The Jennings Books by Anthony Buckeridge

I used to love the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge when I was a kid.  They were set in fee-paying independent school where the children actually lived at the school and went to bed there every night!  My very worst nightmare scenario as a child since I hated  school enough as it was!  But I loved the Jennings books.  What follows is an extract from the first Jennings book, Jennings goes to School (there were about 24 books altogether). I might have hated schools, but scenarios like the following made school almost enjoyable!

 

Heavy footsteps could be heard approaching along the corridor; there was never any need for a lookout when Mr Wilkins was due to take a lesson.

“Get our your geography prep.,” he called, while still some five yards from the classroom door. There was a note of confidence in his voice, but it passed unheeded in Form Three.

Venables put up his hand as Mr Wilkins took his seat.

“Did we have to write our prep. in our books, sir?” he asked.

“Where else would you expect to write it; on the ceiling?”

“No, sir. I mean, I wondered whether we just had to learn about Australia and not write an essay.”

Mr Wilkins glared.

“So you haven’t written an essay, eh? Very well, then, if you’re looking for trouble—”

“Oh, but, sir, I have written one.”

“You said you hadn’t.”

“No, sir. I just wondered, that was all.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Mr Wilkins. He called Jennings up to the master’s desk and inspected his efforts. 

“ ‘In Austeralia,’ ” he read aloud, “ ‘there is wheat but the rabits are a pest like rats so the farmers get very cross because the rabits eat the wheat in England rabits are not a pest you can have chinchla and angora mine was white with some brown fur on and his name was Bobtail and so I got a tea chest and put straw down and made a hutch…’ ”

Mr Wilkins stopped reading “Of all the muddleheaded bone-heads—!” Words failed him for a moment. “What d’you mean by serving me up with nonsense like this?”

“But, sir, it’s not nonsense,” Jennings protested “It’s true. My rabbit was brown and white; m’uncle gave him to me for my birthday.”

“But I set an essay on Australian wheat growing, not the life story of some wretched rodent!”

“Bobtail his name was,” Jennings corrected.

“I don’t care if his name was Moses,” Mr Wilkins expostulated. “It’s not the point; it’s not geography; it’s—it’s not—”

“My father would say it was ‘not germane to the issue,’ sir,” Darbishire put in helpfully.

“That’s enough, Darbishire.” Mr Wilkins turned back to the rabbit fancier. “You illiterate nitwit, Jennings, can’t you see that your essay’s miles away from the subject? It’s a perfect example of—er—of—”

“Juvenile delinquency, sir?” suggested Darbishire.

“Be quiet, Darbishire.” Mr Wilkins turned on him angrily.

“Sorry, sir,” Darbishire said meekly.

“The trouble with you, Jennings, is that you’re half-asleep. You need waking up. Go and put your head under the tap in the wash-room and see if that’ll clear your brain at all.”

“What, now, sir?” Jennings asked.

“Yes, now, and perhaps you’ll come back a bit brighter. Go along.”

Jennings departed to the wash-room, and Mr Wilkins called Darbishire up to his desk and began to read his essay. He read, 

“ ‘The grandiose splendours of the Australian countryside unfold a never-to-be-forgotten scenic pageant that remains a priceless jewel in the memory for all time. Fair and fragrant is the vast undulation of the plains stretching relentlessly to the horizon, where in the declining rays of the setting sun, the eye of the observer is entranced to behold…’ ”

Mr Wilkins looked up, but, unlike the observer, his eye was not entranced with what it beheld. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that this is all your own work?” he said.

“Well, no, not entirely,” Darbishire confessed; “but I went to a lot of trouble and did research and stuff, sir.”

“And what about the wheat growing?”

“Oh, that comes later,” Darbishire explained. “Much later actually; in fact, I haven’t quite got up to writing it yet. All this early part is just to put the reader in the right mood, sir.”

“It’s putting me in a mood, Darbishire,” Mr Wilkins admitted; “but it’s not by any means the sort of mood you’re aiming at.”

The door opened and Jennings appeared. His visit to the wash-room had made him brighter of eye, but his head bore no signs of immersion. Mr Wilkins looked at him narrowly. This was deliberate disobedience. Very well, he was ready to meet it.

“You’ve been very quick, Jennings,” he said, with studied calmness. “Come here.”

Jennings came.

“Did you put your head under the tap as I told you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr Wilkins produced his ace.

