Serious

Difficult to get serious when, again, a few Christmas drinks to the good. Probably it would be sensible to have a quiet day at home tomorrow building a Civilization of some sort.
Can't be worse than being sober and watching the cricket. Still, even for the poor buggers there at the MCG, it must still be fun as a life. I wonder where England are touring next winter?

Ashes to Ashes

I've managed to miss writing anything about the Ashes this winter, which I suppose is just as well. If you can't speak well of the dead, say nothing at all - or something like that. It's been an absolute bloody mess from an English point of view, but even that doesn't stop me enjoying my holiday by being able to stay up a bit and follow the cricket from afar. In fact, so far tonight sounds like about the best session of the series for England - Ponting and Hussey both out for single figures. And in fact, Clarke goes too as I write. Time to turn on the radio I reckon.
I've started reading the book I got for Christmas about 'The Long Emergency'. The full title is 'SUrviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty First Century'. PArticularly relevant is the concept of cognitive dissonance, applied to a society - in fact, to a species. Essentially this comes down to ignoring the broader context of what is happening in your environment in order to focus on the smaller - perhaps, more handleable, details. And so most folks worry about how to pay the rent, or the mortgage, and miss the disasters looming over us. I guess it's a survival mechanism as well to some extent, but one which is actually leading us into disaster.
Time to evolve again I reckon.

Nice day?

Well, Christmas is nearly over, for another year, and to be honest I'm too pissed to type. It was a good one, and a merry Christmas to anyone reading this. It was good fun, and I've been busy from beginning to end, so either some of it passed by me or I caught the true meaning of Christmas, I'm not sure which. Perhaps someone can supply a sit-com happy ending and let me know?
Anyway, it was great to see everyone tonight - 14 people in all I think, so I reckon there was some good grub distribution.
This is nice now - everyone gone home or to bed, and a bit of funk (to remember James Brown, who died today) . I've got a feeling that tonight is a Christmas to last a little longer.
Kisses and merry Christmas to you all!

All trimmed up

So, here we are. Christmas time again. I'm a huge fan. How can you not be? - the room is full of lights and colours, I'm off work and allowed to drink from mid-afternoon till early morning, and there's all that goodwill concept kicking around.
Willow's birthday tomorrow morning. She's started to be a bit more able to deal with this double excitement - we can claw her down from the ceiling now and then.
I'm cooking a huge dinner on Christmas Day - I think the guest list is about 15 people. So I'm presuming they're not going to want to sit and listen to the cricket from Australia at 2 in the morning.
Shane Warne announced his retirement a couple of days ago, following the all-too-easy regaining of the Ashes. I never saw him play live unfortunately, which is a shame as he's one of the greats of all-time.
I'm having a decadent Christmas again this year, helped out by having my first Christmas bonus. I'm well into the realms of middle class territory - my kids are certainly going to grow up middle class at the least. It's a strange thing.
I'd like to be optimistic. I have lately had a few inklings of optimism, which is curious for me. Sure my personal life is fantastic in many ways, and even though I detest wage-slavery, I am at least reasonably OK with it at the moment; but neither of these are justifications for true optimism.
The greening of the Sahara: reading recently that the Sahara has - contrary to expectations - actually been greening lately, rather than desertification increasing - now, that was good news. Such things are few and far between though.
So, for Christmas, when we can at least have a little optimism, when we can perhaps think how the world could be a better place, when we can think that - if it's not necessarily a wonderful life, it at least bears that potential - and celebrate.
Most importantly of all, is the depth of feeling that we can allow ourselves by having some time out to contemplate. That's why I like to take a couple of weeks at this time of year. It was originally a winter solstice festival, and it's an appropriate time of year, when there's little agricultural work to be done, to contemplate. That I miss Luna is still an intense feeling. But I'm also looking forward - to next year and another new baby! And sheer joy at my two daughters. Amazement at my love, my Esther.
I also have precious old friends, some of which will be joining us on Christmas Day for dinner. And new friends too.
I guess the point of these ramblings is simply that I'm lucky and happy. And even though most things seem to indicate that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, there a few signs out there that just maybe there are also reasons to be cheerful...

Briefly

Christmas holidays start in two days for me. Lots of things I want to catch up on. So this should be busy here.
One of the worst things though, is the baiji being declared functionally extinct.

