Last shot at 2012

The place of the otherwise forgotten and possibly unmemorable, the hits don't hit anymore and the posts are vague and at best occasional. The design's slipped somewhere, the original good idea has somehow stretched too far, gone to the point of exhaustion and failed to return. It's unfortunate but that happens and sentimentality isn't such a valuable or creative thing that it needs to be nurtured. Another school of thought simply says let it all come round again, puff itself up and on it goes. It goes on and on it goes. Like a Fairytale.

We'll try a little harder in 2013...promise.

Didn't see it comin'

All those living in sin and integrity

All those struggling in shame

All those people shouting outside the embassy

All the others calling my name.

I'm your hero in the piles of rubbish

I can be the god of cheese

I am the bullet stuck in the chamber

And I will bring you to your knees.

All those thinking of a better tomorrow

All those busy building up that dream

All those digging graves for their principles

All of those who don't know what I mean.

I am the prophet at loss for an answer

I'm the scum on the MPs sleaze

I'm the curse on the lips of the white witch

And I will see you on your knees.

All those who've kissed the popes and princes

All those with feet held to the fire

All those with pensions, points and penalties

All those chasing small objects of desire.

I'll be your banker, checker and teacher.

I see the flame held to the breeze

I see the swimmer walk on water.

And this will bring you on your knees.

You tend your garden, do what you please, 

You don't see it comin', and it will bring you to your knees.

Long gone fool

Just under my heart A tattoo for information

If the future’s black Don’t want no resuscitation

Don't try to bring me back, I'm just a long gone fool.

If I can't say your name or meet your eye

Maybe squeeze your hand it's time to say goodbye

Just let it be, let go, whoever's there must know.

Don't try to bring me back, I'm just a long gone fool.

I've had a sweet sweet life clocked up the miles and years

So many good times so no time left for tears

Don't try to bring me back, I'm just a long gone fool.

Pussy Riot

There's not a word dirty enough, to use on you, times are tough.

So don't bow, don't scrape, find a way to escape.

Pussy Riot Pussy Riot

There's not a chord dirty enough, to play for you, times are tough.

So don't dry, don't pray, ship out, run away.

Pussy Riot Pussy Riot.

Fussy Riot Fussy Riot.

Red Robot Rolls Royce

Robot being slowly grilled for experimental reasons.

Rolls Royce: Driving along I fumbled onto a dramatised version of the Great Gatsby on the car radio. Myrtle had just been run over by the yellow Rolls Royce, Daisy was no where to be found and then the shooting incident took place. Lessons learned; I resolved not to bother with day dreams about owning a yellow Rolls Royce and to stick with cars that are less distinctive. Sometimes it's useful to make a show but at other times you're better to just blend in, ask Gatsby. I then wondered how a cast of handsome young robot actors might fare in such a story and in a radio based production.

It's as if everywhere we go this month it is the month of May everywhere.

It's as if everywhere we go this week it is the Robot's week.

Robot politics

And somebody there might say that well yes it's a good idea to do XY and Z but there may well be other people there who would contradict that whole line of thinking and say that no that (XY and Z) is not a good idea in fact that idea is a really bad idea and we all disagree with it and think that only bad people would every consider such a bad idea to be good in anyway which makes the other people think that there must be something wrong with these people which makes the other other people think that there must be something even more wrong with those people and that we have to do something about that at any cost because it's all just gone too far over some imaginary line that we've all been imagining in different ways for some time though some have been imagining that line for a while and others are only now in these current special circumstances starting to consider that line and it's relative position to the two positions that the two groups are holding which are not quite the same as the other positions that some other splinter type groups might be holding that are either between us and them or are somewhere beyond our group and the other group's position but as a wise man once said we are where we are or so we think.

She used to just laugh

There is nothing natural in Piccadilly Circus.

As a mature scientist I want to seek out what lies beneath the surface.

No buildings, no cars, no roads. Unlock the raw materials.

It's the piece that everyone remembers him for, it's the piece.

We're going to be fine, I trust you (surge in background music, lyrics almost fitting the scene, but not quite).

We're going to make a fortune when we sell. I think it can actually see heat.

The truth is they can't start anything until they get access. That's the truth.

Everything is costing them money.

I remember my first terrorist attack. The next day they took away our sweets.

Just one day, maybe it will make a difference, just one day.

I used to get hate mail, early on, all about my material, used to get hate mail.

He is Oscar Wilde in so many ways but not, something quite hot, joking, sometimes filthy.

She just used to laugh about it, laugh, she died laughing, so I heard.

I'll even sign autographs, that's what I'll do and it'll be the best night ever.

Well let's see how hot the little lady is...you're on fire.

