Sunday

Another nice day. Did loads yesterday, including gardening and quite a bit of work. Working all day today too - not really looking forward to it - but needs must. My working arrangements for next week are 'loose' - and as I'm also hoping to get a few invoices paid - might end up being very good - or very bad. Lets see.

Among the fun stuff I did yesterday was shave my head and beard - I'd left it far too long, but I now have that awkward gap of about 3 days where I'd be best to stay home and not answer the door. When I plugged the clippers in, I must have left them engaged and they shot out of my hand and attacked me, and later - a giant moth flew into the studio and attacked me - went for my eyes!!! It was at least double the normal wingspan.

I watched the 400m Mens final at the Paralympics last night - I actually know someone who was there and they sent back pics of a totally packed stadium. It was very exciting - and I couldn't help wondering what J.G.Ballard would have thought - all that science-made-man. Everyone was different, ran differently and had different prosthetics, it was only at the end when Oliviera took off his right leg that you remembered they were not joined permenantly. I'm quite looking forward to the closing ceremony. I really hope that the visibility of the 'less than perfect' population is maintained after the games close - I'd also quite like someone to do a series of interviews with people who were sniffy and dismissive of the games before they started and all over the press - telling everyone what a waste they were. Personally - I have enjoyed the Paralimpics more than the 'real' ones.

God slot earlier tried to get children to sing hymns in a rag-time style, torture.

Doing a bit of reading up about the new cabinet, depressing stuff. Grant Shapps - crook, Jeremy Hunt  - dangerous fantasist and snake oil salesman ( literally ) and that woman from equality ( who I can't even be bothered to name ) - apparently the most bigoted person in parliament.

They are talking on the radio about zac Goldsmith considering resigning his safe seat in the case of a 3rd runway at Heathrow - so that Boris Johnson can 'have it' - the guest said 'I'd vote for Boris just for entertainment value'. See how far we've come - Seats in parliament passed about amongst friends - and not earned, with no thought for the constituent - and an electorate too anaestetised to take it seriously.

extra

I Cut and pasted this from the arts section of The Independent - Connah's Quay is the nowhere little town I grew up in, it's horrible.

Branches: The Nature of Crisis, Wepre Park, Connah's Quay

Thankfully, Branches: The Nature of Crisis – also part of the Cultural Olympiad – is considerably better. Directed by the Argentine-born choreographer Constanza Macras for National Theatre Wales, this promenade piece of dance-theatre leads you though a beautiful, actual wood in Flintshire. Macras is strikingly in tune with the spirit of A Midsummer Night's Dream, though her inspiration was the party animals who stagger around Cardiff on Saturday nights.

Following a winding trail through the trees, as darkness falls, you glimpse comical and disturbing urban/elfin figures swaying on rocky outcrops above you or lurking in dappled shadows by the river. Hen-night drunks, in lurid boas and leopard prints, squabble and stagger off on their own, sliding into embraces with tree roots. Dancing on the edge of steep drops and stone bridges, they also grapple and spin with dazed boy-clubbers in fur hats – the slippage between smooching and violence suggestively compacting whole relationships. Multi-tasking, Macras's ensemble (of local performers and members of her Berlin troupe DorkyPark) also morph into rock musicians and storytellers. That said, Branches loses its way narratively, trying to interweave the medieval Welsh legends of the Mabinogion and the 1720 French banking crisis.