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February is a drag man. I have gone off it this year. It is so last year. Fuck February. This is the new uncensored me. More swearing on the blog and in poems. Although it’s just the alliteration innit? Yes, it is the shortest month and that is about the best thing you can say about it. Unless your birthday is in February. Then that would be the best thing you could say about it.

I got a draft down today which is good, but I fear it’s crap because it’s a load of nonsense from my head and I think it’s quite good and that means it’s probably crap. In any case, one of the lines I did not put in this poem which I did like was ‘and may a thousand Februaries rain down upon you’. Know what I mean? Actually, as Tattontastic would say… no, actually her favourite word is anyway, but then she’s a palindrome, so she would prefer that wouldn’t she? (Not a palindrome but like a palindrome.) Anyway, isn’t Groundhog Day in February? Probably which is another word I’m keen on. Ending in ‘y’ good, except of course for ‘February’. So life continues here in the Bart Brain.

Spent the day working from a lovely organic cafe down the road with free wireless. Thought Smokin’ Horse might be there but she was clippety clopping kicking dust elsewhere today. I buy my bread from this shop but didn’t realise they were such a little oasis spot in the bleak, Februaryness of it all. Had olive bread, walnut bread, rye bread and some salads. Forgot to say they do this DIY bread thing where you get to toast your own bread on a Duralit and check your email. Loving it. Off to Cornwall tomorrow – Penzance and then on to a place called Prussia Cove. The only famous Prussian I can think of off the top of my head is Hitler and I don’t want to say his name again even though I just did in case I get a yukky following of weirdo neo-nasties dropping in. I may not be Top O the Blogs, but it’s quality not kwantitee when it comes to readers n’est pas? Or what if people think I am slightly obsessed by fascist dictators? Or worse, what if I am slightly obsessed with fascist dictators in that Asperges Syndrome – no I mean Tourettes Syndrome kind of way? Like when you imagine perpetrating assisted suicides on the Northern Line or shoving kids under passing cars just because you know it’s so WRONG.

Where was I? Ah yes, Prussia Cove, on the north coast. Owned by some brothers with lots of houses, a private beach and a February discount. Going with the Fishy1, Mr & Mrs Evil, a couple of wolves and more. There may be fishing. We are planning on luring gurnard up from the seabed but may have to make do with mackerel. Weather report is crap and Februaryish. It is a heavily discounted month. There will be tempting meat options I will have to resist I’m sure. (Just had a kwik-check – AH appears not to be from Prussia but Austria; whether this bit of Austria was once Prussia I dunno and I don’t care…they are inextricably linked by history and there ain’t no smoke without fire etc etc.)

And finally: last night I saw this amazing Mexican film. Not amazing like in good, but amazing in a “nothing ACTUALLY happens, there is no drama, there is no conflict, everyone just goes, ‘oh ok’ whatever the situation and there was not one argument throughout the entire 100 minutes and when the bloke’s stupid wooden Cine Alfonso-Cinema Paradiso derivative dream/picture house finally burnt down I was glad because something had ACTUALLY happened” kind of way. Luckily it was a freebie at Bolivar House, which is part of the Venezuelan Embassy. They have a film festival on and it’s free. They also have a guitar festival on, and that’s free too. I had dinner at the Indian YMCA for the princely sum of £4.50. Two veg curries, a mackerel curry, rice, sambar, and an apple. I could have had a slice of Mother’s Pride too if I’d wanted. Squidged it up in my hand to a tight little ball and munched dough and additives. I don’t do that anymore. I miss it.

