Thursday, August 11, 2005

Playing Away From Home

On Sunday I leave Oxford for five weeks. I am flying out to NZ for a bit of rest and a bit of work, my first trip home in three and a half years. I'm looking forward to it, but not entirely for the obvious reasons. I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends, and some time to reaquaint myself with them. I'm also anticipating that first drop of Monteiths Original Ale. But one of the things that I am really looking forward to is not having to think about cricket, poetry, hOME, support at work... All those things that I do and love, but which have drained me this year. Hopefully when I come back I shall have a renewed energy for them.

I play my last game of cricket this weekend. I plan to go out and enjoy myself. Maybe hit a 100 or so... I think I bat best when I believe I am better than the opposition and when I feel relaxed. It'll be a shame to say goodbye to the boys. I also plan to take some poetry CDs with me to NZ to play to the good folk out there, with a unsubtle attempt to convert them. Taylor, Danny, Derrick and Steve should do the trick. Maybe there is no escape from poetry after all.

On I must go - with only two working days left I have a lot to do. My colleague Ruth will be covering for me while I am away. In the past when I have covered for her she has always left everything tidied up. I feel that I should do the same for her. Damn, I'm a good person. Oh, and the poor wee thing has got food poisoning in Mexico this week.

The next blog will be from NZ. Yippee!

Oh, and I have meaning to day this for a while. And it's not a happy thought. The death of Anthony Walker makes me sick. The fact that this sort of thing can happen here revolts me. I know the futility of this statement but I need to add my voice: Just bloody stop doing this people! And apparently I was partly wrong about the restraint shown by the British public in response to the London bombing. I hope it is only a very small minority, but regardless it aint good enough so I say it again, just stop bloody doing this people! This is not an acceptable approach to race relations and no way to stop the terrorists.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it OK to be prejudiced against racists just because you hate them? I worry about creating special categories for the evil done by a thin slice of evildoers. Murder is murder, whether it came from jealousy, anger, hate, or fundamentalist idealism. There shouldn't be special laws for ordinary crimes committed by people because their brand of evil comes from a non-politically correct source.

We will never tackle racism and terrorism by ostracising it's perpetrators. It isn't easy to love your enemies, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

Rhys

richard said...

I'm just angry and these people piss me off. maybe I should rein in my use of the word scum (so I'm going to change my post), but anybody who decides that the best course of action is to bury an axe in the back of someone's head ain't exactly a good person. I'm believe you're right that the best way forward is to not hate them and by taking the cause away in the first place. But I also believe that it is right to be angry at the event and at the cause. It doesn't mean I don't/can't love them.

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