D

Are you a hunter gatherer? Do you know what that means? do you believe man has evolved so much that he's a far cry from what he was 15,000 years ago? Our differences from primitive man have only been happening in the last two hundred years. That we use toothbrushes and deodorant is irrelevant. That we trace our physiological evolution via our blood characteristics is probably nearer the truth. Is Ghengis Khan charging around in your bloodstream? Is there evidence in your blood that you were a plague survivor? Does polynesian ancestry assure you there wasn't a chinese encounter six hundred years ago? Our labs are closing in on a fast DNA analysis, MRI is picking over our bloodlines thanks to the Human Genome Project, and one fine day when this world has got your wellbeing a subject of immediate analysis and help, we may be able to get 'wellness' where and when we want it.......but for the meantime, you are what you eat. And hunter gatherers, the 0 bloodgroup of homo sapiens, 46% of us, are designed to eat a meal we found, chased down, cooked or tenderised or just tore apart and wolfed as we found it, depending on our circumstances, which could be the subject of a great deal of speculation, but hopefully I wasn't chased by wolves much, and I was able to snare a bird, wrap it in mud and bake it in a comforting fire, maybe even have enough to bring it home to the cave and share with my kin, tribe, woman; whatever society I was able to coexist with..... My Group A friends are all meant to be vegetarians; they built huts and kept their animals to milk, shear, and generally build into an agrarian society; I've always watched with interest my A friends; they are all losing their mothers to Cancer, and those mothers are, 100%, meat eaters. Some of my A friends tear into meat the way I'm meant to have torn into my prey those thousands of years ago, and I watch them now, and their fragile daughters with interest, wondering when and how they will go, and, if we are indeed what we eat, what is that incompatibility with mother's notion of 'good' that is getting us so firmly into our graves with the big C that, strangely has evolved with our last two hundred years of toothbrushes and deodorants....? (Have you read 'Our Stolen Future'?) I cannot put out of my mind the cries of achievement of the farmers who manage to get a bigger crop, grow a hardier apple, reap a double harvest from a season, and otherwise stretch the natural process of things to get what???? I like Spelt flour, from the original, single row wheat grass. On my European supermarket shelves I can get two, sometimes three varieties of it, and I add a little Rye, and make myself a loaf of bread once a week. Since I got to like this product, I've lost any tendency to have a cold. No mucus. No common or garden white flour. No pizza, unless I make it myself. And a croissant is still just a croissant, and cannot be considered a pleasure if, in eating a product made from Durum wheat, one loads oneself with the wallpaper glue that bakers seek to produce those lighter more glamorous confections, and is the sole reason one would seek a hybrid grain, to facilitate a more facile product. But there is a sector of our community who see to it that our interests and wellbeing come AFTER their interests and wellbeing, which is largely fiscal, and immoveable, if we believe the masses of media targeting our wellness. Wellness is a subtractive process. Achieve by removing from one's diet. Don't need; un-need. The best and biggest lie is that you can harm yourself by not eating. I can do that for 18 days. Always I meet up with someone who invites me to have sushi and I can't resist. I could easily go longer. It is interesting, fifteen days on water alone, to examine what is important in nutrition. Nothing really, once you can stand off from that impulse; It's a bit like smoking... quit that and then quit eating; you'll get an extra three hours to DO STUFF that you just waste with eating. And your energy goes UP, till you are (dare I say it?) superhuman.... try it, rather than a diet. Diet? Nuff said.

B

Buildings used to be intelligent. And 500 years ago when they built the great hall at Oxford University, some absolutely normal bloke squinted up at those soaring beams and figured 'aye, them'll need a replacement or two in a while; I'd better drop some acorns over in yonder paddock', and indeed, the engineer in charge of the renovation of said great hall, when wondering how he'd get wood that size for an authentic renovation, was surprised to find an absolutely normal bloke doffing his cap saying; 'aye, we've 'ad a stand of them oaks earmarked for them rafters for a while', and indeed, the wood went in real well, if you travel a little, and want to look at something a little deeper than your 'destination hotel' and some recently upgraded beach. I'm renovating an old farm building right now; the engineer who inspected it said, in the space of three cigarettes, 'knock it down and build a new one'... the neighbour is doing just that, and getting permission to do all that is taking longer than you can imagine. I will use more than 70% of the 100+ year old wood again; in fact, getting replacement timber of authentic nature is more of a test than it is worth; our native pine is Spruce; everything else is Oak; I will have plenty of tech stuff; but it will be inside; outside will be spruce and oak, and a drop of good oil and a bit of colour will make it look real easy on the eye. There is an industry in Vancouver, of recladding highrise apartments as the original cladding fails; anyone involved in a Body Corporate will know the likely cost of said replacement; a detail not on the glossy brochures when the project was floated; truth is, these industries are the backbone of the economy of many countries, and I wonder how many more centuries this roguery will prevail. Seems there is a line of gullible people believing 'easy maintenance', and just queueing to put their deposits down; the renovations they will need in five years carry a five year guarantee. You do the math.
I don't like advertising; the opposite is the truth, but Biobased is a company making a vegetable based foam insulation you spray on the insides of buildings; it holds the structure together even in a hurricane; but I can't use it here because it has not been approved for Europe; In fact, the company reports it has been extremely disheartening how slow it has been getting approval. This is a great product. There is a hurricane machine at the University of Florida, set up to test the donated housing used to aid Katrina victims; (hey, that's the biggest joke of all ain't it George?) Little can I get of their results; I suspect that the donated houses will, to a one, fold under the pressure. Spray a structure on the inside, with a moisture resistant, environmentally friendly insulation foam, and one has, for all our foreseeable futures, a better step to sanity with the roofs over our heads. I didn't worry about this till I fully clad a house in the latest 'fibreglass batts', soundproofing and all, and in a really cold blow, the house lost all its heat in ten minutes. Since then I do not believe 'R Factor' in insulation; It's a crock, and the founding fathers of YOUR country are up to their elbows in this shit, and sell it to your grandchildren too, unless you wake up. Nuff said.