RANDOM ECHOES - 21/9/05

My brother claims that a blog is the height of presumption. Why would anyone want to read this shit? I don't know, you tell me.

The spider in the kitchen has moved. It destroyed the previous web it built across one corner of the window, and moved higher up, closer to the ceiling. This destruction and movement correspond with its rapid increase in size and a change in waiting posture. Previously it appeared quite benign, legs curled into its body, a dumpling. Now it is predatory, two forelegs out like lances and it has changed colour - striped like a tiger or wasp. I enjoy its company.

A garbled message left on my answerphone overnight. Never heard the phone ring. Wander what time it was left. Hope no one needed something.

More items thrown out last evening in the run up to moving house:
- a wah wah pedal with a small etched image of Jimi Hendrix on it's base
- two pairs of old prescription spectacles - both wire framed, very studious
- a charger (probably for a mobile phone but not sure)
- some gifts, cards and postcards from an ex lover - am surprised at how gushing she was
- a necklace: quartz crystal on a leather thong that was given to me by a hippy in Devon
- two chisels (definitely not mine, have no idea whose they were)
- a computer game called Messiah (is this related somehow to the previous item?)
- a false moustache and the glue used to apply it

A deep space probe sends back data. Apparently the big bang may never have happened.

Booking a rail ticket this morning. First I 'talk' to a voice-activated data service that asks me various questions about my journey: destination, time of travel, concessions etc. I am impressed. I believe the technology is helping to speed the booking along. At the end of the quizzing the pre-recorded female voice (sounding a bit like my friend Emma, who, amongst other things, is a voice-over artist so it could feasibly be her) tells me she has all the details they need to process my booking and will now put me through to an operator to take debit card details etc. I am still fairly impressed. When I am put through the operator says hello, tells me her name and then repeats the details I have just left. The destination is incorrect so I repeat the journey. She repeats the journey back to me. I concur. She asks me the time of travel, I repeat it, she repeats it, we concur.She repeats all the questions I have just recorded with her robot counterpart. We concur. She takes my card details at the end of which she repeats the destination, journey time, lack of concession - the entire booking - back to me. I concur. But I'm not so impressed now. Before we part company I ask her what the voice-activated robot was for? She replies: "To save time. Thank you for travelling XXXXXX Trains. Enjoy your journey."