I have a meeting this afternoon. Preparation consists of eating two bags of dried fruit and drinking fizzy pop. Made from Andrews Liver Salts. After which I shall freshen my breath with some sugar free mints. An entire pack.

I don’t intend being at the meeting for too long.

For a brief moment I stopped looking for the shit in the field of gold. A good thing has happended. Firstly is that I have nearly cleared out all of the particularly obsolete things from the attic. There’s most of a playing card collection to go, and coins and stamps, so I am confident that I can keep up the sales for – ooh – the rest of my life. But nonetheless, the attic is getting to the point that it seems plausable for it one day to be tidy.

The second thing is that I have signed up to a film production workshop in Manchester tomorrow night.

Everything is black. The world has stopped turning. The corpses of dead birds fall from the trees. Rain gives way to hail. Yet the ground cracks. Laughter is unheard of. Air tastes heavy of sulpher. Dogs howl. Cats claw at the eyes of the children. Nothing to celebrate. Summer in Manchester.

Ramble.

Who are you. Really?

Standing, looking at the unblinking refelction in the mirror.

Its a difficult question.

What do you see when you wipe the glass clear. A face. Recognisable in appearance. But inside? Who is really there? What thoughts, what hopes, dreams, belief? The eyes are dulled in the reflection, devoid of the spark that should make them engage.

Finding a place is so often done without thought; people are doing things not because it may be right, but because it fits into convention and expectation. Perhaps they don’t want to think about it? Maybe drifting from place to place, job to job, is the ideal?

But perhaps people have low expectations. Or no expectations. Achievement is a reduced scale; the abililty to save enough for a new car, or holiday, or a promotion above the head of a colleague. All minor self obsessions, a little people following Narcissus with blinkered lack of wonder.

Are my hopes any different? My dreams? Who can say. I don’t have the acope to read your mind. I can’t scan your brainwaves for thoughts – I’ve tried, of course, but the TV needs a new aerial. For now its just observation. And TV.

TV’s shared consciousness is a comfort. I know how to fit in here; so do you. Passive participation. You can even drink tea at the same time. And then, tomorrow, around the water cooler – a conversation with those with whom you might otherwise refuse to speak.

Of course this ignores the elite. And the technicians. They’re not the elite – the backroom boys and girls – although they are privilaged. They get to breathe the same air as the stars.

The elite are those on screen. The stars. People for whom personal identity is fame – at least to their fans – whose adoration and following supplies the place in the world, without concern for individuality.

In the mirror. Beneath the surface. Inside. What is the identity. What place in the world. What value the person?

What person?

untitled

you say I’m not old
I say I’m not immortal
I can’t fight the strength of the
bus
if it knocks me down, tomorrow, in town
and you never know
whats around the corner

I know that number.

The wonders of science. Or technology. Or BT.

I know that number. It’s your number. Someone – perhaps even you – is trying to ring me. From you flat. Your flat where I am no longer welcome. You flat where we used to meet. To talk. To eat. To laugh. To love. To fuck.

The ringing stops. The LCD on the phone goes dead. Lifeless. Empty.

Why have you left me? Have you given up?

Yet I didn’t try to answer.

Today I completed my application for a new passport, complete with photograph that makes me look jaundiced or suntanned, depending on my degree of optimism. I shall go for the latter.

Glastonbury. Ahh yes. I keep returning to it. Here is a picture from one of the evenings’ adventures: