The Spanish Migrant Crisis
On the Today programme this morning, they ran an item about the sudden increase in African migration to the Canary Islands. Over the last few weeks, thousands of people have left the North African coast in fishing boats bound for the islands, desperate for jobs, freedom, homes, all the things that usually drive migration.
And the BBC package settled at one point on some of the little Englanders British tourists who help make tourism the number one industry on the Canaries. All of them were horrified that their holiday was being disrupted by the human crisis unfolding on the beach every day, and as one woman put it "There are people dehydrated, sick, some don't even make it to the end of the crossing alive. And I'm having to explain to my kids what's going on when we're on holiday. We won't be coming back if they don't sort it out."
Dear fucking god woman, there are people dead in front of you and you're pissed off that it's spoiling your holiday? Get some perspective.
That Time Of Year Again
No, not the imminent launch of Big Brother, for which I'm on a non-watching regimen this year, but this week is Eurovision week. The BBC kicked off last night with a Wogan-hosted look back at 50 years of the Song Contest, which missed none of the cliches and ended with 2006 UK Hopeful Daz Sampson performing his masterwork.
Now, I'm not too big a man to admit I was wrong. It's happened at least once before in the history of this blog. And a little while ago, I was rather critical of Mr Sampson and his 'schoolgirl' backing singers, but while I'm not exactly warming to it all, I'm no longer convinced that it's going to be the disaster I once thought it would be.
As David said, it's either going to be loved or hated - we're not going to end up in the middle of the table this year. Needless to say, our house will be watching.
“A Proper Future Thing”
For David's birthday, I bought him a digital photo frame - the kind that you load a bunch of photos onto from a memory card and it runs through them one after the other, or randomly, according to the way you set it up.
He's really the perfect market for something like this - he's a gadget head, a keen digital photographer, and therefore overburdened with photos that will never see the light of day.
And one of the things I really love about his reaction to it is the subject line of this post; "It's a proper future thing" - the kind of thing that sci-fi used to have us expecting. And if I can't have my personal jet pack, I'll settle for having this in the house.
EDIT: The product link was screwing up the RSS page, so I had to take it out. You should be able to find it on the Philips website.
Hitting The Road
Having made the flat cleaner and tidier than it's been in a while, and having recorded a bonus edition of the podcast (see earlier posts), and having given house and cat-sitter Rebecca the grand tour: We're off!
David's birthday is tomorrow and we're retreating to Suffolk in our usual manner.
Back on Monday.
Musical Musing
A short while ago I made a couple of CD recommendations, and now, just to show I can achieve some small measure of consistency in this here blog, I'm going to follow them up with another.
I've just been introduced to The Kooks via their fab album Inside In/Inside Out. What? I know it was released back in January and you've probably all had it on your iPods since release day, but it's new to me.
I confess that initially it struck me as a bit lightweight - one of those albums that you've hit track three of before you're really aware of it, and you worry that it's going to be one of those 'over in 30 minutes' affairs. And I also confess that a couple of the tracks leave me a bit cold, but most are the kind that get me hitting 'repeat' and singing along to them in the car. The run of tracks 7 to 9 in particular (She Moves In Her Own Way/Matchbox/Naive) is just brilliant - I could loop them all day.
If you've never heard of them (and it can't just be me, surely?) then check it out. I don't think you'll regret it.
Family Matters
Just a quick note to say thanks to people who've been in touch to offer thoughts about my mother's hospitalisation - you're a lovely bunch of people.
She's still in the hospital, and probably about to be moved to a specialist stroke rehabilitation centre where she can get more intensive therapy than in the General. She's well enough to want to get home, and to give me a hard time about travelling up to visit because she doesn't want a fuss, but she still has some work to do to get out and back in her own place.
Poor Paul and Aravon
Booted out of Strictly Dance Fever. We missed their main performance, but caught the results show, and it was very sad to see Aravon talking about how hard it was to be taken apart on national TV every week. To be told she 'danced like a builder' would be pretty devastating to anyone I'd have thought - except possibly a builder.
The Art Of No-So-Civil Partnering
David and I had the nearest thing we've yet had to a row last night, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it was over the arrangements for this damn Civil Partnership.
What do we want? Well, sometimes the same thing, sometimes not. Sometimes an actual ceremony, sometimes just the party. Neither of us want a formal sit-down do, because that's not very us. One of us would like to cater in a particular way, the other has a different view. One of us wants to provide X amount of drink, the other Y. One of us likes the idea of a particular venue, the other thinks not.
Who do we want there? Actually, I think we're sorted on that one, but then the capacity of the venue may involve slicing the list at some point.
And I've had stuff through from *dozens* of places now, some of which are crazily excessive, and others of which are actually quite reasonable, but not really places we like. And I'm stressing because I think we have to make some decisions in order to give people plenty of notice, which is more relevant for me than David, because I want to invite people from overseas.
What both of us come back to is that ten thousand pounds would be a fuck of a lot of money to spend on what is basically a party.
And so, stress and an inability to reconcile some views led to tension and raised voices.
We're okay now, and I think actually at a point where decsions about what we want to do are made, which means we can now get on and make it happen.
Neil Gaiman’s Eternals
Neil Gaiman is the author of a new Eternals series from Marvel, with John Romita Jr on art. For those who don't know, The Eternals is one of the multitudinous concepts that comic legend(tm) Jack Kirby created, and is, alongside his Fantsatic Four, probably the finest example of his 'cosmic' work. There have been a few nay-sayers regarding a new series, but Gaiman has blogged a sample piece of art, and every reaction I've seen to it is, well, let's just say it's pretty positive.
I *Try* To Be A Good Person
But sometimes I just want to kill someone.
I've been back to the hospital today for a follow-up outpatient appointment from my time in there back in Feb/March. This is one of two follow-ups - the eye one. The ENT follow-up is currently scheduled for late June...
My appointment was at 2.20pm, and I arrived in plenty of time, only to find that parking on the roads around the hospital is charged at the magnificant sum of £1 for 15 minutes. So I put 1 hour 15 on the meter and went into the hospital. Over an hour later I was called through for my 'initial assessment', and when I said I needed to go to put more time on my parking I was told that the assessment would only take a couple of minutes, and if I missed the slot it could be another hour again before I was called through. Fifteen minutes later I was running for the car, where I found I'd got a parking ticket...
And then, because I try to be a good person, I actually put another hour and fifteen on the car, even though with the ticket already there, I probably wouldn't have got another one.
And amazingly, by the time I'd finally been seen by the consultant I *still* had to run back to the car and got to it exactly at the time the ticket expired.
Total time paid for - two and a half hours.
Total time actually being treated by medical practitioners - twenty minutes.