The northlondonhippy

Archive for the ‘society’ Category

I really did it, I spent the better part of yesterday trying to do good deeds on Twitter.

So how’d I do?

Well, I wouldn’t call it an unqualified success, but I wouldn’t count it as a failure either. I was able to give some genuine help to a handful of people, but I do feel like I could have done a lot more.

The hardest part was finding people in need of genuine help. I started by searching my own stream, ie people I follow, for questions or pleas for help – there weren’t many at all. So I switched to the public timeline and searched for “help me”.

Turns out, the only help most people on Twitter seek, falls into three categories:

- Help me get more followers
- Help me to get Justin Bieber to follow me
- Help me to get Miley Cyrus to follow me

I couldn’t help with any of those things, even if I tried. What this meant in real terms was that using the public timeline to find people in real need was like searching the proverbial haystack for the proverbial needle, and I don’t even shoot-up. I had to wade through literally thousands of tweets just to find one that was genuine.

So what did I actually help with? Here’s a rough list:

- I re-assured someone who was frightened by stormy weather
- I recommended the best places for a day of shopping in London
- I helped someone troubleshoot an iPhone/Twitter app
- I provided advice to someone looking to advertise adult education courses in the media
- I welcomed a new user to Twitter and gave them some basic advice

That’s just the highlights, I also retweeted loads of other people’s tweets and exchanged friendly tweets with loads of other people, including some I follow and some I don’t. Many of my #helpfulhippy tweets went ignored, but that’s to be expected. People are not accustom to strangers offering assistance without ulterior motives, especially online.

Overall, I found the entire experience provided me with a weird mix of frustration and satisfaction, much like real life. I was frustrated at how difficult it was to locate people I could help, but found it very satisfying when I was actually able to, in a very small way, make a difference to someone’s life.

I’ve come away from the day with the desire, not to do a #helpfulhippy day again, but to include this genuinely helpful approach into my life online on a more regular basis. It cost me nothing to help out strangers, my knowledge is free, so is my time frequently, so why not try to give something back all the time?

Life is indeed incredibly bleak, dreary and pointless, but it doesn’t take much to occasionally make it into something more, even in almost imperceptibly small ways. It felt good helping strangers and I’m going to try to do it more often.

So if there’s ever anything I can do online to help you, just ask. I might surprise you with the perfect answer. Or not.

I’ve just woken up, parked myself down in front of my desktop computer and I am ready to begin my experiment in social media engagement. I’m aiming help anyone online, in any way I can.

If you need anything today and you think I can help, just ask. I’m not long awake, so no heavy duty math-based equations for at least an hour, but anything else is cool.

Ladies, gentlemen and any one in between, welcome to #helpfulhippy day.

Go on, tweet me, I’m here to help.

Hello. My name is the northlondonhippy and I’m here to help.

As I mentioned a few days ago, on Weds 16th June, I will be mostly spending the day online, trying to offer help and assistance to as many people on Twitter as I can, whether its trying to answer questions, retweeting important and worthy messages, or, well, pretty much anything else I can think of that might help.

I’m calling it #helpfulhippy day and that will be the hashtag I use on all my attempts at being helpful. If you would like to play along at home, you can also tag things with #helpfulhippy or you can just tweet me old school-style to my Twitter name, @nthlondonhippy – either way, I’ll hopefully see it and respond quickly and helpfully.

I’m doing this because I want to give something back to Twitter because I get so much from it. I’m hoping that by trying to engage with people on a positive, life-affirming level will help alleviate my perceived debt to you all.

I’ll give you a small example. There are lots of people I follow on Twitter, who I think follow me, yet I’ve never (or rarely) tweeted them directly. That’s my fault, what with being a somewhat shy, withdrawn, socially awkward misanthrope, who lives in his own make-believe hippy world. On #helpfulhippy day, I hope to let these people know I enjoy following them. If I played along with #followfriday, I could have done it already, but I don’t, remember the whole misanthrope thing?

What I am not really aiming to do is exploit #helpfulhippy day as a way to raise my online profile or increase my followers. For a change this is not about shameless self promotion, its about genuinely helping others. If anything, I’ll probably lose followers because I plan on being a very full-on, #helpfulhippy – searching for unanswered questions and pleas for assistance.

Tomorrow’s the big day, I’ll either fall flat on my face or in some small way, I’ll make the world a better place for a short time. Either way, I’ll know I’ve tried my best to pay something back and maybe, just maybe I’ll despise myself just a little less.

Nah. Self-loathing is for life, you can’t shake it like you shake the common cold.

See ya on Weds!

You might not have heard, but there’s a general election here in the UK on Thursday.

That is, you might not have heard if you’ve been in a coma, but even if you’ve been semi-conscious, it would be difficult to have missed it with the blanket coverage available on every media platform.