I have decided to keep reading Einstein on easytoremember.com, which I think is some sort of Jewish faith website that also carries long, and in many cases, not very easy to remember quotations from him on spirituality. I like reading Einstein on these matters as his comments carry a certain cache. I had a great little trick which I used to great effect on any occasion where I wanted to quote something and have sceptical types believe me. ‘Oh yes, I read it in the New Scientist‘ I’d say, and Lo! Blind acceptance of what I had to say followed almost instantly. I have decided that Einstein is a similar weapon, although, what I really want is to read the text from which these quotes are taken in full. Any idea where they come from? My Oxford Dictionary of Quotation (2nd Edition) does not have one quote from Einstein in it. Useless. Still, that’s the thing with quirky old tomes (aka out of date reference circa 1953).

Anyway, enough already I have determined to give something up for lent again. This little tradition started because I had thought it might be fun to fast for Ramadan and lose weight now ask me how. But Ramadan was at the wrong time of year for instant deprivation to occur and was a bit too hardcore for my liking. So I opted for lent which seemed to be rather like Ramadam with opt out clauses and I like the religious smorgasbord approach. Nam myoho renge kyo, om shanti, wrath of Jehovah anyone?

Reading Einstein, I saw this:
‘Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.’

This I agree with. Even nice, organic free-range unintensively farmed meat is a drain on resources. Little Lambkin-Moochops has to eat a lot of grass/grain/stuff that quadrupeds munch to create one pound of delicious, bloody, succulent steak. Not to mention the rainforest and CO2 emissions from cow farts. So, it looks like I’m giving up bacon for lent. You can tell this will be a challenge. The thought of NO FISH is too much to bear. Having checked various sources on observance, I was delighted to discover there is an official ‘opt out clause’. Something about fish at the weekend. Sounds good to me, although I will endeavour to be as flesh free as I can.

Also: while innocent Catholics do lots of good things, they are being very nasty in El Salvador and Nicaragua where abortion is banned under any circumstance and women are reported and punished and imprisoned. Perhaps Pope Gregory Fuhrer can give up condoning the persecution of women for Lent?

Finally, on vegetarianism: Roger Robinson once told me that Kofi Annan and Adolf Hitler were vegetarians. Hitler’s vegetarianism is debated, because of course no vegetarians want a nasty mass-murdering Nazi scumbag to be a celebrity vegetarian. But look: here is a picture of him being very nice to a Bambi. I know, I know. Why can’t I focus on nice celebrity vegetarians like Danny de Vito or Bryan Adams? And, as I realised just before I clicked – Albert Einstein.

See here for more famous vegetarians.

As Malika-Booker-Buddy is away doing jouvert bacchanal in Trinidad I am having substitute meetings with Smoking Horse. It was a good meeting, philosophical almost, but I was involved and in certain mood, so it became more of a rant. I almost took a photo of some giraffes in the loo at the cafe. I almost pulled a calf muscle in the gym. Gym is my almost ran activity of late. The treadmill is the new narcissism; almost to the extreme. I looked in the mirror and saw the girl next to me stare at herself for AGES after she finished a fast-paced and heavy footed 5k. I almost wanted to be like her. I almost ran 2k in 15 minutes. I almost stared triumphantly at myself and slung a folded towel over my shoulder. I almost did 10 abdominal crunches upstairs. I almost published one poem this week but substituted it for another which I like less. This is because I almost forgot to change the name and even though it’s almost a decade and a half since I’ve seen these folk I don’t want to conjure them back into my life. I almost told everyone to fuck off and die because I felt like it, and they were extremely irritating, but I didn’t, I just thought about it, because I am almost nice.

William Blake lived here.

One whole week away from the blag. This is partly due to my having joined an online writer’s forum, where I have been posting Haiku daily, and reading and occasionally adding to debates on plagiarism and form. It is also partly due to my being in a twitchy mood that has meant munching rice cakes with mayonnaise, drinking too many cups of tea and feverishly checking every estate agent website in south west London. This resulted in my discovering that the flat next door to our old flat was on the market for 75k more than ours was two years ago. This resulted in my getting more twitchy and RSI may result from the agony of clicking that ensued. Also, while I’m dredging up excuses, there was also the cold:

I catch Helen’s cold
at Suzie’s birthday party.
The first all winter.

