should we hang our enemies?

Whilst we're in the business of hanging everyone we don't like the look of, when will the two characters here find that they're in the spotlight?

If someone can get legally topped just for killing a few hundred thousand of their fellow citizens, how much more serious are this pair's crimes?

You see, they have all the information denied to us. They KNOW the world is heading for climate disaster, they KNOW that there is no serious substitute for oil, their so-called 'religion', christianity, allows them to lie and cheat and simply repent at the last minute to wipe out what they've done.

Whilst we're scrabbling around trying to find the next meal or shelter from the next storm, these buggers will be living in luxury with stores of food all around them. They'll shake their empty heads and whine 'we haven't done anything wrong.'

Anyway, have a great 2007, keep safe, keep making money and suppressing the forces of socialism, kick a foxhunter or two, set fire to a couple of models wearing fur and keep building up your wood and gold stocks, closing your bank accounts, get fit and strong and don't buy crap music!

phew, what a scorcher!

It's been an extraordinary year with the hottest month ever in the UK (July), the warmest year globally and now an almost unique situation in both Europe and North America with temperatures closer to late autumn rather than winter prevailing everywhere. December rain in Moscow, Helsinki and much of the Alps, no snow yet in southern England, almost frost-free ...

The real losers currently are the European ski resorts, basking in unusual warmth with spring flowers already appearing. Only artificial snow on the upper slopes and gloomy rain-lashed villages at the foot of them.

But this may all be very misleading. There may still be a very cold snap this winter which'll catch almost all of us unawares, in the longer term the faltering of the Gulf Stream will probably plunge western Europe into a run of very severe winters.

The Climate Change scenario is worse than anyone has imagined already - the future looks like it's going to be a nightmare of severe weather, economic meltdown and huge population changes. But as always there'll be opportunties as well as sob stories. You read it here first!

freakish? nah ...

(1987 'hurricane', Littlehampton, West Sussex)

The most annoying thing about the London tornado is the way that many newsreaders etc refer to it as a 'freak'. It's anything but. Britain has the highest number of tornadoes (by area) of any country in the world. They're part and parcel of living somewhere where the climate is unstable. True, they're not as vicious as ones in some other parts of the world, but they can still pack quite a punch.

The important thing to remember is that we are still living in relatively quiet times climate-wise. Things are going to get much, much wilder. In the broad historical sweep stable and benign climates are 'freaks'. For much of the time the earth's climate is wild and inhospitable. We need to plan for wilder weather and prepare for it. We can't stop it happening now, we all need to adapt. Tornadoes, heatwaves, floods, blizzards, wildfires and superstorms are going to become part and parcel of everyday life for all of us.

I was in the front line of the 1987 hurricane. It convinced me (a decade before most!) that something odd was going on with the climate. It got me involved in green/Green politics. No doubt the 2006 tornado will do the same for others. 

the economist needs to get real

Like all good economists I take the Economist, but sometimes I despair at its total lack of connection with the real world and particularly the future. Economists used to have a catch-all get out of jail card which blinkered their intellectual rigour - externalities.

One would think in a post-Katrina and Peak Oil world they would have shed this view, if only through natural wastage as old fart journalists shuffle off this mortal coil.

So why the fuck is this week's issue including cover story 'Your Journey to Work? How to fix Britain's transport system'? It is joke journalism at its very worse. Classic laugh out loud line is 'First, roads should take priority over rail'. WTF??
How the fuck will that work? We should be carefully reducing the road network so that Peak Oil doesn't back foot us and send us into economic Depression. Rail is so economically and environmentally superior to road (RIP) that there is no argument to even maintain the current system let alone increase it or - amazingly - put it BEFORE rail. What are the Economist writers thinking of?

But reading the article carefully gives clues as to why they're getting it so wrong. The 'Transport Department' forecasts that road traffic will INCREASE by 40% by 2025. Yes, you read that right, increase, not decrease!! Er, how exactly? Using what fuel?? It's like the idiots forecasting INCREASES in air traffic! It is communist rubbish, and they know it.

