Scroll Down!!

Scroll down a bit for newest updates: 'Jean: A Monologue' :)

Oh, Fickle Child

Looking back through my folder of work, which was accumulating like unswept dust, I found this. Oh how things change. But I'm glad I'm never to return to the way things were. My maxim is to never wish you could go back to a previous chapter in your life, because you don't know how good the next one will be.

"This is me. I live at the bottom end of a cul-de-sac in England, where nothing ever happens. Well, there was a burst water main once so a big digger had to come and eat the road; the bin men come sometimes too. But apart from that you could hear a pin drop here. What are we trying to be? We are all so tiny and so very self-contained, just little ants going back and forth with bits of leaf. Sometimes I swear I pass myself going home when I'm leaving.

This is constant, never changing. John will always be there in the window waving (apart from at 6pm, which is when he has his head down because he's having his tea) and there will always be a cat or two wandering around - Monty likes to sit on Ian's front lawn. Oh the monotony! And from this little semi-detached house I am living and writing, existing and getting HIGH and I guess that I'm wondering whether I can get my name in lights somewhere outside of SANDYGATE AVENUE, SHREWSBURY.

You never know. Charles Darwin came from here. He changed a lot of minds and went on some pretty amazing adventures. I need to find my own Beagle and set sail before I fade away into routine and (capitalist) society.

(surprising truths spring forth from the mushroom)."



And that was that, that comparatively minuscule nugget of time in which I almost believed things really would never change. But they did. And how they changed. Now I live in a different boring place, I see different boring people and different nice people. But the biggest, the best and the change I am most grateful for - now I am in love and someone is in love with me. It eases the boredom but not only that, it makes me stronger, makes me feel that all this boredom while I'm away from him is not a waste of time. It gives me purpose, more purpose than I've ever had before, because I know that what waits for me when I get this degree and leave this place forever... my life will not be boring any more.

Gormandising Gallophil

I cannot submit this 'poem' without my many thanks to my wonderful woman PHOEBE PATIENCE. We sat down one day last year or the year before, we 'erbalists two with my copy of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary from 1924... yes... 1924!! And we came up with this beauty!

Rife with inquisitiveness

I hunted the positiveness

I bedabbled myself with gabble

With many a fribble and hardly a quibble

I swam in the tallow, as knobbly as a mallow

It was vivific.

I rubbed it in my omnifadge.

We were junketing, spunk on the carpeting.

P.S. It's not as dirty as it sounds. Which in my opinion, makes it better :)

I was going to leave this blog entry in my drafts as tonight I've been producing many and storing them up ready to drip them through but I think I might be impatient enough to let this one go tonight, as I did laugh very loudly when I reread the lost old gem. Phoebe Patience, I miss you so much.

I Do Not Worship, I Become Engulfed

"And so the question arose in the philosophy class, a row of eager, intelligent eyes looked at me and waited for my answer, but I was not sure whether they would comprehend my deepest of musings born from routine sobriety and the swirling patterns of enlightening intoxication.

"What do you believe?" said philosophy teacher Chris, in reference to the clichéd labels which he had scrawled up on the board so as to make a tally chart - atheist, theist, agnostic, spiritual or other.

Well I am certainly not a theist; the classical concept of God sickens me. Agnosticism is a cop-out waste of time and I dislike the perceived hopelessness of atheism, it it true or imagined. I am not fond of the label 'spiritual' as it too portrays wholly directionless and badly thought out arguments.

What is 'other'? I must be shoe-horned into this uncouth and discomforting category.

For my religion, if you wish to call it that, is a special unique thing, a distant cousin of the concepts of Brahman and pantheism without the theism. I do not worship, I become engulfed. I do not bow down, I become but a strand in Gaia's complex web. I do not pray, I know there is no one listening if I talk in my head, or even if I scream.

"Catching feathers, raising tadpoles, peeing in fields..." I idly listed disjointed features of such a belief.

Because my religion is everything. Literally every single little thing - existence on such a grand scale as a blue whale, which has a heart the size of a Corsa and a gullet wide enough to swim down, all the way down to the microscopic world that no one ever sees. Blood and bones but also memories, wishes, hopes and fears. Atrocities and triumphs of love and peace. Movement and stillness, blackness and white.



All of these things have a purpose in themselves and are already divine without having to deal with painful truths like the Inconsistent Triad. In a world of contingency, there are no unmoved movers, and mystery is a part of The Everything as well. Must one need a purpose outside space and time for emotion and achievement, regardless of Maya's illusion? It feels real.


