morsel of the universe

I spent yesterday evening in the pub in the company of two teachers and a deputy head. It was very interesting picking up on the day-to-day delights of working with kids, but what was more of an issue was the whole machine of the education system. The old cliché of public money being spent on phoney overseas wars and teachers in ever expanding classrooms in failing schools being paid beans permeated my thoughts like a left over member of Kinnock’s Labour Party. I drank 3 and half pints, did a quick scotch and walked home.

By the time I got back it was past 10, not being arsed to cook I toasted some pitta bread which I scissored into shards and used them to dip into a fresh pot of Taramasalata and smoked salmon. It was delicious, moorish, then slightly nauseating. I ate it all.

On BBC4 there was a programme about Time. For BBC4 it could’ve been considered a little patronising, but for a chap who’d had a few pints and suffers from numerical dyslexia it was fucking mind blowing. Apparently the earth is something like 4000 million years old. Obviously this is a lot but such a large number doesn’t really mean much, my tiny little mind can’t comprehend it. To help us (me) to comprehend the presenter did the following.

In his apartment in New York at one end of a 7-foot long table he put a little photo of himself down, 10 cms behind that he put a photo of him as a baby, each cm represented 5 years. At the other end of the long table he put down a little shield to represent the time the Romans invaded Britain. He then walked out of his apartment, got into his car and drove to San Francisco, some 2500 miles away. And that demonstrates how old the earth is…to understand such an enormous figure caused my tongue to come out of my face. Following this revelation I saw a programme on the Atom, not having had the slightest interest in science, such things involve too many numbers, I was really pushing it in terms of taking on new information. I was squiffy, it was gone midnight. I rolled a joint. At about 12.45, I got it; I actually understood what the fuck an atom was, how it worked, what it meant, dammit all. I stood up enlightened as if to get the information into my system. I felt liberated but then, yes, a part of the universe in which I occupied, one vibrating hum of randomly moving matter, everything around me, my flesh, these walls, my whisky, (my winkie) Christ, Moby was right, we are all made of stars!

I woke up this morning with a hangover and I’ve forgotten most of the atom shit, balls. I can tell you though that Taramasalata makes you do the most incredible farts.

It’s horrid day to day; the summer seems to have fucked off under a rock. Christ, autumn is coming. When I began Piqued in January I was at least facing forward towards spring. Now should you wish to stay, you will have to endure me sliding gradually towards the dark and misery of another bleak and miserable British winter. I fucking hate it.

I should’ve mentioned this yesterday that Tony Wilson turned up his toes over the weekend. Great loss, bit of a berk sometimes but ultimately a top chap.