The Anti-Chugger

Urban dictonary defines a Chugger as:

Paid "charity" street worker (read: student) who has been trained to believe that they are carrying out a worthy task, improving peoples' lives by conning Joe Public out of their money for this week's Good Cause. Usually an agency worker where the agency takes a hefty cut of the hourly rate that the charity in question has paid for, whilst at the same time increasing profits by selling on details of those foolish enough to actually stop and sign up to said Good Cause.


Now, crassness aside, it makes a valid point. My personal gripe goes deeper than the 'they get paid commission' ickiness of it all, its the phony sincerity of the social exchange that gets my dander vibrating. Truth be told, I am an anxious, socially awkward person, tis the fashion of the early 21st century after all. False smiles and promises of hugs from bearded strangers in bright red tabbards is enough to put the fear in you. And it does, there is a sadness to it all, that we meander up and down high-streets, not saying 'tickety boo' to one another, yet we have these specters haunting the concourses to Tesco's, Maplins, HMV an the like. Think of all the amazing conversations we could have which each other instead. 

So, instead of just ranting, I've become an ANTI-CHUGGER; Well I'm performing the role of an Anti-Chugger and I want to have a laugh with you next Saturday. We can talk about why you never need to give money to someone in the street again AND to get more out of the high-street escapade than loneliness and guilt. It's an experience designed to lighten your day rather than hamper it, but all I ask is that you pass it on. 

So for your chance to encounter such a thing, a genuine chance of social interaction and an opportunity to redefine your world view come along to Bermondsey Street Festival on 24th September 2011, from 11am. I shall be tottering about. 

quote me no quotes

As I was walking past The British Library yesterday, I was stopped and taken aback by the quote you see in the  picture, attributed to Madame Curie, and although it's a rather balming, balmy quote, I don't know if it rang true for the Curester when she was laid flat out feverish, brainfucked and full of radiation, the slow horrible death, asphyxiating inside your own rotten mush of a body.... hmmmm?

absorb this quote! It'll stand you in good stead (probably). 

Do It Properly...

Being very fond of the Guerrilla movement in all its forms (bar warfare), happening upon the Guerrilla Gardeners  filled me with that fuzzy warm joy; it is a brilliant, kind and wholesomely good idea, to brighten up the concrete nightmare of the urban sprawl with pretty flowers, added to which Richard Reynolds is a dish, but that is by the by. It is one thing to appreciate a good deed done by others and to promote it positively in any way is a wonderful thing, by waffling on in exclusive bars whilst supping some horrible martini made from fly-sick and orange pen-ink.... but it isn't getting your hands dirty is it?

So I have done (got my hands dirty that is), and will continue to for this rather nifty organization. Today, as you'll all probably aware is INTERNATIONAL SUNFLOWER PLANTING DAY, and as a dutiful little bunnikin, I took to the streets of Wimbledon.

Blame my anxiety, but something as innocent and simple as planning to plant some seeds in a public area, filled me with a vague sense of worry. Although I was all ready to confront any nay-sayers. Given my general dementedness, I didn't plan this activity in any way, nor did I make a day of it with friends. I just nervously shuffled up to Super-drugs to get my bits. Sunflower seed-pack and pencil in pocket.

My first attempt was a concrete border opposite the bank where lots of bushy, hard-wearing plants have been...er..planted in that nasty weird mulch of wood-chippings and cork, (and doubtless lots of cigarette-butts and used needles), I jabbed my pencil in as my cheeks blushed and tried to squeeze two of the little seedlets in but I doubt given the non-existent soil that anything will grow there.

On the way home, I got some water with the shopping, and proceeded to water a patch of soil outside a condemned area that's overgrown with weeds.... my worry was, have I planted it deep enough.

Literally nowhere else on m y walk was there any soil, I traipsed up a back-road too... but in the end, the road opposite the flat where I currently reside, is where I planted the bulk of it, no longer caring what people thought as they walked by. Got a real dirty look from some senile old man, and in the back of my head, I get that sense that although its' a lovely thing to do, so many people are grubby, angry people who despise the seed-planters... why? :( - Well that's partly rhetorical.

But yes, most enjoyable, I am glad I have planted them, and hope they grow, and the fact that there are nearby where I walk and such, it will be a nice little touch of brightness :D

Now I have the Guerrilla Gardening bug, Viva la Revolution!

