Chaos/Equality

Chaos is often used as a synonym for anarchy; which touchingly goes to show how much faith we have in our current world leaders. Anarchy, from the Greek, means ‘without ruler’ and the obvious result of a leaderless society would be crime, war, human rights violations and terrorism – a world apart from the one we inhabit today.

Everybody would be grasping after power and land, there would be no police to enforce the ‘correct’ way of living and nothing to stop people doing exactly as they wanted – and what everybody always wants is MORE with no thought to the cost of others, right?

To be without a ruler assumes that each and every person in the world has the right to govern their own life.

It follows, therefore, that if you believe that, then you believe that everybody ELSE has the right to govern their own life, and that you have no right to enforce a mode of living onto other people. This also means that nothing you do can impinge on anybody else’s choice of living. So if you want twelve-hundred Mercedes, they are going to be made by people who are happy and fulfilled in making Mercedes, for a price which accurately reflects the time and effort which has gone into making each car.

I have a lot (a LOT) to say on this subject, but for now let’s consider;

There is no need for anybody to have any power. Each and every person in the world has the right to govern their own life.

What do you think?

Amelia

The Road Goes Ever On and On

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say. – J.R.R Tolkien

I’m leaving for Spain and I feel as though I’m coming unlocked from this existence. Travelling for a month, the longest sustained period of time I’ve been out of the country, I’ll be living without my room and my kitchen. I haven’t travelled on my own for a little while. I can’t wait to go and explore different cities, meet new people, turn corners onto fresh sights…

Living a different life reminds me that there are no rules for any of the lives we live. Becoming locked into one place, a group of people, a city your feet can walk without input from you, locks you into a way of thinking, a way of doing. Travel, surprise, exploration. New experiences to challenge me, new people to question me, the endless horizon…

I’m going to be gone until the 9th of March. Only a couple of hours ago I rendered my netbook entirely useless. I have scheduled a posts for the next couple of weeks, but there might be a quiet period between then and me getting back. DON’T FRET! When I get back there will be plenty more haphazard ranting, de-railed trains of thought and lens-flare happy photographs.

Adios!

Amelia

I Love Lush!

For those of you who haven’t yet discovered Lush, then follow your noses to the scented end of the street because Lush is, well, lush! Selling smellies that anybody would be pleased to find in their stocking, they also go one further than many cosmetic companies; all their products are either vegetarian or vegan and they frequently fund projects which consider the environment (such as Gillingham’s Tipping Point eco-swap-shop) or run petitions about issues such as Fox Hunting. Many of their products don’t come packaged and if you take back five of the little black pots they use for facewash &c, you get a free facemask. They also recently introduced ‘knot-wrapping’, where your purchases come all tied up in a brightly coloured scarf! Oh right, and it all smells really, really good. After a couple of years perusing their goods and making use of the staff’s encyclopedic knowledge of the stock (as well as having an ex who use to work there!), I have hit upon my favourites:

# Karma Bar

As bought for me by the Ex, the relationship might have gone down the plughole, but I still frequently enjoy hit bubbly baths with the comforting scent of karma. It comes as a crumbly orange & pink swirly bar which you break off into runing water. I love the clean, fresh, warming smell so much I also have the karma bar shampoo so I can bury my face in my hair for instant relaxation.

#Karma Hard Shampoo Bar

A little round green block, the hard shampoos are touted as ‘lasting longer than most relationships’. I can’t vouch for that, but they do go on and on and on! The Karma shampoo has the added advantage, for me, of not containing any large bits of plants as some do, so there’s no bits to get stuck in my dreads. (Mmm. Nice thought.) If you buy two hard shampoos, you get a free tin, which is well worth it as they’re a bit of a bugger to store otherwise.

# Olive Branch Shower Gel

I seem to have quite a ‘peace’ themed bathroom, non? Moreso if my housemate’s hadn’t written ‘red rum’ by the shower….Anyhow, the Olive Branch is BRIGHT YELLOW and needs to be given a good shake before use to mix up the oils, so it really gets you going in the morning! Definitely best put on a pouffe (as pictured) so it goes a long long way, plus body scrubbage. All that, plus blasting ‘Wake Up’ and I’m ready to face the day at two in the afternoon.

# Dark Angels Face Wash

Possibly my favourite face wash ever (were I ever to get so bored as to hold a competition). It’s black! Made from charcoal, it’s very gritty and reminds me of my grandma’s coal cellar. I feel like a terrorist (uh, freedom fighter?) when my face is covered in grime that is not grime, although you can end up picking little bits of black out of your hairline all day afterwards. My skin does feel incredibly soft after a good charcoal and sugar scrub though, so I can live with a bit of ‘dandruff’. Dark Angel is also one of the best teevee shows in the world, so maybe it’s all in the name.

