Getting blown away - somewhere safe where the flu don't stay.

So, sat in a hotel room in Antigua writing a blog that a whole two or three people read flued out with some terrible bug. I had to get along to the Spanish lesson this morning because I hadn't got around to cancelling it last night, not that I was busy. I'm afraid in the virtual world that I was inhabiting I only really managed to reminisce about the 1980s and watch a few things like this: Young Ones - Sick . Other people in the Hostel haven't managed to get the bin bags over my head but I have been running round to avoid them.

Earlier today, I also met a woman called Corrie who took me by surprise. I managed to resist cracking the joke by asking if her life had been 'a bit of a soap opera', I assume that as an American she probably wouldn't find it that funny. I was almost knocked back by the smile she gave me, it may be attributable to flu or some other state I was in but it made a real impact on me. The smile she gave may have made me think about Semisonic - Secret Smile but possibly more of Neil Young's Like a Hurricane. You have to wonder if the person who put the Semisonic images together was also suffering from flu and just killing a bit of time. Maybe it’s the thing to do if you like a song put some images together and stick them on youtube.

The lines in 'like a hurricane' "...and I'm getting blown away, some where safer that the feelings stay, I wanna love you but I'm getting blown away...." may reflect some form of similar feeling because sometimes that immediate attraction is so strong that it can kill off any chance of a reasonable relationship. Cynical that I may be I do just think after an experience like that today which felt like being pushed back a few feet merely with the glimpse of a smile which should have left me feeling just moderately okay. The line "...I am just a dreamer and you are just a dream, you could have been anyone to me...." could be something that I read too much into but I assume that old Mr. Young was just a little sceptical about what had led to this visionary experience he had of a woman, I presume a woman, who had a major impact upon him, he couldn't rationalise this. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote it about Dylan and his wife, but I don't really know enough about them and this period.

Excuse the teen-indulgence here, Neil Young is really quite cool. John C mentioned a few weeks ago how good music was as a teenager and how this tends to be lost in your twenties leaving quite a gap. Listening to music alone was really all that was necessary to feel really damn good and Neil Young is possibly one of the few who can still lift me this much with tracks like 'hurricane'. In the one-person-eighties revival I had I couldn't avoid the conclusion that Suzanne Vega's Marlene on the wall was the best track of the decade but I didn't have anyone to discuss it with because I've tried to quarantine myself in the last 48 hours.

Still reflexive verbs to get to grips with and a more than a few nouns to learn in the next day or two. And, at mid-day tomorrow, lunch with the lady herself, Corrie. I think I should have said I was washing my hair really but I just couldn't say no. I don't think I'll get past pronouns with her, she knows a lot more Spanish than me. Ho hum! Hopefully I won't lose my head. It does make you wonder how the BBC got the reputation for quality productions looking back.

Out of interest, the lad in't photo up top is someone I saw in the Pokhara, Nepal. Leave a pile of cabbages around and someone is going to do somersaults on it, I say! All nonsense today, I've dropped too much lemsip to make any sense.