Nostalgia: it’s not what it used to be…

My first post on WordPress; ah, how it takes me back…

Not dead yet (in 2013)……

I set up the original ThursdayAgain at the end of 2005 to celebrate not being dead. I closed it down at the end of 2010 when it looked like I wasn’t going to see out 2011…… This lack of foresight probably explains why I have never won a lottery (that & never buying a ticket).

Since I made it through all of 2012, & am still breathing & have all my major limbs still attached, I will probably keep amusing &/or annoying people with ThursdayAgain (for now). Since I am still interested in everything the blog may cover anything in 2013, although a noticeable & continuing tendency towards the whimsical is quite certain.

So enjoy the nonsense, thank you for reading & for your comments, & please don’t be offended if I turn down nominations for awards this year (if any arrive); while I am flattered beyond belief I really don’t do the awards thing – & just knowing that you enjoyed ThursdayAgain is more than enough validation.

I’m not dead yet.

Tim

2nd January 2013

Alternative facts

Lazy Susan from Terri Timely on Vimeo.

At least it wasn’t claimed (yet) by a white guy with bad hair and a very long tie.

The illusion of change.

I posted this almost a year ago in reference to President Trump’s apparent indifference to the legal and ethical limits of power. How sad to now repost the same statement with reference to the absurdities and moral corruption displayed by the UK’s political parties, personalities and their abuse of the parliament itself.

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? mace Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!”

Oliver Cromwell – April 20, 1653

The anniversary nobody is talking about

Exactly five centuries ago, on 18th August 1518 (28th August, using the current Gregorian calendar) King Charles I of Spain issued a charter authorising the transportation of slaves direct from Africa to the Americas. Prior to that (since at least 1510), African slaves had usually been transported to Spain or Portugal and had then been “freighted-on” to the Caribbean or (occasionally) sold to European-based buyers.

Charles’s decision to create a direct, more economically viable Africa to America slave trade changed the nature and scale of this profitable human trafficking industry. Over the subsequent 350 years, around 11 million Africans were transported between the two continents. Almost a further 2 million died en route

This month’s quincentenary is of a tragic event that caused untold suffering and still today leaves a legacy of poverty, racism, inequality and elite wealth across four continents.

Funny how so few of the “great and the good” seem to care, isn’t it?

After the horror

With the world apparently choosing to forget its insanities and with new horrors and atrocities appearing every day, this is a video about people’s memories and reactions; and about the distances which again threaten to open-up and divide us all. This is the story of a place where mundanity and unremitting grief collide.

Unlearned lessons

Small gods for smaller people, but always the outcome is the same.

http://vimeo.com/cabal/seedstory

There will be an updated version of this video in the near future including previously excluded “Berlin wall” scenes. When it is available I will update this post.