Urk

Yes after a brief hiatus (migraine) i am more or less back in circulation.

It’s so much nicer being able to look at a screen whilst your heads not trying to explode.

Burning hot heads

Without a radical mindset change to our way of life: living, social interaction, consumption, just imagine how things will be when the world has a population of 9 billion, or if the population was represented as non-burning double-decker buses, imagine adding another deck making it into a triple-decker; with the extra requirements needed for fuel, materials, an increase in running costs, more paint, sturdier wheels, a conductor to race up and down the stairs (or lift) quelling trouble and so on, but all the while utilising the same amount of raw materials on the triple as used on the decker. 

But in our current non-changed mindset, the sharks, sorry vultures, no speculators circle everything that hints at the whiff of a promise for higher than inflation returns.  Regardless of whether the hunt for those returns leaves swathes of devastation impacting the environment, destroying the habitats of thousands of species and affecting the lives of so many who don’t share the same need for greed or lust for power, or need for a dynasty rivalling the emperors.

With 16 (or so) non-sleep useful hours a day of scrabbling around to ensure they have those essentials like clothes, i(pods/pads*), rent or mortgage, a holiday or two, oh food and work - all taken care of; whilst on the other, those (the vast majority?) who are just scrambling around fast enough to ensure they have at least one meal a day; is it really any wonder why those of us with access slump in front of some sort of screen at the end of a hard days work and watch the endless flow of inane nonsense pouring from it.  Not because we don’t care or aren’t interested (and yes i know that’s been remarkably charitable), but after fighting all day at work - in a job they may or may not enjoy, wasting hours getting there, then back home to look after off-spring or been a carer, or to undertake one of the many hundreds of things we all do on a daily basis, before we call time and relax.  It’s probably not too inconceivable a stretch to understand why most would rather just subsume in to the flow, than consider the needs of a few stupid stranded dolphins up the river duff.  With an avalanche of information and mis-information for people to wade through, is it really any wonder?

What is freedom?  We hear it bandied about like a hat been stuffed with notes before the conclusion of a cock-fight.  It means something.  It’s obviously viewed as precious as millions die fighting for it and just as many are manipulated into fighting to restrict it as their version truly is more free.  Those acts, which when viewed under the guise of waving banners of freedom, oddly transform into oppressive insouciance when experienced elsewhere.

But seriously, if you want to be a burning hot-head, consider being a burning hot-head for the whole planet – we all live on. 

* delete as appropriate

Welcome to the 22rd century a re-run of the 12th?

Might have to get a very large popcorn bucket, along with my hat for this one.

A civilised species that’s so fragile we demand people don't even think of poking fun at anything we believe in else our (some of the populaces’) foaming incoherent rage immediately explodes following any knee-jerk baiting, showing they’re as bad as us who are just as bad as them – whoever ‘them’ happens to be at any particular moment or time or space.

Easily provoked into reaction, following a mad rush to prove who has a bigger set.   Watch for who the balls toll, as the brass balls’ll be a clanging!

Goring rise

As the book burning, flag trashing, effigial pimping, masses of the world continue with their centuries same-old same-old; the next generation's proudly packed off - to begin anew - the goring rise of intolerance.

Life in the other place

"I have 10 million people who say my parrot's a bigger, badder, more gentle, loving, peaceful and wise shaggy parrot than your shabby parrot!"

"Oh really! Well I have 10 million and one people, who say otherwise; and will fight you to the death to prove to it!"

Urks?

A time honoured missive of dubious proportions.

Slash or burn

Upon hearing a leading politician talk about people treating being unemployed as a 'lifestyle choice', i hope that i'm not the only one who raised his eyes, and released a very slow controlled exhalation of air, and imagining it disappearing into the outer reaches of the vacuum of space before turning ones thoughts back to taking our new chancellor by the head and have him closely acquainted with a nearby batwing table; in the hope some sense seeps from it.

So he thinks that people would prefer to stay on benefits than have a job that pays them a living wage, that enables them to eat good nutritious food, that would allow them to enjoy the odd holiday or "treat", that would allow them to do more than just pop down to a dole office once a fortnight to receive a pittance that would make most people wonder whether that's enough to buy tiddles food let alone more than a couple of days fine food for themselves. 

