Cabbage Man Cometh!

This is the legendary Cabbage Man of Old London Town. In the late 18th Century he terrorised the cobbled streets after dark. He was often spotted approaching young ladies, disguised as a well heeled gentleman. He would, at the last moment, throw aside his top hat and fake mustache with a flourish to reveal his true identity. Many a young lass fainted at the sudden sight of the little green bastard, but not Felicity Marwood, who, upon being confronted with his wrinkled green visage, whipped out a stiletto blade and sliced off a leaf or two. Cabbage Man was never seen again. Although some say he simply left London for pastures new.

October 14th.

I don't know who of you out there, if any, will be aware of the supposed impending demonstration of the 'alien presence' in the form of a large space craft appearing over the southern hemisphere and remaining there for '3 of your 24 hour periods' due to begin on the 14th of October. This information was apparently channelled psychically to one Blossom Goodchild from a group of beings calling themselves 'The Federation Of Light'. There have been one or two offshoots of this, the internet rumour mills running amok, including claims that a large object was already 'visible' on google earth.

I find all of this fascinating. The UFO subject is plagued with such fantastical claims. As if the subject itself wasn't fantastic enough. Some may well say that is precisely the point, to inject incredulity into a subject already incredible, and to put otherwise interested and inquisitive (thus troublesome) parties off. This kind of thing is nothing new. The supposed chanelling of alien messages has been part of UFO culture for some time. The last comparable example I think would be the absurd Council Of Nine episode in the mid 1990's. This involved channelled messages from a group of 'concerned' and 'wise' alien beings called 'The Council Of Nine' who sent messages of 'love' and 'hope' etc via their earthly conduit, one Phyllis Schlemmer. All very new agey, couched in a mix of paranormal and hippie lingo. They must have lost interest in us boring human types because little has been heard from them for some time.

However they did have an impact. In 1995, at the peak of The Bonnybridge wave of UFO sightings, the local councillor Billy Buchanan called a town meeting to discuss the concerns etc of local people, many of whom had reported strange phenomenon in the skies over Bonnybridge, Scotland. I went to that meeting, along with a couple of friends of mine. Mostly out of curiosity, and for something to do really. What had begun as a serious meeting regarding serious concerns soon descended into the ridiculous with the prescence of Phyllis Schlemmer herself, who proceeded to waffle on about The Council Of Nine and how, basically, they were here to save us from ourselves, and that their coming represented a glorious new age of human consciousness. All of which resulted in most of those present walking out of the meeting in a mix of bemusement and outright disgust.

I think that at the heart of the UFO subject is a core of reality. This core reality is surrounded by a vast, gelatinous membrane of absurdity and nonsense. What that reality represents is what is really interesting. Come the 14th of October there will no doubt be some 'delay', some reason why the 'Federation Of Light' can't make it to the party. Maybe we are not sufficiently evolved to withstand the 'truth' of their presence. Maybe they will come down with a sudden headache...

Whatever Next?

I discovered something today while taking my son to the local pool for a swim. You are not allowed to dive in. It was very quiet. I made sure there was nobody near me, then I dived in, half hero/half porpoise, swam gracefully beneath the water, and surfaced like a God of the ancient world. Only to be met by the purposeful striding of a pool attendant, who was, striding purposefully in my direction. Not across the water you understand. They're not that powerful... 'Oh, are we not allowed to dive in?'
'No.'
'I see. Sorry about that.'
There were signs everywhere of course, featuring an image of a person diving into the pool, inside a red circle with a red line through the middle. Along with the words 'NO DIVING.'

Now if we were to conduct a Family Fortunes style quiz to find the 'top ten things people do in swimming pools', I bet that 'diving' would probably appear directly beneath 'swimming' and 'peeing'.

I'm just saying...

Today.

Today I watched my daughter's birth. Today I held her and looked into her eyes for the first time. There is nothing worth more.

Continue?

The Exception Gradually Becomes The Norm.

And you thought function creep was just a buzz word. This is how it begins. State sponsored snooping into the private life of the individual, your private life.

"We've gone from a situation where surveillance was exceptional a few years ago to a situation where it's now considered to be a normal part of what any public authority, or even private organisations, are doing."

Eventually there will be incredulity at any suggestion that this is not how it should be, because it will have become simply the 'way it is'.

Adventures In Plumbing.

I have just come to the end of what could be described as an 'adventure' in plumbing. It could also be described as a 'hellish nightmare' in plumbing. I was happily watching TV when my wife alerted me to the fact that the tap in the kitchen was leaking under the sink. It was leaking badly but we couldn't put a bucket under it because there was no room to do so. I tried to tighten the valve on the pipe to stop the leak.

That was when the 'adventure' began in earnest. That was when the valve broke and the pipe dropped free resulting in cold water flowing full blast into the kitchen. I tried in vain to re-attach the pipe to the valve but the force of the water wouldn't let me (when the plumber eventually came he said that it couldn't have gone back on anyway). While all this had been unfolding we had called my dad to see if he could fix it, as at that point it hadn't broken fully. When it did he came straight out, and my wife called for an emergency plumber. While that was happening I was struggling with it. I tried to turn the water off completely. The tap was somewhere through a hole in the panneling beneath the sink. I was lying under the sink, soaked to the skin, freezing water pouring on me, as I struggled in vain to find the main water tap. I could not find it. I was soaked and freezing and in a panic as water continued to flow happily into the kitchen.

My wife turned the electricity off while I tried again, this time with numb hands, to force the pipe back into the valve and at least stem the flow till the plumber arrived. It wasn't happening. Imagine your cold tap turned on full blast pointed into your kitchen, imagine yourself standing watching helplessly as it did so. Then imagine being soaked to the skin, freezing and shaking. That was me about an hour ago.

My dad came and had a look and quickly reached the conclusion that the only thing to be done was to turn the water off. Turn it off with the tap I couldn't find/reach. I had to go back under, back into the freezing water, sticking my arm through a little hole, grasping blindly for the bloody tap. Finally I found it. It wasn't far in at all, but straight down. I had been reaching right in to the back and side walls trying to find it. I turned the water off.

I was soaked head to toe, the kitchen was about an inch deep in water. It was a mess. The plumber came while I was getting dried and changed. So the problem is now solved. We've been drying up as best we could. It could have been worse I suppose. It happened to my dad years ago except the pipe itself broke above the ceiling, so water was coming down the walls for an hour before he found the water tap, which was handily located behind the cooker!