JOHN PLANT on a strange day in November 2001
JOHN PLANT, another contributor to Revolutionary History and leader of the mighty DIARY, then made his appearance, the music stilling around his story ...
On the 14th of November 2001, at 07:10 hours, I was driving north-westwards on the A40, passing Park Royal tube station. The approximate grid reference is 189824.
This point on the road is at the top of small ridge, but the OS map is too densely cluttered with the emanation of low employment density light industry to show the elevation. The ridge drops away towards Perivale, passing through the Hanger Lane Underpass. On this occasion, at this location I experienced a startling hallucination, that I found I had some ability to control.
In the sky in front of me, was a low cloud bank, stretching the full width of the visible horizon. The sun was rising behind me through frost and fuel-haze. This shed a sea-green colour onto ythe cloud bank and for a short period before I entered the underpass I saw the cloud as the sea and felt myself to be driving down a steep slope towards it.
I expected, with a sense of impending disappointment, that when I emerged from the underpass the sensation would have been lost, but to my joy I found this was not the case. With no more than a small movement of my head I was able to recreate the hallucination and maintain it along the stretch of road leading up to Perivale junction. Other travellers on that stretch of the A40 were scurrying to work, or to Heathrow - I was plunging towards a sea the existence of which was insulated from the vulgar motivations I had shared until a few seconds before.
While queuing to make a left turn into Argyle Road I discovered that by changing the focus of my eyes I could cause the hallucination to vanish or to reappear. Such was my pleasure in this that I stopped the car and switched on my accident flashers, allowing the traffic to flow around me while I made teh sea appaer and disappear repeatedly.
On my cassette player a tape of the Chemical Brothers was playing. A sweet voiced woman was singing over the loops.
And I wished she would sing - that is really the sea
And I wanted her to sing - this isn't really the sea
And I wished she would sing for me - this is really the sea
And I wanted her to sing for me - this isn't really the sea
And I wanted her to sing - this is really the sea
And I wished she would sing - that isn't really the sea
And I wanted her to sing for me - this isn't really the sea
And I wished she would sing for me - this is really the sea
JOHN PLANT, another contributor to Revolutionary History and leader of the mighty DIARY, then made his appearance, the music stilling around his story ...
On the 14th of November 2001, at 07:10 hours, I was driving north-westwards on the A40, passing Park Royal tube station. The approximate grid reference is 189824.
This point on the road is at the top of small ridge, but the OS map is too densely cluttered with the emanation of low employment density light industry to show the elevation. The ridge drops away towards Perivale, passing through the Hanger Lane Underpass. On this occasion, at this location I experienced a startling hallucination, that I found I had some ability to control.
In the sky in front of me, was a low cloud bank, stretching the full width of the visible horizon. The sun was rising behind me through frost and fuel-haze. This shed a sea-green colour onto ythe cloud bank and for a short period before I entered the underpass I saw the cloud as the sea and felt myself to be driving down a steep slope towards it.
I expected, with a sense of impending disappointment, that when I emerged from the underpass the sensation would have been lost, but to my joy I found this was not the case. With no more than a small movement of my head I was able to recreate the hallucination and maintain it along the stretch of road leading up to Perivale junction. Other travellers on that stretch of the A40 were scurrying to work, or to Heathrow - I was plunging towards a sea the existence of which was insulated from the vulgar motivations I had shared until a few seconds before.
While queuing to make a left turn into Argyle Road I discovered that by changing the focus of my eyes I could cause the hallucination to vanish or to reappear. Such was my pleasure in this that I stopped the car and switched on my accident flashers, allowing the traffic to flow around me while I made teh sea appaer and disappear repeatedly.
On my cassette player a tape of the Chemical Brothers was playing. A sweet voiced woman was singing over the loops.
And I wished she would sing - that is really the sea
And I wanted her to sing - this isn't really the sea
And I wished she would sing for me - this is really the sea
And I wanted her to sing for me - this isn't really the sea
And I wanted her to sing - this is really the sea
And I wished she would sing - that isn't really the sea
And I wanted her to sing for me - this isn't really the sea
And I wished she would sing for me - this is really the sea