What it is like

You see, I only ever wanted to live like an Edwardian gentleman, but, instead, I find myself living in this nation of slavering wolves and pigs.

Holiday, outside

While I was away I managed to steal myself from the public sun and twittering crowd.

I found a valley, negotiated only by means of a stony footpath, at the end of which was a beach like a spew of immaculate ground rice. It was lost and the valley was overlooked by the ruins of a Cordovan fort.

This was my secret place for the week: the place in which I attempted to make contact with the austere horrors of nature. And it was the place in which I attempted to touch the beauty of nature. Horror and beauty are wild bedfellows outside.

I expected snakes and scorpions, but found none. I stumbled upon running-on-two-legs-lizards, skittish anti-gravity geckos, bombous devil's darning-needles, and huge columns of marching ants determined upon civilising the scrub.

The stream was dried to a stagnant skein of weed and mud, punctured by choked white boulders of yellow chalk, off-white stones and red-roasted soil. All vegetation was scratchy, brownish, bush-spine and parched pink thrift.

For birds I saw red-rumped swallows, azure-winged magpies, bee-eaters, and Sardinian warblers. Some of the colours were tropical. Almost like a child's illustration.

For butterflies I saw the blue-spot hairstreak, a couple of swallowtails, but mostly southern gatekeepers and cleopatras.

I found an upturned facies of rock that was once a beach, one hundred and fifty million Jurassic years ago. The squishing of the Tethys into Mediterranean, and the caesarian Atlantic belly-rip, had displaced it to an angle of some forty-five degrees from the horizon. I could see the petrified shells in the mudstones. I also spied three dinosaur tracks. Two the size of a hand; and a third, in the opposite direction, and much larger. Like monstrous, stupid, three-toed flightless-pigeon runways.

I was all squint-eyed and lens-flare stares, with dry breath, covered sweathead, leather arms, and walkers' boot, just thinking there about the past and the goddess, under the same sun.

Circumstantial holistic

Silently they compiled the evidence against him. Due process required that it be ennumerated for consideration.

Exhibit one: the wrapper from a cornish pasty that could not be satisfactorily explained in the circumstances.

Exhibit two: the smell of his green coat.

Exhibit three: a single natural meteorite from a radiant estimated to be close to Arcturus.

Exhibit four: five synthetic satellites that appeared temporarily, curiously reflecting moonlight rather than sunlight and thus appearing and disappearing unpredictably.

Exhibit five: a snuffling hedgehog, behind the gunnera, that went unchallenged by dark.

Exhibit six: a single copy of Aeschylus, discarded carelessly in the wrong room.

Exhibit seven: a number of items, related to the completion of several given tasks, that were conspicuous by their absence. This exhibit: a sort of negative evidence, if you will.

Exhibit eight: it was suggested by interested parties in the neighbourhood that he had an unhealthy interest in the suspended mathematical properties of the tango.

In the balance it was granted that sufficient grounds existed to justify his immediate detention, as being culpable and therefore complicit.

He was condemned to exile in Leicestershire as an act of mercy on the part of the elders, and by way of commutation by the judiciary of the originally promulgated damnati ad bestias.

I am a robot

I could very easily have written a massive post here about how so many things in the world of commerce make me want to thrash the ground viciously with a long stick while making screams and howls in the direction of the enemy, but I prefer it hard.

Microsoft have bought a company who do electronic advertising, for $3.5 billion of your Earth Dollars. They would only do that if they were assured that they could recoup at least $4 billion dollars themselves from advertising.

Just think of the marketing joy that is to come. No. I said I wouldn't start ranting...

At the weekend I dug out a little blue box that I've had for some time, called a "Behringer GDI21" that is a rip off of a device by a company called SansAmp. It emulates the ballpark sound of three classic types of guitar amplifiers; Fenders, Marshalls, and Vox amps.

I also have a nice guitar called a Danelectro that is wonderfully retro. When I play this guitar through the blue box, set for Vox with hi-gain and Mic emulation set to the centre of the speaker cone, boy! Let me tell you! It does clean up snow! Fabbers. I spent nearly two hours playing it.

What I loved about the sound was the rich, rich lows; all frothy and glittery with overdrive, but the highs were still sparkling clear.

