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Category Archives: rant

nice horseThis post is wrongly titled, purely for effect as there is no war on meat because the government aren’t even pretending to care anymore. The current UK meat crisis has spread throughout Europe. For those who don’t know it basically consists of a large amount of meat in UK supermarkets being not quite what they say they are, it began with them having traces of horse DNA in beef mince then some items such as packaged lasagne have been found to be 100% horse meat and a later revelation that in a posh middle class supermarket (Waitrose) their beef meatballs were partly pork, bad for religious reasons in particular, and they knew about it for two weeks before being caught out.

Now some peoples response to this has been ‘what’s wrong with horse, thebad horse French eat it?’ or that they don’t see much difference between horse and cow in processed meat. Which is a fair point if the horses used weren’t from the newly named ‘meat mafia’ sneaking decrepit old diseased horses into the meat supply, these unfortunately are not the same standard as eating a race horse. They are probably more akin to the horses used in dog food. To add to this the horses are treated with a hormone which is potentially harmful when consumed by humans, though that doesn’t seem to have done much yet. Read More »

I seem to always be saving money, either for travel or something else like a Masters degree and apart from making me a bit grumpy and down every now and again I don’t find it too tough a challenge. I’ve realised that because of this I am quite an outcast and that a large percentage of people genuinely lack the ability to save money. Here are my theories.

After recently reading the book ‘Age of Absurdity’ by Michael Foley I have begun to spot all around me signs of instant gratification. People may be saving with intention but when their bank balance reaches a certain level it will suddenly spell out ‘iphone’ or ‘weekend away in a nice hotel’ or ‘shiny expensive shoes’ and all of these things provide you not only with the instant gratification of owning them but, what I think is more important, attention and compliments. Ultimately being careful with money wins you no friends and no attention, you don’t look cool. At what makes it worse is after all the hard work of saving, when you can afford your target, the response is always ‘you’re so lucky’. Luck has nothing to do with hard work and sacrifice. Read More »

Job hunting is a huge emotional rollercoaster for me, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone else. I know that it is meant to be depressing and hard work but my problem with it is quite specific. I always like to know exactly what the next month or year of my life has in store. Not in too much detail but I want to know the general shape of things to come.

Having a bit too much of an imagination means that with every job I apply for I imagine myself in the role and get quite excited. Even when it’s not a job I particularly want I still imagine it as being my future. So then when the inevitable rejection letter comes it feels like someone has ruined my plans and shaken up my entire future. I always have too much hope which means the blow puts me in a bad mood, even if it’s a job I didn’t particularly want, and sometimes those are the worst, you think ‘if I can’t get something I don’t want, how will I ever get something I do want’. And there you are at the beginning of the cycle again applying for four or five jobs a day before you wait for another flow of rejections.

It isn’t a very pleasant way to be living and I really hope this transitory period is nearly over, plus it would be really nice to spend a tenner without having to think long and hard about whether I can afford it.

In my nine months of travel returning home and reintegrating was the single hardest thing I’ve done. It’s not something you expect to be so tough, everyone says about a culture shock but I don’t really understand that because of course I know what England is like, I’ve lived there for 24 years so the culture doesn’t shock me it’s just the mentality and habits of a day to day basis, which I suppose could be considered culture but on the same ways I visited cities abroad I could see the charm in places here. England was, basically, exactly how I had left it. The only problem was that I wasn’t.

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So far in my travels I have really just been to China and SE Asia; China has very little tourism, and most of it people on a two week stop by, and SE Asia has a huge amount of travellers and holiday makers from all walks of life. Meeting people in India I have found tough.

The main two types of people I met in India (bearing in mind I didn’t go to the south) were;

  1. The Rich European

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