The discourse switch - to what extent does this take place across professions in the UK?

Over the past few years I have raised a number of issues with public sector staff including parliamentarians, voluntary advice workers and crime and disorder staff. What I've experienced is a general refusal to acknowledge the issues I've put forward which are classed as conspiratorial, paranoid or delusional despite the fact that academic articles have been used to support the arguments made. There seems to be a tendency to cite works of literature or else where from the arts as the basis for conspiracy, for example the China Syndrome, 1984, Brave New World, Jacobs Ladder etc. despite the fact that the arguments offered have a relatively strong academic foundation. The point of concern is that it has not been easy to challenge what may be prejudiced action on the part of several professional groups or bodies in the UK and there could be scope for professional development around these issues. Scientific argument in some situations has not been dealt with rationally but rejected on the basis of an assumption that people who may have had mental health problems would willingly draw from the arts and that this is an acceptable culturally embedded framework to use to dismiss what could be significant information to provide for public safety.

I am considering writing an academic article on the issue of 'the discourse switch' and how the willingness to engage in discussion on the likelihood of conspiracy theories for want of a broad general term may tend to vary according to institutional factors which shape professional conduct. I am considering writing an academic article on the issue of argument styles and responses to ‘paranoid conspiracy’, which may be attributable to training, government guidance or ill conceived prejudice which has become institutionalised in several professions in the UK, if not more broadly throughout the world. The purpose of this would be to identify the extent to which the phenomenon does take place, to more clearly identify reasons why this does take place, if it does, and the to suggest how the problem may be construed in order to generate a number of solutions which require political action.

This may involve accessing information through the freedom of information act from a number of organisations. The possible prejudice involved in the discourse switch – ensure that the home office are responsible for the interpretation and democratically elected politicians are clearly indicating that it is definite policy to disregard conspiracy theories and this is not done unprofessionally by the police or other professionals who may be accused of exercising unnecessary prejudice or bias.

I don't know if there are academics that could be identified in the UK who may be interested in collaborating on this as a potential project or through responding to the blog but I would be very pleased to hear back if there are. The issue as a matter which could affect the quality of service delivery for several professional groups may prove fruitful to explore for a few reasons. I don't know how well this is dealt with within existing literature and to what extent the questions raised may already have been answered as I haven't had opportunity to undertake a literature review at present - this too would be interesting to hear back from people on.

Perhaps as an aside that will lead to me not being taking seriously in the least, there is some interesting cultural data on the biases in policing that may be taking place in the UK if you click The Goodies - the baddies part one, part two and part three. Watching the Goodies in El Salvador provides a certain amount of balance to my life. Oh, and the picture above, how can you not like a country like El Salvador when it has signs on the doors of banks indicating that you can't bring in guns....

Day to Huehuetenango

Up late, collected laundry and then went to the centre of town, parque central to get a microbus to Terminal Minerva to get the chicken bus to Huehuetenango. It was a day of moving between buses and trying to get comfortable on them right the way through from the earliest part of the day. The journey from Quetzaltenango where I am at present to Huehuetenango (pronounced way-way-tenango should you be passing this way) is rated by lonely planet as the best bus journey in the country. After seeing the bulk of it at dusk on my return I can understand why. Unfortunately, on the way there all I could see was steam rising of me and everyone else on a rather cramped former American school bus as we collectively clouded up everything which resembled windows for the best part of the whole two hour journey.

I did have the satisfaction of getting across town via a couple of local buses to 'las ruinas' which appear to be of Mayan origin and are just a little neglected - there is graffiti on them. I don't know if I heard someone at Teotehuacan outside Mexico city comparing the ruins there to a contemporary housing estate or if it was one of Peter's issues, however, they did seem to resemble the three estates area to a degree and I assume that I am not the first to think of juxtaposing these images with some from Bells Lane, Kings Heath or of the Three Estates Area, Kings Norton. The ruins do resemble a skate park, BMX stunt area and a few other things to an extent. Maybe when I get home I can consider doing this. Until then I have done this please check out the shots of Huehuetenango and Zaculeu on flickr. There was something so urban 1960s Britain about the site I can't explain it, the archaeologists tended to look rather like council workmen because of the overall ambience of the site.

