Kurt Vonnegut censorship.

It now seems I must read Cat's Cradle !  This is a book that Kurt is famous for, as well as many others.  I started looking into this guy when I read a small 'blog' on Ralph STEADman's web site.  Ralph STEADman points out, with some disgust: "Now, Hardly 3 years after his death, some wretched, asinine School Board in a place ominously called Republic, Missouri- has voted to ban Kurt's personal first masterpiece, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE"  Slaughterhouse Five is the shortened title of a book Kurt Wrote about his experiences in World War II.  The full title is "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence of the Elbe,’ a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This Is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace."

Ralph is quite correctly horrified at the fascist attitude in banning this book.

A lovely quote from Kurt "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected".

A problem with secrecy.

There is a problem with the issue of secrecy and the national scandal of phone hacking as a good example.  Lots of people express their different views and there even seems to be a consensus opinion that people's privacy should be protected.  But that actually confuses the issue and is leading people into another more severe problem.

People do not have some inalienable right to secrecy.  If that is established it is the people with a motive to be secretive who will be protected.  In fact that is the way it is and the scandal is more likely to give the devious manipulators more power and control over others.  But the issue is mixed up with the reasonable expectation that 'private' information should not be broadcast when it will be abused and cause undue harm to the subject.  It is not 'privacy' that is sacrosanct but rather the abuse of information that should be dealt with.  For example, if I were a politician and I dropped a brick on my foot this morning causing me to swear and someone published the fact that I swore in a national newspaper, what could be the problem?  If that information were used to inappropriately suggest I was an undesirable type who was not fit to hold a public position and I lost my job, it is not the fact of it being broadcast that 'caused' the injustice.  It would be the inappropriate and unfair actions taken by someone else based on an inaccurate and prejudicial interpretation of the facts.  Obviously the motive for the broadcasting has to be questioned too.

During the early days of the Libyan uprising I was pleased to hear one interviewee give his name and point out that he disagreed with all the secrecy where individuals remained anonymous when they spoke out against the government because, as he pointed out, it is the secrecy that is colluding with the perpetrators of the crime.  The secrecy is, in fact, giving power to the abuser.

Just because it is a difficult problem is not justification to 'opt' for one solution which happens to be wrong.  Just because one can't solve the problem doesn't mean a quick guess is right.  Behind all of this is a lack of personal responsibility.

Hang Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani

The Iranian hierarchy want to hang this guy for apostasy.  e.g. The Washington Post: Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani faces potential execution or New Statesman: The trial and punishment of Yousef Nadarkhani.

I really don't understand the problem here.  The guy should hang.  Surely it is that simple.  He was born of an Islamic family and, although I don't understand Islam, it seems clear that they are right in all things because they have a direct link to God or Allah through that chap Mohamed.  His words are interpreted by the strictest and most devoted scholars and young Yousef Nadarkhani quite clearly chose the dark side (it's in his name for goodness sake: Na-DARK-hani) which is an anathema to Allah and he should be terminated.  Doesn't that all make sense?

Well doesn't it?

When are these human beings going to understand that these major religions are nothing more than anaesthetics for people who can't deal with the reality of their existence.  Like alcohol they get rid of the difficult issues and make life seem all rosy.  It becomes quite clear through the rose tinted spectacles of religion that the stuff out there in the real world which upsets them is not meant to be there.  It doesn't fit their desired interpretation of reality.  Being egocentric, obviously the world out there (reality) needs to be changed to put things right.  What sort of mind numbing stupidity is that.  The problem with addictions, like alcoholism and religion, is that once people have run away from experiencing the real world they are less capable of meeting the next challenge.

The irony of Islam is that it is God's will.  God made everything and this is the way he wants it.  He wants different religions fighting each other and committing contradictory heinous crimes against each other in his name.  Isn't that obvious too?  To suggest the Iranian hierarchy, whoever they may be, should be merciful and apply a little clemency to the situation and should let him off with a lesser sentence is surely in the face of Allah.  The suggestion is that mercy is a 'good' thing.  How could it be if it resulted in the direct opposition of a benign God?  So is it that the non-Muslims are begging the Muslims to just go along with their grubby immoral ways to appease them?  It is so contradictory it beggars belief.  What sort of a religion would it be if it just cow-towed to any pleading from the satanic side of things?  What sort of a religion would it be if it didn't stand up for what it believed in?

The whole thing is a complete farce.  The Iranians are playing games and trying to frighten people.  They get two birds with one stone because they get to intimidate their population and they get all this fearful reaction from abroad.  Religions are abusive.  Please try to understand that.  There is no more sense in "Christians" begging for clemency than in Iranians begging to be allowed to kill non-believers.  I was brought up as a Christian and I completely get all the 'good' ideas touted by it.  But people have got to rise above that oppressive control mechanism and realise that cow-towing to any religion is all part of supporting the oppression of control freaks over the rest of humanity.  Religious freedom is an oxymoron.  Get used to it!

And just before I go - They make me very angry.  Both sides!  The Iranian hierarchy are evidently ruthless oppressors and the people who oppose them are woolly minded.  Killing someone because you don't like them is not acceptable.  There is no point in beating about the bush (that one that had the two birds in it that Iran killed) and making feeble attempts to appease oppressors with tactical diplomacy.  Try following that trite advice dished out by the anti-drug-abuse folk "Just say No!"

Iran: NO!  In yer face NO!  You are out of order and you are evil by your own definition!  Thank you and good night.
(P.S. Yousef is a twit anyway for being a Christian.)

 A LIGHTER TAKE ON THINGS 

Free Speech for Hamsters
(or 'the Rod of Righteous Retribution')

Patients four times more likely to die in UK than in the US

I was lying in bed at about 5:15 British Summer Time listening to the news on the BBC's Radio 4.  "... a report shows that patients in the UK are four times more likely to die after an emergency operation in the UK than in the US".  Unfortunately it got me thinking.  So I tried to find this "report" on the internet.  Eventually I found it by locating an article posted about 4 hours ago on the BBC News web site entitled "Emergency surgery patients lives at risk, say surgeons" by Dominic Hughes.  The report by The Royal College of Surgeons of England and the department of Health to which this news article refers is available on the RCS website at http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/publications/docs/higher-risk-surgical-patient/.  Specifically it says "... one study reported that risk-adjusted mortality rates were as much as four times higher in the UK than in the US."  So it is a tenuous, if not false claim, by the BBC, that the RCS claims that this is true.  But the essence of the message is clearly true.  Lack of correct care results in more deaths.

