The Diogenes Film Club

The Diogenes Club is well known for its film evenings which are held monthly. Films are chosen by members in turn and we all enjoy a good meal and a selection of the finest ales as an accompaniment to the main event. The Club Secretary thought it wise to record the choice of films for posterity and will keep it updated with any future events.

25 Europa

(Pridian July 10)
A dark, surreal film-noir take on the political thriller: a young American deserter trying to find a place in postwar Germany is torn between idealism and love when pressed by a terrorist group to blow up the train he is on. Danish 1991, dir. Lars von Trier

24 Burn After Reading

(Beachhut Man June 10)
Black comedy by the Cohen Bros. Ex CIA operative decides to write a memoir which gets lost. Two naive people try to sell it to the russians with dire consequences for all. At the end we are all left asking, what did we learn? The answer, as is true of life's lessons in general, is nothing.

23 LA Confidential

(Dr Phil May 10)
Corruption in the LA Police leads young rooky detective to rise to the top of this profession by being more ruthless than the corrupt officers he exposes. Set in the 1950's this has all the glamour of a Bogart movie with added colour.

22 I Know Where I'm Going 

(Zeno April 10)
Determined lady who thinks she knows her own mind persues happiness in the shape of a rich industry tychoon who can provide her with all the essentials of a happy life. On her way to marriage on a scottish island she is side-tracked by the genuine article. More Powell and Pressburger magic.

21 The Whole Wide World 

(Pridian April 10)
The author of Conan the Barbarian meets sassy Texan school teacher on the road of discovery. Does romance win out or will love be sacrificed on the sword of fantasy fiction to divide them forever?

20 The Lives of Others
(Beachhut Man Mar 10)
East German movie (sub-titled) about the Stasi and their intrusion into the minutiae of everyone's lives with its appalling and obvious consequences.

19 Conflict 
(Dr Phil February 10)
Bogart movie that has become a lost classic, in which Bogart plays the disenchanted husband who murders his wife and leaves her body under a pile of logs. Sidney Greenstreet plays the psychologist who brings him to justice.

18 Still Crazy 
(Zeno Jan 10)
Aging rock group reform for one last gig and find that age is inescapable

17 The Wind and the Lion 
(Pridian Dec 09)
The irresistible force of Connery meets the immovable resistance of Candice Bergan

16 In My Father's Den 
(Beachhut Man Nov 09)
A movie about paternal loss.

15 The Magnet 
(Dr Phil Oct 09)
A young boy tricks another into giving him his magnet. Plagued by a guilty conscience he stumbles from one narrow escape to another until at the end of the adventure he finds his deception has resulted in him being awarded the civic medal of honour, which he passes back to the original and rightful owner.

14 Melody 
(Zeno Sep 09)
Charming 70s movie of teenage love set to irresistible BeeGees music. Mark Lester falls in love and reaches that point when girls mean more than friends.

13 Much ado about Nothing 
(Pridian August 09)
Shakespeare courtesy of Kenneth Bragnan and co. A salutary tale about how the smallest of mistakes can lead the the greatest of tragedies and as the title says a great deal about very little.

12 Charlie Chaplin in Limelight
(Beachhut ManSep 09)
A piquant farewell from a tortured genius with aspirations and responsibilities in conflict.

11 To Kill a Mockingbird
(Dr Phil June 09)
Powerful drama seen through the eyes of children. Scout learns that "you never get to understand another person unless you walk around in his shoes a little"

10 The Dish 
(Zeno May 09)A gentle story about Australia's involvement in the Apollo 11 moon landing as it tracks the astronauts with its big dish in the middle of a sheep farm. A cross between Contact and Local Hero.

9 Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment 
(Pridian Apr 09)
Artist son of Marxist parents abandons traditional class-struggle ideology to indulge in fantasy - based largely on scenes from King Kong and Tarzan movies - of Natural Man living outside social convention, and pays the price.

8 The Lake House 
(Dr Phil Mar 09)
Dismissed by some as a "rom-com", hailed by others as ground-breaking paradigm-shifting science-fiction. The truth is probably neither: Two people meet and fall in love with only the barrier of time to overcome.

7 Park Row 
(Beachhut Man Feb 09)
Hard gritty newspaper story about the hard and gritty life of newspapermen. The Diogenarian maxim is, "Don't ever let anyone tell you what to write".

6 V for Vendetta 
(Zeno Nov 08)
Guy Fawkes resurrected in a dystopian future, strikes a blow for freedom and blows up the government to the general acclamation of all.

5 A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy 
(Pridian Oct 08)
A light and breezy understated comedy from the stable of Woody Allen who manages to produce a mixture of Brian Rix and William Shakespere with just a dash of New England.

4 Thank you for Smoking 
(Beachhut Man Sep 08: )
Big tobacco's spokesperson twists the truth for smoking to prevail. Katie Holmes is as an amoral journalist who gets on top of an amoral pro-tobacco spin doctor in this satire.

3 Hobson's Choice 
(Dr Phil Jul 08)
The poor but honest cobbler, with the help of a good wife, shakes off the shackles of class oppression and sets up on his own shop eventually buying out the boss.

2 Catch us if you can 

(Zeno Jun 08)
The mad cap adventures of a famous pop group (no, not the Beatles...) the Dave Clarke Five who through a wistful tour of 60s nostalgia have a zany time. But don't ask what it is all about.

1 Closely Observed Trains 
(Pridian May 08)
A group of Czech railway station porters learn how to keep themselves sane under the new Nazi occupation but don't always succeed.

The Lesson of History

"Hello chaps." I said, as I walked into the warmth of the library. Henry appeared at my elbow as I lowered myself into my chair, with my drink on a silver salver.

Travis motioned at me to keep quiet as there was a fairly heated discussion going on about the recent general election. I had been looking forward to this evening. One of the advantages of being a member of a club where the main membership requirement is an attitude of cynicism, is that a good evening's conversation is guaranteed after watching our mighty democracy being unable to make up it's mind.

Treworthy seemed quite agitated about the stories that a considerable number of people had been unable to vote due to there being a late rush toward the end of the evening.

"I can't see why they couldn't just keep the polling offices open until they had collected everyone's vote."

"It's because the rules stated that all polling stations should close at ten o'clock." said Abrahams.

"Well the rules clearly need changing. I mean the whole system is practically Victorian anyway." countered Treworthy.

"That's as maybe - I'm sure that after the enquiry changes will be made, but until that time, the current rules stand."

"Oh I know, I know, but it is a bit embarrassing, isn't it. I mean the election in Iraq seemed to be better organised. Maybe they should look into the possibility of on-line voting."

