by
Frank Hatton

As is my wont, (whatever that means), I was browsing through my daily newspaper recently, when this question appeared at the beginning of an article. “What is the most complicated object in the universe?” Now, immediately, the images of a mega computer, followed by a space station, then an air traffic control system, with even a fleeting speculation of my dear lady wife’s idea of logic, all took their turn in passing through my most serious contemplation of a solution. Eventually, I was forced to give up, and look at the answer given,.....believe it or not, my friends, it turned out to be the human brain. That lump of grey jelly that lives in the space between your ears. It weighs about 3lb, and has the consistency of a sponge.

Nonetheless, be all that as it may,.... the thing that intrigued me most of all, was the claim that among the 100 billion nerve cells that make up this amazing lump of matter, was where each of us ‘lives’, and it went on to discuss the ‘you’ of human consciousness. Honestly and truly, do you, like myself, ever give a thought to this part of our body? Much of it is permanently on ‘auto pilot’, in that your breathing, heartbeat, kidneys, liver, adrenaline and a host of other functions are controlled by it, without you ever having to do a thing.

However, without wanting to jump too deeply into this quagmire , I kept thinking about this terminology of ‘you’, as the conscious section of the brain. We are still there when we sleep, in that we dream, and often remember dreaming when we awake, so, we are certainly around all of the time. We are consciously aware of ourselves and our surroundings, and normally, it is only when we die, that we are no longer a part of that body and brain. Hence the question that impinged itself onto my mind was, what happens to the folk who through a brain damaging illness, or accident, lose the ability to think, or be aware of their existence? The ‘auto pilot’ still carries on with the running of the business. It continues the work of making the heart beat, the lungs work, and all of the other bits it looks after. But, where are ‘we’ as a conscious being? This expression of ‘brain dead’ conjures up a picture of the ‘you’ no longer being around in that lump of grey jelly, but, where has the ‘you’ gone? Hopefully, you are by now, just as confused as myself, so we can move on to more mundane matters.

I feel sure that I have mentioned many times before, that I live in an area which is largely populated by retired folk, and, for many years, it has been my belief that we ‘wrinklies’, are the keepers of standards of such things as dress codes, behavioural conduct, and general demeanour. However, I do pride myself on being one of life ‘observers’ and as such, I have, during this long hot summer, noticed that many of my contemporaries have thrown standards and caution to the wind, and have adopted a code of dress that would shame a scarecrow. It truly is a mite frightening to see some of these ladies and gentlemen of very mature age, stumbling and weaving down our local High Street with a straw hat that was manufactured around the turn of the century, a shirt or blouse, (dependent on sex) of a colour that would frighten the horses, and shorts, from which protrude a pair of wizened legs that one would not put on a milking stool. The most frightening part of all this, is that my dear lady wife is constantly berating me to not be so ‘old fashioned’ and to follow their example.

Seriously though, I do find it rather nice that at long last we older folk are not so rigid in our standards, and are making a solemn attempt to ‘get with it’. Proceeding onwards with this line of thought,... is it just possible, that the whims with which the younger folk seem to follow any new fashion, could lead them towards the styles now being displayed by the older generation? Of course, to be truly authentic with this new fad, the young ‘uns would possibly have to have the reversal of the ‘face lift’, and all the other advantages of cosmetic surgery, and set about having some wrinkles put into their cherubic features.

Mental somersault time now. I have been browsing through my newspaper today, and noticed how quickly a major topic disappears from the news. I do appreciate that there is a strong risk of over doing any news item, but, when we think that the nasty business of Kosovo is still going on, with fresh graves, and evidence of atrocities being uncovered each day. Additionally, there are seemingly the ‘bad guys’ among the former victims, who are now in the process of extracting their revenge, also of course, we have the equally terrible times that they are suffering in East Timor, but, as I say, we read no more about these ‘nasties’. Instead, we are being fed a diet of what our Prince Edward had to say in Hollywood, on the subject of what is wrong with the British people. Also the result of the French enquiry into the death of Princess Diana has brought forth great splashes of headlines and pictures of the poor lass...... Surely to goodness, there are far more serious news topics to consider than this foolishness?

OK, so now I am going to ask you if you will believe me when I tell you, that I have never ever visited the ‘Scottish Radiance’ web site??? I had no idea what it looked like, and when readers have written to me, and praised the layout and other features, I had not the slightest notion of what they meant. But, no more will this happen!!!! My poor old steam driven computer, which had a memory about the size of a pinhead, has finally given up the ghost, and I have bought an up to date model. This now allows me to visit www.scottishradiance.com and view it in all it’s glory..... I have even browsed through the archives of other articles, thoroughly enjoyed the nostalgia. Plus the fact that there is now so much memory, I will never use it all.... I am wallowing in luxury. Infact, the only ‘game’ that I had on my old equipment was solitaire. Now, with any luck, I will find myself a decent chess programme, and get the little grey brain cells moving again...... One other item that may be of interest to those of you who have written to me in the past. Because of the very limited memory I had, it could be that I deleted some of my mail before I actually got around to replying. If this has happened to any of you, then I beg your forgiveness, and promise it will never occur again. Although, on reflection, that could prove to be a promise that will be difficult to keep,..... in that I have a new filing system on this new server, and I have yet to solve the way in which it works. Suffice it to say for now, that if you write to me, I’ll do my best to answer,..... however, should you find yourself in some dark corner, and know not where you are,.... then I have failed again.

'til next time,
Frank Hatton

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You can find more articles in the archive under From Over the Pond