Grommelage - I Mutter

Tea

2008-07-17T14:28:00.003+01:00

Why it's better to give than receive

2008-05-08T16:49:00.002+01:00

At work today I've been entertaining some Chinese visitors. At the end of the visit they gave myself an a colleague a present. Mine was an official Olympic pencil case wrapped in Hello Kitty paper. My colleague got the same present, although the wrapping was somewhat startling. If you look at the bottom left, I think you'll find that something was lost in translation.

Water Boarding

2008-04-25T09:10:00.005+01:00

I've always wondered what water boarding really is. Now I'm wondering no longer.

You can sign up to Amnesty internationals campaign to 'Unsubscribe Me' here.

And here is how the movie was made.

In Focus

2008-04-18T14:04:00.002+01:00

The truth about Ritalin
(Click on t' picture to make it readable)

Take me to the April Sun in Cuba

2008-04-07T09:16:00.004+01:00

Oh oh oh!

Pukeko courtesy of Phil and Amy

Juxtaposition

2008-02-03T20:07:00.000Z

On tonight's Channel 4.

Class of December 2007

2007-12-09T11:51:00.000Z

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of the respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and roses
If England were for Englishmen again
-Something about England by The Clash

I've been in the UK now for over six years. It's therefore become time to be naturalised. It's either that or return to Aotearoa. As Miss Sarah might not go for that, I've decided to stay. In order to stay I have to sit the 'Life in the UK' test. Essentially, I need to prove that I have both the necessary knowledge of English and that I am familiar with what makes Britain British.

The good folks at the Home Office have written two books to help with this. The first is a book of knowledge, or 150 pages of history, law, advice about how to get advice, and general idealism. The second book is 20 sample tests, with answers.

Your sample questions:
1. What traditionally happens on Mother's Day?
A. Mothers make special meals for their families
B. People celebrate the mother of Jesus Christ
C. People give cards or gifts to their mothers
D. People hold fireworks displays.

2. What percentage of Christians in the UK are Roman Catholic?
A. 10%
B. 20%
C. 30%
D. 40%

3. Select the Correct Statement
A. It is illegal to pay workers below the minimum wage
B. It is legal to pay workers below the minimum wage as long as they agree to the wage rate

4. What is the distance from John O'Groats to Land's End?
A. Approximately 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometres)
B. Approximately 1,310 miles (2,110 kilometres)
C. Approximately 500 miles (800 kilometres)
D. Approximately 870 miles (1,400 kilometres)

5. What percentage of the United Kingdom's population is made up of ethnic minorities?
A. 1.3%
B. 16.8%
C. 29.3%
D. 8.3%

Answers for the non-British:
1. Seeing as 'A' is called 'Dinner' and happens every night, I figured I'd go with 'C'
2. A
3. B. I think this was aimed at those in the pay of 'gang masters'.
4 and 5. D. What I liked about these questions was that the options weren't in numerical order. Clearly while English is required, mathematics isn't.

So, on Friday, I sat the test. There were twelve of us in the room. Beside me was a Russian called Igor (you can't make some stuff up) and a large black Zimbabwean called Wellington. Wellington had been up for days studying and was frantically reading over his notes. Amongst the others were a Filipino girl, an Afghan, two Indians, and a south Asian who had decided that she would bring a Belgian driver's license rather than her passport as ID. We were all summonsed one at a time to sit in front of a computer, where we were presented with four options of how we would like our computer screen to look when we sat the test. While we waited, we were given cards that contained a screen shot of what the screen would look like. Finally, we were all called for one at a time to go to our computer, Wellington clapping everybody on the shoulder and wishing everyone good luck. I was second to last into the room.

We were told that we would we would have four dummy questions first, and then we would do the real thing. We would have 24 multi-choice questions, and we would have to get at least 18 correct to stay in the country.

I answered my dummy questions in less than 30 seconds. Two and a half minutes later, I'd been through the 24 questions twice, and because I was certain I'd got the first 16 correct, the last eight a further time. As I would have to wait for the rest to finish before finding out if I'd passed, I went out to shift my car. By the time I'd come back (less than ten minutes later) the waiting room was three quarters full, including Wellington, who was smiling broadly. Finally, the last person made it out and the supervisors came out with our results. Igor was the first to pass, followed by Wellington. He couldn't believe it. Finally, I got my certificate of passing and Wellington and I walked out. He was straight off to the pub (it was 10.30am). He'd been studying all week and wanted to celebrate. But then, if I was him I would too. If I'd failed, I'd have gone back to NZ. If he'd failed, he'd have gone back to a country where the government violently suppresses opposition, where the inflation rate is between 8,000 and 90,000%, and where it is estimated that only 20% of the population have a job.

It was an interesting insight into the people that make up my community in Oxford. I'm glad I'm staying.

Movie Popcorn

2007-10-03T13:56:00.000+01:00

I've just booked a flight for Monday night from Birmingham to Glasgow with BMI Baby. BMI baby are the 'low cost airline with tiny fares'.

(For the record, I've got justification for not taking the train. It's just too tedious for here.)

The propaganda was correct, the fares themselves were pretty good - £45.99 to go out, £25.99 to come back. It was what followed that became close to criminal.

The taxes: £18.95 from Birmingham, £20.00 from Glasgow. I can let these slide as BMI doesn't charge these
To choose your seats: To choose your own seat costs £6.50. For the extra legroom seats, well these cost another £12.50
To check luggage in: £9.98 per bag. (Five bags = £50)
To use their insurance (ticked by default): £6.50
To use their lounge in Birmingham: £15.00. I'm drinking this dry.
To use a Visa debit card to pay for the fare: £1.99. If you were foolish enough to use American Express, you'd be paying £4.99.

I'm sure they're right, the fares are tiny. But those extras are the size of Andre the Giant.

That's what it is

2007-09-30T21:40:00.001+01:00

It's been over five years since I last lived in Edinburgh. When I left it I used to visit several times a year, but as the seasons have changed, my visits have become further and further apart. However, work required I spend time there this week, so I took the opportunity to take advantage of Ms Ball's company and spend a few extra days.

It's been so long that to a certain degree, it's become new to me, there a places I know, but there are lots of places I've forgotten that I know. Like, for example, walking down North St Andrews Square and seeing the wall of battleship gray buildings that stretch up past the bridges to the top of the castle. Or the sharpness of the sunlight on the follies that adorn Calton Hill. Or the Word Power bookshop on West Nicholson Street, where there are wonderful books but where they can't accept that Che really was a nasty man.

Over the weekend, I managed to hang with Wendy, her pals Simon and Ian, who are becoming my pals too, with Paul and Fi down in the Grassmarket, with Kirstin and Stefan, with sexy Dave and Phil at Baraka, and with lovely Ruth down in Portobello.

YouTube

2007-09-21T13:59:00.000+01:00

There's something in this:

If I'm in the mood for the truly vitriolic and idiotic, I always get satisfaction from cricket highlights.

Keeping you and London Dry

2007-09-15T14:08:00.000+01:00

I went to the Thames Barrier on Thursday. I was accompanying a bunch of Americans that we were trying to impress. The route to the barrier required that we drove from Maidenhead to Harrods and then to Greenwich for lunch via Bucking-HAM palace, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Randy, the mild mannered Texan drove. Lunch quickly fell by the wayside as we watched members of the blue-rinse brigade storm past us with their zimmer frames. I've got news for you, Ken, the Congestion Zone lives up to its name.

At the Barrier we were met by the softly spoken Roger, a well informed man who had worked on its construction in the 70s. After the video we got the tour that the general public never gets to do, which was to walk through the tunnels and up into the shiny silver islands that adorn the lower Thames.

The wet floor sign worried me, being 15m below the river as I was, but I always knew that no matter where you go, Steve is a Twat.

Cricket

2007-09-12T13:30:00.001+01:00

WCC 2nd XI v Chearsley, at Chearsley
1 September 2007

Volunteering

2007-08-21T09:31:00.000+01:00

I've tried to resign from certain organisations. Perhaps this article can shed some light on my failure.

God's Politics

2007-08-21T08:50:00.000+01:00

It's possible that Kevin Rudd, leader of the Australian Labour Party, will likely be Prime Minister of Australia before the end of the year.

Last year he wrote an essay on Dietrich Bonnhoeffer, the German priest and resistance leader who was murdered on Hitler's orders in the dying days of the Nazi regime.

The essay is here.

In the essay he presents his views on the role of Christianity in politics. I find these views rather reassuring.

"If these are the contours of classical Christian engagement with the state, the modern forms of political engagement are in the main much cruder. Below I list five of them, of which only the fifth bears any real resemblance to Bonhoeffer's position.

1. Vote for me because I'm a Christian. This is the model that is most repugnant. It is the model which says that, simply on the basis of my external profession of the Christian faith, those of similar persuasion should vote for me. This is about as intelligent as saying that because I am a Sydney Swans supporter, all other Swans supporters should vote for me, because we ostensibly adhere to the same belief system. This model is alive and well in the US. Thankfully, it is much less alive and much less well in Australia, although there are some dangerous signs that for certain Christian constituencies here, it represents an increasingly appealing message. It is a model for which there is no underpinning scriptural, doctrinal or theological authority.

2. Vote for me because I'm Christian, and because I have a defined set of views on a narrowly defined set of questions concerning sexual morality. Regrettably, this model has an increasing number of supporters within the broader Christian community. Such supporters tend to read down, rather than read up, the ethical teachings of the New Testament, producing a narrow tick-the-box approach to passing a so-called Christian morals test. These tests tend to emphasise questions of sexuality and sexual behaviour. I see very little evidence that this pre-occupation with sexual morality is consistent with the spirit and content of the Gospels. For example, there is no evidence of Jesus of Nazareth expressly preaching against homosexuality. In contrast, there is considerable evidence of the Nazarene preaching against poverty and the indifference of the rich.

3. Vote for me because I am a Christian, vote for me because I have a defined set of views on questions of private sexual morality, and vote for me also because I chant the political mantra of "family values". That is, take models number one and two and add to them the tag of "family values". Regrettably, that term has become one of the most used and abused terms in the Australian political lexicon. The concept of "family values" it involves is invariably a narrow one, and invariably leaves to one side the ability of working families to survive financially.

4. Apply models one, two and three above, and then add the following offensive play. Unleash a political fusillade against anyone who dares suggest that Christianity might have something concrete to say about the broader political, economic and social questions, and justify this fusillade with that hardy perennial, "Religion should be kept out of politics." This is a view which says that should anyone seek to articulate from a Christian perspective a view on the Iraq war, on poverty in the world, on asylum seekers, on indigenous Australians, or on workplace relations, then judgement may be rained down upon them from the heavens above, as in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Bonhoeffer's critique of the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms was, of course, a response to this.

5. In the fifth approach, the Gospel is both a spiritual Gospel and a social Gospel, and if it is a social Gospel then it is in part a political Gospel, because politics is the means by which society chooses to exercise its collective power. In other words, the Gospel is as much concerned with the decisions I make about my own life as it is with the way I act in society. It is therefore also concerned with how in turn I should act, and react, in relation to the state's power. This view derives from the simple principle that the Gospel which tells humankind that they must be born again is the same Gospel which says that at the time of the Great Judgement, Christians will be asked not how pious they have been but instead whether they helped to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the lonely. In this respect, the Gospel is an exhortation to social action. Does this mean that the fundamental ethical principles provide us with an automatic mathematical formula for determining every item of social, economic, environmental, national-security and international-relations policy before government? Of course not. What it means is that these matters should be debated by Christians within an informed Christian ethical framework. It also means that we should repudiate the proposition that such policy debates are somehow simply "the practical matters of the state" which should be left to "practical" politicians rather than to "impractical" pastors, preachers and theologians. This approach is very much in Bonhoeffer's tradition.

A Christian perspective on contemporary policy debates may not prevail. It must nonetheless be argued. And once heard, it must be weighed, together with other arguments from different philosophical traditions, in a fully contestable secular polity. A Christian perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society, our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place indeed."

That other Blog...

2007-08-07T18:58:00.000+01:00

I've started taking pictures of Oxfordshire again. The pictures are here: There's a good one of Ron at Chris and Katharine's wedding.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

2007-07-22T11:55:00.000+01:00

This is my new favourite website.

I love how in the videos the washlet is located on a waterfall.

Seriously, Sarah, we need one of these bad boys.

I don't need a straw to drink my water

2007-07-12T13:56:00.000+01:00

I'm in KL. It's the second time in less than a month that I've found myself here... I'm here to teach. After four days I'm completely shattered. I've a day to go before I fly to Japan. More on the flight to Japan later.

From my hotel (the Seri Pacific if anybody cares, or if the bad people can't find me in Oxford), it's a ten minute sweat up to the office I'm working in. I pass by a huge mall, then the Ecuador and Arabic Republic of Egypt embassies. I'm in the countries beginning with 'E' consulate block, it would seem. One of the things I like about Malaysia is that is constantly being cleaned. Rubbish is not allowed to settle. Yesterday I passed a woman meticulously flattening out the sand in one of those ashtrays that adorn rubbish bins in countries where people are allowed to smoke indoors.

The office I'm working in is the Malaysian Remote Sensing Office. It's surrounded by a forest, yet it's in the middle of the city.

