A Californian I Am Not
California is a nice place to live, if you happen to be a hippie.
Orange County in Southern California is a very beautiful place to spend early summer ~ the great weather, fabulous beaches, and fascinating countryside….. But any Englishman thinking of coming here for the very first time needs to know that SoCal is as different from the Shires as Wensleydale cheese is from the muck known as American cheese.
George Bernard Shaw once said that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. This is manifestly true. Californians do not know how to speak or understand English, even if Spanish is not their first language. Certainly no Californian will ever understand English humour, irony, sarcasm, or know what real honesty is about. Also Californians have a language of their own; WTF does ‘Jonesing’ mean?
There is popular movement that calls on us all to walk 10,000 steps a day. Californians do not walk anywhere, unless they are a penniless bum. A Californian will drive to the gym and then spend some time on the treadmill while listening to mindless music.
And, Californians are among the very worst drivers I have ever come across, possibly barring the French. The two real downsides are #1 all Americans think they are good drivers, #2 in California the standard of driving worsens by age, sex, and ethnicity, (not how you’d think).
Californians even drive to and from what they are pleased to call a pub. I’ve been in several pubs / sports bars here, and to any decent Englishman they are universally appalling. Do Not think you will get a decent pint of beer here, they serve dross such as pineapple flavoured beer. Americans are also pleased to sit at the bar and watch sports TV all night. Do Not eat the food in any American pub / sports bar.
Some Californian food is fabulous, you can get a wonderful steak and salad here. On the other hand sushi is popular here, and so is serving nasty cheese with everything. Do not try ‘Mexican’ food, it’s greasy muck with jalapeno.
Some say that California is the Golden State. And that saying ‘have a nice day’ isn’t actually an insult. All I know is that bikers, drop-outs, hippies, stoners, and surf bums do well here.
~
Jack Collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
The beach bars are cool in California,
and some serve good food,
The Flat Earth Conspiracy
Those who are able to see beyond shadows will never be understood.
April Fools Day
The Earth from Space. (that’s Atlanta GA in the centre)
A bunch of conspiracy theorists who persist in believing that the Earth is flat are planning a trip to Antarctica to see ‘the end of the world’. I think they really mean the “edge of the world”, but you wouldn’t expect anyone who believes in a flat Earth to have a good grasp of semantics.
Good luck on that trip. If the Earth really was as flat as a pancake they would never get there because all navigation by sea and air relies entirely on the fact that the Earth is an oblate spheroid ~ that is not at all flat.
Mind you, as the next meeting of the Flat Earth International Conference will be held in Dallas, Texas, the spiritual home of conspiracy theories. I’m guessing that their meetings are filled with febrile debates about nothing that is within shouting distance of reality. You know what? I would have expected the Flat Earth Bunch to be headquartered in California, where they really do know how to party with psychoactive substances.
There is no evidence whatsoever for a flat Earth, other than the evidence of our own eyes when our feet are planted firmly on the ground. In that case, when we look around us, the Earth does seem flat ~ other than hills and mountains, and valleys, and gorges….. The Pythagorean theorem, one of the oldest mathematical proofs in Euclidian Geometry, is predicated on the Earth being flat. However, Pythagoras falls apart when great distances across the Earth are involved, in which case we need to use spherical trigonometry. (Which only works for big balls.)
As far back as Columbus in 1492 AD, navigators knew the Earth was a spheroid, although Columbus got the circumference badly wrong. The Norse Vikings knew the Earth was a sphere when they travelled to America in about 1,000 AD. The Ancient Greeks were thinking about a spherical Earth in the 6th Century BC, and before that the Phoenicians navigated great distances based on the idea that the Earth was a sphere.
The Moon is a sphere too
Only in the Bible is the idea of a flat Earth much popularised, and as we all know, everything in the bible can be treated as the Gospel Truth. However, if you are interested in exploring the flat Earth conundrum, the Flat Earth Society has a cool website https://www.tfes.org/
Some say that NASA’s sole reason for existence is to propagandize the public and promote this false ball-Earth heliocentric worldview. And that there was never a moon landing, it was all shot in a studio in Culver City. All I know is that some gullible fools are eager to believe the stupidest pseudo-scientific dross. And the moon really is made of green cheese.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
some say that real women have absolutely no sense of direction, and that no woman will ever admit that they’re wrong, some of that is mostly true
California Flowers
Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.
In early June this year I will be flying out to Southern California, and then on to Arizona for a week or so.
One of the things I like best about SoCal is the beautiful flowers ~ the like of which we don’t see here in England.
~
~
~
~
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
perhaps I should get a book on the wild flowers of the USA
Cars, and Planes, and Trains
It’s very nice to go travelling, but it’s so much nicer to travel home.
Actually no it isn’t. In comparison to warm and sunny Orange County, the North of England in late November is bleak, boring, grey, and bloody cold, even down at my favourite boat on the marina it’s miserable today. And it’s a pretty long journey to get back here from where I was staying with my friend.
- Leave my friend at 04:00 Pacific Time on Monday 19th November.
- Uber to John Wayne Airport.
- Take off from John Wayne at 07:00.
- Flight to Dallas Fort Worth 2hrs 35
- Land DFW at 11:35 Central Time (2 hours time change).
- Take off DFW at 15:15 for London Heathrow, a flight of 9hrs 00, (benefiting from a 125mph tail wind over the Atlantic).
- Land London Heathrow at 06:15 GMT on November 20th (6 hours time change).
