Woody Harrelson on feeling like an alien and other wise ponderings . . .

It’s apparently from a 2003 film named Go Further that curiously slipped my I must watch all films that have a green message radar.  Anyway, I came across it on Facebook via Occupy Love and was so awestruck I thought I’d share it.  Appropriate for Earth Day methinks.

I sometimes feel like an alien creature
for which there is no earthly explanation
Sure I have human form
walking erect and opposing digits,
but my mind is upside down.
I feel like a run-on sentence
in a punctuation crazy world.
And I see the world around me
like a mad collective dream.
An endless stream of people
move like ants from the freeway
cell phones, pc’s, and digital displays
“In Money We Trust,”
we’ll find happiness
the prevailing attitude;
like a genetically modified irradiated Big Mac
is somehow symbolic of food.
Morality is legislated
prisons over-populated
religion is incorporated
the profit-motive has permeated all activity
we pay our government to let us park on the street
And war is the biggest money-maker of all
we all know missile envy only comes from being small.
Politicians and prostitutes
are comfortable together
I wonder if they talk about the strange change in the weather.
This government was founded by, of, and for the people
but everybody feels it
like a giant open sore
they don’t represent us anymore
And blaming the President for the country’s woes
is like yelling at a puppet
for the way it sings
Who’s the man behind the curtain pulling the strings?
A billion people sitting watching their TV
in the room that they call living
but as for me
I see living as loving
and since there is no loving room
I sit on the grass under a tree
dreaming of the way things used to be
Pre-Industrial Revolution
which of course is before the rivers and oceans,
and skies were polluted
before Parkinson’s, and mad cows
and all the convoluted cacophony of bad ideas
like skyscrapers, and tree paper, and earth rapers
like Monsanto and Dupont had their way
as they continue to today.
This was Pre-us
back when the buffalo roamed
and the Indian’s home
was the forest, and God was nature
and heaven was here and now
Can you imagine clean water, food, and air
living in community with animals and people who care?
Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollar you lay down
are you going to make the rich man richer
or are you going to stand your ground
You say you want a revolution
a communal evolution
to be a part of the solution
maybe I’ll be seeing you around.

—Woody Harrelson

Olympic Legacy

I used to love the Olympic  Games. Me and my dad, we loved watching the events together and cheering on the Brits . But the more I learn about the truth behind the glossy Olympic veneer, the more disillusioned I become.

We’re told that the Games leave a great legacy for the host country – that the economy will greatly benefit, that tourism will soar, that employment, investment and regeneration will thrive.  They convince us that the Games will encourage the whole nation to get active and that suddenly everyone will be transformed into healthy, keep-fit fanatics.  They sell us the idea of superb sporting facilities –  swimming pools, tennis courts and such-like that will be available for everyone to utilise post-Olympic games.

Well there is another line of thinking which argues that the golden Olympic legacies are mostly mythical, that there is a more sinister side to the Olympic movement and that beyond the hype, real lives are detrimentally and irreversibly affected.

Well let’s take a wee look:

Planning displacement/Forced evictions. How many people do you think were displaced in Beijing to make way for the games?  This report says it’s 1.5 million.  And this website goes into more detail.

Atlanta 96- what went on there?  Amongst other stuff, housing rights violations and – get this – the criminalisation of the poor and the homeless, many of whom were detained without trial for the duration of the games so they wouldn’t be an embarrassment.

London 2012 – how many evictions have taken place so far in London alone due to the building works?  What about the allotments that have been forecably taken to make way for the games?  The businesses that have lost their sites.  And the social housing estate, Clays Lane, that became subject to a compulsory purchase order, against the wishes of the tenants, to build the athlete’s village.

Ethics. London 2012 is so ethical that it’s own ethics chief resigned because of its connections, via Dow Chemicals, with the 1984 Bhopal disaster that killed thousands of its citizens.  When you consider just who the leading corporate sponsors are it’s hard not to be cynical . . .  BP, the aforementioned Dow Chemicals, Rio Tinto . . .  a trio of polluting multinationals with dire environmental records as official sponsors of the “greenest games ever”? Give me a break!