Some of my closest friends are Scriptwriters...

...I just don't want them living next door to me, the old saying goes. It is one of those sickly truisms that they say 'writers write more about the process of writing than actually writing', and ever since George Orwell's 'Why I Write' we've all had a tipple of it, haven't we?

Well I have been reluctant, much as I am reluctant to most things, but it has been a growing trend amongst acquaintances to blog about their craft. They read up on their Little Miss Moffat and St. Tony of Jordan, and the occasional Matryr La Plante, and the others, too too many to mention, and they just gobble it up, delicious sustenance, all in the quest to get better at the type type, space, space, delete, delete.

I don't want to run that odious risk of sounding like some Sunday Tabloid Columnist that have regular opinion pieces, and when they are asked to write on subjects they don't care about, they trot of witticisms and cynical twat-tropes galore.... and I shan't, it just feels like it from where I am sitting, but hopefully I can mould this clay, some other way... and the cut of my jib Isssss..... well its rather simple....

To me, there seem to be two schools of thought, both valid, 1. The technical script-writer; this breed hones scripts based on a formula of what works and invest in stories that enthrall and capture the imagination on a limitless scope, providing it is commercial, viable and appeals to a mainstream audience; they can write sports-management epics even though there background is computer engineering in New Delhi. 2. The vocational scriptwriter - feels they have a self-righteous scribe, this mode is highly laughed at by the former school for fact that writers whose backgrounds are computer engineering in New Delhi will more likely focus their narratives on computers, engineering and um... New Delhi... their work builds into an oeuvre, in an almost literary fervor, with motifs, preoccupations about class or personal narratives, autobiography, they don't conform to the mainstream, they break conventions, they behave erratically...  and so it goes on...

The two schools of thought can overlap, but where was I going with this? I was pointing something out, yes, ironically for scriptwriters they cease to function as happy consumers of others work, they become critics of it, analyzers and they'll pontificate on a particular scripts merits and pit-falls, without a hint of irony, that even though they may be aware of the studio systems ability to piss all over work, directors realize scripts badly or are hacked up in the editing room or countless focus rooms and test screenings, they'll go head-first into a locked-horned battle of scripty supremacy....

For my own sake I did a Scriptwriting course on a whim, I do have writing coursing through my veins, but I learnt from the master in this field that words belong to everybody, we don't get to decide where they have been, we just try to steer them into some sort of cohesive direction.... and it's rather difficult because words never behave the way you want them to, they are the bastard ADHD children of our thought....

The problem (and delight) is that writers think they are special, and they are, they all are, when it goes wrong is that one writer may go 'well I am better than this writer' which isn't playing the game, as is my mantra anything creative isn't bad even at its worse its better than destruction and the detracting of things. The cynicism and cruelty of writers is silly but sometimes fair, the Wildean idea of criticism 'I see for others to see' can be justified if you've been in the bizz 20, 30 , 40 years... but you can tell when it is borne out of jealousy that so and so got the BBC1 Primetime series and you didn't.

Lastly, no matter what happens, there will be the inexorable passing of time, and when we are in our thirties, fourties, fifties, sixties, you will look back at your younger self, full of self-righteousness, and go pink in the cheeks and your throat will go croaky and you will see the utter contemptible O.T.T., sometimes unpleasant shit you used to come out with, 'the lording it over' tosh and you'll think, what an insufferable oaf I once was....

...Oh shit! Hello Simon in thirty years time, at least your still fit ;) x

POSTSCRIPT: (the irony) Just to say, I don't know if I agree with half the stuff I have written, so if you don't we're in the same boat, secondly I know I am not really helping in that spirit of script blogging, where scripters blog about the construction of scripts, which is really rather top-notch, and yes, oh these industry vultures that jump on internet opinioning... ugh, I shall have no part of it, here is hoping this blog entry is consigned to oblivion like the rest :D

HOW TO MAKE THE MUNDANE MOMENTS OF YOUR DAY FEEL MORE SIGNIFICANT

An Instruction Manual

For the everyday person wishing to add a dash of the bohemian into their lives.

Why YOU Cannot Be Without This Manual               ^!

