For now

Day 0

Those are weighty words, For. Now. Unspoken and unintended, unreal and meaningless. They are sustaining me, for now. I can't seem to help but add them to the things I have to tell people. I am single, for now. I am leaving, for now. They dampen the despair of separation and the terror of flight. I am putting my affairs in order, for now. Not for death, mind, though given my track record in foreign lands and without a steadying hand to my innate recklessness it is a possibility. For and now are the mahouts shielding me from the immense, hulking reality that has stepped from the corner into the light. And the realities of my life have been tomorrow's problem for a very long time. Obscured by scaffolding and giant concrete walls or hidden behind a pyramid they eventually fill the horizon and I have no choice but to walk towards them with a grim, inevitable foreboding. My heart is drawn towards the darkness, for now.
The desperate and doomed attempt to exert control of my life through insignificant details must stop. Forever. My zero inbox, my perfect loaf of bread, tag, tag, tag. They were the fiddles playing while Rome burned about me. But the flames have crept under the door and my 'control' is ashes and my life too, or so it feels. A midlife crisis is a mocked thing but they are fueled by the realisation that life is finite. That it isn't meant to be spent believing every second can be prolonged if you just know how it is going to pan out. The gentle wind that carried the flames to the door must also carry caution away with it. And me. I need to get away from my always expiring password. To get away from the noise to noisy countries. Away from a dysfunctional country to even more dysfunctional ones. To leave a place where I recognise everyone and know no-one. To cease to exist so that I may.

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The Duke

Pub review They say: "We came for a skittle on a Saturday night and they were very welcoming but you know how you hear about lizards ruling the world, the barstaff had a very lizardy look. Make your own mind up!" --Craig Savage 4/5 I say: 'The place where everybody knows your name' The claim is painted onto the wall and doesn't seem so outlandish on this chilly Tuesday night as there is no-one in the pub to know my name or not. Dry January? I can't imagine that's a thing around these parts. You don't keep over 30 pubs in business with virtuous gestures like that. It might be a Tuesday thing. Per usual I try to find a quiet corner with my beer, surely an easy task in an empty pub? Not so. Speakers hang from every nook and carpet the space in a thick fog of sound. It isn't even the usual autotuned pop/R&B dirge being vomited into my ears. That stuff I can confine to a background hum. Instead it's the pre-match commentary for the Brighto...

Sisyphean Airlines

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Angkor Whaaaaat?

Day 5 - Siem Reap With the water festival finished we has one more place to visit in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is an indisputable wonder of the world and the largest religious monument ever constructed. It sits within a temple complex covering 400km², the scale of which is impossible to adequately describe. Its towers seem to rise organically from the ground, the stone flowering from the earth into wonderfully symmetric form. Only modern capitalism and totalitarian hubris seem to inspire similar architectural endeavour as the gods did in the past. I don't necessarily agree with any of those ideologies and their human cost but religion's diminished power permits me a less coloured appreciation of its monuments. In the stone of Angkor Wat you see reflected the same desire for, and defiant belief in, permanence that runs through our species. I see it in the chiselled signage above the entrance to long dead banks and businesses in the City of London. The owners thought the gilded lobbi...

You don't have to mentally unstable to live here, but it helps...

Day 380 - Margaret River It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. It was a Tuesday, it was like any other. Me and the Cornish lads had slogged through another day on the vineyard and were driving home. I switched on my phone to check messages, my housemate Emily had text. All our stuff's on the street. Martina showdown. It had been building to this but with 3 days left before we left Margaret River she'd actually done it. Perhaps I should recap? The housing situation at Tunbridge Street had been deteriorating since, well, since I moved in really. I'd have to say that this was in spite of rather than because of my presence. I hadn't met the landlady before I took the room so my first contact with Martina was after wo...

Pills, pills, pills

As I reach the end of my course of medication I look back at the variety of pharmaceuticals I swallowed, usually in complete ignorance of their purpose. Having done some 'research' into these colourful little concoctions I present the results below. Top to bottom, left to right. 1, Name : Forte Type : Caplet Size : Very large Colour : Dried blood Purpose : This pill establishes whether there is any constriction of the airway, being sized, as it is, to the average human airway. If it becomes lodged in the throat constriction has occurred. In this way it is a little like Witch dunking in it's functioning. Side effects : Death by asphyxiation 2, Name : Vizylac Type : Caplet Size : Medium Colour : Shocking pink Purpose : This pill is administered when a patient has temporarily lost the use of one leg. It enables the patient to comfortably put all their bodyweight on the other leg for extended periods of time thereby increasing mobility. Contains extract of F...

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