84

I was thinking today about all the people I've met whom I have completely forgotten, who will never again appear in my mind. How do I feel about these people? What would I like to say to you, if you were one of them?

Well, if you were kind to me, I say "thanks very much, I do appreciate it, really, even if I can't remember what it was that you kindly did." If you were unkind to me, then bugger you, unless you were subsequently sorry. If I served you badly, or came across as a prat, oh dear. If I made a positive impact on your life, however slight, then alleluia.

I wonder how many of these people remember me.

All rather obvious sentiments, really. But what I feel most is a sadness that we touched and then just drifted off. Any partial connection kindles the aspiration for an ultimate togetherness, which it then disappoints.

Union! Union! Togetherness! Togetherness! For everybody! All the time! (Would you vote for a party with such a manifesto? It's not very realistic, is it? But it's a nice thought, helps keep you going. Or is it actually a horrible one?)

(And time - time too. Time, our relentless master, who takes away the moment of touch, as he takes away every moment we've ever lived . We watch it recede helplessly, until eventually we turn our backs. I don't think we want moments that go, we want moments that stay firm, that we can build our homes in. "Ha", says time. The bastard. Wouldn't it be great if we could all rise up and revolt, grab hold of time and imprison him [or is time female? What do you reckon, readers?]?)

"No man is an island"*, asserted John Donne in 1624. "He's a peninsula", added Jefferson Airplane in 1968 (on the excellent After Bathing at Baxter's), before promptly bursting into giggles (I think they might have been a bit stoned). I reckon the Airplane got the metaphor right, to the extent that it can be right, while remaining poetic. The prosaic truth is, of course, that in some ways we are each separate from everybody else, and in other ways we are connected.

Oh how arbitrary and peculiar this life is, way beyond comprehension.


*"Except the Isle of Man". Have you heard that one before? I hadn't, until I heard it in a song by Murray Torkildsen about ten years ago, at a concert in which he was singing. I thought it was hilarious: I laughed out loud. I went up and congratulated Murray on his witty pun after the performance, but he told me that he hadn't made it up himself, implying that it was as old as the hills. It's a good pun, though, don't you think? (N.B. international readership, the Isle of Man is a small island to the west of England.)

83

"If you're dozy, here's a tactic: tell them all they're too didactic."
(Ian Dury, 1991)

That should work.

82

Kevin Coyne with Jon Langford and The Pine Valley Cosmonauts: One Day In Chicago (Spinney Records)

Kevin Coyne died three and a half years ago, and I miss him. Rugged, curmudgeonly and humane, freewheeling and down-to-earth, Kevin was the voice of worldly experience for our times: it seems wrong that he’s no longer with us, and equally wrong that his unique artistic voice is so underacknowledged. It’s true that superstardom would never have suited Kevin, indeed he often seemed to wilfully turn his back on any chance of the big time, but it would be right and just if he attained the posthumous recognition accorded to Nick Drake (who I like to think of as Kevin’s doppelganger, the voice of innocence – the other side of the Coyne, as it were).

Start your Coyne collection with Millionaires And Teddy Bears. Existing Coyneverts will find One Day In Chicago a poignantly splendid offering to perpetuate his presence. This was recorded – and seemingly composed – on one day in December 2002 (in Chicago, indeed) in collaboration with Jon Langford, once one of The Mekons and an underrated talent in his own right. The loose, unpolished feel suits Kevin perfectly. Coyne’s improvised lyrics are streams of consciousness that meander contrarily, never failing to convey the mature passion of a dryly ironic but so-deeply felt engagement with life, unillusioned, unpretentious but naturally intense. To listen to Kevin with an open soul is to swim in a deeper, inevitably painful emotional reality, the one we know is there but usually prefer not to acknowledge. It’s cathartic, man, shy away at your loss. Hats off to an irreplaceable hero.

www.kevincoyne.de

81

Do you think that birthdays should be celebrated once every two years, rather than every year? I've got no objection to my own birthday being celebrated every year, but other people's - well, there are rather a lot of them, aren't there? It can be a bit tedious, can't it, to be honest? You want to mark the day as a celebration of someone whom you love, but instead it just becomes another chore, another petty duty eating away at your freedom. So, why not making them more meaningful and less tiresome by making them biennial?

I'd vote for any party that'd say it would make birthday celebrations biennial, but not of the main ones seem particularly interested.

What do you reckon?

80

Latest news: the rheumatic pain in my left foot has increased slightly.

79

Today there is a protest march by the unhappy. They are protesting against the world, the world that has rendered them unhappy.

It is mostly a silent protest. There are some who protest their unhappiness loudly, but these are unpopular with the majority of their fellow protesters, who take pride in carrying their unhappiness with a quiet dignity.

Least popular in the ranks are those who use their unhappiness to justify anti-social behaviour. The deeply unhappy regard it as their privilege to empathise keenly with suffering: in their eyes for an unhappy person to create unhappiness in others is an abomination. How many have there been who have taken their own lives, yet took great pains never to harm a fly? These are the true unsung heroes and heroines. The march celebrates their honour.

78

The sheer unlikelihood of existence, the something - the everything - that came from nothing, renders it all too deep a mystery.

Way too deep.