h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today is the anniversary of the death of Bob; it is also coming up to a year since I began writing music again, after an 11 year silence. The inspiration, for want of a better word, dried up in April half way through a piece called Ite Thoai; all gone. Can't write a note. Whereas for example the first movement of the Little Sonata just came to me; I took it down as if by dictation. I just wish that happened all the time. I still don't understand why my ability to compose comes and goes like this. I know I was tucked up as a child but this is ridiculous, and highly frustrating. I think someone was sadistic.

It's "Breakfast With Friends" on. The first thing I heard was a sigh. They're very good at this. I'm not here; I'm here. Strikes me the paradoxes of Paul would make good Beckettesque prose opportunity situations. Paul said, Zw de ouketi egw, zwi de en emoi Christos. Anyway, the sigh. I'm clearly not conforming to their image of what a believer should be like. And this makes them sigh. Relentless... what does relentless mean? Will we fight them on the beaches. Winston Churchill. We know how to block our information. At Baden Powell road until 2nd Nov use alternative routes. I'm not here to please you, Haller. Whoever thinks he is something when he is nothing. I like that.

Christianity isn’t meant to be a form of escapism, a safety net, or a crutch. Rather, following Jesus means bravely sacrificing yourself for the love of humanity, becoming nothing for the sake of others.

Do we sacrifice ourselves? Or do we allow ourselves to be sacrificed? What does Jesus do, in the Gospels, whose life we are living? He set his face resolutely towards Jerusalem. We become nothing.

Well we empty ourselves. Or better, we allow ourselves to be emptied. We allow ourselves to be emptied by the world's Emptying Agents until there remains nothing left. Then the ruler of the world sends his Filling Agents, who give us gifts of death, like pain. Gifts of life and gifts of death. Because a human life is infinite, there is always room for another death. Because we carry around in our bodies the rotting dying of Jesus, and Jesus' life, like any life, is never-ending. It goes on and on, relentlessly.

That's why we take up our cross and follow him daily. Hudson Taylor said the Cross never gets comfortable. Now to listen to these children you'd think they had it all worked out. They'd had it all together. Whereas we don't have it together. And we won't, not until the day he decides in his mercy to release us from this temporal prison.

I don't like the music today. It's triumphalist.

What about some songs of lamentation? I could write those. I'd be good at writing songs of lamentation for the believers to sing. Rachel weeping because her children are no more. God bless, that's nice.

Shocker. The Cape Times big walk has been cancelled. Not enough sponsorship could be raised for the big walk.

Couldn't face the funding. 1903 the walk took place for the first time.

Low carbohydrate high fat diet. Prof Noakes. Live healthy lives.

This is supposed to be a pleasure listening to this. Haller has come on a long way since he was with Helga and espousing a Moslem spirituality.

Funny joke.

They get drunk and they drive. Make sure you wear reflective clothing.

Cape Town has a lot of stray cats.

Breakfast with friends, then. I suppose I ought to get a cup of coffee. It's Friday -- again. How does that happen? I don't know anything at all, you see. I know nothing. Thinking you know something is bad for you. Ou

One thing is that discipleship training goes both ways. I noticed this with Rigby. He thought he was giving me some teaching and then suddenly everything was the other way round. He said, "that's because Jesus is dynamic". Just living in this moment. Get this party going.

Well, I'm waiting for the book to come out. I have no idea how we're going to shift them. Andrew will have a bunch of friends he will sell them to. I have a bunch of people I want to give copies to. At the last count it was 25 I wanted to give away. It's a limited edition of 1,000 copies. One day you never know it might be a rare, forgotten book that no-one knows about.

The valves on my amplifier are glowing nicely.

When my emotions get the better of me, I take a chill pill.

My head is giving me gyp this morning. Three pigs by the intersection. The Gospel is good news for the poor. Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. He made himself of no account. He emptied himself. I expect he had to put up with a lot of piss-taking as well. La la la. La.

