There is nothing left to say

I’ve just been to the Wychwood Festival. It was pretty good, especially as i was working on the stage crew, and met some lovely bands… some enormous rather grotesque ego’s I’ll have to tell you about them in person don’t want to be done for Libel!

I took more picture’s than I realised this being my favourite at the moment…

FLC – New York

Isn’t he loverly… ah!

I used to think only old slightly odd people had an allotment and sat in their shed hiding from their wives listening to Cricket on LW and pottering about the shed… And I was right, ha ha ha…

Things have been going really well on the allotment, we have Potatoes, Sprouts, Globe Artichoke and Strawberries growing merrily away… Have dug over 2 1/2 beds, borrowed a Petrol strimmer from our lovely neighbours which got the unruly grass under control… We just need to sort out the remaining 2 beds and plant some more bits and bobs… Steve and I are usually around Tuesdays in the evening if anyone else wants to pop along…

ta ra a bit

So this is the new Villa Badge!

My first response is NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

It’s disgusting… I am sure some who read this blog will think so what, and others be giggling away to themselves… But what are they doing…

… yes I have left Morocco behind and encamped in Algeciras… Not too bad really… Have a train to madrid first thing in the morning…

It is at first impression a bewildering, frustrating, country to visit… especially for an unseasoned traveller, like myself… Though, given time, it reveals little pleasures and even stranger frustrations… I shall elucidate more in the coming days, weeks or so but looking forward to coming home…

Did I tell you that I am going to Morocco in only 5 days time… Am I a little nervous, hmm just a tad…

Why am I going? Well, 3 weeks off work is always a good move I think… but thats just the half of it… I am traveling by train, hopefully that’ll come off well, but who knows strikes, missed connections could cause disaster!  I am a slightly reticent traveler, I get quite anxious about the prospect of missing Trains… so this will really test me!

I am very keen on going to Morocco, it is a very different society and culture to England… and I hope to learn something from traveling through the country… I originally planned the journey over a year ago but that fell through this time it all go.

I have had to prepare carefully getting the necessary kit together and also booking my  Train tickets… the route is explained in detail on Seat61.com see Morocco Links… i shall be keeping a written journal and have bought a digital camera to record the journey so lets se what happens…

“… First, there is Evil, without question. Why is there Good? This is the real Miracle!”

J. Baudrillard.

I have read today that Jean Baudrillard died on 6th March 2007… A sad day… I discovered, was introduced to him at University during my Politics Degree… I found his idea’s on Simulacra and reality interesting and challenging not only to my political views but also to my still fairly substantive faith. Obviously, I was initially disturbed by what this may mean for my worldview. I then had to question whether my worldview was actually that or whether it was a construction that I had either taken on, or even had imposed upon me. As with many things this remains an ongoing conversation with myself… Is this faith that has clung onto me for so long like ‘mould’, a worthless simulacra assumed by myself in order to make sense of a senseless world/life. Sometimes I think it is. However, Baudrillard’s statement above, in response to a question of “Why is there evil?”, makes me think that actually it is more likely there is something to this faith than that there isn’t… Though tomorrow I may be saying something different… That is why I tend to think that there is something more to it than not. It is able to be challenged and doubted and raged at and yet still remains. Therefore in a world of layers of constructs and double meanings, contradictions and lies i choose to believe that there s miracle that we call ‘good’, maybe that is the essence of what we then go onto to call God’. What then worries me is all the crap that people do in ‘his’ name? But then thats another story…

70 years ago in 1937 the British Battalion of the International Brigade fought in its first battle at Jarama against Franco’s fascists. Volunteers from Britain totalled 2,300, of whom 525 died in Spain. For more details on the International Brigades visit International Brigades. How would we deal with the spectre of fascism today… if it reared it’s head in the way it did in the 1930’s in Spain… I visited Barcelona last year and attended an exhibition about the civil war I was struck by the idealism of the republican government of the time and it’s attempts to create what some would term a utopia… Though, they could rightly say that the Church had failed to serve the people and it was actually supporting the Fascist rebels. What hope was there for ordinary Spanish people from the Church? Very little, the Fascists led by Franco slaughtered many and were supported by the Nazi’s and Italian Fascists, the democracies of France and the United Kingdom terrified of another World War refused to aid the Democratically elected Government of the Spanish Republic resulting in 40 years of Fascist Dictatorship… Worth thinking about?

He’s playing Greenbelt hurrah!!!

look, http://www.billybragg.co.uk/shows/index.html

brilliant!

can you tell I’m very happy about this…

well done Ireland, very impressive stuff there. England were a bit to slow and laboured… Though Strettle was great… Even with dirty old Shane Horgan trying to take him out with his forearm… England will sort it out though they are still suffering from the hangover and completely undermined confidence provided by Andy Robinson… Ashton should sort it out fairly soon… watch England beat France now… stranger things…