So what do I care about this?  Well I am getting really fed up living on this planet with what appears to be a moronic life form.  Yes HUMANS!  I was brought up with the view that our culture is somehow at the leading edge of all things good that humanity has achieved... but it has never quite felt like that.  I live in someone else's attic.  My father's as it happens.  I am supposed to be grateful.  But the real reason I live there in squalor is 'lack of care'.  I call it a lack of love.  It is care in the sense that they don't care.  I am not looking for some 'care' that I expect someone to provide as if it costs them time energy and money;  As if there is some service they are supposed to be providing but are failing to do so.  No!  What I mean is they "don't care";  They think they do, but they are mixing things up.  And they are mixing things up in a way that I think is so destructive it is fit to be called evil.  It is a kind of ignorance and an ignorance based on fear.  These people are so screwed up by a judgemental, punitive, upbringing that they have lost the ability to be 'human' and to think for themselves.  What happens is, they are compulsively defending themselves from any accusation that they are 'unkind', cruel', nasty, 'rude', lazy', 'inconsiderate' or any number of ridiculous negative constructs by moralistic judgemental adults in authority.  They are so afraid that they might be 'blamed' and punished that they are emotionally compelled to 'act' in a way that can't be blamed.  They are transfixed on themselves and what they experience as their own survival.  They are not living their own life they are living up to a set of external values projected at them in their early years.  They are 'conforming' and 'doing the right thing' according to their perceived cultural environment.

What this report from the RCS is saying is that when patients are cared for as individuals and respected as unique with their own set of conditions and responded to appropriately they have a better survival rate.  What the report seems to fail to do is identify what the root cause of the problem is.  In fact it goes one stage further and makes the mistake of recommending procedures which would (in theory alone) improve the well being of patients.  But the procedures they recommend would be implemented in a paranoid environment and simply make the people carrying out the procedure MORE worried that they might not be getting it right.

The reason it bothers me particularly is because my health is declining seriously and I put it down to my the abusive upbringing.  Given that I was emotionally tenderised like a piece of steak in my childhood I was then unduly vulnerable to the vagaries of an abusive culture.  By a set of unfortunate circumstances I have ended up destitute and from there the situation gets worse.  The consequences to my health are quite real and measurable.  There are so many studies which show the relationship between anxiety and poor health that it beggars belief that the majority of health professionals don't get it.  But the reason they don't get it is because they are desperate conformists.

To put it simply;  People who care and do research because they are interested and concerned can see clearly that there is a problem and in many cases can identify actual physical correlates.  I don't need to research this subject and list reams of studies, books (like The Biology of Love which I highly recommend) and research papers to illustrate my point;  It is clear in the general culture that psychology, counselling, biology, neuroscience and all the leading edge research conclude that our emotional condition is "REAL" and has a direct bearing on our physical health.  But people who are concerned to hold down a local respectable job like a doctor who earns a rather sickening salary for their 40 odd hours and who is far more concerned with what they look like than what they achieve, they cannot see the relationship because it is a risk to their security.  They can't 'prove' it.  What they are concerned to do is to 'prove' that they did the tests, they carried out the right procedure by the book, that they didn't do anything wrong.  They are incapable of seeing what is staring them in the face;  They need to actually care about their patients.  They really do.  Failing that they are just inhuman artefacts carrying out the bidding of a psychopathic and parasitic institution called the National Health Service for their own pathetic survival.

It should be made illegal to abuse children.  What?  "It is!" I hear you say?  No, unfortunately it is not illegal .  Extreme physical or sexual abuse which is not hidden well enough is illegal but the law is not working well on that account.  But common or garden abuse like humiliating children in the classroom, blaming your own children for your own failings, labelling them as morally bad and destroying their lives if they don't conform to the standards you are terrified to counter are all serious abuse and are leading to the collapse of the human race.

It saddens me to hear this sort of report on the radio because from my perspective it sounds as if people care.  It sounds as if some people out there realise that abusive, careless behaviour has real undesirable consequences.  It sounds as if things might change.  But I am fifty something and it feels as if they just get worse.  But then I am living in a very hostile environment and in a cultural abyss somewhere in the backwaters of in Britain.  So maybe somewhere out there it is getting better.

How to set your Facebook url.

If you have ever tried to link to your own Facebook account you may have encountered a small problem locating the url to your personal page.  You can locate the unique url for your own home page on Facebook by clicking your username or avatar and the web address appears in the browser address bar.

If your name is Nik Allday your Facebook url might be www.facebook.com/nikallday or, if you are less fortunate it might be something horrible like www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1632672560.  The trouble with the second case is that it is eminently forgettable and prone to errors if you try to write it down.

You can personalise your Facebook url by assigning a unique username to it.

In trying to find out how to do this many people resort to searching Google with phrases like "how to get a facebook username", "how do i get my facebook url", "personalize your facebook url" or "facebook page url".  They look for "custom facebook page" or "facebook address" and most of the results do not answer their question correctly.

This is how to personalise your Facebook web address.
Log in to your Facebook account and then open a new tab or browser and go to http://www.facebook.com/username/.

Simples!

You can locate this information through the Facebook help pages too.

Unfortunately if you name is John Smith the obvious username is probably taken and you will have to opt for something dreadful like johnsmith1632672560  which is about as bad as the original naked php parameter.

If you found this helpful (or not even) please comment with your suggestions as to what I should set my username as.  I want samspruce but that has gone;  So has toxicdrums.  Options I consider possible are samspruce3 toxicdrums1 samanthaspruce, samualspruce samthetree, samsprucethetree.  But none are satisfactory.  So which do you think is best or do you have any other ideas?

But I don't want to leave it as http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1632672560

What a mug!

Having created the rich aesthetic textures Sam applied them to a bunch of mugs. He was tempted to buy them himself but can't afford them. So, instead, he decided to offer then to the public in the hope that it enhances their life and brings in a little dosh to enhance his.

Keep your eye on this store as it might just be expanding its incredible range of objets d'art. And you wouldn't want to miss out. Take a look around by clicking one of the mugs below. You don't actually have to buy anything.

Make a personalized gift at Zazzle.