In conclusion? Lush = Best. They’re defenders of the environment, sponsors of charities, getter-behinders of activists and you can eat a good 80% of their goods, so that chocolate facemask which just looks down right edible? It is.

What are some of your favourites?

Amelia.

Mid-Week Mash Up

Kerry Lemon

# Gorgeous photography from one of my most favourite places in the world, Iceland.

# The Death Of Environmentalism – Just what is ‘the environment’ and what does it mean to people?

# The Wei Wu Wei Archives – bits and pieces of Taoist philosophy.

# How Personal Actions can Kick Start A Sustainability Revolution – YES!

# Beautiful recycled jewellery, from little Glass Clementine.

Perdu Mon Chat!

That’s what you get. I’m off to Spain next week, so while there might be posts going out (I haven’t written or scheduled them yet, naturally) I won’t be around much myself. Unless I just can’t keep myself away from la internet even while I’m riding the Teleferico or hanging out in the Park Guell…Anyone been to Madrid or Barcelona, have any must-see spots?

Amelia

How to: Reduce Your Meat Consumption

What with agribusiness contributing between 17-33% to global carbon emissions, swathes of the Amazon being deforested to grow animal feed and factory farms being generally not very nice places (as well as causing an awful lot of water pollution) then reducing your meat consumption is definitely one of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint and environmental impact on the planet. I had a go at this last Summer (and ended up a vociferous vegan!) so here’s a few tips I discovered as I went along:

# Eat Meat

Oh, wait…was that not…Huh. But seriously, eating good quality, locally farmed, organic meat is better all round than any ‘two pork chops for a pound’ deal at Tesco. It might be more expensive, but that leads to buying it less often. Also, one of the first hurdles to reducing anything can be the feeling of deprivation or restriction – by still allowing yourself to eat meat you hopefully won’t be tempted, after a meat-free week, to blow it all on a four-meat kebab. Followed by a meat-feast pizza, topped with beef jerky and crackling…(Sounds like a challenge though, eh?) After I went vegan, I had a hog roast sandwich and rabbit pasta at a local music festival. I knew the meat was locally bred and butchered, and also I originally only planned on being vegan for a week! The hog roast sandwich was to be my ‘Welcome Back’ to the world of seldom-meat eaters. Maybe I’ll have another one this year.

# Cook at Home

At least once a week, make a vegetarian meal at home. Recipes are easily found online, and I highly recommend The PPK for some of the most delicious food you will ever taste, especially the cupcakes. There is very little in the world that is more satisfying than putting effort into something which you then get to eat! Especially if it’s cupcakes. Invite friends around and make a dinner party out of it. (Or a cupcake extravaganza…) Bonus points if you make enough for lunch the next day. I usually knock up a phat stew or soup to last me a couple of days – sweet potato and lentils, it’s all about the cumin.

#Eat Out

There are some amazing vegan and vegetarian places out there, which do unbelievable things with food. From the Rootmaster in East London to Bolhoed in Amsterdam, I have never been disappointed by a vegan restaurant! It’s almost as if they have to work twice as hard to overcome general prejudices against vegan food and thus come up with meals which are four times as good as any steak & chips & peas the local pub does. Go! Be inspired. Hit up Happy Cow for veggie restaurants in your area.

# Read more

There is an absolute wealth of vegetarian, vegan and environmental literature on the ‘net. Add Vegan.com to your blog reader or check out RAN, the Rainforest Action Network, for reminders as to why you’re striding past MacDonalds. It’s a sad fact that even locally farmed animals are being fed on soy crops grown in the devastated Amazon region. Having these facts at the tip of your brain also makes it easier in conversations when someone wonders why you’re passing on the Sunday roast.

# Think For Yourself

Is giving up meat really something you can do? Bearing in mind that changing one’s habits is usually a long process then there is little point in beating yourself up over every bacon sandwich. However, if it’s been three months and you’re still eating roughly the same amount then perhaps your energies would be better spent focused on some other area concerning environmental destruction. Getting involved with local activist groups, such as Climate Camp, writing to your MP or going WWOOFing might be more your cup of (organic, fairtrade) tea. As with anything, it’s about what you can and will do.

Too Vegan To Function is comprised of several great articles about inter-acting with others concerning veganism, which is useful to anyone at any ‘level’ of giving up meat.

Let me know how it goes!

