black out

i admit it!

Toads

I wondered when I would find my first cane toad upon moving to Queensland, I asked locals why I had not  instantly seen them if they had already reached plague proportions. They said they usually come out in the rain. And so it was that the encounter came quickly. In the first week of living here, after a wet spell, I went for a swim in my communal pool and found a little brown frog afloat and alive. The depth of pool from the surface is such that it would not possibly be able to escape the pond of captivity. At the time, although I suspected it, I was not sure if it was a toad or a frog. It was not until I had lifted it out of the pool and spoken to the caretaker that I found out it was a toad. Apparently green ones are tree frogs and all the brown ones are toads. I have some knowledge about what a pest they are, and how the appropriate action is to exterminate this pest when you are able. A couple of days later walking home from university I saw a cane toad, this time this one was the size of a cricket ball. Today is a typical FNQ day, blue skies, thirty plus and a gentle breeze. I went to complete my laps and was surprised to find a larger cane toad also getting some exercise. We shared the pool for the remaining twenty minutes of my session. Sometimes he crossed my path, and knowing the cane toad is poisonous, I tried my best to avoid my much smaller counterpart. While I swam I thought to myself about the ethics of the situation. I despise neutrality and indecision so it was with much consternation I decided the best course of action on how to resolve the situation. The cane toad circled the pool many times while I watched it frolic. It was clear that it wished to go and obvious that it would never happen. It would soon probably drown from the energy it consumed and from the dehydration caused by the hot Australian sun. Despite not wishing an creature to result either from my actions or inaction, I remained in a deep state of debate over the best solution. If I was to save the creature by letting it escape the fate it created for itself it would no doubt go on to continue its dominant evolutionary state it maintains in the Australian ecosystem. And if I was to leave it there essentially I was playing God, either in his omnipotence or total absence from control. Ultimately I decided the best course of action was probably that I should act just like everyone else, behave like it is not my problem and hope that someone else shows up to deal with it. Besides, I did not want dead toad on my thongs.

go us

nice one

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/euro-j04.shtml

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-04/ecuador-court-upholds-chevron-ruling/3758606

