If it is, then the pleasure principle (Freud, S, 1856-1939) has the opportunity to be satisfied, repeatedly, especially if one is healthy. The reality principle (Freud) may temper this somewhat (I can say so in my own case), once 60 years of age is reached. I can remember my Mum telling me that when she was 60, that was the first time she thought; "I'm getting on" ('Northern', for 'I'm getting older'). She had another thirty five years of 'flight' and all but the last couple, pretty good. She reached just beyond my own sixtieth birthday (her youngest son).

(I believe) that this is the magic within Steve Harley's occupation. Every gig is like a timeless flight, not just for Steve and his excellent band (whatever combination of players), but for we, his audience, too.

I think 'this' is also about libido (in several different ways), not just the bands, but the audiences, too. I mean, Rod the Mod (Stewart) is, I think, an excellent example - he even gave the legendary Mick Jagger, a 'run for his money'. EDIT ADDENDUM: Anyway, what I'm referring to here is not, necessarily, the physical sexual life of individuals, but is what Freud referred to as 'the Scopophilic Instinct'. This is more of a late nineteenth, very early twentieth century term, today, largely out of use. In essence, I'm talking about the libido (naturally) arising from (frequently) being looked at.

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My Dad (who died just over a decade ago), once said to me, when I mentioned to him a few aches and pains, "If you're feeling it (in your fifties), you'll really notice it in your sixties" and he was right, but I've nothing to complain about, my genes and lifestyle choices have left me, to date, in reasonable shape, for my age.

The psyche doesn't preoccupy itself with its own mortality, there is an obvious evolutionary advantage (Darwin, 1809-1882) in this, and I think this only begins to slacken its grip, once over the approximate age of 60 (this too may be an evolutionary advantage, in telling the self, it has to adjust and recognise certain limitations!)

Five years ago, when I happened to be out with someone much younger, with high functioning autism, we found ourselves in a confrontation with an aggressive yob - I had to protect the younger person and myself. As the yob ran towards us (the initial confrontation occurred in a nearby cafe, minutes before) and I gestured to my known to stand at a little distance, the next minute or two (probably no more) seemed like a timeless flight, as he pulled my hood over my face and called me an "old bastard" (the first time anyone had ever said that to me, lol).

Personally, I've never seen anyone so angry, and he'd completely 'lost it', for a minute or two. My training enabled me to keep him mainly from my body - though there were obvious impacts with the struggle - but I knew that if he hit me (or worse), I'd fight back (but hard). He didn't, thankfully, and we all walked away, to continue our own 'flights', unharmed (only a hood had a few less stitches in it). This was all happening on a high street and most cars just kept driving (if not all - I was too busy to really notice).

Moving back from 2018 to 1975, I remember the joy of Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, on Christmas TOTP (where Steve mixed up slightly, the lyrics "...I know what faith is, AGAIN...), Steve must have felt on top of the world (?) George Ford was on top performing smiley form, Duncan Mackay's (also live, as it all was) keyboards were (using my own often used phrase), endorphin producing, Jim Cregan (with Steve) looked also as if he was on top of the world and enjoying the craic, and Stuart Elliott, well, simply one of the best British drummers we have! It was only natural that, the Timeless Flight, would follow. I vaguely remember one reviewer of the album saying, 'Strange days...' I say, ethereal...

Stay your way. X

Continuing from my preceding para, I realised after some listening to the album this morning, that "Understand" contains two short musical phrases that connect directly with "Mr Raffles" and the preceding album. I guess this may have been in my unconscious, as I was writing the initial post.

Mr Raffles is the song I remember from my date with KT, either during late June or very early July, 1975. This was part of my own timeless flight and the album (which I hadn't heard at the time of its initial release, the following year). Everything changed (pardon the pun), as it had to...

"...Was in a frenzy from the midnight air when I saw the light
I realized only children can live upon a timeless flight..." (Harley, 1975/6)

Further to my recent post under the Lay Me Down thread (link below):

www.steveharley.com/forum/6-general-disc...e-down.html?start=12

Of course, some of Steve’s atoms from the lighter elements (hydrogen, oxygen, etc.) within his body will now be in the atmosphere above. This is in one way, an aspect of the late British scientist James Lovelock’s (1919-2022) Gaia hypothesis, when referring to the Earth functioning as one self-regulating system.

Steve’s nasty cancer (only his family and those closest to him are likely to know what type this was, whether metastasised – spread to other tissues - or otherwise) and his death and fellow fan Stella (Day)’s charitable thread about breast cancer – her and her family’s excellent efforts in that cause, my own part time studies in 2021, touching upon both breast cancer and (in more detail) prostate cancer, whilst working towards my DipHE (OU) health sciences (2022), as well as personal family experience from 2022 to the current time (latterly, one case of ‘active surveillance’, another case in healthy remission) leads me to suggest to the male part of the fan base over 50:

HAVE YOU EVER had a DRE (digital rectal examination) and a PSA (prostate specific antigen) blood test? I’d recommend both to those men over 50 that haven’t.

For men over 50, these short tests are readily available from (your) General Practice, by requested appointment.

Sir Chris Hoy the Olympian and multi gold medal winner, is an advocate, I believe, to have these tests more readily available at a younger age. Many of you will know he has Stage 4 cancer (metastasised to the bones). For many men, however, it can be a slow progressing cancer and in the early to interim stages, with the advances particularly since the 1990’s, it is now very treatable – via a number of options - if caught early enough. One problem with the disease is that often there are no (or mild) symptoms until it has progressed dangerously.