Democratic rights. Be in no doubt, preemptive arrests are very much on the cards at these London games for peaceful protesters.  Just wait and watch our PM trample on our civil liberties, empowering the police to make sweeping arrests before objectors even begin their peaceful protests at the games.  You’ll have to look hard though because it won’t be widely reported.

There’s more.

The Food. McDonald’s (hiss, spit), official partner of the games, have pledged to use only British chickens but what about the beef and the fish? And in any case, come on!  McDonald’s! The unhealthiest food in the world being ‘officially’ supplied at a major, global sports event!  Someone had a sarcastic sense of humour there.

The environmental impact.  The London games are supposed to be the greenest ever.  UK officialdom wants the London games to be an environmental showcase and wants us to believe that the environment won’t be touched at all by these games but nobody can tell me that there has been no major environmental impact.  It’s not possible.  I can’t even be bothered going into detail.  I’ve gone on enough and I’d be stating the bleeding obvious anyway.

To sum up, basically, they’ve sold us a tale of turning the nation into health and fitness fanatics but does anyone really believe that people will get off their backsides en masse and get jogging because they been so inspired by nine-minute sprinters or record-holding marathon runners?  No, we will all watch the games from the comfort of our lounges (or if we’re lucky, from a seat in the stadium) and then we’ll forget about it!  And I’m sure all those super-duper sports facilities that they say the citizens will inherit really will be fantastic – if you can afford the membership fees!

Sure, there will be economic benefits but they will be short-term and there’s little evidence to say that these benefits actually reach those most in need and much historical evidence to say that existing entrepreneurial types and wealthy stakeholders usually reap the most of the rewards.  They say that tourism will benefit and yes, if the games were to be held in Backendofnowhere I’m sure that many ordinary citizens would greatly benefit from increased tourism (or perhaps not depending on your view but you get the point).  But the games are always held in major cities, eg, London.  Tourism is London’s biggest industry and it’s booming, so where will the added value come from?  It’s so small, it’s more likely to cause greater pressure and utter turmoil.

The misrepresentation, the myths, the corporate spin, the total greenwash. Folks, the social and environmental impacts of the games are considerable.  The Olympic legacy is not all rosy but is in fact, pretty much all fallacy.  It certainly does not result in all-round sustainable urban facelifts or jobs for life or booming economies.

So, whose boycotting the games then?

Tree People – we need you now!

It seems that our unmandated government really has it in for our forests.  They have thus-far failed to slip through a bill that would allow them to sell our woodlands to private firms who would subsequently turn them into a profit-making  commodity.  So now they’re going to revise planning laws making it easier for developers to, well, develop on them.

If we are to believe our government (snigger), these proposed new planning policies will have no impact on our green and pleasant land but their promises will soon be put to the test according this article in today’s Guardian. The writer tells us that Oaken Wood in Kent is potentially at risk due to an application for a quarry extension and this highlights some serious concerns.  From the article:

At stake, under a single application for the extension of an existing quarry, is 32 hectares of ancient woodland, home to rare lady orchids, firecrests and nightingales. Under pressure from conservation groups including the Woodland Trust, and thanks to the efforts of local campaigners, Eric Pickles, local government secretary, called in the controversial application in July last year. It is scheduled to go to public inquiry in November. . . .

. . . . Today, ancient woodland covers just 2.7% of England and is home to more wildlife of conservation concern than any other terrestrial habitat. These woods are irreplaceable and require protection.

For goodness sake folks, you heard him! We don’t have much ancient woodland left in England and when it’s gone, it’s gone! Our woodlands are important on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start but to paraphrase Earl Attlee when asked what plans they had to improve ancient woodland protection in the final version of the National Planning Policy Framework, he said it’s not possible to put an economic value on ancient woodland because it is irreplaceable.

It all takes me back to a time, many moons ago, when I camped out in a beautiful ancient woodland with a bunch of tree-hugging eco-warriors in an effort to stop it from being bulldozed to make way for the M65.  Well, I say camped-out . . . taking food, drinks and blankets each day to the protesters and generally playing a supportive role would be closer to the truth but hey, I was there with the likes of  Swampy, suitably clad in wellies, camouflage trousers and an attitude.

