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| Adjusting the levels before the London tourist season - the dome slips occasionally during Winter |
I spent last night in New York and flew back this morning.
According to my brain.
All that I did there was to leave. While wandering around the top level of a six-storey car-park which had only two cars parked on it a 1993 BMW 7-Series saloon in gunmetal grey drove up and a chap that I used to work with in about that era leapt out. He was wearing a military-green "bat suit" - the sort with webs between the torso and the arms and legs that help extreme sports twerps fly like birds. He was about to base-jump (from all of six storeys up) and I had to strap his parachute on for him before the authorities arrived.
I didn't actually see him jump because then my flight arrived (on top of the car-park roof where I was standing); a fully-chromed Douglas DC-3 (might have been a Dakota - I'm no expert on foreign aircraft) but with two sets of wings (these only in RAF blue), one set behind the other, and the jet engines from a Victor "V-Bomber". Boarding was immediate but the moment we took off I knew there was a problem because we were skimming low over the water of the harbour, barely managing to clear the concrete break-waters of the docks, at about twenty feet altitude. I'd left the base-jumper's large silver cup trophy on the forward wing of the aircraft and it had been sucked into an engine on the rearward wing!
Then I woke up.
Analysis on a postcard or a commment please.
No, really - please! I need to know what the heck that was all about.
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| Storm clouds gather over the Palace of Westminstering while my chromed Douglas DC-3 circles preparatory to landing, probably on The Mall or Horseguards Parade. |
On a side-note, I am writing this enbloginatrix entry using my trusty laptop, sitting at my usual desk in the usual room, in the usual manner. Nothing has been re-arranged. The cleaners have not been in. Why then, am I convinced that the Sun came over the horizon about ten degrees northing of where it did yesterday? Not an "oh you're just marking it by the wrong tree" or "you're just sitting slightly differently to usual" but in a wildly different place? I'm not the world's most demonstrably solid definition of sane and sensible, but I am tuned in to the spins and flexings of the universe. I hug trees. I hug dogs. I occasionally even feed the sister's cats if she's out and they're persistent. I know one end of a screwdriver from the other. I can find my way around a lot of England without recourse to a map and compass. My breakfast included no alcohol. Why then, was today's sun presented to me out of place?
A blip in the Matrix?
A re-setting of my memory by some organic software routine doing housekeeping following a nasty accident with a base-jumper and an art-deco Douglas DC-3 overnight?
A land-slide mayhap that has moved Owl Towers one pace to the left, or something?
Father Nature skipping a few days in order to get in step again with Old Mother Time?
It really is most disconcerting - and fascinating, to me (only) - when my world-view hiccoughs.
It forces me to have serious conversations with myself in re the mental health of everyone else (and re-defining standards so that I am comfortable again and the world is even more barking).
I need to question my sanity. Miss Moneypenny? I think there may be a blocked drain in my head. Kindly get me a sanity-engineer on the telephone immediately.
Normal service will, like as not, never be resumed.
If I see a seagull flying backwards I'm going to ring for lunch early and then retire to the cellar with a greaseproof-paper packet of sandwiches, a sturdy dog and a hard-hat to await developments.
Planes= penises
ReplyDeleteParachutes= semen
Engines= vaginas
I think you are just a red blooded male
Sex sex sex
I am vaguely insulted by your definition of "red-blooded male" Sir!
DeleteNext!
Speaking as an authority on these matters, I would say you allowed yourself to become sober. A glimpse of reality can be profoundly disturbing. Take two large brandy's every four hours for the next couple of days and you'll be right as rain.
ReplyDeleteNow there is some advice that I can get behind. For brunch I think a medicinal brandy consommé with warm croutons, for lunch something flambéed (possibly the lemon slice in a gin & tonic, done at table) and then for dinner I'll just have a chair, a hound and a bottle-opener wallah moved into one of the cellars for the evening.
DeleteReality is so damnably uncontrolled, and so rarely one's first choice. I'm going to check the sun-dials later for a mismatch, and then I may just lay on the lawn and let my eyes range the horizons independently while I smoke a decent cigar. Last time I did that the gardeners planted a border and made me into a water feature, although it has to be said that the fountain only worked intermittently, and was never worthy of Chatsworth.
"...the fountain only worked intermittently..."
DeleteWhen I go for walks with the boys in the bush and we have to make a pit stop, I long for the days when I could so effortlessly hose down the countryside. I use viagra, not to improve an intermittent sex life, but to avoid pissing on my boots...
I drink too much; the last time I had to give a urine sample it had an olive in it. ...
DeleteYou can pass an olive, Sir Owl? Surely you are taking the pith.
DeleteI'm sure it will surprise you greatly to learn that I am no Freud, but I too have (recurring) dreams about air travel. There's always a slight variation, but it is such a regular feature of my somnolence. It usually involves a deal of stress, such as will I miss the flight, will the first class be up to snuff, the champagne my favourite brand, and other details of huge import. I have booked an appointment with Madam Arcarti, so all will be revealed. I shall mention your episode too.
ReplyDeletePlease do mention it, if you think it will help. I have a recurring waking-nightmare that involves airport security, taking my feet off, an intimate pat-down and a sniffer dog on amphetamines, but this nightmare only usually happens in American airports which I avoid like the plague.
DeleteAt some point in life I will try the "Lear" cure, as soon as I have saved up the necessary millions and interviewed at length for a stout and sober pilot.