Amelia

And the Many Become One

Saturday night we went to the pub for my housemate Bex’s birthday drinks. Holly gave her this glorious mask, which everyone had to try.

Some people are still not receptive to my photography…

And some I catch unawares…

A couple more at my Flickr, but I didn’t take many I was happy with. It takes ‘failures’ to progress though, so.

Amelia

Reading Round-Up

Anyone who read my enourminous ‘Things To Do This Year (Aside From Take Pictures of my Friend’s Crotches)’ list knows that one of my aims this year is to read 100 books. That pretty much equals two books per week, or eight per month. However, it’s more a guideline than a goal; something I would love to achieve and will therefore put more time and effort into, but not something I will freak out over getting done. That said, here are the books I got through in January:

The Immoralist- Andre Gide.

Because, of course a French writer is going to write about decadence. Quite a slow-moving character study of one gentleman who goes a little off the rails. Some interesting philosophical discussion, but don’t expect anything too extravagant!

Unseen Academicals – Terry Pratchett

Pratchett’s latest doesn’t match up to the Discworld standard. The theme’s are football and celebrity culture, oh, and orcs, but I felt the jokes fall a little flat. Pratchett was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease last year but is still dedicated to bringing out a book a year. If you want to know more about him and the disease, The Alzheimer’s Society has the information you’re after.

F**k It – John. C Parkin

The F**k It philosophy is to, well, fuck it. Relax about life, and it will pretty much go on as it was doing before, but you’ll be a lot less stressed – is the essence of the book, and every good philosophy. I regularly practice the meditation techniques from the back; sit down comfortably, breathe into your stomach. Reading this was like chatting to a really down-to-earth, sorted out friend over a glass of wine. Or something. Definitely recommended. Follow him on Twitter for daily fuck its.

The Island of the Day Before – Umberto Eco

Oh, we know I like a bit of Eco. This tells the tale of the historical quest for the comprehension of longitude and all the crazy theories and methods different countries used. Full of history and philosophy, it follows Roberto, who becomes caught up in court intrigues and ends up somewhere near Fiji, alone, trying to read the Island of the Day Before. Quite brilliant.

Hegemony and Survival – Noam Chomsky

After reading this I ranted for about three days straight about how America is the largest terrorist organisation in the world. Shit can make you paranoid, yo. Of course, I then went and looked into all the military presence in Haiti and wondered if maybe there isn’t something to all this…It considers the USA’s foreign policy, and just what they stand to gain from it. A very, very important read if you live in this world.

The Last Ghost- Helen Stringer

Kid’s book! Well, teenage. So, Belladonna can see ghosts, and it annoys her. What if people think she’s crazy when she talks to them? Then, they start disappearing, which is not so good, since she still lives with her dead parents. With the help of Elsie, the last ghost, Steve and her drive to get her parents back, Belladonna adventures in the after-life to find out what’s happened to all the ghosts…Very well-written, I found myself quite absorbed by it. Could have been more macabre…

The Hidden Oasis – Paul Sussman

One of those historical conspiracy romps, this time through Egypt. There’s a hidden oasis (shock!), a dead sister (was it suicide?), a bad guy with a germ phobia, a fat American agent, an Egyptologist, a ludicrously talented climber…and a whole load of car chases, explosions, daring jumps and dazzling escapes. There’s also a lot, a lot of actual historical information. Sometimes the plot feels like a vehicle for all the fact, but that sat fine with me since the characterisation isn’t stellar and the plot is fairly clunky (hello good/bad guy!). I really love crappy historical romps; they’re not challenging and you can sift out the actual fact/research but I found myself taking a pen to this one’s pages to correct the technique so it’s more poorly written than most. Shame!

That’s my literary explorations for January. In February I’m off to Spain for a month, so I’m not sure how many books I’ll be able to get into my bag and I can’t afford an e-reader at the moment. Hopefully there’ll be some traveller book swaps in hostels. Fingers crossed!

Amelia

What I did do Wearing

Here’s what I wore to go sit my friends when they decided to experiment with some cactus. (Peruvian Torch, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.)

T-shirt: Emily Strange – ‘Zombies Recycle (Brains)’ New Favourite Thing.
Dress: Bench – found it for £3
Jacket: Living Dead Souls
Tights: Frog – comfiest in the world
Legwarmers – TopShop
Boots – Vegetarian Shoes

Peruvian Cactus is a mild hallucinogenic in the Mescaline family. Almost nothing happened to my friends, except they seemed to lose a little of their social conditioning and said everything that was on their minds, whether it was ‘appropriate’ or not. I’m going to sit for them in the future as well. (I would like to add that I don’t take hallucinogens, nor do I promote the practice, but we’re all grown-ups here and you can do what you like.)