This has been one of the most interesting campaigns in decades and one of the most entertaining. With just a few days ago, there is no certain outcome and predictions vary widely on what sort of government we might be waking up to come Friday morning.

Cool by me, I enjoy uncertainty and I like the up-in-the-air-ness of the whole thing. I watch the daily polls rise and fall with amusement, because any sensible person knows the only poll that matters is the official one on Thursday. All the rest are just idle speculation and spin.

The truth is, you can’t really trust most of the polls, because the data is weighted and manipulated before it is released, usually to reflect the bias and opinion of the media outlet who commissioned it. Yes, I’m looking at you News International, your stilted coverage and unbridled analingus performed on the Tories has been shameful. Ol’ Rupert Murdoch anointed David Cameron as the chosen one and all of his newspapers and his TV news channel went about crafting a narrative that tried to assure an outright Conservative victory.

How’s that working out?

Possibly not as well as they had hoped, as the polls suggest the Tories are only slightly ahead, with strong possibility of no outright majority. Ooops.

I think one of the biggest surprises for me in the campaign is how disappointing Cameron’s performances have been, especially at the leader’s debates. I really expected Diamond Dave to walk this election, but he is not nearly as charismatic or magnetic a speaker as I would have expected. Part of their poor showing in the polling is down to this.

This election isn’t about policy, though of course it should be, but it is about personality. Cameron has revealed himself as lacking in that department.

And speaking of someone completely void of personality, have you caught Gordon Brown lately? Just look at his forced, fake, uncomfortable smile; I have a theory (that I’d be happy never proving) that he has the same expression on his face when he smiles as he does when he is taking a dump.

I have never been a fan of Gordon Brown.

OK, that’s an understatement, I detest him and have him a vocal and vitriolic critic of him since he assumed power. I can never forgive him for publicly labelling cannabis a “deadly drug”, propagating other false claims about it and ignoring all the advice, scientific and otherwise by re-classifying cannabis to Class B.

Gordon continues to go on and on about the “global financial meltdown” which he claims can only be fixed if he remains in office. Well, there’s some logic to that, because as he was Chancellor for so many years, he must feel very responsible for the mess he created and he would like to mop it up. No thanks.

Brown really showed how deeply nasty he is to the core, with his shameful treatment of Gillian Duffy, who by all accounts seems to be the sort of salt-of-the-earth Labour Party supporter that has kept them in the game for a very long time. If he treats his base with this much contempt and scorn, imagine what he must think of the undecided.

I feel sorry for the poor saps who have to media-manage Brown on a daily basis. Whatever you’re getting paid, its probably not enough by half. Wrangling that sourpuss from appearance to appearance would destroy the soul of the strongest PR flack.

The one good thing about Brown’s piss-poor performance during this campaign has been my absolute vindication that he would drag the Labour Party into the political wilderness for generations.

They had several chances to replace him and they lacked the courage and balls to do it. Now they will suffer and get what they deserve, a complete decimation at the polls on Thursday. It will be the worst showing by Labour in history, any other MP from the party wouldn’t have done as badly as Gordon. They really only have themselves to blame.

I like being right and I love saying “I told ya so”.

Hey Labour…. I told you if you stuck with Gordon, you’d be fucked. Yep, I TOLD YA SO!

Oh that felt good!

I’ve always been a big fan of the LibDems, if not an outright supporter. Their policies seem to be anchored in reality, with a healthy dose of common sense. We could use both of those qualities in government.

The best example I can site is their drug policy, which in their manifesto, loosely says that they would take a scientific and evidence based approach. In practise that would mean they would follow closely the advice of their advisors, in this case the ACMD.

Taking it further, in previous statements, the LibDems have supported decriminalising or legalising cannabis, though with all the bullshit media nonsense over the discredited research into the (very much unproven) link between weed and psychosis, they haven’t mentioned it recently. I don’t blame them as it would only be used against them as a sign of weakness.

The Liberal Democrats are not a weak party, they are actually the strongest on sensible policies that work towards the common good and benefit the most people. It takes strength to fly in the face of conventional (media) wisdom and openly declare that the “war on drugs” is an absolute failure that does more harm than the drugs themselves. The LibDem party is the one party that’s not afraid of speaking the truth.

They’re also not aligned with big media or big corporations, they seem to be more independent of the establishment and therefore more able to do good for the country, rather than serving special interests.

Nick Clegg has impressed everyone and made them sit up and take notice of his party. Its about time they get taken seriously. Clegg has also frightened the two “old parties”, which has been fun to watch as they both mount attacks him.

The leader’s debates have truly changed the face of politics in this country, seeing Clegg go toe-to-toe with the other two showed the nation in a very tangible way that there is an alternative to old-style politics. After thirteen years of Labour governments, this country is in desperate need of a change.

The LibDems are the only party that really offers that change.

The Tories won’t change anything so much as bring back a sameness. They don’t have any new ideas or energy or personality. Don’t vote for them.

