the gig is over, my contract ends and with it a new change as i am unable due to some bureaucratic fuck up in my dept. to return to my unit. it is not surprising, the dept is abysmally dumb, filled with middle management who are just thugs, bullies, incompetent and brutal. in their trail lay hundreds of ruined lives and turmoil. i am a survivor, my deep trauma is in every atom of my being but i have always stood my ground and pushed back. i am an anomaly for them, they fear me.
the phone call comes late in the afternoon. i tell them that if i am moved from my current situation and have to deal with any new managers or staff with psychopathic behaviours towards me i will sue the dept. i add that given the biggest thug in the whole dept. is now the general manager i will not really raise my expectations.
then i am informed they have put me on speaker phone and the whole office has heard. 
later i get a call from my boss. he's okay, not part of the group thug mind. he says he will place me somewhere good. he does.
i receive my roster, big drop in hours and pay but lots more time. i figure time will be the resource i need for the next year so i can live with it plus surfing starts soon.
back at my work a woman tells me how a sexual assault was covered up a few years ago. she starts crying and sobbing and i tell her it's important she finishes telling me, which she does. i am not shocked, the number of people whom have been fucked over by this stupid dept.  grows every day. i have heard hundreds of stories from people. many people leave, some are damaged  some become drug addicts, alcoholics  some stay and just do no work at all which is why everything is fucked. all i can do is direct them to the online survey they are conducting and encourage them to be honest. one day there will be a royal commission and i will be there singing every single name of every single manager who fucked me over, in turn ruining the lives of my clients. 
i head home, the trauma bubbles away under the surface. these things  are heavy matters.   

slow lazy weekend, i wander around with nicole and veronique rambling in a fluid kind of way through the crowds and hordes out celebrating the diversity day at our local beach. a black kid sings a stupid song to an empty seated arena, not one person stops and listens and to be honest it's a painful wailing modern pop song al la the voice. my head hurts and i have to move away but the girls want to enter the eye of the storm. 

the stalls all seem to have some sort of agenda, refugee groups, african food, south american music, indian jewellery. ironically veronique and i are the only exotic looking people in the crowd apart from a couple of dark skinned people. we wander over to the stand where a man is offering some south african bread for tasting. this is our national dish he proclaims. it's bland as fuck, i wouldn't eat it but in the interests of society i nod my head and offer various platitudes. 

an australian man obviously taken by veroniques attractive look moves in, 'where are you from?' he asks.

now i hate it when i am asked this, i only get asked this in australia where racism is so entrenched in the blood of it's left wing harmony groups they are able to be rascist while declaring it something they fight against. no one else cares where i am from, only fucking australians have to have an ethnocentric label so they can divide you into a tribe. idiots!

veronique and i have discussed this, we never get asked anywhere else but australia. i mention i have a strategy which shuts people up when i always answer, iceland. veronique says she always says bondi. 

we leave the beach and go find some healthy juice bar. nicole buys me lunch. 

the world is okay today. the winter sunshine is wonderful, blue skies, the birds are happy, i was in perfect harmony until the united nations fucked up everything with their stupid harmony day. 

    

student: does the dog have a buddah nature ?
master : mu 

this reminds me of the schrodingers cat theory. neither alive or dead until observed. but the master says, much more. he say's it does not matter. who cares! 

it makes no difference if the dog has buddha nature or not, the cat is alive or dead, it does not matter and therefore mu means un-ask the question. there is no yes no answer. one's mind must move from simple binary answers to some other form of intuition or awareness.  
often the master will answer the question with a yes, or sometimes a no. but the answer is really mu.
so unless you look inside the box and see the cat, it is a pointless question with no answer. 
these zen monks were pretty smart.

