Whether it's creationism or evolution, is this obesession we have for belief grounded in our need to orientate ourself? Is it so that we can give our existence a beginning, middle and end so that we don't become swamped and confused by the apparent pointlessness of it all?
I find it fascinating how some people complain about guys going back home. Y’know to marry. I mean, why? We’d all throw our arms up at someone who insists on only marrying a doctor or something so why don’t we do the same when the restriction is instead a British passport? These men are free people and so have that free choice to do so and in many cases it’s not like they wanted this to be the way things play out. The fact is that, for whatever reason, they’re not finding what they want in a wife here. They’re told that in real life people have to compromise, that they’ll never find the perfect partner and if that’s the case, surely it makes sense to be objective about the whole deal as opposed to being, quite frankly, nationalistic about it. Consider a potential wife from the sub-continent. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find someone who'll fulfil their domestic role, would be subservient, kind, tolerant, won’t complain and will get on with your folks (well yes, since they had input in choosing them). They’ll be someone who’ll concentrate on making the family work rather than on the more superfluous things that distract us from daily life. It almost sounds like a no brainer to me - or at least a more attractive proposition than choosing or waiting for someone "you can communicate with and is on the same wavelength" or whatever excuse some people give for picking locals over those from back home. My reponse:
If ever I heard a conversation with oneself this would be it. Good luck whatever you decide :-) But seriously it is a bit of a wierd situation. I understand where you're coming from. If you've exhausted the possibility of love tripping your way, and decided that you may as well marry first and let love follow, then it makes sense to pick someone that is compliant. That way at least you'll shift some of the balance of compromise away from yourself and onto them. It's an easier life than to have an arranged marriage with some opinionated career girl from the UK. It only works for men though. Assuming that values in the motherland are more traditional than values here, I can't imagine that a woman from the UK would be thrilled about stepping back in time and compromising to the expectations of a man from the subcontinent. I know i wouldn't be.
Underneaththese layers of cynicism I harbour secret powers which, when I concentrate, allow me to feel and connect with the subcurrent of energies around me. A subcurrent that goes unnoticed by most. It's not something I boast of. Partly because it's a power that serves no practical purpose except to be able to give exceptional massages and cure the odd migraine. And partly because such a revelation may result in anything I say forevermore being dismissed with the fond smile that is reserved for the eccentric friend or family member.
On Sunday the usual suspects and I visited Stonehenge. To be honest I’ve never had the slightest interest in the place, however it was an advance birthday surprise for one of our merry bunch who has a particular fascination in anything steeped in history and legend.
We set out on our two hour journey in the kind of elevated mood that accompanies all outward bound journeys. Bantering, bopping away to music, stopping off for food at a service station, which for some reason always feels like a treat despite the fact that you're only eating Burger King, and settling back into our journey.
Before we knew it, quite unexpectedly, we turned a bend, or came over a hill, (I don't remember which), and blinked to see Stonehenge before us in all it's glory.
It was like spotting a famous person for the first time. Wide-eyed excitement at seeing in three-dimension someone that you had seen hundreds of times previously in photos and on screen, mingled with disappointment at how small and strangely unspectacular they looked in real life.
We turned into the car park and Stonehenge once again disappeared from view, allowing the memory of any initial disappointment to fade as excitement and anticipation once again took over. We made our way through the subway to see it up close; meet it, absorb it, and shake hands with it.
Finally we stood in front of it. Grappling with comprehension, two questions were uppermost in our minds: "Is this it?" and "What now?". One of our uncouth group decided to call the Emperor’s bluff and exclaimed “if you want to see stones, go to India, they have bigger ones there”. We admonished the sprightly young lass. You can’t insult England’s heritage, especially when talking about it's most prized offering from ancient times.
While the others soon gave up interest and took hospitality from the surrounding grassy knolls, I was not be outdone by appearances. I was determined to see the beauty and significance in this structure of hanging stones and monoliths that had inspired so much speculation and ritual.
I walked around the monument three or four times and listened keenly to my audio guide from beginning to end. I willed myself to feel at least a token vibration from the annals of it's history. But it yielded nothing. Not a crumb. After I had exhausted my reverie, I rejoined my friends who had been patiently waiting for me. I filled them in on some of the more interesting snippets from my audio guide and they regained a fluttering of enthusiasm. We contemplated visiting nearby Woodhenge but after ice cream and refreshments we realised that our constitutions were better suited to finding a quiet spot on a neighbouring field and enjoying the nothingness of the rest of the day.
Stonehenge was neither as huge nor as mystical as it's fame had led us to believe. Nevertheless the sun was shining, the summer breeze was intoxicating, the wide open spaces were at our disposal, and a glorious day was had by all.
XX: there is something wrong with yer blog, yer blog takes at least two days to get updated on Safari Web Browser. So can ya correct the mistake.
ME: i don't think there's anything i can do about that at my end, i've checked. maybe use internet explorer? a friend has suggested you press the F5 button to force a reload. other than that i'm afraid i don't know
XX: lol. I am using Macintosh, not Windows. Apple+R is for refresh and I do know how to refresh webpages.
ME: why are you using a mac? are you in arts, media, music, or some other such airy fairy industry?
XX: i am not in any of those fields. i use mac cos the operating network is stable, safe, and easier to use than Windows. Also it is state of art. Mac is more reliable than Windows.
