From Ben's Blog-More travels in India

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010

Indian escapade continues...

I've just read my last post back to myself, and wow, so much has happened since then. Actually a fucking lot had happened since then (hopefully the swear word will emphasise how much has happened). I just want to say thank you so much guys for the positive feedback on the blog. It's so nice to hear I'm not perspiring all over the key board in an internet cafe for nothing. Well for nothing? I suppose I'll take the blog much more for granted when I return home. But anyway, thank you and please keep the good comments coming they make me feel special :)

So... Where to begin? I think I'll start by telling everyone where I've been, and a bit of detail about each place. From my last post I mentioned I was going to Jaipur in Rajasthan, so I went there from Mumbai and stayed only for two days. It was a beautiful different place Jaipur. The heat was really dry and intense and the town felt very old. Walking around the bazaar's (bazaar another name for a market or shop) watching people's daily lives was fascinating. I would've loved to have explored the desert and towns in Rajasthan, but other places were calling out for me. After Rajasthan I hit Agra to see the milky-white glorious structure that is the Taj Mahal. I only stayed for one day in Agra and thanks God I did. When fellow traveller's tell me, "Don't go there, it's so dirty, so nasty, so... just don't go..." I usually don't listen go to these places and love them. But everyone was so right about Agra. "Arrive in the morning on the train and book a train out later on in the evening. See the Taj Mahal then get the hell out of there." Was what people told me about it. I arrived at seven in the morning and was ready to leave by noon. It's THE biggest shit-hole I've ever been to, apart from Agra Fort or the Taj of course, also there's another something just outside the town which is apparently beautiful, but apart form these 3 things a town oozing with decaying litter, sweat, blood, western holidaymakers, petrol fumes, Taj Mahal memorabilia, shit tasting chai and food, stagnant water and pestering salesmen. If you like Agra, that's fine, this is just my opinion of the place, and it's not a very high one. I walked around in the intense heat from seven till noon then went to wait out nine hours in the train station for my train to Varanasi. I just couldn't stand Agra any longer. I ended up having to wait eleven hours, but time went reasonably quickly reading the auto-biography of Don Whillans - one of the pioneers in British rock-climbing history, and chatting away to these two American traveller's I met who were studying in Bangalore but now taking a quick 3 week trip around Northern India. To Varanasi anyways. When I fist stepped off the train I was literally nearly pulled between rickshaw drivers competing for a lowest price, it was the worst place for rickshaw drivers here, nearly unbleliveable. But when I got down to the town and into this holy town, it was incredible. In Hinduism Varanasi is one of the most sacred places on the Earth. If you die here then your soul is honored in the Samsara cycle. It's one of the most intense places I've ever been to, and a really incredible experience. I loved Varanasi and met some amazing people here. I'll tell you guys about my first day actually. I was walking around mesmerized I suppose by the tiny alleyways, about the width of two people, with scooters and cows roaming around. I walked down to the River Ganges or the Ganga as Indians know it and just was captured by this slow moving sacred place. As I was walking back to my hotel I was told to have a look at this Indian guys shop. I decided to just look and not buy. After I'd looked for a bit he said "sit down sir please" I did. Then he said "Sir are you smoking ganja?" I said "Well my friend it has been known." He smiled then said "come, come friend." His uncle took over watching his shop and he led me and his other mate to a Government Hash Shop. In Varanasi cannabis is illegal I think, but everyone smokes it there. It's smoked to Lord Shiva. I'll just give a bit of run-down on that comment as I imagine people are like 'what is he going on about?' According to Hinduism, there were three God's who created the wrold. Brahman, the sole creator, the past, Vishnu the maintainer of the world, the present and Shiva the destroyer of the world, therefore essentially our future. There are many interpretations of the story, but this is the one I was told from these guys in Varanasi. The story goes that one day Shiva was so angry he almost destroyed the world. But his wife suggested he tried smoking or eating this plant to calm him down. This plant was Marijuana, and it calms Shiva down from destroying the world. Apparently he smokes in a sort of like bong, called a 'chillum' which is packed with hash and tobacco, or he eats hash in the form of 'Bhang'. Bhang are the leaves of the plant soaked in a sort of liquid then rolled into a dark-green ball, which looks like resin but