"Father".
He walked out on me, my mother and my sister when I was seven years old and my sister was three after having a year long ridiculous affair. I have no problem with people getting divorced, my mother and him were not suited, but the way he handled it was disturbing. During the affair I remember him telling my mother that some woman had come onto him at work, whilst the reality was that he was sleeping with her. Now what kind of person alludes to his own affair whilst pretending it's really a one-sided adoration. What kind of perverse pleasure was he seeking by half-revealing his twisted secret? If you're having an affair, keep your head down, and shut up, or even better stop being a liar and end your previous relationship first.
Slightly before my father moved out he selfishly took the "opportunity" to remortgage our family home to give him some cash to start a new life with his new woman. We never found out about this until the repo-men came to collect the payment that was due. Now I understand how this twisted man's mind works "I worked really hard for this, I had the better paid job, I should get some return on this". A half-decent man might think "I've screwed up really bad, left two young children to deal with the fallout, the least I could do is allow them to keep their family home and help provide so that their lifestyle doesn't have to change even more drastically". Instead what he actually did was fight in court to try to reduce his child-maintenance payments as much as possible. One thing I remember in particular was his claim that he spent over 30 pounds a week on milk, which our lawyer calculated was an obscene measure of milk. Our lawyer was disgusted with this man, how bad do you have to be for a LAWYER to be disgusted with you.
For some light-hearted relief in the middle of this entry I'd also like to point out that even in his 40s he was a big sissy who started crying just because he couldn't find the way back to our tent in a campsite. Of course I've done immature things worse than this, but I'd like to hope I'd be more grown up than that by my forties.
After omitting another long stream of disappointments... I still forgive him, but I've realised he's simply not worth wasting my time on; if anyone is unlikely to grow a conscience it's him as he has the miraculous ability to believe his own lies. A convict in prison is capable of finding God/Allah/Brahma and surfing out to the end of their lives on a good wave but this guy would find some way to convince himself he never committed the murder at all. I've given him a call once every few years, since in our case it obviously falls on the side of the son's responsibility to keep a relationship going.. I'm sure I haven't really been a great son to him in some ways, but I would have thought that a loving father would find some forgiveness... realise that I was young and still growing up... and do the fatherly thing of staying in contact and showing some interest in my life.
I don't have a loving father though, just a selfish male with not much to thank for but my own existence, and I suppose that's the good ending to the story. I exist. It doesn't matter if you're ashamed of your own father as long as you exist.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
G20 Protest
I went to the G20 protest today. Once from 1320-1520 and again from 1700-1900. At both times I walk around the entire protest, attempting to enter the square containing the Bank of England from every possible entrance road, of which there are about five.
The following observations are in contrast to the evening reports of the protest and I find it extremely disappointing, but sadly expected, that the news reports are spun in such a way that I don't feel the truth has been accurately reflected. I'm writing this to try and undo some of that damage for whoever is interested enough to read.
The news says there are 4000 protesters in the square when I leave to join it, and I arrive along Threadneedle Street to find a line of police in the way. Nobody was allowed near the Bank of England, and curiously enough only those with press badges were allowed to leave. Those lucky enough to have press badges were still only able to enter through one specific entrance, and it would take any journalist at the wrong entrance anywhere from 10-40 minutes to reach the correct entrance depending on their location. This would probably explain why lots of reports were delayed in the morning. "The journalist has gone missing" they reported on CNBC, and the sceptical part of me keeps thinking that this was a ploy so that people wouldn't realise in essence this:
The crowd was completely managed, the numbers reported were meaningless as once the few thousand had entered, nobody else was allowed in. I doubt the statistics for the number of people who showed up and were turned away were reported, but both in the evening and the morning I recognised different faces at all locations and by a rough estimate I would say I saw at least as many people disconnected from the protest location by the police as there were inside the ring each time I walked around. If you account for the flow of crowd at the times I wasn't there there could have been anywhere from 3 to 5 times the amount of people at the protest location trying to enter at some point during the day.
By this time I saw one police officer with a bloody head, and one protester with blood on his head. I also saw a police officer sitting in a van and holding his head, but until later I saw no other evidence of violence other than that which was filmed and displayed on the news. Whilst most of the police were kind in their actions, I did see one obese, sweaty and angry police officer yelling at a man for the crime of standing in a certain place for too long. When the man went over to the police officer and calmly explained himself, the police officer taunted the man, ultimately running at the man as if to tackle him. The civilian sensibly ran away.
