The Sight Of Two Cranes (Probably Herons Actually).

So here I am cosseted, warm and comfortable. Late again, due to flooding, on the slow train, catch whichever train I can manage when it's like this. At least it is better than last week when the entire country was brought to its knees.

I've already suppressed a violent passenger, Hog tying him with his own belt and leaving him for the guard to deal with (imagination is a wonderful thing).

Contemplated murdering a couple of pretentious little school children “my parents where so annoying me last night”. Bang. “and I so want a house party!” Bang. Single bullet, back of the head. Bang.

I'm still playing with poetry. 

The crisp eaters, paper rustlers, waiting to get a free copy of the times someone else has discarded.

Then there's last nights dream. Vivid as usual. I'm playing a king in some thing like Shakespeare don't ask me which it never becomes apparent. Just be assured this is far less than a professional production. The lead man poncing about and refusing to take direction and trying to run everything. So no change there then.

I've taken another of my obligatory beard development photos. sorry let me explain that. A while back I had a very impressive beard length, and the most frequent question asked was “how long did that take to grow?” Now that’s a bit like saying “that’s a really interesting nose you have there how long did that take to grow?” Ever so slightly nonsensicle. So as a response to this, and only because of a personal beard styling tragedy (I cut too much off it one morning in a hurry, whilst trying to tidy it up), I have set myself the task of photographing myself at regular intervals. Knowing when I had to cut the beard back drastically (almost to the date and time exactly), my hope is that when people ask the vacuous question in the future I should be able to provide a more accurate time date and exactly how long its taken and provide them a web link to the archive of photos.

As for the title of this piece. Living in Portsmouth and travelling northwards I was lucky today to see two herons (I know I've decided they weren't cranes after all, I'm no twitcher).

Technorati Tag: trains, cranes, and autombiles, beard, rant, travel, writing, meekon5.

The Day before My Paycheck Came!

Sitting in my lounge at six twenty this morning, having breakfast, listening to the inane prattle of Christian O'Connell. A man that must bring hope to the moronic, inspiration to the undereducated, and joy to the truly banal. I almost bought a copy of his recent book, but it would have meant buying a new set of coloring pens. The only reason I really listen to him is because he annoys me so much I have to leave the house to go to work just to get away from him.

The toast is dry. No butter, that ran out a few days ago, no spread that ran out last month and I forgot to get some more. Actually “No Butter!”

Who uses butter nowadays? What with all those years of the margarine fascists telling us how bad for us butter is (salt, fat, and all the other things we dearly love to eat). Actually I believe there is modern research that suggests that butter is no better or worse for you than marge, but I have the habit now so am unlikely to change back. I suppose I could have put tomato sauce on it, I still have some of that left.

The tea, made with dried skimmed milk. The semi skimmed ran out days ago. The last dregs of any squash, the water just colored not flavoured by the addition. The little heat lamp belting out light and heat to keep the room warm for a little while.

Every thing I open, or look at, I think “Must get some more of this tomorrow!”

Everything is running down, or out.

Tea (evening meal, not drink) this evening is a stew of what was left of all the last stews I have been eating for the last few weeks. Every week I just add something else to the pot, veg, beans, meat (if I'm lucky), and cook it up again. This week I added a load of sausages. I must now stop myself from picking the best bits out in the morning whilst waiting for the toast to cook, thus leaving the beans and veg slurry in the pot, to come home to.

There it is back to the toast. O'Connell, me, the heat lamp, and the toast.

I think I'll have steak for tea Friday, with a nice bottle of red wine, and may even get myself a new game or some DVD's to watch (like I need more DVD's).

The day before my pay check came.

ps. yes the title is a play on the ABBA song title (sad I know).

Technorati Tag: OC, virgin radio, absolute radio, oconnell, rant, dark, beans, pay, poor, meekon5.

Pre-Samhain Rant.

The wheel turns again, another cycle. I fell no older than I did last time. I feel no younger than before. Time passes of this I am sure, very little else seems to make sense any more.

It’s strange to read ones own words again. Though I have not posted on the blog since last June, it’s not that I’m not writing, it’s just I spend so much time at work I don’t seem to have the inclination to write for the blog that much. A shame. Perhaps it’s also the fact I am going through a period of what I can only describe as defeat. I am almost crushed in any ambition to do or say anything creative. Not intentionally, but just by the continued flux of chaos that is the company I now work for.

