Keep on keeping on

Sometime early next month I should be receiving a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions, informing me of my UK state pension, to which I am entitled as of my 66th birthday. I have been paying into my National Insurance fund monthly payments from Poland right up to the time I was told that I'd been paying in long enough to receive the basic state pension. However, I do not intend to stop working; I enjoy my work too much, it's not physically demanding. My father kept on working until he was nearly 70, stopping only to become a grandfather. I am on record as saying that I intend to keep on working until Poland's GDP per capita overtakes that of the UK (at purchasing power parity, of course). Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer suggested this could be as early as 2030.

Another big motivator for me to keep on is the beneficial nature of eustress ('good stress') or hormesis on health and longevity. Having in one's life a certain amount of stress is better than none at all or too much. "Eustress occurs when the gap between what one has and what one wants is slightly pushed, but not overwhelmed".

For me, in a word, that means deadlines. Having to get something or some things done in time, to a certain quality standard creates stress - as long as it's doable. If you're overloaded by work, and can't get it all done in time, then you start drifting across from 'good stress' into 'bad stress', with all the biological repercussions that bad stress brings. Yes, there are external and internal deadlines; the external ones are hard to dodge. Even people with high levels of self-discipline can push back self-imposed deadlines.

The idea of 'good stress' is supported by scientific evidence showing that repetitive mild stress exposure has anti-aging effects, with physical exercise being a good, measurable, indicator. If you let yourself go as you drift into old age - it's not good. If you overdo the exercise - also not good (muscle injuries, weakened immune system etc). Finding the balance, setting the sliders, as with everything, is key.

I must say, an octogenarian in the White House (who, despite the media making much of his physical and verbal slips, carries himself well) is a great advertisement for pushing age boundaries. Back in the 1950s Winston Churchill had already resigned as prime minister when he was Joe Biden's age, having had a series of minor strokes; Biden will be running again, and if elected, and if he survives that long, he could be stepping out of the White House in January 2029 aged 87. The question here is coping with the stress levels involved with being the leader of the Free World at that age. 

But its not just presidents that are getting older - the entire world is. As the number of births fall across the developed world (and China!), and human lifespans extend, we must all prepare for a rapidly ageing society. The UK is facing up to this reality - male and female retirement ages have been raised to 66 for both (something that is deeply unpopular among my British female contemporaries, who have had to work for six years longer than they had expected when they started their careers!). Poland, however, has merely kicked the can down the road on this issue. "Let some other government take this election-losing decision." But this decision will have to be taken at some time. Last year, 305,000 Poles were born, compared to 700,000 born in 1982. A demographic contraction on such as scale will have massive implications for the future.

I am fortunate in having a job I like. Many lack this comfort, and count down to the day when they can stop working, and when that day comes, face decades of inactivity and increasing financial hardship. Many lack the self-discipline to remain active, and slump in front of the TV set to consume party propaganda.

And yet the Polish economy (like those of the UK and US) remains constrained by labour-market shortages. Having people work longer (given they live longer) makes sense, but the question for social-security systems such as ZUS or NI is how to persuade employees - and employers - to accept the notion of people working on as septuagenarians. Supporting older people as they carry on in paid employment. Carrot, rather than stick. 

Polish employers, however, are stuck in their ways, despite shortages on the labour market. "I must have graduates with Master's degrees! I cannot take on 21-year-olds - they are immature!" British employers, however, happily take on 18 year-old school leavers and most UK university students graduate with Bachelor's degrees. At the other end of the spectrum, Polish employers see impending retirement age as a good excuse to rid themselves of superannuated workers who began their careers in the communist system; only a few will support women over 60 or men over 65 to carry on in their roles. 

Poland's economy has huge growth potential, but the labour market is the greatest constraint. Mass immigration is one answer. An accelerating wage-price inflation spiral is another answer. Raising the state pension age is less palatable? Which is it to be, Poland?

