Adriana & me & green gangsta shades

With Criss @ Crazy Cameroonian's, Paris

With Jeff in dry martini heaven

Snow in the park, Warsaw

Street and Church, Warsaw

At large at Jeff's, Warsaw

View from inside, Bangkok airport

4th Century Tara, British Museum

Egyptian room, British Museum

Mum and me, Brighton

So it begins like this. We are born, in pain and agony kicking and thrusting from our mothers's opening and it's said that with the first breath we start to lose our innocence and it just goes down from there. Human beings are totally flawed creatures who love nothing better than to deny their own flaws while pointing out the worst in others. That's why bad news always sells so well, and celebrity agony is always a guaranteed winner. Of course that's not a terribly original thought, excuse my lack of originality, but this writing/blogging thing is really just therapy for me and if you don't like it you can always go read something else. We try to achieve something, some of us do. We are motivated by the capitalist urge to get something for our labours. Of course we could just all lounge about in our beds, on the floor, watching and waiting, allowing ourselves the leisure time that has been denied us by the million ridiculous demands our society places on us and we place on ourselves.

The internet is the great distractor in our lives these days. How much energy has been uselessly churned up in the quest for cheap thrills on the net? All that wasted effort. So what am I doing here you may ask? Well seriously I was talking about the effort wasted on myspace, on chat, on the smut sites, that kind of thing. Over here is really the high end of the garbage heap.

We are born into a world that has already produced so many injustices that our chances of becoming either a victim or a perpetrator are as close to 100% as our chances of winning the lottery are close to zero. Of course lottery wins do happen, and there are those who manage to thow off all the shackles of victimhood, perpetratorhood. Some simply choose not to partake, not to be victims or perpetrators. Jesus just let stuff happen, but refused to really be a victim. After he got crucified he just got up and walked away, went back to India and settled down to a quiet life of contemplation and teaching. Yeah I know it doesn't mention that in the bible, but that's more likely what happened. Figure it out. Stuff happens to you, you don't seek revenge. You just walk away as he did. Your aggressors will have to live with the guilt and hopefully one day they'll be forgiven, as Jesus forgave his crucifiers.

Jesus forgave his crucifiers, and it wasn't so very hard for him to do that. Far harder is for us to forgive ourselves when we screw up totally. There's nothing that we humans seem to enjoy more than punishing ourselves and piling on the the guilt feeling. We don't really like to forgive ourselves or others for stuff that happened, in spite of everything that Jesus, our supposed lord and saviour, told us about it. We don't set the standard. We're still as primitive as ever, possibly getting more so. If you're in any doubt, just open up the newspaper and read the indignant language in even the so-called "serious" press. It's pathetic that it's come to this. All this advancement and yet such a slide back to medieval values. But enough carping. I'm going to prepare dinner.

Yes folks I'm still alive. Europe hasn't killed me, at least not yet. It's been good, it's been enlightening to be back here. London's terrific but terribly expensive, as London always is. Paris and Warsaw both were a bit grim in some ways, but lovely nonetheless. I'm looking forward to being back in Sydney, looking forward to reliable sunshine, and beaches and optimism. Not that Australia is perfect, far from it. But I feel like I have some kind of a chance there, some kind somehow. No matter what happens.

Being away is simply great. Warsaw is beautiful in the snow. The food here is simply wonderful. I can't really think of much of anything to complain about. Old Europe, it's just lovely to be back for a little while.