Back from the Big Smoke

Been to London finally...saw the Mergatroid put on a great gig in Camden, caught up with some old friends, listened to jazz music and mad poetry in Finsbury, saw an exhibition of gothic art at the Tate Britain, had a boat ride on the Thames, got drunk in Blackheath, formed a guitar/banjo duo with my uncle and recorded our first album... I also rediscovered the capacity to eat and sleep properly, then lost it as soon as I got back. Easy come easy go. Had no less than four practically coherent ideas for stories too. In fact I felt like a totally different person; I lost my seemingly chronic anxiety for five days.
It's back now.
Wait for five months, move to London, go to uni. Sounds so simple doesn't it? But it ain't. Can't tell you why.
Missed my psychology appointment as well, which has pissed me off. I'm also going to be in trouble with the benefits agency for missing an interview for some poxy, ten hour a week, minimum wage kitchen slave job. Bastards.
One day I will look back on all this and laugh.
Probably from within a room with rubber wallpaper.

Ladybird

I just found a ladybird in the garden, it was upside down in a puddle with its legs flailing about madly so I tried to save it - I flicked it onto dry land with my finger, hoping it would get up and fly away perhaps with something resembling a sense of gratitude towards whatever unseen force had saved it, a tiny insect impulse that recognised my good intentions, perhaps just a feeling of wellbeing generated by that impulse for survival that we, that all creatures, share.
It died instantly.
Bollocks.

War war war forever

Power corrupts. Power corrupts.
Or maybe its only the corrupt who are drawn to power. I don't know. Everything is broken. The UN is used to legitimise the self-interested policies of the permanent members of the security council. Iraq invades Kuwait and we jump in whole heartedly, full UN support, hooray. Then we urge the shiites to rise up against Saddam and promptly sit back and watch as he slaughters them. Because we secured the oil and thats what it was all about. Russia invades Chechnya, bombing Grozny into dust, sending the whole region into a downward spiral of violence because some Chechnyan Muslims had the temerity to ask for independence. Nothing. Not a fucking hoot. So much for the right to national self-determination. Blair and Bush illegally invade Iraq killing at least a hundred thousand civilians. Nothing.
I hold our Tony responsible for Iraq. America wouldn't have gone in alone, they needed some semblance of international support, one country they could truthfully say they didn't bribe or coerce into joining them. He could have said no and averted the whole thing, but he didn't.
And they still claim that they had UN support! Over and over again. Everyone seems to have forgotten that the entire reason the UN was set up was to avoid war at all cost-in 1945 people knew for a fact the a war is the worst thing that can happen on Earth, the worst thing that human beings can do to each other. But it hasn't hit home yet with these rich cunts who start wars safe in the knowledge that the carnage won't reach them in their fucking palaces. Today's America and Britain have more in common with Nazi Germany than they do the Allies of 1945. I almost wish I was French.
The end; tomorrow I think I'll have a go at Israel. Why not.

Nuts or fine investigative reporting? I don't know.

Reports of an imminent strike on Iran with tactical nukes have shown up recently...I'd be more sceptical about it if it wasn't Seymour Hersh doing the reporting. In fact I am still sceptical, even though Hersh is one of the best journalists there has ever been. I read his report on the My Lai massacre last week and its an amazing piece of reporting. What really struck me about it was the fact that around half of the soldiers involved, as they were machine gunning women and children and old men, didn't realize they were doing anything wrong. One of them said afterwards; "I thought that was what war was." It was one of the press reports that turned public opinion against the war and therefore helped end it. That, to me, is pretty impressive stuff.
Iran...I don't know. How am I supposed to know these things? It fits with the military ideology of the neo-cons to go for a military strike. America's defense policy at the moment is focussed on preserving their position as the world's pre-eminent power; proving that they can fight more than one war simultaneously and preventing Iran's economic development and, incidentally, their nuclear plans would make sense from this point of view. If it wasn't for the disaster in Iraq, I would have no doubt that they'd hit Iran.
But with nukes? Well...Jack Straw summed it up pretty well the other day when he came on TV and said "the idea of a nuclear attack is nuts."
Yes, Jack, we know it is. That's what worries us.

No Dreams

Just checking in to report that I have had no dreams for about a week so I can't write down what they were as I would normally. Well, obviously I've had dreams I just can't seem to remember them. Which is something of a relief. I used to get that when I was on Seroxat, couldn't remember a single dream. Odd.
I've also discovered that mixing beer, vodka, cola, marijuana and anti-psychotics after only sleeping for three hours the night before will make you feel very strange indeed.
Yes I got rather fucked yesterday. My guitar skills were praised...other people were there...don't remember much else...a scientist was there...I think...

We're all going to die!

Yup, its finally here. Yesterday a duck or something keeled over somewhere in Scotland. Was it murder or suicide? Neither. It was bird flu. All across the nation Britishers are preparing for the worst-covering their windows in sellotape, tailoring themselves rudimentary chemical warfare suits, wrapping tin foil round their heads and so forth. Squadrons of heavily armed vigilantes are roaming the streets, rounding up pidgeons for 'interrogation'. The nuclear option is on the table.
On a more personal note, my family and I have been making our funeral arrangements. My father has reiterated his desire to be hurled into a ditch and set on fire. I'm currently gathering some bits of plywood for my coffin, having already dug myself a grave in the front garden. I'm looking forward to doing my headstone. I can't quite decide on the inscription. I'm torn between the fairly generic 'here lies Ben Jones: Lover, Warrior, Poet, Husband, Mother, Son' or the rather more specific: 'Where Was The Fucking Tamiflu, You Bastards?'
But there'll be no drowning in my own liquefied lungs for me. I got two bullets; one for me and one for my woman. Assuming I have one by then; possibly due to the aphrodisiac of life threatening danger.
Hastings councillors are putting in place their contingency plan of erecting a gigantic, hermetically sealed plastic dome over the whole town with wind machines to blow contaminated air in the direction of Eastbourne. In Brighton a man has gnawed off both his legs out of sheer terror. Boats are setting sail full off desperate civillians, bound for countries with working health services, the Prime Minister and other essential officials have been loaded onto a rocket bound for the Moon. Productions of 'Swan Lake' have been canceled and renowned poultry assassin Dick Cheney has been called in to hunt down Orville the duck. In St. Leonards a small man in a tuxedo was mistaken for a penguin and beaten to death.
Aside from that its been fairly quiet.