Considering a move to Memphis

This is out of order, I've just shaken off one cold only to wake with a sore throat this morning. Oy immune system, look; carrots, Berlotti Beans, zinc and other goodness coming your way. Now do your job.

Talking of doing your job, one of the escalators at King's Cross has been broken for around 5 months. They used to fix it on a Sunday, then two days later it would be broken. They stopped bothering with that after a while. Probably had to spend the next three months dealing with the administration. Passing through King's Cross means having to queue to get on the escalator every work day. As I went through this evening I noticed they'd fixed it. But the middle escalator doesn't work now. That kind of sums up the uselessness of England. Are we officially a third world country? Let's move to Memphis. No, seriously, what have we to enjoy here? Broken escalators, crappy weather, nasty government.

When I was young and ridiculed for going to the library I just thought these kids were idiots. Now I realise they were tories in the making. So you see the situation was worse than my young mind perceived. I remember on the radio one lonely night, a girl wrote in from Chichester ( i think), and said she hung around the library by the J D Salinger books. I fell for her immediately. Chichester wasn't so far away, maybe she was a migratory library dweller? The following day I went to my local library to check out the girls by the J D Salinger books. She wasn't there. Oh well. Libraries are still great places.

OK, I'm off to find a healthy drink so my immune system has no excuses.

Four in the Morning

Friday I'm ill, floored by a cold, so I'm looking forward to a peaceful morning in bed. The workmen outside the window have other ideas though, timing it so they rev their machinery up the second my head hits the pillow. They are replacing the Victorian water pipes in this area, although I was sure they’d finished, had already packed up their drilling machines and temporary fences and moved away from here. Later I look out the window to see they have moved their fences and machinery, all except for around a thin sliver of road that runs horizontal to my window. Coincidence?

Walking my girlfriend to the tube station on Saturday I tell her how, apart from an occasional 4 0’clock wake, I am no longer troubled by insomnia and haven’t been for years. That very evening, admittedly after a not very active Saturday as I’m still feeling under the weather, I find myself in bed unable to sleep. I resort to listening to music on my headphones. I start off with a few disco classics and am so awake that in a moment of madness I contemplate getting up and getting a taxi to the nearest 60’s soul night so I can dance my way to tiredness. Drunk people walk past below shouting loudly. Police sirens tear down the street. I change my mind, and the music, listening instead to late night classics such as Nick Drake.

I sit up in bed, hazy orange thoughts colouring my mind; a bright house full of people, children running around, good food on the hob, a garden with sunflowers; waiting for sleep to raise its mischievous head from wherever it’s hiding.