Long, Long, Long

I'm sitting on a train heading South. The chair is uncomfortable and creaks when I move around. In the air is a faintly stale aroma that permeates my clothes and belongings. The picture on the window makes me think of Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd.

When I look out the window, I see the suck of air from the carriages ahead fighting against a strong headwind. The sun is starting to get higher in the sky, and peers squinting through a break in the clouds.

The trees outside are starting to disappear, being gradually replaced by a vast, threatening expanse of square corners and tarmac brutality, the red bricks of the buildings by the track giving way to giant sheets of tinted glass, in which I catch the reflection of tired eyes. On the horizon ahead looms the choking smog of metropolitan isolation.

The train slows and I get off, but this is not my final destination. I'm just waiting for my next connection.

Fan Mail

And so there is yet another postal strike in the UK, meaning there will be no post going in or out of my house until next week. This is annoyance in itself, cutting off my supply of DVD rentals which are the source of movies for the Sure Motif, and is designed to drive me more insane waiting to hear from various prospective employers.

Plus, going by the decorations starting to go up in the high street shops, I'd better be thinking about sending off my Christmas cards.

Changes

Bigger things to come on Curious Quill. An excess of free time and an itchiness to create means expansion is in the air. An eye for criticism needs to focus. Stay tuned.

And hopefully by now you realise that this post must be named for the David Bowie song. Not the Ozzy-Kelly duet. Shudder.

Heavy Weather

Nothing from me for nearly a week, then you go and get two posts in one day, you lucky devils. For the record, the last one was actually written three days before it was published; it took that long to get internet access here. And I'm running five hours behind UK time, in case you thought this was a bit late to be surfing the net.

I'd forgotten how brilliant sunshine can be. I mean that quite literally, I really had quite forgotten how sensationally bright it can get when the sun is above you and the skies are clear. Hand in hand with this brilliant, searing sunshine is a daily "bubbling up" of huge, vertical clouds that grow all day and peak in size at about 4pm. Despite this, we're six days in and only today have we been rewarded with a punchline of rain; a huge and thunderous storm blew up about two hours ago.

Flashes of lightning twice a minute for nearly an hour, and thunder echoing from miles away or overhead, it is one of the more spectacular storms I can remember, and is the answer to the prayers of the parched grass outside. There is some strange irony in coming to Florida on holiday to escape a flood-ravaged UK, only to find yourself in the middle of an oh-so-English hosepipe ban, but I can't quite tie it down.

Rain is a pleasant change from the otherwise "horrible" omnipresence of 35-in-the-shade heat. Have so far avoided the dreaded beetroot effect, but have suffered some minor burning and a bit of peeling, you'll be interested to hear. Its the details you love. Anyway, the tan is coming along nicely.

I look into the future and see... a trip to an aquatic theme park, a wild goose chase for a cheap iPod, and a future post labelled "rant" concerning American commercials.

Heavy, man.

Wandering Star

First up, an apology for the previous post. Incoherence is not cool.

After my pointless and rushed post last night, I went and sat outside under the stars with a glass of wine. It was one of those warm, balmy nights where its impossible to do anything but sit back and crane your neck up at the stars.

As the spinal spasms gave way to an enduring rigidity, my eyes became transfixed by a bright point of light travelling across the sky. At first I assumed it was an aircraft, but the constancy of the direction and speed, as well as a lack of flashing lights promptly scoffed at this theory. Too slow to be anything in the atmosphere, and too fast to be anything far away, I realised it must be a low flying satellite catching rays from a sun that had long since set for me. It maintained its fluorescence across much of the sky, and then suddenly dimmed, presumably as the sun slipped below its horizon.

I sat there for a few minutes, experiencing one of those wonderful moments of calm clarity. Maybe I should write a book. Or go jet skiing. Isn't it funny how tissues always have two layers? There seemed to be little noise apart from my own breathing.

The pacifying calm was suddenly broken by a large smashing sound on the patio, inches behind me. I jumped up, startled, trying to see the cause. My mind flicked through a couple of possibilities: a roof tile had fallen; I was under attack from aliens; a bat had crashed.

A torch revealed the presence of a presumably distraught snail slowly regaining its posture. I looked up at the roof, and down at my glass of wine. A snail had fallen from the roof of my house? A thrill seeking, skydiving snail?

At this point I decided it would be sensible to stop drinking wine, and head indoors for the safety of my bed.

The moral of the story is avoid drunken, nocturnal gardening. One of my neighbours had come home to find a snail on one of her plants. To protect the plant she picked it up and tossed it, but chose rather the wrong place to direct it.

Back On The Farm

Reports of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease hit the news yesterday, with so far one isolated case identified at a farm in Surrey, affecting 60 animals. Cue widespread hysteria and story after story of government ministers flying back from holidays to shield Britain from this apocalyptic storm in a teacup.

Forgive me if I'm dismissive of this disaster-to-be, but I never really understood the fuss the first time around. The 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth in the U.K. was, until the 11th of September that year, the biggest news story I can remember since New Labour's landslide election victory in 1997, and dwarfed the extended campaign of fuel protests from 2000. The outbreak clocked up an impressive 2,000 cases, which resulted in the culling - i.e. slaughtering, burning and burying - of around seven million sheep and cattle. Those who remember the outbreak may think this fair enough, and the epidemic was eventually stopped, so perhaps it was all a success? However, there are two crucial points to consider.

Firstly, foot-and-mouth disease is, in most cases, non-fatal. Symptoms include a high fever, blisters in the mouth that cause drooling, and sores on the feet. Animals will typically lose weight for several months, and milk production in cattle can decline. A very small minority can suffer inflammation of the heart and death. Essentially, the real damage is to a farmer's income; quantities of milk and meat that can be produced significantly decline in the short term, although in the long term they will rise again since the majority of the animals survive.

Secondly, there was at the time a policy of non-vaccination. An effective vaccination exists, but was unused due to vaccinated livestock being ineligible for sale abroad. It was decided that the damage to the economy would be far less if infected cattle, and all those with any possibility of contagion, were destroyed. The logic in this is baffling.

Farmers work in a tough market in Britain. Milk is constantly sold at a loss which the farmer has to pay. After the B.S.E. crisis in the 90s, British beef has sold terribly, if at all, abroad. Cattle are generally insured only in the case of death, and so there would be no compensation for farmers suffering financial losses due to vaccinations. As such, the National Farmers Union put pressure on the government not to adopt a policy of inoculation.

In the current outbreak, I sincerely hope that a policy of vaccinate-and-compensate is adopted by the government. While it will have to fork out substantial amounts to farmers whose cattle is vaccinated, the money lost from British meat exports - hardly a booming market - will be far less than the crushing blow delivered to the tourist industry last time, as the national parks were closed down for months.

And lets not forget that this would save the unnecessary slaughter of millions of innocent, often healthy animals.

An Alright Start

The 'difficult' second post. Hopefully Curious Quill is starting to look a bit more attractive. Not that anyone's going to read any of this anyway. Amusing myself with obscure injokes to own life that no one else can get. This is fun.

Spent most of yesterday writing my curriculum vitae, now just have to send it off to the ubiquitous 'they'. Seems ridiculous; here is two sides of A4, and on it I have summarised the sum of all worthwhile activity in my life. If its not worth putting on here, I was wasting my time. Still, its done.

Sinking in now. Not a student anymore, there's real work to be done. Saddle up and hit the highway to cash. Ironic raised eyebrow. Sentence fragment.

Might go and mow the lawn now. The grass must be kept short.