my exciting early eve looks like this: washing on, clean laundry away, pack up sofa bed, hoover. rock on!
February 2009
70 posts
Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms
Stunningly good article on the state of Britain in today’s times from Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials etc.). He says:
The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.
“We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.
[and goes on]
We want to watch you day and night
We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you
We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people
We can see you have abandoned modesty
Some of our friends have seen to that
They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible
In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide
We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural
We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things
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“One thing we have looked at in the past, and are looking at again, is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door, so that people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny in future”
—BBC NEWS | Ryanair mulls charge for toilets
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on way home after having a couple of drinks with iain in under-the-hammer. Had a pint of the “homecoming scotland” beer. It tastes like what i imagine an american tourist visiting scotland would experience: exactly what was expected, no better no worse.
Do social networking sites harm kid's brains?
Two pieces in the Guardian (both with good links to further materials) setting out both sides of the argument, they partucularly focus on the comments made by Susan Greenfield.
For.
“I want to say thanks for coming in here with all your heart.
I want to say thanks for your optimism. It’s good to be around that.
I want to say thanks for never moaning.
I want to say thanks for always saying ‘why not?’ instead of ‘why?’
I want to say thanks for being so bloody cheerful.” —This is part of a thank you post on the howies blog. One of their staff is leaving. Its timely because tomorrow night Sue and I (with a good deal of hard work from Marion & our management group) are hosting a thank you evening for all our volunteers. I’m going to end the evening with a few words of thanks, something I don’t say enough. So thank you, to the huge team who make all the St. c’s stuff happen, & thank you to friends and family who make all the Tom stuff happen. Cheers!!
I want to say thanks for your optimism. It’s good to be around that.
I want to say thanks for never moaning.
I want to say thanks for always saying ‘why not?’ instead of ‘why?’
I want to say thanks for being so bloody cheerful.” —This is part of a thank you post on the howies blog. One of their staff is leaving. Its timely because tomorrow night Sue and I (with a good deal of hard work from Marion & our management group) are hosting a thank you evening for all our volunteers. I’m going to end the evening with a few words of thanks, something I don’t say enough. So thank you, to the huge team who make all the St. c’s stuff happen, & thank you to friends and family who make all the Tom stuff happen. Cheers!!
credit crunch induced unemployment + total lack of checkout folk at my local sainsburys (should =) everyone happy!
Its super cheesy I know but I’ve been blasting this all lunch time. http://hellotxt.com/l/EppF
only drove this morning . hopefully crack on with work stuff this afternoon.
“John Wesley said the world is my parish, but we have made the parish our world.”
—Mark Riddell says : My friend Mike Schlittler, a pastor who I worked with at a large UM church in town said this during a staff meeting and it stuck with me.
had a good morning driving now lunch club, then weekend away prep, then home, then pancakes at YF!
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