I was planning not...

to say another thing about dogs until Guyana Gyal posted to me about those with bows in their hair. Grrr. I can't think of a dog joke so here's a budgie one.

How do you turn a budgie into a dog?
Dip it in petrol, throw a match and watch it go WOOF!

Great joke, still makes me laugh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, urghh, I'm all dizzy now.

I have noticed that dogs with decorative bows are carried everywhere, the little rat faced layabouts. A dangerous occupation though for in evolutionary terms no leg use can so quickly turn into no legs at all. They would then no longer be dogs but trunks. Yapping trunks with tartan collars and perhaps a little bell or one of those squeaky things that when stood upon squeaks. A blessing if it opens new areas of possibility, in bridge safety for instance. Manchester has many railway bridges under which trucks that are too tall can become jammed. By suspending trunks from beneath those bridges in a manner similar to corks on an Australian bush hat such unhappiness might be avoided. One expects the sound of squeaking trunks bumping over a cab roof to be enough warning for most drivers. Only someone with a heart of stone would fail to stop.

The patent office shall hear from me first thing on the morrow.

It can only be a matter...

of time before the rich start botoxing their dogs. I'd be surprised if this were not already available in Beverley Hills. Today's press reports the cost of botox is reducing to a level that ordinary mortals can afford. Botoxing as a means to resculpt the family dog therefore might soon be within everyone's reach. Bored with that faraway look you once found so endearing? Have him re-done. Christian owners might favour a saint, Muslims a nice floor design, Jains, well Jains would probably having nothing done for fear of the dog being a relative. Spiteful types could have their dog botoxed to resemble whom they wish to insult. To alleviate the pain of a long separation (should your employment so demand) the dog could be botoxed to a likeness of the missing loved one. Botoxdog might be given as a great Christmas gift, or birthday treat. Think of the excitement, 'Darling I'm home' and under your arm a miniature Britneydog or Eminem. There might be some social downside such as increased street accidents through people walking into things because their eyes have been captured by a Cheneydog weeing on some lamp post, or the shock of seeing a dog that looks like a dog. I reckon botoxing dogs will bring us humans closer together, even if only to exclaim.

It seems Tutankhamen enjoyed...

a snifter or two of white wine or so says today's New Scientist Magazine. Of the six jars tested from his burial chamber one had evidence of red wine and the rest of white. I've seen photo's of those ancient Egyptian jars and we're not talking jam sizes here, no siree. Your average Egyptian jar was the size of a small giraffe and could hold a substantial quantity of wine. Legend says that a year passed before the sound of partying and vomit from within the Royal tomb finally gave way to silence. Many ancient Egyptians worried the boy King might have drank his fare rather than immediately boarding the celestial packet boat as he'd been ordered to by his mum. But hey, he was young, headstrong, first time away from home, what did they expect?

The evidence surprised archeologists who up to now believed white wine (incidentally a liebfraumilch which explains why it took so long to catch on) first appeared in 3AD. However 2,500 years previously Pinot Grigio and Chablis were the tipple of Pharoahs, though not being stupid the ex boy King also knew it was easier for a pilgrim to pass through the innards of a camel than enter Valhalla smelling of cheap plonk.

An alternative theory to explain the large jars is that Tut simply wasn't prepared to pay the outrageously inflated prices they charge for a drink on ferries.

Last Friday...

whilst driving home from work a massive lorry passed me on the inside lane and as it turned a great hunk of steel tore the passenger side mirror from my car. Slipping into psycho mode I pursued said lorry until he stopped. From the lofty heights of his cab (so high there was a snow line with some boastful off-piste skiers who had about them the look of corporate lawyers) the driver stared down and through high altitude gusts mouthed that I was to blame. J'Accuse! I replied. His lips moved for some considerable time but the only words to reach me were "..uck off you knob." In circumstances such as these it's normal to exchange insurance details but by then his condors were sizing me up so it seemed more prudent to leave. Losing a mirror is a pisser but having my eyes pecked out by huge Andean Buzzards would have been a pill too bitter even for me to swallow, especially on a Friday night. I retreated, though as the truck pulled away was lucky enough to see one of the braggarts disappear toward the upper slopes hanging beneath a pair of talons. Small compensation I know but better than nothing.

Reported in today's press...

Californian minister gets eighteen months for selling church to buy BMW. Apparently parishioner suspicion was aroused when arriving for morning service they noticed the new auditorium only sat 4.

Strange dream...

last night. I was in a place where all communication was via neatly folded handwritten notes that were slid like playing cards across tables or furtively palmed by those wishing to remain discreet. It seemed an up-market cafe served by a short order chef dressed in whites behind the polished bar. On his head was a small cotton hat and around his neck a cravat that gave him the look of a young Al Pacino. Up and down the bar people were sliding notes that only after making eye contact would he pass on. The place was busy and even though no one spoke it was full of noise and chatter because when people unfolded their squares of paper words were released into the air like conversation.

I had an idea it was Saturday night and everyone was relaxed. Some of the notes made people laugh and everyone was patient even those I could see waiting outside the tall double doors for the doorman to write his greeting. He used a beautiful maroon fountain pen and I could hear the satisfying scratch of its nib on the heavy paper. He creased each sheet twice to make sure the edges were neat then folded a square which guests opened so they might enter the room with words.

The dream changed, a pity because it was so unusual.

This universe of ours...

is a tricky place. For instance a headline in today's scientific press claims they have finally measured the 24% that's called Dark Matter . The remaining 72%, known as Dark Energy has yet to be accounted for because at present there's no means by which it can be detected. On the way into work this morning I stepped on a paving stone where from beneath more water gushed with more force soaking more of my leg than is proper in a Newtonian Universe. Methinks the hunt for dark energy might profit from a little look under the pavements of Salford.

I'll be on to the Council in the morning.

This evening...

between the hours of 6:05 and 8:50 I've been mainly fixing my ipod. It is done. Nearly three hours, for fucks sake! I've had nothing to eat, the evening's gone, my throat is parched, my hair is unkempt and my sense of self is askew. Still, got it going again and that's the main thing. Not sure taking the back off was such a good move especially as half the tiny musicians made a run for it and only threats to fetch the hoover got them all back in again. Cheeky gets.

This morning on Radio 4...

Professor Jeremy Metters, Her Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy was lamenting the decline in those willing to donate their bodies to medical science. His sincerity might have been more convincing if in the background we'd been spared the sound of things being chopped.

A sad tale hit...

the UK news this week when a couple split up after she had an affair. The affair was exposed by the man's parrot who apparently is an excellent mimic. The woman, whom we might call Karen was having a dalliance with her boyfriend's best mate, whom we can call Darren. Farren, the boyfriend got wind that something was amiss when the parrot using perfectly modulated Karen tones took to saying, 'I love you Darren. I love you Darren.' Karen apparently did not deny the affair and has since left Farren and his parrot for the warm arms of Darren, but not before telling a local newspaper that she was driven to the affair because Farren loved that bird more than he ever did her. Farren responded by saying he was gutted, shame the same couldn't have been said about the parrot.

A tale of woe that confirms an iron rule in the Flynn household, never let a pet into your home because if they're not shitting on your carpets they're shitting on your relationships.

Today the weather in Manchester has been beautiful with clear skies, a winter sun and icy cold temperatures. Manchester has its fair share of statuary and they irritate me no end for on nearly every plinth is some Victorian businessman or other such worthy. In Piccadilly Gardens there's a statue to Victoria herself where she sits on a throne looking every inch like Jabba the Hutt, sort of hugely bulbous and with a very low centre of gravity. At her feet are angels who look up in an awe without doubt inspired by the consequences for them should her Imperial Bigness ever fall off. You can see in this statue how the sculptor has struggled to convey enormous power and authority and at the same time not make the real Queen seem like a person who was generally more comfortable only when in proximity to a crane. In the end he obviously abandoned delicacy for bulk and so she squats like an enormous toad at the South Eastern corner of Piccadilly Gardens. Interestingly her head is also of a very strange proportion perched as it is like a bowling ball atop a pile of bath towels. The City Fathers bless them have recently installed a pissoir within weeing distance though I'm not sure the two things are related.

Don't get me wrong I'm not against statuary and the like I just prefer them a little more democratic for instance I'm particularly impressed by the statue of 'Alison Lapper Pregnant' that currently adorns a plinth in London's Trafalgar Square, and I love 'The Angel of the North' in Gateshead (which is what they call South Newcastle) and Manchester's 'The 'B' of the Bang'. I just don't like statues of miserable undemocratic rich bastards who did nothing of worth other than be grasping and greedy, the fuckers.

Still, the weather remained nice, so that was something.

My fellow blogger...

Dcver whose link is on the right has posted a cocktail recipe that seems designed only to be drunk at weekends. Err, it's the weekend, so HURRAH! It's cocktail time again!

He also mentions that after drinking this witches brew one has to be careful not to run down any Irish nuns, yet surely this is a reason for drinking the stuff in the first place. Previous readers of this blog will know I'm no great respecter of the Catholic Church and it's clergy but I will not have it said I'm prejudiced, oh no. With drink such as this inside me I'm prepared to run down nuns from any Order. Lucky for me then that only half a mile away there is in fact a nunnery, so I won't have too far to go.

On a related matter this past few weeks I've been suffering from stigmata. Sort of unexplained marks on my body and no memory of how they might have got there. What set me worrying was the one on my thigh that was a dead giveaway for the Turin Shroud. Suddenly they started to appear everywhere. On my right shoulder last Wednesday morning I woke up to a Last Supper, and similar to Ray Bradbury's 'The Illustrated Man' (but not quite because this time there was sound as well) I could watch and hear the action.

