"How many of you have ever had to put your hand up a hot goose?"

  My train is leaving London.  Sadly, it's too dark to watch it properly, so I get brief glimpses of train platforms, and lights floating past the window at varying speeds, depending on how far away they are from us.

  I have had a few conversations over the last couple of years, about what living in the capital would be like.  My position has changed considerably over this time, initially having been "No, never, I'd be too lonely, and too intimidated."  I have since decided that the way you deal with your surroundings and similar situations comes from within, and that you are only as lonely as you allow yourself to be.  My state of mind these days is such that I wouldn't be feeling that way for long, and that big city fear has gone away slightly.

  That's not to say my feelings on things London are not still with a degree of reticence, but it is now purely on the basis of that concept - 'London Prices.'  The fact that that is the prime factor of resistance really rankles, because the thing I find fascinating about London (or the idea of London) is the potential to discover pockets of artistic (specifically, in my case, musical) communities, and networks of creative folk, and finding things that are happening in these sorts of fields.  For example, my sister has lived in London for a couple of years (hence the conversations I've been having), and has made friends on her university course.  In a short space of time, she has gone to a screening of a documentary by Mark Gatiss (with Mr. Gatiss sitting directly behind her during said screening), been to a test run-through of material for Radio 4's 'Cabin Pressure' with John Finnemore, and also attended a recording of the same programme!  So, I can only imagine what adventures I could get myself into, were I a Londoner, with a little perseverance!

  This is why my feelings on big city living have softened, and the thing that will no doubt always remain is "What if I suddenly couldn't afford to live there?" or worse, never being able to afford to live there whilst living there.

  As mentioned earlier, I am writing this on a moving train, with the intention of typing it up later.  What is making this really difficult is that there is no flip-down tray on the back of the seats, and as such, there's nowhere to rest my notebook so I'm resting it on my coat, which is, in turn, on my lap.  Only now am I looking back at my scribbling  and praying that by the time I sit at my computer to put it on Blogger, I will be able to decipher this mess of pen-strewn pages.  It's not too bad for the most part, but every so often we go over a bumpy bit of track, and my e's often look enough like c's as it is.

  (Also, I've just peered down the train and it looked as if someone was sleeping on the luggage rack!  Panic over, it's a coat with a fur hood & a pink scarf draped over it.  Look!)

Coat and scarf, thrown on the luggage rack.  It looks like a woman with her hand draped over the edge.  I nearly messed myself...

  Here's something I was considering the other week, regarding dreams and the workings of the subconscious.  A couple of weekends ago, I had a dream that I was visiting a bunch of friends (during this visit, Sam asked me why I kissed his girlfriend - a detail he found endlessly entertaining when I told him the following day), and as we were walking along a road, one of my party clambered up on top of a wall, lay down and just rolled off it.  The landing he made resulted in a loud "WHAM!" noise, and he bounced away down the road, whamming merrily away.

  I woke up, and the sound of my friend's repeated impact on the tarmac continued, which is the sort of thing that will always be quite unnerving.  Being not entirely awake, I dashed to the window to see if the poor sod was bouncing down my street, then realised the sound was coming from my new neighbours,* and that it was actually the sound of a man shoulder-barging a door.  At three in the morning.  It went on for about two hours, with no other sounds - no shouting, no speaking, just "WHAM!  WHAM!  WHAM!"** and I'm still not sure why it happened. He could have been doing that in his sleep (you'd have to be if you're doing that for two hours), as it had never happened before (and it's not happened since).

  But here's the weirdy bit:  We've all had dreams where our radio alarm has filtered a song into our heads, but this was the first time that a loud noise from next door had insinuated itself in a perfectly logical way (despite the actual content of the dream being utter nonsense).  This lead me to think about how the subconscious processes external stimuli depending on whether we're awake or asleep.

  For example, when you're awake, you process sights, sounds and smells immediately (or seemingly so), but in this instance my ears physically received the sound, and my subconscious created a context in which the loud barging of the door would make sense to my dreaming brain.  It's as if there's a satellite delay in the reception of the noise (ear to consciousness), while my brain processes it into something that won't jar me awake.  Or something.  Maybe.

  So, while you're all thinking about that (and please do offer me your thoughts on that if you like - I'd be curious to know what you think!), now seems like a good time to tell you what a great weekend I've just had (after the sort of week that really made me feel as if I was incapable of doing anything without getting stumped at every hurdle).  I have been to The Tabernacle in Islington, for Nerina Pallot's Christmas Extravaganza.  It was a great gig, the music was fantastic, as always, and lots of fun was had as we enjoyed the sets by Samuel Taylor and Nerina & her band.  I also loved meeting friends I haven't seen for seven months, and it had better not be as long again when I see them next!

  Nerina and her husband Andy work so bloody hard, and they do so much for the people who love her music, be it webcasts, EPs, special gigs, you name it (Nerina made about 150 mince pies for yesterday's shindig), and so much time is made to try and talk to everybody in attendance, it's just untrue.  There is so much goodwill in the room for her gigs, I have never seen anything quite like it.  For all those things, and add to that her songwriting and quality of performance, she will always be a shining role model of how a good musician should be, with one of the best attitudes in the business.  I salute the Chatterleys, they are an absolute delight.

  Plus, how many gigs do you go to where you are asked "How many of you have ever had to put your hand up a hot goose?"

  None.  That's how many.

  Back to the train home.  A large man has sat next to me, and is scribbling in and reading a book entitled 'The Big Book Of Brewing'.  I really don't know what to make of this.  Wow, this bit of track's quite bumpy!  I shall sign off, with a cramping hand and readiness for a cup of tea in my own house.

[Which, now that I've finished typing this up, I shall make!]
John xxx

*I have new, non-sexing neighbours.  There is barely a sound from there now, except for their plumbing, which seems to be horrifically loud, all of a sudden.  Every flush of the toilet produces an odd clanking sound, I can only assume that they've had the cistern moved upstairs, while the toilet remains on the ground floor.  Bit too nervous to knock on and ask, in all honesty.
**Please keep any jokes about George Michael & Andrew Ridgeley finding a third band member to yourself.  Thank you.