Starkicker

This (believe it or not) is nothing more than floor tiles in the subway between Platforms 1 and 2 of Leatherhead Station. I’ve no idea what the yellow glow is; maybe someone spilt something down there once causing this odd effect.

It reminded me of the logo for The Old Grey Whistle Test, which some of you (older and UK based) will recall. It was hosted by the amazing “whispering" Bob Harris whose like has long since disappeared from our tv screens. He was the gentle, enthusiastic, knowledgeable face of modern music in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties. Someone you watched after the pub on a Thursday night, with a rolled up cigarette and a couple of mates; his studio guests came from the musical high and low ranks but David Bowie was one standout memory for me. Spiders of Mars era.

Anyway ... a funny day. Not funny ha-ha; not even funny peculiar. More the kind of weirded out funny, made worse by having half a head cold (you know - a feeling of malaise that comes and goes and stalks you throughout the day, causing you unease but is something you don’t quite succumb to).

Some significant decisions and revelations as well today. Lots to think about. Feels like deep midwinter psychologically, although the temperatures are still ridiculously above average. Makes you want to retreat, like WH Auden in his old age who got religion mainly out of nostalgia and because the reality around him was so ghastly. In fact the world he wrote about was uncannily like the nightmare age of right wing resurgence and social media bile we are currently living through -

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face

I think I’ll stop there. This is one of those occasions when reflection does not lift your gloom but rather darkens it ...