I've been copying my blog posts, first manually then more recently automatically, to Medium.com (a site for writers or anyone with a message.) The return on my investment has not been great, indeed the most views and feedback I've had has been from a one-line comment I posted in response to someone else's political post.

I say investment but it's no biggie; I'd written the posts anyway, it costs nothing to post at Medium, and I write to please myself anyway. But almost zero feedback troubled me.

Why? Well, everywhere else I post I've been careful to avoid statistics. Indeed I've never looked at any stats related to my Github.com Pages, and have no intention of doing. Simply put, I have a tendency to obsess over the irrelevant things when the simple things are key.

I'm thinking of terminating postings to Medium, and soon. A related and more positive issue, I still have a plan to release posts from previous incarnations of my blog, and that'd kill the structure, the flow, at Medium (I prefer consecutive posts, sorted by date. Obviously by date.)

The bonus: the meanderings of my less-recent mind will soon be available to reminisce over. It's not all bad.

I recently came across a retweet mentioning a news article about a Mossley (NW England) discordant neo post-punk band named Cabbage. The ironies within the article, well, I've already determined 2017 will be one led and thus eventually characterised by Schadenfreude. Now the band's genre isn't my usual cup of tea, but the introduction alone was definitely something helping to drag me out from the depths of my post-New-Year funk.

Here's why…

The publicity wasn't because of their music, at least not directly. No, it was their frank, gloriously frank, response to the British national tabloid newspaper* attempting to champion them as one of their sounds of 2017. To see what I suspect is merely the iceberg-tip of the band's response, here's a Manchester Evening News article – sanitised only by redacting the entirely-appropriate sweary language.

I asked the band on Twitter for their recommendation; which of their albums should I buy? The response was, in hindsight, entirely predictable.

@ahcabbage: @bazbt3 @antmeals anything by @TheBlindersBand

I simply ignored their response, hoping for something more, a 'Best Of'. Heh, Baz playing the long game‽

A few days later they released a compilation album, 'Young Dumb And Full Of…'! Yes, the ellipsis is a part of the album title; and though the dystopian days of 'Bollocks' aren't over yet, not for me at least, there's enough of an implication there to satisfy this listener.

Or maybe it's a shorter word, one that rhymes with, er… Yeah, I think I'll step away from that one!

I bought and listened to the album all the way through, turned up loud enough to enjoy it as I'm imagining the band intended (and then turned down a bit for this old man's ears.) I was struck first by how the passage of time hasn't dulled my inability to discern the actual lyrics of a song; but it's not a criticism, there's enough there to keep me interested.

The second thing that struck me relates to some of the melodies; I'm sure there's some Talking Heads (I'm a fan) and a bit of Kosheen too. Perhaps if I listen some more I'll find more, but is that perhaps missing the point? Naah, is it bollocks: Music is Music!

Suffice it to say that, whilst I'm drawn to the obvious parallels with the Sex Pistols (yes, I'm that old but wasn't a fan at the time) this isn't a rehash, doesn't seen like an homage. It's shiny and new. Ok not shiny, it's spiky stuff this.

I'm emphatically no music reviewer, but I do know what I like. 'Young Dumb And Full Of…' by Cabbage thus gains Baz's seal of approval, is rated 10/10 for the timely (and in some respects timeless) music and for dragging me out of my 1977-to-early-nineties musical comfort zone.

Ta Cabbage.

*Why yes, it is in fact the hated Sun misjudging our cultural history.

I know I shouldn't but I did; I watched the BBC politics Q&A programme 'Question Time'. Brexit was discussed of course, and one particular commenter stood out.

Now I know I shouldn't categorise an entire voting side by the actions of one woman, but it's a telling thing she said; I'm paraphrasing here:

"I was going to vote Remain but changed my mind and voted to Leave. The day before I went into the supermarket and the bananas were all straight."

Now I know she's referring to an EU regulation stating that the fruit must be straight, a certain minimum size, probably to ensure commonality of packaging and to cut the cost of imports and…

It's all bollocks when viewed from any perspective, and has been since the worldwide ridicule dumped on the EU after it temporarily appeared on the statute books, before being withdrawn in 2008. So how the heck can she claim all the bananas were straight during June 2016‽ I've never, ever, seen a straight banana, but I'm not going to pretend I'm the ultimate arbiter of truth here.

She should be more concerned about the ridiculous waste imposed by our supermarkets' insistence that they pay the farmers peanuts whilst mandating perfect produce to meet a requirement they say consumers demand but which, when challenged, they can provide zero evidence of.

Nothing at all to do with the hated European Union's oppressive regulation.

So, are we living back in the nineteen-fifties yet?

And then, in one smooth operation, I unfollowed all my Twitter political accounts… Which was nice.

Really, I know there's no avoiding politics now, but I have my limits.

