Listening to a BBC news podcast I was shocked that the then new labour government (in 2024) announced a financial black hole of GB£20 billion inherited from the previous Tory government. This wasn’t the shocking thing though, as we can never trust any government financial records. What is truly disgusting is how this was used as a justification to cut libraries and central funding (UK libraries are primarily funded by local authorities, with little support from the national government, but even this was to be cut wherever possible). Even if all funding was removed, this would go almost nowhere towards funding the black hole as much less than that figure is spent. The proposal also ignores the huge socio-cultural value of libraries. Even beyond this, the news led me down a steep and twisty path of reflection; there seems to be a significant relevance for this website as this attitude of (supposedly) the political party of the people, towards social cohesion, communication and community. It seems, to me, to be nothing less than a form of book-burning where knowledge and community are the target of out-of-touch politicians who seek only to play their own short-termist and self-obsessed power games. One other observation I might make would be that whenever I use a freer form of verse I can get a little distracted and end up somewhere else altogether (often returning to my favourite old hobbyhorses)…

The victor writes history
Or burns it.

The electronic age, one more era of book burning,
More permanent than Montag’s kerosene.
Politicians defund libraries;
Libraries cull print;
Electronica rules;
Its insubstantially intangible word,
Ironically fragile, almost replaces paper.

Memory became
Gossip became
Epic became
Stone became
Parchment became
Paper became
Magnetic tape became
Elusive electrons
Each modern medium easier to revise (redact and censor),
Harder to preserve and protect.

Discarnate documents available to all
If you have the hard/soft-ware to view them.
Technology strategically reduces durability…
Planned obsolescence matches increasing fragile ideas.

But worse than ephemeral e-words,
Pandering to digital impatience
(Time poor in every way but temporal),
Interminable drab scrolling at home or work
With family or friends,
On bus or train,
Dining or drilling in the gym,
Dating or drinking with buddies.

So much time wasted, no time for reading.
Abridgement Rules No K;
TLDNR
or
Too long to start today (or tomorrow).

Don’t even click on click-bait before commenting;
The misleading title’s sufficient.
Newness valued as new – even if it’s really old;
Novelty disingenuously defined,
Clever reconceptualization shadows historic tall shoulders,
Borrowing ideas to a postmodern objectivity.

Opinion Trumps evidence and reason.
We abide in an uncertain positivism –
Carefully constructed questions,
Within a biased questionnaire, seek clean data.
Responses that satisfy statistical convenience
Little more than pointless pretence.
Complex formulae interpret unfactual facts,
Unrandom randomness,
Unrepresentative representations.

If all else fails I can always rely 
On the AI like lies.


Peter John Sandiford, 29th August 2025