So it’s the middle of the afternoon here and I have had to finally give in and switch on the light as it’s quite simply too dark to continue staring at the screen. The desk lamp has been on all day long because the rain clouds have obliterated the possibility of seeing real sunlight all day long, but it’s depressing that it’s now getting dark at just 3:30pm.

I’m having one of those ‘sit at your computer supposedly working, but actually not really doing anything at all’ days. I surfed online for a while, updated a customer’s website, resized a few pictures for another customer, but all in all, I’ve pretty much not done much.

So I’ve decided that I am not in the mood to do work today and instead I am simply going to do stuff for me. Starting with finalizing the playlist on a mix CD I am making.

Perhaps typically for me, I am not simply making a mix CD for friends that I’ll then just write the playlist for on the given cover. No, I am going to the trouble of naming the CD and designing a gatefold color cover for it, complete with inlay notes! The CD has been a ‘work in progress’ for months now, but what with work and one thing or another, it’s been one of those projects that looked like it would never be completed.

So far the play list features an impressive bevy of artists from little known local acts, like John Price in Texas, to one or two mainstream names like Coldplay (Who recorded their albums right here in Liverpool I might add). Josh Ritter, Joseph Arthur, Damien Jurado, Nick Drake, Alexi Murdoch, The Damnwells and loads of other great singer songwriters are featured on the CD which is kind of a little melancholy. For ages I had titled it ‘music for grown ups’.

The title actually comes from a ‘Meanwhile‘ article I wrote of the same name which is still today one of my favorite pieces of personal writing. The picture on the cover was taken by me as I watched the sunset at a local beach.

The amount of effort I have put into the production of this CD is completely ridiculous. But it comes from the desire to simply share some of those tracks from ‘the soundtrack of my life’ with others in a CD that wouldn’t look out of place in their CD collection.

It’s not done yet. But maybe I’ll get it finished in time to give it away to friends this Christmas as a cool little stocking filler.

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Full size picture of the front and inside cover
Meanwhile
Meanwhile : Waving at planes

Nursery rhymes expose children to far more violent incidents than an average evening watching TV, researchers say.

A UK research team found the frequency of nursery rhyme violence was more than 10 times greater than in pre-9pm programmes. Examples of violent incidents included Humpty Dumpty being hurt in a fall and Jack and Jill tumbling down a hillside.

Click here to read the full story.

I want to sit here and write something both interesting and challenging about what I saw and experienced in Southern India. However I find that at this time I am simply unable to write anything that adequately puts the my experience into perspective.

Without wishing to sound overly dramatic, I think I am still in a place where my brain is currently processing things. It’s not helped by the fact that having arrived home from the cotton wool heat of India’s monsoon season and stepped straight into the chill of the beginnings of an English winter, I have managed to catch a cold that is making my thoughts flow like treacle.

I find myself overwhelmed by the spirit of the people we met who lived in abject poverty, but who somehow seemed to be cheerful and pleased to play host to the visiting white folk.

Throughout the entire trip we were treated like visiting dignitaries, like the members of the Royal Family. The people of the villages and communities we saw warmly welcomed us and through their happiness and high spirits they humbled me completely.

I am left with a feeling that here in the west we have simply lost our way. It’s perhaps easy to sit in judgement of our lives having seen such a stark contrast, but I’m no judge, nor would I ever assume to be. But the I just can’t help feeling that things are horribly unbalanced.

The simplicity and spirituality of the lives of those I met in India seem uncluttered and largely unrewarded by our western standards. But it’s those western standards I am today seriously questioning. While they have nothing, we have it all. Yet despite the abundance of money and ‘things’ many in the western world are unfulfilled and without purpose. Happiness seems like a luxury that, despite our wealth, few enjoy.

Upon my return the first thing that struck me at London Heathrow Airport was the amount of fat people. It may seem un-PC to say this, but I am being honest and uncut here. The whole time I was in Southern India, even on the final day when we spent time unwinding at a beach resort popular with wealthy people from Northern India, we saw no obese people. Their presence in Heathrow seemed like an affront to me, an insult to the people that not 3 days previously we had seen struggling to feed themselves.

Like I said though, I am still processing all of this information so forgive me for not writing something compelling, thought provoking and interesting. I shall instead post the first in what will be a series of pictures from the trip.

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Read Part 2 here

Today I had breakfast in India, a mid morning snack over the Arabian Sea and lunch in Abu Dhabi deep in the deserts of the Middle East.

I watched the sun set over the the Alps and right at that moment, as the clouds became molten red volcanic lava, I felt like I was the only person in the sky, as if God himself had granted me wings and made me an angel for an hour.

After dinner in London I watched from above as Britain’s capital sparkled as fireworks lit shot into their air exploding into a glittering spectrum of colors stretching as far as the eye could see.

And now, after the longest ‘jet-set’ day of my life I am once more home again. But it’s late and I’m tired so forgive me, but I must get some sleep.

Well in a few hours I fly to London and early tomorrow I begin my ‘passage to India’. The country is interestingly five and a half hours behind the UK, not quite sure why they chose to have the half hour.

First stop is Abu Dhabi in the middle east. We’ll be there for just a few hours before catching the flight that will take us to Trivandrum in Southern India, then by road we’ll be making our way to the state of Tamal Nadu where we’ll spend a week working with the Salt of the Earth and SCAD charities that are helping to combat poverty in the region and the problems that inherent with that.

It is going to be an eye opening time of that I am sure. I have to admit to being slightly nervous as I have little idea what to expect when I get there. Also given the volatility of this world and the largely unpopular re-election of Bush on a global level, travelling East does feel that bit more risky than travelling West. But I suppose that could be my western ignorance leading me.

I won’t be posting anything while I am out there, but I will probably be writing material for later publication on my ‘Meanwhile‘ website. My main role there will be to take pictures and video of the work and the plight of these poorest or poor people.

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Maps of the Tamil region
Information
Regional weather information
India world clock

From the BBC website I read this:

Someone said that in a first term, a US President makes friends, and in the second, he makes history. In Bush’s first term, he alienated every ally on the planet and kicked up a terrorist storm. I shudder to think how he’ll make history