“Then do you mind telling me,” he inquired patiently, “do you mind explaining why your hair is quite dry?”

“Well, sir, you never told me to turn the tap on.”

For the second time that morning the class rocked with laughter. Natural hearty laughter to start with, but, after a while, this was exhausted and they had to fall back on pantomime. The genuine laughter of schoolboys doesn’t take the form of knee-smiting and thigh-slapping, but in their efforts to give the impression that their mirth was uncontrollable, they rolled about in their seats and smote their knees and slapped their thighs; then they smote their neighbours’ knees and slapped their neighbours’ thighs, and gave each other coy and playful pushes—anything to focus the spotlight of attention upon their counterfeit glee. Speech came through tears of merriment.

“Oh, sir, isn’t Jennings smashing! Jolly g. answer, wasn’t it, sir?”

“You asked for that one, sir. A real priority prang!”

“He was more awake than you thought, wasn’t he, sir?”

“Sir, you should have told him to turn the tap on, sir.”

“Sir, did you forget to tell him to turn the tap on, sir, because if you didn’t actually tell him to turn the tap on, sir, he wouldn’t know he had to, would he, sir?”

Mr Wilkins waited—grimly, quietly patient. He could afford to wait, for very soon the tables would be turned. Silence came at last, and Mr Wilkins spoke in tones unusually quiet for a person of his forceful nature.

The Alleged Problems with Interactive Substance Dualism

I read the following blog post  Arguments Against Mind-Body/Substance Dualism and Responses.  I typed out a response which I posted in my facebook group here  and also as a comment below his blog post.  Unfortunately, despite apparently being sympathetic to dualism, the author didn't accept it.  Normally it is those who subscribe to materialism that refuse to publish my comments! (One example is here).   I reproduce my comment below without alteration. 

All these arguments are ridiculous.

1. Damaged brains lead to damaged minds.

Churchland claims this “comes close to being an outright refutation of (substance) dualism.”

Obviously we can think of many examples where A affects B but where no-one would dream of concluding that A produces B.

For example, eyeglasses affect our vision. As the lenses fog up, become scratched, perhaps warped or whatever, our vision will suffer. But then, when we take our glasses off, our vision is restored to what it was originally.

Moreover, just as there is no conceivable mechanism within eyeglasses that could produce vision, so there appears no conceivable mechanism within brains that could produce consciousness.

This damaged brains lead to damaged minds objection can only be rescued if we assume that cognitive ability, moods, memories etc are intrinsic to the soul and should never be able to be changed or altered, or attenuated. But here one would be assuming a materialist conception of personal identity and hence would be begging the question. For the substance dualist has a commonsensical conception of the self. The self is that which makes one feel one is the very same person from one hour to the next, one day to the next, and one year to the next. One’s moods might change from one hour to the next, one’s interests and even intelligence might change from one year to the next, nevertheless, it is still that person that undergoes all these changes. The I or me is the mental substance; contrariwise the moods, cognitive abilities, memories, interests and so on are the properties of the self/mental substance. These properties can change without me ceasing to exist and turning into another person.

2. Problem of embodiment

The critic of substance dualism asks: What is it for the mind to be housed in a body? What is it for a body to belong to a particular subject? The problem of embodiment, argues the critic, makes the union between mind and body mysterious.

What’s really mysterious is what this objection means or amounts to. One could retort that all change and interactions in the entire Universe are equally mysterious. The facts of the Universe are just given and physics merely describes change using mathematical equations. Likewise, it is a fact that my consciousness affects my body as is exemplified by the words that I am typing out now. Although we don’t have the mathematical equations describing such interactions, I don’t see any reason why they should not eventually be forthcoming.

3. Problem of the physical conception of human beings

There is the argument from the physical conception of human beings at the beginning of life. According to this objection, no one views fertilized ova as having minds; rather, these are purely physical entities. But if human beings began as wholly physical beings and nothing non-physical was later added, then they are still wholly physical creatures and substance dualism must be false.

Why on earth would the critic of dualism assume nothing non-material would be added? How can we be conscious at all if nothing is added?

4. Problem of Interaction 

Interactionism on substance dualism maintains that the mind and body causally influence each other. But some philosophers argue that this causes problems: if, on substance dualism, the mental substance is so radically distinct from the physical substance (the mental is, unlike the physical, immaterial, unextended, and therefore has no size, shape, location, mass, motion, or solidity), then they lack commonality necessary for interaction. 

