I am just beginning to realise how close I am getting to going around the planet. A bit of a shock for someone who doesn't even like getting into cars unless it seems absolutely necessary.

Planes! Several planes - through a war zone!

Perhaps this is really the last fling, before settling down to going no further than I can walk...like a good peasant, and timeless human.
One last extravagant gesture. Of course, the average worker in the UK expects a couple of weeks every year in a sunny place nowadays...so I am actually the old stick-in -the mud. Yet I work with people who remember going to Greece in 1971 and not liking all that foreign language and changing of money. And I thought 1986 was a long time ago for travelling off the island.

But then again, when I went to The USA [between 1969 -71, and again, briefly, in 1986] I suddenly realised that being a big country, with travelling an essential part of the culture, and plenty of wealth, doesn't mean that people ever leave their own culture. So many Americans who don't even have a passport. Amazing.

Apparently the Gig raised about £4000 for the Red Cross. That's got to be good.

It would have been the birthday of my much beloved friend Mick Swain [now in another dimension] on Friday, and it will be W.C.Fields' birthday on the 29th. I don't really DO birthdays myself [much to the annoyance of people who do], but I try to make an effort sometimes.

My own is coming up, and will [hopefully] be spent on the far side of the planet...just for the hell of it.

As Fields wrote to one of HIS friends, however, 'If you keep on having these birthdays, you're going to die.....'

Or, even better [if you can hear the voice in your head] 'It's a funny old world, a man's lucky to get out of it alive...'

Last night a lot of artists donated their services free for a fund raiser for the Red Cross in Afghanistan....local bands like Doofer, Captain Paranoid and the Delusions and Talkshow where excellent; I enjoyed Flannel from Brighton. We also had a DJ set from two of Alabama Three, and a guy from the Super Furry Animals. The dance troupe Neutrino did a piece, and members of the circus could be found juggling and stilt-walking in the crowd.

I have no idea how much money might be raised, after paying for the hall, etc - but it was a great little mid-winter festival.

Reading Simon Louvish on The Marx Brothers.....

His W.C.Fields book is winging its way to me too....

Monday arrived, and the system was not entirely back in place. This evening I decided that I could not put off the Inland Revenue any longer - if I don't pay by the end of January, I get fined...

I decided to use an online tax calculator, and register with the e-government version of the IR. Go the whole hog. Still, at least it's pay day tomorrow, although this month the money is gone before it arrives. Only that damned cheque from my online tutor job stands between me and oblivion....and I have been waiting a month.

Ho Hum - I do have a little bit of a credit rating, now [steady job], so it's not like 4 years ago, when penniless really was PENNILESS, and I finally gave up on the show biz dream after all those years. When it's November, you have no money or credit, no work coming up, and the welfare are not interested in helping [because they said I had a 'notional income' of £118 per week!] it gets rough, especially if you've turned 50. That's how I ended up in the library.

I thought, "if I am not going to perform, then I have to either work with books or fruit and vegetables." Not being a gardener, nor wanting to get up at the crack of dawn to go to the market - it had to be books. Then it was just commercial books [shops] or non-commercial [libraries].

It was an OK decision in the circumstances. Especially as they started getting modern, and introducing other services like CD-Roms, videos, Internet access, etc. It's just so badly paid for the number of hours we do - but then, Wales is a poor relation in the UK and in Europe....and the Library Service [being non-profit making] is the poor relation in political circles. So that side of my life has remained the same....

And here I am at the library on a Saturday. The Council workers, integrating the systems, told us at 4.30 yesterday that they were taking the system down today, at lunchtime.

Of course, politicians have the weekend off, and Saturday [for a library] is our busiest day! We were told so late that my department boss is away, and I have just returned from an optician's appointment...

Now I sit here with my fingers crossed that they don't take longer than necessary to get the system working....otherwise, in half an hour, my phone is going to jump off the hook, as 16 branch libraries come back from lunch, and can't log back in!

We are lucky here, at the Central Library, because we are still on our reliable old private, exclusive network....but that will not be true for much longer. We are just going to have to train them to remember us / and our opening hours / before they tackly changes to the system in the future.

Gotta go - try it all again...of course, I can't contact them, BECAUSE THE SYSTEM IS DOWN. Don't you love it. :-(

It's a hard time for computers. Blogger has got a very slow server at the moment, so you can't always publish on the spur of the moment; one of my webmails at www.postmaster.co.uk has got spam/viurs/hacker problems [I am not sure which] which means email is not getting through; now my ISP has trouble with it's email, so I can sometimes Send, and sometimes not.

I won't even mention my job - moving an old but functional network [for just the library service] into a highspeed connection, integrated with the rest of the Council network, all during working days - and trying to keep the level of service up....all for peanuts [no I won't say what kind of low pay library people get in Wales, suffice to say it is well below what is considered a minimum wage in the rest of Europe. Hey Ho. It's OK so long as I am learning something new.........

