China and Hypocrisy
Current mood: okay
Category: Life
I got an email from a friend who appears to have reached the end of his tether with his work colleagues....
If I hear one more tosser say "What's the point in me cutting CO2 emissions if China is building 2 power stations a minute", then I will batter them over the head with their own Chinese made shoes, then garrotte them with their £3 made in china trousers/blouse/shirt/skirt/socks/g-string, bury them in the ground using their £1.99 poundland pickaxe and shovel made in Shanghai and scarper taking their Chinese made kitchen appliances, DVD recorder, DVD's, Videogames, hifis and televisions, making my getaway in their car which will invariably be made of metal that will have been smelted from ore somewhere along the Yangtse, whilst listening out for PC Plod reports on the chinese made DAB incar audio/visual system guided by the chinese made satnav.
And I expect they will still fail to see the problem.
It's not often that you go to the cinema and at the end of the film the audience breaks into spontaneous applause, but that's what happened this evening when I went to see a remarkable film "The Lives of Others". It's a German film and 2 hours 20 minutes long and I was gripped from start to finish. Films are a matter of personal taste of course, but if you love film and film-making then go and see this one, it's how films should be made...
I had quite a disturbing experience this morning and it has unsettled me all day. [Joanie, you can stop reading now, I was ranting about this at work today]. I was at the gym just after 7am, yes I know that's disturbing enough but someone (you know who you are) planted the seed and it came to fruition today. Anyway, at the gym they have these banks of TV screens plugged into 24 hour TV and, as I don't know full sign language and couldn't follow the pre-8am news, I was captivated by the spectacle on Sky Sports 1. Now, I don't have Sky (buying the Saturday Times and giving money to Murdoch is bad enough and if it wasn't for Robert Crampton I wouldn't bother) and so I rarely watch extra-terrestrial TV (is that the term?). There was something on called WWF, which I thought was a charity for saving Pandas, but it appears to be a US wrestling franchise.
Now I know wrestling is popular, my nephew was into it before he discovered music, and I myself used to enjoy Kendo Nagasaki vs Mick McManus on World of Sport before the football results when I was a kid. I did karate for years, think Norman Mailer's book 'The Fight' (his account of the legendary bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman) is a classic, as is the film of the same subject 'When We Were Kings', and so I'm not squeamish about sporting combat.
Wrestling is pure pantomime of course, no-one really gets hurt, it's all rehearsed, it's a show etc. It was mildly amusing until the lowlight, a 'tag-team' event [thanks for the lingo Joanie] started and the first (white) 'team' emerged, one dressed in red-neck uniform of John Deere cap and sleeveless shirt and his pal in a pair of quite remarkable trousers. Cue lots of cheering and strutting. Then their 'opponents' came out, two black guys dressed as rappers. I nearly fell off the treadmill. I wouldn't have believed it had it been a cartoon, I've never seen so many one dimensional steroetypes in many a long year. The show proceeded with lots of shots of the crowd cheering and clapping and baying for non-exsistent blood.
Now, here's the thing that disturbed me. There must have been 20,000 people in this huge venue and (going by the TV shots) there wasn't a single under 15 there. They were all adults. Adults who probably have the vote. It scared me. A lot.
Currently
listening
:
Mellowosity
By
Peatbog Faeries
Release date: 01 July, 2002
The Joy of Singing
Current mood: Wanting to Dance...
Category: Wanting to Dance... Music
I was at an Eddi Reader gig tonight and it reminded why I love music so much and what joy it can bring. There was a mixture of old and new, yes even some Fairground Attraction, lots of laughter, banter (or craic if you prefer) and a singer singing for the pure pleasure of it. Each song had a story, whether it was a love song to soldiers past and present, or a Robert Burns song about masturbation (I kid ye not). In between songs she broke into comic Glasgow ditties, there was an Irish influence too, a member of 'Cherish the Ladies' and an Irish accordian player. The mixture was perfect, it takes a lot to get an Edinburgh crowd off it's arse but she did it time and again. Two highlights for me, the song Leezie Lindsay - a song based on the last piece of Burns to survive the Victorians: they burned 50% of his work because (as she put it) 'he used rude words like arse, drink, feck, women'. It almost brought the roof off. The second was the last set of reels and watching a grown woman who's heard it all before, dance around the stage, lost in the music as if she was at a party back home and the carpet had been rolled back.
That was my night...I walked home with a smile on my face, a spring in my step and a jig in my heart.
Currently
listening
:
Peacetime
By
Eddi Reader
Release date: 01 February, 2007
How to Burn Wood
Current mood: Warm and Cosy
Category: Warm and Cosy Life
Beechwood fires are bright and clear If the logs are kept a year Chestnut's only good they say, If for long 'tis laid away. But Ash new or Ash old Is fit for a Queen with crown of gold.
