penny for the 'guy'?... 31 May 2012

I found another penny today... this time on the side of the road to the train station... of course I picked it up, it's money... placed it in my penny pocket... I now have 3 found pennies in there... see, one penny begets another and another and another... I have more in my pockets than a single share in Facebook will be worth soon!... sniggers... I mean really, what naive souls really thought any business, least of all one based on pixels could be worth THAT much?... could go down in history as one of the biggest business sell-off cons ever... it's also about time Football, the game that is, has suddenly realised that players salaries and their transfer fees are pricing the game out of existence... been saying that for years... and sport or business of any kind that sanctions and seems to think it's fine to sell people... akin only to slavery... is definitely misguided and lost the plot... anyone who lets themselves be used as a commodity in such a way willingly is also off their heads...

where's the fire!.... 30 May 2012

I just don't know what i is exactly about the Olympic torch and flame... I know some aren't interested and that's fair enough, I am not overly but I can't help a pang of emotion when  I watch and see the various bearers carry it and the pleasure on their faces and on those of others who wave it through its very brief moment in their hometowns... fire is very evocative and signifier of passions for sure.. it is primal as well as practical, and of course symbolic, especially in this case... even though the roots of the actual torch relay idea lay in the fear and oppression of the Nazi psyche I think it's time to see that it's been 'rebranded', so to speak, as something more positive... just ignore all the sponsors slogans who like to use it to sell stuff... it's the flame that matters and what we do with it....

... bizarrely, watching the 'TorchCam' on the BBC  website can be addictive... especially the times it's actually being run and not transported in a vehicle... its compelling!... reality TV at it's best in a strange way... much better than all the crappy stuff on mainstream TV.....

.... ps... the torch leaves Wales later today....

what's in a flame... 29 May 2012

a lot of mist this morning... didn't sleep much but I don't mind too much, although my eyes now are feeling a bit bleuugh!... I know what word I want to use but not sure how to spell it, but 'bleuugh' seems to fit it best....  watched the Olympic torch relay come through near to where I live across the island, down the Straits and over a bridge... didn't think I would bother but am glad i at least saw it on the websites 'torchcam' and listened to it on the radio... couldn't get there to see it but in a small way was worth catching what little I did while it was round here... the funniest thing was seeing the long lines of classes of small schoolchildren all in the hi-viz waistcoat tabards looking like tiny warnings beacons along the edge of the roads, lol... even watched a 'spider torch', yes that's what it's called, go up Snowdon.. Wales highest mountain for those who don't know... that was pretty cool.. been up there myself a few times but not today.... anyway.. the days is running out of steam so time to......

habits become habits... 28 May 2012

Olympic torch is on it's way up here, I won't get to see it... a glimpse of a flame as it passes and then is gone leaving a dramatic anticlimax... hey ho, but what have I got to complain about!... next week I have a Jubilee 'Fun' Day I can go too... with generic Steel band, commemorative mugs AND tombola, AND magician... not to mention the fairy buns and last but not least Bubble Man!... I should get a handle on my cynicism some days... after all some have worked damn hard to get this stuff together... not me of course... I sit here wondering what all the fuss is about... same with the Olympic torch... shrugs, what THAT all about!... it's easy to be a cynic and let it manifest itself in appropriate (or inappropriate!) sarcasm... that's no effort at all... all it takes is a smirk and a sideways mocking laugh... see!... simple!... still, I do feel an inward smile and a lump in my throat when I see people trying against the odds and getting involved... whatever it is... torn... maybe I should take a day off from being 'mr sideline cynic' every now and then... habits become habits hard to shake...

open letter to Eurovision Song... 27 May 2012

Dear Eurovision Committee... or whatever you call yourselves...

...I am not bitter that the UK didn't win... after all, I didn't even like the song... as a piece of songwriting it wasn't bad, just not my cup of tea (slurp! I prefer Earl Grey)... it is galling and sad and maybe frustrating though that it should come second last highlighting yet again the political nature and shenanigans of Eurovision and the voting system.. not to mention the influence sponsors and their huge sponsorship deals  must have on it all... I remember a time, not so long back, when we never got to hear any of the songs or performers until the actual night of it... that was special then, more fun and far more reason to watch... now all of them saturate our media weeks before the competition to make it almost pointless to watch it as we have already heard them all, some of which are already in this chart or other and rolling in the dough!...

... Eurovision used to be fun, frivolous fun for the sake of fun... now it is seedy, malicious, cut-throat and downright vindictive at times... it's sad to have lost the innocence that was to be left with this shambles...

... to get to the point, as I do eventually usually... I would like to recommend some changes to once again make the Eurovision (odd to call it that now by the way as it hasn't been just European countries for a long time, increasingly including more and more, not too mention Israel, has been in it for ages)... these changes are....

.... for the UK, now regarded as a bit of a pariah in the Eurovision with no hope of ever winning it ever again while it is like it is, I suggest we ditch the 'UK entry', split up the UK into its constituent countries, and have individual entries from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and not have UK any more....