Jesus says, 'Why is there no one sitting opposite?"
Peter who's completely pissed puts arm around Jesus and slurs in reply, "I fucking love you, you're my best mate. Do you hear that everyone, my best mate. Fucking top bloke..." He then slides under the table. I was in a hurry for work so put my shirt on only to hear Paul say, "Fuck, bloody meter's gone, anyone got any change? Judas?" When I returned home it had miraculously disappeared. Then emerged a lump on my shin the same shape as that small rock in the North Sea upon which a naked St Columbus used to sit out his winters. At least I presume it was St Columbus, he certainly had a very tiny penis though that could have been a trick of the light. I thought the stigmata a worry until the first Rorschach materialised. Okay, I admit to a little paunch but who doesn't? However it was unnerving to discover Rorschachs unfolding as I stood up. A particularly disturbed blot interpreted as 'Thou shalt not lay with any family pet' was shaped like one of the Blessed Saints lying on a warm hearth being attended to by a monkey with a cane. Honest, it would not wash off. I'm aware that Rorschachs are a means by which the Id might be exposed for examination and I'd almost made an appointment to see the Dr when a stigmata of Doubting Thomas reassured me that they weren't mine but instead those of a newly enthroned Cardinal who has started to farm out his guilt. The Catholic hierarchy are such bastards.

Right then, I'm orf to get drunk.

A big freeze...

from Siberia where temperatures reached minus 60 is about to hit the UK and we're all gonna get cold. For the last two years or so I've been at war with three cats living nearby who insist on digging up the pot plants in my yard and leaving their shit where previously grew beautiful flowers. My real hope for the coming weather is that a la 'The Day After Tomorrow' an incredible temperature plunge will sweep from the skies catch them mid poo and freeze the fuckers to death. I would be soooo happy if come the following morning I might look through my kitchen window to see frozen solid, just at the moment of strain, three frosted cats. Wish fulfillment I know but without dreams we are diminished.

When I say at war with the cats what I really mean is that I've surrendered, given up. Yet these spawn of Beelzibub for too long have prevented me from planting flowers in my back yard pots. To scare them away during this period I've tried black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper, some incredibly stinky stuff from the pet shop that was like green jelly and smelled so strong the back door warped and I couldn't get out. The door was reduced to such a state I then worried the smell might get in. Were the cats bothered? Not a bit, they laughed, sneered, indeed one of them in full view took to dabbing the green stuff behind its ears and giving me the finger (well paw) from atop the gate. Other neighbourhood animals caught on and started to snigger behind my back and for a while I seemed never far from laughter, a mocking and cruel laughter that crept from alleyways, that echoed out of drainage grids, that seemed to lunge over walls, but then again that might just have been the bad drugs so I never took any of it too seriously. Friends suggested solutions such as a powerful water pistol or an air pistol, maybe razor wire, or shards of glass cemented on the wall top. The razor wire or glass solutions seemed too problematic and besides I'd no wish to turn my yard into a mini Folsom. I have been attracted to the shooting suggestion, particularly if it involves a proper GUN though sitting in my yard for hours on end cradling a rifle like some nutter holds no appeal at all. My mate Sean says there's machines that generate sounds pitched to scare the bejabers out cats, dogs and other animals. If these machines do exist then they're the ones for me! Mind you I am saddened there's to be no suffering involved, not even a little bleeding from the ears. Ah well, can't have everything. Might get a gun anyway.

I gather that some priest...

in Galway has become a father at the ripe old age of 73. I also read that he was immensly popular, well clearly, though I suspect he's now lost that crown. Given his advanced age he presumably completed his priestly training in the 1950's or thereabouts, a time when the Catholic Church was serious about hell and damnation, and birching, and torture, and beating children, and guilt, and sin, and punishment, and blood, and scourging. I could go on, no I really could but better not, don't want to get too excited, then I'll miss my nap.

I seem to recall that the church is opposed to contraception so we know at least one area of his life where he wasn't a hypocrite.

Which brings me back to scourging, well Ruth Kelly, and Opus Dei. I can't look at her without wondering the whereabouts on her person of the scilla, that spiky band thing whose purpose is to dig into the flesh and cause discomfort and pain. I'm not sure having someone who is so clearly into bondage is a wise choice as Education Secretary, not that I'm opposed to bondage, or think that those who are into bondage should be barred from public life, oh no. What I am opposed to as Education Secretary is some extremely right wing tosser who wears bondage as atonement for the rest of us not being into bondage. She's sacrificing herself for us, purging herself because we are all really so very very naughty, it was our fundamental naughtiness that got us kicked out of Eden in the first place, then later, just to put some icing on that cake we killed Jesus as well. What an absolute bunch of bastards, spelled out like this I begin to suspect she probably wears two.

The Catholic Church...

has let it be known it agrees with the theory of Evolution and not with the lie that calls itself Intelligent Design. According to press releases this week they've rejected Intelligent Design (that God made everything, no questions asked) and embraced Darwin. A superficial reading of Benny the Umpeenth's position might lead us to conclude the Catholic Church has rejected God and allied itself with, er, science. Now that would be revolutionary however on closer reading they've simply rejected Intelligent Design as a means of understanding God's will. What they say is that God did make everything but didn't make it that obvious and that those who argue Intelligent Design are just crude reductionists. So what appears as a fairly enlightened position is at heart that same old same old. Mind you, if they're prepared to argue with the nutters who currently run the White House that Evolution is a science who am I to object?

I do wonder though if this argument might not have caused God to pause and look over his newspaper to see what the fuss was about. And from the Messianic sofa might not an eyebrow have been raised at Benny arguing that rationality rather than faith was the most fruitful means by which nature can be known? And for a moment, until reassured by the small print might not the sacred hand of Jehovah have stroked the blessed designer stubble, scratched the immortal ear, drew in a deific breath and exhaled a celestial sigh before relaxing once more behind the racing pages? We'll never know, and therein lies the rub, nothing useful can be learned through faith, with science we can learn everything, even the truth that God doesn't exist. Oh to be in heaven when that news came through!

Lowly type runs in and says "God, God, just in, science has finally proved you don't exist."
God snatches paper, "Let me see that! Shi...."

There is a row...

of canal locks at Marple in Cheshire and this afternoon a mate and I walked down them, sort of for fresh air and health and stuff. Some people were feeding the ducks and I tell you those ducks had loser written all over them, they might as well have been carrying signs. (That's a bird flu joke by the way.)

Not far...

from where I live there is a tanning salon, a shop where you can get a suntan. Whilst walking past said shop this morning out stepped a completely orange woman. I tried not to look but my eyes were drawn to her like a magnet. She noticed, I smiled sheepishly, she returned my smile which was friendly given I was so blatantly staring. I really wanted to mention that the particular hue she had chosen was one not normally found in nature but that would have been insulting so I said nothing. Then I thought, well, she must think she looks fantastic which is fair enough, though personally I would avoid any machine that might turn me into such an odd shade of orange, or indeed any shade of orange.

Oh yeah, the shop was called Tanfastic, now how vomit inducing is that?

Flourescent Green...

pigs have been developed in Taiwan for medical purposes, of course. A photograph of said pigs appears in the British Press today. An odd video can be seen on greenpig.wanton.wonton.org.tw. The video is most illuminating (hur hur hur) and carries a soundtrack. It seems these pigs are flourescent throughout and this is some kind of breakthrough as previously flouresced animals carried only surface flourescence. Now you can see what's going on inside. A discussion between the pigs, well more an argument really, was recorded thus.

Mother pig to adolscent pig "I know you took those sausages Billy because I really can see right through you. Oh and you need a pooh so you'd better go now."
Adolescent pig. "Mum!"
Dad pig "Leave the boy alone Vera he's really struggling at the moment."
Mum pig "Don't you side with him, hold it, what's that? There, near your large colon. Harry Pig what have I said to you about eating the children. That's our Barry in there, well what's left of him."
Dad pig, "It were dark Vera, ah thought he were an egg, all glowing and just lying there, in the trough. It's them scientists they've gone glow mad, everything glowing, glowing water, glowing food. It's given me a headache, I can tell you."
Mum pig, "Yes I can see that but try not to eat the children love, eeh our Barry just look at him. He were a right little tinker, well blinker, especially after they got the mix wrong. I suppose it's for the best especially as we could never really tell if he were in or out. Poor lamb. Anyway you also need a pooh so you'd best be off."

A short film that I think says it all. Don't fuck with nature, it can only lead to sorrow.

At 10:30pm on the...

2nd January one of my bookshelves collapsed. I've got a decent size bedroom and all my books are shelved on the walls. I was downstairs watching something really boring on the telly when a tremendous crash came from above so I rushed upstairs, well rushed to the stairs then paused. What stopped me was the thought that it might have been a burglar crashing through the ceiling or a madman with an axe sweeping my books to the floor in his demented rage, or a book troll unhappy that the plot of Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is so fiendishly complicated, these and many other daft ideas rushed hither and thither as I paused with one hand on the rail looking upwards like some Christian supplicant.

"Hullo" I called before me, "Is anyone there?" The kind of genteel question that by its tone and form would confirm to any waiting predator that in this house lives someone who is A VICTIM and therefore should cause them no trouble whatsoever. Every few steps I stopped to listen for heavy breathing and maybe the swish of something with a blade cleaving the air in practice, but there was nothing so with a toe I gently pushed my way into the bedroom taking care all the while to look through the crack and confirm that no psycopath lurked, behind the door, with a machete, on tiptoes, ready to pounce, the way they do.

A change in room accoustics really emphasised the pathetic in my hollow laugh.

The whole experience set me wondering if books were becoming more heavy. Over Christmas I read the excellent Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a fantastic novel about English magicians at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and though brilliant is extremely heavy and gave me wrist ache when I read it in the bath. I also treated myself to Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, a recently published stupendously large and learned tome written by one of the great journalists of the last 30 years. Mind you these two books are on the floor by the bed and have never been on the shelves so it couldn't have been them that caused the collapse. In the end I determined it was my crap workmanship in using screws and rawplugs that were not adequate to the job when putting up the shelves. Of course the blame really lies with my school woodwork and metalwork teachers for fervently believing that violence was the only pedagogy worthy of the name. One result of their painful largesse was that I learned not a jot about 'do it yourself'. Pity it wasn't upon them that the shelves collapsed, though such a thing might have raised more questions than it answered.

