Friday 20th September 2002

"Oh my, oh my, have you seen the weather? The sweet September rain. Rain on me like no other.Until I drown, until I drown".
from a song by a UK band called Prefab Sprout.

I had the above song on my brain tonight. Why? Well - it all started on my journey home from the office. The first leg of my journey home is Westbound Piccadilly from Hammersmith to Alperton. I then get the 79 bus from Alperton to home. It was at Alperton that I happened across every bus-travelling-commuters dilemma:

"do you think I've got enough time to just pop over to those shops to get some quick groceries before my bus arrives? Or should I wait here because it'll arrive any minute now?"

What I needed was fresh green chillies. There is an Asian grocer (now becoming a rare species) around 200 metres away from the bus stop - and occasionally I chance it if I ever need something on the way home. Tonight it was fresh green chillies. And tonight I didn't feel like risking it. I was just convinced that the bus would be here "any minute now". Of course - that didn't happen. Yep - I ended up waiting there for over half an hour before the 79 came. (Why is it that the 83 bus comes almost every 30 seconds - and often in threes - and the 79 bus doesn't?)

Anyway - the connection to the song was a string of coincidences and mind-flashing imagery. It seemed to happen all of a sudden - within a few seconds - during an inspiring moment of an uninspiring long wait at the bus stop. It went something like this:

* I need chillies. And chillies originated in Mexico.
* In Mexico - buses don't arrive in threes.
* There is a state of the USA called New Mexico.
* I remembered that I had been to New Mexico in 1987 (part of my epic driving journey around the USA) and specifically: I got a recall of a hot sunny morning driving down a desert highway towards the New Mexico city of Alburquerque.
* There was a song from around that year which had an anthemic chorus line which went something like "Hot Dog, Jumping Frog, Albu-queruque" - and it was by a band called Prefab Sprout.
* Tonight it felt like it was going to rain as I stood at the bus stop - and Prefab Sprout also had another famous-ish song about September rains.

And that was it. That's how I got that song on my brain tonight. Strange isn't it?

Anyway - the rest of my Friday-night journey home was uneventful. But I did remind myself to dig out that Prefab album from my decaying eighties cassette collection sometime ...

Wednesday 11th September 2002

September 11. The day that changed the world. And I was able to catch up with a year's worth of it tonight thanks to my trusty ol' Tivo - the gadget that has truly changed my life. Now - there seems to be an entire parallel universe of people like me - it's called the Tivo Community - and there are millions of us - a global, multi-faith congregation of individuals whose lives have been changed forever by Tivo. The strange thing is that there appears to be nobody else in my office who has got one. I suspect that I have probably bored my colleagues to death going on about how good Tivo is and how it changes your life and all that, yeah, yeah, yeah - but I can honestly say that this gadget is probably the best lifestyle-changing gadget since the mobile phone. And it's not because of the "pause live TV" feature either. There are so many things about it that make this one of the best 200 pounds that I ever spent - there just isn't enough space here to write about it. But the remote control for it is by far the best remote control of anything I've ever seen - a genius in design!

Which has just reminded me - my all-time-best 200 pounds ever spent was on replacing the lead water main pipe with a plastic one. The change to my lifestyle was dramatic! Just seeing and feeling the pounding jet of water coming out of the cold tap on the kitchen sink is thrilling. Being able to fill up a tall glass of water in 2 seconds - and having to do it ever-so-c a r e f u l l y so that the turbulence doesn't create a vortex that floods the rest of the kitchen - this is always an exciting moment! Being able to take a shower without having to negotiate a suitable time with the rest of the family and no longer having to remind them not to open any other taps in the house - or not to flush the water etc. is just so liberating! But most exhilerating of all is the shower. That 200 pounds has turned the shower into one that rivals even the best of the ones that you get in American hotels. And finally - the removal of lead from the system has probably made me less prone to going mad.

"Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong..".
from a song by David Bowie.

