RIP Lou Reed

RIP Lou Reed. Such a great songwriter, poet, guitar player, artist. Leader of the Velvet Underground, above. That's Lou front centre. What a life!

Ashes

I'm sitting in my favourite chair. It's 9.30 pm. I'm watching the 1st Test of the 2013 Ashes. Listening to Test Match Special on the radio. Boycott and Blofeld. England are batting steadily: 1 for 78. Life can't get any better than this.

Hah!! I crow too soon! Peter Siddle just bowled Joe Root. Ah.... The Ashes!

Holiday!!

Hello all,

I'm writing this on the last school day of Term 2, 2013. Tomorrow begins two weeks of no work. Well, apart from cooking, cleaning, shopping, driving and carrying mountains of holiday luggage!

I will take lots of photos in the break. On my new camera, by the way (a 50th birthday present):

Ok, take care everyone.

Poem

I've been reading a lot of poetry lately. Having considered, over the last 6 months, my own impending death, I can appreciate the following poem by Philip Larkin. It also happens to be a superb poem. (An "Aubade", by the way, is a morning love song, or a poem evoking the dawn)


Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.


This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.


And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.


Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.


Philip Larkin

6 Months

Today is June 3, 2013. It's exactly 6 months since my open-heart surgery on December 3, 2012. The first milestone has been reached - AND I'M STILLING KICKING! Bring on 12 months!

Latest Music

I picked up some cds on the weekend. Here's the haul:

I have all of Radiohead's albums. But this version of OK Computer includes a second disc of extra material. I haven't listened to it yet.

Beethoven. I have these piano sonatas in many other versions, of course, but Radu Lupu is one of my favourite musicians. I couldn't leave this cd in the shop.

It's shameful I know, but until now I had no Funkadelic (or Parliament, for that matter). This music is very... well... funky.

Brilliant. No more to be said.

Crash Pics

Ok, I'm back at work. After 5 months of pain, boredom and daytime television, I'm back teaching. Which means I have access to fast computers, and access to my photos. Look at the photos below (click on each photo for a zoom). The first is taken minutes after my accident, roll-over damage obvious. The second pic is the car in the scrap yard, weeks later. Looking back, I'm wondering how I survived this crash completely unharmed.

Still Kicking

Hello all,

I haven't been able to post pics of my car crash. This blogging site seems to have switched posting protocols, so I will just have to keep trying.

Anyway... March 3 was the three month anniversary of my heart operation. I'm on half a dozen medications - mainly for either sustaining a low blood pressure and/or preventing blood clots forming around my artificial heart valve. And I'm exercising regularly. I fact I've lost quite a lot of weight, at least 20 kilos, which is substantial. I'm trying to get to around 90 kilos; an ideal weight for my BMI.

I don't know when I'll be back at work - waiting for my cardiologist's all clear. But whatever happens, I'm not going back to a high stress environment. Nothing at work is going to stress me out - of this I'm determined. If my boss' aren't happy about this then I'll either quit or they can fire me. I've learned one thing over the last couple of months - "Life is too short. Live and love every day."

Anyway, I hope to post some pics soon.

ALIVE AND STILL KICKING!

Crisis

Hello all. It's been a couple of months since my last post. I've had a major health crisis. If you want to know about my heart problems, I have written an account of what happened to me.

Look here: http://aorticdissection.com/2013/02/03/steven-riley-49/

I hope this sheds some light on why I've been so quiet, and so lucky.