But still, one must never get in too deep. These are, as I say, simply musings, a reflection on the intense bombardment upon my senses that is known by many names. I call it Life and I think it is amazing. It must never be forgotten, however, to stop and breathe and play your cards right.

After all... it's just a ride."











I wrote this when I was seventeen at the height of my philosophical education and to be honest, haven't been very philosophical since. Perhaps I should write something a little more fresh, a little less psilocybin-y.   

Questions

Do hairless animals... tan? Like naked mole rats and hairless cats and those pathetic little dogs that only have hair on their faces? What's the melanin dealio with these little guys?

And what about jellyfish? They have no brains and are something silly like 98% water... what else are they made of? Do they feel pain? And more importantly... is there a jellyfish religion?









And does a fly caught in a spider's web have the capacity to experience dread? Cause I'd be shitting myself if I'm honest.

Jean, A Monologue

A couple of years ago I went a did a few days work experience in a nursing home, which was a real eye-opening experience! I met many people there, sadly unable to get much sense out of any of them. But there was one. This one woman, Jean, was fantastic and entertaining. It was so sad that she was there, especially as she seemed to have her faculties together even more than me myself. I wrote a monologue in order to honour her. Many of the lines included in it are ones which actually came directly from her, speaking in her darkly humorous manner. Anyway, here it is:

Jean

Three girls came to visit us the other day. It was Stacey, I think. And Sam – but not short for Samuel – Sam for Samantha no less! And Tootsie. Yes… No! Not Tootsie – Lottie. I just keep on making that damned mistake. She must think I’m mad. But I’m not. I tried to make that quite apparent to her; the fact that half the folk in here hardly know what’s going on. Take the rabbits for example – they’re both male, but they don’t act like it, if you know what I mean. They’re out there in the courtyard all day and they get closer and closer to each other until they’re… well you know. And one of the old dears’ll say to me – ‘what are they doing Jean?’ – and I say ‘they’re only playing love.’ But I know they’re not. I know what they’re doing really. But I mustn’t say – they have this renewed innocence and who am I to ruin it? They are children again.

So anyway. Two of ‘em came served me some tea and toast. I didn’t finish the corner, despite the fact there was a bit of marmalade left. I never can manage the last corner. They gave Ted some toast as well. They tried to talk to him (bless ‘em) but they were too quiet and he didn’t understand; he’s very deaf you see. A hundred in June. And I told them: ‘you’ll have to speak up. He’s a hundred in June.’ They nodded and spoke up a little but he still didn’t hear. They gave up in the end. Can’t blame them though – Ted can be hard work sometimes but he’s bound to be isn’t he. Well you would be if you were ninety nine.

Ninety nine!

So I started telling them about the home – Stacey and Tootsie. There’s Mrs. Francis, she’s a sad one. Pretty much blind and deaf, can’t even tell if someone’s walked into the room. Must be lonely. She must be very lonely. And I told them about Gwyneth. She’s a real sweetheart but you can’t get much sense out of her. Shame – she used to be a matron in the hospital. She used to be way up at the top: in charge. But you’ve got to get used to the fact that things change. If they didn’t, you’d never get anywhere. I told them about Mark. He’s a lovely one. All the ladies want his attention.

‘Where’s Mark? Bring me Mark! I want to see Mark!’

Mark works in the home – he’s not a resident. He’s such a sweetie – swings the same way as the rabbits but a sweetie nonetheless.

The next time I saw Lottie I was waiting for my paper. Takes bloomin’ hours for them to get round to bringing them to us. Sometimes I can sit here on this very chair, my chair, and I can see them all bundled up sitting on the doorstep. Just sitting there, out in the rain even sometimes even, waiting to be read but ignored and forgotten.

But we mustn’t complain. I said to her what I just said to you. We mustn’t complain, because the nurses are busy working in the rooms upstairs. What’s it to them if the papers are taken round a couple of hours late? We mustn’t complain, because this is a nice home here we are happy that we get papers at all, two hours late or otherwise. We mustn’t complain, because here we’ll get found if we fall over.

Lottie, the one with all that hair, asked about me. Why me? I’m certainly not the most interesting subject in this place. I told her about my stroke, so she knew exactly why I was there. I said that the other day I had a fall. Well, I told her, I didn’t actually fall as it were… but I sort of… crumpled. I said picture a pile of ash blowing down in a light breeze and that’s what it looked like.        

I laughed; she didn’t.

