7 days ago I fell in love. His name was Dennis. I wasn't supposed to fall in love. In fact I'd told Jenny, just before we went, not to fall in love as it would surely end in tears.
5 days ago I went back and put my name down to adopt Dennis. I met him, we spent a minute or two alone together. Dennis is ace. I filled in a form. Then they told me that I'd need a landlord's letter and a house inspection. I had always known that this would happen, but love had it's way and closed the door to things known in favor of things desired.
4 days ago I considered chasing the landlord to let me and Dennis be together.
3 days ago I realised that the stairs were probably too much for Dennis to handle. You see, Dennis only has three legs. He'd been sent there by a vet who'd had to amputate his right hind after a fracture in an accident. The description was right, and I'd seen it with my own eyes, he could still get about no problem...but I live on the second floor of a big old house with big old stairs.
2 days ago I made plans to go back and tell them to let Dennis go to another home. I left that until today, I don't know why. I thought about going to see Dennis to say goodbye. I didn't. I just said to the girl there that the landlord probably wouldn't let Dennis and I be together, and anyway he'd probably be better off living in a bungalow with a big garden.
...now, one hour hence, watching Megastructures on National Geographic, dunking Bourbons, thinking of Dennis.
Saturday 27 October 2007
Thursday 25 October 2007
Westfield & I
1. The more shops I can go into, the happier I'll be.
2. It is possible to have your soul sucked out by lighting (like in Joe Versus The Volcano)
3. I have super powers: I have the patience of an old oak, and am invisible to other pedestrians. See how they walk straight into me and carry on as if nothing has happened! See how I go on my way, having not committed murder! I am The Invisible Patience! My mission: to get out alive.
4. The Guildhall Market is Sarah Conner, Westfield is The Terminator.
These are the things I learned today, on my way to catch a bus. Thankyou Westfield.
A conversation that could happen in approx. 2028:
Interior. A bar in London. Biff is propping up the bar.
Bartender: What'll it be?
Biff: Your finest Columbo.
Bartender: What's a Columbo man?
Biff: A Columbo, man, is a Jameson's and soda, no ice, just a bit of soda.
Bartender: And why-
Biff: Because that's what the great TV detective drank.
Bartender: Columbo had Jameson's?
Biff: I don't know, whatever, that doesn't matter...
Bartender: There you go.
Biff: Cheers man. I'm sorry I got annoyed, I've lost my superpowers since being down here.
Bartender: Right. Where're you from?
Biff: Derby.
Bartender: Derby? Where's that?
Biff: It's up near Nottingham and Leicester...
Bartender: Ah, I gotcha, you mean that council estate on the outskirts of Westfield?
2. It is possible to have your soul sucked out by lighting (like in Joe Versus The Volcano)
3. I have super powers: I have the patience of an old oak, and am invisible to other pedestrians. See how they walk straight into me and carry on as if nothing has happened! See how I go on my way, having not committed murder! I am The Invisible Patience! My mission: to get out alive.
4. The Guildhall Market is Sarah Conner, Westfield is The Terminator.
These are the things I learned today, on my way to catch a bus. Thankyou Westfield.
A conversation that could happen in approx. 2028:
Interior. A bar in London. Biff is propping up the bar.
Bartender: What'll it be?
Biff: Your finest Columbo.
Bartender: What's a Columbo man?
Biff: A Columbo, man, is a Jameson's and soda, no ice, just a bit of soda.
Bartender: And why-
Biff: Because that's what the great TV detective drank.
Bartender: Columbo had Jameson's?
Biff: I don't know, whatever, that doesn't matter...
Bartender: There you go.
Biff: Cheers man. I'm sorry I got annoyed, I've lost my superpowers since being down here.
Bartender: Right. Where're you from?
Biff: Derby.
Bartender: Derby? Where's that?
Biff: It's up near Nottingham and Leicester...
Bartender: Ah, I gotcha, you mean that council estate on the outskirts of Westfield?
Slug Tape
Slugs don't often have much business inside guitars. I know this, but most of the people I've asked for the item over the last few days have looked at me strangely, then watched me leave.
I need slug tape to line the inside of my guitars so that they don't go 'hmmmmmmm' by default. Slug tape is like copper cellotape and stops RF noise from getting in. I wish I knew what that meant, but I know it happens. I also don't know why slugs don't like copper...but I imagine for them it's like chewing tin foil if you've got fillings.
Wilko's should've had it, but they've got rid of all their gardening apparel in favour of a singing Santa, barbershop reindeer, and a crooning snowman. When you walk past they start up, all singing in tune, but not with each other. The resulting din is somewhere between that bit in a tape walkman when a battery is dying in the middle of a song, and an ambulance going by as you yourself lie dying smashed tape player in hand, after being mugged and trampled by hoodlum carol singers. Doppler shift. Blood filled ears. It's not nice.
