I fell asleep at 3am this morning, but not before i was treated to TV that can change your entire thought process and contribute to changing your life. I love to be moved by television, i like to cry and i like to laugh, i like to have the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up and lastnight all three happened. Timothy Spall started it off in “The Street” the story of him being a bloody idiot and his wife thinking she is going to die because she has found a lump on her breast. My mother had breast cancer while she was pregnant with me, so anything around that really upsets me. I cant for one minute imagine what my parents went through mixing feelings of having cancer with the birth of their first child. With me being 6ft 6 and 22 stone im sure the fact my mother had a cesarean was a blessing to her.
Next up was Leonardo Di Caprio’s “The 11th Hour” If you haven’t seen it then its worth a watch. A near on 2 hour docu-film that throws line after line at you of how we should be changing to sustain our existence on Earth. We dont have to save the Earth, that will always be here, we have to save ourselves or we wont be on it much longer. Earth has all the time in the world doesn’t it…? It was a film that made you think, time and time again. For example if we had to put a monetary value on what the Earth does for us for free, it would amount to 35 trillion dollars per year, compare that to the fact that the worlds economy is only worth 17 combined it makes you wonder what the hell we are doing. For every one truck load of produce (something that is made) there are 17 trucks of waste. 99.9999% of EVERYTHING that had ever lived on this planet is extinct, and it usually takes the top of the food chain. Its all being ruined by greed, but then again what isn’t? Everything is geared around growth but our host is unable too. Something has to give….
Then there came Dispatches, about the financial crash. We all know about that so I’m not even going to talk about it. £720k a year pension for failing….
Unreported World was about the coal fields in Jakari, India. Where thousands of families have been pushed out of their farming livelihood and through having no money are forced to live on huge burning fields of coal. Living in complete filth and on the brink of starvation. Working all day steeling coal to carry it on their backs up to 4 miles to market for the equivalent of £1, which will feed the family once per day… The coal combusts because it oxidises with the air and this makes it so hot that eventually it sets on fire, creating and pushing sulphuric gases into the air, people are living among this as i write. I cant remember British coal setting on fire for no reason, but then again i suppose its cheaper from India, isn’t it always…..
In this world you are either a person or property, in some places you are both. We have to change to give things other than human beings rights, if we don’t then we will disappear. Material belongings are destroying us, things are the thieves of time. On the documentary it finished off with a quote from David Suzuki a Geneticist “When i began to look back and say, “what is the fundamental bottom line for us as social creatures?” I couldn’t believe it because it sounds so hippy dippy….but it was love. Love is the force that makes us fully human.”
Sorry for flying well off the point of me running a marathon, but i still hope you enjoyed reading……
Everything is still all geared up to the 13th May…
Toodlepip
The Real "Run Fat Boy Run" 