Lincolnshire Harvest

Done all self indulgently using photoshop.

I decided aginst trying to bring you a normal shot today, and I'll tell you why. When I snapped this earlier today I just felt an overwhelming pang of nostalgia. Okay so we have laptops, the internet, mobile phones and babestation, but this scene could have been snapped at any point during the last 100 years. The machinery may have been slightly different, but that grand old building has presided over Lincolnshire for centuries... and it will be doing the same for hundreds of years hopefully. Until the nuclear holocaust destroys mankind.

Or maybe until it goes bankrupt and ends up as a nightclub.

I finally managed to get the Ferret out today as well (if you're a new reader that isn't slang for any of my body parts) and so far it has been met with a fairly positive reaction. I did run with a controversial article about UAF (Unite Against Fascism) which basically outlined the reasons that the EDL are no more than vicious thugs. certain people (and members of the EDL) have commented it has no place in a football fanzine. I disagree. The fight against fascism )and perhaps more accurately racism and intolerance) should be fought at any opportunity.

I'm going to do one of those bits where I write fairly honestly and openly. If you don't like that stuff skip past the italics, and I'll recount a funny story or something at the end).

I confess now that as a child I harboured racist beliefs. This isn't because I was a bad person, nor because I was raised badly. The truth was I had no exposure to different cultures. The town I went to school in (Horncastle) had no families of different cultures at all - there wasn't even a child from another race in our entire school. I remember the first non white lad to start at our school: that in itself is a bad thing.

I didn't preach racist rubbish or anything, it was based more an a fear and a lack of understanding. For some reason I believed that people of different ethnicity should remain in their countries of origin.

Over the many years inbetween I have changed my thoughts completely. This has been through a combination of meeting people, and understanding reasons for conflict. I think one massive irony reveals itself in the interpretation of World War II amongst the small minded of the UK population. They have this passionate dislike of Germany, often referring to the German people in derogatory terms and believing that our victory in WW2 resulted in us 'not all being German'. Pathetic.

The truth is WW2 wasn't nation against nation at all, it was acceptance and understanding against intolerant fascism. When WW2 was won it sadly became known as a victory over the German people, and that could not be more wrong.

I say this because I'm working up to my 'big confession'. When we were younger there was a German woman lived on our estate. I won't pretend to know her history, but as kids we crucified her. When we saw her we'd say some awful things, completely unacceptable. When it snowed her house got the snowballs. All because she came from another country.

I regret that now. I may have only been 10, but it makes me cringe to think once I was so narrow minded.

You never know at this rate maybe one day someone will convince me that the French are not all wankers*

I lied about the funny stuff. there's nothing more coming. If you want to read something really funny and not related to Lincoln City at all then buy my ebook. I'll put a link later when I can be arsed.

Imps at home tomorrow and Friday. The games come thick and fast in the Mickey Mouse league.

* I jest of course. That line was entirely for comic effect. I like the French as I do all nations. every creed, colour and nationality has good people and bad people.

** Apart from Grimsby, inhabitants of which can only be identified by odour.

*** it seems I got a bit keen with brackets in todays blip. I should edit the obvious mistakes out, and it'd take less effort than writing this long 'ps', but you know me: why do something in no words when forty six will suffice? (Count Them)