The wonderful thinking tour

There is something terribly noble about a life spent reclined on the cushion of philosophy. To sit back, to fold arms behind head, and think. That is the ultimate cool. Let me take you on a brief thinking tour:

First stop: my ipod touch. There it sits, beside me, next to the frothy coffee (who's every bubble is like a miniature universe), there it sits, catching the gilded rays of the sun on its black curves, blinking away, and next to it, the Voyager and next to that my battered and bruised copy of (yes you've guessed it) Paradise Lost. We've discussed PL in a previous post so won't talk about it here. The ipod touch has a memory capacity of 64GB. Of which 40GB is currently free. Let me put this into perspective. I have currently on it: 300 music albums (from Joy division to the Pixies and somewhere in the middle a bit of commercial pop), the entire Oxford English Dictionary, books downloaded for free from 'Project Gutenberg', numerous Pod casts, a collection of Audio Books from Bill Bryson to Blackadder. I have on it an A to Z of London - so that I don't get lost, a Tube Map with updates, the many learned quotes of 'Seneca', an application that tells me the weather, the latest news, another that allows me to check emails, my Paypal account balance, my Amazon account. I have a program that tells me the latest cinema releases with reviews and where showing. Another called 'Ambiance' that allows me to listen to the sound of raindrops, thunder storms in the Peruvian desert or the calming swash and froth of lapping waves on a Caribbean beach - useful for escape and relaxation when the walls threaten to swallow thee in surburbia. I can explore far away galaxies and Pizza Express at the same time. I can take eNotes of my thoughts for later use, or while away a good hour exploring the London Underground map. I can memorise cool Latin phrases. A caelo usque ad centrum and wonder. The world ad arbitrium. In digitalis...

Why am I telling you all this? I am telling you this because I want you to be amazed (as I am) how it is possible that we have reached a point of advancement where this and more can be squashed into a device that fits comfortably in your back pocket. Wired - Connected - Mainframed - Digitised, my fingers on the pulse of humanity.

I was first introduced to the possibilities of such fantastic devices many years back whilst reading Douglas Adam's 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. In the book, the device of the same name was an electronic portable computer that contained everything an intrepid galactic hitchhiker would need to know in order to see the marvels of the known universe. If Douglas was alive today he would no doubt be as happy as a pomegranate full of pips. It was Douglas who had the biggest impact on my young adolescent brain. The virus of his initial infection still casts a happy and translucent hue on the way my brain views the world. It would be an understatement to say that I have a Douglasesque colourscape. Douglas wrote a hilarious piece once (well he wrote many). I will repeat it here for your enjoyment. I quote word for word (well almost):

'Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for'

What is it about? Well, many things. Foremost it's a subtle criticism of our homocentric view of the universe. We humans find ourselves in a world that seems to fit us perfectly. So perfectly that it seems to have been built especially for us. Just like the hole the puddle finds itself in. But that is a fallacy. What Douglas did was to turn the analogy on its head and give our homocentric world picture a good shake up. There's nothing like a little dose of Douglas to do that. Give us a good shake up.

Moving on. The 2nd thought that has randomly crept into my thought sphere is Me. My favourite subject! So self conscious me! I have oft been described by my friends; usually after an evenings merrymaking, as someone who lives on the 'other' side of normal. The 'other' being a loving term used to describe a place far away from 'here'. 'Here' being an everyday existence spent in the thrall of such mundane activities as gravity, the X-Factor, gas bills, filling up the car with petrol and the occasional foray into existential musings. Let me be clear. This is not a life I am familiar with. I am as familiar with this life as a Hedgehog is familiar with the works of William Shakespeare. A life followed by the majority of the somnambulating denizens of earth. I, as already pointed out above, live elsewhere - coming down for air now and again (and I use the word down deliberately!). Like the fabled Leviathan monster of the ocean deep the Blue Whale, who spends most of its time beneath the waves, occasionally venturing or deigning to come up to the surface for a gulp of air. I too must come up for my gulp, but then I must quickly dive back down again into the cushioned depths below! The deep dark tea time of my soul. But then life is more fun on this side don't you think? The sun shines so much prettier here. The birds so much less noisesome. Love gilded with gold and silver. Smiles free to flutter in a crystal heart. The problem with everyday life is that it can get rather tedious at times. Even the most sensual and exciting of things can, after repeated revisits, become tepid and ordinary. Which is why ti's important to impart existence with a little variety and gaiety. Human beings are creatures of habit but they also, at the same time, get easily bored. What to do?! What to do?!

