Binge
Took the chance today and yesterday to work with Jaffa down his pet project, a community based on woodlands not too far away from where we’ve been set up for the last couple of weeks. Now I’ve barely spoken to the guy and though I like him, I always figured he had me down as one who hasn’t paid his dues - an easy enough assumption to make when I cover up so much about my past and had to adopt this neutral, non-suspicious persona for so long. Anyway, it turns out Dasha has been speaking to him, letting him know I’m one of her trusted few, so he comes over and tells me about the place. He’s one who has to be won over like that, one way or another. Offers to take me down for a bit of wood chopping and such. Offered, too, at a time the police were turning up to give us grief so it was perfect timing. I think he knew it.
Early morning it was and I had set up with guitar, a book, and a green tea on the step of my caravan, watching events. So predictable, they always turn up at the crack of dawn thinking ‘these gypos don’t get up until mid afternoon’ and have this look of disappointment when they show lights blazing to a hive of activity, no litter and, most irritatingly, no smell of dope or needle scars.
I had a bit of a go at the coppers, asking them if they were about to harrass every dreadlocked bastard in sight as I was about to head off. “No,” said one young one, rather too defensively, “I listen to Incubus.” “We’re just checking that your vehicles are roadworthy,” said the other, the mentor presumeably. “Do MOTs now do you,” I said, walking by and kicking the tyre of one of the Routemasters. “Yep. Seems ok to me.” We jumped in Jaffa’s van and made it down there in next to no time, making conversation about the various characters in our line of work. Bitching, that is, about the lunacy of the doctrines behind it all. Doctrines Cherie Blair herself, embarrassingly enough, endorsed when she wrote and even descended upon us, walking a tightrope a foot off the floor, and walking the coals.
And there we were, like yesterday, doing a bit of maintenance. Chainsawing. Me doing a little sawing, hammering, chopping wood.
But then this strong strong coffee with water from a well of water that comes up through the sandstone boiled up in a storm kettle, white bread baps with sausages (albeit organic), and a fag.
He showed me a huge badger set going a good four foot deep into the clay soil. It had a spiral staircase - they had gone down into the earth in a corkscrew, turning back on themselves; it really was impressive.
We talked about badgers. He doesn’t think badgers are responsible for TB. There’s areas he knows of where there’s no badgers, but there’s still TB in cattle.
We talked about fluoride in water. His wife can’t take it, and of course, contrary to government advice, you can’t filter it out of the water. He talked about studies which link fluoride to thyroid malfunction and some other diseases, and talked about how he had told this to his dentist who had, quite uncritically, believed what he had been told about it, that it was needed to maintain the state of the teeth.
We talked about bird flu. He had been telling me how he had told one student about KFC and how they raise GM chickens with three legs, which is why the meals are always sold in threes. I think he had picked up on a hoax going round the internet, similar to one I found at http://www.veggieromance.com/f/43565 - he is a very down to earth guy who might not always look too deeply into anything, but he is very hands on, pretty savvy, and he works with the land and knows how things work. The hoax may be an exaggeration, but since KFC would do it if they could, and since science is getting there, I don’t really think he is that wide of the mark; and in putting the student off, which he did very well, he was doing him a service. Anyway, I talked about Bernard Matthews, talking about how they were let off the hook with a Bird Flu outbreak some time back ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,2048738,00.html ) and he told me about an outbreak at the moment. Children at the local school, he says, have been given vaccines. I talked about d-notices ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1312489,00.html ) and we talked about sources of news. He claimed CNN at certain times was not the Corporate News Network I portrayed it as.
Another few guys came down and discussed the possibilities for homeopathic treatment of animals. I have never believed in homeopathy and have regular reveries about shooting it down in meetings, but they discussed it and how claims for it never talk about evidence but about fields and vibrations or something. I think it is nonsense but they talked about cucumbers becoming so much bigger over night after a treatment of anica.
Anyway, interesting conversations. Another about a neighbouring field and the blue green Nitrogen colour to it.
I enjoyed it. I got a better insight into the workplace, and the people and politics there, and got to work with Jaffa.
I had a bad bad day for food. We started off in the morning buying bread for rolls and so I went with it, saying to myself, this will be a non-compliance day, and I will bag some evidence for myself before I see a dietician.
08:00 green tea x 2, polenta with onion and tomato and two eggs
11:00 strong coffee, fag!
13:00 two white bread baps with organic sausages!
16:00 shandy!*
16:30 two flapjacks and a snickers!!
18:30 chicken breast with cabbage and loads of mash
The reactions weren’t as bad as I expected with all that - I haven’t had anything like shandy for a long(!) while. I can’t catch any of the reveries I am having, but I am constantly drifting off. I wanted to just tap out a quick blog, but I am a little flitful and, mainly, unable to stay with one thought. I keep catching myself in screensaver mode.
Ingredients: Carbonated water, beer (12%) (from wheat), sugar, citric acid, colour (E150c), Flavourings, Preservative (Sodium Benzoate), Sweetener (Sodium Saccarin), Stabiliser (Quillaia Extract). Contains Wheat.
