Spin Cycle

Every nation seems to be struggling with national debt.  "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer." If I had a penny for every time somebody said that to me over the years, I'd be able to buy a fancy car.  But I don't drive these days.

Advertising works.  And it's everywhere: on the TV, on billboards, on the walls of public lavatories, in the newspapers, in glossy magazines ... it's everywhere.

There's something powerful in adverts that triggers desire.  The ad men are pros.  We buy things as a result and then we leave them to gather dust.  But it's good for the economy ... whatever that really is.  Sometimes, it just seems like a mechanism which transfers money from the masses to a club of elite billionaires.

Governments come and go, as do periods of boom and bust.  The cycle continues.  But eventually, the wheels might wear out.   The tyres will go bald and the wheel bearings will fail.

What happens after that is anybody's guess. 

What a State to Be In

It was like one of those old American movies where somebody got a communication and they had to travel to a house in distant and long forgotten state.

I arrived.  And, just like in the films, there were cobwebs on top of cobwebs and the dust sheets.

But, underneath it all, it was just how it had been the last time I visited.

Things have changed a lot for me, so it was comforting to come here.  Some years ago, I left my dream job in Environmental Services to take a brief secondment and entered the weird world of local taxation.  

The transition became permanent. I wish I could go back.  But I don't remember anything.

It's like the drive partition is full and the stuff I want to download won't fit unless I delete some other stuff.

Everything seems like a struggle.  I start one job, and it creates another.

I thought I had nothing left to say here. And then two things happened: a communication, and a broken peg.

And here I am, in a distant state.

Alien Encounters of the Forgotten Kind

I was late up today.

Usually the increasing hum of early morning traffic wakes me long before the alarm clock.  The sound of car engines and wheels rumbling along the road isn't an unpleasant noise to wake to.  Not once you get used to it anyway.  But even that couldn't do the job this morning.

Strange dreams kept waking me with a start throughout the night.  I dreamt of aliens.  I didn't see the flying saucers that came in my childhood recurring dream.  But I saw aliens.

I don't remember much else about the dreams.  I meant to write a note about them but forgot.

Tonight I am prepared.  Which means I probably won't dream.

But I might wake on time tomorrow.

Fish Guts

Go into any real ale pub and you will see a man (or woman) holding their drink up to the light and gazing through the glass, through the beer.

A clear beer is the sign of a good beer (with the exception of wheat beer).

But I wonder how many drinkers realise that that clarity comes from ... fish guts.

Of course, you will never be told "oh, we use fish guts to clear the beer."

No, they will tell you they use Isinglass.  That's the fancy word for fish guts.

Life Cycles (continued)

A year to the day since I last posted and nothing has changed for me, well maybe my underwear has ... a couple of times, at least.

This is largely my own doing as I am the King of Procrastinators, lover of beer and middle-aged couch potato.

Aside from taking waste out to the bin, I haven't left the house since last Friday.

When not sleeping, I've either been watching stuff I've recorded over the last few months or I've been eating.

And yet I still can't relax.

The mobile phone is the biggest curse of all.  It constantly vibrates as another comment about the weather or some lame joke comes through.

Is this a mid-life crisis?