(As posted on the forum.) Helen was actually great company, so if I did catch her cold, which is unlikely, then at least I was entertained whilst doing so. M was concerned that I planned to swim outdodors at Oasis, so I revelled in my ‘ice cracker’ persona. Of course the pool was steaming hot and the cold got better rather than worse once I left the house and got some fresh air. Well, fresh for Tottenham Court Road. I have an urge to cycle through Regent’s Park to see the giraffes. There is something miraculous about cycling to work in the morning and encountering them en route. Perhaps a park-view flat in St John’s Wood?

Other activities included a trip to Borough market to shop for a dinner party, where we met Mr & Mrs Elder Rabbit who bought a huge turbot for £48. (Alas, now there are less fish in the sea rather than more, such is the price of fish.) This was amusing as Demented Dimi had just last week sent round a long Save Borough Market petition (you know, the same one that’s been doing the rounds for the past ten years) that spurred a flurry of ’sod the rich twats in suits spending too much on their shopping’ sideswipes from the leader of the terribly terribly unfashionable ‘I buy my spam fritters at Tesco’ brigade. The Elder Rabbit, who is of course terribly fashionable, terribly important and terribly busy, zapped back a quick ’speaking as a middle class twat in a suit, I rather like Borough Market’. Hear hear! cheered Dr Blog and La Blag. So quelle coincidence it was to then meet in the queue at the fishmongers. We promised to swap notes from our respective dinner parties, and vowed to pencil a date before midsummer.

Another coincidence then ensued at said dinner party with Dr Blog’s aunt, uncle and 25th cousin 15 times removed who happens to be the ex-sister in law twice divorced of Bad Cop Mentor. By 10.39 it was it over so we decided to pop down the road to a house warming where I embarked on a long and not very drunken debate on God Squad versus God Delusion. I had to make do with pronouncing Einstein as very spiritual, without actually quoting him.

Did he really say: ‘Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.’? I’m not convinced by the use of the word ‘lame’. According to Judaism Online he did. He also said:

‘The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties – this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.’

So suck on that, Stephen Dawkins/Richard Hawking/Richard Dawkin/Stephen Hawkings (I always forget).

That reminds me, we also went to see David Lynch’s Inland Empire followed by an in-conversation interview with DL who talked about transcendental meditation, waggled his fingers with every thought wave and teased Mark Kermode by refusing to say the word ‘yes’. Another genius at work.

Over and out.

It’s February now, but this is a Spider not a tree so all is well. There was a spider in the sink this morning. As long as they are not tarantulas I’m not particularly scared of spiders. Spiders catch flies, spin webs and generally seem to like to avoid humans. January was a long wine-free month. February is short and whine-free. Morning Hailku are back on agenda. Box ticking is a new habit. A cold is brewing. I will try to cure it with some very hot chili called Dark Star which I bought in a farmers market from a man who knows a lot about chili. They are called Facing Heaven after a Chinese chili that is unusual in that it is not pendulous and faces the sky rather than the earth. It is 1,000,000 scobel units in strength which is hotter than the hottest vindaloo and is more like a weapon than a condiment. Capsaicin Oleoresin the active ingredient is apparently an excellent remedy for arthritis.

Stuff that happened in January as not yet reported: twisted my ankle in the cinema foyer; Yoga-Lily fell five floors from the top of a house and ‘only’ broke her collar bone; I went to see Christoph Buchel’s ‘Simply Botiful’ on Cheshire Street E2 off Brick Lane, open 12 noon – 7pm Thursday – Sunday. See this glowing review. Or look at the artist’s website. Go there, look for a street sign on the right that says Hotel, and ‘investigate every door, draw, cupboard and save climbing in the freezer in the metal container with pornography on the walls, boxing gloves and punch fridge, to last for the biggest surprise.’ I discovered that constructed squalor differs from real squalor because it doesn’t stink. I did not see any insects there.