But the daftest thing is that the article is pushing for road pricing, which as much as Peak Oil will reduce road traffic substantially. They don't know whether they're coming or going.

Economists, more than anybody, HAVE to be 100% realists because the post Peak Oil world will not be a place for dreamers and thickos. They will be DEAD, and not just metaphorically.

Cancel the Economist? I'm tempted!

the real farepak victims are our ears

All this bleating and whingeing about Farepak is really beginning to wind me up.

This was the scenario - a bunch of losers lent money (for NO interest!!) to a multi-layered company for hampers that, on average, could have been put together elsewhere for half the price. The company then diverted these idiots' money to other parts of the group that were cash-poor. When the inevitable crash came who gets blamed? Not the financially-illiterate fools that think there's a free lunch, but the business people who were sharp enough to divert the money! Communism and the victim culture is still rife in the UK. Thatcherism still struggles on despite its ousting throughout eastern Europe since 1990.

The fact is far too many people in the UK are money-blind. They spend their lives borrowing against expected future income (in an increasingly uncertain economy) and waste billions on financial products that are little more than legalised robbery.

And what are the Farepak 'victims' doing now? Borrowing from dodgy unsecured credit firms to finance their yuletides! They don't think to be frugal this year, or only use money they actually ALREADY have ... they keep jumping on the treadmill 'cos they're too thick to appreciate what's going on.And they expect US to contribute to some sort of rescue fund? They've got to be joking ...

And if our poor ears get this much grief from a minor episode like this, how high will the shrill decibels go when the roosters really come home and house prices start crashing and repos go through the roof?

under the broadwalk

I'm a country boy. I like trees and soft hills and leaves in the road and sunsets and driving my Land Rover through ruts. I don't quite get the city, even though I'm fond of Budapest and Vienna and Zurich and Helsinki. But even British cities have a sort of savage beauty, found in concrete and straight lines and watery reflections. Knowing it will all be gone soon also adds a sort of poignancy, lives and things soon to be lost to the twin perils of Climate Change and Peak Oil, a crumbling of the edges prior to wholesale meltdown. Cities are a form of art if you know where to look, and art is really all there is - which is great!



Could any of us describe this or explain it once it's gone? Again, straight lines everywhere, like something by Mondrian or Joy Division. With Symes Avenue on its way out perhaps the Broadwalk will become my third favourite hangout in Bristol - after Trin's and the Loiusiana ...



And what about this? This is a temporal displacement of the highest order - not 1976 but 2006, yesterday in fact, some of the fare on offer to the innocent and unprepared shoppers in Somerfield, Broadwalk. Lard and beef dripping anyone? I ran back to the real world and stocked up on fruit, yoghurt and Tizer. 

bleating from the holy lambs ...

The new Yule stamps are out today and very nice they are too - I bought my village post office's complete stock!

Within a few hours of being issued the christians were already whingeing that they 'aren't christian'.

Read my lips - they aren't christian because Yule is a Pagan festival idiots!!

The sad thing is that every second year our Yule stamps do have christian symbols - and if you look carefully even many of the 'secular' stamps have a bit of the invader's religion added - the £1.19 value issued today for example has a star on the top of the tree, an allusion to the so called star of Bethlehem, part of the christian myth. In previous years the 'secular' stamps often have a church on at least one of the values. Last year's 'christian' abominations even had the brass neck to impose christianity on other religions - the 60p Hindu stamp being the prime example!

It should be the good Pagans, the daft athiests and the sensible couldn't-care-lessists who should be moaning, not a minority tribe of bigots, prudes, divs and foreigners.

Let's declare that from next year Yule stamps should show Pagan imagery celebrating the solstice and the lengthening days ahead, and let's return Yule to the people that respect it, not have it snatched from us by those that just a few centuries ago thought the best way with dealing with our BRITISH religion was to burn its followers alive. 

wanton vandalism

The long-awaited and crowed about by the middle class snobs demolition of Symes Avenue, Hartcliffe has begun, with nary a protest from those who are going to be most affected by it. In a month or so this will all be gone, and a shiny new pointless Morrisons will be in its place.