Oscillations

It's been quite a while since the last ramble. Being sick again for a couple of weeks was the main reason, and since then I've not felt like too much of a stay up and write Friday. Sinterklaas arrived a couple of weeks back, and this means the weekends have extra commitmments - away to the shops tomorrow afternoon again with the happy hunting credit card.
On top of that, there's the usual work shite, compounded by imminent redundancies (which theoretically I'm breaking confidentiality obligations on by writing about it here, but as this is effectively non-public, I guess i'll not worry too much). And I'm busy looking at the proposed redundancies, together with my colleagues in the Works Council, to see if the plan is acceptable. The sad thing is, I think I'll have to resign from the Works Council as the position I'm in now is untenable: I have too broad a picture and may be distracting others from their own focus, and I feel frustrated at their understandable wish to focus in a different way than I do. As I've got a big mouth, it bothers me that I'm becoming more of a hindrance than a help for the rest of the Works Council, for their own development, if nothing else.
That's difficult to express. I do also find it difficult for myself. It's weird when I find myself understanding the bosses' point of view more easily, but I've run a company and I'm one of the movers in this place, so it's definitely unusual for a syndicalist. Still, if you're gonna play the game, play hard - I like to think I'm using those skills for the benefit of most, if not always for everyone. It's the witch thing - somebody has to make the judgement calls, and it seems there's only a handful of us that are actually going to make those calls when the moment bites.
It's nice to be up late for a change, even if I have got the frankly discomforting threat of several hours at Toys'R'Us tomorrow afternoon with a hormonal pregnant wife to look forward to. The 2nd day of the 2nd Ashes test kicks off in 6 minutes, and finally I have the chance to listen to something hopefully entertaining.
It's the 1st Decmber today, which means lots of things in my own personal timekeeping. Sinterklaas time is coming to an end - and it's Pakjesavond on Tuesday already. But it's also the kick into Christmas time: we have the work party on Thursday already; and I'm already into when we're going to get the tree, the Advent calendars are dispensing chocoloate and the specials are starting to get broadcast stateside.
Also, it's the beginning of the meteorological winter here, though the only snow I've seen hints of so far are in the winter sports on TV and the digital snow on the Aussie torrents site Diwana, which is kind of unexpected - I didn't think Aussies would associate Christmas with snow.
The reason I'm on the Aussie torrent site of course is also for the cricket, which has just begun. A maiden to start. It's the ultimate feel of the European winter - the whistling of the reception and the slight twinge of the heating not quite warm enough, the imagining of sun and heat over the other side of the planet.
Not that we're having a European winter yet. I'd be hard pressed to call this an autumn as yet. I might suggest the poles were switching and the seasons topplingover, if it weren't for the rest of the Northern hemisphere. West of us, there have been some heavy winter storms, including the earliest lake effect storm ever seen in Buffalo and some good heavy dumpings of snow in the Rockies and Midwest. And east of the Urals, the temperatures have been record lows for the time of year. Which makes it even more remarkable that the temperatures in Europe have been so high. Not just slightly warmer than the record (which was anyway set last year) but knocking on towards 2 degrees hotter for the entire autumn than the record. This is unheard of, and has naturally got the meteos concerned and investigating over here.
Meanwhile, yesterday was the last day of the Atlantic Hurricane season. Well, what can you say. After last year, and 2004 for that matter, it was natural to expect another heavy season. And the result was anything but. One tropical storm hit the US, and that was it. Almost all the storms started well east, and recurved out to sea well before the Bermudas. In fact, what needs looking into, is that Western Europe had to keep more of an eye on the storms than the US. The Azores were hit a couple of times, and Spain, Portugal, England and Ireland were all hit by at least one heavy storm. I don't know the casualties, but I seem to remember a couple of people being lost when one of the hurrican remnants - Florence perhaps? - hit the West of England, Northern Ireland and northern Iberia. Which would mean more casualties from the Atlantic Hurricane season in Europe than in North America. For sure, we had to keep more of an eye on the storms than the US did!
So what do we see here?
Extremes. Oscillations. Unpredictability.
Everything that we could expect from a chaotic system being disturbed and moving to a new state. Predicting where this will settle, the new pattern that will emrge, would require an ability to understand this sort of complexity way beyond anything we can currently manage. All we can say is, extrememes will become the norm. It might be very hot or very cold, we might get storms or settled weather. We know millions will die and be displaced and economies will collapse. This is now unavoidable. The only thing remaining to be seen, is what the new pattern will be, and that is all that is left for us to influence.
Maybe the weather thing is an English tic. After all, only the English would break into the live coverage of the most keenly anticipated sporting event in years in order to bring the listenenr the forecast for ships. It is a uniquely and peculiarly English lyricism - "Dogger, Fisher, German Bight".