It is New Year's

Eve. 2005 started off for me so well and really improved as the year wore on. However in November disaster struck, someone malicious said something about me which is untrue and my life has been plunged into a nightmare as a result. I'm hoping that in the next few weeks truth will prevail and the lies that have been told will be exposed for what they are.

It is at times such as these that friends really prove their worth and I'm lucky to have so many who have stood by me.

As ever I can also turn to the written word for solace. So here's a little more from Under Milk Wood. The wonder of this long poem is that every bit works and any piece from it can stand as an example of how joyous words can be.

At random then...

First Voice.

And in Willy Nilly the Postman's dark and sizzling
damp tea-coated misty pygmy kitchen where the
spittingcat kettles throb and hop on the range, Mrs
Willy Nilly steams open Mr Mog Edwards' letter to
Miss Myfanwy Price and reads it aloud to Willy
Nilly by the squint of the Spring Sun through the one
sealed window running with tears, while the drugged,
bedraggled hens at the back door whimper and snivel
for the lickerish bog-black tea.


Under Milk Wood is best read aloud if you want to experience the heady mix of words and sounds. The BBC have a brilliant production with Richard Burton narrating and if there is such a thing as literary heaven on this earth then it is to be found here. This poem cheers me up, it restores my faith.

Here's a bit of Billy Blake...

to get me back into blog mode.

The following poem was first published by William Blake in 1794 as part of his Songs of Experience collection. Its subject is the terrible majesty of industrialisation and of nature and of people bowed under change. It is of little surprise that the Songs of Experience was published only five years after the French Revolution of 1789 and during a decade of repression in Britain that arose from fear amongst the rich and powerful of revolution here. So astonishing is this poem that it can be applied 300 years on to what is happening in China as we speak, can still be applied to heartless capitalism everywhere.

The Tyger.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forest of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame they fearful symmetry?

News today is that Goliath did...

exist! Or at least that's according to some nutty archeologist currently suffering from Trench Foot in the ancient Philistine city of Gath, in Israel. A shard of pottery has been found with Goliath's name on it, actually it was the letter G but lets not quibble about minor details. Already excitement is growing amongst Goliath's descendents that an historical wrong is about to be put right. The real truth which until now has remained hidden from history (a la the Da Vinci Code), they hope may soon become evident. It seems Goliath was really a quiet unassuming kind of guy who loved his dog and one day David, or Idiot as an earlier shard describes him killed the dog and ate it. Now David, also known as David the blind (from an even earlier shard) thought the dog a sheep and so he smote it down. Goliath went to remonstrate and David thinking a large baboon was loose in his front parlour thus also smote Goliath. There was the usual cover up and the rest, as they say, is history. My own feeling is that one has to be careful with Philistine artifacts given that these were a remarkably ignorant people, the original Philistines in fact. However I have seen a photograph of said shard and you can see the G scratched just above the image of a dog being turned on a spit by a baboon. The baboon is portrayed receiving instructions from some no eyed chap holding what looks like a Martini (with silverskin onion) so it must be true. The current day Goliaths (Christian fundamentalists to a man and woman) have released a press statement denying baboons have been ever been part of their family line. Meanwhile David's descendents shake their heads and readily agree their forebear was an idiot adding that not only could David not tell his arse from his elbow but he struggled with the difference between an onion and an olive, to their eternal shame. From the dark times of David's original faux pas to the present day his embarrassed family have been forced to avoid the great cocktail bars of history. Goliath's family on the other hand moved to what was to become the US where they too have sought to avoid something great, in this case the theory of evolution. Indeed it is on such things that history sometimes turns.

The other day...

I was driving past a long fence that borders an industrial estate. Inside the fence was a factory of some kind or other. A strip of mown grass lay between the fence and public footpath. Halfway along this fence which ran for a mile or so sat a black cat looking pretty pleased with itself. I wonder what that was about?

How cool is...

this? I've bought a mini ipod, I know, I know, it may seem like I'm a slave to fashion but it is pretty smooth and groovy and the sound quality, well! I've also got a copy of Salif Keita's latest album M'Bemba and this afternoon was driving through deepest East Manchester (the ipod is to cheer myself up because my posh Ford cd player is buggered and Ford have told me to throw it away cos they no longer make them even though it's only three years old and was a pretty mean machine, yada yada yada)... anyway, there I was driving on a busy main road traffic to the left and right of me and heading east when from behind the setting sun lit the whole area. The music of Mali giving it what for in my head and everything suffused in a deep golden hue was mind bogglingly stunning. A quarter mile in front traffic crossed at a junction, white vans, red cars, silver vehicles, a large truck and trailer, an orange double decker bus whose windows flashed like they were on fire, all were picked out by the late afternoon sun. It was as if a beautiful necklace of huge stones passed in front of me and then was gone.

Such a lovely higlight in an otherwise crap day.

All the students...

are returning to college. I was in Bangor, North Wales over the weekend and a tad under the influence. As I walked Bangor's mean streets with my mate a little worse for the wear I was struck by the number of adults with teenage offspring in tow. At first I thought it odd so many teenagers out with their mum and dad until it dawned that last week was freshers week at the university. Awww. Anxious parents trailing their offspring wondering where the previous eighteen years has gone, worrying about Tarquin or Jemima but more likely Baz and Mopsy after all this is Bangor. Many of the parents looked grey due no doubt to an overactive imagination seared with images of drug fueled orgies all night clubbing and vomit. You can tell the newies because, a) their clothes are clean; b) they look anxious; c) they laugh inappropriately, like in shops and stuff; d) their clothes are clean. My view is that freshers always look like freshers until they're not, such as when they return a battle scarred second years. Experience is a grubby business which is why the innocent are always clean and this rule applies especially to students. Despite this I still find something positive about freshers, maybe they remind me of the Spring and renewal I really don't know. Maybe I like the fact that they're about to embark on a FUCKING TOP TIME that will last three whole years. Am I jealous? Nah, been there done that moved on. Nevertheless it was good. Bless em.

I may return to student shennanigans in a later blog.

Can I be the only one...

to notice Benedict the Umpteenth has become sponsored? The embroidered badges and sown on logos were a bit of a giveaway but it didn't really click until I looked at today's list of newly ensainted saints. When I was young the minimum criteria for saintdom (and I mean minimum) were: be dead at least a thousand years plus your death had to have been particularly unpleasant. You know the sort of thing, hot poker up the bum, tongs in the gizzard, something involving a wrench. In my catholic youth Saints were tough cookies, they were no nonsense don't fuck with me sorts. Adorning the various churches I frequented as a child were statues, representations in stone of these heroes, and everyone with a scar, a five o'clock shadow, reddened knuckles, even the women saints looked like bag men for the Mob. These were the type who laughed in the face of torture, spat in the eye of fear, wiped snot on the cuff of destiny, they died for what they believed. So it comes as a bit of a shock to learn it's now possible to sponsor a Saint. Of the five ensainted today three are supported by drugs companies, one by nuclear power and one by an unnamed cartel from Bogota. Never one to miss a trick the companies want some return for their investment so, as they say, everything really is in the name. Apparently Saint Exlaxica will become known as an efficacious treatment for all things relating to innards (her award winning logo "And Nothing Shall Linger" is seen by the industry as a marvel of brevity) Saint Viag of Ara speaks for itself and dying him blue was a nice touch and it seems cobalt does come off with vigorous scrubbing; Saint Beelzibub of the Black Lung I think demonstrates a tobacco industry still out of touch with public opinion. I did like Saint Radiumumhum represented as a small glowing child able to manage the average family's heating, lighting and contraceptive needs. Finally Benny the U should do something about the talc on his upper lip, it is not becoming especially when declaring Saint Charles of Medelin as the only one who didn't like either dogs or people with obvious colds.

So that was it today for Catholicism and sponsorship. Looking at some of the early rushes for the morning's press I see that George Bush has floated the idea of sponsoring hurricanes. No more Wilma and Katrina, nope if the Republicans get their way hurricanes are to be branded like everything else. Imagine it, Coca Cola did this? Wow! Or in an attempt at the teenage vote, 'Pepsi? Damage teeth? Psshht! You should see what it can do to your neighbourhood." Anything under category three is to be reclassified as Lite.

A recent photograph showing a...

gorilla fording a stream seems to have caused a stir. Zoologists, anthropologists, astrologists, arthopods, neuropods and sennapods worldwide were in such a flap because the creature is seen testing the water's depth with a stick. Not one expert mentioned the ipod or for that matter the Blackberry in the creature's left hand. Indeed a video of the event shows him clearly speaking with his broker in London.

Gorilla, "Charles love, I want you to move ten thousand out of teak, hmm hmm, yes teak. And yes darling I am standing in a river, it's sweet I know, I've got a stick you see so shan't fall in. Mm mm, what into love? Hang on, wait a moment." Calls out to other gorilla resting on shooting stick at water's edge flicking through the Racing Times. "Freddy, I say Freddy, out of teak into what?"
Gorilla on stick looks up. "Is that Charles? Tell him no dollars, not whilst that buffoon Bush remains in the White House. Say we'll take anything out of Shanghai. And ask him who's going to win the 3.30 at Kowloon."
First Gorilla still casually poking water, "Charles dear did you hear that? We'll take anything out of Shanghai. Can you organise it in Euro's? Such a lovely currency, lots of stars. You can? You're such a love. Oh and by the way, Freddy wants to know if you've a tip for the 3.30 at Kowloon? What? Mucky Meg, and it's a cert you say. Jolly good. Got to go old chap one of the zoologists has started to wet himself so I'd better do a bit more of the stick thing. Yes, they are so easy to impress I know. Love to Jocasta. Mwah, mwah."

Hmmm.

