Following comment and criticism from both my regular readers, I've resolved to be less concerned with writing long-ish, careful pieces here, and more directed towards actually updating the thing regularly, even if it seems a little slapdash See how long that lasts.
Anyway, having spent the holiday in the UK, I'm now back in Miami, having added another couple of transatlantic flights to my list of climate crimes. Airports and aeroplanes have a strange effect on me. Everything seems to become disconnected in my head, more immediate and visceral. I'm not sure why. Something, perhaps, to do with the peculiar stasis of transit; hours (many of them) sat still, uncommunicative and unreachable, headphones jammed in to drown out the other people. So here, in no particular order, are some vaguely connected thoughts that occurred to me on my way back here last Tuesday.
Regarding the men's toilets at the departure gates at Heathrow: how deludedly optimistic would one have to be to buy condoms immediately before flying?
On the subject of the third runway: it's not the fact that they've decided to build the wretched thing that makes me angry. Well, it does, but what really makes me angry is that it's been obvious ever since the idea was first mooted that this was going to be the outcome. How long ago was that? Three years, four? Since when, we've had inquiries, consultations, coy statements from ministers about how no final decision had been reached, all this verbiage and money and time wasted in an attempt to... to what? To convince the population at large that this wasn't a foregone conclusion? It depresses me that they think anyone was convinced by it all. Why not just do it? Same with everything else: privatising the post office, building new nuclear plants, and so on. Give up on the sham 'listening' or whatever, save us all the bother, and just do what's going to be done in the end anyway.
In-flight entertainment: the last Woody Allen film ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") might be a wonderful piece of cinema, considered as a whole, but the first half hour is so execrable that I had to stop watching it, so I couldn't tell you. Linked to the comments above about the experience of flying, it seems that my reactions to films are sharpened considerably. I'm either utterly engrossed, or totally turned off. Examples: "I'm Not There", on the way back here this time, had me wishing fiercely that I could be any of the pseudo-Dylans featured, in a way that I've not reacted to a film character since I was young and impressionable. "Juno", a couple of flights ago, I couldn't stomach, though I'd digested it quite happily the first time round in the cinema. And so on.
Terminal 5: is wonderful. Seriously, both arriving and departing are smooth, quick, and easy. Compared to the horrible Miami International, where the weary traveller is greeted by an hour-long queue for passport control and then spat out into a chaotic underground mess of moving vehicles, Heathrow is just lovely.
I think that's enough of that. New rambling tone established. As I said, I'll try to be more regular about all this... Until I get bored. Or you do.
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Quality rambling there sir. On the third runway: I remember the govt saying there would be full consultation before they decided on signing up for the US Star Wars programme... whilst at the same time Fylingdales was being updated for the Star Wars programme, thereby making Yorkshire a key target in any nuclear exchange.
It's a little weird and I try not to forget how weird it is: government openly lying, as long as they lie in a socially acceptable manner. Mere facts shouldn't disturb this new equilibrium.
Peter Mandelson is a master of this: actually standing up, in the commons, on TV, quoting the manifesto commitment to public ownership of the Post Office to show that's what they were doing... whilst announcing they were going to privatise it. Quite incredible. I can only assume there's some kind of Jedi mind trick involved.
And now you've got me ranting: what about Bush saying that the intelligence being wrong in Iraq was a 'disappointment...' WHAT??? The neocons set up their OWN intelligence unit because they didn't like what anyone else was telling them. They twisted and lied to fit around their policy, inventing whole new organisations and sacking anyone who disagreed.
Gosh, it's enough to make one cynical about politics. 24 hours left for us to project onto Obama what we hoped politics might be...
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