We shall see.

Here we go again

So. Here we go again. Another late night, albeit an early weekend for me this week.
My phrase of the month is "emotional rollercoaster". Tomorrow we're going to find out how sick Femmie is... Fingers and everything crossed that it's going to be as good news as we can hope for.
Esther's pregnancy hormones are kicking in with a vengeance now. She's getting sickness very heavily - much more so than she did with either Willow or Ayla. She's also being really weird, but that's not exactly unexpected :-)
Next week or the week after I get the official notification of the proposed redundancies at work. It's the annual downsizing, but this time it will be about a third of the company. Ironic, just as the economy is finally picking up, but this will be the big restructuring - moving to just a magazines house.
Saturday we're having the Halloween party - it seems to have got out of hand. Not only am I running the party, but from somewhere we seem to have got 17 kids at the latest count. Which is going to be absolute madness I reckon!
Work's the usual, although I'll be sending off an application to a place in Alkmaar in the next day or two. Not that i expect my own job to be in jeopardy - although you never know. Frankly I could do with 6 months off and chance to get some real writing in.
Last but not least, I'm still missing Luna. Let's just not think of her because there's only so many tears for a dog without non-dog-owners not getting it. Though maybe I've been holding back a bit too much lately :-(

So this was an unusually diary-like entry. Of course there is that element of the diary to a blog, and it's not as if I invite many people to actually read this. But mostly I'm just keeping the fingers in the writing habit at a time when I'm not really doing much creative. ANd maybe laying a few aides de memoir for the future.
Still, if anyone does read this - even if it's me in the future, it would be nice if it's not totally small-minded and assinine - a personal diary purely.
Frankly though - what grabs me. US Army deaths in Iraq this month are the highest in 2 years. About double what NATO killed in Afghan civilians on Tuesday alone.
The end of the world due to climate change continues to grab little attention. Oh well, we'll have to worry about that another day ;-)

Still. Festival season. It really starts here, and I think it's one of the most delightfully primal parts of people - celebrating the seasons and the spirits. Christmas is coming, and SInt even sooner, but for the next few days...

Happy Halloween!

On being cool

Tom Waits and the Dude Lebowski. It's a feeling, it's fitting in and it's being totally set apart. It's being in the right place and time, yet standing out. Being cool isn't emulating that Ray Charles Sam Cooke cool; it's the recognition of difference and acceptance of your place in the circus of freaks. The willingness to stand out and be discounted.It's the clack of pool balls and the lipsmack of jack Daniels for sure, but more it's the ability to look around and see the story and understand, to play the game and remember it's a game. And never care for winning or losing. It's intelligence and sometimes wilful ignorance, especially at the bottom of more than a few Jack Daniels or Jimmy's. It's turning to the dataday world and saying that not only do I understand you and not go along with your story, but I'm living the way you'd really like to live and I'm your hidden dreams.
If only you were cool enough.

Acid house

Two posts in one night. Well, they're linked after a fashion, I guess.

I was just reading the Wikipedia piece on 'Acid House' and it's noticeable that nobody seems to know where the term or the music comes from.
Interestingly, they suggest that the term 'Acid House' might come from Chicago. Well, I was going to the very first House parties in England, which were at a couple of gay clubs - the small club above Heaven whose name I can't remember right now, and another which I went to once and it played too much poppy shit. And as far as I was concerned, they were playing 'House' as in 'Soul'.
It came from Chicago, for sure, but it was Chicago Soul music as far as we were concerned. We understood that the 'House' name came similar to the 'Rent Parties' of 15 years earlier - these were House parties the same way there used to be Rent parties - to pay for the house. And if you look at the music, that makes sense - it was Black soul music from a local Black scene, the same way the music at rent parties was. It got picked up by the gay scene in Chicago, which is why we were getting it in the gay scene in London. I went because I'm a sad kind of soul boy, and so were most of the other guys there. The term 'Acid House' was never used then.
But we did take a shit load of drugs, including alot of acid. What I remember is the DJs fucking with the music themselves to heighten the mood. Ecstasy came later - it was more expensive, more yuppie and less dangerous. Techno was Belgian, a year or so later. There was a very acid driven scene, that later came out in even those people who never went near the West End clubs - nobody would tell me the Mutoid Waste Company were on E's :-)
So my explanation - it was gay soul boys fucked up on acid that invented the term and the scene.
Interestingly, on the Wikipedia site, Genesis P. Orridge claims to have more or less invented the term. Funnily enough, he was living round the corner from me, but sure as hell I never saw him down the clubs ;-)