This time last year:
Time and Consciousness

This time two years ago:
Altered states - higher planes

This time seven years ago:
Warsaw-Radom line modernisation - Czachówek

This time 13 years ago:
Climbing Mogielica

Speak Through Me About Disclosure

I woke from a dream at quarter to six. I was in a grand Art Deco style government office - a cross between Acton's Town Hall and the Bromyard Avenue offices further down the Uxbridge Road. (Same location and style as the Town Hall building, but bigger.) A cavernous interior; dark, lit only with small uplighters along the walls, a zigzag patterned carpet on the floor. At the top of the carpeted staircase, a landing; on the landing a desk, Civil Service-style. Polished wood. A tall silver-haired man sits behind it. Facing him on the other side a family - mum, dad and three small kids. They are freaking out. The civil servant has heard it all before. It's his job to explain. In simple terms. To act as a mentor. The smallest child is crying. The father is getting angry. The civil servant is patiently telling the family something from an approved script. There are more people on the staircase, queuing in a state of unease. It's evening; the office will soon shut. People want to know.

This is a few days after Disclosure. The world has learnt that flying saucers are real. Aliens are real. They are here. They have spoken. We have proof. Everything has changed. Governments are trying to cope. Media messaging is not enough; people need to hear the new truth live, from a person in authority - not a media personality; and face to face, not via a screen or speaker. So these consultation points have been set up; if you want to talk to someone from government and ask them to explain it to you, come along. Come one, come all.

Below left: originally the Ministry of Pensions building, Bromyard Avenue, Acton, London W3. Below right: originally Acton Town Hall, Acton. Both buildings completed in the 1920s; both buildings now converted into flats.

It's quarter to six, too early to rise, so I drift back to sleep, but have my notebook and pen by my bedside. I am tuning in; I am ready to channel.

"To let your readers know that you are channelling, use the { curly brackets } to denote that this is a spontaneously channelled message, and not a construct of your own thinking."

"Will do."

And so...

{ Science has failed to make meaningful progress with our technology in the eight decades since Homo sapiens came across it. The planet is now in danger of overheating because of your greenhouse gas emissions. This is not good for us, not good for you, not good for the planet. You have not made use of the technology that could have transitioned your society and your economy away from fossil fuel. The greed of a few, the unwillingness to change paradigms, yes. Torpid resistance. But the biggest error you made was to stovepipe the knowledge. Keep it in silos, away from your greatest minds. Non-terrestrial physics requires a higher level of understanding. Need-to-know secrecy has compartmentalised the science. You won't make the required breakthrough in time. You need a prompt nudge. Now! }

I write this down, and drift off. Suddenly:

{ James Clerk Maxwell. Rivendell. }

WHAT?!? James Clerk Maxwell (below) - OK, unifying the electromagnetic forces back in the 1860s... but Tolkien's Rivendell? Heroic quest's starting point? Place of sanctuary? No further clues... I drift off again and then...

{ You must break out of the chrysalis that is the human ego; the caterpillar inches along the ground - but the butterfly can flutter high above! It is the human ego that holds H. sapiens back. Assign a hypothesis a day until your science has cracked it. Donald Hoffman is close... spacetime is not fundamental, consciousness is. Science will not progress until it accepts the primacy of consciousness over matter. }

I am reminded of the time two years ago when I asked for the secret of nuclear fusion and was told, immediately, { Have a look at anomalous data from experiments conducted in March 1970 }. This came back to me this morning, along with an old one-liner from American stand-up comedian Stephen Wright (when told he was wearing odd socks): "I don't judge socks by their colour, but by their thickness."

And here it starts getting weird: { Make it a misery to measure, like with Fentanyl. When he saw UFOs from the flowing position. The link between nuclear fusion and consciousness. Number six is non-recitive. } The channelling ceased; I fell asleep, and woke up at quarter past nine!

This time last year:
Drinking on the move

This time five years ago:
Grodzisk Mazowiecki revisited

This time six years ago:
S7 extension - last summer of quiet (not true, as it happened!)