"God help us," said Manton, as he gestured furiously at Henry for another drink. "The introduction of postal voting has been responsible for some of the biggest abuses of the system in my lifetime. Can you imagine the chaos if all the votes were just collected in a huge database without any paper trail to back it up? The government's record on databases isn't particularly good."

"But it would be a very simple database, technically." said Abrahams.

"Yes, but it's not the technical aspects that doom these projects to failure, it's the human aspects. 50% of the people that they get working on these things seem to be completely useless, adding nothing of value."

"Oh come on, Manton, next you'll be saying that 50% of all people's jobs are useless too."

"I do, my dear fellow, I do. I'm thinking of writing a short monograph on the subject."

"Well what about the result itself?" said Treworthy. "A hung parliament. It's not good for the country."

"I don't see why not," I said. "I can see why the parties don't like it, but it is clearly the will of the people."

"Yes, they will have to actually keep talking to each other, rather than blindly following the party line. I wonder how long the coalition will last?" said Abrahams.

"I can't believe any of them actually want power." said Travis. "I mean, you do realise what sort of spending cuts are going to be introduced soon, don't you? Any manifesto promises are going to have to go out of the window. It's going to make the 1970s look like a picnic in comparison."

"I've always considered people who seek out power to be fairly deluded anyway." said Manton.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because they are. Who in their right mind would wish to shoulder the burdens of high office, especially at the moment?"

"Ah Manton, ever the misanthrope." I said.

"Not at all. I would put it to you that in the vast majority of cases, lust for power over others is the sign of a highly dysfunctional personality. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot - how many names do you want?"

"Yes but you are picking the biggest monsters in history. There are exceptions."

"Of course. There are always exceptions but not many."

"Nonsense. There have been some good rulers."

"Yes, but how many of them actually wanted the power? There have been some who extremely reluctantly took on he mantle of responsibility, remained full of doubts as to what was the right thing to do, and shed the responsibility as soon as they were able to, but I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the ones who can't wait to start ordering people about, and design nice uniforms for them, and who want to make the trains run on time."

"Funny you should say that Manton," I said, "but just last night I watched the film 'Downfall', about the final days of the third Reich. I found it fascinating. You see Hitler admiring his wonderful model of the new Berlin, whilst outside the city is being reduced to rubble as the Russians advance from the East and the Allies from the West. The officers in charge of the final remnants of the defence force are summoned to the bunker and they find themselves in a mad hatter's tea party. Their senior officers are all constantly drunk, or on drugs, and Hitler is completely losing touch with reality. You can see him turning in on himself, being forced for the first time to look within, and finding nothing but a gaping void. When his generals tell him that he is condemning his own people to death, he simply screams at them that it is their own fault, and that if they are not strongly enough to withstand the invaders, they all deserve to die. It's rivetting stuff."

"That's exactly what I mean. In the end, the only thing he can do is either admit to himself that he has made hideous mistake, and that he has lead the entire nation into the abyss, or commit suicide. And of course, he chooses the latter. He's got nowhere left to go. Typical case of someone who thinks that power can fill the inner void."

"I've heard of that film." said Travis, excitedly pulling out his smartphone. "There are lots of clips of it on Youtube, where people have put satiric subtitles onto it. Here, I can show you some." Having just bought it, he would try to demonstrate its features to anyone and everyone at the slightest opportunity.

A look of infinite pain flickered across Manton's face, as he waved the gadget away with a feeble paw.

"The point is, it is this gaping void within that actually creates the desire for power. The thing that makes them least suitable for the role is the thing that makes them most want to do it. It's the lesson of history."

"Oh come on Manton, you can't condemn all those that seek to improve the lot of their fellow man?" said Treworthy.

"You know full well my feelings towards my fellow man, Treworthy. We all live lives of brain-numbing banality, blind to the consequences of our actions, refusing to think about the social dysfunction, environmental impact and appalling suffering that our society has created."

"Well, thank god that not all are as nihilistic as you Manton, that is all I can say. I, for one, intend to give the new coalition my full support."

"Treworthy, did you know that the last government spent £163 billion more, per annum, than they raised in taxes? Even by slashing public spending to levels not seen since the 1970s, we cannot hope to bridge that gap. Every country in the Western world is living way beyond its means. California is in a far worse financial state than even Greece is at the moment."

"Oh come on Manton."

"I'm serious. Why is this so difficult to understand? I don't know if the world is blind, deaf or just stupid. We've given billions to these people .... did you know that each of the big hedge fund managers is getting about $3 billion in bonuses EACH. $3 billion!"

"They are saying that the recession is over." said Abrahams.

"Well it certainly is for them. For the rest of us, it is just beginning. Our money has been stolen from us, forcing us to pay, against our will, for the lifestyle of the super-rich, while our health services, transport services, education services and just about every other pathetic attempt to make our lives more livable is going to be effectively destroyed in the attempt to pay off the debts they've created. And do you know the best bit? We are going to be told by these same people that we must become more efficient, that it is all caused by the inefficient practices of all these public services. We are going to be a third-world country in all but name."

"You can't really believe that."

"Why not? I don't understand why people aren't more angry. In the past, the super-rich tended to be a bit more discreet, but maybe they feel that they don't need to be any more. They will probably pretend to be surprised and horrified when the cities finally erupt into violence, like they have in Greece, and refuse to see any connection between their inconceivable levels of wealth and everyone else's suffering."

"Well what would you do about it?"

"I'd pass laws to restore the separation between high street banks and merchant banks. I'd pass laws to institute a maximum wage, or a maximum differential between the lowest and highest paid. I'd outlaw derivatives and all the other insane methods of setting up fictitious markets. That would be a start."

"Manton, the city would never wear it. You would cripple their ability to make money."

"They aren't making money, they are making debt. What do you think caused this latest crisis? All these financial tricks are simply ways of enabling money to generate more money without any useful work being done. The world can support a certain amount of that, but not if everyone is trying to do it. You can't have economic growth forever. They've attempted to keep it going by finding new markets, but there are only so many manufacturing companies that you can invest in. So what happens is that they start to invest in more abstract things, that don't necessarily provide employment for others. Stocks, shares, intellectual property rights, land, water, housing and other property. They make money out of them by trying to ensure that they always increase in value."

"Well, I'm not complaining," said Treworthy, "my house is worth twice what is was when I bought it."

"Yes, but it has the side effect that, eventually, most people can't afford those assets - how can the price of something keep rising if no one can afford it? So what do they do? They create totally fictitious markets, like Carbon Trading. And they make the idea of personal debt completely normal - something that would have been anathema to my Father's generation. They draw us into their mess by telling us how we must all have a mortgage. You can't go on strike if you have a mortgage. Better still, have a credit card. In fact, why not have both?"

