Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Peter is now cooking his Thich Nat Hanh curry. It is a lovely curry which has got coconut milk and tomato puree in it. I know that it sounds a bit odd, but it is lovely. Presumedly thich had to improvise while he was in France. Hence the puree. It is also vegetarian. Which is just as well since over the past day and a half i have been at a meat fest - mostly sausages and bacon. Nice ones, mind you. Ones from my famous butcher. Not because he appears on my blog every now and then but because he has been in all kinds of TV programmes. He was on the Great British Menu as the cook who was from NI used his cow or pig. Can't remember which. So have been indulging. Yesterday i called in and his shop, which is empty and bleak at the best of times, was Baltic. Would you like a cup of tea, he asked me. What about some toast? It's Low GI. Isn't it cold? What did you do for Christmas? It's all so commercial now isn't it? and so on and so forth. I bought some steak for Shane, mo...

There is a lot of noise upstairs. Oisin is going over to Lara's for a Warhammer party. Please don't ask me the attraction in these things. It's definitely a male thing. Men should be allowed to fight, that's they're real purpose in life. That's why it comes out and manifests itself in such dysfuntional ways. I think that so many conflicts and the rubbish that takes place in politics is the result of men not being able to release their natural instincts in the safe way. They love carrying guns, beating people up, getting into fights - they just love it. If they're not doing it in a pretend way, then they'll do it for real. So that's why i think NS is good. Because, first, men need to be told they are now men. Otherwise they'll always be boys. Then it teaches them that it isn't a game. Killing people is a serious thing. And you could also be killed. In the middle of the jungle. This is why NS should not be a soft option. Women understand this i...

I went to see Avatar yesterday with the boys. I don't know what to think about it. But here's a few things which have been swirling about in my head... First, let me say that as someone who works with environmental devastation every day, it is a reality i deal with. From the destruction of peat bogs to the overfishing of the seas. It is a real and very urgent problem. And everyone is going to know what it means to have not stopped behaving the in the infantile way we are - no one will be spared, even people who know that we need to stop now, because there is no one to stop the machine. So, when i see a film like Avatar, i want to scream... I wonder, whose side is James Cameron on? Because if he was on the side of the environment, we would have allowed the film to have the ending it should have had. The ending that has occurred on this earth for the last five hundred years. That is happening now to the Orang Asli in the degraded rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia. It is takin...

Two years ago, or maybe three, or four, i met Mal in a bar in Singapore and we gave me this CD. By Furniture. Actually i swiped it off him. If you're reading this Mal, thank you. I recently found it and played it and it brought back being 35 again to me and all the bittersweetness and i hope i never have to encounter again, but also never would want to forget. But Furniture, this bad from Selangor, yes, i kid you not, are fantastic. They're like a cross of Death in Vegas and the Coctaeu Twins and something else...no, they are excellent. But today, in between uploading photos of Xmas and facebooking with friends, who else would you facebook with, right?, i felt a twinge of sadness. Does 40 mean having to leave all this behind? This liminal world of twilight and existing with the in between? Because staying in this never never land means never committing but committing means spending time in a place which is certain. A place in the light, which is complete, finished. Which means ...

The day after boxing day we made it to QP. It was cold, the night before and i caught a head cold sleeping on the floor of the living room. A stupid idea if ever there was one. It was my idea so i could say it was stupid. But the day after was spectacular. The whole place was like an ice rink, and we had to be very very careful. Peter made two attempts to get breakfast and never made it back with any. Eventually, we did manage to eat. Being in QP is like playing house. With a real house. Because it's so small and so perfectly formed. Well i think so anyways. So here are a few shot of us taking the opportunity to use the snow and the goodwill of the farmer in the next field. Here's the farmer's dog. He's really funny. Stuck with us until the chicken was done and then buggered off when we started feeding the birds bread. I know it looks more The Commitments now than James Bond, but wait a while and you'll see what i mean... Peter does his impression of traditional Don...