I would just like to take this opportunity to wish all bloggers and readers a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.  May all your assignments be in on time and all your marks high.  Merry Christmas everyone!!

Black Friday

So the annual glut fest begins in earnest, as if we weren’t gorging enough with Christmas, we now have the cultural imposition of another Americanism, Black Friday, where you get to see humanity reduced by the brainwashing of the media and the capitalist system into a spending frenzy, buying stuff they don’t need and if they really sat down and thought about it, would realise they probably don’t want either.

It kills me to see human beings brought down into acting like rats fighting over the scraps from the bin, and for what?  A bargain buy, another piece of stuff to fill the house with, as if we didn’t have enough already.  At the end of the day, are you really any happier with the latest iPhone, has the quality of your life suddenly improved because you can now download your apps a little quicker?  (I don’t even know if that’s correct, I have a very basic mobile, I don’t have an app to my name)  It’s heart-breaking to see how many people fall time and again for all this nonsense, it seems as if the whole world is brain-dead.  When did we all become fashion victims?  When did we stop thinking for ourselves?  Are we all so desperate to feel ‘accepted’ that we have to follow like sheep to the next ‘big thing’.  Social acceptance is like a cancer in our minds, and who are we all trying to impress? 

Why does anyone give a damn what anyone thinks about them?  No one else is living your life but you, so why does some stranger’s opinion matter?  And really, if you need certain stuff to fit in with whoever, maybe you should re-think who your friends are and start connecting with people who accept you for who you are, preferably without the need for all the stuff! 

Because that’s what this is all about, the judgement of others.  There was never a time when human beings were subjected to the ‘tyranny’ of public opinion more so than they are now.  We watch week in and week out, programmes like the X Factor and those crap shows Channel 4 specialises in about people on benefits.  Watching the news tonight, didn’t the media just love it, watching the scraps for crap!  They point the finger in condemnation, like the Tories and their self-righteous pillaring of the poor and unemployed.  Let the self-righteous point the finger when they haven’t been party to encouraging the whole sorry spectacle to begin with.

Immediately after the news story on Black Friday was an item about Ebola in Sierra Leone, here is a country in crisis and people living in the most appalling poverty.  We have so much here and still we’re brain-washed into wanting more, more, more!

If we are into adopting Americanisms, then let’s try this one, let’s adopt the habits of the original Americans, let’s take only what we need from the earth, let’s re-build our communities (tribes) and look out for each other, let’s take care of our people and our environment and let’s stop with the competition.  Instead of working to out-do each other, let’s work together and support each other and let’s work to make sure that every human being has access to the things that really matter, like food, clean water, a decent and safe place to live, health care and education.  Then maybe, at some point in the future if you really have to go shopping, you can go knowing that in your community, there isn’t a child or older person going without or feeling lonely or that out in the world, there isn’t another human being sleeping on the streets or dying from the want of some of the basics in life that we all take for granted.

I'm off to see the God of Rock tonight, what do you mean 'Bruce Springsteen', Who said that??  Wash your mouth out.....No, there is only one God of Rock and that is Robert Plant, playing tonight in Belfast, so looking forward to this.

Saw another great group last night, Leila Jane and Calamity Gin, I know Leila from our drama group but she is now an university in Northumberland and making a name for herself in music.  I expect to see her on Jules Holland in the not too distant future.  So, keep an eye out for her, she is destined to be big, so if you get the chance to see her, take it, you won't regret it.

A strange thing is going on with my computer and i just wonder if anyone else has had something similar.  An 'unidentified network' keeps blocking my internet access and i can't get online, i can't get into this network and i have no idea who or what it is.  Has anyone else experienced anything like this?  The funny thing is, i am political and subscribe to various political sites but this thing appeared the same week i posted a piece on Facebook about attending a night in support of Palestine (this was a night of entertainment with a political slant, nothing too radical)  Ironically, it was organised by an Israeli guy i know, and his friend who is from Palestine.. am i being paranoid ??  Anyone any suggestions??

Just sitting watching the first love of my life on the telly, none other than Ziggy himself.  I used to have a poster on my bedroom wall which must have been taken from this concert because he had that short kimono on, i just loved it, back in the day.  Still love Bowie, always have, always will, some loves never die.

I was just checking through some of my old blog posts when i noticed 'big society' in the tags, whatever happened to Cam's 'big society'???  Anyone any ideas??  When the Tories come canvassing for the next election, maybe we should ask them?

Well, the big day arrives tomorrow and if there are any floating voters out there who are reading this and still not sure what way to vote, my suggestion is, to just go for it.  Why not?  The chance to run your own affairs, free from the yoke of Westminster, don't listen to the scare-mongers, be like the song 'Scotland the Brave'!  I've listened to all the arguments and i have found the no camp so patronising, are the Scottish people so stupid that they would be incapable of running their own country?  I don't think so!  

I love Scotland, it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and it never fails to amaze me how many people travel across the world to other places for their beauty but have never been to the Highlands, unreal!!  If you have never been, go, you have no idea what you're missing, it is stunning.

There's another myth about Scotland, I've never understood, that the Scottish people are tight with money.  I used to go over to Scotland every year for Hogmanay, and far from miserable, i found them the most generous people i ever met.  You welcomed into homes and fed and watered to your hearts content, they couldn't do enough for you.

