Get Your Telescopes Out
Current mood: adventurous
Category: Travel and Places

I’ve had a number of responses to a bulletin I put out earlier on 1/4/08 here on  Myspace and on Facebook regarding  the NASA competition. One very positively said "awesome!" however the most recent two said  "seriously?" and "Is that an April Fools joke???".

I am   disappointed with the lack of faith some of my friends have in supporting my activities. All I can say is if you don’t believe me, get a telescope and watch me land.

Currently Listening: Mars, God Of War (Mono) (Vinyl 7"/weight 0.5 tonne) Host, Gustav; conductor Zoltek Thrakbatta Sandeater; the National Hypersonic Orchestra Of Mars  

Currently Reading:  Does Sex During Space Travel Make You Look Younger: Abs, Buns, & Nuns in Zero Gravity (Cosmopolitan Magazine April 2008)

13:14 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Eurojournal Part 2: The gig that might have been that never was that ended up being
Current mood: tired
Category: Travel and Places

"But I've got a ticket," I insisted to the rail staff in frustration. "Here it is. And here's my receipt. I booked it online with a credit card."

I couldn't believe it. I had just had to join forces with an Indian couple and a Pakistani man to clear the way of a mob of allegedly Bosnian widows**  to enable me to get into the station, and here I was inside being told that my e-ticket wasn't valid for travel.

**Their lack of genuineness was betrayed by the facts that they were 12-14 years old and had a tendency to giggle amongst each other before putting on sour faces for the travellers. Plus I'd been warned in advance about them.  I worked with refugees from the former Yugoslavia when I was at the Red Cross, and have genuine sympathy for them. But I find it hard to empathise with people pretending to be them - nevertheless i did part with a few coins. Refugees they probably weren't, but they weren't rich either.

My poor Indian friends hadn't fared much better. They had got a taxi from the train station to somewhere they wanted to see, and the taxi driver had driven them twice round the station and dropped them off a few metres from where they'd started and charged them the fare, rather than just telling them "the place you want to be is just over there, mate." I wondered if I might have met him. 

Anyway, my "printable ticket" as described on the internet, turned out not to be a ticket but a confirmation of your intention to buy one. They wanted my credit card to process the transaction all over again. Unfortunately, I don't use them anymore - they're cut up and lying at home, and this thing should have been charged and paid for ages ago.

The staff member clearly felt sorry for me. To her it was obvious what had happened; the online system does insist that you've bought a printable e-ticket and all you have to do is show it on the train, when in fact that's simply untrue. So  she called the Manager. I don't recall his name, but for argument's sake let's call him Monsieur Lafayette. Our conversation ran something like this:

Monsieur Lafayette: "We need your credit card."
Monsieur Moi: "I don't have one."
"You cannot travel without your credit card."
"I have a ticket."
"It is not a ticket, I still need your credit card."
"I don't have one."
"You cannot travel without it."
"Papa"
"Nicole"
"Papa"
"Nicole"

In the end I managed to get my "printable ticket" changed for a real ticket after I made a mobile call home and read them the number that had been used to book the ticket, and they "let me off" though apparently "we shouldn't really do that". The girl was really apologetic, and kept apologising for her (actually very good) English. She was quite lovely actually.

On To Germany

The hotel on the Moulin Verte had had old fashioned plug sockets, meaning that my euro plug adapter didn't fit them. Thus my 'phone was now out of juice (a good job it lasted at the crucial time I needed to call the UK from the station) and there weren't any sockets on the train. So there was a wee communication blackout with home for a while. But it was a comfortable enough journey, with fleeting glimpses of Belgium and Luxembourg, and four hours later I was met at the station in Cologne (Koln) by a former university friend now living and working there.  

"Would you like to go to a bar?" are the words a weary traveller always likes to hear, although not when followed by "actually they really hate tourists in there, but I'm sure you'll be okay."

It was okay; and the sweet, high cholestrol-providing mounds of food they presented me with were equally welcome. Well, I was on holiday, and so on this occasion didn't say no to three fried eggs with fried potatoes and fried onions with mayonnaise (possibly fried).

