Sad Histories of Chinese Gold Dealers

I'm going to give you a kind of hypothetical situation of the past, and ask you to think about it and bear it in mind over coming months, and if, perchance anything untoward occurs somewhere on the world stage, then you may be prepared for the meaning of it and not jump at shadows as most others likely will.

Hitler's ring is currently up for auction

Let's say for example it is a war circumstance – say, the Second World War - countries are at war and one of them gets invaded but the soldiers of the invading side do not speak the language of those they have just invaded. In spite of what the current era and much-publicised NSA lets 'be known,' it is not really possible to, by some computer process , 'understand' every single nuance of a region's idiom, and even today, this scenario still applies in its general meaning.

Now – in the hypothetical past event - the invading army takes hold of mainly let's say, ethnic Chinese, and interrogates them to 'gain information...' What do you suppose would be the point of that d'you think? Let's say the place in question is not categorically a Chinese country, but there are ethnic Chinese people there – as there are indeed virtually all over the world then and now. On the other hand, let's say that the invading army interrogates only Chinese gold dealers... Would you think they were after general directions, you know, the meanings of the names of street signs, that kind of thing – or would you say they were after gold, especially any gold secretly held or that had been hidden away somewhere by the gold dealers?

Now Wikipedia is a great resource but it is totally prey to the propaganda machinery that 'winners who re-write history' can manipulate into it.

And so if you ever happen to read somewhere, let's say, on Wikipedia, that someone was an interpretor for an invading army, then perhaps you might want to consider if in any circumstance where that person was interpreting answers given by someone under torture, whether that interpretor may not have perhaps once or twice, failed to deliver the most utterly forthright interpretation of what was being said, prior to the victim having chopsticks ploughed through their ears and into their brains, for example.

Chinese gold shop

Well I apologize that I've had to say that so bluntly.

But, you might want to ask yourself why, if you ever travelled to a certain place somewhere around the world, there are not any major Chinese gold dealers there but mainly only Muslim ones, and where strangely perhaps, the place itself is meant to be largely ethnic Chinese? Now I don't mean simply jewellery shops; I mean actual major dealerships like the gold soukh-style of place... Which there are many of around Asia and India and naturally Arabia too of course.

Oh yes, there are a few contradictions to the 'tales' and 'stories' of personal histories spread about by quite a few notables in their 'authorised' biographies and memoirs; contradictions whose logical flaws have never apparently daunted the fawning that other power-inspired politicians typically, have done over these characters.

Of course they say that history is always written by the victors. I don't subscribe to that idea though.

Bad histories are written by erstwhile 'victors' and victory is itself a revolutionary science. The surfaces of things change. Bananas, yellow on the outside whilst fresh from the tree, turn black when they are yet even just a short time dead.

The Best Plans

I like to take the endeavour of making money, as one of the best examples of the test of applying a deeper knowledge to the world of exterior things. Money functioning in an economy is two things tied together with second-line significations and not just one simple thing: it is what people think, what they believe, plus the token system of exchange itself. From moment to moment, people form this view about whether a particular plan or other is the leading one on the table, and then, whether they consciously want to or not, the whole of their being works away at having that best plan succeed. This is not maths, and it is not science, but it is a type of geometry; people possess a certain invisible shape that always inclines them towards a certain direction.

A velvet Ferrari? Novel...

No matter how many times people want to have it another way – and those who do always argue from a personal interest not an objective one – you cannot credentialize the making of money. I encountered yesterday a friend of mine who told me that he was having difficulties with his bankers and accountants over a decision to expand his business to the tune of around seven million dollars. I asked what the difficulty was and he casually prepared the answer with the statement: 'well, banks cannot lend on faith.'

And I said quickly – 'well actually banks cannot lend period.'

Not anymore, anyway. Not with the Money Velocity as low as it is and the official benchmark rates as low as they have been contrived to go.

I asked him who told him he could not raise equity if lending was a problem, and he said his accountant. And I then asked why he believed him... Answer: 'because he's my accountant.'

'I suppose he invoices you for this remarkable insight?' I cheekily commented.

Now this client has an exceptional cashflow and a positive one. The best plan on the table would merely have been to point him in the direction of the deepest discount government bonds and say there's your expansion capital base – the only one that exists anywhere that is real, absent of the hidden costs from banks and accountants. Now this plan has to compete also with insane or fantastic ideas too, or the subtle power of marketing semiotics, or food allergies, or all kinds of other forces acting on emotions and the brain. The subtle force of these things too are real but they are not science. They are a form of geometry.

Brown food colour E130 goes into some expensive whiskies too and people still think they are buying decent Scotch, and I have even seen them comment on the beautiful amber hue when they swish it around the special whisky tasting glass they bought because they have absorbed some propaganda.

Dalmore-Lutwyche shoes - no synthetic colouring
Anywhere! 

People make decisions often moved by very unscientific causes. You can train a person's taste or educate it so that they are able to make discerning choices. This is the aristocracy of the learned senses. But it is a rare thing to find in a human being these days.

Yet one is far more advantaged to spend the whole of one's life educating the mean senses – and this can be done without resort to exhorbitant amounts of money – rather than spend it chasing money for its own sake alone.

Money cannot get you into heaven. And men and mice are mortal and their best laid schemes et cetera...

But schooled and learned senses can tear down the veil between heaven and the mortal plane. The secret of money is that it never is, about money.

Imogen Heap

Too many of the very undeserving get too much of the world stage, don't they?

Winston Churchill didn't say that – I just did.

'Calm down everyone'

I mean we could fight them on the beaches and all this but we wouldn't win. They'd completely overrun us.

Fortunately they don't know what we know. They don't know the secret code words; not even the NSA knows about Orlando...