They were funny days. I never had the feeling that I was living through something really special, like punk. That's how people try to make it sound these days, but they're msotly the JCL's who were going to the M25 raves long after it became the new wave. Before that, the alternative and squatter scene were at the heart of things, but I remember being in that scene trying to play house and I was scoffed at for playing pop or boring music.
Probably something like punk after all - that didn't start in the squats or the suburbs but in a fashion shop on the King's Road ;-)

Oh, BTW that's Marky in the corner. Last saw him when we were both whizzing around Bang back when it was on Oxford Street somewhere. Never knew him well though, but the expression on his face that night was funny.

Bubbling under

I'm wondering what to write about, but I feel there's words coming.
I want to write a bit about Luna, but I'm going to leave that until the wound's a bit less raw and blooded.
I want to write about my feelings finding out yesterday that Esther's pregnant again, but that's more intense than I want to be right now. (I am happy, by the way, only that this is momentous news - have a beer on me and we'll talk about it later, OK?)
And I'm not in the mood for more politics and war and lying, cheating, dissembling arseholes.

I think what I'm noticing alot lately is memory. I don't know if this makes me sounds like an old man, but memory is playing a large part lately. If you'll excuse the recursiveness of the thought, it reminds me of when I first moved to Amsterdam and every smell and sight would trigger a memory verging on a sort of nostalgia. Seeing as I was only 22 back then, I guess this is not exclusively a middle-aged man's prerogative. Hopefully, it has nothing to do with a near-death experience back then :-)
WHat is the middle-age nostalgia about it is the frequent memories of my enjoyably misspent youth. The young lad sat next to me on the floor of the train this morning - separated by some needlessly symbolic glass door! - reminded me of myself. (And of the sort of boy that would have driven me crazy back then :-)
There is that being young and partying; unentangled and lustful; that is what drives middle-aged men to screw the babysitter and buy phallic cars I guess. I don't have any real desire to do that sort of thing - I still think that the guys who try to live that life when they're in their forties are the guys who never did it in their twenties.
So no, it's more a real pleasant nostalgia, watching and reliving through memory. Memory is tied in with death somewhere, but naturally I haven't got that all worked out yet.
I'm listening to the Pogues again right now, and the number of wildly drunken party nights I had with this music as my theme tune is countless. And tomorrow night I'm off out to party alone to the same sort of theme tune, but it doesn't mean I'm trying to relive past glories.
I lived good, I've had a real good life so far, and the adventure's only now getting into the meat of the story. The rst of it so far was prologue...

Lunabaas no more

When I sit at the computer, there should be Luna laying here beside me. And when I come home from work, there should be Luna first and longest to greet me back.
And she's not here anymore and it feels like somebody's cut off a limb and I just have to cry like I haven't cried since I was a little boy.
And I miss her so much.
24 hours a day we were together for the first 6 or 7 years. When I worked, she was there with me. When I went out, she came with me. When I slept, she slept on the bed curled beside me. She was the smartest dog I ever knew - in fact, she didn't truly consider herself a dog at all. She even attempted to talk - a chuntering, dolphin-like noise she developed in imitation of speech. But I understood what she meant. Not word for word, of course, but the meanings, the sentences, the grammar - I understood. It surprised people sometimes how much verbal communication we shared. And she knew enough human speech to ignore me in two languages.
Like me, she also became domesticated by circumstance, half her lifetime ago. Instead of our wild days surviving and partying, suddenly we were living quietly, children appeared, and Luna developed a domestic routine with Esther.
But we had a deep, deep bond by then. Since the first time I met her in fact, when she was somebody else's hairball puppy. She was given to me because the bond between us was so apparent and immediate.
And now there is a huge hole, a hole much bigger than a simple small sort of dog would create. The hole takes up half this room, and takes up half my life. She was my partner, my friend, a being I loved so much. She was smart and beautiful and she loved me deeply too. And I held her last night and stroked her as her breathing shallowed and stopped, and I put her in the hole I dug and covered her up with dirt.
I'm going to keep on missing her, I know that. I suspect it will be many weeks before the sudden hurts of loss and absence begin to fade. I can hide the tears until I'm alone - for the sake of the children, and some faking of normality, some semblance of coping, I keep it together. I'd rather the howling grief comes only when I'm alone - I'm not really a sharer like that. And I hope that with the weekend coming I have time to let the grief rise and abate perhaps a little.
Until then.

