The true meaning of Christmas

The winter solstice, the darkest time of the year when the days are at their shortest, the nights are at their longest and people are at the furthest point from the last summer and the next. In ancient times people needed to mark this time. It was the point after which each day would be a little longer, a little brighter and one step closer to summer. It was a time when people need some joy, hope and belief that the frozen world would be warm again. Many ancient civilizations had solstice celebrations and legends that accompany them. The Germanic peoples believed that at the solstice Odin would lead a hunting party of gods and the spirits of fallen warriors. Children who placed thier shoes by the chimney filled with straw and carrots for Odin's horse would find them filled with treats the next morning.

Unfortunatley like other pagan celebrations the winter solstice was hijacked by Christianity. and we got Christmas. Christmas has been contantly adapting and we now have the celebrations of today.

I find it shocking that we have gone from a point where people drew together at the darkest time of year in the hope that summer would return to a festival that is centered around high street retailers meeting their end of year profit forecasts. We see stores pushing christmas on us earlier and earlier in an attempt to buy as much as possible. People who have no fear of food shortages or that summer may not return and no belief in the Christian version of Christmas spend time and money preparing for a day that has no meaning other than presents, food and bad television.

I am an athiest and even I find the lack of spirituality and excess of commercialism in this festival very sad. But what really irks me is the fact dispite the fact that for most people Christmas doesn't have a shred of it's original meaning it is still compulsory (even for athiests). Any hint of not joining in turns you into a social pariah. It doesn't seem fair.

However although christmas is past I would like to try a get into the spirit of things.

I hope your grain stocks are plentiful and summer comes again.
Merry Solstice

Finding a new coke dealer pt 2

I would like to apologise to the Coca Cola company for the things I said in my last Coke related post. I accused Coca Cola of : -

• Hiring paramilitary death squads to murder and torture union members at bottling plants in Colombia.
• Causing local water shortages in regions of India.
• Selling lead and cadmium bearing toxic factory byproducts as fertilizer.
• Selling tap water as mineral water.
• Cutting donations to schools that fail to sell enough fizzy drinks to their pupils.
• Creating that awful red and white Santa Claus image.
• Using 3 litres of water to make every litre of coke.

I would like to say that I have learned that the story of Coca Cola creating the Red and White Santa Claus image is probably an urban myth. However if you want to find out more about the unethical behaviour of Coca Cola as well as other companies you may give your money to click here.

On the up side I have completely broken my Coke addiction now preferring water and fruit juice. I had a couple of cans of diet coke over Christmas and found not only that it tasted a lot worse than I remember but that I felt pretty ill after drinking it. I have no desire to try it agian.

The blood is still the life

I gave blood again yesterday. After failing to give a full donation on my first visit and having to try both arm on my second visit I was a little nervous. However everything went really well. It seems my right arm s the best for donations and if a nurse can put the needle in then it's better still. I think a lot of donors end up getting a feel for what works for them. I also found that fiddling with a juggling ball can sped up my blood flow by about 3 times!!!. The idea is that moving something around in your hands moves muscles and tendons in the arm which helps blood flow through the veins in that area. The donor carer told me that they used hand out glass rods to fiddle with but had to stop due to fears of cross contamination. I am not sure what makes a glass rod more likely to transfer germs than a donation bed, a chair, the information booklets or anything else that the donors share. However there is no arguing with these things so the next time I go I will take my own juggling ball.

I also arrived on the day the NBS team recieved their award for "Most improved team in London". Many members of the team said they would have prefered a better name for the award. It does sound like they used to be awful (which I can say is not at all true). The award had the upside of lots of celebratory snacks which the team were happy to share. The award also had the downside of being presented by a man in a Billy Blood Drop costume. I have snowboarded, zorbed and bungy jumped, but I never knew fear until coming face to face with a grinning six foot tall mound of blood. AAAAAAAAARGH