Sorry

No updates yesterday for a variety of reasons, but really coming down to “not in the mood”.

Normal service will be resumed ASAP.

Snoozy

Can I just say that working on the ins and outs of an ASP Content Management System on two hours sleep really isn’t much fun.

And yes, I’m using the wonderful British habit of stating the fecking obvious…

Quick, Easy, Nutritious

When you get home at nearly half past ten, having had naff all to eat since noon, what’s the best thing to go for?

Fish finger sandwiches

God, I feel almost human again.

Now that’s what I call comic relief

Sometimes, some things are just too sublime for words. Anthea Turner and her partner getting robbed of £40,000 while watching Comic Relief is one of the better ones. Talk about ironic…

Major Arcana Blues

As most of the regular readers will be aware, I do tarot readings on occasions, both for myself and for others. One thing I try to avoid doing with it is readings for very close friends, for people where I know them well and can be seen as “tailoring” readings to suit what I know they want. However sometimes I still do the reading, but make sure that the friend knows I’ll be reading from the cards, not the knowledge.

Doing a reading today for one of my closest friends was one of the hardest readings I’ve ever had to do. Everything about it related to things I knew – and trying to see a clear meaning through it, trying to divorce the level of knowledge from what the cards were telling me – and failing, because they were so parallel. For the first time ever, it left me with a card reading that I didn’t want to interpret honestly, because of what it portrayed. The outcome was one that involved struggle, major life changes, and it won’t be easy – and I truly didn’t want to say about it.

In the end I did do the reading honestly, going through it all to the best of my abilities. It wouldn’t have been fair to lie or to avoid parts of the reading, regardless of the extra information I had in my possession – but I hated doing so on a number of levels, not least just because of the depths of work and struggle that the reading represented.

It won’t stop me from doing readings – as it turned out, there’ve been other readings that have said much the same, so rather than being the bearer of news, my role was more as a confirmer of it. But it’s a long time since I’ve been that affected by a reading – and in many ways I hope it’s a long time until I’m affected at that level by another one.

17.50 from Scrote-ville

*Written on the laptop
Travelling back home, I’m on the train, and it seems to be filled with mouthy fuckwits. I must be getting older, or something.

With regard to the foursome sitting on the table opposite mine, I simply don’t give a stuff about the whys and wherefores of your car’s breaking down on the A47, which is why you’re now going home on the train. The fact you’ve spent the last thirty minutes yelling down your mobile phone to your mother about how it’s “embarassing” to not have been rung back, how if it had been Laura she’d have been called back, and whether they should have still gone out for the meal or not is all utterly irrelevant. I find it hard to believe you’re not utterly embarassed at the display you’re making, and the way your children appear to have free reign to fight each other while your idiot partner does fuck all to help – for me all of those things would be perceived as embarassing, but then again, I probably wouldn’t be broadcasting it all at a level that can be heard by at least two thirds of the occupants of the carriage.

As for the bunch of pubescent schoolgirls, squealing and giggling at what appears to be their first trip away from home (“Yes, mummy, I’ll call you when we get there. Yes Daddy, I’ll be good”) I’m already considering compulsory ballgags for all travelling groups of under-16s unaccompanied by an adult. Please God, you’re only travelling one stop. It’s not often I consider intense prayer as a method of alleviating problems, but in this case I’m prepared to make an exception.

However, for comic effect, I’ve been sat opposite a besuited educator. I can tell he’s involved in education because of the Music exams he’s marking – Sherlock Holmes would be proud. He’s sighing and rolling his eyes, either at the noise from the aformentioned groups, or at some of the items he’s marking. The real joy comes when someone else’s mobile phone rings close by, with it’s stylised Rolf Harris stylophone rendition of Toccata and Fugue. (the Nokia remix) On journeys like this, you get your laughs where you find them.

There are several other groups worthy of mention, but for now I’ll be good/restrained. This piece may be upgraded and/or edited if the journey gets worse, but for now I’m going to simply allow myself to journey away with the Talahassee album by the Mountain Goats. I am truly thankful for the joys of MP3.

Dante may have summed up the Inferno for the Middle Ages with it’s multiple levels of Hell, but he had absolutely no idea of the purgatory that is a Central Trains service on a Sunday evening.

Mini-hiatus

And now a probable small pause in normal service – I’m off seeing friends in Cambridge. Things may be added, but don’t hold your breath. Back on Sunday.