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TALKING WITHOUT WORDS
here's something i learned: language is mostly a failure. apart from things like "do you want a cup of coffee?" and "a funny thing happened on the way to the opera", it's all lacking some of the most important tools.
i mean, like, try this: describe how something smells. kinda tough huh? there are some, y'know, real obvious words for smell but not much refinement. the language simply fails, right?
you know the inuits (or is it eskimos) are supposed to have 26 different words for different types of snow. in english, we've got one: snow. how sad is that?
so here's some words and phrases that really don't y'know, cut the mustard language-wise: god, collective awareness, spirit, truth, love, communal experience and so on. how we going to understand things when we don't have even the basic, like, tools?
well the only way i found some people trying to do it was to deny language completely, i mean, like, fight the fog of etymology with a sword of silence and just, y'know, feel stuff.
i dunno, maybe it's the right way, but you gotta give them something for even seeing the problem in the first place.
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CATARACTS AND HURRICANES
there are so many lies
that it will take a blizzard
of truths to smother them
today, i realised that
it takes an hour
for about fifty people,
working hard,
to make just one snowflake
i think we’d better make a start
as soon as possible
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FAIR COMMENT
i went somewhere that specialises in collective truths and they were thinking about power and control. they had some children who had been thinking about power and control as well. so i kinda joined in and started thinking about power and control.
i listened to the children and i thought about how children relate to power and i thought that they often verbalise their interface with the control they experience as being "fair" or, more commonly, "not fair".
i kinda thought that as we get older we have a more sophisticated relationship with power. we "understand" its need and we rationalise control. in all things, from making wars to taking taxes.
you know what? i think children have got it about right. we do all this sophisticated apologism for the power and control exercised on us, around us and on and over others and we find a bunch of metrics that all too often conclude that we should shrug our shoulders because that's the way things are. what we don't do is ask whether something is fair.
maybe we should trust our own childhoods and our own children and fairness should be the first measure we apply.
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CLEVER STUFF
i've been thinking about marmite.
what i've been thinking is that it goes on your toast and in your mouth. that means it's two places at once...
there's more to marmite than you might think at first.
marmite
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BLOOD ON OUR TANKS
look. it seems them naughty israelis have been breaking promises now. they said they wouldn't use the tanks they bought off us in the "occupied territories" and they have gone and done it.
they kinda hotrodded some centurion tanks and turned them into armoured personnel carriers and they been using them in their current invasion.
it seems when you sell loads of military equipment to some people you just can't be sure they are going to play nice with it.
i bet our people are ever so cross, i bet when they sold them they thought the tanks would come in handy for picnics, like toyota landcruisers or something.
use of uk armour
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EXPERTS SPEND WISELY
just in case anyone is in any doubt about how effective the "bods" in charge have been in spending all this money that braunstone people won to improve their leicester estate, here's a picture i took two years ago.
see the burnt out car? oh dear. the estate's still full of them. but lots of money has been spent on administration and consultants so it's not all been a waste. hoorah.
yes honey, you are privileged
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VOICE OF PRIVILEGE
oh my gosh. gerald kaufman mp has denounced ariel sharon as a "war criminal". is that legal?
i think he can get away with it cause he said it in parliament and there's, like, a law that says it's ok to say that stuff if you're an mp and in parliament or something.
so gerald kaufman could say something like "he's a murdering bastard" about someone and get away with it. but only if he said it in parliament.
i don't think i could say that on here. it's something to do with privilege or absolute privilege. it wouldn't be legal, except if it was fair. as in fair comment. y'know, "fair comment guv'nor".
it wouldn't be legal to say on here something like "he has the blood of children on his heartless hands" about someone. and, of course, it would probly not be true because if anyone did i guess he would wash them pretty quick anyway. at least before he ate his tea.
so it's funny really that we got laws and rules and judges and stuff that stop you from saying not nice things about people, even in other countries, but we don't seem to do nothing much when other countries, like, murder loads of civilians and then stamp rubble over them with tanks.
israel faces rage over 'massacre'
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TRUTH AND BEAUTY
the friends of truth say that there is beauty in all things. some say that this beauty is the very essence of god, some do not even refer to "god", they just talk about the essence.
so, look at the flowers that are starting to show life in this delicate english spring. in them is essence. look at the sky blue sky and see essence. see your neighbour on his/her way to work. in him/her there is essence.
look again in the mirror and you see? yes, you see the essence of beauty, beauty in all things, god in the human machine.
and, through this beauty, this beauty of our hearts and minds and, if you wish, our souls, perhaps we should start acting like angels.
perhaps more importantly, we should act as if others are angels.
powell makes final ceasefire push
15 days in Bethlehem
missing in action
inside the camp of the dead
facts about friends
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GLASS SCULPTURES
it's not worth me showing you what i saw today because the only picture i've got is just rubbish, so i'm going to have to tell you about it instead and that's not going to be very easy because i'm only just sorting it out in my head.
well, i was in this art gallery and there was some sculptures made of square pieces of glass that made up waves of translucent colour.
how they can produce a brochure of art and use a shit picture i don't know. oh sylvia, why did you fuck up on that?
anways, the best way to explain it is in what the artist said, so here, stolen, are the words of gunta anita krumins:
"memories are fragile. we can only catch glimpses of them. they constantly shift and change; we seem to be able to catch them in the palms of our hands and yet, simultaneously they carry enormous and cathartic weight.
"glass acts as a perfect foil for memory. glass carries extraordinary conceptual richness expressed through transparency and translucence, fragility and transience.
"through these pieces i have captured memories of my own; hopes, losses, loves where each stilled strip creates a narrative. they refract my life, part heavy, part light - pulled together they are just an instance in the flow of things."
go and see it a leicester's city gallery, granby street.
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TRAVELLERS IN TIME
guess what? i've been thinking about time travel again. y'know, i reckon if you think so bad that it hurts, you can choose to go to any time in your life.
y'know, a bit like billy pilgrim or something, not like the h g wells thing.
imagine if all them good moments were like reruns that you could just looptape on over til you were sick of them.
because if time is, like, a line then you should be able to retrace your steps and stand where you once was.
except, y'know, i bet being back there, in the forest, wouldn't be as nice as looking back over your shoulder at it.
what a pisser that would be.
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NO CASE FOR CAPITALISM
howsomever, someone asked why there's no capital letters in god's own country and i been thinking myself about why this don't happen none too much.
i guess there's, like lots of reasons and i thought about listing them. things like there's no uppercase here, we're all on the same level. man. and then, like, it may help they illiterate americans to unnerstand, y'know?
maybe it's just because i got lazy fingers but, stealing a poem from roger mcgough, this is probly more appropriate:
I USED TO LIVE IN CAPITALS,
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC,
but now i'm sadly lowercase,
with the occasional italic.
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SHARON RESOURCES
just in case you need more information to make up your mind about this ariel sharon person, here's some useful links:
ariel sharon
justice for victims of sabra & shatila
the electronic intifada
sharon’s crimes against humanity
return of the terrorist
anti-sharon protesters arrested
now then, any chance you might arrest him for murdering palestinians?
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SPOT THE TERRORIST
yup. you got it. it's the israeli soldier in the tank.
powell holds crucial talks with arafat
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BUTTERBEAN AND AVOCADO PATE
this is an easy pate which makes an ideal sandwich or toast spread. the lemon juice helps stop the avocado going brown. best eaten on day made
half 425g can of butterbeans (easier to mash than soaked and cooked dried beans)
half a ripe avocado
teaspoon finely chopped or minced onion
teaspoon olive oil
pinch mixed herbs
salt & pepper to taste
few drops of lemon juice
take the skins off the beans and mash them well with the avocado and olive oil. mix in the other ingredients, adding salt and pepper to taste
makes enough for four sandwiches
finally, arrest ariel sharon for murdering palestinians, and serve
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SAD BUT TRUE
sorry if anyone finds this cartoon offensive. it's from the arab news in saudi arabia (sorry, i kinda stole it).
anyway, offensive or not, it does kinda sum up the situation just a little bit. makes you think, y'know? or doesn't it? how brainwashed are you?
arab news
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BLOGLOBALISATION
so i got to thinking about the global community of webloggers around the world and wondering about why the hell we does it.
and i turned it this way and that and then back again. and you know what? it don't really matter none too much because everyone's doing it for different reasons.
and one reason i just found is that i absolutely have to get some recipes on here, because why? because i ain't got none online some far. nuff said.
radio rogis net
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BRITS ON THE BLOG
these are entry points into british blogging sites. blog in peace my compatriots, wherever you are...
