Tuesday, October 26
John Peel is dead. It still doesn't compute. My brain seems to keep rejecting this information, waiting until it's changed to something else which it can understand. I don't know why it's having this difficulty. If you asked me yesterday about Peel's effect on my life I'd answer that it was negliable, I've never listened to his shows despite knowing that really I should, and so I've never felt the same affection for him that I felt for Mark and Lard (before they went shit) or Steve and Jo (before they went shit) or for the
Manics or
Suede or
Ooberman, or in more recent years,
Everett True.
John Peel was a national institution though. I may have not listened to his shows, but like other national institutions whose services I may or may not partake of regularly, like the NHS or the whole of the BBC for example, it's reassuring to just know that they're there, doing what they do. Now who's going to play death metal at the wrong speed, closely followed by
Fierce Panda b-sides?
The world is a darker and more sorrowful place without him.
23:50
