The Helsinki Dress Code

After talking about rain yesterday, it arrived in the night, heavy rattling on the windows which makes me worry about the integrity of the house.

Soundtrack - Split - Lush

Loads of photos are waiting back at home. My daughter found an old camera in a bag upstairs and came down with it the other week. I wasn't sure how long it had been there but it had film in it, the subjects of which I had no idea about so they are going to be a great surprise. I do know that there are pictures from before my daughter was born so it should be an interesting collection.

Not building a wall; making a brick.

Adobe! That is a type of brick isn't it? Or is it just a covering for a wall. Everyone here calls it Abode which makes me wonder how much some people actually read or even how much they see of the world. It amazes me that these people can even drive without running into every solid object in the city. Of course, the world is a very complex place what with all those weird particles flying about. Strange and charmed etc. Glued with Gluons and positrons. We will all die if they escape and don;t do any spell checking. I was going to hit the spell checker but he hates it when I do that so I won't. Jangly guitars and all that hey! Will Gwyneth be any good as Sylvia? I bet she doesn't write as well. Glued in Ariel maybe. What would we do if we felt like that. Don't say you have never been that sad because I know you have. We all have. It just takes one bad day and the whole lot tumbles down on you like blubber from the guts of a Blue Whale on one of those evil factory ships. Like mines they are. As bad as mines. Invented for destruction of beautiful creatures. We are good and great and we will never kill anything. Oh the ants. Well do they count, pesky things? Diana loved mines or loved to get rid of them. Simpering over that body armour was the thing she did best. In the spring of that last year, the whole field was cleared of the black-hearted things and the children could walk free from the thought that they might lose a limb to them. They were disarmed and piled up in the woodshed like the evil that they were. Woodshed - Watershed - the swamp up above Swallowdale where the children got lost in the fog and fell upon the Charcoal Burners. Is young Billy still alive? I bet he is, still wandering the hills and burning the trees for barbecues. They had an Adder in a box and were the same men as in the photo in that book my Aunt had. He used to kill an Adder and clarify the dripping for embrocation. Damn mobile phones. For use by beavers of course. Random thoughts are useless but always interesting. This is just words like the scr ap book. Cut up any magazine you want and turn it into words. Slowly the Sun dipped below the hill and the purple of the heather shone out almost as if luminous, like land-locked plankton, glowing with its own light in the late evening. The light programme was on the radio and the children sang along when they knew the songs. In the woods, the animals stirred and waited for absolute silence without knowing why. It was after the wars, a happy, undefined time though only we know now how happy or indeed how undefined it really was. So much had happened in the few years previously and now no-one knew quite what to do to fill their days. Naval and Merchant Seamen were home and the miltary depots were filled with rusting equipment waiting for the time when strange men in strange clothes would buy it up and lovingly restore it to order simply to give their boring lives some real excitement. I have a tank in the back garden though the Sergeant was mean to me and took the firing mechanism from the gun. The Machine guns too he took. It is nothing but a hunk of rusting metal now. The children love to play on it though it gets very hot inside, like a rocket going round the sun until the seams melt and all those thousands of components drift apart gently until there is a new cloud in orbit. We go to Southsea (Starnbergersee) once a year for the air and sea-food. Sit by the Orwell and eat Whelks and Eels. Where did you get that accent? Very cut-glass isn't it. Are you a spy Guy? Cambridge 1931 and idealism brings the whole world down around you. Want a revolution and you will get sent down, urbinated possibly. Keeper of the Queens pictures and how does that give you access to military secrets? Go to jail after you confess but remember that what you desired for us has happened. There is no need to betray your country for a handful of beans. Who is your controller? In the park, where they meet to hand over the metal for the civil war that never happens, their master sits; Ukranian he is and no committed Communist as you think. Could this be code? Take every third word and it might make more sense than this drivel. The children are asleep now and have no thoughts of secrecy or spying. Commander Walker strolls the deck of The Duke of York as the sun rises over Tokyo bay. My Father in Law was there on that ship as they bent over that table one by one and signed away the peace. The War is Over. The War is Over. War is Over. War is War.