Tidied Out or James the Less

A stonking weekend in Oswestry has illustrated most clearly the pleasure-pain principle. Or - as Laurence Fishburne said in the dreadful remake of Assault On Precinct 13 which was shown on TV last night - the Greeks called it Eros and Thanatos.

I forgot about my worries for a while and just plain old enjoyed myself. Whether to do with the moon or other pagan attributes associated with this time of year (admittedly, it is just a little early) rather than of the month, a remarkably upbeat atmosphere was evident in the sleepy little market town, with a free 'festival' (a few fairground rides and a stage, but I'm not complaining) on Friday night, and much carousing till late into the night most nights. Even the winter weather did not seem to dampen anyone's ardour, and I laughed a good deal. It was, in short, tidy.



I will confess to no more or less than some of our elected leaders (past and present) when I say that I may have tried some illegal (though, as we know, this definition is a fluid one, in both a temporal and geographical sense) substances in the past, and I was shocked to find, whilst out on a country ramble, a viable crop of psilocybin flourishing atop Hen Dinas' venerable crown. Whether I picked any must remain open to conjecture, as must the burning question of ingestion - in that will I be able to? Notwithstanding the practical difficulties of a decent 5 hour window, there is also the terror of gazing into my now matured (I use the word advisedly, let me assure you) psyche with its attendant baggage of responsibility and paranoia.

But for now, it's back to reality. I have already crashed and will soon start to burn, faced as I am with the ongoing quest for avoiding switching on the TV, and desperately trying to get motivated to do something other than play Super Mario Brothers on the DS.