DECEMBER 2004
I promised last month to give the People's Party and the Dear Leader and his henchmen law during the Yule season, but they sure are not making it easy for me to do so. But I'll try, I'll try.
One of my neighbours has decided to look into flying birds of prey, and has now bought a big female eagle owl. Arthur has not met her yet, but they have been hooting to each other every night for weeks now. I'm not looking forward to the start of the breeding season in a few months time; they will really get their vocal cords into gear then for sure.
We had our traditional pre-Yule storm on the 23rd. Another of the big Leylandii conifers at Heimbu snapped into two and is blocking the entrance gate. So I can look forward to a lot of saw and axe work in the new year.
A pair of foxes have taken up residence at the bottom of the garden. They don't seem to mind Arthur at all, but they have so far stayed away from our front garden, where Smokey rules unchallenged. I wonder if we will have kits this Spring; Heimbu seems to be turning into a nature reserve.
We had a nice, quiet Yule at Heimbu. Aki came down from Edinburgh on a train that was only an hour late, and Erling took the coach in from Liverpool. The tree was taken in and decorated, and this year we managed to get ribs from an old style pig instead of the lean supermarket ones. Probably not so good for one's arteries, but the taste was suberb. "Julenissen" arrived a bit later than usual with presents and a good time was had by all.
So another Yule has passed, and we are entering the year of Verdande (otherwise known as 2005). I am wondering what it will bring, and I have to admit that I'm close to despair. What I see is a society that is falling apart. Everything has a price and nothing has any value. Feral children barely able to speak, never mind read and write, with no social skills, are roaming the bleak estates like wolf packs, while their parents spend their life in alcohol or drug induced stupor.
Away from the council estates the lives are ruled by an ever increasing need to consume fuelled by a soulless excistance of commuting and meaningless work. Family members have barely any contact with each others, and what little time there is available is spent in front of the television watching brain deadening trash.
Comfort eating and lack of exercise are creating a population that are overweight or obese, but at the same time suffering from malnutrition.
Fear of crime, and indeed of the forces that are supposed to protect us from crime, is everywhere, and the police are more occupied with revenue gathering than crime prevention or detection.
We are encouraged to spend on gambling, alcohol and drugs in order to keep us in chains, and any intention on our part of teaching our children the difference between right and wrong are garanteed to get you a custodial sentence.
Our hospitals are filthy and not a place for sick people, as more and more of the resources are being spendt on management, and less and less on actually treating people. As a result the survival rate in hospitals for people with serious injuries are now worse than during the Crimean War.
Old people freeze to death in their homes every winter as their meagre pensions does not cover heating fuel, and homelessness is steadily increasing, as is the difference between the haves and the haves not. The richest half of the population owns 96% of the country's wealth and the richest 1% own 28%
Local government has more or less lost power, though we are still paying for it, and the wishes of residents are completely ignored.
I could go on and on, but anyone living in our Brave New Blairite World knows what I'm talking about.
I have just come home from attending the Boxing Day Meet of our local hunt, theoretically for the last time. They will though, convert into a "hound exercising club" when the ban comes into force so, there is still hope that we can keep things ticking over until a less prejudiced Government will be in power. Anyway, we were more than 3,000 attending instead of the usual 200, so at least some people are wakening up to the fact that the issue is loss of freedom, not animal welfare.
A new act is being pushed through Parliament that will make it a criminal offence to criticise any religion on any ground at all. So if you don't think that Shariah law is a good thing, or you don't agree with the Church's view on abortion, you better keep your thoughts to yourself, or you'll be hauled before the magistrates.
The recent massive earthquake in the Indian Ocean followed by tsunamis, have once more shown how fragile any sense of safety really is. It has also shown the folly of giving up our hard won freedom in exchange for promised protection against terrorist attacks. No-one can guarantee you the morning.
A lot of us will start the New Year worrying about our weight after the the excesses of the festive season. The media will be full of articles about all kind of weird and wonderful diets guaranteed to make you shed pounds. Unfortunately you can be sure that most of them will be completely useless, which is sad, as it is actually not all that difficult to have a healthy bodyweight.
At the moment the Adkin's diet, which is a rehash of the low carb diet of the 1970s, is very popular. If you follow it you will lose weight, no doubt about that, but unfortunately your flab will stay, as it will even if you try to stop eating altogether for a while.
What the body need is carbohydrates for energy, protein for building and repairing tissue, fat for forming cell walls and for growth, vitamins and minerals for assisting in release of energy and water for transporting nutrients and waste through the body.
So simply put we need carbohydrates to supply the energy that will help the protein to build and repair the body and fat to be burnt. The first priority of the body is to supply the brain with fuel; if your diet is low on carbohydrates, the brain will look for an alternative source. Fat can not be utilized, but protein can. So the protein will be converted into fuel for the brain instead of repairing the body, which means that injuries will take longer to heal. Also if you do not eat a lot of protein the body will start consuming muscle mass, which will quickly reduce your weight as muscle is heavier than fat, but you have now taken away your body's ability to burn fat so you are as flabby as ever.
Another fact that most people are unaware of is that most of us actually don't eat enough, or rather not enough of the right food. It is almost impossible to eat too much of complex carbonhydrates; the problem is that most of what we consume is refined, which don't give the digestion system enough to work on and as a result constipation is the norm in Western society.
Anyway, here is the Heimbu recipee for a healthy body (and mind).
Get out of bed an hour or two before your normal breakfast time. Do the Stav stances, followed by stretching and deep squats. Then you need some low intensity exercise like walking, bicycling or swimming, something that you can do without having to stop because you run out of puff. Personally I do around one hour of sword cuts. This is the only way to burn fat, and at the same time allowing you to build lean muscle.
Then have a big breakfast of mostly carbohydrates with some protein; personally I have a big bowl of raw, unrefined oats with milk and dried fruits, though porridge is fine, too. This will give you the energy for the day ahead.
Lunch should be the main meal of the day, consisting of leafy vegeables, fruit and ideally oily fish. This will again give you energy to get you through the last half of the day.
Supper, the last main meal of the day, should consentrate on protein; lean meat or tofu to help repair the body while you are sleeping. You should not eat too much carbohydrates late in the day, as it is not needed, and so will be converted into fat.
Traditionally, there would also be a light meal between breakfast and lunch, and another one just before going to bed, but as most of us now lead a very seditary life this is hardly neccessary anymore. However, I like to have an apple and a banana just before bedtime.
Writing this at midnight as the fireworks start to explode across the sky, what is in store for us in the coming year? Having just consulted the runes it doesn't look to promising. The expected election sometimes within the next 6 months will almost certainly return the Dear Leader and the People's Party with possibly an even greater majority in the Commons, Blunkett will be re-habilitated and the country will descend into chaos.
Of course, in the big scheme of things, nothing of this will really matter, but that will not be of much comfort for us who have to live through what I'm sure will later be seen as one of the "tipping points" in history.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL