Last daze in the UK

Location: Stoke-on-Trent, UK

So, it's September 1st 2004. Three years ago Steve and I were about to set out on a 10 day trip to Barcelona. That was a good holiday (my first trip abroad!), but it culminated bizarrely in a trip to an Irish bar (a favourite of ours - we'd been there a lot over the course of the holiday), a game of pool with a couple of Swedes who worked in the internet porn industry in Barcelona, and the slowly dawning realisation that 12 hours previously someone had crashed some aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre.

Right now I'm sitting in my dad's office at home, listening to the new Prodigy album, which I downloaded last night. So far, I'm not totally convinced. I'm sure it will grow on me, but there's also a chance that it isn't that great, I suppose. I'm reminded of the fourth Massive Attack album, 100th Window, the one that was released last year and is rumoured to have been produced almost exclusively by 3D Del Naja, with little creative input from Daddy G. I've heard that the same is the case with the Prodigy album. Apparently Liam Howlett produced this one on his own.

I started a private journal a couple of days ago. This web log may ultimately contain extracts from it, but the journal will ultimately be a personal recollection of my trip, one that will only be read by a few very special people.

But all my friends - all the people who are taking time to read this weblog - are special to me! It's just that some of the stuff in the journal is going to sound a bit weird. The journal will not just be a report on the various activities I engage in while I'm away, it will also be an account of my spiritual and emotional journey through the next few months.

Ultimately, as I grow in confidence, I will incorporate a deeper discussion of my feelings into this weblog, but initially at least it will just serve as a straightforward description of what I've been up to.

The purpose of this first entry, coming as it does five days before I leave, is to introduce you all to the weblog format, and also to familiarise myseif with it too. My brother Jacob has set this up for me and I still don't know quite what stuff I'm going to be able to do. I'm not sure yet how to upload photos for example.

If the purpose of this entry is to introduce you to the weblog, then I suppose I need to offer some explanation to you as to why it is called Gods Lonely Man. The title is one I have been tentatively using for a few years. For example, as some of you know, the first significant mix CD I produced was called Gods Lonely Man. It is a title I've used tentatively because I often think it sounds a bit pretentious, especially if you don't understand the context.

It is a line from Robert De Niro's voice over in the movie Taxi Driver:

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man."

I always thought there was something incredibly poignant about this line - something I could relate to. I don't mean to say that I've ever been desperately lonely, or that the amorality of the concrete jungle in which I live and work is eventually going to send me on a mad kill-spree rampage like Travis Bickle. No, it's more to do with a certain sense of rejection that the line evokes, the idea that we have been created by God with a fundamental spiritual need to have a relationship with him (or her, or it), and yet I feel that in so many ways we have been abandoned, are lost and lonely with no clue about how to regain this spiritual connection which is so important to our happiness.

Of course, the various religions of the world offer us ways to connect with God, but faith isn't everyone's bag and I can't help thinking that if religion does bring us closer to God, it ultimately divides us as people - creates barriers between cultures that lead to wars and atrocities. This only serves to perpetuate the idea that faith in God is destructive. It's an old argument and I'm sure you're all familiar with it.

Ever since I decided to go away on this trip I knew that the spiritual and emotional journey I would be taking would be as significant as the physical journey. This is more true than ever. I don't know where this journey will take me, but I'm excited about it. I hope that you guys, to some extent at least, are interested in sharing this journey with me.

Hmm. Wasn't I just saying a moment ago that I was going to keep any unusual personal discussions within the pages of my journal, and out of this weblog? Well, it doesn't look like it's going to happen, I just can't resist getting all deep and meaningful!

Therefore, the cynics and the atheists amongst you - be warned!

If it really is too much for you (or you're simply not interested in my exploits - spiritual, emotional, physical or otherwise) and you want to stop receiving my email updates, then I'll stop sending them! No worries mate! All you need to do is send a blank email to unsubscribe@godslonelyman.com.

That's all for now. There may be another entry before I leave, but more likely than not the next time you hear from me it will be next week and I will be sitting in an internet cafe somewhere in the centre of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.