Peter Rose
Bio
Collections of "my" vocal essays with additions, are available as printed books ASIN 197680615 and 1980878536 also some fictional works and some e books available at Amazon;-
amazon.com/author/healthandfunpeterrose
.
Stories (353)
Filter by community
Quiet waters
Quiet waters Silent land The wind became still. The darkness deepened, sounds became silence. The universe was holding its breath and all that was around waited. Life itself seemed to have been sucked out of the whole area. Death, like a dank and deep drain, dragged down everything that had life. After an hour a slight ripple disturbed the surface of the water, so very slowly, like a mountain growing, the ripple became a wave radiating out from a center of such darkness that light itself ceased to exist in it. That most ancient of all creatures, the Kraken, had surfaced to breath. Just one breath every million years it came to take the air, the joy, the life from all within its reach.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in Fiction
A new democracy
A new democracy. The future of democratic governance A suggestion to start a debate Whilst the basic outline, suggested here, has been drawn up in Britain, it could be transferred to any and every nation on Earth. May be change the names given to institutions such as “parliament.” but the basic concepts will still apply.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in The Swamp
Politics and the law of diminishing returns
Politics and the laws of diminishing returns Why more can result in less. The law of diminishing returns suggests that the more you have of anything, the less effect you get from adding an other portion of the same thing. For a crude example; if you give a poor person £1000 it will have a huge effect and should be of great (if temporary) benefit to them. If you give a £1000 to a multimillionaire it will have very little effect and be of only a tiny benefit to them. If you start with no money the first £10,000 means such a lot and make a huge difference to your life; the next £10,000 means a lot but not bring quite the same”relief.” By the time you have had 1000 lots of £10,000 the 1,001st allotment will make relatively little difference to your life.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in The Swamp
The political implications of the D-K effect
The political implications of the D-K effect Why do politicians treat others as they do? The Dunning-Kruger effect is a hypothesis in social psychology which seeks to explain why some people have false perceptions of their own ability; when compared to others.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in The Swamp
The pace of change.
The pace of change. The evolution of social change. The land we now call Britain was, 2500 years ago, inhabited and so ruled over, by various Celtic tribes. Exactly how long they had been there is unknown probably since the end of the ice age. So their origins may have been started about 6000BC. Each tribe or family. had their own territory and, as far as can be understood, they chose a tribal chieftain who may originally been a shaman. Some one who it was believed could transform themselves into an animal and guide the hunters to their prey. They left no written reports and so much of what we think we know about these people, is based on expert opinion, made from interpreting what physical objects still remain from this period, some information is based on much more recent reports written by the Romans, who invaded and enslaved the Celtic population. Since any such reports have to be viewed with the understanding they had to be “political” and show the Romans in a beneficial light while painting the Celtic civilisation as barbaric, peopled by savages, thus justifying the occupation and enslavement. So it is hard to get a real understanding but the Celtic “civilisation” lasted for several thousand years and they appear to have had female leaders and warriors, at least in some tribes. It is a reasonable assumption they they spoke slightly different languages and certainly must have had local dialects. It has been found that they had more contact and trade, with other countries and more sophistication than previously (200 years ago) expected. The expectation was “coloured” by the Roman records and reports.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in FYI
Is Covid a con?
Is Covid a con? Politics of the conspiracy theory Coronavirus has been with us, that is in public awareness, since, about, January 2020. While its origins were thought to have surfaced towards the end of 2019. Many people still claim it is all a hoax, a trick, a conspiracy to subjugate “the people.” That old adage about a gramme of belief being worth more than a kilo of fact applies in this case. Evidence is questioned and every statement is believed to be part of a global confidence trick.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in The Swamp
A day at the cricket
A day at the cricket. A normal life. The orchard snoozed away the afternoon sun. The warmth of an English August lulling even the bees into silence. The pear tree stood among the Apples, being a conference it did not need a pollinator buddy tree; the Coxes Pippins ripened earlier and the Bramley later, so the pear was in the middle of everything. The gentle breeze was so very gentle it did not even move the tips of the grass which grew between the trees. Stillness and warmth, after yesterdays rain, slowly but surely, swelled the fruit and gave peace to the world. Two people lay in a small clearing, a blanket between their bodies and the lush grass. They lay still and silent, seemingly so taken over by the ambiance that they too were part of nature at rest. The human dressed in summer skirt and flimsy blouse, pulled herself onto her side, rested her head on a hand and spoke. “Will you still be here when it's harvest time, will you help with the apples and pears?” “unlikely” came the soft spoken reply, without stirring from his rest, the older man continued “this is too good to last, orders will come, and I will be on the march again.” These two, despite being so very different, are actually brother and sister; the orchard was part of their family home. A sprawling twenty acres of gardens, outbuildings and a large old farmhouse, one that has seen better days but was still loved and lived in. The days of live in servants had long past but they still had a gardener and he still lived in the proverbial gardeners cottage but now one of the outbuilding housed a complex array of mechanical devices that allowed this one gardener to do the physical work that used to employ ten others. The gardener's wife helped out with the laundry and the bed making while the two family daughters helped out with the catering and cleaning, whenever they came back home. Other wise the patriarch fended for himself, now that his wife had died. Both father, and son were military men, and like the gardener, they are ex special forces. The father and the gardener had served together and had that unbreakable bond that only men who fought side by side, experiencing death and survival, together, can have. The son was a generation later but shared similar experiences, he was officially retired and now a civil servant with a desk job in an obscure government department based in London. Only here at home, could he relax and not have to be constantly on guard, so careful about every word and action. Only here was he among people who knew and understood his real work well enough to never ever ask questions.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in Fiction
The infinite future
The infinite future. Flight to the unknown The pear tree grew in artificial soil. The nutrients calibrated by computer, which also controlled the synthetic construction of all life sustaining materials for the colony. The pear tree was the visible indicator that all was well with the artificial intelligence that kept everyone and everything alive. Its leaves were checked for colour and vibrancy every six hours, it was that important.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in Fiction
Is it a tree or is it me?