The protesters weren’t all stereotypical tree huggers with dreadlocks and doc-martens but they became known by the locals (who mostly supported them it has to be said) as the Tree People. And these guys were fantastic.  They were radical and inventive and totally committed.  They’d lived in those self-built tree-houses for months and they were determined not to give way.  The stakes were high and their determination was downright heroic. They constructed a woodland network of ropes and tree-top walkways so that they were all connected making it very difficult for the axe-men to chop even one tree down without risking the life of a protester.  As non-violent resisters they suffered many injuries at the hands of the burly security men but they never gave up.  At one point militant-me had a very heated debate with the sheriff of somewhere-or-other (probably not Nottingham) but, being  the mardy-pants that I am, I backed off when two large, grumpy-looking policemen started to walk towards me with intent.  Yep, I was passionately proactive and I really believed in the cause but those coppers looked big and mean and there’d already been several arrests.

Anyhoo, needless to say, we were unsuccessful in our efforts. The inevitable forced eviction took place and those yellow-hats stood smugly by as the activists were dragged ruthlessly from the their tree-houses.  Subsequently, and very sadly, the beautiful woodland, where deer used to roam and wildflowers grew freely, was razed to the ground. And now a dirty, great big concrete motorway sits in its place.

I might have turned into little more than a keyboard warrior since then but I’ll tell you this folks – if our few remaining woodlands are put under serious threat of demolition because of these proposals, I WILL GET OFF MY LAZY ARSE!  I will reclaim my activism mojo!  I will tie myself to a tree and I won’t budge until those bloody useless, self-serving, arrogant set of nobs in government do something positive and permanent to protect our magnificent and vitally, vitally important woodlands.

I kid you not.

Fur Coats Eco-Friendly . . . ?

Fur Coats Eco-Friendly . . . ?

An advert saying that fur is eco-friendly has been banned by an advertising watchdog because it says the ad is misleading. The fur breeders claim that because the fur is a natural product that lasts a lifetime and is biodegradable, they can promote their products as eco-friendly.

Completely misleading

For starters, the chemicals they treat the fur with to preserve and protect it cancel out any eco-benefits they claim exist. Then there’s the environmental damage caused by their farming methods that make their products far from carbon-neutral not to mention the number of animals that the’re taking out of the eco-system to kill and profit from.  But apart from that the fur farmers say that a fur coat will last up to thirty years but can you imagine how matted and manky it would be after being worn by a human for so long.

Anyway, most people who wear fur wouldn’t keep a fashion item for that long. They’d be onto the next design within a year or two and last year’s furry accessory would be discarded without another thought.

Nice try.  I’ll give them that.

Of food and the inaccessibility thereof

Hello!

She’s alive –  she’s beautiful.

Just thought I’d share.

Here’s to activists who, unlike myself, actually get off their arses and take real-life risks in order to try and protect our lovely, good planet.

Of Forests and Fairytales

Before you buy it, do you FSC it?

Buy wood of course.

Sorry, I tried and tried to come up with a clever, rhyming soundbite but nothing worked and that’s why I’m a demonised, economy-crushing public-sector worker and not a high-flying, over-paid writer of cheesy soundbites.

Anyway, did you know or care that 2011 is the International Year of the Forest as declared by none other than the UN? Well it is. And we should care!

I do love forests.  I find them mystical and awesome and I can’t think of anything more fun than losing myself in one.  Well, that’s not quite true.  I’m not Snow White and there would be no Bambi or Thumper rushing to my aid if I got lost in one.  I’m more like Red Riding Hood with her bad friendship choices and dodgy hoodies.  But they are enchanting places to explore.  I spent many an idle childhood hour in the woods building imaginary tree-houses or making endless daisy chains.  Or I’d be chasing Faeries and hunting for witches.   The imagination at its unburdened best and not an XBox or iPod in sight.  Sigh.

Anyway, enough of the wistfulness, the good guys at WWF have a campaign running which asks the question . . . ‘If you knew where your wood came from: What wood you choose?’