Gordon Brown is a megalomaniac dictatorial buffoon and embarrassment to the nation, but the reason not to vote Labour is simple, one word: Iraq. This is the party that dragged this nation into an illegal and pointless war, for absolutely no good reason. And they lied to us about it, repeatedly and they still do. They deserve to come in third or worse.

A vote for the LibDems is a vote for change and a vote for a brighter future.

People say they can’t win with an outright majority, but they could if everyone voted their heart. If you think the LibDems are the best choice, and I believe a lot of you out there do, then vote for them. You are NOT throwing your vote away on a minor party, real change comes from people having the strength of will and conviction to not fear change. If everyone who supports them follows through on election day, then Nick Clegg could be the next Prime Minister.

More likely, if you believe the polls, is that we are headed for a hung parliament and the possibility of a coalition government. There are worse things that could happen.

Many other countries have coalition governments, formed by opposing parties. Guess what happens? They learn to work with each other and compromise and things get done. You have nothing to fear from this outcome and maybe we all might even benefit from the mix of the strongest ideas from both parties involved.

But which parties? That’s the real question.

If I was going to gamble on the outcome, I would say a Tory-LibDem coalition, with Cameron in charge and a healthy mix of both parties in the cabinet. I could live with that.

Less likely and certainly less appealing would be a Labour-LibDem government with someone other than Brown as PM.

And at the very outside and many would say implausible, a Tory-Labour government. I have this weird theory that these two polar opposites (who really aren’t that different) could do a deal with each other to lock the LibDems out. Maybe its not as impossible as it sounds and if it does happen, won’t I look like the poly-sci genius?

Whatever happens, of one thing I’m certain, come Friday, Gordon Brown will no longer be Prime Minister and will go down as one of the most unpopular, unsuccessful, worst PM’s in history.

No doubt you’ve caught the media frenzy surrounding the most recent legal high of choice, mephedrone. Its the latest in a long line of legal highs, sold openly and possessed without fear of arrest.

Who wouldn’t want a high that was legal? Isn’t that the ultimate goal? Sure, booze is legal and will get you absolutely blotto, but so what? People want a choice of intoxicants.

I don’t like liquor and if asked, will declare that I no longer drink. Its true, I can’t remember the last time I had even a sip of alcohol. The hangovers were just too much to bear. I’m too old for a self-inflicted sore head.

Where does that leave you if you don’t like booze, but you do enjoy altering your state of consciousness? Black market drugs like weed and coke and smack and MDMA and speed and LSD I guess.

But what if you don’t want to break the law? I’ve already suggested voting for leaders who would change the laws, but we can’t seem to find any, except for the Lib Dems and if its going to be a hung parliament anyway, then we should all vote for the Lib Dems so they can have a bigger share of the eventual coalition government.

But I digress. If you want to get high without breaking the law, you look for something legal.

Until 2005, fresh magic mushrooms were legal to purchase and possess in the UK.

Finally, there was a legal high available that was profoundly effective and readily available. I shroomed regularly for a couple of years, every week or two. I was always careful, I stayed in a safe, comfortable environment (my own home) and had very pleasant, enjoyable times. It was easily one of the best drug experiences of my life, I can’t begin to express how much I enjoyed it.

Well, I can and I did, if you read the first couple of years of my output here, I rave about shrooms continually. Taken responsibly and with a rough knowledge of the appropriate dosage, shrooms are relatively harmless. You would need to consume your own weight in mushrooms for the dose to be fatally toxic and I haven’t heard about anyone who’s tried.

You could always pick fresh mushrooms in the wild, provided you knew what you were looking for, because the wrong type of mushroom could be fatally toxic at a much lower dosage. But if you were buying them from someone who could reliably tell you the strain, with knowledge of where they were farmed and advice on how many to take, you would be much better off.

And for a few years, we were much better off, with our safe, easy to buy fresh shrooms. It was bliss.

And then they got very popular. And then the media got interested. And then the government got involved. And then they were banned.

The above paragraph will be repeated again, you will notice, I promise.

And so I did sadly lament the demise of my beloved shrooms because the government man didn’t want me to have any more fun.

But it was too late, the market for legal highs had been established, a decent customer base still existed. All they needed was another product, something legal that would fuck you up a bit.

The answer came from New Zealand:

BZP

BZP came as something called party pills, which was a big change from fresh shrooms, it was a man made chemical of dubious origin. Rumour was it was used for worming pets, but it gave people a buzz, so we tried it.

It worked. It was quite speedy and a bit spacey, pleasant but not overwhelming. There were many brands, legal high forums were brimming with reviews to help you choose. People were happy to have anything that was legal and had an effect.

And then they got very popular. And then the media got interested. And then the government got involved. And then they were banned.

