Is there a quota system for the number of “Big Beasts” a political party can have? Another EU directive, perhaps?

I ask because ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie wrote the following in Saturday’s Daily Mail: “A few big Labour beasts including Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander and defence spokesman Jim Murphy are quietly muttering in the corner …”.

Do Big Beasts mutter in corners? And quietly?

Douglas Alexander, “wee Dougie”, is a personable fellow who made a rather good joke in the Libyan debate, although I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.

Jim Murphy talks very quietly on aspects of defence, but I’m not sure I recall any details.

Nowadays, parties are defined by their Big Beasts and their roars. Ed Balls certainly roars, and is very beastly, but “Big Ed”?

Don’t you get the impression that Labour is the Incredible Shrinking Party?

Poppycock Watch
So CERN has captured antimatter — antihydrogen atoms, to be precise — for 16 minutes and 40 seconds. What are the implications of this for the rest of us?

For science it’s a chance to reconstruct the beginnings of the universe. Isn’t it always?

What though if the universe didn’t have a beginning? Is it inconceivable to the boffin bonce that not everything has to start somewhen?

It’s interesting to the mystic mind because it gives physical validation to one of its profoundest tenets: that matter is really “mind” or rather, consciousness.

Consider, if every particle in the universe has an antiparticle which destroys both on contact, and therefore the sum total is Zero, ie, the universe only exists physically as a state of tension between equal but opposite and, crucially, separate electrical charges, an overview of all of it would reveal nothing but emptiness. A void, in fact.

Once again, scientists reduce everything to nothingness, but miss one important element: Intelligence. The aliveness of space, in its general and particular senses, completely eludes them.

At its heart, the universe is made up of consciousness alone, or what used to be called Spirit. That is the mystic’s view. It actually explains everything so much better than science does, because consciousness/spirit displays “intelligence,” something science claims as its own yet denies to the void that is the universe.

The problem has always been that consciousness/spirit is so close to us, all-pervading in fact, that it’s possible to stumble through life without ever knowing it exists. It’s easy to view life as just a barrage of thoughts.

Look at existence through a telescope and spirit/consciousness is invisible. View life through a spiritual lens, by creating a silent space within, and all becomes clear.

And when you see it, everything makes sense. Scientists appear as primitive creatures, rattling around and making a lot of noise in a universe beyond their understanding.

Mystics try not to laugh. They are basically compassionate people. They would not be mystics if they didn’t have all-embracing temperaments.

But sometimes it’s very hard not to.

I spend a lot of my time tracking one of the great tragedies/farces of our age. I refer, of course, to the fate of the euro.

I’m not sure why, especially since Great Britain — as we should now get used to calling our homeland — avoided it by the skin its teeth. The “great and the good,” as is usual, unerringly chose the wrong option, loudly proclaiming that staying out would be disastrous. Tut, tut.

There is a fascination in observing a slow-motion system wreckage in real time. Most economists — not the most accurate of prophets — now fall on the side of pessimism about this wonky, schizoid currency group.

The psychology of the process is even more interesting than watching the gradually disintegrating Heath-Robinson contraption.

Politicians are in an enormous quandary, damned if they do, and obliterated if they don’t. Eurocrats are chasing what tails they have left after the kicking they’ve taken by the forces of history. The astonishing part is that most of them have yet to budge from their pre-set positions. It’s as if they are frozen in a prehistoric landscape unable to summon the will to awaken.

Most interesting is observing those few who do come round from the Brussels Trance and either slink away into obscurity, or shrug a pair of pragmatic shoulders and carry on as if nothing had happened.

The pachyderm in the tool shed though is the European Central Bank (ECB) which is so stuffed with almost worthless Greek and peripheral countries’ debt that it is effectively bankrupt. It daren’t let Greece default because its balance sheet would collapse.

Prognosis? Some species of disaster, ranging from a devastating bust up, to total collapse of the system, leading to another calamitous global financial crash.

China might then emerge as the dominant power in the world, and we will dance to a Communist tune. The Marxist-Leninists will have won after all.

Britain might at least break away from this self-inflicted tragedy by calling the promised in-out referendum on the EU.

It would, at minimum, show a direction of travel that is inevitable at some point.

Book of the Week
The travails of many big political projects remind me of one of my favourite books:

Back in the 1970s Shunryu Suzuki (not to be confused with D.T. Suzuki), was then Abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center. He wrote a classic of Zen and world literature called Zen Mind, Beginners’ Mind.

The theme of the book was that “experts” have closed minds with few possibilities, while “beginners” have open minds with many possibilities. Therefore it’s better to be a beginner than an expert.

It’s a wonderful book, full of wisdom and terrific writing. But is it true? In our society, experts are the ones who make the money. And money is the measure of success or failure. Beginners: students, interns, rookies, greenhorns, apprentices, newbies … are the ones we pass over in silence, and often without pay.

What Suzuki was really getting at is that beginners view everything as if it were new, fresh, and deeply interesting. Their minds are focused ferociously on the matter in hand, like a child with a new toy. They get more out of every experience because they are fully present to it — the essence of Zen.

Experts, by contrast, take a rather jaded, “seen it all before” view of the same events. Their minds are turning to “more important” matters like their diary for the coming week, upcoming meetings, papers to be written and presented, dinner parties to attend, boards to chair …

Suzuki felt that “attention” is the most important aspect of any person’s life. Attend fully to the matter in hand and you are fully alive. Split your mind by putting some things on autopilot and you’re not present to the moment, so partially dead. Marriages often suffer from this tendency and don’t last long once the robot takes over.

