sorry, it's been a while,
My Grandfather des las t month and i haven't been in the most perky of moods, i knew he was goign to die and it wasn't a huge shock when he did but it's still not a nice thing to deal with. WHat really upset me about his death was that he didn't have a better place to go to, i hate the idea of someone suffering like that wihtout an end goal, wihtout the belief that they are going somewhere better.
im not a hugely religious guy in the sense that i don't go to church but i do commune with my god in my way. I won a road race the other day, and while i was off the fron on my own in my happy place (with my hear beating 200 times a minute and my eyes going blurry with effort!) i realised that that's how i pray, i thought about my Grandad and his death and how he could have given up a long time ago and i got a lot of strength from that.
My religion is more of a miltant one than many more "religious" people, i think god put us here to do good things, to help each other and to do away with evils like poverty and ignorance. So you wont find me outside an abortion clinic ( i wouldn't ever "have" an abortion i guess but its not up to me what you decide to do) you will find me working in a shanty town. I have been listening to martin luther king speeches before some intervals recently (beats the pants of listenign to some shitty trance or some crappy speech from any given sunday which people seem to think is the height of rhetorical flair) and i feel inspired, he said that he didn't care about the quanitty or longevity of his existence just the quality and conctent, i couldn't agree more. Some thigns are worth dying for, even after really finding out how enormous death is this month i still feel that.
so i'm gonna go on with my christianity which shouts at the bigots the racists the christian right and all those selfish hypocirtes andim going to keep taking risks that might just get me hurt because they might just help someone else and sometimes thats more important. I also intend to keep winiing bike races!
sorry for the james joyce style unpunctuated rant its late and i realised i hadn't done this for a while - if you're reading this please post a comment!
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
Thursday, 28 February 2008
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....
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....
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
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!
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!
Saturday, 26 January 2008
postgrad funding, flu and snapped chains
Todays post titel is in the style of james Joyce, that's a nice way of saying its the little things that were dancing around my head when i decided to write something for your perusal.
They all add up to making me angry with the "state" we're in. I was out training on thursday, doing hill sprints when my bike chain snapped (yes i'm a lycra lout cyclist) and sent me flying across the road at 20mph going up a hill, i cut myself a fair bit and was mightly shaken up. There was a car ebhind me, he didn't check if i was OKay, he revved his engine so i'd shift my grovelling non motorised useless backside off the road and by doing so i wouldn't delay his journey any furhter - what an ice chap. WHy on earth do people not realise how vulnerable cyclists are - every time i mention this someone tells me how they "nearly got knocked off by someone cycling on the pavement" or "saw a cyclist with no lights". I propose we make a list on one side all the cyclists killed by motorists, on the other all the pedestrians killed by cyclists. In the last 2 weeks 2 professionals in the Uk have been hit, one is dead one crippled. its making me scared to be on the road And no bike lanes are not the answer, they are part of the problem, they create the idea that was clearly evident in the engine revving audi driver who had the terribel misfortune to get stuck behind me up white horse hill, the idea that nobody except cars has the right to occupy the road.
But they will slow down for horses, maybe if my bike was fluffy this would help?
Maybe it was the same audi driving besuited man who nealry ran me over who will soon be occupying a funded place at univeristy tot ake a career break and do a second BA, which will contribute preciselynothing to the academic pursuit of history (or any other subject). The Arts and Humanities research council has decided that these BAs merit funding,s oi much so that they cut a huge chunk out of phd funding. The Uk postgrad system isn't like the undergraduate one, you can't get a student loan and the governemnt won't help you. I'm now stuck in the ludicrous situation of having a potential place at the best univeristies int he world ( I applied toOxford, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale and UCSD) and being too poor to accept it. I hate to say it but that wouldn't happen in Cuba
I'm ill today and i was ill when i was in Cuba, that's where the similarity ends, today i schlepped out to boots and bought all kinds of pills and potions from an anonymous shopkeeper who seemed manifestly uncaring. Compare this to cuba where the doctor came to see me, in bed and treated me like her own son, she put her hand on my forehead and tucked me in, she even gave me a kiss (somewhat embarassing for a 20 year old guy...) It seems that in this country even in caring professions we treat each other as economic entitites not as other people. Whatever claims we make to economic progress its useless if we don't treat people as people. Whether someone's ill in bed, buying a newspaper or sprawled across the road in front of you, remeber they're a person to and treat them like one, as kant said people should be ends and not means
They all add up to making me angry with the "state" we're in. I was out training on thursday, doing hill sprints when my bike chain snapped (yes i'm a lycra lout cyclist) and sent me flying across the road at 20mph going up a hill, i cut myself a fair bit and was mightly shaken up. There was a car ebhind me, he didn't check if i was OKay, he revved his engine so i'd shift my grovelling non motorised useless backside off the road and by doing so i wouldn't delay his journey any furhter - what an ice chap. WHy on earth do people not realise how vulnerable cyclists are - every time i mention this someone tells me how they "nearly got knocked off by someone cycling on the pavement" or "saw a cyclist with no lights". I propose we make a list on one side all the cyclists killed by motorists, on the other all the pedestrians killed by cyclists. In the last 2 weeks 2 professionals in the Uk have been hit, one is dead one crippled. its making me scared to be on the road And no bike lanes are not the answer, they are part of the problem, they create the idea that was clearly evident in the engine revving audi driver who had the terribel misfortune to get stuck behind me up white horse hill, the idea that nobody except cars has the right to occupy the road.
