Laid low by that
thing called "a cold" which is actually
a slap in the face, a kick in the gut, some
well-placed punches to nose and throat and a bit
of eye-poking. Whatever measures you take to get rid
of this agressive viral squatter, once it has occupied
your premises it will happily guzzle all the Lem-Sips,
hot toddies, cough syrups, echinacea and whatever else
you consume in self-defense but it will not leave until
it's bored and decides to hunt for another innocent
victim. What the tiny thug likes best is wrecking
well-laid plans, so my train ticket is in the
wastebasket along with my anticipation of a fun day
of drawing with a group of other
artists who met up (without me) for
a Portrait Party in Oxford on Saturday.
Doesn't
it look just like it feels ? This
is an image of the Cold Virus from here .
Since most of my energy
is blown into tissues every few seconds, work on the Trans-Siberian images
has been interrupted and even reading feels like too
much effort. Music doesn't penetrate the fog and
the computer is too demanding, so sleep and/or televison
are the remaining options. Normally, I rarely turn on
the tv except for the evening news and maybe
an occasional film, but in the last few days I've overdosed
on tv at all hours of day and night and this, I'm sure,
is how total brain removal is achieved.
Your own mental
content is pushed out and replaced by an unceasing
stream of innumerable other people's mental content while you
sit there hypnotised by the flickering screen.
Some interesting, intelligent, informative, amusing
things flicker by along with various degrees of idiocy,
banality, violence and perversity but the flow of
images and sounds doesn't differentiate between them anymore
than an ocean differentiates between sailboats and
sewage.
I can't prove it, but I'd
be willing to swear that the more time is spent in front
of a tv screen, however worthy the fare, the more creative
energy and originality is drained out of one's consciousness.
I suppose the same thing could be said for sitting at
a computer screen all day, or staring at any of the other
digital gadgets feeding our brains visual and auditory
information 24/7. Have
you noticed the glazed, zombie-ish expression on the
faces of teenagers, as well as pensioners, or any age
group in between, who spend a great deal of their time
staring at screens, be they small hand-held or wall-sized
ones?
Anyway, it's only taken
me all day to write this little blogpost so all is not
lost. I will get on with getting on with the autobio,
yes, and with Trans-Sib,
of course. Give me another day or two to exterminate
the woolly, creepy, sneaky, mushy, malfaisant, Machiavellian
"common cold" and all will be well.
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