Koln is home to loads of pubs, cafes and music venues
including 9 Irish Bars

My  friend spent the days at work at Axa insurance. Coincidentally Axa were my insurers for the trip, who had insured me against "acts of terrorism" on my journey. If, for example, a terrorist blew the plane up, Axa would generously pay me "£50 for each day of terrorism". What type of mid-air explosion might last a number of days is anyone's guess. For me, my first priority was sleep as I was becoming quite exhausted. My first day or so was spent in bed.

The next priority was what any sensible person would do when visiting Koln for the first time: 

Seek out the Mexican restaurants!   

And, despite them being owned by Italians and staffed by Arabs  serving Spanish Tapas, they did actually do good Mexican food as well, and their Veggie Burrito rocked.

Even in Germany, sitting munching a tortilla and guacamole with a bottle of Corona makes me feel strangely at home. Perhaps I was Pancho Villa in a previous life. I don't think he ever went to Germany though.

The Gig

This is "The gig that might have been that never was that ended up being". I had originally been hoping to play on the evening of March 1st at an Irish bar. Getting information initially was slower than expected, and at the time I should have booked it, i fell ill and wound up in hospital. By the time I was recovered and on top of things again, the gigmeisters were away on vacation and thus the organising of it didn't come about. However by a stroke of luck we visited the bar the night before and I ended up playing a set with a borrowed eight-string guitar. The loaner was the resident musician - he was playing a marathon set from something like 8pm through till 2am, and he was more than happy to let a visiting musician take the stage for a bit.   "Music, is about sex," he told me. "I have my first ever orgasm performing on stage. I get orgasm when I play for audience." Possibly explained why he stuck to white jeans. Anyway, he gave me a set, which was jolly decent of him (perhaps he needed a break for a cold shower), There are a couple of photos taken on a camera phone that I'll put in my album when I get them.

Giant Guitar Shop

It went on for miles. Three huge floors of guitars, a recording studio equipment centre - photos of the £29,000 stuff didn't come out - PA/amplification department, cafe, recording studio ....  everything from barbed wire guitar straps for the fetishist, classic guitars for the price of a small flat, to custom novelty tuning knobs

I also discovered the biggest music shop I've so far to see in Koln. It impressed me so much that I even asked for permission to take photos. This was granted, but only two of the pictures came out, and even both of them were poor (one above).

Historical Stuff

The Dom is one of the hugest cathederals I've seen, and it towers above the obligatory 1970s crap architecture that hems it in and ruins any good photos. I saw a Japanese tourist trying to get the whole Dom in one photo - it looked like he was doing pilates or something, one leg in the air, the rest of his body almost flat on the ground, camera under his head. He looked like a mink in agony.

Above: Part of the Dom

Above: Gatehouse

I went to visit a castle on my final day in Cologne. It was a day of omens (Hurricane Emma having killed 8 - later 12 - in Germany over the weekend, the news of the Hull/Lincoln earthquake reaching me, and waking up to see uprooted trees lying in front of the apartment block) but it turned out well. I was getting to be quite fatigued but was keen to visit a German castle before I left for the UK, so mine host Cecilia arranged a trip to one.

First however she wanted to go swimming, but was unsure if
the pool would be open due to the rain and lightening. "Why would that be a problem?" I wondered.  "It's an outdoor pool," she said, seriously. But it was open, and she wasn't the only one to fancy swimming in heavy rain; the pool was full of Germans having a bracing swim in a storm. I stayed in the cafe.

I admit to being really flagging by the time I was looking round the castle, but it was great: some nice German mediaeval architecture, endles turrets, corridors, rooms and annexes.

I overdid it though, and was stopping to rest every few metres on the way back to the car. But it was a good way to end a couple of weeks on the European mainland, I even made it to an art exhibition later and ate some more eggs at the place were they didn't like tourists, although they seemed pleasant enough to me. 

A Final Madness

Waiting at Koln/Bonn airport, like all other airports, I hear the familiar "This is a security announcement. Do not leave baggage unattended. Unattended baggage will be removed and may be destroyed."

