The waiting lounge

"You'll find that most of them are lookalikes of famous celebrities who died in aeroplane crashes," explained the receptionist. "It doesn't do to stare at them."
"No, quite," I agreed.
"The lounge is just down that corridor, straight ahead, you can't miss it."

The corridor was narrow and flatly lit. The base of the walls up to an imaginary dado were a duck egg blue, above it a yellowing shade of ivory. The walk to the end was just long enough to be uncomfortable. At the end there was large wooden door, glazed with that security glass that has a wire grid embedded in it. Faded Gill Sans lettering that may once have been painted gold announced: "LOUNGE."

The lounge was a bit poky and the lino was chipped at the edges. To the left was a long bar serving no drinks. I looked around at my fellow passengers. Over in a corner girl in a Marilyn Monroe dress chatted to a man in Roy Orbison glasses while being ogled by an old man desperately trying to look like Mickey Rooney. Over there a man in evening dress who could have been either Ethel or Lionel Barrymore. A scan of the room confirmed further unconvincing performances. It was difficult not to stare. A young man dressed as Elvis leapt onto the bar and sprawled in an arrogant pose, I don't know who for or why. I had other puzzles to consider: none of the celebrities being badly impersonated here had died in plane crashes; was I supposed to be another lookalike, if so then who? It was all very unsettling.

The cabin crew came into the lounge and greeted everybody with professional bonhomie. The captain, a tall, suave individual straight out of Central Casting, took centre stage.

"As you know," he intoned, "One of you will die in this aeroplane crash. There is no cause for alarm, nearly all of us will come to no harm."

A quiet murmur ran across the room as his audience cheerfully accepted this and speculated amongst themselves who it might be.

"Nearly everybody will live," he repeated gravely, "But in the event of any unpleasantness or hysteria I may have to forget that somebody was alive."

Fretting...

I dreamed that the world had fallen apart around my ears and I was having to cadge cigarettes off Sacha Distel. As anxiety dreams go that's a doozy.

28 Days Later...

The Small Object Of Desire And Moon Of My Delight woke up with a start.

"I've had a horrible dream," she said. "I dreamt that I was being set challenges. If I got the challenge right then a small disaster happened and only a few people died. If I got it wrong there was some sudden huge disaster and thousands of people died. And we were running round like mad trying to round up everyone we knew so that if anything else happened we'd know where they were and we could look after them and we wouldn't be having to keep going off to look for them.

"And you kept telling me off: we only had so much time to find everyone and if we didn't get back soon we might never get back so we might have to leave some people behind."

It's awful when work intrudes into real life.

Decline

I've been having a lot of dreams about masturbation lately. Which just goes to show how ambition is curtailed by age: back in what little I had of my prime I used to dream about sex.

Passing clouds

There's nothing more boring than listening to somebody droning on about a dream they had last night. So here goes then...

I quite often dream what appear to be fillums or television programmes.

The reason why I'm sure I dream in colour is because every so often I'll have a black-and-white fillum dream and the novelty is etched into my memory when I wake up. Just after Christmas a dream I was having featured some stunning cinematography. I've absolutely no idea what it was about but I remember a couple of iconic images I can't really do justice to. It was obviously set some time in the late forties/early fifties because of the fashions and the fact that there were a couple of bombed sites in the background. The buildings were tall, rectangular tenement-style blocks with tall, rectangular windows. I couldn't quite see the sky, but I suspect that was more due to my seeing the scenes as you would a fillum rather than the buildings being so very high. The sort of buildings you'll see in the backdrops to "Passport to Pimlico" or "The Third Man." Or The Broons. One of the scenes was in a small square, made slightly bigger by one corner's having been bombed out. Fifty or sixty small children, in flannel shorts or gingham dresses, scrubbed-up for Sunday were sitting around in groups, some accompanied by older people, sensibly-dressed, listening to some chap who was sitting on a dustbin with every appearance of rapt attention. I have no idea who he was or what he was saying.

I sometimes wake myself up laughing at some comedy programme I've been dreaming. More disturbingly, I've been known to wake other people up by laughing at some comedy programme I've been dreaming. There are reasons why I live alone. The other day's Morecambe & Wise version of Hamlet starring Raymond Baxter and Clodagh Rogers probably wasn't as funny as it seemed at the time.

Sometimes I take notes the moment I wake up, in a usually-vain attempt to remember what was going on. Which is why I've got a piece of paper that says:

For god's sake give the dog Two pounds of leeks

the time I was going to lose my virginity we were starting to melt into ea. others arms when we heard Neville Chamberlain say: no such undertakings having been made we have no alternative bt to declare war on germny. she said: 'you must do your duty for your country!" "I'm sure Herr Hitler won't mind waiting five minutes."

it's all lemon pips isn't it?

Nimbler minds than mine own would turn that into a series of vampire-related serials with an eye to the merchandising to baby Goths.

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridgeas mediated by the spirit voice of Al Read

This literally came to me in a dream. It helps if you can hear the voice in your mind's ear.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree...
"A pleasure dome? A pleasure dome? What the thump's a pleasure dome?" - that's the wife from the kitchen.
"Oh, hello love."
"Go on then, what's a pleasure dome?"
"Well... It's like a big building and you go in there and you... well you go there to enjoy yourself."
"Oh aye? Just like you and your boozy mates in that shed of yours out in the back. Sat round supping ale and telling each other mucky stories."
"Well that's where you're wrong: it's not like my shed."
"I should think not. Going round decreeing pleasure domes. I ask you. And when are you going to do something about that shed?"
"What's up with that shed? There's nothing wrong with it."
"Nothing wrong with it? For one thing, the door's been hanging off it this past eight months. Anyone could get in there. Or anything. It's got so I daren't go in to use the mangle in case I find a fur stole I've not got."
"Well, I'm not doing anything with that shed. I'm busy decreeing my pleasure dome."
"And where are you having this pleasure dome may I ask? You're not digging up that rhubarb again. If was down to you we'd have nothing for our supper."

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
"Alf? Who's Alf? Another of your drinking cronies?"
"No, I told you woman: Alph's the sacred river."
"What sort of a name is Alf for a sacred river?"

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
"And when are you going to sort out the damp in that cellar?"
"Oh, stop your wittling woman! I'm talking about the sacred river Alph, five miles meandering with a mazy motion through wood and dale."
"Aye, with ten pints of ale down its neck, I'll be bound! And I'm telling you now: pleasure dome or no pleasure dome if I find you palling round with any more Abysinnian maids with their dulcimers you'll be getting a thick ear."
"I don't know what you mean, love."
"I don't know what you mean, love? Well let me tell you, my lad, Kubla Khan? Kubla bloody can't. So pack it in!"