Harriet Harman, or “Wor Hattie” as she’s probably known in some parts of the country that talk like that, was on Andrew Marr’s show this morning. Actually, it was temporarily the Stephanie Flanders show.

Whenever Wor Hattie appears on TV, the phrase “life’s too short” leaps to mind. I’m trying to recall anything she said that 1) I didn’t know, or 2) was remotely interesting. Another 20 minutes of life wasted, then.

Why don’t these top-ranked political shows (Today is another) find guests with the imagination and insight to say something different, and who at least engage our intelligence?

Stephanie has a brain and education three times the size of Wor Hattie’s, yet restraints and “guidelines” prevented her from even denting the Harman body armour.

It was like trying to get orange juice from a lump of coal.

A term we are going to have to get used to in the future is E8. And that’s not a postal district of London.

It’s a shape, apparently found in nature, with eight dimensions, that has 248 points, or intersections where the planes meet. You’ll need to remember that.

A description of E8 in very small print would cover an area the size of Manhattan. It’s now part of a new Theory of Everything — Albert, what have you started?

Yes, we’re into particle physics again.

The computer model of E8 predicts 20 new particles, mainly because there are 20 points on E8 that can’t be fitted up with ones “we” know about. It seems the Large Hadron Collider may well throw some light on these.

This is the same collider in Geneva that broke down earlier last year soon after it was turned on for the first time. Some predicted it would destroy the universe. So far, the only thing destroyed is its budget, with scientists asking for an even bigger collider since the £5bn one they’ve got is not up to the job. The current model will not now be cranked up again until next year.

To save them the trouble, here’s the Syntagma Theory of Absolutely Everything:

All is mind, so nothing physical or energetic is fixed absolutely. Big Mind (the whole of it), or little mind (each of us, including particle physicists), can alter anything locally or generally to fit new circumstances that arise out of the evolution of consciousness across the Mindspace — which is the whole purpose of existence.

Any theory that computes and extrapolates from current conditions is not worth the Manhattan it’s written on.

You have not heard the last of the Syntagma Theory. Come to think of it, there’s something rather similar in the ancient Upanishads, and in many other cosmogonies that don’t rely on telescopes, colliders and computers, but on human experience.

Heck! shouldn’t I get a Nobel Prize or something?

A few political obsessives have written about the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson’s, moonlighting spree on Newsnight. In particular, his interview with the indestructible Peter, now Milord, Mandelson.

I agree with everything Iain Dale wrote in his blog. It was feisty and right on target. Mandy’s Godfather expression at times said it all. Robbo was getting through the star wars defence shield.

On this form, Nick is emerging as The Man Who Can Save Newsnight From Oblivion.

Like many, I’m guessing, I rarely watch it now unless prompted by a comment in some medium or other. Newsnight’s current political editor remains a comedian, its economics editor is sound theoretically, but hopeless in a live studio.

Remember the days of Martha Kearney and Stephanie Flanders?

Take the plunge Thompson. Give merit its due. Or, I predict, a Draft Robbo movement will soon emerge.

What is it with the modern Post Office? Why does it try so hard to compete with flashy private companies when most of us preferred the shabby, slightly shambolic, but dedicated, and mostly reliable, older version?

Take Exeter’s central post office, now part of the Princesshay shopping and leisure complex.

Inexplicably, it has converted itself into a kind of airport terminal, with bucket seats, four kinds of ticket to queue up for even before you wait your turn, and ceaseless announcements of ticket numbers and letters of the alphabet.

Not surprisingly, elderly people, who use it most, seem rather bemused with the whole set-up. They may well exclaim, “I only came in a for a stamp, not to fly to Malaga.”

However, try to avoid the airport experience and you’ll find almost all the comfortingly familiar sub-post offices have been closed down.

Over decades, governments have feather-bedded them with subsidies but are now withdrawing from the marketplace at the speed of a scalded hand.

Such is the chaos at the new model Heathrow-style Post Office, I predict we won’t have any at all within five to 20 years.

Adapted from my piece in: Devon & Cornwall Online

So now we have a whole month of minimal political activity.

Gordon is up in storm-lashed Scotland watching videos of old sporting occasions, while Dave is flitting around Europe having a good time.

Who would you choose to be Prime Minister?

What am I doing for August? Thanks for asking.

I’m about to launch a new website — tomorrow, actually, since you enquired — covering Devon and Cornwall.

I’m embargoed until then (self-imposed, I might add) so can’t tell you anything about it. However, if you’d like a press release, just email:

john(AT)devoncornwallonline(DOT)com

And I can promise you that, unlike Jeff Randall’s email newsletter link on Sky News, this one really does work.

And finally … have a great August. The Met Office is rarely right about hurricanes and rain storms.

Happily, as it is one of the world’s principal proponents of catastrophic man-made global warming, we should give thanks for the human frailties of this Exeter-based national institution.

Remember, all is Mind — and in the mind.

John Evans

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