I was thinking today about the outcome and i thought about getting up on Saturday morning and hearing that the no camp won, and i had such a sinking feeling in my stomach, but when i imagined getting up and hearing that the yes vote had triumphed, then it felt great, exciting!!  So, if there is anyone out there and still not sure, try that, sit down quietly, take a deep breath and imagine the result and see what your gut tells you, don't let fear decide it for you, let your inner wisdom speak and good luck to the people of Scotland, i wish you well in your future, it's in your hands, GO FOR IT!!

Now on a count of 3, 1 2... Oh flower of Scotland, I long to see your face again.......

Just home from finishing my exam, (DD203) it wasn't too bad but of course, driving home i remembered 3000 things i forgot to put in.  Anyway, i'm just glad it's all over after all the stresses and strains of the last 18 months. (I've had the year and half from hell and it ain't over yet) but at least i have 4 months of doing nothing but going to work, coming home and being able to read just for pleasure again.

i am going to sleep for my summer holidays this year, roll on July!

The power battle between East and West is about to be settled. The power base shifted last year over Syria when China backed Russia. If China backs Russia again just sit and watch the West hand-wring but be powerless to do anything.

The West is in decline and has been for years and the East has risen. That's why England is so anxious to keep Scotland in Britain because without it they are just one small country on an island of three. Will they still be able to keep their seat on the UN Security Council when they are no longer 'Great Britain'?  Probably not.

Did you ever have one of those days when you think, there just has to be more to life than this.  If I could live anywhere at any point in time, I would live in Dakota with the Sioux back about the 14th Century, well before the Europeans landed and wrecked the place.  It's my idea of heaven!  Clean air, clean water, pristine land and no daily grind.  Instead here I am, living in a grey concrete box, working in a windowless office with only artificial light, working to have the money to maintain a lifestyle that I don't even want, it just isn't right, not for me anyway.  My spirit yearns to be set free!!

I'll be watching Ben Fogles Wild Lives to see if there's somewhere out there I can escape to!

There’s a bit of a debate at the minute around smoking on hospital grounds which, again, like all debates usually approaches a problem from how to deal with the symptoms rather than the causes of the problem, in this case smoking. 

I used to smoke, I stopped 14 years ago, in February 2000. I had tried all the usual methods, hypnosis, nicotine patches (which were worse than smoking), none of which worked. I wasn’t a heavy smoker, I could cut it down to 3 a day but I just couldn’t manage to stop them completely. Then I came across the Alan Carr book on smoking ‘The Little Book of Quitting’ ( I had tried the bigger book, the Easy Way to Stop Smoking but found it too much). I used to carry this little book around with me and read it while waiting for buses, appointments or just when I got 10 minutes to myself. This went on for several months and then one magical day I stopped. I had been out the night before and as all smokers know, when you drink you smoke like a train,(this was back in the day when I used to drink too. My mouth felt disgusting, as if it was carpeted, I looked at the packet of cigarettes, there were about 5 left in it, and I thought to myself, ‘ I am never going to put one of those disgusting things back in my mouth again’. I threw the packet in the bin and that was the end of that.

The amazing thing about this is that it was during one of the most stressful periods in my life. My marriage had ended (I had left the marital home in January) so I was homeless, jobless, broke, with 3 teenagers in tow and 4 year old! I didn’t put on any excess weight either, I even managed to lose about 10lbs of extra weight that I was carrying, not to mention the 150lbs of dead weight I dropped from leaving the marriage!!

So, if anyone is thinking about stopping smoking, I would recommend this little book. Now, the only thing you have to be aware of, is that someday you may have an emotional outpouring because smoking is another of those methods that people use to ‘suck’ down their emotions so you will find that you will be a bit more emotional for a while but this will settle down. Just remember, feelings are just feelings, and no one ever died from a feeling, if you just realise this and sit with it, it will pass.  Just have a good cry!  It’ll do wonders for you.

Now if any government was serious about stopping smoking, here’s a suggestion which would wipe out smoking within a generation or at the very least reduce it drastically.

The legal age to buy cigarettes is 16, starting from next year, raise the age to 17, and the year after to 18 and keep raising the age every year until it reaches 25, because most people start smoking as teenagers but if they can’t buy cigarettes until they are 25, there’s a very high probability that they will never start.  Simple.

As usual, all comments are welcome. 

Watching Secrets of the Workhouse last night, I was struck by how the rhetoric of the Victorians in relation to the poor is exactly the same rhetoric employed by the present Government in relation to the poor and people on benefits.

Which just goes to show how completely out of date Cameron and Co are.

Reading the New Statesman last weekend,(for week 7-13 June, I'm a bit behind at the moment) I was reading a John Pilger article about feminism and austerity and I came across the story of Stephanie Bottrill, a disabled grand-mother who committed suicide out of despair over the 'bedroom tax'.  I would ask people to check it out on-line and sign the petition calling for the resignation of Ian Duncan Smith, it's on Change.org.  This so-called bedroom tax isn't a tax, it's  a welfare cut and the Lib Dems should be ashamed of themselves for letting this through Parliament.

These people have no idea how the rest of us live. Roll on the next election, it can't come quick enough!