Stolen by my Saviour - Why i'm glad my stuff got stolen

As most of you know, I was recently burgled of what I thought my 3 most important posessions, My Camera, My Mp3 PLayer and My Watch. But I'm actually glad that they were stolen it made me realise that actually all these pieces of technology are not actually that important.

What would technology be without us to use it? Surely it was made for humans to use to make life easier? But then isn't that making it to easy are we just turning into slobs? I know I find it a heck of a lot easier to do homework in word and to reasearch stuff through the internet, in fact if I didn't have the internet I don't no what i'd do to find out information for homework, and what if Wikipedia hadn't been invented? I wouldnt't know half the stuff I do I suppose, but surely I would go out and find it out for myself, become more self-relient, no?

So, back to how I started this blog, i'm glad that my stuff got stolen, it made me realise how materialisic I was becoming a regular little Willy Loman (there may be lots of 'Death of a Salesmen' related comments and quotes in my upcoming blogs as i'm reading it in English Literature and it's a great book). It also made me realise how much we take for granted nowadays, like a computer for instance. What use is a computer to someone who's dying of thrist or hungar? None whatsoever yet I bet a large majority of houses in the UK have them, same can be said for TVs except that a larger majority will have them. I know that we've all heard it so many times before, but so what? It's a fair point, we've got it so fuckin good and half, actually more than half, of the people I know don't even care about it, I think it's awful, I actually sometimes feel guilty about this sort of stuff, and not just for me for them as well, my friends that is. I think we should be so thankful that we are who we are, anyone that reads this that is. because no doubt if you casn read this on the web you probably take running water and fod for granted, and those are just basics that doesn't even make the means foir a life, just an existance, for a life you need something to live for, be it art, fishing whatever you want.

The thing that also really annoys me is that people has this idea that there's no point in them doing anything as it won't effect anything, yes, maybe. But then how does anything ever change? Do people just sit in rooms whispering too each other 'psst how about we do this thing?' 'yeah okay then'. Then they wait until they think enough people believe in the 'thing' they whispered about and try and put it into action? But then all they could put into action effectively is whispering. Eveything starts from one person or in some cases a small group of people, but it starts from somewhere, since when did this air of pessimism and just grumbling about things and thinking nothing will ever get better come from?

Anyway I started this blog with a reasonable idea but it appears to have changed into one of my rants again, but there are some real points in there, some that are close to my heart and do effect me now and then.

oh and as of Sunday at around half 10 to 11 I also had my most recent Mobile Phone stolen at the same venue, The Boardwalk (yes it must be cursed). But this time it doesn't bother me.

Maybe it's just God telling me I need a newer, more stylish phone......
......maybe it's just sod's law (it's probably more likely).

Will

Venturer Camp 2005

I first heard of a Venturer Camp about 6 months before it was due to occur, it is camp organised by The Woodcraft Folk for 12-15 year olds and normally involves a great amount of activities revolving around Woodcrafts key aims, to promote self confidence and activity in society, with the aim of building a world based on equality, friendship, peace and co-operation. There were lots of activities for them to do such as learing about CIRCA, Cuba and Nuclear War at the Peace Tent. Mediation, Sec, Drugs and Alcohol at the Mestup Tent. Making banners, lanterns and sculptures at the craft tent. Low energy Sauna building at the Sutainability area. Designing media shorts for the News (which was screened on a big screen every night at 8pm) in the Media area and around the camp using hand held video cameras and much more.

I also went to the pre-camp, which turned out to be a mistake, along with about four others, which is a camp designed to assign Village Roles to people or at least getting someone to sort out the Village roles. Villages are a collection of different districts (for instance my district is Porter and Don) normally having about 2 or 3 districts and about 90 people max. In our Village there were 5 districts, and 134 people or at least that was the number given to me before 10 more people joined.

Of course at pre-camp I had no idea how big the Villages were going to be, I did find out our village was called Equality though. There were only about 12 people to represent the 134 and only from 2 districts. I felt that if someone didn't stick their foot in and volunteer to get something done, nothing would ever happen, as is the way of most Venturers. So i volunteered to stand in as Village Co-ordinater (basically Big Cheify Guy) until I could backhand the job to someone else (or so I hoped).

I asked around and asked the people I asked to ask others, but to no avail, I couldn't shift the job. So I got to it. Apart from having to arrange Clans (groups of people to do duties for the Village) and a Rota and design the Duties, I also had to assign other Villages Duties. So I asked around and asked them to ask others, whether anyone was willing to be Village KP (Looking after the Food, making sure supplies are ordered from the central food tent, cooking meals, organising clans to cook meals), Village KE (Toilets, Recycling), Village Programme Co-ordinator (Making sure the programme is being pushed enough and there are enough people booking on sessions) and finally Village KG (Making sure there is enough Gas for the Village).

I also had to do all this a week early as I was also going on another camp that led right up to the start of this camp. So I sorted everything out and got everything organised and then spent a relaxed week in the middle of nowhere (I say relaxed I did a 6 mile run while I was there).

I arrived at the Venturer Camp about half a day late because of having to help unload and reload vans. And all hell broke loose, I was thrown right in up to my head, I had countless people telling me other people wanted to see me (oh great, thet helps my blood pressure). So after runnign around trying to find out what was going on, I was pushed into a tent with 140+ people in and told to talk, I don't think a tomato has ever been so red. I started out mumbling to which someone shouted 'speak up', and there was scattered laughter. Please god, please smite me, strike me down now please, i'll pay you. But to no avail, after half an hour of stumbling through the various scribled notes of another, and lots of whispering and shaking heads by adults.

Luckily my aweful start ment that whatever I did it was bound to be an improvment, over the week I got better and better until at the end of the week I was even swearing in morning circles, which is where I had to tell everyone everything that was happening on that day. I'm glad I said I would do the job as I think it raised my self-confidence and I not so self-aware now, which is nice. I also made lots of new friends, which is always good.

F***ing Around in Filey

Me and a couple of my mates had a great idea to go camping together (basically so we had no adult supervision and could do whatever we wanted, within reason (when I say reason I mean budget). After about 7 'meetings' that were all months and weeks ahead of the time we were actually planning to go there for (The 21st of August), we had arranged where we wanted to go (Filey due to the fact Leon's sister had been there when she had finished her GCSEs and Leon had also bin there before and liked it) and who was going but not who was bringing what or who was bringing tents for us to sleep in. About 1 week before we actually wanted to be in Filey, we deicided to have one last 'meeting' I thought it was to be another fruitless encounter but to my shock and horror it turned into a bountiful harvestof ideas and action.

Julia managed to rally the troops ands managed to organise who was bringing what (although in the end I preety much brought everything thanks to my mum knowing exactly what was needed).

We finished the 'meeting' with a feeling that something might actually have been accomplished by us on our own. We decided to meet the day before we went up to Filey to work out whether we had enough provisions and equipment to actually pull this feat off. It turned out we had way too many provisions (we had a sausage feast on the last day. god that was almost as filling as the Chinese all you can eat) and we also discovered that my mum knows how to pack and also how to make everyone feel inadequate by bringing the stuff they were supposed to bring, I felt sorry for them, but also enjoyed the boasting factor and the power it gave to me (whats happening to me???).

When we got to the campsite we found Leon, Joe and James, Leon was fretting about stuff and looked quite pissed off, me, Rob and Julia arrived and got told that Joe and James had been lazing and that Leon had been doing all the work to which I replied 'well you can make us a cup of tea, while you up then Leon', he was treated like a slave for the rest of our time there.

We were situated in a nice place and there didn't seem to be many people at the campsite, which suited us as we were planning on making a lot of noise, well maybe not planning but it turned out that way. There was a beach situated a 'short' walk away. Also there was a Somerfield 'around the corner', according to Leon (which turned out to be about 3 miles away). Unfourtunatly the beach was more stone than sand but we had very good whether which was good.

We spent most of the time either playing frisbee, walking or (surprise surprise) drinking. We had to go and buy are own food which led to misgrievings about the food as we had a 'limited' budget, we ending up eating Tesco Value Cornflakes and drinking Somerfield Lemonade (only 11p).

Filey was quite a small, quint town, but tourism had still managed to deface it, the best meal we had was in Filey though, Pie and Chips with Gravy ummmmm.

The holiday ended with the loss of the frisbee and the occurance of pink sick due to too much wine.

All in all though a very good holiday and most enjoyable. It felt very nice to be free and with close friends and Julia which was great.

Unfourtuantly I don't think I have any photos of the pink sick or the beach or of Filey, sorry.

EU........and you and you and you

I'm currently watching 'How Euro Are You?' on BBC 2 and this is what sparking this bit of creational light. I took the test (clicky here) and my results claimed I was a Euro Sceptic, a Mr. Costa Del Sol no less, I feel we've gone too far already, I only want Europe for trading purposes and holidays but nothing more.

Whats your views on the EU? Take the test and post your results, and then what you really think.

I think Europe is a nice idea, but am as my test confirms i'm a sceptic, not because I don't think its a good idea but because all the people in power are too power mad to agree with each other.