Recap of the month - July 2023

Well, I had a feeling July was going to be mega-busy. And I was right.

New job... not as a train driver, though

The most mega-thing of the mega-busy month was finally changing jobs. This has been in train for a while, as I was working through a three month notice period. After 13 years I have left the NHS and joined the charity Diabetes UK. It's a communications management role working on a programme that supports young people with Type 1 Diabetes.

My final week in the NHS was a big one, with a booked-out event held at the National Botanic Gardens of Wales near Carmarthen.

Blodau Gymreig

The event logistics were unusual, in that we were spread over two locations with a short walk in-between. The short walk was through a garden and the paths featured tiny wandering frogs. It was the first time I've ever experienced people being late for sessions because they were rescuing amphibians. 

I took a day off in that last week to travel to London to meet my new colleagues as a rare face-to-face meeting had been scheduled on the Thursday before I was due to start. I travelled up with two members of staff from the Cardiff office, which was helpful to start getting a handle on the programme. I also timed it well as there was an organisation-wide social event - with a beach theme - in the afternoon, which included beer! Not bad for a first day.

My beach-ready new team (and me)

And so to my last day...

Last day selfie. Goodbye NHS Wales!

After clearing my locker and handing my laptop back, it was time to say goodbye. Some of my colleagues joined me later in the evening at The Vegetarian Food Studio for a goodbye meal. We all ate a lot of very good food! Despite living around the corner from the restaurant for over two decades, it was the first time I had ever eaten there. I'm hoping I get the chance to go back soon. 

That was the Friday night. I had a weekend of unemployment and then on the Monday I started the new job. As I've said to a few people, this job change feels like I am rolling back through my career - back to diabetes, back to comms, back to the third sector! In a weird way it feels a lot like coming home after a long time away, and so far the people I got to know in those former roles have welcomed my prodigal soul back. 

Ah, it's easy to get sentimental about these things. I've landed in the middle of a big rebranding exercise, with an important showcase piece of work due to drop in a few short weeks, so I've had to shake off some rust and dust and get up to speed quickly. But so far, so good. 

Outside of work it's been busy too. The football season has restarted and I went a record number of games for July - in fact, I'm going to do a run down of the games I went to separately. 

Cathy and I also went to our first gig of the year together - to see Bastille at Cardiff Castle (which I've already blogged about). We also had a rare outing to the cinema and saw the new Pixar movie, Elementals.

I even made it to this month's Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick - finds this time included a microwave oven and a trashed standard lamp.

So, all in all, a busy 31 days. 

August 2021 - End of month review

August was a month of football for me. I went to 11 matches, which is more in a month than I have managed in some seasons. I started with a trip across to Tremorfa to watch Grange Albion play their local rivals, Bridgend Street. And I ended my footballing month on the 31st watching Barry Town come back from behind to snatch a win with a penalty in the very last minute aginst Haverfordwest County. 

Along the way I watched The New Saints play against a team from the Czech Republic in Cardiff, watched Barry play away in Aberystwyth and Cefn, near Wrexham, and managed a "twofer" with a Grange Albion game in the afternoon and a Barry game kicking off at tea-time. It was hectic.

The Barry fans made a lot of noise at Aberystwyth - there was an interchange on Twitter where a local said they "could hear you in the pet shop", which would make an excellent slogan to stick on a banner some time. My friend Matt came with me to Aberystwyth, and after the game we went down and had a look at the seafront. It was a long day out, but it was a fun day out. 

This past month we discovered a fast food franchise that does a decent vegetarian alternative. The KFC vegan burger just about meets Cathy's dietary requirements, and is a much better option than any of the meatless meals available at similar outlets. We have been restrained and not eaten too many of them.

I haven't had much free time inbetween a full work schedule and a full footballing schedule. However, I managed to finish reading a book! (One of the ones blogged about here.) My reading has taken a massive hit over the past year and a half. It's tempting to blame the pandemic because it seems to get blamed for every other disruption in life.

I found some time to build some Blood Bowl figures. I constructed half the team of lizardmen that I was given for my birthday back in 2020 (almost 18 months ago!) and I have high hopes to actually play a game this coming month!