No matter how significant a person you feel you are, you will undoubtedly be pedestrian. It is a statistical fact that at any one moment, even if you project the most fantastical of personas, you run the hazardous risk of mundanity.

 No-one wants to get caught looking mundane, believe you me, and they will always catch a glimpse and will be cast asunder.

Mundanity is an action, more specifically a dull or anaesthetically pleasing one.

For example sleeping in peculiarly unseemly, the laying on the back, the amplification of your gurgling mucous through the nostrils. Activities in the lavatory is another.

Shopping!

Shopping is the sterilized conclusion of the hunter-gatherer.

Ladies and gentlemen your fabulousness has been castrated by a clawed, winged and fanged beast SOCIETY! But you can be saved, saved from this, if you heed the words of this instruction manual closely.

Original thought has never been fashionable, emulating others that have gone before you is the key, they are the tried and tested method, the theorem.

MORNING ARRANGEMENTS

The morning routine has become a chore. One that is rushed in favour of more lack of consciousness,

Socrates Saw the benefits of cheated the world of giving himself to it exclusively, in his prime, he managed to sleep twenty hours a day. In the modern world we oversleep on a regular basis, 

but how did this great thinker overcome the mundane aspect of his persona to the outside world.

THE SOCRATIC SLEEP FUNNEL[1]

For the ones that like to sleep more than their fair share, it is immediately important to say you are not oversleeping, you are to say you are part of an open consciousness, sometimes one desires no consciousness for a time. One can have one’s Madera cake and eat it by not being conscious and still contributing to the outside world. The Socratic Sleep Funnel is a plastic sleep-aid cone developed from the conch-shell Socrates held over his face whilst sleeping, his breathing would ‘aggravate’ the holes of the conch-shell and discordant sounds would emit, sometimes forming a pattern. Early dream analysis formed when the differing pitches of sounds or in the Latin: EX DUMO ES SNORPO; a primitive Morse-code, the sub-conscious communicating with the conscious world.  No longer screaming or drowning in its own face.

To create your own Sleep Funnel you will need

1.                A Hard Plastic Sheet. (^A4)

2.                A Hole-Punch

3.                String.

1.                TAKE THE HARD PLASTIC SHEET AND MAKE 16 HOLES IN THIS PATTERN:

2.    WRAP IT UP LIKE A CONE

3.ADD STRINGS

4. ATTACH IT TO YOUR FACE 

5.  SLEEP  AND YOUR SNOOZE-NOISES WILL BECOME EX DUMO

THERE ARE TWO DISTINCT SOUNDS YOUR SLEEPING FACE MAKES WHEN TRANMITTED THROUGH THE PLASTIC-CONCH. WHICH WILL BE REFERRED TO AS SYMBOLS IN THIS MANUAL[2]

   

    f g

 A CONVERSATION BETWEEN Two Subconscious.... JUNGS COLLECTIVE  UNCONSIOUS TO THE ‘WORLD-MIND’ OF FRENCH.... THE SOCRATIC FUNNEL MAY LEAD TO MASS COMMICATION OF THE SLEEPING WORLD. ORANGE AND T-MOBILE HAVE BEEN IN TALKS TO CREATE THE FIRST MOBILE PHONE YOU CAN USE IN YOUR SLEEP.

                               ^Joan Of Arc’s  

MORNING ROUTINE

Imagine what it is like to have the voice of God in your head as you do your morning routine, for this we acquire the use of tape-recorder. An actor of some gravitas to orate and narrate your morning process. this brings an element of urgency and divine importance to the proceedings. When in a loud booming voice comes “LET THERE BE LIGHT” as sun-rises, “GO FORTH NIGEL FROM STOCKPORT, TAKE THOSE HALLOWED FEET ACROSS THE SHAG-CARPETTING, TO THE BATHROOM. WASH YOUR SINS CLEAN, EMERGE RENEWED. PERFORM THE SACRIFICE OF THE MONOBROW AND THE SLOOSH OF THE INCISOR. PREPARE FOR THE FEAST OF THE RICE KRISPIE AND THE EUROSHOPPERCOFFEE AND THE GONE-OFF SKIMMED MILK’  (All Eyes on Joan (!946) by Meyrick Stapleglass) 

AFTERNOON ARRANGEMENTS

Consumerism has become the most mundane activity for the everyday person, that, and idle conversation this is how a majority of peoples existences are wasted, here is how to cure the two:

CONSUMERISM

                             FALLS INTO

      TWO CATEGORIES, OUTLINED

  BELOW

                        SHOPPING

                        EATING

                        (There is no third category)

  Samuel Pepys

With a novel way of getting the shopping done...