THE LEON SUITES - DAVID BOWIE

first week ends thankfully, i'm fucking exhausted. i have so much to do but first i have to save my fish again as i noticed the pond is almost empty. there's some weird things going on, my gate is broken at the side of the house and it looks really damaged as if forced open. the pond empty could be just the stream being clogged with leaves so i don't add that to my suspicions but when i enter the house the tv is on, and there are a pile of leaves on my rug. 
everything is secure so i can't understand what has happened but, weird things happen.
i have a weekend to myself, going to do some hard core reading and laundry. i have just finished 'the frozen dead' and 'a song for drowned souls' by bernard minier which are excellent french detective novels. 
i finally got hold of another copy of the book i left in the cinema 'dark matter' by blake couch, i only had about 20 pages left to read so i can now say i read the book. not sure if i liked the ending but it was a good idea and food for thought.
i also read my first chuck wendig 'invasive' which i felt was a bit similar to micheal crichton in style and story, not really my cup of chia.

australia could have once been the clever country, now, it is just the dumbest i think. a dumb county run by dummies, for dummies. yes, i am a dummy. so are you if you so wipe that smirk off yer face. 
we are all dummies as we put up with it. the fucking corruption that flows through every single institution in australia is appalling, it's so toxic that eventually the only way to beat them is to join them. 
our political system is a tool of the chinese communist party, it's so fucking broken we need a revolution more than ever, not a dumb one either but one where we just start making good rational choices.  every issue should be judged on merit not through ideological lenses. this sort of thinking takes us backwards. 
people use the word vision a lot but there is no vision, even the greens have no vision just the same old fucking tribal shit dressed up in a strange weird united nations of beniton advert with political correctness spilling from it's brainless drivil. they have to be the most conformist party out there, dare not think outside the un agendas. 
all these parties are more obsessed with control. the liberals are about being controlled by economics and controlling economics, labour is about being controlled by unions and controlling the workers while spending their fees on strippers and champagne and bourgeois things (is craig thompson in jail?) 
the greens are controlled by cookie cutter ideology straight from university of brainwashing and they would like to brainwash you.
personally i would just not vote anyone until they get the message. do not vote! we should never encourage these people. 

first day of a three week contract, the gig is tricky but the guys all like me so that's an advantage. gotta get through this week and it's been tricky, lots of dramas from women with to much time on their hands. to much unfinished business they wanna drag me into old dramas. i have to navigate this madness plus work with some very difficult clients. oh well old captain mission just has to take one day at a time. day one over.
the old polish woman seems happy and sad, she occasionally burst into tears, she occasionally laughs, but one thing is certain she has no idea what to make of me. weather to hug me or knife me. she knifed me last time, i think she feels some remorse for her actions. 
this time she's spilling her guts, sharing her secrets, full disclosure. i joke around with her, she's okay i guess but you can never tell really can ya. 
people are tricky animals, can't say i think highly of them at all. i used to but these days i'm to switched on to agendas and ulterior motives, it's dog eat dog only most dogs are pretty cool, so let's stick with zombie eat zombie.
faith in the future? not me, i'm roger waters without the anti semitism, i'm much more democratic in my prejudice  i'm anti everything.  
maybe it will pass soon but i doubt it.

let's talk about trump, earlier i mentioned i don't actually have a problem with him. i know i would loose most of my readers and friends over this but it must be said and i will try to explain why i rather have trump in there than almost anyone else. i did like bernie, he was genuine but he's a socialist and globalist which makes me feel he would fall under the united nations agenda. (have you heard hillary's speech to the goldman sachs people) ironically bernie has similar policies to trump, and they have more in common that separates which is why the republicans hate trump as well. 
so trump. the circuit breaker. firstly i agree he is a sexist, can't speak very well, has no wit, style or qualities for diplomacy. however, for me it's not about trump at all, it's about the way his opponents react to him.
the media, the commentators, the fucking internet, the democrats, the washington elite, the governments of europe. it's actually quite refreshing to have someone be hated like this in this day an age when islamofascists are held up as heroes, appeased and made excuses for. when anyone with an opposing view is demonised, killed or humiliated. 
the other great issue i have is the double standards of the left, be it from the false feminists to the pro obama / clinton people who never once mentioned the corruption of the democrats. 
people need to understand why trump won, he won because people rather have a moron like him than the elite idiots who have sold them out at every chance they get. his supporters know he is a buffoon  they know he's a tv reality star who has no right in the office but his opponents are such moral cowards and crooks it's better to have him there. 
drain the swamp. 
that's a three word slogan i fucking respect, i just wish all people understood the importance of doing that. 
as far as the left go, you are now more right wing than ever, you block free speech, you don't allow people to have an opposing difference, you push the agenda not the issue, your enslaved to ideals so much they enslave you. 
and if you are not convinced, pretty soon the truth will come out about seth rich and that is no conspiracy theory! 

bob dylan's speech

When I first received this Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature. I wanted to reflect on it and see where the connection was. I'm going to try to articulate that to you. And most likely it will go in a roundabout way, but I hope what I say will be worthwhile and purposeful.

