So what's going on in Akela's world right now?

Yours truly went to see Brazil v Sweden in London on Wednesday. Now regular readers (and I know there are some of you out there!) will know that I follow Barnet (see the link at the side), a small, frankly pretty pathetic little club that pulls in average gates of 2500 and where the standard of football is most politely described as "valient". So to go and see real talent, and I mean exceptional talent, on display was quite a night out. A huge pat on the back as well to the Brazillian fans who were amazing. A big disapointment though has to be the Arsenal fans in the crowd who booed Anderson when ever he touched the ball simply because he plays for Man united. Sorry folks, but that is utterly pathetic and in some ways spoiled what was a grate evening. If you want Brazil to play more games at your stadium then I suggest that you start thinking a bit more before opening your mouths. It helps.

I am currently having an Easter break from my beloved band of horrors but will be startign back a week tomorrow. There's one problem though, they are simply being too nice. They're quiet, well behaved, do as they're told first time, there's no plotting, scheming or wind ups.

In short, yes I'm worried. Now in the past I've had difficult kids and it's all become a bit much at times, but right now I would actually quite like them to act up a bit. Cubs should be FUN!!!!!!!!

Next term should be though, with the clocks having gone forward we should have loads of daylight, more or less from the very start. I just can't wait to get them all out of doors and doing some proper scout stuff. Roll on summer!

I have another band of horrors though which are the other extreme. Work have me seconded part time to the Prince's Trust at the moment, trying to mould a bunch of young adults from difficult back grounds into some that are employable. Now some of them are getting somewhere, despite having made some big mistakes in the past. With others though it is like hitting my head against a brick wall. The frustration is frankly driving me to drink. And I'm only doing this a couple of days a week, I have nothing but respect and adimiration for those who do this full time. That's not to say I'm turning into some kind of Mail reading arsehole who think they should be written off, far from it. It's just a lot harder work than I ever appreciated.

Moan, Moan, Bloody Moan

Everywhere I go at the moment I seem to encounter people that are moaning about how "confusing" or "troublesome" the recycling scheme run by their local council is.

And they are all wrong. All of them. It's not confusing, it's very simple. All of them are. Here is how it works where I live, please point out to me what is confusing about the following.

Green bin - Cardboard, food waste, garden waste.
Black box - paper, tins, glass, foil.
Blue box - plastic, but not hard plastic.
Black bin - everything else.

Now true not every council works this way. Some, and wait for it, wait for the great intellectual leap that this concept requires, actually want you to put glass in with the plastic! That's right folks, you actually have to read the leaflet that comes with your council tax bill and remember to put it in the right bin.

Quantum physics? Kids stuff. Relativity? Easy. Recycling? Oh my God head for the hills! What witch craft can this possibly be?

I have no sympathy, none at all, with people that can't cope with this. It's there for everyone's good so that we don't have to fill fucking great land fills full of waste, now get a grip and get the fuck on with it.

This isn't something that I've tried before, but here goes, here is the first bit of literary criticism I've tried to write since I was at school. I thought it was time because I love books, I love reading and would encourage everyone to spend more time doing so. I just hope that what I write here doesn't come across as too, well, for want of a better word, arty! Enjoy.

A Kestrel for a Knave and Catch 22, endings in common

A Kestrel for a Knave (Kes) and Catch 22 (22) are two very distinct books with some common threads. While one is most definitely a tragedy and one is a black comedy and a deep satire they have a very similar style in how they end.

The majority of both texts tells the narrative tale of the two main protagonists (Billy Casper and Yosarian), leading in both cases to ultimate tragedy. In the first case to the death of Kes, Casper’s trained Hawk and in the latter to the death of the young airman in Yosarian’s crew. In both cases these are deaths that the protagonist feels responsible for even though both they and the reader can see that they are the ultimately caused by the situation in which the Casper and Yosarian find themselves. That being the desperate poverty of a mining town and the utter madness of world war respectively.

During the narrative we discover that neither of these characters is a saint or in anyway blameless. Both individuals are prepared to lie and defy authority, indeed both despise the authority around them. And these imperfections in character prevent either story descending in to sentimentality.

In both cases it would be easy to let the stories end with the deaths around which they centre. Both writers use a common theme to reinforce their message. Both Casper and Yosarian go for a long walk afterwards and we, the reader, are shown through prose the state of the world in which these two characters exist. In Yossarian’s case we see much of the pointless violence and suffering that surrounds him. This is given added impetuous by the intense comedy of what has come before in the book. In the case of Casper we see in far more detail the dereliction of the town in which he lives, something which the reader was spared prior to the death of Kes. Again this is given added impetuous by the imagined scene in which Casper goes to the cinema with his now departed father.

In some ways this style asks questions of the reader. These scenes hold a spotlight to the background of the characters, and a change in attitude by the reader, or otherwise, helps us questions ourselves as we realise whether we have fully understood the situations of the protagonists through the more general narrative.

