The Wind of Thursdays

We come down and we wait, then go back and pretend to be Norwegian. I eat chips and talk about cloud formations only to beguile your Belgian acquaintances.

Sometimes I am a strawberry.

Is this how your goat makes speeches, wearing a pink tutu and eating candyfloss?

I have smelt the Wind of Thursdays.

How do you keep this up? Is it a gift, a knack, or all those days spent in the bathroom with your trousers around your ankles painting pictures of Doris Stokes on your inner thigh using various shades of nail varnish?

I could, so easily, have been the speedboat of your nightmares, or the werewolf of your dreams, but my desires for the dark side of accountancy led me down to this river; the river of twelve million, fourteen thousand, two hundred and forty-seven small pebbles. One day, I promise, I will count all the rocks - both semi-submerged and completely submerged. Then we will - at long last - really know true freedom.

I must go now - for the hamsters are howling at the full moon, calling my name.

The Promised Roads

Not ever having suffered from the illusion – or delusion – of religion I never expected some act of magic that would turn me away from this twisting lane I stumble down onto some golden road that leads straight to some distant city of the soul, where all that ails my existence would be cured and set right. The more I thought about it, though, the greater a lie it seemed to me; a false promise to those easily led by those that want the ease of leading the gullible.

I found the act of believing to be too great a leap over some great pit of probability for it to be anything I could even force myself to do. It always seemed to be the denial of too much of what is real, rather than the meek acceptance of some greater force. A turning away from the world, rather than a turning towards anything that lay out there beyond that one reaching finger on the ceiling.

So, when those people, standing at the occasional crossroad I come to, promise the path they show me will lead to that golden road and on to that invisible city, I simply turn away, without saying anything, and carry on down this twisting lane. For I know that anything they say to me will be as meaningless as the sound of the wind through the leaves, and that anything I could say to them will be dismissed for lying too far beyond anything they could ever reach for. This is because it seems that a belief, a religion, is like the bars of a prison that closes, shuts down, the lives of those inside them. All except for those lucky few who manage to escape and run free into this marvellous world that lies outside those cold high prison walls, for what they want to show me is not some great invisible city but a prison of the mind.

Ice Ages

Sometimes it seems so still as though the moment is frozen solid, as though time has become an ice-age glacier that hardly creeps at all. Something solid, hard that seems to exist outside of its own movement, but still somehow moves on, taking all that tries to stand up to it with it. We are trapped here inside this ice of time unable to free ourselves from it, only able to watch as the time glacier moves on though this world. Unable to break free from it, all we can feel is its slow long passing.

Other times though, there is a sudden thaw, the ice age is over, and this slow glacier becomes a raging torrent of a river, carrying us down, still helpless as it pours across the landscapes of time. It rages on, carrying us with it, unable to swim for the shore unless we want to drown in time. All we can do is watch as our lives speed by, just so much flotsam we try to hang onto as the torrent drags us forever onward. We are unable to stop, even pause to catch a breath as our lives floods on past us, leaving everything behind as we race on down towards that infinite sea where time is lost in the depths of so many other waters.

Slow and Creeping

It comes slow and creeping out of the night, following every step taken as though it is some kind of shadow creature that crawls from dark place to dark place. In the night, in the dark, it creeps out from the shadows and curls itself around your dreams. Although it is a creature of the dark places, it is not malevolent, it is not there to rip your soul out through your dreams, rather it is there to guard you, watch you while you sleep.

It is there to watch over those places where your dreams and reality meet. There to watch those places where the dangerous things can creep in to tear your dreams, rip them into nightmares and take you down deep into the dark places of the mind, deeper and darker than the shadows they haunt in the worlds that lie just on the edges of possibility.

There is this creature though, that guards your dreams, a large shadowy wolf-dog, from the dreaming times long before there was much of a difference between wolves and dogs. It too is a creature of the dark places, like dogs, back before they were dogs, were once creatures of the wild untamed places. Now though the dogs sit guard for us, keeping us safe while we sleep and the dream creature too, once wild but now tamed patrols the edges of your dreams keep them safe for you too.

The Perfect Woman

She had all the wine gums any one man could desire, and the casual attitude to nudity and deep curiosity about some of the more advanced sexual deviations that almost made it worth waking up for in the mornings, even in February. She could drink like a fish and swim like an inebriated dolphin, which although not much use was fun to watch, especially with her casual attitude towards nudity.

She was – of course – almost the perfect woman, with total disinterest in the offside rule and a disdain for shopping, especially for shoes and handbags, that made her the object of every man’s desire.

Of course, in the end she went away, far away, to explore that side of her sexuality that kept all the men she once knew suddenly waking, hot, sweaty and occasionally a bit sticky, in the deep heart of the night.

Last I heard she was working as a late-night hot dog seller on the romantic mean streets of Doncaster, where every hot dog she sells is handed over with a suggestion of what tricks she could – if she so desired – do with each drunken man’s own hot dog. Up to and including the fried onions and mustard, were she not so devoted to her trade.

One day, soon, when I am feeling not quite so sticky, I will go in search of her again, taking with me a whole packet of wine gums. All to see if I can win her back with romance, wine gums and the promise of a life the like of which she has never known, up to and including some sexual practices that are still illegal in several American states… and Grimsby.

Then I will bring her back home, here, with me. Mainly because in the years since she has been gone quite a pile of dirty crockery has built up to the point where even entering the kitchen has become something of an extreme sport. Consequently, I need someone, someone like her, to do some washing up; otherwise, I’ll never again have a clean mug for my essential early morning cup of tea.

The Sun’s Healing Fingers

It is slow, like something emerging from winter, a tentative bud on the otherwise bare twig. Barely perceptible, it is the merest hint of green against the dull dead grey of winter.

We wait, patiently, because we know it is coming and we know that it will grow in response to the sunlight and the warmth.

We wait, impatiently, because we long for life and colour after the long slow winter.

We are eager to feel the sun warming our cold fingers, feel the heat of the day spreading through flesh that has lain hidden under clothes and blankets for too long. We need to feel the sun’s healing fingers touching us, bringing us alive like the flowers and the trees.

Soon our whole world will turn green again; already the blackbirds are out gathering nesting material as the grass grows lush around them.

Back when we were younger, we took all this for granted, hardly noticing the changing seasons. Now, though, as we feel our own seasons beginning to tumble towards our autumns, we notice more, want to get closer, feel the need of the spring to bring us back to life again.

For now we know, deep down, there is a limit to the number of these springs we’ll see and – we know – each time we live through one, it draws our very last one ever closer.