It's still incredibly surreal to me that in less than six months I'll be married. Great, but fookin' weird.

On Saturday I'm flying to Japan for a week or so. I have a day in Tokyo, a day in Kyoto, and five days in the child's dream city name of Fukui. It would appear that I will be spending most of time indoors. The day after I land in Tokyo, this arrives:

I believe it is called Typhoon(MAN-YI).

Beautiful Haze

2007-06-22T11:37:00.000+01:00

SJD, one of NZ's finest...

Singapore Swing

2007-06-12T08:14:00.000+01:00

Changi Airport in Singapore is outside of time. It's the sort of place that people seem to pass through on their way to somewhere else. In the past I've been on my way to or from KL, Kuching, Jakarta, London and Auckland. The longest I've spent there is about eight hours, the shortest, about an hour. There's something about the tinted windows that limits the amount of natural light. Whenever I'm in the airport it seems like it is either 7am/pm (it's impossible to tell the difference - and most of the time my body clock is so confused it wouldn't matter even if I knew), or it's just dark. 7am/pm will drag on for hours. Besides, time is dictated entirely by Boarding 2220, Gate F31. Essentially, time spent in Changi Airport is a hiatus, a stasis.

On Saturday, transit and stasis was from Kuching, Sarawak to London Heathrow. From Kuching the hiatus was half filled by Knut, a German based in Edmonton who works for the Asian Development Bank and spends half the year in Assam and Dhaka. Knut was on his way to Dhaka. At Changi he was focussed on spending the contents of his wallet on chocolate. He had to exactly spend the contents, $Sing47.20 on chocolate. How very German. I was happy to indulge him. After much consideration and mental gymnastics, he arrived at his selection. Much to his frustration he could only come to a combination that amounted to $Sing47.40.

After we explored the free automatic foot masseuses in Concourse F, he efficiently and precisely marched off with his chocolate to Concourse E and Dhaka. I promptly headed for the bar to fill some more lost time.

So, on Saturday night, I'm heading home to ask my girlfriend to marry me and I am sitting on a plastic deflated basketball of a seat the 'Sports Bar'. On the bar in front of me is a half finished pint of Carlsberg and the godlike AA Gill's new book, Previous Convictions. Behind me is a grand piano, which I suspect is there for decor purposes. The pint glass is slowly being drained when the piano starts up. At first, I'm thinking, 'you intrusive bastards', especially as the first track appears to be 'A Groovy Kind of Love' by Phil Collins. However, in contrary to every expectation, Phil's tune becomes passable and then quite enjoyable. I rotate my deflated plastic basketball round to face the band. The bassist is standing right behind me and is a Mexican looking guy in fifties. His little inverted v-shaped mo' decorates a face that is a study in concentration, but his eyes are twinkling. To his right is the pianist. This guy is a stocky Asian guy. He's a lot younger. He's got spiked hair and his pointed buckled shoes are mashing then tap-dancing the pedals. Beyond him, the lid of the grand piano hides the singer. Around the bar, fingers are tapping on bar tables, an Art Garfunkel double changes seat to get a better view, and conversation stops. Beside the bassist an Indian guy is having a great time. His hands are slapping the table and his grin is getting broader.

From Phil Collins, they move onto an outstanding version of 'Georgia on my Mind'. At this point the bar is filling up, passengers are standing in the terminal around it, there's some Antipodeans leaning against pillars, and there's a sense that there aint no better place to be right now. By the time 'From Russia with Love' has finished, the bar tables are starting to buckle as we tap and pound away in time. Most eyes are closed and smiles on faces are universal. Well, nearly universal. The Indian has been joined by two pretty Indian girls, and they want to go. Something about a 'flight leaving now'. Madness. The Indian really doesn't want to go. The two pretty girls persuade him. Right now, I'm feeling for his dilemma. Eventually the music loses out.

A dozen or more years ago Grant, Ben and I travelled down the West coast of New Zealand's South Island to Wanaka, and then on to Te Anau and Milford. In a youth hostel in Te Anau,
Grant brought out his guitar and was playing away quietly. A Japanese guy asked Grant if he could have a go. On handing over the guitar, the guitarist proceeded to play Eric Clapton's Unplugged. Exactly as it was recorded. There was no doubt that there was talent on display, but it was nothing original. I think if Grant had let him, he would have played the whole album from start to finish, and without interpreting a single bar. It was soulless and it was sad. The difference between the guitarist and the band couldn't have been more striking. Every note, every rest, every key change was played with passion and with a love. There's a lot to like about a band that enjoys what they do. I've seen it most prominently in Prague at U Maleho Glenha, where half a dozen jazz musicians crowded onto three square metres of stage and played their hearts out for three hours. It was no band, it was jam night. These guys made it all up, they shared it all around, and the sparkle in their half-closed eyes accompanied smiles to light the smokiest jazz club. I've seen it when the Go! Team played Oxford, and I've seen it when Ben Harper played the Apollo, albeit with ardent fervour, rather than warm feeling. I've seen some of the 'greats' - Elton, McCartney, U2, and it's felt mechanical. Good, but not memorable. Stale, not fresh. Flat.

By the time they finished up with 'Here comes the sun', it'd got dark outside. 7am/pm had clearly been 7pm. The singer finally emerged from behind the piano. He turned out be a short man in his forties/youthful fifties. He looked quite the cat - stylishly dressed, with flat cap and thick framed glasses. There was a quick debrief and acknowledgment of the applause and handshakes before they wandered out into the terminal, their fame and adulation dissolving as they got beyond the row of pillars and the antipodeans holding them up. It'd been a mere 45 minute of hiatus, but it was the best 45 minutes I've ever spent in an airport.

(For the record, she said yes. I'll be married in January.)

What would Jesus do?

2007-06-05T15:07:00.000+01:00

While unpacking my suitcase in my hotel room I came across this:

I'd just got to my red Che-Guevara look alike T-Shirt of Jesus with 'Be the Revolution!' emblazoned on the front. Probably not the wisest or most sensitive T-Shirt to pack when travelling to Malaysia.

From where I sit

2007-06-05T10:12:00.000+01:00

The view from my bedroom on the fifteenth floor of the Crowne Plaza, Kuching. The Sarawak River to the North and the cloud and (the beginnings of the) highlands of Borneo to the East.

Honestly, guv, I've been working.

From where I sat

2007-06-05T09:47:00.000+01:00

The interior and exterior views of the Luna Bar, Kuala Lumpur. Next time I go out at night I'm taking my bloody tripod.

Don't Stop Me Now (I'm having such a good time)

2007-05-13T00:26:00.000+01:00

On my wedding day I hope I look as good as Martin did on his.

Me too

2007-05-10T21:43:00.000+01:00

There's bits of Helen to dislike and bits of Helen to like.

This is one of the bits to like (from the Sydney Morning Herald):

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark sent a message of goodwill to Sir Edmund Hillary, after the great man was hospitalised a couple of weeks ago: "There's no one we love more. I think the message from every single one of us is, 'Hang in there, Sir Ed, we love you'."

Rick... sure, baby!

2007-05-08T22:03:00.000+01:00

For Chris.
Ok, the Mongol Rally probably isn't going to happen, but what do you say to taking a rickshaw for 4500km through India? The Rickshaw Run might be the thing to do...

There's even a spot of cricket at the end.

Revival

2007-05-08T10:53:00.001+01:00

From the Soulsavers, 'It's not how far you fall, it's how you land'

Mexico 5-0

2007-05-06T15:57:00.000+01:00

A man and his beer.

Did I mention that my last hotel was a 16th century haicienda in the heart of colonial Mexico? The hotel, the Haicienda Jurica is west of Queretaro. On Thursday night they had a Hawaiian themed party for some tourists. The night before, they rehearsed this outside my hotel room for hours. The show seemed to combine anything vaguely polynesian with anything vaguely sea-related. Well, as far as the Polynesian side of things goes, it could have poly, micro or melan - it was hard to tell. I'm not sure what the Limbo dancing had to do with it all. As the evening wore on, I contemplated getting up and doing the haka, although a bespectacled skinny white man who was clearly under the influence may not have been welcome at a party to which he wasn't invited. My personal highlight was the Hawaii 5-0 accompanied dance. Now, I like the theme tune to Hawaii 5-0. I could (and, on Wednesday night, indeed did) listen to it over and over again. But the dancing girls (or were they ostriches? With all the feathers and a Indio flavoured haze it was hard to tell) were just scary. I've often observed to myself that 'I'm not drunk enough to appreciate this'. I think on Thursday night the level of drunkenness required to appreciate it would have involved me passed out on the floor.

The piece de resistance to the dance was the background video. This was comprised of a mangy seagull walking on an equally mangy beach. As the tune faded out, a deflated Nokia theme tune rang out over the pool.

The week began in Dallas. Now while I don't like a lot of American Foreign Policy, I love being in America. There's so much to look at and the people are so damn sincere. There's something about the absurd enthusiasm of the guy Grant and I discussed beers of the world with in a suburban supermarket. Contrary to the myth of American ignorance, the guy was highly informed about said foreign beers. From there to the a speedway themed theme park where Grant and I pretended to be drag racers before being pushed aside by small and large Texans in equal measure in the slicks. This was useful preparation for the following morning where at Trietsch Memorial United Methodist Church, the theme was (I think), managing change in this fast ol' world of ours. This theme was explored using a metaphor of the wall crew at NASCAR, complete with videos and a bloody great stockcar on the altar. Brilliant. Of all the sermons I've heard recently it's probably the one I can recall most of.

And no, the church did not fulfil the 'get me the hell out of here close minded prosperity doctrine and aint President Bush just great' expectations I had been led to believe I would get from a Texan church.

Beyond Texas and Monterrey lies Mexican Route 57. It's fairly dull, there are only three towns of significance in the 750-800 km of road that stretches between Monterrey and Queretaro; Saltillo, Matehuala and St Luis Potosi. Between Matehuala and STP is some very flat road flanked by cacti forests. Oh, and the road is straight. Because I was bored, and because Adrians English was thin and my Spanish limited to Pendejo, Buenos Noches and pero, I started taking note of the straight line distances. The straight that went for 20km was surprising. The one that went for 55km was just plain ridiculous.

Outside Jurica, to the West, are San Miguel Allende and Delores. SMA and Dolores Hidalgo are where the Mexicans realised that indeed they could and started to throw out the Spanish. Miguel Hidalgo, reader of banned French literature and the priest with the temerity to start it all, raised an army. It cost him head. This head, along with those of three others were posted in nearby Guanajuato. It started something in the city. Aside from the colonial architecture and the stunning walls of painted houses, the big attraction in the city is Las Momias Museum, or the Mummy Museum. Now, I've seen some freaky shit in my time, but this museum takes the tortilla. About a hundred disinterred bodies are displayed, each in their own in glass case. The ones that are lying down are given silk pillows. Whether lying down or standing up, all the adults have the same expression. The adult of whom it is theorized was alive when she woke up from her paralysis but in a coffin has a very loud form of that expression. In the middle of the museum is the a room that contains the bodies of the little people. Freaky, freaky shit.

The macabre exhibitionism aside, Guanajuato is my favourite Mexican city (I've been to seven of them, ok, five cities and 2 villages). In such a small amount of space there is a hell of a lot of colour. It's like an cubic Jackson Pollock. It's also the dead centre (oops) of Mexico.

Tonight in French class I learnt how to say my car is knackered. I should have learnt this in Spanish. At the Matehuala end of the giant straight, and at 10.30pm, the car broke down.

Ok, this is getting a little boring. Here's some pictures.

Guanajuato University and a Numptee

The revolution will be televised. Dolores church with its giant TV.

Flowers.

Pre 55.

Off road

2007-04-23T11:52:00.000+01:00

After 80,000 miles, my overworked, somewhat thrashed 1.0 litre Micra has developed a terminal dose of corrosion. So I've retired it. Its (not 'hers', I'm not in the habit of giving a gender to my car, the only time I talk to it is generally something along the lines of 'come on you bastard, get up the hill') replacement is a 306 2.0 litre turbo diesel. Now my conversations have taken on a 'whoah, steady on betty' approach.

Being an estate, I can get a whole lot more cricket gear into it. I'd make a comment about the climate change implications but I suspect my flight to Mexico on Friday will probably dwarf the annual 306 emissions...

Global warning

2007-04-23T11:45:00.000+01:00

Knut's been receiving death threats. Olaf received no such threats, but was defenestrated all the same.

A Surprising Anglia on Easter

2007-04-09T16:04:00.000+01:00

After a hOME Good Friday service and associated stations of the cross installation, le petit amie and I wandered across to Norwich to meet the family. I've never been to Anglia before. I've been to the Ipswich ring road to teach, but this time I made it onto the Norfolk Broads and as far as the coast at Happisburgh (pronounced Haysbrough - go figure). Happisburgh is rapidly being reclaimed by the sea. Five years ago the village temporarily lost its lifeboat when the access ramp collapsed.