My favourite player is the Chameleon Skink, who has a special ability to intercept passes, courtesy of his long tongue. Here he is, pictured in the act!

If the team gets a run-out in September, then I will let you know how he gets on!

USA & Canada 2016 - More bits from Boston

You can't really do a city in an extended weekend and Boston is several pretty big places rolled into one. But we did manage to do more than the Freedom Trail and watching the Red Sox. Here are 5 more things we experienced.

1) The Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library. This was unique and very cool. In the 1930s the Christian Science church erected a hollow stained glass globe that you can walk through. It's several metres across. Illuminated from the outside you can see all the continents, even if the old colonial and communist borders no longer exist. Well worth a visit.

The big Christian Science church on the plaza is the epicentre for the organisation as well. It's an impressive building.

2) Harvard. We went for a wander around the famous university campus.

But the main reason we went all the way out there was to visit the Curious George Shop on Harvard Square. It was something Cathy had wanted to do since seeing it on her first trip to Boston 11 years previously. So we ticked that off the list!

3) Went to a Vegan Diner. Walking away from Harvard on Massachusetts Avenue we went to Veggie Galaxy.

We got talking to the waitress there who described it as a "diner for fat vegans." Here's one of them waiting for his vegan pancakes.

4) "Let's go to the mall!" It was raining one day so we went for a drive to an out of town mall in Braintree, to the South of Boston. It had a Lego Shop. It would have been rude not to go in.

Big shout out to Dave who works there, who was ace (I should have got a photo with him!). He hooked us up with some Lego Store passports. These are only used in North America and are supposed to be for kids.

5) Ate some crazy food. One evening we went to Trident Booksellers on Newbury Street. We had fried pickles as a starter...

... and then for a "main" I had the lemon riccotta stuffed french toast off the breakfast menu. It was basically a main course of cake.

I should add a picture of where we stayed. It was the Beech Tree Inn in Brookline. A lovely B&B!

When we arrived on our very first day we spotted a chipmunk as we pulled up and parked. Before we even checked in we'd wandered around half of the exterior of the Inn trying to get a photo of him.

There's a whole load more I could say about Boston, but after some jam-packed days we were heading West to new adventures.

Fairy Hearts for sale - gendered marketing meets meat

I spotted this shopping in Asda Cardiff Bay, and am quite proud that is has since been added to the Sociological Images pointlessly gendered products pinterest board, after I tweeted the pics.

But more to the point, isn't there something deeply disturbing in encouraging little girls to eat fairy hearts? What images does that conjure up? Fairies being farmed intensively in large barns full of glittering cages, fattened up and cruelly murdered so that little human 'princesses' can gorge themselves?

It reminds me of the horrible scene in Stardust where the witches are going to murder Yvaine so they can eat her heart and have their youth restored. Is that what Asda think they are doing by selling these?

In a way, of course, that is what they will achieve. The 'princessing' of little girls is one of the most powerful programmes for infantilising and disempowering women in our culture. Making little girls eat fairy hearts is part of a much wider scheme to dress them all in pink, and limit their dreams to wishing they were pretty enough to win the heart of a prince, instead, of, you know, getting out there and kicking ass.

Even before I was a vegetarian I would never have touched processed meat garbage products like this. But sadly many parents will, and in reinforcing the cultural conditioning of princessiness, this disgusting looking meat isn't the only crap they are forcing down their daughters' throats.

Petroglyphs on Potash Road

This morning we left Moab and travelled down the Potash Road to look at the seven hundred year old rock art carved into the dark coating on the cliffs. Of course, several modern day artists have carved stuff next to it too. But the original figures are still compelling and curious. One set, carved like a set of people cut out from paper made me smile.

On the way back to our car we saw a family of skunks crossing the road - a mum and three babies. We followed her at a distance and watched her safely esconce her family in the a tiny cave behind a tree.

From Moab we headed out to Natural Bridges National Park, before taking an off-road trip to Muley Point where we could look out over Monument Valley - the real wild west of mesas and scrub. After traversing a switchback road down a cliff we took another off-road diversion - this time a 20 mile trip through the Valley of the Gods.

When we arrived in our destination for the night, Bluff, there were very few places open. We ended up in a barbecue steakhouse and I sacrificed my vegetarian ethics so I could actually eat something - authentic deep south barbecue chicken. It was delicious.