I’m not sure how far I’m going to develop this latest part of my thread here, but it won’t involve any charitable appeal, rather it will be informative for those that are interested, and from this point on, I’d only include any factual detail with adequate academic and peer reviewed references…in the meantime, take care and stay healthy for as long as you are able - all – men and women x I think Steve would have been OK with me posting this – otherwise I wouldn’t have done it (in any case I’d remove it if requested by the managers of his site). Stay your way x

I will develop this part of my thread using short bursts of energy! That way also, the reading won’t get too ‘heavy’. The average adult female has around a total of 28 trillion cells in her body and the average adult male has a total of around 36 trillion cells in his body (Source: New Scientist, 18 September 2023) i.e. 28,000,000,000,000 and 36,000,000,000,000, respectively.

In science, we would write these as 28 x 10 12 and 36 x 10 12.
NOTE: The script here doesn't seem to deal with scientific notation. PLEASE BEAR WITH ME - the 12's after the 10's above should be adjacent to the 10's and much smaller (to the above right of 10's - in other words, 10 to THE POWER 12!! x)

Amongst these vast numbers, there are more than 200 different cell types (Source: Regenerative Medicine: Clinical Applications of Stem Cells (Mummery & Roelen, 2011), in Stem Cells: Scientific Facts and Fiction, 2011).

Within each cell there are a number of organelles, such as the nucleus (within this organelle are the chromosomes – these are storage devices for our DNA – our units of heredity from each parent as well as our own uniqueness), mitochondria (these also contain a small part of our DNA), ribosomes, the endoplasmic reticulum etc. etc. It is mind blowing to think that something so small can be so complex, isn’t it? Oh, if you weren’t aware, DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid.

Normal cells follow a typical cycle - they grow, divide and die (over varying durations within our lifetimes, depending on the type of cells and sometimes other factors. Cells obviously replicate in the early years as we grow and they also replicate to renew ourselves - for instance red blood cells have an average life cycle of about 120 days - sources both the OU and PubMed). I suppose some of the evidence we can appreciate here, is our natural ageing process over each decade or so…

Cancer cells do not follow this cycle. Simplistically, the two factors or sources that encourage cancer to develop are (many) mutations in genetic code (a part of DNA) and faulty synthesis of proteins during a process known as translation, starting with RNA and involving organelles like ribosomes (sometimes referred to as ‘protein factories’).

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5 February 2025 EDIT - there is a third factor or source - this involves long noncoding RNAs - and there is an example which has been linked to both breast cancer and prostate cancer. I will refer to more in that context the next time I make a full post here - the evidence linked with this has only been emerging over the last decade or two.

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Later on in the development of my thread, I’ll include reference to a relevant article about the regulation of protein translation and its implications for cancer. RNA stands for Ribonucleic acid.

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5 February 2025 EDIT - I'll also include reference to another article (2024) - this one is 'free access' - anyone in the public can view it - on this edit, concerning noncoding RNAs .

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DNA provides the code for our cells activities. RNA converts that code into proteins to carry out cellular functions.



Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in females. In the UK alone, between 2017 and 2019 inclusive, there were around 56,400 new cases every year (Source: Cancer Research UK). Breast cancer was the most common cancer in females in 157 countries out of 185, in 2022 (Source: World Health Organisation [WHO]).

Across the UK, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in males. More than 50,000 males are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year (Source: Prostate Cancer UK). Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in males in 118 of 185 countries (Source: American Cancer Society, 2024).

[Close 2nd post of reference to subject matter, this part of my thread]

Just to support my earlier narrative, I said that ‘next time’, I’d include these as references:

A review article that is OPEN

“The Regulation of protein translation and its implications for cancer”

Authors: Ping Song, Fan Yang, Hongchuan Jin and Xian Wang
Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (2021) 6:68

“…the aberrant translation from mRNAs to proteins plays an important role in the pathogenesis of various cancers…”

(In the biological context) ‘Aberrant’ means, diverging from the normal type.
mRNAs are ‘messenger RNAs’ – the role of mRNA is to carry protein information from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus to the cell’s cytoplasm. Here, it floats around until it meets a ribosome (I’ve touched on these last time also). One other aspect of learning here is that ribosome to mRNA binding is facilitated by other proteins which in health sciences are known as ‘Initiation Factors (Ifs).

Cytoplasm – the gelatinous liquid that fills the inside of a cell. It is made up of water, salts and various organic molecules. It is bounded by the cell membrane. The organelles, which I have touched upon before, are contained also within this micro environment inside the cell.

Humans are about 60% water, by body mass. It is thought that salt is evolutionary evidence for the origin of life within the oceans – mind blowing!

‘Pathogenesis’ means the process by which disease develops. Pathos is from the Greek to suffer. Genesis is from the Greek for origin.

The other reference to a review article that is OPEN that I said I’d include as a reference is;

“Roles of long noncoding RNAs in human inflammatory diseases”

Authors: Yuliang Zhang; Hongliang Liu; Min Niu; Ying Wang; Rong Xu; Yujia Guo and Chunming Zhang

Cell Death Discovery (2024)10:235
CDDpress SpringerNature Published online: 15 May 2024

This is primarily about long noncoding RNAs in inflammatory disease per se, but there is also some reference to cancer, for e.g.

“…Moreover, IncRNAs are also involved in various cancer types. For example, PCA3 and PCGEM1 are highly specific to prostate cancer…HOTAIR, ANRIL, MALAT1 and LNP1 were positively associated with breast cancer…”

PCA3, PCGEM1, HOTAIR etc. are types of IncRNAs, which inhibit gene transcription. They also interact with proteins.

[Close of thread for this session, 3rd of this context]

Next time...I will focus more closely on prostate cancer (for the guys to be aware of).