This is what I call a post office, stark modernist prefabricated architecture crowned by razor wire complementing the tower block in the background, together giving a homely atmosphere of neo-classical ease with life. Will Morrison's match this? I doubt it. Will they even celebrate the Hartcliffe Riots? Look at the average supermarket manager, all pallid pie-flab, dark suits, novelty ties and suppurating moles, and I somehow doubt it. Mumm-Ra should write a song about this, vicious vicious games of Buckaroo with a chorus featuring Matthew the duck.



Wulf peers into an Iceland freezer at Symes for the first (and probably last) time.



And carries off the long-promised six pack of Lucozade like a prize.

Yet another demise of local shops for a faceless supermarket. Will the fuckers ever learn? 

ssshhh - keep this secret

We all need to tread more lightly on the earth, and I think I may have found one way of doing it!

We had a superb weekend at this place, a naturist site down in Hampshire. Everything's on the doorstep - pool, sauna, PUB! etc. Indoor and outdoor pools .. and you can buy a new caravan from £12,000 and stay all season (March till October). The pub was just a typical English pub, complete with telly and quiz machine - but no need for clothes before 7pm.

This is the secret - naturist places are not only infinitely friendlier than those chavvy caravan sites, but everything is of a much higher standard and - remarkably - often cheaper.

I could easily live here all summer, chilling out and even running the business. No need for a big house or gardens, use the Land Rover once a week (because there's an excellent village shop less than 400 metres away) and no bloody clothes washing!

Naturism's an excellent slap in the face to the christians that still try to tell the rest of us how to live. I'm already saving for that caravan ... 

werepopes

Trin had me watching Dog Soldiers last night and I still see werewolves wherever I go. We sometimes forget how strong myths are, even in a world as over developed as this, and how close we are to nature despite everything. Sometimes I can hear the wolves howling down at Longleat, when the wind's in the right direction. The forest is at the heart of the European psyche, and we'll soon be making our reaquaintance with werewolves any time now ...

the borg at bosham

Bosham was where King Canute showed his courtiers that even he didn't have the power to stop the tide. Today's Bosham residents are sanguine enough to accept that with sea levels rising and the land sinking flooding will become more and more familiar. To this end they have adapted and built the above flood defences, needed when the tide creeps up the High Street. Twice a day the road around the bay floods, many times a year the odd Londoner parks their car at the side of the road and returns a few hours later to find their car underwater.

I lived at Bosham for a couple of years, and it is a fantastic place. But it now has an air of resigned fatalism. For one day, and not that far off, it will disappear under the waves forever, as have so many other Sussex towns and villages.

But hopefully the process will be a gradual one, and the villagers will be free to move to higher ground. But the real threat of course is a sudden disaster, a huge storm coinciding with a spring tide, a Channel storm surge, another 1987 style 'hurricane'. High ground appeals more each year, and the good folk of Sussex and all of our other coastal counties will be in the front line of climate change in the UK. So visit Bosham whilst you still can, visit the Selsey peninsular, or those odd bits of Essex that jut out into the sea. Visit North Norfolk and the Lincolnshire coast. Like Canute I believe that none of us will be able to stop this new natural phenomena that is now so surely upon us. Adapt, or ... well, you know.

Resistance is Futile. 

gold and why you can't go wrong

Even if by some miracle there is not huge disruption as the twin terrors of Peak Oil and Climate Change hit gold is still a good bet. 'Modern' society is obsessed with gold as both jewellery and a safe store of wealth.

But back in the real world you really need to look at converting your surplus wealth to gold now. Bank accounts will not be safe once things really begin to collapse, the only safe way of storing your wealth is by converting it to gold. The easiest way is by buying gold sovereigns and half sovereigns. Stash it somewhere in the back garden. When things start to go awry dig it up and move to your hideaway in the country.

