I Guess There Are Worse Things To Be Kept Awake By

Tunes: The Polyphonic Spree: Thumbsucker OST

People Are Only People Because Of Other People

I love those random thoughts and conversations we have: the ones we dismiss as mental driftwood or nonsensical lapses of reason. I like to think of them as a part of the fuel mixture for the creative process. They are wonderful beginnings of concepts, thought processes, investigations, synaptic stimulations. Sending them into the outside world is like a having a mental wank for others to appreciate. I'm sure that somewhere out there in that perpeptual tumble of half-mashed conversations there are some truly great ideas that will save us from a fate worse than day time television.

But this isn't one of them.

Have you ever thought about how quiet it would be if the folks who supply batteries just withdrew them all from public consumption one day? These people hold a great deal of as yet untapped power. Do NOT mess with them.


Tunes: Broken Social Scene: Broken Social Scene

Every Heart Is A Revolutionary Cell

The Heaven And Earth Show had a piece this morning on how the music of Mozart increases our spatial-temporal reasoning. Something they call the Mozart Effect. So I pulled out my only - to my shame - classical CD, something called 'the best CLASSICAL album of the millenium...ever!' (there's one for the Trades Descriptions people). Now I don't know if five minutes of "Clarinet Concerto' has made me that much smarter, but it was certainly a pleasant way to start a frosty winter's morning.

Especially as it was one of those perfect winter mornings. The river was as icy still as the air, as the early morning sunlight pushed through the clouds casting a steel-grey pallor across the sky. Fresh enough for the frost to remain crisp and invigorating, but not enough to draw me, just yet, from the embers glowing warm in the fire.

Pardon me if I'm taken to waxing lyrical about life on the mooring at the moment because despite winter's frosty fingers still keeping a firm grip on the weather, nature is waking up all around. At night the water echoes with the oddly whale-like singsong of the swans (ironic for a species we term Mute). It's a haunting sound, if not what you might describe as a pleasant. A little research on my fine feathered friends brings me the information that the term 'swan song' comes from the time of Plato, Aristotle and Socrates when they believed that as a swan approaches death, it's song becomes more powerful.

The day brings a greater cacophony of bird song: the shrieking of the gulls; the nasal honking of the geese and the unfussy chattering of the grebes; or the homely mallards quacking away against the glottal yelps of the Coots. Some of my neighbours find the chavs of the river less than endearing. I don't (although that's the last time you'll ever see me use 'chavs' and 'endearing' in the same sentence). Further down the river you'll also hear the happy squaking of the ring-necked parakeets (commonly mistaken for green parrots). Only the cormorants maintain an efficient silence.

Tunes: Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Tunes: Sufjan Stevens: Seven Swans

Wake Up Each Morning Like It Was On Purpose

Eating

Sleeping

Breathing

Shitting

Pissing

Fucking


Everything else is window dressing and should be treated as such.


Tunes: Broken Family Band: John Belushi

Day Three Of The Sickness

And it's not much fun. Didn't sleep well last night and in a foul mood...

One thing that cheered me up was the sight of a coot, carrying a lump of bread, peddling as fast as he or she could across the river being followed by a hungry swan, effortlessly gliding behind it.

I'm glad to say that perseverence paid off and one coot is eating well this afternoon.


Tunes: None, too grumpy for music right now.

Nothing Till March, And Then I'm The Easter Bunny

I've been thinking about my friend Annie recently. When I went to visit her in hospital a couple of years ago and I was unsuccessfully fighting back the tears, she said that she could smell the boat on me and that that reminded her of how peaceful this place is. That was good enough. Now I have no idea if there is a 'boat smell'. I tend to think that boats smell of their owners: beer, food, weed, strange incense burners, but mainly slightly musty and a little damp. Still, what was important at the time is that it was a comfort to Annie at a really tough time. That was comfort enough for me.

I'm reminded of this because as I walked along the pontoon the other evening I realise that there is at least a winter smell that hangs over the moorings. The smell of burning wood and coal. It's wonderful. Homely. If you wish. Warm. Welcoming. I guess it kind of sums up part of the appeal of this floating existence.

When I last caught up with Annie, a few days ago, by the end of the day her joints were seizing up badly. The only way she could get upstairs was to crawl. She must have noticed whatever horrified look I had on my face because she turned to me and said with a smile: "It was worse when it first kicked in. This used to take me fourty-five minutes..." And we're not exactly talking a hard core set of stairs here. Just imagine that one day you're in the peak of health and the next it takes you fourty-five minutes to climb no more than twenty stairs. And yet not once have I known this little blonde lady, all of five feet four and a fringe, to complain. In fact all I've ever known her to do is to take every curve-ball life has thrown at her, look them squarely in the eye and send them back with twice the force. If you were ever to pity Annie she'd BA Barracus you straight into next year.