God has been talking to George Bush...

or so GB tells us. In this country that kind of talk can get a person admitted to hospital. I simply don't believe Bush because I suspect a real holy message would be more like this... "Hello, hello, er, zzzpppprffff, is this on? zzzprfffffffffffffnnnnnnnnnn. Hello, hello. There's no one there. I SAID THERE'S NO ONE THERE! Ooops sorry a bit loud that. Bollocks. Who is this fucker anyway? Peter, PETER! You sure this one's on, it's so dark in there I'm not so sure. And he looks like a chimp, yeah, a real branch hanger, he's certainly got a chimp's intellect. Little ping pong brain, no wonder there's so much room. Hello? Sod it, I'm off."

Dateline Harrisburg Pennsylvania...

where some loony right wing Christians are once again trying to overturn Darwin's theory of Evolution this time by arguing that through scientific method they can prove God exists and evolution is wrong. The Sunday broadsheets here in the UK have articles on the story. Now, we all agree that the universe is huge, and we're talking stupendously huge here, however the loons state that it is so huge and complex only God could have designed it. Ipso facto he did, therefore he exists and evolution is wrong. A question I wish to ask is, if God designed the universe why did he make it so big? I deeply suspect it's a means of keeping some distance from the weirdos who are currently arguing about his wondrous ways in court.

This size thing is interesting though because if God is everywhere at all times and the universe is expanding does this mean he's getting thinner? I think we should be told. Be wrong not to tell us because if at the moment of the big bang God was pretty concentrated, like you get with washing up liquid say, 14 billion years later he must be quite dilute. We may have been sold a pup on this God deal because he's not the God we've been promised. I don't claim to be an expert on the bible but I'm almost certain there's no warning label sown anywhere within it's pages that states of God 'Danger: Prone to Dilution' or 'May fade in direct sunlight.' And in this universe of ours there's a lot of sunlight. So now we find God subject to two pressures, he's diluting and fading. No wonder he's not letting on, I bet he's knackered. Managing an expanding universe? It's important to keep your anonymity and avoid accusations of favouritism what with so many galaxies and planets around. And at the very moment when the exhaltedc one declares it safe some right wing nutters on the tiny blue ball go and prove he exists. I bet it's enough to make your average Deity weep.

These people just don't know what they're doing.

Another viagra...

joke to keep this blog going until I find time for matters more cerebral.

There's a home for the elderly where before bed they give the old guys hot chocolate and viagra. The chocolate is to help them sleep and the vaigra's to stop them rolling out of bed.

Well, it made me laugh.

On Saturday...

the summer decided once again to show its face. It was a gorgeous day here in the UK and to celebrate me and a mate drove to the seaside, to the Wirral peninsula which is a stretch of land between the River Mersey on the one side and the Dee basin on the other. Across the 3 or 4 mile Dee estuary lies Wales and the early foothills of the Snowdon Mountain Range, not big by Euro standards but impressive nevertheless. The estuary is one of those places where the tide goes out a couple of miles and all that remains is flat golden sands as far as the eye can see. It was scorching so we had the regulation ice cream (de rigueur when at the seaside) and watched donkeys carry little beaming kids. Some people flew kites, some just sat and watched and some just sat. Sheets of aimless sand lifted by the light breeze rushed hither and thither as though they were in a hurry or maybe late like Alice's White Rabbit. Me and my mate? We mainly just sat, soaking it all up. Summertime, and the living is easy...

Dolls are funny...

things and get everywhere. On Thursday I was visiting a house in Moss Side and noticed a very cool Action Man reclining on a roof. He was bronzed, wearing fashionable black shorts and looked every inch relaxed, in fact I'm convinced he winked though that might have been wishful thinking. Hey, I can't be the only one attracted to his scar! So some type of doll template must have clicked in my head because I began to see them everywhere. In the UK lorry drivers have this odd habit of tying dolls and teddy bears to the front grill of their trucks and it's frustrating to hear half heard stuff as they whizz past. Like,

"Fucking hell, fucking hell, fucking hellllllllllll."

Their tiny faces and rictus grins pinned by wind pressure to grills sticky with splattered insects. And that Doppler fade which makes it all sound a little sad, well it would if their life were not so exciting. Oh yes, I have heard them say other things. Where I live all the bin wagons have dolls accompanied by teddy bears, some have only teddy bears and some have only dolls and recently I saw one with a tableau of Washington Crossing the Delaware in an Action Man canoe. George was represented by a magnificent teddy whose arm has been stapled to his forehead in the manner of someone who has eyes only for the far shore. It was impressive and as this vehicle drifted past I could hear them muttering.

"Why didn't he do a beach scene like last time.... Oh god I'm gonna Pwrrggaaahhhhhhgggrrruuuuttthhhh.."
The last thing I heard was one tiny voice asking, "Who's Ruth?"

Recently a dog ran past me and in it's mouth was the sweetest looking doll in a summer dress, but she had such aggression.

"Dog you are dead, do you hear me, dead. I'm going to kick your arse the moment we stop. What the fuck you looking at dickhead!" That last bit was addressed to me.
I replied. "It's not a crime to look."
"Yeah right up my skirt you perv. I've got your number and when I've done with this dog I'll be round to yours."
No one was listening, not even the dog and as it ran down the street that little voice was still shouting. "Dog you are fucked, fucked... Jeeze it was easier being pinned to a wagon."

There's lots of angry dolls about plus some serious psycho dolls such as Victorian pot dolls on window sills, facing outward, no doubt concealing the axes they'd so dearly love to stick in our unwary heads. And the way their sunken eyes, like they've a serious drug habit follow you up the street. Fuck knows what the Victorians were thinking to design such horrors, mind you with laudanum being so prevalent can we be at all surprised by anything that sprang from such imaginations. Nevertheless I'm sure many a Victorian middle class child were really chuffed when daddy returned from work with a hate doll.

"Here you go my darling, a loverly doll. I know it looks mean but the axe was free and that livid mark around it's neck is a fault in the mould. Yes darling, the clothes are basic but let's face it Hessian is the next big thing. And those enormous hands, all the better for holding on to."

Which is okay until the morning when daddy finds his little girl with a baby doll axe planted squarely in her forehead. Kind of explains why they had such large families, the toy/child attrition rate was a national scandal. Imagine how hard it must have been before the Factory Acts banned children from playing with toys? Chucky? Fucky more like.

Ever since childhood I've liked cribs at Christmas. Joseph, Mary, the baby Jesus, the three kings, that generator, that wolf and those gobby pigs. I was always cheered by a good crib though after so long I'm now sick of Joseph moaning about his knees, the quality of straw, that bastard Rumpelstilskin and Mary's wandering eye. Give it a rest Joe I want to shout. However, it is a season of goodwill and dolls do their best which is why any crib worth its salt should have a mini bar, only for guests mind and only as a treat. A tip for those new to crib buying, avoid the Josephs with rosy cheeks cos once the capillaries have blown there's no way back to innocence.

Finally, I was going to say a little something about why shop window mannequins are so emaciated but will save that for another time.

It has been...

unseasonably blustery here in the UK. The birds have had a tough time of it. For instance I was walking across the acres of car park outside my office yesterday and a couple of birds were struggling to make headway against the wind. I think they were sparrows, or song thrushes, or blackbirds or starlings bobbing up and down as though in a sea swell. A couple were wiping sweat (do birds sweat?) from their foreheads with patterned handkerchiefs, one sneaky sneering adolescent bird was using alternate wings, fucker got his though when a swooping hawk bit his smug head clean off. The bloody carcass tumbled down to be caught by a creature the spit of Bill Sykes' dog Bullseye. For those who remember their Oliver Twist Bullseye was supposed to be astonishingly ugly. Anyway it would have been that dog's luck day except just at that moment it was plucked from the ground by an enormous eagle who rather neatly I thought managed not to let go of the bemused postal worker it had clearly hooked sometime earlier. I tried pointing this out to a chap loading shopping into the boot of his car but was told to fuck off.

I've mentioned this car park in previous blogs but perhaps have not done it justice. It is large. Perhaps not as large as your average US car park many of which seem to straddle international borders but big enough for the UK. This car park covers so huge an area it has two time zones and a desert plus a bit with rusted barbed wire and wooden signs. The sign closest to me had written upon it "They wouldn't listen" and on another sign just below that "They would not listen" and just below that "They would not" and below that "Bugger, me back's gone", below that lay a parched skeleton holding a paint brush and you could see one of the lumbar joints was still askew.

A sandstorm was blowing so I turned for the office and would have lost my way except a group of local urchins approached pulling a handcart loaded with signs that said "Nobody's Listening" Their leader looked first at the skeleton and then at me and said.

"Did you do that?"
"Do what?" I replied.
He nodded and I could see how the sand had caught on his fair skin giving him the look of someone on whose skin sand would catch. "That." He said.
We both looked down.
"The sign?" I said
He nodded downwards again.
"Oh the body." I said
He continued to nod downwards. By now I too was nodding.
The group came up behind him and watched me closely before one said "Is this sign yours?"
"No it was here when I arrived. Help yourself"
"This er, skeleton. Is that yours?" Said question boy.
"No, it was here when I arrived. Help yourself."
They tugged and wrenched to loosen the sign and eventually it came free. Then they heaved the skeleton onto their pile of signs where it came apart and fell through the wooden posts clicking and clacking like badly played castanets. Three of the older lads seized the cart shafts and began to pull, their efforts coordinated by an aloepeciac urchin using two painter's ribs to tap a jaunty rhythm on his overbite. If those boys had any politics I suspect they'd be green.

My ongoing journey to the office was later interrupted by shouting and I could see them being chased by security having wrenched from the supermarket roof a still flashing neon sign advertising skin care and cosmetic dental surgery. And who says boys aren't vain?

My front wall...

was finished yesterday, apart from some cosmetic painting. I previously mentioned laying four bricks in a June blog and how it took me ages. Well yesterday I managed eight coping stones using loads of cement. It made me very proud. I don't want to come across like some kind of cement obsessive but it was very messy and satisfying. I even used my spirit level so everything was on the level (ha ha, that's an old Masonic joke apparently) though unlike the Masons I didn't wear a tiny white pinafore, have a trouser leg rolled up or threaten to cut my neighbour's throat with a knife. Which I've heard is what Mason's do.