The Amazing 'Immi' - Imogen Heap

Here's my message for the moments that will soon quickly rush by us all now, now that the proof of all that is everything has once again been established for the six thirty news' acid scrutiny of truth:

Calm down, and listen to the music.



Here's a pic of the incomparable Imogen Heap. She killed it on a Dave Letterman Show a couple of years ago doing a live performance of her work 'First Train Home.' I think this live version was probably her best one that you can see on YouTube at the present time although her party version video ain't bad either.

Check it out. Listen to the music.

Best,
 

Calvin J. Bear

Mount Hermon

I'm not sure if it's a kind of mischievousness inside of some people with a lot of knowledge of mythology and basically, I suppose, pseudo-religious folk tales, but, it's at times like these – where we all stand on the edge of another (sigh) round of 'shock and awe,' albeit this time 'limited' or 'narrowly-defined' (whatever that is going to mean) – that you get various rounds of esoteric whisperings about 'the true nature of things.'

Occasionally, it's a lot of fun to wander around inside of YouTube, watching the frothing prophets specialising in the End of The World stuff (which muslims call 'ilmu akir zaman') deliver their sermons on the signs and symbols that portend of the final battle.

You will find prophets of every brand: Jewish, anti-Jewish, Islamic, modern Christian, everything, really, if you waste enough time looking.

The fabled Mount Hermon

At least I guess, it's worth mentioning that the border of Syria and Israel is marked by the beautiful, and religiously significant, Mount Hermon, the spot upon which, it is said, that Grigori descended to have sexual relations with the daughters of men – whom they found 'beautiful.' This worries me, actually, because rather than indicating something wicked within the mindset of the Grigori, it tends to indicate that their idea of physical attractivity must have been like our own (although we have no indication that any among them were gay – and this should please the Russians...) and thus it tends to indicate that the non-human Grigori were themselves, not dissimilar to us. Yet the standard opinion appears to be that they were 'traditionally' angelic (you know, like in ikon paintings), of incalculably large actual metaphysical size and more or less of ineffable shape (five thousand wings ten miles long going in every which way et cetera, and endowed with hundreds of eyes looking in all directions), very advanced in knowledge and power, and whose mismatched genetic offspring were ugly, gigantic, voracious in appetite and violent. According to the beliefs, somehow these descending beings went against the intention of god by finding themselves attracted, to the attractive; as we would know the meaning of the word, ourselves. This strikes me as rather odd, the spin that has been cast onto the ancient myth, even by the writers of the various mainstream scriptures themselves. Frankly I discount these versions we are most generally presented with today, as being accurate – or even vaguely accurate -, accounts of some ancient event or incident that might have happened in the distant past in the vicinity of what has ever since been called Mount Hermon, or: the Mount of the Chieftains.

Today's 'ever-alert Watchers...'

Recently, among my muslim friends, I have once again heard the colourful story they have about ancient Gog and Magog rising up to cause tremendous death and destruction everywhere and even including trying to strike at the current (modern) band of angelic beings now above the earth, by the shooting of powerful arrows up into space. According to this tale, the modern angels send the arrow-heads back covered in some red dye giving the bad guys the impression that they had indeed injured the 'hosts of heaven...'

Much though I probably shouldn't say this, I did witness a year or so ago, one of the test firings of the Israeli Arrow 3 missile that goes into space and can knock out satellites and controlled space craft. Quite an amazing piece of technology, really. And of course, the Syrians might have the Russian-made Yakhont missile, and they certainly do have a few anti-Tomahawk missile Kashtan-M batteries. And so we shall soon see what all transpires, when a mini run-through in real life of the popular folk tales about final battles, takes place, covered by Fox and CNN.

Russian Yakhont missile
not a joke, by any means

Alawis belong to a most peculiar 'religion,' if it can be called that even. Bashar Al-Assad is a totally weird-looking fellow, to me. He has snake-ish eyes. I don't like him when I look at him. Frankly don't care what weapons he uses or has used. And when you hear him speak you can easily get the notion that he is a most self-involved, arrogant, mindlessly self-important, and utterly stupid person. And so there, you have my declaration of where I stand on this subject. But he is a very small snake compared to the bigger ones there are in the Arabian World. Let's see how long it takes to get rid of a small snake, because there are some big ones that will have to be dealt with sooner or later. Abdullah will soon enough go into his 'unmanifested form' as the Tamilian friends of my childhood would say. He is a huge snake, but there are others ready to grab his spot, and for the most part, the ones being supported by the West are, as usual, the same wrong ones 'we' supported like we supported Saddam, Al-Assad, and even bin Laden (or whatever his real name was). The right ones, in my view, have names like Kaled, or Talal, or Rashid somewhere in their names. (You don't know how many times I redact stuff from this blog... You can be assured there are a lot of names that I simply cannot mention.)

Syrian TAG Watch Connection

It's just so important to say up-front, that I will not be revealing the name of anyone that I consider either deeply involved or responsible for any recent event remotely linked with all these acts of violence that we see around us and on the general media.

Who are these guys? What do
they know...?

I will say that I hear from quite a number of well-connected people that on one level at least, the total failure of Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to grasp the necessity for real leadership and the adopting of modern progressive attitudes, is nothing but fatally-flawed nostalgia about what it takes and what it brings to the privileged, being an absolute ruler over slaves. And it is a symbol to all the other un-elected dictators virtually everywhere, when you think about it, that power and wealth can remain in the hands of people so long totally disconnected from the practical realities of ordinary people. Marie-Antoinette's passing, of course, may have given a different message to the modern era – but that message has clearly been forgotten by all the absolute rulers ever since.

Americans often have wondered why Saudi Arabia does not send its own army in to resolve regional problems requiring military solutions, or why it doesn't send realistic support to the US when the US does its dirty work for it. The real answer is that Saudi Arabia does not have an army. It has a quarter-of-a-million in number, personal bodyguard-to-the-Chieftan, who are entirely separate to the army, because the army is not trusted by the ruler. So there you go. Now you know what game is being played here.

