big breakfasts, lunches with love

I have had a lot of ideas for my next blog entry. I wanted to write about breakfast at first, it seems like an odd topic but I reckon you can tell alot about someone by their breakfast. These dayd its very rare for anyone to sit down en famille and eat breakfast but just think what a great start to the day it would be if you got up 20 minutes ealrier and chatted with your housemates or family over your museli. I always have a nice big nreakfast, even on my own but my favourite breakfasts are the spreads my Granny puts on, its greeat to discuss what you're going to do that day rather than bolting a bagel on the go.

I have been hanging out at Flavio's cafe a lot recently he's taught me so much about hospitality, he's Italian and he runs his cafe int he continental way, everyone is a guest first and a customer second, we chat have a coffee together and i sample his new pannini. He considers it completely wrong to ask me for money as I am a friend. What really strikes me about his cafe isn't the way he treats his friends it's the way he treats his customers. He seems to take a pretty Robin hood approach to pricing, charging full price to most people but wilfully dispensing discounts and free coffees to homeless guys and old folks. I wish more people would begin to see their job as an extension of their life and personality not as some set of boring procedures, then when people say "have a nice day" you just might believe them.

i had to give a presentation this week on my thesis topic, other historians can be pretty scathign and it's really hard to get across to them how much this stuff MATTERS, i guess that's not very academic of me but hey at least i care. When i read about Durrutti i can see the conflicts that the modern world. There is so much we could learn from the spain of the 1930s, not least that if you believe in something it will happen. Sadly the collectives and co-operatives got crushed (as much by the communists as the fascists) and they never realised their true potential, it was as Durruti said "we carry a new world, here, in our hearts" If we all carry a new world in our hearts then one day we can realise it.

For now though it's enough to carry the new world in your heart, act like you are living there and every day you might make a tiny diffrence to someone's life which just might make them sit up and think that other people are people....

On which note my refusal to use people as means (i gave up using people as a means for lent, i am trying treat each individual as an end in themselves) is going swimmingly although it has involved some rather forced conversations with reticent bus drvers and has made it pretty difficult to shop in chain stores where the last thing the cashier wants is human interaction. Actually the second side effect probably isn't such a bad one....

when you're driving in your karma

I was out ont he rickshaw today hawking for business around town, it was a great, sunny day and it felt nice to be able to interact with everyone. I like the rickshaw because it seems to brighten up people's day even if i don't give them a ride. Anyway i wanted to share my good deed for the day, i saw an old man really struggling down the street with 2 sticks and a bag, i pulled over and asked if he wanted a ride, he didn't I told him it would be for free and he did! He struggled up into the rickie and we had a good chat as i took him to the bus stop. You couldn't do that if you were driving along in a "real taxi" or in your SUV....

I also noticed a lot of glum looking people, even though it was really sunny so idecided to distribute the joy a little bit offering a few more free rides and generally trying to get people to smile. So yeah i made less money and more friends!

Although its great that i helped i bet you all passed that metaphorical man in the street today, i bet i have done so a million times. Just remember that it could be you one day and making someone else's day might just also make yours. So tomorrow go out and suprise someone with a smile.

You never know it just might pay you back (the librarian came up to me today and told me his daughter works for the union i'm studying) that's KArma!