TheBanyanTree: Well, you can dream, can't you?

[John Bailey]

Friday October 17, 2003

WELL, YOU CAN DREAM, CAN'T YOU?

I took myself off to Swansea today, needing to settle some bills that I'd 
left on one side until it was too late to trust the post to get the cheques 
there by the due dates. Procrastination, of course, plus an in-built 
reluctance to part with cash until the last possible moment. My current 
attack of the galloping lethargies hasn't helped, either. There was a time, 
not so long ago, when I'd grab my cheque book immediately on receipt of a 
bill and have an envelope sitting on the hall stand ready to post within 
minutes. It's so much easier that way.

However, it got me out of the house, and that was good. It got me a slow 
and easy saunter in the sunshine, too, and that was really good.

Out of consideration for people who don't have the time take it slow and 
easy I do the best I can to walk close to one side or other of the 
pavement, allowing others to pass without hindrance. In Swansea that means 
walking close to the kerbside, at least for me it does. I refuse to tread 
through the drifts of dirt and litter that line the pavement close to the 
shops and offices. You never know what you might encounter in that kind of 
filth. I have no idea what Swansea has against street cleaning but the 
effect is not appealing.

Nonetheless it was a treat to be out in the warm autumn sunshine so I did 
the 'Johnny head in air' trick, ignored the squalor about me, and I feel 
better for the trip. I'm scraping along the bottom of the motivation barrel 
just now, waiting for things to improve, and any excursion at all is a good 
thing.

Back home I turned on my computer to pick up my email and was hit with 
another swamp of spam. Almost all of the stuff originates from the United 
States of course, doing that great nation no credit at all.  Much of it is, 
to put it mildly, not nice.

My recent anti-spam measures have had the effect of reducing the volume 
considerably but even so I still get many times more junk items than I do 
legitimate email. I'm seriously thinking of changing my email address and 
then changing it again every month, setting the old one to bounce the junk 
straight back at the senders. I know that'll inconvenience those of my 
correspondents who still use email address books but what can you do?  The 
graphic on my contact page will always give my current address.

So then I went out to sit in the last of the sunshine, Harry Cat on my lap, 
and thought of fresh air, clean cities where people don't spit unwanted 
chewing gum on the pavement, and email systems that transmit only 
legitimate messages between friends and colleagues. Well, you can dream, 
can't you?


--
John Bailey   Carmarthenshire, Wales
journal of a writing man
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>