From Happisburgh LPA and I went onto Norwich, where there are more ruins and old churches than I'd expected. We wandered through Norwich Cathedral, past Edith Cavell's grave and through the nave, where the stained glass windows let the light dance on the pillars. Up from the cathedral we walked up to the forum to see an Earth from the Air exhibition. You know, those pictures that cause the heavy coffee table books. A lot of the pictures had an associated tale, generally lamenting the decline of the environment associated with the picture due to a blend of our consumption and apathy. All of the pictures were surrounded by sated shoppers. It made me think that perhaps we get deluged with too much information, as it is tempting to go through the phase of 'this is shite! I must be informed', where we assemble as much information as we can. The assembly of information then becomes a substitute for action, and then finally we read so much we end up with 'yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before', and while we're sitting with the apathy, someone comes along with the great climate swindle+. Happily we justify our inaction, and while we have our head in the sand, our house falls onto it.*

*As far as my hypocrisy is concerned here, I could quote Mark Knopfler, or Jesus on this one. 'When you point your finger 'cos your plan fell through, you got three more fingers pointing back at you'. I'll be off to remove the plank from my eye now. It's quite unlikely that anyone has ever confused Mark Knopfler with Jesus. ('Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong...' Ok, enough Dire Straits lyrics now).
+The most enjoyable part of the swindle was that the popularity of climate change was to do with an unholy alliance between Thatcher and the hippies. Thatcher hated the miners, the hippies hate development and would be far happier if we all went back to scything and tilling.

Take me down to the lovely sea and the sky

Happisburgh lighthouse, not as Happy as you might think.

The inside of Norwich Cathedral...

...and the outside.

Aotearoa

2007-04-02T08:11:00.000+01:00

Four images from the New Zealand War Memorial in London. The memorial is best seen up close, or alternatively from the Oxford Espress bus (I prefer it to the Oxford Tube) as it nears Victoria Station. From the side the memorial looks like a series of iron stakes, but as the bus swings round Hyde Park Corner towards Grosvenor Place, the tops of the stakes reveal silver crosses. (The lovely Sarah can be seen wandering through them in the second picture).

Homer's Odyssey

2007-03-28T09:29:00.000+01:00

(From Norm at onegoodmove)

The ICC

2007-03-28T08:21:00.000+01:00

The bloody ICC, in their wisdom, have told youtube to remove all videos of the 2007 world cup as they seem to think that the presence of it is denying them revenue. They can't seem to see that videos like this actually bring them money as it brings attention to the game.

As a result the video below doesnae work anymore.

God love 'im

2007-03-19T23:29:00.000Z

For overweight cricketers everywhere...

Radio.Blog

2007-03-19T23:02:00.000Z

On the right is Radio.Blog. It's courtesy of the fine folk at Radio.Blog, and an idea of shamelessly inspired from those Badminton Stamps boys.

At the moment there is the exhaustive playlist of two.

The space for the music has kindly been donated by one Rhys Lewis. If you need goodies from Aotearoa, you should visit him at www.shop.co.nz.

Tomorrow there shall be more, when I bring my iPod cord home from work...

Visual Mutterings

2007-03-19T09:20:00.000Z

At grommelage.blogspot.com there's the start of a photographic record of Oxford, or wherever the hell I am on any given day.

The first one is from the Luminox on Saturday night.

Imaginary Children

2007-03-14T08:00:00.000Z

Yesterday, for the first time in recorded memory, I chose to listen to John (Cougar) Mellencamp and his Human Wheels album. Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed it

Yesterday, randomly, BadmintonStamps.com, a music blog I drop by from time to time, posted this (with downloadable track):

"It's hard to hate on John Mellencamp. He does his thing and he does it competently. But for all his general good guy decentness, in the end he'll always be a pop tart version of the Boss. That's because Mellancamp is to Springsteen what Coldplay is to Radiohead; a watered down version your imaginary daughter likes. This is of course assuming that you have an imaginary daughter. I recommend getting one if you haven't already. My imaginary daughter is eleven years old, her favorite movies are Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Splendor in the Grass, she reads Teen Vogue although it's a little advanced for her but she wants to seem cool, and she loves converse sneakers and Mellencamp. She's a pretty cool girl and I love her to pieces. And seeing her imaginary smile when this song comes on convinces me that I love the Mellencamp too. I mean, sure he's not in the same league as Bruce Springsteen, but at least he takes a dump on Bryan Adams".

Supported

2007-03-12T12:32:00.000Z

In our case we're leaning out the window looking at a cow

Trident

2007-03-05T23:32:00.000Z

(Disclaimer: From a pinko's anti-nuke perspective)*

With the current debate on Trident, there are two audio clips that are worth listening to. One, from the Now Show, is funny and new and borrows from the other, which is a speech called 'Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible' and is from the late New Zealand Prime Minister, the Hon David Lange. This is old and occasionally funny, was the Oxford Union Debate in 1985, and while being quite long is worth listening to. It remains as prescient today as it did in 1985.

By the way, Aotearoa is still being punished by our 'friends' for this one.

*Although if the aliens do come, and they don't come in peace, I'll be willing to admit I was wrong.

Somedays it pays to shave...

2007-03-05T08:44:00.000Z

I went to see Blood Diamond on Saturday night with Sarah. It was a mutual decision*. On first observation it seemed a powerful and very violent indictment of the diamond trade. And to some extent, on second and third observations, it remains a powerful (and violent) indictment of the diamond trade. But it also came across as a rather patronising movie about Africa, and when Wendy sends me a link, I'm gonna link to someone from Cape Town who agrees with me (the guys at AllMovie.com get it pretty close here).

Anyways, being someone who is in the habit of shaving once a fortnight (I like my stubbly look - it reminds me I have testosterone, and on the whole I'm too lazy too shave in the firs place), it sometimes pays to shave. 'Cos you never know when your evening is going to end with a damn good snog.

*As a violent movie to go to on a first date, it comes a distant second to the time I went and saw David Lynch's Wild at Heart. Although that was most definitely her choice.

An IED a day...

2007-03-02T10:08:00.000Z

Laura Bush on media bias.

Feed Me.

2007-02-28T17:02:00.000Z

In Nepal, babies that are born perfectly healthy become brain-damaged by their first birthday simply because they do not get enough to eat.

My (other) government has decided to do something about that.

ellipsis

2007-02-21T13:11:00.000Z

(The bits I remember)

Flew to India...Saw poverty in the street...Saw cows in the street...Stayed in relative opulence...Couldn't drink garam masala tea...Flew to Kathmandu, couldn't land, flew to Calcutta, international flight became a domestic flight...Domestic flights are not allowed to serve alcohol...Stayed in faded glory five star hotel...Flew to Kathmandu...Landed in Kathmandu...face to face encounter with leper...Had dahl bat...Escaped the bandh and took bus to Pokhara...Caught up with friends...Caught a cold...Climbed Sarankot with small child on shoulders...Saw eagles...Saw very high mountains...Drank Special Edition Everest Beer...Oared on Phewa Tal...Stuck my hand in human shit...Had my first blade shave...Took jeep to Tansen...Driver answered mobile phone with both hands on sharp bend missing eternal abyss...Encountered Tansen Mission Hospital...Played numerous games of 'What's the time Mr. Wolf?'...Visited Nepali church in Nepali...Skipped out of Nepali church service at half time...So far avoided wiping my bum with my hand...Hit in the head by rock thrown by four year old ...More shoulder rides...Played with dirt...Read literary crud...More dahl bat...Made video of hospital...Laid around a lot...read more crud...Have generally great time with Sarah, Mike, and the three wee ones...Take nine hour Buck ride back to Kathmandu...Face to face with Downs Syndrome Nepali child in Butwal (I'm very sorry I didn't give you my biscuit)...Flew to see Mount Everest/Sagamartha/Chomolungma...Dodged piles of garbage in the street...Visted Monkey Temple with Cow, Sarah and cluelessly dressed Australian girl...Was freaked out by monkeys...Lots more eagles...Visited Kathmandu Durbar Square...Was somewhat disturbed by Hindu and Buddhist temples...Still don't know why this is...Had standout dinner at Kathmandu House Restaurant...Said goodbye to Sarah...Flew to Pokhara...Started five day Poon Hill trek in fair weather with the good guide Saran...Fair weather became less fair...Still managed to avoid using the back of the hand to wipe my bum...Started to get Heartland by The The and (Nothing but) Flowers by Talking Heads in my head... Glimpsed Annapurna South...Followed the chicken sellers of Pokhara...Learnt Nepali card game Dhumbal...Learnt that beer, toilet paper and mars bars are significantly more expensive than accomodation in the hills...Climbed to nearly the top of Poon Hill (3210m)...Cloud came down...Rain came down...Temperature went down...Hail came down...Temperature went down...Snow came down...Saw world's smallest glacier...Admired the snow in the hills...Carried on Ghandruk...Passed mute Nepali...Internally wept over mute Nepali...Did nothing else about mute Nepali...Stayed in big guesthouse in Ghandruk...Vowed to never stay in a guesthouse with TV ever again...Glimpsed Annapurna again...One kilometer straight down and one kilometer straight up in four hours...Finished walk...Returned to Pokhara for hot shower...No hot water in Pokhara...Went for shave and haircut...Had shave...Had haircut...Escaped being buggered/physically assaulted by barber by paying ten pounds to barber and his mate...Want to kill barber...Visited dry Dewi Falls and Cave Complex...Still wanting to murder barber...Spent morning oaring on Phewa Tal and admiring enormous mountains that had finally come out of their closet...Flew to Kathmandu...Eat final dahl bat dinner...Visited Bhaktapur Durbar Square...Made to visit Buddhist art school...Still uncomfortable in Buddhist temples...Pay pound to not buy any Buddhist artwork...Last glimpses of Himalayas...Flew to Delhi (no wiping of bum with hand in Nepal)...Went to visit Red Fort...Red Fort closed on Mondays...Went to visit Gandhi memorial...Gandhi memorial closed on Mondays...Went to visit Qatab Minar...Qatab Minar open on Mondays...Admire Qatab Minar...Joy-riding round Delhi on Tuk Tuk...Made to buy chess set...Visit magnificent Humayun's Tomb...Discovered I'm quite comfortable in mosques...Arrange train and guide for Agra...10.30pm bed time to be up early for train to Agra...11.30pm Capoeira starts outside hotel...12.00am fireworks start outside hotel...1.00am fireworks finish outside hotel...5.30am get up to catch Shatabi Express to Agra...Am served personal thermos of tea, plus paper, curry and bottle of water on Shatabi Express...Watch Indians crap in fields alongside track...Arrive in Agra...Visit Taj Mahal...Argue with security about the admitting of cows into Taj...Lose argument with security...Visit Taj alone...Get photo taken on Princess Di bench...Am overawed by Taj...More eagles...Visit older and littler 'Baby Taj'...Am taken to look at how marble is engraved...Penny hasn't dropped...Realise I am expected to buy something...Buy elephant embossed coasters...Visit place where carpets are handmade...Still slow on uptake...Finally realise I am expected to buy carpet...Have sweet nothings whispered in my ear by carpet salesman...Undecided about carpet...Sweet nothings get closer...Decide to not buy carpet...Carpet salesman brings out calculator...Salesman types number into calculator and doesn't use any of the mathematical operators...Affirm desire to not buy carpet...Plummet to lowest caste and am frogmarched from carpet showroom...Am taken by guide to more shops...Tell guide I do not want to be taken to anymore shops...Becoming passive aggressive...Am taken to another set of shops...Passive aggression about to become unpassive...Am finally taken to Agra Fort...Spend hours admiring Islamic architecture, views of Taj, monkeys and hundreds of eagles, while avoiding returning to the guide...Decide Agra Fort is an outrageously good place to wile away the hours and avoid guide...Return to guide...Am taken to another shop...Choose to buy wooden statue of Gandhi...Tell guide to take me to place to drink beer...Last sighting of guide...Drink beer...Driver returns me to station...Tip driver on the basis of him not being the guide...Wait on platform...Watch 16 year old boy with one leg pull himself along the platform to beg...More grieving but no money for 16 year old amputee...Return to Delhi...Have great encounters with three generations of Indian family...Still have Heartland and (Nothing but) Flowers in my head...Still haven't used hand to wipe bum...See last eagles...Leave Delhi...Arrive in Oxford...Brush teeth using tap water for first time in four weeks...Delhi Belly symptoms arrive.

Don't hire the Guide

2007-02-16T18:37:00.000Z

There's a whole lot of post-processing that needs to be done post the sub continent. The process begins on Monday night with Jim, some western food and some eastern beer, and a newly acquired chess set.

So, in lieu of detailed discussion I offer this:

In India DO NOT hire a guide. Do it yourself, you'll be fine, and you won't get dragged through a dozen shops and have sweet nothings whispered in your ear about how good the carpet you're looking at is.

Mark Tuly, quoted AA Gill's AA Gill is Away was asked about how he dealt with the poverty in India. His response: 'I don't have to cope with the poverty; the poor have to cope with the poverty'. This is a very useful insight when travelling in India.

In India, it is best to travel with a friend.

To paraphrase Gill again, the Taj is not too passe. It is fucking stupendous, supremely magnificent. But don't try to take a stuffed cow into it, the guards won't let it in.

Equally magnificent is the Agra Fort.

In Delhi, you have to ask for the beer. It's not on the menu, but it is there. And Indian beer is not to be smirked at.

Here's some photos:

How is it that I look both squat and really pissed off?

Tibetan prayer flags in the cloud.

Calligraphy detail at the Taj.

Jesus and Richard on the mountain. Richard still looks pissed off...

