Alasdair Watson

Yeah, I know that’s yesterday’s rhyme. But I was busy yesterday. (See 28 DAYS LATER, by the way.) Halloween over, and a holy night tonight. Stupid fucking night to hold a Halloween party on, really, but everywhere seems to be doing it. No good will come of it. Where’s the frisson of danger if all the saints are watching over you? Where’s the Halloween spirit?

But I digress. We’re in the wind-down, now. Last two months of the year. It’s stock-taking time again. Time to start examining the year. It generally takes me a month or so to do that, and then December is the planning for next year. This year was dalet (or daleth), the door. Next year is hei (or heh), the window, or the breath of the divine spirit. If memory serves, it’s part of the tetragrammaton, the name of God. And of course, the year maps nicely onto 23. I have a suspicion that next year is going to be a year to be careful and look closely – things won’t always be what they seem, but those things that are, may be very important indeed.

I’ve just re-read that. Anyone else see my shady past as a horrorscope writer showing there? There’s no reason that the kabbalah should be any more accurate than a horroscope at predicting the future, and indeed, nor do I believe it is, but it’s a method that allows me to map a year, get things filtered through another perspective, and generally keep my magician’s head in. Which is at least half of what this stock-taking and planning is all about.

So, it’s time to start the fight with the ghosts of 2002. Even though the year’s not over yet.

I’ve got another month’s rent to pay on my current flat, and I’m done. Most of the moving will be done at the back end of next month, but I’m already moving my life back South. Tonight, I stopped off in Woodford to load a couple of bags up with stuff to bring it back. Not much, but hey, every little bit I can bring back now is less to pack later. My Woodford flat was cold, and damp, and smelled like it – I haven’t been in there in a little under a week to air or heat the place. All I have in the kitchen there is a bottle of HP, a bottle of Worcester sauce, some garlic pepper, half a jar of peanut butter and half a bottle of water. That’s been the case for the last two weeks.

Now I’m back with my folks, eating a hot muffin with peach jam, and drinking a mug of tea. There’s a scent of ginger and cinammon from the candle, and the room is warm. Yeah, OK, maybe it is a little sad, moving back in with your folks at my age (even if it is only a temporary measure). But I know where I’m happier, cheers.

But first, the news. SIX STRINGS, the short comic I wrote earlier in the year is now up at Opi8. The direct link is here. 12 pages, a nasty little blues story of teenage heartbreak and bloody guitars, written by me, with art by Mr Nelson Evergreen.

I know it’s been quiet on here of late. I’ve been busy. And to be honest, the stuff that’d be most interesting and entertaining to write about, well, it’s not for public consumption. Not because I want to keep it quiet, but more because I don’t really feel the need to let other people judge, if you see what I mean. All too often, you read a blog or LJ about the ghastly trauma in someone’s life, and then you get to watch their friends telling them that no, they’re in the right, and it’s all OK, or, about as often, a plethora of people denouncing them as scum. On this occaision, my life’s gone a bit fucking soap-opera, and I’m really not interested in what the rest of the world thinks. As soon as something interesting happens to me that doesn’t sound like an old Neighbours episode, I’ll let you know.

My life, as more than one friend has observed, has been a really mixed bag of late. I’m really hoping that things will have settled out a bit by the end of the year, because I really don’t feel like I’ve achieved anything solid since SIX STRINGS. I can’t get it together to write properly, at the moment. I can’t write when I’m bored, and that’s all I am whenever I have spare time, of late. Attempting to write feels like I’m just attempting a distraction, rather than writing for the joy of it, and what I produce seems forced and insincere.

Still, less than two months to go…

It’s what they made London from. They left the meat and the soft parts for the Ravens, but the blood and the stone made a city. I was at the Tower on Sunday, finishing up asking for a favour from August and Odin, and I was there to hear the stories and touch the edges of the blood and stone behind the place. I didn’t go there until I’d exhausted myself with walking around the focus of the modern city, from Bond Street down Oxford Street to Tottenham Court, along the commercial vein because I needed to be operating on a really basic level in the Tower.

It was good. I heard the stories, and I bought the tokens, but by the time I’d done the job I was there to do, I was too tired to spend much more time there – all I wanted was a shower and some rest, so I headed on. But I’m going to go back again soon. The guided tour was great, and I really want to go and see all the things they’ve got there. Everyone should visit the Tower.

My friend Alistair Pulling is talking. This is part of what he’s saying.

“Keeping things going. Ensuring the system continues. Looking at the Universe and thinking that if you can’t live forever in body or soul, you can pass your bodily information on. Your genes can survive, join with others and survive indefinitely.

In order to do this, you need to have sex. I like sex.

If you think that your soul is going to live forever then why bother spreading those genes? Your genitals will shrivel up and die whilst the rest of you lives on and goes to choir practice and afternoon tea.

Far better not to believe in an afterlife, or any supernatural trappings that might indicate that your soul will go on, so that you can have mighty, swinging organs of reproduction that get regular use whilst you live the life that you do have to the full.”

Go and read the rest of what he has to tell you about Big Rocks.

And then go back and look here, and here and here and probably in a few other places in there that I’ve missed.

Ali’s talent for this sort of thing makes me very envious indeed, as I sit here wrestling with yet another 9A column, trying to work out what the fuck it is I’m talking about.

But anyway, yes. Go and listen to the clever man speak.

It’s a miracle! I put some more photos up!

Couple of nights out with friends. Of interest to no-one my me and my friends who where there. But they were a couple of particularly good nights out, and I wanted a record of them on-line where I could get to them, and y’know, it’s my damn photo album. As usual, if there’s a photo of you there that you don’t want on-line, I’ll yank it if you drop me a mail.

This has the feel of a “restored from backup” job. I got a load of old email, from about two weeks back, and my blog had been dialed back by about the same amount of time. I’m hoping the new stuff will filter through over the next day or so, but if you’ve sent me mail and not had a response, you may want to send it again…

Beginning to go completely insane. Surely it’ll come back soon, won’t it? Also, becoming seriously concerned about the fact that I don’t seem to be able to get my central heating to work, even a little. Winter’s going to be a bastard, in this flat…