"Well the days seem too long, but the time just slips away,
Do you think, I belong? Well I don't care anyway."

"Clearlight"
Nebula

Can't get that particular lyric out of my head at the moment. Days at my desk seem to telescope out and yet the weeks are just flitting past me. Getting heat from my boss to try harder, because other people won't, and it's hard to stay in that chair.

Usually manage to drag myself out of bed and into work without thinking about anything much but today was such a grind. Counter intuitive as it may seem I suspect my sudden difficulty in motivating myself is due to running out of weed.

I usually still feel stoned in a morning and that makes it easier not to think too hard about what I'm doing. Enforced sobriety has kicked things into sharp relief and forced me to look elsewhere for distraction.

A bath and some sleep are my choice for now, but first a brief jaunt into global politics will serve to blind me to the monkey on back for a few minutes more.

So North Korea are now officially a nuclear power and the suits on TV say it like we should be shitting in our pants yet I find myself unmoved by the revelation.

Now i suspect I have this in common with the majority but, as I'll expand upon in a moment, I'm pretty sure it's for different reasons.

The reason for my own nonplussedness, (there's a Scrabble winner for you,) can be illustrated by the following question:

would you rather be shot twice in the face, or three times?

Doesn't really matter does it? The fact that there are any nuclear weapons kicking about at all is enough to shit me up, a few more don't really change anything.

Oh but it's the hands there in the straight set say, get bent I say.

So a weird little bloke who's inexplicably adored by many of his own people and whose dad was in charge before him has got the bomb, am I talking about North Korea or the US?

The point is it doesn't matter.

Can the squares really claim to trust the most militarily aggressive country on the planet, (and the only country to ever actually use nuclear weapons don't forget,) more than some Korean nutter who appears to be wearing my old RE teacher's specs?

I'm already scared thanks, I'm maxed out as far as global nuclear death is concerned, you can't really get any more ultimate can you.

What's really concerning are the other reasons for today's story not causing great ripples: nobody gives a shit.

I wasn't there so I don't know, but I get the impression that during the cold war there were two actual sides to the nuclear debate.

There were the loony left, crazy hippy types, (like me,) who put forth the ludicrous notion that perhaps it might be a good idea not to slaughter one another en mass and scorch the skies and there were the suits, the straights, making their case of mutual deterrence etc.

What do we have now, there's still the loonies like me with CND cards in their wallets but where's the other side of the argument? Where are the rabid guys in ties too tight, with big red faces and flecked spittle?

How is it that if there's no-one fighting the corner for nuclear armament that we're still in the nuclear arms race?

It's because we, as a society, appear to have just accepted and forgotten about our nuclear weapons, like an unexploded bomb at the bottom of the garden that, after time, just becomes a conversation piece at dinner parties.

Anyway, hear that? That's the sound of a gauntlet being thrown down and an invitation extended. Can anyone out there, produce even a halfway decent case in favour of nuclear weapons? Is there anyone out there who actively supports their existence, or is it Nixon's 'silent majority' all over again?

I'm serious, come on, bring it. Let's forget for a moment that the whole fifteen minute response time is bullshit for three good reasons:

we don't have the codes for our own nukes, (in event of holocaust ring W and ask nicely,)

our nukes aren't aimed at anything anymore, (some quick maths will be required there,)

they're approaching their use by date, (ie,. they might not even work anymore, that's your taxes in action peeps,)

Let's forget all that, now somebody tell me, what the fuck are they there for?

Hell, maybe you're shy so why not just ask your mates, think about in those quiet moments alone like sitting on the loo.

If nobody actively wants them, if the only people with any real interest in them are those who don't want them, why do we, a democratic society, still have them?

Why is big GB having to look hard by committing to replace the Trident system in order to become PM?

Why are we still spending crazy money on them?

I've said it before and it's no less true today, there's either one hell of a conspiracy or everything's just arse over tit mental.

Either way, one more bullet in the gun pointed at the head of the world won't keep me from sleeping tonight, but then I'm so knackered I'm not sure a nuclear war itself could do that!