But there seemed to be a lot of unattended baggage at Koln/Bonn airport. I was early for my flight and had gone to the cafe; and every few seat rows there was a large bag. some with stuff sticking out of them, like bottles. And there was nobody around. Do I investigate closer, or call security?

Currently watching : Next Door Release date: 03 October, 2006

10:18 - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Eurojournal Part 1: Welcome ... To the Moulin Verte
Current mood: cultured
Category: Travel and Places

I was at Manchester Airport, had just had my bags weighed and labelled, and something was wrong. The staff had been nice to me; for once, nobody had raised their eyebrows after scanning in my passport before making a quick 'phone call "upstairs" before letting me proceed. Nobody had demanded I take my shoes off, and airline staff had said that I could take my guitar on board with me as hand luggage. Yes siree, in my experience of travel, something was definitely wrong.

Sinister: Smiling airport security personnel.

But then, blessed relief!   As I checked through security, a customs officer demanded to know where I thought I was going with my guitar (I'm looking for a stage, officer ... you don't have a stage here? No P.A.? What? This place is for aeroplanes? Well, bugger me sideways). After a short discussion, I was escorted back to the check-in desk and it was taken off me, to go in with the hold luggage. My trip looked as if it was going to be normal after all!

Taxi Story 1

Upon arrival at Charles De Gaulle airport, my choice was either:

 ... an early introduction to the Paris Metro from the airport via several tube changes, arriving somewhere in the south of Paris; and from there blunder around looking for my accommodation with no knowledge of French while carrying a guitar case and a heavy rucksack having just come out of hospital 

 ... or getting a taxi straight to the hotel.

I'm sure you're with me on this one. Anyway, despite being fairly wise to the tourist scammers in various countries, I admit to falling for this one straight away. "We're just over here," the taxi driver says as we walk along the taxi rank, at first naturally towards the first cab in line, and then beyond it, with me only absently wondering why we're now headed towards a multi-storey carpark. It turned out to be a pricey trip to the south of Paris, but at least I got there alive.

My guest house was on the Rue De La Moulin Verte. The two cheapest hotels I had previously found online in the whole of the South of France were this one and The Hotel Fred, which didn't sound too Parisienne, and had rubbish looking bedsheets. So I picked the one on the Moulin Verte and was quite looking forward to the posibility of a Burlesque theme hotel, but no such luck. That's obviously just reserved for the Moulin Rouge.

 
Charming hotel on the Moulin Verte, but no staff in suspenders.

French was never my strong point. From school I know "Monsieur Lafayette es dans le jardin avec un stilo" (to which my audience later in the week could testify) because I had to write it several hundred times during detention, but I can't even recall its  grammatically correct form. (And nobody ever explained to me why Mr Lafayette had taken a pen into his garden in the first place, which concerned me more.)

Anyway, the majority of staff spoke no English but I found one Spanish speaker amongst them, so we communicated largely in Spanish over the next few days and thus I was able to get decent directions for my gig.

The local area: I waited here for several hours hoping for someone to come along on a bicycle carrying a loaf of rustic bread and an old jug looking to steal someone's Stella Artois, but it never happened.

(More photos of the area will go into my travel album rather on this blog.) There was mainly Italian food in the area I stayed - bruschettas, pastas,  paninis and pizzas everywhere, but I managed to get a few omlettes in for good measure.

The Gig

The Bock De Boheme is a bar, music venue and bohemian hat emporium. I was sharing the floor with another Hull musician, Steve Reed, and Elsa Siugo from Paris.

Quirky bohemian millinery

Elsa & Steve Performing

Moi. (Moi - see, fluent already).

The audience was great - very appreciative. You could hear a pin drop during the performances

Group pic

A great night - as the others had to get the last tube back to the north of Paris, I went off and found another bar which was open particularly late and was full of rich people from Jersey who came to Paris every year for a rugby holiday. They kept telling me how many millionaires there were in Jersey and kept me plied with drinks for the evening which was jolly decent of them.

