Here Is The News

It's all bits of life, isn't it?

Very sad to hear of Lewis Collins death, suffering from some sort of cancer for five years. I think I'll assume it's bowel, a nasty enough disease to fell a Professional hidden behind previously washboard abs. The breathtaking raid at the end of Who Dares Wins left a permanent mark on boys such as I.

But it puts into perspective the papped photographs I saw a couple of years ago, claiming he was dishevelled. Of course he was. Life had taken on a new perspective.

It's annoying when we only hear half the story but the medical detail is important now that the nature of celebrity is seeing our own lives reflected in little fragments.

What else do we have this week? 

"I'm a Celebrity Jungle..." celebrates a man who can't tell the time or do up his own shoelaces, because he doesn't "need to".

TV presenter Melanie Sykes (43) most famous for doing some TV presenting and tweeting pictures of herself in lingerie, has been arrested for assaulting her toyboy roofer (27) and husband of a few months.

Strictly contestant and Countdown mathematician Rachel Riley splits up from her millionaire husband after 16 months of marriage.

They've grown apart, apparently.

So that's the news.

I hope you've learned something.

I haven't!

Hanging by a Thread

Have you ever felt that you are hanging by a thread?

Have you ever felt you are holding onto something by a thread?

Have you ever felt someone is holding on to you by a thread?

You might feel this way through hope or expectation, but the thread isn't an idea. It's real. 

Maybe it's not a thread at all. Maybe it's a rope, maybe it's a steel rope. The sort they suspend bridges with.

If you're holding onto something by a thread, maybe you're responsible for its strength? 

If the thread wasn't there, maybe it would fall.

That's the thing about threads.

They can suspend (actors playing) super heroes. They can make David Copperfield fly. You don't see them. But they're there. Vital. An invisible source of essential support.

Powerful. Flexible. Essential. Beautiful. 

Ask any spider.

If you're holding onto something by a thread, you might be the strength behind the something you're holding on to. 

Not just the thread.

Don't Ask Me For The Moon.

Do you have a song you like?

No, really. Really like? 

At work. At play. At school. Anytime.

No, you're not taking this seriously.

I blame myself. Some would argue that that makes you a lucky half-wit. Not me. It's not a bet. I'm no politician. As I say, I blame myself (and possibly a Merlot of questionable accomplishment). 

Don't think me too aggressive. Maybe I work too hard but I'm not a man with a gun. Let's try again.

Do you have a song you LIKE? I'm only asking. (If you don't ask, you don't get). But by "like" I mean universally,like. In the dark. In broad daylight. When you've prayed for rain. 

Now. 

Soon. 

Forever.

OK, I'll spell it out for you.

I'm talking about a song you "Like" enough to ... oh well, here we go... write out the lyrics. There I've said it. This is not a song you'd draw straws for. 

It's...stopping the tape, pushing the knob to pause play, wrestling with misunderheard words, trying to predict the artistic weather. And carrying on the impure belief that the neologisms "spoke" to you. YOU! 

While burying themselves in the belief that your belated transcriptions were actually accurate. (You're not religious, are you?)

But do you have a song like that?

Do you?

Take all the time you need. 

Because I know you do.

Because.........because..

I have two.

This is one.

And there isn't another person on the planet that is mad enough to guess the second.

(Well not correctly, at least).

Lock & Key

When you have the heart and output of a frustrated poet and life kicks you in the testes, the dispenser should eat a dose of his own medicine.

Cut a fat slice of his own rhetoric.

Eat it - swallow it, try it on for size. Pretend it tastes good.

Use the keys for the internal locks that he knows and try them on the locks he doesn't.

Maybe one lever will give. 

Maybe two. 

Maybe that's enough to force the door.

Or maybe not. 

He could lubricate the mechanism with a healthy dose of self pity.

Or get on with picking the rest with the arsenal of a locksmith.

Whatever it takes to find a way to recover and regrow, to recognise, reorder and repair.

And to see what tumbles.

Call The Doctor

Television history is upon us.

It is 60 minutes and 6 miles away

And I'm going to go to the cinema to watch it, even putting aside my intolerance of 3-D.

I'm actually a little bit nervous. The 50th has been so built up, but one man has always delivered.

One man never lets you down.

If I were in the hands of anybody other than Steven Moffat, I might not be so optimistic.

But bathe his writing in the skills of David Tennant, John Hurt and the fabulous Matt Smith.

This is television - the defining art form of our lifetimes and I know I'm about to witness history with a capital T.

Thin Ice

Would you like to go ice skating?

What a lovely idea! 

Only, don't do it with me.

Because I've started going ice skating.

You need more explanation?

Well, as delighted as I am with my new boots, my phase may not last long, and it's easy to give people the impression that you're doing it for fun. 

I'm not.

I have an exit strategy locked in.

The "sell" point is when I've achieved a level just below average competence.

See! 

I shoot for the moon.

Because ice skating is an intolerable, unnatural, bonkers activity.

Anybody with a normal level of under-competence, such as I, will be counting the minutes until they can get off the ice to click their rediscovered heels in the air (should they still have the capacity after removing the skates).

The trouble is that I have no doubt that it's good for you physically, if not mentally.

And I confess to holding out a hope that a certain level of competence might make it enjoyable, perhaps enough to see myself in scene from a Fred Astaire movie, in which case I could add the 'mentally' onto the list.

But of course, I won't know until I've committed a little.

Fitness wise, it ties in well with balance and core, and those other sort of yoga/Pilates things, that I might have scoffed that a few years ago but seem to make a little more sense to me nowadays as an alternative to pumping iron. 

If iron was meant to be pumped,cornflakes would give you wind.

Learning wise, it's even more appealing, forcing your joint position sensitive to compute a new set of variables, educating yourself nerve ending by nerve ending.

True, your life still seems to rely a little too heavily on the quality of the work of the fellow who sweeps the ice. And I'm pretty sure his minimum wage is not the safety net my ankles require. And if I was any good at it I would probably give up, my mission complete, for those of you with an passing interest in paradox. (How else can a renaissance continue?)

But you have to try to take part. 

Otherwise you just sitting watching. 

You've got to be more Torvill & Dean than Pearl & Dean.

Or at least more Torvill. 

Than Orville.

Quotable Me 11

I'm not into popularity contests. 

I would be, but I'm not popular enough.