Silas Farsight

[caption id="attachment_776" align="alignleft" width="640"] Silas Farsight cover[/caption]

My first book for children and young people, Silas Farsight, will be published next week through CreateSpace as a print book and also as an e-book. It will be available through Amazon in both formats and as a downloadable e-book here and on my other sites.

Silas Farsight tells the story of a young river-otter, whose life is mapped out as a lawyer in a sleepy village in the Forest. But all that changes when a gang of six-toed Ship's Cats kidnap his childhood friend, the Lady Magda, and escape with her.

Silas enlists the help of the enigmatic badgers who live deep in the Forest and soon discovers things about himself that he had never imagined possible. Leading a small party including Big Hamish the Badger and Silas' own indentured clerk, Stoatwise Cuttleworth, he sets off in pursuit of the cats and the road to peril.

The Church of Hedonism

[caption id="attachment_762" align="alignleft" width="640"] Funeral in Laoag[/caption]

I'm going to become a Hedonist. No really, I am. Seriously. I am going to join the Church of Hedonism. Yup. Before this happens to me.

Of course, no such church actually exists, and most religions seem to be mainly concerned with stopping people having fun. But anyway. If there isn’t one, I think it’s time we started one.

I am rapidly approaching that watershed in life, the dawn of my seventh decade. I don’t have that much time to waste any more. I quick demographic of my parents’ families suggests that if I remain a non-smoker, keep the drink to a moderate level and eat reasonably healthy food, I have maybe another fifteen years of active life, and another five or so of winding down, before parting the mortal coil and becoming one with the Earth again.

That is not an awful lot of time. And I am beginning to resent every moment of it that is not spent, basically, having fun.

Fuck This

Been that sort of a week so far.

This Must Stop

[caption id="attachment_716" align="alignleft" width="300"] A camel being killed by 'halal'[/caption]

I am proud to be a European. Our culture has many faults, yet at the same time it has given the world so much. Science and democracy, equality under law and social inclusion simply would not exist without it. And across culture, art, science, engineering and technology, our culture remains a brilliant star, without which light, we would still be in the Dark Ages. I am very proud and lucky to be a part of that.

Despite this, I believed, for many years, that other cultures were equal.

But I was wrong. Culture is not a level playing field. The very qualities that define Western culture represent a system of morality, which allow us to judge other cultures. And we definitely should judge them.