Facts are that approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of  illegal timber and wood products are imported into the UK every year and it doesn’t need me to tell you that these statistics have a significantly detrimental impact on forests, species, habitats and wildlife.  And it threatens the livelihoods of people from some of the worlds poorest communities.

Most people are aware of the Fair Trade campaign and no-one can argue that buying our food ethically whenever we can is beneficial and good but we seem not to think as much about where our non-food items are sourced – everyday items such as paper and loo roll, not forgetting bigger things such as decking, flooring and furniture.

Basically, illegal logging is having a devastating effect on people and wildlife and is contributing to the decline of endgangered species.  While we continue to buy products that have been illegally sourced, the deforestation, destruction and exploitation will continue.

As WWF states, you don’t have to stop buying timber products.  Wood that has been harvested and managed responsibly is a renewable and sustainable resource that can help support the forests, the wildlife and the communities that depend on them. All we need to do is look for the FSC logo on the product we are buying.   Simple as that.

[Click the logos for more info]

To Kindle or not to Kindle?

I’ve been wondering recently whether to put a Kindle on my birthday wish list.  It’s not my birthday yet folks so don’t panic but you have to realise that in my house I have to start dropping the hints early-on and at regular intervals so they become fixed into the minds of all my family because that way there’s a tiny, teeny chance that I’ll get at least one thing that I want.  Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Anyway, these kindle things.  They’re popping up in more and more places.  Every time I go into the rest room at work I see yet another colleague with lunch in one hand, kindle in the other.  And at swimming club, the bloke who sits next to me has one.  My friend bought one recently too because she says they’re great for taking on holiday and I have to say, that’s probably the biggest advantage.  It must be nice to read a book by the pool or on the beach without said book falling apart due to sand, beer,  salt-water, tequila’s, sun-cream, ice-cream, wine etc. getting all over it.

So Book or Kindle?  Let’s see . . .

• Convenience – the holiday thing as mentioned above.  But at least you can share books.  I suspect that not many people would be prepared to lend out their Kindles.  You finish one book on holiday and then you lend it to your friend/sister/whoever and they lend you one back that they’ve just finished.  And there are book shelves in most hotels anyway where visitors take and leave books so you needn’t really take any books with you unless there’s a particular book you want to read.
• Takes up less space.  Yes, but my book shelf wouldn’t look half as homely with one little kindle sat there instead of my musty collection of books.  In fact it would look really quite lonely.
• Much easier to read in bed.  Got me there.  I find it really hard to hold my book when I’m led in bed, especially if it’s a large book or a hard-back.  I just can’t get comfy and my wrists start to ache after a while from trying to keep the book open with my thumb.
• E-books are cheaper.  Yes but it would take a lot of e-book purchases to cancel out the initial cost of the Kindle.  In any case, there are second-hand book shops.  Used books are cheap.  And what about the little corner book shops?  Amazon, on-line Waterstones and what-not have already started to cripple the independents.  How can they ever hope to compete with a Kindle.  And there are the public libraries.  Oh, erm Gideon and Cammy-boy are getting rid of those aren’t they.  Well the central libraries will still be there (I think. Hope).  I can’t see those libraries lending out Kindles although I’m sure there will come a time when libraries are lending out e-books.
• Kindles make great gifts.  Well that depends on how much you want to spend.  I often buy books as gifts for friends and family.  I love buying people books for their birthday.  It’s  so easy.  You just choose something that’s appropriate to their views or personality and they love that you’ve given them something so thoughtful.  And I love the ritual of writing a witty, personal message on the inside cover then dating and signing it.  How can I do that if the Kindle replaces real books?

Well, there you go.  I think I’ve just talked myself out of abandoning the lovely, pulpy book for a Kindle.  Yes, for me there’s just something about the good, old-fashioned book that can never be replaced by electronics.  It’s the smell.  The feel.  The look.  I love my books.  And I love my beloved book shelf that displays everything I’ve read over the years – each book instantly there to refer to, talk about, hold in my hand and marvel over how much I loved it.

