Fallen Idol
I used to love The Smashing Pumpkins. In fact there was a time when Idevoured everything they put out, and to this day I think Siamese Dreams remains one of the best albums ever recorded. Which is why it is so disappointing that Billy Corgan, once one of my idols, has in the last few years become a total unhinged nutbar.
First there was the reformation of the band without any of the members other than himself. Fine, lots of bands have gone down this route, and we all knew that it was him who played most of the parts on the albums anyway. But then he released a terrible album under that name and then refused to play old songs when they toured, even though the tour was billed as a 20th anniversary tour.
Next came the wacky behaviour. When the band were getting bad reviews he called a fan onstage at a show to ask him what he thought (in itself a bit weird) and when the fan told him the show sucked he responded "Oh yeah? Well what songs have you written? Take Your Dick Out Of My Ass And Stick It On My Mouth?" Way to engage with your audience.
Then he proclaimed there would be no more albums, because "we found with Zeitgeist that the alternative audience isn't alternative anymore. They're a pop audience that listens to Nickelback. So doing a 10-minute song, nobody will listen to it." Yeah Billy, insulting your audience is always a good idea.
Then he slagged off Radiohead for giving away their 'In Rainbows' album, saying it put out the wrong message to young bands. Then, just to confuse matters further he announced that the Pumpkins would be giving away a 44 track album, totally free. There are politicians who would be staggered by this level of U-turning.
But anyway, all of this is fairly typical rock star idiocy. But now Billy has gone and thrown his hat in with the very worst and idiotic sides of spiritualist nonsense on his blog 'Everything From There To Here.' A quick peruse has him writing such gubbins as;
"God doesn’t get tired. God never stops. God keeps going. God has tons of patience. God never wakes, for God does not sleep."
And:
"I went to see a channel once a few years back. We were discussing the nature of divinity here on Earth, and how I was having trouble staying connected to my body. He said to me, “What most people here don’t understand is that finding God is not about going up and meditating on the top of some mountain for 40 years. You are here IN THE BODY for a reason, to experience the limitation of that lower vibration, and therefore learn how to integrate WITH IT, and also find Holiness in the process. The way OUT of the box is to get completely IN the box, and make the most of your time HERE.”"
Yeah, thanks for that Billy. Again, fair enough, I don't have to like it or agree with it but the man is entitled to write his childlike musings of the world. But on top of this, he has also decided that Swine Flu is a giant conspiracy cooked up by, amongst others, Barack Obama.
Come again? In his post Health and A Well-Being he states:
"I would suggest however that it is possible the virus is not a naturally occurring virus. I have read reports from people who say (as doctors) that there is evidence to suggest this virus was created by man; to call it Swine Flu is then a misnomer, as it really is Swine Flu plus some other stuff stitched together. These doctors said such genetic mutation was impossible in nature."
And:
"Our American President Obama has declared a national emergency about this virus, which he in his own words said was, at this point, a preventative measure. So, why declare an emergency if there isn’t one?"
Perhaps, Billy, it's got something to do with more measures being able to be more easily mobilised to combat the spread, once the emergency has been declared. And as for this point about swine flu being some kind of man-made genetic hybrid, this is from Doctors, eh Billy? Not, perhaps, from holistic peddlers who want to see you start ranting and raving about the evils of immunisation? Because surely even you cant go as far as that, eh?
"I for one will not be taking the vaccine. I do not trust those who make the vaccines, or the apperatus behind it all to push it on us thrufear. This is not judgment; it is a personal decision based on research, intuition, conversations with my doctor and my ‘family’. If the virus comes to take me Home, that is between me and the Lord."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. There is more of this sort of gubbins on his site, and I highly recommend it if you are interested in seeing just how unravelled a mind can get. The post about dreaming of Johnny Cash is particularly silly.
In the meantime though, I think my relationship with the Pumpkins is now officially severed.
Thanks to Joe for spotting this idiocy.
Oxford, Part 2
Today's post will be a bit like Jaws 2, in that it will be roughly 17% less interesting than the first one, but different from Jaws 2 in that it wont culminate in Roy Schneider coaxing a giant shark to bite a huge power cable.
