Welcome to Weirdoland

You may or may not know that I have been volunteering at a drop-in for the homeless and under-privileged for a little more than a year now. What we do is pretty simple, we serve food, play board games and have a chat with these people; we basically give them a safe environment where they can socialise without the fear of being judged. I absolutely love it, I have met some very interesting people with very interesting, though sometimes sad, stories. In the time that I have known these people I have come to realise that a lot of them are veterans like Seth (not his real name) who has served in Iraq and Iran and is now homeless. Seth's health is deteriorating at an alarming rate and I haven't seen him in more than a month leaving me worried and perplex about what might have happened to him. Last time I heard of him, Seth had been arrested for begging. Seth like many other men and women has risked his life for his country. We may not all agree with these wars but the fact that ...

We've all heard about the budget cuts and the increase in tuition fees... Since September 2012 students at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) pay £9000 per year here (Almost triple what we, students who started prior to that, pay), a fact I can more or less accept since the money has to come from somewhere... So what does the university do? UCLan installs screens at the door of every classroom to show timetables, what was wrong with our old paper timetables? Nothing. It changes the whole attendance monitoring system by installing new magnetic scanners at the door of every classroom. What was wrong with the little scanners teachers had? Nothing. Today, four gigantic ice sculptures were put around campus. Who benefits from that? Certainly not me. I really hope our tuition money ins't funding these ice sculptures... All this money UCLan spends on unnecessary stuff could fund so many brilliant projects, internships, and just stuff students would actually benefit ...

So the French have been arguing for a law that's soon going to be voted about "marriage for everyone" which would basically legalise gay marriage and adoption by gay couples (in the same law) in France. There have been demos and marches from both sides, the funniest ones being the Catholics performing strange choreographies in various French cities to promote the fact a child needs one mother and one father. Personally  I think this argument is really offending. These people have clearly not thought of the thousands of single parents giving their children a loving home and an education. They also haven't thought of the thousands of children who have already been brought up by gay parents in France, children whose parents had to travel to other countries (mostly Belgium) to legally get a child as a gay couple. I don't get why France is so up-tight. Their moto?"Freedom, Equality, Fraternity". It just doesn't make sense. France is the country of the ...

I randomly came accross the BBC reality tv show "The World's Strictest Parents" the other day on youtbe so I watched a few episodes. The story line is simple: in each episode, two British "problem" teenagers are sent to very strict families over the world for one week. The chosen teenagers a first shown back home with their family and then they meet at the airport where they leave from to get to their final destinations. I watched a couple of episodes in which the teenagers go to American cities and one in which they go to South Africa. In all the episodes I have watched so far, the host families are of Christian faith, some are more involved in their religious communities than others but they basically all gave blessings before family meals versus the British teenagers who don't appear to be religious except for a couple who are Muslim but do not practice their faith (they drink, smoke, don't go to mosque etc.). So this makes me wonder, is the BBC ...

Anyone who knows me will know my Hebrew's approximate, I need people to articulate and speak slowly to me if they want to be some hope that I will understand. But people who don't know me like for example complete strangers in the streets, don't. So every time I start what I think is gonna be a fairly easy conversation like ask for direction in Hebrew or basic info, it often results in me getting the first couple of sentences and then wondering what that huge monologue is for. So I was coming back from Efrat, a settlement in the West Bank where I did an interview. First I had to go back to Jerusalem and take a bus Tel Aviv as there were no more directs to Holon at this time of the night. I arrive in Tel Aviv at the Central Bus Station and get out on Levinsky street where my next bus' stop is. Of course Levinsky is a big street so I ask a man where the 89 to Holon stops. He tells me that it's not here and that I need to go back inside the station and that he will ta...

The sun is slowly going down, Shabbat is coming. The candles have been lit, the TV is running in the background. The kettle is on, everything is peaceful. If I compare it to home it'd be one these Sundays when you stay in your pyjamas all day just wandering about, reading, watching tv, drinking tea but not doing anything productive. The atmosphere is very still. It's raining. Not like the Indian monsoon but like a heavy rainy day in Britain or Brittany. "I can't remember the last time I was stuck at home because of the rain! We haven't had rain like this in ten years! This is very good for Israel!" I have been put under house arrest by the Jewish Mother Police. I only have Converse AllStars with me and a pair of crocs and I don't have a good enough raincoat. It doesn't matter that the world is ending and that it is our last chance to go out ever, I'm not going out because my feet would get wet and cold. There is no arguing with a Jewish mothe...

20/12/12, Sderot Yerushalayim, Jaffa. I'm walking in the street, on my way to buy a SIM card and like a two-year-old, I miss a step and fall on my knees (they still hurt today), I make a whole in my trousers, I'm on my hands and knees. Opposite me a lady who sees the whole scene: "haaa! (Shock) HaKol Beseder? Looooooo!" she smiles and leaves. ("Everything okay? Noooooooo!) LOL. This is a perfect reflection of the Israeli mind (No offence any Israeli readers).