I ended up cycling through a minor blues with a couple of turnarounds in there...
Emin, Amin, Emin, Amin, Emin, Bmin, Amin
Cmaj7, Bmaj, Emin, Amaj, Emin, B7 and back again.

You would like me if you could hear me play guitar for you. I transcend myself.

Anyway, the soundbyte from the soapbox today is: advertising is next to godliness. It will inherit the Earth.

I can't wait until they invent metamarketing.

When that day comes we'll know the rarified peak of sophistication and humanity.

Howler monkey is 10% grumpy

If we accept the fact that blogs are largely exercises in self-publicity, written for whatever reason we choose for needing to create them, it always strikes me as rather odd that anyone should go to the doubly pointless lengths of creating a Corporate Blog.

Corporate Blogs strike me as nothing more than Marketing gone apeshit. Does anyone really want to hear the latest gossip about a product that may or may not exist in the future, described by snow-moustachioed Marketing Types who don't actually understand what they're talking about? Is this a snake that eats its own tail? It all smells a bit of enforced uniform-wearing to me.

My car has developed a mysterious lake in the foot well of the rear seat on the passenger side. I am unable to say how it got there. I can find no channels of damp, no holes, no gaps. I've also asked a few more technically minded types than I to take a look. Nobody can find the source of the water. It is getting deeper though. I suppose it must be an act of God.

I should be thankful for the water really what with global climate change and temperature increases. If Britain becomes a desert overnight I can rent the foot well out to people with disabilities so that they can bathe in its vivifying waters and receive the miracle of Christ unto them for their deliverance. For a reasonable fee.

At the weekend I had intended to explore all the presets in some software I have that emulates the sound of a Hammond organ. I never managed it though. My main window of opportunity was Saturday and I was unfortunately inflicted with a quadruple migraine, one attack immediately following the last, complete with zig-zaggy aurae and blindspots, tingling hands, incoherent speech, and hammer to the skull and knives behind the eyes headaches. Remove all zig for great justice.

When it comes to migraines I'm quite tough. They don't frighten me like they used to. I just scoff at them and carry on. For the most part this works and I am hardly ever ill now for more than twenty minutes. This speight of them was more tenacious than usual though! The worst I've ever had.

On Saturday a sparrowhawk caught, and with it gripped in its talons, flew off, with a small songbird out of my garden. In ancient times this would have signified something of great import; clearly an omen. I've taken it as a sign that I should stay off alcohol for a while. Unfortunately I am already regretting this diagnosis.

I've also decided not to smoke any fags for a while. It is now seven hours since I had one. I am also starting to regret this decision. The only good reason that I can think of, in the light of cold turkey, for not smoking, is to piss off other smokers when the ban happens and we're all complaining about it. A sort of double contrariness.

Have you ever seen a hedgehog running? I saw one last night. You wouldn't believe how fast they go.

One of the things I really do need though is more sleep. Have you got any to spare? Perhaps we could share some. Or perhaps that would be a bit saucy.

Parp Squonk Bleet

I spent the weekend doing unspeakably dull things.

However there was an exception. I spent several hours creating Disco music. I was careful to ensure a disrespectful level of musical mixed metaphors - some filters of the seventies, some Nile Rodgers guitar (chakka chakka chakka) of the same era but perhaps timeless anyway, some lovely eighties-sounding choral samples, and, of course, some nineties bass synth sounds. And finally some sonic jokes and some metal guitar to add shine.

I've been spending too much time reading up on Aeschylus recently. It's put me back into the frame of mind that while everything is miraculous it is also utterly dark at the same time. This has been clouding my judgement of late. Just because there is winter there is no reason not to enjoy the summer.

I have to tell you that there are a number of aspects of my life that give me immeasurable joy on a daily basis.

But what I wanted to say was that I was deeply moved by Pod's five years. If it's any consolation there is nothing darker, more lovely, more spectacular, or more beautiful than a thinking, feeling soul.

Dance on, brothers and sisters. It's disco time.

Wild West

One hun'erd and fifty years ago, when I was young and gold, I danced in a blue and gilded desert.

I met a girl who was a flurry of scarlet and white. Like a cherry red bustle of camelias. Like a shine of pure gardenias. Like a polarised crimson shock of peonies.

My shins were snakeskin and dusty heeled. Smile toothed and eye-whites we were.

Spinning like cactus hummingbirds, or dervishes.

Never more polite.