Now's a good time to buy. Buy in the dips, there's always a little profit taking as gold hits certain psychological ceilings. $600-$700 an ounce will look crazy in 5 or 10 years time.

my love affair with chavs

This was the scene immediately outside the Health Centre in Hartcliffe on Tuesday. A wonderful array of cigarette ends and, if you look really closely, a Fruit Shoot top.



It brought back fond memories of our stay in Pontins, Brean Sands, last August bank holiday. This was the loevly sight outside our chalet door. Remember, this was 2006, not 1936.



The chavs actually breed and produce semi-viable 'children', larger and pastier versions of real children that shuffle from amusement arcade to fish and chip shop to ice cream van, in a vague attempt to make sense of their world.



This is standard chav fayre, purchased by the case load to provide sustenance between the eight fish and chip meals they consume every day, after hors d'ouvres of Benson and Hedges and Lambrini. 

yes, I was wrong ....

A few weeks ago with petrol touching £1 a litre I said it wasn't going down again ...

I was wrong!

Today at Sainsbury's in Frome it's 86.9p a litre.

Why? It's still getting scarcer by the day, with 10,000 barrels a second being used. Very little new oil is now found. Nobody's suggesting opening new refining capacity. Perhaps the hurricane season had already been factored into the price earlier this year and so far the Gulf coast's been lucky.

Perhaps people are actually using less as a response to the increasingly scary facts and figures coming from the scientists, who to my mind are still wildly over-optimistic. Or perhaps this craven government's pushing secret funds in to keep the price low?

Whatever ...

It's only a blip and the trend is up up up. I may be wrong in the short term but over the long term I'm always right!

Expect £1.10 a litre by the end of 2007. And gold touching $900 an ounce. You heard it here first. 

green transport as we hit peak oil

Well it had to happen. With Peak Oil/Climate Change effects becoming more visible every day I had to get something that will still keep going as the roads break up, the storms and snows hit and everything gets wilder. The Escort Convertible just wouldn't be up to the job.

So this is the new baby, a 1978 Series III Land Rover 88, as tough as old boots and will get me anywhere I need to go or flee to.

And yes, I've had a few comments from the 'Green' brigade. They miss the point - we ain't going to save middle-class society by munching a few lentils, getting a fuel-efficient car and building a chemical toilet in the cabbage patch. Those days are long gone, we missed that chance. 'Green' politics are dead. Anita Roddick is an octogenarian eccentric with a head full of woodpeckers, Jonathan Porritt flaps around trying to tinker with things as they are, the Green Party becomes more and more of a home (of the residential kind) for balding bearded lefties who won't last an hour when things break down, and the true spearheads of post Peak Oil and Global Heating are hard headed capitalist pragmatists who won't blanche at discomfort and excitement as the suburbs and cities implode.

At the same time we learn that 46% of 'business' people think climate change has been blown up out of proportion. LOL! Business people? They're idiots! Fact is that what the media etc have been trumpeting as climate change is just the first soft steps towards climate breakdown, as positive feedbacks really begin to kick in. Rather than being blown up out of proportion it's been watered down so that the chavs, lemmings and luvvies don't get too frightened. Genocide will seem like a kids' party when the real effects kick in! 

bangs, not whimpers

The world isn't going to end any time soon. Not dramatic enough you see. Who'd watch a film about the gradual rise in temperatures, slowly increasing storm levels, average sized population movements, the occasional flood?

Global Warming has none of the glamour or pyrotechics of nuclear war, none of the immediacy of an asteroid strike, none of the sheer fun of giant worms, ants, spiders or tomatoes.