But you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? The alternative does no good at all. So I laugh and laugh and laugh. Laugh at the newspapers; laugh at the coffee which is always too weak. And I told the girls that laughter is the best medicine, although truthfully I seldom believe it. ‘Mrs. Jones is suffering from arthritis, what do you suggest doctor?’ ‘Laughter, and plenty of it!’ ‘Mr. Johnson’s got a broken rib, what do you suggest doctor?’ ‘Laughter, and plenty of it!’ I didn’t tell the girls – surely they ought to work it out for themselves – sometimes laughter is senseless. But where’s the use in sense nowadays? It gets you nowhere. What with poor old Sylvia thinking she’s still pregnant after sixty years, and Mr. Bazely lying half dead his bed all day, and that Jeremy bleeding Kyle on every television in this damned place…

But still I mustn’t say this to the girls. ‘Yes girls,’ I said. ‘Yes girls it’s wonderful here. You get your toast brought to you; you can watch television as much as you want. And there’s as many large print romance novels as you could ever read.’

And I mustn’t say these things to myself either – I must continue to accept that this really is the best of all possible lives for me. But by God, it’s hard. When you’re young you always pray you were older, but when you get there you realise the truth.

Lottie FINALLY Figures Out How To Put Stuff On Youtube!

I made a terrible video to go along with the Badgers poem this evening :) And heeeeeeeere it is........

Oh and while I was at it I made this hunk of junk too.....

My sincerest apologies.... thankyou and goodnight!

Badgers

This is a very personal poem of mine describing a vision of a scene in the future. It hasn't happened yet, but it will :)
I can never be sure about anything except this one vision I've had all my life. I've found the person who fits into the vision and in a few years (after I've got out of this boring town) we can make it a reality.

Arising cross the dew soaked, spidered grasses

Sunlight quartered, sliced through oak;

Coarse muddied mane grasped in still-tiny fingers,

Soft hands on horseback, on thigh and on heart.

Running behind in April harmony,

Claws and paws and your leather crack boots

And crooked smile and opal eyes and sturdy steps;

Scattering the rainbow through the mist

Until, on the other side

It is calm and pure; white again.

Ten feet tease the ground, two avoid.

Break for sandwiches; four more join.

I am not a painter else I would paint, not a sketcher else I would sketch. But I can bend a word around the page and around the paintings and sketches I have in my head. And this is my go at it.

In Charge

This is my most recently submitted poem, although it is a reincarnation of one I wrote a few years ago. This edited and smushed up version focuses on the change we must all go through if we wish to succeed - the strength that we must learn to master and handle, and the power that comes with this strength.

It's important to remember that sometimes you will be the mouse hiding under the leaves, but one day you can be the falcon if you set your mind to it. But if you become the falcon, remember the mice are terrified of you. Be gentle. Your talons are sharp.

I’m a wounded fox, hunting,

I’m the green frog’s whisper,

I’m the suffering log upon the fire

Till I surrender and become the hungry flame.

I’m the terrified mouse beneath the leaves

Until I learn to be the falcon’s wing

And her steady yellow eye.

I will be the ink, guided and bent

Until I find the power to become the pen;

And one day, the hand, gently grasping and creating

Or mapping the direction I ought to face.

I’m the bedtime story

Until I learn to be the teller.

I’m the child who hears it

Until I learn to be the voice.

The Seven Stages of University

The Seven Stages of University

1: Denial

I am now long used to the looming feeling of a change of institution what with my flitting from school to school, but when I moved to Aberystwyth uni it was still possible to liken me to the wide eyed year seven I had once been. I was there, books in hand, an apple for the lecturer, trying so carefully not to scuff my new shined shoes. I toned down on the look I had developed through my teenage years: I now dressed as Lottie the Fresher, not as Lottie the stoner hippie mess. I was neat and I was excited.

Walks on the beach alone at night, the unusual heat of the Indian summer and the thought of the red kites and bottlenose dolphins apparently abundant in this area filled me with a euphoric sense of joy. Every night I gazed out of my sea-view window, satisfied and sleepy like the idle water, and I said to myself: ‘there’s no place I’d rather be’.

My four flatmates were fantastic! The politician slash gamer with whom I could discuss both ethics and Gears of War, the cheeky Welsh boy who made me laugh, the unusual but interesting diabetic wonder child and the pleasant, friendly, motherly girl who cared for me with tea and chocolate. I was so sure that this would be great! Look at us, here we are being independent, being free. Embracing not only a great education but a beautiful, colour filled, ice-cream and rubber dinghy town and a fantastic group of friends who are bound to get on… like a house on fire.

2: Anger

Houses on fire are hot as hell.

They destroy everything in their paths if not tackled.