This time seven years ago:
Getting out of Mordor

This time 13 years ago:
Ćwilin, conquered

This time 14 years ago:
Sunset across the tracks, Nowa Iwiczna

This time 15 years ago:
The storm the forecasters missed

This time 16 years ago:
Peacocks in the Park

From bush to bottle: blackcurrant nalewka, 2023

My fourth season of nalewka making in Jakubowizna. This year - my own bushes - I bought and planted ten blackcurrant bushes in late February - and to my amazement, all bore fruit in their first season. Two different varietals, Titania and Gofert. The latter produced much more fruit, but was less robust, with around a quarter of the currants being small and shrivelled (I presume blighted). The Gofert currants that grew to full size were tastier than the Titania; but the bushes were twice as expensive (10 złotys rather than 5 złotys).

Talking of 'twice as expensive', the other raw ingredient of nalewka - spirytus rektyfikowany 95% - is now twice as expensive as it was pre-pandemic. Even in the cheapest online discount supermarket it is still around 70 złotys for a half-litre bottle, when it used to be 35zł. This means limiting production to what goes down best - czarna porzeczka - blackcurrant. Yes, it's easier to make wiśniówka, sour-cherry nalewka. The fruit is far more common, growing wild as it does on roadside trees and bushes. No shortage of raw material, but then wiśniówka is available in the smallest village shop.

At the other end of the scale, we have poziomkówka, a nalewka made from wild strawberries. Whilst the wild strawberry has a unique taste and aroma (almost perfume-like), it's tiny - weighing between one-third and half a gram. (A typical commercially grown strawberry is 10g-20g.) Picking enough to fill a container is a lengthy process, and at the end of the day, people who've tried the poziomkówka will say it's unique, it's intriguing... but they prefer the blackcurrant flavour. And so this year, I'm focusing on the czarna porzeczka; next winter I'll be buying and planting more bushes.

In other home-brew news: I've prepared another batch of ginger beer. I bought over a kilo of root ginger (28zł /kg from Lidl), and am proceeding with caution. 1) No yeast this time - just natural fermentation from the ginger and the sugar. More ginger (600ml of juice) and more sugar (600g). After 48 hours, the demijohn is bubbling along nicely, maybe not as vigorously as last time with the added yeast. I've moved it into the cellar, for lower temperature and darkness. I will leave it longer before bottling, and will bottle into plastic 1-litre juice bottles that won't just shatter. Most importantly, I shall check them daily - and release gases should the bottles start to bulge. And once the secondary fermentation is complete, then - and only then - shall I pour from plastic into glass and seal with a metal bottletop.

There shall no large-scale cider-making this autumn - only one of my 22 trees is bearing any fruit! After last year's embarrassingly bumper crop, the trees have gone on strike (hopefully only until 2024). I'll try to cobble together a small demijohn of 2023 cider if there's enough apples, but I don't expect any miracles.

This time last year:
Qualia compilation 6 - Coventry

This time three years ago:
Masterpiece for the digital age

This time four years ago:
Johnson, Trump, civilisation and good behaviour

This time six years ago:

Laughin' just to keep from cryin'

This time 10 years ago:

Modlin Airport open day, just ahead of its inauguration 

This time 11 years ago:

Along Austro-Hungary's strategic railway

This time 12 years ago:

Gone is the threat of Państwo Smoleńskie

This time 13 years ago:

Get on your bike and RIDE!

This time 14 years ago:

Moles in my own garden

Lawn to meadow, meadow to forest

Lawns are so passé. My działka has been de-lawned and re-wilded. The plants on what used to be the lawn are now my height or taller. Stepping out into the garden, I enter a kingdom of wildflowers, attracting dozens of bees and a smaller number of butterflies. Leaves of green are busy synthesising sunlight and exhaling oxygen. Biodiversity is back. Everything is natural - seeded as it comes. I planted ten blackcurrant bushes in February; five have been harvested (Titania variety), the remaining five (Gofert variety) will be ripe in the next few days. The blackcurrants will be used to make nalewka, like Cassis - but stronger.

Below: thistles tower over me. There are at least four bees in this photo. In the background - my solar panels. [Next week marks the first anniversary of their connection to the grid, so I'll give a full economic and environmental breakdown of my installation.]