If I was to go back to the dawning of it all, I guess I'd have to start with Buddy Holly. Buddy died when I was about eighteen and he was twenty-two. From the moment I first heard him, I felt akin. I felt related, like he was an older brother. I even thought I resembled him. Buddy played the music that I loved – the music I grew up on: country western, rock ‘n' roll, and rhythm and blues. Three separate strands of music that he intertwined and infused into one genre. One brand. And Buddy wrote songs – songs that had beautiful melodies and imaginative verses. And he sang great – sang in more than a few voices. He was the archetype. Everything I wasn't and wanted to be. I saw him only but once, and that was a few days before he was gone. I had to travel a hundred miles to get to see him play, and I wasn't disappointed. 

He was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence. I was only six feet away. He was mesmerizing. I watched his face, his hands, the way he tapped his foot, his big black glasses, the eyes behind the glasses, the way he held his guitar, the way he stood, his neat suit. Everything about him. He looked older than twenty-two. Something about him seemed permanent, and he filled me with conviction. Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn't know what. And it gave me the chills.

I think it was a day or two after that that his plane went down. And somebody – somebody I'd never seen before – handed me a Leadbelly record with the song "Cottonfields" on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I'd never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I'd been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times. 

It was on a label I'd never heard of with a booklet inside with advertisements for other artists on the label: Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, the New Lost City Ramblers, Jean Ritchie, string bands. I'd never heard of any of them. But I reckoned if they were on this label with Leadbelly, they had to be good, so I needed to hear them. I wanted to know all about it and play that kind of music. I still had a feeling for the music I'd grown up with, but for right now, I forgot about it. Didn't even think about it. For the time being, it was long gone.

I hadn't left home yet, but I couldn't wait to. I wanted to learn this music and meet the people who played it. Eventually, I did leave, and I did learn to play those songs. They were different than the radio songs that I'd been listening to all along. They were more vibrant and truthful to life. With radio songs, a performer might get a hit with a roll of the dice or a fall of the cards, but that didn't matter in the folk world. Everything was a hit. All you had to do was be well versed and be able to play the melody. Some of these songs were easy, some not. I had a natural feeling for the ancient ballads and country blues, but everything else I had to learn from scratch. I was playing for small crowds, sometimes no more than four or five people in a room or on a street corner. You had to have a wide repertoire, and you had to know what to play and when. Some songs were intimate, some you had to shout to be heard. 

By listening to all the early folk artists and singing the songs yourself, you pick up the vernacular. You internalize it. You sing it in the ragtime blues, work songs, Georgia sea shanties, Appalachian ballads and cowboy songs. You hear all the finer points, and you learn the details.

You know what it's all about. Takin' the pistol out and puttin' it back in your pocket. Whippin' your way through traffic, talkin' in the dark. You know that Stagger Lee was a bad man and that Frankie was a good girl. You know that Washington is a bourgeois town and you've heard the deep-pitched voice of John the Revelator and you saw the Titanic sink in a boggy creek. And you're pals with the wild Irish rover and the wild colonial boy. You heard the muffled drums and the fifes that played lowly. You've seen the lusty Lord Donald stick a knife in his wife, and a lot of your comrades have been wrapped in white linen.

I had all the vernacular all down. I knew the rhetoric. None of it went over my head – the devices, the techniques, the secrets, the mysteries – and I knew all the deserted roads that it traveled on, too. I could make it all connect and move with the current of the day. When I started writing my own songs, the folk lingo was the only vocabulary that I knew, and I used it. 

But I had something else as well. I had principals and sensibilities and an informed view of the world. And I had had that for a while. Learned it all in grammar school. Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tale of Two Cities, all the rest – typical grammar school reading that gave you a way of looking at life, an understanding of human nature, and a standard to measure things by. I took all that with me when I started composing lyrics. And the themes from those books worked their way into many of my songs, either knowingly or unintentionally. I wanted to write songs unlike anything anybody ever heard, and these themes were fundamental. 

Specific books that have stuck with me ever since I read them way back in grammar school – I want to tell you about three of them: Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Odyssey.

