Hi

Well my dears, the extended yuletide festivities of my people and our peculiar sect, draw to a close, and as the last of the mead intoxicated revellers drifts off into the crisp frost of a late January morning, my thoughts once more return to you. In the collective sense of course, but then isn’t it easier to think fondly of people that way? It’s a fairly simple task to think of oneself as a benevolent humanitarian if one thinks of humanity as a whole, but when one reflects upon the individuals who comprise that whole, the old blood starts boiling and I find myself reaching for my gun and other instruments of oppression. My failing of course and I’m working on it.

As you have no doubt been made aware, the year is 2009 and according to the Mayans, the Jehovah’s Witness’s and assorted other fringe groups, David Bowie was correct, but only in 2007, and now we’ve only got three years left. The Mayans were good enough to give an exact date. Dec 21st 2012, a stunningly accurate prediction (given that it was made by an ancient race lacking any technology) of a unique planetary alignment that some believe will have a catastrophic effect on the earths magnetism.

David Shayler (remember him?) would have us believe that 2012 will not be the end but a new beginning. (I think the notion of endings and beginnings is a ‘cup half full-cup half empty’ observation, that is to say, it depends on how you personally choose to look at it). Now here’s a curious guy (Mr Shayler). Surely he’s to be applauded for exposing the foul works of the so called security services, and he’s done some sound work for the 911 truth commission, particularly when he took to pieces the weakly argued BBC ‘Conspiracy Files’ documentary, which left so many unanswered questions it looked like poor propaganda. But in July 2007, he pronounced himself the Messiah and now makes regular Youtube broadcasts from his home in Amsterdam.

My first thought is that he must have been got at by the agencies, then served a special cocktail or two and forced to read Catcher in the Rye or however it is they trigger the psychopath these days. Well if they did get to him they’ve seriously refined their techniques, because far from a dribbling incoherent religious nut, he makes some very reasoned, sensible arguments and observations about the various problems that the world is currently facing, peppered with noble sentiments about living in unconditional love, and then continues with these odd religious assertions, having deciphered various codes and re-interpreted various religious texts, he has pronounced himself the last incarnate of Christ on earth. Have a look….I’d be curious to know what you think.

I’d also be very interested to hear how the current economic concerns are affecting you. Now this is none of my business of course but then I’ve always wondered about polls and statistics. When, for example, they announce on the news that 58% of people think that Gordon Brown is a poor leader, or that 60% think not enough is done about immigration and 12% prefer blackcurrant sugar-free Ribena to cyanide, I wonder how on they’re certain of the numbers. We’re told that they take (according to the nature of the survey) a sample of perhaps 1000 people to represent the population and thus arrive at the figures. Well I’ve never been asked. Not once. Ever. About anything. In fact, in countless years of hoping to be asked my opinion, even on trite issues like television, I have never once had the opportunity to willingly become a statistic or offer up my considered thoughts on any subject. Consequently, I doubt everything I’m told. Not wise perhaps, but fairly consistent at least. In fact, given that so many survey results produce these peculiar right wing conclusions, I wonder whether it’s the same 1000 people they ask each time, regardless of the question.

So I think to myself, “I’ll do some research of my own perhaps”. And I suppose that there’s a reasonable number of people who will read this in the various corners of the globe, so if you can be arsed, I would genuinely be interested to know what differences the current economic gloom has had on your life up until now, and your thoughts on who or what is responsible.

And so on to matters pertaining to Jackdaw 4, which I suppose is all I should concern myself with in these scribblings, but then I get bored and distracted very easily which is why albums take me a long time and why my sentences wander off at tangents along the way. Well the next album is almost there, so by way of a wee taster, (and hopefully to throw you off the scent and buy myself a bit more time) there’s a free track going up on the website this week titled ‘Who Knows’. I can’t find a place for this song on the new album, but it’s not without its charms, so rather than swap it for beads at the local market, I thought you might like it as a temporary distraction to disguise the fact that we’ve done nothing live, recorded, or webwise for a couple of months now. Well in the slow down to 2012 there really doesn’t seem to be much point now does there?

Willie

PS Not that it’ll be of huge interest to friends of JD4 but ‘Life Of Riley’ is currently showing on British TV, BBC1 on Thursdays. I recorded a version of the Lightning Seeds song of the same name, and wrote a few bits of incidental music for the show.