Changing times - for the better?

It appears the world is continuing to change. Europe is preparing to welcome its newest country since 1993 in the shape of Montenegro, splitting from Serbia despite a population of only around 650,000. Even Wales is bigger than that and we still rely on England for quite a lot!

Now not for one moment would I attempt to provide an opinion on this matter as the only person I know who could explain the situation is a flamer who is currently undergoing an experiment into dating women. By the way, I have been told from several sources she is extremely lovely and charming, which puzzles me further. Anyway, perhaps Igor would explain exactly what this split means to the people of both countries?

From my brief investigations, it appears over 85% of Montenegrans voted but only 0.4% above the 55% needed to grant independence. This means that nearly 45% of voters were against independence, creating a divided nation? And apparently the Serbs aren't to happy as they now become land-locked, harming their tourism and logistics. I really hope that this does not lead to any conflict whatsoever.

Normally, there is so much bollocks going on around the world I try to ignore it. I think if I tried to keep up with everything, it would lead to a state of confusion, mistrust, anxiety and paranoia. So I take the easy way out. However, in the past week or two, the ugly face of terrorism has reared its ugly head again in Britain, despite the absence of any terrorist activity whatsoever.

Whilst I was in London with the backpacking hippies (they were a total cliche), police were busy shooting and arresting terror suspects in another part of the city who they suspected of building chemical weapons. Now I would never suggest we take anything other than the toughest stance possible towards the threat of terrorism but it seems these suspects were completely innocent and simply scared shitless. They were interviewed yesterday describing how they felt when police kicked down their doors armed to the teeth and it didn't sound entirely pleasant.

But what does this lead to? I read about the raid before it was announced it was unnecessary and started thinking about it when on the tube, where 3 bombs were exploded last summer. I vividly noticed how enclosed I was with nowhere to hide or escape if I was there last year. I also noticed 5 or 6 youngsters of an ethnic minority (have no idea how to phrase this politically correctly, sorry) just chatting or whatever and suddenly thought are there people who now watch such a group with suspicion and worry. Not the police, just regular people wary of another attrocity.

How horrible is that? Really, it's racist for a start but also an awful way to live life, in fear and mistrusting others. It's certainly not the way I'd want to live my everyday life. Not that I think any of this will happen in either Cardiff or Montenegro but sometimes I just yearn for an easy going, nothing ever happens life in good old Nova Scotia, where I don't have to give a monkeys about anything. Seriously, there's a hell of a lot of shit in this world, which I think I'm gonna try my utmost to just escape from and ignore. Probably easiest.

Anyway, aside from the state of the world, we're in one of the best times of the year right now. Now is the beginning of summer and that can only mean two things - windows down driving songs and sunshine sheilas. One of my favourite pastimes at the moment is driving - anywhere - windows down, stereo turned up and listening to anything by the strokes, the jam or one of the greatest songs of modern times - COUNTRY GIRL by PRIMAL SCREAM. Download it, you'll love it. Oh and sunshine sheilas, as you know, are those girls who all disappear during the winter and as soon as the sun starts shining again, reappear wearing skimpy little outfits. Which of course you can look at all day long cos they can't see where your eyes are fixed behind those sunglasses you now have to wear because of...err, the increased UV from the terrible damage we're doing to the atmosphere. Awful this global warming, for shame.