The Day After Tomorrow attempted to pack a decades-long slowdown and stopping of the Gulf Stream into a couple of hours. Deep Impact threatened us with not one but two asteroids. The War of the Worlds had cod-Martians ruining Tom Cruise's day, but you would rather think that aliens with a technology millions of years ahead of ours had mastered the art of quarantine. The Day the Earth Caught Fire was more a nuclear wish-fulfilment than a viable scientific scenario. Armageddon suffered from the inevitable 'Decent If Singular Americans Sacrifice All To Save The World' syndrome. Dr Who and The Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD never explained why van design had not progressed since 1960 and why Sugar Puffs adverts hadn't changed in 200 years. The Day of the Triffids had comical big plants chasing blind people around, but the book was so much more subtle and clever.

People need to feel frightened but safe at the same time. Martians and other dangerous fellows need to have weak points. Americans need to selflessly save the world at the last minute. But the real challenge and threat that's facing us is both more subtle and more terminal than anything spoilt rich Americans can think up to earn their next swimming pool under the Hollywood sun. There's no film in it, so the Americans will continue to ignore it until it's too late. Even Katrina is fading in their memories. Global Warming is just not sexy enough to sell. And that's exactly why it's happening.

Me, I prefer Survivors.

slacker ...

A few months ago I had one measly blogsite and was still wet behind the ears. Now I've got five and the downside is that when I'm really busy (more often than not these days!) I don't manage to post every day!

So apologies to those of you that keep signing on here and find the same old post!

It's been one of those weeks, what with posing alongside a tory MP and the Shadow Minister for Culture on the loco (above) at Midsomer Norton and preparing for some DJ stints over the next few weeks, as well as school restarting and having to earn a few quid! And this coming week is even busier with a whole day at the railway tomorrow, a day with Trin on Wednesday and a big cross-country trip to Essex to pick up a Landrover on Friday, plus a gig at the weekend. And all this at an age when sensible (if boring) fuckers are winding down ready for retirement! 

first principles of survival (repost)

We all know that the ultimate double whammy is coming - Climate Change coupled with Peak Oil are going to pack a punch most of us won’t survive. Judging by most people’s behaviour a lot of you are quite happy to be sitting ducks.

But for the non-hippy, non-lemming minority it’s time for us to start planning our own and our families’ survival. There is still time to secure yourself a sort of future, but remember every day wasted will reduce your chances of surviving.

I can’t guarantee anything of course, but if I were you I’d be taking the following action -

If your house is less than 50 feet above sea level sell it as quickly as you can. There are still a few suicidal divvies out there itching for a sea view. If you’re in a city - no matter how high up - make plans to get out ASAP. Again there are still mugs, mired in the past, who actually WANT to live in a city!

Find a small rural property, preferably detached. Ideally you’ll need about an acre of land per family member for food, plus another acre or so per family member for growing wood. A sunny position would be helpful if you plan to continue to use electrical goods. A wood burner is also essential. Remember that once the Gulf Stream fails, winters in the UK will be on average 10 degrees centigrade colder than they are now, although this should soften as global temperatures continue to rise inexorably. Plan for at least 50-100 years of cold winters. If on an exposed site small wind turbines may be useful. A good independent water supply is essential. And it’s no good having the perfect hideaway if it is not in a defensible position. It’s likely that most of us will need to compromise in any case, as few properties will meet all conditions for optimum survivability.

Try not to be too remote - a mile or so from a larger village or small market town would be useful. Some sort of trading is likely to survive PPO. A railway station would be a huge benefit, even a position near a route that is currently closed is better than being on a road! There will be a huge (if desperate) rebuilding of closed railways over the next few decades as roads fall into disuse.

Ease yourself into your new community as you don’t want to be seen as an outsider when things kick off. Communities are likely to close in on themselves as central government breaks down. Start doing favours for your new neighbours, get involved in local initiatives, don’t make enemies, learn and use skills that make you valuable rather than a useless mouth to feed.

Become a jack-of-all-trades. Learn how to work with wood and metal, cook, build, raise animals, grow food. These are all skills that will be useful to you, or to sell or trade with the less capable.

