Black

Now that it is night, the dark can cover.
Now that I am in the night, I pass with the eyes of a cat.
Dark and it’s namesake darkness are my friends.
Like Simon and Garfunkel or Rodgers and Hammerstein
But not like Mussolini and Hitler or Brown and Blair.
The wear black cloaks and read from black books,
They avoid my gaze but return black looks.
At seven I watched the six o’clock news, by eight I had read all the movie reviews
At ten I saw the nine o’clock episode of “It’ll all end in tears”
And on Gold I saw something I’d not seen for years.
(I must have missed it then).
Time and a word and a day and a week, the pouring of time flows and the numbers repeat.
Everyday the numbers repeat.
With every number the days repeat.

Not to be confused

No obvious idols here.

Apart from the big stone heads on Easter Island there are no idols worth worshiping. I have to admit that following the Easter Island heads and whatever their significance or path to glory might be, isn’t so easy either. So make it simple and have no idols, models, heroes, gurus or anything like it. Respect, enjoy, appreciate, admire and support your fellows but don’t idolize, it gets you nowhere and never has a beneficial effect on civilisation or society anyway.

Not angry or to be confused with the Marx Brothers.

Growing older is at the same time a great cure for latent anger and frustration but also a source of whole new areas of life to become angry about. You can get angry about young people, stupidity where ever it materialises (because you are older and wiser) and most importantly with yourself as you forget, muddle about and become increasingly hypocritical in all you say and do. Why in a few short moments I can veer from super soft libertine and hippy seer to absolute fascist and despotic governor of the police state of West Lothian and the barren lands and cultural vacuum that surrounds it. Who would have thought that various extremists, Greens, Muslims, and Americans, the FT, cartoon characters and Socialist politicians could all say such wise things about the same things all at different times? I’ve also been told that only a Sith deals in absolutes and mental upholstery repair work.

Mona Lisa look

Now the she’s got a decent alarm clock, no hangover and fired the strange boy from Brechin that used to warm the bed, Mona Lisa has enough time in the morning to put on a little slap, because as any icon will tell you "I'm worth it”. All in all it could be a picture perfect day down at the big studio and Leo can just have all the temper tantrums he likes.

The helpline is live

One idea.

It’s good to save up post until you are in exactly the right mood to open it. Why not collect it, take a pile to work and dump it in your office bin unopened? This advice is not really recommended if you are planning to lead a normal or responsible life but it may just be the liberating experience you need to push you over the edge and into a great and wonderful adventure that you can easily fictionalise and turn into a successful novel.

Another idea.

Find the source of fluff and snuff it out. If you can prevent fluff then there is no need for noisy and irritating vacuum cleaners, for the activity of vacuuming and for getting tangled up in the vacuum cleaner’s power cable whilst trying to clean a twisting staircase. This may not result in much directly earned money for you and may result in bankruptcy for a number of electrical companies but it will provide you with deep satisfaction and more useful spare time which you can squander by simply looking out of the window.

Medical advice.

Starve a cold. Feed a fever. Strangle a pixie. Don’t cut your toe nails with a razor blade. Don’t use the shared changing when at the swimming baths. Don’t forget about essential oils. Speed up your metabolism with a portion of Wheatabix coated in peanut butter. Warts go away eventually so don’t try rubbing them with a dead toad. Shaving any part of the body requires some lubrication. A warm cup of tea soothes a headache (press cup against head vigorously). Coca Cola does cure a hangover as does a trip to the loo with a Sunday Supplement. Baldness is a result of irritability. Don’t eat a raw Beecham’s Powder, dilute to taste. Bloating in the lower intestine is not eased by the rubbing on of yoghurt. Staring at the sun makes you sneeze.

Wooden insects

Wooden insects try hard to confuse their real brothers – those not made in China.

Writing anything requires staying focused. Any tiny drift when writing, to the right or to the left can result in immediate blockage and closure of the creative doors, like a portcullis dropping on an invading army. You can also flop from your chair or even worse bruise your forehead on the brittle plastic keys of your keyboard. As Aldous Huxley might have said if he was ever remotely concerned about it “This is where the white rain comes on, but don’t believe me and you had better not ask him he’s an Epsilon, O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beautious mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it!".

I didn’t really over hear this at a bus stop nor was I told it by a taxi cab driver.

“It’s not that I can’t read properly. It’s more to do with the way that I tend to skip words, assuming that I already know what the draft is saying and thereby, quite accidently obtaining an altogether incorrect meaning from the actual text. Then when my version of events and what I believe that I have gleaned from reading is shared with a fellow reader and non-conspiritor, sparks fly and general confusion follows. Drawing the wrong conclusions is a recipe for disaster, most of the time”.

This is the end, fairweather friend so turn the music down and check the spellchecker.

White Towels

Preaching what you practice

White towels are fine in your own house but in a holiday home they present the owner with significant laundry problems.
People on Myspace playing their own tracks to up their play count.
The National Health Service is a marvellous theoretical concept.
Recording television programmes onto a hard disk with one touch is the best thing ever (sadly few if any of these recorded masterpieces will ever be viewed).
Running out of coffee forces a man into drinking Southern Comfort.
If you seriously want to me a millionaire then don’t just give up at the fifty first obstacle.
Closing your eyes when playing the guitar (in effect letting go) produces the best playing.
Robert Plant told Alison Kraus just to moan when she couldn’t sing the parts, has there ever been better advice given?
We’re going to Portugal to do very little, but not quite yet.
Christmas will be routinely chaotic this year but the weather will be bearable and firework friendly.
I’m fed up with 180 spam emails a day.