Unfortunately the late session robbed me of my directional co-ordination and I ended up lost en route home. In the end a really nice chap showed me the way right up to the door, and got a CD from me for his help. Not everyone wants to mug you, it's nice to know.

I spent the next couple of days resting as the walking around was doing my legs in and obviously as I'd brought my guitar with me rather than my crutches, I didn't want to end up in the situation I got into once in Mexico where the journey to the bathroom was like claimbing Everest.

It had been a great trip to Paris, and I was getting ready for the next leg of my journey, on the Thalys international train from France via Belgium and Luxembourg into Germany.

Taxi Story 2

This time I was careful to pre-book. My French-Brazilian taxi driver picked me up direct from the hotel, and the fare was about a fifth of the amount that the earlier wide boy had charged. When she broke into sopranoesque song, however I became a little uneasy. When the singing was interspersed with pieces of information such as "I've rejected all my friends. I don't need anyone now. Now there's just me" I became more so. Finally, without looking at the road, she turned round in the car and started slapping my legs in time to the music from the radio. 

My taxi driver was a French Brazilian painter and astrologer, a huge fan of Edith Piaf, who had formally rejected all her friends in favour of her own company and that of her dog - which died last week. 

But for all this it seemed she was a positive soul and it's always a privilige to meet an unabashed eccentric. She's the only taxi driver that's ever hugged me with tear streaked eyes to say goodbye, and wish me well on my journey. She was the one that deserved the other taxi driver's fare - it should have been swapped around.

And so I headed on to Paris Nord Station where every single Bosnian war widow (some of them not old enough to have even been there) was waiting for me, each weilding a letter asking for money - and none of them ready to take no for an answer.

Continued in Part 2. 

Currently watching : Irreversible Release date: 05 August, 2003

08:22 - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I can't see a thing! Call the paparazzi!
Current mood: cultured
Category: Writing and Poetry

Each time I log out of Hotmail, I'm confronted with an unwanted exit web page from MicroSoft Network, which includes MSN Today, MSN News, and MSN Money.  MSN Today is about celebrity news, MSN News is about news involving celebrities, and MSN Money is about how your star sign might affect your financial future (and how it compares to that of celebrities).

As it's been thrown in my face, and as their 'news' articles are so short and non in-depth (either for the reader with a busy work life on Wall Street or the reader who's a bit slow, you decide) I often can't help having a wee scodge at it.

I'm now going to go through their first news article I saw today, written by an anonymous member of MSN staff, and dissect it in the way I normally just do in my head. I hope to achieve nothing more by this than to feel a bit better.

Moss: scourge of criminals

An Analysis of MSN's Article of 15th February:
"Kate The Crime Fighter"

According to MSN News (who read it in The Daily Star, displaying rigorous academic and journalistic standards) Kate Moss' presence in St John's Wood, London, where she has  recently moved to, has cut crime. MSN says:

"... her arrival has made the area safer. Residents of St John's Wood, north-west London, say that bodyguards, paparazzi and a more visible police presence - all down to the model - have made it more difficult to commit crime."

The next paragraph says:

"Kate, 34, moved to the trendy district a few weeks ago, and since then a decapitated body has been discovered by police within a mile of her new home .. "

Am I missing something? If, since she moved in, crime has been reduced, and the only thing to have happened is the police's prompt discovery of a decapitated corpse ... imagine what must have been going on before she arrived! Pavement crucifixions?

Apparently local comments included:

"There are a lot of dimly-lit streets and now we've got paparazzi everywhere"

Are the locals confusing tabloid journalists with street lamps?Perhaps they're particularly tall, thin paparazzi with angled heads and unusually bright eyes.

A street-lamp yesterday. (Or is it a paparazzi?)

Imagine the benefits of illuminous paparazzi. The Council would no longer need to erect and manage street lamps, and the reductions in Council Tax would be huge. And they would have their domestic uses, as well.

A resident goes into the loft.

To further reduce crime it was claimed:

"The paparazzi take turns at walking round. It's like having grown men perform neighbourhood watch for free."

