I Fall Into the Wide Screen

Am I the only person who puts on Return of the Jedi before they go to bed, just to see Leia's braided hair in the last half hour, and uses VLC's snapshot function like I'm armed with a dozen rolls of film? There's a bit around chapter 37 on the ROTJ DVD where Han gets angry with C3PO, and Carrie Fisher smiles at something happening off to the left of the Camera.

I'll probably get sued for uploading such a high-res screenshot

There's something captivating about that smile. You know you've gone over the edge when you wish you were involved with Leia; hanging around a playpark holding hands, being decidedly cheerier than I am now. I've been refraining from watching Battle Royale as it sent me off the deep end in January.

You'll be glad to know I stopped my constant listening to The Black Hit of Space and WXJL Tonight by the Human Leage on Monday evening. Hell, I might even go to college this week, rather than my planned wander round the cemetary. Now excuse me whilst I dream of Leia...

[194]

Somewhere There's a Morning Sky / Bluer Than Her Eyes

Time for a customary middle-of-the-night, blurry-eyed, half-asleep, doing-fuck-all but not in bed even though I'm fucking tired stream of conscience post. I've been listening to selected pieces from Bowie's 1976 Station to Station album. I too have stopped blinking - and I think I'm approaching the sort of mental conditions that precipitate the formation of such an album... "It's not the side-effects of the cocaine / I'm thinking that it must be love." Currently I'm listening to Human League's WXJL Tonight (from the 1980 album Travelogue - not the shite pop of the mid 80s they put out after Marsh and Ware left to form Heaven 17) over and over again (3 hours as of 4AM in rotation with The Black Hit of Space). There's something captivating and disturbing about it. "I don't want you to go tonight."

Career Opportunities

What a horrible time to require sustenance. I can't talk my way into another year of college, plus I've come to my sense and realised it's just glorified school, so the future is a bleak spell of "employment" for me. It's a sad day when I consider my options, when in the past I would have stuck The Clash on in the common room and ignored the fascists. Time, you fucking bastard. The times have changed, as have the circumstances. If I want to hang about anywhere, I have to pay to get in. The closest thing to the common room is the college library - especially, and ironically, the silent section.

Thursday Morgenspaziergang

Skidging again, I set off and let the wind guide me. I've lived in this area for 6 years now and been going to school in this area since 1991. I had no idea the Golf Course entrance was up the road and I had no idea there was a lane and a stream up that way too. If only I had known that then.

I was going to see if there was another way into the cemetery, but I forgot about it when I discovered Peile Lane - it's a toss up whether to pronounce it as in John Peel or Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Anyway, having forgotten about my intended cemetery wonder, I decided to see if I could walk up the Lyle Hill and the view of the Firth. Except, I forgot the camera. And I stopped at what I thought was halfway (turned out the top was right around the corner).

Take this Google Earth landscape view

Crossed with this Deacon Blue album cover

...and try to imagine the view. Dammit, a camera describes it more accurately.

[182]

Away 4

I'm pissed off. The Sun is rising in a beautiful orange glow out the other side of the plane. Yet again, I, the one with a camera, am screwed out of photographing it by being on the left hand side of the plane. There isn't even anyone looking out the windows at this cosmic display. The best I got was photographing the pre-dawn glow on the taxiway.

Las Palmas Sunrise, Prij, 2006

Surrounded by peons! It's about 8AM now and I'm enjoying this silent film being shown - Buster Keaton's The Cameraman. Much fucking better than that You've Been Framed style crap they had on again.

Away 3

In 6 days I've clocked up 30 minutes of time in the pool. The holidays since leaving school have been quite landbound. I don't derive a lot of entertainment from getting wet anymore.

Similarly, when the students of the college walked out of classes over staff cuts for an hour last month, I would have been at the front leading the protest. Instead, hanging around the back of the crowd, staying away from the cameras, I was dropping a few jokes in light discussion. I was cold and would much rather have been in the library reading The Independent. Is this the same person who got himself deliberately suspended in Sixth Year? Twice as bright...

Where's Wally?

H5N1 From Above, 1610
20 minute ago I was listening to Ride of the Valkyries, drifting in and out of Apocalypse Now fantasies. The pool area has a bit of a pigeon problem - rather that than a roach problem, of course. They hobble about looking for food scraps. Every so often one will swoop low over the pool, sometimes landing like a UH-1 on the other side. Those birds fuel the fantasy more than the occasional helicopter over the bay.

[201]

Away 2, What Should I Take With Me To The North?

As has become traditional over the last few holidays, the late evenings are occupied with a film from Sky Movies - tonight was a modern favourite of mine, The Day After Tomorrow.

Toward the end of the film, I was reminded of the fact this I've always felt more comforable in the cold. That led to a more disturbing thought - a sort of irrational sense of national pride. That irrational feeling made me put Idlewild's 100 Broken Windows on. [03:20, Track 3, "These Wooden Ideas"]

The only explanation can be found in music:

"We love the Winter/It brings us closer together"
Manic Street Preachers, The Masses Against the Classes, 2000

Is it customary for Scottish bands to sign about the cold? Listen to Build a Fire by the KLF and you'll begin analysing Franz Ferdinand lyrics.

[140]

Away 1, Continued

Well, I didn't sleep for that last hour on the flight. I couldn't find the energy to continue with this either.

The next character from the departure lounge was a Spanish gentleman, probably in his early 30s. In tring to describe him, I get an image of Guy from Green Wing in my head. Just imagine him tanned and wearing an orange jumper and blue Clarkson-esque jeans. He received a call on his phone and then went on to talk fairly loudly in Spanish and wondered aimlessly around the lounge whilst talking.

Away 0.5: Exploration

Arguing with the birthday-taxpayer yesterday evening, I hit upon that the present is infinitely crappier than the predicted future because his generation failed to change anything: namely, going to the Moon (or not going, to be more accurate). The taxpayer brings in the cost - because they started analysing everything for cost-effectiveness. 'People are starving in Africa' - because you insist they pay back ridiculous loans from the 60s despite the people you elected holding the G8 summit and agreeing to ease the costs - that was only last fucking June. 'Let's fix the problems on this planet first' - You've had over 20 years to do that. 'There's nothing on the Moon' says the Six-O'Clock News viewer - oh, apart from Helium-3 which, though fusion, would slash Carbon emissions from energy production immensely.

Having won that, as indicated by the line of discussion ending, I later broght in the fact that Columbus did not discover America: not because the people living there already discovered it, not because the Vikings stumbled on it, but because Columbus died denying he had found a new continent. I then posed a question: Should Columbus have gone to the Americas when the Old World was still plagued with a myriad of economic, social and political problems? We agreed the Americas were better off unknown - but we needed something to distract the people from the aftermath of the Reconquista.

[237]

Away 1: Airborne

It's highly unusual to be in a plane at this time of year. I find myself in a June-mentality - though what that is escapes me.

As I write this, I'm armed with my digital camera. However, the view out my side of the plane consists of various shades of blue fading to black. Meanwhile on the other side, a vibrant red sunset is in progress. El Capitan says we're over Belfast already, which I was about guess when I finished that last sentence. WTF is 32K Feet? The European flight crew's minds have been poisoned by imperial measurements.

Belfast, Prij, 2006

It's Been One Week

There was a lot of sneezing and coughing last Friday (24th) afternoon at college. Perhaps that's where I got it from, regardless, I was fine right up until about 8PM when, despite being in the presence of a fully lit gas fire, I felt very cold. By midnight I couldn't stand it and went to bed - an unusual move on my part.