Sunday started with another continental breakfast, where I decided to discover whether man can live on croissants alone (tip; you can't, I was hungry after only a few hours). After breakfast we headed back along the grass verge to the bus stop, stopping approximately every five metres to wrest the pushchair from the mud, and waited for the Tube bus.
Now it seems to me that one general rule of dealing with the public is to not greet them with a barely concealed contempt, but on every attempt to use this service this was exactly what we encountered. The driver would see the folded pushchair and sigh and tut and stomp about without saying a word. But again we negotiated our way on the bus and headed back to Oxford to see Christ Church College.
When we arrived we discovered that (presumably due to the religious nature of the place) Oxford doesn't really do the same Sunday opening hours as the rest of the country. Pretty much everywhere was closed when we got there, and Christ Church was closed until 2.30 in the afternoon, so we went for a wander to occupy ourselves. At precisely this time the heavens opened up on us, mocking the weather reports that had promised us a sunny day.
We first visited the Museum of Modern Art, which consisted of one room with a tv screen showing an interview with a french student about precisely nothing. Now I understand that film and television can be art. Look at the works of Scorcese or any of a thousand other directors and there is art there. One static camera conducting the worlds most boring interview does not to me constitute art. There was a man there sat silently in the corner, who we presumed to be the artist. Thankfully Rosie kicked up a fuss, giving us the excuse to smile politely and beat a hasty retreat. So we left, back into the rain. We visited the open market, which was closed, and another museum, which was also closed.
Soggy and becoming dispirited we killed time in a milkshake cafe for a while, before heading back to Christ Church, which was now accepting visitors. We paid our £12 in entry fees and entered, just as the rain topped and the sun started to shine again.
Christ Church is arguably the most famous of the colleges, and it's not hard to see why, its breathtaking architecture and history simply stunning. The tour includes a look at the mighty great hall (home to some of the scenes in Harry Potter which gave me a big geeky kick) and the Cathedral, which I found less impressive than Ellen, but then I grew up in the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral.
One thing that really grated though was that at the end of the tour, as we approached the Picture Gallery, home to works by some of the great masters, small print informed us that there is a supplemental charge for entry, and that the masters wouldn't necessarily be on display anyway. If you're going to charge extra, that should be made pretty clear from the start, and we were not alone in thinking this, almost everyone left the tour grumbling and disheartened. But that's not to detract from the sheer magnificence of the place, which is otherwise well worth the visit.
We headed back to the hotel, making sure we got back reasonably early so we could give Rosie an early dinner and hopefully settle her a little earlier. Once back in the hotel we popped into reception to book a table, only to be told that they didn't serve dinner on a Sunday evening and that the kitchens closed 15 minutes earlier.
We stood dumbfounded for a moment. This left us with no options for dinner, since we were deep in the countryside and didn't drive. We stood in silence for a moment, until thankfully one of the staff offered to drive us in his car to a local pub he thought may be open and serving food. This pub was closed too, so this poor bloke had to drive us around all the villages looking for somewhere to eat.
Then quite randomly we happened upon an open but empty Thai restaurant in the middle of a sleepy village. As soon as we stepped inside we knew that our turn of misfortune had worked in our favour. They immediately fussed over Rosie, bringing her chocolate and vegetable carvings and generally being thoroughly lovely to all of us. The food was beautiful too, light but filling. The whole evening turned out to be one of the highlights of the weekend.
The next morning we said our goodbyes to Oxford and started the epic nine hour journey back, taking in three coaches, a bus and a taxi. Miraculously Rosie remained lovely throughout, cuddly and quiet and generally well behaved before slumping into a deep sleep a few minutes into the last and longest coach leg.
So all in all a successful weekend away, a fitting celebration for Ellen's birthday, filled with happy times and history, food and wine. We spent a fortune in the end, and may have to resort to eating potato peelings and air before the month is up, but it was worth it.