Alternatively, perhaps MSN is confusing the word paparazzi with the name of a local St John's wood vigilante crime lord, Tony Paparazzi and his mafia family. Either way, whatever St John's Wood residents had previously in terms of Neighbourhood Watch must have been very different from the rest of us. For a start, it didn't involve adults, and secondly it wasn't free.

So you know what to do next time a 17 year old in a hoodie knocks on your door and says "Neighbor Hood Watch, luv, for £20 me an' me mates'll make sure yer tyres don't get slashed" ...

Call the paparazzi. 

06:00 - 8 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Archbishops on Islam & Pope Benny in the Third Reich
Current mood: fascinated
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Metaphorically speaking, can you judge a book by its cover? If yes, this doesn't bode well for our world's political and religious future, given that half the movers and shakers in these fields look like baddies from 1940s sci-fi B movies. And where they don't, they make evil-looking hand gestures anyway, just to redress the balance. So why do all these ostensibly "good" people, look so ... well ... evil?  

Archbishop Of Canterbury Rowan Williams:
"Now, Mr Bond, it is time for you to die ..."

Requesting that the UK government incorporate elements of the ultra-extreme Islamic sharia law into British law doesn't help his image; although to be fair, I don't think he was condoning the incorporation of public beheadings into village life, he was on about allowing Muslims to get divorced legally. (But by using all sorts of long words and not saying this clearly, the old academic twit played right into the hands of Das Daily Mail by just mentioning it, of course).

Pope Benny: "I'm just blessing your grand-daughter
before I eat her for supper, cakle cakle ... "

Things are a bit more serious for the former Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope "Benny" Benedict XVI. He actually was a Nazi, along with many other Catholics of his time. Pope "oh, that was all in the past"  Benny will have to do better than that to convince me that he still isn't a Nazi. What would the Papal position on world politics be now if the Nazis had won the war? This is a picture of a young Father Ratzinger when the Third Reich was on the rise:

Papa Ratzinger:  "Zeik heil! Err ... I mean bless you, my child."


Younger still, Ratzinger in the Hitler Youth.
"It's just like the Boy Scouts, honest!
Then I'm going to train for the priesthood!
What could be more innocent?" 

Well, how innocent indeed! The Nazis signed a concordance with the Catholic church, of which Hitler, Goring, Himmler etc all were members - senior Nazis who were, incidentally, never excommunicated for their crimes, not even post-war or posthumously. The Catholic church doesn't seem to want to.

"Will the Herr Fuhrer be arriving on a donkey?"



"Fine day for a crucifixion!"
"We're gassing them nowadays, Klaus."

One could be forgiven in thinking that Pope Benny was on a mission to reignite his Nazi crusade against minority groups. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he was the Head of "The Congregation For The Doctrine Of Faith" - this title is much more of a mouthful than this committe's previous title: The Inquisition.

"Ah ha! Nobody expects the ..."

After all, one of his first speeches as Pope ranted on about how pagan beliefs were the cause of World War II and the holocaust. A wholly inaccurate statement, and one that is also ironic given that the Catholic Church were busy signing concordances with the Nazis. How a modern-day Pope could stand up and blame the holocauset on anything else but Nazi concentration camps isn't beyond me - just look at the previous photos.

Once he'd converted the Catholics to Nazism, Hitler moved to the Protestants, and he threw a lot of support behind a right-wing Christian evangelical movement called Deutsche Christen (DC) (German Christians). It wasn't long before the river-dunking tambourine-bashers looked like this:

"Michael rowed the boat ashore ... then we invaded!"

   
She's even flaunting a double-hander.

Hang on, wasn't he on the other side?

   
Now they're surely on opposite sides?

Ah bollocks to it, they're all at it!

To me it's part of an old (and effective) gypsy spell to reverse the 'evil eye' or a minor curse; to Bush it's a symbol of the Skull & Bones fraternity. Even Tony and Cherie Blair started using it not long after they got close to the Bushes. Some claim it's a universal symbol of the Illuminati, if one believes they exist in the manner they suggest. But whatever the meaning behind this for the individuals concerned, posing on TV with a hand gesture nowadays connected with the modern concept of "evil" is just pretentious showing off.