Remember, the odd few that hit the headlines hides the many hundreds of thousands who manage within their means, who play by the rules and who take umbrage at this governments blinkered charge hoeing everything unemployed into the 'wasted chaff' bin.

What they should do is allow people to properly train, to gain and add new skills, even to allow them into education to gain those oh so necessary papers for the 7am to 8pm burger flipping shift. 

To once more enable a nation of shopkeepers* to vigorously thrive by utilising truly transformative innovations from whichever arena of life they happen to hail from.

Hope? Hardly. 

Not until someone in this government displays more vision than the screaming next victim in a slasher movie can they then truly say they not only have the best interest of the majority of the populace at heart, but they really do have a plan that involves more than just slash or burn.

*the term shopkeer is generic in its use.

Deep-deep-deep bass!

I had apparently missed a doozy of an evening, emanating from the innards of the entertainment venue - on top of the additional buses whose drivers have obviously never come in contact with the highway code, nor an off-switch.

Yes, the air was thick with extra-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep, deep deep bass.  The worst ever!  I'm glad i wasn't there, but instead experiencing the enjoyment of having someone else cook a veritable enjoyable and delightfully filling dinner: herby rice with chicken & mushrooms, with an exquisite helping of shredded carrot tossed in lemon vinaigrette, and followed by just the right size dessert to have me sitting gassing (from the right end), for many a while afterwards.  No red eyes from the relentless bus fumes (the penalty of living so close to the gutter), no pounding inner cranial matter courtesy of the holes from the venue next door.  

But that all came to light after listening to messages awaiting my return.  Messages indicating the new scale (or is that gauntlet) that has being climbed (thrown down) by those concerned with the running of the venue - yes o², shame on you too.   After all, what hope for lowly residents against the combined mighty conviviality of so many - with election year a dim dot on the horizon?

 

Viva la-anything?

Ah the french. You have to love them for their good food, fine wines, flair for disdain, and generally snooking two-fingers to authority that we (the down-trodden and oppressed) in the uk look on, admire and applaud, or would do if we had any sense.

Especially when it comes to defending their rights.  What a difference a revolution makes. 

Although looking at the usa, we could be forgiven for not being able to put our finger on the precise moment their happy days started to derail.

Unnatural polyesters

The next time someone witters on about how unnatural something is, first take them through this starting checklist:

1. Are you now, or have you ever had any tablets, injections or powders for a medical emergency – outside of naturally occurring ones i.e., licking the back of a hallucinogenic toad or happy 'rooms?
   
2. Have you ever had any medical procedure which involved anything more than the use of a saw-tooth bone and dried pummelled plant fibre for thread to sow you back up?
   
3. Have you ever used a bus, car, bicycle, aeroplane, tank, tanker, submarine?
   
4. Have you ever used concrete, upvc, pvc, ipa, lycra, polyester, crack?
   
5. Do you live in anything other than a wigwam, mud hut, igloo, a true grass hut (hay doesn’t count) made purely from naturally grown and locally produced materials?

If they answer ‘yes’ to all of those starter questions, then you can rest assured their utterances regarding all things unnatural can be viewed with more than the normal healthy hint of scepticism.  If they are, however, communicating via anything other than: carrier pigeon, quill, parchment or face-to-face non-technological interfacial means, tell them where to get off as you take their laptop and chase them off your land, beating them over the head with it as you do.

Treats

I am one of millions who collects (as per normal retail visits) coupons or vouchers, but especially loyalty points on my shopping, because all those 0.00001p’s that would otherwise be pooled and creamed off by the companies - at a rate they have already costed into their profits - regardless of whether people use the schemes or not - all those points over time (five years for an average shopper) add up to buy that special meal for one, at christmas!

I have, however, of late become rather aghast (too ebenezerish?) at nectar and their wee-twee-all-so-cutesy use of the word "treat" that drips from overuse on their website.  As if we were all a tail, wagging with gusto at the latest crumb hurtling from on high.  So much so, that whenever I pop onto the website and my eyes are assaulted by those never-ending permutating "treats" you can spend your treaty points on, an imminent need to assume the bone-jarring wobbly knee porcelain hugging position, briefly takes over forcing me to flee the page. 

Perhaps I am becoming even more cynical than I thought (despite taking into consideration the visual appeal of imagining the crumpled remains of a boy-racer who whizzes by into the air as he becomes permanently detached from his bike, just as he goes hurtling past the stationary and quiet burnt out remains of a bus), whilst the idea of either a stone shack, igloo or wicker-basket in the middle of nowhere, continues to grow unabated.

