People often want change because they are full of hate: they loathe what exists, so they want to replace it with what has never existed, on the basis of some damnfool theory, or on the basis precisely that it has never existed and they wish it to. People sometimes want change because they loathe the idea that the world does not encompass their worldview, and they want it encoded in all legal apparatus that they think x and that to not think x is downright offensive, indeed, an incitement to hatred. Which brings us back to our starting point. People think that because x is offensive to y, that the law ought to be changed for z too, and that anyone else who happens to exist, or yet to be created, out of a whim or whatever, must conform to it also because to be offensive to y is an offence, whereas to be offensive to t is alright. I love this idea: x does not affirm my worldview hence you, y, or whoever you are, need to bear this in mind whenever you make any kind of statement that may or may not be taken as public. If only we all had access to this: I'd make disapproval of Doctor Who an incitement to hatred on the basis that if someone said it in my earshot I'd deck the fucker. And be immune from prosection, because the twat "q" had incited me. What a cool legal principle. What I also love about thought-crime legislation is that opposition to it is, de facto, hatred, so just not agreeing with the law might end you with chokey. Indeed, stating any kind of opposition to anything a liberal doesn't like is in itself a vile act of provocation and hate. I _so_ wish I was in government, I'd ban everything just for a laugh. Plus I'd just one day say "well a has been the case for thousands of years, so now I'm abolishing it as any kind of principle and replacing it with b for no better reason than that this shows my power plus it makes me look good with people who matter". That would be ace. And even better, if I could then say "well the peer-reviewed science shows that anyone who disagrees with me is a fuckwitted twat".
I also love the idea of "peer review". As things stand, my peers think I am a) as clever as fuck; b)a twat; c)lazy; d) an arse, e) an idiot and f) a lunatic. Which of these peer reviews do we take as "truth"? (c Pontius Pilate) Well, b), c) and e), at a guess. But then again the writer of b) is a cunt; of c) an idiot who I haven't seen for years and of e) a dickhead who once didn't like the fact that I wowed the women more than him. The writer of a) is currently in prison. How cool is that: you self-select a group who agree with your assumptions, then you say that they agree with you hence you are right. What a fantastic example of recursion. Having said that, the writer of b) is an expert in twats, so it is inappropriate to disagree with him, even though I don't think I am a twat. Also the writer of e) is a linguist who knows the detailed etymology of the word "dickhead" and has written several treatises on why I am one. However, I _am not_ and so the sub-thesis fails, however well the peer review process appears to work. So not quite so self-selected, but still bloody incestuous, the bunch of arseholes.
But then, no bastard would vote for me in the first place, so I'd be fucked. Oh wait, I might be able to ban everything under some European law or other so I might not need to worry about those twat voters. Everything must be banned. We are all untrustworthy so we must start from the premise that we need to redouble our efforts to win the trust of our government (c Brecht); and therefore we must prove identities, prove suitabilities, prove the lack of murderous, sexually deviant intentions. We must prove. We must prove. We must improve.
Which brings us, once again to our starting point: I hate the government. I'm sure there's a law against that.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
SoberBlogging (Still)
Still off the booze as far as posting is concerned (not as far as real life is concerned, mind); it doesn't half make blogging tough work. Blimey I'm literally breaking out into a mild episode of writer's block trying to think up stuff to write - a problem I never have after a few Stellas and some crisps, and maybe a few nuts or pork scratchings or a kebab or something.
Making Yourself Invisible
*warning* This is a post about weird stuff, not science, as such, and I thought, essentially, that I'd plagiarise Dizzy's post on ayahuasca type drugs. Incidentally I wonder if he has read Graham Hancock?
This idea came up in a conversation at the weekend (I was sober, so were my interlocutors). My friend said that someone they knew had actually made themselves invisible: through power of thought, or through some other process, and had avoided her friends looking for her. As if she had been watching the scene unfold on a television, or so it seemed to me. I wasn't sure if it was intentional or not, but the implication was that it had just happened, there and then, like a thought coming to you out of nowhere. Crime & Punishment aside, the question is, not how (we'll leave that for a moment) but why? In the context of the story it was not as though the person had ceased to exist: they were thinking, and standing, and watching. They just had no corporeal existence. They couldn't influence or change anything ("it's all too late," etc etc - see TD posts passim) but were somehow there and not there. So it's not really being Godlike - more like being Christlike I suppose - but a momentary fact, one you accept and enter into. I don't remember in the story the person being scared or wishing to return to sight although they did, eventually. I can see it or read it (hmmm, visual metaphors for an auditory experience) as a kind of death-wish: as one of those ghastly Joy Division loving teenagers I would stare into a mirror for minutes at a time and imagine that I was flipping or zipping out of existence for a moment; sometimes it seemed real enough until I moved, or coughed, or something. but it was something to be desired - not to not be noticed, or anything so shallow, but to be literally unphysical: soul, maybe. So perhaps it's not a death-wish after all but a desire to return to religious or spiritual roots - a satire on materialism, even (what would happen if I divested myself of all belongings, including my body, but continued to exist? aha, but you can't...).
Unfortunately at the time of the conversation I was able only to nod and hmmm a bit. It has been too long since I've actually had real conversations with real human beings about things other than work, mathematics and New Labour.
None of this post is to be taken as "uh ho, TD has gone off the deep end", if you don't mind, dear reader. I haven't gone off the deep end, though anyone who has regularly read this blog should know that I stand on it by my own volition, unable to believe that the limited perceptions of a flawed and inconsistent being can be in any way true to what I hope is the infinite majesty of creation.
