"And slip, as life as bound to slip, into this entropy disorder"

There's something about being twenty-seven which makes one think about death, dying and death almost constantly. I remember seeing an Axl Rose interview where he was discussing how he said Prince had remarked on it being a difficult age. I don't see how I could give an exposition more lucid or on higher authority than that. Not if we factor in the the divine right of Prince.

Part of the motivation for pondering death 24/7 (or 12/6 - with 12 hours for sleeping and the Sabbath off) is that it prevents one's attention being drawn to the twitching sociopaths and exploding commuters that corral the sleepy Londonite on the 8.25 to Blackfriars. Working for the man takes on an extra bite when you're riding that circus of pain to work every day. It can also be handy to distract one from useful work (the curse of the thinking classes) and of course human contact.

More to the point, 27 IS a difficult age. Too old to do anything fun and too young to throw your hands up in the air and start sleeping with teenagers, you're trapped in the Telford Shopping Centre of life (pre- the funky wishing well). The limbo before the inevitable decline into well-deserved cantank and spleen. Like the adolescent hanging around Woolworths (the one next to Our Price which was then a crap Virgin which stocked the Tom Waits back catalogue) the slightest frustration is amplified from tremors to earthquakes. The fact that they don't have "Big Time" makes you afraid for your corporeal integrity. Why? At 27 you're aware at last that you won't leave a good-looking corpse.

More death to come.