So to go back to my initial question ... why do all these folk either have naturally, or adopt, an "evil" look?  I reckon the answer's simple - they're just unable to hide what most of them effectively are. maybe if you look hard enough you actually can tell a book by its cover?

Currently watching : The Lottery Release date: 04 February, 2003

07:43 - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Tagged ...
Current mood: obsequious
Category: Games

..>

I was tagged by a Sexy Vampire to do this game. In turn I have to tag ten others, and will post a comment on their profiles to let them know. 

..>

Tagged -- 10 honest moments Each player starts with ten honest facts/habits about themselves. - People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their ten things as well as post these rules. - At the end of your blog, you need to choose ten people to get tagged and list their names. - Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog. You cannot tag someone who has tagged you! 1) I was once in a student movie called "Witchcraft", shot on location over three days in Edinburgh. I lent my copy of the finished video to another of the actors and we haven't seen each other for years so I can't watch it again right now; but it did get screened once at the BP Cinema in Edinburgh.  2) I had a snowball fight in a blizzard at the Niagra Falls, where I appeared in a documentary and down which I lost a wallet, 3) I first met my best friend eight years ago on an aeroplane. I had swapped planes due to a visa delay, she had swapped seats as a favour to another passanger. Lucky coincidence? 4) I once kicked a pint of water all over the stage at a music club while I was performing. I continued to play as the staff mopped it up around me. Photos were taken and resulted in a caption competition. 5) I contributed a track to a double CD called "John Barleycorn Reborn" on the Cold Spring Label, which also featured Dead Can Dance/This Mortal Coil's Peter Ulrich. It has received rave reviews including one from Julian Cope all of which you can read at the official site HERE . The CD has just won Fatea Magazine's Innovation Award, so I'm proud to have been a part of it. 6)  While at school I ran an imaginary bar during Maths class which wound the teacher up, as other students would queue at my desk for their invisible pints. I was eventually put on report when I left the classroom with the excuse that I needed "to change the barrel. " 7) I once jumped down a waterfall in Mexico and forgot to take off my shades, which vanished into the spume when I hit the pool at the bottom. They were prescription lensed and I really needed them back so in the end a local guy dived underwater in the river for ages and then surfaced with them - a truly lucky find, by someone clearly with huge lungs.  8) At some point or other I have worked in, or with, most of the colleges and universities in Scotland. 9) I was once one of the training team running an Equal Opportunities course in Derbyshire and had to wait while the conference using the venue before us cleared up and left. After they'd gone, the leaflets and presentation notes left in the room identified them as the British National Party. Oh, the irony. 10) When I was a youthworker I spent a weekend in an old castle with other youthworkers and thirty young people. During the night they made such a racket opening and slamming the doors up and down the corridor in my wing that over breakfast I asked them if they could be quieter on subsequent nights. I was advised that nobody else was staying on that wing, and all the doors along the corridor - which used to be used as an asylum - were kept locked and chained (which I later saw for myself). Scared? I was.

The 10 people I tag are............

1 - Tsugumi

2 - Marina

3 - Migster

4 - Heather

5 - Bonita

6 - Dave

7 - Ian 

8 - Charlotte

9 - Isis

10 - Val

... I shall look forward to reading all their revelations :-)

Doug

Currently watching : Reeker Release date: 25 September, 2007

14:32 - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Tesco can’t spell
Current mood: disgusted
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping

Just look at how corporate aggressors Tesco are promoting the use of crap grammar across the internet. Tesco must be among the richest companies in the UK and it can't even be bothered to pay for a marketing director who can punctuate English. 

Just be careful. If Tesco's maths is at the same level as its English, that gift voucher might be for £1.50

Every little helps - for example, a GCSE in English.