Tuesday 10th September 2002

Spent the day in Slough today. What a mind-numbingly boring place this is. Not the office - no - there are usually some interesting people in the office - it's outside that I'm referring to. And it's not that there aren't any interesting people outside the office either - it's the fact that there just aren't any! That's right - nobody. Nope - not a single soul. It's as if Slough is just one gigantic car park - the only people you see outside the office are the people who are hurriedly walking to and from an office reception to a car. This is a far cry from Hammersmith. At least in Ham there are *crowds* of people crossing the road - or walking to and from the tube station - or queuing at the sandwich bar. At least there's the man who speaks all day into his loudhailer about how the world is full of sinners and we should all repent (it's funny how he only seems to come out when there is some sort of moral war going on). And then there are the bums who hang around outside the Broadway Shoppping Centre who are always looking for a "spare" cigarrate or "spare" change. (Surely they mean "could you spare a cigarette or spare some change"??). And then there's the Broadway Shopping Centre security guards and cleaners who walk around all day trying to look busy.

Nope. There's no such people in Slough. It's just completely devoid of any human activity outside of those shiny revolving doors. I know so - at lunch time I walked all the way from the office to the petrol station on the corner of a major junction with the town-centre and the M4 motorway - singing Eminem's "without me" rap song out loud - and there was nobody to hear me - nobody to think that I was some kind of wierdo. Zip. Not a single soul. It was disgustingly quiet - obscenely quiet ...

"everybody only wants to discuss me
So this must mean I'm dis-gus-ting
But it's just me, I'm just obscene"
Part of an Eminem rap-song that I always remember.

Friday 1st February 2002

Padlock still open.

"The chills that you spill on my back
Gives me filled with satisfaction
When we´re done
Satisfaction of what´s to come"
from "Groove is in the Heart" by Dee Lite.

Rayners Lane trains notable by the absence of their arrivals at Ham in a pattern that is typical of journey's home on Fridays. End of the week. Storm in the air. Wondering whether the 79 bus from Alperton is going to be a good idea. It's a double-decker you see. Might get blown over by a gust of 80mph wind. What would I do then? So when it arrived I sought solace on the bottom deck - right next to the emergency exit window. This made me feel a lot better.

Low flying aircraft. I've noticed they do this whenever the storms are in session. The bright lights pierce the low-lying clouds as these gigantic birds drop into gusts that would blow an ordinary man of his feet.

I look up and wonder if the diet-coke is flying everywhere up there? Is the coffee splashing onto the video-screen smartly placed on the back of the seat in front? This brings back a recall of that chilling half-hour before I hit the ground at Heathrow from Belfast in 1992.

It makes me smile now. Because I'm on the ground - and they're up there. I kissed the ground like the pope does that day - I was that relieved. I was oblivious to the torrential rain that was soaking me to the skin. It actually felt good. And the pilot was my hero.

Saturday 2nd February 2002

O2O2O2

Didn't make to Tim's party. Real shame. I was sort of looking forward to finding out what the apartments inside the Barbican are like on the inside.

More importantly - the Martin Parr: Photographic Works 71-2000 exhibition is beckoning. His colour-saturated pictures have a strange effect. Couldn't take my eyes off one of his works displayed on a poster on the wall in a tunnel at Green Park. Must see. Must develop an opinion. £7 for a ticket though ...

"The best things in life are free
But you can tell me 'bout the birds and bees. Now gimme money
That's what I want"
Images of a punky girl singing this from the late 70's. Originally by Gordy/Bradford for The Beatles.

Sunday 3rd February 2002

"De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you"
by The Police.

Sorry - not much to say today.

Tuesday 5th February 2002

Hilton Heathrow for a conference. This is a disgustingly expensive hotel. I can't believe that it doesn't even have a courtesy bus from ANY of the Heathrow terminals shuttling to it. This is just sheer madness. Not that I was inconvenienced by it you see - I came in my car - but I can only feel for all those American tourists who must be really pissed off that you have to shuttle it to T4 and then, from there, walk all the way to the hotel through what the hotel calls "a unique covered walkway" from Terminal 4. What a joke. This is utter British crapness gone mad. I just cannot believe that it would cost so much to operate a shuttle bus. Especially when the room rates are over £200 per night!

I spoke my mind to the good-looking blonde who was standing near reception doing a customer service survey. She just failed to understand my grievance.

"Relax said the nightman
We are programed to recieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave."
from "Hotel California" by The Eagles