Goodbye sweet friend.

So tonight Derren Brown's Russian Roulette, according to one source at least, became the world's third greatest magic trick.
I have a tangible connection to that event so if you ever meet me, ask me about it.

We all have to have our heroes.
But what is a hero but someone who changes you uniquely, perhaps even in a singular swipe, who scars you like the Mark of Zorro.
I'm not going to go on because in seven minutes this is last year's news.
But one of the individuals I referenced in my recent slightly-too-long poem was one Hans Morretti.
And he played a little Russian roulette too - haven't we all?

You might like to take a look at it...

and when you've done that he might like to take a look at what follows.
The nervous trumpeter only adds to the tension...pour yourself a glass of wine and if you don't cheer at the end, I'll give you your money back.

Because the charm of a hero is making the extraordinary look mundane (you might want to sip leisurely during the first half) and then make it extraordinary again, or the very least slightly charming.
If I love what Hans Morretti does, does that mean I love him? Or is that the High Cock talking (a Christmas present a little like a tawny port - thanks Tone).

But I think there is an answer.
Christopher Hitchens died this year, and we lost another infantryman.
His final advice was to write to those whom you admire.
So I'm going to write to Hans Moretti.
I'll let you know how I get on.

What are you going to do?

Conscience - your flexible friend.

The great solution to negotiating the ups and downs of life is to be able to chunk up and chunk down at will (as long as you are excellently calibrated as to when to do it of course).
And your growing breadth of experience allows lateral leeway - the leeway of peripheral vision, what you might call worldliness.
These are the qualities that make you exactly who you are today.
And what you are today is what you have been working towards every other day of your life.
Every other second.

But there is a problem with this legacy of adaptability.
That very quality which you may elevate so highly is exactly where the worry seeps in.
You've made an arena for your own mortality.
A canvas for your own anxiety.
And the dark adapted eyes that peek and peer through all the holes and cracks are scrutinising you in your prison.
Perhaps even mockingly.

You may think that you can drink in all the possibilities of life in a single gaze.
After all, age brings wisdom.
You can see the wood for the trees.
But human nature being what it is, it spends a little too much time in the company of the negative and depraved.
It dwells on the shadows, it lingers on the needles, it over-considers the untidy and the dirty and it loses not a wink of sleep should you tread on a pine cone.

The media doesn't really help.
If you turn on your television as an escape but are sufficiently cursed that you find that Sean Lock and Lee Mack aren't your cup of tea, then you have a lot of irritating channel surfing ahead of you to find a channel and a programme you can relax with.
And for god's sake, don't watch the news more than once a week.

So shore up the holes, darn that canvas, resole your walking boots and buy some Cif.
Or all that experience, all that life, all that knowledge won't make you feel so good after all.

Channel 4 Vs Christmas: The Takeover

Hearing Jamie Oliver going on and on about his perfect life and his choice of Choclit dessert (it was bootiful apparently) is pretty nauseating.
Especially as I thought Choclit was those books that women like to read.
Someone told me that was chicklit, but I am almost certain that's a chewing gum.

I'm confused.

On imagining a typical family conversation

"Mummy, mummy, watch me! Watch me, mummy!"
"Why, darling? Putting our genetic connection aside, is what you're doing likely to have broader general interest or particular value?"

You never heard it from me but..

There's been a lot of funny dates recently.
It started with 11 1 11. There's since been an 11 11 11.
Yesterday it was 2012 2011, today it's 211 211.
It's all kicking off.
Next year of course there'll be a 20-12 2012, there'll be a 12 12 12, a 211112. A 21212.
Well, you can make up your own.
There are palindromes, mirrored codes and secret ciphers all over the place.
It's a conspiracy theorist's bumper harvest.

And of course the world is going to end.
According to our Mayan friends 2012 will bring Armageddon.
The Rapture will follow with the good souls ascending into heaven, or as I like to call it .... space.
And the rest of us foraging for whatever the cockroaches leave behind.
So here's my advice... do your Christmas shopping early.

You might take an alternative view of course and save a lot of money by leaving it all until the last possible minute.

It's certainly true that the high street is relying on an unseasonably late rapture in 2012.

Christmas Noel

Don't know much trigonometry...

Back When - a retrospective

When you wrote with the hope Jim would fix your dream.
And turned off each light with a bedtime routine.
When mouses squeaked instead of clicked.
And dancing wasn’t so colourfully strict.

When a job was for life and a pension was waiting.
When Sunday was just for creating and waiting.
And the weather was weather and not Armageddon.
When we had a few senses we hadn't yet deadened.

When pies left on sills always got snaffled.
And police were hard-working but invariably baffled.
When what defined rivalry was Beano V Dandy.
When you sniggered at singers who called themselves Randy.

When a finger of Fudge was never enough.
And toys were made to be Tonka tough.
And you could tell a Bully because it prefixed their name.
And a bunch of daffs was, well, exactly the same.

Before TV taught us to be an Apprentice.
And sweets were a treat when you’d been to the dentist.
When state of the art was a propelling pencil
And you'd the perfect excuse to use a chemistry stencil.

When homework seemed so trigonometrically tricky,
When you're keeping half an eye on Metal Mickey.
And you wondered how ever you could take a wife.
When Daisy Duke was such a part of your life.

When your name said by teacher was highly alarming.
And geography included arable farming
Along with the habitat of the cotton boll weevil.
While sports teachers defined a new type of evil.

Before the loss that the loss of innocence causes.
Before we gave in to so many divorces.
And you thought that a Church was a place you'd be safe.
Till the children fell silent and were told “Be brave”.

When fear was installed into a nation
As the evening news told of yet another detonation.
Before home taping killed music dead.
(Or was that Deeply Dippy by Right Said Fred?)

When a Carry On film was a guilty pleasure
And a golden hare was a national treasure
And jokes were not so much offensive as bawdy,
And you weren't really sure how to say “Audi”.

When Frustration was designed to cure your boredom,
Before the abomination formerly known as Jordan.
With exams, tests, rehearsals, you put all you could in.
Yet happiness was still a spare Yorkshire pudding.

When you were still entertained by Alphabetti Spaghetti.
But danger wasn’t danger without Hans Moretti.
When you could dismiss without needing abbreviation.
When a smile was a smile and not punctuation.
When you would ask Why and were told Because.
Then you could believe it was butter.
Because it was.