Superstition (Stuffed Birds II)

I was sitting in the back room of the Golden Hart with Howard and Lisa soon after I'd made the discovery that I'd had the bad luck to have MS. I suddenly became superstitious and threw away a coin that I'd been carrying around with me. It was an American penny that I had found on a London street, Abraham Lincoln had been brutally disfigured by someone with a chisel. The coin looked malevolent and I felt sure that it was responsible for my illness, I was quite drunk so it was an easy mistake to make.

Superstition is unusual for me, an atheist who understands the world through a philosophy of determinism, denying people the free will that they mistakenly trust in. I surprised myself when I became much more superstitious over the following year, and coincidental events seemed to justify this. I even started drawing tarot cards to help me make important decisions.

I realised that it may not have been the cent coin alone that was bringing me bad luck. After Lisa had given me a seagull for Christmas, which I received shortly after I threw the penny away, I bought a stuffed magpie. Not a thing for a committed vegetarian but it was very old and quite magnificent. Shortly after I got the magpie Lisa left me. I remember that other misfortunate events occurred, although I can not recall now exactly what they were. I bought another magpie from ebay ('one for sorrow, two for joy') which, according to a note that came with it 'was found dead in the Christmas of 1931 in the churchyard.' It looked like a dead bird that you might see on the ground, turned upside down and mounted on a plinth.

Directly after I acquired this second magpie I met Consuelo, which seemed to validate my superstition.

Consuelo hated the stuffed magpies and had me sell them on gumtree. Incidentally, a computer error made it impossible to erase my advert for about two years, and I received emails almost daily asking if they were still available. Strangely, almost all of the enquiries were from women. Fortunately, my superstitious tendencies disappeared with the stuffed birds. I wanted to get a tattoo of a single magpie over my heart to prove it but tattoos aren't really my thing and, besides, I have an overwhelming, irrational fear of needles.

I wrote a song for my band The Projects which features the birds and the coin and Lisa leaving me called 'Unhappy House.' It is a spiteful song but it was lots of fun to play live. The guitar part is very easy, you just hit the 'a' string and move your left hand on the fretboard at random if you fancy it. I used a tremolo pedal with my old fucked up Vox AC50, which doesn't sound quite so supreme now that I have replaced its faulty capacitors, and it was good!