Amelia

Rage Against the Sublime

Fistful of Steel – Rage Against the Machine

silence, something about silence makes me sick, coz silence can be violent sorta like a slit wrist…

I should probably have posted this last week, after I got my new tattoo, as it is a part of the reason for getting it:

Amelia.

Climate Camp South Coast Regional Meeting Take Two

Sunday morning I awoke and foraged for breakfast, discovering the most delicious vegan dark chocolate spread which tasted EXACTLY like the insides of pain au chocolat. I noshed on that and had some quite time reading my book before the morning over-view of Saturday’s events.

Aside from yet-more-talking, Marina was organising some direct action training that morning, so I decided to go out and get muddy down by the river. We did do radio training; learning to use radios during actions. It’s not just about turning on and having a listen, you know. We split into two teams and played Capture the Flag where each team has a flag (surprise) and the aim of the game is to, okay, there’s a clue in the name. We hid ours under a bridge, planning to use it as a bottleneck for the other team, a plan which was a little foiled when they approached from the other side of the river. Three of us, ‘White-Home’ stayed to protect the flag, and I was among the three who ventured towards the other camp, ‘White-Outreach’.

As we understood the rules at first, the opposing team could be tagged and would then be unable to move – a rule which worked in our favour when Martha (Red-Home) received a message calling for back-up while guarding my stationary self, so I was able to shout to Charlie for her to warn White-Home of their intentions. However, all three of us did end up stuck until Marina clarified that only the person holding the flag could be tagged. We wandered through their camp after that, Charlie eventually discovered the flag tucked into a tree stump and Elise from White-Home joining us. After some trial and error, another rule mix-up and me getting cracked in the head by somebody else’s, we formed a sort of relay group, throwing the flag as we were tagged. The rules were then clarified once again; when the flag carrier was tagged, the flag was to be returned to base.

Upon the return of the flag, Charlie and Maia decided it would be a good technique to switch-up with the boys, leaving Elise and I to watch one of the Red team rush with our white flag up to the Heart of Reeds – with Dan in swift pursuit! – but ultimately winning.

We had a debriefing session, then headed back to Pop-Up for lunch. (I may expand on the radio learnings in another post). More delicious food was on offer, this time potato soup and phat slices of crusty bread. Can I live at Climate Camp please? According to Alice though, sometimes the food can be dire.

I ended up at ‘Reception’ after lunch, in case of doorbell and new arrivals. Elise kept me company briefly and we discussed whether anything would be decided that afternoon as so much was going on aside from the meetings – quite a few people were out learning bushcraft in the afternoon or filming with Tom and his masks, and that morning most of the people who would have wanted to talk about direct action were out learning about doing it!

However, I feel that a lot did get covered in the end. Joining in the Outreach and Community group back in the meeting there were exciting actions on course to be implemented such as a South Coast Website, an environmental book group with talks and discussion, getting trained up to give talks and workshops at schools and community centres, creating press resource and teaching resource packs and running a blog to name, well, most of them.

We came together at the end to voice proposals, create working groups for particular actions and gauge consensus. Tom presented on the idea of Climate Carnival (!!) – a mass of masks, costumes and wheels tobe carted around the country on actions, providing an eye-catching creative space and generally being awesome. Very exciting. No specifics are in place yet, but there was a further meeting after I left. Direct Action put forward some targets and eventually created an ‘as and when’ working group for when people are involved in particular actions, the specifics of which need not be made public even within Climate Camp – although anyone can ask for the information.

To wind up the weekend there were some temperature checks on where people want to focus their energy, National or Regional and on having National or North + South or South Coast camp(s). I went for National and North/South (respectively), although since Kent is hugely under-represented despite having ‘hosted’ a Climate Camp at Kingsnorth I think I probably will try to focus my energies regionally and try to drum up some interest down around here.

And that was my weekend at Climate Camp South Coast Regional Gathering. Hopefully I’ll be getting involved with some community outreach tings and and and actually going out and doing actions instead of just sitting around being vegan and going on about that. Not that I’m going to stop going on about being vegan. But hey, you can be vegan AND rush power stations! So here’s to wanting something done and DOING IT YOURSELF instead of waiting for the government to step in and take over. COP15 proved pretty conclusively that they’re just going to fanny around waiting for somebody else to acquiesce to having less ‘power’ first, so fuck ‘em, don’t do what they tell you and DO IT FOR YOURSELF.

Amelia.