Part is the lack of ready money with which to pop down the pub and make little asinine comments, sometimes actually writing them down to come back to later. Part it is the almost mind numbing turnover of staff, leaving me with an almost distasteful recognition that I have been left here, behind.

Also I don’t travel to work on public transport any more, so don’t have the luxury, or time, to sit and observe. The only time I have is to work and then get home and collapse in exhaustion, suffering from a mild form of post traumatic stress disorder.

I don’t get as depressed as I used to, or perhaps don’t have the time to notice that I may be as bad but can’t afford to take the time and step back to analyse the fact that I’m feeling depressed any more (time off sick = no pay). Actually maybe in places I am more depressed because I am less able to get out of this hole I find myself in (spiritually, physically, and mentally).

If anyone wants a Forty two year old Ex SQL, Ex DBA, Ex Accountant, Ex Buddhist, Poet Artist Philosopher Anarchist Neo-Pagan who seems to have lost his way, (please drop a note here and I will get back to you eventually)?

Perhaps it’s the fact that I am now working with a workforce, the majority of which are, on average, half my age or less. I know I was an obnoxious twat when I was in my early twenties. I know I can be so now. The majority of the people I work with are fine. It’s the cumulative effect now and again, everyone thinks they know best (and I of course know better than any of them). I finish the day feeling I have been tumble dried in a vast washing machine of everyone else’s opinion.

I spend all day under the glare of vacuous day time TV from one of the major players that we all work for here. Much like Nineteen Eighty Four, the TV is on all the time in the background, grinding out drivel twenty-four-seven, interwoven with the latest must have, TV, DVD, high def, internet enabled, hair product, big Mac burger. At times I not sure the thing isn’t actually watching me back.

Perhaps it’s just the prospect of having to get my thoughts together tomorrow for a Personal development assessment.

Where do I want to go? I don’t really know. What do I want to be? By the gods they have been asking me that one since I can remember. Gone are the certainties of childhood where I was going to be a astronaut, or a mad scientist. Well one out of three isn’t bad.

There does come a time when you do eventually realise that the mothership is not actually going to come back for you. It’s then that the loneliness actually hits. Perhaps that’s the easiest way to describe properly how I feel most of the time. Like the one left behind after the rest have fled. Still recording data in the vain hope that one day they will come flying back to lift me away from the trudgingly, begrudgingly, mundane, salary man life. Until that moment I must attempt to fit in the best I can with the indigenous primitive life forms that surround me.

Gone are the nights in dingy clubs sipping on champagne at some one else’s expense. Gone are the days where I’ve smoked so much I can’t even be bothered to leave the flat (the kitchen, the chair even), just let the world flow past and around me just sitting observing. Gone are the nights where I would drink and laugh with friends until the sun comes up. Gone are the nights out with someone else’s sister.

That is defeat.

Technorati Tag: Samhain, Depression, Pagan, Mothership, The Mothership, Rant, New Year, Subculture, Dead Dog, meekon5.

In Response To BBC’s Heaven And Earth Today:

I must admit that getting any number of pagans to actually agree with each other on anything is much akin to trying to heard cats with a large stick.

These are purely my opinions.

I've been a Pagan since I was about thirteen. That's when I started the (spiritual) journey I find myself still on now. I always say that at least I questioned (and still question) religion as it is presented to me rather than just accept what I am fed by state or parents, then made my own decision.

I disagree with your panellist as to exactly what constitutes Paganism. I do agree that most of my Paganism is rooted in an attempt o be more in touch with nature and natural rhythms. I differ as to the spirituality of my practice. First I am an animist (all things have spirit). For me Paganism is about balancing the Male and Female principle in spiritual practice, in an attempt to make amends for two thousand years of unbalanced male dominated religion. My spiritual practice is very important to me.

I often term myself a Neo-Pagan to be more correct, mostly because I hold no pretention to any link to pre-Christian Paganism. If anything the revival of Paganism can be traced back to the Victorian age (with roots in people like Blavatsky, George Watson MacGregor Reid, also please refer to Ronald Hutton's opinions).

How old does a religion need to be before it gains the respect that others do. Perhaps it's the unfair link to "New age" hippies that causes that dreadful smirk many people meet my claim to being a Pagan with. Two thousand years ago Christianity not only was frowned upon but probably raised a smirk on the faces of "traditional" roman Pagans when mentioned in polite company. Or is it the number of practitioners, but then regard the like of Zoroastrians, a minority religion of Iran (now, reputedly only 140,000 members), or Voodoo which has gained more mainstream acceptance and that as a religion is only a few hundred years old.

