It is sad to note that winter brings with it many discontents. Firstly there is Christmas – which only serves to benefit commercialist enterprise (and arguably children, although my side of the argument is that a happy child at Christmas is an overweight and spoilt little shit before the fruition of February); secondly there is the annual cull of the elderly (again, there is a strong argument here that points to a possible declination of the type who sit alone in their homes reading the Daily Mail and grumbling constantly about foreigners but rarely venturing out to gain subjective experiences; excepting for one morning approximately every five years on the route to a polling booth and a small black box placed next to the printed word “Conservative” – I don’t accept these arguments however as I see them as both sinisterly unfair and poorly written examples which fail to satisfactorily explain the relationship between the cull and discontent).

I need to slow down a bit here. Making a series of points to justify a statement is all very well, but it is somewhat counterproductive to detail all my opinions and doubts in parenthesis after each one.

Which is exactly my point.

This marvellously shows why I cannot write a normal weblog like everybody else.

Basically, I write far too much crap. My thoughts and sentiments usually begin to travel in one definite direction, but soon enough other pieces of acuity splinter their way into the main trunk of my plan. And, like some curious fetish, I just have to satisfy my temptation to expose it all.



You will probably realise at this point that such a habit will doubtless expose itself within a section of writing about said habit. Some might attach the label of postmodernism to this phenomenon, but I wouldn’t agree. For that to be the case, I would have to be executing my writing style deliberately. Although execution is perhaps the best thing for it.

Needless to say, I am considering ways to change all this. The problem, as I’ve intimated a gerdillion times before, is that I have too much scope to work with and too much time on my hands in which to do it. I have come to the conclusion that the weblog is far too broad a tool for me. I have to now admit publicly that I have trouble limiting myself to one simple thread. As a result I continually address only the one subject: everything. It is a rare day indeed when I sit to address a subject and end up addressing only it. For instance, today I sat down to write my entry and I ended up writing about writing. Despair reigns slightly.

To begin yet another analogy on these pages: my brain has become a sweet shop and I am sweeping great armfuls of goodies into my trolley. I just cannot help it: it’s free publishing. I can write all I want and the good people at Blogger still refuse to charge me. What would you do if you were given the keys to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and told you could help yourself? In the end you would eat and eat and eat, and you’d end up becoming obsessed with yourself and the activity of eating.



So when my friend said my writing style seemed a little bit arrogant (see previous entry for terse details), she was probably on the button. Self-obsessed nonsense is what this is. Should I really expect all of you to be interested in the internal mumblings of my self-obsessive brain?

So, soon enough, this weblog will become more like a diary. Obviously I first have to get an interesting life. But plans for that are in the pipeline (although who doesn’t plan to have an interesting life?). Between now and the realisation of my plans however you will have to put up with this. Well, strictly speaking you can do what the hell you like. As long as all the other billions of pages remain up and running, your choices remain vast. As do my personal cerebral options of course.

Anyway, winter. I used to think of a year as a living thing. In January it started off weak and unable to proffer a decent bit of weather. March would signify its teens when it would grow stronger and show the strength required to generate a decent bit of warmth. Spring would turn to summer and the year was reaching the peak of its power. Autumn and winter showed its old age. Hence winter was in two parts: pre-January 1st and post-January 1st.

I’ve always liked this method of watching the weather. On that October day, when the southeast of England experienced that infamous hurricane, 1986 was having a bit of a funny turn. One must resist the temptation to imagine that it was experiencing wind, for that would be taking anthropomorphism too far, and there is far too much anthropomorphism in the world today. It also meant I could eventually delete winter altogether.

At first I had two winters, with each half as long. It makes winter II part of one long build up of power to summer and winter I as part of a dying autumn. Then I had the debate: should it be that winter II be called winter I? For the winter that signifies the start of a year is following on from the autumnal winter. So which comes first? The existence of winter became a paradox. So I found it easier to think of winter II/I as simply the beginning of spring and winter I/II as the end of autumn. Hence only three seasons! With Christmas and New Year becoming a celebration of the old year’s death and a new year’s birth. Basically I had stolen Christmas from Jesus. Which I think is fair game considering the Christians stole it from the pagans.

None of this eases the discontent that the cold period brings. But it makes me feel better about the whole thing. I think the time to reclaim Christmas back from the Christians and the moneymen is long overdue. If Christmas is the peak of the winter than winter truly is a dismal period indeed and I am happy that it is behind me.

My long-term plan is to take Christmas back and then destroy it. Good riddance I say.

Bloody Christmas: bunch of arse.