3 Pepper - Year 44 p.r.S.P.
Well, well, well...that was a longer break than I originally intended. I'm the 'Rip Van Winkle' of blogging, I suppose.
What's been happening? World-wise, too much! Let's see...apparently a 'royal wedding' took place...everyone went "ooh" and "ahh" and dug out their Union flags and the BBC turned into "The Wedding Channel" for the day. Oh yeah, and the police arrested possible demonstrators for "pre-crime". That's right - it was like a shit version of Minority Report. Ah well, the young'uns got hitched and we're all the better for it....or something.
Osama bin Laden....remember that guy? You do? Cool, well, get this...he wasn't hiding in caves on the Afghan/Pakistan border at all. Yep, turns out he was living in Pakistan, right near a military compound. Who'd a thunk it?? So the U.S special forces saddled up and popped a cap in his ass...or that's what we were told, anyway. Alternate theories sprung up like weeds in an abandoned garden...he really died in 2002, the guy they got wasn't bin Laden..and on and on. While it's tempting to believe those theories as "The Truth" (tm), or even Barack's version--I remain agnostic as possible. With gubberment activities even more shrouded than in the late 1960s/early 1970s, who can honestly say what went down. All I know is, that now there'll be closure to the Sept. 11th attacks....AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Right...
The civil war in Libya continues on, as nutjob Gaddafi refuses to step down. Like any power-hungry jackal, he thinks it's somehow his right to torture and kill the people he 'leads'. NATO stepped in a couple of months ago and have been bombing the shit out of Tripoli and other Gaddafi strongholds...but the guy's still there. Wily as a cockroach and with as much personality, ol' Muammar has gathered his willing 'human shields' around him and is thumbing his nose at "The West" and the Arab League. Now there's talk of a ground offensive. Hmmm...seems risky to me - but hey, when there's oil to be had...well, what's another fuckload of civilian deaths matter, eh boys? Meanwhile, the arms industry is licking it's slimy chops, ready to dish out it's death machinery to anyone and everyone in the conflict. Scruples, we hardly knew ye...
Bankers remain the scourge of mostly everyone, 'cept maybe other bankers. These lads like to work hard, so y'know, they like to play hard, too. I don't know about you - but I'm so tired of these scumbags and their bailouts and scandals and their being coddled, I'm having visions of them hanging by their balls from lamp-posts. No, really. Please, please, please someone come up with alternate currencies, so these callous dickheads will be out of jobs and will have to do something useful for a change, like re-pave roads, or plant trees, or look after the elderly. I hope people finally wake up, shut the Federal Reserve and the Bank Of England and end the madness! Kudos to the chamber-maids who pressed charges on their attackers...right on, sisters!
Personal-wise, I've gone whole-hog ('scuse the phrase) and went full vegetarian. I watched the Earthlings documentary and was so sickened by what I saw, that I couldn't continue to eat animal flesh with a clear conscience. If I may say, I've been considering going veggie for some time now and "Earthlings" helped me decide. It's going well, though I keep forgetting to take vitamins in the morning, but I don't feel run-down or anything. If anything, I feel better for not eating meat. I hope I can keep going and not succumb to the temptation to eat animal flesh...it's better for me and it's better for the animals. My pal Toby Philpott made an astute observation that anyone who eats meat and doesn't kill the animal themselves can be considered a scavenger, picking carrion from a corpse like a vulture.
Had a holiday in the Lake District last month and I had a great time! Wonderful scenery and lots and lots to do. We stayed in Ambleside, a lovely village on the shore of Lake Windermere. From there, we journeyed around that bit of the District. We climbed Catbells, a large-ish fell which has a spectacular view of Derwent Water. We also visited Beatrix Potter's cottage, called Hill Top, which is near Sawrey and checked out a couple of stone circles, too. One was located on a farm which is very out-of-the-way. It's called Swinside and it's worth visiting, if you can brave the long-ish walk to get to it and the cows usually huddled around the track that leads to the circle. The other circle is Castlerigg and it's pretty amazing - it's set in a field which appears to be walled-in by the surrounding fields. The circle may be smaller that you've expecting, but the setting more than makes up for that. A trip to the Pencil Museum in Keswick was in order and it was far more interesting than I thought it would be. They've got the world's largest coloured pencil there (it's a yellow one, in case you were wondering) and a fascinating look at how pencils were developed over the years. Amongst the sight-seeing, I got to sneak in a bit of vinyl-hunting in charity shops - with the Oxfam in Keswick proving to have the best stash. I bought a copy of the UK first-press of Chicago's second album on LP, along with Steely Dan's The Royal Scam and another one I can't recall at the moment. I found some other goodies at a few other charity shops. Good times - must make another trip up there!
Update: I've nearly finished this post - the solstice has come and gone. It's summertime, not that you'd know it. There have been a couple of scorching days here, thanks to a band of warm air making it's way from Spain and Portugal. We acutally had to get the fan out one night!