But . . . . wait just one cotton-picking liddle minute you silly girlie.  You’ve forgotten one crucial factor.

Yes, how could I forget the most important issue?  The impact.  THE impact.  Me, who named myself after our lovely planet and consistently banged on about the protection thereof, has recklessly failed to consider the environmental impact factor of  both the Kindle and the book!

[Please turn away now while I partake of some serious self-beratement]

So I did some research and t’would appear that although the production of one single Kindle uses up tons more energy than the production of a seemingly pure and innocent book, from hereon-in it gets much worse for the poor book.  In fact, the pulped version turns into a eco-nightmare compared to the e-book. I won’t go into detail because it hurts too much but trust me, I’m mortified.

Gutted folks.  Truly gutted.  But I have to stay true to my eco-me and so, taking all things into consideration, I have come to the decision that (sob, sniff) the books are not as kind to the environment as Kindles are and it is with the greatest of sulking begrudgement that all my future book purchases will be either used books or e-books.

When I get my Kindle that is.

Bluebells, Caves, Lakes . . . and not a lot more

Well what do you expect when we get two long weekends back-to-back and the sun shining throughout?  Nothing to do with the fact that my synapses are refusing to fire up and I can’t seem to put anything together that would be worthy of reading.  What’s that saying?  The mind is willing but the . . . erm . . . never mind.  The photo’s will have to do – taken in Rydal Water – a family favourite that we visit often over the seasons.  Although there have been some treason-like mutterings from within recently that go something like . . . not there again!  Can’t we think of somewhere different?  And that’s just the husband!  It’s mutiny I tells ya!

This and that and rather a lot more

It’s increasingly challenging for me to find the time to blog these days so it’s frustrating to say the least when there’s just so much to blog about.  For instance, George Monbiot’s nuclear-powered, shot0gun-held-to-his-head U-turn on nuclear power.  Well he must have had a shot-gun held to his head when he wrote this.  Either that or his body was taken over and possessed by an evil force from the nuclear industry.  I mean how else do you explain such an aggressive change-of-heart from someone who spent most of their life campaigning against nuclear power.  He appears to have based his newly-found affection for nuclear energy on the fact that Fukushima was hit by an earthquake and a tidal wave and didn’t cause a global catastrophe.  Oh!  He plays down his pre-Fukushima stance by describing his then views as nuclear-neutral.  Well that’s a load of tripe!  He was never nuclear-neutral.  He was blatantly anti-nuclear.  Here’s what he said a few years ago…

“…nuclear power spreads radioactive pollution, presents a target for terrorists and leaves us with waste that no government wants to handle.”

There’s loads more where that came from.  Hmph!  Bloody turn-coat.

And what about this quiet little item?  A new EU directive comes into play soon which will give more power to Big Pharma.  More power! I hear you exclaim.  I know!  Anyway, this new directive sounds ok at first glance. Indeed, but there are implications.  A EU-wide ban will be in place in a few months but from the 1st of May, hundreds of herbal remedies that have been used in the UK for decades will no longer be available to people who have been benefiting from their properties.  This of course may result in people trying to get hold of them via the Internet thus making the control of such remedies impossible . . . and there’s also the added risk that some of these Internet-acquired products will be of a much poorer quality.  It’s a big win for the pharmaceutical profiteers but let me just ask the politicians who’ve made this decision (I suspect muchly due to some sneaky hand-shaking and bribery from the drug companies) a question . . . What do you think people were doing to relieve their illnesses hundreds and hundreds of years ago?  And actually, an important thing to consider is that many herbal medicines are taken by healthy people in order to try and prevent illness.  And we all know the saying about prevention and cure.  But there’s no profit in healthy people is there.  Avaaz have a petition up here.

They’d better keep their hands off my herbal tea!!

Is there room to squeeze in a little personal message to David Cameron?  Yes?  Ooh goodie. . . .

David, do be quiet dear.  Do try to stop being such a condescending twit.  I know it’s hard to keep up the facade of nice, popular man-of-the-people but please try harder to hide your real chauvinistic, homophobic character.  We know you were only trying to be funny and clever and that, but you’re not funny and clever.  You’re witless and boring so do hush up.  Oh and David dear, please try to keep that arrogant, snot-faced, creepy little chancellor of yours under control.  His sneering, giggly, immature face is really making me want to vomit bucket-loads each and every time I see it.  Thank you dear.

Speaking of the patronising Cameron, I’m taking bets on how long after the Royal wedding will it be before Shallow Cam starts using the happiness of the event to spin his ideological visions for Britain.

And to finish, I’ll pop up a picture or two, just to keep the place alive, barely, but alive just the same.  Oh and I’ve sneaked a little video in at the end – a party political broadcast of the Green variety.  Go on – vote for the Green party.  You know you want to.

My middlie taking part in the May Pole dancing for St. George’s day.  So there, BNP.  You can stop spreading the myth that celebrating Englishness is being outlawed.

Bolton Abbey Priory.  I took that picture with my broken little Nikon Coolpix L22.  Impressed?  I am.

ALUNA

It’s getting to be that every time  I switch on the news, I’m closer to believing the Mayan 2012 prediction.  We appear to have seriously evoked the wrath of the gods and it’s all starting to feel a bit doomsday. Of course I don’t really believe all that.  I mean I’ve lost count of all the Armageddons that have been prophesied thus far but there’s no denying that the news is grim and while I say I don’t believe in prophecy, I do feel strongly that, as the masters of our own destruction, it’s not really that hard to predict some of the things that may happen.  I was thus intrigued when I read about the Kogi, a lost civilisation living in the mountains close to the Colombian/Carribean coast who live in harmony with nature and believe we are heading for a disaster of our own making and, as natural guardians of Mother Earth, they are making a (second) movie to tell us how we can still prevent it.

[Thanks Ecomonkey]

From the movie website:

The People

The Kogi are the last surviving civilization from the world of the Inca and Aztec, and their cities are untouched by our world. The mountain they inhabit is an isolated triangular pyramid rising over 18,000 feet from the sea, the highest coastal mountain on earth. It is on a separate tectonic plate from the Andes, and its unique structure means that it is virtually a miniature version of the planet, with all the world’s climates represented. The mountain is quite literally a micro-cosmos, a mirror of the planet on which every ecological zone is represented and in which most of the plants and animals of the planet can find homes.

The Message

The Kogi are profoundly frightened by what we are doing to the world, but also well aware that we have no understanding of the forces which we are unleashing. They believe that the only hope of survival for mankind is if we can learn why they are so scared, and they know that we will only believe what we can see.

The Movie

The Kogi say that without thought, nothing could exist. This is a problem, because we are not just plundering the world, we are dumbing it down, destroying both the physical structure and the thought underpinning existence. The Kogi believe that they live in order to care for the world and keep its natural order functioning, but they recognized some years ago that this task was being made impossible by our mining and deforestation. In 1990 they emerged to work with Alan Ereira, making a 90-minute film for BBC1 in which they dramatically warned of our need to change course. Then they withdrew again.

But now the Kogi have summoned Alan Ereira back to say that we did not actually listen to what they said. We are incapable of being changed by being spoken to. They now understand that we learn through our eyes, not our ears. In the face of the approaching apocalypse, they have asked Ereira to make a film with them which will take the audience on a perilous journey into the mysteries of their sacred places to change our understanding of reality.

This is not a work of fiction. ARE YOU READY TO BE CHANGED?

http://vimeo.com/20644411

Weekend!

Have I really been away for that long?  What happened to February?  And March!  March downright sneaked right by me without so much as a wave or a by-your-leave.  Well technically March hasn’t gone yet but it’s almost the end of another month.  Time really does fly.

Well anyway . . . how are you?  T’as been a while.

And, making every effort to avoid the doomsday talk, it’s been quite a weekend folks.

We had that lunar perigee and would you know it, it even came with a full moon – and a clear night!  Who the heck planned that?  Not me that’s for sure.  In all honesty, although it was all very pretty and enchanting, I didn’t notice old Mr. Moon looking any closer than he does any other night but then, as  my wise son told me, if we looked at the moon sans perigee and compared it to the perigee (a kind of ‘before and after’ picture) then I’m sure we’d see a difference.

