itunes 9.2 and the song which was

It has been unusually humid. Late last night, I wallowed naked on the sofa and emptied out my pores. An oil slick on the upholstery.

Granted, we have slipped into July on a tide of televised soccer, but it takes me by surprise every year. The widget reads 17°C as I type, yet the windows are flung open to the late morning drizzle.

The sounds pour in until our apartment resembles a small factory. Hammers rising and raining down. Bald rubber tyres throwing up a surf.

And the trains. Always the trains. Harassing late into the night. The bastard son of Ernest Borgnine, rattling chains.

By whatever trick of physics, every tortured creak is amplified. Floating up to the 22nd floor like a noxious gas. At 2:00 AM we might catch every second word of a whispered conversation at street level, an altercation three blocks away.

That anomaly has made me its bitch.

The canvas blind comes undone and flaps wildly until I get up and rescue it. Really, there is no need for it at all. Nobody can see me padding back and forth. In undershorts. Scowling. I tie it down because I can't stand the way it gets plucked out the window to dance like a flag. A surrender from the projects. It takes me two or three attempts to properly secure it. Knocking the cigarette across my face. In the end I am tempted to set it alight.

I have not slept properly for weeks. I fall into it fitfully. When I succeed in snatching a few minutes of slack jawed death, a gale of snoring rouses my wife.

"ib!" she gurgles. "You're snoring again, you bastard. I can't take much more of this."

Not so much a gurgle as a snap, if I am honest. A ginger snap. A sentry with elbows as sharp as any bayonet.

The blind has worked itself loose again. A wind is working up from south, rushing in from the kitchen and forcing me away from the keyboard. Reminding me that I punctuate my afternoons with squandered words.

I can't remember why I began this post. I think it was my intention to warn one and all not to update software. To the tune of 9.2, specifically. A terrible build.

In architectural terms, it is every bit as awful as a high rise apartment block. Full of holes and crippling corners.

I suspect this might be of little interest to you. Well. Upgrade at your peril. It might not screw your metadata, but it may just metaphysically f@ck with your head. Still. It's not all bad. Macintosh might not be the open source pugilist of old, but at least it is not Microsoft. I may lean out my window, like Dylan's distant neighbour, but that does not necessarily labour the fan.

When I sat down originally what I wanted to say was this. Don't be seduced by what everyone else is wearing. You just might wake up to find yourself stopping traffic in Hirohito's burned robes.

Another fat ass dribbling cellulite on the hard shoulder. The slow lane at best.

And. The circular saw has started up at last.

Of course. I am in no position to dole out advice. Next time your train idles on those last few hundred yards of rail, paused brokenly on the approach to Glasgow Central, lift your chin off your chest and sneak a glance at that high rise jutting south east of the river. Grey and black like a rotten incisor.

If you see a torn curtain flagging there, you will know I've given up.