The Third Blog Of Trig - A Common Philosophy

Okay, blog number three...'three'...'three'...where do I go with 'three'..?

'Three's a crowd'...'crowd'...'people'...'life'...'philosophy'...I'm off! Here we go!

Differences in philosophy are a major, dominant factor in the wars of humans. Of course, common philosophies do bring pockets of people together in agreement to some degree, but ultimately the petty differences between the different world religions/cults/beliefs can lead single minded egotistical humans to become very angry, to the point where they will hurt, maim, rape, kill each other to punish the other for not agreeing, or to simply rid them from this Earth. I don't think it is unreasonable to say that this is the most devisive issue in the world today. Where does it stem from?

More often than not in this world, people neglect their enquiry into the nature or purpose of their existence and latch onto someone else's explanation or conclusion, or else they simply abandon their enquiry altogether and chase material or physical pleasures. The late preacher-teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said, "truth is a pathless land." By this he meant that each individual can only find truth, god, enlightenment, peace, through their own path, that as individuals we inevitably all tread different paths, so to all follow one spiritual path led out before us is folly. He also said that in order to embrace our own true path we must embrace the moment we pass through, which is the only real truth we ever encounter in our lives.

The world needs a common philosophy, without doctrine, to bring about peace. My logic tells me that this could only be based around the realisation of the indisputable fact that life, the one moment of unity we all occupy and pass through, is an amazing miracle. Don't take that statement as having any relation to religion. I refer to the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness, between living and not; to be born out of nothing that we can recall and be presented with an ongoing moment of perception, from within a strange unchosen body, faced with challenges, and questions we may never see answered, as part of an amazing, infinitely varied yet unified world.

It IS a miracle, this moment. How can you willfully depress the miracle of another person's life under that realisation.

This is "The Third Blog Of Trig", signing off.

The Fifth Blog of Trig - I Am So Lucky

I am so lucky.

I have a loving supportive family.

I have had a good education.

I was brought up in a nice area of London, one of the richest cities in the world, with friends as lucky as myself, who believe in the same basic principles as I do.

If I cannot afford to eat I will be fed.

If I cannot afford a roof I will be taken in.

If I am sad I will be hugged.

If I am cold I will be clothed.

I have all this, and still it is a struggle to make ends meet, but I am fine, there are people who have had none of these things. We try to help these people, for the sake of Empathy, humanity, for the future of society and the benefit of mankind as a whole.

We provide money for those who have nothing to eat.

We provide housing for those who have no home.

We provide councilling for those who have no-one to hug.

We provide healthcare for those who cannot afford it.

We provide psychiatric care for those who need it.

We provide care for the elderly.

We support those who have no support.

These services help to create a situation where there are less people in need of our help, as they are able to help themselves. This is what 'social services' should be, assisting people in learning how to live their lives, in harmony with others, encouraging them, with the justifications of Empathy and logic, to abandon their ego, abandon their pride, and live with each other; FOR each other; for the sake of themselves and for the sake of humanity.

Our governments are currently systematically removing this support from the most vulnerable people in society. They are not stupid, they know what effect this will have on us all:

The poor will become poorer.

Deprived areas will become more deprived.

Ignorace and associated racism and classism will rise as the media subtly blames immigrants for taking jobs and foreign (very much controlled) issues for rising costs.

Crime will rise as a result of youth deprivation, mainstream media education and a lack of responsible supervision and activities for young people.

Insurance rates of the rich will rise due to rising crime, who blame the poor for their 'laziness' and aggressiveness, their opinions shaped by the violence on their TV sets, which does nothing to educate the rich on the causes of crime and violence.

The class gap between the rich and poor develops further, and one blames the other for their misfortunes.

The condemnation by the media of the angry disillusioned poor is echoed in the voices of the ignorant apathetic rich, who sit in their comfy sofas exercising ethical hypocrisy daily between their family and work personas, making decisions which contribute to the degradation of the society they try so hard to prepare their children for financially.

People often point out that I have got it easy, that some people are born with much less, so I shouldn't complain so much. What they fail to realise is that I am not complaining about MY situation. I am one of the lucky ones, and I recognise this every day. This is the reason I am able to complain, because I am lucky enough to have the leisure in my life to look into the lives of others and empathise with situations other than my own. I am lucky enough to not have to worry about where I will get food if I can't find work.