"But that's a good thing, Manton." said Travis. "You can't deny that everyone's living standards have gone up."

"Yes, but that could have been achieved by increasing everyone's wages. Why do it by placing everyone into debt? Simply because it turns us all into an investment opportunity for the rich. They will give us credit - at a rate of interest, of course. And so we get turned into cannon fodder for whatever their next great scheme is for transferring our money into their pockets." Manton paused, and then said quitely, as if to himself, "It's all wrong."

The room was silent, as it usually was after one of Manton's tirades. The only sound was the ticking of the Grandfather clock in the corner.

"Sorry about that chaps." said Manton, after a while. "You know what I'm like once I get the bit between my teeth. Henry! Drinks for everyone - put them on my account."

"Oh, that's alright Manton, it would be a dull evening without you holding forth on some topic or other." said Travis.

"It sounds to me like you might be turning into a Marxist." added Abrahams, jokingly.

"Do you know, it's funny you should say that. I've always fancied having a crack at Das Kapital, to see if I could get my head round it. Just to see if it makes any sense purely as an economic theory."

"Didn't he write it at your place of work, Manton?" said Treworthy.

"Yes. Well, I don't know if he wrote it there, but it's true that he did most of his research at the British Library. I quite like the idea, for some reason."

"If my memory serves, sir," said Henry, "there is a copy of the first volume of Das Kapital in the club library. Would you like me to get it for you?"

"No, no, you see to the drinks. I'll get it."

"Very good sir."

By the time Henry had brought our drinks, Manton had located the book and was leafing through it.

"Good Lord", he said, in a stunned voice.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a first edition. Signed by the author."

"Signed? Isn't it a club tradition that members who have written a book..."

"Henry," interrupted Manton, "does this mean that Karl Marx was a member of the Diogenes Club?"

"I would have to consult the membership ledgers before I could say for certain, sir. However, if I may be permitted to make an observation...."

"Of course, Henry."

"A person who stated in 1867 that capitalism would inevitably collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, would probably be considered to be enough of a cynic to be eligible for membership."

"I think I had better start reading," said Manton. "I've got some catching up to do."

The View From The Cave

There was a distinct chill in the air, and for some reason I felt a tinge of melancholia as I pushed open the door and walked into the lobby of the Diogenes club, on the first day of the new year. Henry popped out of nowhere, and was at my elbow as I shrugged off my overcoat and scarf.

"Happy New Year, Henry."

"Thank you Sir. And seasonal felicitations to you. Your usual drink, Sir?"

"Yes please, Henry. Are the others here?"

At that moment I was hit by a blast of icy air as the front door was pushed open again.

"Oh, Hello Travis." I said, as Henry took my hat and gloves.

"Afternoon, old man. Hello Henry. Happy New Year and all that."

"Thank you Sir."

"What do you want to drink, Travis?"

He handed his coat to Henry, and then said "Oh, a glass of Ardbeg for me, I think. Cheers."

Henry headed towards the cloakroom and we walked into the warmth of the library.

For once, Manton was sipping his drink quietly, and it was Abrahams, our resident academic, who was holding forth.

"It's getting very difficult to understand the governmental directives these days."

"In what way?" asked Treworthy.

"Well, if we take on too few students, and don't meet our targets, we will be penalised. If we take on too many students and exceed our targets, we will be fined several thousand per student. It is a most ... unsystematic approach."

This was clearly a cardinal sin, in Abrahams' well-ordered world.

"It makes perfect sense to me." replied Treworthy, somewhat unsympathetically.

"Yes, but the trouble is that we always take on a few more students than our targets, because we know that some of them will drop out."

"Well, clearly you must ensure that they don't."

"But they always do. Every year. You always lose a couple of students, whether it be for personal reasons, financial reasons or something else."

"Hang on a sec," interjected Travis, "what you are saying is that you are being fined by the government for meeting targets that were set by that same government."

"Yes, that's precisely the problem."

"Oh it just sounds like the usual rubbish." I said. "Ignore it and it will go away eventually."

"Yes, but the other problem is that we are going to get our funding cut by DIUS."

This finally roused Manton out of his reverie.

"DIUS? What in the name of insanity is that?"

"The Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills." said Treworthy, helpfully.

"As ever, Treworthy, your insider knowledge of Her Majesty's Home Civil Service has proved invaluable. What happened to the DES?"

"The Department for Education and Skills has been demerged."

"Is that even a word?"

"Some of its functions have been taken over by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, whereas the oversight of Universities became the responsiblitiy of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills."

"Oh God." Manton sank deeper into the black depression from which he had briefly emerged. "Anything with the word 'Innovation' in the title is doomed to failure. I don't know how you put up with it, Treworthy."

"I find it fascinating, actually. As a matter of fact, the DIUS has since merged with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and is now called the 'Department for Business, Innovation and Skills', so Abrahams wasn't entirely accurate."

"You're starting to scare me now, Treworthy." warned Manton, as he took a huge gulp from his glass.

"It does seem ominous that the word 'Universities' does not even appear in the name anymore." said Abrahams.

I leaned over and said "Are you alright, Manton? You seem a little under the weather."

"You would be feeling under the weather if you had spent Christmas with the venomous hell-spawn that I was once married to."

"What on earth possessed you to spend Christmas with her?"

"It is a story too complex and, frankly, too embarrasing to relate here. Suffice to say that rather than repeat the episode, I would rather be stranded on a particularly small asteroid and be left to experience the heat-death of the universe totally alone."

"Never mind about all that," interrupted Treworthy, "what about Abrahams's problem?"

"I've lost track." said Travis, "what is his problem?"

"Well, in essence, the DIUS, or the DBIS or whatever it is called, is going to cut university funding by 400 million, next year." said Abrahams.

"We live in uncertain times, Abrahams," said Manton. "Don't forget, there are a lot of bankers out there who need their bonuses paid. That 90 million that we gave them has to come from somewhere. Money doesn't just grow on trees you know."

"It doesn't need to. We can just print more of it. It's called quantitive easing. Do keep up Manton." said Travis.

"Yes - how exactly does that work Travis? On the one hand, we can just print more money, but on the other, we still have to make cuts in education?"

"Well lets face it, if you are going to print more money, you aren't just going to give it the education sector are you." I had decided to stir things up a bit. "You know what they are like."

"Yes, no doubt we would start to pay each other huge bonuses." said Abrahams dryly. "Mind you, Mr Mandelson did write us a nice letter asking us to protect quality and continue widening access to higher education, during this difficult time."

