I returned from a great weekend in Basel last night. It was my second trip, the first of which has yet to be blogged and I hope the memory of it all hasn't lost its potency. It's all a bit of a dream anyway, so if what actually happened and what my mind saw differ, don't worry as you'll never know. If however you pick up on some embellishments, forgive me.

Low budget airlines are getting to me. Airports are hell-holes, at least the UK airports. Smaller European airports are easier and more efficient. As usual something set off the alarm going through customs. I had to remove just about everything and it still went off, I even had them inspecting the soles of my shoes. I got the usual shakedown and cold stare examination by the customs official. They look you straight in the eye for a little longer than is necessary, which I don't mind since I have nothing to hide. So I give it back, let them have it and they love it. They probably think there's some kind of customs official extra-sensory perception that not everyone has, that you need the nose for it, that somewhere in your bloodline granny had it off with a German Shepherd and your sniffer dog instincts tell you that this one, this motherfucker here with the nice Lusitanian shoes is packing. I let him sniff around my groin for a few seconds while he has a good feel at my ankles. Maybe they left the ice-cream scoop in my head when I had my surgery, I don't know.

It's not so much the airports themselves that I despise as they are after all cement shells, buildings, and ugly ones at that. I have never seen an aesthetically pleasing building. I guess it's like expecting a comfortable Lumbar puncture. It's the people that infest the buildings that piss me off. People turn into animals and the planes are their cages. I always think to myself, let the animals out of or put them back in to their cages when I see how they behave in places like airports or train stations. Low budget airlines have a first come/first serve policy, which is all bullshit anyway. The plane is equally uncomfortable wherever you choose to sit. It also happens to suit me to be the last to check in, actually. For some reason people want their precious window seats. I don't understand this, maybe it's midget mentality, with my long legs I need the isle seat and being seated in the isle and towards the rear of the plane, where one inevitably ends up being seated when you are one of the last to board only means that you are one of the first to exit the plane. I have a theory about being the last to check in as well, if your suitcase was among the last to be stowed away, surely it will be one of the first out, and hence one of the first to appear on the luggage carousel. So far I think I'm right.

Queuing breaks my balls when it comes to airports and low-budget airlines. Because of the floods of people there isn't actually any point queuing. The lines are broad and people spill out. There is always a category of total asshole who pretends not to see anyone and thinks that they are special enough to skip the queue and march up to the front, pretend they are confused, which in essence they are, much the same way as little crossbred dogs are because they've been stripped of all instinct, and then play stupid until someone relinquishes their place in the queue. Which is why the queue has become diffused and which is why this is all taking longer than expected. Such people need to be lashed until they drop and then gassed. What always amuses me is that they think they are going to get to where they are going faster. It's a plane, the plane is not going to leave as soon as your Highness, King or Queen of Preposterous Stupidity has boarded. So it's best to leave the animals to fight over the cage, to let the crowd demons possess the tortured souls who are panic stricken in this purgatorial portal of peregrination. I cannot help but feel amongst the dregs of humanity when in an airport, all of them on their way to a global idiot convention somewhere.

The flight from London to Basel is short and relatively painless, it only takes a little under 1^1/2 hours and given my sleeping condition it seems almost like a teleportation gone wrong. I think because of the trauma of airports, by the time I get on the plane, I can't stay awake and I feel like I've been dosed with enough Rohypnol to render a baby elephant unconscious. My one good ear goes into shutdown because of the pressure so I can't hear anything and I fall into an almost comatose state, periodically waking to hear babies wailing or people talking. Last night I jolted awake only to pick up bits of the conversation going on next to me that seemed to swing from dentistry to Camomile tea. Some people have a remarkable ability for inane conversation and drivel.

The plane was late going both ways. I think they are taking the piss as the pilot's apology was clearly read from a cue card and very well rehearsed, it was also the exact same message that I heard going both ways. I want to write a letter of complaint, but nowhere on the site or anywhere else can one find an address for complaints, which implies that they think they are above this and do not dish up shit. They do however have a page where you can submit rave reviews on how wonderful you think they are.

