Rabbit Hole

I shall not weary you with the tale how I came to be unjustly accused, prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned and eventually vindicated although never properly compensated. You will have read all that in the papers. You will almost certainly be aware that the person that I blame for this fiasco, whom even now I had better not name, had and has a great mop of red hair. You will be aware that his deviousness was so great that minimal blame can be attributed to the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the prosecuting barrister, the judge or the jury let alone the prison service who implemented the sentence as well as they could within the financial constraints that applied. For all that, I had many lonely hours to write the treatise that follows. I present it for your contemplation without further comment.

It is recognised that red headed persons produce larger amounts of a substance called pheomelanin in their hair due to genetic changes in the MC1R gene found on chromosome 16. This gene provides the code for a protein called melanocortin 1 receptor that is located on melanocytes and is responsible for the type of melanin produced. It is also the case that redheads produce more Vitamin D than people with other hair colors. A mere 2 percent of the world's 7.7 billion humans have naturally red hair. Red hair is a recessive trait that’s inherited. That means both parents must carry this gene variant in order to contribute it to their offspring. It is important to understand that it is not necessarily the case that such parents have red hair themselves. Parents can be carriers for recessive genes, with instructions for red hair in their DNA but not expressed because they are overridden by other dominant genes. As a result, families that haven’t had a redhead for decades may suddenly have a carrot-top baby. As it so happens, he odds of having both red hair and blue eyes are around 0.17% – which results in about 13 million people out of the 7.6 billion on earth having both characteristices. The highest concentration of redheads – at about 10% of the population – is in Ireland. A study found that people who had two copies of the red-head gene and therefore red hair appear to be as many as two years older than people who did not hold both copies. Redheads have a higher pain threshold than others. There is evidence to support the idea that redheads require more anaesthetic to be sedated. A study suggested that red-heads produce more vitamin C than people with other hair colours. Another study found that the redhead was the least shy, the most temperamental and the most sexually promiscuous of all hair colours. They may have more children, despite having more fertility problems

All this I happened to know before my unjust incarceration and can set it down from memory with a reasonable chance of accuracy, despite having no means of researching the matter in this dismal and restricting place. My interest in the matter was piqued when my aunt unexpectedly produced a red-headed baby. What follows results from more secluded reflection upon the nature of such persons, and particularly upon the villain to whose malfeasance I owe my current plight.

I have taken to calling this place, His Majesty's Prison Bolingbrook (one of his less favoured possessions as I surmise) “the campus”. A delicious irony is that this carries connotations of a university, and a university in the arts of criminality is seems to be. However ‘campus’ is Latin for field, and via the concept of battlefield it is the root of the German Kampf as in a certain Heir Hitler’s ill famed treatise, an English translation of which, bizarrely, resides in the library of this institution and with which I have been whiling away the endless hours. Not, let it be clear, that I have an antisemitic bone in my body, nor any desire to initiate a world war. Although not a Jew by female descent we have members of that race in our extended family, and if anything I have pacifistic tendencies. For all that, the work is a revealing read. But I digress. ……. Or maybe not.

To return to the rotten-tots as I like to call them. There may be the grounds in the public eye of supportable a case against them resting on such matters as reputed hair-trigger temper, impetuosity, sexual promiscuity, but that is not enough. For a solid foundation we must look to that font of all wisdom, history. There may be some evidence that those reputedly barbaric folk the Neanderthals had red locks. Questionable, but it will serve. The pyromaniac Nero is said to and is depicted as having ruddy hair. So did that warmonger Alexander the Great and the composer Mozart. Some may revel in the music of the latter, but his character was far from beyond reproach. We in this land have little for which to thank the Viking king Eric Thorvaldsson the Red. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa’s whose second name Barbarossa meant “redbeard” was also responsible for much slaughter. Boudicca was said to be a red headed woman, creator of mayhem. Elizabeth the first was also, whose parsimony nearly allowed the Spanish Armada to conquer this land and who so foully treated the heroes who thwarted it, had redish hair. Further back, annal writers frequently note that Charlemagne, who is frequently depicted as having a mop of red hair, was given "burning", "ravaging", "devastating", and "laying waste" the Saxon lands. I am of largely Saxon ancestry.

I rest my case.

You may think that I am flying off at a tangent. Believe me, as you will come to see, I am not. As I mentioned, I have been reading Adolph Hitler’s magnum opus. Despite the fact that, for my sins or more exactly for another’s sins, I have ample time in this dreary place, I have found it a wearisome read that I failed to complete. Like me, the man was banged up and had time to indulge in verbal diarrhoea. I found it, despite being peppered with aphorisms that some might deem quotable, discursive and wordy. Also fully to understand its themes a far greater knowledge of the politics, history and personalities of the time is needed than can be found in the meagre library of this institution. Perhaps I should have taken note of one of the above mentioned aphorisms:

“The art of reading and studying consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting what is not essential.”