New Anti-Nuclear Fears

Following the increasingly desperate attempts by sections of the world’s media to whip up hysteria about the post earthquake and tsunami problems at a Japanese nuclear power station, anti-nuclear campaigners have started issuing warnings about what they say is ‘a much graver danger’ that they believe could threaten the whole world.

As one anti-nuclear campaigner, Hetty Dummkopf, said:

While everyone has – quite rightly – gone hysterical about the nuclear plant in Japan and how it is going to kill us all, it seems the nuclear industry has been keeping quiet about a far greater danger to all of us on the planet.

Some people may not know it, but I’ve been told that the Sun – yes, the one in our sky – is, in fact a great big nuclear power plant, producing massive amounts of radiation every day… and even some at night too, apparently.

Furthermore, there is growing proof that this radiation has caused – not in the UK obviously – a lot of people some severe sunburn. It can also cause cancer, sometimes fatal, cancer, which of course is very scary indeed. It is also possible that it has caused some mutations in people, maybe even in their skin colour.

Obviously, this nuclear plant – they have given the cute harmless name of the Sun, to make it seem somehow natural and good – is extremely dangerous. There is even a chance that it could explode. Some scientists – obviously in the pay of the Big Sun power companies – say it won’t happen for many thousands of years yet, but I’m sure none of us really trusts anything scientists say, not anymore anyway.

Asked by our reporter what alternatives to the sun there were, Ms Dummkopf answered:

They could – at least – invest in some alternative sources of energy, instead of relying on this obviously very dangerous, old-fashioned and out of date technology. They could replace it with something eco-friendly… perhaps a wind-powered sun, or maybe one powered by solar energy… that’s green and environmentally-friendly too.

However, when our reporter pointed out that solar and sun are the same thing, Ms Dummkopf responded angrily:

Hah… do you think I’m some kind of gullible idiot? You’re only trying to confuse the issue with your male-dominated scientific industrial military hegemony jargon. I bet you are in the pay of the Big Sun companies who want to continue with this deadly industry until it kills us all! Typical!

Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a land where a Naughty Man lived. This Naughty Man was very naughty indeed and did lots and lots of things that were very naughty. Some of them were so naughty they’d make a politician blush and the rest of the things were covered by an injunction to stop people talking about them, even in fairy tales, and against warning each other about just how naughty the Naughty Man was.

However, there was a Brave Man who lived in the land where the Naughty Man lived. You could tell he was brave because he was handsome and we know that in fairy tales brave men are handsome and handsome men are brave – that is how we can tell it is a fairy tale.

Well, that… and the beautiful princesses.

Anyway, the Brave (and Handsome) Man decided to take arms against the very Naughty Man, and stop him being so naughty, and at the same time revoke the injunction the Naughty Man had taken out to prevent people finding out how very naughty he’d been, especially in rather a rude way with the wife of an associate of his.

The only problem was that the Brave Man, despite being both brave and handsome, was not all that bright. So, when in a seedy tavern on the naughty side of town, he met a Pretty Maiden who said she could show him a secret way to get to the heart of the Naughty Man’s heavily guarded mansion, he believed her. Especially after she had done that thing with her lips, mouth and fingers to his special place that had made him go all tingly inside.

So the Brave, Handsome (but very stupid, but still quite tingly) Man followed the very Pretty Maiden down a narrow dark alleyway between tall dark brooding buildings in the very naughtiest part of town. Where, suddenly, several large men, paid by the very Naughty Man, jumped on him and beat the crap out of him, then throwing his lifeless corpse in the nearby river, before going back to the Naughty Man and each receiving several bags of gold and a very special kiss from the Pretty Maiden for their trouble.

Therefore, the moral to this little story is don’t expect justice and a happy ending from this world, because if you do you are living in a fairy tale.

On a Pilgrimage

Over the weekend several thousand members of one of the UK’s fundamentalist religious sects made a pilgrimage to London in order to worship at their most Holy site, known as The Place of the Magic Money Tree.

The worshipers of this religion apparently wanted the Magic Money Tree to protect them from a mythical evil devil-creature they call The Cuts.

The Cuts is a mythical creature which they believe will bring about plagues, the apocalypse, the end of times, and will lay waste to their beloved public-sector pension schemes and other such benefits that the members of this sect enjoy because of the special protected status granted to their religion by the last government.

A pilgrim to the holy site of the Magic Money Tree said:

I have several A levels in subjects like, Extreme Exam Coaching, Multiple-Choice Box Ticking, Cut and Paste, and Downloading from the Internet. Therefore, I more than deserve to spend three years at taxpayer’s expense, inventing new drinking games, having sex with everyone on my course, experimenting with illicit substances and indulging in naïve political posturing like this. All while the people I was at school with will have to go out and get jobs just so they can pay the taxes that will pay for my University course in watching TV... er… Media Studies.

Another pilgrim said:

I am a local authority Diversity Awareness Officer, so I’m on the front line, doing a vital job. I’m making people who actually work for a living realise that they are – sometimes quite literally – superficially slightly different to some of the other people they work with and this could – occasionally – make them see things lightly differently, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they want to eat your babies. It is essential,.. vital work.

Another devout pilgrim was asked why he was on the pilgrimage:

I’ve been sitting in a local government planning office for nearly thirty years waiting for someone to tell me exactly what my job is, and in that time I‘ve built up quite a substantial pension. I don’t want to lose it now, or have to face the prospect of trying to get a proper job out in the real world where I’ve heard they have less that 20 tea-breaks a day. So I’m praying like mad that The Magic Money Tree will save me from The Cuts!

As the pilgrimage progressed, a spokeswoman for the cult said:

Our wise and noble priests say that the rich (that is anyone earning more than me) must have magic money trees of their own. So we think it is only fair that we take their Magic Money Trees off them to make sure everyone else can use them instead.

Anyway, my trade union boss says the rich must all have their own magic money trees and he gets paid as much as them, so he should know shouldn’t he?

When they arrived at the Holy place, the pilgrims listened to sermons from their high priests, all claiming that The Cuts would bring about the end of days and the apocalypse, and that it was all planned by the evil Tories who wanted to eat their babies.

The priests claimed that the rich must have secret Magic Money Trees of their own to keep themselves rich, which was unfair and a sin against all the tenets of the religion of the Magic Money Trees. For the Magic Money Tree believers say that the fruits of these trees should be shared out equally between all, all the time.