I want to write another tract. What word shall I choose? I was SO HAPPY when I was working writing my tracts. Helga knew that too. I'm in love with a church girl. A full-on Gospel movie. To give us access back to the Father. That's right Sean. Full on immersion, not a sprinking on the face. That made Jonathan laugh. They know everything. The phenomenology of the Spirit.

Well I won't bother listening to Collard any more. I think there are serious problems with the building inside his mind and I don't want to stay any more in there in case it collapses and I died inside, like those 84 South Africans who died in Nigeria the other day. There's a difference of opinion about the family. Jesus has lots to say about the family, all negative, whereas apparently "Breakfast With Friends" believes that the family is all-important sociologically. Be that as it may, I read a screenplay "The Last Dance of Harry Foot" this morning, by Anton Kotze. It was really rather good.

He showed the hardness of his heart this morning... for him it's a set of mental principles, a sort of Gnostic Wisdom gospel. Never mind what Christ actually taught, in all its lumpyness, it's the principles that count. Right, gotcha.

I've been really miserable today, so I slept through it. The voices have given me a really hard time. I realised yesterday that I've only been taking half or less than half my medication dosage, so I've upped that and have to wait for it to kick in.

Blimey I've been miz today. So I slept through it. Am feeling a bit better this evening. I would watch some telly, but I can't, because my projector is bust. Oh well. Have to take it very easy while my meds kick in. The voices have been extra hostile since I touched Collard's weak spot. Find myself having to stand up to a power attack. Again. Oh I'm fed up with this. God's Secret Agent, hey? Yeah.

Erm... well, it seems my ministry, such as it is, happens entirely behind the veil, just as dear old Dawie prophesied. Bless him. They won't listen to anything I say, because, oh because of a lot of reasons. Helga wouldn't listen to me because she thought I wasn't worthy to be listened to. So I had to get heavy, and there were tears. Well I think Collard needs radical re-education. His mind is full of shet. It's terrible. He goes on and on about "to Jesus be true" and so on, yet he is unfaithful himself. Well he think he's a hard man in the Spirit. Hmm. I wish him luck.

I really wonder, not for the first time and obviously not for the last, about CCFM and the state of the faith here in Cape Town. The blacks have their own problems of course. But faithwise they leave most of the whites standing looking slightly foolish.

Madam, I thought she was so wise, and I really, really admired her. Gosh how I admired her. I admired her passionately. But again, we see, apply a bit of pressure and the true colours are run up the flagpole. I saw, by the way, this morning, the wisdom, finally, the wisdom of Ian's monishment never to marry. I understand now. Poor old Ian, how I loved him. I hope he's OK. Such a wise man.

I liken my work as a cleaner who is sent to a snazzy Art Deco building in Lower Manhattan, where everything is shiny and polished and all the semen stains have been removed and the shame of sin been covered up with fig leaves sewn together.

