Come tomorrow, maybe a soldier

I seem to have given evidence against myself, prior to being shot for desertion.

It reminds me that I was sitting on the crapper when the announcement for the two minute silence on Armistice Day echoed through the building. 120 seconds later there was a chorus of flushing.

No matter how earth shattering (at least if not literally) an event, all around the globe folks will be talking, walking, arguing, discussing, fucking, eating, sleeping, reading, watching, listening, pondering, pissing and shitting as normal.

Life goes on.

There's plenty of light still left in your eyes

When I got home on Tuesday after the Okkervil River show, the almost full moon was casting an ethereal lavender glow across the stillness of the land.


Okkervil River are one of only two bands I've seen in living memory when during the quiet bits you can't hear some fucking idiot loudly proclaiming their irrelevance on this planet.

I feel the ocean

Iona was right, it really was the TGV.

I have a text message on my phone from a close friend I'd just spent the day with on Thursday, 48 hours after she'd been told her boyfriend of 9 years had died, also aged 38. It is full of questions that have no answers, requests that can not be fulfilled. It is a primal scream of grief, and the waves of immediate unfettered loss pour out of it.

It broke my heart.

Of all the emotions I've been through these past few weeks, it's the helplessness that's been the worst.

Listening to Shearwater's Winged Life

When you tip your head to the side does it sound like rain stick?

Autumn sounds like screeching gulls and smells of woodsmoke.

So the Bishop of Lewes has suggested that the ol' credit crunch is 'God's punishment' for our materialistic over-indulgences. OK, fine by me; who am I to argue against a higher power?

But I do have a couple of questions.

Firstly, if we're all being punished, why are there still going to be so many big banking bonuses again this year? I mean, surely that's a reward for being very good at excessive materialistic consumption, not punishment.

Second, considering the wonderful litany of murder, war, destruction, oppression, murder, slavery, exploitation, our general concession to all this, not to mention the ongoing devastation of this lovely rock God has designed for us, and more; how come it was a bunch of over-suited bipeds that pushed Him / Her over the edge into action?

It's been a good week for the clergy in the news. After all, what better word(s) could precede the headline "...hospitalised with potato up his bum" than 'Vicar'. Other than 'Russell Brand'. And talking of Amy Winehouse's evil twin, have you wondered how differently things would have worked out if they'd only called Jeremy Clarkson instead?

I wonder if anyone checked to see if this fella wasn't some kind of Trojan Horse, full of tiny Lego figures waiting to spill out and take over the country.

I hope so.

Anyway, a belated Happy Halloween to y'all