...while the cow is just pissed.

At the Agra Fort.

Velvet Elvis

2007-02-07T06:19:00.000Z

Justice has lent me a copy of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis.

It's a very engaging study on his take on the Christian faith, and (so far) to a large extent it encapsulates my take on Christianity. I'm probably really enjoying it because I agree with it... I'll try to comment on it later when I've finished it.

However it is slightly damp due to the Rains of Nepal.

Shagged Mr. Richard

2007-02-07T06:09:00.000Z

When I get the next beer down me I'm raising a glass to all the poor bastards like me who were on the Poon Hill loop during the first week of February.

I didn't climb Poon Hill. I did climb 3000 odd metres. But there was no point climbing Poon Hill. Quite frankly I'm wondering what the point of the past five days was.

For the past five days the Annapurna Sanctuary has been covered in thick cloud and heavy rain. As a result I am cold, wet, tired and more than just a little grumpy. And I saw s.f.a of any mountains. Still, I suppose I do feel better for the exercise and if there is one point or lesson to take from this, it's to check the bloody weather forecast before setting off.

If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower

-Talking Heads

Walking Mr. Richard

2007-02-02T07:58:00.000Z

I've still another thirteen days before I'm expected back at work. Originally I had planned to go overland from Nepal to Delhi, but I've changed my mind. I'm not comfortable with being on my tod for the two day train ride as theft is very common on the Indian railways. If I was with another person I'd be ok with this as there would always be someone to watch my kit as I go to the dodgy toilet. Secondly, there is limited assurance that I would be able to even get to the border as the terai (the lowlands between the Himalayas and India) is often the subject of bandhs, or strikes, that close the roads indefinitely. Vehicles that break the bandhs get stoned. Sometimes they get set on fire while the army watches, and in protest at the army doing nothing another bandh is arranged. And so on. So I'm not doing that. Instead I'm off for a walk. I'm back in Pokhara for a night before me and my guide climb up then around Poon Hill. This is a five day walk on the edge of the Annapurna Sanctuary. Annapurna I, the highest of the Annapurnas, is 8091m high. From the top of Poon Hill (3210m), I'll be able to see multiple 7000m+ high mountains. It will also get me away from the roads.

Yesterday, I flew alongside the eastern Himalaya as far as the Big Boy, which could and possibly should be called Sagarmatha or Chomolungma.

I've been fortunate to spend much of the last two weeks in the company of my pal Sarah, who has been an excellent travel companion. Mainly because she is a top woman, but also because she has spent much time in India (at least 12 trips, I think) and therefore knows the haggling process, and the right questions to ask when buying services. She is also an enthusiatic, yet rubbish (or chronicly unlucky) yahtzee player, which has resulted in my learning to be a gracious winner. She flies home today. Thanks for a great fortnight, mon amie.

Four days of my visit were spent in Tansen, where Sarah and Mike and the three wee ones live and work at the UMN Mission hospital. It's the only hospital for 50 plus miles, or, more importantly, two or more hours driving. Mike has a year-long placement as a surgeon. In a months time he might be redundant as the hospital is likely to run out of water.

This afternoon I have some shopping to do for the walk. If anybody wants me to bring back some cheap but authentic pashmina you need to email me specifying colour and I'll see what I can do. Within reason!

After the walk I'm finally back off to India. La vache and I are off for Lady Di pose at the Taj.

Driving Mr. Richard

2007-02-02T07:13:00.000Z

Driving in Kathmandu requires one of two approaches. Either you treat your trip as an engineer would - I have a car, it is this big, the gap I want to get into is this big, and in order to get my car into that gap I need to take the following route - or you take the alternative and more popular approach. This approach can be likened to a small child armed with a hammer trying to get a square peg into a round hole. The child also has a large, loud and creative sounding horn. If it helps, the child is also high.

When queueing in Nepal for anything (such as the departure tax at the airport - Kathamdu airport, like Auckland and unlike every other airport I've been to, requires that you pay your departure tax after you've bought the ticket but before you have checked in), the approach is simply to barge to the front and wave your money furiously. At the moment, due to problems on the terai (the low parts of Nepal), there is limited access to petrol in Kathmandu. As a consequence, drivers queue for up to five hours to get fuel. They use the same approach as is required in the departure tax payment queue, but do not leave their vehicles. It is possible to see scrums of motorcyles 100+ strong involved in this. It is believed that in order to conserve petrol it is essential for drivers to switch off their engines when waiting at traffic lights.

Driving to and from Kathamndu is precipitous and requires one or more of the following:

gigantic testicles
blind faith
the ability to see round corners
momentum
no fear
no brains (for to think about what you're about to means you will not do it).
A very loud horn
The ability to make trucks that are coming towards you either disappear or fit into very small places

I've been in overtaking maneouvers on roads with 500m+ drops past several heavily decorated and lumbering Tata trucks on blind corners while being a passenger in a less decorated but equally lumbering buck, which I've subesequently learnt is called a buck 'cos it's half bus and half... As I say, momentum is important. Astonishingly, we never met an oncoming vehicle, and I'm sure either my driver had radar or telekinesis. For the 18+ hours to date that I have spent being driven in Nepal, it somewhat amazes me that none of the vehicles I've been in have touched any other vehicle. And the only tipped over Tata truck I've seen was on the terai near Butwal. It was a very straight and flat road and it had spilt its load of steel. It appeared to have collected a tree on its way to resting on it's side, with the side of the road being some 20m plus away.

The best ride I've had was from the airport to Thamel, the tourist part of Kathmandu. Our driver was as high as a kite and giggled constantly as he played with is horn. At one stop, he started to attack his dashboard, kicking and punching it with all the energy of a rutting stag. After two minutes he held up in triumph an ejected cassette. Giggling he replaced it with a techno version of My heart will go on. Later, and in mid-traffic, he happily raised the the blood-drug concentrations in his body.

For the next five days, I'm on foot...

Like Dogs

2007-01-22T12:28:00.000Z

On the last night in Nassau, Tyrone, Andy, Ros, Jackie and I had a few beers in the Compass Point Bar and Restaurant with Tyrone's mate Ken. When it was time to go back to the airport, Ken told us he'd give us a lift in the back of his truck. So, like dogs, Andy, Tyrone and I hung off the back of th truck and let the wind blow through our hair (we let the ladies ride up front). It was great.

Here's Andy and Tyrone:

Signs

2007-01-22T11:55:00.000Z

I've finally made it to Kathmandu. Yesterday Sarah and I flew from Delhi to Kathmandu, circled it three times, then flew to Calcutta. We then spent a quality three hours on the tarmac as our Jet Airways (their slogan is 'The Joy of Flying') international flight became a domestic flight (meaning they could no longer serve beer), and then we flew back to Delhi. All this came to result in zero air miles.

Tomorrow we hope to get to Pokhara but as a result of the local transport folk being upset at the government not compensating the local transport folk for a number of their buses being torched in a riot last week, Nepal is now on strike. If the strike carries through till tomorrow we'll be off to see monkeys being revered in temples.

In the meantime, here's some signs I've seen. The first tells me what I cannot take as carry-on luggage in Indian flights (they omitted to include duty free alcohol that you buy in the arrivals hall. You can only take through booze you've bought in the departures hall. Essentially this is a way for the customs men to get cheap wines and spirits. The Aussies in front of us, seeing the high fives, didn't play along and tipped their scotch in the bin. I was willing to lose the five quid bottle of german sparkling wine I'd bought for Mike and Sarah...). The second photo advises me that if I'd like to know how black holes work, I need not stray from the hotel Jet Airways put us up in. Which was vastly superior than a white tent on the front steps of Heathrow.

Sacred Cow

2007-01-19T08:44:00.000Z

If you want us, from tonight the beer drinking bovine and I will be visiting The Cow's holy lands of India and Nepal for three and a half weeks.

Smokin'...

2007-01-18T15:03:00.000Z

...at the Graycliff Restaurant, hotel, bar and cigar factory, Nassau.

Strange Encounters

2007-01-17T22:32:00.000Z

While walking up St Aldates tonight I was on the phone to my old housemate Rhys. Coming the other way was Lucy, who was on the phone to her mum. Midway through our respective conversations we stopped and hugged, wished each other Happy New Year, and carried on our conversations. An odd but delightful moment.

Dinner time

2007-01-14T16:15:00.000Z

He serves

2007-01-14T16:08:00.000Z

Volleyball in the Bahamas.

Break out the Violins

2007-01-08T20:21:00.000Z

So... I've just come back from Belgium, Holland and France. On the 19th I'm off to India and Nepal for three and half weeks so see Mike, Sarah and the lovely little people.

I could really use NOT going to the Bahamas for a weeks 'work' this Wednesday...

Damn the fox and his bone.

Pretentious Photo Essay - New Year 2007...

2007-01-08T15:16:00.000Z

Indulgent photographs from Holland, Belgium and La France.

Edward, the drunk Dutchman, was up for some lovin'.

Before the big bang

Apparently €73 million worth of fireworks is lit at New Years in Holland. The vast majority is by drunk Dutch men.

God bless the Dutch.

An Arne Jacobsen original.

Juno Beach, Normandy.

The German battery at Longues sur Mer.

Pointe du Hoc

The American cemetery at Colleville sur Mer, Normandy

Some of the missing.

One of the Unknown.

Ein Deutscher Soldat

The German Dead

The German memorial at La Cambe

Bayeux, Normandy

Mont St. Michel, Normandy. Damn, this was something else.

God Hungry, Lille

(The 42 year old artist, Subodh Gupta is one of the figureheads of Indian contemporary art. At the heart of his work, we find objects from the everyday life of the artist, as well as the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians.
Here he presents « Hungry God », a monumental cascade of kitchen and eating utensils which will occupy the centre of the church, under the dome. The hungry god and this wave of objects are references to the tsunami which ravaged India in 2004)

From the Bishop

2006-12-26T15:31:00.000Z

Food for thought from Richard Holloway in the Observer:

Our leaders should listen to this man of monstrous ideas

The challenges Christ set may be daunting but, in a country where Christianity is on the wane, we need to rise to meet them

In spite of centuries of confident talk about him, a halo of mystery still surrounds Jesus, whose birth we celebrate tomorrow. A great theologian of the early 20th century said of him: 'He comes to us as one unknown, without a name.' For Albert Schweitzer, whose words these are, what he finally encountered in Jesus meant the end of theology and the beginning of practical action. He tells us that after years of laborious research into his meaning and identity, he decided to become a doctor so that he might be able to work without having to talk. It has to be admitted that this is an uncommon response to the Jesus enigma, certainly within the church, which is why EM Forster sighed over 'poor, little talkative Christianity'.

The one who comes to us without a name continues to provoke torrents of language, much of it aimed at rival interpretations of his identity. Anyone who has read this newspaper during the last year will have picked up a lot of information about the current rows in Christianity, the recent big issue being gay clergy. But to ignore Jesus because of the verbal promiscuity of his followers is a failure to encounter one of the most challenging characters in world literature.

I have put it like that, because whether or not Jesus existed, and whether or not he was the son of God, he is undeniably present in a book through whose agency he can still disturb our consciences. If we can leave his metaphysical status to theologians, what is it about him that is worth paying attention to, especially if we ourselves are more than slightly allergic to religious talk?

I think there are three powerful elements in what we know about his teaching that are enduringly important and have lessons for us today. The first was his attitude towards the laws and customs by which we have chosen to organise ourselves. He did not believe they should be afforded absolute, unchanging authority over us. They were created to assist us in leading the good life, but he knew that if they were not held lightly, and with a shrewd appreciation of their provisional nature, they could easily became stupid and tyrannous.

He wanted us to be on the alert for the moment when human welfare was served not by conforming to, but by abandoning such codes. This was the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan, who violated a central prohibition of his religion by going to the aid of a Jew who had fallen among thieves.

This is a simple insight, but it has profoundly radical consequences for public life. For example, if it were being applied to Britain's misguided drug laws, five young women from Ipswich would be alive today. Forcing addicts to sell their bodies to feed their addiction, when we could prescribe them heroin and help them manage their lives better, is to accord higher value to an arbitrary law than to the sacredness of human life itself. This was the kind of cruel folly of which Jesus was witheringly critical. Historically, it is the most vulnerable members of society who have been the traditional victims of this kind of theoretical intransigence, and contemporary Britain affords many examples of its continuing power over us.

Even more difficult for us to deal with is Jesus's plea for us to love our enemies. George Steiner is particularly moving in what he says about this sublime impossibility: 'The profoundly natural impulse to avenge injustice, oppression and derision do have their place in the house of Israel.

'A refusal to forget injury or humiliation can warm the heart. Christ's ordinance of total love, of self-offering to the assailant, is, in any strict sense, an enormity. The victim is to love the butcher. A monstrous proposition. But one shedding fathomless light. How are mortal men and women to fulfil it?'

How, indeed? Yet we are witnessing the increasingly awful consequences of our inability to fulfil this monstrous proposition of love. What Steiner calls the profoundly natural impulse to avenge injustice has trapped us in a relentless cycle of violence that threatens to spiral into global conflict. The call of Jesus to love our enemies may be a human impossibility, but the paradox is that by failing to heed it, we can end up destroying ourselves along with those we hate.

Graham Greene pointed out in his greatest novel, The Power and the Glory, that hatred was a failure of the imagination. It is by failing to imagine ourselves into lives and cultures that are foreign to our own experience that we risk pulling down the house of our common humanity round our ears and burying ourselves in the rubble. One of the most poignant and tragic ironies of our time is the failure of George W Bush and Tony Blair, two of the world's most prominent Christians, to hazard this act of cultural imagination by reaching out to their enemies.

It is our inability to respond to the monstrous proposition to love our enemies that makes the third element in Jesus's teaching and example so moving. He knew that power always corrupts us, that it burns away our frail moral sense. We have discovered this ourselves over centuries of misgovernment and have tried to erect checks and balances against our fatal addiction to power. With very mixed results. Jesus's mistrust of power was so total that only the truly destitute are able to fulfil it: another monstrous proposition. Yet part of the tradition about him, and one that continues to announce itself in world literature in our day, is his compassion for those who find themselves in positions of power and who are inevitably corrupted by it.

The most perfect expression of this is found in Dostoevsky's legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. During the Inquisition in Spain, Jesus comes to Seville. People instinctively recognise the man without a name and seek his counsel. The Grand Inquisitor has him arrested and comes to visit him in prison. He delivers a monologue in which he points out that people do not want the freedom Jesus brought them. They want the security of a power system, including all its necessary corruptions. They will never be able to follow Jesus's path of freedom and compassion. At the end of the old man's monologue, Jesus says nothing, but he steps forward and kisses him 'gently on his bloodless, aged lips'.

What we have here is an understanding of human nature that is both fiercely challenging and tenderly forgiving. It is why many people are still drawn to the man without a name, even though they have long since abandoned the institution that carries his memory. Thousands of them will turn up at churches throughout Britain at midnight, not quite sure why they are there, almost against their will, but responding instinctively to something they don't have words for. George Mackay Brown, who understood the fascination, probably put it as well as anyone can:

Who is the man in the last light,
At the fire-glimmer, on shore stones
Poaching fish in a pot?
It is the man they hooked
On the dead tree.

Mes Amis et Ma Famille

2006-12-24T12:29:00.000Z

Earlier this year, a Mexican translator called David countered my declaration of 'I'm lucky' with, 'no, you're blessed'. For much of the year I've been pondering just what that meant. In her novel, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's vicar states that 'blessing something does not sanctify it, but rather acknowledges the inherent sacredness in it', which I've found quite useful.

But perhaps I'm missing the obvious. In hOME this year we've looked at hospitality, using the book Radical Hospitality by Daniel Homan and Pratt Lonni Collins. I like to think I've learnt from this. But it occurs to me that this year I have the recipient of some outstanding acts of hospitality and kindness. In my travels this year (sorry about the climate change, future generations), I've been to, amongst other places, Praha, Mexico (three times), Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Dallas and I'm about to set off to Lisse in Holland. In those travels, I've been taken in by a standup Canadian on crutches and his fiancee (Patrick, if you're reading this, Happy Christmas to you and Jitka), had Wendy leave a key in a cafe for me in Edinburgh and then plied me with great tea, been gotten drunk while watching Mexican football in Monterrey, had Rebekah take me in in Eindhoven before her friends bought us dinner, and I am about to be put up by by Dutch relatives. Other people, Mike and Sarah that is, have let me their house for a year at a very cheap rate, Anita knitted me a lush scarf, Gerry played cricket for me even though England were playing Portugal at the same time, Ricardo the Mexican Numpty explained how things were 'very important', Rebekah went out of her way to take a picture of the Dan Perjovschi cartoon, Muzz opted to camp with hOME at Greenbelt, and so it went on. So many people have willingly and sometimes unwittingly contributed to making my year such a good one.

I still may not know what 'being blessed' means, but I'm pretty sure I know what it feels like for me. It's the little things that mean a lot.

Merry Christmas one and all. May there be plenty of little things for you all.

Grandpere

2006-12-23T17:07:00.000Z

It may be just that I grew up in the city next to the hills painted with orange firebreaks, but Russell Brown's story of his grandfather is a moving one.

There be Spiders

2006-12-20T10:25:00.000Z

The fog hasn't lifted in two days, nor has the temperature cracked positive numbers. This has contributed to giant spiders webs.

Monday Evening, Wallingford, New Camera

2006-12-13T09:58:00.000Z

The Street Corner

2006-12-13T09:55:00.000Z

Misinformed

2006-12-11T23:55:00.000Z

Yesterday I posted an uninformed post. In light of enlightenment, I've taken it down.

Nine

2006-12-04T09:52:00.000Z

Personal Space

2006-11-29T15:42:00.000Z

-Dan Perjovschi

The Last Word in Watches

2006-11-27T08:45:00.000Z

So... the new James Bond. Having been to see it on the weekend with Tess, I've got a couple or three observations.

Firstly, it's darker and more of a thinking man's Bond than most of its predecessors. Ok, so the thinking man's aspect might be taking it a bit far, but it did feel more like Sunday Times than News of the World. But not so far as the Guardian on Saturday (excessive use of big words and an inflated opinion of itself, and yet I still buy it. Especially if there is free DVD that I've not heard of and probably won't watch).

Secondly, ropes and testicles? Right... Was that in the original Ian Fleming novel?

Thirdly, it has some of the less subtle product placement I've seen movies. From the Sony Ericsson phones (I feel somewhat disappointed with my new SE K750i - it doesn't do half of the things Mr Bond's does), to Richard Branson in the metal detector followed by the Virgin planes landing, to the conversation on the train that went something like this:

Vesper: Nice Watch
Bond: Thanks
Vesper: Is that a Rolex?
Bond: No. It's an Omega.

It's almost as blatant as the Steve Martin/John Candy exchange in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, where Martin exchanges his Rolex and $17 for a cheap hotel room. Candy tries to follow suit....

Hotel Clerk: Do you have seventeen dollars and a nice watch?
Del: I've got two dollars... and a Casio.
Hotel Clerk: I'm afraid I'm going to have to say goodnight...

I could have modelled it

2006-11-08T08:46:00.000Z

Last night Martin discovered that water was running down the side of the wall in the hall. On further inspection we noticed that the ceiling was very damp as well. We traced the water upstairs to discover that the source was the toilet beside my room. For a horrible moment we thought it was all coming from the pipe downstream of the u-bend but on closer inspection we realised that it was coming from just upstream of the cistern. On the bright side this means that I haven't effectively been urinating on the walls.

As an engineer who deals with flood modelling software it occurred to me that I could have built a computer model of the flood. But I had to call a management consultant to tell me how to fix it.

Nice Wheels

2006-11-07T11:43:00.000Z

A jalopy from Solitaire, Namibia April 2002.

Monday, 10:37pm

2006-11-06T22:44:00.000Z

(Happy Birthday, Jane)

So it's Monday night, and it could be worse. Today I've managed good catch ups with three good friends, Kirsty the kiwi in KL, Alberto the Italian in Milan and Meredy the Canuck in London, I've played touch rugby in the fog at the Oxford Rugby Club grounds, I've had managed to get in on my flatmate Suzie's fine dinner as well as drain her bottle of 2002 Costieres de Nimes - Cellier des Vestiges Romains (which this Palestine-when-it-comes-to-wine knows nothing more about other than it was good) and my copy of Joyeux Noel arrived today. There'll be a viewing of that on Wednesday night. I've been waiting for that since Greenbelt.

I feel better for the game of touch. Since cricket ran out a few months ago I've been feeling a bit lethargic, so getting a regular run around has been good, seeing as I hate running unless balls are involved. Some may be amused to hear that I even managed to be punched in the head tonight, by a fellow aotearoa-an, no less.

On the subject of Aotearoa, Public Address have added a community site, Public Address System to their website. It's a useful (and entertaining) addition to their board. At the very least it has allowed me to see the Good night Kiwi video from the days when TV stopped at night with it's disturbingly soothing music - 'TV has finished now, now go to bed'. Fellow Kiwis/Pukekos might enjoy it...

According to forecast fox, right now in Oxford we have freezing rain.

Farewell, Young Man

2006-10-27T09:57:00.000+01:00

Chris has gone home.

Chris has been around Oxford for the past couple of years, and over that time he has been a source of amusement to pretty much all who've had the good fortune to be in his sphere of influence. He remains a man of great humour/humor, an admirable depth of honesty and feeling, height, and for a man of such youth, a level of insight that frightens me sometimes.

For those of us in hOME, the tall Canadian will be greatly missed, although it is assumed that he will get his lanky ass back to blighty for Greenbelt '07.

Farewell, you young, good and faithful servant.

Dutch Designs

2006-10-23T21:48:00.000+01:00

Last Friday I visited the Dan Perjovschi exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum modern art museum in Eindhoven. The exhibition is a series of quickly drawn cartoons that surround the staircase that links the first and lower floors. The cartoons are rough but to the point.

My favourite cartoon is a picture of a house crammed full of stuff (car, bike, TV, whatever). There is a man with a knapsack at the door, and the owner of the house declares 'Sorry, we're full'.

If you do a google search on the images for Dan Perjovschi you can see plenty more of his cartoons.

I followed that up by visiting s'-Hortogenbosch, where the local delicacy is the Bosch Bol, a softball sized pastry covered in chocolate and filled with sweet cream. Two of those in an hour will wire you up for the week. As well as make your heart skip.

The Saturday was spent at Interieur, in Belgium. I went with my lovely hostess, Rebekah, and her colleagues Stephan (the straight one with a desire to find the perfect hinge), and Jasper (the enthusiastic one). Interieur is a massive architectural design fair that features lots of very chic northern europeans and lots of very chic european design outfits. When it came to the Smeg stall, the very chic fridge contained beer. For the less than chic kiwi, this was reassuring. My three guides made for a very entertaining and informative afternoon. It was always very reassuring when the three agreed with me about style. I have more style than I give myself credit for...

There's a lot to like about Holland. Particularly the beer, the town centres, and the lovely lovely Dutch women. Oh yes, we like them a lot.

Stop the Demand

2006-10-09T17:08:00.000+01:00

A week or so ago I got the following email from a friend in NZ. Last night at hOME, with the accompaniment of current favourite, Michael Franti, we acted on Sarah's request.

What language are your fears?
What language are your tears?

-Michael Franti

Hi there,
One issue that is guaranteed to make me weep is vulnerable people being trafficked to meet the demand for the purchase of sex.
The Salvation Army has instigated a global weekend of Prayer and Fasting for sex trafficking victims, due to take place this coming weekend (Friday 29 Sept to Sunday 1 Oct).I thought that you might be interested to read Stop Demand's statement in support.

Love to you all,
Sarah O'Brien
---------------------------------------------
Statement to International Listserves
Stop Demand Foundation, New Zealand
September 28, 2006

Sex trafficking fuelled by male demand – Salvation Army's Prayer and Fasting Weekend

This weekend's Prayer and Fasting for victims of sex trafficking, organised by the Salvation Army throughout many parts of the world, is a praiseworthy proactive response to an unacceptable global scourge. Trafficking, mostly of young women and children for the global sex trade, is the third largest international criminal activity and a multi-billion dollar industry.

While traffickers are frequently portrayed as "evil", unscrupulous, and brutal, we are reminded that they are only intermediaries. Traffickers' lucrative earnings are made possible only through the huge global demand from sex-buying men who seek a 'smorgasbord' of mostly-female bodies of varying ages, ethnicities, and physical characteristics, to fulfil their various wants and fantasies.

Sex trafficking is preventable. It would end tomorrow, if male demand for paid sex stopped today. If there were no demand, there would be no supply. Traffickers would simply move on to another marketable commodity.

Throughout this weekend's remembrance of sex trafficking victims, let us also challenge the behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of the millions of sex-buying men who fuel sex trafficking.

Until we see a decrease in demand, sex trafficking will continue unabated.

Denise Ritchie
Founder
Stop Demand Foundation, New Zealand
www.stopdemand.org

In Between Days

2006-09-30T14:44:00.000+01:00

Today Sarah, Mike, Alex, Caragh and Mari all moved out. So for the next day I am in between housemates. It's going to be very strange not having the little people in my house (well, it's actually their house) any more.

It feels very empty right now. I'll have to take solace in that I am booking tickets next week to see them in Nepal.

I'm also enjoying Michael Franti and Spearhead, who played at Greenbelt (but whom I missed, and of whom Muzz said was excellent, and possibly the best concert he'd been to). I've been able to download a track from Yell Fire! from here, and I've ordered both the CD and DVD, the story of his visit to Baghdad, which you can preview here, from a large music chain.

Seeing as he's playing at She' Bu in December I might have to go.

Blessed are the leg breakers

2006-09-24T11:30:00.000+01:00

As Jim pointed out to me on Thursday, the Traditional Values Coalition (the largest non-denominational lobby group in the US - they represent 43,000 churches) have asked the US Senate to support the White House's call to redefine 'bodily injury' as outlined by the Geneva Convention. Essentially this will allow torture to be used to obtain information.

If I may quote from their website, where they define traditional values:

Love And Hate: The Bible teaches us that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us. We believe it is a loving response to oppose behaviors that destroy individuals and families. It is not loving to allow someone to kill themselves or other individuals.

Now, how exactly does that equate with calling for the use of torture?