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAHH here is a new found fragment from Pepys’s London Diary.

Went out early, for the absence of my wife, by no instruction of leaving for that of maid, nor, servant, nor housekeep, nor Cook, it was I to London, to abate the supplication of the larder for the first in many a year. In my way met with Jennings, at an alehouse, where he showed me the device of a stick that cooled the brows of Poxy children, and indeed it was most fascinating. Jennings provided an admirable discourse on the problem of paying for the scullery. He posited slugs of drink to numb the process and render it a pleasure. Betimes came pints of wine then tinctures of a viscous balm, its derivation we knew not of, that made our heels light, we did float upon them to Market. Our hexed countenance took us along, all manner of vegetable, cheese, mineral, herbs were purchased no mind given to purported their purpose. Our curious manner overwhelmed patrons with our tempered ways. Thence we feasted upon onions from the boxes of goods as the cart took us to Westminster cooing the fermented songbirds we were.

You feel that the preceding text was mere frippery but I assure you that if you follow this manual in thought and spirit, that you unleash your minds to the restorative power of imagination you will find that you will transcend mundanity

F

[1] See video projection of ‘The Leamington Spa Solution’ where the Socratic Funnel was tested on Narcoleptics around the county in 2006

[2] Play recording of different noises the Socratic Funnel transmits whilst sleeping. Note that noises from infants and Welsh can vary hugely.

A twitter version of THE LADY OF SHALLOT

A poem I wrote for an exhibition that's going on next year apparently more details about it here

And for anyone not familiar with the original poem that I am 'making a mockery of' it is here

@The_Lady (location: Shallot) #dontyouhateitwhen

By Alfred Lord Tennyson & lovingly bastardized by Simon Jay

a high tower on an island, by the field and barley places that go on their way toward camelot, d'ya know where I mean http://bit.ly/cIHOt3


Trapped between four grey walls, lies me, @The_Lady atop the tallest tower, in this silent isle....


IF YOU EVER RODE ON THE WAY T CAMELOT WOULD YOU SEE ME WAVE MY HAND OR ANTHING!!!! NO YOU WOULDN'T #SOFUCKEDOFFRIGHTNOW

@Death would whisper stuff to me like 'I'm a fairy' #thingsyoushouldn'ttellyourpsychiatrist

knitting #cursed


coz of the curse I can only look through a mirror to see stuff outside, shadows an
girls go past the window sometimes, big groups of em, sometimes fit guys, although there is no fit 
guy for me


'I am sick of shadows'.

WOW! @Sir_Lancelot has come come riding by amongst the golden field #OMFG


i can tell from his girdle and armour and sacks that are hanfging from him that he is well mint, as it were #commonvernacular


, sky is purple, then blue then cloudy, meteor showers, flickering seeing the stars then oh there gone #theressomethingwrongwiththeweatherg


hes got really, really nice eyebrows and black curly hair #swoon


gave up the knitting and ran to my fit fit boy, but accidentally smashed the mirror on the way.... #whatwasthataboutamysteriouscurseagain???


fuck, the curse is upon me!


found a boat, wrote 'THE LADY WAS HERE' with my sharpie inside it... coughing loadsa blood

dizzy in my white dress, i wonder what the people of #camelot will make of my dead face.

dizzy in my white dress, i wonder what the people of #camelot will make of my dead face


@The_Lady how we all mourn her passing we read her name in the prow of her boat and such


RT: a high tower on an island, by the field and barley places that go on their way toward camelot, d'ya know where I mean http://bit.ly/cIHOt3

A Universal Truth

Guest Blogger: Ben Nardone 

Imagine: It’s Sunday evening. You’re a science geek. At 9pm you arm yourself with a steaming mug of coffee and curl up in front of the telly in time to see Professor Brian Cox on “Wonders of the Universe.” Why? What is it about learning the secrets of something so big you need never seriously concern yourself with it that grips you?

