Mean nature of nature

Human body, such a wonderful construction.

Our eyes are built to see any prey or danger in the distance and cope well with different weather conditions.

Muscles in our backs, legs and circulation system are well designed for a life of wandering around in pursuit and production of food.

There's never enough of food, so when we manage to eat we store fat and our stomachs are well used to not being full regularly.

Our joints can carry the weight of our erect bodies for hours and allow us to be swift, sneaky predators.

Nimble fingers delight in a variety of everyday activities, weaving, making, cooking, gathering, carrying, never a repetitive strain on them.

Human bodies, such wonderful constructions. Just not for a looking-mostly-at screens, sitting-nine-hours-a-day, typing-furiously-continuously twenty first century humans with fridges full of food.

Oh, we are so screwed...

Come to castle Gormenghast

If you're in a mood for a sprawling novel wrapped in grey shadows and filled with characters that won't leave you alone for a long while, come to castle Gormenghast. Its corridors and towers and secret rooms are filled with some of the strangest characters you will ever encounter as a reader. There's a countess who, after giving birth to the heir of the title of the Lord of Gormenghast, The Seventy-Seventh, turns back to tending her flocks of wild birds and requests not to be bothered with the child until he is seven. There's Fuchsia, her daughter, who spends her time up in the secret attic, playing with figments of her imagination. There are bright carvers who live in the shadows of the castle walls and who present their work to the melancholic Seventy-Sixth Lord once every month, for him to choose the best three carvings and burn the rest. There's Flay, Lord's main servant caught in a deadly waiting game with Swelter, the murderous chef from the cavernous kitchens. There's Sourdust, librarian and keeper of bizzare traditions that rule the daily life of the castle. And the castle itself is like another character, enormous, confusing, neglected.


This is not an easy read. The language is rather elaborate and the three books that Mervyn Peake finished before he died (a curse of ambitious authors, announcing that they will write long cycles, it seems) add up to more than a 1000 pages. Characters drift through the dusty corridors and ponder and argue and explore. The plot itself unwinds unhurriedly but it is intriguing and keeps you hooked. The strangeness of names, of places, of events is at times almost overpowering, it's almost like wandering through a half remembered dream. All in all, if you can read your way into the language and have time to curl up with the book undisturbed, it is well worth it.


What's the point of being a reader after all, if you don't challenge yourself every now and again to try something different?

The Big Depression

As of first quarter of 2012, the main role models for young female teenagers are singers, actresses and wooden puppets from fake reality shows like The Only way is Essex. Fathers are out of the top ten. Mothers are slightly higher, but nowhere near Rihanna. Less than a quarter interviewed thinks that a successful businesswoman is a person to look up to. 


So, the biggest aspiration for the next generation seems to be dressing in sparkly, pretty, expensive clothes, landing a wealthy boyfriend or husband or manager and spending your empty lives growing more and more bitter as talent is one of these things you can't buy and having children out of boredom.


It's like the last century and a half never happened.


All the independent, hard working, self sufficient women are once again invisible, covered with an avalanche of telly- and pop- and cyber-drivel that managed to convince girls that there's nothing like being glamorous, beautiful, photographed, groomed and vacuous. Bring back the corsets and coming out of age balls!


Well done, guys, you Simon Cowells and Hollywood producers and television executives, smirking down from what ten years ago looked like last bastions of male supremacy, where guys still earned more than woman and climbed higher in the food chain, with ambitious woman constantly snapping at your heels. Well done, you now managed to successfully promote 1800s mentality to scores of easily influenced girls. 


Are we now facing another century and a half of going back to equality of thinking?

Ignorance is bliss

Welcome to an ongoing end of the world! 


We live in a world of overspecialisation. 


We know who to call, email, write to if there is a problem with internet, water, gas supply. We know which company to choose to clean our carpets, tidy the garden and deliver shopping, based on internet reviews. We get others to trim our hair, make our shoes and bake our bread. We become people who take photos, design rock gardens, translate, write sarcastic reviews or walk other people's dogs for a living. 


I know that most people faced with some apocalyptic scenario will stand up proudly and declare that it is not so bloody difficult to grow crops and skin prey and make shelter. To survive cold and sew clothes and make a fire. To make a knife and a bow and a toilet.


Is it really such an easy task to all of a sudden be responsible for every single aspect of your own life to an extent not known to most humans for the better part of the last hundred years, my proud friends? Without a collective knowledge of wikipedia, foras and instant communication with people who have hands on experience: farmers, hunters, tailors, plumbers and mums? Without ever handling a dead animal, not being faced with manual dexterity task since P3 and gagging at the thought of wearing same clothes for a month?


Species that overspecialise die out. 


Welcome to an ongoing end of the world!

Kidhood

Kids scream and run around falling down a lot to draw attention to themselves.

Kids stay in their pyjamas all weekends.

Kids want to have friends over all the time and stay up as late as possible.

Kids love rubbish fast food, chippies, chinese and fear fruit and veg.

Kids want to play with babies.

Kids swear for the fun of watching people cringe.

Kids want to have fun, expect to be taken care of and don't understand responsibility.

Lots of kids around on council estates and most of them are pushing thirty.