Friday 28 November 2008

a day in space

A day in space

And the world turns
And the world turns
And the world turns
And the world turns
Elvis sang that.





And ever since I've been young I've had a dream about going into space. Lying there in the darkness and staring down, watching continents drift by and come round again. Drift by and come round again.

I always want to launch myself from space and dive down through the atmosphere through the clouds and the air and swoop over the heads of people walking and shopping and talking in Moscow or Paris or Rome or wherever.



I'd be moving so fast I'd just have time to see their astonished faces before I was off again, back off to my space base which could be anything really, an asteroid a moon or a spaceship. It's never been that clearly defined in my dreams.

But it's not important. Just to be in space would be the important thing. Just to be in space would be the important thing.



And I've spoken to lots of people about my desire to go to space and they think it's stupid. They say things like, "What about the training? I hear its very hard." I say, "Hard? Hard my arse! A couple of assault courses and a maths test! A piece of piss. I've suffered worse than that, I've suffered much worse than that"

Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with people. I think they've gone simultaneously soft or stupid or they're living in fear. But I dunno why. There's nothing to fear about space. Space is brilliant. Space is brilliant.

And I've told people I'd pay a million pounds to go to space which is true, I'd pay a million pounds or more to go for an hour or even half an hour. Although a day would be better. A day in space, that would be something. A day in space. That would be something.

Mountains

And I speak to people sometimes and I ask them, "Well what would you do if you had a million pounds? If you wouldn't take it to space what would you do with it?"
They say, "I dunno. Buy a house or a car. Maybe take a holiday somewhere."
"A holiday where?" I ask them.
"Oh Spain, Egypt. See the pyramids maybe. See the pyramids maybe."

When they say this to me I look at them, I look them straight in the eye. And I wait for just a few seconds, just so they know what I'm gonna say is going to be important. What I'm going to say is going to be important.
And then I say, "What better place could you go to than space? What's a better holiday than that? Think about lying there when your a hundred, a hundred and ten or whatever, looking back on your life and thinking, Well what did I actually do? What did I actually achieve? Oh I've seen the pyramids!"
Big deal! You can apparently see those from space anyway. You can see all the rest of the blue and green globe twisting and turning below you. You can see the sun lighting up the moon. You can feel the stars shining down upon your back.

You don't get that in egypt and you don't get that at the pyramids.
And you don't get that by pissing away your million pounds on something that everyone else can do if they save up long enough.

And the world turns
And the world turns
And the world turns
And the world turns
Elvis sang that



(Ballboy's "A Day in Space" is what I've been listening to all the time this week.)

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