Alasdair Watson

Saw The Pogues live last night. Am now in some pain, but by god, it was worth it. Especially since we got to see them do “Fairytale of New York” two days before Christmas, and probably for the last time. A fantastic, fantastic performance. I’m so glad I saw it.

Out at Anna’s birthday party last night. Met the crowd from Barbelith who were lovely. I am a good little hippy, and have downloaded the Peace Mango tune, and fear that I am stuck with it in my head all day. You should download it as well, and do your part for world peace.

Now it begins to feel like Christmas. I’ve got the flat to myself until Boxing Day, so I’m sipping a good malt, relaxing with a CD of European choral music, with candles lit. Much as I love my flatmates, the prospect of having the flat to myself for a few days is nothing short of wonderful…

Today’s Weird Thinking:

2000 was the ghost year, not quite part of one century or the other, a year for doing shit that was disconnected from what was around it. It didn’t count. A good year to try things out, see how they worked, a bad year for laying foundations for anything really big. 2001, a bad year generally. The year the future died. Big stain of psychic disappointment hanging over the whole event. Not a good year for beginnings. A year for looking back one last time.

2002 isn’t here yet, but a quick examination with Gematria (because I’m in that kind of mood) tells us it evaluates to 4, Dalet in the Hebrew alphabet, the doorway. It’s all about the stepping through into something new. I’m taking this as a good sign for my plans for next year. This is the year to start shit…

Lunchtime, I popped across the bridge to Putney in order to buy a couple of last minute things for Mum and Dad, and buy tape and wrapping paper and the like. It was lovely – I kept noticing people with suitcases and bags, clearly setting off (or arriving) to spend Christmas with loved ones. Wonderful time of year, this.

Because I was over the bridge, I took the chance to nip into Starbucks for another Gingerbread Latte, and as I was walking back, I wondered – when did my financial sense get so screwed up that I would hand over almost a fiver for a coffee and bit of cake, and not think anything odd of it? I mean, I remember living in Edinburgh, and having a weekly budget of about 30 quid for “luxuries”. Spending a fiver on a coffee would have been out of the question. Now, it’s a casual thing that I do without thinking, even when I’m running low on cash…

Reading Barbelith Underground, I find a thread entirely devoted to getting people to list ten things that make them great. I applaud this notion. We’re all bastard fantastic, but society has, as someone pointed out in the thread, conditioned us to be hyper-aware of our own faults, but rely on others to point out how fucking fab we are. And of course, most people don’t really spend a lot of time pointing out how fab all their friends are, because they assume their friends are bright enough to know how ace they are. We never pause to think for a moment that everyone else might be as neurotically obsessed with their own shortcomings as we ourselves are. So anything that encourages people to list things that make them feel good about themselves is a Good and Right sort of thing.

I, of course, have no need to list ten things that make me ace. I know I’m fab. I bring joy and light into the universe by my mere existence.

Stop laughing, damn you.