Howling Wolf

spoken: Man, you know I've enjoyin' things that kings and queens will never have
In fact, things kings and queens can't never get
And they don't even know about it
And good times? mmmmmmmmm-mmmh)

I have had my fun, if I never get well no more
I have had my fun, if I never get well no more
Whoa, my health is fadin'
Oh yes, I'm goin' down slow

(spoken: Now looky here
I did not say I was a millionaire
But I said I have spent more money than a millionaire
'Cause if I had kept all of the money I had already spent,
I'd would have been a millionaire a long time ago
And women? Well, Googly Moogly)

Please write my mama
Tell her the shape I'm in
Please write my mama
Tell her the shape I'm in
Tell her pray for me
Forgive me for my sins

Blues Lyrics Site

I have been neglecting this blog slightly. I have been busy as an online tutor for the library staff, and my health hasn't been great [and it's mid-winter over here, let's face it!]

I was trying to find the best way to use the [very limited] holiday allocation which the library gives me [as a relatively new member of staff], and messed up. A series of events, choices, hesitations and misunderstandings led to my booking a place at the Juggling Festival in Hawaii, when my partner would not be able to free up enough time to join me. Doh!

I have tried to go to this event for 15 years or so. My son and his mother have been, many years back; most of my circus friends from here in Cardiff have gone at one time or another. I never have much money [especially in February] and the few times I COULD have afforded the trip I was working! I shuffled, and juggled, and figured that I could just about make it this year...and was pretty selfish to make the final impulsive decision without properly warning or consulting my partner that she would have to organise her own end of it if she wanted to come too.

I have no excuse. I was tentatively putting it all into place, trying to make it possible, still suspecting it would be another year when I would miss the boat [plane], but it was the day George Harrison died [and you might have to be my generation to care] and I knew I couldn't put it off another year..... Seize the Day!

I have been using blogs [web logs] for a while now. I have a private diary blog [which I can use for notes to myself, rants, grumbles, or whatever]; I tried a family forum blog but that didn't keep going, and now drifts in cyberspace like a ghost ship]; and this one, which is written knowing you [whoever you are] MIGHT be reading over my shoulder. It's really a notebook, however. It's not carefully written, so I might sometimes be rude, inaccurate, or indiscrete, but it's NOT AIMED AT YOU [you read it at your own risk].

I recommend signing up at www.blogger.com. You can always keep your own blog private - but it gives you access to other published blogs, so you can see what people are doing with them. You'll find exhibitionists; self-publishing artist/writers; forums; journalism [for instance during the terrible days in September last year the New York blogs gave a much more vivid account of what it was like to be there than the media did - and the online media was so swamped with demand that you couldn't get in, anyway]. The blogs got me straight there -

I think I upset a couple of people with one of my postings [so I've deleted it] but it really is supposed to be a quick update page for me to use for sketching, jotting, etc. My website is the only bit which I would consider to be 'published' - and there I try not to upset people, or mislead them.

Happy New Year [if you are using the Gregorian Calendar].

It hasn't been a great couple of weeks, what with one thing and another. I don't like the season much, anyway - I keep assuming it's about goodwill, and get sarcastic and cynical, that it seems more about greed - then suddenly it is me who is the grump, and all this jolliness and spending seems to count as near enough to real 'goodwill' for most people.

Whatever. I tried to be a bit better about it. Didn't succeed. Still, there is only the New Year's Eve 'jollities' to get through. That's on the local calendar - but I'd better not get into that rant just now. Suffice to say, it's just a Tuesday to me. And even that is ludicrous...what possible difference is there between the days of the week - that doesn't involve weather?

It's harder to sustain these attitudes these days. Of course it was easier when I had full control of my life in the self-employed way...Nowadays I have to pay more attention to the local mental models - and social constructs.

Is he rambling? Yes he is.

Anyway, I found the culprit software that was chewing up resources, even when not in use. And moved my Swap file around to speed things up. The trip to Hawaii is INSTEAD of buying a new computer (this one is two years old now), so I have to do a bit of tuning and maintenance to nurse the poor old slowcoach PC along.

Have a great time in the next few months (if you can) - enjoy your festivals (whatever your beliefs) - and goodwill and best wishes from a freethinker to all people with kindness in their hearts. Take Care out there.

It has been a long time since I posted. I don't know quite why. Winter blues, being busy, the desire to hibernate [my version of S.A.D.] and various other elements of my life.

The chronic pain business is still getting me down - and now it's that miserable season of goodwill. Oh sorry, I mean I quite like the idea of goodwill to all, and generosity to others - but I hate the quasi-religion, the commercialism, the sentimentality, the Saturnalia [now known as the office party] - the fact that poverty feels worse at Christmas, just as homelessness does [especially with all the mortgage owners going on about being born in a barn], and the drink driving goes up [and death of a loved one feels worse at Xmas, too.]

So, have a good time. Personally all I can do is grit my teeth and get through it one more time. The only time I spare a moment to notice it isn't just any old Tuesday will be when I raise a glass to W.C.Fields, the old curmudgeon who managed to die on Christmas Day.

