Gravity ... too high ...

Wow - the tireds have hit again.

I feel like I'll be sleeping for a significant amount of this weekend. Or at least I hope I will be. Sleep's still been at a premium lately. It feels like it's been taking ages to nod off again. I suspect that tendency is partly down to keeping on those computer games for a little bit too long at night.

The RSI tendencies in my right wrist and some other upper body issues have definitely been woken up again by a little too much stick time. The Elite piloting position is not exactly ideal. I need to clear off the upper level of my desk again so I can put the keyboard there and have the flightstick in a central position so I'm not twisting my body to do the piloting thing. At the moment, keyboard and flightstick go side by side, so the stick is off the the right. I'm moving around anyway because when I'm doing the piloting, I'm pretty constantly checking over the laptop that's at my 9 o'clock position compared to my place sitting at the pooter.

I also keep a watchful eye on the telly, which usually has the news on mute while my laptop pipes music over to my amp and speakers. (That's done better lately actually - I tweaked some settings in the network that's given a little better Quality Of Service, translation - it's not doing the dropouts much now)

What is happening with the migrant situation ? It seems like we've allowed the situation in Syria to get totally out of control, causing mass migration out of that country. They have the impression that the West is the Land of Milk And Honey, so they're heading here instead of the actually much richer and closer Oil Baron Gulf.

It's amazing how perceptions twist according to the whims of our media services. We now have Help The Immigrants campaigns popping up everywhere, a few months ago a neo-nutter political party called UKIP got rather too much share of the vote here on a manifesto based around kicking out immigrants, partly supported by our media. Yet now the media and the sheep who follow their whims have now gone full circle.

It's curious how the flavour of the month changes isn't it.

I sympathise with the situation the migrants find themselves in but the question I have is for the people saying "Bring them here". Ok. Where will they go. Britain is already overcrowded. Most of Europe is overcrowded. We are still having to struggle under the yoke of austerity. There is no money to house them, feed them, support them. Will everyone signing the Bring Them Here petitions offer up enough room in their house to put an immigrant family in ?

I'll let you answer that for yourselves. What you do is your own business, just think about the consequences of what you ask for. Personally, I need to sort the house out before I'd be happy to have visitors, let alone people joining me living here. I'd actually like that but I'll be the one choosing who it is.

Some of what I've put up there is born out of tiredness making me a bit grumpy. There's that difference between a group of people saddled with the tag "Refugee Immigrant" and the genuinely wonderful singular Person who is looking to make a new home. Like ...

The wonderful bubbly chuckly smiley one who is working so hard to make a success of her talents (not an immigrant herself but from a family that has embraced the English culture).
The tall blonde KFC lady who recognises me when I go in there, asks me how I'm doing and has a truly wonderful smile to go with finding me the bigger bits of chicken.
The possibly Greek group who run the chippie. They start getting my order ready before I've even asked for it.
The group who run our Chinese. People come from far around to go to our Chinese.
That lovely Yogscast girl who was born here but is so well travelled, she's a child of the world.
The Irish Miss L who always looks as if she's going to burst out laughing if she sees me, in anticipation of possible Antics from the Sleepy One. Not spotted her lately, wonder if she's seen me first and kept an eye out for potential Antics from an unseen hidey hole ...
And a few more.

It's what people put back into the society they live in and that goes for people born in the country and those who move in. Too many of the natives are destructive (just look at Bristol drivers). Too many migrants don't want to fit in. But for all of them, there's the ones who contribute so much. Our society integrates around them and hopes to avoid the chav fraternity.

Last bit on the immigrants - it's not their fault. It's the fault of the rest of the world that they're in a position that they have to avoid Crazy People. And that's the people with the lack of political will to send our people into danger to sort out the Crazy People and the people who will most certainly condemn our leaders for doing so. They'd be far better off not emigrating, if the Crazy People allowed them to stay in their native country.

Back to me - when I'm feeling down or tired or frustrated, it's other people who pull me back up again. Like getting the texts in from the bubbly chuckly smiley one. Like getting the messages in that give me so much encouragement. All the smiles and banter from the canteen girls and the canteen daemon.

It's having people (and definitely one in particular who thinks she's a pain in the butt with it !) who communicate, who try and see what I'm up to with the daft messages, the people who make me think I'm part of their world.

You guys and girls give me a massive lift. Definitely something amazing that helps keep me going when my body isn't giving me the energy to feed the hyperactive monkey in control of my brain. To ignore the pain when my body likes to remind me I've been too silly with it over the years. To remind me that I'm not alone when my mind is feeling isolated.

To the person who got this far in my Wall Of Text. You're awesome.

I have a hopefully restful weekend coming up with tonnes of sport on the telly, plus the opening night of Strictly. There's an England cricket match on tomorrow, which will compete for my attention with qualifying for the Grand Prix and an England rugby match. That'll keep the pooter busy too, which will keep me away from the games which my hands haven't appreciated. My Elite pilot is propping up the bar in Hutton Orbital anyway. I'm not planning to move them because I'll have to go back there at some point to collect a Community Goal reward and it is 90 minutes supercruise travel away from the entry point of the system.

And if you look out the window tomorrow and see the Flying Pig Acrobatic Squadron doing a display ? I'll have summoned up the energy to do some tidying up. They're warming up the engines now ... after hitting Publish, I'm going to be putting the washing out to dry ...