It was me on that road
But you couldn't see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here

It was me on that road
Still you couldn't see me
And then flashlights and explosions

Roads end getting nearer
We cover distance but not together

I am the storm I am the wonder
And the flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions

I don't know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

It's about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for

I've got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there

Roads and getting nearer
We cover distance still not together

If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have a flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions

There's no room where I can go and
You've got secrets too

I don't know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

ROYKSOPP

Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.

John Keats

Music is a special one, it soothed me this morning, fired me up over lunchtime, energised my driving through an unusually laboured Norwich, and shuttled me into a parking space which offered only a short walk for the pains. This evening, I'm being fed not with a Specal K diet, (that follows later), but with three new cd's which I've brought for my head, heart and wellbeing, granted by HMV tokens, a legacy of Christmas.
I was interested in Karl Jenkins "Requiem", but instead chose System of a Down, "Mesmerize", "Arabica" and "Buddha Chill" all of which have ignited many positives within, thank goodness, because my spirit was well down, heaped as my desk has become with burdensome paperwork afforded by my beloved relative, and dropped from vertiginous limbo by the local medical service.
I'd pondered on a CD by Boards of Canada, but only know two songs, does anyone know any more?

Nonetheless, life is better in 2006, that is my will, my belief, and we should all keep it as such, with no outside inteference with the things which make our life beautiful...anyone who dares to step on our happiness will be scolded and reformed.

What is your favourite music of this year so far?
I've rediscovered some old music this week, by The Buzzcocks, The Ruts, Bauhaus, even Siouxsie & The Banshees!!

I'm still rigidly adhering to the Special K diet BTW, and this is day something or other, and I'm on box two. I read the information part, which claims one box contains 12 helpings, but twelve helpings would feed a sparrow, in summer. I manage five helpings, perhaps six at a stretch from one box.
How do you manage on your cereals? Do you count yours and make them last the full twelve bowls???
If so, please tell me, furthermore, tell me the secret.

A smiling face is half the meal.
Latvian Proverb

Music is helping me once more,
bringing positivity to the fore
with pressure, blood and imminent deadline
pain from head to toe, right of mine
focusing on carefree times ahead
faith betrayed, doctor's attention long since shed
damn your negligence so sick with taedium
human souls may yet transform
haunting your error-coated arrogance
Injured or not, I take my stance!

| | | | |

La musique m'aide une fois de plus,
apporter la positivité à l'avant
avec de la pression, sang et dates-limites
douleur de la tête à l'orteil, du cote droit
je me concentre sur l'avenir prochain
insouciant de l'attention du docteur depuis longtemps
damn votre négligence et les difficultées avec le taedium
les âmes humaines peuvent encore transformer
hantise de votre arrogance et erreur-enduite
Blessé ou pas, Je tiens ma position!

lauren6

Music: Seventh House Out: Atlas Mountains (Over mix)

Mean maximum: 14.8c
Mean minimum: 6.6
Mean: 10.7
Highest max: 30.9 19th June
Lowest max: 1.5 29th December
Highest min: 17.7 15th July
Lowest min: -5.1 28th February
Lowest grass min: -9.4 28th February
Rainfall total: 701.3mms
Rain days: 196
Wet days: 125
Wettest day: 25.4mms 15th September
Days with thunder: 14
Days with hail: 11 [all small]
Ground frosts: 108
Air frosts: 53
Days with sleet or snow: 38
Days with snow lying: 21
Days with fog (0900hrs): 14
Mean 10cms soil: 10.5
Days with gales: 0
Mean cloud cover (0900hrs): 68%
Wind direction at(0900hrs);
N: 34
NE: 28
E: 14
SE: 29
S: 42
SW: 58
W: 65
NW: 54
Calm: 41

Rainfall very close to average
Total absence of gales
Quite high number of days with snow falling and lying
Annual mean identical to that of 2003 and 2004.

Good morning everyone, how's your day?

Mine is slightly more normal today, after surgery yesterday. Following this I slept early, and dreamt bizarrely of Dover harbour, where I was able to swim like a fish, underwater permanantly...furthermore, I could swim faster than the fish themselves, and encountered half a dozen other 'humans' 'living' beneath the waves, including a very friendly Elvis Costello. Such dreams exhaust me.

Time moves so slowly, and yet time, is always quicker than we are.

As I've written before, I'm a firm believer in standing aside, for a few moments, from any difficulty, as this gives a far clearer view of any situation, and in recent times, I've been better able to stand back from a society I find quite muddled and increasingly sick. I've reached thirty-five, and remain out of the flow, thank goodness, though I enjoy much of the modern lifestyle, it's by choice and not force; there are many things I'll never subscribe to, and I fear many people are being hoodwinked into this new order whereby all our own ideals, loves, personality are disolved into some mould or formula that pleases only certain powerful people.

You only have to look at how we have been 'moulded' into believing that snow can bring our country down. Did it stop our forebears from living????
People forget too quickly.

Where do you expect us to go when the bombs fall?

Life was never, never meant to be easy, but it WAS meant to have meaning and purpose, as every individual is important, so please, as I've said before, be proud of who you are...deep down you know yourself, and somewhere inside, we all know what is basically right and wrong. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Thanks for the care my dear friends have shown me, take care too!
love,
lauren6

LEO CHALUPA
Ophthalmologist and Neurobiologist, University of California, Davis

A 24-hour period of absolute solitude
Our brains are constantly subjected to the demands of multi-tasking and a seemingly endless cacophony of information from diverse sources. Cell phones, emails, computers, and cable television are omnipresent, not to mention such archaic venues as books, newspapers and magazines.

This induces an unrelenting barrage of neuronal activity that in turn produces long-lasting structural modification in virtually all compartments of the nervous system. A fledging industry touts the virtues of exercising your brain for self-improvement. Programs are offered for how to make virtually any region of your neocortex a more efficient processor. Parents are urged to begin such regimes in preschool children and adults are told to take advantage of their brain's plastic properties for professional advancement. The evidence documenting the veracity for such claims is still outstanding, but one thing is clear. Even if brain exercise does work, the subsequent waves of neuronal activities stemming from simply living a modern lifestyle are likely to eradicate the presumed hard-earned benefits of brain exercise.

My dangerous idea is that what's needed to attain optimal brain performance - with or without prior brain exercise - is a 24-hour period of absolute solitude. By absolute solitude I mean no verbal interactions of any kind (written or spoken, live or recorded) with another human being. I would venture that a significantly higher proportion of people reading these words have tried skydiving than experienced one day of absolute solitude.

What to do to fill the waking hours? That's a question that each person would need to answer for him/herself. Unless you've spent time in a monastery or in solitary confinement it's unlikely that you've had to deal with this issue. The only activity not proscribed is thinking. Imagine if everyone in this country had the opportunity to do nothing but engage in uninterrupted thought for one full day a year!

A national day of absolute solitude would do more to improve the brains of all Americans than any other one-day program. (I leave it to the lawmakers to figure out a plan for implementing this proposal.)The danger stems from the fact that a 24 period for uninterrupted thinking could cause irrevocable upheavals in much of what our society currently holds sacred.But whether that would improve our present state of affairs cannot be guaranteed.

What are your thoughts about this dear friends?

Our frost is broken, but it is bloody cold. Lord-Treasurer is recovered, and went out this evening to the Queen.
-Swift, January 5th, 1713

Colour: Tan and sandybrown
Music: Buzzcocks: Sixteen Again
Bauhaus: 1979-83
System of a Down: Soldier Side