Right around the same time, the first legal marijuana substitutes that worked came along, the first was called Spice, which has become a generic term for these drugs. The ingredients were kept secret, so we didn’t know what the magic herbs we were smoking were, but we knew they got us high.

Turns out the herbs weren’t magic, but the JHW-081 they sprayed onto it was. JHW-081 is a synthetic cannabinoid, made in a lab to mimic THC. Sneaky fuckers, no wonder it worked.

As if overnight, many different brands of smoking mixtures came on to the market, all with a very similar weed-like effect. It was legal, but it was also expensive, and in some cases pricier than real weed.

Think about that, people were willing to pay more for a legal weed alternative, than actual weed. That says a lot.

And then they got very popular. And then the media got interested. And then the government got involved. And then they were banned.

In the gloom of my post-legal-shrooms existence, I tried many of these legal highs and a few years ago, I was getting these rather delightful little capsules shipped in legally from Israel.

They tried to keep the ingredients a secret, but with a bit of research, I discovered it was a chemical related to cathinone, which is the active ingredient in khat, the Africa plant that is used as a stimulant when chewed.

At first, I only ordered a couple and found them quite pleasant and quite strong, closer to real MDMA than BZP or the crap that followed. I ordered a few more, and then a few more.

And then I ordered a lot.

And then I lost a couple of days. No lie, I think my bender lasted around 48 hours. People were concerned, I just disappeared. It was the most morish drug I’ve ever had and I used to do coke years ago. I kept going until I swallowed the last pill I had.

Then I crashed for a couple of days and felt extremely depressed. I was angry with myself for losing control, something I rarely if ever do while under the influence of anything. I didn’t control this drug, this drug controlled me.

It didn’t, ever again. I didn’t touch any more after that. It seemed to target my pleasure centre with laser-guided precision. No thanks.

Guess what I am 99.9% certain that drug was?

Mephedrone.

Kids, listen to your old uncle hippy, that shit’s not worth it. Its way too morish. It feels absolutely wonderful when you’re taking it and you will want to take it endlessly. You can’t, eventually the money, or your body will give out and then you will crash. The crash sucks. Its not worth the pleasure.

As much as I don’t like mephedrone, I am merely suggesting (in strong, unambiguous terms) that you not take it, I am not suggesting some knee jerk reactionary ban. Actually, I think it makes more sense to keep it legal and out in the open. at least until you have an alternative to offer.

If the government can’t offer an alternative (I suggest weed, please), the marketplace will find one. It always does, because we live in a capitalist society and supply will always try to meet demand.

Oh, and if you’re against supply and demand, even in the illicit marketplace, then you are against the very foundation of capitalism. So take that all you anti-drug commie pinko socialists! Get on the free market bandwagon, don’t get in the way of trade!

Banning mephedrone isn’t the answer, unless the question is: “how can we get another untested, cutting edge man-made intoxicant into the hands of our children in the quickest possible time?”

I’ve yet to see one conclusive report of a death being caused directly by mephedrone. I’ve seen lots of bullshit about it being “linked” to a few untimely deaths, but alcohol and other drugs have also been in the mix, though that hasn’t been highlighted.

If I drank myself to death right now while eating a banana, you could quite accurately state that, until the coroner’s report is issued, my death was linked to eating a banana. I can see the headlines now, “Ban the Yellow Scourge”.

Booze kills and kills often, but the alcohol industry spends a lot of money on image and reputation management. When you think of liquor, you don’t think of corpses, do you? No, you think of good times, parties and women in tight dresses that you know will have sex with you.

Think about how many times you’ve gotten pissed, puked your insides out and woke up the next day feeling like death, swearing you’d never ever do that to yourself again. Until next Saturday.

That’s either effective marketing or addiction. Or both.

The legal high industry isn’t organised, they don’t have a centralised body to speak on their behalf and be their public face. Its the same for illegal highs for that matter. Who represents them? Who does their spinning?

No one.

Maybe its time they did.

People’s need to get high, to be intoxicated, to alter their state, is not new and its not going away any time soon. There will always be a demand for substances, legal or otherwise, that change your mood.

Recent history has shown that when given the choice, people prefer legal substances, even if they cost more and have less pleasant effects than their illegal rivals.

If the government left well enough alone with my old friends, magic mushrooms, none of us would have ever heard of mephedrone and whatever might follow.

Go on, if you let us all have legal weed, we can leave all is designer drug shit alone. Please?

I bet having a recipe as my top post confused a lot of my new visitors and that was the case until I posted this particularly unplanned foray into sharing my thoughts.

This is not a food blog. A recipe is something out of the ordinary. Normal service has now resumed.

As I sit here, typing away, we are around 9 hours from the expected Apple Tablet announcement. Its pretty big news so I expect you’ve already heard all about it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about it too much.

I’ve got 2 predictions, one is an easy one that’s probably true, the other is a long shot.