is squidgy. This is why people smoke it. It's not specifically in the religion to do it, but mostly holy men and young boys use this as their tool to get unbelievably baked everyday, in hour of Lord Shiva. And this is what these guys were on about having, bhang. I took some bhang, smoked a chillum and drank chai with these dudes, who do it everyday, after twenty minutes was feeling really 'nasha' (Hindi word for being stoned). We went to play cricket, which I had never done feeling like this, I just wanted to mong out and eat some crisps, but we played a fiercely competitive game of cricket down by the river Ganga. It was great game apart from not really knowing what the hell was going on. I bowled alright, but I knew I wouldn't be able to bat like this. I forced them to put me right down the order, and as the wickets tumbled I thought 'shit it's gonna be up to me isn't it.' And surely it was, I need 1 off 4 deliveries, and being the last man in I was our only hope. It's not much to ask, but in this state it's like 6 off 1 delivery. I missed the first two, with everyone crowding me shouting 'come on just hit the ball!' then the next delivery just managed to get a thick outside edge on it and push the winning single. A massive sigh of relief for me and the team, and one of the most pressurising moments in cricket I have ever experienced. I decided to sit the next one out. The next few days I walked around meeting people and seeing the burning ghats, (places where they burn the bodies, then they are thrown into the ganga)river ghats and temples of Shiva. I left Varanasi with a longing to one day return meet up with those guys, get nasha and have another game of intense cricket! I could write moments like this about everywhere, but for me this day really stood out. From Varanasi I worked my way up to the foothills of the Himalayas to rest and drink tea in the beautiful town of Darjeeling. I thought Darjeeling would be more interesting but it was so touristy and so misty so I never really got chance to gaze and eat breakfast at the mighty Kangchengzonda (3rd highest peak in the world, I think?) and the surrounding Himalayan range. Also the tea was good, but not the best which I was surprised about, I thought it would be amazing. It pissed it down the second day I was there and when the rain cleared I saw the Kangchengzonda range. Only for a minute or so, but it was incredible. Just searing blades of snow covered rock rising up and up. It was a magnificent spectacle and I now would love to go to Nepal. I finished reading Don Whillans' auto-biography in Darjeeling, funny co-incidence reading his adventures in the Himalayas when they were right there in front of me, and what an amazing life he had led. I recommend the book to anyone. From Darjeeling I went to Kolkata which I more or less fell in love with. I think it is my most favorite city so far in India. It is immensely over-populated but there is still such a sense of space, with big cricket fields, and large green open spaces. The British colonial architecture has really been kept in tact, and some buildings look exactly like you find in any small town or city in the UK. That Roman inspired Victorian structure. I really liked my time in Kolkata and would like to return one day. I went to Kalighat Temple there, that was an incredible experience. I saw a goat sacrificed, people shouting and crying at pictures of Kali - the wife of Shiva. It was a big day out and lot to take in! After Kolkata I caught a train to Puri, a beach side town in the state of Orissa just below Kolkata on the coast. In Puri I wanted to do two things, work on my rapidly fading tan and smoke the legal hash that they have there. I think Orissa is the only state in India where hash is legal and it's sold at two government ganja shops in Puri alone. And I did get high, and I did get sunburnt. It was great here. One day I hired a bike and cycled the 36km to a village called Konark to see the temples there. It turned out to be a great ride there, but back I had to fix the chain 8 times! And cycling back along the same road, it loses something. From Puri I headed to Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa and a very holy place. I was there for a day only before catching the train to Chennai. I sat in a small botanical garden, surrounded by these ancient temples reading Oscar Wilde's plays. 'This is how I spend my Monday' I thought. I got the train later on to Chennai and had my first flux of traveller's diarrhoea. It had to happen on the train didn't it. And to put the cherry on the cake I couldn't get a seat so had to share a twenty hour train journey with three other Indian blokes. I recovered after a few hours of running to train toilet and arrived in an incredibly humid Chennai. I caught a bus out of Chennai to Puducherry, a French colonial town and a beautiful town. It's like the nearest to France you can get whilst staying put in India. I'm headed to Mamallapuram in the next few days, then to Chennai for a couple of days before flying to Penang in Malaysia on May 5th. Exciting times ahead of me!

