Covercule 18 – COVID 19 -“they”- British Expats Dream 15-08-2025

De baard maakt geen wijsgeer; anders was er de bok goed aan.

Here is this morning’s dream sequence.

The dream starts with me talking with a young medical practitioner. She is an advanced nurse but not a fully qualified doctor. She is wearing very dark blue scrubs and has an identity lanyard around her neck. We are sat at a hospital dining facility come café. I am talking with her about my philosopher’s chin. I have a habit when pensive of sometimes gripping my chin with lightly with my right hand and stroking the left side of my chin with the right index finger. I say that nearly every night just before I go to sleep it itches where the finger goes a little and I give it a brief scratch. It is a part of going off to sleep of a night.

She says that there is no need for concern. I was already unconcerned. She says that it is my covercule 18. The phonetics of the word covercule are explicit. That covers my 18. The philosopher’s chin.

She says that ever since COVID 19 humans have become split. There are those who believe and trust the medical profession and those who prefer half-baked conspiracy theories and internet remedies. “They” are more consulted and believed than is warranted. I say that given my chemistry background I tend to trust vaccination and think of the medical profession not as deity but qualified, trained yet human professionals. I note that not everything they say is evidence based, some is still anecdotal. She agrees that medics are not infallible. I say that I have the courage 18 of my own convictions and am not readily swayed by the advice of “they”.

The scene changes to a small town square in France. We have been considering a move back to the UK and have been chatting about this with some British expats. They point us towards a car parked on the square in which are two women. The window is wound down. I approach and speak with the woman driving. She says that if we are going to rent or buy a property in the UK there is some anti-squatter documentation that we need to fill in. We need to engage the services of a security company called ON. The documents are back at their place.

The wife and I go to their home. The relationship between the women is unclear, query lesbian. We go in and one of them retrieves a document from the office. I am sat at the kitchen table now without a shirt. In the sink are a pile of dishes from the night before. The wife and I exchange glances. One of the woman goes to find a pen. There is other debris in the house. It is a bit of a shit tip yet these women are claiming to be experts. Their house is not at all in order. I have my cheque book out and have started to fill out the form. The woman says that I need to write a cheque for £100 to the security company. Everybody knows “they” say that it is a good idea. I am unconvinced. I motion to the wife and we leave. The women are not happy and entreat us not to miss out. I doubt the wisdom of “they”. They live in a shit tip.

The scene changes and now still in France I go for a walk along the canal. It is early autumn and the canal-side plants are grown green near waist high. It is difficult to see the gravel path. I step off the tarmac road onto the path. I walk along the canal. In the distance I can see a young French man fishing with a roach pole. He has two light brown mongrel dogs of medium size with him. I see by the canal a discarded round warning road sign, which I pick up. As I approach the youth, he makes a playful dog yapping and barking noise to suggest that the dogs will do this. He and I lock eye to eye in mirth. Sure enough as I approach the dogs bark and yap around my legs. I steer them with the road sign using it as a shield. Once passed the dogs return to the fisherman.

I find a path off the towpath up and around the small road bridge over the canal. Aside the bridge is an old toll cottage. I knock on the door and it is answered by a middle aged, fat balding British man in shorts. Over the stable half door I pass him the once discarded road sign which he adds to his collection. He thanks me for helping him stay useful and for adding to his collection.

The dream ends.

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* Because of where I spent a fair part of my childhood I was exposed to expat {British} communities. I saw the shenanigans and how some struggled with living far from home in a quasi-incestuous partially suffocating community. I am therefore naturally sceptical about expat “wisdom”…

Belief and Proof

I’ll speculate that many believe things, ideologies and religions for which there in no possibility of proof. Half of the UK “believed” that Brexit was a good idea, many were adamant even though the outcome was unknown. They professed with absolute certainty about something which had not yet happened. Some Americans chant the MAGA mantra. Exactly when was America ever a great and equal place? Bad stuff has always gone on there to some extent.

People will believe whatever it is they want to believe. The strength of belief may vary. The war in Vietnam seemed like a good idea at first. Someone thought agent orange was good.

The church had a vested interest in making people God-fearing. Bums on seats meant coins on collection plates and salaries for clergy. The gold held by the churches and all that chavvy stuff goes against my interpretation of New Testament Christianity which differs from Old Testament Torah. Yet many who name themselves Christian believe in an eye for an eye instead of turning a cheek. I personally cannot envisage any deity in human or anthropomorphic form. {With the exception of Ganesh} I was made to draw God as a white bearded white geezer at the convent school in Zambia.

People born with penises believe that they can be “women” after a few hormones and a change of clothes, a new frock.

Some of the conspiracy theories floating about are to my eyes far-fetched, yet they have their devotees. I do believe that the world is controlled loosely by rich people. The extent to which they conspire is moot. It is all about profit and the best way to get that is by being good at business and ensuring calm by means of pecuniary compliance. There is no need to do weird far-out stuff. 

Yep, some get corrupted by power and this can be expressed by abuse, sexual abuse and coercion. There are a number of ring-like groups that take advantage of those who are corruptible by promise of an easy ticket. Sometimes the cost of association to/with a powerful figure is high. Savile, Epstein, Al-Fayed. There are mini-mes of these scattered through the population, the degree of unpleasantness varies.

Between belief and proof, we might have working hypothesis. In which one tries out a framework or context to see how well it works, what the generality is like. There are “proofs” which are more circumstantial than direct.  There are things which suggest or point at an idea.

I believe in the concept of karma, there is sufficient observable causality for me to trust it as a concept, a working hypothesis. However, the subject is vast. I once did a whole blog exploring karma. The cornerstone of karma is evolution. One needs to learn from mistakes. Evolution and karma are of the same process. There is a cost associated with some actions which “the universe” wants paid. Karma not worked at in a timely fashion and with willing mood accrues karmic debt, much like a bank loan. One learns the effect of a causal action or behaviour. Sometimes people are slow learners.

The coypu no longer trouble our lotuses. Electric shock training with 0.25 Joule pulses at kilovolts works. We have a low electric fence which I installed. Cause and effect. Coypu karma.

I have had sufficient circumstantial evidence via visions and dreaming to believe in reincarnation. There is no way, on this planet, that I could ever prove reincarnation to the satisfaction of my scientific training. I could not put data into a spreadsheet and plot a graph with a fitted equation and a statistical quality of fit metric. I share the belief in reincarnation with millions. I probably believe it more strongly than most.

Karma and reincarnation as concepts are internally consistent. Karma spans lifetimes so that we can evolve. Karma is a teacher of sorts, in my world.  It takes lifetime after lifetime to learn somethings.

Is it significant that I who once was a pukka scientist at a pukka institution can remember three lives as a Buddhist monastic?

Depends upon what you think is significant. To your average common or garden UK football supporter it means nothing.  To someone who is a committed Buddhist it would not be a huge surprise, it might be tad interesting. Why not a scholar scientist and a scholar monk? It is not so different. Both have cerebral elements. To a bunch of scientists, it might be a red flag which needs disproved.

Have you noticed how science has a negation bias?

I’ll speculate that most people have a host of things which they believe which cannot be proven and moreover they do not question their beliefs or the provenance of the source from which they were obtained / picked up. Gossip and tittle tattle being a common currency which can become Gospel or God’s honest truth. “They” know and say an awful lot, do they not?

People can be very adamant about things which they have not checked or researched themselves. There is heavy reliance on hearsay. There are a lot of soap box orators both in real life and on-line. Hearsay has it that the spread of disinformation is huge and increasing.  This is consistent with what I see on Twitter. 

If you watch BBC, Sky, France 24 and Al-Jazeera the reporting on Gaza is very different. The British news is very sanitized and biased. People trust the BBC but it is reporting on a very different “war” to Al-Jazeera. Chalk and cheese. The UK right think the BBC is luvvie-socialist oriented.

People will believe whatever they want to believe. Convenience is a major factor in belief. They will believe what is the most convenient for them to believe. Inconvenient truths are generally not preferred. Coming round to an inconvenient belief takes time and is resisted, exemplified by the three individuals mention previously.  So far nobody has said a great deal about the Princess Diana – Al-Fayed relationship. That narrative is altered by recent news. Did King Charles have her bumped off? Is he still the villain or are there other factors now?

Belief is also mutable…

What you believe today is impermanent…I can’t prove it to you…I can offer it as a working hypothesis which you might see to be applicable.

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How many of your beliefs are convenient?

Why did you prefer them?