I am so lucky. I try to speak on behalf of those who are not.

This is "The Fifth Blog Of Trig", signing off.

The Sixth Blog of Trig - The Truth Teacher

I spent some time talking to my grandmother last night and I spoke of some of my school memories, specifically of my history lessons. When I was at school I had a history teacher by the name of Mr Oulton, who was also my head of year. He was quite a dominating powerful figure, tall and stern, but a very fair and decent man. I wasn't the most well behaved student, and I remember spending much time standing outside of his office. I wasn't a bad kid, but I was cheeky and mischievous and not particularly hard working, at all, so I spent my fair share of time in detentions, including the infamous 'Saturday Detentions'. I told my grandmother how, no matter how many times he found me outside his office for some misdemeanor, I never remember him speaking down to me, or treating me unfairly or contemptuously in any way. He treated me with unearned respect, and I hope that I returned that respect to some degree. I fear that in my immaturity I may not have.

Much of schooling these days is based around the learning of what we refer to as 'facts'. This is especially apparent in so-called 'history' lessons, where school children are often presented with a timeline of what are locally considered to be the 'important'/'relevant' events to be remembered. A good history teacher, such as was Mr Oulton, does not simply demand recall of these details from memory. Any good teacher should encourage and assist students in the practise of exercising a logical process to determine what is fact and what is not. A good teacher, a TRUE teacher, should teach and encourage the pursuit of TRUTH.

I remember Mr Oulton, possibly upon commencing his teaching of us, stressing to us the importance of questioning what is presented to us as 'fact'. We were taught to assess any given source of information logically, to ask ourselves to question who wrote it, what their background was, their political views, their personality, locality, and subsequently, what possible motive they could have had for producing that source of information. Then of course, you must then assess this background information for its own reliability and accuracy. If you can find discrepancies then you must question the information further until you have satisfied your uncertainty to the best of your ability. This is not just the study of history. It is THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH.

We are born with a powerful, inherent ability to assess and identify truth, and the ability to retain our findings as memory. Children naturally investigate their environment to the greatest degree possible, as this is the only way to properly understand the world we are born into. We grab at things in an attempt to understand the limbs we have been born with, and once we have established the truths of our physical abilities we can further analyse the association between ourselves and the world. The natural curiosity and inquisitiveness of children, this pursuit of truth, is what facilitates our growth and development. This is why we learn faster as children than at any other time in our lives.

Schools today all-to-often stifle our childrens' curiosity, for the sake of learning half-truths and sometimes blatant lies by rote, usually for the motives of the people bearing the physical power in the world. This is indoctrination; the bane of curiosity, enquiry, understanding and development. Indoctrination can be very obvious in some cases, and in others it can be very subtle. It is often very difficult to identify, as its very purpose is to restrict wider understanding and conceal truth. Indoctrination is to human beings what stagnation is to water.

There has always been division and conflict between human beings in the world. These divisions often arise from intolerance, which can be attributed to a lack of understanding, which itself is brought about by an indoctrinated unwillingness to understand and Empathise with anything outside of the doctrine. It has nothing to do with ability. As I have mentioned, everyone is born with a natural instinct to investigate and attempt to understand the world around them, but the enforcement of false truths upon enquiring minds forcefully occupies time and creates a distraction from our natural inquisitive instinct to search for truth.

Looking back, Mr Oulton was more than just a history teacher to me. I did not understand at the time, but he was teaching us to think for ourselves. He was teaching us to take in information, without being taken in by it.

Since leaving school I have discovered that many of the 'facts' presented to us in our history books were either half-truths or purely false 'truths'. Mr Oulton reminded us of our natural instinctive ability to question the 'history' he was forced to have us learn. He showed us the logical process by which we could assess the world as individuals, in order to form our own opinions and improve our understanding, based upon an instinctive logical process.

Mr Oulton was not just a history teacher. He was a teacher of truth.

This is "The Sixth Blog Of Trig", signing off.

The Fourth Blog of Trig - London, March 26th 2011

Saturday 26th March 2011, I was eager to get into London for the protests and decided that I needed a photographer, and it could only be Matty B. He took a little persuasion, so I filled the air with prophecies of tens of thousands of people in the streets of London, thousands of armed, armoured police officers, and of course, a moral obligation to add our numbers to those out in the streets that day, protesting the actions of the terrible money-men who run our world. But I think it was the prospect of some good photographs that sealed the deal.

