My challenge today: to make this dead fish marry the idea of time accelerating. Is it merely an idea, or are the days, weeks and months racing by at rates previously reserved for seconds, minutes and hours? Of course the explanation might be a purely mechanical: a month in 2009 is roughly 1/600 of my lifespan thus far. In 1969 it represented only 1/130; 1/24 in late 1960. Whether or not the whole train is rattling along more swiftly, it seems that anything not meant to be on board these days is flying out the windows. As the clackety-clack grows ever more insistent, we passengers are appraising the bundles in our laps, before things get torn from our grips regardless. Damp squibs, flotsam, and white elephants; gewgaws, small beer and small potatoes: they gotta go. What’s worth keeping? I ask myself this question most days, in one form or another, and for now I’m sticking with fresh veges, breathing more, true friends, the book I’m reading, and Scrubs. It’s on … have to go. What? The fish? It was found on the beach at the foot of a cliff — 100 metres below the train track.