Given my workload I was slightly regretting my decision to play a one night stand in somewhere as far away as Sheffield. It was going to be a long drive up, depriving me of some precious poker timeÂ… I mean PSP timeÂ… I mean writing time. And then a long drive home meaning IÂ’d have to sleep in and miss half a day of work tomorrow. But it was in the book and I donÂ’t like to cancel stuff unless I absolutely have to and who knows all that driving might somehow clear my headÂ…
I set off early in the hope of avoiding the rush hour, but at 5pm found myself snarled up in a traffic jam on the M1 anyway. But as I had plenty of time to get there (I knew I wasn’t going to be on until 10 at the very earliest) I was not panicked. In fact I rather enjoyed myself as God had kindly deigned to put on a celestial show to keep me entertained – one of the brightest and most complete rainbows I have ever seen was shining out from the East. It was accompanied by a second shadow rainbow, less bright and with a few breaks in service, but nonetheless adding some extra value to an already impressive display. Of course God originally created the rainbow to apologise for sending the big flood that killed everything that Noah couldn’t get his hands on, so I took this as my second apology from the Supreme Being in the last week. It takes a big Supreme Being to be so contrite and I respected him for his humility.
But then I thought that maybe with the second rainbow he was somewhat over-egging the apology, slightly showing off and it struck me that a double rainbow is undoubtedly a sarcastic apology of the kind that I used to make a lot as a school child. “Oh yes, I am sorry,” I would say, “I am really, really sorry.” God isn’t sorry for what he’s done at all. The double rainbow, if nothing else, proves that he is totally unapologetic for the mess the world has ended up in.
Still, it was a beautiful spectacle of nature and made me forget I was sitting in a manmade little tin on a vast swathe of tar macadam slicing its way through the countryside. I was already glad I was out of town and my mind was buzzing with ideas. Sometimes as a writer you have to remember that sitting in a room staring at a computer is no way to get work done. Especially if the computer just has a poker game on it, or even some pornography. If anything these things stop you getting work done. Well the kind of work that will pay the bills. Unless you are being filmed whilst you are doing it – playing poker I mean, of course.
The rainbow was in a way the first computer entertainment and though it wasnÂ’t very versatile and it didnÂ’t have many functions beyond looking pretty (and indicating the location of pots of gold) it is hard to beat for sheer entertainment value. It also had me internally discussing the philosophical debate of whether unweaving the rainbow, by working out the science of how it appears, actually devalues its beauty as Keats believed, or whether we are better off living in a perhaps more wonderful world of fact, rather than one of fancy as people such as Richard Dawkins have argued. I think overall it is better to deal with the truth rather than making up nice stories about arks and floods, although nonsense has its place in the world as well. For me the rainbow is still a little bit magical despite me knowing that its actually to do with sunlight shining through water at a certain angle (actually I am not entirely clear about what it is, but I know itÂ’s something along those lines) rather than a reminder of God saying sorry for blowing his top and wiping out 99% of the stuff heÂ’d created (perhaps embarrassed by the shoddy six day job he did on the whole thing). It still looks great. It still enchants me. It still makes me happy, even if accompanied by its sarcastic twin.
Later when the rainbows were gone, God decided to reward my craving for nature even more by making an almost full and rosy moon rise gently through the clouds – again out of my right hand side window – not sure he had anything going on out to the west, but maybe I missed some angels chucking the baby Jesus around like a Frisbee. I don’t know. I was enjoying looking at the moon (whilst also keeping an eye on the traffic, which was by now moving rather more efficiently). It made me want to get away and reminded me of happy days on
Chard Island. It was proper inspiration and I do find travel broadens the mind, even if youÂ’re just going to Sheffield.
The gig was great and most of the audience went with my somewhat oblique material, though there were two of the drunkest men I have ever seen in the crowd (not together funnily enough) who slightly put a spanner in the works, but it was fun dealing with them. One of them was babbling so incoherently that I had to stop myself abusing him for a second and check he wasnÂ’t mentally disabled in some way. ThatÂ’s a pretty impressive state to get into by 11pm on a Wednesday night and his stupid jibbering face certainly put the other wonders of nature into some kind of sharp relief.
By the time I had finished I saw that the other drunk man who had been ineffectually heckling for the first few minutes had collapsed head first on to his table. He was out for the count and his slightly less drunk friend was getting some pleasure out of using the clubs ink date stamp on any available bit of the comatose manÂ’s skin. He had the date stamped all over his neck and all over his back and his glee-filled chum was taking photos of his handiwork on his phone (do send me a copy if youÂ’re reading this). With friends like theseÂ….. I felt sorry for the man, even though he had been a slight pain in the arse during my set. But not sorry enough to stop it.
Then the long trip home during which God provided no celestial pyrotechnics, sarcastic or otherwise. I got to bed at 3am, glad that I had made the journey which had provided me with proof of the divinity of nature and the baseness of mankind. Which side will win the war that we are currently engaged in. I predict that man will defeat and destroy nature, but only at the last minute rise from its coma to discover that by doing so he has destroyed the environment in which he lives. For a moment he will pause for thought. And then his mate will show him pictures of himself with ink all over him and heÂ’ll forget what heÂ’s done and laugh.