Below: a common brimstone butterfly (listkowiec cytrynek, Gonepteryx rhamni) 

Oxeye daisies in profusion. Somehow less attractive to the bees than the thistles at the moment.

Deeper into the działka, young forest is emerging; verdant and lush. Wild strawberries carpet the ground.

I have two patches of raspberry bushes; one lot is in fruit now, the other, at the far end of the działka bears fruit in November. The two cherry trees are full of ripe fruit - I've eaten all the low-hanging cherries, the rest require tree-climbing...

Welcome to Tomorrow's Garden Aesthetic.

Wildflower meadows are good for the environment; here's a paper from the Journal of Applied Ecology about how King's College Cambridge turned its lawns into meadows. 

Only downside that I can see is for allergy sufferers - plenty of pollens to irritate the nose in springtime.

This time three years ago:
Town and country in summer

This time four years ago:
Across the Pilica to Strzyżyna

This time five years ago:

West Ealing to Castlebar Park - waiting for Crossrail

This time six years ago:
Trump flies into Warsaw

This time seven years ago:
Making Poland's railways safer

Delving into one another's consciousness

I usually respond to comments under my blog posts by posting a comment in return, but this comment (below) under Saturday's post intrigued me enough to want to answer it in a separate post 

Anonymous said...

‘I haven’t the foggiest idea what it’s like to be you, nor you what it’s like to be me’. Is that by choice? To be non-revealing? To not want to know what goes on in another’s life?

Is being non-revealing a choice? This is not about me being uninterested in the actions and the events in another person's life. Nor is about me being secretive or recondite as a person. Rather, this is about how it is fundamentally impossible to know with any accuracy how another person experiences their life. In this sphere, we are entirely clueless. 

We can assess another person's intelligence with relative ease, based on what they say, their vocabulary, fluency, and their grasp of subject matter. We can guess their emotional state by external cues - facial expressions, body language. But the quintessential experience of what it's like to be someone else - is unguessable. 

As I have written many times, my conscious subjective experience is fundamental to the me-ness of being me; your conscious subjective experience is fundamental to the you-ness of being you. Central to this is the notion of qualia - the feelings created by sensory perceptions. Experiences such as Christmas shopping with snow falling lightly at dusk; watching a sunset on a beach while sipping a cold beer; driving along a familiar stretch of country road, sunlight dappling autumnal leaves - each of us has our own back catalogue of qualia memories which from time re-surface, sometimes triggered by a sight or sound or smell, sometimes entirely unbidden, sometimes conjured up.

These back catalogues may include some entries which overlap slightly. Anyone who travelled regularly by London Underground in the 1970s and 1980s, for instance, will remember the sensations of being in a Tube train in a tunnel rushing between stations. If you remember communist Poland, you'll be able to summon the odours of a Ruch kiosk on a summer's day - cheap newsprint, cheap tobacco and cheap plastic toys. If we express our conscious experiences, be it in written form as here, or on film or in any other form of artistic endeavour, the reader, the viewer, the listener, may find that something resonates, and an approximation of the qualia moment may be conveyed.

Consciousness is irreducible - it is something far more than just the firing of electrical impulses in the synapses between the neurons in our brains. Conscious experience is, I believe, primary, cosmic; universal.

No human can know what it's like to be a bat, because we cannot grasp what it's like to echo-locate. To a finer degree, the differences between the way different humans experience their lives is guessable but ultimately unknowable.

It's not that I don't want to know what goes on in another person's life, or that I am indifference to what goes on in another person's life - it's just that I cannot share anybody else's qualia memories, nor can anybody else experience mine the way I consciously experience my memories.

This time last year:
Summertime dreamland

This time two years ago:
Getting our heads around UFOs

This time five years ago:
Bristol-fashioned

This time six years ago:
The imminent closure of Marks & Spencer in Warsaw

This time ten years ago:
Along mirror'd canyons

This time 12 years ago:
Mad about Marmite 

This time 13 years ago:
Komorowski wins second round of Presidential elections?