Over here for the family picture blog.

Autumn

I like autmn. In many ways it's my favourite season. Harvest, and gathering weather. Lots of celebrations. It's the most Northern European of the seasons - when it can be wet, but not miserable - the colours can be golden and flaming, tress heavy with fruit. And the promise to com,e of the Winter celebrations, so that's nice too.
Still, most people don't get that this these days. Seems there's a homogenification going on that is slowly but surely destroying all sense of celebration and uniqueness.
A funny little example. I'm listening to Erasure now. They were a big band when I was 21, and they were very big in the gay scene. Many the night I was at a gay club dancing to Erasure and the ilk. But these days, who knows that scene? It wasn't cool, or it was too poppy, or it wasn't poppy enough. Whatever. But that's the scene that all modern dance music came out of - the clubs where Erasure was commercial but lots of weird Hi-NRG was around. And then the Chicago House came in. Mix it together, and we got House, Acid House, Techno. It hasn't really changed alot - listening to Erasure live now, it could be taken for dance music easy. If it wasn't for Andy's faggy vocals of course :-)
So well I remember the autmn of 1987, when there were two clubs in London playing House - the club above Heaven, and the (Henry) Africa Club on Kensington High Street. I wasn't a club scene expert, I wasn't in the incrowd. I was into soul music, and coming out as bi, so I thought this would be good music to hear, and got into the scene from there. What happened, well a bunch of poofs listening to soul music could never have guessed!

Holiday Over

The kids are back at school tomorrow. Ayla starts real school, Willows moves up to the 'middenbouw' - where she's really into "education" rather than the glorified child care that it's been so far.
They're growing up. It's my last day of holiday tomorrow - taking the day so that I can take them to school in the morning, be there for this step.
Then Tuesday, it's back to work for me too. It really feels like that end of summer holiday feel you got as a kid. Even though I've only been off for 10 days or so in a row, together with all my broken holidays, and 4 days sick, it's beena good rest. I have no time for work of course. I need to get the writing going properly, with discipline now, to give me a viable alternative. Simply finding the time is the problem - when can I write? I'm kind of shy about it too, so it's not something I feel comfortable taking time for.
I shall try figure that out asap. It's got to be preferable to fucking working for a living!

Sad

For reasons that are too pathetic to even contemplate, I'm sat behind the computer again on my birthday night. I'm watching TS Ernesto, Ernie to his friends, doing strange things.
A year ago tonight, I was on the campsite, listening to England win at Trent Bridge, talking drunkenly with the in-laws, falling ina ditch, and wondering what the next morning would bring when Katrina hit land. I remember the reports on the BBC World Service (from the same guy who's now in Afghanistan saying everything's OK with the world), saying how there was a bit of rainwater downtown, but it looked like New Orleans had got away with it.
The bloggers and posters this evening/night are starting to look very strangely at this storm - for the umpteenth time in its existence. The NHC forecast is for a TS, perhaps a CAT1 to hit Florida, move out to sea again and threaten the Carolinas. But Ernie seems to be strenthening rapidly after - probably - moving off the Cuba shore. The track is uncertain still - which it would be when no-one can find the centre for sure. And the SSTs are very high, shear has dropped completely, and the conditions are ripe for a blow up. Looking at the picture, the banding is potentially enormous.
Mostly in the minds of all the bloggers is Wilma. I've read one comment from a professional meteorologist that we will never see that again in 20 or 40 years. He's probably right. But what if we see something equally mind-numbing?
At least they agree - tonight is Ernie's chance to do or die. At least it's something for me to watch on my quiet birthday night. Hopefully, the only damage out of this one will be to property or reputations. The concern is that with such masive uncertainty, evacuations are going to be near impossible. Tourists have been sent out of the Keys, but AFAIK, residents are still there. I have an unpleasant feeling that the Keys might yet be in line - just before Labor Day...

Hey, it's my birthday today.

I'm going to be forty. Next year! But for now, I'm not really caring one way or the other.
I have done something today. I've written half a page or so of the screenplay. I have quite a good feeling about this. It was fun too. Maybe the idea of having such a tightly conceived and rigid form helps. I dunno.


Anyway, this is it. Can you guess what it is yet?