Moby Dick is a fascinating book, a book that's filled with scenes of high drama and dramatic dialogue. The book makes demands on you. The plot is straightforward. The mysterious Captain Ahab – captain of a ship called the Pequod –  an egomaniac with a peg leg pursuing his nemesis, the great white whale Moby Dick who took his leg. And he pursues him all the way from the Atlantic around the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. He pursues the whale around both sides of the earth. It's an abstract goal, nothing concrete or definite. He calls Moby the emperor, sees him as the embodiment of evil. Ahab's got a wife and child back in Nantucket that he reminisces about now and again. You can anticipate what will happen. 

The ship's crew is made up of men of different races, and any one of them who sights the whale will be given the reward of a gold coin. A lot of Zodiac symbols, religious allegory, stereotypes. Ahab encounters other whaling vessels, presses the captains for details about Moby. Have they seen him? There's a crazy prophet, Gabriel, on one of the vessels, and he predicts Ahab's doom. Says Moby is the incarnate of a Shaker god, and that any dealings with him will lead to disaster. He says that to Captain Ahab. Another ship's captain – Captain Boomer – he lost an arm to Moby. But he tolerates that, and he's happy to have survived. He can't accept Ahab's lust for vengeance.

This book tells how different men react in different ways to the same experience. A lot of Old Testament, biblical allegory: Gabriel, Rachel, Jeroboam, Bildah, Elijah. Pagan names as well: Tashtego, Flask, Daggoo, Fleece, Starbuck, Stubb, Martha's Vineyard. The Pagans are idol worshippers. Some worship little wax figures, some wooden figures. Some worship fire. The Pequod is the name of an Indian tribe. 

Moby Dick is a seafaring tale. One of the men, the narrator, says, "Call me Ishmael." Somebody asks him where he's from, and he says, "It's not down on any map. True places never are." Stubb gives no significance to anything, says everything is predestined. Ishmael's been on a sailing ship his entire life. Calls the sailing ships his Harvard and Yale. He keeps his distance from people. 

A typhoon hits the Pequod. Captain Ahab thinks it's a good omen. Starbuck thinks it's a bad omen, considers killing Ahab. As soon as the storm ends, a crewmember falls from the ship's mast and drowns, foreshadowing what's to come. A Quaker pacifist priest, who is actually a bloodthirsty businessman, tells Flask, "Some men who receive injuries are led to God, others are led to bitterness."

Everything is mixed in. All the myths: the Judeo Christian bible, Hindu myths, British legends, Saint George, Perseus, Hercules – they're all whalers. Greek mythology, the gory business of cutting up a whale. Lots of facts in this book, geographical knowledge, whale oil – good for coronation of royalty – noble families in the whaling industry. Whale oil is used to anoint the kings. History of the whale, phrenology, classical philosophy, pseudo-scientific theories, justification for discrimination – everything thrown in and none of it hardly rational. Highbrow, lowbrow, chasing illusion, chasing death, the great white whale, white as polar bear, white as a white man, the emperor, the nemesis, the embodiment of evil. The demented captain who actually lost his leg years ago trying to attack Moby with a knife. 

We see only the surface of things. We can interpret what lies below any way we see fit. Crewmen walk around on deck listening for mermaids, and sharks and vultures follow the ship. Reading skulls and faces like you read a book. Here's a face. I'll put it in front of you. Read it if you can.

Tashtego says that he died and was reborn. His extra days are a gift. He wasn't saved by Christ, though, he says he was saved by a fellow man and a non-Christian at that. He parodies the resurrection. 

When Starbuck tells Ahab that he should let bygones be bygones, the angry captain snaps back, "Speak not to me of blasphemy, man, I'd strike the sun if it insulted me." Ahab, too, is a poet of eloquence. He says, "The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run."  Or these lines, "All visible objects are but pasteboard masks." Quotable poetic phrases that can't be beat.  

Finally, Ahab spots Moby, and the harpoons come out. Boats are lowered. Ahab's harpoon has been baptized in blood. Moby attacks Ahab's boat and destroys it. Next day, he sights Moby again. Boats are lowered again. Moby attacks Ahab's boat again. On the third day, another boat goes in. More religious allegory. He has risen. Moby attacks one more time, ramming the Pequod and sinking it. Ahab gets tangled up in the harpoon lines and is thrown out of his boat into a watery grave.