This time 14 years ago:
A beautiful summer dusk in Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
Classic cars, London and Warsaw

Inflation and food, Poland

This time last year, aghast the effect on inflation  on food prices, I began keeping tabs on how much money I was spending to eat. And so, I have kept every receipt for everything I've eaten and drunk over the past 12 months (excluding entertainment, dining out etc, but including food bought for myself while in town or on business trips away from home). 

So here's the bottom line. From 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023, I have spent 13,125zł (£2,542) in total in supermarkets, shops, cafes and restaurants. This works out at just under 36zł (£7) a day across the year; here's the shocker - last July, I was spending just 25zł (£4.85) a day.

This is a huge rise. It's almost 50% more. But there's nuance to the story, so I shall be returning to the question of rising food price again on this blog until they stabilise.

Seasonality is an important factor. Strawberries, for example, are greatly cheaper in season, with the lowest prices in mid-to-late June. And Christmas feasting - at this cold, dark and dismal time of year we naturally feel the need to eat more, and the shops just happen offer a wider range of premium products as festive fare. We don't hesitate to splash out.

It's important to compare prices of the same products, and to do so at the same time of year. Seasonality has a huge effect on supply and demand. 

Here's the first batch of staples that I could compare precisely, like for like. Note that inflation on domestic products is lower than on those imported from within the EU; we know that Spain is suffering a terrible drought, which explains the 59% rise in prices of olives.

Taking just this small selection of items that often appear in my basket, average inflation across the four works out at 17.1% year-on-year. They cost me 27.46zł a year ago; yesterday, they cost 32.16zł. I will be boring you no doubt with more year-on-year price comparisons, but I intend to do so until Poland's parliamentary elections later this year - just to put whatever the politicians will be saying into the context of my own shopping experience.

Food price increases
	26 June 2022	1 July 2023	Inflation y/y%
Cottage cheese, 500g (Serek wiejski, Piątnica, Poland)	6.99zł	7.79zł	11.4%
Olives, pitted 240g  (O! - supermarket own-brand, Spain)	3.89zł	6.19zł	59.1%
Gherkins in brine, 400g (Multi-smak, Poland)	6.59zł	6.99zł	6.1%
Arla Apetina Feta in garlic & parsley brine, 200g (Denmark)	9.99zł	11.19zł	12.0%
Arla Castello Danish Blue Cheese,  100g (Denmark)	7.65zł	8.05zł	5.2%
Polgreen red lentils, 500g (Poland)	5.19zł	6.69zł	28.9%
TOTAL	40.30zł	46.90zł	16.4%

This contrasts with the 11.5% inflation announced on Friday by Statistics Poland (GUS); the CPI Index for the year to June. I will be back with more receipt breakdowns before long.

This time last year:

Looking forward to the four-day working week?

This time two years ago:
First half 2021 health

This time four years ago:
Classic Volgas, Ealing and Ursynów

This time five years ago:
Memory and Me

This time seven years ago:
Sticks, carrots and nudge - a proposal

This time eight years ago:
London vs. Warsaw pt 2: the demographic aspects

The Membrane separating the Subjective and the Objective

When I was in primary school (before my life-enhancing eye operation), my teachers would say about me "that Michael is often in his own little world"; a little absent-minded professor with a massive vocabulary but lacking in social skills, not particularly conversational. "Umm! You're in trouble with Miss!" I'd hear after return from a few days' off school with flu. I wasn't, but I'd scare easy (an epigenetic trait, I strongly suspect) and children can be cruel.

As a coping mechanism between the intrusions of the outside world upon my consciousness, I have found the notion of a membrane very useful. The fear has long been overcome.

A semipermeable membrane. On the one side, the subjective conscious experience of being me. On the other, the objective reality, the world, the cosmos, we can all agree upon. (It's summer and it gets dark late, it's hotter than spring or autumn, and all the trees are green.) But on the subjective side, I haven't the foggiest idea of what it's like to be you, nor you what it's like to be me. As individuals, our experience can only be subjective, though we can share memory of events. Through different prisms.

I can draw that membrane around me and disappear from view on my beloved działka - my own space in nature, far from the road, surrounded by trees and bushes and meadow-grass, flowers and birdsong. Stepping out, I choose the path that will ensure my solitude; long walks unbothered. A chat with friendly neighbours is always welcome, catching up and sharing local news. But once out of my immediate environs, I am cautious. 

