There is a danger in the last two posts. In both I imply that the rages of youth might turn inevitably to the accommodations of middle age and that this transition applies to culture at large. Extend that backwards and forwards and we are no better than trees. In the worst case scenario I could view these steps as inevitable and I would turn miraculously in to a conservative peer, an archbishop, or Kingsley Amis in a couple of years time. However at any real moment I could of course hemorrhage a whole evenings contrived spectacle organised by Simon Cowell and fronted by Ant and Dec to make me believe such nonsense, laced with motifs of horrific conformity, soporific idiocy, and where any idea of personal happiness comes down to a fifty fifty chance of red or black - the throw of the dice so why should I bother - or a million pound drop, both employing the subliminal 'fall'.
I could, at any moment, turn off the TV and shove on all four sides of Physical Graffiti one by one at great volume and dance naked around the living room and face the consequences tomorrow with grim determination. There is also probably a rapper somewhere knocking out a perfectly resonant 'Poem de l'Angle Doit' right now. He's not on X Factor, but you have to believe only the powers that be are stopping him.
Oswald Spengler spent a whole lot of effort with The Decline of the West miserably anthropomorphising culture to make all civilisations look the same. If you take him seriously you might as well worship Ra. If Spengler was right, and of course he may be technically, he is also at least totally depressing and deeply unhelpful, because if you think Ra is OK, then Teutonic Knights might not be so bad either, and we know where that gets you. Teutonic Nights should remain an as yet unrecorded track by Iron Maiden.
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