Would you REALLY like life to be fair?

How do you like to spend your 'down time?' I mean your time for vegging out and doing nothing. Hmm, perhaps I should expand further on the concept. Time when you have nothing pressing to do, an opportunity to relax. A chance to 'recharge your batteries.'

If you are still staring blankly then you are probably the parent of young children. You consider it 'your time' and a special treat if you manage to catch up on last week's episode of Coronation Street whilst doing the ironing and if you actually had any truly free time you'd be asleep in an instant. The question is wasted on you as you are unlikely to get any free time for some years.

My chewing gum of choice is science fiction. Star Wars, Star Trek (in all its incarnations) Stargate; if it's got 'star' in the title then I'm hooked. (OK Barbara Streisand had me fooled for a while but I eventually twigged she wasn't an alien)

Currently I'm watching Babylon 5. All of it. Five series + spinoffs. Life is good. Mostly it's not intellectually challenging. If I want brain training I'll try filling in my own tax return. There are the good guys and they are fighting the bad guys. The good guys are having a tough time right now in season 3 but I am confident of the ultimate victory of right over might.

Today one of the (U.S.) characters was lamenting that 'life just ain't fair' and his colleague (from the Brit colony on Orion) looked shocked. "It's such a relief that life isn't fair. Can you imagine what life would be like if all the bad things that happen to us were well deserved? I take consolation from knowing that life isn't fair. " So, thought for the day: would you REALLY like life to be fair?

Reelin' in the Years with Steely Dan

I've just spent a very nostalgic ten minutes scraping mud off my boots. As a kid my school shoes always seemed to be caked in mud which my mother insisted I clean - army style - every evening. My plea that they'd just get dirty again the next day always fell on deaf ears.

Today I was polishing my boots after spending the entire evening in a cold muddy field with thousands of others listening to Steely Dan. I think it was the first time in 15 years I'd been out in cold weather after dark for more than ten minutes. I didn't suffer too badly because I was wearing ALL my clothes. Yes, every single item in my entire wardrobe including, of course, my Tom Baker style Dr Who scarf and my usual Faginesque fingerless gloves. Luckily it was pitch black so nobody could see to mock.

If you're my age (and you have my sympathy) then Steely Dan was one of the bands you grew up listening to and for all the sense the lyrics made you might as well have been stoned. Walter Becker has been heard to say that they thought a song a failure if it didn't make them both howl with laughter when they listened to it later. Like everyone else in the audience I knew the lyrics to every song they played and could identify it on the first two bars but, unlike some, I showed restraint enough not to join in till the final encore. No one had paid $100 to hear my dulcet tones, after all.

It certainly made you feel young again. The entire audience was well over 45 and mostly grey-haired but for an evening at least we were all 17 again.

If you want to know more check out these links:


Steely Dan Wikpedia

Steely Dan references A-Z

Steely Dan meanings

Heavy Rollers Tour 2007