I got to handle my lump hammer which is a smaller version of the one Thor used to carry. Here's a Norse joke. Thor is wandering around Bacchanalia or wherever else they had their orgies and he comes across a girl with a lisp whom he quite fancies. "I'm Thor" he says and she says "Your Thor! I'm not thure I'll ever walk again."

I digress.

Coping stones are the decorative brick things that go along the top of garden walls. They also double as calming objects for the stressed, hence the name. Here in the UK it is not uncommon to issue a coping stone to those who are depressed, the deeper the depression the heavier the stone. The rational being that these stones take your mind off your worries, actually they narrow the focus of your worries from the general to the particular, so rather than worry about bills or relationships or general stuff like that instead you worry about the damage done to your back by having the carry such a heavy object. And once you've learned to cope with the stone you're cured. Well that's the theory anyway. Of course only three professions promote this form of treatment; Psychiatry who use it as a means to reclassify incurable psychosis as builder's back and thus pass substantial numbers into spinal medicine; Spinal medicine who in a recent expose were found to have significant financial interests in walls; and of course the Masons who just have significant financial interests. To cut a long story short yesterday I bought eight coping stones from a local builder who sold them to me via a hatch in a steel reinforced door where all I could make out were eyes peering in a manner similar to those Mexican baddies in Sergio Leone films. The conversation went something like this.

Me, "I'd like eight coping stones please"
Him, over the sound of extra locks being turned. "Eight?"
Me, "Yes eight."
Him, sotto voce to his mate "Barry set the dogs loose we've got a nutter."
Me, "I heard that."
Him, "Why do yer need eight? Most people make do with one, eh? Are you a greedy bastard?" His eyes narrowed "Your not one of them cement obsessives are you?"
"Look I'm just sorting out the top of my wall."
All of a sudden he relaxed, "Oh you're a Mason, why didn't you say so."
Me, "No, I'm not a Mason,"
He, "That's a double negative. So you are a Mason?"
Me, "I am not a Mason, look." I lift a trousered leg.
"You're a psychiatrist then?"
"No, I'm not a fucking psychiatrist."
"Backs then. You're a spinal man."
"No."
"Then you must be really depressed, fuck off away from here." Sotto voce to Barry "Hold the dogs he's a depressive"
Me, "I am not depressed. I'm finishing a wall."
I could hear him and Barry discussing this and they eventually decided I might be telling the truth. The hatch slid back to reveal what I took to be Barry's piggy eyes looking me up and down.
Barry said "You sure you've not got a knife? You look like a Mason to me."
He stepped back and a dog yelped.
"Mind the fucking dog you dozy bugger!"
The two original eyes reappeared. "Okay, we'll sell you eight but you've not to let on where you got them from."
I sighed, "Okay."
As I drove out of the yard wondering how they managed to stay in business a large truck arrived and written on the side was North Manchester Primary Health Care Trust, NHS, followed by the legend "Coping Citywide"

Hmmm.

Today...

a balloon man arrived next to the man who works the ride for tiny children. The weather was so hot 'rideman' had fixed parasols to the cup and saucer cars. Balloon guy was holding a fair selection of helium inflated balloons that jostled and bumped above him. My eye was caught by the impressive range of figures and characters, there were the usual Bart's and Lisa's, there were Teletubbies, Barbies, Barbie's horses (Neddy, Shane, Snow, Crystal, Meth, Imminent Arrest) and strangely a Donnie Brasco though I'm not sure children got that reference. I did ask one or two but they thought it was the Brad Pitt character from Fight Club so what the do they know?

On occasion a gentle breeze caused balloons in the centre to push their way outwards. It was an ever changing crowd and I glimpsed a touching Baby Jesus dressed in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, a Mary and Joseph briefly appeared riding Barbie's nag Wilmott and pursued by Columbian Federal Troops, Mary had a white moustache and looked fucking fabulous but that might have been a trick of the light. A child passed by and tied to her wrist was a long silk tape atop of which bobbed a representation of the Tay Bridge Disaster that included a neat outline of the doomed train's final moments before it plunged into that black river. You could even see the driver looking shocked. Tying balloons to children is a good idea given their propensity for letting go though in various high corners around the precinct there was evidence of parents who had not done this. Huddled above the hardware store that sells drinking paraffin a few wrinkled balloons seemed attached to a rat faced Dealer balloon. One child's tape was clearly too tight resulting in a poor hand swelling up like a balloon and as a result he now floated just below nearby guttering and people were running for a ladder to get him back down. As it is with some children he wasn't distressed merely curious that he could finally see what happens on roofs. Some nun balloons were praying for his soul and a few held soul balloons in case he was a catholic. The nun balloons were being admonished by a Dominic the Umpteenth balloon that was fat and bloated and in his top pocket was a tiny Papa JP2 sporting a white moustache balloon with a speech bubble that said "Bogota tarmac! Little wonder I spent so long on my knees." No idea what he meant by that. I was getting bored of balloons when another balloon man arrived with crowd of thug balloons looking for trouble. Just across from the door to my office a large truck appeared and began unloading a boiling kettle ride. Hmm, seems the only thing that's brewing in funland is trouble.

Of course I'll report any developments.

The UK...

is a funny old place, with some funny place names. I am wont on occasion to ponder this fact, mainly whilst driving in the countryside. As I understand it most place names go back to Anglo Saxon times, or when the Vikings were using this place as a larder, or that time the Roman's got offended because we were mainly painted blue. Either way some place names are, well, interesting. Only last week I was driving in Cheshire toward a hamlet called Little Pigmeat, just along from Garnish which was beyond Heavily Pregnant. I passed many an old bloke dressed in hessian with XXX printed on the chest and chewing some stalk or other. Oddly they all seemed to be called Jacob except the one called Nebudchadnezzer though I suspect he was showing off. It looked to me like they'd been hired from Gnarlies R US because no one dresses like that anymore what with hessian being so last year. They were strategically placed on country lanes leaning over gates, sitting on hay bales, polishing churns, oiling mink, and they were so ruddy, and only had three front teeth, which of course were crooked. Talk about your stereotypes. When I go to the country I want authenticity not some Ad Exec's idea of rural. And those village names, Throat, Strange Bicep, Heavy Thigh what is that all about? Two rivers, the Merkin and Pudendum meet beneath a crossroads with one of those wonderful fiveway signs that direct the traveller to Region, Nether Region, Myitisdampdownthere, Infection and It'lltakemorethanacourseofantibioticstoclearthatup.

In Manchester there's no romance when it comes to names just the brutal practicality of city life, no iffing no messing just call it like it is which is why I live in Crap. But amongst rolling fields, copses, hedgerows, pasture, the song of water rippling over smooth stones it is possible to feel closer to nature, to Ghia. So I stopped for birdsong that could just be heard over the noise of tractors spraying shit. A very slow moving truck passed and on the rear flat bed were lines of old fellers all dressed in sacking and murmuring about how fine the weather was and how good the harvest would be if they could just entice their waster son Jethro back from the city, some were calling for a return to capital punishment, not for anything in particular, they were just calling for its return. If you've ever seen those bollards they put down on motorways to close off lanes, a lorry drives and men (hey, it's technical work) drop bollards one after another, well it was somewhat like that. At key points they'd unload an old guy and not even halt the vehicle. I was later told that lead boots served to both stop them from tipping over and wandering off. All in all a pretty slick operation, organised by a city firm of course, well you can't entrust the countryside to those who live there, they'd only mess it up.

Professor Mouha, Internationally...

renowned healer and clairvoyant has left a card on my windscreen. It states "I can help you in bringing back your loved ones, infidelity in relationships, domestic and family problems, depression, substance misuse, addiction, losing weight, impotency, infertility, immigration, court cases, breaking black magic, Jinx, demonic forces, success in business, exams and career, spiritual guidance, stress, job interviews, marriage problems. Just a single call can change your life forever. Your pain relief is my responsibility"

Is that an impressive list of skills or what? Problems with demonic possession or obtaining that loan? Then Prof Mouha's your man. I nearly phoned to check if his interest rates were comparable with the big money institutions. In small print on the reverse of his card there's some fairly dry warnings, written by a lawyer of course, (says something when an agent of Satan is forced to hire Counsel). Under the heading Penalty for Non Payment it said "Yes we really do charge an arm and a leg." Fair enough I thought, after all the big banks take your children as well, and your home, your livelihood, good name, car, remaining relatives, goat. In fact our goat was once interviewed for a job with Barclays but missed out to a shitbag Tory bastard who claimed the goat couldn't be a Christian on account of his beard and faraway stare. Jesus! Even Jesus had a beard! Banks and Tories, drawn together like flies and shit, what can you say?

I digress.

Prof Mouha states he can sort demonic forces, break black magic and Jinx. Again I return to the small print on the back. At this juncture I should say that the card is approx 3'' by 4'' and pretty straightforward though when you turn it over a little origami trick occurs and in the manner of a concertina four volumes of legalese unfold to the floor. Thank fuck I didn't read this thing on a bus, or in the loo, or any other confined space, I'd never have got out. Essentially it says unless the contract (hereafter referred to as The Contract) specifically includes the Jinx, black magic, demonic forces clause, neither Prof Mouha (nor the Parent Company, Lucifer Holdings (TM) ) can be held responsible. Old Nick, such a cheeky get. Not so smart though, not in this modern world. There was a time he did just what the he wanted, no explanation, no forewarning, just one puff of smoke and suddenly your working the eternity shift on Beelzibub's Big Barbie. Not anymore, with litigation achieving new levels of popularity and an increasing interest in health and safety the Horned One (and his franchisees) have been forced to overplay their cloven hoof. Spells? Spell it out more like. What choice has he got? Any trouble might lead to a snap inspection by the Local Authority, a couple of swabs from those work surfaces, a bit of peering into those dark corners, a little testimony from the tortured and before you can say "Injunction" Hell is shut right down. Let's not forget Heaven's Angel showers received the same treatment only last year after that messy verucca outbreak among the Seraphim. God lost half a season's takings when traffic switched to Purgatory and the market's still not recovered because the bloody purgers love the discomfort so much. And I'll not go near that brouhaha about 'Angel Showers' except to say that in reality God being so dim has once again proved to be a blessing.