"Hah," shouted Manton, "marvellous isn't it. I don't suppose he gave any pointers as to how you could go about doing that, within a framework of budgetary cuts?"

"He was slightly vague on that point."

"Not so fast, Manton." exclaimed Treworthy. "I read something about this in the paper this morning. Quite a few MP's have got an exciting new idea which might help in this regard."

"I'm all ears, old boy."

"Well, degree courses. Do they really need to be 3 years long? Couldn't we fit them into 2 years?"

"I thought that was what these Foundation degree things were for?"

"No, no, a full BSc or BA. After just 2 years. Think of the possibilities."

"Oh I am, Treworthy. A generation of youth who are even more illiterate and innumerate than the current one. A complete inability to even maintain our current technological infrastructure, let alone improve it. The removal of yet more challenging content from courses in pursuit of an easy qualification that we can label as a 'degree'. The possilities are clearly endless."

"I afraid this is the sort of attitude that restricts reform in the public sector, Manton. Thank God you are not involved in implementing these policies."

"Something that I give thanks to our Lord for on a daily basis, Treworthy. Or at least I would if I believed in Him. And if you want to start reforming something, I feel you should start with the Civil Service itself."

"That is a completely different case, Manton. Not comparable at all." blustered Treworthy, as he got up and headed to the bar.

"Yes, I rather thought it might be. Put your own house in order first, Treworthy." called out Manton, at his departing back.

"But surely the politicians don't really believe all this rubbish they are spouting, do they?" asked Travis.

"There is a very easy way to determine that. If Oxford or Cambridge are made to reduce their degree courses to two years, I think we can take that as a sign that the politicians are sincere." said Manton.

"It's all rather depressing really, isn't it." I said, my melancholia suddenly resurfacing. "Why is it always a struggle to keep sight of what should be self-evident truths. It's like we have constructed a society which is deliberately designed to obscure the view, and distract us with trivialities."

We all sat, pondering this thought whilst watching the flames dance in the fireplace. Treworthy returned from the bar with a fresh drink.

"I think it's a rather deeper problem actually," said Manton, after a few minutes reflection. "It puts me in mind of something that I learned from an old fakir in a temple in Amritsar during my days on the hippy trail."

Travis started choking as he tried not to spray his mouthful of whiskey all over the carpet, and I glanced at Abrahams, who looked as stunned as I'm sure I did. Only Henry showed absolutely no sign of surprise.

Manton sipped meditatively on his drink in silence, allowing us time to compose ourselves. Treworthy was the first to recover the power of speech.

"Manton, you don't seriously expect us to believe...."

"I expect nothing, my dear fellow. I only offer up this piece of wisdom in the same spirit that it was imparted to me. I have not always been a merely sedentary seeker of truths."

"I didn't think that you had ever been outside of the British Isles, Manton." I said.

Manton shrugged and gestured to Henry for another drink.

"Or even outside the M25 for that matter." muttered Travis. If Manton heard him, he gave no sign.

"It may interest you all to know that in my youth, having read Hesse, Marcuse and similar tracts, I embarked on a journey to the East, an essentially spiritual search, seeking out those wise and holy men that could help me in my quest for enlightenment.
It was whilst I was in the aforementioned city that I learned of the concept of Maya. It is the name that certain philosophers give to the limited, physical and mental reality in which our consciousness has become entangled. It is held to be an illusion, a veiling of the true unitary self. Many religions and philosophies seek to 'pierce the veil' of Maya in order to glimpse the transcendent truth, from which the illusion of physical reality springs."

I ordered another drink from Henry. This new side to Manton was a somewhat alarming one, and I was going to need more than one glass of finest Malt to get used to it.

"So what you are saying," said Abrahams, "is that mankind always has trouble seeing the truth - that it is in our nature to look no further than the surface, be distracted by the superficial."

"It is an ancient idea. I think our modern industrialised society is just the latest manifestation of it. We are becoming more and more dependent on technology, because it enables us to pay less attention to the constraints of nature, and even gives us the illusion that we can ignore them all together. We think we are free, but in fact we have built incarcerated ourselves inside a prison of our own making."

"Wait a minute Manton," exclaimed Treworthy, "I distinctly remember arguing with you about this very matter some years ago. You were pouring scorn on my environmental concerns."

"No, Treworthy, I was pouring scorn on the solutions that you were offering. If people want to recycle their bottles, or buy a carrier bag with a Greenpeace logo on, then so be it. I just don't think that they will have the slightest effect on the welfare of the planet. We have locked ourselves in our prison and are currently bricking up the doorway from the inside to stop ourselves from escaping. Not only that, we are also poisoning the air, food and water supply, into the bargain. I said it then and I will say it again now. We are all doomed and it is no better than we deserve. All that technology does, is allow us to hold reality at bay for a while. Until it goes wrong. Which it always does, sooner or later."

At that moment, the lights all went out. The room was dark, save for the flickering firelight.

I don't mind admitting, I was quite rattled, and I wasn't the only one.

"What do you think about all this, Henry?" I said, in a attempt to break the silence.

"I am reminded of a passage from Plato's Republic, sir."

"Ah yes indeed," whispered Manton, staring trance-like into the flames. "We are all still stuck in the cave, watching the shadows on the wall."

"Quite so, Sir. I shall endeavour to procure a candelabra, in an attempt to dispel some of the shadows, in here at least."

"Thank you Henry. Unlike most of the people in the cave, we would be most grateful."

When The Club Went World Wide

In the Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle describes the Diogenes Club as a place where odd and unsociable men go only to read the latest periodicals, all talk being forbidden. This was an exaggeration, but under the circumstances, the Club felt it was better to leave well enough alone, rather than risk drawing attention to activities which were, in both government and Club terms, unofficial and often diplomatically sensitive. Now, a century on, there is no longer a compelling reason to withhold the explanation as to what the great interest was in all that reading.

In 1891, a publisher named George Newnes had created The Strand Magazine, which quickly became the regular home for the Sherlock Holmes stories (he having first appeared in Beeton’s Xmas Annual). A self-made man from the Industrial North and a philanthropic exponent of “Muscular Christianity,” Newnes built a publishing empire with titles such as Tit-Bits, a popular-miscellany magazine now classed as a harbinger of ‘the New Journalism,’; the Review of Reviews, whose monthly digests of leading journals and magazines appealed to busy professional men; the Westminster Gazette (an evening paper printed on green paper); Country Life; and The Captain, one of those youth periodicals meant to inspire ideals of sportsmanship, fair play and Empire. (A Liberal MP from 1885 on, Newnes became Sir George in 1895, and a country gent with an estate in North Devon.)