I left the protest at 1520 and got to a television at around 1540, at which point they were reporting that people were now being let in and out of the protest area. This was not true at all, I walked around the entire protest area and no one was let in or out at any time, and at all times the police told me when I asked them that they would not let anyone in or out until the crowd inside and outside the ring had subsided. This was ridiculous.. how can a group of people trapped inside a ring of police with their exit restricted possibly reduce in number.
I returned to the protest at 1700 when I hoped that people would be allowed in or out of the site. Unfortunately the situation had not changed, and again I made a complete circuit of the site checking every entrance road to find it blocked. This time I also walked past the street full of tents that protesters had erected in the middle of Bishopsgate Road. It made me really happy to see them all in their tents having fun. There were sound systems and people were dancing ecstatically to trippy music. People were drinking and getting high. There were boxes of sushi everywhere.. I must have seen at least 50. They'd also set up a kitchen area with small stoves and were serving free food to everyone at the site. A lady was shouting for volunteers through the loud speaker, for washing up, helping with the toilets and other camp maintenance jobs. It was great to see everyone helping each other out, it was as if the idealised socialist society that many of us imagined was being executed on a micro scale in defiance to the immaculate, corporate surroundings. Unfortunately there was a line of somewhere around a hundred police in riot gear sat in the street beside them. I imagine later on they would try and remove every tent and every occupant.
I waited around outside the site from 1800-1830 when over 100 police men in riot gear showed up. Most of the police were from London boroughs (the same was true at all points during the day, the inner city police can be identified by their white and red checkered decorations). The police then preceded to push in towards the site, forcing the protesters who'd made it to the Bank of England in to increasingly smaller spaces. The police had already divided the protesters up into segments from the centre, and this technique's purpose seemed to be to contain the crowd further into even smaller sections.
If anything it felt at all points during the that the police actions were antagonistic. Whilst the behaviour of most of the police as individuals was wonderful (I chatted cheerily with several) the group actions of all of the police acting as a single entity was what felt threatening. The surrounding of protesters and refusal to allow them out was basically a form of imprisonment, so I can understand why a lot of resentment and anger built up within groups of protesters. When the police surged these prisons grew smaller, tension inevitably mounted. Unfortunately this anger manifested in very unfortunate actions: whilst the police were surging in the crowd started to retaliate by throwing bottles, some of which were glass. The landing bottles were smashing near the police, and whilst I didn't witness any strike a police officer I wouldn't be surprised if one did. I saw a man who seemed drunk throwing beer in a police officers face. When I walked to a nearby supermarket I was almost glad they had stopped selling alcohol. I questioned the shop assistant at first she claimed not to know why, but after chatting with her she admitted that the police had some in to the supermarket and asked them not to sell alcohol for the rest of the day.
After the surge the police started to let protesters out of the site in groups. Approximately every five minutes a new group of protesters would surge out, often running down the streets in large numbers. This looked pretty cool!
At 1900 I left.
Apparently the rules of democracy have been rewritten, a protest is now something to be drastically limited in size, antagonised, and buried in the sand. The only thing to do is keep protesting every day, in every action, until we build a world where more people can be happy.
The following observations are in contrast to the evening reports of the protest and I find it extremely disappointing, but sadly expected, that the news reports are spun in such a way that I don't feel the truth has been accurately reflected. I'm writing this to try and undo some of that damage for whoever is interested enough to read.
The news says there are 4000 protesters in the square when I leave to join it, and I arrive along Threadneedle Street to find a line of police in the way. Nobody was allowed near the Bank of England, and curiously enough only those with press badges were allowed to leave. Those lucky enough to have press badges were still only able to enter through one specific entrance, and it would take any journalist at the wrong entrance anywhere from 10-40 minutes to reach the correct entrance depending on their location. This would probably explain why lots of reports were delayed in the morning. "The journalist has gone missing" they reported on CNBC, and the sceptical part of me keeps thinking that this was a ploy so that people wouldn't realise in essence this:
The crowd was completely managed, the numbers reported were meaningless as once the few thousand had entered, nobody else was allowed in. I doubt the statistics for the number of people who showed up and were turned away were reported, but both in the evening and the morning I recognised different faces at all locations and by a rough estimate I would say I saw at least as many people disconnected from the protest location by the police as there were inside the ring each time I walked around. If you account for the flow of crowd at the times I wasn't there there could have been anywhere from 3 to 5 times the amount of people at the protest location trying to enter at some point during the day.