Moving on -

Drum roll if you please . . . England went and won the Six Nations which of course is just as it should be.  And then – even bigger drum roll ( and hey, let’s add huge trumpet fanfare . . . . . . . . . . . me laddie scored the winning try at Sunday’s game in the local rugby tournament.  He also came off the pitch sporting a lovely swollen and bruised cheekbone but, being the roughy-toughy, steely-eyed boy that he is, my concerns were abruptly (not to mention disgustedly) rejected.  [Note to self: must stop calling him me laddie, especially in front of his rugby buddies].

Then we spent some time cabbaging on the sofa with the TV on, mostly Tracy Beaker (yes, you heard! Well he’s a big softie at home).  Tracy Beaker is a childrens TV show based on Jaqueline Wilson’s series of books all about a childrens care home.  Well after watching a couple of back-to-back episodes me laddie (sorry, old habits and all that) now thinks I should put him into care because apparently kids in care have much more fun that he does.  Well that may be so if all care workers were like the ones in Tracy Beaker, and it has to be said, the ones in Tracy Beaker are pretty cool and fantastic, but they are actors – with written lines and stage props and stuff.  And the sad reality is (and to our  great shame my friends) that we are failing our children in care.

And on that note, before I pour out a torrential rant, it’s ta ra for now.  My comeback has gone back and there’s no telling when it will come back again so in the meantime I’ll leave you with this timely little video by the very lovely  . . . .

Erm, it’s been a while . . .

T’is rather hard to know where or how to start when one has been so ludicrously absent from blogs and the posting thereof but I shall give it a go, somewhat sheepishly but hey ho.  No. Actually.  Forget the sheep.  I think I’ll start true to form – with a rant.  Here goes . . .

Yule Tide

Another Christmas has been and gone and I made the same mistakes.  Every year, no matter how much I try to resist, I fall under the spell of consumerism.  Not obscenely so but enough to make for some serious self-berating.  I argue with myself and finger wag at my kids that we’re cutting back this year . . .  don’t expect so much because I really mean it this time!!! . . . but Captain Capitalism always manages to bewitch me at Christmas and forces me to buy all kinds of crap that no-one really needs (and probably doesn’t even want that much if truth be told).  The food wastage alone is a sin of biblical proportions but it’s the whole Xmas package (and packaging!) that gets so mental.  Well what’s done is done.  I tried to be as green and as ethical as possible but if I’m honest I failed on more levels than I care to admit.  Anyhoo, here are some UK Christmas eco-facts:

• Every year some one billion cards are used and only a fraction of them are recycled.
• Almost 3000 tonnes of aluminium foil is used to wrap around the 10 million turkeys we eat every Christmas.
• Almost half of the toys given will be broken or discarded within three months and because most of them will be plastic, they will be destined straight for our delightful landfill sites.
• Approximately 23 million jars of pickles, mincemeat and cranberry sauce will be consumed. If all these glass jars were recycled, it would save enough energy to boil water for 60 million cups of tea but alas only a small percentage are recycled.
• Over 83 square km of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey
• [End of rant]

Winterval

The snow queen visited her lovely self upon us for the second year running (well I know we’ve had snow other years but not with any intensity worth mentioning).  T’was another beautiful Winterval with some delightful bright snowy days and our enchanting moon providing some gorgeous nights with its orange silveryness above us (I know. Just use your imagination).  I sometimes find myself wishing I had a really good camera that would do justice to some of the moons I’ve enjoyed this Autumn/Winter.  Mind you, a proper, decent camera would be wasted on the likes of me so my little Nikon will suffice for my limited technical knowledge.  I don’t even use that to it’s full capacity . . . and I dropped it once so now an elastic band keeps the battery cover closed.  I’m really rubbish sometimes. Anyway, some piccies:

Comfort and Joy

Lovely Middlie provided the joy by dancing in the local theatre panto again and of course she was brilliant.  This year it was Mother Goose and it was hilarious.  And in a rare, out-of-character moment, I was actually organised enough to book tickets early enough to get the comfy seats with optimal viewing.