I suggest that the people who voice this objection have a certain view of reality where only certain types of regularity are permitted; namely a mechanistic view of reality where all changes are captured by such contiguous physical chains of causes and effects. Essentially, they hold the view that A influences B because there is some innate power in the world that travels from A to B and necessitates change in B.

But, why must reality be limited to such regularities? Why must causes be contiguous? What permits us to a priori rule out a reality that admits influences from consciousness, or indeed even mystical principles, or magic and so on? Note that in saying causes may not need to be contiguous, we are not contradicting any physical laws. Rather, we are contradicting the mechanistic view of reality, which at best is a presupposition of science, or at least it was a presupposition of science back in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Physics simply tries to model reality based on observations in the past to predict events in the future. We call these regularities physical laws. I do not believe we can impose a priori constraints on the patterns we find there, that is we cannot say reality must conform to contiguous causes. Empirical investigation should guide our beliefs rather than a priori presuppositions. Should we dismiss the phenomenon of entanglement because it contravenes such assumptions? And, if we don't, then the alleged universality of contiguous physical causes and effects is refuted. Where one exception is found, we can surely not be surprised if we find others.

5. Argument from evolution

Churchland says:

The important point about the standard evolutionary story is that the human species and all of its features are the wholly physical outcome of a purely physical process… If this is the correct account of our origins, then there seems neither need, nor room, to fit any nonphysical substances or properties into our theoretical account of ourselves. We are creatures of matter. And we should learn to live with that fact.

The evolution story is supposed to explain the origin of our bodies and why our bodies have the characteristics they do. It only accounts for the arrival of consciousness should one assume that consciousness is literally part of the body, or in other words, if one assumes materialism upfront. But, as I have argued elsewhere, materialism is fatally problematic. Apart from that, we have yet again, a clear case of question begging.

Indeed, in order for evolution to account for consciousness, consciousness has to actually do something. But the mainstream view is that the physical world is closed, hence our consciousness is causally superfluous.

(Also see my A Causal Consciousness, Free Will, and Dualism, under the heading "Various Objections")

An old article denigrating the Internet

I read the following article published 27 years ago on the 26th February 1995.

Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana

This article adopts a similar disparaging tone to the article attacking virtual reality and the metaverse that I posted about yesterday in this blog. 

To quote a couple of parts:

Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet (sic). Uh, sure.

And:

Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them—one's a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn't work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question.

The same mistake is being made here as in the article attacking virtual reality and the metaverse.  Namely, both authors are attacking what the technology is like at the time the article was written and imagining it will never get significantly better.  Finding the date of the Battle of Trafalgar, for example, took me all of about 10 seconds.  

I should mention I'm frequently sceptical about predictions regarding technology (see here, here, here, here, here) and especially about the overly optimistic predictions about autonomous cars.  But sometimes, on odd occasions, a technology arrives that really will change the world.  The Internet was one, and I predict that virtual and augmented reality will eventually be another (maybe the metaverse too, although the term is a bit vague).

The scorn denigrating VR and the Metaverse

I read the following article:

Companies Are Spending Billions on a Metaverse That Makes No Sense 

The idea of the metaverse has captivated the attention of rich executives and credulous pundits over the past two years.

Mostly I'm encountering ridicule and withering scorn that either Virtual Reality or the Metaverse will be an success. In the case of VR this goes back to 2016. In my experience all these enthusiasts must be keeping very quiet!  Personally I think both VR and AR (Augmented Reality) will eventually be runaway successes, although the latter will be used much more (but we're talking here about 10 years or more before they both get traction).  The Metaverse?  Certain aspects of it will be a success, admittedly not work meetings so much (although they will still have a role).

Anyway, the article says: 

Who will run this thing?

 Maybe the same guy or company that runs the Internet?

How will licensing be handled?

Same way as the Internet?

How will harassment be moderated?

With as much difficulty as the Internet. It's going to be a huge problem, but I don't think this will have much impact on whether it will eventually become a success.

 and technical limitations (Will full virtual reality suits be cheap and comfortable?).

Not for a fair few years.

The one question I keep asking is: Do people actually want something like this?

So I asked Twitter. Out of 17,650 people who answered my survey, 64.5% said nope.

Back in 1990, how many would have said they would regularly go on the net once it eventually became available to them?

