Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
This is our cat as was in a photo taken this day 2008 with a new Canon DSLR. I think you can see she was as inscrutable, more likely tolerantly bored, as she’d ever been in the last fifteen years. Can you see in her face that she knew enough about deception to be able to catch unwary garden birds?
‘No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard and fast and specific decision.’
– Barbara W Tuchman in The Guns of August (1962)
I come from an island where bigotry was entrenched. I grew up with bigotry occupying the thoughts of many who surrounded me. So many forms of bigotry that today we break them out into prejudices that can be defined and proscribed in law. I don’t think that one or two generations is enough to purge any society of bigots. Time may work but I doubt prejudice can disappear. To be human is to want to belong to families, tribes, corporations, gangs, nations, isms and factions.
I’ve gone down another rabbit hole with Bill Bryson. I’ve been along for the ride with him several times as he made ‘notes’ from small islands and big continents. And his idea of a history of nearly everything was great fun. His idea for The Body as A Guide for Occupants has been as enjoyable and informative a read as any of his books.
I wonder if McPlant can save the world? I’ll bet the CEO has the same question. One company’s sales of 75 burgers per second represents a lot of slaughter. And there are many burger outlets across the globe. And we all know that abattoirs aren’t nice places. Perhaps that’s why so many humans close their eyes when they bite into the machine ground flesh between breads. Industrial death is surely as unacceptable for animals as for humans?
It’s the middle(ish) of November and so it’s Movember again. Male sports is once again a showcase for the annual 70’s pornstar moustache revival. I used to do Movember fund raising when I had the enthusiasm that you get after you or someone close has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Now I prefer to publicise the risks of cancer. I prefer to encourage men to have an annual screening specifically for prostate cancer.