If you read Matthew 4:12 through to the end of Matthew 7 you'll find that Jesus doesn't preach the politics of war, hate or torture.

As Jim asked them in an email last week, 'who would Jesus torture'?

The church's position in this world should be to preach the politics of peace, and the TVC position on torture is morally reprehensible.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The Trinity

2006-09-16T11:34:00.000+01:00

(Hi Lorna, don't be shy.)

Bloggers: people who would have liked to been journalists for the Guardian but simply weren't good enough. Lorna, or was it Lizzy, at the Lamb and Flag last night.

Over the past few years I've seen some rubbish movies and read some rubbish books. However through good luck and good management and good recommendations I've seen some great films recently and read some fantastic books. Last night in true Oxford fashion a bunch of folk from hOME, Staldates, Stclements and elsewhere gathered at the L&F to talk about such things. Well, we got together to chew the fat and drink (Jim's declaration towards the end of the evening of 'I'm slowly getting slaughtered here' amused me greatly), and because we are Oxford types we talked books and film.

Jim and I had begun the evening with Esme, Ron and Janine at the Phoenix to see Little Miss Sunshine. It's not a life changing film, but it is side splittingly funny. (The last film that had me slapping my thighs was Garden State). There's farce and there's ridiculousness. There's also a Jesus Figure in the shape of a heroin smoking grandfather who's advice to his grandson is to 'Fuck lots of women. Not just one woman. Lots of women'. The only downside to the evening was the unbearable heat in the cinema, which contrasted with the sign outside that proudly offered an air-conditioned bar. Clearly the air-con didn't stretch as far as the cinema itself. Although as Tim Flannery wrote in The Weather Makers, we cooking our planet to keep ourselves cool, so maybe an hour and a half of sweating through a very funny movie is not that worth moaning about. From there it was on to the Lamb and Flag for book and film group. Which brings me back to the collection of movies and books I've seen and read this year. At the risk of ranting about each one in a poorly written review, I'm just going to list them...

Erlend Loe's Naive. Super
William Sloane Coffin's Letters to a young doubter
Steven Levett's Freakonomics
Nick Hornby's A long way down
Jim Wallis's God's Politics
Jon McGregor's If nobody will speak of remarkable things
Audrey Niffenegger's The time traveller's wife
Philip Caputo's Acts of Faith
Joseph Heller's Catch 22
Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers
Rageh Omaar's The half of me

and I have on my shelf...
Jon McGregor's So many ways to begin
Andrew Smith's Moon Dust
Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel (note to self, just read this bloody book and this give it back to Idris)
The Lonely Planet guide to Nepal. Yeah baby, I'm going there next year. Please feel free to point out the incongruity of going to Nepal and mentioning climate change in this rant.

and those films:
Volver
V for Vendetta
Little Miss Sunshine
Hidden Cache

To complete that little consumerism trinity of books, films and music, I've been rather disappointed with the music I've heard this year. Aside from Gnarls Barkely and the stunning Last Town Chorus cover of David Bowie's Modern Love there's not a lot that had floated my boat.

Here ends the failed journalistic rant.

Seasoning

2006-09-11T12:50:00.000+01:00

My cricket season ended on the weekend. Sadly a run of bad results meant that we ended on a bit of a low, but to be honest I'm not that bothered. Wallingford's seconds achieved middlish table respectability, we won more games than last year, and as in the past three years everybody who has played for me has played in the best spirit. And yesterday in a friendly against Skandia of Southampton we managed a 90 run win.

I have put the season averages here. It's amazing how much one innings can skew ones average...

Next year I am aiming to retire my captain's cap (we'll see how that works out) and just be a minion. I'm thinking it's time for someone else to have the honour of leading and shouting 'ok, Rich, great spell! Gareth! Next over, this end!'

So to Mark Searle, Mark Cox, Wayne, Smithy, Gareth, Ben, James, Jon, Rich Hadland, Geoff, Rob Swiergon, Jamie, Ralph, Will, Johnnie, Tim, Shan, Jayasuricky, Jez Denton, Andy, Elias, Rob Smith, Bob Emmett, wee little Denton, Gerry, Sarge, Alex, Marc, Ali, Jack, Jez Hadland, Rob Coupe, Smarty and Dave, thanks very much all you've put in this year.

Supergrass

2006-09-01T08:58:00.000+01:00

At the Zodiac last night Supergrass played a sold out gig to their home crowd. I was there. It was tremendous.

But what happened to the keyboard player?

Over at Dog Eat Blog, there's a new writer. He's not up to Patrick's standards. Patrick, where have you gone?

Greenbelt

2006-08-30T15:55:00.000+01:00

So... my weekend began on Wednesday night in Northampton where Naomi cooked dinner for me and Emma. A very pleasant way to start a long weekend.

On Thursday morning, a number of us from hOME (Matt, Suzie, Pippa, Chris, Juliet, Jim) plus some hangers on in Muzz and John set off to the exotic site that is Cheltenham Racecourse for the Greenbelt Arts and Music festival. I've heard a lot about GB over the years, and Mark Pierson swears it is the best of them all, although he would say that...

Greenbelt at night. Stolen from Johnny Baker's flickr site.

In the five days I spent at GB I had an extraordinary time. The blend of community, the lovely blonde at the American Cookie Caravan, the teachings of John Bell from Iona, Dave Andrews, and Dave Tomlinson, the folk from Moot, the hedge inspections, the bizzare and thought provoking heresy of Ikon, the Organic Beer Tent, and the Tiny Tea Tent meant I was never short of mental or physical stimulation. The weekend also managed to include people from pretty much every circle of friends I've had over the past 15 years. There were the homies (or homos as some now call us), Muzz from Auckland, Wendy and Phil from Edinburgh, a chance meeting with Nay who now works with Muzz in Servants and with whom I spent my best summer of the nineties (number 5 in the link) in Roxburgh (strangely I got an email from Kirsty Evitt this weekend, whom I also haven't seen since about then either and was on the same expedition), as well as some other folk from Oxford.

For me the four defining moments of the festival were:

Dave Andrews discussion on being the change we want to see
Vic Theason on the myth of redemptive violence
Ikon's worship service (although anybody who was there will tell you that it was a piece of performance art rather than a service) and the challenge of defining belief
John Bell's definition of blessing

Dave Andrews was simply astonishing. He told three outrageous stories about individuals or very small groups of people can bring about change. The title of his talk is taken from a quote from Gandhi, and to Dave's line of thinking, it is simply not possible to change other people, the only person you can change is yourself. The three stories, one where a local church offered their church to the local Islamic community after their mosque was burnt down, one where a group of Indonesian Christians sought funding for advocating for the human rights of imprisoned fundamentalist muslims who had been persecuting the Christians, and one where an Australian attempted to do a citizen's arrest on his MP in response to Australia's complicity in the war on terror were retold over the weekend. As Dave said in response to the stories, it was not very Christian, but very Christ-like. More about Dave's plans can be found here. I'm still trying to work through the impact he had on me but usefully he's a very good friend of Muzz's so I'm sure I'll be seeing him again.

Vic Theason's talk on the myth of redemptive violence used the example of films to illustrate that by using violence as a source of redemption, we perpetuate the myth that it is the only solution. Listening to his talk and watching the clips was a bit like someone had removed the scales from in front of my eyes. When Joyeux Noel comes out on DVD next month I'll be getting a hold of it. And it made for an interesting perspective on the stunning V for Vendetta.

Ikon's performance on Sunday night (on at the same time as My Morning Jacket, damnit...) ran me close. It was useful service in that it challenged some of the things I hold, but came close to calling me a liar. As part of the performance we got a list of 50 things that one of them believed, then we had someone declare their atheism, before we each got given a piece of rice paper with I believe written on it. We were instructed to think of something we believed, then to give the paper to our neighbour, take theirs, and then eat it. We were not to tell our neighbour what we believed, nor we were to ask what they believed. It was tough enough for me to simply come up with something I absolutely believed, as paradoixical as it might sound, for me beliefs come and they go. Having battled through that, I then realised that 'I believe' was spelt I beLIEve. Yeah, thanks for that.

Lastly, I've been pondering the meaning of the word blessing all year. This was in response to my first visit to Mexico this year. I still don't know what the word means, although it was suggested over the weekend that the word derives from having a camel underneath you. Alternative answers on a postcard please. During John Bell's discussion on God Bless Adam and Steve, where he attempted to set aside any biblical justification for condemning homosexual relationships (something I would like to get to the bottom of more, as it were - insert your own innuendo here). He made the observation that blessing something doesn't add sacredness to it, rather it acknowledges the sacredness that already exists in that thing. The context here was whether or not the church should be a host for the blessing of same-sex relationships (something I'm comfortable with it doing, and something I'm sure that Ma and Pa would probably disagree with). I'm still unsure of my definition here but John's definition seemed a useful point to work from.

So all in all, a useful weekend. And you can be sure I'll be at GB next year.

And the fact that Wallingford's seconds got bowled out for 33 on Saturday doesn't bother me at all...

Societies Cross Section

2006-08-15T09:11:00.000+01:00

I find this photo from the Guardian's guide to the 2006/2007 premiership season both fascinating and very funny. It provides an interesting example of the motto of the herd, it is so much safer in large numbers. I particularly like little Miss Prada and her Dave Grohl/Neil Young boyfriend in the front row, the air masturbating twins above to the right, the apparently airbrushed in and smiling evilly redhead above, and the very angry numpty to the left of Wayne. But my personal favourite is the bald man inspecting his mobile phone. 'Hi m8, im @ the bridge and that wanker rooney has been sent off. tosser'.

Click on the picture to get a better look.

In the City

2006-08-08T08:40:00.000+01:00

(Hello, Gerry)

In October 2001 I visited NYC for the first time. The timing was deliberate, the circumstances were not. The fires were still burning and the smell in lower Manhattan was like nothing I've ever smelt before. To say it was disturbing is an understatement. Amongst my wanderings I, like everybody else, made (and I guess this is the right word) a pilgrimage to Ground Zero. I recall signing my name and the word 'peace' on a banner that was strung along some iron railings.

Nearly five years later I went back to NYC on my way out to Mexico. I had to stop somewhere and I thought why not NYC. Having a few hours to kill before I could check in to my hotel (the rather dingy Hotel 17 - don't stay there, despite what their propaganda tells you) I wandered down to Ground Zero again. I guess I went for a few reasons, curious to see how it had changed, and curious to see how I'd respond to it. Now it is a large hole, surrounded by hurricane fencing. There is a timeline of the events and then a plague listing all the names of the 'heroes' that died that day. I couldn't help but think that in most other countries I've been to, that the words 'innocent victims' would be on the plague, and that 'heroes' seemed an odd choice of word. I've now doubt that there were acts of unbridled heroism that day, but everyone a hero. And I guess I got to wondering what the hijackers would think if they could see just how much the world has changed as a consequence of their actions.

A bit further on is the following sign:
And the cynic in me instantly thought, this was the World TRADE centre, right? Wouldn't it be more approriate to... But actually, I agree with the sentiments of the sign, and it was useful to stand and contemplate the events of that day and the consequences without dodging hawkers.

A couple of days later, after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge (there are some things in life doing more than once and walking across from Brooklyn to Manhattan is most certainly one of them) I found myself on Broadway looking at some iron railings and realised I was standing at the same place as I'd stood five years ago. Behind the iron railings is St. Pauls church, the oldest church in Manhattan (and in fact the oldest public building in Manhattan). It too had a timeline of events and what I came to appreciate was that is was literally across the road from the WTC. It remained untouched, despite two 420m high towers and a 170m tower falling down beside it. The trees between it and the towers were not so lucky. In the nine months following September 11 the church became a haven for, at first, emergency workers, and then afterwards, relief workers. There is a sense that the church is a shrine, but it also feels like a sanctuary. It a very moving place to visit, and the sense of a community serving its wider community is profound. Humanity serving humanity.

In a fit of clueless and inappropriate juxtaposition I went from St. Pauls to the Trump Tower. Humanity screwing over humanity.

A mother and son crossing to Manhattan

It might cost $20 to get into but MoMA is worth it. More Picasso's, Cezannes, Warhols, Matisse', Pollocks and van Gogh's than you can shake a paintbrush at. It makes me wonder if after he got well known if Pablo woke up some mornings and thought, 'I can't be bothered today, slapped a couple of triangles and a red splodge of paint and thought, yeah, that'll do'.

The advantage of MoMA over other galleries I've been to, such as the Louvre, is that there is not the crush. The comedy that is the march to see the Mona Lisa and the subseequent scrum to take its picture does not present itself in MoMA. Instead, I got to stand in front of van Gogh's Starry Night all by myself. I stood there for some time, not because I was moved by it, but simply because I could.

On Saturday night, Sasa and Maria took me round Greenwich village. They took me places I wouldn't have found on my own, including the non-capitalist bookshop and Chumley's Beer House, a place that was serving during prohibition and as a result has multiple exits and no signage.

Every now and again, the are power cuts in Auckland and people bemoan the fall of NZ into third world status. It happens in the first world too. For the whole time I was in NYC, and the days either side, large parts of Queens had no power.

A few days later, in Mexico, Andreas got me drunk again.

