Work was the same old, worked on my stories, followed up on some emails. Peter said that he had heard something about the Russian parliament passing a bill making politically involved NGOs, funded from abroad, dub themselves foreign agents. This is what I had written a short piece on before that Peter had rejected, so he came to say that maybe he should have looked into it more rather than hastily dismissing it. One point to me.
I walked a couple of blocks to a sandwich shop for lunch; it seems impossible to find a sandwich that doesn’t have at least five ingredients in it. I felt pretty saturated with all American subs but somehow ended up ordering a ‘Stephanie’ - tuna mayo, bacon, American cheese, sprouts, pickle and sauce. No sandwich needs that much in it. I’m looking forward to eating an anorexic, British sandwich with just one filling.
I discovered today that the Boy Scouts of America, which is the US version of the British Scouts, denies membership to both kids and adults who are gay. And they opening adhere to this policy. I can’t believe that this is legal. The Supreme Court upheld their decision in 2000 saying that any private organisation has a right to chose its members. Even the BNP wasn’t allowed to restrict its membership to whites only, by decree of the European Court of Human Rights.
However, I also read that a Heinz Mayonnaise advert in the UK that included two men kissing was pulled because 200 people complained about it. Obviously Heinz is not willing to stand up for equal rights in the face of such huge public anger! The article also said that double the amount of people had complained about a car advert that showed a wet dog, shivering outside a car. Where did people’s sense of humour go?
I decided to try out Hatha Yoga with Patricia this evening. I borrowed one of Sandra’s yoga mats, she has about 5, and headed over to the gym. You don’t have to have any kind of induction to use the equipment here, surprising in the litigation capital.
There were about seven people in the class and the woman who ran it must have been about 65, with grey hair up in a ponytail, big, gold hoop earrings and a cliched yoga teacher’s spaced out expression and monotone voice. We did lots of breathing and stretching and extending. It was great, a full body and mind work out.
Tonight’s film was ‘Fire in Babylon’, a documentary about the 1970/80s West Indian cricket team that dominated the sport for 15 years. Finally a film that didn’t make me cry. It was fascinating to understand how that one team symbolised so much for the people of the West Indies and gave them an identity that wasn’t fun loving, beach bums but world class athletes who could conquer the world. A recommendation for those not looking for a gut wrenching, emotional roller coaster.
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