I have just been for lunch. After unceremoniously sacking Carluccoi’s, I’ve been forced to seek out new feeding holes in Ealing. A Japanese restaurant I have found not only provides an affordable lunch menu, enough free green tea to keep the Imperial Japanese Army quenched, novelty sunken tables that no matter how uncomfortable they are to pry yourself out of, provide a certain charm when the waiter gets down on his knees to take your order or replenish the tea, but also has good food. No doubt I’ll do my usual and eat there day after day until a hair appears somewhere in either my food, the table, the napkin at which point I’ll develop a new neurosis and sack the place. Never to eat there again. I hope the romance lasts longer than the average lifespan of a lunch restaurant for me.

Every time I go there, which is nearly every day I ask to be seated at one of the sunken tables. The same waiter who always serves me always makes an attempt to seat me at the Sushi bar. I decline the invitation and he always responds appropriately given that I’m 6’3” and in comparison a giant with a voice that cannot be used silently. So when I mean to gently say ‘No, I’d like to sit there’, it’s boomed out over the restaurant and I’m granted my wish so as to probably avoid any further embarrassment as a result of an uncouth and possibly disrespectful Western trait.

Not today, no, today I left late for lunch and was not granted my usual sunken table. Today, despite my objections even I could see that there was no other choice but for me to sit at the Sushi bar. The waiter was most apologetic, administered a calming green tea, took my order of a Set D, Ramen soup with BBQ Pork and left me with my book.

Last night, whilst buckled in pain from either a burst appendix, a ruptured spleen, inguinal hernia, lack of alcohol or just a severe case of swollen testicles, I picked up a book that I bought some time ago on Amazon and started reading. I found it instantly readable. The book in mention is A Confederacy of Dunces. I only read about 10 pages before drifting off into an anesthetising sleep. So at lunch, when I always take whatever book I’m reading at the time, I resumed reading Confederacy. My soup arrived and I started to laugh as this was turning out to be, as far as my memory serves, the funniest book I have ever read. Well, apart from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Withnail and I or All Families are Psychotic amongst others. I was crying, with my mouth full of noodles and pork, soup sloshing everywhere and from time to time I had to use my napkin to clear soup off the pages. Laughing is healthy, however I’m sure it wouldn’t take a Japanese monk to tell you that laughing hysterically while eating can’t be that good for you.

I was breaking out into fits of laughter mid mouthful, making it very difficult to swallow so I’d hang my head over the soup bowl, tears dripping, trying to chew, swallow and stop looking at the next line in the book as it would only make me erupt into another fit of suppressed laughter. Those times where my mouth was free to laugh, I chuckled and laughed heartily. I never want this book to end, it’s one of those.

A woman was seated next to me at the Sushi bar, she placed her handbag on the chair between us and ordered. I couldn’t contain myself and considered leaving the book but I couldn’t, I even considered taking the afternoon off work to finish reading it. This book requires, deserves a dedicated sitting. As I broke out into fits of laughter, people were looking up or over at me and I couldn’t bring myself to look at them, so my face remained buried in the safety of the Ramen bowl, spluttering, tears streaming down. She began to look at me nervously and moved the chair with her bag on it away from me and closer to her. I don’t blame anyone there for thinking I was a regular nutter as no one was aware of what was making me laugh.

I managed to get through lunch without choking or being thrown out. I was even promised that I would have my sunken table back, maybe it’s better for the restaurant if I’m left alone, at the back, half buried to cry and sob into my bowl.

This book, by the way, was written in the 60’s. The author, John Kennedy Toole wrote it and committed suicide at the age of 32. His mother found it nearly 10 years later and got it published. I can’t understand how a book that could in my opinion cure manic depression, that a book that funny, or that someone responsible for such a funny book could kill himself. The book won the Pulitzer prize and is a masterpiece, John Kennedy Toole not only destroyed himself, but also destroyed any chance of us getting more. Strange.

Something has gone wrong with my blog, the archives for March, April, May, June, July and August are not available. They are there, but not through the Archive links. I am working to get them restored, but it looks like I might have to redesign the entire blog.

I've just had brunch, a funny one too. There were no eggs, other than quails eggs, so our fry-up looked like a Nouvelle Cuisine brunch with roasted cherry tomatoes, Quails eggs and bacon. Beggars can't be choosers, can they?