EXT . NAGIMBI VILLAGE

An African village. It meets all the cliches. Straw huts. Green hills and red earth behind. We pan the countryside then move slowly in. A voice begins to be heard on the air. As we move closer in, people are gathered around in the center of the village. The voice is obviously addressing them but they are paying little attention. Children are playing. Old men are laughing. Women begin to move away sharing a joke. The voice continues; not pompous, but merely pursuing a rather abstract piece of business. Slowly we move in to see the voice delivering the words is EDWIN PORTER, a man in his early thirties, dressed as a typical colonial administrator of the times (1880’s). He has the sardonic air of one who doesn’t truly believe anything he is saying. Beside him are JANE PORTER, his wife, who stares ahead save for swatting mosquitoes, and a handful of red-jacketed soldiers stood behind the Porters.

The whole event is clearly some ritual, in which none of the participants appear to place any stock, but which nonetheless should be pursued.

EDWIN:

The Great Queen over the water extends her hand in friendship to the people of the Nagimbi. Henceforth, she shall regard the Nagimbi as her children. She offers them the same protection and rights as all her children. The people of Great Britain and the Nagimbi are one. They shall share the hardships and sorrows, and they shall share their happiness and wealth. They shall support each other in times of trial and war. They shall share their lives as subjects of the Great Mother, Queen Victoria.

CU HUTCHINSON:

He is well aware that people are not paying attention. But still the words should have import.

EDWIN (CONT'D):

Welcome to the British Empire.

CU: A REDJACKET.

The Redjacket slaps at his neck. A small blowpipe arrow has hit him in the jugular. He falls to the ground.

EXT: NAGIMBI VILLAGE.

EDWIN (CONT'D):

Oh, I say.

So, elsewhere, Ernesto became a hurricane today, then fell back to TS as it moved over Hispaniola. This is proving to be the hardest storm to forecast. It could still end up a monster hitting the Panhandle or even further West, it could be a big thing rolling up Tampa Bay, or it could fizzle to a TS drenching Souther Florida. I don't remember seeing one so difficult to predict for both track and intensity. Makes you realise how difficult it still is to save lives with these things. Probably hundreds are dying now on Haiti/Dominican Republic.
In the Central Pacific, one of the most unusual storms ever, Ioke, is still a Super Typhoon, has been for a few days and looks like being for the foreseeable future! It may, someday, interact with land, somewhere. Nobody appears to know at the moment.
The family have headed off home this afternoon. They should be getting to bed themselves about n ow I'd guess. I really enjoyed them being here. Especially having Mum & Dad and Tania & the girls here all at once, it was good fun.
Strange - the news is quiet. Why's that? Because the politicians are taking their summer holidays! I can't believe anyone still bother with those ratfink charades of elections.
So now we're just left with the usual war and lies, blood and hype, and of course money. I can't be arsed even thinking about any of that shite, let alone wasting words writing on it.

Holiday begun

My holiday started yesterday. The family's over visiting, it's very nice seeing them here. Tomorrow we're having a bit of a party. Have to stay reasonably together for that - at least till my folks leave :-)
Ernesto has just formed over the Caribbean - or rather , just been named. Looks very dubious - it needs to be watched. At the moment, the NHC is forecasting a cane in the Gulf on Tuesday. It's going to wander into the Loop and nobody knows where it's going to go.
Some storm chasing for my birthday one year would be cool. But at least this year I'm not getting a pair of slippers, so I'm not totally decrepid yet.
Family goes home on Sunday, and then I think I have a little something I want to write. Something light and fun to get me back in the mood. I suppose on the plus side - light and fun are more commercial than the stuff I'd normally write ;-) Maybe I'll post it here as I write...

Surprisingly

Deep things. Need to write some stuff. Need to chill, get ready for autumn, for party season. Need to extend this break from work, prepare for stopping work - and that can only be done by making writing my work.Need to prepare for next child - and finish the work on the house now.
Smell it in the air and taste it in the water, it's a time of change again. These are the moments that are really special to me, these are the moments that you can see clearly the differences in the types of people: are you a carpe diem or a laissez faire type?
The family's away today, camping. I go join them tomorrow for a day. I thought maybe I'd do some writing whilst they were away, but it didn't work out that way - it was just too relaxing having that silence in the house!
So I need to muscle and make space - same as I'm also supposed to be doing studying for management training courses.
Oh, and family coming in a few days...

Take a deep breath now. It's about to get exciting...

Oh, BTW - here's an old anarcho commetn from the US elections 2 years back. Whoever you vote for, the government wins. (Given new spin by Diebold & its Republican bosses).

And again

No work tomorrow. So another late night blog...
In an argument with the wife today. She doesn't understand that I need resolution. She's part of the old school that pretends that nothing ever happened and let's go along just so....
And she's not from the same background. She is, whatever she might say, from a middle class background. That is still true for more than 90% of the people I know. And the reason for that, is that I move in a middle class environment these days.
So how is it that in a middle class environment, there are virtually no working class people? In Esther's scene, there's one working class guy - Arie; married to a spolit rich brat, who hasn't got the balls he was born with to say boo to her. In my work scene , all the young pretenders are middle class, sons and daughters of the respectable.
No wonder then that I still have trouble with their culture. That's actually at the root of my argument with the wife today. Becasue this whole middle class husband shit is shit. I don't buy it at all.
The question for me, is whether I should abandon it all and go back to the real world without money, but at least with some form of integrity and resistance.
If I didn't have kids, the choice would be a no-brainer.

Nothing specific

Nothing specific on my mind today. I've been busy with work, which is a shame as such. It's fine looking at new systems and architectures, but everything comes down to money, so I've got to fit the systems into the business case, instead of simply saying "these are best for the job". So those people who reckon capitalism is the best methodology for organising human affairs are missing a beat right there.
We should have been down in Eindhoven today at the Reggae Sundance festival. Four days in a tent with chill music - Steel Pulse, Alpha Blondy, Culture, ISrael Vibration, etc.... Instead we're at home, because the girls have been sick all week. They're getting better, but just aren't well enough for such an undertaking. A real shame - mind you, it would hardly be a sundance. Following July's heatwave record, we've had a monsoon, and it's really broken these last couple of days. It's definitely gonna be more of a reggae raindance.
On the other side of the world, the Atlantic is having a quieter time of it for storms than they'd feared. So far. The Pacific, on the other hand, is having anything but a quiet time. After Australia's record season, China has just got ravaged by its eighth storm so far this season - Saomai (up to 'S' already!). And the entire Northern hemisphere has been hit with extreme heat. California and New York have seen records, as well as Holland and Spain. Not to mention Korea, where I've read newspaper reports that were so keen for a cooling storm that they were actually regretting that Saomai passed them by!
Meanwhile, the god-botherers are still busy knocking ten tonnes of shit out of the civilians across Lebanon and Iraq and Afghanistan. The UN Security COuncil are meeting tonight to approve a 15,000 strong peacekeeping force to Lebanon, which is just about the stupidest fucking pretext crap I've heard since Korea (and I'm not old enough to remember that, but I get the feeling nobody was standing up and shouting 'Are you fucking mad?' loudly enough back then too.)
So the troops of the West will be in place from the Mediterranean coast to the Hindu Kush, along the Silk Road to the foothills of the Tibetan plateau. Those countries in between who might complain - like Syria and Iran - are portrayed as next snack in the bastards' banquet. All the countries that Islam spent a millenium conquering are being occupied by troops whose figurehead leader is a fundamentalist Christian maniac. Any wonder that the Islam god botherers shout about crusaders?
Not to mention the rapture nuts who are waiting for Armageddon.

I'm getting used to being in this house a bit more now. To sit here tonight and drink and write helps. It still takes some getting used to though. I'm listening now to 'Missing You' - the lament of the homeless in mid-Eighties London. My time, my people. I look around and wonder when we'll get caught out - wonder when "they" will realise I'm just faking this respectable shit. Sometimes, i think that's paranoia. Other times, I remember that I *am* just faking it.
I don't intend to be mortgaged or wage-slaved for the rest of my life, by any stretch of the imagination. Sure lots of people say that - but the last few years should show anyone who doubts that I can pull a hell of a lot together when I'm so inclined :-)
Of course "they" only care fundamentally about money. They'll give you money iof they can make money off of you, and have a reasonable security that you're going to keep making more money for them than they have to give you. Which kind of brings me back to the nature of capitalism, and here's another flaw. The company I work for is disturbingly dependent on me, which they at least acknowledge, but if anything other than money was important to that organisation, they might be able to claim some loyalty from me. But any loyalty went up in flames twenty years ago together with the barricades at orgreaves. Loyalty to capitalists was marched underfoot in Armthorpe and Easington twenty years back as the riot police and troops dressed up as coppers marched into pit villages across the North of England.
So fuck them all. The rich get richer as usual. The bosses look after their own. The bosses in a company now still come almost exclusively from the middle class and the rich.
Scum like me is useful. But we should never forget how disposable we are - and be able to dispose of the dependency on wage slaveryjust as quick as we can when the chance arrives.
And that doesn't mean get-rich-quick self-satisfaction. Getting rich on the backs of others' slavery might be the American dream, might be the proud boast of a handful of self-made rich men who are complete cunts. Doesn't interest me. I don't want my wealth to be funded by exploitation, slavery, famine or colonialism.
Damn, life's tough being moral :-)

A police car and a screaming siren -
A pnuematic drill and ripped up concrete -
A baby waiting and stray dog howling -
The screech of brakes and lamplights blinking -
That's entertainment.

