Velocity

Today's 1970 Commonwealth games stamp, features bikes on the 1 shilling and nine old pence version. The title is a bit of pun as velo is the word of a bike in French and bikes can be raced in a velodrome. It's also a pun in that I've had no velocity at work this week. I was finally granted access to a system at around 3PM today to provide holiday cover starting last Monday, and in fact I'm actually on holiday today myself, so I shouldn't have even been checking in...

It's been bitter cold again, all day here in Brittany, and the snow has barely melted at all, so it's still pretty white outside...!


<thoughts that you don't have to read.../>
I used to think that the Commonwealth was a good thing, and therefore that the Games that go with it were also good, but as I've grown older I've tended to think the whole idea of a organisation made up of peoples conquered and enslaved coming together for a jolly games is a bit odd really. I know the modern Commonwealth isn't the old Empire, but the deeper you think about the more dubious it all is, yes we share a common language and history with Jamaica, but we also share a common shame in what we did to the people who now live in Jamaica... I wasn't born when the empire was built and to be honest my ancestors were not buccaneering around the world doing the enslaving, but what was done in the past by the establishment of the European powers wasn't that nice, and those establishments have never really accepted their responsibility for what they did.