the modern guide...better lies
Sunday, May 25, 2008
... to the state we're in.
I was trying to put petrol in my car the other day and was reading the sign on the pump. It was letting me know that the fuel would start flowing as soon as the surveillance cameras had scanned my registration plate.
I thought for a moment....
the price of a barrel of oil, the price of a loaf of bread, the credit crunch, failing mortgages, wars waging all over the globe, cyclones, earthquakes, human trafficing , water shortages, food shortages, despotic regimes, 24 hour cctv and a dying planet
...then the pump started working and I filled up the car.
I thought for a moment....
the price of a barrel of oil, the price of a loaf of bread, the credit crunch, failing mortgages, wars waging all over the globe, cyclones, earthquakes, human trafficing , water shortages, food shortages, despotic regimes, 24 hour cctv and a dying planet
...then the pump started working and I filled up the car.
Labels: Noticing
Monday, May 19, 2008
...to the army on the street
Worrying times here in the U.K. . A modern guide worries about the increasing calls by politicians and the media to raise the profile of the armed forces in the streets and the schools and the minds of the people. An armed forces day with ticker tape parades is one government backed suggestion. 'Why aren't we more like the USA?' they ask. No offence to our American cousins - whom I love dearly - but this is not America and we're not Americans.
More frightening still is the call for servicemen to wear their uniforms in civy street and a push for cadets in every school. Is it to instill respect for the forces or for us is to get used to a daily uniformed presence ?
Just unnerves me this kind of talk, I can't quite put my finger on it...call it a gut feeling - the kind you have just before something really scary happens.
More frightening still is the call for servicemen to wear their uniforms in civy street and a push for cadets in every school. Is it to instill respect for the forces or for us is to get used to a daily uniformed presence ?
Just unnerves me this kind of talk, I can't quite put my finger on it...call it a gut feeling - the kind you have just before something really scary happens.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
...to direct action
I walked into a well known record store last week to find an old friend openly shoplifting. As a successful professional family man he's hardly the type. So we walked around the shop, while he peeled off the security tags and explained that an elderly relative had bought him a birthday gift of record vouchers for that store, not a huge amount - £20 - but a lot to her. Five months had passed since his birthday and he'd came into redeem the vouchers. In the meantime the store had been taken over by a larger chain .
They had retained the name, branding, carrier bags, staff and "vibe" of the previous outlet. Though it seems not their promises. My friend had written to the new proprietors and their accountants and had been told the debt was not theirs . in the end he felt he had no choice but a course of direct action; taking CDs to the exact value that his elderly Aunt had, in good faith, paid for the vouchers.
Finally we walked through the front door security unmolested and made our way down the street. We went for a coffee but not before he stopped to put the three discs in the back of his family BMW estate. As he closed the car door he turned and said;
"You know you just can't treat people like that."
Indeed.
Labels: Justice
Archives
May 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 January 2010
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]