And speaking of pain. I did phone Mouha on Saturday morning about a headache and he said that when he wrote that my pain was his responsibility he meant in an existential way. I tried contacting my lawyer but he's still in Purgatory, seems the caterer's have struck and all flights are cancelled, maybe something good has happened this week. Yay!

A children's ride...

has appeared outside a local supermarket. It features cars shaped like cups and saucers that the man spins gently as they pass him. If there's an excitement scale for these types of funfair equipment with the most dangerous being indexed as 'Poohyerselfanddoitnowcosallcontrolhasgone' and the least frightening as 'agentlebreezehasjustwaftedyourskin' then this ride must be a 'Ihopethatfeatheronyourlegisn'ttoomuchofaninconvenience'

What's sweet is to see the different attititudes on display from the three and four year olds. Some are really cool and take in the air, maybe nod at waiting parents whereas for others it's little ashen faces that stare out as they glide by. Aaahhh!

As a kid I came from the 'ohmigodI'mgoingtobesickohohohohwhoarrrggggghhhhhh h h h' school, and I could achieve this state by merely glimpsing a fair pulling into town. Nowadays I admire the cool tots and feel empathy for those who achieve that curious green hue.

Wey Hey!

Back after a short break. This weekend I went to look at Anthony Gormley's new exhibition 'Another Place' on Formby beach in Liverpool. http://www.antonygormley.com/

The above link goes to his website though unfortunately I couldn't find a reference, other than an excellent opening photo, to the sculpture. The piece is composed of 100 lifesize cast iron figures standing upright on Formby's shallow beach. They extend a kilometre into the surf and three kilometres along the beach. As the tide rises and falls the figures are exposed and covered in turns. It is very impressive and always changing. Sometimes only the heads of are visible above the waves, then chests and slowly as the tide recedes each figure stands solitary facing seaward, looking to the west and Ireland or maybe beyond. On Sunday I went with friends from Manchester and it was a beautiful day, sunshine, blue skies, and a perfect wind for our kites. Not that I'm a kite person generally but looking upward into that wonderful sky and watching a Harry Potter kite with it's long tail fluttering high above me was as glorious as it gets. The exhibition is planned to last 18 months and I think it's going to New York next. Such a long seasonal timespan will change the perspectives, autumn gusts, winter storms, spring tides, can't wait.

Of late I've found myself...

watching morning tv in people's houses, snatching ten minutes viewing here, five minutes viewing there. On the tv most mornings as I understand it are programmes of such blanditude (a magnitude of bland) that the will to live or any sense of purpose simply drains away. Two presenters, a woman and a man generally recline on a sofa and speak to guests on another sofa, or a chef/cook who stands in an adjoining kitchen section. It is tv without edge, smooth, warm, uncritical and presented by two human beings whom you forget the moment your gaze wanders from the screen. It set me wondering if utter forgetability is a known human condition and maybe criterion for the job, I then wondered how such a condition might influence the lives of those affected, in restaurants for instance after a waiter has taken their order and turned from the table does that same waiter then forget the order, forget the table or even forget themselves? I presume that it's only through the most intensive personal training, probably done in Nepal, do these presenters manage to retain any shape to their sense of self. If this is true an explanation might exist for the phenomenon of people being found who've lost their identity. Might they be the ones who failed the course? Or more worryingly for the rest of us might these hollow people have in some unguarded way been exposed to a day time tv presenter outside a studio. Clearly they are safe within a studio because guests seem unaffected as do the camera people and other staff.

Currently there's a chap is some hospital in Kent whom doctors and police are trying to identify, he was found wandering and even the labels from his clothes were gone. Imagine wielding such power that even the labels in a person's clothing are no longer safe. Two applications immediately become possible, a military application and a blackmailing application. The battlefield application would be against marching troops, as chaos mounts artillery is laid down, explosions and shrapnel make the air sing with death and as a last resort, just as positions are about to be overrun word comes down 'Deploy the Presenter.' There's a hush, some worry, maybe a question of war crimes, is this really necessary? Suddenly someone in a casual jacket and fake tan is glimpsed through the smoke, wandering in a forward manner. Trained for the whites of the eyes the oncoming soldiers are defenceless before the white of the teeth. Many flee in panic but many more declare a sudden interest in troublesome stains. The military battle is over, the battle for the perfect sheen is about to begin.

Warfare is a messy business but with so many now geared to tidying up a new programme called Battlefield Makeover is only a power breakfast away.

The blackmail application could only apply if the criminal fraternity gained possession of a daytime tv presenter. All the fashion houses would be at risk through the simple but effective threat to unveil a presenter at the next big show unless huge amounts of dosh were forthcoming. A year's work, colours, textures, textiles, design, new cuts, make-up, coiffure, shoes, everything gone in the flash of a mauve blazer. Thy name is Bland, the diffuser of things.

I caught a glimpse of some daytime tv this morning and have been tired ever since, there must be a connection. I'm warning the world now, rather like that guy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Many won't believe me but they're the fools. Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

It was all...

Harry Potter last Friday night. I was channel flicking around midnight and suddenly it's Edinburgh Castle suffering what looked like a severe damp problem or as we in the trade say, blotchy walls. I was thinking about the scrubbing contract when it became obvious they were projections of Harry Potter's image. Bloody odd I thought, Harry Potter in Edinburgh. I'll admit being drunk and a tad befuddled but a hundred foot Harry Potter at midnight on a castle wall, in Scotland, was puzzling. Closing an eye did not help one bit. The camera then cut to JK Rowling who walked onto a stage sat down and began to read. At her feet where an unknown number of children cross legged on cushions. AND IT WAS MIDNIGHT! Of course there were the usual one's who couldn't stand the pace, sleeping ones, dozing ones, ones with dribble, ones sucking thumbs, ones with teddies, ones on mother's laps, ones on father's laps, ones in police custody (don't ask, I've really no idea) ones in cots, ones with dogs (vicious dogs with scars and spikey collars), ones in flat caps covered in soot (those bastard fucking Royals!), ones with their lawyers, ones flicking things at the front row ones, ones with chewing gum in their hair, ones with snot, ones with snot in their hair (just in front of the ones with snot, incidentally), ones with crossbows, ones dressed like angels (aaahhhhhhhhh), ones with ones in their hair, jaunty ones, ones using their fingers to draw shapes in pools of sick, cuddling ones, big eyed ones, little chubby ones that were so beautiful you could nip them, ones called Razor, ones with dreams, ones with items in their ears, ones with an unhealthy interest in poo, and towards the back calculating ones, dow jones ones, suspenders and red tie ones, slick haired ones, pin striped ones, piggy eyed ones, Gordon Gecko ones, greed is good ones, fuck you all ones, Wake up at the front! ones, childhood's wasted on the ones ones, in the office first thing ones, at the desk ones, impress Sir ones, lose loads of money ones, caught for fraud ones, four years inside ones, find God ones, new job in Far East ones, hush hush ones, Karl Rove ones, name in the open ones, oh bugger that's not so good ones, I'll stand by him says Bush ones, Grand Jury ones, ha ha says the rest of us ones, tired little ones, fidgeting ones, curly haired ones, droopy eyed ones, rubbing eyes ones, yawwwwwwwwwwning ones, looking around ones, "High mum!" ones, where's dad ones, I'm soooooo soooo tired ones, take me home ones, who is that woman at the front ones, what is she saying ones, where's my bed ones, time to go ones, this bloody soot's everywhere ones, zzzzzzzzzzzz ones, the lights go out ones. Click.

Traffic wardens in Manchester wear...

red. I noticed it again today and though I've not really taken much notice they do seem to carry with them a fair amount of equipment. Portentous machines with buttons and screens and knobs in brushed aluminium or veneer of ochre. It's obvious even to the lay observer that all this kit must be a radiation hazard, bit of a giveaway given sterility is promoted as a perk of the job. How bold is that?

Like many I've seen publicity photographs of fully equipped fighter aircraft where the extra weaponry is spread out on the ground, guns, missiles, ammunition, flares, fuel tanks, assorted pods, nipple clamps, things of that ilk. The layout in such photos is generally of a sleek looking jet parked within a 100 foot diameter of death dealing instrumentation manufactured by the Daggerkill Corp of Arteryrupture, Illinois. A recent brochure advertising Manchester Traffic Wardens produced by the Daggerkill Corp of Little Embolism, Greater Manchester displayed a traffic warden in a similar manner. A solitary figure adjacent to over four hundred different gadgets. It was an cool photograph because the warden had been cleverly positioned to represent an exclamation mark next to equipment arranged to form the words FUCK YOU! A neat touch I thought, both menacing and not easily forgotten.

The question of weight was addressed inside the booklet through one of those diagrams that show the inner workings of things. Via a hidden staircase the uniform could be entered unseen. Beneath the red all weather gear was a structure not unlike the Caterpillar Loader used by Sigourney Weaver's Ripley to fight that mother Alien in film two of the series. The main seating cabin was approached down a long corridor lined with magnificent bay windows and no expense was spared on the sumptuous curtains.

From a coffee house today in central Manchester I saw two wardens and curious I went to ask some questions.

"Heyup," I said. "is all that equipment necessary?"
"Not all of it," They said.
"What bits don't you need then," I shouted up to them.

"Well...lets see, obviously we need the taser for your reluctant driver see, this model's called the Pacifier, kind of speaks for itself. And the cattle prods keep pigeons from shitting on the equipment, pure ochre this, just look at the craftsmanship. Err we've got yer phasers, lasers, dazers, gazers, amazers, hazers, razors, vases, just for flowers like. Out back's where we keep the coal, nothing like coal for a nice fire in winter, then there's that curious hole where beer gets delivered. Oh and the cyber cafe but that's only open at weekends though the Weslyan Chapel uses the next room every second Thursday, nice folk the Weslyans, always making cakes."

