Purple Grass

It was going to be a surreal day on thursday; from the very earliest indications, there was to be nothing real about it. The day started and I was walking through Richmond. A lovely place is Richmond - if it wasn't for the 747s that fly at grabbing distance from the quaint High Street, you might think you were in rural Buckinghamshire. Whilst trying to ponder whether planes were beautiful and a miracle of human engineering or simply noisy and uncomfortable environment wreckers, I spotted 'The Springfield Pharmacy'. What could be more surreal? I expected to find myself morphing into the familiar yellow cartoon form. Unfortunately for you, I did take a photo of the said pharmacy, but I have lost the cable that would transfer it to my computer.

The surreality continued. I arrived home to change for work, and I was approached by an old white haired man with the thinnest frame you can imagine. He was also shorter than me - it is possible! He recounted the story about a lady dressed in white who had fixed his lock, stolen two bottles of red wine, taken the money for another one, had not returned with the wine, and had in addition stolen his phone. At this point he showed me several T mobile leaflets. I assumed that the man was either senile or delusional, maybe both. He told me he was going to the police station to report it - I found myself wondering at the scene in the police station, and exactly how often he went there to find company. Slightly surreal.

My afternoon was spent sight-reading various John McCabe/Giles Swayne-type pieces to find out how they sounded. I maintain that I still don't really know how they sounded.

After work, I went for a drink with Gary in Bar Acquda. Not so surreal until they charged us £3 for two pints of beer. Bar Acquda has just jumped up my list of favourite places to buy a drink - I can't remember the last time I bought a pint in London and cost £3 - let alone 2 pints of beer. Goodness me.

On my way home, I did some quite unusual things. I went to selfridges and browsed the swimming trunks. Obviously for a reason - I'm going to Kenya on Monday, and the hotel I'm staying in has a very fun looking pool complex. My current swimming trunks are chlorine faded. No swimming trunks, but I purchased a new front bike light for £25 - I almost told them to go and visit Bar Acquda to learn about good pricing.

Then I cycled home in the dark for the first time. Finchley road was full of people parked in the bus lanes and seemingly waiting for something - probably to pull out in front of cyclists and knock them over. I shouted some very non-polite things on that journey home.

Was my day surreal? It felt it was, but I'm not sure it was anything apart from unexpected reality - nothing had been planned to happen. I felt afterwards that I wanted it to be surreal. Reality and Surreality are much-quoted concepts - I think about them much. In some ways travelling away on holiday is a surreality but a surreality within a reality. Can it be surreal if you knew it was coming? We all need surreality to aspire towards in our realities, otherwise the thought that a day might be just normal would send us on a gradual decline to coma. Yes, yes, I know that the surreal is against reality, and that it may seem stupid to try and point out that one exists inside the other, but I think that the dreamlike qualities of the concept exist quite happily inside the monotony of a container. I'm sure that the universe, God's surreal place, exists quite happily in a galactic tupperware container of some sort.

My surreality is a feeling to. I once wrote a song with a friend called 'I feel surreal'. I hope that I feel surreal tomorrow too. I rather like things happening that I don't expect - like someone giving me money, friends doing spontaneous things without me feeling I'm making all the effort, a promotion, a free dinner, someone I don't know smiling at me. When was the last time you made someone you know (or someone you don't know) feel surreal? There is nothing better than making someone's reality more enjoyable: there are too many tensions and stresses in life - do it - make yourself giggle as well.

I'm off to purple.

Grass