Prediction one: It will be a premium product with a premium price for early adopters. Yes, I mean it will be very expensive, but will be cheaper in a year.

Prediction two: It will be called ‘iBook”, which used to be the name of one of their best selling laptops. They already own it, so it would be an easy yet inventive choice. I am far less certain of this one and will be pleasantly surprised if I am right. I’ll also brag a lot about it too.

I’ve wanted something like what’s expected today for years. Yes, I will buy one as soon as they are available though I am guessing it will be like the original iPhone, sold is the USA exclusively for 6 months, then launched in the UK. That will be frustrating!

Today isn’t just tablet day. Had my mother still been alive, today would have been her 80th birthday, but she missed it by around 13 months. I miss her, a lot.

At least Apple were nice enough to schedule their announcement on the same date as my mother’s birthday, its a welcome distraction.

So roll on 18:00gmt, when the big show starts in California. I’ll be online, following the announcement live as best I can and I’ll be tweeting my impressions as well. That is, assuming the entire internet doesn’t come crashing down to a screeching halt under the weight of all that Apple Tablet hype.

Oh yes, that’s my last prediction, Twitter is going to crash like Oceanic Air 815 as soon as Steve Jobs takes the stage. Maybe I should just plan on tweeting again tomorrow.

Yesterday, legislators in the US state of California took the first real step towards a fully legalised, regulated and taxed cannabis market. Earlier this week, the US state of New Jersey legalised cannabis for medical use.

All over America, attitudes and laws are changing and changing fast.

What are we doing wrong here in the United Kingdom?

Lots, by the look of it. How is it possible that we are falling behind America on this very important issue?

A few years ago, the situation was reversed. The attitude here to weed was relaxing, Tony Blair and David Blunkett downgraded cannabis to Class C, making possession a very minor offence. In America, so much as a seed or a used hash pipe was enough in most states to get you a lengthy, mandatory prison sentence.

Cannabis didn’t remain Class C for long, as Gordon Brown asked the ACMD to review its status. The ACMD did just that, twice and recommended that it remain in Class C. That was unacceptable to our very desperate and weak, make-believe Prime Minister and he pushed ahead with restoring cannabis to to Class B. Class B increased penalties for possession, but had no effect on production or distribution, the penalties are the same for either classification. Gordon wanted to send a “strong message” that cannabis was a “dangerous, deadly drug”.

Now, you can ask any teenager if cannabis is lethal and once they stop laughing, they will set you straight. Cannabis is in no way lethal, but our current government and ruling party don’t have a problem lying to the general public about anything. These are the same shitbags that invaded Iraq on the basis of utter fabrication, so a little white lie about weed won’t cause any issues with their consciences.

Well, I can tell you right now, its causing major issues with mine!

America is moving apace to legalise weed. This is a huge shift in attitude and approach from their previous policy of “just say no” and the war on drugs. Its seismic!

America is the most litigious country in the world, if there were any risks to cannabis, someone would be getting sued for damages, whether its the government for allowing it or the people who provide it. America has accepted that cannabis is not a bad thing, but a beneficial product that can help millions medically.

C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States declared that cannabis was the “most therapeutically beneficial substance known to man” years ago, but it is only now that America is accepting his assessment. At least they got there in the end.

We are still so far away from taking a common sense approach that I’m not sure what to do. Gordon Brown, in his ignorance and desire to appear strong on drugs, has set the cause back at least a decade. Its time we regain some of our lost ground.

Its not just America, many countries have relaxed their drug policies to reflect common sense, the most recent being the Czech Republic. How could the UK be lagging behind them?

We’re lagging behind almost everyone.

I want to change that. I am going to change that.

I just don’t know how yet.

Every journey starts with a first step and this is mine. My goal for 2010 is to combat the ignorance and stupidity that is UK drug policy. Its time for all decent, upstanding, otherwise law abiding residents of this fine country to stand up and demand that they are not criminalised for enjoying a smoke.

We can fight the lies, we can fight the ignorance. We can fight, fight fight until we get what we want, which is a legalised, regulated and taxed cannabis market. The time is now!

A year from now, we will be closer to our goal.You have my word on it.

Martin Luther King, the famous and revered American civil rights activist once said, “…there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that, “an unjust law is no law at all.””

As part of my never-ending quest to seek nothing but the truth, I’ve decided to provide the only genuinely honest review the decade that’s nearly finished.

It fucking sucked. Really, it did. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.

Besides iPods, name one good thing about the noughties? Even its nickname is pathetically lame.

The decade started with the Millennium, which was supposed to be the biggest celebration of all time. I spent the night in central London, on the River Thames, broadcasting live to all over the world. Maybe you saw me there, I was in charge of a broadcast tent near Lambeth Bridge, blocking people’s views of the fireworks and River of Fire.