Here's to Bill.

It's funny how I was getting into doing a diary, once I found the way to add links, and pictures, and lost interest after ntl blocked the use of the Blogger on the website.

Another fortnight gone, the weather is getting very cold in the UK; the war drags on; this week the computers have gone down in the library several times (different reasons!) and we are not a popular department - and I realise how little I know. I don't even have anything to add to this right now - I am getting behind with answering emails, my library students are getting fed up with an erratic service (while they are studying)....boy, it's that winter blues hit coming in low from the East..............

Well, some time elapsed since the last posting. I've been busy. Put some more RAM in my elderly machine today, and some things seem to go faster.

Sorry to the guys waiting for signed stuff - it's been hectic, and I WILL do it soon. Honest.

Hello to any of the library 'tutees' who come wandering out here to see what their tutor is REALLY like.

Got an email from Kym Kaos, which is always a joy.

I also got an email from Andy, who I signed stuff for earlier this year, in a package of Jabba the Hutt autographs I did. He is doing drawings that he would like signed - which is both an honour AND a responsibility (as artwork finds its fragile way throught the snail mail system and back).

Hi Andy, I'll do what I can! Andy

Great days! (daze?)

I put 'Jeremy Gordon' into a search engine, yesterday, and found a site with his paintings. I printed one or two out to show for friends. Then I emailed Tom (his son), who today answered from London (I thought they were all in Oz) but said he would pass on my nostalgic contact.

Jeremy Gordon artwork

Hi Mo and Jeremy and Tom!

You will notice that I have got into a rather religious mode - which is fairly odd for a man who is not 'religious' in the least. I have no faith, I have no answers. I can fully accept that nature could generate all this complexity unaided (it doesn't need a designer) - we may not understand it all, but Darwinism, Chaos Theory, Quantum Mechanics and other beautiful thoughts between them hint at how complexity emerges from simple elements. And as I don't really believe in Alpha and Omega (beginnings and endings) I am perfectly happy with the idea of an endless universe, whether it is expanding and contracting (breathing in and out) or unfolding, or whatever.

Some of the truly great old religions know full well that the whole thing is cyclic (Taoism, Hinduism) and mysterious. After all, is it really here at all? Once you consider consciousness, you HAVE to try to get back to the roots of any illusions we may be under.
The Universe is beginning to look more and more like a great thought.

And this is where we are a very young civilization, with an adolescent religion. Hence the pushiness and the certainty.

As I get older I become more reconciled to the fact that the world is a beautiful mystery. Nature is wonderful. Magic is alive.

I no longer look for the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

"ACCEPT THE MYSTERY"

Oh, just in case you think I am taking stuff out-of-context [the traditional game for priests], what else CAN this mean?

Matthew 5:38-48
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. 43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

It sems pretty clear to me. Don't lower yourself to their level. Continue to live well, to act kindly, and leave any retribution or punishment to 'God' [or karma, if you are one of those Hippies who grabbed a few Hindu concepts....] Feed the poor and the desperate and any power the tyrants have over them will wither away.... Indifference is a far more insulting response (turning the other cheek doesn't seem 'meek and mild' to me, it seems more like "Is that all you've got?")

I am glad to say I have a lot of resources here at the library. I came across a copy of The New Humanist (which is what reminded me about the Bamiyan Buddhas) - and reading that (just like reading The Freethinker) brought up my usual thought that it is religions that cause most of the problems. All these so-called religious people seem to think they 'have God on their side'. Indeed, everyone thinks Their God is the one true god.

I was not indoctrinated when I was a child, so I have never 'lost my faith' in a religion. I never had one. And I have never been tempted, as they do not appeal to me. This doesn't mean I haven't studied them. I've read the whole Bible, for instance, which is more than many Christians could say. In the process I came across the fact that the Old Testament IS the Jewish Torah. These religions are intertwined (and so is Islam). They are all People of the Book.

They are all working from the same book/stories, which are, apparently, the Literal Word of God, and yet they all come to different conclusions. This seems far more blasphemous than anything I say. They seem to say (as Bill Hicks so beautifully satirized it) "I think what God meant to say was....."

Take, for instance "RESIST NOT EVIL" (Matthew 5:39). This is the famous 'turning the other cheek' passage. What does this actually mean? It appears to mean that we shouldn't fight back or we become as evil as those we resist. Does this sound familiar - as we terrorize innocent Afghan people? Of course it is hard not to escalate things by responding in kind; it is hard to forgive, rather than 'pay people back' [Look at the so-called Christian communities in Ireland who have been fighting for centuries].

It is precisely because it is hard that it was originally a radical thought. This is why Ghandi and Martin Luther King and other non-violent protestors were so unusual, and so effective. It is teaching by doing; setting an example, rather than trying to bully others; waiting for others to come around to a new way of doing things, rather than becoming just another tyrant revolutionary.....and replacing the people you overthrew.