First up, apologies and an explanation. I've been really slack on here of late but the start of the month is always a busy time for me, it's when my two jobs as Admin and Assistant Information Officers clash the most as I have to do all the stats for the previous month etc.

Also I've promised my publishers that they'll have a final, complete manuscript in a bout two weeks time. (It's currently about 2/3 done!) I've been putting in longer hours at the office and my writing time at home is being eaten up by the panic to meet my deadline.

It's a temporary situation however and once I get this damn book finished I'll be able to return my focus to this neglected blog. It's a strange feeling, burning the candle at both ends and pushing myself, all the time telling myself it's just for a little bit longer.

The scariest thing about it is the thought that it may not actually end. What if I never actually manage to pay my dues and climb out of this rut? What if this is my life forever, or at least until I burn out? The key, I suppose, is the maintenance of perspective, remembering why you're really doing what you're doing and what's important.

The kind of mental myopia that keeps people focussed purely on the immediate is surely one of the most dangerous accidental practices around. Working for the city council has done much to confirm my growing suspicions that, actually, democracy is a big bag of shite, in a large part due to this practice.

I receive complaints from Councillors and MPs acting on behalf of their constituents fairly regularly. Not once however, has one of these elected representatives, come to us to say, why is this problem occurring? What can we do to resolve this situation and improve the service delivered to all tenants.

To a man, every single one has only ever been interested in getting that individual problem fixed, even if the demanded solution comes at the expense of other tenants. The Councillor bending my ear yesterday for example, mentioned no less than fives time in a ten minute conversation that it was very important I make it clear to the tenants in question that he had resolved their problem for them.

Mind you, it's not just individuals is it? Israel's current war on the people of Lebanon(1) is a 'temporary' thing. As we keep hearing, they just want to keep the violence going a little bit longer until they've achieved their objectives.

It is, apparently, accepted by all that diplomacy will stop the fighting at some point and so both sides want to get in as much damage as they can during this 'temporary' situation. Well let's ignore for the moment the quite incredibly naivety of treating this violence as a new and isolated conflict. Instead let's consider the scary possibilities ahead.

All it will take to stretch this thing on and on, in my eyes, is for some nutter to decide to launch some kind of 11th September style attack on Tel Aviv. Instantly Israel will have a blank slate to do as it pleases, yes even more so than it does now.

Any hopes of diplomacy will evaporate before the bodies hit the ground and that'll be it, this temporary situation will become the status quo and, like the aging rockers themselves, will no doubt tour the globe.

We justify so many situations and tolerate so much on the basis of perceived timescales. Things we wouldn't dream of planning to do forever creep into our lives a little bit more with each day until you find yourself in a hopeless and tragic situation with only the tatters of an ill advised promise to cling to for justification.

Scary shit guys, scary shit. None of us want to get stuck in a rut and we all know it can be hard to pull yourself out. When countries and continents are at stake however, those ruts get pretty fucking deep. If we don't start owning up to what's really happening we're all going to find ourselves buried under a whole load of shit and even worse, I might miss my deadline.

footnote

(1) in this respect Israel's intentions and motivations are irrelevant, the EFFECT of their actions is a war on the innocent people of Lebanon; if your entire family were blown to bits in front of your eyes would you really give a shit whether those who dropped the bomb 'meant' to do it?