This week, Mr. Universe extended the tale of Gravity: the very thing that shapes and governs our universe; the Ghost in the Machine. From fighter jets to black holes, the high-cheeked host successfully packed a ton of superficial physics into an hour, as with every other week.

Indeed, it is captivating. One becomes lost in wonder, in awe, in questions. . .but, again, why?! What is the point in knowing so much about things we simply cannot change, and the majority of which does not affect our daily lives?

There are, of course, a multitude of answers - the thrilling CGI galactic scenarios; the ingenious relation to ordinary people; the highly stylised escapism from daily life; the burning need to know as much about the grand scheme of things as possible. . .

Whichever of these answers one may place oneself under, there is a clear, definitive element in each: you are interested! If you weren’t, you wouldn’t watch (unless there is some other convoluted reason which, for purposes of this passage, we shall ignore the possibility of). In fact, Professor Cox himself has stated that he simply thinks “people are interested.” And indeed, some of us are.

So there we have it: occassionally one may indulge in the enthralling exploration of extra-terrestrial excavation, then descend back into “real life,” a life inside society, politics, economy, and various other superstructures of humanity.

However, it is my personal perspective on the matter, that skewes the above notion.

I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent and fair-minded chap who examines things as objectively as possible (most of the time), and is able to overcome most troubles of life through reasoned thinking. However, amongst other things, I am regularly disturbed and upset by the superstructures I have been born into. They cause me to feel lost, bewildered, and depressed. Fortunately, though, there is a range of potential temporary escapism routes provided for a creative-minded individual such as myself - the media. Furthermore, a little strum on the ukulele and a verse or two of something, and I can be right as rain.

What this solution does not cater for, however, is something I have carried since birth, a silent concern that many carry: the fear of death. It is this inescapable fate that cannot be cured - only soothed. That said, many find peace of mind in the arts or other hobbies and interests. I, however, overcome the fear of my consciousness ending in learning about the universe.

By concerning myself with the things that are vastly more mature and bigger than I am, I am immediately calmed. Simply being a part of the most incredibly complex, powerful, rich structure in existence gives me strength to live each day in an almost-totally-peaceful-type state. For many, considering the universe implies their personal meaninglessness. For me, it is the greatest meaning one can have, and in accepting it, you become immortal.

To use words similar to those of the good professor, every atom in my body came from the same place as every other atom in the universe, and ultimately, they are all part of the same thing.

Herein, I believe, lies the true, perhaps sub-conscious answer as to why some people are so interested in the universe. We are each a tiny manifested piece of it, and thus have the right to know and the right to want to know.

CRABSTICKS

Today I bought some crabsticks.

Well I didn't. Because I'm not actually Simon. Simon is next to me in an ovenbearing fashion. I've made a series of speling mistakes. He's commenting on them which makes me very sad as Simon can't spell either.

He told me that fact himself. In an attempt to comfort me and bring us together.

ALAS!

I (aRRON bARNEY rOBYN fERGUSON) did indeed buy some crabsticks? Why, well I'm not sure. But let me tell you of a memory. Who? YOU! The lesbians of the high county.

Twas school. Circa year ten or eleven. That period was all one disturbing blur of time. We had a girl in our class. Her name was Heidi. Judging bythe way in which she was about her darling self I imagine if she's not dead by now she's in the process of dying or at the very least in the process of dying.

She was a larger woman. There is nothing wrong with this of course (bar the health issues and lack of attractivness) yet one day in the dear old cookery classes of old she decided to bend over. Well, she did not decide to bend. No-one decides to bend, but he needed to.

As is often prone with some of these "larger folk" the reveal of her arse crack was imminent.


Upon reveal the young fellow next to me (lets call him Steve, since that was his name) impulsivly dropped a crab-stick into her anal crackety wack.


Hilarity (ish) ensued.

And that is my story for you. LOVE. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxPxxxxxxxxxx

Look At Me, Will I Ever Learn...

Hello you,
               Yeah. Well, usually I like to keep things seperate, I am very much a human set of dividers, I don't like things mixing together, people, ideas, fluids and especially discourse. For instance, this is one particular discourse, the pitiful Channel4 blog is another - yet in a moment of frenzied business, without thinking, I broke with tradition to tell a few people here and something other there...and well, I didn't come out in a rash and hair only sprouted from my palms and soles of my feet, so it wasn't so bad... yet there is still something icky yet delicious about mixing things together.