You can come on my Gulfstream V, if that helps...
Deletehttp://corcol.blogspot.com/2012/10/shooting-stars.html
It's a date! I'm amazed that Amnesty International doesn't do something about the conditions in cattle-class. Still, it builds character, they say - I once flew "EasyJet" while contracting for a cheapskate company, and if you can survive that, you can survive anything ...)
DeleteActually, I have a secret confession, that must never ever be repeated, but I once flew EasyJet too. The confession is that it was actually rather good. Except we landed in a country called Stanstead, and then it all went to hell in a handbasket.. Or maybe that's my recurring nightmare. See it's progressed from a dream to a nightmare. That Mdm Arcarti is a genius, and is now getting quite rich based on my three hours per day sessions. I think she has a Gulfstream V.
DeleteYou are not awake. You are still dreaming. This is not reality.
ReplyDeleteps I'm flying Easyjet (I know - I am a fool for punishment) soon and already getting into a lather about the whole horrible experience. pps John Gray is correct.
Damn! I had hoped to have more control over my dreams than this! Easyjet - aaaaaarrrrghhh! Nice prices, but torture from start to finish! I wish you the very best (try knock-out drops)!
DeleteMr Gray is quite probably correct - in all but the details!
Dreaming is simply a state of being unconscious whilst no longer drinking. Flying, in whatever form whilst unconscious, represents sex. All other dream-like manifestations are simply more sex. In fact, as Freud so eloquently stated, 'Dreaming is sex whilst asleep'.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm confused. I've usually always been asleep during sex or at least feigning sleep, I thought it was de rigueur.
DeleteI confess to a certain envy of those with LearJets. Is LearJet envy a sin?
I think the safest response is to never fly again. Or go base jumping, but that is always good advice.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I would entertain either might be on a mission to base-jump naked from a doomed aircraft over Belgium in order to urinate on James Ensor's home town. The more I look at the artwork shown on your blog review for today [http://sarcasticninja.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/meet-james-ensor-belgiums-famous-painter.html] the more tempted I am to book a trip to do just that.
DeleteI need to have my buttocks waxed first though, otherwise the aerodynamic drag would be likely to pull me off course and I would be in danger of bombing Brussels instead.
I am always glad when something I write touches someone in a profound way. After all, the artist was already profoundly touched in the head.
DeleteI'll keep an eye on the news for the story, "Marvelously Smooth Englishman In Flying Squirrel Suit Pisses On Belgium, Improves European Culture,"
You've been on the mushrooms again have you ?
ReplyDeleteI confess, my fine fellow, to a certain level of mushroom pie intake but I did ask the little chap sitting under the mushrooms if there would be any deleterious effects from their consumption and his advice was "merely fiscal hiccoughs in regard to £10/100g". We settled on a kilo in an unmarked brown paper bag.
DeleteWith hindsight thought I probably should not have given the skins and stalk offcuts to the chickens. They are laying disco balls.
Our silly brains are nothing more than a sieve through which we sift everything we see or think. Sometimes chunks of nonsense get stuck in the sieve and then start rattling around while we're sleeping and unguarded. Your sieve just needs a good flushing, man!
ReplyDeletePerhaps a trip to Iceland to float mindlessly in the Blue Lagoon for long, languorous hours will clean out the detritus and get you right back to the accepted concept of normal.
Or, maybe you just got a glimpse of the Matrix!
You're right there Ms Sparrow, you're not wrong. The mind is a bit like a bored toddler being pushed around in a supermarket trolley for the waking day - by the time you get to the checkout there's a lot more in the trolley than you thought, noticed or wanted. My trolley has supermarket wheels.
DeleteIceland is one place I would LOVE to go to!
You're marking trees? Do you lift your leg to that? And did Ms. Sparrow just tell you your brain is a sieve?
ReplyDeleteI never lift a back leg to mark a tree personally - I have little people for that. Well, I say "little" but some of them are quite tall, since we have a range of trees to mark.
DeleteMy brain is more of a colander than a sieve, which is why I favour wearing tagine-shaped hats Sir.
Well the Freudians would just say "penis envy", but that's what they always say. I reckon the problem is located somewhere between the inner ear and the limbic system. You're only slightly potty if you think the sun is moving North because that's the right direction. Maybe the last time you saw it was a week ago.
ReplyDeleteUsual diagnosis from the quacks is a progressive failure of the mechanism somewhere between my wig and my chair. Never been ruddy progressive in me life. Wig is a little loose these days though.
DeleteI wonder if perhaps you're onto something and Nanny has re-set all of the calendars in the house to hide a few days absence? I lost 1971 that way; nobody woke me until '72.
If the Earth is flat and square why does the sun appear to describe an ellipse over my estates? By rights it should appear, rise vertically, then slip horizontally across the orangery roof and finally sink like a ruddy stone into the stables sometime after I've changed for dinner.
I think the clouds over parliament are from the flag on fire atop of W Abbey that is obvious to me. Your dreams are as convoluted as mine and all that helps me is a teeny weeny,snoosy woosy, dreamy sleepy, nighty nighty tablet. :)
ReplyDeleteThe weird dreams are the best. Perhaps the most peculiar of all my recurring dreams are where I am managing the building of a vast canal network on an alien planet! The place is arid, super-bright and everything I am building is in almost white concrete, long, long fairly shallow canals with gently sloping sides. Most odd indeed Ma'am, most odd indeed. I wonder if we'll ever get them finished?
Delete