Life should be lived in a state of deranged fascination. There is much to see and hear and feel and think in the world. Only the other day I caught some sun beams on the top deck of the bus. Yes I caught them. They were meant for me. So said faith in my ear. They had emerged through a gap in the grey clouds, after a lengthy journey through space of many millions of miles. They had passed through the atmosphere, and before reaching me, on the top deck of the bus, listening and bobbing to a beat from 'The Strokes, they had to pass through a patchwork of leaves, which gave them a soft twinkling light. A soft light that made me smile and vindicated the beauty and possibilities of existence. Moments. All moments. You must catch them. What do I remember of my trek through Lao's northern jungles? Moments. Details are lost. But moments I remember. Life is all moments. When Cadbury's marketing executives sat around a round table brain-storming possible names for their new product, it was no accident that they stumbled upon the following:

Now the 3rd and final topic of today's magical thought tour. And this will be shamelessly dipsy: Starbucks. Or rather the Starbuckscard. Did you know that if you get a Starbuckscard, and top it up, and use it to buy coffee, that's not all you'll get. Oh no, the card allows you free Internet access in any Starbucks in the world. Now, I'm not known for being a corporate slave especially psychotic multinational corporations; I'm just talking about the simple fact that you can get free Wi-Fi access for the price of, well for the price of a coffee. Not bad coffee. I've had better, but it has caffeine and one can blog till one's heart bleeds and fingers hurt.

On that note tis time to end here. I have a tendency, as you may well know, of going on a little bit. I just can't stop! I just want to keep on scribbling (or in today's age) keep on tapping. Consider this blog entry for example. It just won't stop! When will it stop? Will it ever stop? I don't want it to end here. I have so much to say. Like how wonderful I think it is that when you sit on the bus you have an African to your left, a Chinaman to your right and opposite an Albanian women with whiskers and a gaunt parcel on her lap. That you can hear many conversations. This babel of languages travelling through the bus, smothered in rhyming lilting slang and gypsy tones:

'Someone tried to pull him off innit. Yeah off his bike man. Last night. That's what he say's though'

'How's the hood?'

'Hoods fine man. You coming round?'

A little boy plays with his toy. His mother on the phone in a different and more grown up world:

'Why she say that about me and Kevin? Why she get involved? It's getting on my nerves and the way she's jacking us. I don't know...'

Listening to these conversation it seems to me that people exist on totally alien planets. Worlds I have no idea or conception off. There's the inner city world of young black youth. The world of the Polish migrants. The world of the East End Asian diaspora. Like the bubbles in a cappuccino froth, each is totally self-enclosed, yet living side by side. The group of young Chinese students speak in machine gun Mandarin. The Bangladeshi man sitting to the left is staring out of the window. Shrouded in his bedraggled beard and white skull cap. What's he thinking? What thoughts passing through his mind? What's troubling him? For something is always troubling people. We live in a global world. One hundred years ago this scene on the bus would have seemed impossible. Languages, cultures, foods, smells, clothes are all today asked to share the same space. To make room. In a city. A road. A house. A bus. The amazing thing is that they manage to get along. Making room for each other. Making allowances for each others differences. Labelling them as harmless eccentricities. We are a tolerant species most of the time. The thought brings a smile. A smile that wants to hug everybody and everything. Tomorrow who knows, but right now, I'm glad to be human. Well, almost.

Goodbye. Trust this finds you in a state of perplexity and leaves you in a state of perspicacity.

-THE END-

A box full of love-tricks / The Voyager has landed

I was on my way out this morning when the courier arrived and presented me with a package:

Well, what is it? Well stay with me and I shall introduce you to the 'Voyager'.

The 'Voyage' of discovery: I love going on walkabouts. When I was living in Dubai I used to wander for hours. Many times I would leave my apartment at 6 in the evening and not return till way after midnight. I wandered through every street and every alley and over every bridge and through all the Malls and through all the car parks. So much so that I still retain a vivid virtual map of Dubai in my head. I can visit whenever I like, it's all up there in headspace, to visit as I please, without having to get on an aeroplane. The same applies to all the other places I have been to. And when I wander I need a soundtrack. The soundtrack will provide the backdrop to my wanderings. U2 is a particular favourite of mine because the widescape soundstages of 'Pride', 'One', 'Where the Streets have no Name and 'City of Blinding Lights' allows me plenty of room in which to roam. This is where the Voyager comes in. Where it fits in perfectly.