Is this something my mind does; for 95% of the time my meals are eaten, individual portions are the best, I.E. Pizza, is so simplistic, as is Burger & Chips - yet Pasta freaks me out, Linguini forget it, shudder, shudder. Yet I am never happier when eating beans, Fish-Fingers and chips because the consistency of the three objects, compliment each other beautifully. This analagy is getting a little lost and muddled...oh dear the antithesis of what I wanted ;) 

Let me show you another example, I usually write very frenziedly and feveredly, it goes all over the place, a stream of consiousness, badly spelt and with little grammar... but it follows a path, a mad path of my own making, but a path nonetheless. Yet when I come to the rewriting process, I shall throw all matter of er...matter in with other things, especially SCRIPTS, I add scenes for no reason here and there, copy and paste from other scripts - and it feels right and makes perfect sense to me, yet this congealed mess - well it is abhorrant to my nature....

ah the duplicity of people.... so here we are again, there is another blog lurking about that I have dampened with my own sweaty droplets of creativity and here is the link to the 2nd of 2 podcasts I've made with the beautiful and fragrant Matthew Reynolds called Process, listen, comment and contribute to it.

Yes, well there we are, some more mixed up stuff, to add to the already mixed up messy mess..... *swoon* SMELLING SALTS! SMELLING SALTS!

EVIL

Hello, hello, hello.

Me and the fella were discussing things last night, whilst in my exhausted and shall we say, vaguely inebriated, state, the subject of morality unwittingly raised its ugly head, and with it that bizzarest of notions 'Evil'. After the standard ranting and pontificating about certain people, places and indeed objects were mentioned, it sort of floundered... but, as you know, I am one ready to burn a wick long after the wax has all dribbled away (that's not a reference to DILF loving or anything).

Where does one go to find philosophical discourse bound up in one nice, easy to use package. Ah, yes, Wikipedia, the shame of it. Although you think that's shaming, I am actually considering buying 'The Bluffers Guide To Quantum Physics', to hold my own in those ever pervasive conversations about the very fabric of reality, light and space-time dimensions. I am awash with the space-time dimensions I am really.

By only concept of 'Evil' in the past, took the form of Jung's Shadow, as my lovely G.P. used to explain, that there is evil in all of us, but we don't accept it, we only accept it by transfering it to others, a rather astute observation to make to someone deep in the throws of a severe depressive episode, but what of it. But, heigh ho, the plot thickens, when research, by EMINENT psychologists come along, not just your hokum, run of the mill fuckers, but a full boner-fide(l castro) one, complete with gizmos and pie-charts and such, well this one that's been lifted striaght from the page by a guy called Peck;

• Is consistently self-deceiving, with the intent of avoiding guilt and maintaining a self-image of perfection
• Deceives others as a consequence of their own self-deception
• Projects his or her evils and sins onto very specific targets, scapegoating others while appearing normal with everyone else ("their insensitivity toward him was selective") 
• Commonly hates with the pretense of love, for the purposes of self-deception as much as deception of others
• Abuses political (emotional) power ("the imposition of one's will upon others by overt or covert coercion")
• Maintains a high level of respectability and lies incessantly in order to do so
• Is consistent in his or her sins. Evil persons are characterized not so much by the magnitude of their sins, but by their consistency (of destructiveness)
• Is unable to think from the viewpoint of their victim
• Has a covert intolerance to criticism and other forms of narcissistic injury.

Now one wishes one could (stop using the term 'one' to describe oneself) memorise this little piece of scribe to utilize when in conversation with oh, I dunno, twats who waffle on about moralistic integrity and then show none of the results; one can really sterilise the argument this way, and as I am sure we're all agreed on sterilization is a wonderful thing.