But it doesn’t even end there! 

I pop onto yet another (once favourite) website - a supposed technical get your hands grubby with thermal grease - website, only to see that it too has succumbed to the tide!

“You’ll be getting a visual treat ... because it comes with a bright 15.6” screen and Intel GMA graphics” - yes morgan computers, this is you.

At some stage the continual compromise reaches the point where you feel like a sliver of a shadow of shadows gone befor- right!

Damnable boy-racer’s; never a pc, sps or traffic monitoring station around when you want one…  Where’s my bazooka!?…

Naturally, refusing a ride on a vmax would be the height of stubborn churlishness.  Cough.

Surviving an asteroid strike?

Surely, and I could be wrong here, but if a moderately sized asteroid haphazardly punches a hole slap bang in-between, let's say paternoster square & paternoster row in london, then no matter how much invested in anything, will actually do anything but momentarily (micro or nano second-ish) slow your transformation from relatively dense combined atoms into their bright & vaporised disparate counterparts.  

Rest easy, as the same sort of thing would already have happened a few micro or nano-seconds earlier, to those unfortunate enough to be within the strike zone of any incoming hurtling heavenly body - so why worry?  

For those in London and the south east, deciding where to go if our fair, gentle, slopping sectioned part of the country were unfortunate enough to be in imminent danger of being wiped off the map (by a 200m asteroid), would have to consider making plans to journey at least 100 miles away and somewhere in a ditch, before coming close to having  a 51% chance of survival; with the added hardship of many degree burns, loss of mobile signals and nothing handy in the nearest tesco metro.  

The choice, therefore, is simple: voluntarily head to coventry, or be wiped off the face of the planet, or spending thousands or millions, and briefly cocking two-fingers at every one else and laughing as they're being vaporised, before you to end up in the smoke cloud.

Coventry, wiped off the map, disapprobation?  Coventry...

Little clips

Having re-discovered (worked out how to use scribefire), i'm finding my tendency to utter has taken on a new leash.  

So mind the mistakes, as they'll more reflect a piece i've heatedly glanced through, missed most major points of and come to a conclusion devoid of the time honoured necessity of 'allowing to ripen', before regurgitating a couched nuanced and off-field, far far off-field, riposte!

Drawing near

With the passing of the 5th of September and only three and a bit months to go before another festive period of "thank the stars, finally some quiet," to look forward to, thoughts of partying and madcap revelry knock-up against the void, waiting to make their appearance. 

Fowl and gushing, what a way to go!

Streamlining

The problem with keeping records, is records really aren't meant to be kept - if you're a large organisation in charge of thousands of buses and hundreds of bus stands or terminus's that is.  

Indeed - as someone said to me "don't you think it odd that they don't know or say they don't know, how many complaints each stand or terminus actually receives?"

"Odd," I replied. "Hardly.  We are, after all, viewed as the twilight section of the community!  Now, if they were really interested they would have started off by managing to spell your name correctly!"

Balance

As the saying goes, "strike hard, strike fast, and keep them off balance."

Replacing bus drivers?

 

Hurray, by 2030 bus drivers will be replaced by robots, oh happy day - can't it be tomorrow?

Of course, such happy joy would soon be eclipsed when some coronal mass ejection screws with the magnetic field, or a bored hacker mangles their programming, sending them into a murderous frenzy: running buses, into each other, or into bridges, or turning them into rude, obnoxious high on crack dangers to passengers, or even making them incapable of switching off their engines whilst stationary at bus terminus's/stands-... ah right, no change then!

 

So much crap

"You stand accused of communicating false information!"

Happy carnivore

The nicely understated flowers for a plant that would sooner eat you and spit you out than provide a source of wonderment, are finally coming into their own.

In light of that, here are this weeks pics, and i’m hoping that despite feeding it nothing more than the hardest 24-hour aerated tap water, it will not only continue to profusely flower but also go on to produce a number of hardy offspring!

   

Sadly the camera on my sturdy phone’s starting to show it’s age, with colours wandering all over the spectrum – can’t complain; the phone, an elderly K750i, has provided over six years of good and faithful service.

Turgidity report - Q3