Thanks for reading guys, I really do appreciate it. Take care x

THE CYNICISM OF LABOUR POLITICIANS

The cynicism of our politicians

Strange to be hearing these labour politicians saying ‘we must respect the decision of the electorate’ and shuffling to present themselves as honourable, humble and full of the spirit of service. The reality is a cynical ploy to push the Liberal Democrats into the arms of the Tory Party in order that Labour can re-group in 12 months time free from the responsibilities of having taken part in the proposed cuts in public services and give the other parties a hammering in the next election.
It’s another example of how the party purporting to represent working men and women has sunk to a state in which principle is worth nothing and all is sacrificed to the machinations of power. It is evidence yet again of the terribly corrosive nature of our politics on the natures of those drawn to participate in its games. Strategy-games, mind-games, spinning games, money games and of course let us not forget their war-games. There is not a member of the Labour cabinet who I would consider buying a second hand bike from, with the possible exception of Hilary Benn.
Millennia ago the Greek philosopher Plato suggested in his manual of governance ‘The Republic,’ that the leaders or guardians (politicians) of the society should live lives of simple and ascetic discipline. They should own no property and live in communal communities. The simple reason for these safeguards, according to Plato, was the essential truth that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our politicians seem living, walking embodiments of that truth. Though we must remember Garibaldi who held power twice and walked away from it twice.
However, better to light one candle than curse the darkness as Ghandi said. One such candle for me is the election of Caroline Lucas of the Green Party as MP for Brighton Pavilion. I’ve listened to Caroline speak on several issues over the years and she has always presented as someone who matches principle to pragmatism and speaks with a thoughtfulness and compassion astonishingly rare in our political discourse. Congratulations to her. She and the Green Party have the support of Heart of Balance Blog until such time as The Party for the Propagation of Poetry and Cycling comes into being. And well done Brighton-you’ve shown that you really are cool.
The other slightly guttering candle is the fact that all BNP candidates lost their deposit which is a great relief and one in the eye for those who proposed a new creeping wave of fascism was succeeding in fomenting hatred and division in our cities. Not this time Mr Griffin (a really creepy fellow.)
So what’s next? The low hanging fruit of coalescing politics? The intertwining gasses of Cleggy and Cameronian farty-bollocks? Not for me. I’m packing my panniers. I’m moving to Brighton.

PS:  It's a done deal with the tories-but Vince Cable as Business Secretary, with responsibility for overhauling the banks?  They've got to be shitting their pants!  Come on Vince!

BOTR Ring 1: OF DESPAIR 'STARLIT NIGHT'

 STARLIT NIGHT

One starlit night our love-song slipped

Out an open window [that

I had forgotten to make tight]

Slipped out to frolic beneath the moon

And danced all wild till dawn slipped jewels

Like wedding rings on fronds of grass

And back she came-a homing bird

A swallow cross a mighty sea

Back home safe and secret-safe

     Clothed in glittering memories

THE BOOK OF THREE RINGS POEM 1-'PERMANENTLY STRANGE'

PERMANENTLY STRANGE




Tales from a frozen foreign land

labyrinthine tourmaline-dreams

of black horses flowing out to sea



told in a strangely twisting tongue

that chords can barely bend to chant

the rime and rhythm in the line.



How fools found gold in streams that curled

and mazed round roots by boggy banks

What are you? Why are you here?



His-story hisses out of flatulent balloons.

and fools all fall about the place

while others look round for helpful signs.



It wasn’t that they didn’t.

It might be that they’ll never.

It might be that it’s permanently strange.

Dominic Gill-A hero for our time!

Adventure Cyclist and film maker Dominic Gill on his Hase Pino Tour Tandem with Ernie, a 75 year old man with Lymphocytic Leukaemia.  Dom and Ernie plan to cycle the Pino across America raising funds for Cancer Research.  The trip has always been a dream of Ernie's and with Dom on the rear it's one he will now achieve.

Dom's last adventure cycling from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego on a tandem and offering random passengers a ride was a great documentary that you can check out at www.takeaseat.org.

Beautiful bike too, provided by Hase Bikes.  Good job guys!

THE BOOK OF THREE RINGS PROLEGOMENA: MOMENTS OF IMPENDING TRANSFORMATION

A thin whipcord clacks a screech. Nerve-shock and wibble-wobble. He is become a touretted marionette.  A low moan gut-birthing. Shake-handing.  Eyes tear-fill streaming blue as sapphires.   Shoulders up-jumping down-sledding.  A dense weight stone-black and heavy gut-deep and yet deeper. Steady breathing, try to focus, anything, but cannot.   Room-spin. Chair-toppling like a statue on a broken plinth.  How long there?  Moments, houries, yearies.  Incandoes of the Lesser Hell.  Purgatorio that stops all clocks.

