This morning finds me less than 100%. Nonetheless, I am able to perform various tasks. In fact the more I do, the less I dwell on how half-assed I feel! So I will not bore you with the details, but carry on doing the deeds with gusto, until I can no longer stay awake. By which time the way I feel will be of zero importance. I might even feel better!
Last night, over a most enjoyable dinner, some of us fell to talking about plans to find somewhere else to live. Our outlooks and intended courses of action were quite varied, but our motivation and reasons for thinking this way were very similar.
At different times, two of us said, “I dont want to die in….”, followed by our current places of residences. I have lived in the same town on and off for many years. Its a town I know too(?) well, and don’t like living in very much. Several times I have been geared up to take my leave, and something has happened to postpone my departure. Still I remain convinced that the day will come.
I am not at all convinced that leaving will be the antidote to my dissatisfaction. Although there are a number of places I believe I would be happier in, I don’t know that I will ever find somewhere to settle. Perhaps I am doomed to wander back and forth until the time and place of my demise present themselves.
What seems clearer than ever this morning is that for all of us the location is not the problem. If we were living our lives to the best of our ability, doing only the things most important to us, then where we were wouldn’t concern us. I am loathe to admit it, but I remain up to my neck in procrastination.
So although I remain as determined as ever to move, in the mean time I pray for the resolve to change my life right where I am. I can do better, and that being the case, there is no excuse for not doing so.
When death comes to claim me, I pray my house is in order, and I am in the middle of doing things I believe to be good. Then where I am at that time really wont matter.
Maud is the name coined by my son for our recently purchased car. Maud is an automatic diesel Mercedes, and is a dream come true.
In these dire times it may seem both foolhardy and a little sick to covet and own such a thing. Like many people, despite serious reservations, I have accepted that for the moment I cannot do my thing without a car.
Throughout my life, I have owned old cars. Usually I am the final owner. That being the case, I have mostly had decent old cars. Why drive an old Ford when you can drive an old Volvo? An automatic diesel Mercedes has always seemed to me the very best car I could ever hope for. Now I have one!
So welcome, Maud, into our family. Your superior engineering and the very comfortable ride you provide are much appreciated. We shall do our best to maintain and care for you in the times to come. Long may you run.
Throughout my life, it is music that has been my number one preoccupation. However during some periods of my life, drink has run a close second. Since I was a teenager, I have had a long and turbulent relationship with the demon alcohol.
My family moved to Cambridge in 1967, the summer of love(!). At seventeen and fresh out of boarding school into a student town full of pubs, my drinking career took off without a hitch. For the next several years, despite passionate affairs with most of the available recreational drugs, drink remained the undisputed protagonist in my hedonistic heart.
I moved to London, then the streets of Paris, where hours of playing music every day began in earnest. Still a drink of some kind was never far away. Life’s essentials were reduced to a minimum as all surplus funds were offered up at the altar of Bacchus. Fortified with ‘Dutch courage’, I embarked on one adventure after another throughout my 20s. Having lived to tell the tale, I cannot honestly say I regret my alcoholic exuberance. Without the booze, I may never summoned up the nerve to do many of the things I did. Read more »
UK Election synopsis….government closes up shop and for weeks and at great expense, professional liars bombard us with empty promises, at the end of which a bamboozled nation is unable to decide conclusively, probably because the choices are so poor…the result leaves the state more bankrupt than ever, with no honest men able to effectively steer us toward something better, leaving ordinary British people more angry, confused, frustrated and miserable than ever….can we learn anything from this fiasco?….probably not….we have been perpetuating the same crock of s#*t for so long we dont know where else to turn…
in a nation driven to drink a long time ago, the winners are probably the pubs, who will be busier than ever, filled with those drowning their sorrows, and those who have washed their hands of the whole sorry charade….
Poor old UK. Whatever happened to us? What used to be a haven of soft edges, a little run down and shabby, like your favourite old armchair, has evolved over 30 years into a shiny, brittle, trashy landscape of concrete and glass and plastic. Where benign eccentrics once lived quiet, extraordinary lives of their own devising; there now predominates an army of media junkies wondering who they are and what they are supposed to do next.