"Where's the power come from?" I asked.
"From the Lord of course, ha ha, no, only joking. Have you read of those redundant Russian nuclear submarines?"
"I've read that removing their power plants is a dangerous business." I say.
Both rosy cheeked wardens chuckled, "No removal's were necessary, bought up the whole fleet, one sub for each uniform. Crew and all. Even weaponry, ICBM's, launch codes the lot. Seemed cheaper that way. Turned out to be a real boon."
"Got to be off," Said the more quiet of the two. "The city never sleeps."

And that was that, as they say. I ordered my next coffee in a recycled paper cup and felt that like those wardens I was doing my bit for the environment. Recycling Russian Sub Reactors, whatever next? As a citizen of Manchester it made me walk just that little bit taller, though not too tall mind for what comes through that thinning ozone layer will flay the skin off your average skull in no time.

Pt IV. The Manchester Approaches.

We were encamped above the high water mark just north of Carnforth and it was pleasant to be brought back to wakefulness on that summer's morn. Wavelets looking every inch like lines of tiny Can Can dancers rolled up the beach, arms crossed and whooping but not loud because of their size, "Heeeeeeeeeeeere wego" before bowing and swishing back down, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere wego!" bowing and swishing back down. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere wego." bowing and swishing back down. Little rouged faces grinning above fishnet stockings and frilly underwear they kicked up the incline before making a deep bow and shuffled retreat. We were enchanted but swiftly made plans to move once the cattle started to go insane.

Ahead of us was dense forest and there seemed no way forward. Women cowpokes who chewed tobacco and communicated through spit began gobbing at the largest tree nearby. Astonishingly it moved, sort of jerked itself to oneside and just as suddenly was back where it began. The women slapped each other laughed and began taking running spits to achieve better momentum.

Gilly their leader, looking remarkably like Doris Day in Calamity Jane except she had red hair was big boned and astride a gazelle kicked her heels as the animal sprang forward.

"Yeehah!" She shouted and few of us would forgot her terror but fortunately the bonds held so she didn't fall off. To everyone's surprise the forest parted like a curtain to make room for her. Many rushed forward and our final view was of this figure on a lithe African beast springing and jumping, gaining speed, the knotted cords holding her tightly. Like at a rodeo she went forth gripping a broad brimmed Sunday hat, it was something with a net, and from her quickly fading voice came the words "You fucking bastards you've not heard the last of me." Of course about that she was completely wrong.

We stood in a crowd staring at the gap that remained open when a number of voices started up.
"Well!"
"Come on then, don't be all day!"
"For fuck's sake get a move on will you!"
"Move up move up, stop pushing."
"Oooh, you cheeky beggar keep those branches to yourself. The nerve!"
"Can anyone see what's happening?"
"Oi Oi Oi, watch what you're doing will yer, I can't see a bleeding thing now.'

If you've ever seen one of those windswept trees where all the branches are on the leeside this is how the forest suddenly appeared to us and we quickly realised that from the beach all the trees had their backs to us. Never ones to miss a trick we loaded up and began to push our way through. It was not easy, there was not much room so we sent ahead those passengers who were best at forcing their way to the front of things. You know the type, ignorant, rude, surly, broad shouldered, insensitive. With the cowpokes tinging spit off their heads they had an added incentive to make good progress. Sometimes revenge for past ill deeds has a funny way of coming back to bite us on the bum, or neck as it was in this case.

A cacophony of impoliteness rose up from the forest.

"Hey, what the fuck!"
"Do you mind!"
"Watch that rail will you!"
"Oh, I say does your mother know you've got that?"
"Mind me bruise, oh, what is that disgusting brown stuff?"
"I say Archie, it's a train. With a dining car and serviettes and wood veneer, hang on a minute, didn't that tray used to be your Colin? Wow, Colin finally making something of himself. Mind you I suppose it's more a case of something being made of Colin. Still, who'd have thought."

East of us we heard a faint cry, "Ice cream, come and get your ice cream,"

We heaved on in this manner for five hours until forced by the parched cowpokes to stop for water. Behind us there remained no evidence of our passage.

From the top of a nearby oak where three teenagers had snuck for a cigarette but were stopped by a cry of 'Dad!' when an adjoining pine caught sight of their matches, came the shout.

"We can see the outskirts of Manchester from up here!" And they excitedly pointed in the direction all trees were facing.

The forest's many voices once more rose up.

"Course you can see Manchester. What the fuck do you think we're doing?"
The children replied, "We thought you were a forest."
The trees said, "We like to think of ourselves as an audience."
A spotty fifteen year old with greasy hair asked "What you looking at then?"
"Manchester of course. Better than the telly. You humans, you make us laugh, ha ha."
The spotty kid said "Ha, ha, you trees, you make us furniture."
A gruff voice boomed "Hey kid, that's not fucking funny, capiche! And besides you should get that spot seen to, oh sorry that's your face." This final was said to howls of laughter including from us. The kid scowled and tried carving his name into a branch but through poor schooling could only spell one word. We left him, tongue stuck out in concentration asking if Prick was spelt with a P.

Shortly afterwards we broke free of the canopy and before us lay our city, our home.

Behind us trees were saying things like, "Thank fuck for that!..." "They were so impolite, and those women who were spitting!..." "Wait till I tell me mam about our Colin."

As the last rail was laid by platform 14 in Manchester's Piccadilly Station we disembarked and in a stunned silence looked around. We were exhausted, we were bronzed, we had learned things about one another that we perhaps shouldn't, we had stuck together, we had made it, we had returned. The journey finally over. I watched the cowpokes head for the nearest bar laughing and competing with each other to spit the hats off small children. From the rear coach Irish nuns many of whom now had the word DISCIPLINE tatood in mirror form on their foreheads opened a last case of communion wine, drank and began fights. It was a warming sight not marred at all by the later arrests.

And me? I hitched my canvas leggings and strode from the station a changed man, not looking back, only ever now looking forward. And as they took my ticket that one last time the faint words of Colin the tray followed me out.

"Hello, hello, can anyone hear me? I am not a tray, I'm a wooden salver. Fuck!"

Busy, busy, busy, busy...

phew! I've become a shadow of my former self, a whisper, a zephyr, a fallen leaf. I am a leaf! No I am an acorn, a seed, a genesis, I am on my knees, looking up, getting up, springing forth, leaping high, arms stretched, reaching out, a cry of joy! Bugger. I am a leaf, on the floor, exhausted, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out... There, that's better.

Now, where was I? It is my intention to finish the story of our return from Edinburgh to Manchester as soon as I can. Let me just say it entails a journey through dense forest. I'll say no more, that leaf thing is coming over me again.

The journey home from Edinburgh Pt III....

are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Having decided we could not stomach a return to Manchester via the standard rail network a collective decision was made to find a more direct means. Thus with joy we broke free from the surly bonds and parallel lines of the standard steel track and instead began lifting and laying our own route. It was labour intensive work but with sweaty and bloodied hands we toiled to tear up what we passed over re-using the burnished steel again and again and again. Small flies and the boiling sun scorched us raw and tiny dust devils spun in trying to cause maximum embarrassment by touching us in intimate places. It was no use striking out for a flailing arm only encouraged their gleeful little voices to make personal comments about what shit lovers we were. Some of it was very close to the bone and many men went impotent or developed the 'Shrivel' a mind disease that flattered the stricken with feelings of immense loss. Particularly wearisome was when one devil commandeered the train intercom calling out false lottery numbers in a bold attempt to break us. None believed that freedom would be without cost so we made camp, broke out the grand pianos and sang excerpts from The Barber of Seville.

Under a dawn sky the final notes of Mozart's piano concerto No21 'Elvira Madigan' faded to be replaced by the striking of metal upon metal as we again began to move. The under sixteen's many of whom had been been driven out by the classics returned with tales of enormous burgers who lived in Spatterland directly south. We edged further west. By late morning our progress again was halted as the only evidence of the station listed on our map was a closed wine bar situated beneath a neon sign that intermittently declared 'SHIT' though it might have been 'SHUT' as half the 'U' looked burned through. Many were meant to leave the train at this point and bags were indeed unloaded. From the roof of the forward car a small child pointed to dust that was approaching at speed. Expecting a devil attack we again unloaded the pianos and prepared the overture for La Boheme however it turned out to be the border rushing north to meet us. Oh how we danced at such a turn of events, only ninety miles to Manchester. A medium sized party bound for Glasgow decided to stay with the bags believing the station was due any moment and waving babies they shouted their farewells. I wasn't the only one to weep however the tears may have had more to do with a groin devil than anything sentimental.

Morecombe Bay is a shallow west coast inlet ten miles or so across and in Grange over Sands we hired someone to guide us. These are treacherous waters where tides sweep in very quickly and everyone was wary. For greater efficiency we passed the rails via those from first class who were lined along the roof, waiting at midpoint only for some fool who'd bought an hour ticket for the deckchairs rather than the half hour we had all previously agreed. Jacob our guide told us of a train last year that was completely sucked in by quicksand losing all hands and also shared that his own father had led the fated journey. With typical country humour he laughed and said he was sure it was his father but it might have been his brother, then becoming grave he declared "Oyve suddenly forgotten moy name!" Once landed at Carnforth we sent him on his way but not before tying a parcel of food to the puma that had never left his side. It was a lithe and beautiful animal remarkably well fed and some made links to the many missing elderly whom we previously assumed had wandered off. As an argument brewed between the zoologists and geriatricians we hunkered down, took stock and tried to relax. In fact it became so relaxed we released the castanet players. ARIBA! *

PtIV The Manchester Approaches will follow when I get a moment.

(* to my Spanish speaking friends I've no idea if that's a word or even if I've spelled it correctly. Nevertheless it's a cheery cry.))

