The Only People Bleeding Are Us

High Low, Silver Lining...

I'm having a bit of a heart attack.

All the low lows, mid lows, lows, and high lows are all intact, thanks very much.

And even some low highs and high highs.

No problem there. In the bank.

At ease.

But that jumbo bucket o'guts staring at me from the corner of the harbour has been overflowing for a while now.

And I'm this close to giving the fucker a running kick.

This close.

It'd make me feel a whole lot better. Absolutely no doubt. But I'm also so very aware that I'm also so very likely, so very likely, to go slipping on my arse.

Maybe land on my bum and after the inability to exhale has passed, come round, a little bruised, wipe off the guts and move on.

But my boots are a little worn down, only fit for pootling around the harbour walls shouting at the gulls and my wallet isn't padded enough to cushion the fall, so I'm more concerned that I'm more likely to suffer a more undignified fate.

You know. Miss the bucket altogether and end up in the harbour.

Put my foot in the bucket and slide into the harbour.

Slip, slide, head into the bucket.

Into the harbour.

Slippity, slop.

Splash.

...

Who's Paying The Bill?

Just wondering who's going to count the numbers attending the Police demonstration today?

As a rule, the Met normally cut about three quarters off the organisers' estimate.

Applying this criteria could mean that if 15,000 actually did turn up, they'd first give an organiser total of 3,750 and then the working Police would argue that only 937 turned out.

During the last demo I attended I overheard three of the Met's finest apologising to drivers stuck in traffic that "a bunch of students are blocking the road again". It was all so quaint and Eighties and especially funny as it was clearly they who were blocking the road with, er, police road blocks.

Ah, demonstrations, what memories: being penned into Oxford Circus for six hours under the Riot Act to prevent 'the possibility' of trouble; charged by mounted police while sat down eating a sandwich in Hyde Park; watching a Holocaust surviver having to clamber over a collapsed cemetery wall to escape a battening; charged by mounted police, from behind, while walking to our coach in Welling; and constantly being funneled individually through Police lines to be filmed and photographed for doing nothing but attending officially recognised protests...

I'm sure it'll be just the same for them today.

And what a pity, as if they're a little short-handed I'm sure there would have been plenty of ex-miners or maybe Toxteth and Brixton residents up for popping down and giving them a hand with the stewarding? It's their taxes that pay their wages after all...

Hmmm?

No?

Suit yourselves...

All The News That's Fit To Print?

'Led Zep Storm London'
'TV Star Bites Homeless Man'

Another 4am Start...

It's 5am and I'm being helped along with my early morning insomnia by a flagged-up but non the less it-is-5-in-the-fucking-morning brick filtered bass from a party next door.

I'm staying positive however (although Monday morning might prove another matter).

So how have I been whiling away the wee hours?

Eventually finished watching The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada!

I knew from the first trailer I'd love it and not sure how it took me so long to get round to watching it. All the right mix of Americana, male angst and road movie.

And Dwight Yoakam and Levon Helm anyone? Two really great performances - let alone Melissa Leo and Mr Lee Jones himself.

Here's Levon in one of his two scenes:



And Dwight Yoakam and Melissa Leo:



And here they are doing their regular thing:

The Band with The Staple Singers: 'The Weight'
(Levon's on the drums)



Dwight Yoakam: 'Intentional Heartache'

There But For Fortune

I'm walking up Regent Street to work in the mornings lately. This week at 7.30ish. Just in time to catch sight of the homeless guys sleeping in the Posh Shop doorways.

It's a terrible cliche but I wander along with my iPod tinkling away, maybe about to spend £3.49 on a carrot and ginger smoothie thing or £1.79 on a latte or £2.20 on coffee and toast or £3 something on a bagel or nearly £6 on a pack of Marlboros.

I'm suffering a hangover from an unexpected night of 5 pints of £3 odd beer and a £1.89 sausage pasty thing and used a £14 rail-card. I'll spend maybe £4 on Boots sushi at lunchtime and a good chance of a couple more coffees.

I've got to get round to sending back a dud piece of £30 RAM to Crucial, pay an overdue NI contribution, a credit card bill, rent and swap a £13 CD at HMV.

And I saunter past these fellas in the doorways in the morning feeling little more than a passing anger aimed somewhere between Top Shop and Western Capitalism that soon fades back into the everyday background drone.

The frustrating thing is that I feel it doesn't frustrate me enough.

Slippery When Wet

Ok, so in other train related news, what on earth is going on when a
train station built in the centre of London has to shut some of it's
entrances when it rains?

The ever lovely Charing Cross had a whole entrance closed and another
on some bizarre one-way system tonight because the floor was slippy.

Are we insane? Does this happen everytime there's a bit of drissle?
And how do you spell drissle?

Enquiring minds need to know. And yes, I am on the old iPhone on the
train.

Again.