NUMBER 1
Never trust anyone. Even someone with your best interests at heart can unintentionally do something which will end up killing you.
NUMBER 2
Never let the bastards see they have hurt you.
NUMBER 3
Give people leeway.
The first time, it could be a mistake.
The second time, it could be coincidence.
The third time, it is enemy action and you are entitled to rip their throats out.
Filed under Philosophy
I very rarely remember my dreams, which I think is a pity.
But who needs dreams when there is reality?
I looked at my old e-diary for things which happened on this day in past years.
Here are extracts from three April 6ths…
1999
This morning, my mother went to the doctor and saw the other GP in the practice. He took her off the sleeping tablets and painkillers prescribed for her by the main GP and gave her 14 days worth of new painkillers. He said he had no idea what was wrong with her, though he easily found the pain spot.
(My mother died on 13th January 2007 from a heart attack;
the pain never stopped)
I got an e-mail from a friend in the US:
Something terrible has happened – massive car crash, involving my sister. Fractured spine, internal bleeding… car turned over, went in a 7 ft ditch, missed many trees, wheel came off, it was dark and there was no-one about except her friend following her in another car. The problem was the wheel bearing.
(My friend’s sister is still alive; she is fine now)
2001
I went with my parents to hospital to see my father’s consultant. He said there had been two polyps removed during my father’s colonoscopy. The malignant tumour has been confirmed and he will operate on my father on 19th April for £5,000, cutting into the front of his stomach, cutting away the section of bowel where the tumour is and reconnecting the intestine with the bowel because he says that is easier than reconnecting two ends of bowel. My father was sick after his supper yesterday. Today, after an average sized meal at a Little Chef restaurant, he said: “Big meal. Made me awfy tired, but I enjoyed it.”
(My father died on 27th June 2001 of cancer)
2003
Extract from an e-mail to me from a friend:
My Mum has had a bad week but today was feeling miles better. Except for a very strange thing. According to my Dad, she saw a ghost during the night. Only my mother can do things like that. She woke up suddenly about 3.00am to find a woman leaning over her bed staring at her, with large protruding eyes. My Mum startled her and she backed off then came close again at which point Mum turned to her side to switch on her hearing aid and when she turned back (a matter of seconds) the woman had gone. Mum very painfully got up and went to ask the nurse if anyone had entered the ward. No-one had.
(My friend’s mother is still alive)
The News of the World printed a story today:
PRINCESS’S SEX SECRET
Movie star Richard Harris had sex sessions with Princess Margaret at a lady-in waiting’s home, it was claimed last night. And when Margaret asked his help in destroying sexually explicit photos of her with small-time actor John Bindon, he called in 60s Torture Gang boss Charles Richardson. The gang leader forced Bindon, who was famous for balancing beer mugs on his manhood, to hand over the pics for £5,000, according to Harris’s pal Robert McKew. “Richard burnt them, then ordered drinks all round,” said McKew.
(Johnny Bindon died 10th October 1993;
Princess Margaret died 9th February 2002;
Richard Harris died 25th October 2002;
Charlie Richardson died 19th September 2012)
So it goes.
Filed under Uncategorized
Pretty soon, comedian Martin Soan will not be speaking to me. Lucky him, some might say.
Yesterday’s blog about things I cut out of my blogs reminded me of something else I had cut out but still had as an iPhone recording: a chat I had with Martin shortly after one of his several 60th birthday parties.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog in which Martin talked about spirituality.
When he read it, he told me he thought it made him sound like a drunken airhead. I think what he said was very interesting. Okay, he was drunk, but he can still say interesting things when he’s drunk.
He was slightly drunk in this conversation, too, recorded shortly afterwards. If he doesn’t like what is quoted, he can always claim he was drunk. I do not have that excuse.
A brick wall – or maybe it could be anything you want it to be
“I read an article years ago,” I was saying to Martin, “which suggested that, in the future, you’ll be able to manipulate molecules. Everything we see is just molecules. The air, the stone walls, my hand: they’re all just molecules. So, if you can control the molecules, you don’t need to have walls for your house that are permanent brick walls. You can make them of anything you want. You could reconfigure the walls’ structure with the press of a button. You could have leaves or television screens instead of walls and change them in the click of a button if you have access to the right molecular structure.”
“But going back to my previous drunken blog with you,” interrupted Martin, “about spirituality.”
“Much appreciated,” I said.
“Fuck off,” laughed Martin. “Are you ever going to escape Man’s essential… How many millennia are we going to have to live into the future before we pass on to the next stage of evolution? That’s if Man’s even lucky enough to be included in the next stage of evolution. Manipulating molecules is just going along a linear line of technology and invention in such a small speck of evolution.”
I told Martin he could sell this ‘found art’ to Tate Modern
“I think,” I said, “within a hundred years, we…”
Martin started laughing loudly: “You think you could go down Argos and get it?”
