Autor: CHRYS CHRYSTELLO

  • RAT RACE

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    Jamie Freeman

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    The alarm clock buzzes at 6:30 a.m., yanking you from restless sleep into yet another miserable day in the life of a British family. Your body aches from a night of tossing and turning, the relentless stress gnawing at your peace even while you sleep. Welcome to the reality show you didn’t sign up for—the endless grind of existence on this dreary little island. Outside, the weather is predictably depressing: a suffocating blend of grey skies, drizzle, and mist hangs like a damp blanket, refusing to lift. England—the land of weather manipulation, chemtrails, and misery.
    You stumble into the kitchen, barely functioning. You gulp down a cup of instant coffee (barely warm), the cheap granules dissolving into something vaguely resembling fuel for the soul. It does little to wake you up, but it’s enough to get you moving towards the daily torment known as the school run. The roads are a battlefield—endless traffic jams, roadwork signs on every corner, and streets littered with potholes deep enough to swallow a Mini Cooper. Traffic lights flicker from red to green with cruel efficiency, herding you like cattle through the labyrinth of urban decay.
    Each honk of a car horn feels like a jab at your sanity. Car fumes mix with the chemical stench of fake rain and geoengineering experiments disguised as “natural weather patterns.” You feel the metallic taste of the air, and your thoughts wander—what exactly are they spraying today? The kids sit in the back, half-asleep, scrolling on their phones—mindless zombies, faces illuminated by the cold glow of TikTok and Instagram. Their silence is unnerving, broken only by the occasional sound of a notification pinging.
    By 9 a.m., the school drop-off is complete, and it’s your turn to join the madness on the way to work. Another round of bumper-to-bumper traffic awaits, with every commuter trapped in their own bubble of frustration and despair. You glance at the grey faces walking along the pavement, headphones glued to their ears, oblivious to everything except the mind-numbing entertainment piped directly into their brains. They shuffle like the walking dead, hypnotised by the digital narcotics they’ve been fed since childhood. Each step they take is a sleepwalk deeper into the Matrix.
    And for what? To work a dead-end job under the fluorescent glow of an office, serving some faceless corporation while your dreams wither and die. The walls hum with the vibration of computers and the low murmur of small talk—conversations about weekend sales and Netflix shows. The architecture around you is a blend of concrete brutality—an endless sprawl of uninspired grey boxes designed to keep you uninspired, just like your life. Every day, you trade hours of your life for a meagre pay cheque, handing most of it back to the state in the form of taxes, rising energy bills, and the privilege of barely surviving.
    At 5 p.m., your day is far from over. If you’re lucky, you might pick the kids up from school; if not, someone else handles that. By the time you drag yourself home, you’re too drained to cook a decent meal. The fridge hums as you stare at its contents, hoping for inspiration, but there’s nothing there except processed junk and the same ready meals you’ve heated up a dozen times this week. The microwave hums with a familiar, monotonous tune as it heats up another round of cheap, processed freezer food—chemically enhanced and nutrient-deprived, just like the society that produced it.
    The kids vanish to their rooms, eyes glued to Xbox consoles and YouTube screens, while you and your partner collapse on the sofa to “relax.” You flip on the TV for the latest dose of fear from the news—another murder, the looming shadow of economic collapse, crime waves flooding the headlines—each one designed to stoke fear and keep you docile. Everything carefully curated to keep you anxious and obedient.
    By now, the weight of the day has you questioning everything. You worked so hard for what? Extortionate mortgages that leave you trapped for decades, relentless inflation, and the rising cost of even the simplest pleasures. Taxes are squeezed out of every corner of your life—road tax for the pothole-ridden streets, council tax for services you barely see, and income tax to fund wars you never asked for.
    Britain—a country once proud and strong, now reduced to a crumbling dystopia of high crime rates, decaying infrastructure, and Orwellian surveillance. This is no longer a nation; it’s a giant hamster wheel, spinning endlessly, keeping its people running in place while the elites dine at the top.
    The worst part? Most people don’t even realise they’re trapped in the Matrix. The system has trained them well—keep running, keep paying, keep consuming, and above all, don’t ask questions.
    Welcome to the British rat race. A life you never chose, in a game you never signed up for, yet here you are—running to nowhere, day after day.
    May be pop art of 10 people and text
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  • ILHA DAS FLORES

