Pachakutic

i travelled up to manchester this weekend on the nasty express. nothing really express about it but it did give me a chance to read the sunday paper from cover to cover and listen to a variety of podcasts i had downloaded.

one of the podcasts i subcribe to is 'from our own correspondent' that's on radio 4. one of the pieces cuaght my attention as it summed up something i had been following with interest for a while now.

"Pachakutic" means a change in the sun, a movement of the earth which will bring a new era in Quechua, the language of the indigenous people of south america's andean mountains.

the last "pachakutic" was about 500 years ago when the conquistadores invaded and apparently the cycle is due to begin again about now.

the possible earth changing event might be the politics of south america. in all the recent elections, south america voters have voted in a different kind of politician than they have been used to. the 'men in grey suits' as they refer to them on the programme. It started with Lula (Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to give him his full name)- the ex steel worker who swept to power in brazil under a banner of social reform. he's seen as a moderate by the US. they are more scared of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela because Venezuala is the 3rd largest exporter of oil and especially important for th US's energy needs and beacause their arch enemy Fidel Castro keeps popping up at each of their inaugurations.

Another left leaning president is trying to build a more equal society in Chile and whats more she a woma- Michelle Bachelet- quite unusual for south america.

One of the most recent campions of this shift to the left is Bolivia new president Evo Morales- a former coca farmer who is always seen wearing his distintive striped jumper as he is "of the people and voted for by the people and will wear what the people wear, not a suit". apparently the jumper has become a bit of a fashion item back home. i think its really amazing that its the first indigenous person that the have elected president. it seems such an exciting time there. there are more election s this year in Peru, colombia and ecuador where interesting things couldd happen.

of course it all rests on how they do over the next few years.America is very worried already and probably preparing extra space on its Axis list. Bush is also worried as his currant policy to deal with there growing cocaine problem in the US is to wipe out the coca plantations completly in Bolivia for one. Morales satnd on this is sure they will crack down on the illegal trade but the Bolivians use the coca leaves to chew as they always have done. why should they lose out beacasue of a western drug problem. Interesting times.but i think i shift to the left in south america is definately for the best for the people there.

right well i'm just off to my local ingenoius farmers markets to get my stripey jumper and maybe a few coca leaves while i'm there.

January 23 = most depressing day of year

Apparently the most depressing day of the year has been determined to be Monday, 23 January 2006. thats right today. some guy at cardiff uni worked out an equation along the lines of:

{W + (D – d)} x TQ divided by M x NA

The equation is broken down into these variables:
W = weather
D = debt
d = monthly salary
T = time since Christmas
Q = time since failed quit attempt
M = low motivational levels
NA = the need to take action

so today was also the day that lisa had her last exam on the Development and the history of Brazil an I had to hand in my essay. we didnt actually make it see that German guy as we hand all the work to do. thankfully i finished my essay at 2.05. it would have been better if it was 2.05am rather than p.m. like 5 minutes after i should have been in a lecture where i had to hand it in. so I was 30 mins late for the lecture but it was all handed in on time and lisa came ot of her lecture alive so I think we came through the depressing day ok.

weltshmerz pop

we re-entered the unique experience that is the bryn y mor pub last night (see earlier posts for a more in depth explanation of this swansea land-mark). it had been quite a stressed day for both of us. lisa had an exam and i had to try to knuckle down to another essay ( which i still haven't started and probably why i'm writing this blog entry). it had started off badly when some guy knocked on our door at 8.30am. not this front door-the inside door. he said " jean (our crazy landlady) sent me round to fix the door- shall i come back in 15 minutes so you can get sorted". yep not only had she not told us anyone was coming, she also just gave them our frontdoor key. so yeah then they came a-bangin and a-fixin and ruining any chance of getting work done.

