I have no significant academic achievements to parade for anyone to inspect. Through my career I have instead gained a  good deal of knowledge and experience of electrical, electronic and computer engineering, radio communications, and I believe, a decent measure of common sense and the ability to think logically. Perhaps ironically, the absence of an academic moulding may have left me with an ability to more easily see some of the clues that come our way as our awareness of the world and our universe expands. Technical hobbies and group projects of a practical nature have always been more to my taste than involvement with large crowds or a need to maintain a competitive edge. One such area of interest that gripped me strongly when I was very young was the subject of astronomy. I remember hearing the comments my father would make as he gave “his opinions” back to our black and white television when Patrick Moore (eventually to become Sir Patrick) of ‘The Sky at Night’ programme fame here in the UK, was explaining the objects and events we were beginning to observe in detail in the heavens above. Since then, a lack of funds and cold and cloudy nights here in Scotland have steered my interest in astronomy towards the more indoor-bound mental challenge of understanding what I can about the workings of our universe. Looking back, this could be considered the low-cost option, because learning from the work of others through books and from other sources, does not necessarily come with the additional expense of buying equipment; here speaks a careful Scotsman! This change of emphasis was also the start of my journey into cosmology, physics and other related areas. This, as an overall period of learning, was ultimately to unfold in ways I would never have predicted back when it all began.  So began the journey which led me to the realisation that there is a very big and very important alternative story to be told about our universe and our level of understanding of it.  As I see it, we know certain things about our universe that we can carefully say are reliable … however, we remain unclear about a vastly greater amount, and still we continue to be at odds with each other about almost all of that we think we know.  If our civilisation is to advance its real knowledge and understanding of our majestic and mysterious universe, then some fundamental changes need to be made.