Alone Again, Naturally

Gilbert O'Sullivan was a strange and bloke… from a distance at least. Piano and braces are what I seem to remember.

🎶 Claire, the moment I met you I swear 🎶

In retrospect and with a historical distance, I have a feeling it may have had Savillesque undertones… or maybe not.The memory fails and I would need to reach for my phone or computer to check… bollocks to that because I'm trying to create a morning ‘safe space’ (I detest that word!) where technology doesn't impose its presence. I even dug out my dictionary… remember those?

What's great about the dictionary is that you pass so many words on the journey to get the one you're searching for… especially if you’re shit at the alphabet like me. As you pass them, they often call out and you end up on a detour… a discovery, an improvised and uncertain space wordiness.

I've been playing Scrabble each day with my daughter and its fucking great! I had forgotten the essence of board games… the silences, the concentrated searching for ways… to move on… the immersive interaction.

So often when I'm traveling and everyone is looking down and I become curious as to what they are engaged with. More often than not, they're playing some sketchy looking game… all of these adults playing some electronic game with blocks or cars or other descending objects. Fuck me! No wonder there is ‘no’ wonder in the world! On the rare occasion that I see someone reading a book, you know a real actual book, I'm amazed! It's akin to spotting a rare bird nowadays. I say that as a dedicated lifelong ornithologist, a spotter of rare birds. I used to steal their eggs with my mate Sam when I was a schoolboy. Blow them, varnish them and put them in my collection. I had a Ferret and an air gun too. So I was like a working-class cliche, a ‘Kes’ tribute act. Sam actually went on to get his Falconers license.

Illegal now of course… stealing birds eggs robbing their young so that you can stare at their former homes.You can probably get an App now, one that allows you to do it on the way to work at the investment bank, or AI start up, or other venture where you can steal ‘peoples’ homes and minds and other stuff… whilst at the same time greenwashing away the guilt… off-setting the robbery via a plant a tree scheme.