We got there before midday, getting off the tube at Embankment. We immediately found ourselves immersed in immense crowds of smiling, cheering, singing protesters, pouring in from every street like floodwater finding its way to the main river course. The police acted like floodgates in their capacity as 'mediators' of this mass act of defiance, kindly directing us through the tributaries until we found ourselves part of a swollen river of people being flushed into the Hyde Park ocean, where we slowed, quietened, and were subdued by words that turned us all into 'comrades'.

Along the course marching bands played in unison, with drummers drumming out machine-gun rolls that seemed to fit in nicely with the sound of helicopters hovering overhead. Scattered through the streets amongst the bright eyed TUC public sector workers, the occasional group of masked 'Black Bloc' protestors reminded some of us that the government will probably completely ignore us, and that some people are going to assume this as pre-emptive fact and smash up the banks and the stores of the rich tax-dodgers to demonstrate their anger and dissatisfaction. These are by far the minority however. The vast majority of the reported 500,000 people were there to peacefully, albeit loudly demonstrate their disgust

As we left Embankment tube we were not allowed out of the riverside entrance, and were forced out of the north exit through crowds of people handing out red pro-communist leaflets and newsletters. This continued up to The Strand where we began following protesters East towards somewhere we hoped we could join the procession along the river. We had to sneak past police down towards Waterloo Bridge, turning into Somerset House where we got a nice view over the balcony of many tens of thousands of people readying themselves for the march. 

We had to double back up to the Strand as police were not allowing anyone to go down the steps to Victoria Embankment, so we ended up joining the riverside just east of Temple tube station. The atmosphere was amazing. Everyone was smiling, cheering, singing, chanting, dancing as bands played music, banners waving in the wind. Mothers and fathers walked with their children. Those who could not walk came on their wheelchairs. Old, young, black, white and brown all marched together, all smiles, eyes reflecting the feeling of elation I felt.

Every one of the public services was represented; firemen, nurses, ambulance, teachers, carers and many many more. The only people I didn't see represented among the protesters were the police. I don't know whether to read anything into this or not. They might have been busy that day...



We made our way through the procession, which seemed to go on forever, never seeing the beginning or the end. Matty snapped photos of the police and the protesters while I gazed around smiling, shouting at him occasionally to catch a shot of something. All of the protesters wore smiles; beaming, happy smiles that I empathised with; it was amazing to see so many people, men women and children of all different races, religions, different backgrounds, all joining forces for a common good. Everyone had forgotten their petty differences and come together to ask that our government exercise some humanity, or else move aside for someone who is capable.

Some of the police looked pretty menacing a lot of the time, and I tried to cheer them up by saying hello and smiling as we walked past. Some replied in a friendly manner, others stared at me, as the late great Bill Hicks put it, 'like a dog that's just been shown a card trick'. The shot below is typical. Guy on the left, whistling happily to himself. Nice. Friendly. Guy on the right, looks like he wants to spray us with CS for existing. Now, he has been given the duty of protecting a statue, so he might just be pissed off about that. I would be too.

As we made our way down towards Westminster the police presence intensified. The protesters of course hit a crescendo, and many people pulled out their megaphones. As we turned right at Parliament we encountered Libyan protesters lined along the streets, protesting British and US intervention, saying that contrary to the news reports, Libyans did not want our 'help'. And I'm not surprised. Look what has happened to Iraq and Afghanistan thanks to our 'help'.

We soon passed Downing Street, which had a good few police officers outside of course. The entire procession continued straight past without stopping.

"Hold on!," I shouted out to the crowds, "shouldn't we stop and shout a bit? The bastards are right in there!"

But everyone continued on their way to Hyde Park. I was shocked that people were not stopping to shout at Cameron in Downing Street, but of course, that is the way it was planned. We had a date at Hyde Park to hear a bunch of nicely choreographed protest speeches, all arranged for 1.30pm, and we were already running late, so we walked straight past the door of the man in charge without a word. I believe the 'Black Bloc' protesters kicked up more of a fuss, but I think that they turned up later than us, and they weren't worried about turning up fashionably to Hyde Park, if at all.



