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I used to fish in the River Thames as a boy, catching perch and roach mainly. In Cape Town I was invited a couple of times for a days fishing with my colleague, Larry Hutchings, a very accomplished fisherman. If a fish didn’t bite within 15 minutes he’d move on - totally different from sitting for hours watching for something to happen. I also have caught snoek and mackerel from boats on spinners - very exciting when they get into a feeding frenzy. My daughter, Nicola’s partner Shaun, is a very keen fisherman and now works in a fishing tackle shop and he and I have talked at length about fishing - something we both were interested in. They’ve been to stay this weekend and I was hoping they might lend me a rod so I could try it out again. Instead they arrived with a new rod, reel, all the ancillary bits and bobs required to get me going and Shaun’s rod and tackle. Very generous of them.

So both mornings of this weekend I’ve been seeing whether I still enjoy what I enjoyed in my boyhood. The sea was rough on Saturday and we spent most of the morning removing seaweed from our lines. Today was much calmer. Both days we caught fish, a weaver each on Saturday and a dogfish each on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll manage something edible soon.

I was invited to row at Porthmadog Yacht Club yesterday in a Celtic Longboat, a 4 person coxed rowing boat used for racing, training and recreation. It was the first time in a rowing boat (apart from dinghies) since I rowed for Bristol University in 1964, 44 years ago.

Very different from eights with sliding seats and very little freeboard I found no problem in taking my place in the crew and didn’t disgrace myself at all. I really enjoyed the whole experience. I only left rowing because the rowing captain in my second year at Bristol demoted me to the second eight even though the first eight was a much inferior crew to the one I had rowed in the previous year as subsequent race results showed.

We’re just atoms mainly of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. The atoms don’t know they are anything to do with us, they weren’t in the past and in the future they won’t be either. So does that mean our physical self is irrelevant. There is a continual metabolism so many of the atoms we were made of ten years ago and no longer with us any more. Are we therefore still the same person?

The first order is atoms, molecules, physical stuff – stones, stars, a table

The second order is life, any life. This is another dimension to just existing and is very fragile. Crush an ant, crash in a car. One second alive, the next not alive. They call that dead but really a corpse is back in the first order.

The third order is creativity, appreciation, knowledge. Something in the mind. This is in its creation and appreciation even more fragile than life. A flower is beautiful. It is beautiful for a reason, to be attractive to insects. They are also attractive to humans but that is a coincidence. After creation a work of art can survive its creator so we listen to Mozart, enjoy a Henry Moore sculpture.
A CD is in the first order yet contains information from the third order.

Religion is based on superstition and has been responsible for the most atrocious acts of violence over the millennia. A person prays for the recovery of themselves, of someone close to them or even for their side in a battle. Yet so many of us suffer. Do religious people really think prayer works. That there is a powerful being that will favour them just because they humble themselves in front this higher being.

Then there’s the promise of life after death in some nether world, again that is only granted to those who have worshiped this powerful being. Imagine walking down a path across which ants scurry about. Can you imagine if the ants were to pray that they might be spared being trodden on firstly that you could detect it and secondly that you would favour one ant rather than another? The idea is obviously ludicrous but the analogy is accurate. We even used to image a kind of human figure as our Lord and ruler. Real rulers have exploited this and deified themselves. It just shows the poor imagination of the believers, the lack of analytical thought and the inclination of humans to anthromorpholise everything – start with little children with rabbits that have human faces and talk.

Science has been a major contribution to the demise of religious beliefs in communities that take it seriously. Yet far from explaining everything in the end it appears that the position from which any measurement affects the result and thus makes it suspect.

So at last the world leaders are beginning to realise that the human race is in a bit of a pickle. The evidence has been staring them in the face for decades but they’ve chosen to concentrate on immediate, short term problems instead. Even now they are talking about a shortage of energy, a shortage of food and the problems of human pollution without facing up to the cause of all these problems – there are just too many of us on the planet and we’re increasing in numbers very quickly. The Chinese leaders, fortunately recognised the problem a generation ago and, because they are able to do so, took draconian measures to curb the growth. In democracies these kinds of measures are not as easy as any government that tried to introduce unpopular measures would be immediately voted out.

In most of the world, and particularly in the Western world, the freedom of the individual is given top priority. We should all be able to do what we like so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. A very good principle in theory but in practice there are problems, particularly when there is a shortage of something. The planning laws managed to restrict the freedom of the individual to build anything anywhere and ruin the countryside, cities and towns. Now we need to restrict the freedom of the individual in many other ways to stop the harm these freedoms are doing. Most of all we have to address ways of stopping and reducing the population. If women were sterilised automatically after their second child this would have that effect. (I suggested that it should be men who were sterilised but my wife pointed out that although it was far easier to do this it was much more difficult to police and therefore wouldn’t be effective.)