There are some of us out there who are very esoteric in our habits and interests. Take me for example. I'm as esoteric as they get. I only choose me because I happen to know me very well. I could have chosen you, but then, I don't know you as well as I know me. The reason I know me better than you is simply because I spend an awful lot of time with me. I would love to spend more time with you, but alas, you are many (for there are 6 billion you's on the earth), and ergo, I cannot afford to spend my time with all of you's - for then I would have no time left to spend with me.

Now, coming back to my original point...where was I? Oh yes, I was talking about quality me time. There are many ways of spending quality time with me, and the best way involves shutting out the you's, and everything else, so that what remains is only me. And this brings me nicely to the subject of this rather meandering blog entry: The Graham Slee Voyager Headphone Amplifier (see above/below)

Now before you all start chuckling and laughing let me first put my hands up and admit that this an extremely 'nerdy' thing to be talking about. I mean let's face it, who has even heard of headphone amplifiers? Let alone discusses them? Exactly. Not many people. And I admit that. Why would they? Most people are more than happy with their Mp3 players and their run of the mill headphones. But before I continue let me just very quickly tell you what this device does. This is what you do. You take your Mp3 player and plug it via the headphone socket into the Voyager Headphone Amplifier. You then take your headphones and plug them into the Voyager. So it goes: Voyager + Mp3 player + Headphones = your brand new walkabout Mp3 set up.

Now, the obvious question that arises is: why would you want to do this? That is a stupid stupid silly-billy of a question! You want to do this because - because, you want to spend quality time with me. Me of course being yourself. You see the thing is, when you listen to this set up, your chin will hit the floor and not lift off. It will remain rooted and seated to the ground in astonishment. If you're lucky your eyes will still be in their sockets. For so good is the aural soundstage of this set-up, that you will feel as if God has given your ears wings. For they will soar. I guarantee it. The sound stage will wrap itself around your ears, and then in one fell swoop, transport them to some higher plain. A higher plain of experience. 'Higher plain of experience?' Wtf am I talking about? You think I'm getting carried away don't you? Look. Let me explain. The 'life experience' is a manifestation and a direct output of your senses. There are some of us who, due to genetic gifts, are able to taste a greater range of flavours than others. There are some of us who are blessed with a more heightened and acute sense of smell - which may or may not be a good thing (I'm thinking summer time London hot Tube next to sweaty passenger scenario).

So consider the Graham Slee Voyager Headphone Amplifer as an extended phenotype. An extension of your body, or rather your ears, that allows you to hear and experience things in 'SoundSpace' that you would, otherwise, be wholly ignorant of. Ergo, A higher, deeper, more elevated plain of existence. Who could have thought that such an ugly little black box the size of an IpodTouch (for that is what the Voyager is - I mean, take a look at it!), could contain within it; within it's black ugly facade, the ability to woo your ears. To perform wonders and magic, to serenade your heart and strum your soul and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and listen.

Warning:

Please do not, under any circumstances, go out with a girl with the Voyager in your pocket. She will not be impressed. She will think you a nerd. It will be like walking into a restaurant with the girl of your utmost dreams and taking out a copy of 'What Hi-fi' magazine. Look. If you really want to impress her this is what you do. Take her to the night-time light showcase that is Canary Wharf. Take her there in the evenings after 7pm winter time when the office lights are still on. Don't let her open her eyes though. Make sure she keeps em' closed. Then, tilt her head upwards towards the 'scrapers (eyes closed remember). Plug in the Mp3 to the Voyager. Plug in the headphones. Place them over her lovely reclining head. Press Play. Open her eyes. And her mind too will open... And, if she has even an ounce of brains, even a pinch of sense, she will love you forever afterwards. Amen.

(Box full of love-tricks)

_________

Apollo 13 & Piccadilly nights

If you follow me, I will follow you into the unknown

Like Apollo, like Apollo 13 we’ll fly to the Moon

London Piccadilly winter night and neon fight for the pleasure of my eyes. Like a softly-filtered dream I struggle to make shapes. It’s all rather seamless – Piccadilly neon blends with purple-blue winter sky. Purple blue-winter sky blends with the soundtrack of my ears ‘If you follow me, I will follow you into the unknown...’. I skid through London's Piccadilly Circus (the galactic centre - the ultimate people circus of the united boroughs of LondonTown). I espie with my little eye black eye-liner girl of the Soho gutter. Did you see me? Your lazy eye-liner eyes were vacantly searching the night as I watched you. You were as sad as a song, a child of the street, a leaf of the fall. Oh eye-liner girl. If only you’d allow me – I’d take you to the unknown and like Apollo13 we’d explode. You don’t belong to the world that I’m from. I don’t belong either. Together unbetrothed are we.

