A bloke who runs a software factory said on the radio, “We’re working on advanced applications for mobile technology. One day you will be able to point your phone at your flat-pack furniture, it will recognise the item and then download the assembly instructions.” How undermined do you feel now? Well, it isn’t half what the guy who studied for years to become a master cabinet maker is feeling.
I have a shed to erect, but damn, it’s August, it’s muggy and I’m feeling sluggish. I want to lie down on the grass and watch the miniature world going about its business in an earthquake-like scene of tangled walkways and collapsed bridges, revolving dandelion restaurants nodding serenely, high above the chaos. There will still be restaurants after the apocalypse, right? Even if the only thing on the menu is rat with cockroach chips...
At a time like this you want to take up smoking grass, listening to wild sounds and getting laid out in the open. Bodies sticking together, sweat flying, jumping in the pool, sea, or river. Licking lips in the shower and the full, god-given appreciation of an ice cold beer.
Swimming in the sea at night is a personal favourite. Glittering moonlit wave tops, shimmering phosphorescence, a chunk in the soup of life. Later on, prickly salted skin and hair thick with minerals will remind you you were there. In the morning your shoes will still be sandy and abrasive, like dreamed of objects finding the light of day. Life is so simple, why make it hard?