Ha, the River of Fire was the first major disappointment of many in the noughties, a damp squib rather than spectacular and a giant let down for those who braved the cold to witness it. I’ve never heard such a loud, collective, “is that really it?” in my life.

London crowds can be drunken and angry and the night of the Millennium was no exception. As the clock struck midnight and I was transmitting live on behalf of four different foreign broadcasters, someone unplugged our generator cable and everything went dark.  

Don’t worry, one of the technicians managed to get it reconnected and it all worked, though the cables were covered with human urine, which wasn’t so pleasant for the engineer. On top of that, the crowd attacked us and tried to steal our expensive TV gear. I can remember smacking peoples’ arms and hands away from tripods and lights as the fireworks began.

We were all ready for the Y2K bug, a peculiar glitch in some older computers that prevented it for handling 4-digit years, meaning some unpatched computers would think it was 1900, not the year 2000. We expected the telephone network to collapse, the power grid to crash, along with all the jumbo jets flying overhead.

It didn’t happen, nothing happened, crisis averted.

But that didn’t mean the noughties were crisis free, because less than a year later, George W. (for What the fuck?) Bush stole the election and became the most powerful sub-normally intelligent person in history. His presidency dominated the decade and his policies made the world a much shittier place.

Think for a second, if Al Gore had claimed the presidency instead. He should have won it, he did win it, but the Supreme Court had other ideas.

Do you think we’d be in Iraq if Gore had two terms in the White House? Probably not, but then we most likely wouldn’t have Barack Obama now.

Who’s to say?

The Bush presidency was built on the foundation of the Neo-Conservative moment and the Project for a New American Century. How’d all that turn out?

Let’s see, the entire economy melted down to near collapse and we seem to be engaged in George Orwell’s never-ending war while his Big Brother keeps track of our every thought and action.

Cool.

Bush was stupid, his advisors no smarter. They dug one stupid hole after another, each a little deeper than the last.

When the attacks of 11th September 2001 took place, you couldn’t imagine a worse commander and chief to have at the helm, unless you enjoy children’s books about pet goats, in which case he would be your number one choice.

9/11 changed everything, but the real shock and awe was how we felt as we watched the twin towers come crashing to the ground.

I’m old enough to remember when the World Trade Centre was built. I’d been lucky enough to visit the observation deck more than once, its a view you wouldn’t be able to duplicate again today without a helicopter.

We were devastated by those attacks, fiendishly simple, yet executed to maximum effect. I remember thinking that this was the beginning of the end of western civilisation and soon we would all be crawling through nothing but rubble, drinking brackish water from puddles in the streets.

How wrong I was!

9/11 was a blip, a lucky shot, a once in a lifetime terror strike from a group whose success exceeded even their own expectations. I’m sure they didn’t think the entire world would change so radically as a result of their actions, but change it did.

Keeping us secure became the number one priority, the cost being a dramatic reduction in our liberty and personal freedoms. Any extreme, radical action taken by a government could and would be justified by tagging it with an anti-terror bent.

Do you want to monitor all telephone calls and email messages? No problem.

Do you need my banking and credit history before I get on a plane? Sure thing!

How about my shoes, should I take them off too? Gosh, hope I don’t have holes in my socks!

Think how quickly we all simply adapted to these new realities, we made hardly a peep as our civil liberties were systematically stripped away.

Its become such a farce now, here in London you practically can’t even take a photograph in a public place without the police swooping down on you like you’re Mohammed Atta, scoping out another attack.

Think that’s good for business and tourism? Think again?

Terror is not the only thing that’s been scaring us in the last ten years, as the environment’s been on our minds too. You won’t see any government declaring war on climate change, even though its probably more of a threat to more people than terrorism could ever be.

The effects of climate change are apparent to anyone who can be bothered to look, yet there are people out there in the world who try to deny this inevitability. If you tried to deny the threat of terror, you would be labelled a traitor, but being a climate-change doubter will not earn you the same label.

Its probably too late to slow down climate change because we pissed away the last decade arguing about it. It would be funny, if it weren’t so damn tragic as the recent Copenhagen Climate Summit heartily illustrated.

The wars in the last ten years have been quite tragic too, especially the two major conflicts instigated by the West, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The war in Iraq was justified with false pretences and blatant, pre-meditated lies. I knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and I had no access to any of the intelligence available to our leaders. They knew it too, but made up a bunch of nonsense any way.

I can remember being the only idiot in the world who thought that America and Britain wouldn’t go to war in Iraq. I genuinely believed they had no grounds to initiate a conflict and that they would back down at the last minute. I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong, but not as wrong as launching that illegal and pointless war.

George W (for War Criminal) Bush and Tony Blair should both be sitting in prison cells in The Hague, awaiting their trials for crimes against humanity, but no one has the fucking balls to send them both there. The International Court should have charged them already, even if extradition would never happen. They both should pay for their crimes and sins.