I've spent the last couple of days alcohol and nicotine free and was considering having a beer as I was leaving Zaculeu when I met the two guys in the photo above who have assisted with maintaining my self discipline when it comes to alcohol - they were steaming. There was something dare I say, very English about the girl who was serving the two guys drinks, something I really can't place. Likewise there was something very similar to my younger brother about the guy who was collecting fares on the microbus on the way to Terminal Victoria this morning. I've seen facial resemblances here in Guatemala that for whatever reason tend to remind me of my immediate family more that people in the UK do. I had a bit of a similar feeling in India but not to the same degree as I have done here in Guatemala.

There is a street off Parque Central which is necessary to walk down on the way back to this Hostal, Casa Argentina and I had dreams about it several months before I came away. There was nothing significant about the dreams only that I hadn't been here and I don't think I had seen images of the street on TV. I assume that I had seen the street on TV somewhere and there was use of memory inhibitor which may have in effect supressed the memory into my subconscious - god knows why I prefer this type of explanation but it makes more sense to me. I don't believe the theory on dreams from psychoanalysis nor the notion of being psychic, but I do think the rational explanation for such phenomena does included rather basic psychological principles. I don't like the idea that a basic psychological principle could be used in effect to facilitate mental illness and I would hope that this does not get over looked. I also had dreams about the layout of the house I stayed in at Antigua which did not surprise me in the least - there was something very familiar about the family and life with them. Still, I've made it through all this so far without any significant problems.

Fumigated - not me, the hostel.

Hurrah, through the cold at last. Now I'm just making miserable growling noises and coughing like a 60-a-day-chain smoker. At least I can move today, I spent most of yesterday and a little of this morning trawling youtube for more eighties classics. Why, oh, why do Depeche Mode appear not to take miming seriously? At some points they appear to be singing a different song altogether. Are they singing 'I just can't get a f**k!' - it makes no sense to me, maybe this is why Mike Read got a bee in his bonnett about 'Relax'.

At least I did something constructive for half an hour today. I had to because the hostel was being fumigated. It sounds bad but I guess it keeps the cockroaches at bay. The shots I took of a cloudy day in Antigua are worth a quick look at though they're not really that special. I don't feel to inspired photographically unless there's a lot of direct sunlight and even then the shots are not really worth waiting for.

At least I'm over the business of the flu, short lived though it was. It did come on pretty strong, I didn't know what was going on at first - I had the weirdest nights dreams when it was beginning. There were a series of three dreams: the first was almost a montage of hazy pain - like procol harem under water; the next was a vivid combination of boys from the black stuff and the Italian Job - it was almost like some form of gothic horror set underground involving inch thick grime, soot, coal, steam and choking fumes, continuous pursuit by the police and any other agency that may have reason to stop us doing what we were up to and a team that had no hope of carrying off the crime they were undertaking but somehow they managed to escape the onslaught of professionals doing all they could to catch them. There was constant shifting between levels, chambers and Victorian railway architecture influenced interiors (like Isambard Kingdom Brunel following a holocaust) - a filthier trainspotting; the third was rather much ruder but I was in a dorm with three women two of whom kept showing their legs to an unnecessary extent. Try as I might not to be influenced by this, I think they managed to permeate my subconscious, if you believe any of that nonsense. My Spanish isn't up to the point where I can object to sharing dormitories with scantily clad Israeli women, maybe one day.

I don't know if Irving Welsh based Trainspotting on a dream that was caused by the onset of influenza but it wouldn't surprise me if he did. It did cross my mind if trainspotting would have been considered more vulgar if it involved railworkers taking heroin - they seemed to be treated by some sections of the population as the lowest of the low when I worked for Central Trains.

