25 things

A list of 25 possibly interesting things:

1. I do things that scare me. Firebreathing, Fast cycling, Stand Up, Jumping off high things. Whatever. I just figure the more things that scare you that you get out of the way now, the less you have for when your older.

2. I've never really got the hang of working out which bits of life you're meant to think about. I mean, I'll really over think where to put a film on a shelf. Or how to set up the most aerodynamic backpack. And then do something really important without thinking.

3. Most of that shit that i spout is really true. I really did once nearly spin out a plane over the M40. I really did get bitten by a 6 foot fish. Yeah, I once accidentally set my hand on fire and then used it to breath the last breath in a fireshow. What? Crazy stuff just seems to happen arround me.

4. If I had stronger will power I'd be a vegetarian. But I don't, I am week. For one reason only: energy balance. The more trophic levels you put between you and basal producers (crop plants) the more land you need to use to feed one person.

5. I have a huge amount of respect for people that play musical instruments. I can't and that is because I didn't practice back when I had a maleable brain. Now my brain is tough and fibrous and I'm never going to be that good.

6. I honestly care so very little what people think. Most of the time. This leads to costume. I dress how I feel. If I wake up feeling like a pirate, so be it.

7. I honestly think one person can make a difference. Hopefully, a zoovet at the right place at the right time can change the outcome for one species, mabe a whole group of species.

8. I can't drive. And honestly, I don't want to learn. I know I'm going to have to, but I shall take as long as I humanly can. Cars are an excellent case in point epitomising the singular nature of self-destructive blind consumerism. Bollocks to that.

9. I have to do 25 of these things? I'm just not that interesting.

10. I have decided to leave my sexual/relationship ideas out of this. But, yes I have views. Yes, I'd protest to uphold them. If my views were against gays or promiscuits, that would make me a bigot. If they are against homophobes and idiots, does it still?

11. I believe that beauty, both artistic and emotional, is in the ye of the beholder and there is no such thing as objective beauty. The idea of a "perfect" piece of art or a "most beautiful" woman, seems false to me if it is without labled personal bias.

12. I have no problem with public nudity. At all. For this I have to thank James Banton and Stacey Gregg. Without their need, I wouldn't have had any reason to be naked on stage.

13. I adore cinema and am willing to defend its place as a valid form of art experience against theatre proponants who claim that you get more real emotion on stage. I claim in response that the emotion of theatre actors is dulled because they have to do it night after night. Whereas on film, you only have to it once, so you give it your all.

14. Modelling is not just walking up and down with a bunch of skinny girls. It's about trying to get as much emotion across to the audience without any dialogue. It's a challenge and is great fun.

15. While we're on the topic. What is the world's obsession with skinny girls? 12 - 14 please. Somebody give them a meal or two. Noodles, pizza, whatever, I'll pay.

16. I still find magnets pretty magic. That and surface tension. And imaginary numbers. And the last move on a rubik cube where everything gets messed up and then brought back together in the right order.

17. I can say "thank you" in 25 languages. It just seemed like an important word to learn. The most important word to learn. That and "Can I help?".

18. No, I don't get cold. I weigh the same as a baby elephant, of course I don't get cold. If you see me cold I'm either *really* hungry or I didn't sleep very well at all. Or I have a fever.

19. My camera goes with me everwhere. This is important, because photography is about luck as much as anything and luck favours the prepared. And the polite.

20. Mozart. Mark Knopfler. Marshal Mathers. Beethoven. Ola Salo. John Williams. Scroobius Pip. Imogen Heap. Alice Cooper. Tom Rosenthal. Bach. Funtwo. Chuck Berry. Bonnie Tyler. All subjective, remember.

21. 21? Jeez, look at that. I might just make it.

22. I'm honest. And open. Ask me a question.

23. And finally, I don't like rules that are just there to be rules.

I just found...

...a click biro in my room. Blue and white. Made in Germany.

Little bit scuffed and a little bit scratched, but totally salvageable.

With Refugee Legal Centre written up the side.

The One With All The Snow...

So. Yeah. It snowed last night. Like, a lot. Three inches isn't a lot, but it's a lot for June. I know it's not June, but it was in my dream. So yeah, I've had a night of making snowmen, having snowball fights with Ben and Josh (and Ashton, actually, it was good to see him)and generally larking about in the white stuff.

And after a fun and relaxing night, I'm off to take photos. Later folks.

The One With The Kid In The Road...

I just had such a realistic dream that I, honestly, don't think I can remember having a more realistic one. Ever.

I was bombing back from the vet school on Storey's Way, doing as I usually do, thirty miles an hour, cursing my new tyres for being so slow, while simultaneously loving their ruggedity. Anyhow, I was down on my aero-bars, by which I mean these not these, and there suddenly appeared a small child in the middle of the road.

I swerved, slipped on the front wheel and woke up just as my right shoulder shattered against the kerb. With one hell of a jolt. So much so that I woke up my dog.

The One With Megan and Bailey...

...was shot like a film, including special effects, danger music and adult stunt men playing children's parts. Megan, Bailey and I were an elite ops group of toddlers. We had a cool name, something like "Splinter Group Three" or "Toddler Force Alpha", I forget, but it was way cool.

Anyhow, using mad motocross biking skills we managed to breach the perimeter fence and then we ninja'd the guards, before breaking into the building undetected through a small window. A small window that no adult would have been able to fit through!

Anyhow, we then rigged the lift to allow us access using 1337 hacking skillz. And we ran the last flight of stairs to burst into a council meeting.