Since 1891, The Strand Magazine has been the title familiar to Holmes fans the world over, but from it would come a longer-running spin-off, to which Club members frequently contributed, it soon becoming the most requested title in the Club library. This was The Wide World Magazine, which survived (later as plain “Wide World”) until 1965, outlasting The Strand by 15 years. Throughout the 1890s Newnes kept receiving articles from all around the world on travel adventures, colonial experiences, and the like, which didn’t fit in with The Strand’s cosmopolitan mandate. Such true-life outdoor adventure stories did find publication in other periodicals, but there was no magazine dedicated to suchlike. Thus in 1898 was born The Wide World Magazine, subtitled 'The Magazine for Men'. It has to be said this was nothing like the later American pulp men’s magazines, whose covers featured red-blooded action heroes and blondes in revealingly-ripped underwear, in some type of jeopardy such as Nazi torturers or crazed beasts.

WWM contributors included authentic explorers like the African explorer Stanley, and keen-minded travellers like Conan Doyle himself, who had wide-ranging interests. Most were amateurs contributing a single article on their experiences abroad, and each issue had articles describing first-hand experiences all over the globe (helpful diagram map provided each issue). Club members would lap up articles like ‘Queer Scenes in Sumatra’, ‘The Hasheesh Smugglers Museum’, ‘Savages At School’, ‘How We Hid The Nihilist’, ‘Klondike Pictures’, ‘The Queerest Fire Brigade In The World’, ‘Rock Climbing In Great Britain’, ‘Across Europe Without A Passport’, ‘The Motor Cab School’, ‘My Cycle Ride To Khiva’, and ‘How I was Buried Alive.’ These are all examples from a single bound volume, representing the first half-year’s worth.

The magazine’s commitment was to strange-but-true stories, but from the outset it was beset by the problem of verifying whether any given submission was indeed true, and they were soon the victim of hoaxes. The very first year, WWM’s ‘How I was Buried Alive’ by one Baron Corvo, proved the work of a now-famous literary fantasist, Frederick ‘Hadrian VII’ Rolfe. The same year was the more spectacular case of the self-proclaimed ‘King of The Cannibals’ who in a year-long series of WWM articles told how after being marooned off NW Australia he had spent 30 years among the aborigines. Newnes got the Royal Geographic Society to agree to sponsor talks by the author, Louis de Rougemont, and circulation soared. However certain details (like a reference to flying wombats) made knowledgeable club members suspicious, and they alerted Newnes, who foolishly tried to brazen it all out. The author soon proved to be one of those types who reinvent themselves every year with some new scheme, and was known to the Australian police as Louis Grin. It turned out Grin had added to his knowledge by spending time in the British Library Reading Room – something that helped convince the Club Secretary to stock all the major periodicals – not just The Wide World.



Newnes personally brought over a selection from his publishing empire for the Secretary to peruse. Of course it was Wide World that was most avidly read, with its focus on expeditions to remote territories – and the fact Club members would often know the authors. They would sit there for hours over a pot of coffee, entranced by accounts like “Exploring The Skeleton Coast,” “Australia's Mounted Police,” and “Killer Cats Of British Columbia” (to use 3 examples from one issue). The Reading Room, which was not large, would soon fill up, and even the front lounge was given over to reading rather than talking. The quite clubbable Conan Doyle had visited the Club one day in 1890 (the Secretary wanted him to join) and saw this for himself, later calling this behaviour “queer” in print. (The great man joined several other clubs, including the most prestigious, the Athenaeum.) Club members, who were often self-educated, self-made men like George Newnes, clearly did not think so, but did not try to change this view.

One reason for being circumspect was that in those days, travels to remote districts were often a cover for intelligence work. Too often, travellers who kept diaries and sketchbooks or took photographs were arrested as spies, and some indeed were. Newspaper tycoons would openly finance expeditions with political ambitions, and even try to stir up colonial wars. (Many readers will be familiar with US tycoon William Randolph Hearst’s role in helping foment the Spanish-American War of 1898, and Evelyn Waugh’s satiric novel Scoop, based on his experience as a war correspondent in 1930s Abyssinia.) Similarly on the exploration front, Stanley’s explorations to find Dr Livingstone were backed by a newspaper (Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald), which led to the Belgian king offering him a chance to run the Congo as a slave colony.

Over the years, there were endless press-involved expeditions to remote regions from Asia to the Poles - any of which might lead to a diplomatic claim to the territory, accusations of spying, and possibly even a war with rival powers. In 1898, to help kick-start WWM, Newnes had financed an Antarctic expedition, after the Royal Geographical Society spent years in political wrangling over details, and had himself filmed seeing the expedition off. Ironically, the news was knocked off the front pages by sensational tales of the hoaxer Louis de Rougemont, by then taken up by other newspapers. But there would be another six decades of Wide World expeditions, some no doubt with covert backing – and the help of other well-placed Club members. For a long time “DC” was not used just the Club’s initials, but was short-hand for “Decent Chap” – a man you could trust with your life (and who wasn’t afraid to smoke a pipe either).

A few of these Club-backed expeditions have become legendary within the Club portals, and now the protagonists are all safely dead, perhaps we can recount a few tales someday soon... Such behind-the-scenes arrangements have mostly never come to light since the archives of Wide World, which included correspondence with many great men of the time, mysteriously disappeared during WWII, after they were put in “deep storage” during the 1940 invasion scare. Perhaps it is no surprise they never resurfaced. There would have been Whitehall concerns that colonial history would have to be rewritten in places. Even today, the entire clutch of issues raised by the WWM - what was real, what was propaganda, who was financing an expedition, what its real aims were etc - remains touchy. The compiler of a recent reprint-anthology (an English lecturer described as “long obsessed with the treasure trove of Wide World Magazine”) had to use a pen-name to protect his identity, and his anthology, published by Macmillan, vanished from print so quickly that searching for it on Amazon showed no results.


Another sensitive factor was the secret existence from 1898 to 1948 of the WWB – The Wide World Brotherhood, set up 'to treat fellow members as brothers and, if need arises, give them any help possible'. Until 1949, the WWB was kept a secret from ordinary readers, known only to contributors. Among these were of course many Club members, who were able to use it when in remote ports, on expeditions and cruises often diplomatically sensitive and not officially supported. After 1949, the WWB was turned into an organisation open to any reader who undertook its guiding principle of helping other Brothers as “a solemn pledge.” The magazine explained “The WWB is a fraternity of men and women of goodwill, linked by the common bond of a love of travel and adventure.” The magazine also published looking-for-pen-friends lists, so members could contact one another.

