profot centre and all values are related to money alone, civic and moral values go out of the window. In their place come, corruption and degradation of all things that amke a scoiety worth living in. That is happening in front of our eyes where ten year old boys are watching porn which is then formulating their views unhealthy and unpleasant views of girls.  It is just one aspect of how things are getting worse. We discuss how this symbolises all that is going wrong in our society and why.

We have seen over our lifetime, Britain lose shape as a nation and dissolve slowly into a grey morass of confusion without a sense of itself, what it believes in, what it stands for, and who it works for. This is because Britain today is a vassal state of America. The imposition of the uncivic American values is the cause of our decline as a society and a nation. We belive our proud boast that, 'Britons Never, Never, Never, Shall Be Slaves' needs to be heard now when our nation is facing an existential threat to it.  We need to stop this before we become a sad, little nation on the outskirts of Europe, with an ever decreasing circle of paths which lead our people into ever increasing poverty and loss of optimism and pride in what we are and what they feel they are.  We are an old nation. London was a city one thousand years ago. But it’s something we seem to have forgotten in Britain. Time to remember is here, now.

Britain and America are not the same country. As the old truism goes, ‘We’re two nations divided by a common language.’ Despite the elites of our two nations, Britain, and America, being in lockstep and the UK being a vassal state of the USA, we are not one nation, and the UK is not the fifty-first state, with shared societal values and a fabric cut from the same cloth. Nothing illustartes this better than the two greatest outlaw figures in the history of each country - Robin Hood and Jesse James. We show how each ilustrates the differences between each country in their persona. And why this matters. Today. Tomorrow. And the Day After for us Brits, our children, and our children's children and all those who will come after.

#Lost #Nothing Makes Sense #Loss #Jonah and the Whale Why are we all increasingly confused by the world around us? Why do all the previous understanding we had no longer seem to reflect what is going on? Why are the values that we thought we upheld and adhered to are being exposed merely as a facade for less civic actions? Is there a way out of this enveloping nightmare we find ourselves. Join us as we travel through our current space and time and share whether there is indeed a light at the end of this tunnel.

American Myths Are Unique But Not In a Good Way To understand America (the country it is and the world we live in) is to look understand its myths and how they differ from those of other nations and cultures because that reveals so much of the mindset that created them and the country. America is not unique in creating its myths. All nations and cultures create and maintain their own myths, but they come from within a social framework and events over a period of time and reflect a sense of shared identity. Without that, they cannot exist because only a few would understand them, and therefore, they would be meaningless. That is why often the stories they tell are contradictory reflecting all the paradoxes that are part of human and societal experience of different elements of society. Equally importantly, in other societies, they are not constantly referenced as integral to current elite actions and lives. They are a backstory of a people. While the original myth about King Arthur (a very human figure who suffers a great deal in his personal life as he aims to build a better, more just world), it is believed, arose from Celtic traditions rooted in loss of their lands to the invading Angles and Saxons, it eventually evolved to represent all Britain including the descendants of those same Angles and Saxons who now shared their identity with a greater whole. Arthur of the Britons became Arthur of Britain to unify all. The mythical, Indian epic, Mahabharata, ostensibly tells the story of an extended royal family, the Kauravas and the Pandavas, in Northern India, who are clearly Indo-Aryans because they are described as tall and fair in contrast to Krishna who is short and dark thus from the Indian heartland but also a cousin of the Pandavas,  (there is even a character called Karan whose description is of someone with blonde hair, blue eyes and illegitimate, thus the ultimate outsider but eventually accepted). They, living outside Hindu precepts, bloodily fall out in a fight for the throne. The aim is to skewer them for their selfish hedonism. Yet in fact, it ends up inadvertently showing a nobility to their social conventions and emotions that makes them both modern and appealing. (Duryodhana, the main antagonist). At the same time, Krishna, deified as a Hindu god, comes over as a destructive force whose motivations, never completely clear but often voiced in ethical and metaphysical constructs, lead to the complete annihilation of the world and the death of nearly everyone, including ultimately himself. Yet paradoxically, it is a Hindu epic because of its philosophical framework. But India is more than a Hindu country and culture so the poem reflects a more complicated and richer mixture of people and issues so all Indians can identify with it.  (Going to watch The Ramayana with thousands of others in the dark.) The Shahnameh (Book of Kings) has for centuries helped define Iran and the Iranian people, as well as ensuring the importance of the Persian language. China has a huge range of myths covering how the world was created to stories of lost love with people at its centre. Many Russian mythological creatures come from the influence of the Slavic pagan religions of Eastern Europe. Frequently, Christianity altered these tales and turned deities into demons and heroes into saints. Many of the creatures are humanoids or creatures representing humans, so people remain central to the stories. So, why and how were American myths created? And what purpose did they, and do, still serve?  Listen without prejudice!