The politician slash gamer never came out of his room and we never ended up having those fantastic thought provoking discussions. We never put the world to rights. To wrongs perhaps…

And where do I even start with this supposed wonder child? I should have liked him. I would have liked him. If he didn’t leave his shit all over the place, if I didn’t end up in the same state as the floor, the table, the chairs and somehow even the walls: covered in Rice Krispies. And it didn’t stop there! If I could only just have five sweet seconds of peace without his shite blaring pop music thumping my belongings across the room, jolting and pulsating in my very core with every ‘ooh baby’ and ‘yeah yeah yeah’ that had ever been produced in horrific pop music, I would stop and think… ‘hang on, I’m not sure if I like this guy’. Maybe if he hadn’t have gone running off telling tales on me, if he hadn’t reported me for that little cigarette – that one measly cigarette – then maybe  would have liked him more.

And the same for the Welsh lad. I mean, cheeky? Understatement.  A downright arsehole, more like. Keeping me up until five in the morning with his stupid friends and their stupid drinking.

It seemed the only break from this infuriating band of pricks was the girl, who still brought me tea and chocolate to soften the rage at this bunch of idiots. I’ve gotten on better with some of the head lice I’ve had as a kid than with these morons.

3: Bargaining

“Maybe if I just do this semester, then have a break for like… 5, maybe 6 years… then come back once I’ve settled the wanderlust.”

“Or maybe I should just quit… surely I can get a degree with the OU. Then I won’t have to put up with all this crap.”

“If I was a better student and stopped playing so many video games then I’d have a better time. They say you get out what you put in… can I just read the York notes instead? Or look up some semi-trustworthy synopsis on the internet? I don’t actually have to read all of these books to know what’s going on… do I?”

“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry I never believed in you before this! But please – I’d do anything to fly in your magic time travelling machine and go back to the summer when I was happy and free.”

4: Guilt

It dawned upon me what a poor student I had been. Throwing all my focus onto how miserable I was, how I didn’t want to be here. I thought that surely it would be a much better idea to just… try.

To try to be a better person, a better student and most importantly not cry down the phone to my poor boyfriend who had to listen to my pathetic whimpers every night. I became encased in feelings of guilt that I could ever be so selfish, and that, well, I was just a limp wet blanket. I was a soggy day of spoilt chips with too much salt.

I needed to man up, as all of this was my fault. Of course I wouldn’t enjoy uni if I spent all of my time sitting inside on my own thinking about how much I wasn’t enjoying myself! So I stood at window and looked out for a while. The sea lay in wait, colder now – greyer. I stood at the door, hand grasping the handle, ready to go. Ready to go out into that world and find something for myself, something that would make me happy again. But I just couldn’t open the door. It seemed there was a vacuum on the other side, and I pushed and pushed but it would not budge. I gave up. I went back upstairs and fired the games console back up again. This will be my substitute for real life for three years now. I couldn’t open the door. I deserve to stay up here.

5: Depression

Need I say more?

6: Acceptance

The video games grew tiresome. My thumbs were stiff and my eyes were square. I think that was why the people around me had begun, somehow, to pixelate.

Every night the texts came in from the few friends I’d managed to accumulate and mostly, I ignored them. Stay inside. Stay inside the cave. The boring, sterile, boxlike cave which was driving me mad…

I had to go out. Reluctantly I donned my furry jacket, got a tenner from the bank and trudged in holey boots to meet the folk who were desperate to drag me out. I’m lucky that they didn’t give up on me really. It was a good night. Not reminiscent of the nights I’d lost, the times with my best friends in my hometown where I knew the ropes, I knew the scenes, I had my foundations. But here I still achieved some form of foundationless fun; I had enough fun to think that maybe, just maybe, I’d be okay.

7: Hope

Thumbing through the pages of all the raw emotion which had consumed me over the last few months, I thought to myself about what it is that makes me the most happy. My love, of course. The love which I find in my friends and my family and my boyfriend. I bought myself a little pot of tete-a-tete daffodils: my favourite flower.

‘Daffy-Down-Dilly has come to town, in a yellow petticoat and a green gown.’

I love them because they lie there under the dirt, brown and dormant in the snow of the harshest winter, asleep, waiting. So patient are these dingy bulbs, but I know that the patience pays off. In comes the spring, the melting of the frozen soil, the breaking of the sun. And just as that sun strengthens, warming the faces that never thought they’d be warm again, they erupt into golden smiles.

Lottie Lewis 2011

Poppin yer Bubblegum

No offence to any of my lovely flatmates, but over the last few weeks since I came to university it has really been thrust into my face that many people listen solely to pop music. Pop, popular ie. culture fed to people on all fours from great troughs called TV and magazines and adverts. Chomping down these sludgy slops, it's sad to see these people missing out on the wonderful world known as 'outside the charts'.