There was no fee, the only cost 5 shillings for a discreet gilt and enamel buttonhole badge to identify oneself to others in the Brotherhood. There was a brooch for lady members, of whom there were soon a surprising number (it turned out they were being encouraged to join by love-starved bachelor Brothers.) These identification pins could of course be worn strict school-uniform style, i.e. on the underside of the lapel, if discretion was wanted. You also got a certificate of WWB life membership, and could also purchase a pure-silk WWB tie (British-made, of course) and silk ‘muffler’ cravat. There were also heraldic-style shields and seals that could be variously mounted around den or office. Motoring members could obtain a windscreen sticker and a pennant that bolted onto the radiator cap.

Throughout the century, the world became less and less an unknown region, and soon the magazine became more for the armchair ‘adventurer’ (and today, a nostalgic collectable). The WWB developed a domestic version, becoming the basis of small local social groups here in England. They would meet in corners of quiet pubs and go on modest outings by motor car into the depths of the countryside - much as we still do today.

The Astounding Story of the Brain of Dr Morbius

One of the reasons that none of us is too specific about the the location of the Diogenes Club is, to be brutally honest, because we want to keep it to ourselves. This is not for any reason of elitism on our part, far from it. It's simply a matter of self-protection. The fact is that once it gets out that a collection of writers, editors, scientists, philosophers and a newspaper proprietor are meeting together, it inevitably attracts all manner of weird and wonderful people who just want to have someone listen to their latest crack-pot ideas.

We are always very happy to welcome guests as long as they have been vouched for by a fellow member but one thing that none of us can abide is the gate-crashers who pick up on our meetings and weigh in with their own peculiar and strident views. We have been the target of all manner of Conspiracy Theorists who have been kidnapped by aliens, Knight's Templar hunters who have discovered the Grail, Bogus Scientists who have invented a perpetual motion machine and the woolly minded who just know the Truth is out there.

Though it was said to me, in all earnestness, by someone who met a few of us recently, that they thought the four best minds in the country congregated at the Diogenes Club (modesty prevents me from naming the individuals so identified) I wouldn't want you to think that all our conversations were highly erudite and intellectual. It's true you may find the odd conversation here and there about the nature of Time or the workings of the grand unified field theory, but you will also hear about the history of the seaside or the films of David Lean or even the building of garden sheds. And in the reading room together with well thumbed copies of The Times, you will also find some of our more interesting provincial newspapers such as the Hengistbury Head Times.

One thing that may surprise you is the club's most widely-read journal (which used to be the The National Enquirer - that hotbed of unbelievable truth, alas no longer with us) is now past issues of Astounding Stories, which has to be admitted does contain some elements of fiction. I think the reason for the popularity of this particular magazine among club members is the resonance it produces, as much of the goings-on in and around the club are not too dissimilar to the kind of events that you read about in Astounding Stories. In fact many of the club's more interesting events have ended up (rewritten and anonymize of course) among the pages of that august journal.

One example which came to mind recently was the strange tale of the brain of Dr Morbius. Morbius or Professor Morbius F.R.S. to give him his full title, was one of the founding members of the Diogenes Club. He was well known within his own academic circles as the greatest living expert on arthropods - every genus, family and species he had personally committed to memory due to his extraordinary facility of having a true photographic memory. From the age of 2 he had shown the most astounding ability in being able to remember word for word everything he had seen or heard. Every book, every newspaper article, every parliamentary debate he had ever read or heard was at his total recall.

Many is the time he would sit in the long gallery of the club and entertain the members by reciting, word for word, any part of Great Expectations, or The Old Curiosity Shop or any other book which he had read. He would just start at any chapter you named and without book or paper or any aid would just recite the whole thing with complete accuracy. You would inevitably have some members checking him with the book open in their hands but never once did anyone hear him make a mistake even though he had not read some of those books for over 20 years.

And his facility with hearing was just as astounding. He could recall exactly every word of a conversation that he had heard, even if it had taken place years before and lasted many hours. I recall the time when often Dr Morbius would be called to settle some argument in the Club about who had said what last week. You know the kind of thing, one member would accuse the other of having said so and so and the other would say he never did. Morbius would be sent for, and if had been present his pronouncement would settle the matter unequivocally.

Of course as you might expect, Dr Morbius' abilities became centrally important to the running of the club. All the rules, amendments, deliberations, protocols, commentaries, minutes, membership rolls and decisions of the club were stored in Morbius' head. You could go so far as to say that Morbius was the club - so reliable was he that he eclipsed every other form of record and eventually no other form was used. And this was the how things persisted for many years.

So it came as a great shock to the club to discover one day that Morbius had consulted his doctor only to find he had been diagnosed with an incurable complaint and was give just 6 months to live. Being a methodical and practical person it was professor Morbius' desire to ensure that all his effect were in order before the 6 months were up. But things are not so straightforward with a person like Morbius. What would become of all the archives held in his brain? He started at once writing down everything he recalled of the club's activities into a set of journals. But it was soon realised that even if Morbius was to spend all his six months transcribing everything in his head, he would only be able to cover a small part of it. Still Morbius pressed on believing it his duty to the members to at least record as much as possible.

Being the scientist he was he began to conduct investigations into other ways of preserving the information in his brain. And it was not long before he came up with an astounding but nevertheless practical plan. He addressed the assembled members one day "I have given the problem much thought. The disease that is in my body is not affecting my brain in any way. So I have come to the conclusion that the best way to protect the brain from the body is to sever one from the other.

A gasp went round assembly. "What do you mean professor?" called out a voice.

He looked at us solemnly. "With any serious illness you have to cut away the diseased part. I my case that means cutting away the body in order to preserve my head and my brain. It makes clear logical sense."

"No one can survive if they have their head cut off," shouted Carruthers, rather stating the obvious.

"I am not proposing to cut off my head, but rather cut off my body. There is an important difference. It is not my head I am proposing to throw away." He smiled benignly. "I have looked into this whole matter very carefully. My head shall be preserved in a machine that will supply all the necessary blood and nutrients. It is all rather simple and straightforward from a scientific point of view and I have already engaged my colleagues at University College Hospital to begin constructing the machine. I have calculated that with 12 pints of blood and the appropriate filters and glucose and enzyme injectors the machine would run without problems. With your approval I propose that my head will be bequeathed to the Club who will look after it here."