No two countries have a closer relationship than America and Israel. Many people cannot understand how the world's most powerful country, America, appears to be so controlled by one of the world's smallest, Israel. Yet, there are good explantions for it. There are many things the two countries share. We deep dive into the political, social, religious and psychological reasons that have contributed to it. Listen, and you can decide what you think afterwards.

Remember watching a documentary in our Teens about an exclusive hospital where the wealthy came for crucial treatment, and to face their mortality, and a nurse said, 'You know, none of them talk about their material things. The cars, the big houses, don't matter. They suddenly realise they're not important. They talk about the people they have loved and lost, those they were never able to love and wished they had the opportunity, and usually, they wished they had more sex.' None of us needs to wait to talk. We talk about our childhoods, the events that defined us, how we brought that into our lives, the influence of our parents, early life experiences and the shock of discovering death. Journey of life through marriages, children, divorces, professional failures and successes. The knowledge that most of our lives are artificial constructs and the result of narratives and ideas foisted upon us. Getting older and the wonderful knowing that you should never give up your ideals and strive for what is right especially in a world as screwed up as ours. And most of all, never lose sight that it's a joy to be alive, to feel the breeze on your face, the touch of another human, smiles and laughter, but the embrace of pain and sorrow because it all makes up the uniqueness that all our shared lives are. Enjoy!

Britain has been in steep decline for some time, a process that has accelerated over the last twenty years. Today, 'Broke Britain' is used constantly to describe the state of the nation. Our podcast looks at how this process was planned and implemented so that a country that was the first country in the world to implement a comprehensive welfare state for its people, with free healthcare and free education for all. Supported by subsidised housing, utilities and safety net to prevent people from falling into despair. Today, all those institutions are so degraded that they barely function, the political system is widely derided and mocked, and the world's oldest democracy has a non-elected, oligarch prime minister. Many people think the process began with the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA. We disagree. The process to reverse the new world and go back to the previous system, what we now call neoliberalism, was in plan by vested interests long before. We consider who they were and are? What this means? How it will end? And whether there is any hope for a better country in the future?

We all love to tell stories - to ourselves, to others, about ourselves, about them, about the world, and about life. It’s how we make sense of our lives, and the world we live in. Yet, we have a filter in us which alerts us when those stories lose touch with reality. We are not here to discuss particular ‘conspiracy theories’ but look at why they emerge, and why they are most prevalent in America. Conspiracy theories are not new, and greater in number, because of the Internet. They seem to have proliferated, because the Internet allows us to amplify what we may have previously only told our family and friends, and today we live in times of mistrust, when all we have known is proven to be either untrue, or at best, not working in our interests. Before we go further, we need to clarify that there are two types of conspiracy theories. Those most often focussed on, propagated by ordinary people, is an attempt to explain and understand what is going on in their country, their life and their world. Those very rarely focussed on, propagated by the elites, are used to divert attention from reality, enforce a narrative and reinforce their power. The reason why America is the land of conspiracy theories, is not because the American people are stupid – no more than any of us around the world - but because they are the most propagandized people from birth to death on Earth. Many of them viscerally know that the narrative presented to them, about their country, and what goes on within it, and by its elite, does not align with their own personal experience and their reality.