What is it with these bloody barns?

Not quite sure what it is about old barns, but I can't help but want to take pictures of them.

Distressed white timbers contrasted against the lush green Nebraskan grass. 

Yet more contrast.

Not sure what this barn used to be used for but I like the message.

An old truck I came across on my way to Springfield.

I've driven past this crane many times on my way to Kansas.

Back to an old favourite I've photographed before.

Tattoos, Inequality and the home of Mardi Gras

A few months ago now I flew down to New Orleans, the home of U.S style Mardi Gras. I'd heard a lot about New Orleans, how it was famous for live jazz, historic buildings, and all out partying. Unfortunately a lot of what I actually found reminded me, and this is not a compliment, of Magaluf, a holiday resort on the Spanish island of Majorca.

The main street you are directed to is Bourbon Street. For those of you familiar with Magaluf, you'll remember the main drag where the floor is soaked in vomit, there are people lying about comatose, and the bars play a non-stop mix of cheese and techno. If you're familiar with this then cross New Orleans off your list.

From the above you may be able to gather that New Orleans was a big disappointment to me, and you'd be right.

So, back to the subject of this weeks blog and here's a tenuous link for you. It's been a while since we've had one, but I shall explain what the home of Mardi Gras, Tattoos, and Inequality have in common, just bear with me. 

Roughly a year ago I was lucky enough to get a ticket for "V Festival" down in Chelmsford in the county of Essex. The weekend was very good, the bands were awesome, the women were orange, and the men were cutting around in what looked like their girlfriends vests to show off their tattoos. 

I couldn't help but notice how many tattoos there were, it was as if Asda were offering a buy one get several free offer, in addition to this some off them were, and there is no polite way of saying this, shit! 

But it did leave me wondering why so many people have tattoos now?

And I think I may have finally stumbled upon the answer.

Back to my New Orleans visit, and one of the things I wanted to see was the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. I took a small tour bus which promised a visit to some of the areas still deserted since the hurricane struck way back in 2005. 

The tour bus skirted around some of the areas that were flooded when Katrina struck but we didn't get to the real epicentre of the disaster, because in the words of our tour guide, it was just too dangerous. These areas which lie on the outskirts of the city are predominantly black neighbourhoods, and regarded as no go areas even for the police. 

Several US cities I've visited have this same problem, the centres are always very well developed, safe, clean, and inviting, but travel a few miles out of the city and it's a whole different story. Away from the polished concrete and shining glass structures, the out lying towns are drug fuelled, gang violence dominated, enter at your own risk areas. 

It's this model that illustrates the difference in income inequality, the gulf between the haves and the have nots, societies neglected and forgotten. 

But why is this the case in a country as strong, developed, and powerful as the United States of America?

This is the part of the story where I bring tattoos back into the mix.

A book I read recently spoke of a study of tattoos, and their growth in popularity over the past few decades. In a social context a tattoo can convey to the world that you're a person that lives for the moment. The tattoo itself may well symbolise something quite different, but the very fact that you had it done in the first place was to illustrate your care free, live for the moment attitude. 

So what's wrong with that?

Well nothing in the short term, but with a view to the future, maybe quite a lot. 

Todays society is one of mass communication, mass consumption, and a collective amnesia. We express a preference for current consumption over future consumption. We are obsessed with short term gratification, we want what we want, and we want it yesterday. We have shortened attention spans, which lessens our tolerance for what moves slower. 

All of the above attributes prevent us from seeing the bigger picture, they hinder our ability to plan for tomorrow, and probably worst of all they are unsustainable. 

If we are all of a sudden obsessed with the here and now, how did we get this way, and is it our fault?

Our obsession with the quick fix gravitates from government, the media, and the loathsome one they call Ke$ha. 

Take the recent bank bailouts, we were told that these were very necessary whatever the long term cost, because in the short term the risk of collapse was too catastrophic to consider. The message this conveys is that connections and guile, over hard work and talent, lead to success and wealth creation.

The quoted G.D.P figures and quarterly profit forecasts that we constantly hear of on the news, which few of us actually understand, are considered worthless by leading Austrian economics schools as a measurement of economic progress. 