Furthermore, the sect is convinced that Magic Money Trees just suddenly miraculously sprout into life, fully-grown, out of nowhere. Therefore, all this talk of growing the delicate trees, caring for them and making sure there were enough magic money seeds left over to plant new Magic Money Trees was just lies perpetuated by those who wanted to keep the fruits of their own Magic Money trees for themselves and their acolytes in the evil baby-eating Tory party.

At the same time as these sermons were taking place, in other parts of London, extreme fundamentalist members of the ‘Political Activist’ sect, known colloquially as ‘Morons’ attempted to make sacrifices to the Holy Magic Money Tree by damaging shops and other such businesses and injuring some of the police. Although, just how this was supposed to help in any way they were unable to make clear.

However, those arcane wizards who actually understand economics, and those who have visited what the religionists dismissively call ‘the real world’ and lived to tell the tale, have all have pointed out that the Magic Money Trees do not exist. The religionists, though, have dismissed all such talk as the work of those they believe worship the devil the religionists call The Cuts.

The economists have pointed out, however, that The Cuts, does actually exist, but it is not a devil, instead it is - in fact - a very small fluffy creature with a tiny appetite. It is a creature that only nibbles around the very edges of the massive debt ran up by the last bunch of political idiots, inept economic criminals and mendacious self-serving imbeciles who were the government before the current – now seemingly very similar - bunch.

Gawping at the Shiny Thing

Well, y’know, as I was saying to a rather nice lamp post the other morning when I was out walking my local council Five-a-Day Co-ordinator, these days you just don’t seem to be able to get the parts. Not that there is much in the way of parts these days. It is all self-contained modules, slotted together like some gizmotronic Lego in some country far away, probably by twelve year-olds knocking together several hundred of the buggers a day. All while our own twelve year-olds (of all ages) are stuck gawping slack-mouthed at the shiny thing.

So, where does that leave us when bits start to fall off our social worker, or the supply geography teacher needs rewiring, or even if we just have to replace the batteries in a electro-weasel.

Buggered that’s where.

As usual….

There was a day, it seemed, when most men could take apart and rebuild almost everything in their lives, or – at least – they had a mate who could. While women could make a whole set of clothes for the family, re-cover a three-piece suite out of an old curtain and still have enough material lefty over to re-clothe an entire emerging nation or stitch together a wide selection of warm winter hats for the penguins.

Not that the penguins were ever grateful.

However, that’s the penguins for you.

Staffordshire Hoard: Origins Revealed

It was announced today that the Staffordshire Hoard is to be displayed online on an updated website.

The hoard, Britain’s largest find of Anglo-Saxon treasure is now understood to be the monthly expenses taken by a member of the Anglo-Saxon parliament, the Witan. The archaeologists point to the fact that amongst the treasure there were invoices for, amongst other items (spellings modernised): ‘A Duck-Housing’ and a Plug for the Bathing Chamberings’, as well as a bill for certain ‘adult’ tapestries purchased by another member of the Anglo-Saxon MP’s household.

A member of the Anglo-Saxon parliament was allowed quite generous expenses as it was felt by them that they incurred lots of expense whenever the king called them to a Witan meeting.

However, ordinary peasants pointed to the fact that these meetings of the parliament usually involved several nights of feasting, followed by days out hunting with the king, a large number of young comely ‘research’ wenches and other such luxuries that the average peasant could only dream of.

Therefore, the archaeologists believe that the hoard was the expenses claimed by one of these Anglo-Saxon MPs, who buried the treasure before the king’s auditors could capture him and invite him to a meeting in the king’s torture chamber where he would be ‘invited’ to pay back the excess expenses.

However, before the Saxon Mp could return – once he felt it safe – and dig up his expenses, the Normans invaded England.

It was the rumours of the lavish expenses system enjoyed by the Anglo-Saxon nobility that first alerted the Norman king, William the Bastard, to the idea of invading England. Being as the EU was yet to be created, it meant that there was no Europe-wide system, as yet, for the rulers of the various countries of Europe to enrich themselves at the tax-payer’s expense… not with out some rather excessive, and often rather messy, use of the mace anyway.

Under the Normans, and after William the Bastards successful re-launch as William the Conqueror, the whole system of government in England was changed. However, this seemed top make little difference to the peasantry who seemed to carry on much as before the conquest, still resenting those who now ruled over them as much as their predecessors.

As one interview in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said:

Those bloody Normans, coming over here with their funny foreign food, taking over our manors and building those bloody great big foreign castles everywhere. I mean… Motte-and-bailey? Unnatural, I call it.

With Good Intentions

Now, as it happens… or, more usually, doesn’t…. Well, you know the way it is, you start off with all these good intentions, determined that this time everything will be fine, and then something happens, maybe it is those bloody penguins again, up to their old tricks. Alternatively, perhaps the local Diversity Outreach Co-ordinator has exploded down the street again when she became aware of the self-contradictory paradox of her existence, or maybe your marmosets need a bath.

Anyway, whatever it is, there lie your good intentions ripped up and muddy like the promises of a political manifesto that shrivel to dust like the vampiric anachronisms they are when confronted by the harsh daylight of this real world.

Well, we assume it is the real world, after all the neighbours of your imagination would – surely – have much better curtains than that. You would also presume - at least - one of them would slightly resemble your favourite screen actor of your more vigorous late night imaginings, rather than the rejects from some local amateur re-imagining of Zombie Nights – the Musical, beings whose idea of a riveting opening conversational gambit is the state of the drains, or ‘kids these days’.

Then, by the time you’ve got this far, you’ve forgotten what it was that seemed so important, what you were going to say, way back in the beginning.

So, in the end, it just tails off and fades awa….

Wastelands and Ghost Towns

What becomes of all these words we waste on the unlistening world? Where do these words go when they fall down into the great silences that lie like abandoned ghost towns on these open plains and deserts that lie between us all?

We have wandered these wildernesses all alone, crawling across dunes of silence and plains of distance, looking out for those oases and water holes that will bring us some kind of comfort, while hearing the words blowing on the winds that range and storm through these forgotten landscapes.

We wanted so much to find some lost civilisation, some fabled city or Eldorado that would take us in and listen to these words that we carried across those baked bare landscapes in the hope that one day we would find someone to listen. Now, though, we see that there are no great cities here, no great lost civilisation, nothing that wants to hear these few precious words we have saved from the ravages of our fraught journeying. All there is are these few torn images blown by indifferent winds down the ruined remnants of shabby streets, between the faded wreckage of a few shacks and huts.

Just a crumbling wreck of a ghost town that sits indifferent as it crumbles into this desert while we stand shouting these few last words impotently at its indifference.