By this time I saw one police officer with a bloody head, and one protester with blood on his head. I also saw a police officer sitting in a van and holding his head, but until later I saw no other evidence of violence other than that which was filmed and displayed on the news. Whilst most of the police were kind in their actions, I did see one obese, sweaty and angry police officer yelling at a man for the crime of standing in a certain place for too long. When the man went over to the police officer and calmly explained himself, the police officer taunted the man, ultimately running at the man as if to tackle him. The civilian sensibly ran away.
I left the protest at 1520 and got to a television at around 1540, at which point they were reporting that people were now being let in and out of the protest area. This was not true at all, I walked around the entire protest area and no one was let in or out at any time, and at all times the police told me when I asked them that they would not let anyone in or out until the crowd inside and outside the ring had subsided. This was ridiculous.. how can a group of people trapped inside a ring of police with their exit restricted possibly reduce in number.
I returned to the protest at 1700 when I hoped that people would be allowed in or out of the site. Unfortunately the situation had not changed, and again I made a complete circuit of the site checking every entrance road to find it blocked. This time I also walked past the street full of tents that protesters had erected in the middle of Bishopsgate Road. It made me really happy to see them all in their tents having fun. There were sound systems and people were dancing ecstatically to trippy music. People were drinking and getting high. There were boxes of sushi everywhere.. I must have seen at least 50. They'd also set up a kitchen area with small stoves and were serving free food to everyone at the site. A lady was shouting for volunteers through the loud speaker, for washing up, helping with the toilets and other camp maintenance jobs. It was great to see everyone helping each other out, it was as if the idealised socialist society that many of us imagined was being executed on a micro scale in defiance to the immaculate, corporate surroundings. Unfortunately there was a line of somewhere around a hundred police in riot gear sat in the street beside them. I imagine later on they would try and remove every tent and every occupant.
I waited around outside the site from 1800-1830 when over 100 police men in riot gear showed up. Most of the police were from London boroughs (the same was true at all points during the day, the inner city police can be identified by their white and red checkered decorations). The police then preceded to push in towards the site, forcing the protesters who'd made it to the Bank of England in to increasingly smaller spaces. The police had already divided the protesters up into segments from the centre, and this technique's purpose seemed to be to contain the crowd further into even smaller sections.
If anything it felt at all points during the that the police actions were antagonistic. Whilst the behaviour of most of the police as individuals was wonderful (I chatted cheerily with several) the group actions of all of the police acting as a single entity was what felt threatening. The surrounding of protesters and refusal to allow them out was basically a form of imprisonment, so I can understand why a lot of resentment and anger built up within groups of protesters. When the police surged these prisons grew smaller, tension inevitably mounted. Unfortunately this anger manifested in very unfortunate actions: whilst the police were surging in the crowd started to retaliate by throwing bottles, some of which were glass. The landing bottles were smashing near the police, and whilst I didn't witness any strike a police officer I wouldn't be surprised if one did. I saw a man who seemed drunk throwing beer in a police officers face. When I walked to a nearby supermarket I was almost glad they had stopped selling alcohol. I questioned the shop assistant at first she claimed not to know why, but after chatting with her she admitted that the police had some in to the supermarket and asked them not to sell alcohol for the rest of the day.
After the surge the police started to let protesters out of the site in groups. Approximately every five minutes a new group of protesters would surge out, often running down the streets in large numbers. This looked pretty cool!
At 1900 I left.
Apparently the rules of democracy have been rewritten, a protest is now something to be drastically limited in size, antagonised, and buried in the sand. The only thing to do is keep protesting every day, in every action, until we build a world where more people can be happy.
Friday, July 18, 2008
the world is sick and you are to blame
Countries that own massive deposits of oils and other natural resources often contain some of the poorest down trodden people the in world.
What's the worst thing about this: YOU maybe helping to create this situation, by electing moral monsters in power, The Democratic Party, The Republican Party, The Australian Labour Party.
It is your duty to those less fortunate than you, to educate yourself as to what parties of the people you elect have done in the past.. what they may do. Otherwise you yourself are complicit in the malnutrition of children, the deaths of millions of innocent people.
Hugo Chavez helped to improve the condition of the lives of the vast majority of his population who were living in slums by taking resources from the oil riches and pumping it back to those who need it most the poor. To honour this achievement he has been slandered in the press owned by the wealthy who used to be stealing those resources for themselves.. how bitter they are. How much longer will he be able to maintain power and be a voice for the poor? Now there's an issue worthy of educating yourself about, a country full of people who will slip back down towards poverty if we let The Republicans have their way. Would the Democrats even help them? How about you find out.
- Nigeria: oil rich, population severely repressed by rich dictators.
- Iraq: oil rich, civilians bombed every day by American troops "freeing" them.
