Rod Fleming | Rod Fleming's World

27/03/2024

A Bonfire of English Vanities

Originally posted 2016-11-07 11:50:16.

On Saturday it was Bonfire Night in Blighty. Yes, that spectacularly English version of the traditional festival at the onset of winter. While the rest of the world has Samhain, Hallowe’en, the Day of the Dead and others, the English celebrate a failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament, otherwise known as the ‘Gunpowder Plot’.

Thirteen men, led by one Robert Catesby, smuggled 36 barrels of gunpowder into the vaults under the building. On the 5th of November 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested attempting to light the fuse.

Continue reading “A Bonfire of English Vanities”

27/03/2024

The history of transsex: some notes

Originally posted 2022-11-16 17:41:46.

Researching the history of transsex is not at all easy. In the first place, the activities of transwomen, feminised males and sex workers are rarely considered appropriate material for men of letters to discuss. Even where such histories were written, cultural revisionists have done everything they could to erase them, with much original material being deliberately destroyed.

However, here are a few examples.

Continue reading “The history of transsex: some notes”

27/03/2024

Day of the Dead: A time to remember

Originally posted 2016-11-01 22:11:18.

There is something deeply disturbing about social media; the dead live on through it. It turns out that the dead never really die nowadays; they live on in virtual reality, their pictures and their words floating forever in cyberspace.

I had a friend called Carol. I had never actually met her, but in a world where social media connect people across continents and oceans, that is not so unusual. We knew each other for over two years and the one time we were due to meet — in the same city at the same time — in the end I was unable to go. But she was still my friend and I looked forward to seeing her posts on Facebook, her jokes on Twitter, although they often had me scrambling for my Filipino dictionary. Carol, who was only 21, was getting her life together and she seemed happy, though, as ever, penniless.

Continue reading “Day of the Dead: A time to remember”

27/03/2024

Irrational Unknown: Fear of Madness

Originally posted 2016-10-25 13:17:01.

When I was a child, madness was the most terrifying affliction I could imagine. The idea that I might not be able to control my own life was bad enough. But to think that I might be controlling it, yet in ways that my conscious mind would never allow, was enough to give me nightmares. The irrational unknown inside me was terrifying.

The notion that I might be someone other than the sane person I thought I saw, when I looked into the mirror, was simply horrific. The idea of losing rationality and, with it, my central core of me, that hub around which my life revolves, has always been more frightening than anything else I can think of.

This sense of horror is not unique to me.

Continue reading “Irrational Unknown: Fear of Madness”

27/03/2024

The English Don’t Wear Kilts

Originally posted 2016-10-05 12:56:05.

I have begun wearing kilts again. I used to do this years ago but, erm, passage of time rendered them, uh, too small. Alack, the Fleming waistline now oscillates between 36 and 40 and those distant days of 32waist/32leg are long since departed. However, last year I bought a few more and now I wear them pretty much every day. And when I’m not wearing the kilt, I wear tartan trews.

Now what could possibly have spurred this aberrant behaviour? A sudden dose of ‘alt-fashion’ in the old fool’s noggin? A passionate longing for the owld country? Simple homesickness? Senility?

Continue reading “The English Don’t Wear Kilts”

27/03/2024

Cursing and swearing: an art form.

Originally posted 2016-09-30 11:58:17.

Well, it’s been a fucker of a week, folks. I split up with my girlfriend. That train had already signalled its impending departure though. Also in the Philippines, the Half-Wit Prince has announced his intention to emulate Hitler and murder three million citizens. Hilary Clinton looks likely to be the next President of the Land of Fuckwit, which means we’ll probably celebrate the turn of the decade from a nuclear shelter. In the UK, Auntie Tess is now showing that she couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. In France, full denial has broken out as, after all, one must never offend the Islamic rapists and child-shaggers — in case they take the huff and murder another 100 or so innocent people. And in the latest US-inspired human tragedy, Syria, the body count rises. So I thought I’d do a piece about cursing and swearing.

Because cursing and swearing is something I feel like doing a lot of, right now.

Continue reading “Cursing and swearing: an art form.”

27/03/2024

The importance of self identification.

Originally posted 2022-11-06 22:55:27.

A less than entirely pleasant exchange on Twitter made me consider the issue of self identification. I don’t mean identity, which has been hijacked by the left. I mean self identification. Who you are, not what you are.

Self identification matters because without it, there can be no free speech and therefore, no free society. It is impossible to debate when one party is hiding his identity and the other is not. Without free society, we live in a dictatorship.

This has become hugely important, since large numbers of people use anonymity to harm others with no fear of being exposed. The cult of anonymity has become pernicious today and nobody seems to realise how dangerous it is.

Anonymity is the enabler of totalitarianism. It effects this in two ways. Firstly, it allows people to spread toxic ideologies without fear of reprisal. They can say what they want, be as vile as they can be, and mummy will never find out how reprehensible has been their behaviour. Secondly, as we have seen all too often, anonymity protects the very people who do the most to shut down free speech.

Continue reading “The importance of self identification.”

27/03/2024

Dar al-Harb: The Islamic stimulus for war.

Originally posted 2016-09-24 13:31:45.

If the Popes believed that their God intended to keep them in control of Jerusalem, or indeed, in such high esteem at home, then they were to be rudely disabused. Central to Islam is the notion that the entire world not under its control is Dar al-Harb.

(This is the second chapter of the book World War Three.)

The Qu’ran or Koran is the codification of messages believed by Muslims to have been received by Mohammed from the Angel Gabriel. It says a territory may exist under two conditions: Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. These mean, roughly, ‘Land of Submission’. and ‘Land of War’.

Continue reading “Dar al-Harb: The Islamic stimulus for war.”

27/03/2024

The way of the bakla: Kabaklaan

Originally posted 2023-05-28 13:01:06.

Kabaklaan, the way of the bakla, might not be perfect, but it is kind, supportive and enabling. It helps sex-atypical boys to come to terms with their special sexuality and therefore their gender, in a gentle, even loving way.

A feminine boy will go to the volleyball court and meet the baklas there; but they will not seduce him or try to rape him. They will befriend him, if he is as they are. They will defend him against bully-boys, from his older brothers and their friends, putting their arms around him. They will soothe his hurts and reassure him when he cries. There is no pressure or compunction in kabaklaan, but if a boy wants to learn, then he will find teachers – and note: teachers, not pedicators.

Continue reading “The way of the bakla: Kabaklaan”

27/03/2024

The Reasons for World War Three.

Originally posted 2016-09-18 12:42:55.

World War Three has been much talked about in the seven decades since World War Two ended. At that time, almost all of Europe and large parts of Asia were in ruins, scourged by years of brutal, mechanised, industrial war.

Since the beginning of that peace, war has raged incessantly throughout the world. It has never stopped. The killing, the butchery, the rapes, the genocides, the ethnic cleansings. Mass rapes, murders, enslavements. Whole cities destroyed, nations impoverished or obliterated.

Has World War Three begun?

As I write, war is raging in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia. Why? If the end of World War Two heralded in an ‘era of peace’, then why is there so much war? And how fragile is that peace?

This article and many others are available in the companion volume, Fifty-Two of the Best

Continue reading “The Reasons for World War Three.”