Ishmael survives. He's in the sea floating on a coffin. And that's about it. That's the whole story. That theme and all that it implies would work its way into more than a few of my songs.

All Quiet on the Western Front was another book that did. All Quiet on the Western Front is a horror story. This is a book where you lose your childhood, your faith in a meaningful world, and your concern for individuals. You're stuck in a nightmare. Sucked up into a mysterious whirlpool of death and pain. You're defending yourself from elimination. You're being wiped off the face of the map. Once upon a time you were an innocent youth with big dreams about being a concert pianist. Once you loved life and the world, and now you're shooting it to pieces.

Day after day, the hornets bite you and worms lap your blood. You're a cornered animal. You don't fit anywhere. The falling rain is monotonous. There's endless assaults, poison gas, nerve gas, morphine, burning streams of gasoline, scavenging and scabbing for food, influenza, typhus, dysentery. Life is breaking down all around you, and the shells are whistling. This is the lower region of hell. Mud, barbed wire, rat-filled trenches, rats eating the intestines of dead men, trenches filled with filth and excrement. Someone shouts, "Hey, you there. Stand and fight." 

Who knows how long this mess will go on? Warfare has no limits. You're being annihilated, and that leg of yours is bleeding too much. You killed a man yesterday, and you spoke to his corpse. You told him after this is over, you'll spend the rest of your life looking after his family. Who's profiting here? The leaders and the generals gain fame, and many others profit financially. But you're doing the dirty work. One of your comrades says, "Wait a minute, where are you going?" And you say, "Leave me alone, I'll be back in a minute." Then you walk out into the woods of death hunting for a piece of sausage. You can't see how anybody in civilian life has any kind of purpose at all. All their worries, all their desires – you can't comprehend it. 

More machine guns rattle, more parts of bodies hanging from wires, more pieces of arms and legs and skulls where butterflies perch on teeth, more hideous wounds, pus coming out of every pore, lung wounds, wounds too big for the body, gas-blowing cadavers, and dead bodies making retching noises. Death is everywhere. Nothing else is possible. Someone will kill you and use your dead body for target practice. Boots, too. They're your prized possession. But soon they'll be on somebody else's feet. 

There's Froggies coming through the trees. Merciless bastards. Your shells are running out. "It's not fair to come at us again so soon," you say. One of your companions is laying in the dirt, and you want to take him to the field hospital. Someone else says, "You might save yourself a trip." "What do you mean?" "Turn him over, you'll see what I mean." 

You wait to hear the news. You don't understand why the war isn't over. The army is so strapped for replacement troops that they're drafting young boys who are of little military use, but they're draftin' ‘em anyway because they're running out of men. Sickness and humiliation have broken your heart. You were betrayed by your parents, your schoolmasters, your ministers, and even your own government.

The general with the slowly smoked cigar betrayed you too – turned you into a thug and a murderer. If you could, you'd put a bullet in his face. The commander as well. You fantasize that if you had the money, you'd put up a reward for any man who would take his life by any means necessary. And if he should lose his life by doing that, then let the money go to his heirs. The colonel, too, with his caviar and his coffee – he's another one. Spends all his time in the officers' brothel. You'd like to see him stoned dead too. More Tommies and Johnnies with their whack fo' me daddy-o and their whiskey in the jars. You kill twenty of ‘em and twenty more will spring up in their place. It just stinks in your nostrils.

You've come to despise that older generation that sent you out into this madness, into this torture chamber. All around you, your comrades are dying. Dying from abdominal wounds, double amputations, shattered hipbones, and you think, "I'm only twenty years old, but I'm capable of killing anybody. Even my father if he came at me." 

Yesterday, you tried to save a wounded messenger dog, and somebody shouted, "Don't be a fool." One Froggy is laying gurgling at your feet. You stuck him with a dagger in his stomach, but the man still lives. You know you should finish the job, but you can't. You're on the real iron cross, and a Roman soldier's putting a sponge of vinegar to your lips. 

Months pass by. You go home on leave. You can't communicate with your father. He said, "You'd be a coward if you don't enlist." Your mother, too, on your way back out the door, she says, "You be careful of those French girls now." More madness. You fight for a week or a month, and you gain ten yards. And then the next month it gets taken back. 