Bennett's. DIY shops. B&Q. Homebase. Hardware stalls in the market. Both markets. Electrical shops. I know slug tape exists, I'm sure of it. After a whole day of looking around for this stuff I considered giving in and just using tin foil...but I can't. Not now. I've come too far. I won't be beaten by a dancing tree with an 8-bit Christmas medley repertoire...in October.
I need slug tape to line the inside of my guitars so that they don't go 'hmmmmmmm' by default. Slug tape is like copper cellotape and stops RF noise from getting in. I wish I knew what that meant, but I know it happens. I also don't know why slugs don't like copper...but I imagine for them it's like chewing tin foil if you've got fillings.
Wilko's should've had it, but they've got rid of all their gardening apparel in favour of a singing Santa, barbershop reindeer, and a crooning snowman. When you walk past they start up, all singing in tune, but not with each other. The resulting din is somewhere between that bit in a tape walkman when a battery is dying in the middle of a song, and an ambulance going by as you yourself lie dying smashed tape player in hand, after being mugged and trampled by hoodlum carol singers. Doppler shift. Blood filled ears. It's not nice.
Bennett's. DIY shops. B&Q. Homebase. Hardware stalls in the market. Both markets. Electrical shops. I know slug tape exists, I'm sure of it. After a whole day of looking around for this stuff I considered giving in and just using tin foil...but I can't. Not now. I've come too far. I won't be beaten by a dancing tree with an 8-bit Christmas medley repertoire...in October.
At Home In Derby
Today, I awoke from the two-seater with a bent back and shrunken lungs. Breakfast would have to be bought, and followed by caffeine. ('i' before 'e', except in 'caffeine'.)
Recently, the chill autumn air has been accentuated by a breeze blowing down from the arctic. It's a nice kind of cold. The kind that needs days of darkness and lights in the sky. We're planning a trip to Iceland in April.
My love of Iceland began with a documentary about northern most Manitoba. That sealed the idea of 'wilderness' into my brain as something to be experienced. I still feel that. At about the same time, aged seventeen (and in the early hours of the morning, on channel 4), I saw a troupe of dancers dressed as angels dancing in slow motion to the most beautiful music I thought I'd ever heard. That was the video to 'Svefn-g-englar' as part of a 4music fifteen minute expo of Sigur Ros. Ever since, I've been seeking out and collecting Icelandic music.
It feels good to know that you will soon experience something you've been preparing yourself for for eight years.
Derby is my home. I feel attached to it, not by sentiment (although that plays a natural part) so much as by something historically umbilical. I'll go into that another time, or not at all. Or maybe I'll just say that it's in that small pocket of time...like in If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things' , the city takes a breath, and on more than one occasion I have found myself awake and breathing with it. Conversely, the concept of home occupies that same part of my brain as the one of wilderness, so when Sigur Ros announced that their feature length film would be called 'Heima' (meaning 'at home') and be about their homeland Iceland someone somewhere threw a stone, and two birds fell from the sky.
Like today, I'm feeling frail and walking through the brittle October weekday afternoon streets and I am in more ways than one at home.
And on the big LCD screen Sigur Ros are playing at the Electric Proms.
And the bleak bare market square echoes strings and falsetto notes.
And I breathe in.
And I breathe out.
Then I buy breakfast.
Recently, the chill autumn air has been accentuated by a breeze blowing down from the arctic. It's a nice kind of cold. The kind that needs days of darkness and lights in the sky. We're planning a trip to Iceland in April.
My love of Iceland began with a documentary about northern most Manitoba. That sealed the idea of 'wilderness' into my brain as something to be experienced. I still feel that. At about the same time, aged seventeen (and in the early hours of the morning, on channel 4), I saw a troupe of dancers dressed as angels dancing in slow motion to the most beautiful music I thought I'd ever heard. That was the video to 'Svefn-g-englar' as part of a 4music fifteen minute expo of Sigur Ros. Ever since, I've been seeking out and collecting Icelandic music.
It feels good to know that you will soon experience something you've been preparing yourself for for eight years.
Derby is my home. I feel attached to it, not by sentiment (although that plays a natural part) so much as by something historically umbilical. I'll go into that another time, or not at all. Or maybe I'll just say that it's in that small pocket of time...like in If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things' , the city takes a breath, and on more than one occasion I have found myself awake and breathing with it. Conversely, the concept of home occupies that same part of my brain as the one of wilderness, so when Sigur Ros announced that their feature length film would be called 'Heima' (meaning 'at home') and be about their homeland Iceland someone somewhere threw a stone, and two birds fell from the sky.
Like today, I'm feeling frail and walking through the brittle October weekday afternoon streets and I am in more ways than one at home.
And on the big LCD screen Sigur Ros are playing at the Electric Proms.
And the bleak bare market square echoes strings and falsetto notes.
And I breathe in.
And I breathe out.
Then I buy breakfast.
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