I hold Margaret Thatcher and every jackass that followed responsible. Now in 2010 a fresh but frighteningly similar bunch of goons are asking that we elect them into power. They speak blithely of ‘change’ and ‘the common good’ and ‘a brighter future’ in tones that wouldn’t convince an 8 year old. In fact all they can honestly promise is that the will more or less perpetuate the stagnant, diseased behemoth their predecessors so cynically threw together.
They keep insisting that a vote for anyone other than one of them(the 3 main parties) is a wasted vote. Can we wake up now please? What’s on offer is a media-savvy slew of snake oil salesmen. Its all about what you are being seen to be rather than what you are. Who are they? They barely know themselves. All they are qualified to do is appear at ease among TV people and journalists. The real world? I don’t think so. You wouldn’t want Jonathan Ross to run the country would you?
The only thing worse than voting for one of them is not voting. Make a little effort. Its not too late to go out and form a personal opinion about one of the alternative party candidates. You will probably find that you like them much better. They probably wont win this time round. But every vote the same old greedy bastards don’t get is a nail in their coffin. They have to go. Lets make it sooner rather than later.
Dont be afraid. Vote with your heart.
Recent events have seen an Icelandic volcano bring much of the world’s air traffic to a standstill. For six days the skies above Europe have been quiet. It has given us a glimpse of how the world might be if or when the planes stop flying altogether.
As the aviation industry lurches tentatively back into action, its future seems more than ever suspended between desire and reality. How much longer can we expect to zip around the world with such ease? Read more »
Two days ago I opened my mandolin case and a clawed birds leg tumbled out. Surprise doesn’t begin to describe my reaction. Right away my fevered brain started throwing up possible explanations.
The first and most likely story seemed that someone put it there at my last gig while my attention was elsewhere. A little strange, but then what would you do with it if you found yourself holding such a thing? If this is the case, I’m wondering if it was someone I know, and whether their intentions were playful or malevolent?
Next the voodoo option occurred to me. A week or so after Easter I took a tumble on my bike and injured my knee. Could this severed limb be part of a fiendish spell that brought about my distress? Who could foster such urges toward me?
I then got to thinking about who or what might have been playing my mandolin while I wasn’t looking. I enjoyed the mental picture of a group of birds picking some bluegrass tunes, hanging out with a jug of liquor, raising hell. Still it would take one hell of a drunken brawl to explain why one of them might have left most of their leg behind.
A lot of questions and no answers. Now I have the bizarre thing and must decide what to do with it! I don’t want to dispose of it just yet as I might never then know how it came to be where I found it. But I don’t want to keep it indefinitely. I don’t like it. There is something creepy about it.
Well, I never asked for a boring life.
Last Tuesday morning, I damaged my knee. Cycling back from church, at some considerable speed, I went off the path, slipped on some mud and lost control.
I remember flying through the air, then the next thing I recall is yelling in pain. Almost immediately, a woman with her young daughter and small dog came to my assistance. They were so nice. I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask their names, but thank you whoever you are. How often it is that something bad happens and almost immediately something good happens too.
They helped me to my feet, and after assuring them several times that I was OK, I hobbled slowly home. I spent the rest of the day doing very little except putting off going to the hospital in the hope that I really was OK, but I wasn’t. Read more »
Conservative, Labour, and even Liberal Democrat pundits are fond of saying that a vote for anyone other than a major party candidate is a wasted vote. I’d like to suggest that the exact opposite is true. Voting for any of these dinosaurs is helping perpetuate the miserable mess they have made of our country, and by association, our world. It is a lazy, spineless option.
How many of us are truly passionate supporters of these gangs of greedy bastards? This is a time when the Australian voting system would serve us well. Australians are required by law to vote, but there is an extra box on the ballot paper enabling voters to register there dislike of all the available candidates. Were we given that option in the UK, and we voted honestly, it would make for some interesting arithmetic.
If we are to have fresh blood taking over the reins of government, we have to vote for them. Yes they may lose at first, but the more people that vote for minority candidates, the more others with similar convictions will be inspired to do the same. And the more the incumbent fat cats will tremble in their custom made loafers. Instead of allowing the status quo to discourage potential future alternatives from running, we can positively encourage new candidates to step forward.
The only wasted vote is not voting at all. Don’t let the big boys fool you. They don’t care about you. Vote for someone who does.