It's The End Of The World...

Do you ever wonder whether the last words ever to be spoken by a human being before we're finally consigned to extinction will be: "It wasn't meant to do that!"


Tunes: Last Man Standing: False Starts And Broken Promises

Someone's Always Paying Attention Mr Mulder

A piece on Blabbermouth caught my eye this morning. The long and the short of it all is that whilst on a flight to Australia, Henry Rollins was reading a book written by a Wall Street Journal (I would guess, well respected then) contributor. The man in the seat next to him later anonymously phoned the Australian government to warn them. They tracked Rollins down and asked him what's up. Rollins' response is pretty good, not quite up to standard, but worth reading the full story through the link. The book in question was Ahmed Rashid's book "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" but what really struck me was the line: The man next to you does not agree with your politics and he didn't like the book you were reading.

Excuse me? He didn't like the book Rollins was reading. Now ignoring the cowardice of reporting a man like Rollins anonymously, free speech and the democratic processes we're apparently trying to protect (as well as spread like Marmite across the globe), let's just let this one stew in our bile for a while. I mean, I've just spent the past few hours trying to get through to the Metropolitan Police to complain about the millions of people who read The Sun or Heat magazine. But they kept hanging up on me after a while. There are millions upon millions of people who probably shouldn't read The Bible because they're only going to misinterpret the message for their own political ends, but the damn thing keeps popping up in hotel rooms so it's hard to surpress it.

I'd love to make sure that anyone who watches ITV for more than an hour a day is locked up for the safety of all humanity, and that little girls who watch Paul Walker movies be sterilised, the list is endless. But somehow, none of that matters. Because after all, a book detailing the history of a set of beliefs that currently pose one of the greatest threats to world safety outside of the actions of the US government is dangerous in this uncertain age, whereas a newspaper that spews brain destroying, lowest common denominator misogynist filth is utterly acceptable.

Knowledge is only dangerous if you have something to hide and if you have something to hide then how can you be acting in the best interests of the global community?

Or to quote Mother Theresa for the second time in my life (although it's the same quote):

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.



Tunes: Silence

Even On The Road To hell, Flowers Can Make You Smile

Is it because I find a simple pleasure in the smile of a small child as they crest the low rise of Kingston bridge on their trike - beaming with successful exhertion that I don't have a games console?

Or is it because I'm just really really shit at video games?

Final Destination 2 was on Channel 4 last night, so I decided to watch it on DVD instead. That way, starting at the same time I was still able to watch it all before it finished and get to bed early.

It's all going a little Perfect Storm out there today. Charlie may not surf but ducks do.


Tunes: The Rakes: Capture / Release

It's Knives And Forks In Our Lives From Now On

The defence secretary, John Reid has just been on the BBC, evectively justifying the continued existence of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp because of the deaths of 2000 innocent Americans. How many innocent civilian deaths have the Americans been responsible for? How many in one hit? How many the British? The French? Germans, Japanese, Chinese, South Africans etc etc et fucking cetera? Well, their governments at least.

Think of it this way. A good mate of yours is killed in an act of unecessary man-made violence. For the sake of argument, a bomb of some description.

How do you feel?

Let's round all those feelings up under the overall heading of 'loss'. Now imagine the same thing happens to a mate of yours - a mate of his, or hers, is killed. How would they feel?

I'd guess pretty much the same.

Now keep the process going, metaphorically speaking, a mate of theirs, a mate of theirs, a mate of theirs, a mate of theirs etc etc et fucking cetera. How are all these people going to feel?

I'd guess pretty much the same.

And sooner or later, we're going to get out of town, then one day one of those friends will live across a sea or an ocean, and soon start they'll start spreading across the world. It might take time, but it WILL happen.

The language spoken by these friends will change as, soon, will their culture and skin colour. And no matter how these people deal with their grief, no matter what displays are used to mourn, I'm pretty sure that they're all going to be feeling the same as the rest of us.

I don't think there's a single communal structure, religion, philosophy, or law that promotes hypocracy as a good thing.

On a lighter note I've just eaten my first solid food in 36 hours. Hooray! A bonus, since Friday night / Saturday morning was spent removing all food and liquid matter from my person in as painful a manner as possible from both ends and it's been lucozade and water ever since. It may possibly have been one of those 24 hour bugs. I like to think of it as a warning to never eat at the Golden Belches again.

Every cloud etc!


Tunes: None yet, only just got up

Boris the...

...first of the year.

Don't live on a boat if you can't share living space with these lovable eight legged freaks.


Tunes: Mercury Rev

Guilty Pleasures #1

I love The Brits. Ever since I was taken to one of the early nineties Brits at the Hammersmith Odeon (or whatever it was at the time, Labbats?) I've followed it's steady climb in grandeur and coverage. Every year, with ritualistic precision, I sit down to two and a half hours of the music industry's primest guff. And I love it.

