Look North

Had an unexpected day today; chaos theory in action. The batteries ran out of my illicit MP3 player as I walked towards peasholm park on my afternoon rounds, diverting me to that shop on the corner in search of batteries. This set me back 5 minutes, and as the afternoon play finished on Radio 4 a red scooter sped past me and crashed square into the side of a ford fiesta. The driver looped up in the air, then landed, then stood up, then collapsed. Oh shit! He was ok though, and I got to feel vaguely important (but obviously not as important as when protecting council revenue) directing the traffic so all of 3 directions of traffic (it was at the t junction near atlantis and peasholm) didn’t wait too long. I had to hang around to give a statement and share two cigarettes with a Man from the AA which put me back further. When I finally got to scalby mills and started checking tickets there were 3 girls in a car, skinning up, with no ticket. Advised them of the score (0-0) and just as I walked away the rain intensified loads and suddenly sheets of rain were hitting me so I ran back and, for the first time in a whole day of periodically intense showers, had a friendly car to sit in for 10 minutes at the end of my shift. Then the miniture railway to Corner café, a slightly surreal conversations with a open top bus driver and his supervisor, then off on the bus back to base. But then, around the marine drive, who should we see but that weatherman off look north!! Paul someone. And the waves were BIG today, and it was nearly high tide with the occasional splash over the side, so the bus driver slowed down so we could have a look. Then as I looked through the window, seeing everything with a happy sheen, a MASSIVE wave came and drenched everything and everyone including him and his van!! And the WHOLE of the side of the bus, QUALITY!! So me and the driver were pissing ourselves and all these other people in the back-tourists- are like ‘you shouldn’t laugh you know its not very nice“

Saw lizzie last night, was really nice, and realised I needed to do some stoned pseudo-epic ranting. Make the unforgivable statement that, in conversation, I was funnier than her but she had the better points to make J, funnily enough her rebuttal was complete. Think perhaps just smoking less weed is making me feel a bit non-plussed with everything, but that will pass and am actually quite happy I know what it is. I think all my outside influences recently have been a bit negative or at least reflective (turning 20, being a wage slave, back in my childhood him (and the fact I can now say ‘childhood home’ cos I ain’t a child), nick drake, lauren), not least fucking

a)almost open civil war in Iraq now
b) Lebanon/Palestine

I think maybe at some time in the future Tony Blair will be like ‘ok, clearly Iraq is a more dangerous, unstable and unliveable now than pre-invasion (even if he says this in 10 years), and clearly it was foreseeable, and I am sorry’ and I will still want to beat him over and over and over till I run out of energy and collapse, crying, on top of him. How can Blair and Britain allow America to perpetrate these atrocities in the name of the dollar bill?

And ever half hour on the radio I had John Reid in my ear using words like ‘massacre’ and ‘indefinite critical state’ and Bush calling the potential bombers ‘muslim fascists’. I think Reid is doing like Thatcher and seizing the role of Parental Statesman facing the enemy with unerring resolution whilst Blair is on holiday and Prescott is shamefaced. Paxman once called Reid Labour’s ‘all purpose attack dog’, and it seems to fit him perfectly.

Finally, a nice email from my ’new’ auntie Yvonne had a bit of an annoyance as its finale along the lines of ‘make more of an effort to bond with your dad’. like giving a chicken miracle grow.

Ciao
Ben