The Trilobites Of Despair

In the deepest, darkest unused cupboard-space of your soul, there is a corner where the Trilobites Of Despair hold their Annual General Meeting (with fully-catered dinner/dance for all employees and their immediate families to follow).

It is easy top tell when the Trilobites Of Despair are dancing late into the night in the very depths of your soul as all things seem below worth or even interest - the mere daytime TV of the soul. The place where even the products from the great artists of music and literature seem as dull, worthless and pointless as the witterings of a radio DJ, seemingly leaving you trapped forever in the intellectual Marie Celeste that is contemporary popular culture.

But, then, the green shoots of promise are never far below the surface, no matter how long the Trilobites Of Despair have revelled deep in your soul. You know, deep down, that soon the utterances of politicians and their media pundits will bring about that slight puckering that precedes the wry smile of acknowledgement you get when you detect the first signs of egregious political mendacity, media self-absorption and the incestuous symbiosis that keeps both forever in their mutually satisfying embrace. You know that one day soon they will reach that point when they both instantaneously disappear up each other's arseholes never to be seen or heard from ever again. It is only then you will know for sure that you will never again have to suffer the Trilobites Of Despair.

The Dark and Secret Rituals of the Yorkshire Pudding

Well, y’know… it sort of does that… a bit. Can’t be helped I suppose. I have thought that maybe it needs new batteries, or maybe I should rewire the turbo-weasels in parallel instead of series, but that would – quite obviously – require a reformat of the hard disk. However, I just haven’t got anywhere near enough cheese biscuits for that at the moment, so if it does go on the blink again, just hit it with that hammer over there and we’ll see how it goes from there. I can’t say fairer than that… not in these trousers anyway.

Once upon a time, you dressed so fine and went to Barnsley for a day trip. You were young then though and desperate for the glamour and excitement of the big city and its great fish and chip shops that you’d only ever read about, or seen in films. They had women in Barnsley too, real women, northern women. It was a pity though how they scorned your effete southern ways and how little you knew of the dark and secret rituals of the Yorkshire pudding and how it can set a woman’s heart a-tremble. 

You were young then, and you did not know. Now you are older and a little wiser, but nowadays you have trouble finding your flat cap and you lack the wrist action to attain any real consistency in your Yorkshire pudding batter. It is I suppose one of the ironies of life that when you are young the flesh is strong but the spirit is unformed, and when you grow older the spirit is developed but the flesh grows so weary and too tired… even, nowadays, for the walk to the fish and chip shop.

Making Sense

 

Well, there you go. Or, in some rather special cases, there you don’t go. Sometimes it seems that everything does look like it is about to make sense, doesn’t it?

Then, though, the universe puts a stop to that, and comes up with something – could be anything from the trivial to the profound – that leaves you wondering ‘just what the fuck is going on here?’

The problem is people seem to expect things to make sense. Obviously enough that is why religions were invented and gods created, and why, as we learn more and more about what an odd place this universe actually is, they make less and less sense and have less and less purpose and point. This – also obviously – is whey their adherents become more and more vocal and excitable the less and less relevance the religions and their rather odd assortment of gods have.

Still all that is not important and paying attention to it only feeds the delusions, so it is all best ignored while we – the rest of us – come to the inescapable conclusion that the universe simply does not make human sense. That – strange as it may seem – that is why humans can do so well in it, because we have a sense of humour and can revel in the fact that none of it makes sense and take a deep satisfactory joy in the total absurdity of it and that we happen to be here to see it all.

Quite simply, isn’t life grand?

Noticing the Warning Signs

When it is time, then we will know. There have been warning signs, of course. I am sure you, like me have seen more penguins around than usually would be the case at this time of the year. You may very well have seen more penguins than usual in the shops, in the library, in the park, innocently hanging around near the shopping trolley park near the entrance to your favourite supermarket and other such places. 

Of course, there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for this.

Actually, there is probably a perfectly reasonable-sounding explanation. However, it will be one the penguins have prepared in advance and they will all be letter-perfect on it. The penguins are far, far too cunning to be caught out be having an inadequate explanation for what they are up to. I’m sure we all remember what happened that Christmas when those penguins were caught – seemingly red-handed - just outside Woolworths with a large wheelbarrow full of Pick ‘n’ Mix. Then apparently, seeming like the purest co-incidence, Woolworths was out of business only a few months later.

It was the same with the most recent sudden rise in the price of petrol. Several penguins were caught just leaving a forecourt of a petrol station just off the A38 with several containers of petrol in their van, and then only a few weeks later the price of petrol was at an all-time high. Some blamed the latest uncertainty in the Middle East, but those of us who keep a close eye on the penguins are not so sure… not any more.

When The World Turns Away

Where will it go from here? We see spring uncurling itself from under the frost and snow as green returns to this brown dead land. The birds come out of silence as the waters begin to flow once more. We feel the pulse of life returning and the warmth of living against our fingertips.

Each year the world turns and it all begins anew. We thought we had grown cold and tired under the heavy winter nights that press down on our days, making everything into distance and a battle against the world that lies beyond this warm safe cave we have made here for ourselves.

One spring returns again though, the world holds out its arms to welcome us, once more, back into its embrace. We no longer have to fight against the world gone cold; we become part of its warmth and living heartbeat again.

Each year the world turns its face back towards us once again, as though we have been forgiven of something too large to put a name to it. In the old days it would have been called the wrath of the gods and it is easy to see how and why the gods we made to shoulder the blame for harsh lives. We no longer have the need for such things now though, even though the world turns its seasons around in the same old way, we have got older and a little wiser and no longer look for the hollow faces of the gods to blame when the world does turn itself away from us again.

Cheese Sandwich Safety

Always make sure your cheese sandwich has been moved to a place of safety before the characters of dubious merit, worth and probity have been allowed into the room. However, it is still wise to check occasionally upon its well-being until the area has been declared fully politician-free by the relevant experts before you can feel safe enough to reveal the whereabouts of the aforesaid sandwich.

Of course, not all politicians are mendacious, self-serving, self-important egos on legs, or so they would have us believe. Nevertheless, think very carefully before you leave anything you value, such as your cheese sandwich, alone in a room with one.

Politics has – of course – been described as ‘the art of getting on as many people’s tits as possible without really trying,’ and we all know that feeling of deep despair in the pit of the stomach when it seems our very TVs are about to be taken over by yet more of their useless, pompous wittering. Forcing us to endure the mind-melt of politics instead of TV’s standard fare, such as the fine intellectual stimulation of showing us people attempting to be better than some random collection of egocentrics at cooking the sort of stuff that no-one in their right mind would want to eat. However, even that is better than politicians smugly scoring ‘political points’ off each other by telling each other stuff that they think we would like to hear. rather than just getting on with making sure our bins are emptied, our old and infirm looked after and our streets kept safe, all while you search the room for that cheese sandwich you are certain you came in with.

