Taking My Foot Off The Pedal I've been in London for three weeks, and while I've practically achieved next to nothing in that time, I have been consuming plenty of media which I think has generally broadened some of my horizons so to speak. I've also decided to keep this blog going, despite the fact that I won't be on an amazing cycling trip, rather I will be essentially on holiday thinking about stuff and meeting people. I'm going to try to mix up the writing style and post more regularly now that I have my own laptop. For posts like this one today which is almost purely thought based, I will try to progress logically and succinctly lest it become difficult to follow. For event based posts I will try to put in actual speech quotations, or at least (realistically) speech representative of my interpretation of what was said. I'm also going to try to be more honest in a critical sense. Previously I would leave out things which painted people in a bad light because if I'm going to offend someone, I would like them to have a chance to defend themselves instead of my criticism being broadcast publicly without that opportunity. I've decided that the blogs I like to read are ones which are representations of the author's undiluted interpretation of an occurrence rather than them syphoning out defamatory depictions of the characters involved. As today's post is thought based, feel free to only pick topics which you find interesting. Obviously. CharityI watched the TED Talk entitled The way we think about charity is dead wrong by Dan Palotta at the solicitation of a friend as we discussed our respective future plans for doing good in the world. I hugely recommend watching it. Before I watched the talk I was generally wary of where my money goes in charity, broadly that a lot of it may not go towards things which progress the charitable cause, specifically that some probably is lost to corruption. I had decided that I would like to work for a charity, but not just a charity generally, only one whose activities were directly in line with how I thought the challenges of the world should be faced. I'm not going to bother summarising the talk, if you are interested, watch it. It is my opinion that if people start businesses with primarily the idea of achieving a social good and are successful as businesses just as a side-effect of that, the world would be a much better place. If anyone has an idea for one such business and you think I might have some relevant input, let me know. Invest in AfricaI watched a TED Talk (Want to help Africa? Do business here) on this idea before I saw the one above, and they both seemed to be along the same lines ultimately: help Africa help itself. There are plenty of places (countries and larger regions) in Africa which enjoy stable economic growth where investment will lead to the whole continent improving (I don't like using the word “improving” here, but I want to encompass the lowering of infant mortality rates, reducing the number of people in extreme poverty and transitioning to less corrupt leadership, among other things). If you watch it (or any other video I mention) and have mad ideas about it, let me know. I would love this to be a discussion rather than a rant. The migration problem of Syria is more complex than it may appear on the surface When we talk about the number of people seeking asylum in Europe in the hundreds of thousands, it is easy to think that all refugees can be absorbed with minimal impact to the economy of the absorbers. I'm playing the devil's advocate here a bit, just because I want to look at it from another point of view. I watched the Gapminder Foundation's video on YouTube done by the amazing Hans Rosling which has some slightly out of date statistics regarding the numbers the EU is willing to take, but what it really outlines to me is that if we did take the “open the borders” view, there may be literally tens of millions of refugees trying to enter the EU. It is their legal right to seek asylum which I am totally for, but it doesn't seem to be the best way logistically to deal with the problem considering that most of them would like to return to Syria once the conflict is resolved. To this end it really is in everybody's (roughly speaking) best interest to end the conflict stat, but the means to that end is something I think nobody can really say they know. There are maybe multiple ways to make Syria safe and the only one we can really rule out is bombing as that's what hasn't worked in the past. In the mean time, if the majority of people affected by the crisis are internally displaced peoples (IDPs), then we should be open to focussing charitable donations to associations working there as well as to those looking to seek asylum outside Syria's borders.
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I Was Doing WorkawayI arrived at Workaway in Torri in Sabina, around 70km north-east of Rome without much of a plan. I said I would stay at least a week and beyond that wasn't really sure what I was going to do. The Swedish One Year Working Holiday Visa I applied for was still pending and in my head I really wasn't going to cycle all the way back to London. The German man in La Spezia, Arne was of the opinion that I shouldn't do something just to say I'd done it, so if it's better for the trip to just cycle for a while then fly back to London, that is what I should do. So I settled in with the idea that I would see how it goes here and make that call when I need to. The actual work I was doing was basically gardening and handyman type jobs. It wasn't too difficult, though it was very hot. The schedule was very laid back which wouldn't normally suit me, but in this case it worked out really well. It was probably the best I've eaten for three weeks in my life. We built steps, put a bench in to the side of a hill, weeded, cleaned, repainted tables, repainted bars, went to Rome to help out in a hotel restaurant and threw sticks for Winston the hound. In my spare time I was learning Spanish, reading Robinson Crusoe and I Am Malala, and eating. And napping. Basically every day we worked from around 9am - 1pm then it was siesta time until maybe 5pm. The main people I met in this time were: -Martin and Alex the hosts. Martin was the outgoing super friendly one. He does voice overs. And most of the cooking. Alex was less cheery, but when he said something, people listened. -Luke. A 19 year old English physics student from Leicester who was staying there for the first two weeks I was there. We hung out in Rome a bit too when I went there. I was there when I witnessed the man pooping in the busy street next to the main station in Rome. -Finley and Edward. English couple who were also workawaying when Luke left. Ed introduced me to many ideas, including that nuclear weapons have actually done a lot to prevent wars. Finley and I had many interesting conversations, most notably regarding responsibility in the case of English tourists getting cheap flights to and cheap accommodation in Tunisia then getting blown up. -Florian. Mamma Mia. Florian was an animal. He was basically the gardener/handyman/caretaker. He is Romanian. I don't know what else to say. -WInston. Winston eats dirt. After two weeks I booked a flight with my bike to London. Everything just seemed to be in favour of doing that. I didn't enjoy cycling in Italy with the roads and the difficulty camping. I didn't love the idea of cycling for another month which is the minimum it would take to cycle back to London. This would also give me two more weeks relaxing at workaway with which I could plan my next moves. I Am In LondonLast Thursday (27th August) I took my bike to Rome and flew to London. My laptop worked for a bit then decided it couldn't connect to the internet. I wouldn't take it with me to South America anyway because it's a million kilos, so I bought the cheap cloud based HP Stream which I can take with me. I also bought flights to Madrid then Lima for the 8th of October. While I'm in London I'll be hopefully learning lots of Spanish, catching up with all the people, going to the Tram, watching the Hawks Threepeat and winning cricket next weekend. Carn the Wood. I Will Be In South AmericaWhen I arrive in Lima I'll head up to Trujillo which is about 560km to the north, still on the coast. I have a workaway planned at a school there teaching disadvantaged kids. This is the place. I'll probably stay there for around a month, then head somewhere else to do more workaway, maybe in Ecuador. That's pretty much how I plan on spending six months in that continent. Then who knows. The Future Of The BlogI've decided that I enjoy writing things and a blog is a good way for me to keep track of what I've done, so I'm going to keep going with it. I think I'll change the style to make it more exciting for the reader and the writer. I'm not sure if I'll start a new one or just change the name of this one. I have no subscribers because I haven't added a function for that, so it should be easy enough to start again with a new one.
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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