Apologies if the last few days have been the equivalent of your parents insisting you see all the photos they took of the desert after a week in Egypt, your eyes glazing over after the fifth picture of a camel*. Sometimes there's just no way of escaping a holiday bore, but at least here you can just shut the browser down in defiance. I wouldn't even know. Go on, you'll feel better.
*I had hoped to get some photos on today, but was distracted by good telly last night, so I may have to save them for another post. There wont be any of camels, I promise.
Oxford, Part One
This past weekend Ellen, Rosie and I decamped from our beautiful city to another beautiful English city for the weekend to celebrate Ellen's birthday. Three days in Oxford was exactly what the doctor ordered, so forgive me if for the next few days I record the event for posterity. If nothing else it might be nice for Rosie to have a record of a holiday that she was too small to remember down the line.
We had a small hiccup on the first morning. Having opted for transport by coach we were due to leave on the 9.50 bus, so set the alarm for seven and book a taxi for nine. And then woke up at ten, just as our coach was probably pulling onto the motorway. I had obviously hit the alarm off switch rather than the snooze button, and while Rosie usually serves as a very effective second alarm clock this morning she opted for a lie in followed by quietly playing with the teddies in her cot.
Having hastily rearranged transport by train (at considerable expense) we arrived in Oxford around the same time as we would have anyway, and we caught the Oxford-London Tube bus to our hotel, a few miles outside Oxford in the small hamlet of Aston Rowant. Once aboard however, things took a turn for the crushingly slow as the packed coach managed to take 45 minutes to even get out of Oxford. We got off the bus near the hotel and discovered we would have to track through half a mile of grass motorway verge to get to the hotel. Travelling is never easy with a small child and so far it had been stressful from the point of waking up, but thankfully Rosie had been angelic throughout.
Once we arrived however, every moment of stress was worth it. We were booked into the luxuriant Lambert Arms hotel, and once we were in our room we crashed onto the beds while Rosie ran laps around the room, glad to be able to stretch her little legs. We went down for a glorious meal in the restaurant and a bottle of wine, then went back to the room to put Rosie to bed.
This was the first time that we had tried sharing a hotel room with Rosie, and one of the first times she had a bed to sleep in rather than a cot. When we had been planning the trip we had talked about putting Rosie down and once she was asleep returning to the bar for a few more drinks. How very naive of us.
After about an hour of laying still in darkness as Rosie got out of the bed giggling every 30 seconds we abandoned any notion of her getting to sleep and decided to investigate the telly, which had a film on demand service so we selected the new Star Trek film and settled in with a bottle of wine from the front desk. Rosie finally crashed out at about midnight, with us only minutes behind her.
The next morning, after enjoying a hearty continental breakfast we caught the Tube bus back to Oxford for a day of sightseeing. Undeterred by the rain we took one of the walking tours of the colleges that make you feel like an absolute tourist, our tour guide having an excellently laconic delivery that pointed to the fact that he really regretted the fact that his Oxford University education had led to nothing more exciting than dragging tourists repeatedly around the root of his failure.
After a messy (for Rosie anyway) pasta lunch in the covered market, and with the weather clearing up a bit we walked down the the massively impressive Magdelene College and walked around their lovely grounds watching the deer. This is exactly what these kinds of trips are for, soaking in history in beautiful surroundings and hanging out with your family. I know that as Rosie gets older it will be harder and harder to hold her interest in these kinds of trips, so we soaked every ounce of enjoyment from the day before heading back to the hotel, snapping photos of every beautiful view as we went. (I will try and get photos up tomorrow.)
Once back we fed at the excellent restaurant again and then retired to the room, this time forewarned of exactly what awaited us. Rosie didn't disappoint, staying up to midnight again, but as a result we didn't feel guilty about settling down to watch the X factor on our holiday, armed with a few bottles of wine bought from Oxford, my little family safe and happy and warm and exhausted from all the walking.
Tune in tommorow for the thrilling climax to our trip wherapon Rosie battles dragons and I am arrested for public nudity. Or possibly not.