Mousemats by Sam Spruce

I decided to have a go at creating some abstract texture designs for Zazzle products.  I am reluctant to describe how these images were made because it all starts with cling film.  I have a thing about cling film.  A love hate relationship I suppose.  Maybe a fetish but now I am getting carried away.

I tried various ways to scan cling film on the scanner.  I tried laying it flat, crumpling it to various degrees and wrapping things like blue tack with it.  Having got some interesting base images I set about tampering with them using PainShop Pro and some of it's more interesting features.

Apart from the "Toxic Drums" mouse mat the other mats featured below are some of the results of my experimenting.  What is good about Zazzle is that you can make post cards, greeting cards, posters, mugs and all sorts featuring the designs.  I like mouse mats because they are relatively cheap as an art form and relatively incidental.  But they add quality to your desktop and enhance your environment.

Shop other personalized gifts from Zazzle.

Please feel free to visit the store by clicking on the products above and even create your own product like a fridge magnet or an iPad case.  I enjoy doing this so if I sell some I might be encouraged to produce more.

Clapham Junction Speaker (London Riots 2011)

There's nothing I can say more than this guy. He's angry and he's right. There's no amount of sanctimonious supercilious judgemental crap that invalidates his point.

Wandsworth eviction.

The decline of Britain humanity.

So Wandsworth council decide to evict a mother of boy who was charged but not convicted of something in connection with the riots in Clapham Junction.  Well I am fed up with all these self righteous, smug, arrogant, angry fascist pigs.

I have spent many years on this planet and in the UK.  I have been well educated and at times have had a very middle class life.  I have endlessly listened to judgemental comments and condemnations from supercilious people.

FACT: In British law you are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
FACT: You can't be punished twice for the same crime.
FACT: You can't blame someone for someone else's crime.
FACT: You can't punish someone for someone else's crime.
FACT: Even people who do bad things need somewhere to live.

This is sanctimonious, bigoted, judgemental bullying in the extreme.  Get real you mindless gits.  Deal with the real problem.  Deal with the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and it cannot work in the long run.

It is laughable that we regard the concept of the whipping boy for the prince as ridiculous but we do it ourselves.  It is pathetic that we understand that making scapegoats is avoiding the problem, unjust and makes things worse but we still do it.  But the mob that is "Britain" is baying for blood in the most primitive and obscene way.  And the public in their sorry state of fear are going along with it with the most appalling enthusiasm.

Bring back the ducking stool for God's sake - Why not?  It would be simpler.

And as a thought to consider: Why not apply the same judgement to the people in authority who are continually damaging innocent people's lives by their illegal behaviour and ruthless greed?  Is it perhaps because the people of this country are basically cowards who find it easier to doff their caps and mutter "Yes sir" to save their own sorry skins.

And David Cameron might be the first to be judged for his illegal behaviour in inciting this terrorism.  He is in a position of responsibility and has no right to encourage and support this illegitimate action by Wandsworth council.  But the mob will, of course, side with him in the hope that some security may be afforded to them by their unquestioning allegiance to the hierarchy.

The rioters behaviour is not nice but the public's response is disgusting and nihilistic in the extreme.

Who's biting whose bottom?

There seems to be this stupid idea floating around commentators on the riots that the looting and arson have got nothing to do with the austerity measures. How wrong can these people be? Obviously the people doing the rioting are the disaffected and they were probably never thinking of going to college and they are somewhat criminal and their personal 'motive' has nothing to do with a deep understanding of the political situation and the cuts themselves. But the only reason this state of affairs has arisen such that large numbers of young people are so disaffected that they don't see themselves as belonging to the culture is directly caused by the same attitude which has given rise to the austerity measures.

Do people really think that these hooligans are a sort of blight sent by God. A surprising amount of people who God just arbitrarily created evil. Can people not think a little further than the end of their nose. I guess I am being a little extreme because I do understand that when people are afraid and in the midst of a problem they cannot afford to 'consider the other chap'. But the commentators are not in the midst of the crisis they are sitting in posh television studios and have nice secure middle class lives. They surely can see that Britain is in decline and to increase the cutting of pensions, benefits, education and police is going to make things worse. What do people imagine 'worse' means? Consider what animals do when they are trapped. Of course the dregs of society are going to take advantage of the situation. Of course their behaviour is extremely wrong and undesirable. Of course it is disruptive and criminal. It is so obvious it is almost worrying that the commentators don't seem to get it.

I really hate to say that what Ed Miliband said made sense. He said that the criminality has to be dealt with and order and security need to be restored but after that there are some very complex underlying issues that need to be addressed. I don't like the guy and after all he is a politician but at least the words he said on this occasion made sense.

Whilst I am paying compliments I will add that police have acted incredibly well. I know that some would want them to rush in and bash the hooligans and I can empathise with that sentiment. However I believe that had they acted in a more heavy handed way that the situation would have got far worse. Let's hope the politicians don't start getting heavy handed because that is my biggest fear. I could almost imagine that these riots have been orchestrated behind the scenes by political individuals who want excuses to increase the authoritarian control of the population.

A last point worth making is that it may seem I am glad the rioting has occurred and in some significant way I am. I am not pleased about anyone's individual bad experience and I would want things to be sorted with less pain. But it seems clear to me that the pain being perpetrated by the people at the top on the people at the bottom is unacceptable and getting worse. Without these riots nothing was being done about the abject poverty experienced by millions in this country. The whole Islamophobia and cultural diversity failure issues are fuelled by poverty as are so many other unsatisfactory consequences. The people in power must start treating ALL of the population with the same human respect as they treat the privileged echelons. Britain is collapsing into an 'us and them' culture and it is both unacceptable and unsustainable. These disturbances are at least causing people to wake up a bit and begin to see the damage being caused. Although the people who have had their businesses bunt and their expensive shops looted are suffering and I am sorry for them, the scale of suffering caused by these riots is minuscule compared to the lives being ruined every day and the pain and suffering being brought about by this ridiculous approach of the government to take money from the poorest in society and to feed billions of pounds to the richest. I wonder how the poorest millions in Britain feel when they see a sad executive in his smart suit looking at his burnt out business and wondering if the insurance will cover the loss. A princess who has lost her diamond ring has exactly the same legitimacy in being distressed about it as a poor person who has lost their teddy bear. The executive in the suit is understandably very distressed about the destruction in front of him and I am not trying to suggest he should not be seriously upset. But I am pointing out that there are millions who live with more than that level of distress every day because they have no opportunities, no money and no hope. Unfortunately if the people at the top will not take the people at the bottom seriously they will, eventually, get their bottoms bitten.

