seasons of mist and...

Bugger! It's Spring, or thereabouts. Still yesterday was misty and it made me feel mellow if not, alas, very fruitful. Maybe I should try eating more pears or something.

I was thinking of waiting till after the French elections to write some scathing monologue about how my wossie version of outdoor, plastic chair anarchism is far preferable to some fascist hobbit or a spoilt bourgeois socialist. Whatever happened to Proudhon? Nobody reads him anymore, but then it did always rub a little that the most famous French anarchist was also a misogynist - still made Marx look a right plonker.

Everyone thinks that Sarko will win - yeah I'll eat my hat after 20:00 when the results are announced - but does it really matter? Nope! Having just moved to France from Réunion - you know that ex slave colony where 5% of the population still managed to vote for LE Pen - I am most amused at the extent of all this scapegoating xenophobia. I was informed last week that my social security "dossiers" had arrived from Réunion and that I was a Swiss national with no right of residence in France - bloody hilarious except that "they" then fined me 2120€. Reminds me of the UK in the eighties - that was hilarious as well - even if my failed attempts to be radical got me arrested at the Warrington Messanger picket line only to be released coz the scuffers fawt I was 13 and should be up in time for school the next day. Errr - I was 23. Just goes to show that being a revolutionary means you have to have a face like Che and not a pimply cherry-boy who has only recently lost his action man.

This brings me back to the French elections with a face like Sarko ...

Oh and don't say that I didn't warn youse all. This from my blog 11/05/06 :



Ségolene has said that there will be riots in the streets if Sarko is elected... Mmmmmmmmmm!

Deplaced

After several months of wandering, and having recently got over sulking at not being on Réunion for the "eruption of the century", I am becoming settled for the summer.

Obviously, writing bile in a blog is not suficiently well paid and I'm still looking for a job - anyone need a 46yr old gigolo?

Hence the title change for my sojourn into the Northern Hemisphere in quest of gainful employ. Not that you are interested, but, I have taken up residence in an old volcano crater in the land of sucs. It is rather jolly and once I get the broadband up and running I am sure that bile production will ressume is usual levels - watch this space.


One thing certain is that I won't be seeing any eruptions for a while - the last one here was some 600,000yrs ago. The landscape though, is fascinating and is a useful distraction from depression, paranoia and other residues of bile induced states. That does not however, include the French presidential elections about which I shall say only that the "decline" of the FNs support to 10.4% is still a cause for concern. Back on Réunion, Le Pen's support dropped to just under 5% from the 10.8% that I remarked upon in 2002. Am I one of the few that still finds this disturbing? And, just what manner of beast is that hobbit Sarkozy?

All the answers and more...

...soon.

If, like me, you are missing Réunion have a look at Réunion Island site and keep an eye on that most magnificent eruption at www.fournaise.info




photo from "Le Journal"

sour grapes

- eruption of the century? Yeah, but I wasn't there...

Photo from fournaise.info Take a look and enjoy, then go and terraform Mars...

...me? I'm still sulking.

amber

Sap rises - damn it must be Spring in some hemisphere or another.

... be back soon!

One of the saddest things in life is in having to admit to one's own lack of indispensability. You know how it is - we all want to be missed. But, alas...

I have been away for some time and no one felt the need, let alone the urge, to ask as to my whereabouts. Still, don't feel guilty, I am really only a sad little man and will get over it.

So, where have I been? Well, not that I expect any one to believe me but I was abducted and I can only say that it was by aliens. I went out walking sometime after the new year along the well worn paths of the volcano and being in a jolly frame of mind decided to spend the night star gazing and ruminating. Frankly, I remember nothing at all after that only to say that i have found myself in the "Hauts" with an awful buzzing headache and am missing several months from my life - come off it my life wasn't that boring that I wanted to miss several sections of it! This morning found me fully clothed - yes I know that alien abductions are supposed to entail endless sexual perversions but if they did I can honestly say that cannot have been too stimulating as I have no memory of such wild fun and my tackle, such as it is, still appears to be in working order.

I don't feel like sleeping tonight as I am convinced either that I will have extraordinary nightmares, will wake up from this knowing that it is a dream - or will not wake up and will know nothing;

Yeah! I know all this sounds weird and not at all like my usual rants, but...

How does one explain my absence? Of course you don't believe me - Ok here are a couple of photos - the first I took this morning about an hour after I came too and determined that the buzzing wasn't caused by my headache but something other in the sky, the second a couple of seconds later. After that my camera batteries were flat..

Rudolph was here...

source : http://ovpf.univ-reunion.fr/article.php3?id_article=206

The last few days have seen some weather reminiscent of Europe and more like Wales in summer...

So, who is complaining? Me? No never. Yesterday evening the first snowflakes fell upon the volcano and one would think that Christmas has arrived. As it never snows at Christmas anymore one probably wouldn't be thinking that; but it is bloddy cold anyway and not quite the idea of the tropics one has in mind ;-)

I would have liked to have been there as the first flakes fell but having just sold my car this was not possible. However, those very nice people at Image Press Réunion have come up with a jolly photo...

... and the volcano? Well it is still erupting if only with the energy of a fairy light.

High tide - the fish speaks

Over the weekend we have experienced an awful lot of wind, rain and some rather large waves. This is all very excitng especially as I chose Friday to return to the volcano and get wet. According to "meteo france" the waves have been averaging between 4 and 5 metres with rather too many at some 8 metres. Jolly exciting what?


Well, that is what I thought, but it seems that I am somewhat in a minority. The journal for today, Sunday, has decided that all this rough weather merely serves to indicate that we are not prepared for a tsunami. Some of youse will remember that I noted the article in the "Quotidien" the other day proclaiming the end is nigh with tsunami type warnings. So, whilst strolling up and down the beach at Etang Salé enjoying the force and majesty of a Nature untamed, I got to thinking...


You see, of course you do, what this scare mongering is all about, is money. The authorities just love dreaming up new ways to get money for developing useless projects so that they can enrich their already fat and wobbly buttocks. After the chikungunya was the publicity plague, after the shark attacks we now have the "marie" of St Pierre pondering the feasability of installing shark nets. Obviously, somebody's brother's, uncle's, aunt's minah bird needs employment, so now we have the TSUNAMI SCARE!!!! Strange, one does not find this money driven doom laden prophecysing (is that how you spell it Andrew?) on Mauritius. Maybe it is because they "know" that they are living in the tropics and are not trying to pretend that it is some cosy French province. Ouch!

The tourist office try to sell Réunion as "the intense isle" and yet, when it is intense everyone is running around griping that we need money for projects - everyone must have a project. Bollocks! The attraction of the intense isle is just that, intense. People come here because it is nature being intense - and not in the student bar, existentialist, angst driven pre-eclamptic, philosophical sorta way -in much the same way as one would visit a game park and not a zoo.


Fortunately, there are those who understand this and treat Nature with respect and humility. It is only when we treat her with our petty hubris that we need to be afraid - and no, I have not been ingesting Whitman, Lawrence or Gide, just walking on the beach and talking to fish.