... next, don't allow any of the songs or performances to be seen or heard until the actual night of the Eurovision, making them stand on the night more for what they are there and then... though lastly I have an even better idea...

.... call it the Eurovision Song Festival.... drop the whole contest side of it, simply a festival of one song offered form each country to perform and for everyone to simply enjoy it for what they are, songs, and not a bun-fight based in international bickering and political name-calling... get away from this insidious pattern of X-factor mentality that's emerged....  I would even let you keep you naff bubblegum pop and banal ballad format if you like....

........................ anything to return it to what it used to be.... simply a bit of fun....

Yours sincerely.

leaping bats... 26 May 2012

I wonder if when the light on my answerphone that flashes when there is a message uses less electricity than when there is none and is just 'on'?... after all its technically on and lit less when it flashes... can we have 'leap weeks'?... the odd week with an extra day when you need it... a 'leap day'... just a thought.... watched bats last night at dusk, swooping and feeding, echoing and locating tasty flying morsels... nom nom nom...  the Great Tit pair have nested in their usual place.... a mini tower of breeze blocks where they have found a little nook way down at the bottom of the chimney like structure... they have chicks, been watching them bringing daddy longlegs and caterpillars... got some photos but sadly can't get too close to get really good ones.. very diligent and attentive parents they are....

woe'Lympics Take 2... 25 May 2012

a gentle opening of my eye to the dawn chorus.... what!.... I don't recognise that bird.... *going through my mental field guide to birdsong*... more like a sinister growl and getting louder... and I think there is more than one... there is! there is more than one!... fly past!.... jets!... practising for the Queens Jubilee celebrations... talking of the Olympics... which I wasn't of course, but.... our team shouldn't be called "Team GB"... this is inaccurate... as those in it come from all over England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Shetland, Orkney, Isle of Man, and on and on and on including all the other small and not so small islands off our shores... which means they should call it "Team UK".. or maybe "Team Britain".. although that might not be too accurate either... because they will represent the United Kingdom and not just what is called Great Britain... the 'UK' includes all the countries and islands I mentioned... Great Britain only refers to the mainland, the greater rocky bulk of the UK ( and not to do with us being "great" or anything)... "Britain" is sort of a neutral word at the moment... sometimes used for all of the UK and sometimes for just the mainland... and sometimes rather stupidly to mean England!

backwards... 24 May 2012

yesterday I travelled backwards... watching what had been... the landscape being unmade... the spring drifting into winter... sheep and cattle reverting to their wild, undomesticated state... species vanish and new ones emerge.. though they aren't new, they are old, older still... west to east the sun traversed it's sky with the usual unassumed elegance... clouds scuttled and as usual made no difference which way they went... prevailing either way... the ground undulated swimming through their periodic malformations coming up for air and then eroding... tilting... thrusting... fault is allocated... eggs of birds unhatch... vapour trails vaporise... the beginning in nigh!...   all this from the train on a back-facing seat...

fb plc... 23 May 2012

'tis the slippery slope... Facebook being degraded to the world of shares and shareholders... no doubt any changes we have seen to date are nothing compared to whats to come in the next year... all that enthusiasm on the first day, totally unrealistic... now deteriorated to a rather sad seediness.... now totally at the whim of shareholders... which mean at the increasing beck and call of advertisers and other assorted money-mongers... rather than clearing out the temple they have filled it with even more 'me, me, me'-merchants...such is the way of these things it seems... whoever believes that the Internet is some free-for-all unregulated universe of endless possibilities should look again... seeping more and more insidiously into your life... you choose the demons you want to hang out with and if one of them is FB then so be it... just don't believe for one minute you have the steering wheel :)

ps.... have you noticed, or maybe you haven't because you might not have looked, how all the recent rise in hospital infections and illnesses caught while in hospital are all cleanliness-related?....

from end to end... 22 may 2012

my village walk... from end to end and back again.... barely a cloud in the sky, but there are a few so can't say "not a cloud in the sky"... herring gulls wheels overhead enjoying the long-awaited thermals... trains parades under the bridge as I step walk over looking down and the journeyers... House Sparrow with food.... they chirp in that's stereotyped way birds are suppose to in the books... cheep! cheep! cheep!... a ChiffChaff in the churchyard off to my right... people attending morning surgery at the GP doctors.... one old man limps with his equally old dog passed me and we share a wordless nod in passing greeting... mountains are a haze rising in a distance framed by fields and sky... just see a glisten from the sea... one local shop still hasn't cleared away an ever-accumulating array of broken down vehicles and trailers... half-built houses, left derelict now and not even finished have now been squatted in by Sparrows and Jackdaws among the scaffold and skeleton shell... a sports car for sale on side of the road... all flash and no point.... woman from the post office waters the shelves of pot plants for sale and they drip with a satisfied grin (if plants can grin, and if they did they would look like this)...