“Within 100 years, we could manipulate molecules,” I said.
“But that,” said Martin, “wouldn’t necessarily mean you had any more understanding, would it?”
“It would mean different ways of living,” I said. “I mean, Shakespeare was only 400 years ago. The Queen Mother lived to over 100. The distance between Shakespeare’s time and now is only the length of four people’s lives.”
“But,” argued Martin, “for several millennia, Man’s been exactly the same.”
“In Shakespeare’s time,” I said, “there were people living in wattle huts.”
“But is that the point?” asked Martin. “To be warm?”
“When I came down to London for the first time when I was a kid,” I said, “you walked along Whitehall or looked at St Pancras Station and there was no detailing on the buildings, because it was all totally caked in black soot and it smelled of soot.
Claude Monet’s view of London at the turn of the 20th century
“In the thick pea-souper smogs, we got let off school early, the air smelled of sulphur or something and, if you held your arm out in front of you, you couldn’t see your hand. You had to move carefully along the pavements step by step and pray when you crossed a road. If you walk around now, it’s a completely different world.”
“Certain things are better…” admitted Martin.
“Almost everything’s better,” I said.
“Ahhh, John,” said Martin, “I don’t think that’s true.”
“What’s got worse?” I asked. “I read old newspapers when I was researching a TV programme and, in 1780-odd and 1880-odd, you could not walk down Regent Street in the daylight in mid-afternoon without the risk of getting mugged. They were calling out the army every Friday and Saturday night to quell drunken riots in places like Woking. The army! The more the cameras look at us and the more GCHQ hacks into us, the safer it will be.”
There was a long, long pause.
“John…” said Martin. There was another long pause “…John…” he repeated.
“But really,” I said, “Just 400 years ago – which is nothing in time terms – people were living in mud huts in Britain. If you brought someone from 1613 to here, they’d have no idea what was going on.”
“But John,” argued Martin, “you’re just basing the next stage of Man’s evolution on sitting in a warm place with a computer and loads of puddings bought from Marks & Spencer… and without any walls. I don’t think that’s necessarily the next step in Man’s evolution. Molecular-manipulated houses and blogging and Marks & Spencer puddings – that’s your next step in evolution.”
“Yes,” I said. “Wasn’t it the US Agriculture Secretary who got sacked for saying people just want a tight pussy, loose shoes and a warm place to shit? There was some racism involved too but remove the racism and he has a point.”
“Will we live any longer?” asked Martin.
“Yes,” I said.
“But is living longer important?” asked Martin.
“It’s a bad thing living longer,” I agreed.
“I saw this TV programme by Kate Humble,” said Martin, “and she went to this part of Afghanistan where the average life expectancy is 35 years and, of course, their life is fucking hard. But that’s what I think life is. I mean, in Sex and The City, they’re moaning because they haven’t got the right boyfriend and can’t find the right shoes and they’ll live to 90 and they’ll spend the last part after they’re 60 bitter. Wouldn’t it just be better to burn out in glory and respect by the age of 35? It’s better to have a good life than a long life.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “There was that Greek myth about the wife who asked the Gods to give her husband eternal life and, of course, she found out that was the wrong thing to ask for. She actually wanted eternal youth, not eternal life. Eternal life would be appalling.”
“And that American sci-fi series,” said Martin. “The famous episode where there was a third-rate comedian who sold his soul to the Devil. He said I just want everyone to laugh at me all the time and, of course, he went out and someone was stabbed and he got blamed and everyone was laughing at him Oh! That’s so funny, man! and he got sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair and everyone was laughing Hahaha! What a way to go out! Now that’s what I call a funny man!”
“Life’s constantly getting better,” I said.
“Most of the guys who sell me my food,” said Martin, “are orphans from foreign countries.”
Fallujah, Iraq, 2003 – more life-enhancing than East Glasgow
“Janey Godley,” I said, “had a line in one of her shows that life expectancy in Fallujah, Iraq, is 65… In the East End of Glasgow, it’s 55.”
“Also,” said Martin “there was a line in The Wire – though all these things we quote we don’t know if they’re true – that literacy levels are worse in downtown Baltimore than in central Africa.”
“But centuries ago,” I said, “everywhere was shit. Now some places aren’t shit. I imagine the Central African Republic is as bad as it ever was, but Manhattan isn’t as bad as it was.”
Martin then opened the back window of his living room and pulled a beer from the refrigerator which he keeps outside.
“You leave me alone, John,” he said. “I’m drunk. Leave me alone.”
“It’s OK,” I said. “You got drunk and I got my blog and you’re sitting here accumulating money even as we speak…”
“Accumulating money?” Martin asked.
“The value of your house has probably gone up by £10,000 in the last ten minutes,” I said. “This is Peckham. Things are getting better all the time.”
Filed under Drink, Humor, Humour, Philosophy, Technology
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 