i trek in to london again to meet up with kristine, jake and i hang out in some large coffee shop before he stars work, then i high tail it over to the v and a for the rendezvous. 
i've forgotten my phone therefore have to default to the force, given that i have never met kristine before i'm relieved that she recognizes me as i wait outside the entrance. we go straight into bowieland and with our headphones tuned into the underground sensors spend a couple off hours really soaking up the exhibits. i gotta say, this is londons love letter to bowie, i write a short note to the curator, it's a beautiful exhibition. 
later i meet up with martin my brother, we explore the rest of the v and a, what a magnificent museum, it's possibly one of the best i have ever seen, although i was quite disappointed that some of the exhibits were plaster replicas, none the less it is well worth a visit. later we go up to the members lounge and gaze out at the city rooftops, drinking tea and flicking through various books and magazines. i feel like a junkie professor as i slip a couple more painkillers under my tongue and gaze at an ancient roman sculpture of samson killing a philistine.

martin takes me to covent garden and we wander around being tourists, i discover a moomin troll shop and feel really excited. the moomins are from my childhood, a swedish writer called tove jansin created them and even today i feel a deep connection with them. i even have a moomintroll cup i keep at home for coffee.

we move across london to meet up with jake, he's finishing work and we head down to noodle town to eat some chinese food.
london is humming with activity, it's cold and people are wrapped up, moving fast, the crowds are overwhelming, but there's a friendly vibe in the air, london enjoying it's second renaissance.
martin leaves for home and jake and i travel along in an over crowded tube to bond street where we say goodbye. i#m off travelling the globe for three weeks while he's orientating himself at a new job, it's a magick moment, special, i mean i'm luckey, i have a brilliant son, and he has got to know me in an unpolluted way free from all the bullshit and crap divorce can inflict on a man. it took me years to build that relationship, heal the damage of a bitter ex wife and the gossip of people with small town minds, but i'm free and so is jake, and in that space is a respect that makes everything worthwhile.

the david bowie exhibition at the victoria and albert museum was in my own humble opinion londons way of saying thank you to the artist. it was excellent in all ways although i expected much more, i would have liked there to have been a more detailed document of his music and art but i guess one has to recognize i'm a bowie nut and know a fairly detailed amount of information about his work. the exhibition caters to those who are not so informed. 
it's a brilliant space aesthetically, the design of the exhibition is excellent from the small little digital guides provided that pick up sensors in the floor surrounding each exhibition display to the range of bowie material but i found the museums signs that were arranged around the exhibition starting with the line, 'bowie is..? very off putting, mostly these were obvious statements and all were subjective. it's enough to say bowie is the single most influential artist of the 20th century rather than spell out the sound bytes and pr lines.
there were costumes and photographs but mostly these can be seen on the net, there were some recordings of bowie and visconti in the studio chatting away and there were lots of rare footage of concerts and snippets from his films. the rooms were packed out, lot's off people from all over the world, everyone in awe of the other, for this is an iconic figure that transcends generations and has touched us all in some way.
i think i'll revisit next week and have a closer look, but i felt satisfied that it was an excellent all round testimonial to his art and influence. 
the no cameras or photography was a bit sad but jake managed to sneak one shot.  

london gives thanks to david bowie at the victoria and albert museum, the man who single handedly influenced a generation all over the world is celebrated in a wonderful display of his art.
i wander around quite emotional at the memories i share with everyone else there, we gaze at the costumes, the videos, the memories of our youth, it's a unique event and executed surprisingly well.  
i gaze at the photograph of him sitting with burroughs, you wonder at the meeting off these two minds, the way bowie wrote diamond dogs, these two people are my generations greatest artists in my opinion, iconoclasts.
so the morning frittered away wandering around this temple, the ultimate homage, even jakob is enthralled by some of the displays and the costumes and off course his music has something for everyone. 
we exit and head into the city where he introduces me to his work colleagues, a lovely team, i talk books with one lady who has read john burdett, so we talk for a while. the others all seem really great and make an interesting team. i'm not one for pride but i am very happy jakob found his place in the world he loves, fashion is his passion, and he's living his own life now.
he takes me over to london fields where we meet up with his friends, wow, we have fun, i'm in hysterics, my jaw aches from laughing, he's in good company, his friends seem intelligent and switched on, they are creative and forging their lives in a new country. it's strange i was once a pioneer, now he is, our roles have taken on an inverse paralleled course.
i wonder what there is for me in australia, apart from my animals.
london has changed, it's not the city i knew, it's so much more vital and the energy is fantastic. 
i even discover a strange shop called 'the last tuesday society' and declare that it is a 'cabinet of curiosity' to which the proprieter, a thin middle aged man in a purple velvet suit declares, 'yes that's exactly what this is.'