And finally:

The best thing about 2011 is going to be

England lifting the rugby world cup on my rugby-mad son’s 12th birthday.  Yay!

Well that wasn’t so bad.  TTFN folks.

Of Camping and Being Jane

After last year’s fantabulous once-in-a-lifetime holiday in the Caribbean, this year we decided to keep our carbon footprint low and go camping.  It was a bit of a mixed bag of unplannedness and camp-impromptu –  ie – destination wherever and accommodation largely unknown.

And it so happened that Grizdale Forest benefited from our presence at one point because that’s where Go Ape is located.  If you’ve never heard of Go Ape, it’s basically a tree-top assault course involving stupidly high-altitudes and lot’s of crazy tree-swinging.  (If you thought I was a tree hugger before, you should have seen how I clung to those trees in Grizedale!!).

Grizedale Forest is a lovely area with enchanting sculpture trails and several mountain bike routes but it’s a bit too manufactured for our off-the-beaten-track tastes so we don’t visit often.  They also hold two motor rally’s each year which I find a bit odd.  I mean they spend all year preserving and maintaining its beauty and promoting eco-values yet they allow rally cars to fly around the place twice a year which must surely have a substantial environmental impact.  Can’t quite get my head round that one.  I did argue with myself about my own possible hypocrisy in that I’ve just taken part in a tourist attraction there involving hair-raising zip-wires and metal ropes wrapped around trees and loony humans swinging from them but there’s really no comparison.  GoApe is as carbon-neutral an activity as it gets and it’s got to be less of an impact than all those highly-polluting, energy-guzzling over-populated, corporate theme parks that appear on every spare bit of land the Western world has left – if Walmart didn’t get there first.

Anyway, that’s the whys and the wherefores out of the way,  the activity – I was terrified all the way, not least because they leave you – the instructors – they leave you to do the courses alone – all five of them!  After a forty minute training session they just leave you.  I couldn’t believe it.  They give you a whistle and tell you to blow it hard five times in an emergency and that’s it.  They stay on the ground while you’re climbing up huge trees and swinging over huge forests.  But they tell me that’s the point, that it’s all about personal responsibility skills, safety, building self-confidence, conquering fears etc..  Hmm.

Well I survived.  I don’t remember when I stopped trying to guess how many feet above sea level we were and I don’t know at what point it was that my legs stopped pretending to be jelly.  It just seemed easier after a while to simply numb my mind and throw myself into it in a ‘what-the-hell’  all or nothing kind of way.

And I can say with some relief and a not-so-small smidging of personal pride, that we completed all five courses.  We even opted for the ‘extreme’  extreme route on the final leg.  Well to be honest, I was all set to ignore the ‘extreme’ extreme route and turn the other other way towards relative safety.  I’d just about had enough hair-raising adventure by then and no longer wanted to play Jane.  But they wouldn’t let me.  My family, they turned against me, said something about me coming this far and regretting it if I chickened out now.  So I was press-ganged onto the final cliff-edge experience.  Well it was just a Tarzan swing really but with a huge drop.  And it was brilliant.  Totally exhilarating.

But I will just whisper (quietly, between you and me) that the cocky, arrogant fella in the group behind us, the one who tutted impatiently when I froze on the first baby Tarzan swing and sighed patronisingly when I got my boot stuck in the net –  yes, him . . .  he took the easy route.

One enlightening and slightly disconcerting thing I discovered is that my kids have no fear whatsoever.  Gulp.

In all honesty, although I loved the whole experience, I’m still not sure how I feel about GoApe in terms of its impact on nature.  The trees must surely take some bashing.  And the wildlife – the birds, the squirrels, the bats – I’d hate to think they’d been forced to flee from their own habitat for the sake of us humans and our endless search for bigger and crazier kicks.

So I’m going to have to do some research . . . in the hope of appeasing my conscience of course.

Dalai Lama’s Current Facebook Status . . .

Just as we should cultivate more gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment.

Who can argue with that?