Sunday Poem: Still Dancing

Still Dancing

Dancing through days that fall
At your feet like bright petals,
You see all your tomorrows
Spreading out towards the horizon.
You have lived a life like this before,
Dancing on through your days.

All that falls around you
Dissolves into the distance
And the past turns as you turn,
Before turning away. None of it
Can touch you, dancing free of the chains
That hold us rooted here.

Seasons come and then go
Around you, as your light feet
Touch the ground and gravity
Loses its grip on you. You float off
Into the skies until you are lost
From view, and still dancing.

The blown wind grows and turns
And we see it churning through
Our days. We remain rooted,
Letting the gusts blow, but not break us.
As we wait for the dance to begin
While you are still dancing.

Still, here we are waiting
For it to begin again.
We wait for the words to come,
Calmly, knowing they will build a world
For us and populate it with life.
As you dance in the dawn.

Only a word will set
This whole world back in motion
All around us, as we walk
Along each winding sentence and on
Between the paragraphs grown so tall
Dancing all around us.

To then come out upon
A whole page of worlds spread out
And teeming with dancing words
We stand here as you dance each new word
Watching as you dance away from us,
Watching you breaking free.

Cartographical Exuberance in the Public Arena

Of course, way back then it was quite common for someone to get a map out in public, especially in out of the way places, or tourist-frequented areas. Nowadays though, in our more technologically-adept lifestyles, such cartographical exuberance would be mostly looked upon askance, now that we have satnavs, smartphones and other such gizmotronic wizardry.

However, we should take a more philosophical approach to such disorientations of space. After all, when all is said and done, and we’ve had a break for a sandwich or two, we always know exactly where we are.

We are always here.

Although, there may be some temporary doubts to where here actually is, especially in relation to relatively nearby places that are not here, we are – in fact – here.

Always.

So, examined in such a way, we are never actually lost in the first place. We are – quite confidently – found. It is the rest of the world that is lost (or at least temporarily mislaid), not us.

So, then it is just a simple matter of locating where here actually is, especially in relation to over there and turn left at the next set of traffic lights. However, one should always give everyone else in the immediate vicinity the impression that you always know exactly where you are, even if you - especially if you – don’t have the faintest clue where here actually is.

It is always best to stride, ride, drive, or whatever your current means of locomotion off in some direction – even if it is chosen at random - than to stand around gawping at whatever location-finding device you are using. It really doesn’t matter which way you go, for as soon as you get there you will be here, and therefore know exactly where you are, and therefore – by definition – no longer lost.

Frankly Irritating Git Day

Of course, everyone is aware of how Frankly Irritating Git Day came about. It was originally intended as a single one-off event where smugly oleaginous B and C list celebrities patronised 'ordinary' members of the public in the holy name of 'charity'. Unfortunately, it has since gone on to become a nauseatingly annual endeavour. An event where the almost-forgotten 'entertainer' can boost his, or her, (and, sometimes, its) chances of re-employment on the nation's TV screens through an adept use of some former glory that may reside as a dim memory within the mental canyons of permafrost that are all that remains of the average totally-mashed couch potato's mental faculties.

This pale retread of past glories is in - at least in what passes for - the minds of the TV fraternity changed with dragging these things before the stultified public - is 'temptingly' and 'amusingly' sometimes re-cast as a 'special' performance. Usually it is made more tiresome through the aid of guest performers from some other branch of the media not normally associated in the public mind with the brain-dead prolefeed that used to parade under the sobriquet light entertainment in the days when the world was in black and white. Why such an occurrence should ever have been regarded as in any way humorous is - fortunately - lost in the mists of history.

As all these delights are all instigated in the name of 'charity', they are therefore immediately granted immunity from any questioning and criticism, least one be re-cast as the miserly Scrooge deliberately pissing all over the proceedings that these noble and selfless celebrities - out of the goodness of their hearts - have bestowed upon us - the never-grateful public. Furthermore, we should be grateful they have done it for free, not for the usual sordidly cross-bred and incestuous reasons of ego and mammon that usually motivates them to leave their gated and guarded mansions.

It is - of course - a given that charity is a good, fine and noble thing. To even raise the question of whether ‘events’ such as this are – even slightly – a sort of corruption of that very nobility of charity, which is about the conscience of the individual, into these manifestations of the current Left-wing based conventional wisdom that the proles must be forced, cajoled and ordered into doing the right thing, in case they – Marx forbid – have the audacity to want to think for themselves is to teeter on the verge of being made an unperson for disparaging what is – so obviously - such ‘a good cause’. To ask why such an annual smug-fest should be even necessary at the current level of excess of communication that infests our contemporary civilisation is to diminish - somehow - the greatness of the event where excess and pointlessness is celebrated. Of course the irony of those in want been paraded in front of the couch-struck in order to drag more money out of them in-between the orgies of excess that is the modern media in full-frontal entertain me or die mode does seem to verge on casting a pall over the proceedings. But in a way, the parade of the misfortunate is - in itself - a part of the entertainment. A form of tax on the proles for wanting merely to be entertained, something that troubles the inner puritan of those who believe they know what is best for the rest of us. Not only that there is the contemporary need for more, more of everything, more entertainment, bigger audiences figures, but most importantly as these things are defined failures or success by how much they raise from the public then there is a demand for excess - more, more than last year, more than any previous year is all they cry.

So, in the end it is for you to do your duty and sit there and be entertained and – in the end – make sure you give in to the moral blackmail and pay up. Because – after all – it is for charity, which – when all is said and done - is still a very good cause… and, well, you wouldn’t have spent it on anything near as worthwhile, anyway, would you?

All for the Love of a Spanner

Now I don’t know if you have ever put your favourite spanner back on its display shelf and wondered to yourself if your life is all that it should be, but then I haven’t read your file in over a fortnight. That is not since the report of that incident with the Norwegian wicket keeper out on the local park when just why you were carrying a hardback world atlas and a stick of celery was – to my mind – never adequately explained in the subsequent police investigation.

Now, we all have our favourite spanners, but there is little of that prejudice over the relative merits of the ring to the open-ended spanner, and even – to some there are aesthetic qualities to the adjustable spanner that set them above all others. However, such… such... deviant thoughts should not, ought not, detain us here. It is best, probably, that we leave such aficionados with such dubious tastes out of our consideration, at least for the time being…. That is until we can find a spoon and a suitably-strong anteater anyway.