And what about you 'newspaper man' wrapped in yesterday’s news? Homeless Man of the World, oxymoron if ever. I think of oxymoron's as the real morons invade the purple night. I espie with my little eye a black-stocking girl chain smoking cigarettes to keep herself warm. I see diners seated inside the ‘Aberdeen Steak House’ forcing themselves to enjoy their over-priced (a la miniature/petite) steaks. The lonely girl sitting in Piccadilly’s Waterstones bookstore at 9:30pm on a Friday night reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets. And then...the heart-wrenching moment when she has to clear out. Forced into the cold purple night shivering and loveless – the sublime Sonnets still very much fluttering like butterflies through her miniature glass heart. Where will you go to Sonnet girl? Another to disappear into the night? My heart whimpers. There is something delicious here. Something to write about. The grating of opposite surfaces. In short: the stuff of life.

To feel alive one must jump

From Uttermost pebble to Outermost pebble

‘Cross the river Chaos

That’ threatens to engulf thee

I make fists in my pockets to keep me warm. Ears tingle me cold. Breath freezes. I have a drink at the warm cosy bar to escape the chill. The drink warms my stomach and my sleepiness is slaked off. I like it here. So out comes my bible. My, by now, tattered copy of Paradise Lost:

A globe far off it seemed

Now seems a boundless continent

Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night

Starless exposed, and ever threatening storms

Of chaos blustering round, inclement sky

The lines make me shiver as soon as sound gives them form. The hair follicles on my neck stand erect. Potent words like drugs these, that increaseth the blood-flow coursing through my veins. Thy pupils open, thee endorphins make me happy-some. I chuggeth another stiff drink. The giddiness allows me to melt into the soul of the words. The font suddenly enlarged and throbbing. I drink em' in. It feels good to be indoors, away from the cold, reading Milton, and watching the world from afar - from a distance - from the stratosphere! It seems; to me at least, that the whole gamut of the human condition, is described somewhere within these pages. There is not a line somewhere in Paradise Lost, that cannot describe exactly how you are feeling, at any given moment in your life. That’s quite an achievement. Particularly considering that Milton was utterly blind when he wrote his masterpiece – dictating it to his amanuensis. The legend goes that it took Milton five solid years of hard graft to complete it. He would awaken early in the morning and be ready with a dozen or so lines that he would dictate to his amanuensis before breakfast. And thus his contribution for the day over. Also, bear in mind that Milton only wrote in the winter months. Winter being more conducive to the writing mind. Paradise Lost is by far the greatest prose poem in the English Language. And its scenes are as universal as the tapestries of life. Truth, sin, redemption, love, and the nature of good and evil. What makes the work so special is that it is Satan who is the protagonist. And it is He who one roots for in the end. The archaic language transports you to a bygone age smelling of sandalwood and dusty tomes and Aristotelian imagery. You learn how erstwhile peoples thought. We always see the world thorough the lens of Our Times. But are Our Times nearer clearer to the truth? Do Homer or Sophocles or Xenophon not speak the truth? Or are Our Times just merely different?

The idea is to strip off all that makes you you. To be someone else:

In Egypt I recall the prostitute I slept with. Her firm buttocks and her bronze tits, glazed with the taste of honey-suckle. And the Dance of the Bee she did for me. I recall the carcass of the dead dog, it's rotting flesh being pecked clean by vultures, entrails hanging out, blackened. They always go for the soft parts first. The eyes, the anus, the stomach – the harder parts are eaten later. I watched the creatures eating the dead dog. Life passing from dead to living. The old woman begging me to fuck her – her breasts sagging to her belly button. The man who massaged me and grabbed my balls between his fingers proceeding to stroke them and then whispered in my ears: 'baksheesh! baksheesh!'. No thanks – and I laughed a crazy laugh. Why kid ourselves? We may look noble in outer countenance and make-up, and clothes, and affected manners, and minds that stretch to the concave heights to contemplate the inner workings of the universe – and yet, yet inside, in our secret moments, in our deepest chambers, we just want to fuck, and fart and fornicate. Ha! hold a mirror to yourselves. The same mind that gave us Paradise Lost also gave us the Killing Fields of Pol Pot, the Trenches and the Concentration Camps. The same mind also gives us love:

Black eye liner girl, you’re not the one

You don’t belong to the world that I’m from

Your lazy words flow like confetti, in the wind

In the wind

But,

I will follow you, if you follow me to the unknown

Like Apollo, like Apollo 13, we’ll fly to the Moon...