It's certainly not for the nominations, a dreary, predictable retread through the recognised establishment. Luckily The Brits are based on self-congraulatory label wanking, which gives them a good excuse to walk the centre path. Should talent have come into it, then Gorillaz would have walked off with every award going. Nor is it for the 'glitz' nor glitterati. Apologies if this comes across as a little dull but most of those worthless fucks are taking up damn good oxygen. Our obsession with pointless C-listers is a terrifying smokescreen to cover our righteous avoidance of shit that really matters; surley the fourth horseman of the twenty first century apocalypse will be called Celebrity.

I love the Brits for the performances and for the occasional amusing sense of unpredicatabilty. Occasionally classic (Sam Fox & Mick Fleetwood, Jarvis and Wacko), occasionally sad (Chumbawumba), occasionally quite moving (Bono dancing into the crowd) and occasionally revealing (Paris Hilton being caught on tonight's show gabbing away on her mobile - at least that's what it looked like), but somehow always there. It makes for more entertaining viewing, especially as drunk rock stars (See the NME awards) are about as tedious a bunch of self obsessed wankers as you can get.

The performances though, generally do us proud. Not quite as over the top as the US based awards, but large enough to be spectacle enough, they also seem to bring the best out in the performers. A bit like Glastonbury but without the wellies. I remember seeing Avril Lavigne play with a wall of drummers, Scissor Sisters pulling out the Muppets, and tonight's Kanye West line up of gold painted, bikini clad dancers was a work of genius whether ironic statement, music hall gusto or required rap misogyny. Prince and KT Tunstall both played blinding sets, with Prince stealing the show, and Coldplay looked to be about as good onstage as they've probably ever been.

So why Mr Martin's "we're disappearing for all eternity" comments? I read something in the papers about 'the public being sick of them'. Sick? Number one in 28 countries, a zillion seats sold at gigs. I don't think the fans are sick of you guys. Maybe the music press is sick of them but who these days plays to the whims of the music press? Surely no one can be feeble enough to fall for the fickle? Dude, if you're just sick of playing then say so. Take a couple of years off, who doesn't, just don't make such a big baby fuss about it. You're meant to be the bushy cropped innocent who wouldn't know a lie if it bit you on the arse. Dick.

Turned off before Paul Weller though. Damn, that guy bores me to tears.


Tunes: Whatever shit was on the Brits

It's Just A Ride

Sent as a present from Annam -
A red cockatoo.
Colourful like the pearl tree blossom,
Speaking with the speak of men.

And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside

Po Chu (AD 772 - 840) - The Red Cockatoo. From Chinese Poems On The Underground


The world is like a ride in an amusement park and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round and has thrills and chills and is very brightly coloured and very loud.

And it's fun.

For a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: "is this real or is this just a ride," and other people have remembered and they come back to us and say: "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid. Ever."

"Because this is just a ride."

And we kill those people.

William Melvin Hicks (AD 1961 - 1994). From the DVD Revelations


It strikes me that the universal truths are those that span centuries, that span cultures, that span skin colours, that span languages. It saddens me that despite all our protestations to being the smartest monkeys nothing much has changed.



Tunes: Kate Stables: Creeping Up Our Shins, from the album This Is The Kit. This song made me cry.

It's Been A While

It's been some time since I've been up to town so I'd forgotten about the Homechoice posters I keep seeing on the tube. Home choice is one of those cable tv network providers who seem to offer you everything you always needed to never have to leave your home again.

Which is probably why their posters show some bored looking bloke doing something amazing (being in space, swimming with Dolphins, whatever) saying he'd rather be at home with his telly. Wow. They're selling us a world where it's better to stay indoors and experience everything this world has to offer vicariously through someone else being projected on to a screen than to do it yourself.

Why would this be a good idea?

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain falling, and it put a huge smile on my face. We've pushed through the dead of winter and spring is on it's way. It's time for everything to start blossoming again and that long period of semi persistant rainfall, needed to bring about new life. I think that's why I was so desperate to clean up the 'garden' area opposite Chuffy yesterday. I hope to do good things with that space this year. Coincidentally this has also been the week that I stepped back out into the world, both workwise and socially.

I realise now that in essence I have been hibernating over winter. Staying in, keeping warm, eating well and now beginning to prepare myself, physically, mentally and spiritually for the year ahead.

If you want to understand why I feel that, why so many of us feel that boat life keeps you in touch with the passage of nature and the movement of the seasons, then I'd offer the two paragraphs above as evidence.

One final thought. By the time I reached home on Friday I was tired, it has been a long and fulfilling week, but I was hitting a low ebb. I stopped off at Mike's for a cup of tea and a chat and he told me a quote he'd read that morning. Those words have kept me smiling all weekend and will do I guess pretty much for the rest of my life. It came from the Dalai Lama and went something like this.

I always get the feeling I'm just another human being...



Tunes: The sound of the rain falling