Are you getting me a latte? Are you using that machine? Are you the part owner of this cafe?

Extraordinary things, try to change the way you see things, it's available now, never been a better time.

Take it with you, carry it with you, carry that film moment with you, carry like a reel of 35mm, like a can, like a tape, like you made it, own it. Like you wrote it. Did you write it?

He's one step ahead of the rest of us; how can that actually be?

This is it, this is the room.

I feel something happening, I can really feel it, something in the metal, something happening, in there, you're getting feedback from it, it's coming back at you, you begin to learn. Trial and error.

“I think I realised that it was best not to think about it, just allow myself to get into that person, not to try to write or concoct something, I just needed to allow myself to be that person for as long as I need, I just become them and let that life force, that calculated but natural moment of their own existence and experience to happen. Let things happen to you, let the universe flow through you. The universe, you stretch and compress, you test it, you let it happen. That is the best and most appropriate characterisation working protocol.”

Sea vixen

Dark love songs

In the grey night of the soul

When her harpoons flop

She breathes in the salty air

And I pray that she may stop

So her heartbeats mix with mine

The rhythmic seagulls cry

Flying high across our heads

She spits back in my eye

See the wreckage on the shore

The ribs of rotten souls

Where the white fish turns to black

I ask her for some more

I simply want some more

You sing me those dark love songs but all I hear is the sea.

Today

Today on the radio:

The industrial scale scam was worth more than £60m.

I prefer to eat from a small plate for reasons of scale, appetite and hygiene. I think you'll find that it can also work for you.

If you break the rules you can make a lot of money.

It was alleged that the man from the North of England stole four ferrets, three rabbits, four guinea pigs, four baby rabbits and a skipping rope.

“The surgery discomfort and irritation persists, it will take a little of time to erase itself from the pain glands,” said the troubled and badly translated Indian actor by now aged 69.

You can be lucky and not get shot at.

It's not the same Chelsea Girl as the Chelsea Girl you're thinking of, no, not at all.

Any action taken going forward must be sanctioned by the Arab League, God Bless them.

Tortured and tormented, why is the Scream so popular?

(The Scream) It adorns countless mugs...in homes around the world.

The case has been closely watched and could trigger a major shake up in the way football TV rights are sold, or maybe not.

The man told another man in Croydon, “it was me”.

The AN-148 is a relatively new Russian jet but a wheel fell off.

There's a great night of television entertainment ahead of us.

There are more people now in the country than there were in Victorian times.

Society as a whole changes, we can see that clearly right now, we can see telephone books and shipping records as never before.

He was the sport's poster boy but now he's acting like a complete arse.

Slow broadband hits “many homes”.

“Have you noticed that the clouds are dropping in New Zealand?” “I'm not a cloud expert” she replied.

A man punched another man and then pushed yet another other man in a bar where beer was sold at quite reasonable prices.

An expert carefully removed it using only a convenient fish slice.

A small number of activists are really trying hard to fuck things up.

A portrait that may or may not be of Emily Bronte has been sold for the price of a half decent second hand car, nobody was particularly surprised.

My reaction was shock but not surprise, this is because I'm unclear on the precise meaning and common uses of the word surprise.

A teenager who posed as Katie Price has been given a community sentence.

Is there or is there not a support network in place for people trying to cope?

Everybody had these posters sitting on the desk just waiting to put them up.

Dawkins is not sure if God exists and neither am I. I'm also not sure that Dawkins exists.

A century of sand dredging in the Bristol Channel and where are we?

The A905 is still partially blocked. More from me in around fifteen minutes.

Wicked Love Songs

Wasting all your time writing love songs

But you don't love me enough

Wasting all your time writing love songs

But you don't love me enough

Just wicked love songs

Just more wicked love songs

And a ragged doll.

Detached a little

It’s a sad thing but the older you get the crustier you become and the less caring you can be about what I’ve come to label “detached death”. Detached death is when someone, not in your family or immediate circle of friends passes away. Usually it’s an ex-colleague or workmate or somebody you happened to know briefly due to an artificial or transitory social situation, most likely based around your employment. You’ve probably not seen them or heard about them for while and then along comes the news, borne by someone wearing a suitably glum face that “old Bob” or “Jenny who worked the copy machine” or “Fred the truck driver” have died.

Immediately you go into respectful reflective glum mode and talk in low and serious tones. You ponder a little on your knowledge of them, try to figure out how old they were and under what terms you last saw them. You realise that you didn’t really know much about them and great swathes of their lives are imagined badly and ignorantly by you. Maybe even as a black and white movie but what else is possible, you don’t know Jack about them. Then you feign for a while. Feigning is trying to appear upset or caring when really you’re not at all affected. That person has died; you know their family will be feeling bad, all the usual things will be happening and that’s pretty terrible for them but you know that had you never seen or heard of that person ever again you wouldn’t really care. They are of course more than a face and a name or a staff number, they’re precious human beings, but they really don’t mean anything to you. Particularly now that they don’t work here, or you don’t have deal with them or worse put up with them because they were irritating. In truth they were dead already; they died the moment they quit, or retired or moved on and of course the exact same thing will happen to you when your time comes.

