[windows] not the operating system

By windows, I mean the opportunities we get, which then close down and are lost forever.

Admittedly two films triggered this off.

The first, a mind-numbing piece called The One and the second, the Sith episode of Star Wars. The concept, of course, is that chances arise and if grasped, then we move on to the next part of the adventure. If we don't, we stagnate or fall into something even direr.

Some of you have managed to build up your nest egg and are entitled to a calm, dignified retirement, which you must no be doubt worried about at this difficult time. Some of us have somehow, through a conjunction of circumstances and with a flawed mental set, not managed that in the first place.

My life so far has been a series of windows and there is a hunger inside to just settle down and become a good citizen, somewhere where the authorities accept me ... but it never seems to turn out that way. It seems that many of you are trying to do the opposite just now - trying to get out and forget all your woes.

At this moment there is a fair amount of posting on this blog and while it seems as real and permanent as it did in Russia, it is in fact an illusion.

I must move on from here in the not too distant future, as I have over the past months and the blogging will cease again for some time. This time the freefall must cease and it must be my own place and my own subsistence job. It may be a tall order getting internet connected this side of Christmas, as each autumn day brings us closer to winter but I'll try to get posts up.

There's constant mail from Russia just and it involves getting winter clothing over here and so on and every move is to get set up, to start putting roots down again.

In The One, when a person was teleported, he first broke into fragments and then these fragments were brought together and reunited at the other end. In real life, many fragments are forever lost and replaced by new ones, not unlike cells in the body.

This is double-edged.

For better or worse, this hunger to reunite the fragments and just make a go of life had almost got there in Russia. Stupidly [in hindsight], all remaining property, money and the like had been gathered into the one flat over eight years, networks were in place and the life there was one of dignity, respect, not bad hours and reasonable money in Russian terms.

Fool that I was in thinking it could continue and as some of you know - one stroke of a bureaucratic pen and it was back into freefall. Bureaucrats - the second scourge of society.

Getting off that, as it's a fruitless thing to dwell on, my friend noted ,at one point in The One and the Sith, just how many films these days pursue the same theme of the move to threat, the destabilizing of society, the bureaucratic tightening, the sea of troubles and then the flawed earthly Messiah who becomes increasingly convinced he's a god, a deliverer [did you see Brown's recent speech], sweeping in to the rapturous applause of people hailing the chief [anyone remember 1997 or the Nuremburg rallies], only for the screws to be slowly tightened, bit by bit, according to the Grand Plan.

Last minute false messiahs are as illusory as the rest of the business. Solace can be found but not in them, nor in a circle of stones.