Years later he goes to the bedroom where she feigns sleep and pulls on someone’s shorts and trainers and a tee shirt.  As is his way he responds to all vicissitudes by running running  running.

Everything that was familiar, that was home, is now alien-strange.  He is the strangered in a strangely.

He runs down the country lane, past the golf course shameless in its grassy nakedness.  Dead golfers eye him coldly from the hillow-humps.  Clubs resting against their legs descried against the horizon sculpt them into living gallows

Stiff-running.  Heaviness in his gut that seems to include his heart as if the organs have turned to granite or slate perhaps.  Past the graveyard, up a steep little track and into the wood.  The grim, grey dawn slowly jumps up and down on the death’s head nights head beating beating beating until its brains spill grayley onto the fields.  He runs under beech and oak; ash, and clumps of you.  A huge droplet of water drips off a broadleaf and lands with a dull phut on his head.  Up he slowly wends.  Outcrops of limestone yield to him.  

The weighty belly and another limb grown heavy as pitch.

He emerges like a beetle onto a small limestone plateau and the village is spread-eagled and spatch-cocked out below him with its little stone walls and pretty houses of the good folk.  The village is spread out below him but now is like the vilest lie; an insult and an affront.  Does he hate it and all that is in it?  Or, has he always hated it?  All it’s pies and flaunty marrows.  It with it’s giddy reeks and shallows.  It’s shoreline saltmarsh slashed with sinuous rills.  It’s pockmarked limestone sharp against the skin.  It’s limestone sheep hot with ticks and vacant eyed, except for the Leicester Blue prize-winning flock, immense in the morning mist, shrugged from a llama.

And the ubiquitous yew-death tree stooping to conquer, trollopped up with scarlet baubles in it’s greens.

Almost disbelieving his own Self he asks Good to help him.  He does not know if Good exists and even if It did whether It would be listening to him right now.  He guesses that Good, if It did exist, would be incredibly busy, with hardly any time even for Its own family, if It had any.  Good would be an absent parent!  Good probably didn’t exist but, you never know.

‘Please help me Good’ he breathes.  ‘Please.  Please help me.’

He briefly considers flinging himself upon some pointy limestone shard where he can lie impaled like one of the world’s great tragedies, but the height is minimal and that would be absurd.  Even now, he realises that death is not an option, even if he possessed  the gravelly to open such a door.  The existence of somethings will not allow.  

No, it is clear he must live, but how will he live with these two wolves fighting for possession of his juicy bones and grits?  He does not know.  He knows that now which he does not know.  But does he know what he knows?  And how will he know if he does not know?  But what he does know, even now, is…

THE BOOK OF THREE RINGS-RING 1: OF DESPAIR

1.           PROLEGOMENON:  MOMENTS OF IMPENDING TRANSFORMATION                                               

2.           PERMANENTLY STRANGE

3.           STARLIT NIGHT

4.           THE VILEST LIE

5.           THE SLAVE-DREAMS OF CLAUDIUS AND GERTRUDE

6.           TONIGHT YOUR HEAVING HEART…

7.           ARE WE ARIGHT?

8.           WHO KNOWS WHAT LOVE IS?

9.           NOT HANDLING IT

10.         DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BLUES

11.         THE ANGRY FLAGS

12.         SURRENDER

13.         ADVICE TO A WOMAN

14.         THE PALIMPSEST

15.         THE CROOKLAND’S SERIES

16.         PSYCHIC WOUNDS

17.         THE WICKER MAN ATTENDS MEDIATION

18.         BLUE HALLOWEEN

20.         SESTINA OF THE DARK NYMPH

21.         BECAUSE YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL

22.         I WILL NOT BE CAST DOWN

23.         UNSAID

DEDICATION

To Rachel, Gail, and Millie.

Three muses crossed the shadows of my 

sails…

                                            But one remains

The Book Of Three Rings

ooo

                      

DELCIA McNEIL-ARTIST VISIONARY HEALER-LONDON EXHIBITION

I am delighted to invite you to 'Energy Landscapes' - the first solo exhibition of my paintings in London at the highly acclaimed Koukan Gallery,106a Alexander Park Road, London N10 2AE. www.koukangallery.com

The invitation is attached and also posted below.