The rest of the march was fairly uneventful, and we arrived at Hyde Park for about 1pm. Tony Robinson was presenting the show, and various speakers came up, all with their own underlying causes to promote, which I felt drew us away from the unity everyone had felt on the march. The speakers called us 'comrades', for which it was impossible to ignore the soviet/communist connotations. I didn't know why they didn't just call us 'friends', or 'fellow humans' or something. It felt like the whole protest had been hijacked by communists and the Metropolitan Police. I felt completely deflated, and we left to find a pub after hearing three speakers.



Now, here's where it got even more interesting. As we headed towards a pub, we heard shouting down one of the roads leading east off of Park Lane. I suddenly saw a crowd of riot police, many splattered in paint, running down the street dodging a hail of paint bombs, after a crowd of protesters dressed in black waving the black and red 'Black Bloc' flag as they went.

"Matty come on mate! Photo opportunity!" I shouted, "Come on! Come on! Quickly!"

So we left the three friends we were with, promising to catch up with them at the pub later, and suddenly there we were, chasing a crowd of twenty or thirty paint splattered riot police down the street, who in turn were chasing a crowd of 'Black Bloc' protesters down the street, dodging paint as they went. The Black Bloc crew had in their midst a guy on a bicycle, pulling a boom-box on a trailer with hip-hop blasting out. Not too ironically, the tune I remember hearing was NWA's 'Fuck Da Police'. That made me smile. Shit, I might have even sang along...

We followed the police for a while, dodging the odd paint bomb which got through their lines. I remember one police officer in particular, a tall man looking like he was in his mid-forties, about 6'4" and well built, running down the street whacking lamp posts with his baton. I remember him clearly and have since seen him in a few videos online. The look on his face was unforgettable. He was enjoying it all thoroughly. He wore a twisted grin like some sort of fairy tale gremlin catching a victim. It's hard to describe what I saw in his eyes, but it has stuck in my memory. I would recognise him anywhere, and I would probably avoid him.

As we bolted down the street the Black Bloc crew smashed things as they went. They graffiti'd police cars and shop windows. Some smashed windows. Occasionally police would catch up and grab one, but the crowd would come back and release their 'comrade' quickly before darting off. At one point the police managed to corner a few of them. They surrounded them with outward-facing riot police and searched for weapons while 'legal observers' attempted to ensure that the police were not using excessive force. We saw a policeman pull sandwiches, bananas and water from the bag of one lad. By now there was crowds of protesters joining the Black Bloc crew, partly in support, and certainly in part for the excitement.



And so it moved on. The BB crowd seemed to grow quickly, with smaller groups all converging into one big mass as we neared Oxford Circus. When we arrived at the main crossroads where you find Oxford Circus tube station, the number of people was staggering. The police were massively outnumbered. As we came to a halt we could see the remnants of the 'TUC Armed Wing' Trojan Horse burning in the middle of the road. The BB guy on the bike stopped, turned the volume up, and just like that Oxford Circus became an impromptu drum & bass rave. Everyone started dancing. I started dancing. What an amazing feeling, that this relatively small group of people had beaten the guardians of this crooked government and taken back the streets. And we celebrated that fact with the chant, "WHOSE STREETS?" - "OUR STREETS!" - "WHOSE STREETS?" - "OUR STREETS!"



Matty and I hung around a while longer. I danced and chatted to people while Matty snapped shots. Police seemed to be milling around the outskirts not doing too much. Then without warning a police van came ploughing dangerously through the crowd, before the protesters stood their ground, some lying down on the floor defiantly. Out of nowhere riot police flew in and threw people out of the way and the van passed through. It seemed to be a kind of decoy, since it drove away slowly, allowing the angry protesters chasing to keep up with it. This dispersed the crowd some, and then Matty said he was going to go find our friends at the pub so we moved off into the side streets.



We arrived at the pub and breathlessly told our friends about the drama down in Oxford Street. The pub's punters took a moment from the live BBC broadcast from Fortnum & Masons to listen to us, before we were drawn to the TV ourselves as Piccadilly Circus erupted. We watched the chaos on the TV and I decided I was going back in. The adrenaline was pumping and I wanted more. I wanted to see what kind of action the police took, the protester response, I couldn't just go home now!

We finished our pints and went our separate ways, since Matty had prior engagements that evening. I headed off in the direction the helicopters were looking, triangulating my direction from them every few minutes. I was excited, jogging through the streets looking for the crowds, picking up a 'Bust Card' along the way. This is a card lawyers firms provide to protesters letting them know their rights and telling them who to call if they are arrested.



After jogging through side streets for twenty minutes or so I found myself in the thick of it again, right outside Boots in Piccadilly, where there was an enormous police presence barricading the store (owned by a NY based private equity firm and accused of enormous tax-dodging) to protect it from angry protesters. The area was effectively kettled, with lines of police along every road out and practically no exit except for the tube station, obviously to try and coax people to head home. Shortly after I arrived a man came out of the crowds that were skirmishing with police, blood all over his face. I gave him my bottle of water to wash himself, and he vanished back into the fray.



I moved towards the police lines to get a better view and found that it was getting much more heated. The police were being taunted by the more aggressive protesters, resulting in police charges with batons swinging, sending the crowds flying backwards. The protesters attempted to set up roadblocks between the police and themselves, carrying festival barriers, bins, anything they could get their hands on to the front line, whereby the police would charge periodically, beat them back and remove the barriers again. In the centre of all this, non-violent protesters watched the carnage around them fairly calmly, lighting fires in the road to keep warm, singing songs, smoking, drinking and chatting. Some people shouted for everyone to head for Trafalgar Square, but the police blocked the way.



Protesters climbed onto the fountain in the centre to get a better view, or simply to wave their banners and flags, like conquerers claiming land. I join them a while. We all smile, we all sing.

Below us, around us, people play music and drums bang away in a warlike fashion, people chant and shout and sing and the police lines stand firm. The paint bombs are all but used up, but some of the more aggressive protesters throw bangers into the police lines, which do not falter as the pavement explodes around them.

As the evening wore on and the light began to fade the police and the protesters were getting visibly worse. The police were tired and stressed, the protesters were tired and angry, and the violence was escalating. This is when I made the decision to leave. I knew that as night fell the police would descend upon those left with force, as indeed they also did in Trafalgar Square later that evening. I wanted to stay, but I had been walking for the best part of twelve hours, had not eaten for six, and I was exhausted. The decision to flee came quickly. I turned and walked 20 metres to the tube station and walked down the steps into a world of calm. I sat on the tube quietly and reflected on the day, looking around the carriage wondering what involvement the passengers had had in the day's events. And what a day it had been.

When I got home, I smoked a joint, committing my first and only crime of that day.



This is "The Fourth Blog of Trig", signing off.
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- All good quality pictures and video in this post are courtesy of Matthew Luke Broughton, via Matthew Luke Photography.
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- All poor quality pictures on this post are courtesy of me.

The Second Blog of Trig - The SS (Social Services)

Okay, here we are, blog number two. I'm kind of nervous now, like I should be writing something profound, but nothing is coming to me. Thought maybe I'd make it a kind of diary, but my life isn't that interesting. Well, maybe it is, I don't know. Let's give it a try.

Yesterday I visited Mrs X. She has kids, one of which has a new kid, and they have all been on the child protection register for years, dealing with all kinds of Social Services (SS) bullshit because the father happened to get locked up for something. Now, I don't know exactly what he did, but Mrs X says that he never laid a finger on her. However the SS seem to have on their reports that he beat her up. She says this is complete and total crap. Regardless, they have for some time viewed her children as being in danger, even though the supposed threat is in jail. Because of this she must yield to one surprise visit and one arranged visit from the SS every two weeks. This means that once every two weeks some fresh, eager SS officer turns up at her house unannounced and can demand a guided tour.

Mrs X tells me of the smugness and contempt she has experienced from the SS, and the sneaky way they interrogate her, and when they can get them alone, her children. Her son comes home from school with stories of SS interrogations, much like Orwell's 1984! Her early-teen son tells me how they begin with innocent questions like, 'what sports do you like?', and 'do you have any pets?', leading onto, 'oh and how many dogs do you have?', because too many dogs in the house with young children is grounds to take them away. The SS officer will soon come out with it, 'so, how does your mum punish you? Does she hit you?'. He truthfully tells them that she punishes him by taking away privileges and sending him to his room. He says that they don't accept that straight away and push him further. The boy is a lot of work and gets punished a lot, but he is generally a good kid. He just gets very bored. He also has dyslexia, and he is overweight so sometimes gets bullied. He responds to the bullying and gets in trouble. The school has already labelled him a 'troublemaker' because of previous incidents, but the boy is not malicious. He is intelligent in his own ways, sociable, friendly and confident. It is worth noting that he goes to an 'academy'. This is a school run for profit, so, as I understand it, the government pays the private company for each child they teach. They get more money for children with learning difficulties and are supposed give them more one-to-one time. He gets none. Gotta love capitalism - schools for profit is what freedom is all about (SARCASM ALERT).

