Posts

I'll Stay With You

Image
Dear Juliet That title's perhaps the most important thing you need to hear. I know Monsterpalooza's getting closer. I've felt a bit like Matt Damon's Martian myself over the past six months, trekking across a metaphorical desert (admittedly by way of Covent Garden and Leicester Square) but internally a bit like this , all to stay in contact with you. Lucky you got the one guy who was quite used to being like this, as long as you were singing down the wire. And making contact, setting it up, it was a bit like this . Using AI instead of hexadecimals, adapting the blog to try and get through to hypervigilant you and no one else . So we did. By decreasing the number of keywords so no one else (probably) would look . In a way, we hacked the Mars Rover. Then I wrote the absolution. One draft. Perfect. I asked AI what might happen when I sent it out, but Blogger has no GPS. I've never known where the statistical responses are coming from. So we sent it out. And waited. As...
Post a Comment
Read more

Home From Mars...

Image
Dear Juliet I fear I'm dancing in the dark. I'm not even quite sure if you're really out there. Pretty sure, but not quite. So I'm going to have faith. Faith that it's you, and that you're listening. I don't know if you went to Long Beach and saw the Queen Mary , although I hope you did, and while I think I understand your situation I also know I may be wrong. But I do know Monsterpalooza is soon, so I thought of three things: Yeah, I'd have a word with James Marsters behind the scenes, and take Aqaba . Then my subconscious decided to have its say, and this scene from The Martian popped into my head . Mark Watney's talking to a class after he escaped the virtual certainty of death on Mars, and that's what he says. That at some point, everything's going to go south and you're going to say: this is it. This is how I end . Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saving the Universe!

Image
Dear Juliet I just have to step out and save the Universe, or rather tend to a few old folk in Shifnal, but I'll come back and write to you tonight. Had a thought. Hope you're okay. Love, James
Post a Comment
Read more

Seen the Queen?

Image
Dear Juliet It's late, and I've only got time/brain for a short one, but I hope you maybe had a good day at Long Beach with the Queen ? Love, James
Post a Comment
Read more

Darla's From Devon?

Image
Dear Juliet Found this church in Bridgnorth while I was trying to find a customer! Bits of St. Leonard's date from the 12th century , but most of it got blown up during the English Civil War because Roundhead troops used it as an ammunition store. A cannonball fired by Cavaliers scored a direct hit in 1646 and it wasn't fully restored until Victorian times. Although St. Leonard's wasn't directly involved, it also looks like purges of Puritans in and around Bridgnorth and elsewhere (mainly East Anglia and the West Country) forced many Dissenters and Nonconformists to flee to New England between ca. 1630-1680. So for all I know, Darla may have been a Salopian although it's far more likely she was from Suffolk or Devon... It seems there were only four Shropshire children on board the Mayflower  itself, but the reason why they were there derives from an obscure scandalous family feud involving a local squire. This Guardian article explains it in more depth than I ca...
Post a Comment
Read more

Go See the Queen, Princess of Avalon!

Image
Dear Juliet Okay, if I get the picture correctly, you're probably wavering between feelings of vulnerability, liberation and a probably quite considerable fear of rejection and abandonment. Well, I'm not going to reject you, I'm chuffed with you. You're free. So here's what I think you should do: Take the day off. Take the Metro to Long Beach, find the Lions Lighthouse at  ShoreLine Aquatic Park . It gives you a good view of the Queen Mary . Get through a carton of (what else?) Ben 'n Jerry's. Have a good day, watch the children play. The sky will not fall if you're away for a day! You could even take the night off as well and go see Avalon. See how you feel. Dru was scared, too, but she did it. In Arthur’s day, a princess would have found her way through glimmering waste and weald down to the lonely coast of Lyonesse.   But the sinful queen had to make her way alone to the bare coast, to face the steep cliff and coming wave. Drusilla found herself a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

7,000 RPM...

Image
Dear Juliet "There's a point at 7,000 RPM where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless, just disappears. All that's left is a body moving through space and time. 7,000 RPM. That's where you meet it. You feel it coming, creeping up, closing in on your ear. It asks you the only question that matters: who are you?" (Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby) As you've probably guessed, I'm pretty chuffed with you. Didn't want to make too big a thing about it but I had a couple of analogies to hand when I got up from my seat. But then I happened to catch the ending of a movie I like . Le Mans '66 , sometimes called Ford v Ferrari . On the face of it, it might not sound like your favourite kind of film, but it's more a character study than a jokefest about boys and their big engines. It's worth a look. Anyway, I caught that last quote and it seemed to be suitable. Perhaps that someone balancing on a razor's edge can finally reach that moment wh...
Post a Comment
Read more