And so it was. A quick resolution of the club members agreed that Dr Morbius brain with all its essential information would be preserved for the club and for posterity. Within the month the procedure was scheduled. A team of surgeons from UCH came and after an eight hour operation the professor's head was duly removed and place in the machine. Apparently it was quite a straightforward procedure. It was just a matter of connecting the veins and arteries to the appropriate pipes and pumps that took away the blood, cleaned and filtered it, added the appropriate level of hormones, enzymes, vitamins and nutrients (mostly in the form of simple glucose) and the task was completed.

The machine itself was where all the complexity lay. It had to perform all the tasks that the various organs in the human body did. Top of the list was the liver with over 500 functions. But there are also the functions of the kidneys, pancreas, spleen, adrenal glands etc to duplicate. Fortunately not all functions are as vital as others and the medial team reduced the total number to 27 essential processes that the machine could perform. However even 27 processes take up a lot of space which meant the machine was of a serious size and had to be installed in a dedicated room that was given over by the club to the sole purpose of storing the head. Later on it became possible to create a more portable machine that the brain could be transferred to and wheeled around from room to room. But the brain could not survive long in the portable machine and had to be transferred back to the main critical-support unit within 8 hours or necrosis would begin.

I don't know what we were all expecting to see once the transfer had taken place but I can tell you that the vision of a disembodied head staring out at your from above a rack of technical equipment was unnerving for even the hardiest of the members. One or two could not bear to be in the same room as 'the head' as they called it. Some had even been physically sick when first confronted by it. What Morbius himself would make of it we could only guess.

At first there was little in the way of communication. The head made no movement and seemed asleep or even dead, so little happened. But we were assured by the medics that all was well and we needed to give Morbius' head time to recuperate from the ordeal. Then around 10 days after the operation the eyes flicked opened and stared unresponsively back at anyone who care to look into them. It took another day or so before I noticed that the eyes started to follow people around the room. Progress was swift after that.

It was the next day that communication was established. I suppose most of us were thinking that Morbius would just start talking when he was good and ready but it was not so simple as that. To talk you not only needed a pair of vocal chords but also the diaphragm and lungs to push the air over them in a controlled way. But Morbius had neither.

Blinking was the only means of communicating to begin with. We set up a simple code, once for yes, twice for no, and different blinks for other words, but the whole thing was damnably slow.

"Are you alright, Professor Morbius?"

Blink

"Is there anything we can get you?... do for you?"

Blink, Blink.

It was Morbius himself who, through this tortuous means, eventually suggested that we run a line of compressed air from the critical-support unit in through the severed neck and over the larynx and by a method of trial and error and with a good deal of patience Morbius was able to talk again. So successful and rapid was the progress with restoring the voice of Morbius that a closed club meeting was announced for Morbius' first public appearance.

"Thank you all gentlemen for coming," began the head. The words didn't sound human, more mechanical and aspirated with a gentle hiss of air in the background. "The experiment has proved a complete success and I am very pleased with the outcome. As far as I can tell, all my faculties remain fully intact and completely under my control. My memory is still as comprehensive as ever it was and my powers of recall are total. And I am please to put all of this at yours and the clubs disposal."

An appreciative murmur circulated around the assembled throng. "Let's hear it for Dr Morbius! Hip Hip Hurray!" Everyone cheered. I looked over at Manton who had always deprecated these kinds of shows of enthusiasm which he said were artificial, but I noticed even he joined in on this occasion.

Well it was not long before the brain of Morbius was again at the centre of the Club's activities. It became a daily routine each morning to detach the head from the critical-support unit and place it on the portable unit. In order to spare the sensitives of those members who could never come to terms with shocking sight, it became customary to place a black silk cloak around the whole apparatus buttoned right up to the neck of Morbius' head. This gave the impression of some kind of conical body below the head that glided smoothly on wheels. In this fashion Morbius was moved from room to room to partake in the day to day running of the club. He even spent some time in the long gallery enjoying the informal conversion of club members who dropped in.

And in this way Morbius continued to take part in the life of the club, though what sort of life it was only Morbius could know. On the surface he seemed at ease with his new situation and said the he felt more like a machine than a human being and that suited him fine - though a few of us who knew him well did not believe that. Being more machine, than human enabled him to think more clearly he told us. It gave him a detached view of things - a less emotive view. But I thought that I caught sight of those emotions he sought hard to suppress, cross his face now and again. Often we would see him with what I took to be tears in his eyes but which he assured us was no more than a fluid mis-adjustment in the support machine. However one thing that no one could doubt was that Morbius' brain was more creative and productive than ever. But whether by design or accident it was one of Morbius' brilliant innovations that brought everything crashing to an end.

Morbius had realized in his disembodied state that the storage capacity of his brain was, if not infinite, at least much larger than had been understood and could accommodate much more information than he had so far fed into it. He also learned that the processing speed of his brain could be greatly increased allowing information to be fed into his brain at 10, 20 or even a 100 times the rate he had previously. And as there was very little else that Morbius could other than acquire information, that became his main goal.

This lead him to the design of what he called his 'brain cramming machine' It worked rather like a huge reel to reel tape recorder. The idea was simple. He could employ people to read books for him, encyclopedias, novels, textbooks, everything directly onto the recording machine and then he could listen to it playback over the loudspeaker at 100 times the speed it went in. No one else could understand the sound that came from it, and I dare say Morbius himself couldn't understand the sound in real time either. But he found that it all lodged in his memory and when he mentally played back the unrecognisable sounds to himself and slowed them down appropriately in his head he could understand everything and had access to all the information in compressed form.

And so the process began of assistants recording everything they could lay their hands on. They spoke directly into the recorder and Morbius would listen to the playback in 100th the time and remember it all.And that was how it all came to an abrupt end.

As I said before, we don't know if it was an accident or not but if it wasn't then I can confidently say that only Morbius himself could have thought of this as a way of ending it all. He instructed his assistant to leave the recording facility switched on. The assistant was quite adamant about that in the later inquest. Morbius then instructed him to switch on the playback, turn the volume up and leave the room immediately and silently. This he did without question, not knowing what it was for or what the effect might be.

It was only an hour or so later that he returned to find Morbius dead and with his eyes staring unresponsively straight ahead. There was a high pitched whine coming from the recording/playback machine which clearly had entered some kind of feedback loop. It appeared from the investigation later that Morbius had spoken some words into the recorder and with the loudspeaker switched on those words had been speeded up and heard all over the laboratory. The compressed words were then pick up again by the recorder and came out of the loudspeaker even faster and so the loop went on louder and louder and faster and faster. Round and round it went through the recorder and out the other end till the information became a whirring blur of sound. Morbius of course heard all of this and it was fed directly into his brain at increasing speed. It seems that some kind of limit must have been reached and a mental overload occurred. Metaphorically it blew a neurological fuse.