Double Standards

I have just read an article on Al Jazeera and it is nice to see the leaders of the three main political parties in Britain are all still capable of towing the same line in bull-shit.

David Cameron said "We will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets.  Scenes of people attacking police officers and fire crews, this is criminality, pure and simple, this has to be confronted and defeated."

Nick Clegg said "It was needless, opportunistic theft and violence, nothing more, nothing less.  It is completely unacceptable."

Ed Miliband tweeted "Shocked by scenes in parts of London and Birmingham. We need strong police response to restore calm and for communities to work together."

BULL-SHIT!

The tragedy, it seems, is that people who happily take on board the authoritarian paradigm are inherently incapable of realising what I am talking about.  The fact that I suggest these remarks are bull-shit is erroneously interpreted by them as meaning I am in agreement with what they see as "the enemy".

How can I explain this?  Most people seem not to like algebra.  It is a consequence of bad teaching in school.  But let me try a bit of literal algebra.  Think of an archetypal bad guy.  In this case a 'hoodie' who opportunistically loots and sets fire to buildings.  An unpleasant individual who is unkind, rude, violent and doesn't give a damn about other people.  Not a nice sort.  Okay.  So have you got that little model sorted in your head.  Let us call it BadGuy.  So a lot of the population have this little definition in their heads.  On their televisions they see people (let's call them hoodies) acting in a way which fits this 'model', this algebraic representation of a 'thing'.  They quite erroneously think the person on their television screen is a BadGuy.  They don't really understand that the BadGuy is in their head, they think it is 'out there'.  It is a kind of Freudian projection.  There is no doubt that the hoodie is acting 'like' the BadGuy but there is a difference.

Now let's think of the political leaders (and all sorts of other people in positions of power and influence) and consider where they are coming from.  Take a simple situation with man A and man B (more algebra).  Man A gives an apple to man B who looks hungry.  So man A is a "GoodGuy".  Man B snatches the apple, utters some obscenities and hits man A.  He quite clearly fits the BadGuy description.  The politicians use this algebraic model to define the world and they call the hoodies BadGuys and the rest of the law abiding innocent citizens going about their legitimate business GoodGuys.  It seems to make sense to get rid of the BadGuys.  Then all that is left is us GoodGuys.  Simples!  But there is a glaring contradiction.  The politicians are not GoodGuys.  Take a look at the rules in the country.  Take a look at the game of musical chairs being played with people's jobs and their ability to simply survive in this culture.  Look at the unjust laws governing the little people's finances and the big boys' finances.  Look at the behaviour of the banks.  Look at the disgusting and irresponsible behaviour of the oil companies.  Look at the lies perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry.  When the industrial scale rip off including credit card scams, consumerism, consumption etc starts to creak at the edges what is the authorities' response?  Squeeze even harder.  Take money from the support mechanism in society to bail out the otherwise bankrupt bankers.  The authorities' behaviour is not that of the GoodGuy.  But the morality, the simple algebraic equation, is brought to bear on the detail of the situation.  It is too easy to see the 'hoodie' as equal to or equivalent to the BadGuy.  Out comes the moralising and the apparently legitimate judgement that the BadGuys must be stopped.  (Out comes the rod of righteous retribution! - See the light entertainment below.)  When I object to this stance a common mistake is to think I am agreeing that the BadGuys behaviour is good.  No - BadGuy behaviour is decidedly undesirable.  My problem is that it is the authorities' BadGuy behaviour that is both unacceptable and has given rise to the hoodies' behaviour which looks very like a BadGuy.

 INTERVAL OF LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT 

Free Speech for Hamsters
(or 'the Rod of Righteous Retribution')

In simple terms the problem starts with the rules in the country.  The problem is that the people at the top are acting like cruel psychopaths.  (N.B. I said 'cruel' psychopaths - there is nothing wrong with being a psychopath per se.)  It is not an 'excuse' for the behaviour of the looters but it is an observation that you would expect something like this to happen if you continue to abuse the population.

So the leaders' comments are bull-shit because they are continuing the deception by suggesting that the solution to the problem is to be more forceful, judgemental and punitive against the 'consequences' of the rich and powerful's abusive behaviour.  There is a moral judgement being applied by one set of people against another set.  This morality is applied to the hoodies by a group of people who are not applying it to themselves.  Simply put you can abuse and cheat other people until they lash out and then claim that they are acting immorally.  Double Standards!

Here's the BIG QUESTION.  If there is something wrong with the hoodies' behaviour can anyone out there tell me WHAT is wrong with it?  Because, in a Socratic kind of way, in answering that question, you might just encounter that the problem with abusive behaviour is precisely that it degrades the whole situation.  The problem with abusive treatment of other people is that it causes aberrant behaviour and the problem with aberrant behaviour is that it is uncomfortable and not conducive to sustainable life.  What people imagine is wrong with the hoodies' behaviour is that it will destroy our culture and our reasonable comfort.  YES!  That is what is wrong with abusive behaviour.  The hoodies are the evidence of the abusive behaviour of the politicians, the bankers, the rich and powerful and indeed the priests, vicars, imams, rabbis, teachers, doctors, judges and the list cascades throughout the culture.  If you abuse people they act erroneously otherwise there would be no meaning in the idea of abuse.  If abuse had no consequence what would it be called abuse for?

So the politicians need to say "Yes, this is unacceptable and we must do something about it."  but what they must do about it is to start to dismantle the self-contradictory, deceptive and immoral state of the country.  People in positions of power MUST act reasonably and fairly toward the community.  It is no good occasionally having an 'expenses' scandal, or a 'phone hacking' scandal, or an 'abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib' scandal and sending a few scapegoats to jail.  This is allowing the bad behaviour to continue so long as you don't get caught.  The whole culture of acceptable abuse MUST STOP.  There was never any excuse to bail out the bankers.  There is no excuse for the amazingly self destructive 'austerity measures' imposed on the poor.  This is perverse, self contradictory behaviour and it must STOP.

But the politicians will continue to 'blame' the hoodies for their own corrupt behaviour and the frightened population will continue to bleat in agreement with the punitive actions against them.  And the churches and the synagogues and the mosques will all see an increase in attendance and there will be more mutterings of prayers to some fictional benign oppressor.  But the abuse will continue until Allah, in his infinite wisdom, will bring about the destruction of the abusive culture.  And lest my little humour here is misinterpreted by some fascist Muslims he'll get you too (and the Christians and the Jews).