I tried to watch television last night. I have been preoccupied with better things lately and have been neglecting the idiot box. There's nothing on, it's crap, total and utter crap. It's a great big flat-screened monstrosity of technological idiocy spewing out beamed anesthetizing bullshit for the nation. I watched Pi on DVD which was both interesting and disturbing and inspired me to drop the fascination with numbers and the golden section. It doesn't help that I to have it tattooed on my body. The poor fella in the movie ends up taking a drill to his head. That is going to hurt in the morning son!

I'd had a headache for two days and nothing seemed to cure it. I've been drinking enough water, several litres a day and no amount of paracetamol eased the pain. I found some Nurofen and had a nap, which helped. I had a dream, in a Monet landscape, bright brushed fields and a French female presence, the dream was even in French which I must have understood at the time, but don't ask me for any translations now, it must be mon petit oiseau seeping in to my unconscious. It was nothing short of marvellous.

The end of another week and I’m still feeling a certain calm after my break in Switzerland. I have started blogging it, but it takes longer than anticipated. There is so much that has to be remembered, so much that can’t be said, not here, and so much that should just be for me. I’ll give the facts, the occurrences, the places and the people – the rest is exclusively mine.

Yesterday was the corporation’s 15th anniversary and we were obliged to attend a BBQ and softball game. I was willing to make myself available for the BBQ, only because there was free food (which I knew would horrify me anyway) and drink. Yesterday’s rain made for a change of plans and instead of a sports day, we would hold a pub quiz. After receiving an over enthusiastic email requesting our passionate participation (???) – does this imply that we are to stuff our faces and drink as if possessed by drunken demons, well, they need to take these things into consideration before using terminology like that, you never know who you’re addressing.

I went, reluctantly, Friday’s aren’t good for me, not always, they carry with them connotations and only leave me feeling like I’d rather be somewhere else in contemplation and quiet tranquillity. A colleague suggested that we take his car as we were also expected to make our own way to the venue. Since neither of us bothered to print out the directions on how to get there, and given that he had left his GPS Navigator behind, we found ourselves getting lost, much to our amazement. We made several attempts to find the venue, and on our last attempt we decided that if we weren’t successful, we would do the right thing and go home.

Of course, we weren’t able to find where we were supposed to be and we were on the cusp of going home when I saw a sign planted like a lonely lunar flag in the middle of a roundabout. Without thinking, I pointed and said ‘there it is!’ at which point we both realised, with great disappointment that we were now obliged to go as we could never say that we got well and truly lost, that would be lying. I let myself down, I’m not supposed to be that attentive on a Friday afternoon.

At lunch time I made sure that I went out for lunch as I know by now to expect nothing but shock and horror at the food that would be available at something like a corporate BBQ. Walking along Ealing Broadway I was accosted by yet another person trying to get me to sign away a certain percentage of my life’s earnings to save humanity. The council hires out sidewalk space to organisations participating in professional begging. Antipodeans are recruited to help raise money for them. They are lined up, at distances of about 30 metres apart, and they descend on you with such enthusiasm that you can’t help but think they must be paid per signature. There is no way these young and dirty street urchins could possibly even know who they were begging for. They must be trained up in the morning TGI Friday’s style, and I can imagine some English version of an American optimist and energising sales enthusiasm booster getting them all pumped up for the day’s begging. Why do these scamps feel they need to behave like jesters in order to make you stop and chat? Flopping about, telling you to smile, can you stop and chat. There are two things you should never tell me, one is that I ‘Have to’ do something, the other is ‘Smile’. I’ll wipe the smile right off your face.

I regularly have to stop and tell the little mongrels that I work here, on this Broadway, and every day when I step out for lunch there is always an army of infected clipboard wielding clowns begging for someone else, that they are not the first people to ever blemish the street-space with their special brand of ‘caring’. I test their optimism and hope to the last, I give it to them straight and they are obliged to tell me to have a nice day. If they don’t, I’ve won you see - but what they don’t realise is that they never can. They might as well go and sell plastic shit made in china by walking around London neighbourhoods like a dirty little Dickensian chimney-sweeps with a great big overloaded bags of fake Swiss army knives breaking their backs, a well practiced greeting spewing from their hungry little gobs, getting door after door slammed in their sooty little faces, only to have their resolve tested time after time and eventually broken down to the point of dark and miserable depression. Have a nice day. Yes, I will thank you, nice kindly fuck off and leave me alone. Mind you, if this did happen to them they would only be replaced by another organisation begging to help save them from the sorry depths to which they’ve submerged.

Back to the BBQ – We arrived and made straight for the bar. People were hanging about looking as disjointed as I was feeling. I can never work out if its interesting or infinitesimally boring how people take on certain roles in groups, like alpha monkeys, beta monkeys, jokers, sages and bitches. The quiz was followed by a brief and infinitesimally boring (of this I am sure) history of the corporation. It was clearly compiled by two people, the guy delivering the questions and someone else who had to have been from Germany. All the questions were about the corporation and the rest were about German football. I was expecting questions like ‘How many people died in WW1? And name them.’

Thank God we were plied with cheap Champaign as this assisted in blocking out the pain and helped make the table cloth more interesting. We were then told to go and get food from the BBQ, one person from each team at a time, that way none of us could actually sit down and eat together, and that’s exactly what happened, we all got to sit in a rotation of watching one person eat, and as each person got to eat the others either sat with a finished plate or no plate at all. By this point I had given up and stopped thinking about it, now it was funny and the urine was there to be extracted. This was indeed the most interesting eating ritual I had ever seen. When I saw what was coming back from the BBQ, I shuddered and said a small prayer thanking Saturn and its beautiful moons that I was not obliged to eat. Everything, including the scrapings-from-the-abattoir-floor burgers and pumped-with-antibiotics-concentration-camp-battery-chicken kebabs were completely charred, black, properly burned, to a cinder, I’m not joking, they were actually burned, black.

I had a bread roll and a raw vegetable kebab. It was neither delicious nor satisfying, at least I could exercise my right not to get cancer from carcinogenic and charred fuel. Strangely enough, the building next to us on this sports ground had recently burned down, and the gutted and charred remains were there in all their glorious and hellish splendour, and I wondered if this was where they grilled the food, or at least used it as a source of fuel for what they called a BBQ.

I convinced my colleague that it was time to leave, so we did. I remained in a state of bewilderment as to how these people can think that we like doing this kind of thing, it’s as if we’re their ‘Sims’, or loyal little hamsters. Either that or I’m just a grumpy young man, a corporate Atheist, a non believer.

On a lighter note, as we all know, 6 months ago the daddy of Gonzo journalism blew his brains out because he couldn't take the pain in his broken leg, well...

Hunter S Thompson's ashes are to be shot into space by a cannon, read about it here

I have not been blogging because I've been away for over a week, and what a glorious week it was. I had been scraping the bottom of the barrel of sanity, searching for morsels of patience, reason and purpose; I was in dire need of a holiday. My threshold was thin, gossamer thin and I was scared that rant would turn into a glorious and satisfying murder. For weeks I had become an insomniac with an eating disorder and not even the sight of my weekly deluxe box of organic vegetables could inspire me to do anything. I realised how dependent the household had become on my usually dedicated culinary habits. Good vegetables were being thrown away, tossed, neglected and forlorn, withered and wilted into the bin. I simply could not have been bothered. The remnants of fast food and the cartons became more common, sometimes piling up as the faces of the inhabitants of flat 192 became increasingly confused and discontented. Grumblings of people being hungry could be heard, when I simply could not have given a fuck. They can feed themselves I thought, I was falling apart and putting myself together again, fumbling with the loose bits and pieces of my being, looking at the stripped components and not knowing what to do with them; cooking was not a suitable therapy.

And what was it that was stripping me down to nuts and bolts? What was it keeping up at night clogging the flip-flop logic gates of my mind? For once I won't blame the seasons, not as we know them, but I will put a lot of it down to the seasons of life. I was hit by a meteor with a celestial body, a comet with a devastating diamond-dusted tail wreaking havoc with my evolution. Let's just call her baby bird.