Ke$ha our beloved future nobel laureate nominee, tells us in the lyrics of her songs that, "we're going to die young" and that, "we don't give a f*** cause that's just who we are".

Programmes like X Factor and Made in Chelsea, show us that hard work is boring and completely unnecessary. Instead, celebrity and fame are what's important, the shiny happy people on TV are what you should aspire to. Just look they don't have a care in the world.

If the government, the media, and Ke$ha keep telling us to shorten our horizons, then slowly but surely this must filter through to everyday individuals.

Now to put it all together. 

The inequality I witnessed in New Orleans, and tattoos exemplifying the live for the moment mentality.

As a society we have no patience to tackle the real route of the problem. Inequality can't be stamped out by half hearted short sighted measures. The governments answer is to cut benefits without an alternative, as a public we think this is an excellent cost cutting solution, but how can you take away without providing an alternative?

It takes time to educate people, it takes time to re-train, it takes time to create opportunities, and I'm afraid we have no tolerance for the slow. The attitudes that we have inherited from the very people we chose to lead us are killing our society, and only exacerbating the wealth inequality we see today. 

I leave you now, once more safe in the hands of our fabled lyricist, Ke$ha.

"I'm fresher than that Gucci. Them boys, they want my coochie. I say no, I'm no hoochie".

A small slice of Europe

I was lucky enough to have my parents fly out to Nebraska to visit me a few months ago, but it's an awfully long way to come just to see the sights of the mid-west. I know they both enjoy lounging around on the beach so a flight to a coastal city was a must, but I wanted them to go somewhere other than the usual California or Florida.

After a little help from "Google" I stumbled upon Charleston, a city in the South Eastern state of South Carolina. It seemed to have everything I thought they'd like, sun, sea and sand. Purely for scientific reasons I needed to fly down there myself, just to make sure I'd made the right recommendation. 

Charleston didn't disappoint from the outset, miles of sandy beaches, great seafood restaurants, copious quantities of sun, and a relaxed atmosphere. It's always nice to have some seafood in a sea side city, especially after spending the best part of twelve months in land locked Nebraska, where I assume fish must travel for days before it gets to the restaurants of downtown Omaha.

One of the places I wanted to visit during my trip to Charleston was the French Quarter. As you travel around the U.S you read about many "French Quarters" in many cities, unfortunately when you actually get there and look around you soon realise they're about as french as spag bol!  

Walking around the cobbled streets of Charleston's French Quarter you could easily be forgiven for thinking you're in Europe. Some of the buildings in this part of the city date from as far back as 1712, which by American standards is when the dinosaurs were still roaming the Earth.

Having these quaint old structures surround you is very refreshing. Americans have a tendency to knock buildings down and replace them with monotonous prefabricated monstrosities, before they can develop any real heritage. I'm not against all forms of redevelopment but some things are worth holding onto, and new isn't always better.

Several things really stood out to me during my stay in South Carolina. I'd never seen skies so blue anywhere, I don't know wether it had anything to do with it's geographical location, but as you can see on the pictures above it has a vibrancy all to itself.

The seafood was some of the best I'd ever eaten, maybe even better than the seafood I'd had in Seattle, and that was pretty damn amazing.

But I'd have to say the most memorable thing about my visit was the quality of the sunsets. The red, pink, and blues in the sky were simply breathtaking. The two twilight shots were taken down by the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, a magnificent structure which always seemed to have people running or walking across it, or even people just gawping at it.

Looking for a beach holiday in America with a bit more of a European feel? Something far removed from chain restaurants and soulless out of town shopping malls? A city who's history started a little earlier than the 1950's and still has the buildings to prove it?

Then look no further: Charleston is the place for you. 

On another note, I do believe that's one of the few times I've given out actual consumer advice, and not a rant in sight?



Don't worry normal service will resume in the next few weeks...

I'm not sorry!

This is part two of my blogs from Belize, but first I believe I owe you an apology....well sort of.

