For one reason or another, I have found myself attempting to articulate the collection of ropey ideas that passes for my beliefs to various people lately. And every damn time I have, I’ve gotten up the following day, and realised I’ve done another dismal job of it, left half of it out or phrased something badly, and that it’s probably left them thinking I’m either strange, credulous, half-mad or half-baked. Or some combination thereof.

So, as the afternoon sun slips away behind the clouds, and 2004 coughs blood and dies in the gutter like the dog it was, I thought I’d attempt to write them up here, so’s I’d have something I can point people at.

Something to remember, before I begin: belief is an analogue state. Some days, most of this is complete rubbish. Other days it’s gospel truth. Most days, it’s somewhere in between – some bits feel more right than others. This is cobbled together from thoughts and ideas from a variety of sources – from my own experiences, from other’s accounts of their experiences, and from observing commonalities between various faiths, schools of though and rantings of mad bastards.

Lastly, and most importantly: these are just my beliefs. Doesn’t make ‘em true, or anything. I’d never suggest that I’ve got a better handle on the way the universe works than anyone else does. This is just what gets me through the week, you know? I reserve the right to change any or all of this based on later experience.  Holding beliefs you’re not willing to change is a bit stupid, really.
Half Mad and Half Baked

Thanks to zoo_music_girl I have discovered that there is a Tansads album I do not own.  I have checked all the usual second hand CD sites and the like, and I will be attempting to get it via the one possible route I can find (a mail order address on a website that may be years out of date).  But if anyone can help me get hold of a copy faster (either a CD, or just the MP3s) then you will earn my undying gratitude, and many beers.

So, anyone out there got a copy of the Tansads album “Reason To Be”?

I am, I concede, easily pleased.  It doesn’t take much to make me happy.  For instance: today, I have been shopping, and then for a drink with budgie_uk.  I have picked up a few DVDs, and yet another bottle of whisky.  I hadn’t meant to, but it looked so pretty, and it wasn’t expensive.  I also popped into a specialist coffee retailers, and picked up some whole beans.  I’d gotten out of the habit of doing that, ever since I cut back heavily on coffee.  I try not to drink more than a mug or two a day, these days.  Which means that making whole cafetiere loads the way I used to is out, really.  So I stopped buying beans, because I always wound up with more coffee that I could use/was willing to drink, however nice it was.

I got given one of those tiny re-fillable one cup devices for Christmas – you know, the bit of plastic with a filter at the bottom that sits over the cup, like a mini-drip filter.  I’ve been buying M&S one-use versions that come prefilled with coffee for a months now.  Telling myself they made a perfectly good cup.  And they do, I suppose.  I mean, they’re not actually poisonous, unlike Nescafe, or similar filth.

But they’re not a patch on the real thing.  I’d forgotten how nice it was.

I have spent today putting up shleves and re-arranging my bedroom.  Festive fun for everyone.  I am more-or-less done, and right now,I just don’t want to do any more tidying.

In the process, though, I did turn up a comic I’d forgotten I’d bought, and as a result, I direct you to Daniel Merlin Goodbrey‘s excellent webcomic The Mr. Nile Experiment.  Those paying attention will remember him as the artist on RUST.  His own writing is far better, and far clever than mine, particularly in the specific field of webcomics, where he remains one of the few talents who seem seriously interested in innovating with the form.  Go and look.

I’m in the process of a re-vamp for Black Ink.  It’s about a day or so from being finished.  It’s still in very stark greys, and I want to warm it up a bit, as well as adding a few bits and pieces back in, and make it a bit clearer what’s what on the page with some header graphics, but despite all that it’s gone live anyway.  Why?  Because while I was attempting to make the fucking thing work with the new design, Nucleus (my old blogging tool) up and shat itself, and destroyed my old archive, taking with it several years worth of my on-line wittering.  I’d been planning on taking it away anyhow, but I’d quite have liked a chance to take a copy first.

I saw The Pogues last time they played Brixton, a couple of years ago. I’ve just dug out my old review, to see what I said last time, and it turns out that I said about three words, which is a bit shit, really. Still, at least I don’t have to worry about repeating myself. (I saw them on Monday – this is a bit delayed.)

In short: that was very bloody good indeed.

In long:

I was going to do one of those year in review things. And then I realised that they almost all either come out sounding broadly like “I’ve had a worse year than everyone else, pity me” or “My year rocked, envy me”.

Being me, though, I want to have my cake and eat it, too.

[Tedious smugness ahead, please, ignore. I’m only doing this to be conformist.]

My year sucked, envy me.

After an entertaining moment when we discovered that we were in moving traffic in a car with no brake fluid, and an amusing hike across bits of Gatwick airport that I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have been in, I’m home.  I can only hope the rest of my family manage the same sometime before dawn.

Since my family in Belfast have acquired broadband, I *think* I managed to reply to all the mail I needed to this morning, but the webmail I’m using seems a little tempermental, so if you’re expecting a response from me and haven’t had one, speak up.

Like all tube-travelling Londoners, I hate those little wheely suitcases with the pull-out handles, and dismiss those who use them on the underground as arseholes. That said, watching my Mum accidentally broadside a small child with hers at the airport this afternoon has almost turned me round on them. The kid was wearing a massively inappropriate amount of hot pink for a three year old, and sailed a satisfying distance when Mum caught her. Mum was, of course, mortified. I managed not to laugh out loud in front of the parents. Takes all sorts.

I’m in Belfast now, having suffered the comedy spanish train driver on the Gatwick Express (imagine a train driven by Manuel from Fawlty Towers – you’re not quite there, but you’re within spitting distance), and the mad bastard pilot who talked about about ninety-four miles per hour, and seemed to have made a concerted effort to aim for every bit of turbulence en route. How we laughed.

Back Sunday night.

Well, I’ve had a flatteringly positive reponse to the photos I’ve put on-line over the last few days, and the combination of Flickr and Livejournal really does make photoblogging a complete and utter doddle.  So I’m going to take a stab at doing it on a reasonably regular basis.

So, rather than cluttering everyone’s friends pages with stuff they don’t want, I’ve set up a new journal at electricana to hold my photos, so that those who’re interested can opt-in to seeing them.  Feel free to friend away – I’ll probably get round to friending back at some point, but it won’t ever have any friends-locked content, so I won’t make it a priority to check that sort of thing, in case anyone’s the type to get offended at the lack of reciprocity.

Due warning: I don’t intend to LJ cut the shots, and I expect they’ll all be about the size of the ones that’re there at the moment, so you may wish to keep it off any filter you use to skim read with.  On the other hand, I won’t post more than one pic in an entry, and if I’ve got a bunch of pics to show off at once, I’ll probably choose maybe one or two favourites to put on LJ, and then just link through to my flickr pages, so it shouldn’t be a terrible burden on anyone’s friends page.

I found a few old shots I still like in my archives, so they’ll probably go up in the next few days.