And my job is to burn away the fig leaves and then, I am sent down to the basement. To clean it. And my God! the mess, the stench, lots and lots of stench. Stunch. And I have to put on a gas mask and a protective suit and bring a bottle of VIM and a bottle of JIK and a bottle of RICARD and I drink the bottle of RICARD because my name is Richard, and then I survey the situation. The first thing I do, is replace the light bulb which has been burnt out by enemy agents. Then I switch on the light. Right. Now we can see the state of the the state of things. And I demolish the ceiling and remove the walls so that everybody can see the state of the state of the state of things. I was appalled. So I have to get to work. I'm only the cleaner. And I remove all the pictures. Pictures of men like Adolf Hitler and Mao Tsetse Tung, and other men, evil men like Henry Kissinger and Marilyn, and I gently but firmly remove the wires and cables and the string. And the idols. I burn those with my special Oxy torch. They burn and release the Djinn and that has to be dealt with too. And then I remove all the folders, all the files, all those old documents of damnation and secret blackmail-shame and all that crep, all has to be brought up into the light, via special pulleys. And there is a bonfire in the yard and I burn all the secrets and all the shame. Then I dismantle the electric metal in the basement. And I polish the floor and remove the cobwebs from the walls and the string. And every corner I shine my light into every corner until everything is visible, and disappears because of the light. Shine a light on evil and it disappears. And I take a handful of sunshine and I throw it into the air in the basement until the light shineth in the basement and nothing sinful remaineth, nothing at all, all the pussies, all burnt to a crisp. And I sweep up the ashes from the burning of all the rotting flesh, and apply JIK and make it clean clean. And I clean the walls and strip them of the nails on which the pictures of Heil Hitler were hung. And I apply wallpaper. I used to paint, but these days I use wallpaper because it's kinder on the eye. And I lay a carpet on the floor. And I install a desk, a sofa, a bookshelf with dictionaries, and several lamps, which shine with the light of light and of the light. And then I build an ladder leading up to the ground floor where the people are lying on the floor covered with shame and sexual blame. And I tidy and install a waste paper basket and a sign, which reads HOLY TO THE LORD. And then I replace the ceiling with a new one, reinforced, and people can now open a trap door in the floor and climb down the ladder into the basement where it's all lovely and clean, and they can sit at the desk and look up words and be happy in their work. This is my life, ladies and gentlemen. It is a hard life, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

The voices tell me a certain lady online whom I like, is older than me; and they say I need a girl. But Madam is too young for me. She is only about 29. And I am too intense for her. She can't cope with the intensities of the presence. But of course she can, says a voice behind a wall. Can she? Without threatening legal action? Mind you, I see that threat as prophetic of what would happen if we ever were to join in holy junctimony. I think she would divorce me because I'm arrogant and selfish and one of the voices called me an arrogant ostentatious stick insect this morning! Arrogant, yes, ostentatious? Because I drive a nice car and wear a hat? No I don't think I'm ostentatious. Selfish, most definitely.

I saw a harlot on the road just now and I said Hello darling, and she gave me a lovely smile. She began to ask whether I wanted my penis sucked but I said Not tonight sweetheart.

It was a year ago almost to the day, that I started writing music again, beginning with the Elegy for Bob. There is some music in the cello suite that I liked too...

I've got to upgrade 5 computers to Linux Mint 17 Qiana 32-bit.

I've just done the first one... the Entz Machine.

This is the machine that plugs into the projector and displays on the big screen. The projector is broken at the moment (awaiting engineer to put in a new lamp) so I'm using the spare monitor.

Next I'll upgrade the Study PC. I've only just upgraded it! at least there'll be nothing to save off it.

And I plug in the external, and it auto-mounts. This is a relatively new innovation for Linux! They've made it user friendly but you're still very much the master of your machine, unlike Windows where you have no control over it. Ek sal geen Windows-masjiene in my woonstel toelaat nie. Let op, skattie myn.

OK, so now for the Study PC; but I first want to find out why the new install is writing to disk all the time. Lots of disk activity and I don't know why. Perhaps the new system needs to settle down? I don't know. I've started customising it to the way I like it: traditional GNOME 2 UI with Applications, Places, System along the top.

I couldn't find the BlackMate theme so I installed someone's home-made artwork called Purple Popper and it's quite fun. If I tire of it I can always change it. I don't think I'll bother with a Conky for the Entz box but I may put one on the Study machine. Currently updating Entz which is taking longer than it took to install the OS!

At least then Entz and Ultrabook will be safe from Shellshock.

It's 4.20am, gentlemen. Time for Popeye!

Girl went out with Marilyn Manson, now she's got Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome. It doesn't take a genius to work out what happened. "I've got something to put IN you in the GAY BAR." There's this woman on the screen who's got the most expressive face when she talks, it's beautiful to watch. Her feelings are written all over her pretty face.

I was looking in my HD and found a poem I wrote in 2011. It's good, I like it. What I found interesting about it was that it was clearly by me. It had my voice. I don't know whether it's any good as a poem but it's a poem and it's by me and it reads like one of my poems.