Ai No Derrida!

It's no good! I am just so proud of this title. Read it and fall at my feet like King Rollo.

There was a right-angled cloud above our house last night. In fact all the wispy, high-altitude clouds in the last glimmer of day seemed to be more planned than normal. Of course random movements of air can produce anything you can think of in the sky but it doesn't stop them being interesting when they do appear as Kate Bush well knows.

The talk of clouds has made me see this writing strangely; the light here has made it seem like it is suspended in the air, sort of forming in a plane that just exists logically in the air rather than being flat against a real plane of the glass in the screen. It's a bit like the Necker Cube where perceived reality jumps and resumes depending on how you tell your mind to see something. I feel like I should be adding 'Life's a bit like that isn't it?' in the style of the best Radio 4 Thought-for-the-dayer. With events as terrible as recent ones close to home (though I bet you haven't thought too much about things just as bad and worse elsewhere), my thoughts turn to this idea of reality and perception. What is the divine reward going to be like? Violent ends such as those we have seen recently provoke deep internal investigations which spill over into the nature of reality and scientific ideas on the beginning of the universe. I can see that this is going to become as unstructured as a French Philosophy lesson so I'd better rein it in.

The news that Karl Marx has been voted as the greatest ever philosopher in a Radio 4 poll has me thinking that the Radio 4 polls are always rigged. Margaret Thatcher was regularly voted as Top Woman (like Top Nation in 1066 and All That I suppose) and from what I remember, Top man as well. Like in all those NME polls where some band got awarded Best Band AND Worst Band of the year. I once went to a recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and could not quite get over the feeling that I was an outsider. I knew the drill but there was this weird air of chumminess; the feeling that all the rest of the audience were in on something I couldn't quite get. And then you must never give away the secrets such as the fact that .. (CENSORED BY THE RADIO 4 SECRET POLICE - No John! Don't hit me with that rolled up copy of the Guardian).

Phew! We're back. I've just had to sign something. They threatened to cut my tongue out - I would have been The Listener. And I have Ariel in the title of this Blog; that's very nice indeed. You do your best. Sorry! Got away from me a bit there. Still it's better than French Philosophy.

Trotsky one day and Marx the next. They're going to be watching me aren't they?