Britains Space figures and an ironic bag

Popped into town yesterday and bought some Britains Space figures in a fit of nostalgia for my childhood.



The retro toy dealer gave me them in a plastic bag from a butcher's shop in Penarth. So there I am, new-found vegetarian walking round town looking like I'm carrying a couple of pork chops in a plastic bag. Fortunately I was able to go to a regular shop to buy a birthday present for Cathy and get a less embarrassing bag, which I could also stash my space figures in.

For anyone out there who's a toy geek, the Britains Space range were sold in the early to mid 80s. The yellow figure is a human Starguard. The black figure is an alien. The bizarre green creatures are alien mutants and the weird bluish figures are Cyborgs. Don't ask me how I know all these things.

The alien mutants and the cyborgs are part plastic, part rubber and the rubber is incredibly tacky after all this time. The way the rubber's started to corrode makes the Cyborgs especially fearsome-looking.

VILE

Following on my recent post about becoming vegetarian I had an interesting back and forth in the comments with Clare. So I sent her this link to a recipe for Squirrel Melts, which kind of proves my point about the animals you eat being a rather arbitrary choice.

Her response: "That is VILE!" (Hence the title of this post)

And if you do go get the recipe for Squirrel Melts, note the part where she adds the pecans, because "you know how squirrels love nuts".

Yes, when they're ALIVE.

Beanless

Went out last night after building furniture and shunting boxes round at Dr Nicholl's behest to Nandos, only to be greeted by a sign that said: 'No bean patties today'. So I had to have a veggieburger instead, which wasn't too bad actually.

Now you might be asking 'Why didn't you just have the piri piri chicken and be done with it?' And I guess that's the thing. Since coming back from the States, I've harboured a secret. I've become a vegetarian.

There were plenty of reasons to do it. The farming industry is notoriously cheap and animals are mistreated badly. And I actually quite like animals. Sheep and cows not so much, but pigs are cute. Maybe I like grunty, snorty creatures who don't care much what anyone thinks because they remind me of me. Is it hypocritical to think pigs are cute and feed them in petting zoos and then chow down on some bacon? And, incidentally, what is the difference between eating pigs and eating dogs? It all seems very arbitrary to me.

So, reason 1: I like animals.
Reason 2: I'm fortunate to live in a society where I have a choice in what I eat, and I believe when you're given a choice it's your moral duty to make an ethical decision. I disapprove of people who prioritise their own tastebuds over the human rights and dignity of tea-pickers (in fact, deliberately choosing not to drink fair trade tea or coffee is a good reason why some people will go to hell). So, if I have the choice, and I should make an ethical choice, surely the ethical choice is to not eat meat, on so many levels.

And then there's the third reason. As I've already said the farming industry is shabby and cheap. We'll feed animals dead animals and then watch people's brains turn to mush. We'll pump our chickens full of oestrogen and wonder why men are growing boobs. I've put on some weight, and my man-tits are getting weighty. But they've shrunk since I stopped eating chicken and turkey.

And finally, in New York we met up with Dan Piraro. He's an artist I respect and he's passionate about animal rights. We chatted a bit around the subject (he's a vegan) and much of what he said made sense, but unlike many vegetarian prosetelysers, he didn't try to put me on a guilt trip, he didn't try and disgust me by telling me jelly babies are made from horses' hooves, or that pork sausages are full of pig eyeballs, and he didn't judge me. And that convinced me you can be a vegetarian and not be a swivel-eyed loon.

Plus you have to look at the ridiculous things people say to justify eating meat:
1) Hitler was a vegetarian. No, he wasn't, unless vegetarians eat Bratwurst. But it is true he was prescribed a vegetarian diet in order to treat his chronic flatulence, presumably because his doctors wanted it to get worse...
2) The Bible says we should eat meat. Really? Who's got the theology degree here?
3) Biologically we're built to eat meat. I'm not a biologist, but I have seen proper carnivores and we don't look much like them. Sorry, at best we're omnivores. Like hedgehogs.
4) Vegetarians are weird. Well, I was weird a long time before I became a vegetarian. If you don't believe me go for a trip through my blog archives.