The invitation to the preview on Tuesday 27th April, 6.30-8.30pm is for you and any friends that you may wish to bring along.

Apart from being at the preview - of course! - I will be at the gallery personally all day on Thursday 29, Friday 30th April (11am-5pm) and Saturday 1st May (11am-3pm).

Bounds Green on the Piccadilly line is the nearest underground station. Free parking is available in nearby residential roads. Alexander Park Road is also a major bus route, including the 102 and the 299.

If you would like you can see my work at my new website www.delciamcneilgallery.turnpiece.net

I look forward to seeing many of you soon!

all good wishes,
Delcia

015395 62420
07515 807366

The brilliant Tony Judt on the European dilemma with Israel.

Tony Judt puts the Israeli/Palestine issue into a nutshell.  An essential read from the London Review of Books March 2010 (in interview with Kristina Bozic.)

Q:  (Kristina)  It’s been doing this for a long time in the case of Israel and Palestine, expressing disapproval of the occupation but doing almost nothing to bring it to an end. Is there anything Europe can do to exert pressure on Israel?

Israel wants two things more than anything else in the world. The first is American aid. This it has. As long as it continues to get American aid without conditions it can do stupid things for a very long time, damaging Palestinians and damaging Israel without running any risk. However, the second thing Israel wants is an economic relationship with Europe as a way to escape from the Middle East. The joke is that Jews spent a hundred years desperately trying to have a state in the Middle East. Now they spend all their time trying to get out of the Middle East. They don’t want to be there economically, culturally or politically – they don’t feel part of it and don’t want to be part of it. They want to be part of Europe and therefore it is here that the EU has enormous leverage. If the EU said: ‘So long as you break international laws, you can’t have the privileges of partial economic membership, you can’t have internal trading rights, you can’t be part of the EU market,’ this would be a huge issue in Israel, second only to losing American military aid. We don’t even have to talk about Gaza, just the Occupied Territories.

Why do Europeans not do it? Here, the problem of blackmail is significant. And it is not even active blackmail but self-blackmail. When I talk about these things in Holland or in Germany, people say to me: ‘We couldn’t do that. Don’t forget, we are in Europe. Think of what we did to the Jews. We can’t use economic leverage against Israel. We can’t be a critic of Israel, we can’t use our strength as a huge economic actor to pressure the Jewish state. Why? Because of Auschwitz.’ I understand this argument very well. Many of my family were killed in Auschwitz. However, this is ridiculous. Europe can’t live indefinitely on the credit of someone else’s crimes to justify a state that creates and commits its own crimes. If Zionism is to succeed as a representation of the original ideas of the Zionist founders, Israel has to become a normal state. That was the idea. Israel should not be special because it is Jewish. Jews are to have a state just like everyone else has a state. It should have no more rights than Slovenia and no fewer. Therefore, it also has to behave like a state. It has to declare its frontiers, recognise international law, sign international treaties and agreements. Furthermore, other countries have to behave towards it the way they would towards any other state that broke those laws. Otherwise it is treated as special and Zionism as a project has failed. People will say: ‘Why are we picking on Israel? What about Libya? Yemen? Burma? China? All of which are much worse.’ Fine. But we are missing two things: first, Israel describes itself as a democracy and so it should be compared with democracies not with dictatorships; second, if Burma came to the EU and said, ‘It would be a huge advantage for us if we could have privileged trading rights with you,’ Europe would say: ‘First you have to release political prisoners, hold elections, open up your borders.’ We have to say the same things to Israel. Otherwise we are acknowledging that a Jewish state is an unusual thing – a weird, different thing that is not to be treated like every other state. It is the European bad conscience that is part of the problem.

SOCIAL WORKERS GET IT IN THE NECK FOR ROONEY INJURY

Social workers blamed for Rooney injury


writes Loof Prial

Thursday 01 April 2010 11:36

Social workers 'should have done more' to prevent Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney injuring his ankle during a recent football match, a critical report has concluded.



The study, by the Centre for Rational Analysis of Practice, found that social workers failed to carry out a proper risk assessment of the footballer's ankle prior to the game against Bayern Munich on Tuesday evening. It also highlights numerous breakdowns in communication and failures in joint working with colleagues in both health and sports management.



One of the report's authors, Dr Rodney Feelgood, said social workers needed more training. "I know more about ankles than most social workers do. What does that say about the profession? Well, what does it say?"