So, a prelude to stepping away from Twitter and eventually Facebook, and spending more time at 10Centuries (with some coding on the cards.)

And yes, dabbling in pnut.io too.

It's time to refer to people who are obviously not Christians as something else. Something from the Old Testament maybe; not Puritanical…?

I can think of a number of other descriptions that would be unacceptable to all but rabid activists. Now if you say alt-Christians I'd accuse you of jumping on a bandwagon, but it'd be a start.

alt-, disregarding the computer keyboard usage, used to refer to an alternative, was never used to mask true meaning and thus legitimise an unacceptable stance. Now, the alt-Right, far from being an alternative to it, is about as far right politically as it can be.

Neo- is the same. At their core the redefinitions are intended to hide… OK, when all is said and done it matters not what prefix is used; a Fascist is a Fascist, a Nazis a Nazi, a racist a racist, and a Cheeto-faced short-fingered vulgarian shitgibbon is, well…

Language usually evolves slowly; nuanced changes are the norm, but adoption of slang, buzzwords is driven considerably faster by technological development, wars.

Politics though?

…

Oh, that precedent!

We must look back only to the first third of the twentieth century, a time within living memory, to find widespread adoption of new social norms of the type that negatively impacted large swathes of the world's population.

Yes, the rise of National Socialism, the Nazis. They had a movement too! It too stirred up the population against those it deemed subhuman.

I'm not about to compare and/or contrast the Nazis with the grossly perverted and repressive practises enacted in the name of Communism. Suffice it to say the acts of subjugation, abductions, torture, deaths, all, all of them were carried out perfectly legally too. Laws made by executive decree and which wiped out any semblance of regard to the human dimension when lawmaking. Laws enacted in single countries without regard to the impact on their own citizens and the world at large. All enacted in the guise of making (country) great again.

The 1930s brought a number of organisations out in support of the Nazis. OK, maybe that's unfair, at least to the one I'm picking on to flesh this out: the 'America First Committee' . Setup after the start of World War 2 their core beliefs centred around building defences to keep the world from inflicting the war upon America. In simple analysis a noble ideal: look after your own first. The world had changed irrevocably since.

What hasn't though, simple ignorance. If I was being charitable I'd say it was a desire to hold on to traditional values. But I'm not being charitable.

I read a series of tweets earlier today from an American, an ex-military man, an egg injured in the line of duty whilst stationed in Iraq. Gross in their extreme as the tweets were, he seemed to truly believe his Christianity, his military service and especially his injury, all qualified him to ignore the humanity of those born in other countries. He detailed precisely how and where he'd kill them, which munitions he'd use. His statements on the Koran's commandment to kill everyone not of the faith were genuinely held. But 'genuine' cannot be conflated with well-informed.

Finally, he believed his government would look after him personally, owed him a debt of gratitude. Now I read only his side of the many conversations, and came to two conclusions. He was either:

• Trolling or
• Genuine.

In the latter case its probably appropriate to consider the impact of his protest vote personally. He may need healthcare, may as an ex-serviceman rely on a small income, may be reliant on food stamps… But the bit that I cannot help thinking of, the simple fact that he was wounded. His president is on record as stating his utter absence of respect for someone who allowed themselves to be captured and faced years of brutal torture whilst on duty. So to think oneself special after carelessly allowing the enemy to draw blood? No, sorry, not worthy. Here we go, back again to Schadenfreude.

Back for a moment to the notion that Muslims must kill all nonbelievers: Within the Bible, and the Torah the book of Deuteronomy is easy to find, which implies wilful ignorance on the part of pretty much everyone who calls the entire Muslim world terroristic.

They have my scorn, the time for acceptance in the name of expediency is over. That's not to say I will not take the time to understand different viewpoints, far from it. But some causes are hopeless.

Ignorance, it's the cornerstone of whatever the hell is happening in this world right now. A desire to ignore the realities of injustice, of social and economic change, a desire to return to the past, a past in which life was fundamentally simpler.

So yes, it's time we chose a different word for those who call themselves Christians but hold none of the core beliefs. A term that encompasses their fire-and-brimstone approach to those worshipping at different altars, their ignoring of the broken stranger in the road, the repulsion towards the refugee fleeing crises unimaginable even in times of previous conflict. It's time those holding pre-Christian beliefs were given personal responsibility for, shown the consequences of, their actions.

No, I really do not know what term I'd apply. I'm a simple man, see. It says so in my bio.

Disclosure: You should know that, whilst I call myself an atheist, I'm not singling out Christianity here, simply hypocrisy. I visit the local church a few times a year with my girls and often feel slightly awkward that these people welcome me without an inquisition. That said I hold many Christian values because it seems right to do so. And, I must say, I have a yearning to know more about the tenets, the core, of basic Buddhism.