Birch and Fir logs burn too fast Blaze up bright and do not last. It is by the Irish said, Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread. Elm wood burns like churchyard mould, Even the flames are very cold. But Ash green or Ash brown Is fit for a Queen with golden crown.
Poplar gives a bitter smoke, Fills your eyes and makes you choke. Apple wood will scent your room With an incense like a fine perfume. Oaken logs, if dry and old, Will keep away the winter cold. But Ash wet or Ash dry A king shall warm his slippers by.
Currently
listening
:
Peacetime
By
Eddi Reader
Release date: 20 February, 2007
I had my final night class night yesterday evening, at the start of the autumn when the leaves start turning brown and the days grow shorter it's time to turn to ways of getting out of the house, not outside as there's no fun to be had under yellow sodium streetlights in the wind and rain. To meet new people, learn something new and make some connections with the human race outside the usual circle of work colleagues and friends.
I wanted to do Indian cookery but no such luck. Thai or Chinese sir? No problem, sign right here. No thanks. I toyed with doing a language class, I've done Italian before and I love it but, no, something different. So instead of Indian cookery it was Indian Head Massage.
Now it was a bit of a bus drivers holiday of sorts, I already do Swedish massage but Indian Head is good for those not confident or at ease to go for a traditional massage. It's through the clothes and people, or women in particular I've discovovered these past 10 weeks, love having their hair and head massaged. They all said the same, that they've had it at the hairdresser and wanted to learn how to do it. It's a world closed to us men, for us a haircut is done by numbers "4 at the back and sides, 5 on top, not too short at the front" and that's it. Fifteen minutes later, £8 lighter and we're out of the door with a cheerio and hair down the back of your neck for the rest of the day.
So I now have another string added to my bow and it's been a reminder of the effect a massage can have. No-one burst into tears in class but I nearly sent two people to sleep and one woman was so dizzy at the end I thought she was going to fall over. It's many things I think, it's the physical movement of muscle and skin obviously - I get great satisfaction in getting hard-as-marble shoulders moving again, and seeing the relief in people's faces that they can feel the difference, feel that muscle moving and that, yes, it does actually work. There's the relationship between masseur and client, it requires trust on both sides and without it there is no benefit to be had. Then, just as important, it's 'you' time. Time for yourself, to sit still and feel as if you're the centre of your world, time out, chill out, whatever you choose to call it everyone needs a little.
So if you haven't been for a massage before, or you have and haven't been for a while, then now is the perfect time, it's too cold to be outside....
This must be a record for early Christmas sightings, not one but two today. First in the home section of a large high street department store (other badly lit, stuffy and disorientating shops are available) room was being created for their "Christmas at Home" section and then, not four hours later, queueing in a local suermarket my gaze was met by the largest display of selection boxes this side of Bournville. I'm still pretending it's summer and the clocks haven't even changed yet.
The Licorice Fields at Pontefract - John Betjeman (1906-1984)
Current mood: sleepy
In the licorice fields at Pontefract My love and I did meet And many a burdened licorice bush Was blooming round our feet; Red hair she had and golden skin, Her sulky lips were shaped for sin, Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd The strongest legs in Pontefract.
The light and dangling licorice flowers Gave off the sweetest smells; From various black Victorian towers The Sunday evening bells Came pealing over dales and hills And tanneries and silent mills And lowly streets where country stops And little shuttered corner shops.
She cast her blazing eyes on me And plucked a licorice leaf; I was her captive slave and she My red-haired robber chief. Oh love! for love I could not speak, It left me winded, wilting, weak, And held in brown arms strong and bare And wound with flaming ropes of hair.
If I hear one more person say they have a 'food intolerance' I'm going to scream. Here's the thing, unless you come out in an all-over rash, your head swells to the size of a space-hopper or you end up in hospital, you don't have a food allergy. If something doesn't agree with you just don't eat it and stop turning it into some pseudo trendy-attention-seeking-condition and get on with life.
No Ursula Martinez at La Clique, very disapointing. Captain Frodo - The Rubber Man, however, was outstanding. I won't go into how he dislocated his shoulder to get it through the head of a tennis racket. Fast forward to the finale, balancing on top of a pyramid of ever-smaller cans he sat atop a bean sized can, 10ft in the air and started to slowly put his feet behind his head...."Ladies and Gentlemen, isn't it funny how some people earn a living (laughter) ...now, remember all those dreams that you had, you thought they were too difficult, too wierd or too unattainable...they don't seem so silly now do they (louder laughter..first foot behind head)...when I was a boy I wanted to be the india rubber man (gasps...second foot there)...and now I am...Follow Your Dreams Ladies and Gentlemen, Follow Your Dreams...." the roof almost came off with the cheers and applause. Brilliant.
okay
contemplative
tired
sleepy
calm