There is an army. That is what oil money can get you – a lot of very good uniforms and machines and things. Air-conditioned quarters. A good army band. That kind of thing.

The rest of this piece is a demonstration of the fact that: never will you be told by the media or the CIA or anyone else, what is going on and who specifically by name are really involved. Because, all of them exist out in the open as hugely important, massively wealthy, or supremely powerful political figures all around the world. They may slide off their thrones in a heartbeat, and someone just beneath them take over then, and then everyone has to deal with this person, and perhaps it was someone aggressively conspired against five minutes earlier. There is an impression, allowed to the mass of the general public particularly in the USA, that the USA – or indeed any great sovereign power - has some kind of eventual and over-arching strategic ability to control all of these vicissitudes. And that is not true and groups like the CIA know it.

Thus we may think, incorrectly, that we can 'see' or 'know' who is a 'bad guy' or a 'muslim fundamentalist' or an Arab, or a Syrian, or a Jew, or a Chinese, Indian, Persian – and so on. The world, however, is much too diverse of a place now, for this idea to be even partly correct. It is wholly false.

I have said before, a long time ago when there was a scandal over Max Mosley, likely on one of the Bear Forum Boards, that I consider the Formula 1 Mclaren brains, Ron Dennis, to be an absolutely brilliant tactical and strategic thinker, and it may have served the British MI6 better at the time, for them to have taken his advice over the criminals behind the Murdoch Empire – but alas, such was not the case, and yet, every single one of the top London Metropolitan Police who believed they were immune, are now having to dig weeds or give vicious dog handling instructions to tyrants in the Middle East in order to make a buck to support the lifestyles to which they had become accustomed. The talent is always there, and it is, of course, seldom used because everyone in power already has sufficient wisdom, don't they.

There was a lot more behind the Max Mosley incident than you know, or than you will likely ever know.

Let me now show you though, as a kind of instructive pointer, what you are up against, when it comes to how the world works. And it has nothing to do with the illuminati or Masons and all that – not really; not at the pinnacle.

The circles of big money know who each other one of them participating, is. And when someone new turns up, they find out soon enough who they are and where they got their money, and what they represent. This is not something either the CIA nor the NSA has access to, at all, in spite of what they would like to believe.

And let's face it, boys and girls, anyone here who has known me for a long time will confirm that I have been describing this specific stuff for so long that it is not available for questioning whether or not someone in government secret services and intelligence bodies must have also know it.

No one did anything though. And now we have a huge and spreading war all over the Middle East and which will inevitably engulf Saudi Arabia and kick out Abdullah and his closest cronies. Period. That's where we're heading.

And so now let me show you something: the head of the most effective (as in effective like say, arguably, Tito of Yugoslavia was effective) military body in Hafez Al Assad's Syria, was Mustafa Tlass. But it is questionable whether, were he still alive and in control behind the scenes, he would be anything at all like the present regime leaders. And I don't think he would...

His sons are among the military commanders who have since defected away from the Bashar Al Assad regime.

Tlass was related by various marriage ties, to prominent and successful Syrian businesspeople, all of whom long since left Syria and went to Europe and the United Kingdom. ...Where, I believe, they may have been thunderstruck by the even more rampant, in fact rampaging, chemical weapons, lethal weapons, military goods and services scene thriving there and in the hands of what are said to be fine upstanding members of modern progressive democratic society. Ha! What a laugh!

Anyway... Here is a pic of Ron Dennis, and the owner of Mclaren Racing, Mansour Ojjeh, whose wife is related to the Tlass Family.  

That's Ron Dennis, left, and Mansour Ojjeh, right.
Mansour owns(ed) T.A.G. watches.

Firas Tlass, is predominantly who the French Secret Services are getting a lot of their current information from. Now normally, a de-briefing of this kind of 'walk-across,' takes months and months if not years to obtain intelligence on that one can take off on any action on. I'm not intending to be pejorative about this particular situation; just saying what the tradition has been so that future incidents are not judged by this one.

All I can add is, although there is no connection to any of the people mentioned here, the way of the aristocrats of the Middle East goes by reliance on viziers. And I can tell you right now that I give not two cents for the value of the US administration's own viziers, whoever they may be, and even less for the viziers of Abdullah, not that I think he even has any really – just like other sycophant-rewarding dictators like that other arms dealer Lee Kwan Yew, who also has a story yet to be revealed onto the world stage which probably will be, following his imminent death now.

Speaking of virtual certainties and ex-assets, d'yall remember an accountant at the head of Arthur Anderson when it went Crash! I seem to recall his name being something like Shady Sandbars or something akin. I think he's the pr spokesman for some Mid-East ruler or other now.

...You can't take the same faces off the same old gravy-train, once they have a taste. That's all I'm saying. And it's not personally cheap for someone to reject and renounce that sort of life. And I admire the sorts of people who do and make a life in different pursuits. They know, the value of human life. The rest, do not.

Distracting People's Attention

Huff-Po continues to show us the latest scandalous event, and this week it's apparently about some lewd-ish thing that a heavily-marketed performer did on stage.

Huff-Po will absolutely also cover the UN's verification that chemicals were used by Assad against ordinary civilians.

However, I will suggest that you also try – as I spoke of back in I think June of this year – to stick six million Scovile units of cobra chilli pepper mist into your own eyes and see whether or not you might not prefer an actual nerve gas instead.

Personally I'm not sure what the tactical purpose of a chemical agent like Sarin is, when cobra chilli spray will do an even better job of suppressing opposition without the UN whining about what you did. I can clearly recall ex-London Met second top cop JohnYates whinging and whining in the Levinson Inquiry about his imminent 'political' sacking because of the offsetting 'real' value of his brilliant work on the terrorists all over London who would doubtless see his sacking as a green light for them to go hog wild. Well, okay muslims are not going to go hog wild, but some kind of wild anyway.

Burlesque Dancer Ginger Valentine

Here's the main problem, as I see it. Ginger Valentine should have been in Huff-Po, and wasn't. She's from Texas and she's the real deal. Bandar only knows what Huff-Po also knows – which is not too much of anything all that real. And there is in any case, a lot of in-fighting between all the Saudi Princes. They are not unified, and they are not organised; they are manipulative, and they are also manipulated. But they go by the pop version of events.

The real thing is the real thing. Everything is very misty though, in the Great Game. The real things hide in the mist. You only get to see them when it's already too late. Nobody sees much of anything at the moment. Just the rising mist. Something is creeping about in there, though. A snake, maybe. A monster maybe. The 'Game' is not 'Great' for nothing. It would be a fool who thinks he knows the outcome already, and an even bigger fool who goes about with any sense of arrogance. When you are arrogant, as Vince Lombardi once opined, you are brittle against a real opponent.

Having this sort of idea is just common sense too and doesn't come from any special inside knowledge. It surprises me though at the moment that the pop media hasn't floated the idea by now of a specialist 'hit team' with a catchy code name like in the old days of the first really major oil price crisis. Something like the old Team 'Jackal.' But I guess that's the difference between the current Disney kids and the old school. Not that I know anything by the way, in case the NSA gives a damn about what I write here! Which I doubt very considerably that they would. Afterall, how could anyone challenge the conclusions of the combined CIA/NSA budget of over 25 billion US Dollars annually. They, certainly, for that kind of money, must know it all. Put it this way, the temptation must be very great in there to carry on as if they did.

 

Where does all that money go, though? Anyone know?

Novelty For The Wealthy

When The Big Money Hits...



Ten grand, can you believe? Nice though.
I'd have it.

My wife's friend complained just last weekend about one of her husband's colleagues (well, at least it wasn't me she was talking about!) getting silly drunk with her husband.



Now these guys are regulars at probably the city's most upscale small restaurant and the types of money they spend there for alcohol is not particularly unusual I wouldn't have thought.

My own business partner is at the moment staying with some super-wealthy farmer types in the Outback and there is a troika of these 'bushmen' there all of whom know Johnnie well enough to – as they put – be able to call him Jack.

Lawrence, she's great but this is Ni Kulturni
compared to...

Okay so they drink scotch whisky.

I mean this is another one of these 'good living' subjects where there can certainly be a lot of snobbery, a lot of folklore, and a few genuinely traditional customs well worth retaining.

Sticking your finger into the small ceramic jug of water as you move it over to where you might add a little into the scotch, is something that I will personally retain mainly because that was the way my grandmother insisted that you do it – and she was born in Eaglesham so I will respect that.

I'm not a great fan of those small-lipped malt whisky glasses that have become the thing with the single malt people – not that I wouldn't ever do it. Personally I like those old heavy-based cut crystal big tumblers; supposedly too big to properly be able to get the concentration of flavours into your nose and taste receptors. I don't care what 'proper' is, I already know what all the Johnnie Walkers taste like – and I do mean all. Swing Superior included.

But what's this idea of getting so smashed that everything tends to get seriously messy and then it's 'lights out?!' I mean you just can't do this sort of thing all the time and especially not just because you have suddenly made another pile of money from whatever scheme. And you can't do it because what does it say about having a lot of money? That you have no clue about what to do with money other than make yourself unconscious?! It's ridiculous.

No I don't get all the 'complex flavours and depth of character et cetera et cetera...' I know anything Chivas tends to be a little bit sweeter than most. I know that I really like Ballantine's and Dalmore. I know that I can bear Red Label without much trouble. And much more than that I do not know.

Oh hey, don't get me wrong, I can equate a good spirit of age with a good woman of that certain age along with the best of them. And I can do the whole 'approach' and 'discovery' or 'reveal' as the French say probably even better than Richard Paterson.



A Tivioli sable being correctly modelled

No, it isn't me that I'm having difficulty with. It is all those wildly more loaded with cash and money guys around me that I'm struggling to understand what their point is in trying each day to have even more money than they already do. I'm sure that five minutes after I mention some interesting novelty to them they'd all go out and buy it and show their buddies the next new thing about what you have to do or to have or have to be, when you are rich. Or more rich, at least. I cannot think of more boring people to rub shoulders with than the Bill Gates's or the Bill O'Reilly's or all those kinds of media-exposed Ultra High Net Worthers. Seriously not. They are self-delusional narcissists whose only reason for being found 'interesting' to the uncritical, is that they are horrendously rich.

I won't be mentioning any novelties to any of them.



O, but I do know some novelties, believe you me.

Tea And Cucumber Sandwiches

Tea and cucumber sandwiches, anyone?

I have always had a slight feeling of underlying scepticism when it comes to things like drinking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches.

Coffee is the drink of revolutions, if not revolutionaries – and I drink a lot of it. Tea, on the other hand, has always struck me as the native Englishman's excuse for his austere streak, simply being prettied-up with porcelain and wild-picked flowers by the butler, maid, or mem-saab.

Cucumber sandwiches likewise; too simple, too austere, too, too, insubstantial!

So much for my 'slight feeling.' It's obviously a rampaging cultural prejudice. I constan

tly have to tell people that whilst I can accept being termed British, I am thoroughly no such thing as 'English!'

But am I missing something? I know that beneath it all, there is this kind of sense of wealth some decent English have in them, to do with their strong desire to quietly savour the wealth of total victory. Some Germans have it, too...