A smash of glass and the rumble of boots -
An electric train and a ripped up 'phone booth -
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat -
Lights going out and a kick in the balls -

That's entertainment.

Days of speed and slow time mondays -
pissing down with rain on a boring wednesday -
Watching the news and not eating your tea -
A freezing cold flat and damp on the walls -

That's entertainment.

Waking up at 6 a.m. on a cool warm morning -
Opening the windows and breathing in petrol -
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard -
Watching the tele and thinking about your holidays -

That's entertainment.
Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes -
Cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume -
A hot summers' day and sticky black tarmac -
Feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were faraway -

That's entertainment.

Two lovers kissing amongst the scream of midnight -
Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude -
Getting a cab and travelling on buses -
Reading the grafitti about slashed seat affairs -

That's entertainment.

Blood and guts

It's the end of the world as we know it.
Those fucking American rapture specialists must be preparing for pigshit heaven right now with the armies of the unbelievers - therefore, the antichrist - engaged in bitter battle with the armies of the jews.
I've seen too many pictures of dead children being taken from bombed out buildings these last couple of weeks. At least I'm not the only one getting disturbed:
Here's Emma Brockes.
Everyone has their own tipping point. For some it was North Korea's decision to fire missiles over the sea of Japan last month; for others it was the transcript of Bush and Blair rap-speaking at the G8; the relief into which the number of Iraqi dead has been thrown by the war in Lebanon did for many more and for those really paying attention, it was the collapse of the world trade talks last week. None of these crises are in themselves unique, but they have built up over the weeks until you are watching the news one night and suddenly there it is: the out-of-body experience and sense that everything, everywhere, is out of whack. It's like that scene in Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum, finding himself being chased by a T-Rex, struggles momentarily to organise a response. "I'm fairly alarmed here," he says. I'm fairly alarmed here.

There doesn't seem much doubt that we're now busy with the Third World War. I imagine that after that radio speech from Chamberlain back in September 1939, things seemed a little unreal for a long time for the Brits. Was this really a war or not? Sure the occasional crazy thing happened - like bombing Scunthorpe - but that hardly passed for real war. I imagine people back then were going along thinking it might work out OK, until suddenly they found themselves up to the elbows in lost family and bombsites. Then it was body parts and propaganda left, right and centre.
War is raging from the Mediterannean to the Indian Ocean. More "international peacekeepers" are going to go into South Lebanon, though quite which country's poor gullible fools are going to be sent is so far unclear. The Christian idiots are busy from Al-anwar to Uruzgan. Only Iran is so far untouched, and partly Syria.
If I was those countries, I would be preparing the tunnels and arming the populace right now. And of course, that's what's happening.
It's turning to hellon Earth. Those fundamentalist God-botherers on all sides must be happy as pigs in shit. And the rest of us will really have to get our shit together if we're going to stop them sending us all to hell ina handbasket - or a cut-rate mushroom cloud, if that so inclines.

Meanwhile, the Western news is full of the fact that the US and France have finally agreed on the wording of the text of a resolution calling for an eventual cessation of hostilities. They don't seem big on the fact that Lebanon has said: ""Unfortunately, it lacked, for instance, a call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces which are now in Lebanon. That is a recipe for more confrontation."

Half the world sees Israel as bully. Half the world sees Israel as victim. It's time that Israel saw itself as safe. That will take a lot of work. But I can guarantee, sending helicopter gunships and F-16's to kill children is really not the way to make friends...
Here's the Christian pacifist Bruce Cockburn on being exposed to the war of oppression in Central America in the 80's:

"i want to raise every voice -- at least i've got to try.
every time i think about it water rises to my eyes.
situation desperate echoes of the victims cry
if i had a rocket launcher...some sonofabitch would die"

Many sons of bitches are gonna die.
But vastly more of us who just want the arseholes to stop fighting.