The Chapman Zone Dave’s Blog

Where have I been for the past week or so?

I’ve been busy! I have probably mentioned this copious times in the past, but since I bought a video camera a couple of years ago, I have filmed the goings on at Scout and Cub Summer Camp. Actually, I think I bought the camera for that very purpose, although I was inspired to buy one after playing with Glenn’s much more sophisticated one at Scotland almost four years ago. After discovering a wonderfully easy to use piece of software called Pinnacle Studio, I decided to go the whole hog and make the footage into a proper movie, with proper editing, fades, a soundtrack and credits.

Well, I have just spent the last few days frantically trying to complete movie number four - Cub Summer Camp 2006. Yes I know it was last year, but I just never got round to it. I started getting grief from the Cub Leaders - not in a negative way, I think they just liked the last one so much they were looking forward to the next one. Also, it’s a good fundraiser for the group - I package up the disc properly and sell it to parents for about £8 a pop (they also get a photo slideshow DVD thrown in). I’ve probably made a few hundred quid for the group so far, which is a nice bonus. I actually do the moviemaking because I really enjoy it. Trying to craft erratic footage (it is impossible to catch every good event on camp, especially when your busy trying to run it at the same time) into a film that runs well, and keep people’s interest is really quite challenging. I’m not saying that I should be putting these films up for a documentary Oscar or anything, but I am quite pleased at what I come up with.

So, number four is finished, and I will be premiering it (how pretentious is that?!) at Cubs on Wednesday. Hopefully it will be well received. I do get a bit nervous when I show these for the first time, especially because I go a bit overboard, putting music over certain bits (that’s really hard, trying to find a bit of music that is appropriate to the scene), and putting end credits on (not least because my name appears about five times!), but everyone seems to enjoy them.

So, next up is Scout Summer Camp 2006, and I need to get it all done before we go out again in May on Cub Summer Camp 2007, otherwise I will have no tapes to film it on!

Oh, and I need to slip in a music video for the Freaks. What with the necessity to sync the changing scenes to one audio track, that could prove to be a lot harder than the Camp videos…

When I sorted out this term’s Scout programme with my other Leaders over Christmas, Gareth came up withthe idea of doign an overnighter at Everett’s Coppice, during the cold of February. We haven’t realy done any cold weather camping, so he thought it would be a good experience for the boys.

I’m not a big fan of the cold, as I don’t have much, errrrmmm….natural insulation, so I was a little restrained in my enthusiasm.

So the week rolls around, and the rest of the country gets dusted in a little sprinkling of snow and the entire infrastructure grinds to a halt while the news stations are telling us that the world is coming to an icy end. I am having doubts about doing this overnighter this particular week.

So I phone John (the Cub Leader) to see if he still intends to come out. When I mentioned that I might postpone it, he acted all shocked and surprised that I could possibly be so soft and weedy.

Okaaaaaaaaaaay…..

I was always going to check with Gareth before making a decision, as it was his idea. He was keen to carry on with it, as long as we take all our extra blankets in case it turned really cold.

Fair enough.

Everett’s Coppice is a little patch of woodland on the Titchfield/Funtley/Wickham road. There are no facilities like water there, just lots of trees and a campfire clearing. The plan was to send the lads off from the hut to hike up there, while we took all their sleeping kit up, started a fire, put the tents up, then have a sing-song before bed. I thought I’d bivi out that night, that is, to sleep without a tent.

So, Friday night rolls around, and eighteen of the Scouts turn up, which is a lot more than I was expecting, since the weather had been so inclement the past few days. John, the complete wimp, cried off with a lame lame lame excuse about not pulling his weight with the baby, and feeling all duty bound to stay at home that night. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight…….

So we send the Scouts off with maps and other necessary kit, then get up to Everetts. It’s quite mild, but drizzling, so it could go either way. I had prepared the back up plan of a video night at the hut in case we decided to bail. The deciding factor was getting a fire going, if we couldn’t do that, then I was going to call it quits.

Limpet got a fire going……….bugger.

The hike was uneventful by all accounts, except for a ‘gay’ farmer who wouldnt’ let them cross his land, even though they had already crossed it and were trying to get back. They arrived at about 23:00 and we had a fire and sing song, as planned. It had stopped raining by this time and was actually quite a pleasant evening, especially for February.

We sent the Scouts to bed at about 01:00. I had intended for it to be earlier, but we lost track of time. After another smoke, I went and got my sleeping kit: Bivi bag, two roll mats, two sleeping bags and a pillow, laid it out next to the fire, and hopped in. The night was turning out lovely, no rain, no wind, the fire keeping me nice and snuggly. All was right with the world…..

03:00, I wake up to find that I am being rained on.

Balls.

Doubly balls, because the opening of my bivi bag (it looks like a large mummy sleeping bag, shape-wise) is facing upwards, and my face, pillow, and the top half of my sleeping bag are p*ss-wet through.

The reflex action was to pull the bag over my head, and pray for it to stop raining, so I could get to my car. “Why didn’t I just get up and go?” Because to get to my car, I would have to wriggle out of three layers of sleeping kit (quite snug fitting too), get my boots on properly (the path was six inches deep in muddy water and I would have lost a boot if not tied up properly), dig my coat out of the bivi bag, roll up the sleeping stuff, then run the hundred yards to the car. I figured I could wait a bit for it to stop raining.

Problem is……it didn’t stop raining. I lay there for half an hour with the bivi bag over my head, slowly sufocating, before making a break for it, exactly as described above.

Oh man, it’s times like these that you really, really appreciate your car! I threw the stuff in the boot, jumped in the driver’s side, dug out a towel and dried my hair off. Then I turned on the engine and the heater, put on some music and reclined the seat back, lit a cigarette, took a slow, deep drag…….and relaxed.

Totally warm, totally dry, totally mine…….

The only problem with the car is that I find it very difficult to sleep in, no matter what position I set the seat too. I had too much crap in the car to sleep in the boot with the back seat down, and it is slightly too short anyway. So I sat up in the drivers seat, after clambering around the back wrestling the sleeping back out of the bivi bag (the outer one had slid down a bit before it started to rain, and stayed dry). The tunes were mellow, the car was warming up nicely, and I had enough ciggies to last me the night if I rationed them to one per hour. I had no food, and only a three day old half bottle of blue powerade to drink, but hey, you can’t have it all.

It was nice just to sit there, dry and secure, knowing the kids were fine, with nothing to do. Normally when I try to chill out at home, I am always aware that there is something that I could be doing with my time, and I get slightly guilty about just sitting around. Out there, I had nothing to do. Absolutely nothing. It was great. Just sitting there, with the sleeping bag up around my shoulders, thinking…….thinking some more……….not thinking…………….having a scratch…………….thinking about something else………..pondering……….mulling………and so on.

I did eventually get to sleep, at 06:30. Problem was, I had to get up again at 07:30 to wake the Scouts up and send them off at 08:00. So I got an hour and a bit’s sleep on Friday. #

I did enjoy it though.

Slightly less enjoyable was the rest of the weekend. Apart from watching the Cubs get a bit of a pasting in the District six-a-side football tournament, and getting extraordinarily angry at the attitude and lack of sportsmanship of 10th Fareham’s ‘Cubs’ (some of them looked suspiciously large….again) and especially their leader, who seemed to be encouraging the dirty tactics and arrogant attitude. Added to which one of our team thought the tournament was a platform for him to get all the glory, and threw a tantrum when things didn’t go his way (I should have taken the little toerag off, but it wasn’t my call). I bet he still won’t get that the team stood a better chance if he had actually tried to work for the team, instead of just himself.

You may notice that I take this tournament far too seriously. I am sorry, I should seek psychiatric help, I know.

