Meaning of Life

My To Do List is a thick wad of folded papers, this week in my bag, last week in my jacket pocket. In my mind the tatters are strewn in a line along the remote corridor of an abandoned asylum.

Most of the sheets contain really important things I have to do, like: clear two rooms of clutter, dig a pond, cancel my contact lens supply and even more paperwork like changing mortgage repayments, among interesting links for this weblog. The links' currency is devalued monthly -- but they will soon disgorge into your browser as three large posts I am working on -- and the physical clutter in the two rooms has a depressing effect because I heard from feng shui adherents that that is the effect it is supposed to have, whereas, in fact, fifteen-year-old copies of New Scientist are a joy for many reasons even if I do have thousands of similar items to wade through: to clip some art for Flickr or some future design; to read about the dreams we had before the latest bunch of politicians bollocksed it all up again -- I call this 'perspective'; most importantly just reading outside the narrow agenda of 2005.

But clearing the decks at my level of discrimination and information gathering and organization will take years and is frankly not worth it, even though a clever and balanced John Keogh may emerge who could clear the room at parties. Doing important things like getting the roof fixed or converting the attic (all happening next week!) is worth it and so is learning Dreamweaver even though I prefer to use a text editor, so I can be a webmaster if I grow up because that is what the industry demands. Unfortunately prevarication and procrastination are the order of the day here: did I really need to spend a whole day (last Wednesday) downloading large pictures of obscure 1970s album covers to merge with my music files in anticipation of getting an iPod photo? Well, I enjoyed it!

I've started reading again, unknowingly prompted by my old mate Fresco who has a third book published -- as editor this time -- which made me realize I hadn't finished his last book which was elevating my alarm clock. I really ought to review it now: damn, another item for the list. Oh yes, and I ought to start writing again, I used to be quite good at that.

Anyways, before I knew it I, last month I also polished off a Poul Anderson, a Mat Coward (Hi, Mac Howard!!) and I am now reading a Stephen Laws.

I made three mistakes with the Laws: firstly when I bought it from New Worlds (downstairs at Murder One in the Charing Cross Road) it wasn't as cheap as I thought it would be given that they are closing down the sf department when they move to new premises over the road (yes, another blow to literacy, only the fifty-ninth in my lifetime, but what is Maxim Jakubowski up to? There remain two other shops in London where you can buy new sf hardbacks but I won't tell you where they are in case they get closed down too. Any road up) but I bought it anyway. Secondly, the book wasn't in the 'Used Sale' although you could see that some lunatic had scored the back cover with hundreds of lines by using it as a base for some craft project or perhaps ritual pentagram drawing. (Craft - that'll keep'em off the streets. Nice one, John Lewis. They've got a whole department for that sort of thing, you see.) Yes, a horror novel handed down from some authentic nutter! But when the clerk queried whether the book was used, I said no, solely because I found it in a rack of new books. I'm too honest, me. Mad, more like. Thirdly, I had noticed two Stephen Laws books there and I selected the one called Spectre, even though the other volume looked newer and more collectible, albeit slimmer. Now I am a few chapters in, I find that I did not buy a new work: I have this title at home in a different edition and I read it in 1986. What am I about.

About 12 stone, that's what, the heaviest I have ever been. I'm eating healthy food but too much of it probably, not drinking enough water and not exercising enough. Python's Meaning of Life ended like this. I ought to phone my Mum more too.