Currently reading : The Dark By James Herbert Release date: 01 March, 2003

23:17 - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The True Meaning Of ...
Current mood: enlightened
Category: Religion and Philosophy

A (non-exhaustive) Potted History Of Our Celebrations
on and During The 21st - 25th December

by Doug

Firstly, there were a number of folk tales from the forests of Scandinavia and Germany and Holland connected with the midwinter festival, usually celebrated around 21-25 December, or on the Solstice of the 21st. These involve, variously, a Green Man, or little green men such as elves (but not martians ... all that came later!) coming out of the forest; in some tales, a horned man, or spirit, God, or a devil; in some a gift-bringer, and in others a monster (Sinterklaas) that ate children after sliding down their chimney.

The 25th December was also the birthday of the popular Persian God Attis, the world-famous deity Mithras, and it was also the celebration of the Roman "Juvinalia" festival, where children would be given gifts

Meanwhile, in Turkey, there was a Bishop who was eventually canonised and became known as Saint Nicholas. The Pope, round about the same time as finalising an "official" day to celebrate the birth of Jesus as 25th December (pacifying the Pagans who wanted to continue their own winter festivities), thought it a good idea to give the ole Saint a day of his own in December, which I believe was originally the 5th.

Speeding further ahead in time, all this gradually got merged together over a few hundred years giving the Victorians a roly-poly green-clad Saint Nicholas who slid down chimneys and brought children presents on the 25th December (remember the birthday of Mithras, Son of Light, and the Roman Festival of Juvenalia, the Roman gift-giving ceremony for children).

Furthermore, the old Pagan ritual of tree-dressing was revived when Prince Albert brought the tradition over to the UK from Germany, along with tinsel-draping, an echo of the even more ancient (and rather unpleasant) practice of draping animal entrails on the boughs of trees for divination. 

Then an American guy wrote a poem connecting this Green Father Christmas with yet another folk tale and had him riding reindeer over snowy rooftops. The Scandinavian/Dutch version of his name was mutated to "Santa Claus".

The final death-and-rebirth of this particular Green Man came in the 1950s when Coca-Cola were looking for an icon they could use to promote their sticky brown liquid (at that time they managed to make it without the GMO aspartame, although when it was first released as a medicinal tonic, it did contain coca leaf - yes, cocaine!). In a blaze of creativity they dressed him up in red to match their brand, subsequently known famously as "The Coca-Cola Santa", which is now a registered trademark or copyrighted or something, and is the only version most people are now aware of. You can still get hold of reproduction German Christmas Cards from Victorian times where he's still dressed in green - if you send Christmas cards, why not surprise a friend and send a Green Santa?

Personally I'd like to see a revival of the original Sinterklaas creature that came down chimneys and ate children. That would stop the old foageys moaning about how when they were kids all they got in their stocking was a sixpence and an orange - they were lucky! Their ancestors got eaten!

(NB. This blog is a seasonal repost from last year and was also posted on the Myspace Green Man Cybercoven at the time, where members can read an extended version.)

Currently listening : John Barleycorn Reborn: Dark Britannica By Various Artists Release date: 02 November, 2007

13:08 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Fairie Shenannigans at Winter Solstice Ritual
Current mood: refreshed
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

Back when I was living in Scotland we used to head out to the remains of a tiny stone circle out in the Lammamuirs each full moon (and venture to larger megaliths further north on the fire and solar festivals) .

The wee stones in the Lammamuirs

Not uncommon were the shared experiences of seeing small bouncing lights both on the moors and around the circle, sometimes quite vivid; and of feeling presences standing around the circle (and also more magical and inexplicable encounters that remain just between us). 

At our Winter Solstice celebration last night at a site used regularly by local pagans, a couple of things happened that reminded me very much of my previous experiences over the years in Scotland.   

 
A pic of some woods at Solstice sent to me on myspace by Marina,
which reminded me a lot of our site here, though ours was
moonlit and denser with trees.

Currently reading : As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade By Mark Thomas Release date: 22 May, 2007

19:54 - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Tha Lair: A Birthday, A Wake, Two Xmas Parties and a Riot
Current mood: pirate
Category: Parties and Nightlife

Well what a great night the 19th December turned out to be at The Lair club in Hull - if somewhat surreal  (I haven't seen any photos of the night yet so any here are random illustrations.)