Is it the tree, or me? Is it real or a dream? The pear tree had been planted on the day of my birth. It started to bear fruit when I was three years old, it was at its most productive from five years to forty five years, which is the normal and average for a conference pear in this part of England. Then into a steady reduction in the yearly crop of the best cooking pears you could find. Now it was past its best, just the occasional show of blossom and even more rare, a small crop of fruit, to remind of its past glories. All exactly like myself. The most creative years seem to be behind me. The tree and I are both sixty years old; yet I still strive to burst out with meaningful production, still keen to claim my former place as a success and a worthwhile provider. Like the tree, my roots are firm in the ground, the spirit is willing but the bees no longer buzz around the blooms and no one expects to harvest my out put. When you start to make comparisons they become uncanny. The conference pear is almost self fertile and I never needed outside inspiration to start creative work. The pears were best picked before full ripeness, stored and then cooked with skill. My writing was best when a skilled editor got me to rework the final draft before any publisher saw it. The last fifteen years have been an ever increasing rate of failure and ineptitude. Just as the tree lost is productive vigor, so did I. Now young people do not even realize the tree is a pear tree, one that once provided well for the household, similarly they do not know I was once a popular author. My work no longer in fashion and never was good enough to be called a classic. Out of print, out of mind, just like the tree.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in Fiction
An early frost
An early frost. What happened to summer? It was only the second of November yet we woke to a sharp frost, indoors we could see our breath as we breathed out, there were frost patterns inside and outside the double glazing. I rushed to check the central heating it was still on but clearly unable to cope with the severity of the weather. There was ice on the rain water storage butt in the yard, there was ice on the fish pond in the garden. The frozen pond was the first indication of how severe the frost had been last night. The ice was an inch thick, it is only a small pond, about four feet diameter; but to ice over that thick the temperature must have been way below what is expected in this part of the world at this time of the year. So much for global warming. The biggest shock was finding that it was only our garden, our home, that had frozen, the neighbors were all as usual, you would not want to sit outside for long but it was not freezing in any gardens except ours. The TV weather forecast, the web bulletins all showed normal damp cold misery but no frost, no ice on roads. No one else had this, just us. Had we left the freezer door open? What the hell has caused this? Walking out of our house and down the garden path to the front gate, was a very weird experience. You needed a fur coat on the path but the moment you stepped past the gate, the temperature was twenty or thirty degrees warmer. Our side of the boundary hedges were covered in hard frost while the neighbors side dripped cold but not freezing water. We were a phenomenon! A neighbor called the media. At first just a single reporter from the local rag turned up but within an hour of them filing their report, we had TV film crews, every web blogger and reporters from every national newspaper at our gate; even quite a few conspiracy theorist advocates turned up; all wanted exclusive stories, all wanted to know why we had done this, some even asked “if” we had done it and how. Funny but I had never realized before, that when I see a report claiming to be exclusive, in practice it is anything but that. Some one called the police and they restored some semblance of order, that is they stopped reporters and cameramen trampling over our garden and had them return to the road out side our gate. Then the council officials turned up, they demanded to know what we were experimenting with and had we got official permission to do such research in a residential area? We countered this with a demand to know what the local authority was playing at, in letting such a thing happen to a private home.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in Fiction
Two wheels and a green light
Two wheels and a green light No one ever says stop The alternative life style has a bigger meaning in this universe. Here alternative does not mean new age mambo jumbo, it means real alternative. The laws of rational physics do not apply. The reasoning of logic has no place. Here reality is whatever it is declared to be.
By Peter Rose4 years ago in Fiction
An evening at the pub.
An evening at the pub. A quiet night out. It was not a dark and stormy night, may be it should have been. We, that is Jim and myself, decided that we wanted a quiet pint at the local, “The Bull” in Braintree. Since it was a Thursday in mid November which is always cold and miserable, the weather should be keeping the crowds at home with their catch up TV specials. So it could be expected to be a slow night, a peaceful night and this suited our mood. There were only three other customers in the bar when we arrived. We settled in a gloomy corner with our pints of best bitter. The bar room TV was on the sports channel with the sound off, as always in this pub. The pub sign outside still shows a bull and the place is so old they measure its age in centuries, it is thought to have been originally built about 1450 and it those days it was the main farmers meeting and dealing place, for the livestock market. The cattle market is now a supermarket and the place has undergone a few changes in the last five hundred and fifty, or more, years, but it is still a pub selling “real ale.” Attempts have been made to move with the times and increase the money coming in. The old cellar, believed to once have been the headquarters of a smuggling gang, is now a weekend nightclub, best avoided by anyone over the age of thirty. Modern safety laws dictate that emergency exits have had to be built into what once were lathe and plaster walls, otherwise the basic room is much as it has always been, the bar is now an upgrade from planks resting on beer barrels and now they also sell lager and wine; but the concept is still the same. Food is available but to be honest I prefer the fish and chips from the Greek owned place across the road.
By Peter Rose5 years ago in Fiction