----oo0oo---

3:00 AM, Saturday 6^th August

The familiar yet distant buzzing of the alarm wakes me and I'm brutally pulled from the stratum of semi-consciousness that I've been skating, the thin ice of floating dreams cracks and I'm plunged into the ice cold waters of the shower. I get dressed, check my bags, passport and wallet; everything's in order. I double-lock the door behind me on the way out, head downstairs and wait in the darkness of Maida Vale, quiet and peaceful as the neighborhood remains blissfully unaware of my movements and I appreciate the fact that I'm invisible and anonymous. My taxi arrives, I get in and tell the driver to take me away, far from here and step on it.

The bus stop is outside Lords and I swear that in the dawn light I can see the shadow of 'It's only Rock 'n Roll' still painted on the wall, a homage to the Rolling Stones. I love London when it's asleep. The bus rolls up, spurts its hydraulic sigh as the door opens, I pay my fare and watch London roll by as I imagine where I'm going. Finchley, Brent and on to Luton.

I've never been to Luton airport before and it's like any other London airport, small, busy and dirty. There are England football shirts everywhere and everything everyone is wearing is blue, red and white. When you leave London and prowl its perimeters, the outskirts, you'll see England, London is not England and Luton is not London. I don't like what I see. The men are rough, tattoos on every forearm, faded, jaded, blurred and run, indistinguishable and there is a serious lack of worldliness and intelligence. I'll be the first to admit that intelligence has got nothing to do with survival, and that in fact you're probably best to have a few IQ points deducted for general ignorant bliss. The women are gritty, they crunch like the grime beneath my leather soled shoes, they're rough as fuck, peroxide hair and mullet haircuts, cigarettes hanging from their mouths, the voices grinding away and their faces haggard, battered and cut from holidays in the Costa del Sol and Greece, like old saddle bags. Their kids are set to become crack addicts and criminals, little bastards with no proper fluency in any language, thugs with shaved heads and fringes that curl over - a haircut fit for an idiot indeed. In between the dregs of humanity is the odd clean looking European obviously going home, making the great escape.

I'm early so I decide to get a coffee, a little bird told me that they have good coffee at the airport and I need it. I get in line. A creature with black greased hair and yellow homemade tints in it, tight snow-washed jeans and trainers that stepped right out of the early 80's keeps trying his luck, he's trying to get in front of me and I want to squash him, I'm waiting for him to make a decisive move before I let him have it. He's a Balkan midget and I'll fucking lambaste him if he tries that one more time. I want to tell him that I'll stuff him with Bulgar wheat and drown him and his family in yoghurt if he steps over the line. He gets the message and backs off. I finally get served and I order a Caffe Latte and watch as the beast behind the counter takes to someone's coffee with a squirty cream gun, it's empty and spluttering shit all over the place, I want to run away, but I can't give Balkan boy my place in the queue. The beast looks at me after a few seconds and asks if I'd like milk in my coffee. I remind her that it's a Caffe Latte. I'm not surprised that she hasn't considered looking for work beyond this dump, beyond serving the primordial ooze that squelches around Luton airport at 5^AM

I make my way to the newsagent to buy a notepad and paper so that I can make a note of the horror I see. I pay and leave and head for the check in queue. Baby bird told me to check in early, these low-budget airlines have a first come first serve, or seat policy. I wonder how many people could possibly want to go to Basel of all places. You’d be surprised. I don’t know what some people are thinking, I’m standing in the queue and some roving crusty with dreadlocks that haven’t been cleaned in years stands next to me and slowly starts edging himself in front of me, I keep blocking him off and I’m not in the mood for his beggar, free-loading antics. If he’s not careful he’ll end up in the vat of yoghurt as well. Eventually he realizes that he’s not going to get anywhere and backs off. Does he really think he’s going to get anywhere faster by not abiding by the simple rule of waiting your place is the queue? Rabid and feral little runt and I think someone needs to domesticate the animal. I check in and make my way upstairs.

It’s like a neon casino up here. People hanging around to go everywhere, by the looks of it they’re all off to Greece and Spain. There’s a hall pumping out the sounds of fruit machines to get them all in the mood, it’s just gone 5 and people are already getting tanked, lager for breakfast, Jesus. I can’t wait to get out of here, on a plane and fly away, forget about the world, lose myself elsewhere. I get stuck into Voltaire’s Candide, it’s a roaring laugh, tragic, but so much so you can’t help but laugh. My flight is called, my time is up, heaven awaits and I pass through, into the light.