- Leave LHR for Newcastle upon Tyne at 09:45 GMT, a flight of 1hrs 15
- Arrive NCL at 11:00
- Leave Newcastle Airport by Metro Subway for Newcastle Central Rail Station at 12:40 GMT
- Arrive back at the garret at 14:30 GMT on Monday 20th of November.
Total journey time of 26hrs 30min. Time in the air 12hrs 50min.
It’s about 5,500 miles from SoCal to the North of England, all in all, and from 38,000 feet you damn well know the world is round when you look out of the aircraft windows.
Some say that it’s excitement and adventure that keeps a man alive. And, that when you can’t be bothered to go travelling, you may as well just curl up and die. All I know is that I loved every damn minute of my latest trip ~ maybe the best trip ever.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
much on New Mexico is Indian land
(is one allowed to say that?)
I’m Going Home, bye, bye…..
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home
England is my home
By 07:00 Pacific Standard Time on Monday, I should be in the air, somewhere between John Wayne Airport in Orange County, and Dallas, Fort Worth in Texas. After a 3 hours or so layover in DFW, I fly to London Heathrow, then on to Newcastle upon Tyne, and then eventually back to my garret at sometime after 13:00 hrs on Monday 20th Greenwich Mean Time.
A long and convoluted journey ~ around 18 hours in the air, 6 hours or so of layovers, and an 8 hour time change along the way. The North of England to Orange County, CA, USA, and back again, is not a trip for the faint-hearted.
California is cool. And who knows? If some things change, and some things work out, I may even go back there someday.
Some say that travel and adventure is what keeps a man alive. And that meeting new people with new things to say broadens the mind and sharpens the intellect. All I know is that I happen to like California a hell of a lot, but maybe a few Californians not so much.
~
Jack Collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Old Glory on Balboa Island CA
Scenes on Sunday ~ the rocks and the water
if it wasn’t for the rocks, the water would have no music
~
~
~
~
~
Jack Collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Newport Beach, Orange County, California
Scenes on Sunday – California
I’m just a staid English guy being cool in Orange County
Today I am in sunny Orange County, where it’s still a balmy 80 degrees. I like California, it might just be the nicest crazy place I know.
–
—
–
–
–
–
Jack Collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Wednesday I fly out to New Mexico
at least I’ll be staying at a cool hotel
Travelling Again
A vacation is what you take when you can’t take real life anymore.
If the automated posting facility works, then this should magically appear on my blog at 08:00 GMT on Friday November the 2nd ~ when I’m on an aeroplane flying south over England.
In a little while I shall be in that most magical of all places, Heathrow Airport, (English Irony), ready to board another aircraft bound for Chicago O’Hare. Eventually, after yet another flight I will arrive at John Wayne in Orange County, California.
Really, this is one time when it’s the destination that counts, and not the journey.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Englishmen say; ‘sorry’ for no real reason
I’m sorry but I think John Wayne is a really cool name for an airport
American Iron
American men look at pick up trucks the same sad way they look at a cute woman’s butt.
I like classic American cars.
Vintage iron speaks to me.
~
~
~
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
a pick up truck says it all about the American male
must I always be alone?
the basic nature of a man is constructive, faithful, and trustworthy
If you have been following this blog, you will know that, over the past few years, circumstances, and my own stubborn nature, converged with my incipient depression to create a weird and unsustainable view of life for me. Not only that, I was also suffering from vicious, undiagnosed, and untreated Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), and that blessed me with paranoia and a morbid fear of abandonment.
Add those things together and what happened was that I became an agoraphobic, anti-social, celibate, friendless, psychotic recluse.
My door stayed locked, I seldom left my apartment, I avoided meeting people, the telephone remained unanswered, and I deleted unread any emails I received. Quite honestly, I may as well have been dead as to live that kind of non-life.
It took years, and I do mean years, for me to begin to break out of my self-made prison.
My escape started because I like to write, I wasn’t writing anything, and so I went to a writers’ group, met a few people, and even spoke to them without my being stabbed, attacked, denigrated….. And then I started to write this blog ~ and trust me to begin with it was terrible. Yet, an amazingly articulate woman in California found something that she liked in the way I wrote. And, as things happen, we became long-distance, online friends.
Those of you who have been in a long-distance relationship will know that it’s fraught with problems, and my friendship with this cool Californian woman is probably no better or worse than most relationships that started on-line. As you would expect from a guy with Borderline Personality Disorder in their background, I became obsessed with her, had unrealistic expectations, and did stupidly impulsive things. I was not constructive, reliable, nor trustworthy. None of that was helpful.
My good fortune is that I spent some time with a therapist, my doctor, and a psychiatrist. The general consensus of their opinion was that I had been suffering from BPD, but I was mostly recovered ~ at the time that was all news to me, (I even had to look up what the hell Borderline Personality Disorder was).
But, if I was mostly recovered I could start to live my life the way I wanted, and not the way a serious mental illness was telling me to exist.
Ergo, I am on a journey of self-awareness, self-discovery, self-development, and self-improvement. Now I mostly say and do what I think is right, and those that don’t like it can just feck off and have a nice day, and please don’t keep in touch. That new and more assertively honest attitude of mine has ruffled a few feathers ~ but I’m never going back to being that agoraphobic, anti-social, celibate, friendless, obsessive, psychotic recluse.
Maybe I need to find some new friends, and maybe I’ll be alone again for a while.
Some say that a friend in need is a friend indeed. And that you should choose your friends wisely. All I know is that I’d rather be alone than have fair-weather friends.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
at least I have a friend in Marmaduke
and he’s always ready for anything
