I've mentioned this particular aphorism before now and will, undoubtedly, have another go at it from time to time. Such is my way.

I've recently returned from a weekend in Paris with a long-standing good friend. We planned very little except the accommodation and rail-journey. I say "we". It's probably more down to "him". Still, I helped pay, so I was at the very least complicit. The fact that we seldom planned much of what we were going to do except in the moment, meant that we could not, at any stage of the way, fail to meet our expectations. I think we made the most of the trip, following quirky routes through the city and through the tourist experience, with good humour and good results. I may or may not blog on the highlights of the trip at some point.

Thus, the major steps of the plan worked and the plan to have no plan also worked. A bit of time away from my day-to-day life gave me much room to think about things I want to plan. I had the opportunity to plan some steps in the chess game that life sometimes turns itself into. Some of the things which occurred to me as good ideas have been acted upon already, some have not. Of course, these things, being mini plans in their own right, have the potential to gang a-gley.

But since life is a whirlpool of uncontrollable chaos, perhaps one's ability to roll with the punches, and turn the ugliness of "a-gley" into something better, is the key. Perhaps it's not just the destination, but the journey and its pitfalls which make life worth living. Perhaps this is just a bunch of pseudo-intellectual/spiritual claptrap which the 33 year old computer programmer likes to blether about in the vain hope of looking like he has more than just logic circuits and cheese on the brain. We'll never know.

This week, like the rest of the weeks in July, is going to be a bit of a busy one. A lot of a busy one, if I'm honest. To add busy to it by trying to do more, is not a recipe for an easy time. However, I don't enjoy easy... Ok, I DO enjoy easy, but I seldom find the things I enjoy to be easy, so striving through tricky stuff is the order of the day.

Maybe Robert Burns was right when he said "Good evening, my names Burns, Rabbie Burns" - I think that was his catchphrase. I don't know. Most of my apparent appreciation of literature is a collection of small details, laced together with pomposity. Still, admitting you have a problem is the first step towards solving it.