Monday 12th of March, 2001
I wake up with a crick in my shoulder, probably from spending the entire weekend slouching on the sofa like a great hideous doll-thing. This makes Sitting interesting, particularly since I am trying to sit closer to the ground. I've a feeling my legs weren't made for sitting cross-legged. I manage to avoid pins-and-needles in my left leg, but I'm jolly uncomfortable. Perhaps this means that I'm doing the right thing. Or alternatively that I'm doing the wrong thing. I am aware of tensions in my body and try to straighten them out, immediately getting messages from my shoulder that it doesn't like that.
The crick makes for a useful Pointed Stick, though ∆ I am very aware of all the movements that I make, and try to do them with as much awareness as I can muster. Already this is an improvement over the last few days' slumber. After breakfast I realise that I feel a lot more awake than I have recently.
I discover that there was a very complimentary message sent a couple of days before I went to Sassoferrato (and therefore A Lifetime Ago) on the Garageband.com BBS system) about Iodine. Because no on ever sends me messages on that thing, I did not even think to look and missed it completely. I frame a reply that aplogises for the delay, and point the sender towards ... well ... this website. If you are that person, hello, and welcome to an example of the observer observing themself at a disance. Hofstater covers it in The Mind's I.
Get the life thing back on course ∆ shave, get washing together, clean the kitchen, make a mental note of what shopping I need, that sort of thing.
I manage to get to the gym for a bit of treadmillery. The S Club Seven Christmas/Children in Need single is still on MTV ∆ it'll soon be spring, looking quite old hat now. It has the most absurd opening couplet, but I can't remember what it is.
Thence to the supermarket, where I try to stock up with all the things I'll need ∆ big bag o' pasta, months' worth of coffee, yoghurt, bread flour ∆ but knowing that I'll be back again soon ∆ I'm bound to have forgotten something. Damn! Muesli ∆ I need to get some... stop laughing at me. Muesli is important. What would I do for breakfast without muesli?
Have toast?
Putting the shopping away, I arrange the yoghurt in date order, with the latest Best Before stamp at the back. I'm quite scared at the fact that I'm becoming the kind of person who is likely to do this.
On to Walkers, where I spend a few contented if not happy hours drawing up a cutter guide for a box ∆ I have to dissect a mock-up in order to get the measurements, a sort of cardboard box autopsy thing.
On the way out, Amanda at reception is being driven mad by the burglar alarm on the (unoccupied?) building over the street, which has been bleeping, on and off, for an hour and a half. It is both unbearably loud and deeply irritating. The environmental health won't do anything because they can't until 10:00pm; the police won't do anything because there hasn't actually been a break-in. I decide to keep my suggestion (That someone go out there and lob a half-brick at it to shut it up) to myself, since she would probably think I was joking. She's just given up smoking a couple of days ago. I know how that feels.
Home, Dinner, Archers. Roy is being firm with Lucas (Lukas?) over Phoebe going to South Africa with Kate. Bert Fry is going to have to go to stay with David and Ruth Archer because of the Foot and Mouth ∆ it's actually quite impressive the speed with which they've managed to work that into the storyline.
The avocados that were ready to eat when I bought them on Friday are more than ready to eat when I get to them. In fact it looks like they're so ready they started without me.
I like the new Momus
thought about classical composers. For example:
It's true, of course ∆ I've always felt that some commentators are a bit sniffy about Bach because they feel he didn't suffer enough for "greatness". Nonsense of course. I like the idea of him being an organ tester ∆ I'll have to find out more about that.
A Happy Bird Is a Filthy Bird by Robyn Hitchcock, from Moss Elixir comes on the CD player. So good I have to play it twice. One of my worst oversights in recent years has been failing to get his Jewels for Sophia album. After my excursion on Friday I suppose I ought to leave it for a bit. I don't suppose I could ask for a moratorium on good new CDs until I've caught up? I thought not. Actually, I should catch up with myself and put 69 Love Songs on.
In the Sickbay by Slapp Happy comes on and demands the same treatment as the Robyn H. In fact I play it three times. How marvellous and delicate parts of Desperate Straights are. And so European. Apparantly it's the only thing Dagmar wrote for SH. I remember trying to remember what it was at last year's QEH gig ∆ one of those odd occasions, where you're trying to drink everything in for fear that you'll not get another chance. Since it was only Slapp Happy's second UK gig ever (in nearly thirty years of intermittent existence), that was not beyond possibility. Now I have almost everything by them (except Camera, and they'll probably dig something else out soon, and a good thing too) I have to say they are one of the Best Kept Secrets of left-field pop, and entirely cherishable.
And you can quote me on that, if you feel like it.
The Booklovers by The Divine Comedy. Shan't repeat it, but all the same, very fine.