Aquarionics

…and the ground felt strange beneath my feet. Less solid, somehow, less there. There was the sound of thirty children being very, very quiet, and I found that disconcerting so I opened my eyes.

I wasn’t standing on anything.

That is, I’d walked off the edge of the box, as I’d intended to, but instead of landing on the crash mats, I was there, three feet in the air in my white gym socks, shorts, T-Shirt. My teacher fainted and I distinctly remember the sickening crack as her skull hit the floor.

She fell, we said. Nobody ever mentioned it again.

I can fly.

I’m not any kind of super hero, or at least not in the four-colour underpants-over-your-costume sense. I don’t have super strength, it’s just that anything I’m flying with is weightless, is flying with me. If it touches the ground, it’s heavy again, a fact that’s almost killed me several times.

How? I just… push in the right direction and I go there. I don’t know how high, really. You’ve read the story of Icarus? I think of it every day. One day if I go too high, will I pass out? What happens if I pass out when flying? do I fall? do I hover there, in the way of passing jet aircraft?

People know. My brother knows, as do my parents. They don’t understand, but they know.

And…

…and now you know too. I’ve been wanting to tell you since we met, and more so since the engagement, but I promised not to tell anyone else. I don’t know what I’d do if you left me and told everyone; but then, I don’t know what I’d do if you left me anyway.

Thats it, really. That’s why I wanted to come all the way out here, just to tell you that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you before.

That’s it. Monologue over. Now.

Will you fly with me?

I have a love-hate relationship with the Radio 4 UK Theme.

The Radio 4 UK Theme is, for those evil non-uk people and also students who will never have heard it, a collection of traditional themes and tunes interleaved and played by an orchestra. It is, in fact, probably the original mashup. Like so many quintessential examples of British culture, it was composed by someone not native to this green and pleasant land, a Mr Fritz Spiegl, and it is played every morning at half past five to mark the return to the airwaves of Radio 4 – the long lost BBC Home Service – after its place is taken overnight by the tattered remains of the World Service.

I have, as I mentioned, a love-hate relationship with the Radio 4 UK Theme. This is because from October 2004 to December 2005 while I was spending five hours a day commuting (And yes, I shall shut up about it soon) the UK Theme was the thing that would always be playing at half past five to lull me into a false sense of awakening. So, on the one hand, it is a wonderful thing in the abstract, a great piece of music, part of our cultural heritage, its loss will be a damning indictment on the state of the country, etcetera, etcetera.

On the second hand, I shall be quite happy if I never hear the dratted thing ever again in my lifetime.

The thing that worries me slightly is that it will be replaced, we are told, by a ‘pacy news briefing’ which, to my mind, is the very last thing anybody needs at Oh-dark 30. Not least because it comes between the glacial news briefing of the World Service and the normal speed news briefing of the standard Radio 4 News. This means that the effect of this will be to replace: ”[news] [music to wake up to] [news] [Farming Today] [Today Program]” with ”[news] [more news] [news for farmers] [Yet still more news]” which isn’t really any use at all.

So, they are campaigning. Mike Flowers, who used to have some Pops is leading the charge to Save the theme by getting people to sign petitions! for the WIN! Because that will change EVERYTHING!

Also, they’re going to release it as a single, so that even if they do replace it, you can put the CD on instead. Yay technology.