The inquest ruled that it was just a tragic accident. Death by misadventure. But I am not so sure. A couple of days after the inquest, I went back into the lab and I fished out that final message that had been screeching out of the machine and did my own analysis on it. I wanted to know if that sound held any clue to what had happened. I had to run it backwards through the recorder for around an hour before I could make sense of it. It was Morbius himself speaking. It wasn't much but it was enough.

Morbius' last words were unmistakable. He had spoken ten simple words that had wrapped themselves up into a torrent of information repeated over and over again. "I am not a machine, I am a human being".

Ten Funniest Moments in British Comedy

As I was sitting in my favourite armchair at The Diogenes Club and tucking into a plate of buttered crumpets I heard old Carruthers chortling away. We all looked up from our copies of the Times and and Manton asked him what was up. He said the funniest line he had heard in any movie was from a strange man with a black moustache and a big cigar who had said "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it".

Well we all looked at him strangely but then this led us to a club discussion as to what were the top British comedy moments on either the big or small screen. No one could agree so I thought I would record here my own personal top-ten list for posterity. I am sure other members would have a different list. Here are mine in reverse order:

10 Morecambe and Wise
Andre Previn: "You're playing all the wrong notes!"
Eric(menacing):"I'm playing all the RIGHT notes...just not necessarily in the right order!"

9 Kenneth Williams - Carry on Cleo
Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!

8. John Cleese - Fawlty Towers, The Germans
Fawlty: "You started it............."
German Guest: "No we didn't"
Fawlty: "Yes you did! You invaded Poland!"

7. Monty Python - The Holy Grail
ARTHUR: Does your master want to come with us to search for the Holy Grail?
GUARD: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen... Uh, he's already got one, you see.
ARTHUR: What?
GALAHAD: He says they've already got one!
ARTHUR: Are you sure he's got one?
GUARD: Oh, yes, it's very nice-a (I told him we already got one)
ARTHUR: Well, um, can we come up and have a look?
GUARD: Of course not! You are English types-a!
ARTHUR: Well, what are you then?
GUARD: I'm French! Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king!

6 Dirk Bogarde - Doctor in the House
The great Sir Lancelot Spratt is asking his students about the time it takes blood to stop flowing from a cut.
Sprat: "You! What's the bleeding time?"
Sparrow: [looks at watch] "10 past 10"

5 Tony Hancock - Twelve Angry Men
Hancock makes an impassioned plea to his fellow jurors.
Hancock: "Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you?... Did she die in vain?"

4 Will Hay - Ask a Policeman
Granddad: "I think I'll have a sweet. Want one?"
Will Hay: "Yes, I'll have a blackcurrant." He pops it in his mouth
Granddad: Spitting out his own sweet, "Eee, blackcurrant!"
Will Hay: "What's the matter? don't you like them?"
Granddad: "No! I always put them back in the bag"

3 Arthur Lowe - Dad's Army
Private Pike has just sung an insulting song about Hitler to a captured U-boat crew.
U-boat captain, "What is your name?"
Mannering: "Don't tell him Pike!"

2 Moore Marriott - Oh Mr Porter!
Will Hay and co. put their watches on on a railway line when the engine starts to role forward and crushes the watches to pieces. Harbottle picks up the crushed watch and holds it to his ear.
Harbottle: "... it's stopped!"

1 Tony Hancock - The Blood Donor
"A PINT? That's very nearly an armful! I'm sorry - I'm not walking around with an empty arm for anybody.”

The myth of democracy

The local elections were on Thursday but I didn't vote.

I think I am the only member of the Diogenes Club that takes his cynicism to such an extreme. I am quite sure that some of my fellow Diogenarians would frown on my lack of public spiritedness. I can almost hear the tutting from some of the older more established members over their copies of the Times. After all we live in a democracy, don't we? Our fore-fathers died to give us the vote, didn't they? We are part of the enlightened free world, aren't we?

Well actually, no we don't, no they didn't and no we aren't.

I think the realization came upon me only a couple of years ago. Democracy is a myth. It is a fiction put out by a rather successful government marketing machine. The way I came to this conclusion was simple. I realized one day that really we have no say over anything that is done in our name. Whether it was insane road changes, crazy new education policies, tax laws, petrol rises, speed-trap cameras, planning laws, the siting of wind farms, the issuing of ID cards, internet controls, the extension of 42 day detention without charge, removal of the presumption of innocence, removal of the right not to be tried for the same crime twice, going to war with Iraq..... we have no say over anything. No one asks your opinion, no one takes your views into account. That's how it is in our democracy. We can't change any of these things even if we wanted to. All we can do is get rid of people several years too late, and replace them with people just as bad.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the will of the people is the only authority for government. But the will of the people is never consulted except at a general election. It is what is called a representative democracy which means that it is the will of others that matters not the will of the people.

What our democracy amounts to is this. You get a chance to make one choice every five years between two or three parties that are almost indistinguishable. And that's it. That's the full extent of your democratic power. You can pick Conservative, Labour or Liberal (or some other less likely possibility) and that's the full size of it. In the States its even worse. You only have Republicans or Democrats to choose from.

You're not allowed to decide what happens yourself, you have to pass that power on to someone else to make all the decisions for you. But they never come back to you to ask what you want to happen. They just do what the party tells them to do.That means that whoever you vote for, the government wins every time.

The only opportunity for democratic choice happens in a referendum when the people are asked to express their will. But time and again these are promised and then refused. Take the EU. Entry into the EU required signature to the Maastrict Treaty. Most were against it. A referendum was refused. More recently the Labour Government promised a referendum on the recent Lisbon Treaty - the EU Constitution under another name. A referendum was refused, basically on the grounds that the people would have voted against it. And so they went ahead without the will of the people. What use is the vote when the will of the people is ignored? Voting is not an expression of power but an admission of powerlessness.

The fact that the technology now exist for everyone to have a say in the decision making process just make the situation less excusable. In the past representational democracy grew up because you couldn't physically fit millions into a simple voting structure that could be used on every decision made. But with the coming of the Internet that has all changed. It is now possible to easily consult every person about the introduction of every law. Should that wind farm be put in the centre of town? Should we build that motorway through that green belt? Should we go to war with Iraq? Or Iran? Well we can now all be consulted because the technology now makes it possible. But I will tell you something. It will never happen. Why? Because we do not live in a democracy. And the few will never give up their power to the many.

So I didn't vote last Thursday. Voting only keeps the charade in play. The game goes on. If nobody voted then the pretense would be over. So vote for nobody, for nobody represents you.