Having a riot of a time!

Oh how delightful.  Riots in Tottenham on Saturday night and more riots on Sunday.  Then, as if to put the icing on the cake, on Monday night there are riots in Croydon, Hackney, Clapham, Lewisham, Peckham, Bromley, Catford and who knows where else.  In Croydon there is a massive fire involving a furniture store and a pub and other fires have been lit.  Then it turns out there is unrest in Birmingham and Leeds as well with reports of a man being shot in Leeds.

There are serious questions as to what happened on Saturday when Mark Duggan was shot.  The police seem to be uncertain about their story.  It sound as if they are hedging their bets until they feel they cannot be proved wrong in whatever story they invent.  But there is something very suspicious emerging.

In Peckham a PriMark has been looted along with many other shops.  It is not limited to males, the girls are also doing the free 'shopping' too.

In Clapham Junction Currys was ransacked with people taking suitcases of stolen goods away from the store.

Why are people asking "Why?"  Do they really believe the illusion of the financial system, of the consumer culture, of the wealthy abusing the population and the charade of democracy?  It is like trying to understand the Middle East in terms of religion or 9/11.  It is the crumbling of an unsustainable oppressive system.

Sally Leivseley, a security expert, was interviewed on Al Jazeera and was saying that the police need better communications and systems in place to be quicker than the youths.

The Interior Minister, Theresa May, said there should be no doubt that everybody responsible for the trouble will be caught and will face justice.  She said there was no excuse for violence and thuggery.

Tony Sewell was interviewed on Al Jazeera.  He sounded confident as if he knew what he is talking about but he really doesn't understand what is behind these riots.  He is a director of Generating Genius, a charity helping youngsters in poor communities.  He thinks there should be more 'authority' to keep these youngsters under control.

Mike Hardy the director of the Institute Of Community Cohesion was interviewed and he was the first person who seems to make sense.  He understands that this behaviour is the consequence of seriously disaffected groups of people.  He sees this in a much larger time scale.  It is the erosion of our culture.  There are more and more people growing up who in no way feel they belong to the society they live in.  They are deprived, sidelined, without hope and what do they care?

Most discussions on the subject of these riots are still anchored in the supposed values of the previous 100 years.  Theresa May's comments about there being no excuse for violence and thuggery is simply appalling.  What was our government doing in Iraq?  What are they doing in Afghanistan?  What are they thinking of when they bail out the rich bankers with billions of pounds stolen from the poor in society.  They hock the youngster's future by 'lending' them the money to get educated.  It is just a way of keeping the social services from having to pay them as unemployed.  The joke is that by the time they should be paying the loans back the economy won't sustain it either.  They renege on their deals with pensions, they cut every benefit they can lay their hands on.  The Children Services are apparently being funded to the tune of £7,000 per week for every child they can kidnap.  The 'authorities' are the thugs!  What the hell did they think would happen if they kept lying through their teeth about 'values' and morals' that they assumed everyone else was bound by but somehow didn't apply to them?

Someone said this is a sad day for everyone.  NO.  Not for me.  I love it.  It wasn't so long ago I was a relatively well off middle class, well educated, employed, family man.  But our culture got hold of me and I have been lied to and cheated by every 'authority' I have encountered.  They seem to think their little bit of corruption doesn't matter as they push it all under the carpet.  But now there is a lot of debris under the carpet.  So much that it only takes an excuse like Mark Duggan to get shot and the carpet starts heaving.

Toxic Drums has been saying for some time now that this would happen.  Unfortunately it will only go on for a few more nights.  But the problem is still there and like a smouldering volcano it will erupt.  The prediction is in about 3 years time.  It would be possible to address the problems and to stop the revolution occurring but the authorities are still as blind as ever and they will think they are winning by being more draconian.  But all they will be doing is making the situation worse.

These riots will prove to be the excuse to 'toughen up'.  They will be used to bring in more laws violating human rights and dignity.  They will increase the police's powers and overall there will be less justice.  Since it is fundamentally the lack of justice that is behind these riots you can see the situation can only get worse.  Why am I pleased?  Because I have gone from okay to near destitute in seven years because of the self serving authoritarian monsters who are running our culture.  The majority of people are still believing in those projected values and the worse things get the more they will become judgemental, punitive and vengeful.

So all I can say is carry on being judgemental, carry on thinking these youths are out of hand, criminal, nasty, selfish and lawless.  Think of as many negative attributes as you can to lay on them to make yourselves feel good.  Because the more we condemn them the less we realise it is 'our' problem.  It is not 'them'.  It is the culture that allows the rich and powerful, the privileged and the control freaks to lives like a cancer off the back of the oppressed.  The more condemning and superior judgemental crap that emerges the sooner the real revolution will occur.

Our culture is collapsing and if a lot of people in positions of power and influence don't understand that, then there is nothing they will be able to do about it.  And it is not just the people at the top that matter.  It is all of us.  People must stop supporting the oppressors.  People must stop tolerating the inequality and the injustice of this culture.  The banks, the petroleum companies, the pharmaceuticals, the politicians, the police, the social services, all of them must be held to account.  They must not be allowed to continue getting away with the abuse.  If you support the authorities in their injustice because it makes you feel safer at the moment take a look at your history books.  This kind of abuse cannot continue as if it works in the long run.  There will always be a revolution in the end.

There are too many disaffected people in our culture.  They see the wealthy and the powerful as the enemy and they really don't care anymore.  I am very close to agreeing with them.

What I want to see is less of the punitive judgemental crap in our culture and for the 'austerity measures' (code for rip off the poor and keep the rich happy) to be seen for what they are and not to be accepted.  I want people to make their voices heard that the politicians and the rich and powerful do not own the ground the rest of us walk on.  We are all humans on this planet and we all have to cooperate.  The pollution of the planet must stop.  The poverty inflicted as a device of control must stop.  The lies and deception perpetrated by companies for their own benefit must stop.  We have to stop swallowing the bullshit.

So:  For the time being I am delighted that the country is sinking into hell.  If I really thought the revolution had started I would probably be ecstatic because it would mean the end of this perverse culture was close at hand.  But sadly the majority of the population will carry on as normal muttering condemnation of the naughty people whilst they wend their way to work for their particular oppressor.

