Wildewire

October 7th: Hamas fighters used hang gliders to cross Israel's border and attack a festival. 1,400 people were reported killed or taken hostage. Israel (under Netanyahi) lost their shit and started retaliating almost immediately and things have been increasingly nasty ever since. Internationally, the mantra has been "Israel has the right to defend itself". The American president, Britain's Prime Minister and the EU council have all parrotted that statement. Meanwhile MASS protests e.g. an estimated 500,000 people in London are taking place across the world as citizens show their support of Gaza. Israel says it understands that Hamas is not Palestine, but that has not stopped them cutting off power, water, food and medicines to the people of Gaza whilst they and, to drop thousands of bombs and missiles onto a population that is trapped by Israeli checkpoints and restrictions. Israel instructed two million Gazans to flee south in two days and that route was then bombed...

  I've been using the app formerly known as 'Twitter' in the last few months. I joined in 2010, but the idea of sharing my unasked-for thought with "The World" didn't attract me so I all but forgot about it.  I think it was when I was on holiday that I began to look at it more as I idled away hours. I was shocked to find a LOT of porn on it! -Not that I shied away that much ;-). Before long, I noticed a preoccupation with a handful of subjects: 'Getting rid of the Tories', 'The State of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer', 'Harry and Meghan' and, 'Trans Rights' etc. I moved from 'Observer' to 'Occassional Commentator' but have rarely actually initiated a tweet. I got my first singe when I supported a post from @Pride challenging anti Trans arguments. I was immediately attacked with some eye-watering accusations that my agreement signalled my endorsement of Child Abuse and some insanity about Gay men being forced...

  I found myself chatting with Sanyotse when we returned from Turkey. He casually let slip that he was "keeping up with [his]Chemo", whch shocked me. I vaguely knew he had some health issue, I didn't expect it to be chemo-worthy. He mentioned that he is lonely. I immediately told him I would be coming before the end of the summer holidays with or without the lad. I made it clear to the lad that I wanted him to come, bus that this was not going to be a holiday in the sense of being in Turkey: there would be minimal "activities" and, the aim of the holiday was to chil. If he did not want to go, I was going to arrange for him to stay with his previous carers. He chose to come. I warned him that I would not listen to any moaning about being "bored"! Sanoytse has a place in Normandy called La Pigasse. It had been briefly marketed as a retreat space- the page is still on Facebook. I remembered it being launched and said at the time that I thought it would st...

  I hadn't been out of the country for... eight or more years! I owed it to the lad to give him a holiday worth talking about when he got back to school. It took me a long time to decide where to go, the lad wasn't much help. Turkey seemed obvious: not too expensive and full of holidaying Brits from what I could see. There were a load of packages on offer. I eventually booked one. Normally an "all inclusive" deal would have put me off, I wasn't going for myself but for the lad. Yes, that IS the truth: I WOULD have been content to have stayed at home LOL. As it progressed I was disappointed to find out how much was NOT included... I persuaded Raice to cat-sit. He said he appreciated the time away from his mother! Things went wrong from arriving in Turkey: the holiday company had booked the transfer from the airport to the hotel when I called and asked about travel from airport to hotel. That wasn't included. I found out that was a 127 mile trip and almost cance...