anyway back to the bryn. we went in there for the first time since before christmas to see who was about and soon got chatting to various regulars as happens there. i tell you the amount of strange characters that came in, sat down and went in the next 2 hours was extrordinary. first in were 4 guys mostly wearing cowboy hats apart from a robert smith lookalike (from The Cure) who had quite a bit of eye make-up on and long black hair spiked out to the side. as they came in i said to lisa that they had to be in a band and sure enough they were. they came to sit down and it turned out the robert smith guy was a german by the name of daniel colletti who plays some mad music described as Weltschmerz pop on his flyer. He's playing at a local pub tomorrow along with another german band called Spreemohn who apparently play songs from the 1920's in a reggae,punk and ska style.

so these guys in their cowboy hats stayed around for awhile "proclaimed that swansea was a great place" then annouced they had a gig in neath in two hours and must leave. so off they walked (in the wrong direction) to neath. the other thing that was funny was when a whole themed group of people dressed head to toe in cowboy gear walked in and sat at the table next to ours so the guys in our group who just happened to be wearing hats looked like they were part of the other group. what are the chances of going to the pub and 10 people wearing the same hat as you?

in other news rocky discovered she could swim today. neither rocky nor ourselves knew she had this skill untill we chucked her in the water and our local beach. it wasnt that cruel-she had been running through it after a ball before, she just didnt really know what to do when it got deeper. so i kind of made her find out. it was kind of like the kid on the cover of the nirvana album....but a dog.

profile pic

sorry this is just here so i can add a pic to the profile. some things on this blogger are very complicated

having a latvia time!

yes i think if you looked up 'latvia' in the dictionary (or maybe a thesaurus) then the word 'happy' would be right there next to it. well maybe in a very sarcastic dictionary. To explain lisa, jonny and I have just got back from a ryanair enabled quick jaunt to riga, the capital of latvia where we had a great time but weren't convinced the same could be said for teh indigenous latvian population. never before have we seen such a stoney faced non-reactive bunch. I shouldnt be too harsh, they were nice people, maybe they didnt have much to be happy about or maybe they didn't want to show it. but it was strange.

so generally we just milled about the city eating latvian food (potatoes, cabbage and meat), drinking cheap latvian beer (40p ahalf litre) and seeing the sights. one of the highlights for me was eating in a medieval restaurant. The cellar which it was in was first mentioned in 1293 as the most ancient wine-vault and festival place of the Riga City Council! it was all candle lit and they served only medieval meals (so no potatoes as they were only brought over in the 16th century). it could have been a bit over the top like a theme park but i think they got it just right.

oh and after many days of looking i finally found a latvian flag in the airport gift shop. can you belive nowhere in riga sells flags!
probably more riga photos to follow. oh and matt we tried our best not to whistle indoors and on the occasions a peep did slip out we did get some stern (and stoney faced ) looks.

the money and curry from hell

as mark said, new years came 3 minutes early for us in our bar in leeds which kind of stole our thunder a little as we had agreed to celebrate the bringing in of 2006 a second later than everyone else in the bar due to the leap second that had been added on by those kooky atomic clock watchers. we did wait a few more minutes but the reaction wasnt the same after the premature celebration.

there always seems to be such a pressure on new year's eve to have really good plans, to be 'somewhere' when that clock strikes but when i actually look back my most memorable new years were when i wasnt anywhere in particular and hjadnt planned much at all like 2004/5 just sitting around in mark's house or when i stood on a roundabout -not quite having made it into bristol- for the millenium.

so in a bid to avoid the hype lisa an i hot-footed it to leeds for a simple night and it all just fell into place. mark and jo joined us in susanna's emtpy house (situated in the attractive area of beeston, leeds-bomb-making capitol of the England). from there we went into leeds and had the hottest curry known to man. as with every curry i said "hmm not sure what i want to have" to which mark replied "have a vindaloo, they're the best". he too ordered one proving he wasnt just trying to order a hot curry for me. WE WERE IN PAIN. it was stupid. i missed most of the conversation in some sort of curry daze. so we left there and tried to find somewhere to go next and were persauded by the first person selling tickets we came across about 10 metres away. i was quite cool actually. you paid £10 and they gave you 4 banknotes like the one above. which you could exchange for drinks. it was like something out of spirited away- the bath tokens maybe. and to top it off they played some good music- rolling stones, killers ans white stripes etc.

so there we are 2005 over with 2006 just begun. and still another 10 days of holidays. nice