And I mean hey, come on, I don't want to sound like an arrogant idiot here. I understand that many things are 'popular' because they're bloody good e.g. Galaxy chocolate, marijuana, cups of tea etc. I understand also that the idea of pop now cannot fall into the same category. Some people like this stuff.  Some people like balut (look it up).

Mushroom Talk

What on Earth does one write when one has absolutely no means of knowing the direction of the ink beyond forming letters? What story lives unconscious in the very threads which hold this physical plane? How can you begin when the very existence of this place as we understand it is questionable and wholly uncertain? And so yes, we all roll and pace to the rhythm; lull high lull high, but what external meaning can we give to this rhythm, however strong, however palpable, however utopian?

And yet why know?


How would I alter if I knew this truth and the many others that no one has even come close to? Maybe, and most probably, there is something beyond our little plane, beyond the music and gunshots and engine murmur which  make our tiny home crawl and hum with life. Maybe, and most probably, this inexplicable, incomprehensible thing is undetectable through all of our expensive scientific experiments and we shall never, ever know it.

Are we being watched?

Billions of people think they know the answer to this question. I wish I could find someone who could tell me the right one, and tell it me straight. But even if someone did, I bet I wouldn't believe them. I suppose I'll just have to set to work finding out for myself.


One voice amongst millions of others is sure to be drowned out in the humdrum dumbness of its people. Even the bombs, bass and missile launches cannot be heard from space. It seems that we are but a pixel. 

Scribbles

"Is this still... trendy?" - ecstasy is SO two decades ago!
"Vertical causation is BOLLOCKS!"  - which it is, it just took some magic mushrooms for me to realise and express it in such a way.
"Put some clarity into your life!" - haze it the fuck up with shrooms!

I scribbled in circles on a page, it could have been for hours, who knows? In front of me was a black mess, incoherent, impossible to order, random, meaningless, chaos in miniature. But in a very small segment of the scribble, all of the carelessly laid lines of ink made a Spirograph pattern, a perfect, beautiful cylinder of lines on the page amongst the scribbles. This meant a lot to me. And I said...

"Life is all about THAT bit... when a mess looked perfect."

And here, Charlie Brooker speaks some real fucking sense. Please read, and see the truth! http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/22/charlie-brooker-newspapers-dangerous-drug

p.s. The secret is, drugs aren't bad... they're actually really rather good. 

The Apology (PART ONE)

"a guy with ego problems running around with a megaphone pissing off police and upsetting the public"

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Charlie Veitch says sorry!

So I logged into YouTube today to find a faded, diminished looking Charlie Veitch begging for the forgiveness of you, of me, of we, the people. The beard is gone, and so have those damned sunglasses and silly Guevara-esque jacket - I could never take him seriously when he got to the stage of trying to look like a Cuban revolutionary.

After spending 30-50 hours (extent of exaggeration dependant on which stage of the video you're watching) in solitary confinement, we finally hear something from the mouth of the sorry and the somewhat degraded looking man. He seems so tired. In what appears to be his trademark effort to avoid conciseness at all costs, he begins his 18 minute long apology, directed mainly at the people who loved, respected and listened to him (this includes myself) during the existence of his collaboration with Danny Shine and the rest of humankind known as the Love Police. 

Is he sincere? I would say, closely watching him, that it's at least easy to see he is unhappy. Is this because he's genuinely sorry or just sorry because now the lack of love, the loss of respect and the uprooting of his dignity is starting to set fast in his mind, leaving him feeling alone in the world, possibly more alone than he's ever felt before?

It's hard to satisfy these questions with a sure answer. On one hand, we know that this is a man who seems to flit like a ragged butterfly between lifestyles and ideals. Clearly, this is a man who hates to ever be in the middle. 

Observe: 

banker > Love Police > 'truther' hater > down and out

We could see this as the behaviour of a man who thrives off living on the edge, who, like a child on Christmas day, picks up a toy, plays with it for ten minutes then throws it away for another one. Or, we could see it as the behaviour of a man so insecure that the best defence mechanism is to grab the bull by the horns and live so extremely and so openly that hopefully he will appear strong and fearless. He might be a man who feels the need to attention seek, and if that's the case he's certainly achieved his goal. Maybe he just doesn't know who the hell he is or what he wants from life. You never know, he could just have bipolar.  

It is my intention to carry this on soon. I have to stop writing now as I'm really tired and my writing brain's stopped functioning as it should. So I'm gonna shut up before I say something too stupid.

