https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/articles/ceqy3jxzlygo
I was at the game at home, headingley last week when we beat Hull KR, the best team in the competition and six points clear at the top of the table. I think Brad Arthur, the best coach in the the competition in my opinion, announcing that he will be here next year has put a further spring in his step of the team. Probably the best performance of the season and I was fortunate to have witnessed it. They didn't just beat Hull KR they dominated and put a decent number of points on them. It is evident that the team is peaking at the right time of the season. Today we nilled Hull FC and put 34 points on them. It's a competition to see who finishes where but we could be second or at least third. Second is a great advantage in the playoffs giving us home advantage and hopefully a week off. I believe we will make the grand final. It's a bold prediction and I think Jake Connor will be crowned man of steel as the best player in the competition throughout the year. And I believe we can beat anyone. I'm not saying everyday but on our day we can. If we do get there; and I shouldn't be counting chickens before they hatch but should we make the final I'd back us. Against Hull KR, Wigan or Saints and I think it will be one of the three. I found it much more tiring than I ever have before. The drive. Parking and walking to the ground. Stood there for a few hours is a lot for a 60 year old. It was worth it but I'll be glad of the seat if we make old Trafford. I don't want to jinx it but I've just got the feeling it's our year. On fan forums I was the only person virtually that was a supporter of the Jake Connor signing. To me it seemed a genius idea. Leeds have lacked that little bit of the dark arts. Since Danny McGuire left there was no one who would argue with the referee. Just put a little indecision in the back of his mind. As a fan watching him play against us he was so irritating. But Arthur has managed to reel in his dirty touches and given him the freedom to run the team and he was fantastic today. One man pulling all the strings. And he didn't over complicate it. Just the touch of chess, the little bit that no one could see coming, a kick that disrupted even the most well drilled of defences. Its a strange sport rugby league. Barely known of beyond the M62 corridor and Australia and the islands around there where it is, certainly in Australia and Papua New Guinea, the national game. It's a simple game. Often referred to as chess with muscles and I get that. A big part of the game is to be the toughest, fittest team to overpower the opposition but get beyond the forwards battle and you see the spine of the team that put the fastest athletes in to scoring positions. I've grown up on it. My dad taking me to watch Leeds RL at Headingley from a young age. It has changed massively over the years but it remains something close to a religion for me and I'm sure many other people. For sure it's shit when you're team are crap. We didn't win the championship for 32 years. But the wait was worth it and the elation all the greater for the fallow years. In 2004 when the 32 year wait was over I had no clue that we were entering a golden age. I went to Old Trafford eight times and it came to feel almost normal though never less special to win. 2017 we won under strange circumstances. Castleford had played best all year but their full back Zack Hardaker, ex Leeds player failed a drug test. Whether that changed things, surely a bit. But Danny McGuire won the game in such style. His last game for Leeds and Rob Burrows last too.
Since then we had a freak final appearance and were soundly beaten. See what happens eh?
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Saturday, 30 August 2025
Slow worm
Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Stairwell moths
Sunday, 24 August 2025
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Christian vandalism
Stairwell moths
Monday, 18 August 2025
Saturday, 16 August 2025
I wrote three long pieces on my reaction to seeing the Christian vandalism…
I wrote three long pieces on my reaction to seeing the Christian vandalism of this sacred site but none would post. I'll try again.
Finding the circle is not easy. It is old, not maintained and really not looked after or treated as the important place it is. The nearby hill fort is Iron Age I believe and I will take another walk up there soon. What you find, if you ignore the maps and use GPS is a circular ditch or moat that must be a couple of hundred feet in diameter. The circle comes close to the road and the whole area is covered in a beautiful beech wood. As you explore you have moments when it is apparent and moments when you feel completely lost. There are various mounds and hollows that suggest that some sort of quarry mining has taken place here over the years. Hell, the whole area of countryside around where I live is cut and shaped as numerous stones and minerals were here before we were. Most of our ancient sites have been used and changed. Stonehenge has been the work of not only many men and women but entirely different cultures, a thousand years apart have improved upon the wood henge long decayed which in turn was an improvement the original earth work. This suggests people throughout history of many cultures have understood the importance. What always strikes me is that those engaged in building this incredible structure must have been aware that it would be their children's children's, children's who would see its completion. The sacrifice in labour was an investment in the people as a whole. Our lives are over in a flash yet hundreds and maybe thousands of people saw humanity as something that they were part of. Today it is rare to find anyone engaged in any projects that are considered greater than the individual.