Statutes of limitation

So, I did not write about last year. I think I ended up being too angry with how things went. Both at myself and the various external factors which kept resurfacing despite my best intentions. So much happened this year it is hard to believe it all occurred within twelve months. I left my job at the bank officially around July 2010. Although I had rarely attended the place since January that year, I was working elsewhere and still being paid by RBS in September. I had planned to escape Edinburgh one way or another and perhaps some of the underlying interests that have popped up over the last six years have helped shape where I am sitting typing right now. The temporary position at Scottish Widows was the sort of job that filled me with dread in case I ever found myself stuck there over a prolonged period of time. Last year I decided to hedge my bets by applying to study in Australia, for Education as I had already successfully applied in Western Australia prior to leaving the country, but when I found out I applied for the wrong campus, in the wrong town, I asked them to consider my application for the next year. They said I would need to submit a fresh application. My home between July of the last year and June of this year was shared by myself and girlfriend, and three slovenly males. We only chose to live there due to the cost and the consideration that I had zero plans to work before relocating elsewhere. This year was markedly different to the previous five, in that I have not attended one concert during that period. Gil Scott Heron was last the last act I saw. That must have been thirty months ago. And he is now dead. I struggled through the Scottish winter. Thanks to addictive computer gaming I rarely left bed for maybe three months. Except to cook and clean for my partner. I tried dutifully to ensure she was able to complete her studies with minimal fuss on the home front. On par however were the usual nags from things in which we had no interest. When I applied for naturalisation in November 2010 thinking I was ready to go, I was astounded to find that I had not the correct visa category to facilitate the application. I like to think my English is of a reasonable standard, I dare you to make heads or tails of the UKBA website in reference to the requirements of British citizenship. Their job is a difficult one so perhaps the bureaucratic aspect of their remit enhances their ass-hole credentials. Getting straight answers out of people in positions of authority is a tricky business. So it was that I needed to change from Leave to remain to Indefinite leave to remain. Of course this meant bugging my mother for her and my grandfathers birth certificate. I only ever wanted to live in the UK the qualifying five years prior to arriving there. It was starting to look like six and a half, maybe more. I knocked that bit on the head in the first two months. At great cost that box was ticked and then came the interview for ILR to prevent it taking another six months. I remember very well how disinterested I was in the whole process having to trek from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and how upset my partner was when I joked that my application was refused. My problems were very much hers and the other way around. This became obvious in the very first month of the year when we were confronted with an unexpected outcome that could have been very happy or inevitably sad. Perhaps this is a good sign of how integrated you are with your other half. She has had just as many problems this year to deal with, if not more. Together I guess we are good at overcoming the many fools who seemingly have nothing better to do than try and thwart your plans. It is not my position to share these issues with you but they contribute just as much input towards the formation of this screed. The next step for me in the saga that was British citizenship was the necessity for holding ILR for twelve months. Such minor detail is not clear when you first want to pursue your dreams. However being married usurps this condition and it pushed us toward this end whereas we may not have ordinarily done so. Gibraltar turned out to be the quickest place to get hitched. It is not a bad spot to do so if you are wondering. We miscalculated by staying in Marbella for our 'honeymoon'. It was whilst there that Radiohead released, by surprise, The King of Limbs. No relation other than it is funny how you remember some things. I recall not being impressed. I do not recall the exact date that I got my hands on it, PJ Harvey released her album Let England Shake, it has to be the album of the year. It was a hard listen at first. As if it has not already received enough acclaim, it is the only current album which raises the subject of the increasing aggravating qualities of the west as we cling to our way of life. We cause war elsewhere to enjoy the comforts and luxury we expect. Obviously Britain looks like it is one of the fastest in decline. When back in Scotland I quickly applied for naturalization and assumed by July or August this would be done and dusted. Come March IAMX released Volatile Times. I emailed them saying, per chance, I had seen it on a torrent site and apologized for downloading it early and offered an honest payment. Surprisingly Chris decided to post my email on his blog. Many other like minded music thieves saw the underlying truth to what I had briefly written in my email to the band. Around this time Jen had some personal problems to knock on the head, with family, health and university. See above for my reaction to this stuff. We both were firmly thinking about greener pastures. For me a lot of the time was spent insomniacally gambling on NBA. Not that there is much light in Scotland in the winter months during the day time. Its hard to tell the day from the night. Edinburgh is a lovely place, do not get me wrong, I just never planned to be there so long. It is too cold and I was always enamoured by continental Europe. So after Jen was successful in an application to work in Den Haag, Holland, we started making motions to make this smooth. In May I bought an expensive Electric Bike. It changed things for me a great deal. I would not say I am cyclist but I can not tell you how much fun it is. So I booked the bits for a holiday to Holland and Germany on a cycling holiday for the two of us. Pushing the other half a little bit to get on a bike and do it when she thought she could not. But as per usual things sorta disintegrated before my eyes. The job in Holland fell through and I got an unexpected letter from the UKBA that suggested my application was not going to be successful due to some glitches that occurred in the previous years – nothing to do with myself. So I decided to play hard ball by enlisting the services on an Immigration services agency – both as my address for their future mail and to deal with an appeal if they tried to refuse my application. My efforts to contact lawyers and the Procurator Fiscal were fruitless, again see above on my thoughts about those in authority. Then there was the Inland revenue writing to me about my taxes for previous years when they already had the information. I was relieved to leave the country, putting it all behind me one way or another. Unfortunately for Jen she had to complete the one year accreditation after graduating to be fully accredited as a teacher. So the poor girl was stuck in the UK. There was no way I would have been able to stay in the country another year. We had a lovely and unexpected holiday in Germany that did not get further than Lahnstein. But it was fantastic for both of us in my opinion. On the second day of the trip I received an email from the agency saying it looked grim for naturalization as the UKBA had written saying that it was possible my application would be refused. So I guess sometimes it is best to not care about something which is something so important to you – does this make any sense? After regretfully saying goodbye to Jen in Holland I returned to Germany and Lahnstein. It was around this time that riots started in England. Staying there longer than I should have, it was by total surprise that I got the email saying I had been granted citizenship. My plan to cycle from Germany to Sicily took a back seat as I had to return to Scotland and complete the final bits and pieces. In September the place is still too cold grey and depressing. Whoever I was five years ago thinking it was something special, that person is gone. The plan was always to live in Holland or Germany or somewhere in Europe. Italy had never been on the cards, but the lifestyle and cost associated with living down there made it attractive whilst in wait for my partner to finish her year up there. To make things quicker in escaping the cold of Northern Europe's march toward winter, I trained with bike from Cologne to Freiburg, and then from Basel to Lugano. In one week I cycled from Lugano to Rome. It was a feat I am very proud of, but three months on it seems dream like. The cost of camping in Germany was considerably cheaper than Italy. Within days of my arriving in Rome all the camp sites would have been closed along the coast. Managing the roads into Rome was difficult and without Google Maps and GPS it may well have been impossible. The bulk of the fat I amassed in the months of inactivity in Scotland dropped off. I hoped to change plan from living in Sicily to living in or around Rome and tried very hard to make that happen. But I am not one to make a situation happen when it seems it should not. Instead of having turned reclusive it was strange to see myself reflected in the perceptions of other people. Increasingly so over the past few months it was fascinating to see what solely being friendly and happy reaped in rewards. The Egyptian pizza chef at the the camp site in Rome caught wind that I was looking for somewhere to live, and like most stupid foreigners had more money than sense. After avoiding one Posto Letto home after another I hesitantly agreed to share his small flat. It was close enough to sharing a bedroom but I needed somewhere to stay as the camp site would soon close. All this year was the constant nagging sense that Europe was close to economic implosion lead by Greece and then Italy. It was interesting to see a lot of it first hand. I had definitely not sunk to down and out levels but I do admire my ability to sink as low as I like and maintain a sense of humour about it. I had bought enough weed in Holland to supply the next six months of my travels. Whilst he dragged on a fag in front of me in his kitchen, after I had moved all my possessions into his flat, I owned up to being a smoker. Once he understood what I meant he asked as politely as possible for me to leave, as quickly as possible, he seemed genuinely afraid my habit would cause his incarceration. But what did I care, I was now European. Funnily enough the same morning I received an email from the university I applied for her in Australia the previous year announcing my acceptance into a Graduate diploma in Education. I had already thought about not showing up to the flat and moving in that day. So when I found myself on the way back to the camp-site, things quickly clarified. I could stay in Italy, homeless, career-less at thirty something largely bludging off the wife, or I could come back here to live in a holiday resort on the well funded benefits of the hospitable Australian populace. The only problem was what to do with my bike, oh, and what the wife thought. I would quickly find that bit out as she was a week away from coming to see me at the camp-site. I smoked as much as I could in the last month in Italy. My health suffered as a result. After that I trained back to Paris and flew back to Perth via Kuala Lumpur. Back in Perth it was lovely to see my mother again and some bridges were patched with the rest of my family. I saw my nieces, all three of them, for the first time. Maybe it is just me, but if I had to stay in Perth any longer than I did for the four weeks, I may have inflicted self harm. It was funny to see, or not see as the case may have been, old friends and acquaintances. They had not much changed. As I probably have not. So, there may not be much poetry to what I have written, I have not written much in a long time, and I may well not. Uni starts in six weeks and then there will not be much time for anything. Only for the first time receiving financial assistance during the past six years. I very much doubt my ability to complete the course. The week in the hostel prior to moving to permanent accommodation was also another great experience. The cleaning I did there was the first work I had done in fourteen months. Europe looks like a headache wrapped in a migraine. My political opinions are confused on where to begin on such a conundrum. You must see the humour in the self imposed ostracism David Cameron is helping nurture for the United Kingdom, in the name of the slow death financial services industry. I am not angry about it all any more nor am I stoned. Here I am in a new place, tropical north Queensland, with plans to become a dive master, in my own single bedroom holiday resort apartment, complete with pool, in walking distance from university, totally funded by the government, separated from my wife and I miss her very much – we have been together and through too much now, also British but still essentially Australian. God save the Queen and the rest of you.

