When there's nothing you can do, there's nothing you can do

APOLOGIES: am currently posting similar things on both my blogs, it's simply a way of using up time. If you read them you'll understand.

No further news on Ben yet. Apparently he wasn't expected to last past the hour so to be nearly six hours old is a good sign.
At times like this when loved ones are so far away and I'm on my own in the flat, sitting around waiting for calls, not a hope of getting any sleep, there's nothing better than switching on E4 to find that Ghostbusters is on, putting on the subtitles and playing Lyle Lovett's I Love Everybody.
For the sheer bear faced audacity, much needed when all seems lost I would like to nominate the following as the greatest song ever written for the next fifteen minutes.
Penguins by Lyle Lovett.
Thank you Lyle. In saying nothing you've said everything for me.
Come on Ben. Keep fighting.

Ben

The news isn't great. For lots of reasons I wont go into, my nephew's life may be short. I am thrilled that he is called Ben, a name I have favoured for a few months now. It's a shallow reason for favouring it. Well, one of the reasons anyway. Ben Watson, Crystal Palace midfielder, he's only twenty and is the most able player I've seen for some time and the player with the greatest potential too. I'll go to watch Ben play tomorrow against Crewe and I'll have to take my contact lenses out because I'll get stupidly emotional.
How is it possible to get so attached to something a couple of hours old? Is it the thought of losing it so soon?
I'll take some succour from seeing Ben Watson play tomorrow, pathetically linking my two Bens. The one with all the ability in the world and the other, well I just hope the other gets the chance to prove he has even a little ability in anything.
So I'll post up a couple of pictures of Ben Watson in the hope that I'll draw some strength from them. And I hope Ben is his brilliant self tomorrow in the hope that my nephew will somehow draw some strength from that.
Sleep well Ben. Fight hard Ben. Don't give up Ben. Be strong. There are many people who love you already whatever happens, who will always love you and I hope in years to come you'll read this and moan at my mawkishness. But then I don't know what else to do.

(taken from Empics - Ben I hope that one day you'll appreciate the image of your namesake stamping all over Robbie Savage)
(from www.cpfc.co.uk)

Guiness Interruptus

Note: posted this on my other blog which is primarily about music. It kind of seems to fit here as well so I'm putting it up. Follow up to be posted shortly.

So, the guiness thing did happen but only for a couple of hours and now I'm back at the flat waiting for a phone call. Big Bruv lives in Northern Ireland and today his wife went into hospital for an emergency c-section, a month ahead of time. It may be nothing serious, it may simply be a precaution but the distance between him and us has made everyone here jumpy and rushing around to find the quickest way to get there from here. With lines of communication stretched we are in the dark and hoping it's all for the best.
With my recent health problems I may not be going in a hurry and I hate that (sorry for turning this into something about me, it wasn't intentional).
On the way back from meeting friends in Greenwich the ipod did it's best to pound away miserable sounding songs, Such A Shame, The Masterplan, Say Something, The Harder They Come and so on. All of them seemingly inappropriate but then I remembered. They're just songs. They mean as much as a bag of chips or a really nice pen. The songs I write about on here do mean something to me, they make me happy for the period of time they are in my head. And so these songs, the titles and their sentiments wont upset me because that's not what popular culture is all about. Disposable, fluffy, hypodermic needle, positive, uplifting popular culture. I feel better knowing that it's there, bugger the message.

Thinking of you.

Continental drift, if you catch my drift

Something bad happened in the world today and I'm really angry about it. Everyone else is to blame but not me. I am so angry that someone could have let something like that happen. Ohhh the world is nasty and horrible and I'm going to vent my spleen on the internet whilst hoping that whoever is responsible (and it could never be me, oh no) is hanged/castrated/tarred and feathered though of course that's too good for them and in my day it wouldn't have happened because we all had guns that feared god and isn't it bad that only immigrants and left-wingers seem to be happy which is exactly why the rest of everyone needs to have guns to keep their numbers down and if we don't they'll be putting bromide in our water and scratching us of the electoral register just like they did under Stalin and it could happen to you because I saw it on the news when they were going on about that bad thing that happened four thousand miles away. Oh yes, the world is a nasty place which is why I'm going to sit in front of my computer and warn everyone to stay in front of their computers and listen only to me because then they wont have to be taken in by the bad thing that happened in the world today.
Perhaps they'll want to know how rubbish my life is and what I'm doing to prevent it getting better.