Of course governments would not be happy to do this because of the way the whole capitalist system works. We need annual economic growth. Or that’s the current wisdom. Also there would be difficult times as the demographics changed and the proportion of people in employment became less favourable for the economy. However, compared with the disaster we all face if we do nothing these problems are small.

At the moment our leaders are still pussyfooting around. The Club of Rome published its report Limits to Growth, which sold 30 million copies in more than 30 translations, in 1972. Although we have not yet experienced the traumas predicted then, mainly because of advances in agricultural methods and discoveries of gas and oil fields not anticipated at the time the basic premises have not changed and we have wasted 36 years. Climate change has brought these matters very much to the fore but still there is little sign that anyone is prepared to tackle the problem head on.

Why do we, as a species, think that there is a purpose to our lives beyond the immediate? Even more bizarrely do we think that there is another life beyond this one? Even more bizarrely still why do we think that if we do our best to stop enjoying life to the full this makes us a better person? How can we seriously believe that if we lead a ‘good’ life we’ll go to a different place for our next life than if we don’t?

Life is important, it’s amazing, miraculous even but it’ll end on this planet when the sun cools or some other astrological disaster happens. There may be life on other planets or in other universes but that doesn’t affect the argument.

What would an ‘afterlife’ be like? Somewhere where the good things we enjoy in this life are not offset against the downs we experience in this? One of the fundamental aspects of life is that it is a struggle and from that we get a good feeling when we triumph over adversity. Some individuals try to preserve themselves so they can be revived in the future when we have discovered how to extend our lives forever. Have they thought about the implications of that? Population growth is bad enough now with much of the population living in extreme poverty and thus subject to starvation and disease and with the most lethal disease ever to affect the human race, AIDS, causing millions of deaths annually. Without death there could be no new life, no babies, no children. Ideas would stagnate, everything would stagnate. Yet this is what Christian’s and Muslim’s alike strive for – everlasting life. This is what they will go to extreme lengths to try to achieve. Becoming monks and hermits or even suicide bombers.

Where has the idea come from that somehow most forms of enjoyment are bad? Why do Christians make sin and transgression so important? The 10 commandments were supposed to have been drawn up by Moses as a sort of constitution to keep law and order amongst his flock. Nowadays we have a much more sophisticated legal system which is there for a similar purpose. I’m just a man with quite high principles like many others, most, I like to believe. I don’t keep committing sin – so why should I be told I have to continually to ask forgiveness? Why should I have this burden of guilt thrust upon me? I suspect it’s more because at some time in the history of the church it was a philosophy brought in to subdue a gullible and ghost believer population.

We are just animals, at the moment a very successful species with the most intelligence. But we mustn’t get carried away. So do other species have an afterlife? And if so do they have a strict code that controls whether they go to heaven or hell? Non-human animals can be just as cruel as humans. Cat with mouse. Does their lack of self awareness excuse this treatment? Is this any different to an abused child themself abusing? Or a gang member attacking a member of another gang before he is attacked himself? Of course they should know better - but they don’t which is why they did it.

Not that I don’t believe in spirituality. We have taken life to another level. A level of art, music and scientific advancement.

On Wednesday 16th April I tested out my fitness and my 25+-year old bike on National route 8. As soon as I left the main B road I managed to get a puncture in my rear tube. I was in the middle of changing it when the local Sustrans rep, Doreen Lindsey, kindly stopped and offered assistance. I bought a replacement tube in the cycle shop in Porthmadog, had a coffee, and cycled on. From the cob Snowdon, covered in snow, reaching high into the sky, looked magnificent and I took a few photos.

It was fun cycling over the bridge that carries the rail and road over the Dwyryd estuary. A 1 in 5 warning sign greeted me on the other side and I was forced to dismount. The roads were magnificent and I saw very little traffic but my 10 gears were not enough and I did a fair amount of walking.

The route takes you through a long wooded valley then up a steep climb until at the summit the views across Cardigan Bay and back to Snowdon were stunning. I decided to stop at Harlech, although it was only just after 2, as my original (ambitious) target of Barmouth was too far for my by now tired leg muscles.

A cup of tea, a trip to the beach relieved the wait for the train (cost £4) at 16.17 home.