And that greatest victory is the one that virtually no one else ever sees but the victors – those sneaky victories that creep up and invade the brainspace of the conquered. It's not necessarily unstoppable, but you do have to have your wits about you or otherwise it's too late.

Unlike what all the tyros do, recently I spent three entire days doing nothing, watching the wave-tops on the ocean outside, from morning to night, napping quite a lot in between, and drinking tea what's more, and eating finger food including cucumber sandwiches. I'm not sure that I felt any real sense of privation during the episode. Okay I drank lots of coffee too. And I bought a bottle of another one of these glut-cheap young whites that may be had here for little money right now.

I learned something from the wave-tops. A 'disassociative sea of digital data' – and I am grateful to another person on a Bear Chat Board elsewhere for this phrase – may indeed contain sharks.

Reduced to a simplicitude, the medium that makes things float is water; but currency is the water that floats things, not digital data.

Right now I can see the sharks circling. It must be the clarity that tea-drinking brings. Though perhaps I'm mistaken.

Time for another tea, and a cucumber sandwich, and perhaps a Tiger or two later on still. Sharks, what sharks? What are you talking about, Calvin? Circling around a currency? No, not a currency. I think the sharks are circling around themselves and I don't want to be anywhere near the vicinity of any scratch on the precious reputations of all these unimpeachable, moral, honourable, patriots – of whatever country you want to talk about, not just the obvious one(s) - who are all just doing things not for money or sex but for the love of their countries.

You see? That's where tea-drinking fits in – when you just want to wallow in cynicism.

 

Calvin J. Bear

The Authenticity Of Old Guys...

...and Old Places.

When the Money Supply is genuinely constrained, and so-called 'takeoff velocity' has not happened – or not yet happened – then it is no crime or sin to be without cash.

Whatever you would normally trade in, or have to trade, does not move with as much energy, and cash goes 'into the freezer,' as I like to put it.

But freezers are not such bad things, necessarily. And particularly when it comes to money, you will find that psychology overcomes brute force most especially when the Money Supply and the circulation velocity declines. There's plenty of money out there: it's trapped inside the frozen sentiments of people.

Can you think of ways to warm up the frozen sentiments of people?

What is it with the authenticity of old guys?

I can tell you right now, people severely underestimate the power of subtle and intelligent words and thoughts. Aesthetics is a Greek word meaning 'perceptions through feelings' – people don't need to know what you're doing, they just need to get the right perceptions from the feelings that you are evoking from them.

Thomas De Quincy, the Orientalist writer who was also an opium addict, is a fine example of how words can evoke feelings. And then of course, feelings create perceptions afterwards. I am going to tamper very slightly with the order of some of his sentences for the sake of making sense here, but, all the same, the point is how evocative he writes. Watch this:

“I am surprised to see people overlook winter in his sternest shape, when it comes to the science of happiness. They think it a matter of congratulation that winter is going; or, if coming, is not likely to be a severe one. On the contrary, I put up a petition annually, for as much snow, hail, frost, or storm, of one kind or another, as the skies can possibly afford us. Surely everybody is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a winter fire-side: candles at four o'clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.”

Something is raging outside these days. I would say it's called stupidity, and crassness, and hubris in the confused who yet have pretense to rule.

Close the doors. Put up the shutters. Draw the ample draperies of your mind and light the candles of wisdom. If the calm pool is only in your tea-cup, that is enough – all you need in fact - for you to experience 'calmness.'

You will find, that no matter how separate you have made yourself – even as it were, like a hermit – the world will start to beat a path to the warmth of a composed place. And also to the attraction of composed ideas. You don't have to be confident about what lies outside the doors, only in what lies inside of them. Calmness and wisdom heals... All things.

These Gala Times

The vision and the reality of course, are seldom the same things...

For the greater part of my younger life, I would have quickly said that I wore English gentleman's clothes, only to realise much later when I actually started to look inside at the tailors' names and consciously think about it – that in fact I had been virtually always been wearing Italian tailoring!

Yes, the Bond Street origins of the clothes appeared to indicate English tailoring but the truth was the actual cutters were all Italian. And then I also tended to favour fabrics from Italian and Swiss and even French rather than the generally heavier typical English styles. Eventually, Loro Piana dominated. I still have an old Milanese sports-jacket by Mainardi & Co., which is a very rare tailoring house, but it is still around in various guises and occasionally goes by its own name too under a bespoke format. This jacket is not only far and away the best piece of tailoring I own, it may be handed onto my son – which is an experience I managed to enjoy myself with a good few of my dad's coats and from memory at least one pair of handmade suede shoes. Quite an accomplishment both by my dad – who somehow managed to look after the stuff incredibly well – as well as the makers, whose art in the products simply did not diminish with time.

Even now I'm a hell of a snob and might easily opine that the Italians go over the top with their daring attitudes to the rules of dress.

But then, at the immediate moment, I have been reconsidering all of this peculiar snobbery of mine. I watch the dead boring black suit brigade in all of the world's financial centres, and the world's political elites, with their standard conservative uniform dress code – and I consider how embarrassed they all are for real substance, whether in mind or spirit or actual lawfully-earnt money. And I consider my own wife's Sicillian family, who manage to sweep a few by-laws to one side and put on the most impressive fireworks displays on the city riverside each time one of the daughters gets married... And I think about the brace of Maseratis that park out front of the mansion (it is a mansion, by the way) when the family functions take place, and I especially think about the way the men dress in absolutely – well, to me anyway – outlandishly excessive mens 'fashion.' The silver satin jackets... The coloured batwing bows and cummerbunds... The velvet and gold embroidered slippers...

I've always considered a lot of this carry-on fairly tacky, and it is tacky and even they all think it is too – but, it is also a very special kind of tacky. It is based on a complete self-confidence that they are above and beyond formal dictat from anyone who pretends to cultural and civilized elite-ism. And moreover, that they are above and beyond other people's rules about what to be civilized means. They know the rules before they break them. And that's the significant difference.