1. previous blogging brit
2. lists of blogging brits
3. why blogging brits
4. random blogging brit
5. next blogging brit
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THE WORD OF BLOG
this is as eloquent a defence of blogging as you are ever likely to read. so what if we are all onanists playing to an audience of one?
up yours rupert murdoch and jonathan harmsworth, the sisters are doing it for themselves.
talk is cheap and so is blogging
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SMILES OF A CLOWN?
so, while the murdering goes on in the palestinian refugee camps it's good to know that ariel sharon and his toady mate colin powell can have a good laugh about stuff.
it's nice to know that while the world starts to wake up to what an evil man ariel sharon might be, our american friends are ready to jump in and paper over the cracks.
i bet mr. powell is dead angry with yasser arafat for driving israeli tanks through all his people's houses.
anyhow, like i said, this ain't funny any more so here's some things you should remember:
1. ariel sharon has a long history relating to the murder of civilians
2. ariel sharon's attacks in lebanon involved the murder of civilians
3. united states foreign policy is based on 55% of the country not knowing where the pacific ocean is
4. 98% of americans don't have a passport
5. most americans don't give a fuck about stuff that isn't on their doorstep
6. america funded terrorist contras in nicaragua (and elsewhere)
7. george bush can barely comprehend his own language
8. oh and the american government gives israel billions of dollars each year so they can buy american weapons to keep american companies bank-rolled without the american government being seen to give money direct to private american companies and whaddya gonna do when you got all them rockets and tanks and stuff and all that sand around you just gotta try it out on your neighbours ain't ya no matter what they lily-livered pinkoes at the united nations say.
all smiles for sharon
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HOWDY EUROPEAN COUSINS
hello there. just a quick note to welcome our new visitors from portugal. thanks for taking part in god's own country and making your voice heard.
like, it's kinda easy sometimes to fall into the trap of thinking it's just americans out there but this is like the united states of europe, huh?
feel free to use the feedback link up above.
ip
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THEY HAVE BLOGS!
i have no idea what this is about. so what else is new? it's intriguing, that's all, so click on it. right?
green gabbro
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WHY IT'S NOT REMOTELY FUNNY
well. 150 people murdered in a refugee camp and still nothing happens. it's remarkable really isn't it? if this was serbia we'd be outraged.
we'd be spending money on a war crimes trial. hey, i'm up for it, use some of my tax to get the ball rolling.
so now i got to thinking this: it's gone beyond anything remotely like a joke, or a quirk, or personality disorder.
don't you think the civilised world ought to arrest ariel sharon for murdering palestinians?
west bank offensive goes on - sharon
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WHY SO CHANGEABLE?
god i keep thinking about the truth and how it changes its clothes so often! one moment you think you got it pinned and the next it's pinwheeled off into a new dimension.
here it is spring already and the calendar starts to tell history like some kinda fucked up clock running backwards.
well i'll track the little bastard down somewheres. i promise. and when i do i'm going to pin its ass good and proper in god's own country.
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GOD'S OWN COUNTRY
what the hell do i mean, "this is god's own country"? how comes i get to have god's country, here, on this screen. well it isn't is it? it's on your screen, and your screen, and his screen and her screen - and uncle tom cobbley and all, and all.
geddit yet? it's not a descripter, it's not a nomenclature, it's a statement. deep breaths, think about...geddit yet?
so if you got it, better start treating it like god's country. stake your claim, find your voice, i mean, like, unleash. yes?
God's Own Country
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THE ENGLISH ESSENCE
i looked out of the window and it made me think just how english i am. i mean english not british.
welsh people are, like, cut from their mountains and scots people are made of a mix of rough cereals and hairy horses, y'know? and english? well, mostly we got gentle melancholic rain.
i do mean gentle. it falls so soft, almost but not quite like snow (snow would be too extreme for us). and i don't mean melancholia because things sometimes get sad, i mean it's, like, right at our core, understand?
i watched the melancholic rain fall for a little while and had some little english thoughts in my little english head.
y'know what i thought? i thought this: s'alright.
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