I think of how insignificant our petty, pitiful mewlings are. Those little excuses we all make for not doing the things that better ourselves. The little internal stories we tell that to explain why we haven't stopped drinking, haven't stopped smoking, haven't started exercising, haven't pissed the boss off out of it, haven't made some money, haven't achieved all our dreams. God help us if we ever had some serious shit to deal with. I'm surprised so many folks manage to keep going for 70 years, the weight of the world that hangs on their shoulders.

It's not that fucking difficult to smile.


Tunes: Thrice: The Earth Will Shake

It's A Hit!

One of the first things you get asked when it's discovered you live on a boat is: "Is it cold?"
From now on I'm going to answer: "Only if you don't put the heating on."

For the record, it can be very cold. And very damp. We are surrounded by fairly cold water after all. The two in conjunction, and they always go hand in hand on boats, can make for a pretty miserable experience. Remember I have about an inch of timber and paint between me and the outside world. That's why boats have heating, just like those funny things you normal folks live in have.

Most of us have some form of solid fuel burning stove; try heating a boat off the electrics and you'd better be a very rich bunny. I, like many of the boats on the mooring, have a little Morso Squirrel; a cast iron box with levers and dials. I feed her coal and she feeds me heat. I love her and look after her and she looks after me. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.

I say all this because I came back to a very cold home this morning. It's pretty hard to do anything when you're using all your energy to keep warm. Turn the rads off for a day and see how much you get done that doesn't involve the remote control. Last winter when I was Squirel-less I was going to bed fully clothed, in a dressing gown, in a sleeping bag, under the duvet. And that was on a normal winter's night.

But it's toasty now.

I got to meet the baby Jessica yesterday. I think that the sound of a baby laughing is the sound of complete freedom. People who can't smile at this have no business wasting their time on this planet, and need to look for a way off pretty damn pronto.


Tunes: Rilo Kiley: More Adventurous

I Have A Bad Feeling About This...

I've decided to remove a few unwanted distractions from my life.

Which should be a good thing.


Tunes: The National: Alligator

That's A Lot Of Cows

There's a log that's been trapped behind the boat since last spring. The baby ducks like to crash out on it, which is always cool to wake up or come home to. I'm looking forward to meeting the new brood this year.

Anyway, I digress.

There was a young coot sleeping out on it last night, a two legged ball of junior feathers, head tucked under wing.

All there was this morning was a fresh lump of bird shit.


I'm still undecided about watching Jason X later, although it might be worth hanging around for the sleeping bag scene again.

I can't remember any of the good lines from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

It was good to see some old friends today.


Tunes: Led Zeppelin: Immigrant Song

Tooth By Tooth I Will Build A Smile

Seems like a good day to take the Christmas decorations down.

I'll miss the angel James and the baby Lars though...

I went for a walk along the river today and sat for a while at the water's edge,

watching the current tickle the underside of the surface,

listening to the birdsong,

I never underestimate how lucky I am to have this around me.

Tunes: Four Day Hombre: 1000 Bulbs

He said there was nothing sweet in my ear...

Always good to watch Death Race 2000 again.

Time to do my Londonist music top tens today.

You can read them

here

or

here:

Top Twelve Albums
Sufjan Stevens - Welcome To Illinois
Bruce Springsteen - Devil's And Dust
Black Mountain - Black Mountain
The National - Alligator
The Eighteenth Day Of May - The Eighteenth Day Of May
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Sleater- Kinney - The Woods
The Broken Family Band - Welcome Home Loser
The Duke Spirit - Cuts Across The Land
Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger

Top Ten Singles
The Mooney Suzuki - Alive And Amplified
The National - Lit Up
Four Day Hombre - 1000 Bulbs
Maximo Park - Going Misssing
The Dandy Warhols - Smoke It
Elbow - Forget Myself
The Eighteenth Day Of May - The HIghest Tree / Sir Casey Jones
Sleater-Kinney - Entertain
Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Dinosaur Jr - Freakscene

Top Ten Gigs
Arcade Fire @ ULU
Sufjan Stevens @ KCL
R.E.M. @ Isle Of White Festival
Secret Machines @ Glastonbury
The Dirtbombs @ 93 Feet East
TODD / Oxbow @ The Bull And Gate
Motorhead @ Hammersmith Apollo
Dinosaur Jr @ Forum
Mercury Rev @ Hammersmith Apollo
Coldplay @ Koko


Tunes: My Morning Jacket: Z

A Blog Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas

I saw a pair of coots getting it on this afternoon

which was pretty cool.


Tunes: The Eighteenth Day Of May: The Eighteenth Day Of May