Categories: uncategorized
Date: 28 September 2004 22:56:28
...so much when you've been away for a year. Yes, back in the West country. Mini-roundabouts have magically sprouted in places where previously you hardly knew there was a junction. Drove into a cul-de-sac the other day thinking it was the main road to Trowbridge. I'm certain it was a year ago. A bit of new(ish) Banksy grafitti on a footbridge going over the M32. 'No Ban' written mysteriously on country lanes (this is fox hunting country after all). Yep, it sure is all the little incidental things that keep life interesting round here (relatively speaking of course). As if to prove the point the lead story on one of the local weekly papers this week concerns the heritage trust who wrongly captioned a picture of Cherhill White Horse in one of their brochures, calling it instead Westbury White Horse. Must have been a wild time in the office that day!
Driving, well, ok, sitting in traffic through Bristol today I was 'following' (wouldn't like you to get the impression that we were actually moving...oh no!) a bus with an 'Alpha' ad on the back with a mobile phone which had the text 'Is there more to life than this?' on it. It just looks like the ad is asking is there more to life than Alpha. Well, I'm happy to report that, yes, there is much more to life than Alpha, potato salad, and quiche. It's called 'the World' and it's awfully good fun (in a tragi-comic kinda way) when you get the hang of it. Y'never know you might even bump into that God/god thing now and again, and in the most unexpected places/faces. Now, I don't mind telling you that I've always been something of a weirdo magnet. Market researchers, drunks, happy smiley charity collectors, you name it, they see me from 500 paces and head straight for me. Of course I never manage to see them coming. So anyway, I'm sitting on the steps of the Royal Concert Hall (think that's what it's called, next to Buchanan galleries....which is a shopping mall not an art gallery) in Glasgow the other week when a drunk guy with no shirt sits (more falls really) beside me (bottle in hand) shakes my hand and starts chatting about just about everything under the sun. Which isn't an unusual experience in Glasgow really. He was pretty harmless and I was happy to listen. The thing is, he was the only person to say more to me than the most superficial of passing greetings that day. Everyone else was too busy meeting targets while I underwent a (successful) day's programme of work avoidance (call it writers block or the effects of M.E. if you prefer). I'm kind of making this up as I go along and I'm sure there are rationalisations to explain this away, but I'm thinking that if love is the giving of infinite time to another, and if god/God is love, then perhaps that drunk showed me more of the love of God/god last week than anyone else.
Anyway, I'm hunting for a non-demanding, low-responsibility, high-pay, low-hours job until I recover from M.E. and then will decide whether to go back to finish the PhD or to do something else with my life. Not sure which way the balance is tipping at the moment. Answers on a postcard to.....