I Love You

How many ways are there to say I love you? Since the dawn of time we've looked for ways and yet those words say everything. Everything and nothing.
A pointless lexical jabber pouring from my lips, repeated over and over until it seems to lose all meaning.

 I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

 I love you

Should I not say it then? Should I leave out the ancient words and speak with my soul instead? My soul, the ancient, wordless, formless form which only knows what it can feel.

Like light, which gives to all, yet silently. Like dark, which envelopes, yet so comfortingly.

Quiet; quiet.



I feel.

The Pilgrim

To an idiosyncratic little trapeze artist
You have my heart now as you embark
You have seven years on me and yet
It feels as if we are both at a new beginning.

Setting out.

Turns out the town I loved was the town you hate
And now we both left it
As I too started to sense the staleness of the air.
Sure, it was fine for me to find my feet
As happy summers slunk idly by
But the summer past was empty but for you
And old scenes saw my footsteps washed away.

This morning as I dreamt, I kissed you.
And as I woke, I went on loving you,
As I have these sweet months past.
Let the months grow into years
And all the dreams into the truth
Because you are my haunted haunting pilgrim
And yes, (as daft as it sounds),
Every footstep of yours is a heartbeat of mine.
Finally I understand
What all those silly lovestruck children were going on about.
From my hand you draw this desperate verse;
From my head these wishing dreams;
And from my heart the hoping spark.

Beautiful, brave and newly freed,
Come home soon.

Can  I say more?

The Wasp

She shreds the meat,

Entered through the window this morning.

A warning striped visitor, 

Doing no harm 

Just eating.

If I had not been stung before

I would trust her.

Sand

I've just been for a walk on my beach. In a shop window I saw a sign that said SHINE LIKE A JEWEL STAND LIKE A ROCK 

And it got me to thinking what the crumbling helpless sand beneath my feet used to be. It didn't make me fearful or sad and it didn't make me feel worthless. Because these rocks that once stood tall against the elements were ground by nature into sand. 

But still, no matter how small they were, every grain which was once a mountain added to the beauty of the seashore. 

And so I stood, a grain of sand swept by the sea and blown by the wind - but a part of the great scheme of things nonetheless. And all of us grains of sand are made of the same stuff as the sea - atoms which will exist forever no matter how much they are ground.

Time To Think

I am alive. Honestly. Despite the silence on this purple and green little blog, I am most certainly alive.

Recently, due to my lack of motivation, my attachment to marijuana and my xbox button mashing, my mind, body and soul are feeling dusty and I need to have a good clear out. It's been good relaxing and being lazy and disorganised but not for my intellect. I need to think more.

Yeah.... I need some time to think.

Not about anything in particular, just thinking. It's healthy.

The time is coming though - in 4 days I'm leaving the little flower town which held me for 18 years. I've seen it hot, cold, thriving and bear. I've seen it for the best - for the friends, the flowers, the fields - the fun. I've seen the grass filled with diamonds, I've run up the hills with the humans and the animals and caught the fishes from the brook. Lying in the grass looking up at the rabbit tails and sky battles, everything was fine and everything was sussed out. I've seen it for the worst as well. Frozen fingers and secondary school winters... need I say more?

But I am too big for my boots in this town. I walk around as if I own the place. The streets are not mine but I act as if they are. This place, for me, is long conquered and no matter how clean and how floral, it will start to fester.

On Friday the 23rd of September I'm leaving to think. But I'm sure this old town will still be in my thoughts.

Your Passion Feeds Your Soul

Your passion feeds your soul. Do not hide it, do not ignore it... feed it, and it will feed you. Without passion your flame is nothing but an ember fading slowly away. 

I subdued my passion once, silenced it.

There I was, quiet and still:

                                             No-one.

                                              Like a metronome gone out of time I sat alone.

Flicking through the newspapers, seeing pictures of people shouting,

Screaming for a cause.

And I became overcome with a fear,

What if I shout and no one listens?

What if I shout and no one hears?

And I became overcome with a greater fear                        right then... 

                                             What if I do not shout?

Ride your horses, sing your songs. Whether you stand on the top of a mountain or behind the counter in a charity shop, make it your passion that you follow. And if you say that your passion is money and making it, think back to before you knew what money was and find out what your penchant really is.

Because there lies the truest of happiness.

Equality Through Conformity? PART TWO

Today I feel hushed. It's one of those days which leaves you feeling quiet. I sit here at my computer screen wondering who my words will touch, and wondering whether I should deviate too far from the 'plan'.

The 'plan' was to offer up some healthy questions regarding last Saturday to help illustrate the importance of thought and questioning when it comes to our actions and dogma. I suppose I will get round to it. Yes, I will. I'm just distracted today, that's all. I'll address that in the future; I'll address this now.