Political differences have pulled traditionally in three directions. Conservatives have sought to preserve the institutions and traditions that are proven to have value throughout the years. The socialists have seen equality as the highest of human values and the NHS stands as a shaky testament to our commitment to the common good. The third party that traditionally seldom achieved political power with their belief that individual freedom is our highest duty. But a strange thing has happened. Liberals on the right have seen a greatly shift in the divide between the rich and the poor as characters like Elon Musk achieve great power as their freedom to explore their personal ideas into a seemingly unlimited place. The liberals on the left have created a world where a boy can become a girl through their personal, individual freedom.
If old England is to retain its values it now must engage, straight faced with a growing number of Islamic people that will brook no argument with the word of the Quran as this is the direct word of god. Muhammad though a paedophile who saw the beheading of hundreds of Jews in the belief they are doing gods work.
Brexit was the name given to the United Kingdom opting to leave the European Union. The foolhardy David Cameron held a plebiscite under the impression that the people of country were aware of the complex trading systems that had taken decades to put in place. Freedom of movement meant that hundreds of thousands of skilled migrant workers were able to take up the jobs necessary to support an ageing population. People from Poland and other Eastern European countries blended quietly and caused little trouble. Builders in London found their prices undercut. But the bulk of the vote came from a large majority of working class people who had never had it good. All elections had done for them was a different shade of shit. But now they were given a chance to take a vote that would have an effect. The country still dependant on migrant workers saw the poles leave to be replaced by an increase in immigration. However these were not the people who had shared our values. Instead they came from the countries different governments had intervened in. Islam is now growing as the fastest religious shift England has ever known. 40% of these people believe in sharia law. Abattoirs now see animals hung up by their rear legs, their throats slit and they bleed out in pain for halal meat. Ideas we had overcome centuries ago are returning. Politicians must now defend the constituents who believe in the supernatural. People who believe that the soul is the unit of currency when we once had agreed that life was sacred and the true unit of currency. The speed of change has been so great that figures can't keep up to speed with the growth of a medieval outlook that despite having full knowledge that we live and die and the search for a better life is becoming lost to those who see it as e mere phase we pass through.
Though I am an atheist I am at risk of expressing my truth. A truth most intelligent people now know. This country has fought wars to stop the ideologically unsound view that people are different. Yet now we face a world where the belief in the supernatural is becoming commonplace. As yet we have not had an openly atheist prime minister and America is way further back. A presidential candidate who professed a belief that there is no god would not stand a chance. But we should not allow anyone who still believes in the supernatural to be in power. Tony Blair turned to his Christian faith to help him through the senseless war in Iraq that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. How can anyone trust someone who believes in fairies, ghosts and gods. If we don't speak out now this country will lose what it is to be English.
Were I to have a religion it would be the belief in nature. Not unlike the pagans who built the stone circles that measure the movement of the sun and reveal the times to sow seeds.
I am pessimistic about our future. The planet is now changing due to our lack of care. All animals are representations of their environment. They are part of higher systems. Take a fish out of water and it soon dies. And we too are animals dependent on our environment. But sadly the cult of the individual has seen us forget this truth. We no longer give our lives to protects that our genetic line will get to see the value of. We no longer think beyond our own three score year and ten. Though individuals are engaged in projects to try save the planet they are outliers engaged in futile work. The problems the planet now faces are not national ones. They are global. And it is human nature to cheat. We just no longer have the culture where men will sacrifice their lives in labour for the future.