Reading back over my last few blog posts I realised that they are quite negative, the usual tales of doom and gloom that we all see whenever we watch the news, and for this I'm sorry, or maybe not.

My aim is to present the fantastically beautiful real world images that I've seen, and then contrast these with some sobering truths about the world we actually live in. 

Now some may say that "ignorance is bliss", but is it? 

In the military right from basic training you're taught that ignorance is no excuse, and further more how can we hope to change anything by burying our heads in the sand. 

So with this in mind I retract my apology, and introduce to this weeks blog subject: Nurdles. 

During my stay at the Crooked Tree Lodge I found myself sat at the dinner table with a marine biologist, and a bird watcher who'd been visiting Belize for the past 30 years and published two books on the subject.

The marine biologist was working in Belize City and carrying out some sort of marine survey for the Belizean government. The bird watcher, I think, was there for recreation but had carried out surveys on migratory birds for the government in the past.

The bird watcher painted a grim picture of how the country had changed over the past 30 years. As the towns and cities expanded more jungle had been slashed and burnt, natural habitat was declining and so were bird numbers. 

Yada, yada, yada....we've all heard this before.

It was something that the marine biologist said that really got my attention. 

She started to talk about something called "Nurdles", and she made repeated references to a book called "Plastic Ocean".

Needless to say she was pretty negative about the future prospects for the environment just like my bird watching friend, but what she said about these Nurdles sparked my curiosity.

The definition of Nurdles is small resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing processes. It's also the term used for plastic discarded into the oceans which doesn't biodegrade, instead it photo-degrades with sunlight, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, but they never really disappear. 

So what's the problem with these small plastic pellets floating around in the ocean miles from civilisation I hear you ask?

Well allow me to explain. 

Once these nurdles are out into the environment they stay there for hundreds, even thousands of years. As they pool together into what are called "gyres", they form a rubbish soup. Most toxins in the ocean are hydrophobic and gravitate towards floating debris, in this case this is our Nurdles which tend to float a few feet beneath the surface.

Chemicals like, polychlorinated biphenyls, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, and biphenyl A, are churned up with our nurdles which act like minute sponges. 

The chemicals above may all have long and convoluted names but I'm sure you can tell straight away they're not good for you, and you'd be right. They are all linked to changes in behavioural patters, disruption of reproductive cycles, autism, thyroid dysfunction and some forms of cancer. 

Fish and sea birds ingest these nurdles sometimes mistaking them for food. There are reports of fish caught with stomachs full of plastic particles, from the fishes stomachs the toxins held on the Nurdles are readily adsorbed into their blood streams, and served on a plate in your own home who knows what the next stop for these chemicals is. 

During my research for this blog I've found some truly heartbreaking stories of the damage these Nurdles can do. Sea bird mothers mistake Nurdles for food, they feed them to their chicks only to have them die of starvation, their stomachs were full but there is no calorific value in a plastic bead. 

Another thing I've found whilst researching these Nurdles is a host of staggering facts;

There are 6 huge rubbish dumps or gyres in the oceans, and the largest one contains in between 3.5 million to 100 million tonnes of rubbish. 

There are more particles of plastic in the ocean than phytoplankton, for every pound of phytoplankton you could trawl, you'd end up with 6 pounds of plastic.

2 million plastic bottle are used every 5 minutes in the US alone.

A single 1 litre bottle could breakdown into enough small fragments to put one on every mile of every beach in the whole world.

There is no question that plastic pollution is a bad thing, so the only question is what do we do about it?

To me it seems pretty obvious that a problem so huge needs a huge solution, and I'd also say it's about time that the people who made the most money from plastics technologies started to foot the bill.

Western petrochemicals companies have made billions upon billions since the "plastic revolution" of the 1960's, isn't it time that they took some responsibility for the monster they've created? 

What's needed is globally synchronised political pressure from governments on multinationals to effect a change, but since this is after all a global problem then this should be common sense?

"Be the change you wish to see in the world".  M. Ghandi

I believe it's too late for piecemeal gestures, and about time we up'd the ante.

How about this instead?

"Those most accountable must be held to account".