Today I went to a special place to have a scan below a large machine that could tell if you have any calcification in the arteries. I didn’t go because I have a problem, I went because it seems like it would be smart to check when you don’t have a problem rather than when you do. It was a few stops on the underground and a short walk, but it ended up getting to 37 °C today and any time in the sun was too much, so I was happy to reach the location of the big machine and consult its wisdom.

Inside there was a short wait before Ana, a very friendly nurse with very good English, called me into the room where the machine sat. It looked very much like a time machine, a portal. One wondered what year one would go to if there was a choice or perhaps what age one would return to, 36 would be good, not because of what happened when I was 36 but because it’s an age of likely certain health and some experience. I was reading recently, that the ageing gene is revealing itself. In 100 years will they be able to stop you at your desired age and leave you there for centuries basking in almost eternal youth, gaining wisdom as the years go by without the deterioration of your body?

I took off my T-shirt and lay down in front of the machine. I imagined that it was an oracle and I could ask it any question, and I wondered what that question might be. “Are there really aliens?” came to mind. Haha. I thought philosophical or scientific knowledge or mysteries or the truth about stories from the past might be asked by someone else and I figured that knowing the true answer to the alien question would be groundbreaking knowledge, everything would change in the belief system, and knowing that we are not alone might inspire a rethink from all corners. It would probably inspire mad cults as well, more of the same then.

I was pushed into position and the nurse and technician left the room because of the radiation. The machine had some kind of spinning mechanism that began to whirr as the engine started up. A voice told me to breathe in and then simply breathe. It’s usually in Portuguese, but they managed to program it to speak English. The machine probably cost millions and they only have this machine in certain locations. I will also add that I was able to do this special test for no charge using the health service, it would probably cost a lot in other places, it’s another reason why I took the opportunity.

From there it was Bolt time, too hot to worry about getting around. We went to see a storage space, a place for The Archive to be, a place that a big truck can unload. From there, smaller loads to this narrow street where The Archive will be. From there to a big hardware store to pick up some more bits to continue the last touches for the renovation. As it happened, on return the man who is going to clean the outside windows came – on Thursday he will remove five years of dirt and pollution from this busy street.

Music today has been Ruts DC – Animal Now (1981), which I found out today stands for the Italian ‘da capo’, meaning back to the beginning, the reason being that as they lost their original singer Malcolm Owen to a heroin overdose, they felt like they were starting again.

Music Of The Daze