Actually this is just a place for my stuff, ya know? That's all, a little place for my stuff. That's all I want, that's all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody's got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that's your stuff, that'll be his stuff over there. That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.

A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!

Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else's stuff is all over the place! And if you stay overnight, unexpectedly, they give you a little bedroom to sleep in. Bedroom they haven't used in about eleven years. Someone died in it, eleven years ago. And they haven't moved any of his stuff! Right next to the bed there's usually a dresser or a bureau of some kind, and there's NO ROOM for your stuff on it. Somebody else's shit is on the dresser.

Have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff? God! And you say, "Get that shit offa there and let me put my stuff down!"

Sometimes you leave your house to go on vacation. And you gotta take some of your stuff with you. Gotta take about two big suitcases full of stuff, when you go on vacation. You gotta take a smaller version of your house. It's the second version of your stuff. And you're gonna fly all the way to Honolulu. Gonna go across the continent, across half an ocean to Honolulu. You get down to the hotel room in Honolulu and you open up your suitcase and you put away all your stuff. "Here's a place here, put a little bit of stuff there, put some stuff here, put some stuff--you put your stuff there, I'll put some stuff--here's another place for stuff, look at this, I'll put some stuff here..." And even though you're far away from home, you start to get used to it, you start to feel okay, because after all, you do have some of your stuff with you. That's when your friend calls up from Maui, and says, "Hey, why don'tchya come over to Maui for the weekend and spend a couple of nights over here."

Oh, no! Now what do I pack? Right, you've gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your stuff. The third version of your house. Just enough stuff to take to Maui for a coupla days. You get over to Maui--I mean you're really getting extended now, when you think about it. You got stuff ALL the way back on the mainland, you got stuff on another island, you got stuff on this island. I mean, supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain. You get over to your friend's house on Maui and he gives you a little place to sleep, a little bed right next to his windowsill or something. You put some of your stuff up there. You put your stuff up there. You got your Visine, you got your nail clippers, and you put everything up. It takes about an hour and a half, but after a while you finally feel okay, say, "All right, I got my nail clippers, I must be okay." That's when your friend says, "Aaaaay, I think tonight we'll go over the other side of the island, visit a pal of mine and maybe stay over."

Aww, no. NOW what do you pack? Right--you gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your stuff. The fourth version of your house. Only the stuff you know you're gonna need. Money, keys, comb, wallet, lighter, hanky, pen, smokes, rubber and change. Well, only the stuff you HOPE you're gonna need.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/us-tells-scientists-to-censor-flu-research-6279888.html way to go!