Hydrangea derrangea

Reflects my mood. Sort of. Fuck.

Karmic bus lane

Karma, or something like it, does seem to exist, if simply as a result of human intervention.

This morning, on my relatively pleasant commute to work, I was queued in a line of traffic next to an empty bus lane. Several cars had already whizzed past down the bus lane, but I refused to cut across and go where I wasn't meant to. I'm not a stickler for rules in every case, but when I can see they make sense, I'll happily follow along.

So there I was in the big queue of cars, approaching the end of the lane and ready to spread out into what had been the bus lane, but was now free for all traffic. Two cyclists (who are allowed to use the lane) had just gone past and filtered round in front of a car and a van, who had been cheeky and were now stuck in the bus lane by the same red light as I was currently stopped at.

As it turned green, and traffic moved off, one of the cyclists deliberately held up the illegal traffic in the bus lane so I could filter across, legally and easily.

Karmic cyclists made my day, or at least my commute.

People just getting things... wrong

There was, on the anniversary of Armistice Day, a protest by the group calling themselves Muslims Against Crusades in central London. They burned a poppy.

I support their right to peaceful protest, of course.

But burning a poppy is a bit of a schoolboy error, really. The problem is, if you want to be taken seriously you need to do something a bit smarter than allying yourself with the Nazis. Sounds a bit of a strange thing to say, perhaps, since as far as I know the Nazis weren't in the habit of burning poppies. However, the poppy, although it is worn in remembrance of the fallen in all military action, has a very strong association with the second world war.

To burn a poppy indicates that you don't support the people who fought against Nazism... whoops. Even if you feel that way, don't expect us to listen to anything you have to say if you go ahead and tell us! To support the Nazis and all they stood for is to abandon any hope of being taken seriously. Your call.

We must also consider that the poppy appeal has nothing to do with political issues. To burn a poppy in protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is rather akin to desecrating a fire-fighter's grave because you don't agree with the jail sentence handed out to the arsonist whose handiwork killed him.

Someone protesting with a match is never going to be taken very seriously in this country, even when they've already thrown petrol over you. You can't burn an ideal, just an idol. Most people in the UK tend to consider the former above the latter. "Sticks and stones...", etc.

I wonder if anyone will have pointed that out to the lads standing in the freezing cold with only the warmth of a burning poppy to stave off frostbite. A bin full of broken placards usually gives off much more heat...

Vegas, pt 2

Please, please read part 1 of this article first. Ok, done that? Good.

I didn't imagine that Vegas was perfect. In fact, I went knowing that it would be flawed, because there's no way that so much money can change hands without someone losing out. It was, as far as I could glean from the available media, a viper's nest of debauchery.

In some senses, I was proven utterly correct in this assumption. If, as requested, you have read part 1 of this twin article, you'll know that I was impressed by some parts of the city. However, there's plenty in Vegas for an anti-profligate such as myself to hate.

Wishful wastefulness is the catchphrase in the city. Why bother turning out the lights in your hotel room when doing so will only save a fraction of a thousandth of a billionth of the energy which gets wasted in the city every day? Of course, I believe in setting examples so I turned off the lights, but I was, I can assure you, in a significant minority.

Allied to this were two things which make the bile rise in me like nothing else - prostitution and destitution.

There were, I kid you not, men and women standing on every corner on the Strip wearing t-shirts and handing out flyers with the same slogan plastered across them - "Hot Girls To Your Room In 20 Minutes!". Don't even bother leaving your room, just give them a call and in 20 minutes you can be having your way with some poor girl who has to pretend to like your hairy, fat, pasty, BO-reeking body. Joys.

Let's not linger, though, there are far more enjoyable topics to discuss. Like poverty. Vegas is crawling with money. It flows through big pipes underground instead of water. It's the lifeblood of the city, it lubricates every cog in the great machine. And yet there is poverty all around you, both visible and invisible. The tramps on every street corner are an ever-present reminder of the fact that not everyone is here for a good time. But even worse that that was the run-down apartment block we passed in the shadow of one of the more impressive casinos.

We were being delivered home from an aborted trip to the Grand Canyon, and had been taken all around the houses by the driver in an attempt to avoid the Strip, the busiest place on earth. As we passed Stratosphere on one side, we also passed a run-down, dilapidated apartment block on the other side, straight out of the 1950s. Onto the balcony outside the front door of one of the apartments came a young boy, no older than ten years old, wearing what amounted to rags. In the midst of all of the money which was being spent there were children living in poverty.

I can neither understand nor stomach this discrepancy. In the world's wealthiest nation there is still room for poverty. What's worse, children living in poverty. How can the American public live with themselves when this is going on? Oh, don't get me wrong, there's plenty of work still to do in the UK, but at least we fucking try.

I've gone on too long already, and given my lead I'd go on for a lot longer. So I'll leave it there. Vegas has left me torn in two, impressed and disgusted, thankful I'd visited, even more so that I got out when I did. Now that's a trick...

Vegas, pt 1

I recently had the opportunity to visit Las Vegas, albeit relatively briefly. I've come to the conclusion that's rather a good thing, but more of that later. I'd been to America a couple of times before, but never visited the "Blackpool of the (wild) West".

Of course, it's so much more amazing than that grim northern British city. There are two sides to Vegas, and in this first of two articles I intend to write about it, I want to concentrate on the positives.

Let's not beat about the bush here, Vegas is an incredibly impressive place. It's a testament to the realisation of imagination in concrete and lightbulbs. No-one does this 'imagineering' in quite the same way as the Americans, and Vegas is redolent of an adult version of Disneyland, a playground for those who only vaguely remember how to play.

The structures which have been built, whilst they are clearly ripped off without a moment's thought for culture, have actually been lovingly recreated. All of Vegas is about taking money from your pocket, but my goodness they make you feel good about it. If nothing more, it's worth visiting for the sheer, breathtaking scale of the monuments on view. Ignore the gambling and the girls (more of that later), and go for the scene-setting, and maybe a show.

There's also an underlying level of actual class to the place. Oh yes, it's hidden behind a veil of debauchery, but some of the retail opportunities (let's not be so crass as to term them 'shops') really are of the highest calibre. My mother, gently enquiring about a rather attractive vase in one of the 'Miracle Mile' shops was mildly surprised to find the price tag running into five figures.

Of course, expensive doesn't mean high class, but there was, amongst all the fakery, a certain sense of rightness about things. I wasn't expecting it, and I was pleasantly surprised to be ambushed by it.

I had gone into Las Vegas a cynic, and come away genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed myself, and how quickly my opinion had been modified. Well done, Vegas, well done.

Autumn

A couple of images which mean autumn to me. One is entirely natural, the other somewhat more collaborative. 

The colours in this are genuine...

This GT-R is the same one which appeared in this edition of Car Park Bingo.