Cross Blogination 6: Eels – Electro-shock Blues
Cross Blogination is a project I’m doing with twitterthon hero Diary Of A Ledger, the idea being every week one of us will recommend to the other one of our all time favourite albums, which we will then both write a review for. Then every three weeks we take a suggestion from someone else. This weeks suggestion comes from the lovely Jennie, who is more obsessed with Eels than is strictly healthy.
When Jennie suggested this album to me, she explained that it was her favourite Eels album because while it is the hardest of their albums to get into, it's also the most rewarding to those who manage to do so. I think that's about a concise and accurate a review of this album as you can get, but I will try to elaborate.
Given that the album was largely a response from E to the suicide of his sister and the lung cancer of his mother, it's hardly surprising that the lyrics of this album are dark, but what makes this album so special is the way that E conveys these emotions not through his vocal delivery, which is as laconic as ever, but through the tone of the music, and how the story unfolds throughout the album to show how one can come through these kinds of experiences.
There is something ever so slightly unsettling about the music on this album, especially in the first half, where childlike piano sounds wrestle for your attention with lazy guitars, discordant noise and thick treacly bass sounds. It reminds me in places of a circus, albeit staffed by the clowns of Stephen King's imagination.
Opener 'Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor' sees lyrics taken directly from his sister's journal, and the gentle strumming is overtaken by haunting strings, and is moving to the extreme, the density of the sounds becoming claustrophobic. 'Going to Your Funeral Part I' sees a dirty bass riff giving way to a childlike piano sound and gentle 'Shadows' style guitar. It's brilliant, and manages to evoke emotion better than a thousand Nick Cave songs.
Then comes the noise clash opening of 'Cancer For The Cure', which gives way to a darkly pop sensibility and lyrics that play with the notions of death raised in the earlier songs. As the album moves on, however, the tone moves slowly away from the oppressive start and becomes lighter in tone, both lyrically and musically. 'My Descent Into Madness' is the first indication that this could be the same band who recorded 'Novocaine for the Soul.' '3 Speed' is almost Buddy Holly-esque, with a Brian Wilson influenced string section that is still slightly unsettling.
'Hospital Food' sees the album take an odd turn into Jazz horns and discordant rhythms wrapped around darkly comic lyrics and falsetto vocals. The title track then wanders into Tricky style musical invention, as a simple piano sample underpins the drawling lyric. 'Efil's God' then takes this further, the bass rumbling under simple hip-hop style drums and swirling backwards strings. 'Going to Your Funeral Part II' follows, a soft and lush instrumental which splits the album in two.
'Last Stop: This Town' returns to the anthemic sounds of the first album, although the lyrics are as sarcastically dark as before. 'Baby Genius' then crashes in, removing any semblance of 'easy' listening as the soft lullaby is interrupted by bursts or radio noise and crashing plates. It's a surreal tribute to his troubled genius father.
But it is the wonderful 'Climbing To The Moon' and 'Dead of Winter' that are the emotional and musical highlights of the album. Dealing in turn with his Sister's and Mother's deaths they drop the earlier sonic experimentation and are thundering in their emotional weight. You get a real sense that by this stage of the album he is able to look at these two deaths logically, with the noise in his head clearing enough for him to start dealing with the loss, rather than the anger. The lyrics are breathtaking, and the music is simple and haunting.
The last two tracks, 'The Medication Is Wearing Off' and 'P.S. You Rock My World' start to show a more positive view, the former especially seeming like a breath of morning air. The journey is complete as E sings on the final song that "maybe it's time to live."
Normally I wouldn't go into such depths in reviewing an album, but every song here is a chapter in a story, each more integral than the last. It's a brilliant, haunting and ultimately uplifting album that really shows what a great and talented artist E is. I initially brushed this album off as one of my least favourite albums by them, but Jennie was right, the more you give this album the more it gives you back.
Don't forget to go visit Gray and see what he thought.