All that culture from a thousand years ago, that philosophy, that wisdom – Plato, Aristotle, Socrates – what happened to it?  It should have prevented this. Your thoughts turn homeward. And once again you're a schoolboy walking through the tall poplar trees. It's a pleasant memory. More bombs dropping on you from blimps. You got to get it together now. You can't even look at anybody for fear of some miscalculable thing that might happen. The common grave. There are no other possibilities. 

Then you notice the cherry blossoms, and you see that nature is unaffected by all this. Poplar trees, the red butterflies, the fragile beauty of flowers, the sun – you see how nature is indifferent to it all. All the violence and suffering of all mankind. Nature doesn't even notice it.

You're so alone. Then a piece of shrapnel hits the side of your head and you're dead.
You've been ruled out, crossed out. You've been exterminated. I put this book down and closed it up. I never wanted to read another war novel again, and I never did.

Charlie Poole from North Carolina had a song that connected to all this. It's called "You Ain't Talkin' to Me," and the lyrics go like this:

I saw a sign in a window walking up town one day. 
Join the army, see the world is what it had to say. 
You'll see exciting places with a jolly crew, 
You'll meet interesting people, and learn to kill them too.
Oh you ain't talkin' to me, you ain't talking to me.
I may be crazy and all that, but I got good sense you see.
You ain't talkin' to me, you ain't talkin' to me.
Killin' with a gun don't sound like fun. 
You ain't talkin' to me.

The Odyssey is a great book whose themes have worked its way into the ballads of a lot of songwriters: "Homeward Bound, "Green, Green Grass of Home," "Home on the Range," and my songs as well.

The Odyssey is a strange, adventurous tale of a grown man trying to get home after fighting in a war. He's on that long journey home, and it's filled with traps and pitfalls. He's cursed to wander. He's always getting carried out to sea, always having close calls. Huge chunks of boulders rock his boat. He angers people he shouldn't. There's troublemakers in his crew. Treachery. His men are turned into pigs and then are turned back into younger, more handsome men. He's always trying to rescue somebody. He's a travelin' man, but he's making a lot of stops.

He's stranded on a desert island. He finds deserted caves, and he hides in them. He meets giants that say, "I'll eat you last." And he escapes from giants. He's trying to get back home, but he's tossed and turned by the winds. Restless winds, chilly winds, unfriendly winds. He travels far, and then he gets blown back.

He's always being warned of things to come. Touching things he's told not to. There's two roads to take, and they're both bad. Both hazardous. On one you could drown and on the other you could starve. He goes into the narrow straits with foaming whirlpools that swallow him. Meets six-headed monsters with sharp fangs. Thunderbolts strike at him. Overhanging branches that he makes a leap to reach for to save himself from a raging river. Goddesses and gods protect him, but some others want to kill him. He changes identities. He's exhausted. He falls asleep, and he's woken up by the sound of laughter. He tells his story to strangers. He's been gone twenty years. He was carried off somewhere and left there. Drugs have been dropped into his wine. It's been a hard road to travel. 

In a lot of ways, some of these same things have happened to you. You too have had drugs dropped into your wine. You too have shared a bed with the wrong woman. You too have been spellbound by magical voices, sweet voices with strange melodies. You too have come so far and have been so far blown back. And you've had close calls as well. You have angered people you should not have. And you too have rambled this country all around. And you've also felt that ill wind, the one that blows you no good. And that's still not all of it. 

When he gets back home, things aren't any better. Scoundrels have moved in and are taking advantage of his wife's hospitality. And there's too many of ‘em. And though he's greater than them all and the best at everything – best carpenter, best hunter, best expert on animals, best seaman – his courage won't save him, but his trickery will.

All these stragglers will have to pay for desecrating his palace. He'll disguise himself as a filthy beggar, and a lowly servant kicks him down the steps with arrogance and stupidity. The servant's arrogance revolts him, but he controls his anger. He's one against a hundred, but they'll all fall, even the strongest. He was nobody. And when it's all said and done, when he's home at last, he sits with his wife, and he tells her the stories. 

So what does it all mean? Myself and a lot of other songwriters have been influenced by these very same themes. And they can mean a lot of different things. If a song moves you, that's all that's important. I don't have to know what a song means. I've written all kinds of things into my songs. And I'm not going to worry about it – what it all means. When Melville put all his old testament, biblical references, scientific theories, Protestant doctrines, and all that knowledge of the sea and sailing ships and whales into one story, I don't think he would have worried about it either – what it all means.