__________

The Chameleon - Hi-Fi Adventures on the London Underground

I will go with thee - And be thy guide - In thy most need - To go by thy side:

I am a Chameleon. A Karma Karma Chameleon. A leeezard with a viiiisage. Skin rough and scaly. Eyes weird and bulging large. Here's proof: I can rotate my eyeballs independently and focus on two different objects simultaneously. Just like a Karma Chameleon I can fix one eye on the pages of Paradise Lost, whilst the other, holds a luminous thought firmly and fixedly in outer space. As if wilfully suspending a newborn star in the profoundest of abysses. It's no easy task. I assure you. I can assume hues to match the terrain of the world I am passing through. For example, in the metropolis that is LondonTown; I am leathery and swarthy and wear sunglasses down in the underground so none can see me so - for I carry secrets that trail my wake. Those dizzy Underground tunnels are best traversed whilst staring at the overhead lights rushing pass. It's a wonderful sensation. You should try it. And then there's the silence. But only when wearing Sennheiser IE8 headphones - a must for the professional London Tube user. With the IE8s it drapes about you as if a cloak - the silence. It hangs from the high-aboves to the low-belows. Leftwards, rightwards and leewards. I spin 360 degrees on my axis like a compass needle and its everywhere. I am Michelin man; padded in protective bubble-wrap silence. Encapsulated. Encased. Ensconced in silence. On the train; encrusted between passengers, I am a raisin - in a fruitcake. I look about me with one eye. The other on Paradise Lost no doubt. Lips move yet nothing comes out. Bodies nod in the thrall of conversation like crash-test dummies. I feel the air pressure on my temples before the train arrives. I sense the people darting about me in nervous kinetic energies. A hive of bees they bristle and twitch and make me itch. I see the lines of worry etched on their faces - carving deeps so profound to hold the troubles of the world, and even, the demons of Hell too.

Outside me, time is hurrying ahead. Inside me, time a-leisurely stroll. With cloud cushions for trainers I enter the tunnels below. The tunnels, those endless pointless tunnels, a metaphor for deep time. I see Trilobites and Dinosaurs and the dawn of the Cambrian. Descending the escalators feels like entering the jaws of some hideous underworld creature; Erebus, it's entrails the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines. I stare at the sign that says 'Piccadilly' until the spelling looks strange and I no longer recognise it. The extinct implore me to stop, their limbs outreaching, imploring for forgiveness. I am chased by Tiktaalik Rosea doing press ups. Have I been smoking pot?

At Angel station I am on the following lines of Paradise Lost:

With thoughts inflamed the majestic Fiend

puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of Hell

explores his solitary flight; sometimes

he scours the right hand coast; sometimes the left,

now shaves with level wings the deep, then soars

up to the fiery concave towering high.

It takes repeated readings and supreme effort to find, grasp and then hold onto Milton's rhythm. These are not rhyming lines but oscillating. They chime in harmony with the peals of one's voice. The secret is to read the lines out aloud - to yourself. You must hear them. You must utter the words, for breath must exit your lips to give flesh to the poem. And then like the Fiend of Paradise Lost, you shall don 'swift wings and scour left and right, and then shave with level wings the deeps. Then soar up to the fiery concave' - the firmament of the deep blue endless sky! This is where dreams are born. Careful where you tread. Lest you tread on my dreams and thence I'll blaze forth scorching ruin upon you and your progeny - So says I. So says I. So I grin to myself and my lips curlew at the edges, she notices - sitting opposite; wondering things about me...I can tell, I can always tell. I am the Fiend. And nothing is sacred. And everything an uncertain adventure. We forget, and Milton reminds us always: to have seen and tasted and assayed - Ha! only then can the following not ring hollow:

As when far off at sea a fleet descried

hangs in the clouds, by monsoon winds

close sailing from Bengal, or the Isles

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring

Their spice drugs: they on the trading flood

through the wide Indian Ocean to the Cape

Ply stemming nightly towards the pole.

