Second.....

In a sort of circular logic and compulsory way I agree.

You make a good point. The universe is something we can never truly comprehend, unfortunately, as we just aren't hard wired in the right way to understand its basic properties, so we will probably just never know. The Earth will eventually boil into the sea of fire we call the surface of the sun. The sun will end up a sad lonely ball of rust streaked with nitrogen ice just precession around for eternity. But still, how depressing would it be if our race used its one chance at existing just to throw away the earth. Fair enough, in the end its just another blue green planetoid, like all the other ones. The two key factors are:

1) Every species has managed to keep going without changing the entire balance of nature, how depressing would it be if we were the ones to piss it all away.
2) beaus the Universe is so fucking huge, we can't find another one.

But on to the agreement part. We have some much more deep rooted problems as a race, these I will probably end up writing a blog about someday which will be no doubt full of grammar and spelling erros like like the last one and probably this one. The problem with the environment is just one of the many manifestations of these. However, it turns out to be possibly the most important one. We can't really sit down around the table and resolve our differences, because it looks to be that we just don't have the time. Biodiversity is careering to a halt and bits are falling off Canada. We definitely need to stop killing each other:

1) Because it's just stupid.
2) We need to divert the mind boggling amount of money we spend on death to changing the world for the better, ie fixing all the problems we've caused.

We can worry about politics, religion and society for the next few billion years until the sun runs out of Hydrogen and casts off its outer layers in a temporary death throw before it moves on to its next stage of existence, true none of those things will actually matter then, but still. But only if we give ourselves the chance. Our bodies are pretty crap at surviving, if there is no water and no cool havens for us left to reside, we will slowly die, just like so many other already have done. Is it a good way to go? No, it definitely isn't. It's just not worth it.

At the moment, we're not doing to well for ourselves. Sure we have 65 nanometer transistors and internal combustion engines but that won't mean shit when the water is rising and you're house is on fire. The only alternative to not putting in some effort to helping the planet is the death of the human race, in an extreme way this is true I guess. So I guess we better start clearing up after ourselves a little.

On Oceans...

Our oceans have gone to shit.

How have we managed as a race to be so overwhelmingly, jaw droppingly bad. If we were to think of a person who is dead and gone from the history books what would we think of? What that person left behind, there legacy, there long lasting scar on the fabric of space and time that effects and peturbs life around them for years to come. When we are all dead and gone, what will our legacy be? Unfortunately all that will matter is the attrocity that has become our planet. Think about it, when you die it doesn't mean shit if you have a Ferrari or a Rolex, you can't take it with you, most people know that, they don't spend their life's worrying about the material in the world. So why are we doing this with our planet?

Our planet is, or at least was staggeringly beautiful. If one man could see it's whole ever reaching and almost infinite wonder I believe it would effect them in such a deep way they would never be the same. So why are we so ignorant to it. This vast cradle of life, a haven of possibility in a universe of nothing. 70 percent of the surface of Earth is water, only 98 percent of that is drinkable. Put a person in a hot room, leave them fo a few hours, what will we demand over all else, water. It is us, we cannot live without it, the stuff of life, most of it a relic of a distant explosion aeons ago (the big bang). A substance so pure and perfect, why would anyone want to forsake this amazing gift? How good is it to be in the water, it feels so natural and glorious, but most of our oceans you wouldn't want to be in, because it would scorch your skin and fill you're blood with a neuro toxin just as bad as nerve agents. You're stomach would be filled with plastic debris so there was no room for food and you're throat choked by putrid slime. How have we come to jus throw away such a blessing, why does it seem to be inherent in our nature to just take and take and take? I just don't get it!!!

I'm not going to preach about how you all have to go out and recycle and not eat fish, but do use common sense for once, please. I'm going to do the opposite. Any company/corporation who has ever put any waste into or in a position to enter a water system I hate you. Any employee, CeO, paper pucher at any of these companies, I hate you. It is your fault, you have all contributed. This amazing blessing we can only have once and you have in some way contibuted to pissing it all way. Anyone who knowingly puts litter in anysort of water, stream, river, delta, the sea, a puddle, anything, I hate you. The people in LA that cause miles and miles of pure rubbish to clog the LA river. I hate you. I hate you all, I would gladly see you wiped off the face of the planet, you don't deserve to enjoy its amazing wonder if you are going to do that. I'm part of the human race and from now on I will take it personally when anyone does anything to contribute to this problem. I may not be perfect either but goddammit I've changed my mind, Never again. Never again, this has gone to far.

Trains and jazz...

Train travel in this country is shit. Well, the actual travelling bit isn't that bad to be fair, you get on the train, it moves, so do you, hopefully anyway, and then you get off where you want to, which is what happens in the majority of cases. It's arriving at this situation I have a problem with. First of all, you try and book a ticket. What you could do, is use one of the services that has a database of all journeys you can possibly make in the whole country. Almost immediately things go wrong. There are about 78 different types of ticket for each one of these journeys, almost all mind bogglingly expensive. The one that was cheap sold out before the coming to the messiah because they only allocate half a seat to it just so they can say from cheap on all the posters. The ones that are affordable involve an 18 hour journey via the sea and the rest are way out of the price range for most of us normal lot. It is more expensive for me to travel by standard class than first half of the time because the system seems to be have been designed with the same ammount of logic held by a nut.

Ok, so I've comprimised, I've made the decision to pay a stupid amount of money to go somewhere, for some reason. I want to buy my ticket. Oh I can't. I have to buy the ticket from train company. Oh, ok, so now I have to try, just try, it may take several attempts and possibly a few weeks of man hours to find it again. Finally the last hurdle is in sight, but then, you have to register just to buy a train ticket. Why do we have to register our details and put ourselves at he prey of the useless data protection act just to buy a train ticket? It's madness, and if you're lucky when you've registered and the confirmation email has got past you're spam filter, which only exists because we have to register for everything so we get loads of crap in our inboxes you'll get linked to what you want to buy so you don't have to find it, AGAIN! To accentuate the problem chances are if you don't want to go to London you'll have to change to a different train operator, or many different ones, so you'll have to do this again, or perhaps 2, 3 or maybe even 4 times! I think this is the main problem, our rail services are split up and run by so may different companies, and none of them, in my experience, not one, are any good. None of them seem to offer a service that is particularly good, let alone good enough to pay the over inflated price charged for it.

Howeverm perhaps times will change for the better. This christmas we saw the fall of GNER, who have pulled out from the east coast mainline, good, quite frankly, I'd be suprised if it can get much worse. If pieces of it are bought by other companies this is a good thing, as it reduces the ludicrous ammount of operators in this country. And then who knows, maybe one of them will do something sensible. Sell train travel at a reasonable cost so half the seats arn't empty. Sell tickets where people arn't actually restricted to travelling at shit times and not moving between place to place. Introduce some felixibilty. Some userbility. Something that actually lets human beings act like human beings. Conectivity. Logic. Simplicity. Centralised travel that lets people do just that, not just run up against wall after wall against it. After all, they will only make money by having people use the rails, so why does the whole system seem to be geared to be keeping people in cars and planes? Merry Christmas GNER, let you're shambolic rule over the east coast mainline end as swiftly and pleasently as possible, good riddance and hopefully greetings to a new era of sensible train travel.

Or then again, maybe not, maybe we need to do it ourselves.... But that is a different story for a whole different day.

Train travel is great, but lets let people actually get to do that again.