Strangely Perfect

Ichinen Sanzen It (literally) means 3000 realms in a single moment of life.  This means that for any given moment your life is composed of everything; all thoughts, all history, all presents and all futures.  You only ‘sense’ things one at a time, yet they’re always there. I’ll soon be toddling off to the beach [...]

A Cracking Week Off? I had a week’s holiday of sorts last week.  On returning I found that this website had been cracked. (I already had intimations that something was wrong because of site stat failures and an email from @Justin Asking, sometime commenter to this website and others).  Anyway, so it was.  Unfortunately, I [...]

Okay. I’m back from a foreign holiday followed immediately by a Buddhist course during which I’ve had absolutely no internet access… It was lovely! The freedom, peace and heat.  Lovely. Thanks for everyone’s input in my absence.  I’ve now got a stack of comments to moderate and will very soon be back in action!

Bloody Sunday The Saville Report, probably the longest and certainly the most expensive enquiry in the UK ever, is now out.  The ramifications are continuing, despite the Prime Minister trying to draw a line under everything.  See Bloody Sunday report published History On that day in 1972, 13 folks were killed, and overall, in what [...]

I’ve been on holiday for a while.  Today’s encouragement from Sensei I thought wonderfully appropriate for us in Britain, given the imminent general election and the hunt for a supposed centre ground. Quite simply, there can be no true democracy unless the citizens of a country realize that they are sovereign, that they are the [...]

Introduction This is a follow-up to Colony Holidays and Tubby the Tuba where I talked about Colony Holidays (the CCHS), Chris Green’s part as Tubby the Tuba, and my fond memories of such a formative part of my life. Recent News Chris Green, one of the two full-time driving forces behind the original CCHS, is [...]

How Summer Camps Could Change Britain by Christopher M. Green (Convenor of the Summer Camps Forum and Founding Director of The ATE Trust) Download Links to Original Chris Green Articles: Letter to MPs February 2010 Suggested letter format to lobby your local MP on behalf of Chris Green’s summer camps’ initiative. How Summer Camps …inline [...]

As MP’s expenses come to the fore again, Peter Mandelson spoke on Radio 4 this morning and did his usual self by not explaining anything and being perfectly unclear about everything!  Listen hear here! Thank god the interviewer cut him off. The question was “Have you got much sympathy with MPs who’ve claimed under one [...]

Recently Seen in Squid News  (see here) (the newspaper for beaked Humboldt squid everywhere) Reports are coming in that the size of American humans is increasing and Squid on holiday in the San Diego area are asked to stay alert from some of the more aggressive of the species that are known to camouflage themselves [...]

I can’t vouch for the information as I don’t live in Turkey, but I’ve just found out that Turkey has blocked Google.com Google Groups from internet access for it’s citizens.  See: Turkey & My Foreign Perspectives with Bea Vanni: Goodbye Google Alert: Hello More Bans for Turkey While my Turkey blog is less frequent these [...]

British Workers Sacked for Striking at French Company Total’s Site – see news report Joan la Pucelle. [Aside] Done like a Frenchman: turn, and turn again! – Shakespeare, History of Henry VI, Part I, Line 1695 In Lindsey, Lincs, 650 workers have been sacked for being on an “unofficial” strike (whatever that means in a [...]

Well I Never! ..should be the title of this post.  Having lived in the South-West for nearly quarter of a century, it’s come as a complete shock to me to discover that my favourite vacuum cleaner (if there is such a thing, I’m now defining it here!) is little old Henry, and it’s made about [...]

I’ve just had a hit from someone looking for Colony Holidays…  Sooo I’d better write this down fast!  I’ve been meaning to do it for a while. Colony Holiday Etc A few years back I fished around on the web to find out what had happened to the CCHS, Council of Colony Holidays for Schoolchildren.  [...]

Humphrey Hawksley in an article on today’s BBC News website has reported the (blindingly obvious, some might say) results of a 25-year American study into the effects of air pollution (specifically vehicle and industrial) on life expectancy. City air pollution ‘shortens life’ Basically, it’s bad! I live next to an A-class road, busy with holiday [...]