Mrs X is a good person. She is a thoughtful person. She is a kind person. She is a philosophical, almost spiritual person, with an ear for bullshit. She was young when she had her first child, not too much older when she had her second, and not long after her third she became a grandmother. She keeps her house clean. She teaches her children to speak properly, not to swear, and they know not to, although she herself slips up in the heat of the moment. She is, and has for some time, been under an enormous amount of stress on a daily basis; stress which might break some people, but not Mrs X. Every week she struggles to keep her children fed, clothed, educated and entertained. She tries to get work when the kids are at nursery/school. She tries to afford them the holidays, clothes, computers and mobile phones which our society demands of them. She tries to forget her own desires; for love, for romance, for a life without struggle; but sometimes I see the tears she fights back.

Every time I go to see her I do my best to be a positive influence in her house. Her children have not grown up with their father, but it seems like they have had many positive male influences in their lives through her friends. I try my best to be one of those. I have given her son free tutoring, spend time drawing and talking with her daughter, I do what little I can to be a positive influence in my friend's household with the time I have, but every one of her efforts and the efforts of her friends are overshadowed by the SS interference and intimidation. Mrs X is not perfect, but she is a good mother and tries to instill values in her children, and their politeness and sociability usually reflect this. Her house is always tidy but Mrs X battles constantly to get her children, her son mostly, to keep their own rooms tidy and maintain their own hygeine, but it does seem like an uphill struggle for her most of the time. She is simultaneously screamed at for attention when there is more than one of the children at home and it seems very stressful for her, but she just about copes.

Her daughter just turned 18, days before giving birth to her first son. Because her daughter is now 18, Mrs X has been told her rent has gone up £80 a week, since her daughter should be working. She has spoken to the housing association and they say they might be able to knock it down, but even if they do, they are sticking an extra bill on her when they should be supporting the family further, and are threatening to take the daughter's new son away because she has missed a couple of SS interrogations. Mrs X now may have to move house because of the arrears that have quickly built up with the new charge. She has been in the house for a few years and has decorated and made it her home, and now she may have to uproot the fragile existence she has built for her family and start fresh.

Who the hell do these SS people think they are? They turn up at someone's house and scrutinise their entire lives for evidence to use against them, seeming like their ultimate goal is to steal the children rather than help the family! When I picture the SS as an entity, using everything I have been told about them, I see it as an evil child-eating gremlin hiding just round the corner, watching my friend and her family, rubbing its' dirty hands together and smacking its' bile-dribbling lips waiting for my friend to slip up so it can steal her children and put them into 'care', where ironically, no-one will ever care for them like their mother ever again.

I recently watched a video on youtube of a 13 year old boy being held down, cuffed and taken away from his father to be put into care, three days before Christmas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEUb9ZR_UD4). The boy said he did not want to go with them, so they said they would carry him out if they had to. They often use the old Nazi excuse of, "we are only following orders." No. They were not following orders. They are human beings who made a decision to kidnap a boy from his father because someone with a position told them to. An 'order' is an imaginary concept. Every person has the choice to refuse an 'order' made against them, so no matter who makes the 'order', whether it be the qUeen or a police officer, it is only EVER a request. Every person is free to decide their own actions. To relinquish responsibility for your actions because you are following orders is the most cowardly act. An 'order' is simply a well-dressed request.

This is "The Second Blog of Trig", signing off.

The First Blog of Trig

Wow, my very first blog! I'm not excited at all. I've avoided this moment for some time now. Everyone says,

"Get a blog! Get a blog! You should get a blog! Everyone's doing it!"

And that's exactly why I've avoided it. Everyone is doing it.

But fuck it. If everyone's doing it I might as well jump on the bandwagon. I can only stick my head in the sand for so long. I've exhausted so very many ways of killing time I might as well explore this one.

So here we are. What now? What comes next?