But they won’t.

How many innocent lives have been lost in that pointless war? Iraq was far from perfect before the “allies” invaded, but the electricity flowed, the streets were safe and Iraq still had an educated, functional middle class.

I’m not a Saddam Hussein apologist, the guy was a nasty piece of work, repressive, iron fisted, unpleasant and vicious. But so what? Lots of countries are lead by shitbags, we don’t invade them and impose regime change just because we feel like it.

Regime change on its own is not a valid reason for war. In the case of Iraq, it turns out it was the only reason.

Saddam Hussein got strung up in a hastily organised hanging. There’s mobile phone video of it on the internet, that I’m sure you’ve seen by now. It was a very undignified end for an odious, horrible man. Though back in the 1970s, Saddam was friendly with America and funded by them, because he opposed Iran.

Things change, shit happens.

Afghanistan is a different shade of grey.

After 9/11, there was some sense in going into Afghanistan since that’s where the terror bases and training camps were. That’s also where the leader of the bad guys lived, oh what’s his name again?

Osama something or other.

They had the chance to capture or kill him in Tora Bora and blew it. He’s still allegedly alive and on the run in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The problem with Afghanistan is after they chased Al Qaeda out, they were left fighting the Taliban. Big countries like America are crappy at fighting insurgencies and guerrilla wars, see Vietnam for proof. They’ve been dragged deeper into a civil conflict than they need to be.

Today, Afghanistan is a lawless basket-case of a nation, with a corrupt, ineffectual government at its centre and powerful war lords scattered throughout the country.

President Obama seems to think more troops will help and the decade is ending with him announcing further deployments.

When will they ever learn?

How’s never sound?

And speaking of America’s first black president, Barack Obama is one of the good things to come out of the noughties, but he wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for George W. (Where’d he go?) Bush. Bush paved the way for Obama, with his stupidity, mistakes and far right ideals.

Whether you agree with Obama’s policies or not, having a mixed race president in America is good for the entire world. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime, and like most people I was moved deeply by his election.

Do I think he’s doing a good job? Its way too early to tell. He hasn’t even been in office for an entire year yet. We should give the guy a chance. Ask me again in 3-7 years, when he’s finished and I’ll have enough information to form an opinion. Clearly, I wasn’t a voting member of the Nobel panel, because I never would have given the prize to Barack, at least not yet, anyway.

Personally, it wasn’t such a hot decade for me either. Both of my parents passed away, my father in 2004 and my mother in 2008. I miss them both every day.

This was the decade I well and truly entered middle age. I’m going to be forty-fucking-seven next month. The last decade saw me diagnosed with a stupid illness and I had a sustained period of unemployment while I was between jobs.

The illness, Hashimoto’s Disease, is allegedly under control and I did manage to secure gainful employment, for which I am very thankful, but neither period was particularly pleasant for me.

The progress of technology is one good thing to come from the last decade, I’ve got the some of the coolest toys I’ve ever owned currently in my possession.

I’m on my 3rd iMac, the latest a 27” beast with a quad-core processor that is lightening fast, its like having a stylish supercomputer parked on my desk.

By far, the most amazing thing I own is my iPhone 3GS, it is a gadget of unrivalled beauty, power and usefulness. If I had to choose one piece of kit that’s revolutionised my life, its my iPhone. It does more than I could have ever imagined and its abilities just keep growing with every app I install.

Citizen journalism came of age in the noughties, with websites similar to this one springing up at a rapid rate. The word “blog” didn’t even exist ten years ago and now there are millions of them.

Blogging came along when I needed it most, I started this one nearly 6 years ago during my dark and depressing period of unemployment.

Blogging gave me something to do, something to focus on, something to make me feel like I was still a functioning member of society. I had a way to contribute, a way to participate. Somehow, I still mattered, even if I felt like I didn’t.

Blogging may have saved my life. I would have continued to sink deeper had I not discovered Blogspot back in 2004. 

And that’s where you all come in.

Without an audience, blogging is a bit pointless and while I am still not and will probably never be mainstream, I’ve had a level of support and interest that still astounds me. I’m thankful for every visitor I’ve ever had who has dropped by and hung out with me virtually.

Without all of you, I’d just be some guy writing longwinded essays for my own amusement. Ok, even with you all around, that statement is true, but its still better for having you all here.

Thanks very much for stopping by, you’ll always find a warm welcome here and I always put out on the first date.

I wish each and every one of you the very best of the holiday season. I hope the next decade sees all your hopes and dreams come true.

PS
I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff I left out of my review of the decade, but this short video review from Newsweek Magazine should fill in many of the gaps. Its quite US-centric, but its only 7 minutes long, so enjoy!

There are only 3 acceptable popular xmas songs, Darlene Love’s “Christmas Baby (Please Come Home)” from the Phil Spector Christmas album, Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and this one, also from the Boss, his cover of “Merry Christmas, Baby!”

