A couple of photosets of yesterdays’ wanderings. Mine, all taken with Hipstamatic on the iPhone, are mostly documents of the colleges that open their doors to the public.
Meanwhile, the last four pics in TLC’s ongoing Oxford set show some of the folk dancing that you always see in town on May Day.
And for completeness, a little video of the two styles in evidence that we came across.
I don’t know what drew me back to Blogger last night. I changed this place over to WordPress in 2007, pulling over most of the archive over in the process, and have had little cause for complaint. I barely even consider the early years. Nonetheless, I logged in, to find a surprise.
According to the Dashboard, I joined Blogger back in April 2001. Which makes this my tenth year of writing and publishing online. Good grief.
The problem is, I have no way of proving it. In a dick move that I could only ever pull on myself, The Ugly Truth is open to invited readers only. I am not on that select list. I’ve somehow managed to lock myself out of my own blog.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that I joined Blogger and began writing straight away. I have vague recollections of a couple of false starts, vague entreaties of impressive future content followed by months of silence. The Ugly Truth (named after a Matthew Sweet song, not the godawful Katherine Heigl/Gerard Butler romcom) was my first serious attempt at a blog, and was closer to a Tumblr than the polished new-content machine you enjoy today. There were a lot of links, and the occasional stab at something heartfelt. It was intermittently updated at best, and no different to a thousand other sites out there. It was, of all things, a post by Warren Ellis on the need for original content that inspired me to ditch that approach and, once Blogger no longer suited my needs, the move to WordPress under a new name.
I have no record of any of this. The earliest post in my archives dates to December 2004, which means my early attempts are lost to the aether. I’m content in this. It’s no great loss to the world of blogs.
But the Blogger years were a start, and they led me here. I think all I can say with any certainty is that April 2011 marks the ten-year anniversary of my intention to blog. And that’s got to be worth something. I suppose. Hasn’t it?
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
I’ve thought a lot over the last few days about Gimpo, Iain Sinclair and the M25. By viewing the London Orbital less as a way to get from one place to the other, and more as a space in which you can explore other, less defined territories, it can lead you on a journey where the destination becomes a sense of inner understanding.
Gimpo has often said that he wants to find out where the M25 goes. It’s a less foolish question than it sounds. His trips around the road can be very clearly seen as a vision quest, as a route into the dreamtime. Once you ignore the exits, once you shrug off the distractions, then your true path can become much clearer.
Dredged up from the archives. I wrote this a while back, as a response to some of the tired old arguments about immigration. It’s an alternative history that takes some of the history of Catholic oppression around the Elizabethan era, tied in with a worst-case scenario exploration of what might have happened if Margaret Thatcher had stayed in power. Bit of a mishmash, and there are holes big enough to sail a barge through, but the passion of the piece is genuine, and remains so.
Contains swears and intimations of concentration camp nastiness. NSFW.
Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven.
I choose to misinterpret the koan above, which might also be subject to a mistranslation. The Creative, to my mind, is the urge to create. If you tap into The Creative, then your life is irrevocably changed for the better. You access something greater than you know, and become capable of feats that are frankly astonishing. The Creative is the reason I write every day, and feel tetchy and nervous if I somehow skip the task. I am guided towards friendships and relationships with people who have also tasted the Creative: film-makers, artists, musicians. Being one with the Creative opens your eyes and heart to a bigger, brighter world.
Maybe I didn’t misinterpret master Lao after all.
I am a busy bunny today, so this is just a quick one. Comedian and all around good egg Chris Addison is putting together a Springtime playlist on Spotify that’s quickly turning into warm, sunshiny, essential listening. It’s collaborative, so any of us can contribute tracks that suit the mood. I’ve just added “Glad Girls”, my favourite Guided By Voices track. What would YOU put on to the list?
Limitless is a film that speeds you through it’s premise and plot so quickly that you don’t really have time to think about what you’re seeing. It’s a fast, slick piece of Hollywood sci-fi, and like most fast slick Hollywood sci-fi, it’s as dumb as a bag of spanners.
Great acts are made up of small deeds.
I was privileged yesterday to see half a million small deeds, coming together to make one great deed. People from all walks of life, from all strata of society, all sacrificing a day in order to make their voices heard. Many of them had begun their journey to London before the sun had risen. They would walk for miles, banging drums, blowing horns and whistles, making a glorious noise that will echo in the halls of those that consider themselves more powerful, that they know best. The five hundred thousand people that filled Piccadilly and Hyde Park yesterday disagree. I am happy to be amongst that number.
There will be attempts made to lessen the impact of the march yesterday, to call it the work of criminals and hoodlums, to point out the inevitable minor outbreaks of petty violence and call that the story. That’s not the case. You can’t silence half a million voices that easily.
I mentioned last week that I was bothered about the way the awful news from Japan in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear emergency trifecta was being reported. Turns out I’m far from the only one. The Japanese are bewildered and angry by the way the Western news media have been focussing on the drama at Fukushima to the near-exclusion of reportage on the very real and growing humanitarian crisis elsewhere. Worse, the focus, particularly on American news networks, has been to talk not about how the incident is affecting the Japanese, but how it is likely to impact on American lives.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s seen American news programmes. They are shockingly insular. Foreign news is either a sixty-second sidebar, or non-existant. The rolling news networks have had to address wider concerns as a way of filling time, but even then the coverage is one-dimensional, and astonishingly ill-informed.
Take a look at this footage of pundit and harridan Nancy Grace, arguing with a weatherman about the likely spread of a plume of Godzilla farts to the California coastline.
Danny Choo writes an informed, comprehensive and geek-friendly blog about Japanese culture, and he has been tenacious in both logging the flawed coverage, and pointing out just how skewed from the reality it can be. Images like this give the lie to the fact that the population of Japan is evacuating in a mad panic. His must-read list of the most wildly speculative bits of news coverage includes, I’m sad to say, posts from the BBC News website, whose reporters really should know better.
I am not for one instant trying to belittle what has happened to Japan. On reading around I am more and more impressed and amazed with the way the Japanese are simply getting on with their lives and the job of reconstruction in the face of disaster. They deserve better and truer representation from the world’s news media then the lazy sensationalism that appears to be the norm. These are tough times for Japan, and they don’t need this nonsense.
You can donate or get up-to-the-minute and accurate news about the events in Japan right here.
+++UPDATE+++
X&HTeam-mate Elina has pointed out to me that there’s an ever-growing list of bad reporting (including the Nancy Grace piece) up at The Journalist’s Wall Of Shame. Well worth a look. Thanks, Elina!
Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Lao Tzu has certain themes that he returns to over and again from different perspectives and viewpoints. Self-mastery is one of them. The ability to conquer your own doubts and shortcomings is a vital part of achieving enlightenment, but it is equally important in your daily life.
You can use many of his teachings as guidance while planning a tough endeavour such as running a marathon. Training is best accomplished little and often, building up slowly and carefully, aware at all times of the lessons and warnings that your body is giving you. Running is a perfect opportunity to empty your mind of worry and care; to simply be in and of the moment. It can be a deeply meditative time.
I hope that everyone who has run the Reading Half-Marathon today has succeeded in their goals, and that the experience has helped them in all the ways they hoped, and some that they never expected. I would especially like to send warm good wishes to X&HTeam-mate Paul Staples, for whom this race is just another milestone on the road to the London Marathon in May. To him, and all the other brave and noble souls joining him, may the road rise up to meet you.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 