Rick's b.log - entry 2022/07/03

The Great Replacement Theory

Put simply, it is the idea that another ethnic group with a culture that is essentially alien to white westerners (which once upon a time meant "Chinese" but these days typically means "Islam") is going to march into Europe/America/The West en masse and take it over. Essentially making us white people the minority in our own lands, and having the power and influence to spread their ways and culture in place of ours. In other words, replacing us.

I'm not going to enter into any discussion regarding the validity of this viewpoint. I think the increase in "foreigners" is due in large part to the increase in accessibility provided by (relatively) inexpensive air travel, and also as a part of a country's colonial past and its meddling these days.

Or, to put it differently, there are loads of Moroccans here in France. Several at work (half of whom appear to be called Hanane), along with numerous Romanians as a result of European integration.
Conversely, I have not seen one single person from the Indian subcontinent (that is to say: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc).
When I used to live in the UK, the situation was reversed. I saw, and worked alongside, lots of people from the Indian subcontinent (rule of cautious editing here - calling a Pakistani an Indian was a bit of a berserk button).
The reason for this is quite simple. France went and walked around large parts of Africa, whilst Britain had The Raj.

I will say, however, that if the non-whites are planning on walking all over us and making us the oppressed minority as the racist bigots seem to think is going to happen, it might be worth reflecting on the fact that the implicit white rule of this planet is because we did exactly the same thing over the course of the previous millennia. We marched into their countries, slaughtered many and enslaved and abused the rest. We called their countries ours, and in some cases tried various ill-advised programmes, mostly with Christian religious backing, to try to "integrate" said natives into our way of life whilst stripping them of their heritage...and all the while of this so-called integration never quite managing to see them as something other than "not one of us".

History is littered with the carcasses of our colonial delusions.

I just hope, should this theory be true and not just a call to arms for the loony right, they they will treat us better than history shows us treating them.

A pottery walk

So, I pop my headphones on, pick a nice music selection, and head out staring intently at the ground.

Looking for pottery, can you see it?

Can you see it?

Start from the row to the left of the 'C' in Copyright. You'll see on the right side of that row, it begins with a gap of shadows, and then one leaf sticking out. Just above the tip of that leaf is a piece of pottery lying diagonally, just as the next shadow starts.

Don't worry if you missed it or can't find it with the description. Being able to spot pottery on the ground is something that takes practice.
Personally, I find the music to be very helpful. It permits me to block out the rest of the world to concentrate completely on looking, meaning I can walk at a normal pace only stopping to piece up pieces.

The things I find can be roughly broken into four categories.

The most interesting at the larger pieces. Being constructed of a rough texture, usually grey, that is often coated with something else, usually orange, I think mom said this was likely to be late Neolithic or Bronze Age flint tempered pottery.
She was the one that knew about pot sherds, I just know "they're ancient".

Chunky pottery, possibly late Neolithic.

You can see what I mean by "flint tempered" if I switch to macro for a look at the inside structure of the pottery, although it's more likely to be some form of quartz or quartzite rather than actual flint.

Tempering.

Tempering, adding the chips of rock, will make the clay harder to work with, however it will also change other characteristics such as shrinkage (while drying), water resistance, shock resistance (to temperature changes or to physical shocks), and so on.

The second type of pottery that I find, and by far the most frequent, is thin grooved ware. I'm not sure what these were, as they are pretty thin. Perhaps Iron Age to Roman?

Thin grooved ware.

The third thing I come across is what I refer to as "toilet ware", so called because the featureless white glazed fairly modern pottery resembles broken pieces of toilet bowl. This doesn't turn up often, so I would imagine it's liable to be cider cups or the like used by people working the fields and discarded when broken.

Toilet ware.

The final thing that I find, I don't collect. These are darkish red pieces of flat porous brick. Bits of a field drainage system that get caught up in the plough. I don't collect it, there's no point.

Once in a while I will pick up a pretty rock. This is a piece of sedimentary sandstone with pieces of mica embedded into it, weathered so it almost resembles tiny pieces of gold. The photo doesn't do it justice, as it sparkles in the sunlight.

Sparkling mica in a piece of rock.

The mothership is coming

What's lurking in this cloud?

Your comments:

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Gavin Wraith, 4th July 2022, 13:44

It seems to me that a great deal of unpleasantness (racism and sexism, for example) arises from unnecessary categorization of people. We need to understand better the historical causes of this phenomenon. The popular explanation is that you may be safer within your own tribe than within another, but I am not sure that I buy this. There have always been times when strangers were useful, and most cultures had a tradition of 'xenia' (whereby the stranger is treated as sacrosanct) far stronger than ours. In the past one of the prime advantages of xenia was the transmission of news. Could it be that the development of global communication is making us more hostile to each other?

Rick, 4th July 2022, 14:18

I'm not sure it's global communication so much as global newscasting. Especially when it is fairly clear that the people in charge of the news outlets have an obvious axe to grind.  Consider the damage to democracy and the world caused by the narrow focus of News Corp, and another red top rag that routinely prints what can best be described as fantasies. But this sort of thing, getting into the public consciousness, can cause changes in how people think.  And not necessarily for the better.

Rick, 4th July 2022, 14:21

I also think that unnecessary categorisation is built into us. Blondes, gingers, blacks, Jews, Christians, public school, further education, smoker, Man Utd, Tory, and the new favourite insult "woke"... there are no end of ways to differentiate people from each other, often for utterly dumb reasons (like the hair colour one).

Gavin Wraith, 4th July 2022, 15:51

You know the old classic from WWII? American GI walks into a bar in Belfast. Heads turn. 'Hey' someone asks, 'are you a Prod or a Catholic?'. GI replies 'Look, I am black! What more do you want?'.

C Ferrls, 5th July 2022, 10:00

Ref you looking at Electric Cars for you trip to work - have you thought about a Electric Bike?

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