5/5
Dr. Nobrain: Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love Griffin appearing on Question Time
Tonight will see a watershed moment for British Television, as the biggest human cockstain walking, Mr Nick Griffin of the British Nutsack Party, has been invited to appear on BBC's Question Time to be debated by a panel of his peers. And by peers, I mean elected officials and not a bunch of sub-literate ponies holding crayons in their mouths, which would be his intellectual peers.
A lot has been made from the fact that we shouldn't really be putting racist bigoted idiots front and centre on national television, and there is certainly merit to that argument. But hasn't the time come when we can all freely admit that this man and his party are starting to pose a threat to our political system? Are we afraid of his success or his ideas?
The reason that the BNP have been able to make so much ground amongst the disaffected and the (let's say it) thick is precisely because nobody is out there arguing against the sheer idiocy of their ideas. They can constantly take up the position of martyr, constrained by the political elite from telling the truth to the people. Which is nonsense of course, but people buy it, especially those who see the political system as nothing more than a joke.
So why not take them into the political arena? They are already there, with two seats in the European Parliament, including representing my home. It is time we changed tactic when it comes to these retrograde fools. Their arguments simply don't hold up under scrutiny and nobody is able to call them on it because they are too busy telling them they wont talk to them, or about them.
Now Question Time tonight is not really likely to change many minds. Most people tuning in will have already made up their minds as pro or anti. But maybe there will be a few people out there who will be watching whose minds can be changed by listening to what an absolute idiot this man is. Ideally he will trip over his shoelaces on his was to the desk, then be so thoroughly outclassed by the likes of Jack Straw that he runs from the studio with excrement clearly running down his trouser leg.
Freedom of speech means that we have to accept that people have differing views to ours, however hateful they may seem to us, but free speech also means the right to a free exchange of ideas, in honest and open debate. I think the BBC is correct in saying that perhaps the time has come to show these fools and idiots for the dribble-mouthed racist fools they really are.
I hope that the people they have chosen will truly take the fight to him. And if nobody asks Griffin which side he would have preferred to have won WWII then they have missed an opportunity. Oh, and the awesome image above is from the good folks over at Wacky Racists. Here's to seeing a fool undone on national television tonight.
Blood Update
For all of the 'big ideas' that I have on a regular basis, I have a terrible knack of letting the dust settle on them for long enough that I move on from them. You may have noticed that there has not been a lot of movement on the Blood On The Motorway front recently, so I thought I'd make some promises on here that might spur me into action.
So here goes. Blood On The Motorway will be launching in January 2010. There, I've said it now. Have to live up to it. Can't go disappointing you now.
In this spirit I've also tried to kick-start some action on my other 'Untitled Online Project' that I am doing with some chaps I met on Twitter. This one seems pretty exciting actually, so hopefully by the end of month one of next year I should have more than enough on my plate.
Around here I've decided to make my 'Letters to Rosie' a more permanent feature, since they seem to go over pretty well and they are a nice thing for me to do. Hopefully one day she will read them all and decide I'm not such a bad Dad after all. I'm going to keep it to one a month to start with, but we shall see from there. Cross Blogination is going pretty well, and if anyone else has any ideas for things they would like me to do more of, then let me know.
Having a great time with someone else’s suffering
(Warning! This post gets a bit schmaltzy towards the end, so don't read on if you don't want me to get all emo on you.)
Simon Amstell is a very very funny man. Crammed into the rafters of York's Grand Opera House (a slightly misleading name) last night, Ellen and I witnessed a man spending an hour talking about how he couldn't get laid and making it highly amusing and thought provoking.
Without knowing what sort of stand up Amstell does ahead of time (I have never seen him outside of his high-profile TV presenting gigs) I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was quite surprised by his all too brief act. Very much in the vein of Woody Allen, it was the traditional Jewish comedy of neurosis, with his unique spin. Most of the act revolved around his inability to get men, and his predilection for men who look like Jared Leto in 'My So Called Life.'
The only dissapointment was the brevity of his set, which lasted for just shy of an hour. To be honest for £20+ a ticket I would expect a little more, but if the adage of quality over quantity is applied it was well worth it. And besides, he makes frequent mention of the brevity of life in his act, so it's all relative.
