Dolphin post reposted

I originally posted this here, but beneath a bit about the football that meant that many non-footballing people never actually got to read it.
The interest that it has generated, together with the ongoing news over the Taiji dolphin hunt has made me think that it deserves a post of its own. I am doing this here.

Comments on the original post can be found here.

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Secondly: dolphins, The Cove and the internet.
Now, I like dolphins as much as the next man (as long as the next man isn’t Alan Cooper – I don’t like them that much). But I’m also one of those enquiring people who never takes things at face value and likes to look at both sides of a story. The annual dolphin killings at Taiji in Japan is one of those stories. It’s been in the news again recently, because the time for the annual kill has come around again and much reference has been made to the overly subjective film The Cove, which was released last year, documenting the 2009 kill and telling us that the water turned red with the blood of the dolphins.
Isn’t that dramatic? What do they think the floor of a slaughterhouse looks like?

Now, environmentalists want this annual practice banned – no matter that it’s been going on for over 300 years and there are still plenty of dolphins to be caught.  And that’s ok, because everyone is entitled to their views on this and when you are a greenie, you have to protest about something – it’s what you do. And dolphins are the most awesome thing to protest about because they’re dolphins. And dolphins and pandas are top of the list when it comes to poking the human conscience. Them and puppies.

But what about humans? Because Taiji isn’t some oil-rich, gold-laden glittering city. Taiji is a small town with no industry or income other than that of the fishing (and for fishing, you can read “whaling”). So when you take away what they are their ancestors have been doing for centuries because it doesn’t fit with your Western beliefs, what’s left for those people?
Imagine Jeffery’s Bay without the surfing, imagine Boulders Beach without the penguins: there’s suddenly no support for those people; poverty ensues and the settlement – there for hundreds of years – is ruined because of the views of some activists 1000’s of miles away who refuse to look beyond the “plight of the dolphins”.

And then the people who support them without considering the reasons why they are doing it. Why?
Dolphin, panda, puppy – must protect.
It’s a trendy, ill-thought through, kneejerk, bandwagon-jumping response.
What gives you the right to decide how others should live?

I don’t like the thought of dolphins being killed either, but it’s a necessary part of  life for the people of Taiji. The dolphin catch provides food (albeit potentially unhealthy food, but beggars can’t be choosers) and income for the town.
Imagine if your only sources of food and income were taken away from you because someone in America didn’t like the way you lived your life?
That’s no more braais, because they don’t agree with the way your lamb is slaughtered or the ingredients in your boerewors were sourced. They’re stopping your income as well, because they don’t like the way you make your money. Of course, they have no legal powers to do this – but actually, they’ll even go as far as breaking the laws of your own country to make your hard life even harder.

What happens to the people of Taiji if the dolphin catch doesn’t happen? Have you even considered that?
No, of course not:  because it’s about dolphins and pandas and puppies.

One month…

This time next month, I’ll be boarding a large jet-engined aircraft – vuvuzela in hand – for my trip to Europe on The Last Hurrah 2010 tour. It therefore seems fitting that we should indulge ourselves with a little more a-ha goodness. This one is from their 1990 album East of the Sun, West of the Moon and it’s called I Call Your Name.

A great song that made it to number 45 in the French singles chart. Because they have no taste.

I should be at Grand West watching Crowded House tonight, but I’m not feeling great and the kids are still recovering from ear and sinus infections respectively, so I’ve stayed home to look after them. And me.
In an ironic twist of fate, Mrs 6000 took the babysitter along to the concert.

Nothing, however, will stop me from making an appearance at the Oslo Spektrum in a few weeks time. I could be oozing blood from every orifice (very African) and I’d still be there singing along.
It would be nice to just be healthy that night, though.

Better by tomorrow

After a weekend wracked by Mrs 6000’s tonsillitis and the consequent increased demands on my fathering abilities, I find myself concerningly nursing a sore throat of my own this morning. Both the kids have also been coughing and thus we’re off on another family outing to the doctor this morning. Oh joy.

Sore throats are never good, but this one is especially bad because tomorrow evening, we have plans (and tickets) to go and see (and hear) Crowded House at the Grand West Arena. Of course, laryngitis (I haven’t had any tonsils since a well-planned surgical intervention in 1979) will have no bearing on my eyesight or ear…sight(?), but it will make me feel generally crap and prevent me from singing along with the band in question.

Hits such as Four Seasons In One Day (written by Neil Finn after a particularly heavy 24 hours playing Championship Manager on the Playstation) and the much misheard Don’t Dream You’re Sober – an alcoholic’s worst nightmare – will have to be performed solely by the guys on stage and that would be a bad thing for the audience generally. Believe it, because it’s true.

Anyway, it would be foolish of me to strain my currently delicate vocal cords any further chatting to you good people. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with arepeejee’s stunning Warp Speed Winter Gardens:

Straight out of Sheffield, via Betelgeuse.

Make it so.

A Grand Design

One of my favourite shows back in the UK was Grand Designs and I was therefore delighted to see that it’s made it over here as well – we get it on the BBC Lifestyle channel. OK, so we’re (at least) a couple of years behind the UK, but what we do know doesn’t hurt us and watching people building homes isn’t exactly time sensitive and neither is Kevin McCloud’s insightful and detailed commentary.
We’re in the middle of a Grand Designs Revisited series here at the moment and tonight was one of my favourite episodes from way back when.

The guy building his own house was Ben Law, who works as a woodsman in Sussex. But this was different from most situations in that Ben wasn’t moving from a house to his new-build – he was living in the woods in a tent and a leaky caravan and had been doing so for 10 years. No hot water, no heating. It was – perhaps unsuspectingly – a solitary life. But he was happy with it, which is surely the most important thing.

But time came to build his own place. And being a woodsman and a craftsman, he did most of it himself – from the woods that surrounded him. The basic plan was a timber A-frame and the gaps between the wood was filled in with bales of straw. Add homemade lime mortar and locally-sourced clay and suddenly, a low-tech, green, but very liveable house came together.

But it was a house for one. Which is why I was amazed when they went back and found that not only did he have a wife, he also had a 19 day old son. And then they went back again a few years later and they’d had another kid. The mudbath in front of the newly-built cottage in the photo above had been replaced with a beautiful garden, complete with homemade wooden toys for the kids. Also, a workshop whereby Ben could do stuff with the wood that he harvested from the woods around them.

I was impressed with Ben’s choice of lifestyle. Not because I’d want to live that way, but I had a certain admiration for his abilities, skill and dedication to living his sustainable green life. And I love the way that he connected with the woodland and lived off the land. And I don’t think I was the only one intrigued by the way he did things: now he has books out, he runs courses on woodland management, he sells his products and he even does tours of his house.

All in all, it’s an amazing turnaround for the guy who was living under canvas in all weathers. And there are messages there for everyone. To the big consumers – an example that you actually can live off the land; that traditional methods can still have a place in our modern life. And to the the greenies, a lesson that you can combine being eco-friendly with living in the real world.