For eight months of the year I dont see rain and for much of that time I dont get to hear all the wonderful things that are happening in our world. It’s true, for some this would be ranked as a Utopian garden, but I dont even get fake news, although much of what I do get it would be preferred if I felt it was fake .. if I could be content for it to be fake.

I do get to listen to rugby league for hours on end out there in the land of no rain. I can’t tell you the joy of finally being able to pick up a radio station … And being promised that today, we’re going to get 18 hrs of rugby league – yes we are .. and it’s not even going to be interupted by fake news. Oh for some fake news, oh for something other than rugby fucking league! I wouldnt mind waking up and finding out that Australia was a Monarchy – again – that we’d decided that Cricket was a game played for 3 hrs, or even that England could beat Qantas’ Wallabies. This would be Utopia.

I come home only for a few short months of the year and it rains. It rains but I have a friend who likes the rain and he likes my space. And he’s so very patient with me, so undemanding, so generous .. so quiet.

And so damned wet! But, he is my friend and its like I’ve never left and he’s not particularly interested whether the news is fake or not, just as long as it all happens in my space, which he’s in the process of convincing me, is our space. And so it is. I mean, what’s the difference with space when its just as wet outside as it is inside?

He can prove this to me. He can lie outside my van and prove that what goes on out there can be the same as what goes on in here – once, of course, that I’ve succumbed to the sharing of space – and he can prove that it doesnt matter if its fake or not. Right now, he’s having a bit of a hard time proving that Cricket is a game that can be played in 3 hrs – though hand-ball, I maintain can – he’s having a bit of a hard time proving that the Queen’s Rugby team can beat mine, and he’s having a bit of a hard time proving that what’s going on outside, in the real world, is the same as what’s going on in here – in my fake space. Which of course we do share!

Right now he’s showing me that love is an old wet dog. And that it is! Right now, he proving to me that outside can be exactly the same as in here … And that he can! Because my old wet dog farts, and when he farts he can prove to me that outside can be exactly the same as inside. He can prove that it actually doesn’t matter if its fake or not. So long as were prepared to share it.

“Nature is a poor creature after all … Poor company certainly – and artistically often offensive.” – James McNeil Whistler