There's also the question of what he means by "regularly". I would have imagined maybe an hour or two every day, or whatever. But later in the article he says "Few people want to spend all day strapped into an alternate world". Probably not many of those who believe VR and the metaverse will be a runaway success envisages that most people will want to spend their time in the metaverse all day (although some people undoubtedly will, just as some people now play computer games all day or watch TV all day).

Even the biggest advocates of VR headsets readily admit that they’re best enjoyed in small doses and that VR is more of a supplement to modern gaming than a replacement.

But the issue isn't whether VR is compelling and superior to normal gaming now. It's whether it will eventually replace the gaming on a 2D screen.

Me singing "And I love her" by the Beatles

 

How does Boris do it?

Oh . . he's so wonderful!  Wish I could get women to stare at me like that with such unbridled adoration.

 

pic.twitter.com/1kbDja6Hhc

— Peter Green (@PeterGreen1966) February 2, 2022

Energy Prices

I live by myself in a flat and in the past 12 months I've used 3,121 kwh's electricity and 6,684 kwh's of gas.  12 months ago with the tariff I had with Pure Planet (which has now ceased to trade) the total price for this energy would have been £507.27 for the electricity and £275.40 for the gas, equalling a total of £782.67.  This price continued until August 2021, less than 6 months ago. I should add that Pure Planet were offering their energy too cheap, hence the reason why they and many other energy companies went under.

I was put with EDF.  Their energy cost for that specific amount of energy I used is £738.66 for the electricity and £394.87 for the gas, equalling a total of £1,133.54.  £1,133.54 compared to £782.67, an increase of 45%.  

That's bad, very bad indeed.  But soon, it's going to get much worse.  In April it is anticipated that energy bills will increase by yet a further 50%.  This will be 50% of the current tariff of £1,133.54 (not of the £782.67).  50% of £1,133.54 is £566.77.  Hence, for my use of energy for a year the new cost will be £1,133.54 plus £566.77 equals £1,700.31

So, compared to a year ago my energy costs will be increasing from £782.67 to £1,700.31.  That's an increase of £917.64 or 217%!  In other words, in the space of a year, energy prices for me will have more than doubled*.

* For those shopping for the cheapest energy deal a year ago like myself, the price of energy will more than double.  However, if one didn't shop for the cheapest deal, then the price increase will most probably be less than double.  It's worth asking ourselves here, though, who would tend to shop for the cheapest energy deals?  Surely poorer people would be somewhat more likely to do so since money is very tight and they will shop for the very cheapest products and services.  Well-off people, on the other hand, may find the whole process of changing energy provider a bit of a hassle. 

The upshot of all this then is that many, if not most, of the very poorest people will be paying more than double for their energy as compared to a year ago.  This sum will likely be in the region of them having to find an extra £1,000 or so.  That is calamitous for poor people.  The Government must provide substantial help.  Not a mere £140 by extending the warm home discount (as has been mooted), that only makes a dent in the £1000. 

3/2/22  UPDATE

From here:

The new price cap, set by energy regulator Ofgem, will come into force in April, adding up to a rise of around £700 for an average household.

People paying default tariffs by direct debit will see an increase of £693 from £1,277 to £1,971 per year, while prepayment customers will see an increase of £708 from £1,309 to £2,017.

The cap is set for six months and could rise further afterwards.

At a glance, this means:

A 54% rise from the current price cap of £1,277.

Government loans will offset £200 of the annual increase, plus a £150 council tax rebate.

New rate comes in on April 1.

The £200 discount on energy will be paid back over five years through our bills.

The net effect is that bills rise by less in the next year, but fall by less in the years to come.

The plan all depends on the market price of energy falling.

Here's what I just said on facebook (or meta as it's now called).

So, a 54% increase in the price cap. My energy usage did amount to £782.67 a year ago for 3,121 kwh's electricity and 6,684 kwh's of gas. This is now £1,133.54 for the same energy. In April this will increase by 54.2%. So £1,748.21. A total increase since a year ago of £1,748.21 - £782.67 = £965.54 per annum.

And we're not even taking into consideration the apparently 20% increase in food prices (at least from my own case), the increase in national insurance, the £20 UC uplift being scrapped and many other strains on peoples wallets.

So how is the chancellor helping? We're being give a £150 reduction in council tax, and being given a loan of £200 to help pay our energy bills which will come in October and which we will pay back over the next few years.

£150, or £350 taking into account the loan. But if one opted for the cheapest energy deals a year ago, energy *alone* has increased by roughly £1,000.

This is utterly calamitous for poor people.