Pt II, the return from

Edinburgh. There is a British novelist called China Mieville who writes fantasy fiction in which he he has built an awesome world of towering imagination. In this world is the city New Crobuzon, a brutal place wherein live races of fantastic beings, insect people called Khepri; Remade who are the punished, literally remade part flesh and blood, part machine, slave people, the lowest order; garuda who are bird people; cactus people called hotchi and many more wondrous races. In the dark and brooding New Crobuzon are footpads, robbers, stealers of children, mystics, spell binders, even other dimensional folk who are both good and bad at the same time. New Crobuzon is described like Victorian London, sewers, stench, darkness, but with modern power sources, overhead railways, slow moving rivers, The Tar and Gross Tar. In China Mieville's book New Crobuzon is Rome, an Imperial City. In the first novel, Perdido Street Station the protagonists are a tiny group of citizens who are thrown into battle against the powerful Mayor on the one hand and terrifying creatures called Slake-moths (of which there are only four) on the other. To fight in such a treacherous and divided city requires stealth, cunning and great bravery, none of which is held in high amount by the heroes.

The second novel is called The Scar and describes a sea journey through fantastical times and places.

The third novel is called Iron Council. New Crobuzon is threatened with destruction in a developing war with another ethereal imperial power. People leave the city, some to travel hundreds maybe thousands of miles through landscapes touched with magic, and bandits, and renegade gangs. Many of these people are chasing a myth, a symbol of freedom that is talked about only in whisper, after dark. This place of liberty, free from New Crobuzon, a threat to New Crobuzon represents the hopes and dreams of so many, but does it really exist this Iron Council? Rumour has it, some claim even to have seen it, that a train rides over the land, forever on the move, taking up rails behind, laying rails before. Going wherever it so wishes, owned only by those who are aboard. Iron Council is an affront to New Crobuzon, to regular order, to Imperial power. Iron Council makes its own decisions, goes where it pleases. It is a symbol of liberty, a thought, a glimpse of what might be, what could be. Iron Council cannot be bound by normal rules, it makes it's own history. Iron Council has broken out.

And so did we. Desperate to avoid a disastrous return journey through drab stations, eating grey food we took control and began to lay our own rails, over platform six, across the main car park. Cutting, heaving, laying down, collecting up, wrenching ourselves free. We sang timetable songs, with choruses of hope where nothing was ever late and everyone had a seat. Glorious songs of fresh bread and bountiful fillings, with butter, and tea that had tea in it...

Tomorrow PtIII

In the meantime for all you out there who've never come across it, Perdido Street Station remains one of most astonishing novels I have ever read.

Travelling by train is a nightmare in this country...

and I got a dose of it yesterday. Using rail in the UK means plunging oneself into a strange nether world not in syc with the real. The other week a train on the east coast lost it's power and ipso facto it's air conditioning. It was a scorching day and people were hermetically sealed in a box with windows that do not open. After an hour under a boiling sun passengers had to smash those windows to escape oven the like temperatures. This experience is only possible if you manage to board a train in the first place. The shitbag Tories privatised the railways in the early 90's, sold it for a song to their rich friends and since then things have gone from bad to worse. Blair states that any solutions to this national disaster must come from the private sector, the railways will not be re-nationalised, despite the fact that this private sector now receives a bigger government subsidy than the previous publically owned railway. Some of these companies are making yearly profits in double figures. Astonishing given that in most sectors of the general economy a profit margin of 2% to 4% is considered robust.

Prior to its sale the national rail network was fragmented and divided into bits. The two biggest bits, rolling stock on the one hand and actual rail and infrastructure on the other were sold as separate items but involving more than 20 companies. So we have a completely mad system where different parts compete with each other, hide information from each other, even lie to each other. For instance rail maintainence companies lie about the quality of their work and this has led to a number of notable disasters that have killed and injured many passengers. On a more mundane level trains will no longer wait for other trains that may have been delayed because companies buy and sell platform slots so that if your train is at the platform longer than the slot paid for they incur a penalty. Honest. Everyday there are horror stories of commuters trying to get onto trains that have not enough carriages because it's cheaper to pack em in like sardines. Sometimes the train simply fails to arrive. Sometimes it doesn't stop where it is supposed to. All in all going anywhere by train is a pretty frought business.

So yesterday I got the train to Edinburgh.

The first train from Manchester to Lancaster was ok, just lulling us into a false sense of security as we later found out. Boarding the second train was a totally different experience because there were only five carriages and it was packed. Two of my agile friends found seats by simply pushing aside an elderly couple and telling two ten year olds they had guns. Actually my mates don't carry guns but 10 year olds are suckers for any old story. Eventually I followed on but only after helping the elderly couple onto a luggage rack where they spent the rest of the journey drinking tea from a flask and reminiscing with the train chaplain. And children learn so quickly, the ten year olds simply moved down the carriage and gained seats by persuading two six year olds the buffet was giving free sweets to those who were good. Suckers! Ah, their little rosy cheeks and eyes full of hope. I later learned they raked in tons of cash by working the loo queue with renditions of Mary Magdalene's song from Jesus Christ Superstar and that sleazy number from Chicago.

My mates were comfortably ensconced in an air conditioned carriage, the elderly were singing old war songs about the Blitz and how having your family wiped out by an air mine was the best thing that had ever happened to them. Brought people together you see though it seemed to me that proximity to any exploding device is more likely to take people apart, but I wasn't there so what do I know. And so we travelled, in a new train that might have worked perfectly had there been a little more of it. Still there were some some nice features, above each seat was a tiny window across which scrolled helpful phrases such as, 'My oh my you're a big fellow.' or 'Whiffy underarm? Have you tried a wash?' and my favourite, 'Interesting that your friends got seats but you're still standing. Confidence problems? Doctor Thimpell from Vienna in carriage F may have the answer. 'Thimpell Therapies for Tired Travellers. Try Them Thoon.' The good Doctor it turns out was alliterate and had a lisp.

Every now and then the guard took to harrangueing us over the tannoy. I think he was annoyed to find passengers aboard. 'When this train left Milton Keynes only five seats were unreserved so I've no idea how the rest of you got on. However, now you're here I suppose I'm stuck with you but I'll hear no whinging about seats and ticket prices, this is a business not a charity and you should have booked. I would remind passengers who might cause trouble that their families who are currently being held in custody by us will not be released until the train reaches Edinburgh and in its currently undamaged state. And yes hostage is a dirty word but get over it.'

Of course there were murmurings, cabals, conspiracies but nothing concrete, nothing we could join. I began a petition but the teenage hoodies in carriage C smoked it. Some tried lifting our spirits with communal songs until stopped by a lawyer sent by the six year olds who'd grown hideously rich from the sale of singing franchises. We finally rolled into Edinburgh stronger as human beings because a storm had been weathered. Of course half the train was reduced to penury through a combination of ticket costs and the tiny tots' business acumen. Some left weeping and clutching photo's of their own children many of whom now belonged to the six year old's.

One thing was certain, that train was a true microcosm with winners (the tots, their lawyers, the train company) and many many losers. Which incidentally was also the word shouted from two tiny figures standing on the back seat of a Rolls that swished by.

Tomorrow I may mention the return journey.

Went to Edinburgh for the Make Poverty History Demo...

and it was huge. The police with their usual underestimating said there were only three people present of which one was an anarchist with a dog on a piece of string. The media said 100-150,000 talk on the demo was of 250,000 and upwards. The demonstration followed a 2.5 mile route around the city centre and back to the park. I was queuing with tens of thousands of others for two and a half hours before I got out of the park and onto the march. Behind me there were still tens of thousands. So huge was the demo that the front of the march re-entered the park before half of us had left. It was a stunning display of anger and concern about world poverty. All the people I spoke to said that they wanted things to change, they could stomach no longer the death of any child from starvation, they wanted an end to war, they wanted a fairer distribution of the world's wealth. End the debt, where there is need meet that need. It was gripping stuff and the G8 ignore this at their peril. For my part I think the G8 are a bunch of ruthless crooks who will do as little as they can get away with, but the demonstrators I think and will not be so easily fobbed off. The next demonstrations will be bigger. Watch this space, as they say!

Yesterday heard a great joke...

on the demo.

Man goes to his Dr and says I've got a rash down below, in the pubic region. Dr has a look and says some cream will sort that out and here's two viagra as well. Man asks what's the viagra for, I've got no problems in that area. Dr replies they'll help keep the sheets off your rash.

In work first thing...

yesterday morning to find a large fly at my desk calling itelf "Norm." He was gambling online and I expressed some concern, especially as it was 8:30 in the morning. Norm said "Baby, after spending all day eating shit a little recreation helps takes your mind off the fact. Pass me that ashtray will you?" I said, "This is about the fridge isn't it?" And he gave me a long cool look.

In my old workplace the fridge was clean, sterile, it was a barren place of no hope ruled by the lactose intolerant and heaving with neatly folded notes and instructions. Everything was squared off, each shelf indexed and coded. Just under the little light sat a row of desks where the minerally deficient listened to lectures about allergies and wheat flora. I even listened once to a talk called "Why taste gives you syphilis.". Plainly not a place to store food or anything nice. It had door hinges that prayed. That fridge was so straight it took communion at mass on Sunday mornings and last summer saved two small children from drowning in a local park. It was a sanctimonious little fucker.

This new office fridge is of a completely different water. For a start we can't close the door because the seal is twisted and it's only got two shelves, well one shelf and the bottom. It's hinges are rusted and will pull any unbraced shoulder right from that socket. And when opened it makes a "Fuck, not again." noise like its really bothered. We love it.

So Norm fixes me with his multi faceted eye and says. "Those fridges are unsafe." So I say, "In what way." And he says, "A few of us have received obscene texts from the mould that's taken up in there." "What mould." I say and he says, "The one who does racing tips." I say, "I don't gamble so haven't noticed." He says "Go and have a look." So I go to the fridge and there it is chalking up the odds on some race or other that's about to start. I come away quickly when a small glaring crowd shout "DOOR!"

I gave Norm's multi whatsit a good glare and said. "Fucking top fridge Norm. Live with it." And he says, "I've left the petition on your desk"