ME: funny that because none of the pc users seem to be experiencing any problems. mac users should stop coming out with this kind of garbage to support their dedication. the only reason macs are still around is because they're fantastic to look at. why if i had the space i'd buy one just to sit on my desk so that i could look at it while tapping away on my pc. having used both macs and pcs, i can categorically say that the mac operating system is not easier to use than windows. you use a mac because you're a mac snob. end of.
XX: Macintosh is not as complicated as Windows. It is very easy to use. I am not being biased here. I have used both operating system for a long time and can say Macintosh is better. Even Linux is better than Windows. All Computer people will tell ya that.
ME: What counts is what computer USERS say not what 'computer people' say
In the beginning, men hunted while women gathered.
We don’t have to travel back in time to see how these societies worked. Take a look at the hunter-gatherer tribes still in existence today, such as the pygmies of central Africa. The men go out and kill a couple of boars, drag them back home, put their feet up, smoke some herb and revel in their masculinity. The women on the other hand wake up at the break of dawn, do the cooking, the cleaning, the washing, tend to the million and one needs of the children, and collect the firewood; finally finding time to rest well past the hour that even the sun has gone to sleep.
Sound familiar?
We appear to have inherited a legacy from our ancestors so well entrenched in our psyche that it has far outlived the era when it was necessary for men’s and women’s roles to be dictated by physiological factors.
As the need for hunting and gathering became redundant, they were seamlessly replaced by the concepts of earning a wage and education as being the exclusive domain of the male. Education was deemed neither necessary nor desirable for a woman; thereby allowing men to keep a hold of their upper hand.
Something happened however in the nineteenth century that started a trend which would challenge this age old system. I’m not sure which event in particular triggered it, but women started recognising there was no reason for them not to have the same rights as men, and so started campaigning for them. With these rights they discovered a new-found independence. An independence of the mind and spirit to begin with, accompanied in more recent years by financial independence.
Needless to say financially independent women no longer need men to bring home the bacon and be the provider. In fact with the rapid rise in divorces and single mothers, even women who are not financially independent are finding that men aren’t an absolute necessity in the rearing of a child. They can get by with part time work, state benefits, and the support of their family and friends.
Although the cosmopolitan man seems to have understood and adapted well to this redefining of our society, there remains a huge gap between the advance of the independent woman and the average man. Maybe it’s simply a matter of time lag but there is a large cross section of society that is still visibly threatened by the change.
The question is often asked these days: do women still need men or would a sperm bank do just as well?
The practicality of the matter is that having a child is no small change in lifestyle, and unless you have a small fortune at your disposal with which you can hire nannies and housekeepers, a partner make a lot of sense. Yes it’s true that women have been empowered and facilitated sufficiently to be able to make do without men, especially where children don’t feature in the equation. However, whatever the circumstance, needed or not, men can lay aside their insecurity and rest assured that they will always be wanted. After all there is the small matter or love, sex and companionship.
Picture a situation where you're responsible for recruiting for a position for one of your clients. As the CVs start streaming in you become hopeful at the quality of some of the applicants and breathe a sigh of relief that maybe this won't be as laborious a task as you had initially envisaged.
You email the CVs of the most suitable applicants to your client, pat yourself on the back for a job well done, and move on to more interesting demands on your time.
The next day the client phones you to speak to you about something 'unofficially and off the record'. He explains, rather awkwardly, that the fact that most of the candidates sent were muslim may be a problem. He stresses that it's not his prejudice, but that the MD is a Gujarati hindu and there are a number of fairly orthodox hindus working within the office. He confides in you that he's a bit reluctant to bring a muslim person into that environment as he wouldn't want them to be subjected to any inadvertant tension.
What would you do?
It's a fairly simple matter to find a non-muslim that could fill the same role, but would you feel yourself morally compromised? Would you feel compromised enough to turn down a few thousand pounds worth of business for the sake of your morals?
On Friday evening my friends and I gathered to mourn the passing of Big Brother 6. Admittedly we may have talked, drank and ate more than we watched, but we felt the sadness of the impending end as Davina performed the last rites. After 11 weeks of living, breathing, eating and sleeping with the housemates, what would we do now? What would we find to talk about from tomorrow? Was Big Brother the only thing that had united us? I couldn't remember a conversation over the last 11 weeks when the housemates hadn't been discussed at length. I couldn't remember life before BB6 started. What did we talk about back then?
To ease my pain, over the weekend I watched two helpings of the The BBLB Reunion; the original showing and the repeat. It wasn't fair. I had so many questions still. Will Kemal and Makosi ever talk again? Will Saskia and Maxwell get their deal with OK magazine? Will Kinga ever shut up? Will Anthony shun Craig now that he has his mum back to wait on him hand and foot, and will bunny boiler Craig get his revenge by murdering Anthony in his sleep? All these questions and so many more.
Then some time late last night, a wonderful thing happened. As I lay in bed, looking forward to nothing in particular, and idly surfing the televsion that seemed to have lost its lustre, I rested on E4 just as the new drama series 'Lost' was about to start. They were showing the first three episodes back to back. Why not check it out I thought, I have nothing to lose.
By the end of the first episode, I was gripped; by the end of the third, Big Brother was forgotten. Two words: truly brilliant. Thank you to the makers of 'Lost'. You have returned meaning to my life.