Equality Through Conformity?

I want to talk about the meaning of the word ‘truth’, and what and why we believe. This is a topic I’ve been discussing a lot recently, because I believe that it’s wrong to go out onto the streets and shout about something you don’t fully believe in, or worse, don’t fully understand. It was for that reason that outside Marks and Spencer on the 2nd of July I wasn’t joining in with the ‘free Palestine’ chants. I am not at all in any way an authority on any of the facts regarding the reasons for the chant and, more simply, I don’t fully understand the problems that Palestine face.

If you don’t understand something, why shout about it? Why pretend that you do? Does it stem from a desire to fit in, or just because you presume that people around you who agree with you on other things must be saying something you agree with about everything else?

So of course the answer is simple: research. Look it up, read about it, make your own mind up. That’s what I need to do before I have the right to shout anything in the street, or even suppose it in my own mind. That’s my project; I need to learn about it for myself. From multiple sources. Perhaps someone can explain their angle on Palestine for me. We’ll do a trade - I’m quite good on British Wildlife if anyone wants to swap some info. My topics also include horses, tree climbing and writing poetry.

I think the most important question is the following. It is the question from which all other questions are implied.

Why do you believe what you believe?

There I said it. I needn't explain the implications and connotations of that question. I'm just going to leave it at that.

The Conformity Bit

Everyone's been commenting on Charlie Veitch's odd behaviour recently, and just as many people have been commenting on the comments.

The genius of Stanley Milgram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) and Solomon Asch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments) spring instantly to mind for me when I think of people's comments on Charlie.

And it worries me rather that people are ready to hold onto their beliefs to the extent that they will direct hatred at other people. I might be way off - hell I'm just a kid - but I thought that the groups focusing on causes such as 9-11 or the abolishment of war would be loving, caring people who aimed to spread peace, not hatred and certainly not threats.

So this must mean that the people are angry and disappointed with him. I do understand the implications of his 'u-turn' but, vitally, I respect his right to an opinion no matter how he came to it or what it is, or what his previous words and actions are. If no one had the right or ability to change their minds, then what would be the point of the truth movement at all?

Where did the anger and disappointment come from then? Why are these supposedly lovely peaceful people acting so out of character? One of the possibilities is that a lot of these people needed a leader and saw Mr. Veitch as fit to be just that. Many people are addicted to the security that comes hand in hand with someone else being responsible. And when their responsible, replicable leader strayed from the cause, these people were left alone. Scary, eh?

It all just highlights how, although it's lovely to be a part of something, it's vital to a great extent that we must all be our own leaders. Of course it's frightening that if this was the case our actions would solely be our own responsibility - no one there to blame or hate if we realise we were wrong. It would mean that we would have to truly, deeply believe our own convictions and use our own creativity in order to communicate this to others. But I think that would make a better world; a world full of analytical, pensive, meditative people who believed what they believed because they saw it with their own eyes, or saw the appropriate evidence for it.

So stop hating Charlie Veitch. I agree that his change of mind was suspicious and yes I certainly do question it. But I will NEVER have the right to abuse him for it. After all, isn't this whole thing about freedom?

(Although I do think this video is very silly)

Equality Through Conformity? PART ONE

At the weekend, after much preparation and planning, phone calls and scribbled out ideas, the two of us jumped on the train to Manchester Piccadilly and set of for what we thought would simply be a day of protest - nothing more, nothing less. We expected to be shouting about the cause we set off to shout about - nothing more nothing less. Maybe a few chaps with placards, maybe a bit of light public disturbance - nothing more nothing less.

How wrong we were.

The helium balloons on which our chosen message was printed were handed out at such speed to crowds of men, women and children who clamored and begged for them like we'd never have expected. Not for the message on the balloon, admittedly. Turns out people like balloons, who knew? But the important thing was that our balloons and therefore our message was all over Piccadilly Square and was dispersing around the city as people took them away with them. So that was the first half hour of our 'protest' done. And we had nothing left apart from little slips of paper with the message on, which were given out all day.

The real stuff started to happen when the various groups who had come to the square to share their message all got together and started to move as one. If anyone has ever experienced a come-up, it felt like that...

The feeling that something very, very good is about to happen.

And it did.

I needn't go too deep into the details of the day and what exactly happened; there's Youtube for that (just look for We Are Change Manchester 2/7/11).