This idea came up in a conversation at the weekend (I was sober, so were my interlocutors). My friend said that someone they knew had actually made themselves invisible: through power of thought, or through some other process, and had avoided her friends looking for her. As if she had been watching the scene unfold on a television, or so it seemed to me. I wasn't sure if it was intentional or not, but the implication was that it had just happened, there and then, like a thought coming to you out of nowhere. Crime & Punishment aside, the question is, not how (we'll leave that for a moment) but why? In the context of the story it was not as though the person had ceased to exist: they were thinking, and standing, and watching. They just had no corporeal existence. They couldn't influence or change anything ("it's all too late," etc etc - see TD posts passim) but were somehow there and not there. So it's not really being Godlike - more like being Christlike I suppose - but a momentary fact, one you accept and enter into. I don't remember in the story the person being scared or wishing to return to sight although they did, eventually. I can see it or read it (hmmm, visual metaphors for an auditory experience) as a kind of death-wish: as one of those ghastly Joy Division loving teenagers I would stare into a mirror for minutes at a time and imagine that I was flipping or zipping out of existence for a moment; sometimes it seemed real enough until I moved, or coughed, or something. but it was something to be desired - not to not be noticed, or anything so shallow, but to be literally unphysical: soul, maybe. So perhaps it's not a death-wish after all but a desire to return to religious or spiritual roots - a satire on materialism, even (what would happen if I divested myself of all belongings, including my body, but continued to exist? aha, but you can't...).
Unfortunately at the time of the conversation I was able only to nod and hmmm a bit. It has been too long since I've actually had real conversations with real human beings about things other than work, mathematics and New Labour.
None of this post is to be taken as "uh ho, TD has gone off the deep end", if you don't mind, dear reader. I haven't gone off the deep end, though anyone who has regularly read this blog should know that I stand on it by my own volition, unable to believe that the limited perceptions of a flawed and inconsistent being can be in any way true to what I hope is the infinite majesty of creation.
Back To Blog
Well, the conference is over, the new term is about to begin and so I'm available to blog again. TBH, the best thing about the conference was the heroic amount of booze I was able to consume, all for free. Well, I guess the quad biking was pretty cool too, although I wouldn't mind someone (preferably attractive and female though not necessarily young) to massage my thighs. I would like that anyway, but I need it a bit more this week. Applications via email please. Er.. where was I...Oh yes. A new, fascinating, well written contribution to the global hyper intelligent conversation we call the blogosphere. So. Here it is.
Uh...I'll get back to you later.
Uh...I'll get back to you later.
Friday, 4 April 2008
Return to the Unbearable Lightness of Blogging
I've a conference (oh yes, very grand) for the next few days so I won't be posting much between now and the middle of next week. Plus only a week or so of heavy blogging soon drains my creativity. I really don't know how some people keep it up. I was beginning to think I might have to post about the state of my pants, or the holes in my socks, or my favourite kind of tea. These things, like many others, are best left to the shores of silence, where the gentle lapping of the waves soothes and calms them, before sweeping them out to watery graves. I have tried as much as possible to keep my boring personal life out of my blog, although perusing posts this year I see there are plenty which whinge and moan: well, it is my blog so my rules, etc. And blogging is cathartic as well as narcisstic so that is, really, only to be expected. However few things are duller than the personal problems of someone one has never met, doesn't want to meet, and merely wants to be entertained by for a few moments before clicking onto some pornography. So I try to do it as minimally as possible, and I'll try to continue this. The other issue is drink-sodden ranting and raving, or boozeblogging as it might be called. Well, see the previous justifications, really, because I often feel more creative, as one does, after a few jars, and I like to engage in flights of rather vicious political and ethical fancy. But again, one realises that this is neither attractive nor interesting, per se, unless the writing somehow holds up through the haze of drunkenness.
A general rule of the thumb for the reader of TTD is that any post written after 8.30pm is generally written under the influence, to a greater or even greater extent. This week, being largely on holiday, I've been experimenting with sober blogging and I suppose it's worked, although it's much harder work and one worries more about making it actually good.
Finally a word about the design on the blog. As you've probably guessed I'm messing around with it at the moment. I'm not techie, much to my shame, and I'm _still_ on a 1970s internet connection, so everything is a bit rubbish and very slow. But I'm still going to muck about with it because I like doing it. And if I didn't I wouldn't bother.
Enjoy Doctor Who this weekend, I have my reservations about Catherine Tate but Doctor Who, is, frankly, Doctor Who.
A general rule of the thumb for the reader of TTD is that any post written after 8.30pm is generally written under the influence, to a greater or even greater extent. This week, being largely on holiday, I've been experimenting with sober blogging and I suppose it's worked, although it's much harder work and one worries more about making it actually good.
Finally a word about the design on the blog. As you've probably guessed I'm messing around with it at the moment. I'm not techie, much to my shame, and I'm _still_ on a 1970s internet connection, so everything is a bit rubbish and very slow. But I'm still going to muck about with it because I like doing it. And if I didn't I wouldn't bother.
Enjoy Doctor Who this weekend, I have my reservations about Catherine Tate but Doctor Who, is, frankly, Doctor Who.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
That Time of Year Again (Spring)
I thought I would post a little on two of my favourite quotations in all literature. Being a simple fellow I have simple tastes, and you've probably guessed them already:
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
(Chaucer)
and
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers
(TS Eliot)
Everyone knows the first line of The Waste Land, but we often forget the lines which follow, whose distate and even disgust at the shifting, fertile soil are not only vivid but also quite strange. Why would springing life go into such a negative description? Well, for anyone reading in 1922 it might have snapped certain memory-tendons: "dead land", "forgetful snow" and the participles at the end of the lines, all suggesting movement and energy, which might have recalled the movement of troops and the churning of land with engines and explosions and bodies it created. You can also read the quotation psychologically, as meaning turnings and mixings of the mind in a much more private sense, not really related to the changing of seasons, but then again possibly stimulated by them: it's not so counter-intuitive to think that light, warmth, mud, messy growth, perhaps slow, frustrating growth, could create problems through allusion and connotation in someone, especially if they have staved off problems by focusing on keeping warm throughout the winter. It's also intended as a reference to Chaucer of course and as a marker of the borrowings and mixings and stirrings which this poem intends to keep up throughout its 5 parts. It's a warning, or a prophecy, of the changing nature of poetry and poetic forms. Chaucer's version is more straightforward but I often read it as if it were intended to refer to Eliot, so much are the two intertwined for me. Chaucer's view of the burgeoning year with its refreshing rains speaks to me of the kind of weather I love - as I've posted before, rain -of the non-torrential form we generally get here- is lifegiving and soothing and enriching. Burning sun or drought is not. There are other things you could say about Chaucer's versification here (ie "perced" - reference to Easter, crucifixion and resurrection) but it's easier to let it speak for itself and to suggest you go and read The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, in the original Middle English. It's not that hard if you have a decent edition and it really is excellent. In fact I wonder if it wasn't Chaucer, rather than Shakespeare, who created character in English...