I've stuck a couple of pictures in here of some attire by an Italian manufacturer called Ottavio Nuccio. It might look at first sight that they break numerous rules of formal attire and dress codes – but they don't break even a single one. And that is an amazing testament to the style and cultural high-ground that some Europeans possess. I'm not going into details about what is so subtly correct about this picture, suffice to say that it is ideally correct. One of the bits of 'clever' trivia going the rounds among the Western literati and cognoscenti of men's formal attire is the meaning of the phrase red sea rig, or schooner rig (which is the same thing), but this picture goes into even more rarified atmosphere about exquisite formal attire for a gala.

Breaking rules of formal attire? No.

Now you or I may not have the absolute budget to go to all of this excess, but to be careful about dress, even in some small symbolic way, is a reflection of your mind. The point about civilized people enjoying themselves is that they don't need the rest of the whole world to know or approve of what they are doing. It suffices that they know what they are doing and why. The great Italian writer Petrach lived through some of the most terrible and terrifying of times, but he still managed. Old knowledge, manages in the worst of times. Petrarch is generally credited with having first used the term Dark Ages. His insights into what wealth is, and where it is, prove remarkable reading... And as we are currently also in a form of a Dark Age, Petrarch is a useful guide to living in it.

Petrarch's vision, and reality, are closer than commonly understood by the masses and their masters in Fox and in Washington, in Singapore and Beijing and every other place run by tyrants and knaves.

Cuissage Is Not A Myth!

If you just follow the American media's propaganda about public morality and religiosity and ethics, you will certainly resist the phrase I am about to use: 'sophisticated moral intelligence.'

According to the Christian Right and the pharisee tradition of the modern American-style media, morality has to be plain dumb, and anything different to that is likely to be the 'work of the devil.' Thus to add the word 'sophisticated' to 'morality' is almost to qualify it with something evil.

Cuissage...

Yet I have often wondered why it is that everything that is said to be to do with this very popular fellow (i.e. 'the devil') has this touch of the inherently exciting, even whilst it is also most assuredly bad and dark and horrid. And everything, by comparison, that is numinous, is rather dull and boring.

We watch movies like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and become glued by the sections of utter vicious violence; well, at least I did when I watched it!

Admittedly this particular movie is not completely gratuitous in its inclusion of extreme violence as a theme.

However I must warn that I am intending to proceed from the immediate prior post about 'values,' and move the subject along to the idea of the application of values in the hands of wealthy adults. Now I say 'wealthy' adults very deliberately because I wanted to suggest that unless one is not careful, it is all too easy to become dissolute when a lot of time and money falls into one's hands. And this is largely because of a habit that tends to be formed when one is not necessarily so very very facilely um, loaded. The discipline that enforces itself onto spending habits and lifestyle habits due to modest means, is in many ways, a good thing; but it is a 'false' discipline...

One finds so many instances in which commentary regarding some fashionable place, or tourist destination, or upscale (we say 'up-market' among the British over here...) restaurant – splashes criticism around lavishly. The food was overpriced/the service was pushy/you were tried to be 'sold' on stuff/you were not respected/something or other was 'over-rated...'

The very beautiful -
Plaza Athenee entrance

And so let me say something now about going out to a Michelin Three Star table in the context of having anything at all to do with the receipt of service. Servants, are not things you have; they are participants in your lifestyle and they are part of a set of relationships. And your part, as the receiver of service, is that you are performing a role. Literally.

I see people who speak of these things saying that the droit de cuissage (the right over the thigh), is but a myth that some French aristocrats propagated. But it is not. Nevertheless, it entails, as I say, a high and a sophisticated moral intelligence. On the surface of it, a lord of some estate or other, is supposed at some point in the distant past, to have possessed the right to have sex with any of his serf's virgin daughters. Or some such thing along those lines. I know my father often spoke of our family's tendency to have infused itself with 'good peasant stock' from time to time.

But you must understand the impoverished humour of the aristocrats of my ken.

You see these things are not true in the way the words are employed to talk about them. But they are true in very much more sophisticated ways than the common popular media will be able to understand or explain to you.

Here's what I mean: perhaps you go to the Plaza Athenee in Paris, and have read a review in which they go on at length about how over-priced, and how over-serviced, and how unmemorable, the food was...

Ah but you see, for me to go there at all is a performance – by me. At least as much as I expect it to be a performance by the staff there.

And, they will comprehend, if not others, the allusion to cuissage that I make, if I subject my companion to having to wear the thing you see in the picture here. It's a Dior outfit, on the actress Jennifer Lawrence, and I understand all, or most, of the media and entertainment critics carried on at length about her wardroom malfunction, sufficient to make Dior put out a statement.

Jennifer Lawrence,
Also 'Cuissage' but by Dior

But it is not a malfunction.

If you go to, let's say, some Michelin Three Star establishment that you have heard be less than celestial in its service and substance, and offer this Dior'd get-up on your arm, as you alight from your taxi or Rolls Royce, to the doorman, and thence on to the Maitre d' and so on, I am reasonably sure that the placement of her dinner cloth onto her lap, either by the staff or without stares from them when she does it, will break all the rules about dining.

And I am reasonably sure, that you will have a very pleasant evening, and completely forget all about criticisms of the service that you were not 'getting' for your money, because as I have said before, money is not the be all and end all of it. As Karl Lagerfeld says, 'yes it is true; if you are cheap, nothing helps.' But if you are sophisticated, you do not need to be violent, or obviously armed with money, to get your way.