An interesting aside is why I could never engage with AA. The belief in a higher power. Some told me that you can just ignore that part and do the rest. But in the last few years I have realised the wisdom of this. It isn't so much a higher power but rather that we are pretty much all the same. We are part of the human race. There was an arrogance in my atheism. I thought that life was a film playing just for me. The only thing I know is that I am conscious. But we all are. So I finally saw that it was the seeing of yourself as the key viewer of reality that is at the heart of addiction. At some point you have to face other people and become humble. The builders of Stonehenge probably never even entertained the thought that they were more than a member of the whole.
So back to my disgust at the desecration of this ancient site by a Christian vandal. I am an atheist but I am culturally Christian. I respect his teachings. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Forgiveness. Tolerance. I can see it as a continuation of the cultural shift where pagan sites were trashed and churches built in their place
. This was how it spread . Through violence and persuasion and persecution. But there is something that is magical about ancient sites. They are mysterious. We will never know for sure why they were built only that whatever the reason was it was very important to them. And they were greater than the sum of their parts. Their collective whole was indeed a higher power.
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Friday, 15 August 2025
Thursday, 14 August 2025
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Saturday, 9 August 2025
Friday, 8 August 2025
Death of an acquaintance
Death of an acquaintance
I have a friend I've known for about two decades and during that time he has been a drug addict continually. I think he's about a decade younger than me and he's been married to a woman he met at a very young age. Each day he would intravenously take heroin and smoke crack. When I first got to know him he was funding his habit through the traditional methods of shop lifting, collecting and weighing in metal and other petty criminal activities. He's not a bad man by any stretch but his addiction forced him down avenues he undoubtedly would never have gone. His partner in crime was a heroin addict who sold small amounts to other addicts, all in their late thirties and upwards. No children were ever sold to and all were active addicts already so there was no victim as such. Given that we live in a small town a shoplifter can only expect a couple of years before all shop owners and managers know them and then they get banned. So, let's call him Jerry started selling crack cocaine. His partner in crime already had a network of customers and most heroin addicts smoke crack too so his business took off swiftly. Heroin addicts generally use the same amount every day and score at the same time, working around the other obligations in their lives like work and family. Crack, however is extremely moreish and very often an insatiable habit. In the town where I live the generation of addicts are getting older and most are jerrys age. There are a very small number of younger ones who have got involved but mostly it is just one generation that got involved with heroin in the 90s. Some were seeking solace following the brain battery of the rave scene and others took inspiration from the film Trainspotting which was set in 1980s Edinburgh. But in most of the UK heroin was very rare until the Afghanistan invasion saw the country flooded with cheap, strong brown heroin. This was pleasant to smoke and if cooked up with citric acid or vitamin c can be injected and in Leeds, where I had grown up, the recreational drug scene had shifted from the experimental use of psychedelics and cannabis to speed. So many took the habit of injecting onto the new wave of heroin. This delivers a much stronger hit than smoking it which is relatively safe though addictive. I lost close to a dozen good friends who had all been recreational drug users to begin with, exploring the many interesting and varied states of consciousness that drugs can provide. Sadly they ended up pursuing a single state of mind. Due to fluctuating quality and fluctuating incomes what cost ten pounds and could be handled easily one day might be enough to kill on another. I sometimes dream about my old friends who died and often wonder where their lives would have taken them. They were painless deaths for them but painful for their loved ones. If any young person is reading this and considering using needles I implore them to reconsider. Some of us got away with it but it was pure luck.
Back to Jerry our small town had gradually become a cocaine culture and heroin use was purely a habit still remaining from earlier life or a means to soothe the mind after crack use. His business took on all his freinds clients plus a load of new ones. When I first came across crack I was working away in my old home town and it was invariably stone or crack in other words. Down here people generally buy powder. They either wash it up in a spoon boiled with bicarbonate of soda which binds to the cocaine and is collected and smoked. Or washed up in ammonia to clean out adulterants and convert it to a smokable rock. This should be then washed in water and ideally left overnight however few have the patience and smoke it with ammonia still there which is of course poisonous. I know one guy who somehow flicked the hot ammonia in his eye which is now a milky white and he is half blind. The habit is not physiologically addictive but is incredibly compulsive and people go to great lengths to obtain money to buy more. It is insatiable and when it runs out a feeling of depression overcomes the user. You see them scouring the carpet for imaginary dropped crumbs. Being more expensive than gold only those with a lot ever drop pieces. A decent pipe is about ten pounds and heavy user's might smoke several dozen in a day. This means crime. Few people who smoke crack are able to work as it is a full time job.