After the gig Ellen went for a few drinks and a meal, revelling in being out on our own. Having had a daughter for the entirety of our relationship has always meant that it's difficult to get out. We have a few friends we can ask to fulfil babysitting duties, but we're keenly aware of the risk of overusing them, and we tend to use them for nights out where we're meeting up with other people, so it's very rare we go out as just the two of us.
But last night was lovely. As we sat in the pub launching into massive debates over the nature of religion and the decline of female role-models I was reminded again of how much I love this wonderful woman. She is smarter than me, funny and kind, beautiful, and always willing to listen to the other side of an argument.
Times like last night I really realise what a lucky man I am. The chances that our own unique situation could have worked out as well as it has must have been a thousand to one. But I sit here writing about this and thinking about my beautiful daughter and wonderful girlfriend and have to admit that I have it pretty good really.
I promise I will go back to being a misanthrope tomorrow.
Thanks, Birthdays, Comedy and The Mail.
Just a quick one today, work has been hella busy today. It seems that the nation's worst newspaper did a small feature on us over the weekend, leading to a ton of orders. I've been processing the Internet orders all morning. On the upside I get to stick my headphones in and listen to the new Coalesce album, downside, every time I enter someones details I know that they are a Daily Mail reader and I find myself wondering what they made of the Jan Moir article. Oh well.
It's Ellen's birthday today, so this morning was the presents giving event, with Rosie trying to unwrap them all before Ellen could. Frankly though, she's rubbish at it, so Ellen managed to unwrap most of them and Rosie just played with the paper.
Tonight we're off to the theatre. Well, a theatre, to go and see Simon Amstell. Despite me being a huge fan of stand up, I've not been to see any stand up outside of a festival comedy tent since I did my work experience at Jongleurs comedy club in London in the mid 90's, so I'm really excited.
Also, I've realised that if this week goes as well as recent weeks around here, I will have passed 1000 visitors by the end of this week, which is not bad since I only launched in August. It took a year and a half to reach this sort of total on the old site, and while I am under no illusions that these numbers make me a rival to any of the blogs I read, it's lovely to know that there are people out there reading. So I just wanted to say a big thank you to you for stopping by, and I'll try to keep up some semblance of quality for you.
Cross Blogination 5: Dashboard Confessional – The Places That You’ve Come To Fear The Most
Cross Blogination is a project I’m doing with twitterthon hero Diary Of A Ledger, the idea being every week one of us will recommend to the other one of our all time favourite albums, which we will then both write a review for. This week it’s Gray's turn again.
I approached this week's challenge with a certain amount of trepidation. I've never been familiar with the work of Dashboard Confessional, except to know one thing: They are properly emo. And not in an old-school Far/Quicksand kind of way. No, these guys are the sort of band that leads tweenie girls in bad mascara to leave videos of themselves crying on YouTube, the sort of band whose boyishly good-looking lead singer will instantly break the hearts and melt the panties of any girl who sees their photo.
In other words, I hated them on sight and never looked any further. So I cringed a little when Gray suggested this, and immediately started plotting a revenge scenario which would involve strapping him into a chair and blasting him with non stop Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed to the point where he'd be begging for another 48 hours on twitter. But the point of this is to remain objective, and so I gritted my teeth and added it to my collection of proper music.
I started listening to this on the bus on the way to work a few days back. It was morning and I hadn't woken up yet, so I expected to be knocked about by a lot of bleating lyrics and discordant guitars. But opener 'Brilliant Dance' starts with a perfectly pleasant acoustic little ditty. The vocals are a little overwrought and nasal, but nowhere near as bad as I had feared. Pressing play I had had images of me wresting the steering wheel away from the bus driver and forcing the bus into a building just to avoid listening any more.
Come the next track and the tirrade of screeching emo still fails to appear, as the acoustic vibe continues, 'Good Fight' being another emo pop acoustic ballad, replete with a nice backing from quiet drums and underlying piano. The album continues in this way, and when I look it up later it seems that Dashboard started off as a side project for singer Chris Carrabba.
