Hello, sorry for not telling you but I’ve been in Berlin this week. I’ve just got back home and I already have post-holiday blues. I had a really good time discovering a new city and remembering what it’s like to be somewhere where you don’t understand a word they’re saying to you (it’s been many years since I’ve holidayed in a non-franco or anglophone country). But there were a few ‘turning points’ (à la History Boys) that really make me think and reflect.

Like homophobia-driven confrontations on the dance floor of a night club in a 21st century capital city. Excuse me?! I mean, in the middle of a Lebanese shopping centre or an Abu Dhabi business meeting this sort of behaviour wouldn’t be altogether unexpected, but is it really in Europe? Inversely, I understand also that seeing two guys necking one another on a night out isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but tolerance is the name of the game, or failing that just not behaving like a total savage.

Otherwise my impressions of Germany on my first ever visit were good. A French guide book I bought talked for pages and pages about the ‘coldness’ of the Germans, though I found the truth to be the polar opposite. I actually think the French could learn an awful lot from the Germans’ openness and hospitality. In fact the thing I enjoy the absolute most about travelling to different places and meeting new people is, as cliché as it may sound, seeing how much we all stand to learn from others. How to act, how to think, how to live. To drop the frustrating coincé and superior attitude of the French, the ignorance and pig-headedness of the English, in favour of a more German attitude. And I’m sure there are some that would do it better than the Germans, so I would love to find that place and learn even more.

Anyway, I’m all alone in my flat since I flew back a day earlier than all my friends due to work commitments. Yes, the post-holiday blues have been brought on much quicker all thanks to the fact that tomorrow morning I have to get myself out of bed to go to work like an idiot for 12 hours for the most horrible man in Paris who is always happy to count the till at the end of the night but has never to date thought about the benefits of thanking the staff that make him the very wealthy and odious man that he is.

He too has a lot to learn.

The French are very much accustomed to strikes, especially on public transport. In my opinion they take it as something that needs to be done as they, in their line of work, enjoy the benefit of being able to strike over something very petty very easily. The trade unions are very strong in France and it is this influence which drives a discontented consumer, but a happy(ier) worker, which in the long run is probably a wise move. The RATP (Paris’ answer to TFL) are striking on all services next week so there will be very few trains, buses or trams, if any at all on some services. Also, very recently, KFC workers went on strike over working conditions.

The British, on the other hand, are slightly less inclined towards the idea of industrial action. And rightly so, in my opinion. The British attitude towards most things very much annoys me. People complain about Margaret Thatcher and about what she did to trade unions, yet they then persist on lamenting about the unjustness in the BA - and now National Rail - strikes over Easter.

You’ll be hard pushed to find someone who’s not affected by this in some way, so I’m sure everyone has an opinion. I’m also sure the majority of opinions would be negative.

Below are some comments I copied and pasted from The Times Online article about the forthcoming strikes, all of which I agree with.

“My advise to the management of BA is to place the ball in the court of the government of Britain. Pass anti strike legislation or we close the airline. This should be the message. BA needs to strengthen its legitemacy. The solution is a legal one based on the laws of the land. Anti strike legislation would place the government in the fronline of the war with the unions. If all governments did this, unions wuld lose their mafia style negotiating methods and would be no longer a disruptive force in society.”

“It would appear the rats are deserting the socialist sinking ship, carrying with them whatever they can lay their dirty little paws on.”

“According to other media sources the Government has given 18 million pounds of tax payers money to the unions for training etc. Since my taxes are paying for these militant showers I would like my ballot paper please.”

What do you think?

I don’t understand this. The British National Party is having to let black and Asian people join because the Equality Commission deemed its ‘whites only’ policy racist (really?).

But why on earth would any black or Asian people actually want to join the BNP? Nick Griffin always says that he is not racist, but that he is striving for an indigenous people in England. Speaking purely from what I’ve heard him say in the past, it is his belief that black and Asian people are not indigenous because their ancestry clearly lies elsewhere.

In any case, they’d only be allowed in because the party is being forced to let them in; they’re not actually welcome in the party, nor would they be welcome in the country if the BNP were to ever - heaven forbid - gain power.

The BNP is a far-right party. Ideologically-speaking, its members are highly unlikely to embrace change; one of the key principles of right-wing ideologies is sticking to the status-quo. So even if the vote goes through and the party begins to accept membership from all races, it would only be as a means of keeping political party status and thereby carrying on spreading its evil messages and untruths.

But all that aside, we all know that all the ‘indigenous people’ patter is nothing but a sick and manipulative veil for the truly racist centre of the party, its policies and all its members.

Few things render me speechless; death is one of them.

My erratic and mostly psychotic thoughts have been eating me up for days, so I decided to unload a few of them onto a friend over the internet. We chatted light-heartedly about them for a few hours. In other words, those few hours were dedicated to me and my little world, which, in the grand scheme of things, I was just reminded isn’t all that important.

Just before he signed off, said friend thanked me for the conversation, mentioning that a close friend of his died on Tuesday and this was the first time he’d thought about something else and the first time he’d smiled since.

All of a sudden, struggling for something to type, I was angry at myself for being so thoughtless. Although there was no way I could have known, and although he appreciated a bit of time away from the subject, I could have shown a little bit more interest into what ever was going on in his world in the first place at least.

“Gosh,” I replied after a moment’s pause, “and there was me being all shallow and self-centred, talking so irreverently about me. I’m truly, truly sorry.”