I went out to buy a new netbook last week, and very nice it is too…..now. Three days on, it’s still busy downloading, installing, activating, and configuring. Before that it was merely time-consuming and  frustrating. In the start-up instructions (as always) there were five very important omissions and mistakes. It took several trips through the brain-hammering call-centre experience before I could even get Office to load up. And – wonder of wonders – a direct line to Microsoft, supplied after the retailer gave up on the problems….a decision he described as follows: “Sorry sir, but we don’t support this part”. You have to smile.

The shop assistant (a willing but borderline autistic bloke who reminded me of Danny De Vito) threw in various ‘extras’. All of them are extra merely in the sense of being surplus to requirements: security software no better than the stuff that’s preloaded by the manufacturer, for example – and editing software that’s incompatible with the Office package. Trying to get Microsoft to admit this was a process which, while not enjoyable, did give me a sense of achievement after the young lad at the end of the line (in every sense) finally uttered the words, “Yeh, I suppose you’re right, yeh.”

In a nutshell, the episode involved hiding in silos, arrogance, incompetence, ignorance, deviousness, cheating, jargonised bollocks, and an unwillingness to take any responsibility. But it could’ve been worse: had I bought the item online, I’d still be in a chatroom at Square One. The sole advantage of buying off a physical retailer these days is that you know where they live – and they know that you know.

The other thing making this purchase a tedious process from start to finish, however, was its complete predictabilility. And after a while you know, boredom gets merged with frustration to cause a condition as yet unnamed. Sadly, I’m afraid the same thing applies to observing the global antics of Homo sapiens.

Being something of a film buff, script-structure Nazi and all-round smartarse, I’m one of those people who can usually see the twist coming in a movie. There’s nothing clever about it – it’s just a mixture of observation and technical experience. Once I know what’s coming next, I sit there bored – and begin to fidget. This is a metaphor for blog commenting.

It could be argued that saying one knows what’s going to happen is the ultimate arrogance. By this, I don’t mean every last bit of the future’s jigsaw, but rather the general drift of events. This too is based on having an interest in social anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive response. It also comes from having read History at Uni, being a market researcher for many years, and parents who brought me up to use my common sense. Being a realist, denial of what’s obvious is beyond me these days.

For the last seven years, I’ve been trying to warn people about the tears that lie at the end of the world’s careering handcart. I haven’t been doing this entirely out of a sense of altruism: everyone likes to show off (a huge percentage of bloggers are doing only that) and I’m still really a journalist/writer manque trying to get a job – exactly as I was in 2003 when this form of mild insanity inveigled its way into my life.

Stopping now at this point Man’s journey through the lightless tunnel of discovery, if we switch on a small torch and observe our notes, several conclusions and unstoppable trends are obvious:

* Most regrettable events on the planet are driven by our species and its declining cultural values.

* Sound cultural values emerge primarily from education, family and religious discipline, the commercial ethics of one’s peer group, law enforcement and the media. I know hardly anyone who thinks even perhaps a couple of these might be fit for purpose in 2010. The last Government focused on the only one they felt might make a difference – legal obligation – as a result of which most of our freedoms have been severely eroded….and a milieu of pedantic auto-intolerance has been nurtured.

* Globalism’s flawed mercantilism and Britain’s drive for mediocre conformity are combining to ensure that life for most people here will be anything from difficult to turbulent from now on – until such time as the cultural drift is radically reversed. The UK Coalition is a massive improvement on New Labour, but it is miles away from grasping the radicalism required in the key Offices of State – Education, Health, the Home Office, Defence and The Treasury – in order to restore a quality of life to Britain that might result in a worthwhile Benthamite social form being achieved. Only at Welfare has a thoughtful man been given the time and chance to do something truly productive.

* The chief areas where all governments everywhere remain blindly addicted to existing policy are the media, and the commercial futures these proliferating channels are shaping with an insouciant vandalism. But it is the social consequences of media ownership that present the greatest danger to liberty. While TV content, cruel magazines, dumbed newspapers, internet mendacity (and publishing’s race for the barrel sludge) are all appalling trends, we are at the crossroads now in digital ownership.

A Net neutrality sold out by Google and abandoned by Congress, Amazon’s Kindle breakthrough, and Murdoch’s predictable development of a multi-content, paywalled space (now pressing on at full speed in New York) should ensure that a minute elite of political and economic regimes will control the Web completely within five to six years. They can then happily join the even tinier banking club, after which the money flowing between the two will shut everything small, decent and innovative out of the theatre.

What then for the Sane Opposition, the Ethical Minority, the experimental Arts, and equality before the Law?

* So selfish, short-term and amoral are most of the actions of Friedmanite financial capitalism, I think there is every chance that serious social unrest and violence might occur soon – certainly in Europe, and perhaps also in China. The natural response of government will be to suppress it – and increase its use of surveillance to ensure minimal recurrence. The European and Asian elites are already working closely with all the major ISPs to this end. The obvious casualty, once again, will be personal freedom.

* But wherever James Delingpole’s conspiratorial hatred of all things ecological might take him – the Priory, perhaps – the population growth and finite water supply issue is by far the most dangerous one – and it will not go away. The species reproductive drive (and the dwindling energy available to supply its ever-growing needs) mean  migration and conflict – with or without global warming or the discovery of a way to harness the Sun’s power – on the scale of true Gotterdammerung in the long term. Without the commercialisation of solar power, that panicked chaos will be with us by 2025-2030. And by then, the solutions to it will make The Holocaust dwindle in relative significance.

The people who come to and stay with The Slog are, by and large, the converted. Over time, some of the more acceptable banking and economic commentaries have also attracted a large econo-financial opinion-leader audience. With nearly 2,800 hits a day average now, this represents a valuable audience to advertisers – reflected by the growing number of helpful panels that keep coming up from the Googlies suggesting I ‘monetize’ the site.

One of the beauties of living independently within one’s means is the ability to say no to doing the bidding of organisations one would happily dismantle given half a chance. This coupled with borestration has made me decide to stop blogging at The Slog.

I will leave the site open, for people to either learn from or laugh at the past predictions as events unfold. And if I decide to do other stuff elsewhere, then the loyal fans will hear about it first.

Thanks go to everyone positive or negative who has contributed to the site being never less than lively. And to those who have remained silent, I hope it’s been an enjoyable and informative experience.

The Editor

PS I’ve just looked to see that the Netbook is now updating its configurations. I have no idea what comes next – configuring the updates, activating the downloads, or merely an infinite circle of preparation. Perhaps I have purchased the world’s smallest Forth Bridge.