How to Live ventured into the heart of darkness this week: to Bridgend. I had been called upon to give an account of myself to Colwinston Philosophy Society, which meets monthly at The Sycamore pub in that sleepy village. So I asked Nemonie to speak on my behalf, whilst I acquainted myself with the local talent in Cody’s and The Roof in Bridgend itself. “Oggy Oggy Oggy,” and, as that tap-dancing Swansea-lass C to the Z von J would no doubt chant, “Oi Oi Oi.”

Nemonie tells me that a wide-ranging discussion eventually turned to Mr T. Blair and Sir J. Chilcot, and all concerned agreed that Socrates’ unsurpassed if incomplete and humble account of the nature of knowledge, viz.

Knowledge = Justified True Belief + a Logos or Rationale of said belief

seems to have passed straight through the bowels of contemporary politics. Let the fool say what he likes in his heart, if his belief is to be carried politically in the form of a decision, let us have good reasons.

It was with a heavy heart, then, that we raised our greasy placard outside Queen Elizabeth II Conference Hall this Friday, with fellow protesters whose number is now so very diminished, and is predominated by the Zarathustra-like, almost medievally mad - including myself. Yet Saturday 30th January was witness to the second Progressive London Conference led by Ken Livingstone, and here our hearts lifted in appreciation of Ken’s persistence in the cause of justice and equality. In attendance was a rather curious Daily Mail journalist - an odd addition to an environment in which people were seeking to advance a political thinking to hold open a future for new and exciting ways of living. But, lo, said journalist had been sent to investigate the claim made by the quite malignant Andrew Gilligan that a participating speaker was in fact a supporter of terrorism. As with Gilligan’s various campaigns against Livingstone’s mayoral administration, which have been shown to be unfounded according to several independent, and independently verified inquiries, this slur was publicly refuted with reference to the logos or rationale that serves justified true belief. Mehdi Hasan, senior politics editor at the New Statesman enjoined us to be brave: to have courage in a form of thinking that proceeds according to what serves justice and equality, and thereby seeks always to refute the thinking that serves only the few. Then we will be able to say, with Socrates: “I have no regrets about defending myself as I did; I should far rather present such a defence and die, than live by defending myself in that other fashion.” Will TB be able to say as much?

As CZJ might put it, being Welsh, “willy fuck.”