Anyway, as I was saying, before we got distracted by all these jars of three-fruit marmalade, don’t worry about other people’s opinions of your spanner, in the long run it does not matter if they find your choice of an old ¾” ring-spanner to be old-fashioned. Just sit there, by yourself, on the chair positioned to get the best view of that – your favourite – spanner in its display case and think back to all those tremendously exciting nuts that you loosened together, perhaps occasionally needing a quick squirt of WD40 just to get a bit of lubrication in there, and smile.

Health and Safety Executive Issues Warning

After the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan the UK Health and Safety Executive has issued its strongest-ever warning, saying:

We strongly advisee people to no longer visit the outside world as it is far too dangerous. We recommend instead that people stay indoors.

An emergency investigation set up by the HSE since the quake in Japan has concluded that the world outside our doors is far too dangerous for people to enter, at least until several safety measures have been instigated.

As a HSE spokesbeing said:

The world is really a very dangerous place, from absolute tragedies like earthquakes, conflagrations, volcanic eruptions, floods and so on right down to icy pavements in the winter, or if the rain has made them a bit slippy.

Obviously, such a situation is unacceptable in these safety-conscious days, which is why we have issued the guidelines informing people to stay indoors.

When asked what they were going to do about this unacceptably dangerous situation, the HSE issued the following statement:

After making some enquires the HSE were informed that these so-called natural disasters were actually ‘Acts of God’.

In order to investigate these claims officers from the HSE visited the last-known address of this being, only to find he wasn’t there. Further enquiries revealed that no-one there had seen this so-called ‘God’ for several millennia, although there was one there who claimed to speak to this ‘God’ on a regular basis. Further investigations however revealed that this person was – in fact - just a loony and was excluded from our investigation.

Further investigations by HSE staff revealed that there was no trace whatsoever of this God anywhere, and the things passed off as ‘His Works’ had other far more credible explanations. In the end, this God was himself eliminated from our enquiries.

Consequently, acting on a tip-off, we tried to visit Mother Nature, but she claimed too be sick in bed with a really high temperature and wouldn’t let us in.

So the only alternative we have is to tell everyone to wait indoors until nature evolves some warning signs and a number of pretty strong safety fences around itself, before we can confidently tell people it is now safe to go outside again.

Therefore, the HSE wishes to repeat our advice to the people of the UK:

Remember – Stay Indoors….

And don’t touch anything!

Nature Watching

Sometimes it seems like the reindeer may have been lying, but you do expect a certain amount of mendaciousness from such dubious-looking creatures. I mean, all that antler business… who do they think they are fooling with that?

Not me, I can tell you.

No, give me a water vole any day of the week. You know where you are with them, and it is not just a matter of sizes either. Even though it does seem that elephants are a bit too showy with those trunks of theirs, you always seem to get a certain feeling of integrity with them…. Of course, it may be all some kind of cunning ploy and the next time you are down at the watering hole at sundown, an elephant may try to sell you life insurance, but somehow, that just doesn’t seem all that likely.

Not to me anyway.

We are all, I think, by now, rightly suspicious of those bloody penguins, trying to beguile us all with the evening dress and the cute, waddling thing. However, I think it is safe to say that now we are on to them and their plans for world domination through the medium of chocolate-covered biscuits… and that rather cunning sideways move into chocolate cake bars.

Just keep a close eye on those penguins… that’s what I say.

UK to Set Up Libya No-Fly Zone

The UK government has today decided to go it alone in setting up a No-Fly Zone in Libya in an attempt to aid those forces opposing the autocratic rule of Colonel Ga-Daffy Duck.

A spokesperson for the UK foreign office said:

As we all know from our holidays abroad, these hot countries are often heavily plagued by flies, so anything we can do to assist the opposition forces by helping them get rid of the flies will – I’m sure – be a great help to them. Senior members of the armed forces have assured me there is nothing quite as annoying as having a fly buzzing around your head when you are trying to take out an enemy soldier, especially at long range.

Therefore, we are sure we could stretch out the defence budget enough to afford a can or two of fly spray for the rebel forces. Although, our main intention is to unload… er… donate a few thousand fly swatters, we have left over in a cupboard in the Foreign Office from the days of Empire, to the noble insurgents.

Britain had hoped to get France to assist with the no-fly zone as the UK government felt France’s long experience of poor sanitation and its casual approach to personal hygiene would prove invaluable in combating the menace of the flies. There is also the possibility that the US president may decide, or not, to possibly think about considering whether to make up his mind whether, or not, to send some assistance to the No-Fly Zone, or not, by sending some high-technology fly-zappers to the troubled country, or not.

However, many critics of the US president’s possible decision have pointed out that such high-tech anti-fly technology may be of little use in a country like Libya with its poor infrastructure and wide desert spaces which offer few places to plug in, or even hang, such high-tech fly zappers.

Should the No-Fly Zone prove successful the UK Prime Minister has promised to set up an inquiry to see whether a No-Wasp Zone could be put in place over the summer months in the UK’s beauty spots, picnic areas, parks and children’s playgrounds, with the PM saying:

We are all in this together, and those bloody wasps are annoying little buggers at the best of times.

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague added:

Hey up, do you want to see my mojo?

Healthy Eating Guidelines

So, what comes and what goes and just why does your pet local authority Spanner Awareness Co-ordinator have that rather curious obsession with cardigans? I wish I knew why all the okapis dance – in formation – down the High Street exactly 17 minutes past closing time every third Tuesday of the month, but that is the wonder of the natural world, always full of surprises and mysteries… like your mother for instance and that… that thing she does with her cardigan.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could get up in the morning and awake into a word free of the dread inanities of politicians and all those other interfering busybodies. Those who seem to only get sexually aroused and intellectually(sic)-inspired by wanting to tell the rest of us how to live our lives, and just how many portions of vegetables, and what number of alcoholic drinks constitute their notion of the good life.

All those religions, all those philosophies, all those artists, poets and musicians all searching – usually – in vain – for what it is that gives life its meaning. Yet not a single one of them ever seemed to realise that it all – in the end – boils down to five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and limiting your intake of alcohol to the right number of units. Oh, if only he’d known, Shakespeare, for example, needn’t have bothered with all those plays, just having to produce a Healthy Eating Guidelines pamphlet instead.

Mr Gordon Brown’s Boys

The Labour Party last night strongly denied that its New Parliamentary channel sitcom Mr Gordon Brown’s Boys*, starring the 2 protégés of long-standing Labour comedian Gordon ‘Nokia-Chucker’ Brown – The 2 Eds – was looking like a ratings failure.