Just a thought before I go.  We are like ants.  We do what we do.  These riots are NOT 'them'.  These riots are what 'we' are fermenting in our corrupt and inhumane culture.

Viewing JavaScript Output.

A problem I encountered recently was how to actually see the HTML output by JavaScript.  The trouble with producing HTML code from JavaScript is that when you view the source of the rendered page you only get to see the original JavaScript.

For example:  Can you see what is wrong with this JavaScript?
<script type="text/javascript">
  //<!--
  var SquaresAcross=16;
  var SquaresDown=16;
  document.writeln("<table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">");
  for (i=0; i<(SquaresAcross*SquaresDown); i++)
    {
    if ((i%SquaresDown)==0) {document.writeln(" <tr>")};
    document.writeln("   <td width=\"34\" height=\"34\"> <img src=\"pics/maze/maze-11.gif\" alt=\"s"+i+"\" name=\"s"+i+"\" width=\"34\" height=\"34\" id=\"s"+i+"\" /> </td>");
    if ((i%SquaresDown)==(SquaresDown-1)) {document.writeln("  </tr>")};
    }
  document.writeln("</table>");
  //-->
</script>
Is it going to produce the right HTML code?  And if it doesn't but still runs can you see, from the output, what the problem might be?  It would be so convenient to see the HTML it produces but if you load the page into a browser and view the source all you get is the original JavaScript.

There is a solution!

Load the page into a browser and save it to your hard disk.  Then load the saved version into a browser and 'View Source'.  Hey presto! (Or even Ali Bongo if you like.) The HTML output is in the source for the page.

A useful little tip and more is explained at Toxic Drums: View JavaScript Output

Also... If you want to know how to get HTML code in your Blogger post (like the above example) the simple solution is to go to Simple Bits where you can simply put your code into the processor and it spews out the code required for Blogger.  You can work out how to do it after that.

Amazing insanity!

Just to make sure no one is in any doubt this web site is utterly insane.  Here is an example of the insanity that is Toxic Drums.  http://www.toxicdrums.com/amazing-insanity.html.  This is what I spend my insane time doing.  Please send as many complaints as possible to Sam from the contact page.

Is Lamb a Faux Pas?

Whew! Thank goodness for that.  Or should it be Thank God!  Oops... I mean Thank Allah (may all his camels have ice cream for breakfast).  At last someone has got the courage to stand up for what's right.  We have been waiting for this for years, nay, generations.  In this country we have been trying to get things right with Christianity.  Christ was a good egg of sorts but somehow he seems to have lost the plot.  For all his peace loving ways the upshot was death by crucifixion.  These Muslim geezers have a more practical and efficacious approach.  Say it like it is.  Down with all non-believers!  They have the courage to make posters and enforce sane, reasonable, moral standards for the benefit of the poor degenerate population.  Where would we be without their guidance, nay, enforcement of their moral code.  Well we might be suffering from drug crazed orgies and hangovers, God forbid.  At least they are brave enough to sexually mutilate young girls for life.  Women are such a threat after all and you have to be brave to do that.  I love Muslims.  There is something quite special about them.  Somehow they must be handpicked by Allah and injected with some superior sacred insight and knowledge because they evidently know something that the rest of humanity couldn't know without their enforcement.  They understand the utter profundity of telling the truth.  They understand that no matter how distasteful it might appear to the unbelievers the truth is that the truth is not true.  It is evidently a spiritually profound reality that the way to love and peace is through hatred and violence.  I can see it now.  Someone terrifies me with threats of violence and to avoid the pain so that I can remain alive and free I submit to their will and become subservient to them for my freedom.  Oh how liberating it is when you realise the truth for the first time.  Thank you Anjem Choudary and all your faithful followers in the UK for enlightening me.  I love you and I'll never go against your wishes.  You are always welcome in my home and I promise I will stop drinking and smoking and fornicating and... (is wanking allowed?).

Hooray for Islam.  Hooray for Muslims.  Hooray for the Qur'an.  (Am I safe now?... please.)



All about Pat Condell.

WTC Crosstrovercy

These humans they really can be funny.  I don't mean that disrespectfully you understand.  Some of my best friends are human.

A group of atheists in America , the American Atheists, have filed a lawsuit against, amongst others, the City of New York objecting to the installation in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum of the symbolic cross from the site of Ground Zero.  The cross is made from a couple of girders found in the rubble of the twin tower collapse.  It was erected on the Ground Zero site in 2006 and was moved to its new permanent  home on Saturday 23 July 2011.

What has actually happened is that the real God, that is the God of Numerology and other related profundities (may all his camels have baby camels), has tried to give us a clue in the very date humans decided to have the World Trade Center disaster.  The date, in English, 11 September 2001, is represented by the funny Americans as 9/11.  The reason for this is that the 9 represents the Islamic crescent.  It is curved like the crescent but notice the profound perversion as it is curled in on itself at the top.  The 11 represents the Christian cross.  It is broken into its constituent parts of two planks.  The slash between the two numerical symbols represents destruction, hence the name of the symbol 'slash'.  It's what you do to break, deface, or disfigure something.  So from numerological meaning to linguistic representation it reads "Perverse Islam destroys broken Christianity".  I thought it was so obvious at the time that I didn't realise how many humans had not got it.

There is more profundity in the event.  For example, the fact that the buildings were called the World Trade Center was not a coincidence.  The powers that exist (may all their fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them), in their infinite wisdom, caused humans to call them that because the acronym WTC actually represents the vast array of religious beliefs by randomly picking three (the holy number) namely Wiccan, Taoism and Catholicism.  It is so obvious.

Memes hey?  Some people dismiss memes as ethereal or not real.  Simply ideas and not connected to the real physical world.  But thoughts are, like speed and gravity, exactly the 'real world'.  You can't pick up a piece of speed and cut it in half.  Well you can actually but let's not go there; That's just different meanings of words.  And anyway you might just cut it with one bit slightly bigger than the other depending upon who you are sharing it with.  Oh heck, just thinking about speed and I've started writing faster.  You'd better speed up your reading to keep up with me.  Yo!  Here I go.  The thing about memes is that they are the emergent behaviour of the complex neurological networks which are our brains.  It all happens with real molecules in the real world.  The effects that we perceive are assimilated into conceptual analogies of the world as we know it.  It is all a complex feedback model.  But memes are real and they could not affect the real world if they were not real themselves.  Speed kills people as we know.  In different ways but it does.  Speed is real, gravity is real and memes are real.  Religions are memes.  They are ways of interpreting the world and they are old and clunky.  They are inaccurate and past their use by date.  They might be a way for a small group of cowards to avoid facing their fears but with the scale of complex intercommunication in the world today they can no longer claim innocence of their erroneous nature and the damage they do.

