THE SECOND DRINK IS ALWAYS BETTER (# 74,996)
it relaxes the control gland. It stops the cognitive gate yelling “hang on buster, where’s your ID.” It just lets the raw untreated matter finds its way. As each cell up top submits, the soul exerts its force upon all that lurks within. And boy does it belch. And dribble. And spewm. Harold Pinter died yesterday and to him I raise the second dark and stormy short.
THE DAY THE CLIMATE WENT CO-ED
It is Boxing day smack bang on 50 degrees north of the equator. A bitch of an easterly blew down our back today on the Lizard Peninsula, while the sun eeked out a rash of age spots on our cheeks. Mine are now like eccles cakes. Such a paradox only co-exists in nature. Which got me thinking…if Thor and Mother Earth ever got it on, we all know the result. Shine on oestrogen.
THROWING A BLOG ON A WHEEL (# 74,997)
When someone is present, particularly over the shoulder, your words and concentration go to pot. Apt phrase. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a potter until (a) my art tutor told me I’d never meet girls covered in clay and (b) I tried to throw a pot on a wheel in front of a class and couldn’t. Writing, like wheelwork, requires fulcrum, balance and focus. To prove my theory that writers are put off by an audience, one September, 9 years ago, in the sun, in front of several hundred onlookers, with my foot dragged in sand, in 100 ft tall letters, I wrote: THE SUN GOT HIS HAS HAT ON.
THE TIME MACHINE AT YOUR LOCAL POST OFFICE (# 74,998)
This morning, at Maria’s Café in Borough Market, I met a lovely old boy called Lord Lucan. He wore a white bib-of-a-beard and laughed like a kookaburra. We exchanged stories and addresses and I promised I’d write him a postcard. He told me to use the ‘LOCAL’ correspondence rule. Once, if you wrote ‘LOCAL’ on your card the card would get there that day and even more remarkably, your pal could send a ‘LOCAL’ card back the same day. 2 cards in one day, one afternoon even. How bloody time-lordly brilliant is that?
DISORDNANCE SURVEY
I love getting lost, yet I love maps. It’s similar to being in love with grief when you’re a paramedic…or maybe not. Still, there could well be more people out there who like a dose of disorientation now and again. I suggest we march into the wild, implant a national network of random DISORDANCE SURVEY markers cast in bronze & concrete to appeal to the lost and free half of our soul. On finding one, you shall be comforted that you have gone the wrong, and therefore the right, way.
VALUE ADDED LOVE
31st January – get your tax return in. Is this their best shot? Are they bereft of feeling? Surely they have families to cherish and care for. I have this hunch that it won’t be long before we’re asked to pay Value Added Love, or V.A.L. as it’ll be fondly known. If our love was taxed and assessed by HM Customs & Excise and not our money, then the economy could just carry on playing fiction and the real world would be saved, until of course, it melts and gags on its own saline. All my love, x PS: Send in your VAL return by February 14th.
USE AN ENTIRE PENCIL (# 74,999)
This is pretty damn hard, but it’s pretty damn amazing. Make it a carpenter’s pencil too. When all this IT waste finally reports us to social services, it’ll be back to wood and graphite and we’ll all be better for it.
SECONDARY SWEAT AND OTHER DEEP PLEASURES
Does your body do secondaries? By this I mean actions and feelings that come in a second wave after the initial burst. I sweat again, around ten minutes after a shower after football – which could mean I’m really ill. Worryingly, I also sleep, grieve, hear, grow, think and love ‘later’. It’s almost as I have a listening stammer, a feeling stammer, a smelling stammer, a sexual stammer, an honesty stammer and an ambition stammer. The initial or primary action is always voluntary – I try to do it and it works. The secondary action is unwilled, unplanned and spontaneous, an unstoppable occurrence. Is there a doctor out there who cannot necessarily cure me (as it’s quite enjoyable) but at least diagnose my symptom? Ta.
WHEN SOMEONE ASKS YOUR AGE, TRY DEATH
Today, someone asked how old I was. Cheeky twat, I thought. Being 42, it’s a raw subject. Still, he wanted and I needed an answer, a smart answer, something to make him feel small, young and stupid. Some time later on my bike I had a thought (fascinating ideas appear when you’re cycling but more of that another time). Anyway, I wish I’d said: ‘Sadly, I only have another 63 years to live.’ But I didn’t. Next time though.
ARE FUTOIRS WHAT MEMOIRS DREAM OF?
For some time now, about an eighth of my life, I’ve craved privacy. Not dogs and fences and guns, but words, thoughts and feelings. Rather than whore my every wakened heartbeat via a public global blog, I just noted things in little black books. I called them futoirs as very few of them have yet to actually happen, even though I keep praying. But what chance do they have of germinating and propagating in the dark?
This is the first seed, the apple pip for 7 billion potential Adams to gag on. It could be a dud. It may well shrivel before your very heart, or speed it up a rev or two. It’s gonna take me a while to get the hang of this blogging, the tempo, the language, the rules. On the other hand, I might just carry on throwing wet flints out there until one dries out and sparks something. Yep, that’s more me. Nice to meet you, now get the kettle on.