The council were all old and kept pinching our cheeks (which is annoying, get off me old woman or you shall feel the cold steel tang of my blade) and offering us rusks (which are tasty) and then the vote! We had come all this way just to add three voices to sway the vote. And after the hands had been tallied, it was decided, Duncan Maskell was *just* decided to be a pillock.

The One With God...

Ok, ok, I'm getting better at this. I'm getting my grove back.

Yup, like an orange grove. I know, I really must learn to spell.

Interesting to have one with the Devil and then, the night after, have one with God. Anyway...So: As part of the Christian Science Exploration Mission, I was on a starship with other science officers and various members of clergy. Also various healers and life givers, a couple of prophets and God (who looked a LOT like Tom here) had come along for the ride.

So, yeah, we got to an inhabited planet. Went down to check it out. I don't actually think I was on the away mission, but I was more of a disembodied camera for this one. So, anyhow, after meeting the local populace (who strongly reminded me of Tanzanians and called themselves the Moto-toto), we found the Dead Zone.

It was a depression, maybe a half a mile long and forty metres wide, between two ridges. It was dark, and misty and eerie. The trees were dead and blackened. The grass was the same. The Moto-toto had warned us not to take anyone in, 'cos we'd die. Apparently, it was "Where necrotoxin goes to die", which I thought was a great quote for a dream. So, naturally, we sent a life giver: a healer from the states, zombie called Tod, who couldn't die again anyway and God, who wasn't too phased by this.

They explored the area and found not only were the trees and grass still there (I assume because a gas that kills EVERYTHING is a pretty good way to preserve things) but also there were some eggs. They were about half a metre high and very familiar looking. The Moto-toto knew what they were as well and had thrown them into the dead zone to, wisely, stop them from ever hatching.

At this point, the resolution dropped a bit, so I don't remember a huge amount of detail, but we were found on the planet by a bunch of marines who'd been stranded there years ago with a ship still in orbit. So, we gave them a lift back, they, needless to say took a couple of eggs as souvenirs, they hatched once out of the dead zone and facehuggers ran amok on their ship.

There was also an awesome scene with a monkey running along over the heads and shoulders of a crowd brandishing a dead and dried-out facehugger as a trophy. It then placed this into the ship's main control panel (where there was a corresponding shaped depression), which for some reason started the engines. Like in Total Recall. But I have NO idea where that fits into anything.

So...er...yeah.

Oh. Wait! There was also an *incredible* scene with God in a plastic Iron Man costume singing kareoke. Honestly. But I don't know where that was either.

The One With The Devil...

...had the most amazing sequence in it. I don't remember a huge amount, I'm out of practice and I only had 6 hours, which was hard enough to catch a dream from on the best of days.

Anyhow, my dream was kind of half "In The Loop" and half "Wolverine", both of which I saw last night, so that, I guess, makes sense. I was in a meeting room, with one old bald guy. Anyway, his line was (walking towards me) "So you think I'm the Devil? Well I guess it's the horns (at which word, spiral kudu horns broke through his bald scalp) or the beard (a pointed black goatee grew impeccably) or maybe the cloven hooves? (shoes rip off and hooves become apparent) What gave me away?"

Anyhow, I thought that was a pretty cool sequence. By the end of it he was close enough for me to smell the brimstone on his breath and see the fire in his eyes.

Which was fun.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

I'm off to the cinema momentarily, but before I leave, I thought I'd leave you with a thought that has just flashed through my head. It was beautiful. It didn't take any coaxing. Brash and brazen it leapt into the limelight of my conscious stage and proclaimed without a trace of teenage irony: "Why are all of these fucking songs about love?"

I love my brain.

Later folks

I trod on a slug today...

...and I wish I hadn't.

I hated that slug. I didn't even know it. I'd never met it. But I hated it 'cos every morning when I woke up, there would be fresh slug slime on my radiator or on my shoes or on my carpet.

I don't know how it even found enough moisture to stay alive. Life must have been really tough for it. Dessication only a hairs breadth away. There's not that many slugs that could hack living in a house. But I didn't think of that. I hated this slug. And I'd never even seen it.

And today I trod on it. By accident. I looked down and what I mistook first off for a piece of pasta was a slug dying. It was a handsome slug, beautiful maybe, mantle mottled chestnut patterns on a military grey body. Little black stripes running around the foot meniscus. Instantly, I loved it. Instantly I respected it's tenacity, it's perseverance, it's raymearsesque survival in a land not made for it.

I carried the little body outside. I salted the hell out it just to make sure it was dead. I don't know why I did that. It was unresponsive anyway, but I wanted it to be dead, not dying slowly with its guts on the outside. I guess it was for me. The slug probably was too far gone to care. But I felt that maybe I was doing something to help. I'd hated it and turned down the option to love it, and now the option was gone. And until I was completely sure it was dead I was distraught. Why do I always want to save those that I can't? Why do I want to have that which I can't? Why do I love those that I can't?

It happens all the time: As soon as the option is taken away from me I *want*, *need* what it offered. I can't think of anything else until I snap out of it. For Alice it took two years (Three years, who am I kidding?). For my slug it took until I was totally sure it was dead. For Nick, maybe as long as Alice and my slug added together.

But yeah, just to say, angsty Grey is back. You've got me for a couple more years.

You all remember the old dreams right?

Well here they are: LinkPlz All fifty two thousand words. Hit "Download" to read.

A year at a thousand words a week. Doesn't sound that much when you put it like that. But it was a lot to me. And it's all true, that's got to count for something?