And so here we are, at this time of year again, and the tv talk turns to whether we're having more floods or more droughts and it seems as though in fact we're longing for extremes, perhaps to make up for our dull lives. I must beware of pathologising the country, though, so I'll stop that train of thought and urge all of my readers to read Chaucer and TS Eliot.
Before climate change floods all the libraries/causes all the books to wizen and shrivel up in the heat.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
(Chaucer)
and
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers
(TS Eliot)
Everyone knows the first line of The Waste Land, but we often forget the lines which follow, whose distate and even disgust at the shifting, fertile soil are not only vivid but also quite strange. Why would springing life go into such a negative description? Well, for anyone reading in 1922 it might have snapped certain memory-tendons: "dead land", "forgetful snow" and the participles at the end of the lines, all suggesting movement and energy, which might have recalled the movement of troops and the churning of land with engines and explosions and bodies it created. You can also read the quotation psychologically, as meaning turnings and mixings of the mind in a much more private sense, not really related to the changing of seasons, but then again possibly stimulated by them: it's not so counter-intuitive to think that light, warmth, mud, messy growth, perhaps slow, frustrating growth, could create problems through allusion and connotation in someone, especially if they have staved off problems by focusing on keeping warm throughout the winter. It's also intended as a reference to Chaucer of course and as a marker of the borrowings and mixings and stirrings which this poem intends to keep up throughout its 5 parts. It's a warning, or a prophecy, of the changing nature of poetry and poetic forms. Chaucer's version is more straightforward but I often read it as if it were intended to refer to Eliot, so much are the two intertwined for me. Chaucer's view of the burgeoning year with its refreshing rains speaks to me of the kind of weather I love - as I've posted before, rain -of the non-torrential form we generally get here- is lifegiving and soothing and enriching. Burning sun or drought is not. There are other things you could say about Chaucer's versification here (ie "perced" - reference to Easter, crucifixion and resurrection) but it's easier to let it speak for itself and to suggest you go and read The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, in the original Middle English. It's not that hard if you have a decent edition and it really is excellent. In fact I wonder if it wasn't Chaucer, rather than Shakespeare, who created character in English...
And so here we are, at this time of year again, and the tv talk turns to whether we're having more floods or more droughts and it seems as though in fact we're longing for extremes, perhaps to make up for our dull lives. I must beware of pathologising the country, though, so I'll stop that train of thought and urge all of my readers to read Chaucer and TS Eliot.
Before climate change floods all the libraries/causes all the books to wizen and shrivel up in the heat.
Stat (Soft) Pron
As there is quite a barney going on at DK's place about stats, I thought I'd chip in and discuss some of my own for March.
So: unique visitors: Not very many.
page visits: hmmm, a few. But still not many.
top referrer: CBI (97.8%)
other top referrers:
1. er
2. that's it
Number of visitors who arrived here googling "fuck me hard": 1. (I hope they weren't disappointed)
Number of visitors who got here googling something deep and meaningful: 0.
Number of visitors who got here and offered me money of one kind or another: 0.
Number of visitors who, I suspect, thought this blog was about music: lots.
Number of visitors who are either robots or who left immediately: quite a few. In fact, there are an awful lot of these, but I prefer not to think about it.
So: unique visitors: Not very many.
page visits: hmmm, a few. But still not many.
top referrer: CBI (97.8%)
other top referrers:
1. er
2. that's it
Number of visitors who arrived here googling "fuck me hard": 1. (I hope they weren't disappointed)
Number of visitors who got here googling something deep and meaningful: 0.
Number of visitors who got here and offered me money of one kind or another: 0.
Number of visitors who, I suspect, thought this blog was about music: lots.
Number of visitors who are either robots or who left immediately: quite a few. In fact, there are an awful lot of these, but I prefer not to think about it.
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
Messing Around
I've found a nice piccy to spice up the blog with, at the cost of losing my title. well I guess I'll figure it out soon.
update: hmmm, it's a bit narrow though. I don't know why I can't extend it, as the bishop blah blah. Oh well I can't be arsed now, it's pub time.
update: hmmm, it's a bit narrow though. I don't know why I can't extend it, as the bishop blah blah. Oh well I can't be arsed now, it's pub time.
PMQ Shock
Well I didn't think that Harriet Harman was all that bad at PMQs today. She had some obviously prepared gags but she gave as good as she got from Hague and he was unable to pin her down. She did try to pin a feminist jibe on the Tories (why was the Shadow Leader of the Opposition not asking the question) and she sounded pretty aggressive. I don't know what the rules for PMQs are now but the PM (or whoever's on facing the house duty that day) never seems to answer any question. Hague asked the same q 3 times on poor families being worse off this weekend but she never answered it, nor attempted to. And the Speaker? Is it his job to enforce answering or questions or not? He certainly stopped Vince Cable from asking a question involving the Queen and, if I remember rightly, did not call him for his second question which confused him somewhat. But Hague, like Cameron, did not press her with enough force, as opposed to rhetoric, of which he had plenty. He could only force a sense of outrage or disgust at the very end of his questions. Why was he not putting the government on the rack from the beginning? He just did not, to me, seem to argue with enough conviction - and I think this is still one of the problems of the modern opposition: they don't have enough conviction and they are holding back for fear of seeming to be "the nasty party" again. They don't want to be seen to be too aggressive. But they will need to be: one of those ideology-turning moments is coming, like 1979 and 1997 (possibly in 2010, more likely 2015) and it will be time for tough arguments and rolling-the-sleeves-up defences of liberty, trust in citizens and the rule of common law against Labour's ideology of written rights and victimhood. There will be hard days ahead and timidity of this sort will be no use.
Zimbabwe LiveBlogging/Comment
MDC Press Conference live on Radio 5
The MDC in what they say is their last press conference at this stage of the election are complaining about the delay in reporting the election results. The spokesman makes a low-key joke about getting the results themselves from elsewhere. He complains that the election is not "free, fair or credible". He says that the "political environment is not capable of producing a free and fair election". He says the results MDC have collected indicate that given an error margin of 2.4% in the presidential election Mugabe has 42.1% and Tsvangirai 49.4% He says therefore that Morgan Tsvangirai has won the election, in respect of "attaining the majority that is required" - ie no run off is needed.
Phew. I'm no good at this liveblogging business.
Last night, watching the 6 O Clock News, was perhaps the most positive political experience I have had in years - it reminded me, for a while, before the obfuscations and the ambiguities became evident - of those glorious days of 89 (1989 that is, not 1789). The sense of popular movement, democracy in a so much purer form than we are used to, of a bloodless uprising for freedom: wonderful. I think that the point the MDC were making in the press conference above is that the votes, the papers, are generally reliable: it's the counting and the collating and the organisation of voting that is bent. If so it means that the people have voted in spite of intimidation for an idea of freedom. I just hope, without trace of cynicism or negativity on my part, for once, that it really happens and that the people of Zimbabwe really have spoken for freedom and that they can now start to rebuild their country.
I don't know if you should pray for the results of elections...
The MDC in what they say is their last press conference at this stage of the election are complaining about the delay in reporting the election results. The spokesman makes a low-key joke about getting the results themselves from elsewhere. He complains that the election is not "free, fair or credible". He says that the "political environment is not capable of producing a free and fair election". He says the results MDC have collected indicate that given an error margin of 2.4% in the presidential election Mugabe has 42.1% and Tsvangirai 49.4% He says therefore that Morgan Tsvangirai has won the election, in respect of "attaining the majority that is required" - ie no run off is needed.
Phew. I'm no good at this liveblogging business.
Last night, watching the 6 O Clock News, was perhaps the most positive political experience I have had in years - it reminded me, for a while, before the obfuscations and the ambiguities became evident - of those glorious days of 89 (1989 that is, not 1789). The sense of popular movement, democracy in a so much purer form than we are used to, of a bloodless uprising for freedom: wonderful. I think that the point the MDC were making in the press conference above is that the votes, the papers, are generally reliable: it's the counting and the collating and the organisation of voting that is bent. If so it means that the people have voted in spite of intimidation for an idea of freedom. I just hope, without trace of cynicism or negativity on my part, for once, that it really happens and that the people of Zimbabwe really have spoken for freedom and that they can now start to rebuild their country.
I don't know if you should pray for the results of elections...
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Ebuzzing
DK mentioned this a while ago and they sent me an email a month or so back inviting me to join their wosname thingy. I've now signed up but that isn't a promise or a guarantee that I'll do anything, though I am having a look around to see if I fancy anything. Remember: I am a filthy capitalist so it should come as no surprise that I'm intending to sell out.
Budget Statement
Since we're approaching the start of the new financial year I thought I'd make a budget statement of my own to demonstrate to my reader the application of prudent fiscal management.
Firstly, GDP (Gross Drummer Product) is set to rise this year by whatever the bastards decide, not to exceed 2%. Probably about 1%. Debt, as a proportion of the GDP, will fall from 42% to 35%, as the laptop has just about been paid off but there is an expensive insurance claim yet to be settled. Exports are in their usual parlous state (the traditional drummer-favourable markets have been withdrawing their interest during the last two quarters) but imports, notably of alcoholic beverages originating in Belgium, are set to rise by 10%.
So to the changes in fiscal policy. Firstly spending on fuel will rise in line with the chancellor's rises in taxation. Spending on books has been hit recently by a disinclination to read: however to encourage greater growth in the studying of texts, spending on books will rise by 42%. Spending on alcohol will increase by inflation plus an additional 8% (see above); this is to offset the hectoring self-righteousness and nannying of the chancellor of the exchequer. Spending on crisps and other snacks is a difficult area of expenditure and it is with considerable thought that I have decided the following: crisps (cheese and onion): to remain static at 2 packets per 3 pints; nuts to fall by 5% (representing a real terms increase of 12% since 1997); chocolate: to fall by 20% to reflect the changing tastes of the market (ie it does not go well with Stella).
Gym membership expenditure will increase by 2%. This is, I am sure we can all agree, a major step towards making the drummer carbon neutral by 2042. It should offset 1% of the increase in alcohol expenditure. By 2009 gym expenditure will increase by a further 2% and by 5% in the three years after 2009. This will make considerable progress towards our EU target of "not being a fat bastard".
There will be a one off expenditure of 35% of GDP on hair transplants in this fiscal year. This will be offset by an increase in interest from other markets from 2009 onwards. (jeers from opposition benches) Yes, we can all complain can't we, but under the previous government interest from other markets was static at 0%. Only this government has brought sustained and effective interest - until recently - from desirable bodies located near the drummer. The loss of hair has been a global phenomenon for which this government cannot be held responsible. (more jeers)
I commend this Budget to the House as an example of stability and strength in these...zzzzzzzzzzzz....
Firstly, GDP (Gross Drummer Product) is set to rise this year by whatever the bastards decide, not to exceed 2%. Probably about 1%. Debt, as a proportion of the GDP, will fall from 42% to 35%, as the laptop has just about been paid off but there is an expensive insurance claim yet to be settled. Exports are in their usual parlous state (the traditional drummer-favourable markets have been withdrawing their interest during the last two quarters) but imports, notably of alcoholic beverages originating in Belgium, are set to rise by 10%.
So to the changes in fiscal policy. Firstly spending on fuel will rise in line with the chancellor's rises in taxation. Spending on books has been hit recently by a disinclination to read: however to encourage greater growth in the studying of texts, spending on books will rise by 42%. Spending on alcohol will increase by inflation plus an additional 8% (see above); this is to offset the hectoring self-righteousness and nannying of the chancellor of the exchequer. Spending on crisps and other snacks is a difficult area of expenditure and it is with considerable thought that I have decided the following: crisps (cheese and onion): to remain static at 2 packets per 3 pints; nuts to fall by 5% (representing a real terms increase of 12% since 1997); chocolate: to fall by 20% to reflect the changing tastes of the market (ie it does not go well with Stella).
Gym membership expenditure will increase by 2%. This is, I am sure we can all agree, a major step towards making the drummer carbon neutral by 2042. It should offset 1% of the increase in alcohol expenditure. By 2009 gym expenditure will increase by a further 2% and by 5% in the three years after 2009. This will make considerable progress towards our EU target of "not being a fat bastard".
There will be a one off expenditure of 35% of GDP on hair transplants in this fiscal year. This will be offset by an increase in interest from other markets from 2009 onwards. (jeers from opposition benches) Yes, we can all complain can't we, but under the previous government interest from other markets was static at 0%. Only this government has brought sustained and effective interest - until recently - from desirable bodies located near the drummer. The loss of hair has been a global phenomenon for which this government cannot be held responsible. (more jeers)
I commend this Budget to the House as an example of stability and strength in these...zzzzzzzzzzzz....
Monday, 31 March 2008
Positively The Last Post of the Month
Hmm, the previous post doesn't really work for me. It's a nice idea but I haven't given it enough to hang off, really. Still, it's better than coughing into bog roll for half an hour.
A final thought, a la Jerry Springer: I don't read Paul Linford as often as I should. He's really excellent (you'll find his link somewhere in the sidebar headed Excellent Blogs and Sites).
A final thought, a la Jerry Springer: I don't read Paul Linford as often as I should. He's really excellent (you'll find his link somewhere in the sidebar headed Excellent Blogs and Sites).
England's Victory over New Zealand, by Emmanuel Goldstein
The key thing here is that this victory (note the use of that word again) is designed to make England _appear_ to be a good side. They take an indisputable fact, such as Ryan Sidebottom's 10 wickets in one match, or his hat-trick, and use it to twist people's perceptions of reality such that this equates to England being good. It operates therefore as a synecdoche. Interestingly, _before_ the series, with New Zealand's many injuries and loss of players such as Shane Bond - a geniune paceman, unlike Steve Harmison - the talk was of England winning 3-0. It was only after the disastrous first Test, that the existence of this past was erased and replaced by one in which a determined England team were out to upset the odds. In that sense the ECB have reversed reality in their attempts to make England seem good.
Of course, like all good manipulators of reality, the facts are bare: England _did_ win the series. But if one studies the matches closely, one finds that either or both of the last two tests could easily have been lost at several points. In England cricket, as we know, no-one individual creates the conditions for a Test win, and very few individuals actually play to a high enough standard. Let me elucidate. Andrew Strauss made 177 in the final test. But he was 173* overnight, appearing to be completely uninterested the following morning. His job was done. The same applies to Tim Ambrose in the previous test, and to Ian Bell, whose 110 came when the pressure was off him personally. A quick comparison with the key players in sides such as India or Australia will reveal that they never give up until the match is won. England players are concoting an illusion of effort and of class: we are supposed to be fooled into thinking that this level of play is enough and will do against, say South Africa.
It is plainly the case that it will not.
It is rarely commented on now, for obvious reasons: but in the past (the real one), England players _did_ score over 200 with reasonable regularity. But in the general softening of outlook which set in around 1991 such scores have decreased to a trickle. England _did_ produce successful spin bowlers and they _did_ have consistent pacemen. It is correct that at such times they were also useless, but it is the cynical misrepresentation of how England cricket used to be that enables people to say comfortably in the bars and on the trains: "England are a really good side" when this is not so.
What can be done? Well the leaders of England cricket have no clear ideas beyond the usual setting up of committees and reports. This is designed to foster the illusion of action, and it works, while coincidentally providing worthless jobs. My suggestion is simple: the future lies in the young players. They must be sought, encouraged, retained. A revolution of England cricket will only happen if they can find young players and treat them in the right way, as Australia did in the late 1980s (not that we hear much about this now - the origin of Australia's dominance has been long forgotten,and deliberately so).
This may happen sooner than we expect, if international 20Twenty tournaments explode at the rate they are threatening to. The eternal lure of money will provide more and more spaces for these young players, as their more experienced colleagues decamp to India or South Africa or wherever, until they too succumb, creating the conditions for eternal revolution within England cricket and destroying the power of the management committees and the easily satisfied media for ever.
Of course, like all good manipulators of reality, the facts are bare: England _did_ win the series. But if one studies the matches closely, one finds that either or both of the last two tests could easily have been lost at several points. In England cricket, as we know, no-one individual creates the conditions for a Test win, and very few individuals actually play to a high enough standard. Let me elucidate. Andrew Strauss made 177 in the final test. But he was 173* overnight, appearing to be completely uninterested the following morning. His job was done. The same applies to Tim Ambrose in the previous test, and to Ian Bell, whose 110 came when the pressure was off him personally. A quick comparison with the key players in sides such as India or Australia will reveal that they never give up until the match is won. England players are concoting an illusion of effort and of class: we are supposed to be fooled into thinking that this level of play is enough and will do against, say South Africa.
It is plainly the case that it will not.
It is rarely commented on now, for obvious reasons: but in the past (the real one), England players _did_ score over 200 with reasonable regularity. But in the general softening of outlook which set in around 1991 such scores have decreased to a trickle. England _did_ produce successful spin bowlers and they _did_ have consistent pacemen. It is correct that at such times they were also useless, but it is the cynical misrepresentation of how England cricket used to be that enables people to say comfortably in the bars and on the trains: "England are a really good side" when this is not so.
What can be done? Well the leaders of England cricket have no clear ideas beyond the usual setting up of committees and reports. This is designed to foster the illusion of action, and it works, while coincidentally providing worthless jobs. My suggestion is simple: the future lies in the young players. They must be sought, encouraged, retained. A revolution of England cricket will only happen if they can find young players and treat them in the right way, as Australia did in the late 1980s (not that we hear much about this now - the origin of Australia's dominance has been long forgotten,and deliberately so).
This may happen sooner than we expect, if international 20Twenty tournaments explode at the rate they are threatening to. The eternal lure of money will provide more and more spaces for these young players, as their more experienced colleagues decamp to India or South Africa or wherever, until they too succumb, creating the conditions for eternal revolution within England cricket and destroying the power of the management committees and the easily satisfied media for ever.
End of Month Post
*sniff* I've got the man-flu so I've nothing better to do than post. I think it's probably all these apopleptic rages I've been having lately (results below). It's a shame that, despite the widespread and increasing use of CCTV to punish people they can't get the damn things to do anything good - ie identify my sickness and send me lemsips and paracetamol through the post. If they can do it with parking tickets then it can't be impossible and it would surely be an excellent way of boosting the NHS's reputation. Actually now I come to think about it they could do the same with Stella, if they saw that you were a bit thirsty they could send round a 6-pack by courier.
oh, hang on. *blrrrrgh* that's better. A bog-roll is an ill man's best friend, that and his copy of Philip K Dick's collected stories, although some of these are too weird even for me. Especialy the one about the Fnools, though now I come to think about it, that isn't really about a spaced out alien invasion at all: it's a satire of male youth - they grow two feet when they smoke, drink, and finally when they either get their rocks off or feel a woman's tits (it's not made clear exactly which it is). Is a satire of youth or of a youth's perception of youthhood? Oh well, either way it's strange.
*sniff* Sigh. I need a lemsip. *sniff*
oh, hang on. *blrrrrgh* that's better. A bog-roll is an ill man's best friend, that and his copy of Philip K Dick's collected stories, although some of these are too weird even for me. Especialy the one about the Fnools, though now I come to think about it, that isn't really about a spaced out alien invasion at all: it's a satire of male youth - they grow two feet when they smoke, drink, and finally when they either get their rocks off or feel a woman's tits (it's not made clear exactly which it is). Is a satire of youth or of a youth's perception of youthhood? Oh well, either way it's strange.
*sniff* Sigh. I need a lemsip. *sniff*
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Forty-What?
Many years ago I co-edited a piss-poor school rag called, in breach of every copyright law in the land, "42". It was a lot crapper than I had previously thought, as I realised when I re-read it last night. Still, at least I now know that I am a twat and have always been a twat. There has never been a time when I haven't been a smug old cunt, even if there were times when I had more hair than now, or less pounds around the middle. I have also always looked like a cunt, as I saw on some recent photos. Some of us have been cursed with this affliction: we could be 7, 14, 18, 21, or 31 and we still look like utter fucking twats. That's because we are. I've also always sounded like a cunt, as my few radio appearances prove. And as all of my acquaintances have always said. Let us modify Orwell and Amis's dictum for the fast moving twenty-first century: At twenty-five, everyone has the face he deserves.
Fucking hell, there really is no hope. None at all.
Fucking hell, there really is no hope. None at all.
Fuck Me, That's Harsh
Jeezus, a minimum of 17 years for beating the shit out of a poor innocent fucker and killing him! Fucking hell that is a bit much isn't it? I mean, it's not as if it was a hate crime, eh? I mean, they were just beating one poor cunt to death, weren't they? Not an entire group of society, so it's ok, surely? And they were, er, sort of young, even if they had previous, which only goes to show how, like totally disadvantaged they were. I mean, not like I would have tackled those cunts at the scene, no way, but really, if you kill someone it's not like you should give up all of your rights, because, like, the point of human rights is that they're absolute, yeah? No-one can take them away. Oh, wait, yeah, well some buggers will always take away your rights but nothing gives you the right to take away any of their rights. Why? Because they're absolute. What? Yeah, but that's, like, an accident, so it can't be stopped. Just because you're killed, or some twat like your dad or your grandad, it doesn't mean you've got the right to take away their rights, I mean you just don't know what they've suffered. Plus, their rights are absolute. Yeah, well, so are yours. Yeah, but's it's like, absolute with regard to the state if you're a healthy adult, not absolute with regard to evil cunts. No, we don't really think there's any such thing as evil. It's like, Thatcher and that. So it's kind of, sometimes an excuse. It's complicated: the sort of thing a twat like yourself wouldn't really get. No, obviously, absolute rights can't stop murder and that. So, no, you don't have an absolute right to live. No-one does. But, sort of, the state can't just go taking lives away. Yeah, but that's different, they've consented, or they're not really human anyway. Yeah but that's also different, because that's war, innit? Collateral damage, sort of thing. No-one meant to. Anyway, you can't kill people just because they've killed someone, also you can't lock someone up for life because they'll have nothing to live for and that isn't fair, like. Yeah, but that's a bit simplistic: it's not really their fault, they're disadvantaged, see. Oh, yeah, I know we said that in 1965, but, let's face it, we can't lock someone up for 50 years just because they've beat some poor innocent cunt to death for no reason can we, I mean that just isn't, fucking fair, is it? You don't deserve to lose your chances in life just because you've beat the fucking daylights out of some cunt and left his brains on the pavement, do you? Yeah, but it's an isolated incident, it means nothing, the guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes, I know it was his driveway but it was still the wrong place. He should of locked himself in his bog and called the cops. Yeah but they can't be blamed can they, they're busy people, no-one could blame them if they didn't come to a sort of minor sounding incident sort of thing, yeah? Anyway it just goes to show that alcohol should be loads more expensive, because it's Stella drinkers like you who become murderous bastards. Yeah, you. How much have you had tonight anyway? You stupid old twat. I could have you for that. Yeah, straight up. Go on, you can buy me a pint for that. Or I'll tell the barman you're Alistair Darling.
Friday, 28 March 2008
A Unique Experiment (II)
In December, my reader might recall, I was asked to partake of a truly bizarre experiment - ie to drink an increasing number of "Stella"s - a little known concotion from Belgium, thought to contain alcohol (to a percentage of roughly 5.1). This experiment having gone exceptionally well, and having been successfully repeated many times - thus proving its results beyond doubt, except to the dwindling band of "Stella deniers" who insist that it does nothing for them), I have been asked to undertake a second, dangerous task.
This time I have been asked to "go to work".
I shall try to describe this disturbing experience as best I can - but be warned, it was deeply unpleasant, and readers of a more sensitive disposition might prefer to go to DK or Dizzy now.
Well, it started by my having to "get up" at 7am. My mouth was dry, my head was pounding. No-one told me that Stella-experiments and Work-experiments might not mix! If anyone wants my advice, may I suggest you don't try to partake of "work" if you have been "on the Stella" (as aficianados say, I am told!) the night before. Goodness me, this was painful. I levered myself out of bed and undertook breakfast - a meagre repast of Weetabix and tea. Ugh. It was unutterably ghastly. I tried to shower but I found myself falling asleep under the lukewarm water.
I drove to work. This was interesting, as it provided a chance for me to test my use of language, especially words we often call "inappropriate", when I was stuck behind slow lorries! I did enjoy doing that, although I even surprised myself at times!
Some time later I arrived at work. Upon arriving there I immediately engaged myself in "tasks". These are activities, not freely chosen, but attributed to an individual by another individual, which the former needs to undertake for, I believe, a largely indeterminate length of time. The latter is generally spoken to with respect, as I learned the hard way, when I accidentally told them to "fuck off"!
On occasion I was called upon to deal with "problems". These are events which are not controlled by an individual but which the individual is nonetheless called to resolve. I found this logic strange, but managed to undertake a few of these anyway. I think my "boss" was impressed - at least, that's how I interpreted their telling me to "get out of my sight" - I guessed I was no longer needed to solve problems!
I was struck by the logic of "breaks". These are moments of non-work: but, while my "boss" was largely able to identify and isolate such moments for herself, I was repeatedly told that I was unable to avail myself of these until I had completed whatever it was that anybody else had given me to do. Often another "task" appeared at just the moment I was to take a "break". Just my luck! Strangely, though, the person who had given me the task was often to be seen smoking or on Facebook while I was performing this duty. I wondered what appalling tasks they had been set that required them to inhale noxious gases!
Later it was time to go home. How can I sum up my impressions of this wholly bizarre activity? Well, I was very tired, quite angry, rather annoyed, somewhat disheartened and completely disillusioned. I was hungry, physically aching, and looking forward to tonight's "Stella" experiment. But I was missing something. I had been told that one received renumeration in return for work: ie, money. Coins. Notes. The things, which, I believe, one uses to pay for Stella. But I was told as my boss helpfully handed me my briefcase - although rather too rapidly for my liking! - that such compensation would not appear for over six weeks. Apparently, as well as being "at work", it was also called "being on supply" for " a bunch of cynical and money grabbing bastards in an old Cathedral city which also happens to have ancient docks and is not that far from Wales" -and so you don't get your "money" for weeks!
What a day!!
But I don't think I'll be "working" again any time soon!
This time I have been asked to "go to work".
I shall try to describe this disturbing experience as best I can - but be warned, it was deeply unpleasant, and readers of a more sensitive disposition might prefer to go to DK or Dizzy now.
Well, it started by my having to "get up" at 7am. My mouth was dry, my head was pounding. No-one told me that Stella-experiments and Work-experiments might not mix! If anyone wants my advice, may I suggest you don't try to partake of "work" if you have been "on the Stella" (as aficianados say, I am told!) the night before. Goodness me, this was painful. I levered myself out of bed and undertook breakfast - a meagre repast of Weetabix and tea. Ugh. It was unutterably ghastly. I tried to shower but I found myself falling asleep under the lukewarm water.
I drove to work. This was interesting, as it provided a chance for me to test my use of language, especially words we often call "inappropriate", when I was stuck behind slow lorries! I did enjoy doing that, although I even surprised myself at times!
Some time later I arrived at work. Upon arriving there I immediately engaged myself in "tasks". These are activities, not freely chosen, but attributed to an individual by another individual, which the former needs to undertake for, I believe, a largely indeterminate length of time. The latter is generally spoken to with respect, as I learned the hard way, when I accidentally told them to "fuck off"!
On occasion I was called upon to deal with "problems". These are events which are not controlled by an individual but which the individual is nonetheless called to resolve. I found this logic strange, but managed to undertake a few of these anyway. I think my "boss" was impressed - at least, that's how I interpreted their telling me to "get out of my sight" - I guessed I was no longer needed to solve problems!