A quick lesson in theology

Thanks to the enemies of reason for bringing this to my attention.

It makes me despair it, really does. Where the hell is the compassion or intellectual thought behind this kind of thing? You see compassion and a rigorous intellect are, I believe, two things that you should expect from a bishop, i.e. a leader in a religion that has, as one of its central pillars, the concept of forgiveness.

Conservative Christians will tell you that the bible is very clear about homosexuality. Sorry folks but it’s not. Yes there is Sodom and Ghomorah and all that jazz but the old testament also tells us not to eat shell fish and I don’t see any of these people giving up their cockles and mussels, do you? When you point that out they will point to the teachings of St Paul in the new testament. Yet here is the rub, and listen carefully. The whole point, the whole fucking point, the entire basis of Christianity is that NO ONE IS PERFECT. That’s the whole point fuck nut!

So you cannot take the opinion of any person as being absolute.

God gave us all a brain, now bloody well use it.

I don’t think it would ever be possible to put all my thoughts on theology and religion etc into one post so I wont even try. Just let it be known that people like this really piss me off.

Peterborough

Peterborough has been in the news recently for the fact that the locals have been abusing RAF personnel who appear in the town in uniform. It has got to the point where the CO of nearby RAF Wittering has ordered the troops not to appear in uniform.

The fact that it has come to this is a disgrace, no one should be picked out like this for abuse. However I am really not surprised that it has happened in Peterborough. I worked there for quite some time but chose to commute 90 minutes each way rather than endure actually living there. The reason is quite simple, it's an utter hell hole.

You have to actually go there to really get it. First there's the arson problem, it has the highest number of arson incidents per head of population than any other significant centre of population in the UK. Why? I don't know, but the locals seem to quite enjoy it. They even petrol bombed their own 900 year old world herritage site cathedral a few years back.

I personally know the head of child protection at Peterborough council and can tell you that there are twice the number of kids in care as they should have given the population. That's a shocking statstic. And it comes from absolutely rapant drug and alcohol abuse and general poverty. And it effects every ethnic group. Peterborough has large Pakistani and Polish populations as well as Italian, Chineese and Afro Carribean populations, and they all have their problems.

And in a town like that is it really surprsing that violent crime is a problem and that the RAF, who stand out when in uniform, are on the wrong end of it?

I had another run in with Peterborough on Tuesday. For my sins I am a Barnet fan and went to see them lose at home to Peterborough. The Peterborough fans celebrated by pelting us with coins, and even knocked one of our fans unconscious. Now it was not entirely unprovoked, we have a small dick head element who had spent most of the game trying to provoke them, yet it shows the mentality of many of those from that town.

What you do about a problem like that I don't know. I have no answeres. I just think it's a sad reflection on the inequalities in this country.

The Joys of Spring

Well spring is trying to stick it's head in the door, which is nice. I do love this time of year, and March particularly, the days get a lot longer, very quickly, I love that feeling. But this year, it has brough something else, something penatrating , something that is driving me to the edge of distraction.

There are Starlings nesting and mating, furiously and noisily, outside my bedroom window.

Now I know that this is nature's way, I am not a prude, they are clearly havign the time of their lives and frankly goodluck to them. But why? Why do they have to nest in the eves just outside my bedroom window and then start going for it, and I mean really going for it, I mean swinging from the chandalier, type going for it at 5am every bloody morning? Do they not understand that some of us are trying to bloody sleep?

It is getting to the point of being intolerable!

Starting at uni

Talking to a 17 year old explorer scout a couple of days ago it struck me that there is a generation growing up now who are missing out on a huge adventure. Now don't worry, I'm not going ot bang on in a Daily Mail fashion about how kids not knowing they're born etc and being protected by 'elf and safety. No what I'm talking about is those first few days at uni.

Now some of you may think that I'm mad, after all more people than ever are going to uni. But that's not what it's about. You see when i started uni (6 October 1996, the date is engrained on my heart forever) I did not own, no one I knew owned and indeed I had never actually seen, in the flesh, a mobile phone. Yes kids there was such a time! There was no such thing as MSN messenger, facebook or myspace. I had never sent or received an email and had never seen a website. I had internet access at uni but it was painfully slow. In short, when I went to uni I was cut off from my friends back home or at other uni's completely. In those first few days there was simply no way of staying in touch and even then it meant letters or emails that may not be picked up for days when someone could be arsed to queue for a computer in the library.

At that meant it was an adventure, that first day you simply had to jump in with both feet and talk to people around you. Now there is another option, that first night at uni, when it's all very scary, you can text your mate at the other end of the country, you can phone your friend somewhere else. Facebook allows you to join freshers groups before you even take you a-levels. the whole in at the deep end experience is lost. And while it might make startign at uni less stressfull why does that mean its a better thing? No adventure was ever stress free!