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    Um belo texto do meu amigo e vizinho Jose Freitas. Foi escrito em 1 de Dezembro de 2019 e publicado no n.º 5 da revista «Loving The Blu» de Fevereiro a Abril de 2020 e, em breves parágrafos, explica-nos como se cria uma paisagem única, como ela varia e se embeleza, sem necessidade de intervenção humana, como ela se insere na história das Flores e é parte dela.
    O relógio do tempo parou / The ticking of time has stopped
    Dou comigo vezes sem conta a olhar a Ribeira do Ferreiro, a escassas centenas de metros da minha casa. Sinto-me tentado a ir até lá uma vez mais.
    Pelo caminho empedrado e sinuoso, vou viajando no tempo. Em turbilhão chegam-me vozes e imagens de conterrâneos meus no trabalho do campo ao longo de percurso. Vejo mãos calejadas segurando a enxada enquanto cavam a terra, onde os inhames cresciam robustos com copas verdinhas e viçosas. Ouço o barulho do riacho que serpenteia o caminho, sulcando a terra húmida e macia.
    Alguns pingos de orvalho desprendem-se das copas dos incensos esguios, empurrados pela brisa matinal, tocando-me de leve na cara. O quadro é magnífico! A encosta ergue-se verde e luxuriante. A ribeira do Ferreiro mergulha na parede de pedra, enquanto na minha frente o Poço da minha infância me olha tranquilo. Como cresceu nestes anos todos! Apoderou-se das margens à sua volta, ganhando novo fôlego. Deixou de ser o pequeno poço onde brinquei para se tornar mais enigmático. Descanso no que resta de um tronco de uma criptoméria que não resistiu ao passar do tempo. Deixo-me ficar, envolto na paisagem, enquanto as luzes do dia vão tomando conta do verde que me rodeia.
    Não me apetece partir. O relógio do tempo parou!
    1 de dezembro 2019
    Very often I find myself gazing over at Ribeira do Ferreiro, just a few hundred metres away from my home. I feel tempted to go over there for one more time.
    Along the stony and twisting footpath, I travel through time. I’m buffeted by a whirlwind of voices and images of my contemporaries working the lands lying along the way. I see toughened hands grasping the hoe as they turn the earth, where the yams grow robustly with their verdant green shoots. I listen to the sound of the stream that twists its way along this route, grooving these humid, soft lands.
    A few drops of dew fall from the branches of the slender trees, driven by the light morning breeze to touch me lightly on the face. The surroundings are magnificent! The slope stands proudly forth in all its luxuriant greens. The Ferreiro stream dives through a wall of stone while, in front of me, the Poço of my childhood gazes at me with every tranquillity. How it has grown in all these years! It has taken over the margins around it, gaining a new breath. This is no longer the little lake where I played, but has instead become something more enigmatic. I rest on what remains of a trunk of cryptomeria that could not stand up to the passing of time. I let my stay prolong, enveloped in the landscape while the light of the day takes over of the greens around me.
    I have no desire to leave. The ticking of time has stopped!
    May be an image of waterfall, nature and mountain
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    You, Maria Antónia Fraga, Isabel Pinheiro Magalhaes and 43 others

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    May be an image of grandfather clock and text that says "A CLOCK FOR RETIRED PEOPLE! SUND SUNDAY Y SATURDAY MONDAY MONDAY FRIDAY TUENDAY JEADA TUE THURSDAY THURSDAY WEDNESDAY @ODDITYMALL"
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    Maria Antónia Fraga

    É um bonito texto, sem dúvida.
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  • SISMO NO FAIAL 4,5, de Richter

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    Às 7h54 um sismo sentido em Castelo Branco (Horta).
    ATUALIZAÇÃO DA INFORMAÇÃO (8h54):
    O sismo ocorreu a pouco mais de 40 km a oeste do Faial, atingindo o grau 4,5, aproximadamente, da Escala de Richter (magnitude, medida no epicentro).
    Foi sentido em toda a ilha do Faial e também no Pico.
    Ainda não está determinada a intensidade (Escala de Mercalli Modificada), que avalia os efeitos no terreno, incluindo a sensação relatada por quem sentiu o evento.
    ATUALIZAÇÃO DA INFORMAÇÃO (9h13):
    Intensidade máxima registada nalgumas freguesias do Faial: grau V (Escala de Mercalli Modificada).
    ATUALIZAÇÃO DA INFORMAÇÃO (9h31):
    Até agora não há registo de réplicas, o que seria natural acontecer.
    O sismo localizou-se, “grosso modo”, nas proximidades de uma zona de atividade sismológica frequente, apesar de, recentemente, se verificar grande acalmia nessa área, a cerca de 30 a 40 quilómetros a oeste dos Capelinhos.
    O Professor Victor Hugo Forjaz fala da possibilidade de, “em breve”, poder ali nascer uma ilha. Mas, atenção: contextualizando este “em breve” temos que pensar num tempo muito alargado, de largas gerações, senão milhares de anos. Ou não! A Natureza o dirá…
    + INFORMAÇÃO (HISTÓRICA) SOBRE A ATIVIDADE SÍSMICA A OESTE DO FAIAL NOS “LINKS” SEGUINTES:
    Pode ser uma imagem de texto
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    José Manuel Leal and 98 others

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    Adelina Valim Silveira

    Estava já acordada, não senti nada em São Roque do Pico
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  • -20º C NO PICO

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    Na ilha do Pico, está desaconselhada a subida à montanha devido à grande quantidade de neve e temperaturas de 20 graus negativos.
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  • NEVE NAS FURNAS

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    Carlos Melo Bento updated his cover photo.

    neve nas Furnas, em14 fevereiro 2025, bela foto publicada no FB por D. Conceição
    May be an image of lake
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    Manuel Borges, Mario Jorge Costa and 46 others

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    Maria Medeiros

    Beautiful Nature