John Donne as well, the poet-priest who lived in the time of Shakespeare, wrote these words, "The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts. Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests." I don't know what it means, either. But it sounds good. And you want your songs to sound good.

When Odysseus in The Odyssey visits the famed warrior Achilles in the underworld – Achilles, who traded a long life full of peace and contentment for a short one full of honor and glory –  tells Odysseus it was all a mistake. "I just died, that's all." There was no honor. No immortality. And that if he could, he would choose to go back and be a lowly slave to a tenant farmer on Earth rather than be what he is – a king in the land of the dead – that whatever his struggles of life were, they were preferable to being here in this dead place. 

That's what songs are too. Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They're meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare's plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days. I return once again to Homer, who says, "Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story."

glad to hear people fought back, throwing beer glasses (a common east london sight in most pubs) at their attackers, along with tables and knives and whatever was at hand. a taxi driver attempted to run a killer over with his cab. i wonder if the mayor will mention it's all part of living in a big city in his statement. 
well it is now the new normal, however the new normal shouldn't be accepted by people. it's absurdity. however i do not completely blame the attackers, i blame our stupid politicians and media who have just done nothing for 30 years while this brewed. not only did they do nothing, they stopped people whom wanted to talk about the dangers from speaking about this form of radical islam. they wouldn't even let people speak it's name. well it's heartening to see the general population generally knows the score. 

as far as jc leader of the left in uk politics i'm personally baffled how someone so stupid could become a leader of a party. he will destroy the labour party much like mt has destroyed the liberal party here in oz. 
the only people that vote for these pricks are the cashed up inner city elites, university types and the champagne socialists of twitter.

very happy to read the brilliant clive james piece in the australian  a completely wry and accurate look at the hypocrisy and mindlessness of the global warming alarmists. everyone should read it, even if you don't believe him, it's a marvellous refreshing piece of writing and very brave. 

watched the tv adaptation of childhoods end. the book by arthur c clarke was pretty remarkable, and although the series is somewhat slow moving, disjointed and cumbersome it does work well.  

she looks like a cuddly grandmother, warm slippers cake and tea, she moves slowly and speaks with a slight accent. at first i slipped under her spell, it worked on me like a charm. she was very sweet.
as time progressed i noticed a streak of passive aggressive behaviour. it was subtle, but it worked very effectively and when she thought her tactics were failing she brought out the heavy artillery, tears. yes her ultimate control was to cry and get sympathy. she manipulated everything and everyone. 
the younger ones felt frustrated, every idea or suggestion they had was shot down by her resistance to change and need to control. 
gradually i began to see the truth, it's hidden under the everyday routines and responsibilities but very occasionally it surfaces and is witnessed. she can't help it.  
to begin with i start gentle. she presents as some sort of spiritual being. in my experience they are the most difficult, deep in denial about their own personality defects, it's that ego trap. it's a fixed fortress, difficult to penetrate which is why psychedelics are so useful, however slipping a massive dose of mescaline in her tea is not really practicable. i read her cards, she has requested this from me. it's an accurate reading, she starts crying when i mention her children, one supportive and the other not. she blubbers a bit, and then i speak to her in subtle ways about the need to sometimes just let things go, let other people have a win. resistance is low and she acknowledges something in my words but a flicker of resistance passes over her face. 
later she denies everything, asserting the dominant persona, the one that needs to control. 
one of the younger staff approach me, they are concerned about an issue and i offer my support. when it comes down to it we are opposed by the old lady, she makes a big song and dance. manipulates  people and makes it impossible for us to bring about a change. 
once again i challenge her, suggesting that she need not feel so competitive and assist younger team members to have a win now and then so that they feel valued and part of the team. she gives me a look. it's neither bad or good, it's a look of complete victory.
later when i leave every single member of the team comes to thank me, they all say i managed a difficult situation very well and they enjoyed working with me, except one. 
she wants my position so she tells my boss i have a bad back and cannot work there as manual handling is required. she figured i would never find out who it was that spoke with my boss, a man i actually respect. she was rejected for the position and this is her revenge. 
i'm angry, somewhat dismayed that this is the type of person i have to work with but my strategy has to be to let it go. it's going to be very hard but i have to. however truth has a habit of rising to the surface.