Extremes

If you ever get close to a human / And human behaviour
Be ready to get confused / There's definitely no logic
To human behaviour / But yet so irresistible
There's no map / To human behaviour
They're terribly moody / Then all of a sudden turn happy
But, oh, to get involved in the exchange / Of human emotions is ever so satisfying
There's no map
And a compass / Wouldn't help at all
-"Human Behviour", Bjork

And that snippet from Icelands own little wailing pixie sums up the extremes of the past couple of weeks. From the grandiose Live 8 to the one of the regular blogs I read being caught up in the bombings in London, it has been a weird ten days or so.

On Live 8 day I was in Hull as part of The Hockey Forum 4, an annual get together of fans for a rec-level game, merchandise auction, awards, disco, socialise and so on. I was a little wary as - although THF is a great forum - it has been BNL dominated, and the anti-EIHL feelings have been rampant in the past few weeks. Not that anything untoward happened, at all and I had a great time. Originally I was down to do a bit of turn, some MCing and so on. Due to an unfortunate series of events (nowt to do with me I hasten to add) I had to step in and do all the stuff on the mic, pretty much winging it on the way. As a rampant attention seeker, I was in my element and the auction raised £1100 for Great Ormond Street. In fact, the entire weekend saw over £2400 raised for the charity. Fantastic stuff.

This past weekend I went to Bishops Castle in Shropshire for their Beer Festival. Although this makes me sound like I have a beard and a beergut, refer to your average pint as "fruity, with a slight hoppy taste" and discuss things with "the wife", I can proudly say I am none of these things, especially the beer equivalent of Jilly Goolden, the BBCs resident wine-taster and drivelling spastic.

The weekend involved me camping - in a tent, not mincing about in satin - an experience I'd only done once before, when I was 11. And hated it. But as we were part of a group from another Net-based forum, the campsite was arranged and we would meet up. Bishops Castle is hardly even a one-horse town, it was probably shot a long time ago. However, it does have six pubs, two of which have their own micro-brewery.

I have the alcohol tolerance of a gnat, but given several halfs of idiosyncratically named beer (etiquette dictates you sample in halfs, and with 50 beers, that is a lot of sampling), the hot weather and at least 17 hours of drinking time spread over Friday and Saturday, I was never even close to being as the proverbial newt. In fact, Saturday was spent sitting in the shade, as a wonderful band played a bit of jazz, folk and other stuff, supping "Firefly", "Nelsons Revenge", "Summer Solstice" and who knows what else. (Or yeah, a pint of "This" and "Summa That") The view was of the rolling Shropshire Hills, the pubs each laid on BBQs... I contemplated such things as the new Phoenix rink and tried - and failed - to write jokes.

Rather coincidentally, and to my great delight, I bumped into an old work colleague whom I hadn't seen for a few years and had a wonderful natter catching up on life, career, everything. Great to see him doing so well and I went to sleep in the tent with a happy, contented smile.

All the while, a group of rich men were busy avoiding deciding anything on how to stop us killing the planet we live on because of money, avoiding a solution to starvation in Africa, and another group of men were congratulating themselves on a well-executed plan to kill people.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that for every bad, there has to be a good, and vice versa. If we concentrate on the bad in the world (and thankfully the Great British Public have responded commendably to the bombings and singularly failed to be whipped into a stupid frenzy by our asinine newspapers) - if we concentrate on the bad we allow ourselves to forget that human beings are capable of good things too.

I read tales of bombings and violence, arguments and summits, while sat on a patch of grass, drinking wonderful beer on a glorious day. The world can be a hateful place, but occasionally you find a little piece of Heaven. And if you don't notice it there and enjoy it while you can, then you miss out.