I had little difficult in coming to the commonly accepted view that most of the would-be and future Fuhrer’s views were malevolent nonsense. The reason for his rejection of Marxist communism never seemed clear to me, I could only surmise that its ethos clashed with his racially oriented views. I also never completely understood the firm relationship he perceived between this political philosophy and the Jewish population. As I believe I remember, Karl Marx may like me have had an element of Jewish ancestry but was not a Jew by the maternal line and if anything held Christian beliefs. Fortunately, this analysis stood me in good stead when some nosey screw observed and reported my reading of the book, causing me to be summoned before the governor. I was then able to establish that my reading was purely ‘academic’ and I was allowed to retain the book and continue ploughing through it.

Some pearls of wisdom I did rescue from that swinish book. I had – as one does – heard and watched snatches of Hitler’s speeches and, if the subtitles I read were anything like accurate, had been struck by their banality. The man’s writing however is that of a wide reader, thinker and analyser of current affairs, even if his analysis went way off the rails in many ways. His low opinion of the bulk of his fellow men is clear in the book and explains his tone being based on gross simplification, emotional rather than logical appeal, and repetition, repetition, repetition.

A second theme that comes strongly through is the importance of propaganda, as will be clear to anyone with more than minimal knowledge of the Nazi enterprise. A whole chapter is devoted to it. Contempt for hoi-poloi is clear, as is the need to focus on achieving the desired effect, e.g. upon morale, at the expense of truth if needed. To quote the wretched man again:

“The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble.

“On the other hand, they quickly forget.

“Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas.”

Finally, his egotism shines through in the emphasis on his contempt for democracy and the view that only a county led by the mind of a single great man can hope to succeed. To quote again:

“There is no other principle which turns out to be quite so ill-conceived as the parliamentary principle.

“It is a characteristic feature of all great reforms that in the beginning there is only one single protagonist to come forward on behalf of several millions of people.”

So the question arises, how can I carry out the extirpation of the ruddily hirsute from our midst? While I am penally detained and carry the besmirchment of a criminal conviction I concede that I have little chance of so doing. However, steps in which I have well founded hopes are afoot to rectify this wrong. Once I am exonerated (and with luck compensated) I shall have a profile in the news, which I can but hope will be sparsely filled with more notable matters at the time.

It seems prudent to clarify that I take the late, sociopathic leader of the German people to ruin and the Jewish people to a holocaust to be my guru in only the most critical and selective way. However, for all that, nevertheless and notwithstanding there may be things that I can draw from the writings and what I remember about the life of this dreadful man that could be of guidance in my crusade against those with abundance of pheomelanin and red melanin in their hair, whom I shall take to calling the pheomaniacs in hope that this impresses the hair-brains of the populus.

First and foremost I must hone the propaganda to a fine edge. Das Fuehrer had the advantage that he could build on a body of long existing antisemitism, even possibly with a shred of foundation in the envy which the Jewish population engendered because of the places it had made for itself in the society of the time. Even then, he judged that their evil extermination had to be hidden from the world and even the German people. I face far a steeper hill. Tales of deeds of historic pheomaniacs may help but will not really cut through. I have in mind two recent or current politicians that I might demonize, although their headgear is more golden than really flaming. I may not be alone in having suffered at the hands of a red-headed person, but we must be too small a minority to carry the day. This matter needs work. However, one lesson I have learned from my study, to be effective calumny need have no foundation in truth. Auris populi, the ear of the people, is open to any plausible slander. I shall come up with something.

The next thing I learn is not to rely on the existing political mechanisms and parties. Nothing but a movement arising from an enraged populus will carry the day. Violence, which in principle I abhor, is likely to prove an essential necessity.

Then it is clear that the leader of the movement should be I, building on the public profile my hoped for coming exoneration will establish. It is equally clear that as leader, I should lead, dominate, set every aspect of the agenda. I shall need to speak, and my experience in the debating society at school, where I flatter myself that I excelled, will stand me in good stead. I must, however, practice dumbing down my message and style to widen its appeal. I must cultivate the habit of repetition to hammer my message home. It is the purest good fortune that my voice, like Hitler’s which was said to have acquired its distinctive tone due to his exposure to gas in WW1, is now rough and course due to a benign growth on one of my vocal cords.

My criminal appeal hearing is about to come up. Wish me well - - - and watch this space.

There is no other principle which turns out to be quite so ill-conceived as the parliamentary principle

Whatever definition we may give of the term 'public opinion', only a very small part of it originates from personal experience or individual insight

Generally speaking, we must not forget that the highest aim of human existence is not the maintenance of a State of Government but rather the conservation of the race

The spectacled theorist would have given his life for his doctrine rather than for his people.

Because man has made laws he subsequently comes to think that he exists for the sake of the laws.

if something is to be changed we must start by diagnosing the disease.

The art of reading and studying consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting what is not essential.

He who would live must fight. He who doesn't wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.”

Obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to, but only to be broken.

I know that fewer people are won over by the written word than by the spoken word and that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers and not to great writers

The Strong Man is Mightiest Alone.

There is a better chance of seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing a really great man 'discovered' through an election

If the race is in danger of being oppressed or even exterminated the question of legality is only of secondary importance.