Outlaws of Immaterial Spheres,

Bird flu has arrived to the British Isles. It is slightly bizarre that the deadly strain was first detected in the Kingdom of Fifecestershire. The hysteria around Cellardyke is just silly but Tina Briscoe, reporter of the dead swan, seems to be enjoying the limelight, she's butted into every news bulletin I've seen. There's no need to panic, the virus as it is currently understood is not very contagious, it is thought that the virus affects the deepest part of the lungs and not the upper respiratory tracts thus it is not easily spread by breathing or coughing. Although poultry farmers and those in related industries face an uncertain future, the only hysteria that will be generated in the public domain will be through ignorance.

At any rate, everything that unfolds is controlled by Darwinian Natural Selection - those who are resistant survive and reproduce, those who are not resistant die. Our time has never had a serious global pandemic disease, such an event may be overdue and I would ask why there is any point in the public treating this matter with anything more than the respect they've shown for any of the other current global crises, such as global warming, the outbreak of religion or human conflict. I would recommend adopting "a five fruit a day and don't be so mean" ethic, it gives the bog-standard human who will not be invited into a secret bunker when the gory time arrives the best chance of extending their lifetime.

When I wasn't showing such equianimity today, I was stude-ing. Before this, I had the pleasure of watching a rare Sigur Ros video on MTV2 whilst I ate my breakfast cereal, it was for the song "Untitled#1". The plot seems to involve nursery children who are putting the jackets, hats and mittens on to go out for playtime, but they also begin putting on strange WWII gas mask-like apparatus. They tread out onto an otherworldly landscape and begin smashing up a beaten-up car, once the demolition has been carried out to their satisfaction, celebration breaks out, I thought to myself that this is very much like life. Whilst looking over my books, I chose to Lishen Again to a Sigur Ros live set on the lovely Nemone's Dream Ticket, their music is beautiful, decriers of this sentiment should relax and think of Iceland. I might have the chance to see them at T in the Park in the summer but I am bewildered over the decision to place them halfway down the Main Stage bill, I would have loved to see them headline the biggest tent. From lishening to the Dream Ticket, I must also commend The Pipettes, "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me" is such a fantastic pop record, its omission from any of the major radio station playlists is mysterious, I love the screeching bit; "And you might cry for some time". It's cutting edge music journalism like this that will see me write for the NME one day.

For an afternoon break, I indulged in some bogtrotting. Simon (pictured) and I walked along to East Weymss. This is a reasonably long walk, I saw a huge flock of starlings of which 5 or 6 were albinos. I followed the Fife Coastal Path along to MacDuff's Castle then went down to the shoreline, past the Weymss caves (pictured) and headed back home. I remembered that I have sat on top of the castle in its current state of ruin, having once climbed up the severely eroded and highly dangerous castle stairs, this was an act of youthful stupidity. The castle and the caves were in a recent episode of Time Team, I was informed that the locals stole many pieces of Tony's crew's equipment. It was an interesting episode, the team found many artefacts from the 14th century inhabitants of the castle and the Picts who are thought to have inhabited the caves, there is also belief that the Vikings visited the caves too. I don't really like being around the caves too much, once I went down there and it looked like a family of homeless people were actually living in them, that was quite disturbing to think that people would ever have to resort to becoming troglodytes in our time and in our local towns.