Sprung

Well well well, I’ve finished my 6 month post-grad-dip at dimension 10, and now I’ve got a few freelance projects bubbling away for the next month which is rather exciting. I’m meeting someone tonight to hopefully get placed on a work attachment with their company and learn my mystical ways of the motion graphics ninja! So, Spring is springing and Debbie (my girlfriend) and I have a cat called Mord, we’ve bought a house (soon to be redecorated) and things are generally good. Things would no doubt be better if there was actually 36 hours in the day and not 24, but hey – whach’ya gonna do?

A few things have been getting my goat this week. First off the marines who got lost and ended up getting caught by Iran. Yes, I’m sure Iran could have said ‘oh dear, looks like you drifted a few meters, go on your way now’ and we would have had done with it, but what would America or the UK have done? ‘It’s Guantanamo for you kids – hope you like sleep deprivation, torture and no right to trial!’Everyone keeps harping on about how terrible it is their being so poorly treated and humiliated. The TV clips show them having a smoke, eating dinner together and being allowed to tell the world they haven’t been locked in a concrete cell without toilet access or stripped naked and had the dogs unleashed on them. Poor souls. They joined the army for a bit of excitement, some focus in their lives and to see foreign lands – what’s the problem?

Another thing is this. A few (well maybe ten) years ago the independent on Sunday ran a long long campaign to try and get Cannabis legalised, with many high profile celebrities and politicians pushing the cause. This was great news for pot-heads across the land, finally the debate had begun and was being delt with seriously and with some dignity. a few years later, I think it was 98, or 99 a huge rally in London show in numbers the smokers view on the matter and in 2003 Cannabis was downgradded from class B to C, making a barely recognisable offense. “Huzzah” shout the UK’s dope-fiends as the rest of the world also seems to be slowly shifting their Dope laws (surprisingly enough most rapidly in America it seems). Now a couple of weeks ago the Independent on Sunday issued an apology on their weed views and have decided to U-turn, claiming that the weed smoked today is up to 25 – 30 times stronger than it was only a decade ago! Who makes up this shit? I remember reading the original pro pot paper at a time when I was just discovering the demon weed after a stop over in Amsterdam and tried some original ‘Skunk #1’. It did indeed blow my mind every which way – yes it was strong, but later I discovered it’s possible to get hold of weaker stuff if you want it. for a long time, hash ,or what is meant to resemble it that is sold in the UK (soapbar) was my smoking staple, until I realised it was cut and bulked up with god knows what, causing me and friends to have to stop smoking it as it had got so bad in the late Ninties, it felt like we were being spiked with nasty, tranquilisers and psychosis inducing chemicals – it was dirty stuff. We started smoking weed – the purer and stronger the better. The ‘indy’ claims that kids have no choice but to smoke the super-strong skunk (and when will newspapers realise that skunk is only a particular hybrid, not a general class of drug?) They only don’t have a choice because the fact that it is illegal means there can be no choice, no quality control, no informed discussion or decisions!
Anyway, were was I? oh yes – the paper on Sunday April 1st – I went to buy a paper – the Observer was sports monthly, so I didn’t bother, and the Independent had ‘Skunk turned my son into a Monster” on the front page. It strikes me that the Independent is turning more and more into the Daily Mail each day. How is anyone going to take that sort of reactionary headline seriously except people who don’t know better? Shameful!