The combination of it being my my birthday, The Lair's xmas party, and in the room next door both a Wake and an office xmas party, was alway going to have an interesting potential.

The Lair was nice and busy and the tone was set by Shirley Higton's opening set featuring a song she'd specially written for my birthday, an interesting song featuring a birthday cake shaped like a pair of DD breasts with two cherries on top.

Oot for the lads: Clearly breast-shaped cakes do indeed exist

At this point I was asked by some official chap if the songs I would be playing that night were copyrighted and if so by who. And would I please write them down on this form. As I only sing my own material I told him I had the copyright and publishing rights to all my material, to which he said "oh well, you might get some money then". This seemed very odd, but after checking it all out it appears that it was a very rare visit by the licensing people who survey clubs and make a note of how many covers have been played that night so that they can calculate how much money to send from bars' licensing fees to the copyright owners. As these surveys are rare, a wholly hit-and-miss, if not plain innacurate, science that must be.  

I'm awake! Arf. First a cake, then a Wake

It wasn't long after the second act had begun that the crashing banging and screaming noises from the Wake next door began to permeate our own venue. Coincidentally I was in the middle of asking Patricia, a police officer friend, if it was technically legally possible for me to make a Citizen's Arrest on a copper, when the conversation was interrupted by the sound of police sirens and the riot vans turned up outside.

   
Evenin'o - I discovered that technically it is perfectly fine for a UK citizen to make a Citizen's Arrest on a police officer behaving in a manner likely to cause alarm or distress, which is fairly often in my experience.
Tip: don't try it if they outnumber you.

Rumour had it that guests from one party had purloined food from the table of the other party, or perhaps it was some family feud kicking off regarding the deceased's will. Either way the scuffle spilled out onto the street where Hull's Second-To-Finest (the Finest are clearly Hull's musicians rather than the constabulary, no offence to Pat, who also warned me that the police in Hull were upping the use of tazers. Personally I reckon that the Police will start getting flagged down to jump-start people's cars; watch out AA and RAC!)  were waiting for them (possibly with a big net, I was watching the bands so I didn't see).

With the funeral party arriving in a hearse and preparing to leave in a riot van, that just left the disco thumping away in the background.

C'mon, Grandmas! Let's get on the floor to Cliff Richard's
"Mistletoe & Wine 2007 Dance Mix"

My suggestion, made over the mic as I prepared for my set, was as there was already a van outside with disco-like lights flashing on it, and half the clientelle from next-door were already inside it, why not simply move the DJ into the van. They could continue their party in there under supervision, and we'd get a bit of peace.

Anyway my set went OK, even with two experiments: my spoken word poem about the "Myspacefacebook" phenomenon and having a bassist (the great John Cox) play on one of my songs. I messed up a little with that one, but he's such a competent musician that he played around my mistakes easily!  

After that it was simply time to open the prezzies that I got from various people on the night which was such a nice surprise and included a set of runes and a pair of stripey red tights, and have a drink.

(Actor's legs)

The rest of the music was fantastic, partiocularly after things had quietened next door - with the Wake party opting for prison food rather than their own, we were allowed to help ourselves to their buffet chilli, curry, rice and samosas - and Music HQ rocked the way through the night with (in my personal opinion) the evening's standout music from the Val Marshall/John Cox/Dave Holley troupe and the headliners Redwood Thinkers. I was also going to mention that Sarah McCluskey and Alex Stork went down very well on my table, but it doesn't sound too good , but as long as they knows they're appreciated the phraseology isn't important ... 

All in all a great night, great to see everyone from the Tap'n'Spile and Springboard and Pagan posses to my family and freinds.

Thanks to Darren Bunting at Music HQ for putting on a great bash (and to the people next door for bashing each other into oblivion).

All the best!

Cactus Doug 

Currently watching : Jeepers Creepers II [Region 2]

19:07 - 8 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment