I have received some correspondence (yes, despite losing all of my hits I still have a regular reader) on the subject of my name. They write that they are happy to refer to me as "T". This is in return for my official permission, certified by strict guidelines handed to all local authorities by the regulatory company OFTD.
In today's Times you can see the desecration wreaked upon my given name, the appalling degredation of a once pleasant appellation. Imagine it given its own adjective, circa 1989: "oh my god, that's so T"; "you didn't, that is SO T"; "ho ho you are such a T". In case anyone is interested, all I will say is that appears in a picture on one of the news pages and it really is not funny, at all, really. It meant that a typical encounter circa 1990 went like this:
TD: Hello, my name's T.
Beautiful girl: fnarr fnarr, snurk snurk, yuk yuk! [walks off and points at TD at which loads of other tossers laugh].
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Did the Earth Move, Darling?
Yes, yes, alright. As a matter of fact I tried out this sexist gag on 3 female staff members today and I received: 2 blank looks, and 1 "actually no it didn't". So much for my attempts at flirting.
The earth _did_ move for me, owing to being somewhere not very far north of Reading (ie Caversham) and lying, alone* and asleep in bed. What happened was this. I was having a rubbish dream and I woke up with my bed shaking and my door rattling. As I am a twat, I assumed my bed was being shaken by a ghost and thought nothing more of it, while I was genuinely worried by the rattling of my door, as I _knew_ I had closed all my windows, which I rarely do because I like the fresh air.
Then I remembered that I did not like ghosts.
Then it stopped.
Then I looked at my clock: 12.57.
Then I thought it must of been an earthquake but it couldn't of been because no-one was awake even the ill 7 year old in the house and no alarms were going off, as I mistakenly assumed would happen in the aftermath of the world going wobbly.
Then** I thought the following, which is a disgrace to all rational creatures in all universes: I know for certain I have experienced something real and not a dream. And yet it was a damnfool thing and no other bugger has felt anything. All is silence and nothingness. I am mistaken. Ergo I am going to relegate the experience from "real" to "dream". This means that, still odd, the experience can be easily explained by reference to my defective psyche.
And thought nowt else until I heard Nicky Campbell's excitable screeching at circa 6.30am.
what a world, eh? Cah.
*= there is an equation for this, believe it or not. It is this. (TD)(being an arse) + (other people) = disregard/indifference. I cannot be bothered to reduce it further. It's too depressing.
**=Whatever. I'm using "then" deliberately, pointedly, even - ironically.
The earth _did_ move for me, owing to being somewhere not very far north of Reading (ie Caversham) and lying, alone* and asleep in bed. What happened was this. I was having a rubbish dream and I woke up with my bed shaking and my door rattling. As I am a twat, I assumed my bed was being shaken by a ghost and thought nothing more of it, while I was genuinely worried by the rattling of my door, as I _knew_ I had closed all my windows, which I rarely do because I like the fresh air.
Then I remembered that I did not like ghosts.
Then it stopped.
Then I looked at my clock: 12.57.
Then I thought it must of been an earthquake but it couldn't of been because no-one was awake even the ill 7 year old in the house and no alarms were going off, as I mistakenly assumed would happen in the aftermath of the world going wobbly.
Then** I thought the following, which is a disgrace to all rational creatures in all universes: I know for certain I have experienced something real and not a dream. And yet it was a damnfool thing and no other bugger has felt anything. All is silence and nothingness. I am mistaken. Ergo I am going to relegate the experience from "real" to "dream". This means that, still odd, the experience can be easily explained by reference to my defective psyche.
And thought nowt else until I heard Nicky Campbell's excitable screeching at circa 6.30am.
what a world, eh? Cah.
*= there is an equation for this, believe it or not. It is this. (TD)(being an arse) + (other people) = disregard/indifference. I cannot be bothered to reduce it further. It's too depressing.
**=Whatever. I'm using "then" deliberately, pointedly, even - ironically.
Friday, 22 February 2008
Thursday, 21 February 2008
I love politicans
Yes, I do. Who else, apart from drunken conservative bloggers, would mangle language, sense, thought and integrity, like this:
And Labour's former Europe minister Denis MacShane accused the Conservatives of having "the most rejectionist, isolationist position on partnership in Europe ever seen by any party in the history of this country".
Despite the almost palpable hysteria, it nearly sounds rational, and then you think: "What, you mean, apart from the many years when Labour wanted Britain out of the EEC altogether and was pretty open about it?" I just love the way we get two "ist" adjectives in the same phrase, which makes the poor thing sound less like a responsible member of the world's somthing biggest economy's government and more like a furious academic having just seen someone with a copy of The Daily Mail.
We also get this in the same article:
But Edward Davey, for the Liberal Democrats, said his party broadly welcomed the provisions.
He added: "Despite the hysteria being whipped up by some, the changes wrought by the treaty involve no new powers for Brussels but a simple and sensible reallocation of powers between those responsible for this area of policy.
"Foreign and security policy remains, as it always has been, in the control of member states. Britain controls its veto on all key decisions."
I have not read the Treaty but I do know a little bit about the meaning of the word "reallocation", and it usually involves moving something from somewhere to somewhere else. If it meant merely, reallocating powers within the UK government (ie from everyone else to Gordon Brown) there'd be no need for a treaty on it (duh!). So where are the powers being reallocated to, if not Brussels? And the "simple and sensible" is just great, lovely use of alliteration there to make it quite clear that anyone who doesn't agree is really an idiot. Despite all of this, there is very little actual content to this quotation, despite the final paragraph asserting something quite boldly. You would have thought that if the LibDems loved the EU that much they wouldn't try to be reassuring like that. Oh well.
you could call me a reactionary and a hypocrite for not slagging off the Tories here but, well, I didn't fancy it.
And Labour's former Europe minister Denis MacShane accused the Conservatives of having "the most rejectionist, isolationist position on partnership in Europe ever seen by any party in the history of this country".
Despite the almost palpable hysteria, it nearly sounds rational, and then you think: "What, you mean, apart from the many years when Labour wanted Britain out of the EEC altogether and was pretty open about it?" I just love the way we get two "ist" adjectives in the same phrase, which makes the poor thing sound less like a responsible member of the world's somthing biggest economy's government and more like a furious academic having just seen someone with a copy of The Daily Mail.
We also get this in the same article:
But Edward Davey, for the Liberal Democrats, said his party broadly welcomed the provisions.
He added: "Despite the hysteria being whipped up by some, the changes wrought by the treaty involve no new powers for Brussels but a simple and sensible reallocation of powers between those responsible for this area of policy.
"Foreign and security policy remains, as it always has been, in the control of member states. Britain controls its veto on all key decisions."
I have not read the Treaty but I do know a little bit about the meaning of the word "reallocation", and it usually involves moving something from somewhere to somewhere else. If it meant merely, reallocating powers within the UK government (ie from everyone else to Gordon Brown) there'd be no need for a treaty on it (duh!). So where are the powers being reallocated to, if not Brussels? And the "simple and sensible" is just great, lovely use of alliteration there to make it quite clear that anyone who doesn't agree is really an idiot. Despite all of this, there is very little actual content to this quotation, despite the final paragraph asserting something quite boldly. You would have thought that if the LibDems loved the EU that much they wouldn't try to be reassuring like that. Oh well.
you could call me a reactionary and a hypocrite for not slagging off the Tories here but, well, I didn't fancy it.
Yet Another Investigation
The government yesterday launched its several millionth inquiry, this time into why a disk containing the details of 15 foreign criminals was apparently _not_ stolen, but stayed, untouched on a civil servant's desk for over a year. Well, that's where I keep all my crap, anyway. In the long hours of deathly dull radio coverage I didn't hear anyone ask "why did we let these bastards in in the first place?" but I guess I already know the answer to that. Keith Vaz, now apparently rehabilitated and trying but just failing to sound like a statesman, defended the government's announcement on Radio Bloke by saying "Well you'd be angry if the government wasn't doing something...it's just unfortunate that all these things have gone missing lately" (slight paraphrase). Yes, Keith, is it unfortunate, and, clearly, nobody's fault: well, no-one who won't be paid off at vast expense anyway. I just love the way that Brown and his puppets actually think people are reassured by this guff. Or maybe, more likely, they don't care and it's just content-free noise to fill the spaces between our increasingly untended ears. Either way, looks like Vaz has achieved the feat of talking with only the larynx and without involving the higher brain centres at all, or duckspeaking.
Friday, 15 February 2008
Oh bloody hell, then, alright I'll say something really positive
It's Saturday tomorrow, bringing with it the infinite possibility of getting pissed. Yes! Get the fuck in!
Er...it's getting a bit lighter, sort of, day by day, sort of thing?
um...I might do a bit of reading or some maths...
ah...the EU might _not_ announce a new law, to be implemented across Europe, without possibility of repeal or lengthy debate in national "parliaments".
That's it, that's the one. Let's paaaartaaaaay! No new laws tomorrow! Get in!!!! wooooow!!! No new criminals, no additional regulation, no further control of day-to-day dealings between intelligent consenting adults (whatever progressives think of humans), no law which encourages the bastard British government to be even more assiduous watching us or for Guardian columnists to call all dissenters xenophobes (which happened around 1988 - about when Jacques Delors addressed the Labour Conference - before that the Common Market was the refuge of capitalist bastards and cunts of all kinds ) and accuse them of falsely claiming victimhood, ably supported by Viz (now a NuLab inhouse journal I am deeply and eternally sorry to say); no new excuse for the BBC to lament the currently "too-lightly regulated" x-sector(insert as applicable); no new excuse for socialists to crow about how the population are really cunts so this new law is utterly and totally essential and won't affect reasonable people at all and when it comes in scream that of course it affects x, how could it not?; no further opportunity for Lord "fuckwitted twat" Falconer to appear on all radio and tv channels, blocking the reception with his fat arrogant bastard fucking smug face - fuck me this really is cause for celebration. Break out the Stella and fast.
Or perhaps there is a new law tomorrow. I haven't checked.
Come on, TD, be positive.
Er...it's getting a bit lighter, sort of, day by day, sort of thing?
um...I might do a bit of reading or some maths...
ah...the EU might _not_ announce a new law, to be implemented across Europe, without possibility of repeal or lengthy debate in national "parliaments".
That's it, that's the one. Let's paaaartaaaaay! No new laws tomorrow! Get in!!!! wooooow!!! No new criminals, no additional regulation, no further control of day-to-day dealings between intelligent consenting adults (whatever progressives think of humans), no law which encourages the bastard British government to be even more assiduous watching us or for Guardian columnists to call all dissenters xenophobes (which happened around 1988 - about when Jacques Delors addressed the Labour Conference - before that the Common Market was the refuge of capitalist bastards and cunts of all kinds ) and accuse them of falsely claiming victimhood, ably supported by Viz (now a NuLab inhouse journal I am deeply and eternally sorry to say); no new excuse for the BBC to lament the currently "too-lightly regulated" x-sector(insert as applicable); no new excuse for socialists to crow about how the population are really cunts so this new law is utterly and totally essential and won't affect reasonable people at all and when it comes in scream that of course it affects x, how could it not?; no further opportunity for Lord "fuckwitted twat" Falconer to appear on all radio and tv channels, blocking the reception with his fat arrogant bastard fucking smug face - fuck me this really is cause for celebration. Break out the Stella and fast.
Or perhaps there is a new law tomorrow. I haven't checked.
Come on, TD, be positive.
On The Negativism of Things
This phenomenon, known as "the tin drummer is depressed about various piss-awful events in his ghastly, insignificant life"-syndrome, was documented in 1981 by the noted drummerologist "Miss Rochford", sometimes known as "the drummer's Reception teacher". It first appeared in his disgust at seeing the blue-jacketed back of his father walk away through the vast windows of his ancient HORSA classroom, back to the Hillman Hunter, and away from the screaming drummer, by now weeping in Miss Rochford's lap (and very comfy it was too). It subsequently appeared at various intervals: namely, 1986, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1998 and most years after.
It is barely an elusive phenomenon; the drummerologist "Hugh of Lincoln" noted its appearance at sporadic intervals and tied these together under the name "winter & alcohol", but failed, in the opinion of many critics, successfully to map the drummer's negativism onto real world events. The philosopher Phred Tap reckons that 2001 was a turning point. He writes: "the authoritarian victory of New Labour, versus the complete descent into populist incompetence of conservatism, wrecked the drummer's political mind for ever." (The Tin Drummer: A Political Reckoning) In Don't Stand So Close to Me (1999), the critic and historian Kymant Carshalton writes: "TD was a failed enterprise from the beginning: but this being the case, his efforts to carve a niche in the world were half-hearted to say the very least. Trying to get himself arrested by writing secretive libels of Tony Blair was, to put it generously, ignoble: to put it uncharitably, it was the act of a fool. And a twat."
Nonetheless, it seems that 2008 marked a descent into rabid rubbish negativism for the damn sake of it. The archivist Primus Eliot wrote in his monologue The Tin Drummer is All Measure of Value (2010) that: "...in this year [2008] the twat become heroically self-absorbed. Indeed, he was so obsessed with his personal problems he forgot to shit. This caused legendary problems at work, when he failed to turn up for a lesson for 42 minutes because he was trying to evacuate six weeks of garbage from his colon and in doing so bankrupted his school because the bog pipes were blocked for eight miles from the u-bend." Historian Nigel Ob wrote in his book Calling All the Hero (2009) that "the tin drummer became a crashing bore, clogging up the blogosphere with his bizarre, drunken, self-lacerating rantings. It was only later that he realised, to his eternal credit, that no-one gave a toss, and wanted him to shut the fuck up".
The contradictory nature of the last quote will not be lost on the reader.
However: the lesson was learned; the tin drummer continued to write - but he focused more on subjects he could be more positive about.
It is barely an elusive phenomenon; the drummerologist "Hugh of Lincoln" noted its appearance at sporadic intervals and tied these together under the name "winter & alcohol", but failed, in the opinion of many critics, successfully to map the drummer's negativism onto real world events. The philosopher Phred Tap reckons that 2001 was a turning point. He writes: "the authoritarian victory of New Labour, versus the complete descent into populist incompetence of conservatism, wrecked the drummer's political mind for ever." (The Tin Drummer: A Political Reckoning) In Don't Stand So Close to Me (1999), the critic and historian Kymant Carshalton writes: "TD was a failed enterprise from the beginning: but this being the case, his efforts to carve a niche in the world were half-hearted to say the very least. Trying to get himself arrested by writing secretive libels of Tony Blair was, to put it generously, ignoble: to put it uncharitably, it was the act of a fool. And a twat."
Nonetheless, it seems that 2008 marked a descent into rabid rubbish negativism for the damn sake of it. The archivist Primus Eliot wrote in his monologue The Tin Drummer is All Measure of Value (2010) that: "...in this year [2008] the twat become heroically self-absorbed. Indeed, he was so obsessed with his personal problems he forgot to shit. This caused legendary problems at work, when he failed to turn up for a lesson for 42 minutes because he was trying to evacuate six weeks of garbage from his colon and in doing so bankrupted his school because the bog pipes were blocked for eight miles from the u-bend." Historian Nigel Ob wrote in his book Calling All the Hero (2009) that "the tin drummer became a crashing bore, clogging up the blogosphere with his bizarre, drunken, self-lacerating rantings. It was only later that he realised, to his eternal credit, that no-one gave a toss, and wanted him to shut the fuck up".
The contradictory nature of the last quote will not be lost on the reader.
However: the lesson was learned; the tin drummer continued to write - but he focused more on subjects he could be more positive about.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Another Damn Valentine
Piss off, you damnfool twats, with your pseudo-romantic moneymaking gestures, your slighting of commitment for the one off splash, your fuck-awful pictures of rotting personalities behind beautiful bodies, your ghastly insistence on appearances, your fuckwitted obeisance to the god of sexual attraction, whoever it may be, that idiot deity who really ought to be shot and buried in a shallow grave.
Fuck me: once, loving someone meant attaching yourself, stitching your bodies and souls together so that you made a stronger defence against the storm tides of chance and bastard time. Now, it means: is his cock better than the other guy's? Are her tits a bit saggy? How good is the pussy I'm getting? How long does the cock last? A broken heart means an empty snatch or a pair of balls like two tins of fussell's milk (copyright Viz).
No-one gives a toss, no-one cares a single fuck for the idea that two people can, or even ought to, find themselves in each other, share a mystical or inexplicable attraction that solidifies until there is no telling between the two: once it gets tough, once you stop being basically fuck-buddies and something higher or more permanent threatens the lightly stained glass of your lives; once some prick turns up in a BMW or with some fuckawful job that makes him boss all the other cunts around, that's it - the "love" is gone and the relationship is over. So what? It wasn't fun anymore, it wasn't going anywhere, you stopped satisfying me, we stopped making sense, I wasn't feeling the vibes, we just weren't right, you turned out to be someone else.
So what? Who gives an arse? We're not monogamous anyway and any attempts to prove otherwise are doomed to failure once you've seen Milf Sluts Go Nuts Vol 42, not that I have. Jeesus, she comes like a train! He can go all night and look how hard he comes! Pornstars are the modern gods, except that they're largely unspoken leaders of our aims and ideologies (although apparently Jenna Jameson declared her support for Hillary C: fucking hell if I were a Yank I wouldn't be able to vote for Mike Huckabee fast enough). We're all too ashamed to admit that porn drives our images of male and female and that anyone who doesn't match up can fuck right off. I'm not saying that I don't, or that I'm shit in bed: whatever - who gives a flying fuck anyway?
Valentine's Day? Go fuck yourself, sonny, like a whole load of us have to.
So what if I'm bitter? It's hardly a valid criticism of a lemon, now is it?
Fuck me: once, loving someone meant attaching yourself, stitching your bodies and souls together so that you made a stronger defence against the storm tides of chance and bastard time. Now, it means: is his cock better than the other guy's? Are her tits a bit saggy? How good is the pussy I'm getting? How long does the cock last? A broken heart means an empty snatch or a pair of balls like two tins of fussell's milk (copyright Viz).
No-one gives a toss, no-one cares a single fuck for the idea that two people can, or even ought to, find themselves in each other, share a mystical or inexplicable attraction that solidifies until there is no telling between the two: once it gets tough, once you stop being basically fuck-buddies and something higher or more permanent threatens the lightly stained glass of your lives; once some prick turns up in a BMW or with some fuckawful job that makes him boss all the other cunts around, that's it - the "love" is gone and the relationship is over. So what? It wasn't fun anymore, it wasn't going anywhere, you stopped satisfying me, we stopped making sense, I wasn't feeling the vibes, we just weren't right, you turned out to be someone else.
So what? Who gives an arse? We're not monogamous anyway and any attempts to prove otherwise are doomed to failure once you've seen Milf Sluts Go Nuts Vol 42, not that I have. Jeesus, she comes like a train! He can go all night and look how hard he comes! Pornstars are the modern gods, except that they're largely unspoken leaders of our aims and ideologies (although apparently Jenna Jameson declared her support for Hillary C: fucking hell if I were a Yank I wouldn't be able to vote for Mike Huckabee fast enough). We're all too ashamed to admit that porn drives our images of male and female and that anyone who doesn't match up can fuck right off. I'm not saying that I don't, or that I'm shit in bed: whatever - who gives a flying fuck anyway?
Valentine's Day? Go fuck yourself, sonny, like a whole load of us have to.
So what if I'm bitter? It's hardly a valid criticism of a lemon, now is it?
The Valentine's Day Post
Bollocks to it. Bollocks to everything.
Come on, you didn't seriously expect me to say anything else, did you?
Come on, you didn't seriously expect me to say anything else, did you?
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Criminy (again)
Cop this.
Well fuck me (if you like, I can always give you my mobile number). Another study by taxpaid academics telling us we're all going to die. Listen you twats. We know this already. It's what happens to organic creatures. This time, "health experts" (the modern bishops) are telling us that "loads of us are going to die" when "it gets hot", as if loads of people didn't die when the climate was more to their liking, ie 1946-7 and 1962-3, to give two examples of what we are now supposed to believe is natural and good (you can have 1981-2 and others too if you like).
Question: how many fully paid up climatologists work for the Department of Health? My guess: somewhat fewer than the number of functional hair follicles on my head.
Still, I'd be happily proved wrong. Again.
Anyhoo, I have a solution. Reach for a cold one. Now. I've just done it - it works, I feel quite cool, in fact, although I am conflating different meanings of cool, obviously. But if the government took responsibility for ensuring that every household had, say, 10 tins of Stella in a fully functional fridge, these appalling projected deaths could be reduced. It could be called the "Sure Stella" project, and, needless to say, would need to be carefully aimed at the most vulnerable people, to stop those middle-class bastards muscling in yet again, cunts that they are. In fact each adult could have a Stella allowance, depending on their parentage and education. If you had a degree, say, you'd be expected to find your own source, whereas if you spent your teenage years drinking, you'd get it given to you by the government. Neat, huh? Some people may argue that drinking Stella causes dehydration. So what? you can line your stomach with water as much as you like; it's the fact of the Stella's coldness that counts.
Well fuck me (if you like, I can always give you my mobile number). Another study by taxpaid academics telling us we're all going to die. Listen you twats. We know this already. It's what happens to organic creatures. This time, "health experts" (the modern bishops) are telling us that "loads of us are going to die" when "it gets hot", as if loads of people didn't die when the climate was more to their liking, ie 1946-7 and 1962-3, to give two examples of what we are now supposed to believe is natural and good (you can have 1981-2 and others too if you like).
Question: how many fully paid up climatologists work for the Department of Health? My guess: somewhat fewer than the number of functional hair follicles on my head.
Still, I'd be happily proved wrong. Again.
Anyhoo, I have a solution. Reach for a cold one. Now. I've just done it - it works, I feel quite cool, in fact, although I am conflating different meanings of cool, obviously. But if the government took responsibility for ensuring that every household had, say, 10 tins of Stella in a fully functional fridge, these appalling projected deaths could be reduced. It could be called the "Sure Stella" project, and, needless to say, would need to be carefully aimed at the most vulnerable people, to stop those middle-class bastards muscling in yet again, cunts that they are. In fact each adult could have a Stella allowance, depending on their parentage and education. If you had a degree, say, you'd be expected to find your own source, whereas if you spent your teenage years drinking, you'd get it given to you by the government. Neat, huh? Some people may argue that drinking Stella causes dehydration. So what? you can line your stomach with water as much as you like; it's the fact of the Stella's coldness that counts.
Monday, 11 February 2008
My Neem - My Name's Tegan Jovanka
The title of this post refers to a legendarily fluffed line from Janet Fielding in Doctor Who's 1981 epic Logopolis. To this day I have no idea why the BBC allowed such a blatantly fucked line to be recorded; perhaps they were running out of time or something.
Anyway. Giving your name to someone is a big deal and to me it's always been a doubly difficult ordeal, because I have a totally embarrassing name, at least if you were a child of the 80s and early 90s.
A typical conversation would go a bit like this:
"Hello, my name's Phil."
"Er, hi, I'm TD."
"TD, [sniggers], hey - I've got loadsamoney, loadsamoney, hey have you heard this - "oooow, god, you never let me do anything, tsk, god, tsk, tchoh..."
and so on. Obviously my name isn't TD, but it stands for [substitute name you couldn't hear without sniggering between 1986 and 1996].
Even though this phase of history seems to have passed I still loathe telling people my name, and prefer to take the age old route of anonymity. By a staggering coincidence, most of the people I meet are not interested in knowing my name, despite telling me everything from their favourite cereal to the sexual position that causes them most difficulty. I like such people. They cause me no trouble and I learn a lot from them, such as their work problems, their relationship "issues", their troubled childhood and their fears about death (I've heard it all before, honestly. You could have no fear of death that I haven't heard, indeed shared). Given that people have been anonymous or pseudonymous since we were scrawling damnfool images on caves, it seems a bit odd for certain bloggers to demand to know the identity of everyone who posts, but that is by the bye. I can just imagine a conversation between my tutor and me circa 1997:
"so, TD, what do you think of the Owl and the Nightingale?"
"Well, it needs to be discounted on the basis that the author omitted their name. I mean, for all we know it could of been the Pearl poet sock-puppeting."
"But-but that's outrageous. Sock-puppetry is-"
etc.
So I try not to give my name unless absolutely necessary. At least if people do know it then they don't call me "mate", "pal" or "bro" (not that I get called bro very often). Instead they call me "T" (which stands for "even more embarrassing shortened form of embarrassing name"); which is totally unacceptable unless I have clearly given them permission to do so. At time of counting only 2 people have the right to call me this, not counting my parents, who do not, and never will have, permission, but who call me this anyway.
Why have I set upon this diversion? Because I am bored, and a little tipsy, and not working, and I cannot be bothered to indulge a long rant about the government's latest folly against civil liberties, whatever it is (let me guess - it's an entitlement, or right of some kind).
"My neem - my name's Tegan Jovanka. I'd like to speak to the pilot."
So would I, my dear, so would I.
Anyway. Giving your name to someone is a big deal and to me it's always been a doubly difficult ordeal, because I have a totally embarrassing name, at least if you were a child of the 80s and early 90s.
A typical conversation would go a bit like this:
"Hello, my name's Phil."
"Er, hi, I'm TD."
"TD, [sniggers], hey - I've got loadsamoney, loadsamoney, hey have you heard this - "oooow, god, you never let me do anything, tsk, god, tsk, tchoh..."
and so on. Obviously my name isn't TD, but it stands for [substitute name you couldn't hear without sniggering between 1986 and 1996].
Even though this phase of history seems to have passed I still loathe telling people my name, and prefer to take the age old route of anonymity. By a staggering coincidence, most of the people I meet are not interested in knowing my name, despite telling me everything from their favourite cereal to the sexual position that causes them most difficulty. I like such people. They cause me no trouble and I learn a lot from them, such as their work problems, their relationship "issues", their troubled childhood and their fears about death (I've heard it all before, honestly. You could have no fear of death that I haven't heard, indeed shared). Given that people have been anonymous or pseudonymous since we were scrawling damnfool images on caves, it seems a bit odd for certain bloggers to demand to know the identity of everyone who posts, but that is by the bye. I can just imagine a conversation between my tutor and me circa 1997:
"so, TD, what do you think of the Owl and the Nightingale?"
"Well, it needs to be discounted on the basis that the author omitted their name. I mean, for all we know it could of been the Pearl poet sock-puppeting."
"But-but that's outrageous. Sock-puppetry is-"
etc.
So I try not to give my name unless absolutely necessary. At least if people do know it then they don't call me "mate", "pal" or "bro" (not that I get called bro very often). Instead they call me "T" (which stands for "even more embarrassing shortened form of embarrassing name"); which is totally unacceptable unless I have clearly given them permission to do so. At time of counting only 2 people have the right to call me this, not counting my parents, who do not, and never will have, permission, but who call me this anyway.
Why have I set upon this diversion? Because I am bored, and a little tipsy, and not working, and I cannot be bothered to indulge a long rant about the government's latest folly against civil liberties, whatever it is (let me guess - it's an entitlement, or right of some kind).
"My neem - my name's Tegan Jovanka. I'd like to speak to the pilot."
So would I, my dear, so would I.
Friday, 8 February 2008
We Have To Shout Above The Din Of Our Rice Krispies
Mornings are an arse. The best morning I can think of is Mornington Crescent. Mornings are even worse when, emerging from an amazing dream (see posts passim on the subject of sub-Freudian lucid dreams), one is immediately faced with the appalling prospect of work. I hate nothing more than the individual who defines themselves by their work. Whose purpose in life consists entirely of proving to others that they are more than capable of bossing them around in the service either of some ghastly abstract ideal which inevitably involves treating individuals like shit; or, of subsuming everything they have into some project or construction: with the results that when one deals with the actual, living offshoots of a "life's work" they are fucked up, selfish, weird personalities. I understand that people need a purpose to survive; and also that people have vocations of one kind or another; but that one should die with "I wish I'd spend more time in the office" on one's lips is a betrayal of all that humanity can do, of all that a human being could achieve if they looked outside their fucking paperclips for five short, lonely, life-changing minutes.
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Learning a New Vocabulary
The vocabulary of being single has always fascinated me: from a distance of course. I have always enjoyed watching people flirt, snog and pair off (I'm _not_ saying that i am obsessed with porn, by the way) - but I have never had a clue how to do it myself. Now I find myself again at the point at which I need to understand this grammar, this linguistics - but haven't a clue.
For example.
Today on a course I meet a very nice woman, who wears no jewellery. In my pisspoor vocab banks I assume this means something. Accordingly I flirt with her, laugh and enjoy her company: she seems to like me, and asks about other stuff about me. Later our eyes meet across the crowded room, three times (c. star struck lovers of various kinds) - and afterwards, her first two words?
"My" and, appallingly, shockingly, "boyfriend."
Fucking hell. I see no way I could have predicted this, unless I was reading the grammar entirely mistakenly; unless I was giving wholly wrong values for x. So what was the problem? Was the equation quadratic, instead of linear? Did I screw up the manipulation of negative numbers?
What had she been saying, and how? Had she, indeed, been saying anything at all?
I vaguely remember all this from the 24 years before - and now I find myself exactly where I was then. What are people saying and what does it mean when they touch you, or doesn't mean, or would mean if you wanted it to mean, or might mean if you were also thinking that it meant, or could mean if you made it mean that?
I am told, by certain of my friends, that "men" apparently do, regularly, seduce "women" (I am told that there are various other permutations but I have no idea about these at all): how do they do it? What do they have to be to do it?
If we took x as being "a man, of variously unattractive appearance" and y as being "a woman, of uncertain, even irrelevant appearance" then how do we make x=y?
As I see it, it works something like this:
(x+k)(x+m)=y
where k=appropriate conversation
and m=appropriate twinkles in eyes.
But if I reckon it correctly, this gives
x2 + kx + xm + km = y
which is fair enough, except that I simply cannot provide km. And as for x2, that is just bloody awful.
If you suggested that the equation needed a further variable, ie p, where p="looks"*, then it might look something like this:
p(x+k)(x+m) =y
which I simply cannot provide at all, I am afraid. Ie - the equation holds true for x=0 and only x=0.
*=and where "looks" are defined as: not being a slob, not being bald, not being short, not being a bit boss-eyed, not having sloping shoulders and not walking funny.
I started this pile of old horseshit by talking about grammar and ended with equations. This reflects my utter disenchantment with the eternally ambivalent world of the humanities, and my wish that I was good at something real, something either true or not true, ie maths.
Fuck me I need a drink. But it's late and I've got work tomorrow. Damn. Piss and wind. Bollocks.
For example.
Today on a course I meet a very nice woman, who wears no jewellery. In my pisspoor vocab banks I assume this means something. Accordingly I flirt with her, laugh and enjoy her company: she seems to like me, and asks about other stuff about me. Later our eyes meet across the crowded room, three times (c. star struck lovers of various kinds) - and afterwards, her first two words?
"My" and, appallingly, shockingly, "boyfriend."
Fucking hell. I see no way I could have predicted this, unless I was reading the grammar entirely mistakenly; unless I was giving wholly wrong values for x. So what was the problem? Was the equation quadratic, instead of linear? Did I screw up the manipulation of negative numbers?
What had she been saying, and how? Had she, indeed, been saying anything at all?
I vaguely remember all this from the 24 years before - and now I find myself exactly where I was then. What are people saying and what does it mean when they touch you, or doesn't mean, or would mean if you wanted it to mean, or might mean if you were also thinking that it meant, or could mean if you made it mean that?
I am told, by certain of my friends, that "men" apparently do, regularly, seduce "women" (I am told that there are various other permutations but I have no idea about these at all): how do they do it? What do they have to be to do it?
If we took x as being "a man, of variously unattractive appearance" and y as being "a woman, of uncertain, even irrelevant appearance" then how do we make x=y?
As I see it, it works something like this:
(x+k)(x+m)=y
where k=appropriate conversation
and m=appropriate twinkles in eyes.
