What now?

Hello, whoever you are,

There is no bugle for the first post, only for the last. In any case this is an experiment, and it would not seem right to introduce musical instruments at this stage. Even the oboe would seem a little flamboyant.

Firstly, I should thank Lauren of Angel in London for dragging me kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century and telling me that this is undoubtedly the way forward. It still feels like the parchment from my nineteenth century endeavours is still wet from ink. In any case, that printing shop in Fleet Street closed and became an orphanage, a tannery and finally a home for retired newts, and is therefore of little use to me.

You should go and read Lauren's blog, Credible Witness, which I will link to when my decrepit brain finds out what button to push, or whatever. It has a video of Sweep drumming, among other things, and it is essential to know about such things if we are to arm ourselves adequately for the challenges ahead in these capricious times.

So why do I have a blog then? Is it some egotistical method of throwing myself into the public domain, with all the exhibitionism of a wildly gesticulating man, hanging by one hand from the bridge parapet? Perhaps. Though this assumes that there is an audience in the first place. But enough of this bullshit pseudo-philosophy. I'm sure the real reasons will come out in due course. I suppose I better do something vaguely creative, and so here is a 'poem'. I promise never to do something like this again:

"Maybe the paradox is that,
To touch the highest heights,
We must find the deepest edge.

Maybe the paradox is that,
To be truly good,
We must have suffered.

Maybe the paradox is that,
Though there appears to be no reason for life,
We must live it virtuously.

I caught a fish yesterday,
It was this big."

Now stick two fingers down your throat and waggle those droopy bits until the retch reaction has been invoked. Ah, doesn't that feel better?

In the last few weeks, the mantra, "follow your dreams", has been slowly replaced by a more realistic, "know your limits" - for me anyway. In this vein, I have moved out of the Big Smoke, for the greyer surroundings of Glasgow, land of perennial rain and fried foods. Who knows what will happen next, it is all an adventure, and the least that can be said for it is that a change is as good as a rest. People who know me will testify that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer. In fact in a drawer full of knives, I am probably more like a lone chopstick. Not to say that a lone chopstick is entirely useless. For one thing, it is very good for extracting marrow from the bone of a lamb, but I did always hope that my life would amount to something more than marrow-poking.

Enough, as the first real post, I have felt it acceptable to set down some completely subjective information. Of no use to anyone but myself. Of course, this is the written equivalent of dribbling porridge out both sides of your mouth and it is not the intended purpose of this blog. Hopefully you will forgive me one introductory indulgence before we get down to business.

Talking of which, I had a business idea. We all know of the age-old problem of anti-social neighbours. You know, the ones who practice dentistry next door with industrial jack-hammers, while shooting skag into their disintegrating, pulsing veins and lighting small fires on the floorboards to keep warm, having ripped out all of the heating system's copper piping in their flat to pay for said skag, performing excorcisms with gongs, crucifying llamas (they die noisily), chain-sawing light fittings, hanging pets from windows and hitting them with carpet beaters (where the hell do they buy them from? I haven't seen them in the Argos catalogue), and all the while managing to enter your subconscious thoughts during the six minutes of sleep you manage to salvage as pig-tailed demons wielding vacuum cleaners. I know you fellow city-dwellers have all experienced the same.

The answer is a revolutionary new sound-insulation product called ASBOstos. Whack that up all your walls and you need never worry about the bastards next door again. Until they drill through the partition wall, your head-board, and finally the soft lumpy material that separates your brain from the vigours of the outside world. It should buy you some time. I am too inept to run a business though, sadly, so will stick purely to manufacture. It will be made from cotton wool, peanut butter, metal gauze and the eye of a newt. Perhaps that place in Fleet Street has a purpose after all.

Anyway, better go and continue the search for a job. I am thinking, "town crier". So if you see me chained to the front of the City Chambers in Glasgow with shell-suit clad youths throwing dog excrement my way, you will know I gave it a shot. If not you will know what you always suspected, that these are only words.

"Eleven o'clock, and all's well."