Anyway, after the football, I had to go and hang up all the wet tentage from Friday night. No-one volunteered to help me, so I spent the better part of saturday night (when I should have been round Pam and Ant’s enjoying the company of my friends) haning up and wiping down tents.

And then again for most of Sunday.

And on Monday evening.

Oh well. The weekend did finish well - I took my brother Mark and his daughter Mia to see the Freaks play at their rehearsal. They stayed the whole three hours, so they must have enjoyed the music!

Again, apologies for sticking another funny up here. Normal service will be restored soon….

An American boy to his Daddy - DADDY, WHY DID WE HAVE TO ATTACK IRAQ?

Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?

A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction.

Q: But the inspectors didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction.

A: That’s because the Iraqis were hiding them.

Q: And that’s why we invaded Iraq?

A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.

Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?

A: That’s because the weapons are so well hidden. Don’t worry, we’ll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.

Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?

A: To use them in a war, silly.

Q: I’m confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn’t they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?

A: Well, obviously they didn’t want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.

Q: That doesn’t make sense. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons with which they could have fought back?

A: It’s a different culture. It’s not supposed to make sense.

Q: I don’t know about you, but I don’t think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.

A: Well, you know, it doesn’t matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.

Q: And what was that?

A: Even if Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.

Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?

A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.

Q: Kind of like what they do in China?

A: Don’t go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.

Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it’s a good country, even if that country tortures people?

A: Right.

Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?

A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Isn’t that exactly what happens in China?

A: I told you, China is different.

Q: What’s the difference between China and Iraq?

A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba’ath party, while China is Communist.

Q: Didn’t you once tell me Communists were bad?

A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.

Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?

A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Like in Iraq?

A: Exactly.

Q: And like in China, too?

A: I told you, China’s a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.

Q: How come Cuba isn’t a good economic competitor?

A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being Communists and started being capitalists like us.

Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn’t that help the Cubans become capitalists?

A: Don’t be a smart-***.

Q: I didn’t think I was being one.

A: Well, anyway, they also don’t have freedom of religion in Cuba.

Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?

A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he’s not really a legitimate leader anyway.

Q: What’s a military coup?

A: That’s when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.

Q: Didn’t the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?

A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.

Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?

A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.

Q: Didn’t you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?

A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.

Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?

A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.

Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?

A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men – fifteen of them Saudi Arabians – hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings in New York and Washington, killing 3,000 innocent people.

Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?

A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.

Q: Aren’t the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people’s heads and hands?

A: Yes, that’s exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people’s heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.

Q: Didn’t the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?

A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.

Q: Fighting drugs?

A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.

Q: How did they do such a good job?

A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.

Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people’s heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people’s heads and hands off for other reasons?

A: Yes. It’s OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people’s hands for growing flowers, but it’s cruel if they cut off people’s hands for stealing bread.

Q: Don’t they also cut off people’s hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?

A: That’s different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.

Q: Don’t Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?

A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.

Q: What’s the difference?

A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman’s body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of a woman’s body except for her eyes and fingers.

Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.

A: Now, don’t go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.

Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia.

A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.

Q: Who trained them?

A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.

Q: Was he from Afghanistan?

A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.

Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.

A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.

Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?

A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.

Q: So the Soviets – I mean, the Russians – are now our friends?

A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we’re mad at them now. We’re also mad at the French and the Germans because they didn’t help us invade Iraq either.

Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?

A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn’t do what we want them to do?

A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.

Q: But wasn’t Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?

A: Well, yeah. For a while.

Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?

A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.

Q: Why did that make him our friend?

A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.

Q: Isn’t that when he gassed the Kurds?

A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.

Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?

A: Most of the time, yes.

Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?

A: Sometimes that’s true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.

Q: Why?

A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America’s side, anyone who opposes war is a godless unAmerican Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?

Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?

A: Yes.

Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?

A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him what to do.

Q: So basically, what you’re saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?

A. Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.

Q: Good night, Daddy.