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Saturday night throwing stuff in bags for a Sunday morning flight ……… I had Radio 4 on ……. Javis Cocker’s award winning Radio Show ‘Wireless Nights ……. was playing ………. it was a pretty surprising show ……. it was kind of the sound of a night flight to Cairo …….. :-))))))))) XXX

A night flight from Las Vegas across the Ocean to land at London’s Gatwick airport. Or rather it was an artistic interpretation of some of the sensation, feelings and psychology of that long night flight …….. the feeling of traveling alone on the night flight……. the murmurings from the cockpit : ‘the flight time is’ ………..’ ‘we are going to be using runway 2 ‘ …….. ‘we have the advantage of a strong tail wind, ……… drifting into the thought process that occupies the mind as the engines hum constant and the metal tube you are stuck inside in cuts through the air at 500 mph, 35,000 feet above the ground ………

Jarvis has shepherds in his thoughts ……. actual and spiritual in his meandering thoughts …… the birth of lambs ………. the roll of shepherds in Christianity …….. and at the root of that shepherds as the patriarchs in Judaism …….. the blood of the lamb painted on the house to ward off the avenging angel of death ……… the lambs blood to make the angel ‘Pass over’ …………….. the sacrifice of the blood of one to save the blood of another ………….

Funnily enough these disjoint thoughts…….. mixed with snippets of flying protocol and experience …….. makes it feel totally like long haul flying as I experience it ………. the food on plastic plates…….. people waiting by the bathrooms …….. Hugh Grant …… the perfect inflight actor for inflight entertainment to bring a little reassurance to the nervous flyer well according to Jarvis …….. Jarvis quotes Hugh Grant as saying he felt more emotional and vulnerable and exposed on a long haul flight ………. Thats actually kind of true Hugh …….. Your emotions feel closer to the top and you can also feel weirdly directionless if you are me …….. like the void of flying has wiped all purpose ………. but you still feel the regret and the loss ……. and you definitely feel the guilt of leaving ……….

Yes that whole show had a very familiar sensation ……… it was like flying already …….. the sensation of flying while still actually packing ………. slightly disconcerting ………

The old shepherd refuses the by-pass operation ……… ‘ I’m 85 ……. I’ve lived a good life’ …………

Jarvis says maybe in that lull in the middle of the night …….. is the thing we fear …….. yes he says the thing we fear about these flights is we inevitably meet ourselves ………. we are alone trapped in our own thoughts in the surreal flying time ………..

Now i am living that artistic experience in reality : ‘Ladies and Gentlemen this is your captain from the flight deck’ …………. ‘ Taxiing to the runway at Heathrow we are in slot 2 for take off’ ……………

I am writing and flying …….. thinking not so much shepherds but motorbikes…………..

I just watched Kiera Knightly a much more beautiful reassuring presence than the free press hating Hugh Grant ………..

I can hear that accent in the seats behind …….. Welsh ? Like my Physics teacher ……… Mr Moses ………… he loved to do that weird thing with a clear liquid in a glass flask ……… he would put his hand under it and thereby make the liquid boil…………????? ……. Yeah……. it was alcohol in the flask …….. with a vacuum in the space above …….. in that circumstance ……. the warmth from your hand is all is takes to make the liquid to boil ………

I could do with a cuppa tea now ……. The other day when I was in the Philippines and Matt was in Atlanta…… He said I bet you could do with a cuppa tea right now? …….. then he sent me a photo of one by text …….. :-)))))))))) hehehehe …………

J came off his motorbike yesterday ……… shocking for him and his family but apparently he is fine ……… Well, nothing broken at least ………. it might be time to get rid of that bike ………

I should have gone to visit him but there was no time ……… At least I did see my Mum and Dad ………… bit of a flying visit there and back in a day ……. but a very nice visit ………

I once had to put my foot down on the road when riding a motorbike at pretty high speed …….. I was in a big skid ……… had to put my foot down to stop myself dropping the bike completely ………. sparks came from my boot ………..

Marc had some bike hit him in Vietnam ………. while he was on a taxi bike he is OK too …………….. but he is riding in that Vietnam madness of bikes everyday …….. that really is crazedness ……… I should put more pics of that bike craziness up on the blog …………

Maybe when I touch down it could all be different ………………

Cheers Jez XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX