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Showing posts from July, 2011

"The day humanity starts eating the planet" - Friday, 03 October 2008

(another from a few years back...) - - - - I read about this sometime last week, and just found this article on the nef (new economics foundation) website. Scarifying. " Tuesday 23 September: The day humanity starts eating the planet On September 23, humanity will have used up all the resources nature will provide this year, according to the latest data from Global Footprint Network and its member organisation nef (the new economics foundation) who devised the concept of Ecological Debt Day. Just like any company, nature has a budget - it can only produce so many resources and absorb so much waste each year. The problem is, our demand on nature's services is exceeding what it can provide. Since the 1980s, humanity has been in ecological overshoot, using resources faster than they can be regenerated and putting carbon into the air faster than it can be reabsorbed. Globally, we now demand the biological capacity of 1.4 planets. But of course, we only have one. The r

'Green Screen - pass it on' - 10th October 2008

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Wow - can't believe this was three years ago, almost.  Look at that poster (that's a beautiful beach on the outer hebrides) - and the website's still there too!  I was so excited about it - it was going to be the best film festival anyone (in Portsmouth) had ever seen - it was going to change the world!  I still believe I am.  Maybe just not quite as much as I hoped. - - - -  " It's happening, people. Next weekend in fact! Please help me pass it on - open and share this note, or just copy the poster onto your facebook/email/website/forehead, and write something arresting like : LOOK AT THIS AND GO THERE next to it. To get the picture to show on your facebook, when you post the note, go to the edit button, and click 'full' (thanks Lynda :0) ) Or you could paste the website address somewhere: www.freewebs.com/greenscreen08 or you could invite people to the event (see my events). Whatever you do, please pass it on. Thanking you hugely"

'The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here' - Thursday, 26 February 2009 at 04:53

What can I say - I love lists, and I love ticking them. So, 41 down, 59 to go... Actually, a little less, as I've read a few more of these since I first did this. -_-_- Because, what else would I be doing at 4.39 in the a.m...? Instructions: Copy this note and then go to 'write a new note' and paste into your notes then... Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read once. Enter a number for the number of times you read something. Make sure you delete my x'S! When you've finished, tag 10 people to do it too, and put your total at the bottom. OK fellow bookworms, let's fight dirty! 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen  2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte x few times 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling x 2 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee x loads 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte x 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell x 2, maybe 3 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman x 1

'Note to self' - Wednesday 4th March 2009 at 00:23

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"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it". -Maulana Jelaluddin Rumi  

Monday 30th March 2009 03:19 - 'One Before I Hit The Sack'

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I think it's been ages since I wrote a proper note or blog. Despite really being in the mood to write one now, I realise that wouldn't be clever - though I've managed to get about 85% of my coursework done over the weekend, there still remains that other 15%, and a small matter of catching up with Arabic before class at 2pm tomorrow. I've had a productive day (& night) though, so I thought I'd leave you with something which, at a more human time of day, I might consider dross, but which, at this time in the morning, high on fatigue and those special sleep-deprivation hormones, I'm rather fond of. - - TĂ¹il I/Starmore - - Snared. I remember it - so strong all passion and depth, awe-striking beauty. So utterly perfect it stopped me in my tracks and, forgetting to breathe, I compelled my me to absorb that moment, drink in every last detail, each stroke. And draw. And dry. Willed myself to form a perfect memory too deep, too absolute to ever be s

31st May 2009 - one of those tag things

Worrying to think I was about to turn 30, not 13, when I typed this lot... - - - - RULES: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. (To do this, go to “notes” under tabs (+) on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.) 1. 'tired' is probably the adjective I most use to describe myself. It's not even that I'm insomniac - just not very good at doing the normal sleeping-at-night thing. 2. 'random' probably comes a very close second. 3. I've started describing my memory as 'pathologically bad' - I don't even know if that's semantically correct, but that really is how bad it is. 4. My

5 ways to make this Ramadan extraordinary! ('heard it once before, but it's worth repeating now')

a fb note from 2 years back - - -  Salaams all, This is a note I got from 'my' sheikh, Sheikh Tawfique Chowhdary. ------------------------------ Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, My dear friends and students, Welcome to our long-lost friend: Ramadan. How we have missed the days of self-restraint and the nights of mercy and delight! After eleven months of sinning, we now have the opportunity to avail ourselves of a month of mercy and forgiveness. For those whose duas have not been answered, the month of answered duas has arrived. For those who have drifted away from the soothing night prayer, or who have never achieved it, the month of the blessed taraweeh has arrived. Welcome to our Lord’s mercy: the month of Ramadan. No doubt each and every one of us approaches Ramadan with a special excitement. Alas for many of us, however: the excitement is met with fear and dread instead. Will this Ramadan be like the previous ones where I failed to truly ta

17th September 2010

- - from you - - Your house at first sight thrilled me in that same way that rollercoasters did when i was a child and feared many things of which death was never one made me feel sick, giant flip in the pit of my stomach and pulled me in as though we were old lovers and had secrets still to be shared I know this daytime dilapidation that begs to be captured in sepia or maybe full colour artfully under-exposed with extra contrast for full definition will become a frame for night terror blister-burnt busted door perhaps a portal for all those things i no longer believe exist but that exasperate by continuing to insist on an audience with my mind once dusk has settled and the sun bled from its safety perch. perhaps we could go in holding hands if you promise not to let go when the darkness begins even if it all should become too much and it feels wrong with every forward step promise you won’t let go

Transferring out

I've spent the past few weeks 'leaving facebook'.  If I weren't such a hoarder, it wouldn't have taken that long at all - but I can't bear the thought of losing certain messages, and notes. So, here's one from 29th May.  It's not very exciting. 'fb is longist This was a status update, but fb decided it was too long. ok, so apart from early wake up today, and so being in a ridiculously fould mood for a few hours, things are definitely now better than they were on Thursday - took Hikmah to the library and discovered kids can have 15 books out at one time - we got 13; we made a salad together (though I spent about an hour and a half trying to get her to eat it); and I'm off to Meadowland in about 12 hours, to shoot the spoken word tent (hosted by the wonderful Bang Said The Gun. So much awesomeness all under one canvas! And then it's a Bank Holiday, and me and Hikmah are planning to plant seeds. And maybe I'll go see Attack the B