Dear diary,
Why oh why oh why oh why?
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Thoughts
For a while now, I have been toying with the idea of starting a new religion.
It isn’t that I feel inadequately provided for or spiritually bereft in any way, neither am I living in purgatory or suffering any kind moral agony – it is simply that I think the time is right for a creed that is innovative, clean and fresh.
I am as entitled as the next man to invent and describe the divine and I am tempted to do so sometime in the near future. But, for the time being at least, my theological course – and indeed the very nature of my beliefs, is slightly inchoate.
I have no idea what the ethos of my religion will be, what fundamental elements it will encompass, what it will be called, or to what universal truths it will eventually aspire, only that it will endeavour to be benign, compassionate and all-embracing. More significantly, it will be uncorrupted by centuries of extremism and abuse.
My religion will be liberal and civilised and ultimately objective in essence, unlike most of the established faiths which seem to me to be handicapped by atavistic barbarism.
Love is all you need. Who’s in?
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This morning I encountered the scruffy old woman I often see pushing her little baby doll around the village in a broken pushchair. She did not have her constant companion with her on this occasion, and, hobbling along with her face to the ground, she seemed to be in some distress. As I drew closer, I could see that she was crying.
Being the Good Samaritan that I am, I stopped to check that she was alright and to ask her if there was anything I could do to help her. ‘Where’s your little friend today?’ I asked, pointing to the empty space in front of her.
She was shaking. She didn’t look at me. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she said softly, ‘he died.’
She put out her hand as if to touch my arm then quickly retracted it and stuffed it into the pocket of her long coat. She seemed about to look up into my eyes but thought better of it and began to shuffle off in the direction of the market place.
‘Wait! Where are you going?’ I called after her.
‘Shop. Got to get me vodka an’ me nuts an’ me fags.’
I let her go.
Sometimes I feel as if I am the subject of some kind of psychological test or scientific experiment being conducted by some higher authority. I imagine several frowning beings sitting in their antiseptic laboratory, observing me intently while fastidiously scribbling notes into a journal.
I wonder how I scored today.
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I am so happy today. I received an email this morning from an American company informing me that all my problems were solved.
On further investigation, however, I realised that their claim was slightly more specific and referred more to the size of my manhood rather than offering a panacea for all the things that trouble me.
‘Your penis will make more shadow than a tree’ it says in the email. I am not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Yes, I would love to increase the size of my honourable member, but to the size of a tree? Hmm . . . I can imagine certain difficulties arising from time to time. Unless, of course, the tree-size they have in mind is that of a very young sapling with a thick trunk. If that were the case, I am sure that this one thing alone would lead to many improvements in all areas of my life.
God bless you, American penis-enlarging companies – Britain needs you!
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Innovative government regulations threaten to consign the traditional travelling circus to the history books. Many clowns and much-loved performing animals are having to be pensioned off because of tough new rules.
I was so pleased when I learned today of the introduction of a proposed ban on animals in circuses in the UK. Many are obviously poorly treated and abused – even if embittered circus owners would have us believe otherwise.
I think it is also a marvellous development that clowns, too, are facing financial ruin because of the new licensing. They only have themselves to blame: clowns just aren’t funny. Some people find them to be rather frightening; I think they are merely irritating and annoying. Good riddance to the lot of them.
I am reminded of an old joke. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: ‘Does this taste funny to you?’
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Nelson has been blogging about how good he is at worrying. Well, we are cut from the same cloth; and this is evidenced by how remarkably talented yours truly is in this respect, too.
What I find most worrying is the fact that, generally speaking, Nelson and I are both fully aware that we are worrying completely unnecessarily about most things, but still we cannot desist. I am worried that I simply worry too much. I am reminded at this point by something very pertinent that is reported to have been said by Mark Twain: ‘I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.’ It is comforting to know that I am not alone in my Worry Hell.
Today I am agonising over the fact that I cannot think of anything to write about. I am wringing my hands and grinding my teeth in nervous desperation as I sit here staring at a blank monitor. My eager little cursor is blinking away and its full of thrill and tiny anticipation coming at the big delight what I am about to make it do on the waiting page. See! That last sentence was awful. Now I am worried that I can no longer write proper.
The problem with writing a post everyday is that, when I am very busy, I sometimes cannot find the time to blog; and when there is nothing happening, there is nothing to write about. You see my dilemma here? This is when one is prone to writing meaningless drivel – like today. (Like every day. – Ed.)
It is also easy to fall into the trap of writing about blogging – which is a totally redundant concept, rather like writing songs about mixing desks.
Oh, wait . . . something popped into my mind there for a second . . . no, sorry, it’s gone.
Inspiration is a cruel and capricious mistress. She often fails to visit, especially when you really need her. And I certainly need her right now. I’m just not very clever. I haven’t got Brains, you see. Only grey fluff that’s blown into my head by mistake.
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There was a huge queue of elderly investors outside the branch of the Northern Rock bank on the market place this morning. It stretched all the way along the High Street to the Co-op on the corner.
The bank has been in the news recently because it has more or less gone bust. Even though the Bank of England has given a guarantee to Northern Rock’s customers that their money is safe, they are still determined to withdraw every last penny from their accounts as any confidence they previously had in the company has now completely vanished.
For some unknown reason, the long queue was made up mostly of badly-dressed old people. The pavement was a neat and tidy sea of beige and lilac. They knew that were doomed to be there all day and some had come prepared with deckchairs, cucumber sandwiches and flasks of milky tea. I felt particularly sorry for one little old lady at the back who was there to actually make a deposit of £5 into her account. She was going to have a long wait.
What puzzled me was, how, if they were going to be there all day, they were all going to be able to empty their weak bladders on a regular basis. There is no public toilet in the village. To my horror, I did notice that one or two of them had clearly visible damp patches beginning to appear on their nylon slacks. The weather is very clement today and I am sure that some ripe and musky odours will begin to emanate from that area of the parish by teatime.
The English are so agreeable and polite when forced to queue like this. If such a line formed in some other, rather less refined country such as Cuba, for instance, I am sure that there would be assorted items of street furniture being regularly tossed through shop windows accompanied by sporadic outbreaks of acute violence. That is not to say I consider my compatriots to be pathetic and docile; we just seem to be so orderly and sophisticated when the situation demands it.
Allowing myself a last, cursory glance at the charming congregation in front of us, I mentioned to Audrey that I was tempted to go home, put on my big, woolly leg-warmers, and return to prance up and down the line, singing and dancing with limbs outstretched – like Bruno, or one of the other Kids from Fame – to keep the old biddies in the queue entertained and to demonstrate to them my sympathy and support. She gave me one of her looks and I decided against it.
On the Fantastic hi-fi today:
Lady Soul – Aretha Franklin
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