Just in case I was in any doubt of the seriously stupid direction our civilisation is headed in...

I utterly found confirmation of it while visiting our local supermarket this morning.

Positioned within the aisle, or rather, entire island given over to Coke and all its associated fizzing death beverages, there was this. A sort of DJ booth without music at which, apparently, you could have your own personalised plastic Coke cup made while you waited - and, of course, having spent the required amount on aforementioned drink.

It was only 9:00 am and as the plastic cup craftsperson was absent until 10:00 I couldn't hang around to see the action - I had a dog to walk. Rather a shame as I was curious to see if the marketing outfit had seriously researched their demographic for this particular hanger of nightmarish goods of which probably 85% are completely unneeded. Most of the clientele appeared to be over fifty, wheeling trolleys about and gently moaning about the fact that certain types of cheese were missing. It seemed unlikely they would queuing up at 10 o'clock for their red plastic cup to pack in their rucksack for the next music festival. 

What was I doing in there? you may ask being so obviously suspicious of all grande surface. Well, I do like the 'anti gaspi (no waste) section - stuff going out of date, unsold as its a bit weird etc; and there are a few luxuries to be bought from time to time - a certain type of square fat cakes that our growing colony of blue tits adore, a bar of soap for B and B guests, root ginger, etc . . .

I did feel an urge to glue myself to the plastic and cardboard Coke construction, or perhaps attack it with a rather aggressive spade I'd noticed in the garden section called a 'root slayer' but then the dog would be stuck in the car and the B and B room wouldn't get prepared and Mark needed the car. Maybe I'll go back another day. It'll be interesting to see how long the thing stays there before being replaced with Christmas crap or whatever the next consumerist money trap device that one of our planet's mega-corps have thought up.

The merging of shopping festivals

My yearly festive twaddle rant.

In this fracturing world where nearly everyone must surely be aware that things are not heading in a good direction - especially environmentally - one might think that the amount of consumerism could be on the wain . . . manufacturers taking a bit of responsibility, or more likely, jumping on the 'ecologic' band-wagon/bus/trolly, bike, whatever. But, no. Certainly no evidence of this in our local cathedral of shopping.
I went in to get A4 paper, a bag of prunes and a bit of cheese but must have spent five minutes just gawping at this years Christmas displays of chocolate. It was definitely worse than last year. Ferrro Rocher marked their territory with a sort of pathetic golden cardboard arch under which you have to pass to get into the main actual food area of the shop. Other brands - mostly Lindt, it seemed, had been arranged in a huge block - a red and gold battleship ploughing its way between pasta and frozen foods.
People were loading their trolleys with a polite frenzy. Why? It wasn't even December. Then I noticed the Black Friday/weekend signs. All festive chocolate 30% off in celebration of this . . . event. We might as well just have Black Century and be done with it. The weekend has already spread to Black Week.

                              

I did look up the origins of all this madness.

According to a site called History Stories, the first recorded use of the term 'Black Friday' was applied after a major financial crash on September 24, 1869: specifically, the crash of the U.S gold market Two Wall St financiers worked together to buy up as much of the nation's gold, thus hoping to drive the price sky high and make astronomical profits. The outcome was discovery of the conspiracy, stock market free fall and massive country-wide bankruptcy.

Apparently ten people have died in crushes over cut-price goods. The first in a Wallmart. A shop worker was trampled to death while opening the doors to a flood of eager people, another during a shooting incidents over goods in Toys R US . . .

I don't actually recall Black Friday being a thing until a few years back. Mad folk waiting in sleeping bags outside Harrods in January for various sale unmissables, yes, but crazed shopping on a Friday in November?

Anyway, I did get my prunes, paper - no cheese as there was a queue like the M25 around the counter - but I did fall slightly under the festive shopping spell, or perhaps it was a pine-needle/roast dinner/ho-ho-ho spray drifting down from the sprinkler system forcing us into goodwill to all food manufacturers.
My purchase, a very small box of 30% off After Eight mints. Just for nostalgia of the 70s reasons.

                     

                     

Forget the gym - get a rescue greyhound (or two)

Or, in our case, a Galgos (Galgas) the Spanish version - used to run after hares, and abused horribly.
Since we have given a home to 'Bali' my walking pace has increased furiously, and the slightly lazy walks I was doing twice a day have become somewhat more than brisk zooms up hills and round fields.

          Our original Galgas - Gala, on the left, Bali on the right, son getting exercise in middle

The first few days were actually a serious challenge; walking with two galgos is energising to say the least, but when one of them (Bali) has never been on a lead it's almost impossible. All my joints ached, and a few times I was nearly pulled over slopes and under cars.
In slight desperation I asked Google about how to stop the lead-wrenching, and up popped an ad for 'Canny Collars'.
Being a total ad sceptic, I nearly ignored it but the testimonials were too good, so I ordered one, and a training lead of eight meters (you let them run, with the help of someone, I assume, in order to not let your arm actually leave the rest of you, then call them back with the aid of Frankfurter pieces/cheese/whatever).
The parcel arrived, and obedient person that I am, ignored it for three days thinking it was a birthday present, and opened it on my birthday. It was actually about the best present I could have received.
After attaching it (complicated on first trial) to the dog, we went for a real walk: no tugging, no hauling me into ditches, and walking at my pace - which as before stated, is really not bad now.
I'm still not sure how a simple band crossing the dog's 'nose' - in the Galgos's case - a very long area, works, but it does.

time and distance

I often stand still when somewhere completely quiet and try to imagine the mayhem of, say, Oxford Street on a day leading up to Christmas. Or inversely stand still on Oxford Street - causing ardent shoppers to push past with a brief look back: mad, obviously - and try to imagine a placid and empty hill in, say, the foothills of the Pyrenees.
It seems almost impossible that these places exist when you're not actually there. Then I start thinking about members of my family and friends - what are they doing at this precise moment when I am standing gawping at a blossom-loaded tree? sorting out the cupboard under the stairs? eating a cheese sandwich? sitting with a cup of coffee and wondering what their family and friends might be doing?
Then I might start thinking about The Big Question, or one of the big questions, - what is Space exactly; what is beyond our solar system and where does it end? But it can't end; what is holding it all in place and is space a series of giant boxes or spheres; a vast set of Russian dolls - probably not best to think about it at all.
Anyway . . . I happened to notice a number of planes passing over our patch of The Earth this morning; more than usual in fact. I stood for quite a long time considering the fact that unlike the Oxford St/Pyrenees thing I could see the plane at such a huge distance, and, people on board, eating peanuts, drinking tea or trying to ignore the child kicking the seat behind them, could look out and see, not me, probably, but certainly our house.
I always spend any flight with nose pressed to the oval window looking out on the passing millions of dwellings wondering if people are looking up and thinking about who might be on board and what they might be reading/eating/ drinking. Air to land psychogeography? or just nosiness on a grand scale. Anyway, again, time to put the kettle on and stop avoiding jobs to be done.