The notion of eyes without a face, moving across the earth, observant, but preferring to be unobserved.

Persona, personality, how you interact with other people, as you make contact with the ladder of authority, with the status hierarchy. Strangers wanting to position themselves in relation to you, telling you what to do. If I'm comfortable with friends and we know where we are, there's no problems. But an initial contact may prove uncomfortable - and here the membrane helps. You know the reality of consciousness; you rise above the moment; out of body almost - you can see the situation unfolding, but you are not really there...

The consumption of alcohol helps me pass through the membrane with greater ease. I become more garrulous. Easier to communicate those complex thoughts that I'd usually keep to myself. And indeed, easier to write - I have supped back half a litre of Browar Perun's excellent First Contact APA. Words connect to each other; they come tumbling out unbidden. And socially too - socialising during Lent feels like much harder work than with a glass of wine in hand.

But within the membrane, all is well, my consciousness is content; driven onward by curiosity and observations that help make sense of the world around me.

UPDATE 7 July 2023: Just watched a YouTube video with philosopher Bernardo Kastrup - he uses a similar concept, which he calls 'the dissociative boundary', beyond which one is no longer associating subjectively as a first-person consciousness.

This time five years ago:
Meditations upon the Piccadilly Line

This time six years ago:
S7 extension from airport to Grójec gets go-ahead

This time seven years ago:
Metro Wilanowska redevelopment gets under way

This time nine years ago:
Local politics, local politician

This time ten years ago:
Communication breakdown

This time 11 years ago:
Getting ready for the opening of Modlin airport

This time 15 years ago:
Maybugs in July - a plague of cockchaffers 

Widok connected to Chynów station. Progress!

Earlier this year, as winter thawed into early spring, I noticed a series of short wooden stakes, painted day-glo orange, banged into to the soil in a straight line parallel to the railway tracks. Good news! I assumed (correctly) that a geodeta (land surveyor) had marked out where a new footpath would be laid.

A footpath between the station and the village of Widok is sorely needed. Now - it is here, open to pedestrians and cyclists on Wednesday this week. At last, residents of Widok wanting to travel by train, no longer have to wade through 300m mud to get to the station - or to go the long and dangerous way (a 200m longer walk, along an unlit road with no pavement, speed limit 90 km/h) that is ulica Kolejowa on the other side of the tracks. So all the boxes are ticked.

It would be another three months, however, before any signs of work would begin. By late May, a construction crew had appeared; an excavator dug a long straight trench, filled with hardcore, flattened, lined on either side - and left in this state (below) for nearly four weeks. 

Below: Last week the crew returned and started filling the shallow trench with paving stones. In the distance, pallets of paving stones and a heap of soil - some work still needed at that other end.

And finally - here it is - the path to the station, a huge benefit to pedestrians and cyclists from Widok (and indeed southern end of Jakubowizna). Note the fence - this is necessary, as to the immediate left of the footpath, there's a steep slope ending in the trackside drainage ditch; a nasty fall that could happen on a wet night

I am delighted that at last this path exists; it is the final piece of the massive infrastructure project for Chynów that was the modernisation of its railway station. All joined up. Clean, modern, passenger-centric; I hope this encourages several local people to choose the train rather than the car for journeys into Warsaw (or Warka or Radom).

This time last year:
Summertime, and the living is lazy

This time two years ago:
Thoughts occasioned by the picking of fruit

This time four years ago:
First half of 2019 - health in numbers

This time five years ago:
Key Performance Indicators - health - first half 2018

This time six years ago:
Three and half years of health and fitness data

This time seven years ago:
First half of 2016 health & fitness in numbers

This time eight years ago:
Venus, Jupiter - auspices

This time nine years ago:
Down the line from York

This time ten years ago:
Cider - at last available in Poland

This time 11 years ago:
Despondency on Puławska

This time 12 years ago:
Stalking the stork

This time 14 years ago:
Late June lightning