Conversion
Town to natural gas. Old money to
decimal. Religious. I've undergone religious conversion. It happened
walking the dogs, with Keep on Skankin' by Bob Marley and the Wailers
and the Upsetters on the iPod. A music-driven conversion. I've lost
patience with putting 'none' in the religion box on forms and was
going to do the Jedi Knight thing next time. In times when disclosure
of age and infirmity, previous and current gender, sick and
timekeeping records is protected, why's there still the religion box
to fill in, in any case.
Today, I've changed allegiance (if
that's the right terminology) and am no longer Jedi and am now
Rastafari. I need to gen up on it a bit, obviously. You can't know
all there is to know from the get-go, after all. Here's the plan so
far:
I'm rejecting Babylon and western ways:
too many over bonused bankers and dodgy politicians preaching
austerity in £500 shoes. I'm embracing Zion, particularly inasmuch
as there's less of this rain stuff every day all summer. When
no-one's looking I'm planning on the spiritual use of cannabis, but
I'll probably stop short of giving up pork and shellfish.
I and I don' like cricket, nah nah, I
and I love it.
There. Just have to wait for the
dreadlocks, and contact deed poll. Prince Istvan-Far-I has a nice
ring to it.
Stuff 'n' nonsense
I've gone from a sandwich under twenty
stone to just over. I'm ancient and creaking badly all over the shop.
Yesterday I went up a ladder onto a second floor roof carrying my
telescopic to get up off there onto the third floor roof and was
gasping for oxygen on arrival (and not looking forward to the return
trip). I'd've used the inhaler if it wasn't left in the car.
I'm going to sound like the two old
ladies in French and Saunders here.
If I can park up, open the boot, walk
the dogs (all in trainers, laces undone) without any artificial aids
other than the iPod, how come people need to park up and change into
hiking gear, march about with those fibreglass walking stick things,
and generally go to more fuss than an army mobilising? Jesus. Or is
that Jah? Including a woman in a pristine car and pristine colourful
wellies with a bowl of water out for her handbag dog (don't want to
sound discriminatory, I'm not up on breeds and anything less than a
Jack Russell = handbag dog). Take it home and give it some water,
love. You could do three laps of the woods in three hours. We're not
in some battle for survival here. We're not in range of the grease
smell from the nearest McDonalds, exactly, but you are not
going to have to live on nuts and berries for too long before some
mush with a staffie finds you and hands over half of his Twix.
The Yips
Nicola Barker is natural successor to
PG Wodehouse. The Yips is intelligent and very, very funny.
Virgin...
...who BLISS has been loyal to because
their service was so good in the past, are being worse than awful.
What's changed?
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