Tuesday 12 August 2014

Deliriously happy - or the other way round

It's all a bit hectic right now, what with trying to influence the decision about other people's futures and which other person will - in future - influence the way I drink beer, and attempting to organise the delivery of two tons of marble with a company who does not seem to answer their phones or emails.

I have a bad head-cold, but this has coincided with H.I.'s next Summer School, so I have to get up very early and not lay about using it as an excuse to moan.

I get very vivid flash-backs to Egypt when I have a cold in the Summer, and the smells of Cairo and its  suburbs infiltrate my nostrils as ghosts from a holiday long past, because I spent the whole time in Egypt with a bad cold.

The Egyptians had not really heard of the classic British cold ("Have you ever seen snow?"), but I had just come from spending the run-up to Christmas in a freezing Athens apartment, with one, thin blanket which didn't get any thicker during the night. There was ice on the streets and oranges on the trees - an incongruous sight.

The last image I saw before going to bed last night was the charming one of a four year-old boy in Iraq holding up a severed head to be photographed by his doting, gun-toting father.

It has just occurred to me that the rushed style of this post with no photographs (thankfully not of that boy) bears a strong resemblance to one by Rachel. Maybe I should get rid of the paragraphs?

26 comments:

  1. Some images are just vile violation of our sensibilities and any vestiges of innocence we have left. The boy and his father are Australian apparently, so Murdoch's national broadsheet put it on the front page yesterday. A day to keep the kiddies out of the newspaper shop, yes? I'm not sure that publishing it helped anyone, anyone at all.
    The weekend broadsheet was full of war talk. I anticipate the old prick is ramping up another war through his newspaper. The politicians seem to be changing their language to reflect this. (Prime Minister "We will not repeal section 18C of the Racial hatred act after all. We've changed our minds because Terrorism.") Scares the crap out of me.

    Sorry so sad. I'm just sad today, about the world, about how rich white pedos can buy babies from poor women's wombs ... about Robin Williams ... and I really didn't want to see that image.

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    1. OMG ~ I missed that image yesterday thank goodness. And I am with Sarah about Robin Williams and people who lie and only buy healthy surrogate babies from those poor women's wombs and programs like 60 Minutes that give them airtime.

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    2. Fuck....I think I will retreat ( further) into my own little welsh world
      It's safer

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    3. I, too, feel weighed down by sadness today. :(

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    4. The Australian kid with the nice father was in Syria, by the way.

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    5. But he's probably moved on to Iraq by now.

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  2. Thank goodness the image that greeted me yesterday was heavily pixilated. That poor boy will probably have been permanently damaged by his idiot doting father. Sometimes I despair, other times I totally despair.

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  3. Yes, why not go the whole hog. It certainly has a good rhythm to it as posts go.

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  4. Our government's response to Iraq is embarrassing. We are partly to blame for the state they are in and all we do is send a plane with a few pallets and we can't even do that properly. Now we are going to send 8 Tornados with cameras to have look. For God's sake get some troops in and help these poor people on the ground.

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    1. Don't forget there's a few little referendums and elections coming up all over the place - also, we are all so sick of war and killing that we don't really want to help clear up the mess we have created.

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  5. My husband, when he gets a cold, swears he smells Morocco, as he had a bad cold when he visited there years ago.

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    1. Very similar, if not an identical syndrome involving North Africa.

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    2. I always thought he was pulling my leg!

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  6. The news is such an evil miasma, perhaps it is as well you have the cold.
    I have nothing to add except you get better. I no longer comprehend the world.

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  7. Agree with John over this - I can only bury my head in the sand.

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    1. Best to look at it, even if you think yourself powerless.

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  8. I'm a bit of a head buryer too Tom. It's just all too despicable. It's bad enough for the adults but, the children …….. I just cannot imagine. XXXX

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    1. You're excused combat duties, Jack@ - until you get over the oysters.

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    2. Thanks Tom ….. it was so liquid in texture, it could have been sprayed over the fields of crops !!!!! Things have bulked up a bit now !! XXXX

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  9. I know a blogger who uses no capital letters. I love her writing but it makes me wince as I read it.

    The severed head image will stay with me a very long time.

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    1. I just looked up the general topic, and there are plenty of severed heads to choose from.

      You should take a little peep - it is remarkable what happens to the neck when you lop (or hack) off a head - it's as thought it was never there, the head just attached to the shoulders.

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    2. The blogger described here by Em probably fancies herself as a reincarnation of Samuel Beckett. I might have a go myself but Samuel Beckett always gives me headache so maybe not.

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