Subdivisions of Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity spring up on a regular basis, why are they more credible than Paganism?

In fact there is much evidence that Christianity practiced by modern exponents is radically different from that of a few hundred years ago let alone to what would have been practiced by the original disciples (ask practitioners of the Arian, Coptic churches and many other churches destroyed by Roman Catholicism).

One more point I don't see that Christianity has any more impirically (scientifically, historically) provable link to its creator than Paganism has. after all St Paul (the man that sold christianity to the Romans) didn't even actually meet Mr Jesus Christ in person. Another place and another time is needed for me to expand on the changes and political abuse in re-writting and changing the Bible since the original texts were written down.

Do we (as Pagans) perhaps need to take some militant action? Say declare a religious war and go into the kidnapping game?

Finally under both EU and UN human rights legislation:

Every woman, man, youth and child has the human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. These fundamental human rights are explicitly set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief and other widely adhered to international human rights treaties and Declarations.

The Human Rights at Issue

The Human Right to Freedom of Religion includes the following indivisible, interdependent and interrelated human rights:

• The human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
  

• The human right to manifest one=s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
  

• The human right to freedom from discrimination based on religious beliefs or activities, or because of refusal to conform to a certain religion.
  

• The human right to freedom of expression and of association.
  

• The human right to conscientious objection on grounds of religious belief.
  

• The human right of parents to choose schools for their children which ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

Which as far as I can see means if I wish to practice my religion in any form I choose that is my right. Which if one were to sit a broad collection of Christians together I 'm sure there would be almost as much difference of particulars as there is amongst practitioners of my own religion.

I actually object to the movement, and display, of the bones on the basis that if the people who placed the bones did not care what happened to them then they would have not bothered to put the bones in that situation in the first place. I am not apposed to scientific research but the bones should be returned out of respect for what is obviously the intent of the people who placed them there.

It's not about dissenting because I am a Pagan, but when my mortal remains are laid to rest I wish them to be left in that situation. As I wish for anyone whatever their religion, whether they have representatives alive to represent them or not.

Technorati Tag: Pagan, Religion, meekon5, Bones, BBC, Rant, Subculture, Druids.

From The Point Of View Of The Economically Repressed

There are definitively times when it becomes dangerous to blog. These are times of political upheaval. Or times of social unrest. Or times where your social circumstances dictate that to talk openly you would become ostracised.

Believe or not I am partaking of these pressures even as we speak. In the modern capitalist society the threat of curtailing your economic viability is as worrying as that of the threat of castration to the average virile male.

Not that I am trying to put male promiscuity above moral value (morals where did you get those from, you didn’t have them when you lived with me?” to quote my mother).

I am at current working for a company that would have difficulty organising a pint in a brewer, let alone a piss up.

The company actually subcontracts my labour to a major media conglomerate. I am whored out at a much higher rate than the recompense the company gives to me each week. (Long live the capitalist ethic). By rumour I am charged at twenty-five pounds an hour to the customer where I earn six from the paymaster.

Here we have the fatal disparity of aims. I spend half my time in the office receiving incoming calls from disgruntled customers. (Please be assured that if your broadband connection experienced no problems being provisioned and supplied the last thing you would think of doing was ringing some premium rate call centre and congratulating them on how well they had done their job).

Now I must digress. If one where to experience bad service in some industry one would expect to have the recourse to complain obviously.. .

Now here I do have to get up on my soap box.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Do not become the self-righteous sanctimonious arse hole who gets satisfaction from off loading your petty shite about the fact that you have not got your stupid broadband connection on or near the f**king date the company said you would. I have to be honest with you. Why the f*ck would someone paid six pounds an hour really care a flying f*ck if you did or not. In fact I have to salute the stalwart individuals who in the UK take the boll*cks from self righteous prats every hour for hours just because they are so ineffectual they have no one else to take the frustration about the pitiful banality of their pathetic lives out on any one else.

Trust me one day you will meet me on the other end of the line and at that moment I will reviel to you exactly how pathetic and insignificant your existence really is and at that point your only response will be “put your manager on!” you dickless, sad basterds.

Lots of love.

Simon.

"Put down the soap box and step away with your hand's up!"
Ps BTW FYI what makes you think I am not particularily enjoying my new job?