Mileage

“I'm at the airport, an hour between my flights, and I wander
into the duty free at the airport to buy some Captain Blue;
rum’s my drink, not scotch or gin, it’s rum. I know my limit on
rum. I know if I’ve had three, I’ll fall on my arse, four and I’ll
be doing card tricks at the bar. So I buy this rum and I put it
in my carrier bag with my Pentax and my Casio. Everyone I
know is in my Casio, hundreds of names and addresses. I meet
the girl at the airport; now she’s one of these people who thinks
I’m 10 years older than I am, and I think I’m 10 years younger.
So she’s pushing me into the car, hurrying me along, not listening
to anything I'm saying, and she takes my bag off me and puts it
in the back. We leave, and there’s a bang, I think nothing of it
until I can smell rum, everywhere, like we’re in some stinking bar
or something. So I start to shout for her to stop the car, but she
won’t, won’t even listen to me, just keeps going on about getting
me home and getting some food inside me. When we finally arrive
I pull out the bag, and everything’s swimming in rum. My Casio’s
floating, my camera won’t open and the film won’t rewind. The
last pictures I took of my son are on that camera, so I got under
the bed and pulled out the film. I couldn’t see it without any light,
but I could feel it. It felt like the whole roll was ruined.
I still haven’t got it developed.”

The times they are a fryin'

And I thought I was lazy... Nuh huh, compared to a fish fryer I'm a beaver with a backlog. Chippies contain the laziest of all lazies ever to be found lazing anywhere in the world. They excel at it, with their uniformly fat stained aprons, omniscient fag ash and Worzel Gummidge straw hair. Obviously at some point they decided to knuckle down and put some real effort into their laziness, because it's not a casual disregard for work, it's a nationwide conspiracy throwing the away the fetters of an honest and hard-working society and trampling all over the common man. I am the common man. And I want chips! How come they have it so easy? They don't even have opening times, they have frying times! A change of one word, and suddenly they decide to open their doors a mere 3 hours a day! Unbelievable. I go along at 2pm and they're closed! 2pm couldn't be more lunchtime! I asked one, and they said they like to close in the afternoon. Literally, after noon. What kind of tax break system is that. I say we organise the masses and storm the seafront! rise up and reclaim the fritters! lock them away with their own pickled eggs! So who's with me?

Ping!

Microwave cooking is tough work
Just look at the directions:
'Peel back film lid, stir, and recover'

p.s. I had an alternative post for today
but it's a little bit rude, so I censored it
if you want to read it, you can click here

Bored of Blog

I was re-reading my last post, man... it's kinda dull. Who wants to know about my train journeys? Sure it was relatively interesting for me at the time, but it definitely lost something in the retelling. Even though it's on a train it's pedestrian. Likewise, the co-incident wasn't really that out of the ordinary, hardly worth noting. That's the problem with this blog; I get fed up talking about my everyday life, it ends up just looking weird. I was waltching home through the snow just now, thinking about this as I smushed the slush. In and of itself, snow is one of the most magical events. It pisses me off that the sight of these little feathers floating down from the great overhead fan in the sky is far and above any magical effect I will ever create. Dognamit. The same goes for words, I'm not sure I'm getting anywhere here.

Reading Immaterial

I just had the most full on journey home. After staggering out of Pina Bausch, emotionally bewildered, I stuck my walkman on and hit the tube. Looking up I saw a couple hugging each other, rocking with drunken laughter. Five minutes later I look back and they're still hugging. I give it a minute and glance again, and the man has tears down his face. Not happy tears. I jolt and reassess. In her hands is a program from a funeral, a photo on the front of a guy in his 20's. The woman is heaving with sobs, her ribs crashing together, collapsed in his arms, he wipes away his tears and hers, and clutches her tight. The whole scene is played out to my Nicola Conte album looping 'you are my sunshine' over and over. I get off the tube and head for the overground. Bored standing I read over shoulders. One girl is reading 'Why Men Love Bitches: from Doormat to Dreamgirl'. The excerpt I read is amazing, and I start laughing, a girl catches my eye who's been shoulder-reading too and we laugh together. The guy next to her is reading 'Solution Orientated Hypnosis', and he's scrawled formulas in pencil all over the book. It's pretty creepy. I make a note of his description in case of any possible Crimewatch appearances.

forana

'...I am unbalanced; every morning I wake up and fall out of bed, hop on a tube, skip lunch, twist arms, grab coffee and catch the bus.

I need to be alone for a while. People watch me, they come to watch me, and I need to be alone for a while. Sometimes I wake early, before anyone else, and I catch the very first tube train. I go to the busy city, the business city, the busiest part I can find, but before, so it is not yet busy, and I wait in the street I know will be the busiest. I stand still and slowly the rush hour crowd begins to flow around me, stronger and stronger, but I do not move, people bump and push past me, but I stay quiet, a pebble in the river. It can be a very nice thing.

Loneliness? I think it is bad for you to be lonely, because then you have a need of a somebody all the time. You are craving a someone all the time. You are like ooof. You should enjoy that moment of peace. Be at peace, not in pieces. You should have solitude. Solitude is not loneliness, it is quieter, and not so excitable. I feel I often have solitude. More than loneliness? They mingle I think, red socks in a white wash.' [more]

Co-Incident

How weird is this: Yesterday, on Valentine's day, I was booked for a gig by a guy who's surname was Valentine. What are the chances eh? I'm looking forward to Pancake day...

Not write

Today I finished the 2nd draft of Whole. 19,185 words. Now
I am sick of words, sentences and turning points.
I am sick of good clean clinical punctuation
i am sick of capitalising all of my i's
i am sick of spelling correktly
i sick of good grammer
i sick of type
i sick

Stuff happens

'there is no memory that time does not erase,
no pain not ended by death' -- Don Quixote to Sancho Panza

which gives me a great hope that one day, far far in the future, I shall no longer remember how truly terrible, how mind-bendingly awful, how unfeasibly shockingly atrocious Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason actually was. It was like watching ferrets drown, but in a really really bad way.

sadly it also means that one day I'll forget the amazement of Shockheaded Peter, Mulholland Drive, and One.

a small price to pay.

Home Truths

Apparently this is true:

Debby Mills-Newbroughton, 99 years old, was killed as she crossed the road. She was to turn 100 the next day, but crossing the road with her daughter to go to her own birthday party her wheelchair was hit by the truck delivering her birthday cake.

Apparently this is false:

At some point in my life things will change; I'll be different, I'll wake up happy. Fully matured, I'll bloom magnificently into the person I've wistfully wished to be, always in control, never controlled. I'll meet the girl who'll complete me, who'll improve me, who'll move me. I'll have fufilling relationships, I'll earn enough, there'll be no bad habits, only positive learning experiences. My career will be an expression of my person rather than the definition. I'll love freely, being freely loved.

There and back again

The way there

The train pulls into Crystal Palace. It's a longer stay than is necessary and after a few minutes I begin to get bored. Looking up from my book and I stare out of the window at... a badger? Lying on a small grassy section between the tracks is a full size badger, flat out on it's back, a paw on it's chest and one raised to its head. It takes me a while to realise it's dead rather than snoozing, as it doesn't have a mark on it. Looks like old age, or perhaps he caught a badger anerism caused by a train running on time. Perhaps he just got bored of being a badger. I always felt Kenneth Grahame glamourised the life a little.

The way back

I'm reading the book alluded to earlier. I'm definitely reading it. It's Henry Nouwen's Reaching Out, a friend lent it to me and it's so good, the best. So I'm reading it, definitely, definitely reading it; I'm trying to underline the point here that I am 100% sure I was reading the book, and 100% sure it was on the train. So anyway, I daydream for a bit and when it comes to my stop I look down and I'M NO LONGER HOLDING THE BOOK!!! It's vanished. Seriously, just vanished. I definitely had it, and it's definitely vanished. I check the sides, under the seat, over the seat. Nowhere to be seen. This is like the bath plug again, but without the solution. I stagger off the train into the soggy air. That book held a key for me, so now I'm lost. The only possible explanation I have is that the guy next to me stole the book from my lap. Weird but possibly true? Only one man knows, and hopefully he'll be a little more enlightened by now, so might return it.

Rubber Ducky

I've started taking baths again. That doesn't mean I haven't washed for a while, it's just that I've always preferred showering as opposed to wallowing in your own dirty water. However baths can be quite nice on occasion, so this morning, as I woke early and had no real reason to rush, I thought I'd run one. I went to put the plug in the bath, and stopped dead. It didn't fit anymore. It fitted yesterday, and the day before, and every day previously for the last 22 years, but today it's too small. THE PLUG IS TOO SMALL! I check I've got the right plug, I have. I check it's not the sink plug, it isn't. I double check it's the bath plug, it couldn't be more. I look to see if the plughole is gunked up with hair and muck, nope all clear. Yet somehow the plug no longer fits. It starts to freak me out, to really freak me out. Someone's broken in last night and ever so slightly enlarged our bath, or maybe they've shrunk the plug which would be easier. I decide I'm imagining it, so I run the bath and get in, but after a few minutes the water level has dropped below my... err thighs... and this is not all in my mind. I give the plughole one final rummage and find the strangest thing - an upside down lid, clear plastic, the exact, perfect, 100% precise fit of the plughole. To the millimetre man. It makes you stop and think. At some point we've bought some mystery product which just happened to be capped with a lid of portentous proportions which then somehow fell off when it was in or near the bathroom, rolled into said bath, landing upside down in the plughole, indiscernibly blocking it. What are the chances of that?

Dancing Monkeys

I know many, many readers all lie awake each night thinking 'sure, John's blog is pretty gosh darn funny/poignant/incredible, but shucks, what's he really like as a person? In the flesh? Boy, if only I could live to see him perform; golly, then my life would truly be complete.' Well, guess what kids? You guys can come and watch me work. And not just me, but others even more talented than myself! (It is possible, just.) We're launching 'bigger than ME', a monthly evening of individuals collecting. They'll be music, magic, monologues, and mmm-comedy. People will talk of it for years, so be there. Our first stop is Battersea, Sunday 13th of February @ 7.30pm, 2 Crosland Place, Taybridge Road, SW11 5PJ. If you'd like more information, just give me a call on 07802 770 966, unless you are a crazy person who's just stumbled on this site, then please don't call me but still feel free to come along.

High Coup

i'm a little shaken up
today i had my first out of body experience
i was beside myself