CURRENT MISSION

To be a grain of sand in the cogs of the machine that tries to grind us down.

ABOUT ME

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PHILOSOPHY

"Don't put off 'til tomorrow that which you can put off 'til next week."

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

IMPORTANT TO ALL CSers!!! I have just posted a comment on YOUR rights to privacy here: http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=24&post=13236241&utm_campaign=group_digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cs PLEASE read the whole thread and get involved in this important debate... on all possible levels.

I have just joined a wonderful CS group: "Location: Other >> FUNNY NEGATIVE REFERENCES >> ENEMIES OF THE SENTENCE " I AM OPENMINDED, EASYGOING, I LIKE TRAVELS AND MEET NEW PEOPLE" >> Closedminded, difficultgoing and proud of it!" [https://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=21598&post=3625780] and have added the following comment:
"WOW! Great group and great opening post!
I have NEVER had a single offer of a couch* (and I always state: "I am willing to sleep on my own camping mattress on the balcony if that's all the space you have available") from ANY CSers in Barcelona [and less than half-a-dozen offers ANYWHERE], so it's good that I have that camping mattress and a sleeping bag with me. I find that bridges over motorways and abandoned ruins of farmhouses are at least HONEST about being openminded and easygoing.

"Openminded, easygoing" seems to mean "We love to party!" or "Let's go to the beach!"

I was reading the beginning of your post and thinking "sounds like they want to open something OTHER than their minds!" then read that you have come to the same conclusion.

* Seeing that I am in my late 50s with a white, unruly beard, I don't even stand a chance with the "openminded, easygoing" women either. :[= (the = is the beard)

HEY! I've decided to copy this comment onto my profile. Why should we hide our feelings? Let the "openminded, easygoing" hypocrites know that we see through their strategy!"

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Create your OWN visitor map!

Interests

Children
Books
Children's Books
Human Rights
Animal Rights
Wasting My Time On Internet - on the rare occasions when I have free access.

• animals
• books
• singing
• human rights
• reading
• camping
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Don't get me started!

I LOVE a lot of each.
My favourite books are a 3-way tie between "Woman On The Edge Of Time" by Marge Piercy [the best utopian novel of all time... and she's my favourite living author], and the two "Alice" books: "Alice' Adventures In Wonderland" and "Through The Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll. Anybody who doesn't read these 2 because "they're only for children" is missing a great experience.
Aside from her first 3 sci-fi novels (routine and ordinary), EVERYTHING else by Ursula K. LeGuin.
The "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman. I read each one in a different language, have since bought the first 2 in English and am looking for a 2nd-hand copy of the 3rd.
"Patience And Sarah" by Isabel Miller. I read this at least once a year.
Children's books, ESPECIALLY those that encourage children to question (/ explore) everything around them.

I now have a 3-way tie for favourite films: "Scorchers" by the Canadian director David Beaird (a sadly neglected and under-rated film); "Secrets And Lies" by Mike Leigh; and "Desert Hearts" by Donna Deitch. This last one was my #1 "film I most want to see" for over 20 years. Well, now I've seen it at last and I wasn't ONE BIT disappointed! My favourite love-story film. Look out for anything by Leigh. Polanski (ESPECIALLY "Chinatown") and Kubrick ("2001: A Space Odyssey" [best special effects of all time, the IMPACT is much better than "technologically evolved" effects of 30+ years later])are also two of my favourite directors.
I have only seen ONE film by Alejandro Amenábar which I DIDN'T consider a masterpiece. (It was good... but not a masterpiece like the rest of his films.)
Julio Medem, Isabel Coixet, and Fernando León de Aranoa are also VERY good.

My favourite music group is "indigo girls". They haven't produced a SINGLE song that I don't like, and produced my 2 favourites of all time. Also highly recommended:
Silvio Rodríguez
Victor Jara
Joni Mitchell
Pretenders (pedantic note: their name is NOT "The" Pretenders!)
Dixie Chicks
James Taylor
Kris Kristofferson
Voice Of The Beehive
The Raincoats
Special AKA (especially "Nelson Mandela" [the best protest song of all time] and "The Boiler" [blacklisted by the BBC and just about every commercial radio station in the UK for being "too suggestive" because it portrayed the fears of a woman being stalked... and at the same time they were all happy to be playing menacing sexist macho-strutting shit like "Killer's Back In Town"])
[this list would be TOOOOOOOOOO long if I went on!]

I LOATHE some of each - often things that are really popular with most people.
Two examples: Harry Potter (conservative mind-set dressed up for a modern moral backlash)
"Every Breath You Take" by The Police. "Beautiful love song"? Take the trouble to read the lyrics. It's a misogynist STALKER's song, full of contempt for the woman being sung to: "Every smile you fake... Every vow you break... I'LL BE WATCHING YOU!"

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Probably the MOST amazing was witnessing the births of 4 new human beings (by invitation of the mothers in 3 cases, and the father in the other). But it's a DANGEROUS experience... you fall in love irredeemably with the child being born! - And I've lost contact with 2 of those (the first and most important 2).

Teach, Learn, Share

Not much cop at teaching. There are some things that I feel you just can't teach - unless the other is open (in which case, they probably don't need teaching) - like massage, and the winning of a child's trust. (I also bore children to sleep with my singing...)

Countries I’ve Visited

Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Brazil, China, Germany, Ireland, Spain, United Kingdom