But they will slow down for horses, maybe if my bike was fluffy this would help?
Maybe it was the same audi driving besuited man who nealry ran me over who will soon be occupying a funded place at univeristy tot ake a career break and do a second BA, which will contribute preciselynothing to the academic pursuit of history (or any other subject). The Arts and Humanities research council has decided that these BAs merit funding,s oi much so that they cut a huge chunk out of phd funding. The Uk postgrad system isn't like the undergraduate one, you can't get a student loan and the governemnt won't help you. I'm now stuck in the ludicrous situation of having a potential place at the best univeristies int he world ( I applied toOxford, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale and UCSD) and being too poor to accept it. I hate to say it but that wouldn't happen in Cuba
I'm ill today and i was ill when i was in Cuba, that's where the similarity ends, today i schlepped out to boots and bought all kinds of pills and potions from an anonymous shopkeeper who seemed manifestly uncaring. Compare this to cuba where the doctor came to see me, in bed and treated me like her own son, she put her hand on my forehead and tucked me in, she even gave me a kiss (somewhat embarassing for a 20 year old guy...) It seems that in this country even in caring professions we treat each other as economic entitites not as other people. Whatever claims we make to economic progress its useless if we don't treat people as people. Whether someone's ill in bed, buying a newspaper or sprawled across the road in front of you, remeber they're a person to and treat them like one, as kant said people should be ends and not means
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
apathy an anger songs and slogans
I did think it was quite odd to write my ideas on the internet for everyone (or noone) to see but then i thought i'd give it a try, it's late i'm tired but i can't sleep. I should introduce myself without giving myself away too cheaply. I go to oxford university but it's not lke you think domethings are better than i expected (not everyone's posh or nerdy) some are worse and this is what really gets me how can people who are so intelligent be so apathetic how can people who STUDY politics not care about its implementation, how can you study history and ignore ideology? How can a biologist fail to recycle, or a theologian pass a homeless person like they would pass a piece of litter?
I was just thinking about pithy little things which sum up how you feel, which hit home in the way long speeches can't. I was reading baout the spanish civil war today (oddly enough, cos that's what i do ) and i came across a picture a boy not very old stood in the street holding a blunderbuss which wouldn't be much use against the fascist hordes, to be honest i wouldn't have backed him in a confrontation with an angry goat or well riled schoolgirl. But this boy was stood there giving the anti-fascist salute to the photographer and on his barricade he'd written "no pasaran por aqui" they won't get past here.
I think that sums it up really, much more than anything else i have seen or read, that really hit home. He took what he had and he faced up to everything that he thought was wrong, and he stood up for his dream, the war might be won or lost but he was making damn sure that there in that street in rural spain anarchsim was alive and well and the fascist weren't coming past.
I think we could all learn form that (and from the response of Britiain which was to turn a blind eye and a cold shoulder...) so next time something pisses you offer pick up your blunderbuss and pile your furniture on the street and don't let them past!
I was just thinking about pithy little things which sum up how you feel, which hit home in the way long speeches can't. I was reading baout the spanish civil war today (oddly enough, cos that's what i do ) and i came across a picture a boy not very old stood in the street holding a blunderbuss which wouldn't be much use against the fascist hordes, to be honest i wouldn't have backed him in a confrontation with an angry goat or well riled schoolgirl. But this boy was stood there giving the anti-fascist salute to the photographer and on his barricade he'd written "no pasaran por aqui" they won't get past here.
I think that sums it up really, much more than anything else i have seen or read, that really hit home. He took what he had and he faced up to everything that he thought was wrong, and he stood up for his dream, the war might be won or lost but he was making damn sure that there in that street in rural spain anarchsim was alive and well and the fascist weren't coming past.
I think we could all learn form that (and from the response of Britiain which was to turn a blind eye and a cold shoulder...) so next time something pisses you offer pick up your blunderbuss and pile your furniture on the street and don't let them past!
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