WANTING AND NEEDING

AVARICE !!!... It sounds like a disease... but its worse than that, its a plague, a pestilence that infects every corner of the earth....And it's fatal.

Greed is the biggest killer of men women and children this planet has ever seen and given time it might even kill the planet itself.

You see we have forgotten the difference between wanting and needing.

Our needs haven't changed for thousands of years..something to eat, something to drink, something to wear and somewhere to shelter. Our wants, on the other hand, change every day. Needs can be satisfied, wants are insatiable... always craving bigger, better, newer.

If people started wanting what need and stopped needing what they want the world would be a much happier place.

Although I seem to curl my lip and shake my fist at greed almost every single day. Not much has made me as angry as the sale of BodyShop in 2006.

BODYSHOP... that paragon of ethical consumerism... proof positive that money and the world could live in harmony, sold to L'OREAL a cosmetic company that feeds our vanity with panaceas of eternal youth. Each magical potion and lotion tried and tested for our complete satisfaction...on animals. A great, greedy, gulping multi-national that boasts Nestle as a major shareholder.

Many people felt angry, betrayed, used and very stupid for ever believing that a venture designed to make money had ever really cared about anything else

I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised, there is a mathematical correlation between money and morals ....the more you have of one the less you care about the other.

I am now resigned to the fact the Bodyshop was a con. As an attempt to make us feel that it was good to spend money it was the worlds greatest piece of ethical marketing and its most cynical.

But at the time, when I was boiling with fury, I spat ink onto a piece of paper and this was the result :

I am proud to confess that my understanding and commitment to an ethical and sustainable earth is in no small part due to my dearest friend and soul mate...the delicious Pagan Princess who holds my heart in her hands...Julia. It is her intellect, purpose and honour that has guided and inspired me in these things and bolstered my socialist rantings at an unjust world with calm common sense.

In 1215 the worlds first and perhaps most important democratic document was signed. The Magna Carta stripped away the idea of divine right (albeit for about an hour), instilled the concept of Equal Justice for all and most importantly defined the idea and right of Habeus Corpus. I'm not sure if that handful of Barons who signed the Great Charter at Runnymeade on that June day would have been pleased or saddened to know that nearly 800 years later the world is still a feudal place, with the richest 10% owning 85% of the worlds wealth.

We live in a world that produces enough food to feed us all twice over and yet a child dies every 3 seconds from hunger. If this world were a house.. 10 people would be in the kitchen feasting while 90 starved to death in the living room. Don't get me wrong no one is dieing on the other side of the world. The world is a sphere it only has one side...the outside, and we all share that!

This corporate greed that denies the world and its people dignity, justice and life has often left me sickened and contorted with anger, spewing bile fuelled words and pictures across an innocent white page.I sent one of these angry pictures to a publisher of protest postcards. They returned it...

" A bit OTT" They said.

"Good!" I thought, "So it should be."...........and here it is.

On the way home from a family outing I put it to the children that we should stop somewhere on the way. I suggested TOLPUDDLE.. we could stand under the Sycamore tree where in 1834 the worlds first trade union was formed.. the first faltering steps on the road to workers rights and freedom..I then ragaled them with the story of George Loveless and his formation of the "Friendly Society" his trial, deportation and eventual pardon after public outcry.

"Or," I mumbled, "We could go to Stonehenge."

"STONEHENGE!!!" They cried as one. Oh well I don't blame them, it was impressive, powerful and very beautiful.

However, undaunted in my quest to prise their gaze from Pop Idol long enough for them to have an independant thought,I drew a comic strip. A fable of greed and stupidity or a spiffing yarn which I called "The Wheel"...

and here it is...

These next few lines are the ones I have agonised over more than any other.. written them, deleted them, rewritten them, had a sleepless night and deleted them..spoke to my best friend and rewritten them... So on the rather tenuous and not altogether convincing basis that I too have needs ,some of which aren't sated below the waist, I now prostitute myself and let you know that if you should want to buy postcard or poster prints of " Are you worth it" or "Cereal Killers" or maybe "The Wheel" in hard copy or disc... then drop me a mail or leave a comment.

So until next time bye bye everybody....bye bye.

BLANK SPACES AND BLANK FACES

What a daunting thing an empty page is, unsullied and perfect.

So what imperfections will I fill mine with ... nothing much ...my thoughts, my feelings, my dreams, in short ....my art.

So if you want to see a fiery orange sunrise piercing the branches of a mighty oak and dappling the daisy dotted meadow with splashes of gold...wake up early and look outside! Because you wont see it on this page.There will be no paintings of blood- red, dew- moistened acrylic Orchids here, nor adjective-oozing odes to woodland waterfalls... these things are too beautiful to copy.

I may make a clumsy attempt to paint how the Oak tree makes me feel, but not the Oak tree itself, why would I? When it's perfect already.

NO...here you will find Emotional Art.

All the things that compel me to pick up pen or pencil and create........

My Things ;

Frivolous Things.. because the devil in me can find no better reason for anything than that it gives me pleasure.

Funny Things.. That coax a wry smile from my lips or surprise me with a spontaneous, barking belly laugh.

Angry Things.. That make me seethe with fury or cry with despair.

Inspirational Things.. That twist my arm behind my back and frog march me reluctantly towards love.

All the things that make me wonder why this chameleon-like sexual predator didn't change as the world around him did.

So I sit in front of the PC idly drawing rectangles with my cursor and with my mind firmly entrenched in the "Summer of Love" I vaguely recall;

When intellect meant radicalism...

When heroes climbed mountains instead of implanting them...

When Big brother was a tool of oppression not suppression..

When we worshipped integrity not celebrity..

And when people dreamed of a better world not a better house...

Yes... I sit in front of my PC (Police Constable???) and idly draw rectangles with my cursor( A witch you didn't buy heather from???) and decide perhaps the world isn't really any worse than it was... but maybe the people in it are.

Now then...... what shall we talk about ?