Tuesday 9 April 2013

Monday 8 April 2013

Saturday 6 April 2013

Vive La Difference.


These are (not mine) photos of the late Sophie Lancaster. She was in the news again recently after her murder in 2007 prompted Manchester Police to start considering Emos and Goths as minorities protected by Hate-Crime legislation.

Sophie was a Goth. It was a choice she made to appear in a certain way (look at the cheerful girl with red dreads).
She took 13 days to die after being kicked and stamped on. There were five assailants. She was attempting to comfort her gravely injured boyfriend.

Quite what these assailants thought they were doing is something I cannot fathom.
I understand many forms of evil, but have no comprehension of such creatures.
In my opinion they are like rabid dogs and should be put down.

I also know that such savages are common in this country. Go into any town and you will see them. Generally to avoid being hurt it is only necessary to 'back down' from yourself in some small way.

But you cannot change your appearance that easily, which, apparently, is enough for the animals.

Meanwhile, I was going to write about the creatures that think they are progressive, the defenders of civilisation against the animals, the natural-dyed, organic-munching, leather-rejecting trolls who infiltrate the professions and try to occupy positions of authority.

When reduced to their naked form, they are no different to the animals, they are opposite sides of the same coin that attempt to incite and control the savages. They seek out new empires of thuggery to attach their petty social-metaphysical outrage to, so to beat down those people who offend against their definitions of what is permissible and harmless; they cannot abide different values, however peacefully held, and fuel the embers that spit out animals like the ones above by applying perverted civics to all in the attempt to destroy the few.

I do understand these a little.

They act out of fear.

So sorry for all the Sophies of the world. This is all the help I can manage right now.

Monday 1 April 2013

Non-Threatening.

I'm enjoying a bottle of Fuller's 'London Pride' bitter.
I've been served this on flights from SFO, but when you buy a bottle you really taste the excellent bitter beer this is.

Brewed in the Chiswick Brewery on the South Bank of the Thames; I'm glad to see it still going strong.

In the eighties, to get the hell away from people, I'd wait till low tide and wander down to the bridge, past O'Riordan's Bar ( I never did try to claim a free drink there), and go down to the bank.

I'd walk for a mile along the South beach. It wasn't too muddy here. I felt as I always did; I felt as though I was walking through history.
Unlike my trips through Southwark, much further downstream, I didn't find evidence of war and crime, bullet casings, bullets(!), and the general detritus of the Blitz.
No.
Passing through the Kew Bridge area, I found freshwater shellfish, living in the newly 'clean' river.
I never ate them.
But they grew there.

As one reached the mile mark, the point at which the river was an outside bend scoured by the water, with no more beach, one found a ramp.

Up this ramp, was a public house.

A Fuller's public house.

Where one could satisfy the thirst one had worked up with a pint of London Pride.

London as it once was.