But remember that the city is a funny place
Something like a circus or a sewer
And just remember different people have peculiar tastes
and the glory of love, might see you through
-Lou Reed

Comfortably Wandering

2006-07-19T07:21:00.000+01:00

Last week I spent time in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Coming in to central Edinburgh down Christorphine Road was a weird experience. Some four years ago I used to play cricket for the Murrayfield-Dafs (or Muffs...) cricket club. Their practice ground is in the shadow of the Murrayfield Stadium. It seemed a lifetime ago that I played there. I remember being out three times in five balls in the 'let's see what the new players can do' warm-up game before the season began. At least I've progressed since then...

I had a couple of days with Wendy, which is always a good thing, as well as dinner with Kirstin and then dinner with Ruth. There was also the opportunity to go cow spotting in the city and send bovine photos to The Numpty.

On the Thursday morning I crossed the lowland belt to Glasgow for a days teaching. Teaching is often the most enjoyable part of the job as I get to meet up with people I've talked to over the phone. Some of my users ring me more often than others (I guess some people just like to talk to me... go figure) and Sal from Australia-but living in Glasgow falls into that category. After the course, her, her friend Emma (another Aussie) and I wandered out into the city. It was kinda of nice to spend time in Glasgow as I never spent much time there while living in Scotland. In fact I only visited it to go to job interviews and to catch planes to Stornaway. We began at Est Est Est, and then found dinner at The Dhabba in Merchant City. Both places worth visiting and the Murg Handi Lazeez (chicken in a cashew and pistachio suace) is definitely worth getting your teeth into. The night (and day after) in Glasgow did much to endear the city to me. The hotel Ibis in West Regent Street did much to undermine that. The worst bed I've slept on since I slept on some tree roots on the banks of the Clutha in Wanaka in 1994.

Included in the conversation topics was the mandatory 'what drives your life' question. Never a good question at the best of times and always a good question at the worst of times. My response is that there isn't a lot that drives me, except for a one litre Nissan Micra - boom boom, rather I'm generally finding myself casually wandering through my world with short moments of direction where I decide that 'I want this and that and I want it now' followed by long periods of semi-aimless wandering. Then I notice that I can no longer remember why it was I was wandering. OK, so it's a sounding a little like senility, which I'm comfortable with, and it's not very efficient, which I'm also comfortable with. And it sums up my day in Glasgow on Friday, where I decided to visit the Glasgow Cathedral (it's hard to go past a place that is also known as St Mungo's), and then decided to sit in St George's square and read Alistair Cook's Letters from America, while drowning out the traffic noise by listening to Money Mark and the Stereo MC's. Most of the time I'm completely happy doing this but every now and again some dissatisfaction creeps in. After a while that dissatisfaction starts to nag a little harder.

Tomorrow I am semi-aimless wandering in NYC. On Sunday, I'll be moving on to Monterrey. Again. Ho hum. I love my job...

The Sleepy Jackson played the Zodiac on Monday night. I arrived late as I had been umpiring my under 17 side, and only caught the last hour of the gig. It was a fair to middling experience, and Luke Steele was in good form (not that I've seen him before, so really I have no idea what form he is in normally), but he did make me laugh. However, I reckon that he is one of those people who's studio work is better kept in the studio than taken out on the road. Lovers is a GREAT album, but only ok on the road. Or does that just make me sound like a music wanker? Whatever, I'm comfortable with that too.

For the Love of Justice (and Anita)

2006-06-06T12:33:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, in the gentle countryside of East Sussex, Justice married Anita.

It was a celebration of a relationship that makes me smile everytime I think about it. I do believe it was the closest I've got to crying at a wedding.

The day itself was a corker. It was hot and sunny (which made my morning suit a bit cumbersome), and the wedding took place in a very typical English churcg in the very typical English village of Wadhurst. I had the honour of being an usher for the day. This provided me with a number of advantages. Firstly, I got to meet and greet everybody who came (no matter how late they arrived). Secondly, I got to be outside the church door as the bride and her entourage arrived, a view I had never seen before. Thirdly, I got to wear the aforementioned morning suit. This enabled me to look terrific. In fact I would go so far to say that this was as good as I have ever looked. This had the additional advantage of having an automatic 'in' for talking to people I like the look of. Handy... During the service, the other usher, Matt Knowles, and I even got to use our enforcer status to deal with an interrupting local. Part way through the service there was a bang, and a dishevelled looking man in a shell suit and dirty trainers came in through the door. He stood at the back and tried to get through another glass door. Matt and I, with the assiatance of another friend went up to him and tried to usher him out. No no, he claimed, I am the bell-ringer and I'm allowed to be here. Right, I thought, and I'm the Pope. With more banging of doors we managed to usher him into a small chapel at the back, where we could see him through some glass doors. As soon as he was through, he promptly opened the back door to the church and let in a whole lot of his mates. Matt and I decided that the best course of action was to leave him to it and hope that he kept quiet. Every few minutes, we would turn round and check on him. He'd always give us a smile and a wave and we'd go back to the service. The service finished up and the new family Justice disappeared up the aisle in celebration. At which point, the bells rang out.

Consider contraception allowed by the Catholic Church then, if you would.

On a sloped field in Tidebrook we gathered for the feast. One of the many beautiful things about this wedding was that there were people from many walks of life, and happily for me many of Justices and Anitas walks of life coincided with mine. It therefore allowed me to spend some time with a lot of quality people from my community. There were folk from Edinburgh, folk from London, and some folk from various parts of Oxford. Amidst the dancing and the eating there was plenty of 'Hey! Wendy!' and 'Hey! Tess!' and subsequent embaces. The whole day was in a tone of warmth and genuiness. My experience of A and J is that they create a vibe of warmth and enjoyment and the day was very much in that spirit. I have this lasting impression of Justice when he and I were in Freuds in Oxford, a bar and club that has been converted from a church, dancing to some Jazz Funk, and throughout the evening Justice had this contented smile as he cruised around the dance floor, dancing with strangers and loving every moment of it. This wedding was very similar, except without the strangers and this time all of us were dancing with contented smiles.

With a final stripping of the willow, the happy couple disappeared into their purple mini convertible and disappeared into the country night.

Since then, I have had the joys of spending a day on the Brighton beach with Wendy, Ruth, Alberto, Matt, Catherine, Joe, and Saga, an evening with the homies at the Angel and Greyhound, a day (with more to come) with Simon as I collected him from Heathrow (it is so nice to know that a very good friend from home is likely to be in Europe for the foreseeable future) and an evening with Sarah and Mike and their little ones. In the warmth of these summer days, it is more than just the sunburn from Brighton that is making me glow. There must be something in the air as most people around me seem to be feeling this at the moment. It is so good to see and hear my friends being in such fine spirits.

So to my little world out there; Cheers!

On a Break

2006-05-02T11:26:00.000+01:00

After a long thought process (it was while I was making tea for four, but it's been on my mind for some time now) I've decided to give this blog a wee rest. I don't know how long for but it may be for some time.

Slammin'

2006-05-02T11:19:00.000+01:00

Ladies and Gentleman,

Hammer and Tongue is proud to present The Hammer and Tongue final 2005 - 2006.

Eight top quality poet/performers from around the world have qualified throughout the season. They are:

Penny Ashton
New Zealand vixen aka The Hot Pink Poet, has been flashing her Hot Pink Bits globally since 2002. Her glandular poetry is a blend of Pam Ayres, Playgirl and Playschool, so enjoy.

AF Harrold
The champ. The greatest. The one to beat. A jolly good poet in the tradition of A.F. Harrold, the famous English poet. Current undisputed Hammer and Tongue slam champion.

Mo the Peoples' Nun
The hottest holy sister on the performance poetry scene. Comedy, poetry and guilt manifested as a stand-up performer.

Miles Chambers
Bristol-based actor/writer/performer/dub poet. Recently featured in a BBC Radio 4 afternoon play.

Lizzie Mc
Lady Lizzie of Mc: Oxford's finest feminist wordsmith. The true voice of the single mum.

Alison Brumfitt
The better looking half of "Beauty and the Beast" from this years Oxford Literary Festival Live Literature Arena.

Brenda Read-Browne
Part of the Birmingham team at the Big Slam 2004. A permanent fixture on the UK performance poetry scene.

Hosted by Steve Larkin "Tongue-twisting poetry" (The Guardian) and a special guest.

Tuesday the 2nd of May at The Zodaic, Cowley Road, Oxford - doors 7:30 show 8 - 11. £5/£4 conc.
Be there and cheer on your favourite.

My Grass is Greener

2006-04-28T08:07:00.000+01:00

Right now my little bit of the world is a great little place to be. It's been like this for a while now and there is no one thing (except for the sense that summer is coming - I think I need to stop my oft repeated claim that 'I am not bothered by the weather') that is identifiable as the cause. I've been in a good mood for as long as I can remember and that feels pretty damn good.

Oh, and I'm turning into my father. This week I started making a vege garden and got quite excited about it.

He shoots... and he misses

2006-04-26T22:58:00.000+01:00

A conversation between Muzz and myself this evening. Muzz is in Auckland, I am in Oxford:

Muzz: Working in cafe in titirangi. M N Jones is at the next table. (M N Jones is one of the finest people to play rugby for NZ and one of the finest servants of the game. But his autobiography was a bit dull).
Richard: Wow. Say Hi from me. I sat next to Thom Yorke for an hour last month.
Muzz: Who the hell is Thom York?
Richard: He sang a song called karma police and has made two of the finest albums the world will ever hear.
Muzz: Oh, the Radiohead guy. Shit I'm ignorant.

By the way, Muzz, a very happy 40th birthday, you great and beautiful man.

Random Musings

2006-04-24T20:07:00.000+01:00

(Pointless mutterings for my benefit more than for yours)

Easter: A mix of church and tourism spent hOME and abroad. Easter Saturday at Dorchester Abbey, Easter Monday Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. Westminster Abbey memorable for the communion disaster where a elderly clergyman with limited hand control attempted to baptise me in the chalice and resulted in my dribbling on the floor of the abbey while a somewhat younger clergywoman with impecable hand control dished out the bread. Was crying out for a trading of places.

The Tower (at fifteen groat, not worth the entry price - how have I gone twice?) was spent with Malcolm of New Zealand and Fiji and his girlfriend of Cambridge (this will require some work) and a million other tourists. I should stay away from tourist attractions. They are expensive, crowded, and I feel strong urges to yell at and punch people. No doubt the sentiment is returned. But people in these sorts of places are very selfish, and clueless with it. All that stopping in the middle of the path to get inside the map. In the case of the elderly German tourist, it was not to stop in the middle of the path, but to get very upset at the person who had stopped, grab them and everyone around them, and yell 'Schnell'. I yelled "wait!" back, got pissed off and admired his lack of control. How will people learn without him? But it was very good to see Malc again and meet the girl.

Brendon McLeod of the Fugitives was back in Oxford last week. He was the QI bar for a Hammer and Tongue gig. it was good to see him without the rest of the band and he was in good form. Less could be said for the venue. The bar was good, the food average and overpriced, and the staff ambivalent to the gig surrounding them. The venue has that certain air of pretenciousness about it, as can be seen by their rules - I especially like:

Men may not approach women directly. If a lady would like to speak to you, she will let you know. Men may ask a member of staff to introduce them to a lady.

Apparently Stephen Fry has something to do with the place.

But having been away from H and T for a while it was good to hang out with Steve and the rest.

Three Kings: £3 at a chain store near you and much better and poignant at second visit.

How does it feel?

2006-04-14T22:19:00.000+01:00

Tonight, in an act of genius creativity (is that an oxymoron?) the BBC put on the Manchester Passion. The Manchester passion is the story of Jesus as told through the music of Manchester. It featured Darren Moffit as Jesus, Tim Booth of James as Judas and Keith Allen as Pontius Pilate. Ok, so I'd only heard of Tim Booth before this evening...

But the music included James' sit down, Oasis' wonderwall and cast no shadow, Joy Division's love will tear us apart, The Stone Roses' I am the Ressurection, The Smiths' heaven knows I'm miserable now and Jesus and Judas singing New Order's blue moon on monday to each other:

"How does it feel? To treat me like you do. When you've laid your hands upon me and told me who you are."

Genius.

As Pilate and Jesus sang "Because maybe, you're going to be the one that saves me" I was starting to choke up. I seem to be doing that a bit recently.

I say it again.

Genius.

Lucky? I don't think so

2006-04-08T12:02:00.000+01:00

In response to Naomi's post about being cheered up last week I offer this:

Last night WCC had its pre-cricket season dinner. It was a good night and a good chance to catch up with some friends. As second eleven captain I get to give out two awards, one being my player of the year and the other being the youth player of the year. Both were dead easy decisions, Ricky Prescott being the second eleven player of the year and Tim Treadaway being the youth player of the year. Tim won his award due to his enthusiasm in captaining the under 15 side that had a remarkable season in winning every match while the adult sides conspired to implode. He made my job as manager of the side extremely easy. As I gave him the trophy he handed me an England cricket shirt that was signed by Tim and his players. I could have cried.

Then last night I came home to this email from a guy I taught in Mexico last week:

Hi Richard

I am happy to receive the attachment, thanks a lot for your rapid response and for your help, I am very interested to use correctly the software, then I am going to star the use with a simple problems, and I hope when I found some problems (I think and y hope they will a few) I can get some help for you.