I’ve read Suzuki’s book a number of times in the past few years and I’m always amazed at the influence his simple message continues to have at the highest levels, especially among experts.

Steve Jobs, legendary founder of Apple, advises: “Stay hungry, stay foolish”.

Thought of the Week
Plan A supposes a Plan B. A plan is just a plan, but an A without a B is superfluous and misleading. If George Osborne is set on only one plan for the economy, he should say, “There is no Plan A, just The Plan.”

Any philosopher worth his hemlock will tell you that.

John Evans

Who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

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While you’re working out why a tech review should be wistful, let me just say that the long battle between BlackBerry and iPhone for which device should equip the Syntagma offices, has been won by BlackBerry.

I was going to review the BlackBerry Curve but, as is often the case, that’s been overtaken by events.

The picture gives a clue to the wistfulness inherent in our decision. I might also have put up a shot of the new 3G iPhone that O2 is close to announcing in the UK (see below).

You get the picture. No sooner do we get the kit in than the companies announce quantum leaps in technology and new products within weeks. It’s enough to make you expectorate.

I’ll just say we are very happy with the BlackBerry Curve (version 8310) and its extraordinary powers of connectivity, plus its distinction as a pocketable writing platform, before looking ahead, not just to the 9000 — the Bold — but to the 9500 (pictured).

According to The Boy Genius, this is to be called the Thunder and is set for third quarter launch. It’s a full touch-screen device, like the Apple iPhone, with only four hard keys along the bottom rim :

… it will launch as a worldwide lifetime exclusive on Verizon and Vodafone! … If the device will indeed launch with a 4G solution, our bet is on LTE), and GSM HSPA for traveling internationally. Verizon and Vodafone will have the same unit. Currently, the model number is the BlackBerry 9500, though it’s very early and that’s likely to change.

Meanwhile the Guardian is pumping up excitement about a 3G iPhone, which has been widely expected. “The 3G version of the iPhone will be unveiled ‘in the coming weeks’, the boss of Apple’s exclusive mobile phone partner in the UK and Ireland hinted today. … [Maybe] at its Worldwide Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, which starts on June 9.”

New 3G iPhone?

Not much left to say about the 8310 Curve, except it’s a welcome addition to our office and adds enormous functionality to our operation.

Can’t help thinking we’ve been thrown a curveball though — wistfully speaking.

A man turns up at a small hotel for a night’s stay. He speaks urgently to the landlady and says he’s allergic to apples. “Please don’t serve me apples,” he asks.

“I promise you’ll get no apples here,” she replies.

That evening the man is tucking into dessert which is described as fruit pie. To his horror he suddenly feels very ill.

“You promised me no apples,” he cries out to the landlady.

“It’s not apples,” she says, as his head doubles in size, his lips turn blue and he goes into acute anaphylactic shock. “It’s apple pie.”

Now consider the ongoing saga of the European Constitution — newly renamed an “Amending Treaty” despite being 98 percent the same as the constitution. British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a manifesto promise that the British people would get a referendum on it. He has reneged on that promise because he knows he would lose by a very big margin.

The promise referred to a constitution, he says, and the treaty is no longer a constitution.

The original document has been shuffled around a bit, as you would a deck of cards, some cosmetic stuff has been removed, and the name changed.

It’s not a constitution, claims Brown. Sure, it’s constitution pie.

I’ve written a number of times about the new Apple store about to open in our town here in the West Country of England. While looking out for local information on an opening date, the following email arrived for me this morning from Apple :

If you look at it carefully, you’ll see it’s precisely geo-targeted. There’s no mention of a town or city, just the shopping complex : Princesshay. No-one outside a couple of counties would know what this was. So how did they do it?

Putting on my Sherlock Holmes deer-stalker hat, I’ve concluded the information must have been gleaned from my membership of Apple iTunes, possibly from credit card details. Even so, that’s very precise targeting and shows what can be done in the age of the internet.

We have known for a while that Google is seeking ways of marrying person-specific advertising with worldwide IP television. Apple seems to have beaten them to it with city-specific advertising by email.

Some might call it spam, but I’m grateful for the information.

It came, we saw, it went … er … POP. The Apple iPhone hit Britain yesterday with all the force of a gentle breeze from the Azores.

The Apple store in London was hardly beseiged with eager geeks and fashionistas (see pic below). As the “crowd” was let in at 6.02 (O2, gettit?), they were easily outnumbered by Apple store staff and bouncers, all in dark suits, and forming a snaking double-line honour guard for the hapless hopefuls to march through.

The first bunch ran through like Olympic athletes winning Gold. In fact they looked just like actors straight out of Chariots of Fire. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were.

Less that ravenous hordes outside London’s Apple emporium

Make no mistake, this piece of kit will sell on price. Strip away a few poor little rich girls who “must have” it — for ten minutes, and a handful of geeks, the big numbers will come from ordinary Johnnies who will balk at the price. If you buy the top of the range locked-in deal it will cost you $2,654, plus call charges, over 18 months. No way, Jose.

The experts are telling us to wait for the iPhone to be launched in France in a few weeks where French law bans lock-ins. Jonathan Morris of What Mobile magazine said, “People who don’t want to be tied to contracts can simply wait until the iPhone comes out in France. Under French law there has to be an unlocked version so people would be able to bring it back buy a Sim card and use it like any other phone.”

Although the codes are different from the U.S. version, we’re told it’s already been hacked. Most geeks will get this done within a week. It’s interesting that the first thing the BBC reporter did when he got his was to head off to the hacker’s yard to boot out O2.

Steve Jobs is making criminals of us all.