But I can barely convey the immense feelings of love and joy and the colourful, vibrant expressions of freedom as the peaceful vibrations echoed around the city. It wasn't just the hugs or the sharing or the equality and value of each individual which struck me. Something went much deeper, something in my core which whispered reassuringly that this was right and this was good. As the Topshop barriers came rolling down to protect the store from a large congregation of people who would never dream of hurting or stealing from anyone, it was palpable that this had evolved from a protest (nothing more, nothing less) to an incredible demonstration of the fact that we are humans and we are free - nothing more, nothing less. It was an announcement of our presence - a movement of thinking, feeling, loving entities sharing their humanity with each other. It was beautiful. Disillusioned ex-soldiers rubbed shoulders with passionate questioners and religious speakers in the greatest display of mutual respect that I have ever seen. If you had something to say, you grabbed a megaphone and you said it.

Certain aspects of the day raised questions in my mind about our actions and our beliefs. These are questions regarding reality and truth or rather - imagination and dogma. I hope to tackle this in the second installment of my post. I will, in the style of a Mr. Danny Shine, present these questions to you and allow you to look deep into yourself to find the answers. Because it's healthy to question. Questions make life worth living, nothing more, nothing less.

Reflective Jacket State

I'll tell you what I'm thinking about today...


Reflective jackets. What the hell is with reflective jackets? When people see them they're like rabbits caught in headlights. What is so scary about a reflective jacket? Moreover, what is scary about a person wearing a reflective jacket?

The reflective jacket has become something of a symbol for authority, something to be seen, something to be followed, something to be obeyed. How many times have I been told to look out for the people in reflective jackets in case of an emergency? And how many times have I been told to put my dog on a lead, or to not smoke here please, or to move along because I'm loitering? And 99% of the time, I bet we all obey these people just because they're... easier to spot...

I've experienced it first hand too. At a festival last year I was stewarding and was awarded the great privilege of the reflective jacket. I was wandering around the festival, beer in hand, perfectly relaxed when I walked past a group of lads in their late teens, early twenties. It just so happens that earlier that evening I'd been sitting with them having a laugh but now, with the authoritarian addition of the reflective jacket they flinched in fear of my presence - no shit! One of them looked up at me, wide eyed in (what an innocent mind would believe to be) fear and he almost threw whatever he was dealing with on the back of a CD case up into air. God! Suddenly now I'm in a reflective jacket I'm the police!

And that brings me on to the character I encountered tonight... a female Community Support Officer, clad, naturally in her brand spanking new shiny reflective jacket glistening in the sun. Boy oh boy... didn't that put fear into my heart! How I shook as she shined at me... how I trembled with fear as I... saw her more easily. And it made me think, what do these busybody CSOs actually do? What power do they have? What can they do to me? Well they've got a reflective jacket on, so it must be something quite frightening. And then I realised what I was faced with, the great big scary reflective jacketed authority - someone with the power to phone the police.

Lottie's Top 5 Words

As this blog is still very up in the air at the moment, a wide variety of topics are bound to be covered. It's worth checking back regularly to see whether a topic you find interesting pops up... if it doesn't, suggest it!
Onwards!! (ओंवार्ड्स)
Language is a very important part of life, adding colour to our communication and helping us spread our message out into the world. And what would language be without those little gems which make us smile when we read them? This inspired me to create a list of these brilliant little (and big) words in the hope that spreading knowledge of them may help our daily communication to become less of a burden and more of a joy.

And so, my gift to you - wonderful coinages which roll mellifluously off the tongue.
After all, words can put the fun in function.

At Number Five: Mandate

Recently this word has caught my ear on the news, as people discussing all sorts of mandates occurring between politicians...
Turns out that these guys aren't actually going out for romantic evenings together, but actually it refers to a much more dull definition: a formal order from a superior court.

At Number Four: Discombobulate

Makes you wonder whether anyone actually bothers using this word seriously, as every time I hear it I just let out a snigger. It means to confuse or upset, or cause chaos.

At Number Three: Pooh-bah

Let's be honest... it's because it contains the word poo, and everyone gets a giggle out of that. And, poo can be tenuously linked to the definition of the word - it refers to a person of great power or influence, or one who holds many public or private offices.

At Number Two: Flibbertigibbet

Yes, it is a real word! Consult the dictionary for a confirmation! I want to meet the person who came up with this word and shake them warmly by the hand in congratulations. The definition is 'a silly flighty person'. How... lovely.

And finally, at number one, the best word I have found to date: Gimcrack

I don't know what it is about it. Maybe it's the plosive sounds, maybe it's because it sounds like a brilliant insult, maybe it's just because it contains the word 'crack'. But the meaning of this word is a world away from its rude sounding root: it simply means 'a showy item of little worth or value'.

Go forth, use these words and celebrate the wonder that is the English language!