I fully accept that folk can try out any interpretation of reality they choose.  But what is not reasonable is for one group to utilise the collective resources for their own set of beliefs without due respect for other people's point of view.  It just ain't fair.  If they forcibly do it then it is called oppression and oppression is abuse.  (If they are Muslims it's called terrorism.)  America is not Christian.  There are Christians in America but there are also Taoists, Wiccans and Catholics, as the WTC was meant to illustrate.  This is partly what a 'secular' society is supposed to be about.  Whether it is right or wrong the original American Constitution is specifically and intentionally secular.

It is one thing to inadvertently put a cross up at Ground Zero because you think it is a nice idea but it is another to forcibly persist when it is made clear how contradictory and offensive it is to other people.  There are numerous (numerology again!) solutions to this issue but just arguing for the cross to remain there to play for time so that the reality is that it remains there is offensive action against others and is a crime that should be redressed with compensation.  So for every day that it remains the City of New York should be fined a huge sum of money.  Money being their true religion, if it 'cost' them, they would soon remove it.

I would also like to ask the people who favour ideas like Christianity how they think it makes sense to honour an omnipotent God who killed 2,752 humans?  Just a question.

And I found this image (on the left) on the Mail Online web site (I'm not pinching it because it is fair use as part of our cultural heritage and I am only questioning its content and I'm giving the original huge picture credit and the Mail Online and providing a link to the original!).  I wonder if anyone can explain the two tennis balls placed at the base of the cross (enlarged, without symbollock meaning, by me underneath the original photo).  Are they some sort of mystical symbol representing Christ's testicles?  I don't mean to be rude but I was just wondering if this is some sort of reference to the testosteronal nature of Christianity.  Is it because God is male?  Are they the God's bollocks?

Hey ho! What a funny bunch they really are.  You can't help loving them though because they are so cute (not the bollocks - the humans).

Amy Winehouse - what can you say?

As you get older sometimes it seems that God has worked everything out too well.  Amy Winehouse tragically died on Saturday 23 July 2011.  I first saw Amy Winehouse on the Jools Holland Hootenanny show in 2006 singing Monkey Man.  It is one of those performances that exude talent and authenticity.  There was something about her performance, her 'devil may care' attitude, her writhing gestures and her raw nakedness hinted at in her clothing but so evident in her soul that I knew this lady was something special.  I've adored her ever since.

Amy Winehouse - Monkey Man


Jools Holland is a mega faceted musical talent and guru;  He rated her as having 'one of the best voices of anybody of all time'.  I don't know about that but she was one of the most talented artists I have ever encountered.  She is up there with the likes of Syd Barrett and Vincent van Gough for pure raw honest personal  humanity.  Of course it was as likely as not that she would burn and die.  She did and it is part of the raw tragedy of real life.  Somehow, though, it makes life worth living.  I for one am really glad I encountered just a small part of her genius.  Of course I am sad to see her go and I think on it a lot.  But maybe, when enough talent has died, I really won't care so much about leaving this place after all.

Here's a few other best performances available by Amy Winehouse on You Tube worth putting in your conceptual essence:

Amy Winehouse - Rehab


Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good


Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game

The Tribal Chief.

Once upon a time there was a chief of a small tribe in a village way out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Africa.  The chief lived in a grand grass house and ruled benignly over his tribe.  He had an old throne carved from local stone and it had been in the family for many years.  One day a visiting chief brought him a gift of a brand new iron throne.  There was great celebration and the next day the chief installed the new throne and put the old one in the loft.  He was sitting quietly contemplating on his plush new throne when there was an almighty crash as the old throne fell through the roof and squashed the chief killing him dead on the spot.

The moral of the story:  Don't stow thrones in grass houses.

Death and destruction on the roads.

As I have said before - what has the title got to do with the content?

As one delves the mysterious depths of officialdom one find the most remarkable monsters from the deep.  On the surface the clear waters of the tropical lagoon gently reflect the sunlight and all seems well.  But lurking just beneath the surface there are a myriad of dangers.  To the unwary the scene seems harmonious and at one with the universe but predatory creatures patrol the waters seeking easy targets and nourishment for their own survival.  The deeper you go the weirder and more alien the life forms become.  The same seems true of the Children Services in Britain.

I have encountered many stories of intimidation, cruelty and child abduction by officialdom.  Like many people I happily imagine that they are the exception.  But my own experience is suggesting that although the serious incidents may be rare they are enabled because of the mode of action of the social services.

I recall many years ago working out why the two policemen had planted cannabis on me.  It was a cruel and relatively insignificant event but why would they be so arbitrarily unkind?  If you like drugs there is a way to be involved with a degree of impunity.  Join the security forces.  Join the police and join the drug squad.  Then you get to meet all the pushers and you get some degree of power and control and a reasonable supply of illicit drugs for your own recreation.  So when you are tasked to attend the Reading pop festival as an undercover cop you get paid to do what thousands pay for.  You get to go to the pop festival.  You also have the added benefit of a free supply of drugs from pushers who you effectively blackmail.  Part of the deal is that you don't shop them.  So how can you go back after the weekend and tell your chief inspector that you couldn't find any drug users at a major pop festival?  You don't.  You simply use some of your superfluous supply to plant on innocent victims and arrest them.  Your superintendent is pleased with your haul and you get to go next year too.

I knew a psychopathic murderer once.  He was a very nice bloke.  Seriously folks, he was.  But there was something amiss.  Now the funny thing about humans is that they are multifaceted and diverse.  This bloke, the psychopath (and I've known a few who don't kill), was afraid.  He wouldn't admit it (like so many of us) and so he became 'brave'.  One way, he divulged to me, was that 'out there' there are monsters and so what you do is become a monster.  That way you are the monster and you no longer have to be afraid.  Neat little trick.  Philosophically a little suspect but neat all the same.  I tried it once until I scared someone and felt sorry for them.  I soon realised it wasn't for me.