"It doesn't exactly bode well for our World Cup chances in South Africa either. We'll all know who to blame when England don't win though, won't we?"



Arsene Wenger said: "I'm happy to confirm that Arsenal will vigorously defend the social workers involved if there is any suggestion of professional misconduct and would draw attention to Para 5.7 of the GSCC Code which requires social workers to "not put yourself or anyone else at unnecessary risk", clearly something likely to happen if any member of my team (or any social worker) is tackled by Wayne Rooney."

from Community Care website April 1st.

More disturbing evidence of strange goings-on at the vatican :)>

Papa's a mankini fan horror!

More disturbing evidence of strange goings-on in the vatican :)>

The pope is a mankini fan-horror!

BLOG POST FROM ADVENTURE CYCLING

ADVENTURE CYCLING'S LATEST BLOG POST

PLEASE PERMIT ME TO RANT

Biking Without Borders

Mac, Field Editor

Monday, March 29, 2010

I know I’m not alone when saying one of my pet peeves is seeing people talking on their cell phones, or fiddling with their handhelds, while multi-tasking at something really important -- like, say, operating a motor vehicle. Nothing terrifies me more when I’m bicycling down the road than the thought of someone barreling up behind me at the wheel of a ton of steel who’s arguing with his girlfriend over the phone, or tweeting her friends about the amazing herd of deer she just saw.

That's why it made me happy last week to learn that Click and Clack, the hilarious Tappet Brothers -- aka the Car Talk boys, Tom and Ray Magliozzi -- have teamed up with researchers at the University of Utah to launch the Driver Distraction Center at the Car Talk website.

“Though Tom and Ray have been speaking out about distracted driving for years, National Safety Council research indicates that cell phone use and texting while driving cause at least 28 percent of all traffic accidents -- around 1.6 million accidents each year,” says this Newswise story. “This startling statistic moved the brothers to redouble their efforts and partner with the University of Utah Applied Cognition Laboratory to produce the online Driver Distraction Center.”

Similarly, I don’t think cyclists should talk on cell phones while they’re riding, either. So imagine the roller coaster ride it sent me on when, shortly after reading about Click and Clack, I ran across information about a product called the ActiveBLU Wireless Bluetooth Helmet Headset. According to this website, the gadget “provides high quality Bluetooth wireless audio transmissions from the user’s Bluetooth enabled cell phone to their helmet. It easily attaches to any helmet and allows the user to quickly and safely answer or place calls without having to slow down or stop riding. The unique engineering of the microphone and ear piece delivers remarkable sound even at riding speeds of up to 40 MPH while allowing both hands to remain on the bike for maximum safety.” The italics are mine.

Aaaaarrrrghhh.

I have to say I agree completely.  Yesterday a passenger in a VW Golf stuck his rather porcine face out of the window as they roared past and screamed at me.  These prats are everywhere!

The Magick of We.

THE MAGICK OF WE

The narcissistic frenzy of the cock,

whirling in the dust of his own strut.

There’s never been a cock that didn’t crow and I

am no exception but at least I’ve known

a moment, when I seemed to disappear,

swimming in the pools of her dark eyes:

Slate-smoked and soft as new baked bread.

To be called so fierce to heart’s account.

To breathe ‘I love’ and ‘I am loved’;

cradled in the amber of a dream.

Those words of Raymond Carver sing like steel:

‘To be so loved upon the earth: That

is what we seek.’  And maybe why

sometimes, the flailing grasp exceeds the reach.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY CHILD AND DELIVER US FROM JUSTICE

Alleged followers of the gentle Nazarene turn out to be women-haters and paeodophiles shocker.

Ex-Hitler youth member Herr Ratzinger calms the nervously jostling throng of black robed followers at the recent child sex abusers convention in the Vatican, one of the few countries to have signed the Convention for the Protection of Paedophiles. (CPP).  (This may be because they constitute most of its population.)
"Worry not my children." He says..."We have the money to buy their silence.  We have the power to provoke their fear.  I will write a letter, and all will be well.  Even in Ireland where that fool Brady has disclosed the true nature of our evil and the thousands of children whose lives we have ruined, even there my letter will be like oil upon the stormy sea.  Stick with me my children, and once more they will be at our mercy and we shall be the wolves feasting upon the lambs as we have so feasted for two thousand years.  Hahahahahahaheeeeeeyyyeeeeeee."  (Dr Evil type laughter ensues.)
Thus the ever strange nature of colliding reality.  Have you never noticed the obsession of the priesthood with blood of all kinds?  Like 'this is my blood' etc...etc  'drink this in remembrance of me.'
Yes...'True Blood' resonances abound.  The constant references to blood, the fixation with torture, the strange black robes and knotted girdles?  That's right, vampires are running the vatican.  Lock up your children.  Ditch those crucifixes and pray.  What?  To whom?  Well these are the guys who turned it upside down and Lucifer means 'Light-bringer.'  Who ya gonna call?