Initially Jerry was out all day. Hustling and selling brown and white. This meant he was rarely home and he has two children. His oldest daughter is about 18 and his son 15. Ultimately his wife got sick of him never being home and though not a user became curious about the culture. Too many customers meant going out to meet them became untenable. He had been getting a lot of his product on credit and his use grew. His generosity found him ticking the closest. Soon he was in debt to well over £1000. He got a good beating one time and his head was swollen up like a bruised football. Whether he wanted to get caught to put an end to his dilemma I don't know but he became very reckless. His garage became a shop. Some would be quickly in and out but there was generally five or more people sat around smoking crack and heroin. His neighbours must have known what was going on. Some idiots what turn up in the middle of the night . Under pressure to repay the debt he grew ever more reckless. Finally he was arrested and is now in prison awaiting sentencing. The abuse his body suffered would have killed many a man.
So his family was left with far less money than they were used to.
Then last week I heard that his wife had a brain aneurysm and died. A sudden death. The children are now left with no mother and a father in jail for who knows how long. At 18 the daughter may well go off in to the world. I left home at 16. My stepmother had moved in and said either I go or she would. I couldn't let my father's new marriage break so I left. I had older friends and moved into a shared house. Whether jerrys children will be able to go out into the world and fend for themselves will have to be seen.
Drugs are incredibly destructive. The 90s rave culture saw many people taking recreational drugs. Some grew out of it, others moved on to harder drugs. It seems that the generation now leaving home are not so much into drugs. A small minority are joining the subculture but the majority here are in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. Whether the drugs are weaker or the users learned how to measure their dose I don't know. I know heroin addicts who have been doing it for decades. In of itself, despite being addictive and able to kill if given the right dose, heroin is not that harmful. An alcoholic who has drunk for decades is in a far worse state. But if any young person reading this is getting involved I would advise them to get out while they can. It takes over your life. It becomes your life. Everything you do revolves around it. There is some comfort in being part of a secret society. Largely invisible to those not involved.
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Tuesday, 5 August 2025
King of the Hill S14 | Official Trailer | Hulu
The greatest of all Americans animated TV series is back and not a moment too soon. https://youtu.be/GleTI7jDWOs?si=AUL2QdyFS-3ioX7d
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, 4 August 2025
Stairwell moths
Once an amateur natural history enthusiast has mastered the world of macro moths it is only to be expected that they will take on the far harder task of learning micro moths. With around 1700 species recorded in Great Britain they offer a far greater challenge. Most species are only known by Latin names which, at least for me are far more difficult to remember. One of the attractions of the macros is their poetic names that have a Victorian feel. The Sallow Kitten, the drinker, the white ermine; a seemingly never ending list of beautiful titles that leave one feeling like Wordsworth out for a stroll on Exmoor. Now we find Eudonia Mercurella, Megaloptera, epinotia signatana; names we sometimes can only guess at accurate pronunciations of. Nevertheless entering this whole new world has an excitement. I shall try, where I can to photograph the ones that visit the stairwell and the outside doors which are lit up at night by an automatic trigger. Living as I do facing out onto fields and woodland our stairwell lights attract some beautiful visitors. Yesterday a neighbour caught me crouched with my phone looking into a dark corner. 'Ah! Bugs!' I heard her response as she realised my strange behaviour was not the schizoid peculiarity I'm locally known for but an interest in something she regarded as an interest in something she considered not worthy of attention or even further something that spoiled her world of potted plants and garden control. My aesthetic quest stands in opposition to her world view. But she will never win. Nature will always find ways to disrupt the disguise of her work to control the immediate environment. Some gardeners of course recognise the beauty of the natural world but most are engaged in a war to control its arrangement. For most micro moths, macro moths and even butterflies will never be more than bugs. Creepy crawleys that undermine their best efforts to organise patterns of hybrids they buy from garden centres.
Friday, 1 August 2025
Stairwell moths
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