dawkins; my part in his downfall

Sunday 18th July 2010 8:58 PM

With the help of my old friend Steve, who lives in the South West, I've been trying to organise a comedy tour based on the St Michael ley-line. So far I'm booked in at the Ebeneezer chapel in Burrowbridge, Somerset on the 1^st October, and the village hall in Avebury, Wiltshire on the 2^nd October. Certainly a line has been drawn here, one almost contiguous with the aforementioned mysterious terrestrial current, but as it's not so much a tour as a two-er, it would be nice to extend it in either direction. Taunton, Okehampton, Bodmin, Redruth and Penzance to the west would all be appropriate, as would Thame, Dunstable, Luton, Royston, Bury St Edmunds and Beccles to the east. The blatant desire for geomantically inspired gigs in these parts must be so infinitesimally small that I'm not surprised that no one's thought of it before.

These days, in a culture where revered sages tell us that butterflies are randomly made by blind pitiless indifference, it's not an obvious money-spinner being a mystical troubadour. Gentle philosophy, nice little earner, not. However, the suffering can be fruitful and the hours are very flexible, as indeed are the weeks and months, and if truth be told, you could hardly call the years and decades rigid.

I don't have a pension plan as such, more the shimmering vision of a golden future set in a fruitful land of organic, unsweetened soya milk and ethically-produced honey, where music and laughter are found on the breeze and ready-made roll-ups hang down from the trees. When this present madness has been usurped by uncommon good sense, and a slim, sensitive Jeremy Clarkson smiles as he cycles past John Terry playing footy for fun, then my job as a shamanic bard will be done, and I'll be able to retire to the Happy Duck rest-home in Nepal and work on my memoirs.

The second leg of this future legendary two-er will actually take place inside the circle of huge stones that make up the temple complex at Avebury. No one really knows when it was built, but I remember visiting in the early seventies and it was there then, so goodness knows how old it could be. As for its function, there are three main schools of thought. The mystics maintain that it's a spiritual instrument that harnesses terrestrial and cosmic energies whereas the followers of Miss Tiggywinkle believe that it's just for beauty. Then there's the lunatic fringe of course, the archaeologists, who think that it's a collection of really large kitchen utensils. These two-dimensional, deluded spoon-finders, their minds strangled by neo-Darwininnyism, believe that we're on a one-way evolutionary climb, from the primitive savagery of the pyramids to the point where we can come up with concepts as sublime as the 'Kentucky Fried Chicken Mums-night-off Bucket'. After the meal there's no washing up to do and you've got an empty bucket to vomit in.

I don't suppose it'll be easy getting mainstream publicity for this St Michael Ley-line two-er, but Steve's got a few connections and he reckons we should be able to get the gigs listed in the Fortean Times. Perfect. It's almost as if… but then again, no.

Posted 8:58 PM | 64 Comments | Permalink

saturday afternoon fever

Monday 5th July 2010 11:36 PM

Three weeks ago I was infected by a particularly virulent strain of world cup fever and have subsequently been sofa-ridden ever since. In the first fortnight of my ordeal I was injecting up to four and a half hours of live football every day, and at times was reduced to being drip-fed and sitting in a pit of my own filth. Thankfully, Mark the farmer came round to hose me down before the knock-out stages and since then I've been eating solids and taking more interest in my surroundings.

The main source of pain has been England's pitifully poor performances and in particular the ball's mysterious, magnetic attraction to Wayne Rooney's shin. I also suspect I snapped a hope-tendon whilst wistfully watching a sad, slow Gareth Barry wistfully watching a happy, snappy German disappearing into the distant sunny uplands of a defenceless green space.

In my minds-eye, which sometimes wears a rose-tinted monocle, I imagined that England were actually going to make love to the world with football. Seduced by experience and a fabulous technique honed in the furnace of Albion's passion, ah, how the planet would thrill to our first touch, and gasp in pleasure at the swelling, sensuous symphony of delicate caresses and thrusting penetration. Most importantly of all, aside from the obviously pleasurable rhythmic convulsions of ecstasy, I wanted there to be some sort of lasting emotional commitment. To put it bluntly, without being hysterical, I wanted the world to have Wayne Rooney's baby.

Alas, the now ridiculously small and shapeless popped balloon of hope looks like a used condom, the shrivelled relic of a loveless back-street hump, rancid with the sharp tang of disappointment, lost dreams and the thwarted jism of Emile Heskey. Since England's elimination, any team that I've transferred my affections to, like Ghana, Argentina and Brazil, have immediately been knocked out, but because they're all meaningless flings on the rebound from a failed relationship, it hasn't really hurt that much. I quite fancy Spain now, but because I'm feeling a tad unlucky in love, I haven't told them yet.

As a diversion to my illness, I've been watching some of the Glastonbury highlights on BBC2. As someone who once made seventeen straight appearances, and three stoned ones, at this iconic festival, I've always fancied that it was essentially a hippy affair, so it was slightly perplexing to see a massive, swaying crowd, arms aloft, knees slightly bent, giving it the big thumbs up to the ludicrous US rapper, 50p Diddy Dog Poop.

'I know he's into guns and pimping, and that his message is essentially one of fear' said delighted festival-goer, Trudy Offal, a 28 year old lecturer in Women's Studies from Banbury, 'but he's got manly arms and I like some of the tunes'.

.What possessed the organisers to have this potty-mouthed, cock-strutting, sister-dissing soul-pygmy follow the magnificent Willie Nelson is beyond me. It's like playing Steven Gerrard on the left. Who picks these teams?

Posted 11:36 PM | 7 Comments | Permalink