Go on, get all funky and festive and check out this recent video of Bruce performing it live on tv:

Weird things happen around the holidays, often unexpected and not always pleasant.

I don’t know what got me on the subject in my head, I was thinking about duck and before I knew it, my crazy brain started remembering weird shit from my childhood.

The duck connection: I am cooking a small three-bird roast for xmas dinner.

For those of you who’ve never heard of such a concoction, it is quite simply, a whole boneless duck, stuffed with a whole boneless turkey, then inside the turkey is an entire, boneless pheasant. Larger versions start with a goose, but I’m not serving enough people to make that sensible.

I’m not sure how the farmers get the birds to grow inside the other birds without bones, but getting the feathers off must be a bitch. I guess it has to do with genetic engineering, by I digress. I want to talk about duck.

When I was very young, an elderly relative lived with us for many years, my Aunt Gertie, short for Gertrude. She lived to be 95, died in the mid 1970s and was part of the foster family that raised my orphaned father.

Yeah, I know, get out the violins.

Aunt Gertie lived in our house for four or five years, until her personal care became too much for my mother. Up to that point, her presence meant we didn’t do very much outside of the house, as she needed fairly constant supervision, even more so when she started falling down frequently.

After my parents took the difficult decision to place Aunt Gertie into a rest home, things changed for us and we had some freedom again. The very first night she was gone, my father took the family out to a fancy restaurant for dinner. This would have been around autumn 1972, so I would have been nearly 9 years old.

Now, here’s the fowl connection, that night in the nice restaurant, I ordered Duck l’Orange for the first time in my life and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever eaten. It was a half duck, still on the bone and the wait staff actually helped me strip the delicious meat from the bone.

Its a fairly vivid memory, and I can still remember the four of us, me, my parents and my younger brother all feeling slightly guilty that we were able to enjoy such a fine meal, only because Gertie was in a care home.

Aunt Gertie lived for several years in that care home, slowly, gradually losing her mind. Up to that point, she was scarily sharp and didn’t miss anything and it was only in the last year or two that she started to become confused about things. She passed away just a couple of weeks before xmas, at the same time my half-brother’s wife was delivering her first child in the same hospital.

The last time I saw Gertie in the hospital was about 10 minutes before I saw my nephew for the first time. Even at the age of nearly twelve, I realised there was a weird connection between new life and death.

Gertie died the next day, two weeks before xmas.

But that wasn’t the only death to darken a family xmas, a year or two before, my father’s foster brother, my Uncle Jack, died unexpectedly on xmas. I was probably around 10 years old.

I always liked Uncle Jack, he was very much an outdoorsman, he liked to fish and hunt, which are the sort of cool things that impress a young lad like me. He died on xmas eve, my father woke up to the news on xmas day.

Again, I have vivid memories of that morning. My brother and I burst downstairs, ready to attack a pile of presents left by santa, with enthusiasm, but our mother’s face told a different story.

We both immediately knew something was wrong before she told us about Uncle Jack. She explained how upset my father was, he had not come out of their bedroom yet. I’m sure it was silly early in the morning, my brother and I were both children and probably didn’t sleep a wink the night before.

It was one of the few times I saw my father with real tears in his eyes. He was a strong, imposing man, think Hemmingway without the booze and it shocked me. My dad wasn’t supposed to cry, ever!

It was a very low key xmas that year.

All of this is reminding me of the scene in the movie Gremlins, when Phoebe Cates character explains why she hates xmas and tells the story of her father dressing up like santa and getting caught in the chimney. They find him still there, dead, a couple weeks later. Talk about a holiday downer, I bet the stench would put you off your dinner.

Last xmas was easily one of the worst of my life, my beloved mother passed away unexpectedly.

I was at work, ready for a long holiday run of nightshifts when I got the bad news. I found out at 6am on xmas eve that she died.

The thing about deaths around the holidays is that it doesn’t just bring down the relatives of the deceased, it has an effect on those around you too. It distracts others away from their enjoyment of the season. My sudden, grieving absence from work had an impact on many people and that upset me even more.

Last year’s xmas was very depressing. That’s an understatement, it was devastating. You get the idea.

When you sit down for your big turkey (or 3 bird roast!) dinner on xmas day, spare a thought for all the people whose holidays have been blighted by unexpected bad news and whose future holidays may be coloured by these events.

More importantly, I sincerely hope its not you and yours who is the recipient of anything untoward. However, if it is you who draws the short draw and catches something unpleasant, know that you’re not alone, it can happen to anyone.

And if it is your turn, just remember that it will get better and I hope you have plenty more festive seasons awaiting you that might in some ways, make up for it.

From everyone here at the northlondonhippy, we wish you nothing but the very best of the holidays.

Oh wait, its just me here on my own, but the sentiment very much remains the same!