They claimed that the show has yet to bed in with the political sit-com audience who – they claim – are often slow to take to a new act. As one Labour sit-com script writer said:

Look at the problem the other channels had with William Hague, Michael Howard, Ian Duncan Smith, Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell.

It is rumoured that the scriptwriters behind the Labour Party’s new sitcom had been struggling to come up with a catchy name for its new star double act. Names thought to have been considered include:

Knob & Ed

Knob & Balls

Ed & Ed

The Teddy Boys

Eventually, the writing team settled on the name The 2 Eds, because they thought it captured the zany happy-go-lucky comedic nature of Miliband and Balls in a way that none of the other names could.

It is believed that the labour party hopes that The 2 Eds will be as great a success as other comedy double acts like: Mike & Bernie Winters, Hale and Pace, Major and Lamont, Little and Large, Foot and Healy, Blair and Brown or The Chuckle Brothers.

Ed Balls admitted in a break in rehearsals for their next news conference:

We would have like to use the name the Chuckle Brothers, but they wouldn’t sell it to us… not yet, anyway. I may need to go round to their place for a quiet word… then we’ll see.

It is thought that The 2 Eds want Mr Gordon Brown’s Boys to bring about a revival of the heyday of Labour sitcoms of the past such as the 1970s loony-left era of Michael Foot, Nuclear-free zones, union militancy and other such zany political idiocies. There is also a rumour that the new show will include songs from a Derek Hatton & the Militant Tendency tribute band.

However, Balls and Miliband have promised their show will include the traditional Labour Party comedy blend of total economic ignorance and inept social engineering as they stumble from crisis to crisis, mostly of their own making. Many Labour comedy fans hope they will continue with the Labour tradition of each episode ending with a slapstick sketch were the Labour leadership hurling fistful after fistful of tax-payers money at their latest cock-up in the hope that it will magically make everything all better… but it never does.

The Labour Party has claimed that it has learnt from the audience ratings failure of Gordon ‘Chuckles’ Brown which tanked disastrously after the original Del-Boy Blair sitcom Only Fools and Labour Voters had run out of ideas.

Fortunately for them, despite the failure of the 2 Eds to capture the interest of the political comedy audience with Mr Gordon Brown’s Boys, the Labour party still seems inexplicably popular, despite its appalling record during the Blair/Brown episodes.

Some critics have put this continuing Labour party popularity down to the sheer blandness of the other party’s jokers, with one critic saying:

The Conservatives are really suffering in the ratings because Cameron is so bland, nothing like Thatcher who everyone pretended to hate, but – in secret – really admired. After all the people of Britain have long loved pantomime villains, which explains why people these days actually know who Nick Clegg is.

The other reason why people don’t seem to be taking to the Tory’s Dave & Gideon Show is that those that do not understand economics are outraged by the savagery of the cuts, while those that do understand economics are dismayed by the timidity of the cuts.

(*With apologies to Brendan O’Carroll)

Photographs on Request

So, anyway, there was this reindeer and I had the stomach pump… well, I don't have to draw you a picture, do I? Although, I will provide photographs on request - but to fully certified and accredited professional Badger-Perplexers only, of course.

She was there too, of course. She was wearing the nothing she always wears so well and performing a full manicure on the wildebeest as it waited for the traffic lights to change.

I - it goes without saying - never mentioned the car park. I remember, only too well, what happened the last time. I still have the ketchup stain on my ukulele and all over my ceremonial waistcoat, and the cat cannot - still - bear to be in the same room as any form of smoked fish - let alone kippers.

Oh, it was all so much easier back in the old days. We laughed, we sang, we danced, we invaded small under-developed countries. We captured and then sold all their nubile womenfolk into slavery in the domestic handicraft industry where they were forced to make amateurish pottery to sell to gullible tourists. Of course, back then, none of us had ever heard of the concept of human rights, or even had any awareness of the dangers of spatula misuse. Innocent times, but still - occasionally - I sometimes miss the terrible mindless cruelty towards my fellow man.

On Finding that Perfect Partner

However, should you not find the weasel at the appropriate point when it comes to attaching the lug nuts to the prospective parliamentary candidate, then please contact the manufacturer of your cricket bat and/or gardening gloves at the address printed on the reverse of the dental hygienist.

Even if the cheese salad baguette of all your hopes and dreams does seem to have a paucity of the assumed cheese when it comes to an in-depth perusal of its contents, then maybe thing have – as you say – indeed come to a pretty pass.

After all, it was not meant to be like this. This is supposed to be the best of all possible worlds after all, and – indeed - if that does eventually turn out to be the case, then I think we all have little option but to sue.

It definitely does not live up to the description or the illustrations on the brochure. As for all that stuff about finally finding the sexual partner of all our dreams and desires, then I – for one – can only conclude that some of us must have been having some bloody awful dreams and have rather a singular set of desires, either that or someone cocked up the delivery addresses… again.

Erotic Business Studies

Now, take my hand and I’ll take you to places only ever dreamed of by those of a more utilitarian cast of underwear and together we will experience the delights of all-nude accountancy and – if you feel daring enough, and we can get a pad of unused invoices – erotic business studies. I will take you deep into the secret heart of the stationery cupboard, down to the very depths of the filing system of your soul. Together we will strip naked and spread ourselves across the boardroom table of all your most cherished secret fantasies, photocopy our love and CC it to the entire world by accident once again.

I will show you how my stapling machine can fasten the loose sheets of our desires together so that they flutter in the gentle breezes of the desktop fan of all you ever wished for in an office romance. You will open the drawers of your filing cabinet wide for me to bury my documentation so deep inside you, that no-one will ever be able to find it again.

We will tarry by the coffee machines of each other’s longings deep into the never-ending slow Tuesday afternoons and never worry that our mutual staff assessments will be found wanting ever again.

Everyday Maths

 

Of course, it was Descartes himself who first used his own system of Cartesian co-ordinates to locate the missing segment of his steak and kidney pie, although it would take a few more centuries before Gödel’s incompleteness theorem could account for just why he had mislaid the errant portion of pie in the first place. 

However, few of us these days can even contemplate creating a full shopping list without at least some awareness of Russell’s paradox and the dilemma it creates over whether we should include Brussels sprouts or cauliflower, but not both on that particular list, at least if the supermarket we are proposing to visit exists in Euclidean space. 