- East Timor: one of the world’s great submarine oil and gas deposits, more than 42 per cent of under-fives seriously underweight
What's the worst thing about this: YOU maybe helping to create this situation, by electing moral monsters in power, The Democratic Party, The Republican Party, The Australian Labour Party.
It is your duty to those less fortunate than you, to educate yourself as to what parties of the people you elect have done in the past.. what they may do. Otherwise you yourself are complicit in the malnutrition of children, the deaths of millions of innocent people.
Hugo Chavez helped to improve the condition of the lives of the vast majority of his population who were living in slums by taking resources from the oil riches and pumping it back to those who need it most the poor. To honour this achievement he has been slandered in the press owned by the wealthy who used to be stealing those resources for themselves.. how bitter they are. How much longer will he be able to maintain power and be a voice for the poor? Now there's an issue worthy of educating yourself about, a country full of people who will slip back down towards poverty if we let The Republicans have their way. Would the Democrats even help them? How about you find out.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
advertisement for xiaxue
Hello English people who read my blog who might not be familiar with wonderful things from Singapore. Please read xiaxue's blog. I think she is great:
xiaxue.blogspot.com
Not only is she awesome she criticizes apple users (I hate people who worship corporations). I tried to do it on my blog before but it ended up like technical bullshit and it wasn't funny. She does it well.
There's some advertisement on her blog to be her BFF. That'd be cool. We could sit on the wall and throw stones at apple zealots together.
xiaxue.blogspot.com
Not only is she awesome she criticizes apple users (I hate people who worship corporations). I tried to do it on my blog before but it ended up like technical bullshit and it wasn't funny. She does it well.
There's some advertisement on her blog to be her BFF. That'd be cool. We could sit on the wall and throw stones at apple zealots together.
lots lah
In the last few weeks my family and friends all visited me in Singapore. Then I got married. Today I resigned. Next month I'm moving back to England.
It is all kinda weird. Singapore is safe and clean and the food is great. I'm kinda getting used to it. England seems in turmoil and I'm worried to go back:
It is all kinda weird. Singapore is safe and clean and the food is great. I'm kinda getting used to it. England seems in turmoil and I'm worried to go back:
- FUCKING Daily Mail readers. Fucking useless idiots. In 19forty-whatever the editor of the Daily Mail sent a telegram to Hitler praising him. They supported the Nazi party for a good long while. Has anything changed at all? That asshole paper is filling the minds of British citizens with vitriolic xenophobia. If you read the daily mail go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself hard anally with a typhoon. Really.
- People punctuating every few words with "sort of". In Singapore it is "lah" which I used to think was irritating but now it seems okay and at least it is done in moderation. However, sort of, every few words, sort of, the British, sort of, say "sort of". Damn it just shut the hell up. They talk talk talk without a single breathing hole, ensuring every tiny gap in the sentence a person where a person can interject is also filled with some garbage.
- Stabbing (and crime in general). England is going stab crazy at the moment. People being stabbed left right and centre. I'm almost too scared to walk down the street for fear of having to defend myself from every side. I'm also fully aware that the newspapers are just advertising the next big "frightener". "Aw them yokels 'aint afraid of marijuana anymore, what next? How about: STABBING". Whether it's legitimate or not I don't care it sucks.
Monday, June 2, 2008
i am was become 733+ again
I've been messing around with computers again to learn stuff to avoid wasting time. I used to do this shit all the time but lately I've become lazy.
So recently I've been configuring mutt (the mail client of the Gods) to use gmail and my work mail correctly so I can stop pissing around with awful web interfaces. And DAMN is it good. Even better than I remember it in the old days. Just use the development version, without header-cache, thread views and smtp support it would be a sad thing.
Then I made vim spellcheck .txt files (and mutt temporary files so it spellchecks my outgoing e-mail).
So recently I've been configuring mutt (the mail client of the Gods) to use gmail and my work mail correctly so I can stop pissing around with awful web interfaces. And DAMN is it good. Even better than I remember it in the old days. Just use the development version, without header-cache, thread views and smtp support it would be a sad thing.
Then I made vim spellcheck .txt files (and mutt temporary files so it spellchecks my outgoing e-mail).
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"yeah, um, weed isnt like this AT ALL!!! im fuckin high right now & it aint at all like that, geeze, even wen i am high i have more common sense then u wen ur sober, everything looks exactly the same, just in ur mind u just might find the same things more entertaining, & u feel weird & dnt remember wut u did 5 minutes ago, 2 tell u the truth, i dnt remember even starting 2 write this, & my eyes is burning,.... RLY RLY BAD, oh, shit, this is bad, i g2g"