The snowdrops are with us once again, signalling the rebirth after winter’s death, poking proudly through last year’s falling, first sign of regrowth. Soon the daffodils will start poking out, late risers, they have time to warm in the weak sun before opening their glory to the world. The grass has yet to realise winter is over, and crouches sullen and cowed from frosts’ onslaught, bedraggled and dying blades will nurture the fresh pale shoots of spring when finally the soil drains and warms. The surge of warmth and growth will soon quicken, but for now the signs are subtle and quiet, the dead leaves disturbed only by robins and blackbirds in search of early insects, overwintering grubs or the early worm.

The spirits quicken with each day’s increase in daylight length, you can smell spring, the birds certainly can, and with the recent wild winds, many small branches have been swept from the trees and are a rich source of nest-building material for the crows. This is crow country; there’s a road in Glasgow called Crow Road, and I have witnessed massed gatherings of many hundreds on the floodplain; sometimes they pretend to be alarmed by the dogs and me walking past, but as we aren’t bothered by their alarm, they soon resume their communing and feeding, more and more family groups flying in, swelling the numbers gathered. A lot of communication going on, coming and going. Crow nation. Their culture.

I must do a search of the fool's archive and find the first time I railed against multiculturalism and its similarity to apartheid, and how it would lead [was leading] to a segregated society of ethnice bantustans with animosity between them. I have argued against this silly doctrine which was adopted by the chatterati decades ago, perhaps as early as the 1940s, as an answer to the nationalism that had caused so much harm in two wars. The idea somehow took on the quality of religious dogma, a received truth and any criticism was labeled racist. Muslims understood this from the start and have used it for their own ends, and now David Cameron, erstwhile prime minister of the UK has discovered that multiculturalism is a bad idea and has failed to stem terrorism, MUlsims are the ones houting opposition. It was once fondly believed to improve relations by making everyone tolerant of every other culture jostling for space and wealth in the rat race.

Integration was abandoned as the only sane way for immigration to be handled, and as a result we have a society of ethnic ghettoes, which, while having dealings with the macro culture and society at large, and feel different and have no allegiance to the UK [or to any other country that has adopted multiculturalism as a creed of the chatterati, from Europe to North America]. Immigrants have been encouraged to remain within their cultural microcosm, and British culture has been forced to accept a wide range of backward, deviant, mysogenistic customs like the practice of halal butchery, because 'it's their culture/religion and we must respect it.' Well, I have never respected it, I despise it as do, it seems, the majority of UK citizens, and at last politicians have started to take notice.

Since winter appears to have started earlier than even recent trends have suggested - on average the seasons are advanced between three to four weeks in recent years - now, with heavy snow in December, the weather seems to be turning into what was traditionally [well in my lifetime anyway] March weather; astonishingly strong winds that you can't ignore they are so loud, rattling modern double glazed windows in their frames and the blinds inside them, rain dashing against the glass like bullet fire and suggesting a 5-6 week advance.

Bringing to mind an old favourite from way back, I can't stand the rain by Anne Peebles.

Heard this first around the same time as Little Feat made their presence felt in the UK, the mid seventies. And they are one of the bands I've selected for a cool site I discovered which enables users to create their own constant play net-radio station, where you can choose what artists you want to listen to and which tracks. As everything these days has to be a social networking site, this is no different and you are encouraged to listen to others' musical choices (they are all available) and now and then in the middle of your playlist they'll insert something else and you have the option of letting it join your choices or getting rid of it. This is meant to be helpful, and I guess they are probably earning by promoting sounds, so fair enough since joining and using the site is free, the quality is excellent, and it's great to have a e-tape of one's favourite sounds playing while you work.

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