So, back at Castle Anderson, and never a better time for an extended metaphor.
London is fast receding in the rearview mirror as I drive inexorably toward that vast horizon: the future, and all the bounteous joys it doubtless holds. I am on cruise control. In fact, I am being chauffeur driven. I am reclining in the passenger seat, my feet on the dashboard, and I've got my MP3 player plugged into the hi-fi using an adaptor I found at the market for a fiver. I'm listening to the first two minutes of lots of very good songs. A few friends are asleep in the back and there's a wodge of twenty pound notes in the glove compartment, along with a bottle of whiskey and a bag of Cheese and Onion McCoys with lots of bits of flavour collected between the ridges. We stop to pick up a hitcher. It's Billie Piper. She turns out to be a complete bitch so we kick her out at the next exit, while the car is still in motion. My friends laugh and go back to sleep. The adaptor breaks, and the crisps turn out to be a multipack bag, 15g lighter than I had first thought. No ice for the whiskey. My chauffeur has started telling bad jokes, and we're running low on petrol.
I kinda lost control over it after the cruise control bit, but you get the general idea. Or maybe you don't. I've just re-read it and I don't really get it, and it's supposed to be my metaphor. Hmmmm. As far as I can work out it fits together like this: my MP3 player is all my wordly possessions, my adaptor is the useful but basically quite cheap part of me that allows me to define myself by them, Billie is the unattainable, idealised femme, the chauffeur is my id, and the whiskey is booze and drugs. My friends are my friends, and I'm 99% sure that the crisps are crisps.
That sorts that out, then.
(My adaptor isn't really broken by the way, I really love all my things.)
(No I don't, I hate them.)
(No, I love them.)
(No, I hate them.)
Join me next time when I climb the hill of great expectation to drink from the well of unfulfilled potential. And then roll back down the hill laughing.