Now if you are afraid of authority one thing you can do is to join an authoritarian organisation.  If you feel, perhaps, that someone should have rescued you from your parents, you may feel all sympathetic for all those kids who have oppressive parents and you may want to rescue them.  Wow!  Become a social worker and work for the Children Services.  How very benign you must look to yourself.  But how could you possibly survive if you couldn't locate those children who need rescuing?  You wouldn't keep your job for long if all the poor and degenerate families that you visited happened to be law abiding and reasonable parents.  You wouldn't feel satisfied in yourself either because you might just have to face up to your own problems.  So it is simple and it is called prejudice.  Those lower class people are cruel to their children.  It is so easy to find fault with people in general and it is probably even easier to find fault with parents.  But as that little chap Jesus suggested, perhaps the one with no guilt should cast the first stone.  Let's just forget about him for a moment or we wouldn't get any bloody stones thrown.  And anyway how would we save the children then?

I have a take on unemployment that I sometimes explain.  If there are 100 people and 80 jobs then 20 people will be unemployed.  Those 20 people are not going to be the sharpest tools in the box.  So when prats come along and try to assert that it is their fault because they are not sharp that they don't have a job they are simply, and conveniently, missing the point.  Incidentally people like that should be given a lobotomy and put at the end of the job queue.

So having joined the Children Services for all the right reasons you find yourself conveniently supplied with a list of families to investigate by malicious and vindictive reports from nasty resentful people.  There may even be some legitimate concern.  But the point is that you get to visit a lot of people who have some faults.  All you have to do is concentrate on the faults and one way or another you will expose some very distasteful traits.  In some cases (not all because that would be just silly) you find justification for nicking the kids.  It's that simple.  Once you have nicked them though you do have to defend your position.  It is not going to look good if you keep saying "Oops sorry" and handing the kids back.  Thereby lies the collusive culture in the Children Services.  And necessarily it spreads through the other services like the police and the judges.  They cannot be seen to be wrong because just look at what happens to people who are wrong.

They are not only their own worst enemy but more importantly they are societies worst enemies.

I came across the case recently of a couple who had their 5 year old child taken from them.  In the course of the fiasco of the arrest the mother also had a miscarriage.  According to some that could be deemed murder.  But the issue of the abducted child is where the focus remains and so the murder of the unborn just sinks into oblivion.  The case was reported by Christopher Booker in the Telegraph on 18 Jul 2009 entitled 'Evil destruction' of a happy family.  The way I came across this is interesting because I was on the BASW (British Association of Social Workers) web site looking into some Children Services workers who happen not to be on the 'regulated' membership list of this private limited company posing as a professional regulatory body.  I was browsing around when I found an article entitled BASW condemns Sunday Telegraph's discrediting of child protection social workers.  This little article was full of pompous indignation.  But on reading it all I could glean was an arrogant condemnation of an irresponsible journalist who had dared to suggest there was anything wrong with the social services.  There was no rational argument and no counter evidence, just supercilious, self-serving, high and mighty condemnation and an over bloated smug assertion of the good work of the social services.  It sounded guilty to me.  So I looked into it a bit more and came across the aforementioned article by Christopher Booker.  But to my surprise, this was not the article to which the BASW referred.  That article had been written several years ago.  So I tried to find the referenced article.  I thought a good way would be to look up a quote from the article on the internet.  In the BASW article it states "BASW condemned Christopher Brooker’s article, in which he claimed that 'children are torn from their parents with no good reason'. A senior BASW official called the piece "irresponsible" and "simply untrue." (they have misspelled the journalists name).  So I cut and pasted the phrase "children are torn from their parents with no good reason" and put it into a famous search engine.  To my surprise out of the only five pages returned four were from the BASW web site and the last one was another web site reporting on the content of the BASW web site.  The plot thickens.  So I went to the Daily Telegraph and searched through Christopher Booker's latest articles.  There I found one entitled "Child protection system tears two more families apart".  I read the article.  So the BASW have misquoted Booker.  But I will leave that alone for the time being because it is possibly an insignificant misquote.  Worth noting though that they misspelled the name of the child and misquoted her.  But the article read perfectly well.  The journalism seemed responsible and is severely questioning the authorities in a right and proper way.  So what are BASW so afraid of?  With no more ado I will simply point out that these are the tactics of Colonel Gaddafi's security forces.  Work it out for yourself.

Advice for the Prime Minister:  Austerity measure number 1:  Dismantle one of the most expensive internal security bureaus you operate, namely the Children Services Directorate;  Prosperity measure number 1:  Fund parenting groups across the country at a fraction of the cost of the Children Services Directorate.  Result = Wealthier country with healthier kids growing up in it!  Simples - you prat.

Page Numbers in Micro$oft Word

Having struggled for hours trying to get Page X of Y in my footer in Word 2007 I eventually appear to have succeeded.  So for my use and for anyone else with this problem I am putting the solution on this blog.

Search terms to help me find this page when I want it:
Page numbering in Word.
Page X of Y
Page numbers in headers and footers.
Page 1 of 2

First off I want to say how bloody annoying Micro$oft are getting.  "VERY!"  There - that's sorted.

I fully understand that issues like page numbering are difficult to implement (not that difficult actually) and that explaining the subtleties is deemed beyond the intelligence of most Word users (that may be true) but it is reasonable to explain the basics as well as the endless list of "If you want it orange go to this selection and select that drop down and click 'Orange Page Number' and click 'Ok'", "If you want a big page number go to footers and select esoteric option and select the 'Size' option and on the 'Size' option select the 'Big' tab and select 'Page Number'.", "If you are writing to your mother ..." etc.  They seem to escalate the concept of thinking what you might want in particular and then creating that particular thing.  Whatever happened to generic solutions.  What happened to giving the 'user' control.  Well it is actually because Micro$oft are co-dependent.  They need you to be dependent on them.  So they foster your dependency.  In the long run it is destructive and I hate them for it.

This is not an in depth study of fields in Word but I did discover that you can type:
{ PAGE } of { NUMPAGES }

BUT...
You don't actually 'type' that.  You have to create the curly parenthesis as a field by pressing Ctrl F9.  Then you type 'PAGE' (without the single quotes) or 'NUMPAGE' inside the curly brackets.

Of course things are never simple with Word and I found that this does work in footers and headers but when I tried it in the document body it didn't seem to update automatically.

For more info see:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/numbering/pagenumbering.htm