New Major Publishing Event!

Well, not really.  It's just that my poetry collection-'The Book of Three Rings' will be published here first over the next few months.  And that's it really...No there's nothing more.  Just that I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading.

Ben Dougan hits India. From Ben's Blog

Ben's Travel Blog

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2010

Birthday, and last day off before I start shooting for the Bollywood film again!

It's my birthday! 20th birthday and the start was special. Headed down to the Gateway of India this morning to watch the sunrise, what a way to celebrate! Hmmmm... What to do today? Was seriously hawked and gawked at today trying to find a hotel to stay in. If you are looking for a hostel/ hotel in Mumbai, Colaba is where most tourists 'hang out' and Salvation Army is a good place to stay. Anyway, 20 is going to be a good year... A lot will happen... Anyways I'm heading out of Mumbai next week I've decided. It's quite expensive (incredibly cheap compared to UK) but I am on such a tight budget. Also I want to get out of this amazing, incredible, breath-taking, but unbelievably crowded city. But I will return later on in my trip I think. I'm headed down to Trivandrum in Kerala by train and gonna go for sleeper class, I think ticket is around 500Rs which is 7.20 (approx) for a 20 hour train journey. How much would a 20 hour train journey cost in the UK? London from where I live Lancaster is around 50 pounds if you book on the train and it take 3 hours to get there, so say that rate for a 20 hour journey in the UK would be around 300-350 pounds! But you can't get a train for 20 hours in the UK - thank God...
Thanks for reading and I'll be blogging again in a week or so. Just started and trying to get my head around this blogspot.
Thanks again x

India Trip - Mumbai

Dear Readers,
This is my first blog for my travels whilst 'on the road', and basically I've set it up to help other people who intend to travel and want to gain a bit of knowledge where to go, for family and friends to keep up with me on my travels and for the person where adventure and ambition is in there heart. This is for you. Firstly, where to start... I feel that travelling, adventuring and helping less privileged people than myself has always been within me. I recall my mum and dad saying that as soon as I could walk, I was off and there was no stopping me. I'm 19, 20 tomorrow, and I'm in the first proper trip of my life, discovering India, Cambodia, Thailand, Maylaysia and Singapore. I started my travels really going to Cape Town in South Africa to volunteer in a children's orphanage called Masigcine, in a township named Mfuleni, in October 2009. I was in Cape Town for a month. The experiences I got from there were invaluable, and I will never forget the place, the kids and the people. From this I wanted to see more of the places that are totally different to that of the UK. I thought, India... And here I am. In a youth hostel composing my blog. It's an unbelievable incredible place. Crowded, dirty, crazy roads and poverty, lot's of it. But I love it. I've only been here 4 days so I can't really say I love it yet, but right now, at this moment, I love it. Carrying my bag into the hostel I was instantly approached by a Bollywood extra scout and found myself on the first day working on a Bollywood film set, in a CIA or MI5 type-room, pushing tollies and carrying evidence boxes around all day. By midday I was offered a job til this coming Tuesday, which I immediately took. It's paid work, 500Rs per day, but the hours are long 7.45am - 11 pm and even though you don't do much it is pretty tiring, but on the plus side the food in fucking good. The people who do extra work also are in the boat so everyone gets along well. An extra, who is from Mumbai said "In India, if you are working hard, they will make you work harder..." and that seems to be the working ethic here. Also, I want to become an Actor, actually now I suppose I am an Actor, so this experience is fantastic for me. I auditioned at all the top Drama Schools in the UK last year. I did well, but was fortunately unsuccessful. I say fortunately beacuse if I would've got in, I would not have had the expereinces to call upon and inject into roles from even the experiences and sights I have now. Anyways time is running out on computer so need to wrap up.
Thanks for reading and anything e-mail me. I'll be blogging again soon.
Ben x

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