I carry such lines about my person like a gentleman's snuff box. Can you smell the plywood of the poem and the creaking bough beams of the ship as it sails the equinoctial winds? Can you espie the taut coffee-stained canvas of sail and the broad sweep of the Monsoon as it carries you aloft betwixt Javan spice islands of Nutmeg, Pepper and Cloves? Ha! What visions. And I see them on the Underground with one eye on the page and the other fixed firmly on her. She's always there. Pumping beat-box rhythms through my shallow idiots heart.

Wake me up before I die, hold me close

As I gaze upon the sky, comatose

No reason to survive, I suppose

Wake my heart baby...before I die

______

Coming shortly...Hi-Fi Adventures on the London Underground

Or,

How to read Paradise Lost on the London Tube and still manage to get off at the right station.

Featuring Mr Headphone Head and his wily counterpart Mr e-Centric.

'Gravity? Bah humbug - who needs gravity when you've got me baby'

(Mr e-Centric)

________

Noise Isolation Headphones - For the Professional Londoner

I'm in love. Oh yes. But not with you. That would be silly. That would be most unbecoming of me. But I am in love. With these (see pics below). I use the The Underground often you see. Scurrying forth with my whiskers twitching before me through the subterranean world of LondonTown. The Rat Man. Early morning shifts - late night burrowing - weekend traipses - people browsing. That's me. Catch me if you can. I'm your friendly Underground rat. Commuters - Tourists - Grinding wheels - Booming trains - I flit through this belching, heaving, sweating beehive of humanity unnoticed. The morass. Immune to it. Inured I am. Because I have these. You see the thing is, one is constantly under attack. One's personal air-space violated. One's sovereignty questioned by 'noise'. You feel like a beleaguered castle whose ramparts are permanently under attack...by 'sound' / 'noise'. Pollutant of the airwaves. Modern Contemporaria Scourga. "ChatChat - cough - sneeze - laugh - profanities - profundities - giggle - lament - ooh & ahhs - music - rumble - mumble - mobile - squeal - retch - drum&bass - belch - yawn - gabber-gabber - yapper". You need a defence mechanism against this tirade. Earwax genes would help but I'm not blessed with such genetic gifts. A weapon you need. Here's mine: Twin weapons. One for each ear. A pair of Sennheiser IE8 Noise Isolation Headphones.

Featuring powerful neodymium magnets for; and here I repeat what it says on the beautiful box, 'for outstanding out-of-this-world sonic clarity'. What does that mean? Especially since I've never been 'out of this world'? Who cares.

Take these babies out of their box. Carefully...like undressing a women (sexist me?). Unwrap...slowly. Select the correct sized buds from the selection and then slip em' in. Plug. Play. And then? And then watch the world dissolve away. It's almost like sex but without the histrionics and regret. Aural Orgazma. You'll be transported. Though not by London Transport. You won't even feel the train rumbling beneath you when you wear these. Be careful though - you'll miss the important station announcements. You'll miss your stops. You'll miss the screaming kid on its mothers lap next to you. You'll miss the gorgeous sultry morbid babe sitting opposite. You'll; if you're lucky, even miss the end of the Universe. So good are these, for they block out 'all' noise. Not a squeak gets through. Everything. Apart from that noise living in your head. Yes, that one. Finally you can hear yourself think with these. Hell, I can hear myself scream whist reading Fyodor Dostoevsky - Yes, that's how good they are and that's how you spell his name! - D-O-S-T-O-E-V-S-K-Y.

These babies are compulsory for the professional London Underground rat. If you don't own a pair of these, you're not a true Tube Rat. Don't come near. Don't wanna know you. That's me. Acerbic. Acidic. Aesthete. With these I am no longer harangued, abused, invaded by the tyranny of noise. Time to enjoy the silence. In the big city. The silence of your thoughts and not others. I flit through crowds unmoved, unfazed, untainted, invisible. I don't exist, except in a world of my own devising. Not this world. Not yours. Not theirs. Mine own. In my head. In there. Where you can't get to me. But I'll let you climb in. If only you'll give me a kiss.

You ready? Let's go. Climb in. The cockpit. Let's go.

I

wanna fly and run

till it hurts

sleep for a while

and speak no words

In the Underground.

________