Month: January 2005

I am heartened by seeing, pretty much everywhere I look, collection buckets for tsunami appeals. On every till in the supermarket I ducked into this evening, for example.
There seems to be a real penetration of the idea that our sacrifices, however small, can make a real difference.
I’m hopeful that this marks something of a sea-change in how we in the developed and wealthy west regard our wealth, as something bringing great responsibility as well as opportunity. Something of a re-emergence and re-legitimisation of the UN may take place as well, to the good of us all.
But, as has been frequently pointed out, the disaster in Bam a year ago – an order of magnitude less than the tsunami but still a level of destruction almost beyond comprehension – is still far from healed, and aid from the west didn’t all come through. Let us keep that disaster in mind as we look toward renewal from this one – the lesson, if we are to learn it, comes from the earthquake as well as the tsunami.

Watched the Lord of the Rings marathon today. Pressed play at 11.15am, turned off RotK at 11.33pm.
My brain is somewhere in Ithilien, I think.
Also noted by me for the first time: the lost fifth hobbit, Fatty Bulger (The One Who Stayed Behind) does make an appearance in Fellowship, getting namechecked by Bilbo. Maybe those of you who would care already knew this, but I didn’t. Still no sign of Bombadil however.

Styley cafe the Elephant House was packed this arvo, a long queue for the counter, quite unusual. Got chatting to a guy in the queue with me over the sign by the tip jar saying that the staff had pledged their tips for the week to the tsunami appeal, and that management would match it – they’re a good bunch there. This chap was really interesting and as the queue meandered forward we got deep into a discussion about spiritual journeys and his own path which led to him converting to Islam. He was really quite interesting and bought me my latte, and I hope I run into him again.
(Obligatory disclaimer: No, mum, I’m not becoming a muslim.)
My plans to do some writing were scotched by sharing a table with an incredibly talkative Italian girl who talked and talked and talked for about ninety solid minutes. Still, since she was talking in Italian, I was able to do some reading and got stuck into Ulysses. I’m about 200 pages in and it’s a revelation to me. I was, I’ll admit, a bit intimidated going in, but it has been nothing but engaging and readable since word one. Thoroughly enjoying it.
I also managed to go through my general notebook and scribble some developments on various projects and ideas that are bubbling up, some of them dating back five or more years but finally finding a place to stand of their own. some of them only a few weeks old. It was invigorating to see so much energy in these ideas, and I bounced off down the hill with enthusiasm when time came to go home.
(Also enthusiastic because the first new issue of Paul Chadwick’s great comic Concrete in about eight years was in my hot little hands. I’ll be talking about that again.)
The evening has been spent watching DVDs. We’ve watched episode 2 of Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani, episode 1 of series one of Teachers and we’re about to watch episode 2 of series one of Twin Peaks. It is SO GOOD to have old TV on DVD. The world has changed so much since I was fifteen, and ratty VHS copies of old TV broadcasts were passed around among near- and total-obsessives.
When I was fifteen I convinced my English teacher to let me and some friends go home in the middle of the school day to watch an episode of Twin Peaks, under some dubious rationale. That was pretty cool.
Hmm. Toastie pie. Yum.

Finally got around to making a donation to one of the appeals (the DEC here in the UK).
If you haven’t yet, do it. The scale of loss and deprivation is astonishing. But, most importantly – every bit of civilian giving shames governments into giving more. (Sure, it’s your tax money they’re using, but it’s worth it for the next step – every gift by the government shames corporate entities into giving more. And that’s where the real money is.)
Happy new year! Mine was cool. Hogmanay in Edinburgh – magic.