bliss overdoses

The bliss partner is working across the water at Singapore. As far as I can gather, her duties there include lounging by the rooftop pool in 35-degree heat. Meanwhile here I've had to don the pantaclava for the first time this winter, but at least I'm free of all social engagements. A whole weekend without deifheids!

On Friday after work I picked up a disc of JSB's St Matthew Passion, and listened to it in bed that night, while normal people were out getting vomiting drunk to start the weekend. The orchestra was using old instruments, the singers were authentic, and the soprano was the darling Emma Kirkby. When I was at school and the music teachers made us listen to the awful classics, I never imagined one day I'd have the hots for a classical warbler, but this lass has just the purest tone, with none of your usual fat lady theatrics and operatics. I'd give her a hand with her vibrato any day, even if she didn't already look as angelic as her voice.

And then there's the wonderful music. Three hours of it. I kept dozing off, then waking to a new tune. Oh the songs! Oh the bliss! Pity the poor deifheids who don't get this.

With his recent advice to take my own parachute with me on the plane, Hotters has reminded me that in more paranoid times I used to wear a rubber wetsuit on the plane to Greece, under my civvies, in case of ditching in freezing waters. And I always had a turkey sized oven bag in my pocket, to put over my head in a smoke-filled cabin. These days I'm normal thanks to the pills, and I rely on a more blissful technique. On takeoff, as we gather speed down the runway, I close my eyes and say goodbye to the world, visualising the plane slamming back into the ground. When that doesn't happen, everything else is a bonus.

Hotters advised flying with Qantas, but I believe they already own Queen Anne Transair, the NSC national carrier, so the engineers are probably the same.

I was heartened to hear that Hotters has given up all drugs for a whole week. A great first step. Just to help him stay on the straight and narrow, I won't send him the bliss pills.

Ion reminded me, quite rightly, about the carbon footprint morality of flying, especially on long-haul flights. Indeed I use this same argument every time the bliss partner suggests a trip to visit her outlaws over in NZ.