I don't know what to do my time while I'm here my education wasn't good enough to get me through writing anything as much as a short story about the blackstuff-job though combining it with Kes if at all possible may have some form of virtues. Please click education "...We'll laugh about the thrashings I gave them...", is such a good line and tell me if you can watch without laughing please. Other scenes are just as good such as story sir? and cliche though it may be is very funny and saddening at the same time. It does make me wonder what it's like being a teacher seeing kids who have an extremely high chance of developing mental illness knowing this is very likely to happen and not being in a position to do a great deal. It must be tough. I've wondered how much prevention of mental illness should be debated as a political issue as there is a great deal of action undertaken to reduce the chances of mental illness being in effect passed down a family line though I don't think there is necessarily clear enough indication of what differences there will be between the political parties. Perhaps Kes was very much geared to raising the issue of building self esteem in the classroom which has certainly changed over recent years as Cathy Come Home was in raising the issue of homelessness. [There isn't any of the television 'Cathy Come Home' on youtube believe it or not, I'm going to write to my MP.]

There didn't seem to be very many down and outs in Belize although I didn't really go anywhere in the country that they were likely to be and what has surprised me here in Guatemala is that there do seem to be really strong divides between the upper class, the relatively poor working/middle class and the people right near the bottom socio-economically. I did think about asking a few people who work in agencies related to homelessness in the UK who I've met through work to consider doing some voluntary work in Guatemala as it seems to be readily encouraged. Hopefully, it's fruitful as well as being well intentioned.

I must eat....

Getting blown away - somewhere safe where the flu don't stay.

So, sat in a hotel room in Antigua writing a blog that a whole two or three people read flued out with some terrible bug. I had to get along to the Spanish lesson this morning because I hadn't got around to cancelling it last night, not that I was busy. I'm afraid in the virtual world that I was inhabiting I only really managed to reminisce about the 1980s and watch a few things like this: Young Ones - Sick . Other people in the Hostel haven't managed to get the bin bags over my head but I have been running round to avoid them.

Earlier today, I also met a woman called Corrie who took me by surprise. I managed to resist cracking the joke by asking if her life had been 'a bit of a soap opera', I assume that as an American she probably wouldn't find it that funny. I was almost knocked back by the smile she gave me, it may be attributable to flu or some other state I was in but it made a real impact on me. The smile she gave may have made me think about Semisonic - Secret Smile but possibly more of Neil Young's Like a Hurricane. You have to wonder if the person who put the Semisonic images together was also suffering from flu and just killing a bit of time. Maybe it’s the thing to do if you like a song put some images together and stick them on youtube.

The lines in 'like a hurricane' "...and I'm getting blown away, some where safer that the feelings stay, I wanna love you but I'm getting blown away...." may reflect some form of similar feeling because sometimes that immediate attraction is so strong that it can kill off any chance of a reasonable relationship. Cynical that I may be I do just think after an experience like that today which felt like being pushed back a few feet merely with the glimpse of a smile which should have left me feeling just moderately okay. The line "...I am just a dreamer and you are just a dream, you could have been anyone to me...." could be something that I read too much into but I assume that old Mr. Young was just a little sceptical about what had led to this visionary experience he had of a woman, I presume a woman, who had a major impact upon him, he couldn't rationalise this. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote it about Dylan and his wife, but I don't really know enough about them and this period.

Excuse the teen-indulgence here, Neil Young is really quite cool. John C mentioned a few weeks ago how good music was as a teenager and how this tends to be lost in your twenties leaving quite a gap. Listening to music alone was really all that was necessary to feel really damn good and Neil Young is possibly one of the few who can still lift me this much with tracks like 'hurricane'. In the one-person-eighties revival I had I couldn't avoid the conclusion that Suzanne Vega's Marlene on the wall was the best track of the decade but I didn't have anyone to discuss it with because I've tried to quarantine myself in the last 48 hours.

Still reflexive verbs to get to grips with and a more than a few nouns to learn in the next day or two. And, at mid-day tomorrow, lunch with the lady herself, Corrie. I think I should have said I was washing my hair really but I just couldn't say no. I don't think I'll get past pronouns with her, she knows a lot more Spanish than me. Ho hum! Hopefully I won't lose my head. It does make you wonder how the BBC got the reputation for quality productions looking back.

Out of interest, the lad in't photo up top is someone I saw in the Pokhara, Nepal. Leave a pile of cabbages around and someone is going to do somersaults on it, I say! All nonsense today, I've dropped too much lemsip to make any sense.