…without a cause (or effect, thus far)

So, as I plan this as more of a discussion than an article in it’s self, lets “gan down to business”…

I am in need of suggestions from this collective stupor for:

a) Something to do

b) A good reason to do it

Now, before you bunch of miscreants deliberately misinterpret my request, let me give you some idea of what I’m talking about and where this idea has come from.

After experiencing the strange hollow fulfilment of my very own foot-and-ball team snatching victory from the jaws of defeat by a more lowly band of bladder chasers, me and my co-horts watched one Mr Dave Gorman attempt to travel “unchained” across them there United States of America. This involved him trying to get from one coast to the other only giving money to “Mom and Pop” businesses and nothing to “The Man” (i.e. chain hotels, restaurants, petrol stations).

In the wake of the show we went on to discuss ideas for things we could do in the same vain as Mr Gorman. Whilst talking about possible quests I recalled something I had done this summer;

Before the Olympic Games of 2008 I decided that I was (and am) so opposed to the human rights record of The People’s Republic of China that I would refuse to watch any coverage of the Beijing Games. I see hosting this event as a reward to a nation and it didn’t appear to me that The PRC had done enough to deserve this honour, not to mention they’d even reneged on agreements made as conditional to holding said event. The IOC may have been willing to overlook this for the massive marketing opportunity, I was not.

Those who know me will realise what a task this would be normally, with me being such a colossal sports fan, but I thought “Surely that is the point. If it were easy it would be a less valuable statement”. Little did I realise that Team GB would do so well and that coverage would reach saturation point after the first couple of days, at times I just had to switch the TV and radio off and sit alone in silence as it seemed to pervade every show on every medium and even conversation in the nation.

My underestimation of this initial undertaking lead me to add another (to become mammoth) task to it. As I saw that these games were going ahead as (and chiefly because of) a massive marketing opportunity in the most populous nation in the world, I would subvert this in two ways. Firstly, I would never buy anything that had the 2008 Olympics logo on it and, secondly, I for the duration of the actual games I would not purchase anything from a company that was an official sponsor.

The long and the short of it is that, even though this task was hard, it felt worthwhile and challenging. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t document it or have anyway to publicise it (to get more people involved and/or make a noticeable impact). Now I don’t think that I can necessarily do that now, I am only one man and this is only one little site in the big sea of the interwebs, but I think it’s worth a try, if only for the personal challenge and things this might teach me/us.

So, there you go. Lets knock some ideas around, after a week or so I hope we’ll have something that’s doable and worth doing. Then we’ll lay down the task with all the rules and reasons and get it a-rolling.

Tags: bladder chasers, cause, discussion, olympics, protest, quest