The problem of finding a parking pace in the car park of a non-Euclidean supermarket will have to wait for another time, another of these articles and a more robust set of mathematical trousers than the ones I am currently residing in. However, I think it is possible that we can assume that whichever trousers we are wearing at the time they will exist somewhere in Hilbert space, unless they are – of course – in the wash. 

So, until then I will bid you farewell and remind you to bring along a sharp pencil next time as we will be discussing the Turing test, and how to prise it out, using only a well-sharpened pencil, should it get lodged behind the sofa.

DIY on the High Street

Pulling back from the edge, the very precipice, of fully emulsioning a nearby supermarket manager can always be a danger to the integrity of the hamstrings, especially when not really in the most ideal position for the reversal, such as at the top of a set of stepladders. However, those familiar with redecorating retail staff, especially in a urban High Street will not be too unfamiliar with the pitfalls that do sometimes occur, especially when re-plastering an Estate Agent.

However, should you wish to approach a bank manager with a sheet of already pasted wallpaper, we would suggest that you follow the expert advice usually given in such situations and approach from downwind, preferably after the afternoon tea and biscuits have been presented.

However, stencilling an optician is probably best left to half-day closing, or if the retail sector in question no longer operates a half-day closing routine, then perhaps it would be best to wait until at least half an hour after closing time. This also, obviously, applies to any re-grouting that is considered necessary to any barber, ladies hairstylist or any other practitioner of the tonsorial arts, that is unless a complete re-tiling is considered, in which case dustsheets should always be used, especially in there is a Labrador or any other breed of retriever or gun-dog on the premises, of course.

Thursday Poem: Another Obstacle

Another Obstacle

And distance falls, becomes another obstacle.
It stands in the way, guarding against
The possibility of movement.
A turning becomes a kind of stillness
As motion turns in on itself.   

There is no way forward and there is no way back.
Across the sea, all across the shore,
All there is, is waiting. Here is now
And always will be. The stillness of all
That turns while everything is still.

Around these shapes we build a world. Around these dreams
We build what could be, where what is touched
Becomes much more than the possible.
What’s desired becomes what’s necessary
As wants and desires become needs.

You dance all the shapes of this world into being
And carve all your dreams out of its stone.
Each moment is taken and given
Its own sound and a place between moments,
To give time a shape and a form.

We give this world a direction as our patterns
Are imposed on these random moments
And what is contingent is given
A meaning. Because you need some order,
Even if it’s an illusion.

You need something beyond, to stand outside it all
Giving a shape, giving it meaning
Because deep down you fear there is none,
And you fear the cold of the lonely night
And walking alone every day.

Beyond the Edges of What We Can See

To find something so easy, so right, takes just a little bit more than we can hold in only our own hands. It takes time and it takes a desire to go beyond these moments and to look for some new place. We have times and we have these places that hold us inside themselves as though we belong to something that goes beyond the edges of what we can see.

History stretches back far beyond our selves, back to the times even beyond the human, we belong within these times, but there are echoes of other times, other non-human creatures that haunt our nightmares from back in the times before imagination.

Here we lie, side-by-side in the dark, reassured by the presence of someone else, even though we know no creatures haunt the world beyond these darkly-shadowed walls. Even though there are no beasts, no undead, nothing that lies beyond what we know; still we have a fear of what is unknown, what could happen once we step outside this room and we part to go separate ways down those deserted dark streets to lives out of the reach of each other. We know too we will not really rest until we are back here together again, lying side by side, wondering, and fearing, what could come and tear us from each other’s arms.

Living in the 21st Century

Back then, of course, none of us had the personal jet packs or robot butlers that have become so commonplace since the world entered the 21^st Century. We all each have our own computer-controlled robot cars too, to get us to work – for those that want to work – at our jobs supervising the computers, intelligent machines and robots that do all the actual work. Although, for most of us life is just one long round of pleasurable activities interspersed with intellectual endeavour towards personal fulfilment, especially as we all now seem to have intellects that would once have seemed out of the ordinary only last century and bodies that would – in those long ago days – only be found on Olympic athletes.

Of course, we have the cheap, clean and environmentally-friendly power from nuclear fusion that makes all this possible, while the use of hover cars means that we no longer need roads. Therefore, the countryside between our dwelling places, whether we choose to live in urban or rural areas, is green with fields, forests, moors and hedgerows, while our rivers sparkle and teem with fish and other aquatic life. The clean quiet energy we use means that the air is now filed with birdsong and our music has grown quiet and harmonious as if to match it.

With no more poverty and the idiocies of religious* strife behind us, there is no more terrorism, and crime seems almost quaint and non-existent.

It does – at times – almost seem like we have found the perfect life, here in this perfect world of the 21^st Century.

 

*After a cure for the viruses that cause both religion and politics was discovered.

Let Them Eat Cake

Well, there you have it and it is warm and moist and seems to pulse with a life of its own under your touching fingertips. Sometimes it does seems as though you have found the cake of your dreams, here, in this imperfect world. A world that so often seems to take some kind of delight in conspiring against you and all your simple hopes and dreams of a life made… somehow… better than this. A world that so often seems cruel, heartless and vindictive… but then turns around and gives you a cake such as this, cannot be all bad.

There are wonders aplenty in this universe, and even upon this poor benighted earth, but this… here… now… is a cake that surpasses all of that. It is a cake that goes beyond your dreams of all that would or could be possible in this world, A Panglossian cake, a Platonic cake. A cake that would make Helen of Troy seem a mere dockyard trollop in comparison, that makes the great symphonies seem like poor ditties scratched out on a broken, out of tune violin, the great paintings the mere daubs of a five-year old and the great literatures of the world seem more like mere shopping lists in comparison.

It is the very cake of the gods themselves.

However, though, I think it could have done with just a little bit more strawberry jam in the middle.

Grow into Significance

It is as though something grows out of these still times. We are here, and we are alone together watching each second pass between us as though it has the potential to grow into something significant. It is as though this should be a time we both look back upon, knowing that something began here. We should, we know, be able to look back and pinpoint this time, one of these very seconds that lie between us, as the time when it all really began.

The seconds, though, grow and pass before us, and still my fingertip hesitates over your cheek as though the moment when one touches the other will be momentous, as though that one touch, gentle as it will be, will bear all the weight of what is to come.

Your head turns, almost imperceptibly towards my outstretched finger as though there is some gravity there, some attraction. We both want that moment to come, and yet we hesitate as though we know too much about the consequences such acts can bring. Both of us bear the weight of too much history as it is, and both of us know what a heavy burden such seemingly simple acts can bring with them.

So, my finger hesitates… and then falls, as your face turns away from it, and we both look back into eyes filled with regret for what might have been, but could not ever be.