Alasdair Watson

I’m selling my old Canon Ixus V (link to a sample second hand sale on Amazon.co.uk provided for reference purposes – this is not my sale, so if you want to buy mine, don’t buy that one).  Camera and 64 Meg flash card can be yours for 100 quid (less that amazon sample price, and includes a better flash card), or nearest offer.

I’d prefer to sell to someone I can actually meet up with an hand the thing over, but I’m willing to sort out postage and tell you how much extra it’ll cost if need be.

Anyone interested?

And another birthday.

llamaramauk lives at the other end of the country, which is something of a pain in the arse, because it’d be nice to see her more often, and everyone knows I spontaneously combust if forced to pass outside the M25.  She possesses many admirable qualities, but listing them will bore us all to tears.  So instead I’m going to tell you something she’d never tell you herself, because she’s far too modest.

Picture the scene: It’s 1977.  Punk rock is already over, it’s just that no-one’s noticed.  On January the 1st of this year, the first woman Episcopal priest is ordained.  Shortly thereafter, scientists identify the bacterium that causes Legionnaire’s disease.  In fact, 1977 is a bumper year for science, as scientists make insulin in lab conditions for the first time, the USSR launches Soyuz 24, the US launches Voyager 1 and 2 (in reverse order) and the Space shuttle takes it’s maiden flight, strapped to a Boeing 747.

But all these things pale into insignificance beind the accomplishments of a young llamaramauk, on holiday with her family in Nova Scotia.  While staying in one of a small cluster of shore-side cottages, she spots a younger child in trouble on the beach.  The child is trapped, backed up against the rock by a hideous creature that he come crawling out of the water.  The beast is vast, and ugly, with a hard grey shell, covered in the slime of the depths from which it has risen.  Balancing on it’s spindly legs, it menaces the child with it’s huge claws, while it’s antennae sweep over the poor boy, trying to determine which part of his soft flesh would be best to bite into first.

Thinking quickly, she seizes up a rock, and dives forward, coming up upon the beast from behind, and driving the stone hard into the space between it’s two close-set eyes, hoping against hope that the space between those two glittering black orbs is slightly softer than the rest of the body.  There is a terrible crunch, and the beast slumps, just in time for the child’s parents to come running.

After the scientists have come in, and carried out their tests, the truth is detemined.  With it weighing in at a little over 20 kilos, and while she was still a child llamaramauk killed not just the largest lobster, but the largest crustacean ever recorded.

Happy Birthday!

Do I:

a) Stay in, tidy up, and begin the process of making sure I’ve MP3ed every CD in my collection, now that I have a big enough iPod?
b) Go out and shop, like a good little 21st century consumer?

Oh, and in other news, The BBC are doing a series of interviews called “Chain Reaction”. The series starts wth some famous person or other interviewing the candidate of their choice. The following week, the interviewee then interviews the person of their choice. And so on.

At some point in the not too distant future, Stewart Lee will be interviewing Alan Moore. Who will, presumably, then be interviewing someone himself the following week. I’m going to try and get a few tickets to the recordings, and as I assume other V-sters will as well.

So, anyone interested?

It’s alfirin_kirinki‘s birthday today, so I suppose I should write up a response for her first, before I dash out the door.

alfirin_kirinki is warm, honest and creative.

Despite several close calls, alfirin_kirinki has never knowingly participated in human sacrifice.

alfirin_kirinki doesn’t do anything by halves.

Shortly after she was born, and to the astonishment of those who knew her as an infant alfirin_kirinki invented lemons.

Something fell out of my head again. I wish that’d stop happening without warning. I think I must be in a slightly M R James sort of mood today.

—-

As the sun slid behind the hills, and the sky turned the colour of freshly-spilled blood, the old man told us a story of the devil.

This story wasn’t like the others. The other stories of the devil are stories of passion and pride. Stories of lust and conflict. Stories of a star that burnt itself black.

This was a different story. It was calm, and it was quiet. It invited reflection, and left those who heard it with a sense of peace, with the knowledge that there is an order to things, and that even the devil has his role to play.

It was a good story, but afterwards, walking home through the deepening twilight, I wondered about it, “what if it were true?” Suddenly, the devil didn’t seem like such a remote figure.

The moon was high in the sky when I reached home. It was a cold, cold night, and the moonlight on the frost made it seem colder still. I closed and locked the door behind me, and settled down by the hearth.

Several times during the night, I was woken by a sound outside. A crackling, wheezing, spitting sound. A spiteful death rattle torn from the throat of a dying animal. The sound stalked around the outside of my house. I had the sense of something watching, waiting…

I lay there, and stared into the glowing embers of the fire, afraid to move.

Oh, wait, no, it’ll kill time. Time. That’s what I meant to say.

Being nice has never actually killed people, unless you believe Jim Jones, and he was a kool-aid swilling motherfucker.

Yes, I’m doing that “leave a comment, and I’ll say nice things about you” notion that’s doing the rounds. Of course, this being me, I’ll probably decide halfway through that sticking to the factual truth is boring, and get ludicrous about the whole thing, for laughs.

Still, if you’d like me to say, or possibly make up, nice things about you, leave a comment.

Shamelessly thieved from childeric, because I’ve run out of gigs, and in the absence of music-fuelled excitement, I need new things in my life.

(I admit, I include this one in the interests of seeing how the general tone of the responses goes, given Simon’s and my different friends-lists. Also, you know, salaciousness and laughs. All answers kept strictly confidential.)

Edit:

And in childeric style-ee, some responses to the hidden question:

burge: She wasn’t there. There’s no justice.
cathuk: Whichever you’d rather, although one is funnier, obviously.
charlieinmcr: Exactly what is it you think I’m endowed with?
meetpaulblack: 2 problems – 1) That’s plainly impossible. 2) Even if it were possible, I fear it’d make me feel inadequate.
stu_n: You’re the second person to suggest that, but I can’t recall the last time I had a free Friday…

Made of wet boots and rain/and shiny black ravens/on chimney smoke lanes

zoo_music_girl will probably appreciate this one, if she hasn’t seen it already, and I’m sure there are plenty of other people on my friends list who might like it.

http://www.seventypercent.com/ – a chocolate reviews/tastings/shopping site, including imports that it might be hard to get elsewhere. I can see myself winding up with a list of new things to try…

Yes, it probably will be very bad for any diets, but sod it, it’s the festive season soon…

That moment when the town wakes up. The opening drumbeat from a lone pair of feet on the pavement. An eyeblink in the grey morning light, as pupils used to darkness contract to pinpoints, then flare again. It’s 5am on a weekday morning, dancing with the last night’s chip-wrap and carrier bags on the back street breeze.

It’s the rumble of the train, a rail-bound titan moving down the hidden conduits of the metropolis, on secret paths known only to the initiate, the brotherhood of engineers and trackmen. A topography that intersects with our own only at intervals, at the places where the walls between one geography and another fray and grow thin.

It’s the tone of the radio alarm, a signal web of information spreading from broadcast tower flashpoints across the urban sprawl, bringing us to conciousness with a dance of information amid the dead-air static. A synchronisation of reason in our minds to begin the day.

It’s the pin-and-tumbler rattle of the key in the lock as we leave our residences behind, and step out into the larger world. As we put away our private selves for another day, and strap on our day-faces, like a ritual for some forgotten sun god.

It’s the moment where the world comes on.