100 years....

Wisebeard returns from celebrating 100 years of possibly the most important event of the 20th century... the birth of Scouting.... yes, thats right, the Beard has been spending the last four days in a tent, in the rain, with nearly 700 people of varying descriptions (and i do mean varying!!!) getting wet, cold, and thoroughly enjoying himself... 1oo years ago Baden-Powell, war hero and free thinker, started what was to become the worldwide family of scouts... and look at us now... but there we are... i was privileged to appear on stage thrice, once with the thougt for the day (a passage from The Subtle Knife, and a short piece on Trust), again for the Beaver visit, again on the subject of Trust, and then at the closing ceremony, as part of the Comedic sketch "The Four Old Scouters," adapted from the python by yours truly... But the greatest honour of all was to be present at the award of the Queens Scout Award to one of my ex scouts, now a leader, Jim Muller... he's worked so hard for it, that Wisebeard will, for once, inject no levity into the mention, save to say that he didn't get his hair cut.. we could do with more young people like Jim... as Baden Powell said, if everyone inthe world were a Scout, there would be no war... there would also be no anti social behaviour, no famine, no environmental problems... and wouldn't that be wonderful... until we can all be Jim Mullers, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, the rain has set in, and Wisebeard personally is glad.... for lazy gardener that I am, I am happy to let nature water my onions.... and my lettuce, carrots and fennel... not to mention the savoy cabbage!! For wisebeard now has vegetables... and fruit, for the tomatoes are growing fine...and the peppers seem to be doing well... with the help of a certain young lady my beds are getting more prepared, and the herb garden is cleared and growing....oregano, chervil, sage, thyme, lemonbalm, rosemary... mmmmm.... nothing like home grown produce.... humans seem to love growing stuff... even if they're not much good at it sometimes....some say this is a throwback to the Judaeo Christian god telling Adam to look after stuff... some that it is due to Frey, or Buddha, or whoever, telling us to.... but i just think that it is something in us, something natural, just in the same way that some ants farm aphids... something we can't help, like building big nests and killing each other.... why is a mystery... probably we'll never solve it... but the point is that we like doing stuff for ourselves, and i think thats why we have a lot of antisocial behaviour.. because now more than ever we are discouraged from doing it ourselves.... we don't build our own houses, we don't grow our own food, we don't make our own clothes... we don't do much except cook, and we try to make that as easy as possible... no wonder people play up... frustration at not being able to do stuff, even if they don't realise this....people are made to feel useless... and why... well, my theory is that its because theres money in it... if we grew our own food, where would Mr Tesco be...??? if we made our own clothes, what would happen to poor Miss Selfridge???..... if we built our own houses, how would Mr Barratt survive?? but at least we would all be busy..... occupieed.. and content... lets be honest, mos people have jobs they dislike, and lives that are very samey... get drunk, watch telly, shout at a football.... and get frustrated and become antisocial... and its happened before.. the better off a society becomes, the more decadent it gets, and the greater the level of violence and antisocial behaviour... just look at rome!! but waht's the answer... even a wise beard does not know.....but until we find one... Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!