Here we are shuffling along like penguins, we know and recognise the ones close by, they keep us warm, protect us, we do the same for them, we laugh and chatter and journey together, we share a common love. Penguins on an ice flow making noises. Those others though, farther out to the left or the right, just a little beyond our reach are something else; they have their peer group, their helpers and their own pace. We may nod or wink or blink towards them, they may politely return but their journey is their own. When they fall we can’t halt and turn to pick them up, there are too many others in the way and we are moving away all the time, each of us caught up in our own blinkered piece of progress. So we feign, a second’s hesitation, a thimble of respect and then we go on.

I doubt if the Queen cares about the medals or awards or knighthoods she gives out, the numbers are too big, the production line is relentless, she is a machine and they are passing cogs. Clicking and whirring and having a moment, the Queen is the champion of the feign and unfortunately as I get older and cogs and wheels continue to obit at a distance or pass me by so am I. I’m sorry for anyone who has some of my detached death going on but that sorry can’t generate a real tear, can’t put me off a ham sandwich, discolour a holiday day dream or stop me looking forward to getting home. My survival instinct is strong enough to know where and when I must spend my emotions, at what point I can empathise; the odd charity, African water shortage, natural disaster or donkey sanctuary gets through but few of them stick…

It’s not religion or charity we need, it’s perspective.

Dangerous wiring

Wiring diagrams and the random samplings of cheesy baguettes: Those stumped by the antics of their Twitter alter egos remain bemused, their sharp and pithy messages resonating around cyber-voids and causing excessive stimulation to some or is it that the are simply transmitting clues to a huge, sprawling crossword puzzle than none of us, earthbound and blinkered as we are, can actually see?

God has given us dangerous minds. They say that people who have had religious experiences early in life and then moved on (as life's rich tapestry of strange beauty and disaster unfolds), still cling on to their spiritual wreckage remaining passively obsessed with god and their abject failure to find him or even some close approximation. I'm not sure who it is who is saying these things but I wish they'd stop and allow the likes of us a little head space in which to explore other less fuzzy, less furry and less fussy modern conundrums. Modern life is quite simply a quiet conundrum, a game with shifting rules, narrow windows of opportunity, possibilities that we cannot grasp and because of this, huge potential. Imagine my pleasure therefore at discovering the Swiss, bespectacled boffins at Nescafe (a division of some bigger and uglier thing) had devised sample sized sachets of coffee, milk and sugar molecules fuzed into tiny pieces that could be activated by the simple addition of a small quantity of boiling water to form a tasty and invigorating hot beverage. It has a name but as it is so close to that of god's own (secret) name I dare not even speak it or write it down. I shall call it a supreme guilty pleasure and say no more.

The Ticket

It was the raffle prize of a lifetime, a seat at the top table at the Grand Vizier's Garden Party. She could hardly believe her luck. It was of course the social event of the year, all of the cream of society would be there, the weather would be perfect (it always was) and the whole event was the most marvellous spectacle and experience. She nursed the ticket in her open hand and mused a little more over her good fortune. What should she wear? Who would she be sitting next to? She thought of some the wonderful anecdotes she'd heard about previous winners, how their lives had changed, how their fortunes had improved, VIPs they'd met, some had even married or travelled to other planets and even strange countries as a result. (I should point out that interplanetary travel was considered relatively normal for most people but a local passage from country to country had become a lot more difficult and unusual these days, this was mostly due to diplomatic rather than technical travel issues).

She put the ticket back into the metallic blue envelope and locked it up in her fire and ant proof safety deposit boxes. (You had to be very careful about ants, there were many tribes of highly intelligent ants operating in the area and being ants they were inclined to acts of burglary or simply just carrying things away, you had to take sensible precautions. The good news was that a small bowl of sugar could be left out and that would distract the ants, in fact if they ate enough of it they became drunk and were then relatively easy to apprehend and capture them). The last thing she wanted was the ants to carry away her prize and then try to sell it all across the Inter-ant Net System to whoever or just hold it to ransom. She pushed the box keys and entered her security digits. “Phew, the ticket is now as safe and ant proof as I can make it.”

She made herself a hot banana chocolate and allowed herself a deep, smug, happy and satisfied smile. She flicked over the catalogue pages and thought a little more about her dress.