Liquidate your rubbish. Tread more lightly. Go for a minimalist approach to possessions. There are still mugs willing to pay silly prices for useless consumer items. Sell your life on eBay before moving. Buy useful items - axes, saws, woodland, instructional books.

Exchange your money for gold or silver. Paper money will be valueless as things break down. Close bank accounts and turn the cash into gold and silver or woodland.

Sell your car ASAP. Again there are mugs out there who will burden themselves with one of these valueless albatrosses. Petrol will soon be two, three, four, five pounds a litre, and driving will become a hobby for the very rich on an ever-shrinking and increasingly decrepit road network.

Work with nature rather than against it, and face the future rather than hide from it. Survivors need to be strong, sane and grounded, traits that our current lemming society detests and discourages. Look after yourself physically and mentally and respect and protect everything in nature around you in your new life.

And find time to chill out and enjoy yourself!

bye bye red bull ... never again?

Making way to Heaven's Gate through the remains of the (abandoned) day.



Wulf in the circle - sad tents and portaloos behind ...



Impressionistic view over Longleat.



Wulf poses in front of the (unused) VIP tent.

A nice walk up to Heaven's Gate where we found the sad remains of yesterday's ridiculous and unsuccessful 'Red Bull' day.

After four days of having to endure endless 'buzzes' by rich fools in silly planes, the big day dawned on Saturday with rain, drizzle, dullness and strong winds. Despite it being obvious to anyone with the IQ of an ant or above that the show would be abandoned due to the weather, THOUSANDS of oddballs and Londoners in their stupid cars descended on Longleat. They were stuck in traffic for HOURS in the rain. There was not a sound of planes as we sat comfortably in our cottages!

After the walk to Heaven's Gate we called in the Bath Arms. Outside was a car with the numberplate 'R BULL', no doubt Mr Bull was hiding in the pub drowning his sorrows. With a vodka and red bull perhaps? 

the evil that christians spread

'If men and women evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?'

Radstock Magazine, September 2006

If this is the level of christians' engagement with basic science no wonder 100% of the British population consider them irrelevant.

Firstly, if we take the above proposition as true then why wouldn't monkeys and apes continue to thrive wherever they fulfill a viable ecological niche? Whoever has claimed that when something evolves all other creatures vanish? If that were true then there would be just one sort of animal and one sort of plant in the world!

Of course this is the typical leftist propaganda that our less-evolved friends in the church love to spread to their children and anyone else they can corner.

For your information, Darwin said that humans and apes had a common ancestor, not that we evolved from existing apes and monkeys. For anyone with eyes and an IQ of 80 or more it is 100% clear that this is perfectly true - just look at their little hands or stare into their intelligent eyes.

A final point - if evolution didn't happen how would any creature or plant survive once conditions changed? In reality of course we see evolution in action every day, with random mutations happening all the time. Perhaps it is time to rename it the THEOREM of evolution, to shut these idiots up forever! Because without evolution we'll all be dead over the medium to long-term with Climate Change biting hard. We'd better be able to adapt!

pontins chav reflections

The crisp drawer.



Wulf listens carefully for printers ...



None here either Wulf ...

Just a week ago we were enjoying Showaddywaddy at Pontins. It's taken me almost a week to recover.

Pontins is magnificently, unashamedly Chav, though you wouldn't think so by their brochure, which has a lovely middle-class childless couple on the cover, enjoying exotic food in a charming environment.

The reality, apart from the aforementioned Showaddywaddy, included a 'general knowledge' quiz in which EVERY one of the thirty questions was either on football or soaps! There were smokers everywhere, and ashtrays in every corner.

I'd last visited in 1964 and the camp and people had hardly progressed from then.

Brean Sands has an air of vulnerability which kept me a bit on edge throughout. I like living at 450 feet above sea level - no matter how much polar ice melts I'll still be dry. But coastal towns give me the creeps these days, and not just 'cos of the tacky souvenir shops and rolls of burnt tummy fat on the chavs. So I always sleep with one eye and ear open for the sights and sounds of an inrushing sea!