And getting your way, may I remind you, leads us right to the money afterall. The art of getting your way, qualifies the meaning of moral intelligence in ways that only the sophisticated may know about. And I don't think, the devil, is as sophisticated, as an English gentleman – not that I have come across an English gentleman, for many a good long year, and the only real person that I can think of in living existence right now who can fit into the mold, is Hugo Jacomet, and he is French. As far as I know.

For The Younger People

THE POWER OF THINKING FOR ONESELF.

I had never intended this column/blog to be exclusively for people around my age – in fact, this is the kind of place I would have actively sought out, to glean some ideas myself from, when I was a lot younger.

I think I might have said before that I grew up around uncles who were both extremely wealthy, and in some respects, historically significant people. 'Kelvin' McClory was my father's first cousin, and, although he was the noisiest representative of the Thunderball movie 'steam train,' he was not the most important one in our family who was involved with that particular escapade. One of my father's stepbrothers (therefore an uncle to me) was MD of Shell Far East at the time and Shell played a huge role in the financing of the movie.

A 'shut up and take my money'
brief case

But overall, the point I really want to get at here is that there is a major advantage in being able to be around these kinds of people when you are young – I mean, not only are they exciting to be around, but they possess all sorts of amazing knowledge and practical experience that is difficult or next-to-impossible for the normal kid to learn about from the usual sources available to the average kid growing up in modern-day suburbia.

Aboveall the most important thing you can learn from these people is 'values.' And for those entering the world of entrepreneurship, or having anything at all to do with big money, 'values' is by far the most important thing to know about, rather than 'value...'

Oh yes, I mean it.

Sure its nice to have nice things but its far better to have real values. In fact it's better to have values than to have either money or a lot of things. There are a lot of people with more 'things' than either you or I or a hundred 'you's and I's' will collectively ever have in our lives – and those things are yet meaningless, useless, and worthless in their hands; even though they will have cost several fortunes to have acquired.

'Values,' are the most complicated, subtle, and sophisticated of things that it is possible for any human to attain to and possess. By 'values' I don't just mean any old religious or ideological or cultural ethic, nor do I mean morality. I mean something you will never hear in the mouths of preachers today, and certainly not in the mouths of selfish people either.

Values are what defines you the person, you the personal identity; they are you – now, tomorrow, and forever more beyond what you regard as your own personal 'lifetime.'

I put it to you that you have no idea what 'your lifetime' is or will be. Tomorrow, you may wake up to find someone can really put your consciousness inside a supercomputer and you will live eternities as a humanoid machine. You don't know that it can't or won't happen.

Values are why you are exciting to live around...

Values are absolutely not, doing 'right' and knowing right from wrong – values are what make you human, and what makes the human the form of the prime intelligent being in the universe.

And here's my proof.

In ancient times, according to ancient legend, the Great God Zeus, cleverly sidestepped the tricky task of deciding which of three goddesses was the most beautiful. Another heavenly being, 'Dischord,' had rolled a single golden apple into a wedding feast at which the gods were in attendance (according to the legend). Upon this golden apple were inscribed the words 'to the fairest.'

Each one of three goddesses sought to pick the apple up and disputed over which should be entitled to have it – Hera, Zeus's own wife, Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, and Athene, Zeus's daughter.

Zeus then demured from the task, and bestowed it upon the Trojan Prince Paris.

What Hera, Queen of Heaven
looks like

Zeus instructed the progenitor of the Ithican Island part of my own family – Hermes – (see, I have some entitlement to speak about these things authoritatively!) to take Paris to some secluded grove far away, in which the Goddesses would each present themselves to Paris completely naked, and following which he would make the decision as to which was the most beautiful.

Now the rest of this unlikely story is that each of the Goddesses attempted to bribe Paris – and that could not be true – and moreover even Athene, according to this untrue tale, disrobed fully in front of him.

Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite, and in her fury, Athene caused another of my ancestors, Odysseus, to encourage the Greeks to go to a great and mythically heroic war, which they did do, and which today is known as the Trojan War.

What Aphrodite, Goddess of
Love, looks like

Now personally, I have to tell you, from my knowledge of what the Ithicans say of the Greek Gods, that none of this story can have been true even in the smallest element of it. The Gods do not bribe, they do not dispute among themselves, and Athene DOES NOT, on any account whatsoever, go naked in front of a human.

But the story is a story and there is a point to its existence and this point clears up why it is important to realise that there are eternal beings who govern all of our lives even those of the amoral and the atheistic because... ...THE POINT OF THE STORY IS THAT IT APPLIES TO YOU, NOW, TODAY, AND WILL IT SO ALSO APPLY, TO EVERY PERSON WHO LIVES IN THE FUTURE.

Let us assume, for instance, that you are an atheist. Well, here is your challenge, as my ancestor once did, I now also bring before you, the three Great Goddesses, Hera, Aphrodite, and Athene, and request of you, that you decide, which one is to get the golden apple, upon which is inscribed, 'to the fairest.'

You see, the story is not for 'Paris' to have resolved. It is for you, the living human being.

That is to say, as a human being, you are daily confronted with choices and decisions that are within the realm of what the mortal is concerned with – complicated decisions often absent of adequate information, and yet, one may be forced to choose something from which choice may proceed consequences both or either good or not good.

The human will live and it will die, but the decision and its components never will go away; and hence they are immortal choices even though dynamic, and immortal components. 'Values' are the result of both how you go about making your own choice/s over these types of challenges, and how 'human' your perspective is.

What Athene, Goddess of Victory in War, looks like

This 'story' is known in the classics as 'The Judgement Of Paris.' Would that I could be, personally, an atheist. But alas I cannot, as I am an Ithican, and the Gods themselves live quite nearby, and regularly bring to me conundrums and puzzles of some definite ornateness though for what exact purpose other than their own sport, I am not quite sure.

