It's been a year...

It's been a year since I wrote anything on this blog. Lots of things have happened since. My girlfriend sent me tumbling down the stairs of life after eleven faithful years. This would be enough to describe this past year. I fell close to depression and have been slowly picking myself up. A few fickle romances that lasted no more than a week where all my ego found to stand up on.

I'm lucky I have very good friends to help me stand up. The guys have held me up and proud with a few pints and fun nights out but my biggest help has come from my female friends. They have held my ego up and shed some light on my compreension of the female brain to help me get over my ex. They have helped me make some sense out of what happened.

Thank you every one!

It's coming!

Big Brother is just around the corner:

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life

Who am I to decide if a child is to become the next Charlie Manson? Who are they?

Why should an individual be considered half guilty of some future crime?

Idiots.

Free Speech

There are still those to whom freedom is not just something the state allows you to have. It is yours by natural law and by birth.

"The Ice Age Is Coming"

The Clash - London Calling

Chorus:

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in

Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin

A nuclear error, but I have no fear

London is drowning-and I live by the river

I was born in 1976. This The Clash song was first recorded in 1979. I was obviously too young to appreciate it but this band kept on playing on the radio until I started appreciating it and started to listen for the earliest songs. This one was recorded again in 1988, the year I turned twelve and was already chasing after punk songs. But I never payed much attention to its lyrics until recently. What really got my attention was that first phrase in the chorus; "The ice age is coming". This brought back my childhood memories, all through the eighties, when I'd have to listen to the news on the only television in the house, when scientists and governments were in a scare because the world was getting colder. The Ice Age was coming. Scientists were certain of it and were dishing out solutions.

Well, the Ice Age didn't come. And now they assure us global warming is coming and they have all the solutions.

Remember, Remember

Remember remember, the fifth of November is a line from the film "V for Vendetta" that always jumps to my mind whenever Guy Fawkes night is close by. And although I rather sympathize with the message of standing up to the "Man", I do not agree with Guy Fawkes' solution. Blowing up the Parliament, government and King with it, is in it self a fascist act: I don't agree with them, and so they must die. Not to say, of course, that it is an act of terrorism.

In this terrorism frightened era, it strikes me as very odd that the British culture should celebrate an act of terrorism, and a failed one as it is the case. But history and cultural memory will always play these tricks on the present. People remember only what they want.

Dead End

Have you ever felt you were on the edge of a cliff where one wrong step could send you on a whirlpool of despair or a range of unknown emotions? And have you ever felt like jumping off the cliff?

A craving for adventure? Pure Madness? I don't know... How will I ever know?

Bare Culture

Since I got to Wales to study in September 2006 I have seen a few very white naked British boys running around the streets at night. Not that we don't have naked people back in Portugal but not this frequently. And mind the weather differences.
This feels like this is one of those cultural gap things. Back in Madeira Island, in the warmer seasons, we spend a great part of our leisure time almost naked. Swimming garments are usually scarce in cloth (especially the girls') but we put clothes on for the evenings and every other occasion that doesn't involve sun or any other type of bathing. Here in Wales girls dress as little as they can when going out for the evening. I usually don't complain and I'm sure you understand why (I'm a man!) but it confuses me a bit. Mini-skirts that would make Mary Quant gape and very low necklines, in weather that makes my bare skin shrivel so much I can't move my fingers. And they're cold! I know they are!

What is wrong with these naked boys and scantily dressed girls? I'll let you in on a secret (especially the girls):

That sacrifice does not really hoist you up the social grid, nor does it make you look sexier. That which you can't see you imagine. And imagining it makes it much more exciting. And you don't have to dress exactly like the girls in the music videos. That's all just for show!