Tuesday

Working in Brighton today - and it's going to be hot - not sure if I'm going to take my bike - wardrobe choices are tricky... Brighton will be packed to the gills with the young, beautiful and mad.

Reading through the papers, Europe in financial meltdown (again) has little presence, let's pretend it's not happening. I've paid all my bills except tax and national insurance - so I should have a bit of time before I'm forced to eat shoe leather. Had a letter from the power company - apparently, as I'm always late paying my bill - they are considering a pre-payment meter. They can fuck right off.

Situation in Syria looking very bad - but there does seem to be a prevailing 'head in the sand' attitude there. Acres of press covereage about the Aurora shootings - mostly devoted to the killers hair colour, which is, if you are a bit dim, apparently responsible for his personality at the time. Expect people with dyed hair to be runded up and incarcerated by the end of the week.

Naked rambler in prison again. 6 years in solitary confinement for wandering around aimlessley with no clothes on. Man is not mad, or bad - I'm not offended by him ( I really couldn't care less ) - but I am offended by the approx 1/4million spent on his incarceration and legal fees. They had a mass naked bike ride in Brighton a few weeks ago - middle of the day. Nobody batted an eye - the police were on hand to direct the traffic. If some people are so offended they should take it upon themselves to follow him around with a set of folding screens. You spend less time in prison for killing people.

People carping about the Olympics are getting on my nerves - you get everything your way, all the time - then get prissy because the traffic in London might be a bit heavy for 2 weeks, if you hate it so much - you have had 7 years warning to book a holiday somewhere else. Did it not occur to them that the special traffic lanes do them a favour and keep the extra traffic out of their lane?

Apparently, according to the chancellor - I am morally wrong because I have, in the past, occasionally paid cash in hand for things. I never do this through business because I have to keep accounts - and claw my tax back - but I did pay cash when house in Brighton needed to have a new roof - simply because it was the only way I could afford it. That was that. ( It was quite a few thousand - I arranged to collect the money from my local branch, I went to great lengths to sort out security details - nobody should be able to walk into a bank and pick up 15k over the counter. When I arrived at the appointed time, I said to the girl that I was here to collect some money - there was a, unmarked large envelope sitting casually on the counter - "oh, is this for you" she said - and just handed it over.)

The good weather has brought out too much bare flesh and ugly tattoo's. Saw a bloke yesterday with TERRIBLE renderings of several children on his chest - like biro drawings from school photographs - they were drawn in black, but the eyes and teeth had been highlighted white. Looked very sinister. Saw a perfectly normal looking man in the COOP with a large pentangle and rendering of Satan on the top of his head. Quite well executed. Must have hurt. A woman I vaguely know ( but dislike ) was walking through town with her child, approx 10 years old, they had loads of matching henna tattoo's that looked very realistic - there is no hope for that child - I regularly see quite old people  ( 65 plus ) with pierced faces, eyebrows and lips, and legion inkings - but otherwise normal looking. They have all gone over to the dark side.

I read an article in yesterday's Telegraph criticising Bradley Wiggins for still embracing mod culture in his early 30's - as if it were a crime and something to be ashamed of. The article was very badly written, full of clumsy factual inaccuracies and poor research - and a couple of obvious lies. I'm vaguely thinking of picking up a pair of Cherry Red DM's later today as a response.