My mantra, when posed with the subject of MORALS in relation to EVIL, is that of THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS; and that is an EVIL THOUGHT is fine expressed but in relation to commiting ACTION it is not, to be homophobic is one thing, to insight a murder on the basis of homophobia is quite another... and so it goes on.... and you may (not bother to) ask, where do I stand on this Hulabaloo. Well my favourite quote is

                                          "all it will take for evil to provail is for good people to do nothing"

And it is inherent in society now, an apethic, 'I don't want to get involved' 'there is no such thing as society' mentality that makes me sick. I have arrived at a perplexing conclusion; I see things that we see that are unjust, but I used to say things out loud because I wasn't aware of the possible/negligable reactions to said things... i.e. getting beaten up or losing friends etc. and many thousand other outcomes from being so-called 'outspoken', but my family were very quick to point out that by saying what you think is bad and could end you up in trouble, because as a pre-pubescent I went so against the grain of the 'norm' of society. Now I've spent many years in the wilderness, pootering about, not getting involved, but slowly this RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, as it were, is surfacing like thick viscous citadel of aggressive, argumentative thought growing from the centre of my brain, soon it will pierce through my skull and right through your eye, bitch!

LAST PARAGRAPH: 

I will leave you with two dollops of hope to carry you through to the next seven days. 1. Signing petitions like ones at avaaz.org or amnestyinternational.org  or number10.gov work! = and all you need to do is give an e-mail address and your name, not much to saved lives or bring about a change, look at Julian Assange, his efforts have contributed to a regime change in Tunisia which in turn may cause a domino effect in the Middle-East of people rising up against the leaders that oppress them, a tide not seen since The Fall Of The Berlin Wall in 1989. So whether it's leaking 100'000's of private political cables or signing a petition for cats to get free flea collars, it all goes around and makes it all... who knows a little less evil.
Secondly, I had a brush with 'saying something or not' when I got this circular e-mail from a friend who I actually liked and knew was a free spirit I couldn't understand why she would send me this horrible e-mail:


  (THANKS MATT FOR MAKING ME WORRY THAT EVERYONE WILL THINK I AM SOME SORT OF ISLAMAPHOBE WHEN I AINT!) IN GREEN ISN'T ME!!! GOOD YEAH MATT!

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ


The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2008. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.


REMEMBER AS YOU READ -- IT WAS IN A SPANISH PAPER
Date: Tue. 15 January 2008 14:30

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona , and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz .. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world.. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe .....
***********************************
 

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics:
(zero)

Physics:
(zero)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino
TOTAL: 129!


The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people.

The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two
sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel ." Benjamin Netanyahu

General Eisenhower Warned Us It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'
 Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way..

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States ?

Do not just delete this message; it will take only a minute to pass this along.

Although now in retrospect and the more I read it the more I realised how offensive it was, and to use HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY, to put forward his views about Islam - and purporting very shady, biased views as 'facts' I thought was atrocious, and I didn't want to put down the e-mail in full but I will in the context you read it as something to comment about not pass on as a detailed dispassionate summary of some Islamic Conspiracy, of which the writer is trying to get away with her.

I replied to the person who forwarded this on to me with :

Seems extremely inaccurate and one sided on the side of muslim behaivour, I would hazard a guess that this article seems biased and has an anti-islamic agenda; its opinion not fact in the latter as the wording is emotive not impartial and therefore I won't be passing it on

I felt right in what I said, although very succinct, and felt vaguely irked and the true indoctrinated behaivour pattern of 'apathy' of 'not to say anything' crept into my mind, but I went along with it, expect mine and EDJ's friendship to end (like the family warns, - say anything confrontational, or that you passionately mean and expect to get chewed up and spat out!) .... but she came round, wow how rare, winning someone round!.... 

swift response from one of you, and another later with the same sentiments (and no doubt a third probably on its way!) has made me RE-THINK. I was hasty and misguided. Thank you. I'll be more pleased now if you don't pass Spanish writer's e-mail on! 

I've re-read it, considered the place it's coming from ... which is based on fear. What to do now? I've blessed the writer and the groups identified and imagined the response of the Love I happen to believe is the source of All, which of course is unconditional acceptance... and shared that with you, since I shared the first message. Mountain out of a molehill? Personally I don't think so!

I'm really grateful for your POTO (personal one to one) responses. That 'mass Must Forward' manipulation is so easy to get caught on when it's wrapped up under the 'injustice' label.

with love

Elizabeth

And there we are...make of it what you will! 

Toodle-Pip, and don't be evil!