Time: The Missing 35 Years

If you know where Time went please tell me. Specifically, the 35 years that I suddenly realised had gone whilst watching a 1980 edition of Top of the Pops on Thursday night.

Dexys Midnight Runners were performing Geno when I felt compelled to check the date. 'Time is a trick of the mind' according to Rip Rig and Panic and in one sense, they're right; I'd been tricked into thinking that 35 years couldn't have passed. That's called denial, I suppose. It's a defence mechanism against the potentially crushing realisation that mortality is not an option.

Not that I mind Time disappearing. It would be hellish if it stayed around, locking you in a moment forever, unless that moment was an orgasm. Then again, even that would become tiresome after a while (that 'while' being immeasurable, of course) because, as they say, you can have too much of a good thing, even if that thing is a Charlie Parker solo, or Anna Karina in a Godard film. So the theory goes.

So Time went, all 35 years' worth, as I stood in front of the telly, remote in hand, trying to come to terms with this realisation. 1980...what was I doing? Working in a frozen food factory. Who was I dating? A girl with a haircut not dissimilar to the one worn by Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, whose Talk Of The Town was also featured on that edition of Top of the Pops..mmm...so good. Time has done that no harm but tragically it was running out fast for two members of the band. James Honeyman-Scott would die in '82 and Pete Farndon a year later, both from drug-related incidents.

Well, Time past is measurable but how much remains for each of us is not so I won't keep you any longer.

TTFN