But if I reckon it correctly, this gives
x2 + kx + xm + km = y
which is fair enough, except that I simply cannot provide km. And as for x2, that is just bloody awful.
If you suggested that the equation needed a further variable, ie p, where p="looks"*, then it might look something like this:
p(x+k)(x+m) =y
which I simply cannot provide at all, I am afraid. Ie - the equation holds true for x=0 and only x=0.
*=and where "looks" are defined as: not being a slob, not being bald, not being short, not being a bit boss-eyed, not having sloping shoulders and not walking funny.
I started this pile of old horseshit by talking about grammar and ended with equations. This reflects my utter disenchantment with the eternally ambivalent world of the humanities, and my wish that I was good at something real, something either true or not true, ie maths.
Fuck me I need a drink. But it's late and I've got work tomorrow. Damn. Piss and wind. Bollocks.
A Close Shave
Ow. For fuck's sake that hurts, fuck me I have a face looking like a key stage two exam paper. jeesus.
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Erk.
God the end of that last post was mawkish, selfish, sentimental and awful, but rather than edit it out of existence I'll leave as evidence of my hamfisted attempts to write something sincere. Of course we're glad of Sir Bobby's survival. For fuck's sake what a shitheaded thing to write. What I mean is - oh, forget it. You know what I mean but I can't write it.
A Beauty Scored by Bobby Charlton
Alas your humble drummer is, as predicted, _working_. This ghastly state of affairs, nearly as awful as sobriety, means that I am unable to post with the vigour and intelligence my readers have not come to expect.
So, today, given our nearness to the Munich disaster, and football's sudden discovery of history (a close companion to cricket fans), a quotation from the great man, courtesy of the Daily Getsworse:
Even now, 50 years later, it reaches down and touches me every day. Sometimes I feel it quite lightly, a mere brush stroke across an otherwise happy mood. Sometimes it engulfs me with terrible regret and sadness - and guilt that I walked away and achieved so much. Everything I have been able to achieve since that day has been accompanied by a simple question - why me?
We've heard, read, about this phenomenon, but to hear it from one of our footballing greats (our only surviving one, maybe?) is stalling and frightening. Like Harry Patch, 109, who lived for 80 years without talking about the Western Front (until his family were dying and there was no longer any reason to bury the memories),Sir Bobby has kept a lot of this to himself until very recently. Could it be - just possibly - that you _need_ to suppress, if not repress, awful memories in order to survive, because they will come and bite you on the arse anyway, so why would you want to give them free rein on your rotund and peachy buttocks?
Er..where was I...well, anyway, you get the point. As I've said before, and as Will Self wrote in _Grey Area_, the talking cure may well in fact be the talking curse.
And if you want TD to open up about his problems you can fuck right off.
Tsk. Typical of me to turn a post about Sir Bobby Charlton into a post about myself. I need to talk less and think more, since the two are mutually exclusive. My talk is a series of lies, designed for an audience, a script and a load of bullshit.
And as for my blogging....
Sir Bobby, we have no idea how you feel, and to pretend otherwise is impertinent, arrogant and ghastly. Nonetheless. We are glad for your survival. More, probably, than you will ever know.
So, today, given our nearness to the Munich disaster, and football's sudden discovery of history (a close companion to cricket fans), a quotation from the great man, courtesy of the Daily Getsworse:
Even now, 50 years later, it reaches down and touches me every day. Sometimes I feel it quite lightly, a mere brush stroke across an otherwise happy mood. Sometimes it engulfs me with terrible regret and sadness - and guilt that I walked away and achieved so much. Everything I have been able to achieve since that day has been accompanied by a simple question - why me?
We've heard, read, about this phenomenon, but to hear it from one of our footballing greats (our only surviving one, maybe?) is stalling and frightening. Like Harry Patch, 109, who lived for 80 years without talking about the Western Front (until his family were dying and there was no longer any reason to bury the memories),Sir Bobby has kept a lot of this to himself until very recently. Could it be - just possibly - that you _need_ to suppress, if not repress, awful memories in order to survive, because they will come and bite you on the arse anyway, so why would you want to give them free rein on your rotund and peachy buttocks?
Er..where was I...well, anyway, you get the point. As I've said before, and as Will Self wrote in _Grey Area_, the talking cure may well in fact be the talking curse.
And if you want TD to open up about his problems you can fuck right off.
Tsk. Typical of me to turn a post about Sir Bobby Charlton into a post about myself. I need to talk less and think more, since the two are mutually exclusive. My talk is a series of lies, designed for an audience, a script and a load of bullshit.
And as for my blogging....
Sir Bobby, we have no idea how you feel, and to pretend otherwise is impertinent, arrogant and ghastly. Nonetheless. We are glad for your survival. More, probably, than you will ever know.
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