So damned tired. It is hard to care, when it seems so very late, when resisting seems so very futile. This is what those determined to kill us all (they see it differently, obvs) want. They want us to desert the field. It's so much easier for them, then. There’s a quote from near the... Continue Reading →
Several days catch-up. Sigh.
Intentions versus self-discipline - story of my life. Almost everyone's life, I guess. The key things are to be realistic and routinised. So, I will try to do this catch up of the last few days and then do a daily blog post, because I said I wanted to, and I DID (and do) want... Continue Reading →
Quarantine Day 11 (delayed): The brain fog thickens
Before I left England, a thousand years ago, I was beginning to realise that there is a societal covid brain fog thing going on, whether you had had the damn virus or not. Everyone just getting hazy, crazy etc. Well, from that baseline, I suppose I should be compassionate towards myself, and 11 days without... Continue Reading →
Brain Fog and pushing wet spaghetti uphill #MovementNonBuilding
It's properly Sisyphean, isn't it? Only, you don't even get the damn "thing" to the top of the hill before it rolls down again. I am writing in this context- am trying, with colleagues, to do some "services to the movement" (yes, that is as pompous as it sounds) around a) skillshare evenings where people... Continue Reading →
Books I definitely didn’t buy in Bristol and why I bought them
Was down in Bristol on Friday 15th. I lived there for three and a half years back in the second half of the '90s, before coming to the best city in the world. Here's a table of all the books I definitely didn't buy in charity shops (mostly up Stokes Croft Road), how much I... Continue Reading →
De-lardification. Milestone: 20 percent of my initial body weight gone… more to come?
Well, the fry-up was bloody fantastic. Here's a pic. This was my reward for getting under 120kg. There's a few milestones in that. One is having lost 30kg - 20 per cent of my initial body weight (150kg in October 2019, which meant I was morbidly obese). Apparently losing 20% of your body weight is... Continue Reading →
George Whitman of Shakespeare and Company
A long long time ago (okay, 1988) I stayed at Shakespeare and Co as one of the tumbleweeds. One of my abiding memories is as pillion passenger on George Whitman's motorbike as we went to somewhere in a posh arrondisement for - well, it may have been bookbuying? Anyway, my life flashed before me once... Continue Reading →
The emotional labour that “the Other” is forced to do… #AbsolutionServicesSyndrome
It must be seriously exhausting being on the receiving end of patriarchy, white supremacy, classism etc. It must take up insane amounts of mental energy, dealing with the daily insults, microaggressions, threats to physical safety etc. It's what Toni Morrison says about distraction.- “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps... Continue Reading →
(De)fibbing about Glasgow. More hamster-wheel nonsense for the UK #climate “movement”
The Glasgow thing is starting already. COP26, the international climate meeting that was supposed to take place in November 2020 but will now - perhaps- happen in November 2021- has changed its meaning from "magnet that will get all the iron fillings pointing in the same direction" (see this December 2019 blog post) to a... Continue Reading →
Letter to MEN: Stuck on island with disaster capitalists
Letter in the Manchester Evening News- Bill Flynn's excellent letter ('Nothing new in risk to rights of workers', Viewpoints, MEN, 2nd January) gives a compelling and enraging account of the way workers' rights have been eroded over the last 40 years.Thanks to the first-past-the-post voting system and the ownership of the mass media by billionaire... Continue Reading →