It's this acoustic approach that saves this album from becoming yet another emo-pop stereotype. The songs are all well crafted, the lyrics a little hackneyed but nowehere near as bad as the likes of Gerard Way. The simple production allows the songwriting to shine, and Carrabba clearly has a way with a chorus. His voice does grate after a few tracks, but that's as much to do with the over-exposure of his vocal style by bands that followed as it is to do with his performance.
'Screaming Infidelities' with its rather hideous line 'But as for me, I wish that I was anywhere with anyone making out.' is a bit awful, but 'Again I Go Unnoticed' is a cracking little tune. And so the pattern goes for the rest of the album. Some songs are excellent little pop songs (the title track, 'Saints and Sailors'), some are bland and boring ('This Ruined Puzzle').
Despite how much I was fearing listening to this though, it's nowhere near as bad as all that. It's a perfectly pleasant little album that leaves you feeling a little bit like a character in the OC. Sun washed and well crafted, the best thing I can say about it is that it is utterly unlikely to drive you to a murderous rage and force your carriage of transport to become a flaming box of death. Which is more than I can say for Fall Out Boy.
3/5
Now, if you are offended by this review, head over to Gray's place and hear him talk about it in a more positive light. Unless you are Gray, in which case, sorry mate!
Blog Action Day 2009 – A letter to my daughter
Today, over 8000 blogs in 140 countries are taking part in Blog Action Day 2009 raising awareness and challenging people to act on climate change. Thanks to Miss Smidge, who let me know about this, and has a great post on her site. For my contribution I thought I'd write a letter to my two and a half year old daughter, Rosie.
Dear Rosie
Last time I wrote you a letter on here, it was to give you advice. This time, it's an apology. You see, as I write this it would appear that my generation and the one that came before it has utterly and totally screwed you. Sorry. Global warming is currently a threat. One we've known about for years but one on which virtually no real action has been taken by the people in power.
But for you global warming will in all likelihood be a massive problem, one which will mean you have no chance to grow up in the kind of world I did. One which will mean that our home nation may be underwater, that the world's economy is devastated and that famine and plagues and floods are the standard order of the day. One if that really is the world you are faced with, I'm sorry.
You see, one of the real problems faced by mankind (other than all the harmful Co2 we keep spewing into the atmosphere) is an attitude that loves nothing more than to put things off. We are experts in using delaying tactics, much like the sort that you yourself will be doing in a few years time. For example, putting off your homework by saying you need to tidy your room. Or you need to finish the chapter in your book. Or there's a really good show on, and you promise you'll do it as soon as it's finished.
Except when you look at the politicians today, it's the same thing but on a much larger scale. 'We would tackle the environment but we need to keep our economies afloat.' Or; 'But if we cut emissions then other countries will overtake us.' That kind of thing. But what we all know and nobody is saying is that every government is saying; 'It's not gonna start causing chaos just yet, so let the next guy deal with it.'
But the more and more we put it off, the more the scientists speak with more urgency about the need to act. And so we do token gestures. Countires agree to small reductions as long as they can buy the right to pollute more. A few people take up cycling while the vast majority still drive. We recycle our cans and bottles. And all the while we know deep down that it's not enough.
But there is room for hope. In America the most powerful man on the planet (no, not the leader of China, but America, they were really important back when you were little) seems to be serious on solving this issue (once he's sorted out all the other ones of course) and at our next election the choice is between three party leaders who all seem to be serious about the environment too. (Although I wouldn't trust one of them in all honesty. You can check if I was right, he was the next Prime Minister after I wrote this. No seriously, we elected a haircut. Sorry about that as well.)
And there are millions of people across the planet who care, and who don't want to leave a mess behind for you and your generation to live through. Today over 8000 bloggers are writing things about this subject. That might not sound like a lot, but a lot of them have a lot more readers than me. So it may well be that as more and more people wake up to the reality of climate change we may just do something to sort it all out before you are looking at a world absolutely devastated. I really do hope so.
But in case we don't, I'm sorry.
Love from your Daddy.
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