Tell you what, I'll accept the magic beer fairy, and we'll leave it at that.

The Pope was in Brno today. That's in the not Prague part of the Czech Republic.. I was there a few weeks ago. He was in Prague yesterday, but didn't speak to the peons, just some politics.. wonder why.. hmmm..

Well anyway, he had an interesting message to the crowd.. "Don't exclude God" he told the worshiping 100,000+ strong crowd.. I mean I wasn't there but they say the crowd was about that and I'm just assuming...

And it's annoying. I mean I know that's what these religious leaders do, and that they're mostly talking to (directly anyway) those who are already faithful but fuck. No, I won't include a non-existent deity into my life who if it did in fact exist would most certainly make said life much much worse.. and you my dear, have and should have no say in it. I know for you god is real and good, but you don't speak for the far far majority of people in the world, and to those people your words are OF NO IMPORTANCE and you should.. ya know.. fucking realize it.

Anyway.. more stupidity from the Ratz includes:

"History has demonstrated the absurdities to which man descends when he excludes God from the horizon of his choices and actions"

Um, no. Sorry dear. History has demonstrated that people can do horrendous things for all sorts of reasons but by far the most has been because of religion. I do accept that a lot of the time the religion is a front for ethnic and land disputes, but... well what he said is just rubbish, is all.

Oh and I love this bit..

"The 82-year-old pontiff's three-day visit comes as Czechs prepare to mark 20 years since their 1989 Velvet Revolution shook off a regime that had ruthlessly persecuted the Roman Catholic Church."

Waaaaaaaaaaaahh, waahhh.. Please. The Catholic Church should know a bit or 2 about persecution.. and I really don't know a whole lot about the history of Catholics in this country, but there weren't any burnings or flailings or whatnot. Just sayin..

And in other Pope related news.. Yesterday in Prague he was attacked by a "large arachid" :)

That's not what I ordered.

I was going to write more witty, pithy, kooky things about my trip to Italy but.. the time has passed and it's "literally" ancient history now. So it'll have to wait.

I'm back at home, in the doldrums. Yes, I live in the doldrums, it's quite nice here this time of year actually, a little known fact. It doesn't change the fact that I have ominous heavy shit hanging over me, which surprisingly, or unsurprisingly if you know me as well as I do, is easy enough to put out of my head and figure out what I'll do until the last minute. I mean it is sorta the last minute, but nevertheless.

There really isn't much going on.

I went to Rome :)

Another shot..

cos I got plenty.

And we're back..

Home again after a trip to Italy which I like to refer to as "il shlep grande". Ok so there've been more grande shleps for many people over the years, but at the time..

The short version of the itinerary goes Rome - Cagliari, Sardinia - Radicondoli, Tuscany - Rome.. and back to Prague. The longer version is more like Roma Fiumicimo - Roma Termini - Civitavecchia - Cagliari - Civitavecchia - Grosseto - Siena - Radicondoli - Volterra - Radicondoli - Siena - Roma.. and back to Prague. That's not including every single metro trip or bus.. though I could add those if we want a longer one. Oh and the bits between Civitavecchia (the port of Rome) and Cagliari were on the sea. Ferry trip. 14 hours on a "sleeper" ie a chair.

It was nice. Here's a photo.



You can probably figure out which leg of the journey that was taken.

refulgent

That means; Shining brightly; radiant; brilliant; resplendent.

Doesn't really sound like it. I would have thought it meant icky, or crap, generally poor. Maybe something like the state of having strength to resist that which one bla bla bla etc. Or something.

Well.. you learn something new every day. That is if you keep track of the words the internet presents with us each day. Unless of course you see a word you already knew the meaning of in which case you don't learn anything new unless there is something else you've learned the same day, which is actually quite likely, so there.

That is all.

Blogging and stuff..

I've rather gotten out of the habit of doing it, this blogging thing. It's not that I don't have anything to write, at least, not in comparison to the time when I was writing often.. it's just that... I don't.

I'm off to Italy soon, for a week. That should be nice. When I come back I'll tell you all about it.