I was in the public domain and everything is always fair game in the public domain. Everyone is fair game in the public domain – everything and everyone you see is up for grabs. That’s what it’s like, isn’t it? No quarter given, and none expected. We are all too darned dumb to expect it anyway! God alone knows what we are expecting. We’re expecting bullshit… We’re lost in our own private fantasies. Lost in our own private fantasies in the public domain! Isn’t that the way? I saw a new ad for Smithwick’s on the way into town this morning – ‘Make the interesting choice’ the ad said and there was a picture of a bottle of Smithwick’s Ale on the poster with the cap off to make it more tempting. That sort of thing really does get under my skin, I don’t mind telling you! I mean who is telling you that it’s ‘the interesting choice’ other than the very same crowd of gobshytes that are trying to sell it to you? And when it comes down to it it’s not the companies or the advertising executives that I despise, it’s us pathetic morons that allow ourselves to be taken in by this shit. Okay, so you could say that it’s an insult on the part of the advertising executives to try to use such crappy shit-for-brains tactics on us, but no, that’s not true, they’re only doing what works. They’re only doing their job. We’re the mugs not them. The buck stops with us because we’re the incorrigible fuckwits who – and I really can’t find the right words to properly express my feelings here – are tolerating adverts like this. We’re sucking them up. What does that say about us? Do you know what’s a very sad thing – and I’m not trying to be smart here – it’s when you just kind of lose yourself. What could be sadder than losing yourself? It’s when you lose yourself so very thoroughly that it’s like an absolute. What I mean is, it’s for real. Really for real, like shutting the lid down on a coffin and then nailing it shut. Good and shut. That kind of absolute. And then something you hear or see or something you remember rings a bell for you and all of a sudden it all comes flooding back and you realise that have you lost yourself a long time ago. This is such that uniquely poignant form of sadness isn’t it? It’s like the revelation of a horror, like the revelation of a crime. It’s the revelation of the crime that has got covered up so very thoroughly that it’ll never come to light. Very lax police work you could say – very lax indeed. Consciousness is such a fragile and transient thing isn’t it? It’s like a cactus flower that blooms once every hundred years. The rest of the time there’s just a few old cactuses dotted around here and there in the desert and that’s it. Nothing more to see. No point sitting there waiting for consciousness to bloom, because you could be sitting there a long, long time! You absolutely would be. You know you would be. You’ll die of old age long before you see it…