Paradise or Prison?
We had selected a place called Kipriotis Village on Kos mainly for its kid’s facilities. It turned out to be very large – too large in retrospect – with 1378 beds or when full, over 3000 people. It had 4 or 5 pools, 4 water slides, 4 or 5 bars, three restaurants, an outdoor theater and, outside of toilets in rooms, I counted just 14 toilets per sex. I would say it was short on toilets and I can only assume that management expected guests to pee in the pools – which I am sure they did given the stink of 14 toilets to serve over 3000 guests. After the first day in which we discovered row upon row of sun beds festooned with towels but no people, we too
Read More »Love is all it Takes
Violence flares Bombs fall and rockets rain No one cares No one seems to give a damn Taking sides Pointing blame Both sides Are exactly the same! The only winner here Is the policy of hate Perpetrated by both sides Closed minds Innocents die Children cry No one gives a damn Love bleeds Hope dies Truth lies Evil stirs them on to war Stop this insanity No more Love is all it takes So simple a solution So hard to implement The resolution Is love.
Read More »Kos its Nice
It is funny how the mind works isn’t it? On arrival on the Greek Island of Kos early in the morning after a night of no sleep and continuous road and air travel, Kos seemed to be a scruffy wasteland of a place unkempt and even perhaps dilapidated. Arriving at the resort we had selected admittedly without much thought other than it catered for kids, it seemed large, impersonal and frankly, as if it had seen better days. I felt a rising sense of disappointment. A few days later and perhaps with a sleep refreshed mind, I was wondering how I could possibly wangle a permanent move to a place like Kos. The island now seemed ruggedly beautiful sitting in an arid heat haze. The volcanic origins of the island
Read More »Two Weeks of Silence
After today, I can promise you almost two weeks of silence from G Michael Vasey. While I am gone, I will imagine you all running out to buy my books and reading my archive of delicious articles on this blog and on Asteroth’s Domain Me? well, I will be laying in the sun, swimming and drinking cold beers to cool off in Kos. I can’t wait. I have been neglecting Asteroth’s Domain which I reserve for more esoteric articles mainly. I guess, I simply haven’t had much to say esoterically recently. Instead, I have been focused on building a business (Commodity Technology Advisory LLC) and trying to build a platform for my writing. Both are non-stop activities and can slowly eat away every minute of the day one way or
Read More »You Need A Degree For That
Once upon a time a degree was really something. Those letters after your name raised eyebrows especially if followed by the extra valued (Hons). Of course, when you went on and did the doctorate, well you could chose – letters after the name…. or before and then deliberately confuse people by changing that choice periodically. One minute you are Dr. XXXXX and the next you are incognito as XXXX Ph.D. Great fun! Actually, you could build up letters after your name by adding rather grand memberships of various societies too. In fact, you could wangle it so that, by joining the right societies, those letter actually spelled something meaningful – and sometimes you could make them spell something rude! Sometimes, over a beer or three, we young students would make
Read More »Fame Seeker
How fitting To see your name in print Fame always eluded you Now you are a household name A life lived in vain How very apt To see you truly succeed To have all those things You chased and fought for daily How bloody erie What a shame Your fame came too late Posthumous recognition Are you watching from some other place? Is there a smile upon your ghostly face?
Read More »Welcome to the Czech Republic!
Isn’t it funny how some days stuff just happens? Today, for the first time ever, the post woman actually rang my doorbell. She had a special delivery for me. Now, usually, she wouldn’t bother to check if I was in but lazily dump a little note in the box in the hallway telling me to get my fat backside down to the post office to collect it. Oh, and do that within 10 business days or we will return it to sender undelivered. That’s how it normally works anyway. Today, she smiled sweetly at me and said sign here please and give me ID (actually she said it in Czech of course so that’s not ACTUALLY what she said but more or less what she said). I took that little
Read More »Young Love
Pictures drifting on the ether Rising and falling Deeper and deeper Sensations remembered Laughter echoed in my mind Arms wrapped entwined Her eyes sparkled like jewels Reflecting the distant moon Her touch was like water Running and trickling All over my skin As we lay in a heated dune Out of the cooling breeze Hot breath as senses rose Depth of feelings rising Swirling, debilitating emotions Young loves’ sacred prose Together, forever in that moment Never to be repeated again The experience of another’s Warmth and passion Hermetically sealed in time Yet, easily revisited in mind Cherished, yet left behind Immortal – yet dead already.
Read More »The Travel Queen
I am just returned from an overnight trip to Prague where I dropped my Mother off for her return trip back to Beverley. She had been here 10-days and it was her 5th such trip since my Dad passed away. My Mum can talk the hind legs of a donkey and if you had a chance to chat, she would tell you how she has travelled the world because of me. And she has. It all started back in the late 1970’s with trips down to the Midlands to drop me off and pick me up at Aston University. That shifted to Leeds and then to Glasgow as I continued on with my PhD with the British Geological Survey and University of Strathclyde. It became Aberdeen when I started my
Read More »Songs from Another Era
I started writing poetry or more accurately perhaps lyrics, at the age of about 12. At that time, I had just received my first acoustic guitar for Christmas and had already formed a ‘band’ with Andy Wells, my next door neighbour. Andy has, I think, played around bands ever since in the USA where he now lives and owns a huge collection of guitars. We would sit in our front rooms strumming the odd malformed chord and dreaming in the way only adolescents can dream. Of course, the early 70’s really was a great time for this with wave after wave of new bands coming through and cranking out three chord singles by the bucket load. I particularly loved T.Rex I recall and fancied myself as another Marc Bolan. In
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