The Tools To Handle The Wealth

Now see here's the problem with having a lot of wealth and living the life that is expected to go along with it:

When you go to Wimbledon – where I wouldn't personally, because I detest modern tennis – but at least when you go, and it happens to be a cold day, they will give you a little hot rock to hold in your hands...

Qantas First Class Beluga

And when you travel First Class on Qantas – which I would do - they will give you this designer pair of silk-lined pyjamas, when you want to sleep off the Bollinger they serve.

And pretty soon you'll get this feeling that most of the rest of the world is badly disadvantaged and must have a terrible time of life. Which they basically do do (have a terrible time mostly, that is).

But why are you so important; so especially deserving?

Now that's an important question. Clearly, it is the wealth which 'makes' it appear that the carrier of wealth is important and better and more deserving. Without being able to carry the wealth (that is, to have any!) one is deprived of all these trinkets and trappings.

The trouble is though, that if at some stage it becomes the case that you do acquire some wealth, then you could easily find yourself lumped with the problem of feeling for all the rest of humanity who haven't got any, and also sometimes, you may be quite disappointed too with your erstwhile wealthy 'brothers and sisters' who do and yet whose attitudes and abilities stand in stark contrast with any kind of ideal human person! You will find yourself stuck between a hot rock... ...and a soft pair of pyjamas.

As the Chinese Classics say the look on the face of the wealthy is never happiness. It's often more like a kind of distress.

If you reject the pampering people will say you are mean-spirited and miserly and if you embrace it they will say you are uncaring and selfish.

Symbols of male selfishness, surely!

And that is the reason why it is absolutely vital that on no account should you disclose to anyone exactly how much you have or how much you can get or how much you can engineer or how much you have power over or how much you can generate. It is an absolute crime and a sin (not really sure what that word means...!) against all the rest of your fellow human beings to not fully absorb yourself in the enjoyment of what wealth can bring, and to not be fully in the moments of utter wealth and grandeur that you afford yourself – on account of allowing the unconsecrated to the art and science of wealth, in at those times.

Only those who ever have been, or are and can objectively realize their position, or who have the capacity to be, wealthy, can understand what this is all about. The concentration of conscious intelligence has the role in the universe of a relationship with everything that is the best. And it is only in this role that one is truly able to see the best in people and things, and to set about its preservation within a world of decay and ignorance and foolishness.

Makrolon Ornament

The illuminated Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament for those owners of a Rolls Royce who can extend their budgets a further, almost $10,000, is not made from glass but from a Bayer Chemicals patented polycarbonate called Makrolon. Those engineer-types who stop by here will be familiar with this product.

My father-in-law has just recently gone a little beserk and done something Jovian for his daughter and grandson.

I must say he has taken a lot of pressure from my own shoulders because it will now be easier for me to go to an additional ten grand for the Makrolon hood ornament.

I jest of course and I feel though, that I must explain my arrogance.

As of right this very minute, I personally, would be thieving from my own rare coin collection to as much as mount a battle to attain a Swiss-cheeseburger (at least, though, we have said 'Swiss-cheeseburger' and ought to add that it will be the Angus beef one, too).

However I have a sense of strong confidence about the future. Well, at least for my future, anyway, and I hope, for yours as well.

At heart I am a believer in the possibilities flowing from the invention of things like Makrolon, much more than I am in the possibilities offered by the political life. For I do not believe in the establishing and the building of cities for modern people – but I do believe in the exploitation of the artefacts of automaton mentality. I believe in architecture. Architecture is a rational system that bypasses or at least sidesteps the pseudo-intelligent agency of modern evolved people; today's people fit in to the architecture of cities and modern structures and dwellings, whereas they mostly all believe it is the other way around.

And money is a rational system too. And it also has architecture and this is not something our friend Ben Bernanke has sufficient an understanding of, or a deep appreciation for.

Take this very distant example of what I mean: let's say here is a great and successful Beijing identity who goes and marries some millionaire in a presumed more-liberated society. Just one step away from Communist Beijing, she marries an oligarch from, let's say, Singapore; the Beijing government is not too worried because the two societies are not that far apart politically. The order remains.

But then one day she decides she cannot any longer tolerate the egregious arrogance and disdain for the ordinary human being shown by this oligarch she has become entangled with, and she contemplates upon how that his mindset exhibits in every particular way, all the odious features of the usual wickedly privileged, and spoilt, tyrant.

So one day she throws on a tight satin Dolce & Gabbana, high heels and a pashmina wrap, and grabs her Baschmakoff purse, and walks out. And as her Rolls Royce leans in acquiescently to approach her, she angrily pulls off the million-dollar ring she is wearing and casts it down to the gutter or to the pavement somewhere, and is too exorcised to even notice the blue illuminated, glowing frosty Makrolon Spirit of Ecstasy light up its warm 'welcome in' to her very brand new and gleaming Rolls Royce Wraith, all plush inside with its doublecream-thick carpets, and soft luxury black-piped leather seats, and its excessive starlit ceiling.

Ah, you see! The elevated in station often have their own problems that serve to deny to them the ability to see and to appreciate the splendours of their lofty surroundings.

One can become highly disillusioned by staying too long there, and perceiving the banal reality behind much of the public face of power and money.

But one can also be uplifted by its intensely private side. That is to say, if you ever discover the true face of private power, and money.

Mysterious Money - where does it come from?

“Be calm... Be still.” as Nicol Williamson's Merlin says in Excalibur. “All is well.

Behold! The Dragon's Breath!”

In the mysterious smoke of the Dragon's Breath, conjured by the even-more-mysterious Merlin, a Spirit of Ecstasy glimmers, for the wise.

Money cannot afford too much banality. If it becomes banal – as Bernanke has made it – then it dies. Powerful money, on the other hand, is interesting, even fascinating, and utterly mysterious.