Karen Woo

The news has recently reported the tragic death in Afganistan of a young doctor whilst travelling back from treating patients in outlying regions.

Her name was Dr Karen Woo, and she had a blog, which I've just read.

It's good.

She died along with nine other people in what was either a robbery or a vague politico-religious assault, but was definitely an unjustified and deeply stupid attack showing an utter lack of respect for life by the perpetrators.

I have no supernatural faith, no religion, no belief in an afterlife, and I've never seen or read any evidence that humans have a soul or a spirit or any purpose other than that which we have created for ourselves, or that we are anything more or less than beautifully evolved biological mechanisms.

What we do have is a life.

Whatever happens, and for however long that life is, what can never be taken away is the simple fact that we existed, and will always have existed.

Taking life is far easier than preventing someone dying, and Dr Woo lived on the far side of the moral spectrum from her murderers.

Sometimes, I'm not lighthearted.

No apologies.

Brithday Suit

My mortality has come into sudden, stark focus. I am on the cusp of either despair or joy. A peak, or maybe trough, of dawning realisation that life is either a journey of unexpected occurrences to be experienced with optimistic joie de vivre, or a long slow slide into the open gaping maw of the cold, cold grave.

It's my birthday.

As a newly qualified 38 year old, (which is 13,528 in Mayfly years), I've now been on the planet for nearly 4 decades, so it behoves me to consider what I've achieved in that time.

Well, I've finally used the word "behove" in a sentence, so I can be proud of that.

What else? I must think of something from my past that represents one of these peaks, a frothy wave-top on the ocean of experience, through which I danced like the rainbow-speckled dolphin of life.

I had a wee next to Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards at Alton Towers once.

True story.

We nodded but didn't speak or make more than the briefest of eye contact because that would defy the unwritten law of toilet manners, or bog etiquette. This may come as a bit of a surprise to some ladies, but it's just not done for chaps to talk whilst attending to their micturitionary needs. It's like a more draconian form of lift protocol, where you must stare straight ahead and not engage in any form of interaction with other humans at all and just goes to show how unlikely a scenario is depicted by Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator".

It's even more difficult in male toilets though, because they generally consist of more than just standing motionless in a simple cube. In a line of urinals, one must leave at least one empty urinal between yourself and the adjacent gentleman, and preferably take position at the far end of the row so as to be as far away as possible from any other urinators, lest you be mistaken for a couple. If there are only three urinals, and the middle one is empty, you wait till one of the end ones has been vacated before taking that place and pointing Percy at the porcelain.

There were only two urinals in the Alton Towers pissoir, which is why Mr The Eagle and I were standing next to each other, and not because we were about to engage in any sort of homo-erotic love fest, which is presumably what happens if you have a wee next to someone when you don't have to.

Okay, let me just check my lifetime achievement list; Behove used? - check. Eddie the Eagle urination and gay sex denial story? - check.

Right. I think I'm done.

So, it's pretty clear that I'm a high achieving, goal orientated type. I like to work hard and play harder. I'm a hedonistic go-getter who don't play by the rules and don't give a good gosh darn for the sensibilities of no-one, no way, no how, no siree. I gots me a job to do and I'm's a gonna do it, and if you don't likes my methods you can just go aheads an fires me, cos I ain't taking no hassles off of no pencil-neck pen-pusher downs at city hall.

Actually, please don't fire me. I have a child and a mortgage and a motorbike that needs servicing. I'll be good. I won't pluralise inappropriately again, honest. And that pencil-neck really goes with that tie. Brings out the beige in your eyes.

I don't actually mind working, although if I can avoid making it hard I will do because I'm a human male. I don't like it when I end up sweating because of some hefty bit of legwork. I don't mind bleeding on the job, because that takes little effort, but sweating usually indicates exertion of some sort, which shouldn't happen at work outside the circus, porn and Guantanamo Bay.

So, on this, the anniversary of my body's birth, a spot of quiet reflection via snatched minutes tapping away at this blog has taught me that I'm an achiever who doesn't mind work too much, lives in a house, has a kid, urinates regularly and shares a birthday with Brian May out of Queen.

Woo-hoo!

To celebrate, I am going to go to a great chinese restaurant tonight in our local itty bitty city. At least that's the plan, but the local papers are full of the news that Customs Officials "swooped" last night and detained six illegal immigrants who were working there.

Two things trouble me about this. The first is the idea of any government agency "swooping", because that implies a sort of raptorial grace and possibly the ability to fly. This would indicate a level of competence and efficacy I don't think any authoritarian organisation has outside of the Brownies, and if they were that efficient it would mean they were being funded too much. I want low taxes and a government that makes it's sub-divisions get by on their bare minimums. They do it for the army.

The second is that I hope one of those detained wasn't the guy responsible for the hot and sour sauce or the cheesy squid, because those are delicious enough to warrant a fake passport any day of the week.

Wish me luck. I'm hungry.

___________________________

Ooh - picture!

I seem to have set a precedent by posting various virtual photographic plates taken with the utter expertise of the random blogger, and although I shouldn't feel beholden to put one in just for the sake of it, a post sort of kind of seems a bit naked without one.

A picture expresses. A picture confirms. A picture represents.

I shall scroll through the esoterically ordered directory I have entitled "Pictures", which has subdivisions called things like "Slalom" and "Fancy", but are now jumbled up because I can't remember why I called them that in the first place, and see what I can find.

Er . . . how about a slightly blurred picture of my hand, which I took to check contrast settings on my camera, and is not at all in any way intended to resemble any sort of body part other than the hand it actually is, because doing that would represent a dodgy state of mind, and if you see anything else in it then that's entirely your anus problem.

Make of it what you will.






anus

Thinking big

Entropy and decay - the unavoidable consequences of existence. This fragile life we lead sometimes leads one to a contemplative chain of thought, a private discourse on the nature of mortality and our place in the universe. Perhaps the ephemerality of our being leads us to draw conclusions that this is not all there is, that after death we are not merely snuffed out but continue in some way we don't understand. Or perhaps, we eschew these notions of life-after-death as mere wishful thinking and fear of dying, accepting that oblivion is the more likely endpoint. The universe doesn't need everlasting souls in some alternate dimension to operate; it worked for billions of years before us, it'll go on for billions afterwards.

And is there any point in thinking about "before" and "afterwards"? Is time simply a human construct for conveniently marking out our tiny, linear lives? Is it a single-dimension, distinct from space, divided into discrete "frames" that keep the cosmos in some sort of order, or is it an all-emcompassing oceanic ether through which we flow, affecting even the very gravity we need to exist?

These thoughts have been flickering through my mind recently, and it makes me consider the impact the world has on our consciousness, about how the greatest philosophers must have taken their muse from reality to formulate their hypotheses, the best minds must have been open to influence from their day-to-day lives.

And my conclusion? Well, the most profound thoughts I have ever had have been thought before, for thousands of years, by greater brains than mine. But that doesn't make my notions any less worthy, and I should not be afraid to articulate them.

I think I should clean my fruit bowl out a bit more often:

That, my friends, is a lemon. Next to the plum (I think).

Perhaps a close-up is required:


There's got to be a metaphor for life there, hasn't there?