I insist, you are welcome in cuernavaca, my house is your house, you can come for vacation, it is a great place, because is near to many cities and towns very peculiars.

I`m sorry for my poor English,

Have a good weekend
Alfredo

I could have cried.

Over the past month or so I have has wonderful hospitality from people such as Patrick (I haven't forgotten your CD, Patrick), Jane, a bunch of people in Mexico, Grant and Rebecca in Dallas (sorry, Flower Mound) and I'm sure there are others. I remarked to David, my translator in Mexico as we took the bus between Cuernavaca and Mexico City that in my job and my life I am extremely lucky with what I have been given and what I get to do. David looked me and said, 'we're not lucky, we're blessed'. It's made me think a whole lot this past fortnight about what that means. And what I'm going to do about it.

Paper Reduction

2006-04-05T14:22:00.000+01:00

After all the 'have you been a Nazi' and 'are you planning to commit a crime or immoral behaviour' questions on the US immigration form is the following. Note the spelling mistake and Paperwork Reduction Project. You might need 'ro' click on the image to see it all.

Seven beers, a football match and some chickens

2006-04-02T21:20:00.000+01:00

Ok, as some of you know, I've been trying to go dry. This hasn't been working out so well in Mexico. There is an expectation that I will have a drink. Or two. Or seven.

Last night I went to my first ever football match. Los Tigres of Monterrey were playing Los Tecos of Guadalajara. The tigers versus the owls. My company for the evening was Jose-Luis, one of the brothers who run the firm I am visiting in Monterrey, his nephew Mario, and two of Mario's friends. Jose Luis drives a Dodge RAM, the biggest ute/SUV/truck I've been in. Jose-Luis speaks very good English but doesn't understand a word when it is spoken back.

So we go to the stadium. Jose-Luis and his brothers are responsible for the turf here. It is good looking grass. As we climb the stairs to our seats, he introduces me to one of two people who will conspire to get me drunk. I shake hands with Andreas, our 'bartender'. Andreas is lightning quick when opening multiple bottles of Carta Blanca, one of the sponsors of the evening. Before long there is a significant pile of CB bottle tops adorning the stairs at his feet.

The Bartender

The stadium is a sea of blue and gold. 40,000 people have come to cheer on the local side, while up behind the scoreboard and right beside (or on top of) the fireworks are the thirty Tecos supporters that have dared make the trip. I'm sure their were more before the fireworks were set off. This is just one of the ploys adopted by Los Tigres to put of their opponents. Later, whenever their players have the ball, the ground announcer thanks the sponsors. These include Cemex (that enormous cement factory), Coca-Cola, Carta Blanca and the tongue twisting Peter Piper's Pizzas.

The pre-match entertainment is a continual series of cheerleaders, a barrage of teashirts into the crowd and a man wearing a spiderman shirt (sponsored by Coca-Cola) who is doing astonishing work while holding a bottle of coke and, occasionally, who I can only presume is his two year old daughter. Whether or not the coke gives him his powers is a moot point. Occasionally he leaves his daughter to perform more tricks. She is non-plussed as both teams are warming up my kicking footballs around her at high velocity.

The home fans

The action. In the far corner are Los Tigres Locos, or the crazy tigers. They sang and danced non-stop for 90 minutes

Jose-Luis, the second man conspiring to get me drunk, continues to order beer from Andreas. One for you, one for me. I am impressed that I am matching him beer for beer and increasingly disturbed that he is also my ride home. As the first half continues, Los Tigres dominate through a mixture of their own skill and the timing of the ground announcer. They get the ball in the back of the net and the stadium erupts. Jose-Luis wags his finger at me. 'No goal' he states and after a dissappointed moment we all sit back down. There is distressingly little protest from crowd and players.

Half time and it is still nil-nil. Spiderman is back with his coke bottle, but his daughter is absent. Presumeably she has gone to bed and not been knocked out by a football. Suddenly some bales of hay are laid out all over the field. Two teams of children appear at each end, one in white the other in red. The ground announcer shouts 'uno, dos, tres!' and a man in a cowboy hat releases something. For a minute I can't work out what it is, until I realise it is a chicken. The two teams chase the chicken across the field until one scrags it to the ground and holds it aloft triumphantly. They go back to their places, and with an 'uno, dos, tres!' they're off again. I find myself cheering for the chicken. On its third attempt, it jumps the ditch that surrounds the field and gets away. After another chicken is found, the teams are back at it, and eventually the nasty white team from the far end emerge victorious, 4-2.

Somewhere here is the chicken.

The battle for the football resumes and this time Los Tigres are playing towards our end. They completely dominate but are thwarted time and time again by the Tecos goalkeeper. Suddenly it is fulltime and Los Tecos escape with a draw. No goals, no fights, no yellow cards even, but a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Jose-Luis pays the bartender, who shakes my hand profusely. Jose-Luis and I have knocked back 14 Carta Blanca between us.

The cups. Jose-Luis would place the new beer cup inside his old beer cups as he drank. I tried this but only managed to spill beer down my shirtfront.

We negotiate traffic and on the affirmative answer to Jose-Luis's question 'you like beef' we go and find a restaurant. As we sit down, he orders another beer. I have obviously been influenced by spiderman as I order a coke. As Jose-Luis starts his beer he points to it and says 'twelve. Four before the game, seven during the game and now this'. The man who is driving me home has drunk a dozen beers without having a visible effect. My seven beers have removed my fear, so I accept his ride home.

I can't say that no chickens were harmed in the making of this blog.

You're welcome

2006-04-01T00:46:00.000+01:00

A wee add from the United Church of Christ in America can be found here.

Parque Fundidora

2006-03-31T03:47:00.000+01:00

My hotel in Monterrey is adjacent to the Parque Fundidora. This park used to be an iron foundry before it went bankrupt due, according to Esteban, the idleness of the workers. Something about clocking in, going home, and then coming back to clock out.

Much of the foundry has been turned into trees and grass, but scattered in amongst the trees are preserved machine tools and pipe work. In the middle of the park is a large piece of the original foundry that is being repaired. It is not being repaired to be functional, rather as a monument/sculpture. In addition there is a chimney from the factory that Esteban proudly claims to have been involved in the restoration of.

Near the large piece of the factory are two large buildings that originally were used to cast iron. The huge machines are still there (and have also been restored) but in place of ironworking is artwork. It all combines to make for a rather striking juxtaposition and an utterly rewarding place to spend time.

On the subject of heavy industry, I have learnt today that one of the huge industrial complexes that I can see out my window is the largest cement works in Latin America. The other is a very large brewery. I sampled their produce this evening after the local dish that is cabrito. I am dubious that it was worth the decrease in air quality. The cabrito, on the other hand.... Bueno.

It Hurts

2006-03-31T03:38:00.000+01:00

Apparently Apple are introducing volume control on iPods. There is a fear that they might be irreversibly damaging hearing.

Some guy called John Kiel Patterson, of Louisiana, "is suing Apple in the US District Court in San Jose, California. He says his iPod is capable of generating more than 115 decibels, a dangerous noise level, and is not safe for prolonged use."

Is it just me or is it very hard to have sympathy for him? He did this to himself, and now he wants to have someone take the blame for it. I'm sitting here, in the Holiday Inn in Monterrey listening to my iPod, and if it's too loud, I turn it down. It's not exactly rocket science...

The Language of Paradse

2006-03-30T17:16:00.000+01:00

Ok, so Rhys was right. The language that is spoken in Mexico is Spanish and not Mexican. I have a colleague who was sure they were subtly different, but I have been corrected. For the three days I was in Cuernavaca I had a translator, David. David, who is a wonderful man, insists that the language of Mexico is Spanish and not Mexican.

I was wrong.

I was also wrong when I stated that more often than not the western way of doing things is garbage. Ok, well not so much wrong so much as it being the case that I got carried away. Sometimes the western way of doing things is a garbage, but the garbage in the water here made me sick. Thank the good lord (or proctor and gambol) for Pepto-Bismol.

Rhys, again I was wrong.

I was also wrong about the height of Cuernavaca. It is 1540m above sea level. The pass between Mexico City and Cuernavaca is 3100m, or 10140 feet. This, I am sure, is the highest I have ever been without the aid of cabin pressure and Boeing Industries. Not so far from Mexico City is El Popo, the second highest mountain in Mexico at 5610m and an active volcano. Climbing this would allow me to achieve one the four things I stupidly said I wanted to do before I die.

Today, and till Tuesday, I am in Monterrey. The day dawned smoggy. Outside my window appear to be two very large industries. The air is grey and the mountains impossible to see.

Yes, Rhys, I was wrong.

Paradise Regained

2006-03-29T01:39:00.000+01:00

For the second time this month I am in a place where I don't speak the language. This time I am in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It is about an hour and a half from Mexico City (or about the time it takes to see the new Herbie movie that stars Lindsay Lohan because, in Mexico, the intercity buses show movies and serve you food. In fact, a Mexican bus is a far more comfortable journey than, say, an Scandanavian Airways flight from London to Oslo. Who would have thought that? And... I wasn't even in first class. The movie was slightly longer than the journey, which I am sure is a shame for some people, but for me, this was less of an issue. The movie was dubbed into Mexican but I am sure I could tell what was going on).

Being in Mexico is much like it was for me when I visited Banjar, Indonesia. I find it very humbling to be here. I love the busyness of the people here and the suave and confident nature of those I see.

So, Cuernavaca. It is higher in Altitude than Snowdon, and about a kilometer lower than Mexico City. This is a mind warp. It is a lovely wee town, from what I have seen of it. I am teaching and staying at IMTA, the local hydraulic authority. The grass is greener here. The only place I have worked that is more pretty was the summer spent calibrating piezometers in the Hunua Ranges. Photos to come later, suffice to say that there are lots of green trees, lots of birds, (both varieties) and a surprising tranquility. It is hot in the day, cool in the evening. The people I am staying with, Esteban from my company, and David who is my translator, are lovely and give me constant grief about how much I like the Mexican women and how Salma Hayek is ordinary in the context of other Mexican women. I cannot disagree.

Last night was spent playing tennis with Esteban against some locals. We won the first set, they won the second, through myn fatigue, my desire to belt every ball and their cunning use of their rackuets to deflect the ball to where I wasn't. It was flood lit and all was peaceful.

Tonight some indian kids have been invited to play basketball on the IMTA court.

Tonight I also went down the IMTA offices where one of the admin girls had a machine that generates authentic air tickets. I wonder where I can get one of those.

It makes me think that more often than not, the western way of doing things is, as Esteban would say, garbage.

Mexico has been a wonderful place to visit. I guess the company helps. And I haven't touched a single drop of tequila.

Yet.

It distresses me that in this country I am scared to drink the water. It distresses me a great deal more that for the vast majority of the people they don't have that choice. I think I have learnt somewhat from my experiences in Banjar last December in that I am doing as the locals do and the consequences be damned. But it makes me very angry that we let the status quo here exist. Give more money to wateraid, please. And give your governments hell about preventing people from reliable access to drinkable water. Grrrr.

To cap the environmental thing off, I am reading the book 'The Weather Makers' by some guy I think is called Tim Flannery. I haven't finished the book, but as a counterpart to Michael Crichtons 'State of Fear' it makes for an interesting balance. Where MC sees Global Warming as scare mongering, TF pretty much regards the earth as close to being cream crackered. It has made for pretty miserable reading and probably not the best thing to study while sitting on an aeroplane. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Or perhaps I'm not.

A final random observation about the US. I spent two days there with Grant Rebecca, enjoying their wonderful hospitality in Dallas. I enjoyed being back in the US, things were pretty much as I remembered. G and R talked about transplants. This confused me till it came clear that they were talking about people forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. It seemed all rather like Judge Dread. Very sterile and impersonal. Or is that simply because to call them refugees be too much of a blow to US pride?

This little blogger went to...

2006-03-23T19:30:00.000Z

Mexico.

Off to the land of Tequila in the morning. Work requires me to go there.

I know, it's rough.

World Water Day

2006-03-22T08:51:00.000Z

Today is World Water Day. My favourite charity, WaterAid, is proposing that people donate an hour of todays wages to them.

You can read (and do) more about it here.

More from WaterAid:
"22 March 2006 will mark the 14th United Nations World Water Day. On this day WaterAid will be commiserating the fact that in 2006, one sixth of the world's population still do not have access to clean, safe water. This World Water Day, WaterAid is encouraging the public to take a minute to consider the 1.1 billion people who do not have access to clean, safe water. During the course of that minute, four children will have died of water-related-diseases. This is not inevitable and it certainly isn't acceptable"

Go on go on go on.

Grace and Favour

2006-03-19T16:50:00.000Z

In Cesky Krumlov is the church of Sv Vit. Along with the castle it is one of two dominant buildings in th town. I wandered into the church on Thursday morning. Inside the entrance is the obligatory donation box. There is a sign attached that reads: 'May God bless you for your donation towards renovating our church'. I have two thoughts about this. Firstly, I'd like to think that my blessings weren't tied to my donations, and vice versa. Secondly, I think I'd rather they just charged me an entry fee. I'd be happy to pay, as I am seeking shelter from the storm, and it is a pretty place to stand for a few minutes.

Favour shouldn't be on sale from the Church.