Tuesday 21 December 2010

Don't touch the monk's junk

This page has been fallow for a little while. After our freezing gig at Le Bateau I have been a wheezing snotty wreck of a man. And I have not had the mental capacity (admittedly it does not take an awful lot of mental capacity) to do a blog.

So here goes. Firstly I will assemble some subject matter in my head; the death of Captain Beefheart, the Lunar Eclipse on the shortest day for the first time in 400 years, a Steve Strange and Margi Clark duet, my lack of appropriate footwear for the current weather conditions, the interesting structure of bacteriophages, Aleister Crowley and the kids from Fame.

Secondly I will jumble all of that up and come up with some tripe or other.

Apparently Aleister Crowley advocated that his disciples practice control over their thoughts, speech and actions by choosing something they regularly do and not doing it, using the word “of” for instance, or turning left or thinking about sea urchins. The examples are mine, not Crowley’s, so they are not to be thought of as “the most evil examples in Britain”.

Upon finding out this interesting nugget of information I thought “that seems like a lark” and resolved to not do 3 three things for the space of 24 hours. These three things were, not going on Facebook, not using the word “oven” and not thinking about gardening. These might seem inconsequential and pointless things to you and you would be right. I wanted a quick win.

My 24 hour boycott of Facebook was simple. The probability of Facebook improving my mood at any given moment is probably less than 3%. The chance of it giving me a vague sense of insignificance is higher at 13%. The maths told me to do it, so I did. As a result when I checked my status the following day I saw that Captain Beefheart had died. I felt somehow responsible. So I blamed Crowley.

Not saying the word “oven” was, I admit, not the most challenging thing I could have picked. Not thinking about gardening was also fairly straightforward. I managed to stand in my kitchen and look out of the window at the garden for a substantial amount of time with neither of these things occurring. Then again I often stand in the kitchen looking out of the window for substantial periods of time without anything happening at all so I am not sure what this is indicative of. Something of occult significance probably. I blame Crowther.

The garden is under a good layer of snow at the moment, as is the rest of Liverpool, or so I am told. Where there is no snow there is ice. I have only seen one person fall over so far and that was a small child who did it very well, I doubt Buster Keaton could have done it better. When people fall over my first reaction is to feel very concerned for them. On the one hand this means that I am a good person, full of the milk of human kindness, aware of the plight of my fellow humans, a noble spirit, a good man. Nay, a God.

On the other hand it means that I miss out on laughing at people falling over, which, so I am told, is was of the oldest pleasure known to man. Given the fact that I am so good and caring and loving and wonderful and divine I want other people to experience the pleasure of watching people fall over even though I cannot experience it myself. To this end I have always neglected to buy myself appropriate footwear for this kind of weather. Consequently I increase the chances of me falling over and other people having a good laugh at my expense. At this time of year, when there are a lot of people who are suffering because they hate Christmas, you have to spread a little joy. I blame Cromwell.

What have I got left? Lunar eclipse, Steve and Margi, bacteriophages and the kids from Fame.

Right. This morning there was a Lunar Eclipse. It was the shortest day. The two have not coincided for 400 years. The last time this happened the day after the Metropolitan of Goa limited the Pastoral Jurisdiction of Nazranies to Malabar and one hundred and seventy three years and one day lafter that George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland. Wheels within wheels…..

Which leads us to the Mashemon Christmas Outing. We had a very good time. We witnessed Steve Strange singing with Margi Clark. I also witnessed Mike dancing like the kids from Fame.

All that leaves is the bateriophage. Here is a picture:



Merry Christmas.