http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/

we enter and immediately discover a world of weirdness, a bizarre collection of mutations, oddities and horrors. i discover a biography on austin spare and buy a copy.
what a satisfying day, we catch the jubilee line to it's northern point exhausted

fuck this and bless that, the hip priest chops it all down. division, split infinity, 'that's a mighty big call brother,' some goon says but the hip priest don't care, he's plugged in his old jazz muse and strums some rare chord, like a vibrating echo, it's fired itself into the cosmos searching for an ear.
they say he's like your favorite uncle, they say he's eccentric and wise, they say he is a genius and a beast, they say he is divinity and they say he will burn at the stake with his heathen sisters. i've always liked him, felt a strange irresistible gravity, as i spiraled on my crash course, i always, thought i'd like to catch a flame from that fire but i fear being burnt alive. anyway's old mission moves on, slides across the road trips and the negative vibes, chopping up your cynical jibes and your subtle threat, he scoffs at the world leaders, the lunatic fringe are the majority in this upside down world, it's the repatriation of the new normal, orwell saw the future, he wrote the book. big brother big sister, who cares, they watch you scream in room filled with rats ready to gnaw out your eyeballs, they fill your mind with the heavy memes, the government is a global entity, you're life a commodity  your art a number, your thoughts implanted, originality is the enemy, don't be a sheep, don't be a lamb, don't be a fish, don't be a bee. be beyond programmed. but those rats have sharp teeth and room 101 is the world now.

london, north end, jubilee line, icy cool edge to the evening, i'm wrapped up in my dads track pants and black jacket, looking like a dealer of nightmares, or a guy hiding out from a gang of russian thugs, over tired nerves oscillating between states, i fight weariness and fatigue on the inside, searing pain, intense throb of some weird back issue ripples down my stern all movement is torturous, while on the outside im looking like a man waiting for my man, here he comes all dressed in black, old captain mission backs away, darts behind a fence, then leaps out as the man emerges from the steps onto the street, i meet myself in this moment, i face my own self, the past comes down the line as jakob recognizing me and we share a huge hug. there's something wonderful to be said about the relationship between us, it could have gone either way but it went a different way and we understand one another and that love that a father has for a his son does come back in the love a son has for his father, it's all justice and the sun in my tarot pack.
it's an elegant moment, jake inhabits the world from my own past, he knows more about me, my history, he's neither tethered to his mother or influenced by propaganda, he's getting a big picture and the picture is getting him, this is divinity, he takes responsibility, it's a wonderful thing to behold. divorced men with children have a hard time, i could write some bitter tales of friends and my own, but i have always had that faith that eventually the child grows up and asks his own questions, makes their own judgement's and see's the wider perspective about what's what and who's who.
london has cleaned itself up, the city is vibrant, cafes and interesting shops everywhere, the people swarm, i've forgotten all the people, people from every place you can imagine, speaking different languages, the mix and match ethnicity is exciting, it shows how colloquial australia really is. if only the climate matched i would consider a move, especially if our current prime minister returns next election. 
the political landscape here is divided, the population are now able to discuss and talk about immigration and multiculturalism without being arrested or thrown in jail by the thought police of the socialist regime that was labour. questions are being asked, for the dark side of multiculturalism exists in the crime statistics, the ghetto communities and the no go zones, the dual legal systems, the meme wars and the discord. england on the cusp of accepting under an europian parliament, one million romanians and one million bulgarians, who require free housing, health and benefits. the country is a trillion in debt, the financial sustainability unreliable and the uk risks suffering the same fate as cyprus and greece, banks will cream the tax payer, those who managed to follow the rules will be punished for it and those that didn't rewarded, not that i care, i've always suggested that all is illusionary and the political process that was democracy no longer exists when you have big government. it's strange to watch people freeze to death as pensioners after they spent their lives contributing while the state provides everything for those that are newly arrived. it's not as though romania were at war, they just don't have the national health system or the welfare, i don't blame them coming here but i do see the pattern in socialist governments, destroy the fabric of borders and national identity, flood with sympathetic immigrant populations who will vote for the status quo rather than change it.
while the other arm of the state, the skools and universities systematically brainwash rather than educate thus dumbing people down to the level of drones.
agenda 21, the codex, the socialist engineering of europe with it's architects, the club of rome still pulling the strings will result in the one world government that most people still think is a crackpot conspiracy theory. it will result in the governments having more controls over the masses, in fact the masses will ask for it as crime increases and social discord sweeps through. the meme wars will come to a head, fundamental islamic socialism, verses extreme western capitalism, and throw in the big unknown economic china and what you have is globalism reaching it's omega point. the outcome won't make a difference, because it's the same result, a small group of wealthy people hold power over people's lives, the club of rome may have started off with good intentions but the final result is hell on earth.
the human being is the ultimate cash crop, nothing more than a product. ask your falun gong, ask your little girl who just wants an education instead she is shot in the face by the taliban, ask your regular joe who is struggling just to pay their mortgage off while paying their tax on time watches their government spend it on stupid schemes and outdated ideas. globalization is not a human state, even ant colonies war, we are not hive minds, we cannot exist unless we are allowed individual freedom. the freedom not to impose our will upon others for starters. 
i watched the troops in afghanistan training a local police force and it was indeed a farce. these people are not ready for western values, they inhabit for better of worse a different time, they are prehistoric in some sense  no value attached to that judgement, it's just clear as day, i've said it before and i'll say it again, the war that exists in the middle east is a war over times, a small minority who embrace, individuality, sex, female energy, technology, rock and roll and the spirit of evolution vs the collective tribal meme that don't.
i've traveled through the middle east and it functions under a different law than the rest of the world, inflicting our standards upon it will fail.
well london is calling, i have to drag myself to the hospital get my back pain checked out.
thoughts today go out to iain m banks one of my fave writers who has only months to live, iain, thanks for the culture man, i spend a lot of time in that world, some of the best science fiction ever, a true socialist ideal and one day maybe human beings will be ready for it. if you have not read anything by mr. banks start with complicity, dead air and then begin the culture series with consider phlebas. you're spirit will live on iain.