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A New Decade?

As an Eyewear reader has noted, 2010 may be year 2 of the new decade, not year one, depending on whether you consider 09 was the end of the 00s, or '10 was.  Since I consider counting from 1 to ten as a decade I thought 11 was the first year, but it does seem true to consider 1920 part of the Twenties, 1930 part of the 30s, etc... your thoughts?  I suppose the tens started with 2010...

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Anonymous said…
Todd, the 'faux' millenium began, for some (I suspect), in the dying minutes of dec 31 1999. It did for me, almost; at least, until the following new year's eve came round, again, and the Official kick-off happened, in Alexandra Palace North London. 5000 All English (it seemed) people gathered to welcome in God as reality, i suppose, some might say, going on what happened, in the music there, spread over many sound stages, from Ian Brown to Asian Dub-Foundation, whose stupendously large speakers one welcomed in the early hours of a new dawning age, 01/01/01, with. The uncertainty of one's twenties suddenly dissolving when doors of fate, literally swooshed open, and what was hitherto hidden, got made visible, and in i tumbled thru the door that drew back of its own accord, when a steward beckoned me in at 1.30 am, after the pubs had closed and I was making my way home, £1.30 in my pocket, across the palace, to my Wood Green bedsit, and him pssting me, asking if i wanted to come in for 20 quid and me saying all i had was £1 and he saying, arghh, sod it, c'mon in anyway: his gift a first poetic sign mid-way through life, in that place, at that time, on that hill, when coincidence fate and, yes, ultimately, a poetic act manifest there, some elementary s/he who loves us all. God, i remember thinking it is, as i sat sprawled out high on the wacky fags in the chill out room, the rest of the NW entertainment mafias and manics who'd depressingly paid or where joyously being paid to be there, ourselves arriving with me at some zero sum game i since discovered, poetry is.

31 December 1999 however, was a total wash-out; I saw it in at the back of one's flat in Muswell Hill, looking at my watch on a deserted Springfield Avenue, one's final whim and want crushed, not seeing in the new year on my to-the-second digital G Shock watch, it's arrival unmarked, missed by five seconds, on the road that leads to a pedestrian entrance to the Grove, an anti-park of Alexandra Palace.

After rushing out of the house paranoid, wanting only to see the penultimate 999th year kick in, switch on, on a gshock, and failing in this, modest dream, on that night, for that time; I gave up, and for the real millenium, planned zero, nothing, at best in the local pits pub sharing with the rest of a few there who did not welcome me into their hokey cokey line at auld ang sayne in O'Neills Church pub that functioned as the biggest, main boozer on the Hill; and only then, expecting nowt, God appeared, at the dawn of the next 1000 years, in North London, Todd.

A wonderfully cool and pleasant place in which to pose, the Grove, because there's a vegetarian cafe there, a wooden construction in cool North London, drop dead original & classy vein, expensive people and scumbags comingling equally with brave, weak, poor allsorts and an everyperson majority making us up, the English & Londoner blow-ins, it seemed, mostly, when at home being ourselves in the House of our Family carrying on there, ooh er yeh ms us English people, and you, you out there reading this alone, with freinds, significant others and beloved sons and daughters our race birth, in North London, South Londoner faux fitz de Swift satirical, sassy, supremely talented foe, bumming away, every day, to be the best, to be the best and attaining capacity as a poet of the first world order, as per, er, you know, Todd, we are all 'in' the same square of winsome joy, counting courses, weighing every breath, penny, projection into a commentariat class, facebook fraud, page selecting profiles, robosigners deciding on this or that, previews removed the views expressed, right flicking eyes connect... you did ask (still perhaps?) for our 'thoughts', unquote.

Des.

affello is the word verification. Nuff sed.

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