I was struck by the logic of "breaks". These are moments of non-work: but, while my "boss" was largely able to identify and isolate such moments for herself, I was repeatedly told that I was unable to avail myself of these until I had completed whatever it was that anybody else had given me to do. Often another "task" appeared at just the moment I was to take a "break". Just my luck! Strangely, though, the person who had given me the task was often to be seen smoking or on Facebook while I was performing this duty. I wondered what appalling tasks they had been set that required them to inhale noxious gases!
Later it was time to go home. How can I sum up my impressions of this wholly bizarre activity? Well, I was very tired, quite angry, rather annoyed, somewhat disheartened and completely disillusioned. I was hungry, physically aching, and looking forward to tonight's "Stella" experiment. But I was missing something. I had been told that one received renumeration in return for work: ie, money. Coins. Notes. The things, which, I believe, one uses to pay for Stella. But I was told as my boss helpfully handed me my briefcase - although rather too rapidly for my liking! - that such compensation would not appear for over six weeks. Apparently, as well as being "at work", it was also called "being on supply" for " a bunch of cynical and money grabbing bastards in an old Cathedral city which also happens to have ancient docks and is not that far from Wales" -and so you don't get your "money" for weeks!
What a day!!
But I don't think I'll be "working" again any time soon!
A Child Can Cry/To Anything You Say
Late news: Child Cries During Drummer Drama Lesson
A child today burst into tears during a Friday afternoon drama lesson taught by a balding individual known only as "the tin drummer". The child was reported as saying "it's really scary, I'm scared," to which the "tin drummer" responded by giving the child a cuddle and telling them "it's only a bit of make-believe". The child was, however, dissatisfied by this response and immediately called for a report from OFDRAM, the regulatory company in charge of drama lessons. The report, we think, will not be published until 2042, by which time it is thought that the teacher might be dead. The child also said, "His response was laughable. Of course it was "make believe" - hence, I was made to believe. This is wholly unacceptable. I was forced through a traumatising experience - ie I was made to pretend that a wizard had prevented the sun from setting. This teacher wholly neglected his responsbilities in attempting to make an engaging lesson, and he should be made to pay." A spokesarse from the group FART (families against real teaching) said: "We deplore this latest example of a teacher overstepping the mark and terrifying children. It shows how out of touch these people are. The teacher should come to our re-training classes, which we'll provide for him at minimal cost." The "tin drummer" has so far refused to comment, telling our reporter to four letter shocker off, he was "going down the inapppropriate leisure activity centre for an unacceptable number of outdated imperialistically measured alcoholic beverages."
The tin drummer is pissed.
A child today burst into tears during a Friday afternoon drama lesson taught by a balding individual known only as "the tin drummer". The child was reported as saying "it's really scary, I'm scared," to which the "tin drummer" responded by giving the child a cuddle and telling them "it's only a bit of make-believe". The child was, however, dissatisfied by this response and immediately called for a report from OFDRAM, the regulatory company in charge of drama lessons. The report, we think, will not be published until 2042, by which time it is thought that the teacher might be dead. The child also said, "His response was laughable. Of course it was "make believe" - hence, I was made to believe. This is wholly unacceptable. I was forced through a traumatising experience - ie I was made to pretend that a wizard had prevented the sun from setting. This teacher wholly neglected his responsbilities in attempting to make an engaging lesson, and he should be made to pay." A spokesarse from the group FART (families against real teaching) said: "We deplore this latest example of a teacher overstepping the mark and terrifying children. It shows how out of touch these people are. The teacher should come to our re-training classes, which we'll provide for him at minimal cost." The "tin drummer" has so far refused to comment, telling our reporter to four letter shocker off, he was "going down the inapppropriate leisure activity centre for an unacceptable number of outdated imperialistically measured alcoholic beverages."
The tin drummer is pissed.
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
President Sar-Cosy
Well, helloooo. Is that La Marseillaise in your pocket or are you just frankly totally uninspired by seeing me?
According to Yahoo news:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has addressed both Houses of Parliament and hailed Westminster as a "touchstone" for democracies around the world.
Damn straight. Life peers, hereditary peers, the whip system, a dual party system of left and a bit less left parties, fudged votes, whips on matters of personal conscience, attempts to stop bastard taxpayers finding anything out about the parasites' expenses in courts of law, a long and sorry history of doing fuck all except feathering their own stinking nests: damn right it's a "touchstone" - the sort of stone I wouldn't touch with a ten foot bargepole that's been sterilised in a mixture of boiling water, hydrochloric acid and piss. In fact it's a stone I wouldn't even take a shit on, if I were utterly desperate. I'd probably go by the roadside and have motorists give me the v signs and everything instead.
Speaking in French, Mr Sarkozy said: "For the President of the French Republic, it is a signal honour indeed to address both Houses of the British Parliament.
Well, yes, but not enough of an honour to speak to it in its native language, eh? But then again it's a barbarous tongue, the bastard offspring of some northern abomination and a hick dialect of Old French so who gives a toss anyway.
"It is indeed in these walls which house your chambers that modern political life was born. Without your Parliament, parliamentary democracy would never have existed in this shape anywhere in the world."
ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. I love it (wipes tears from eyes)! Yes: we'd never have speakers lining up with governments, governments defending speakers as one of their own, we'd never have empty chambers for 90% of the time debating issues no-one gives a toss about in ways no-one gives a toss about, we'd never have laws passed by foreign secret chambers that our own parliament has to approve, we'd never have hundreds of laws passed every year, every one restricting our range of thought, opinion and action.
Mr Sarkozy called for a new "Franco-British brotherhood for the 21st century" in which the two countries can take a lead in shaping the forces of globalisation.
Fuck me it sounds like a ghastly late 70s pop group. One whose top hit was a No.34.
Mr Sarkozy emphasised that while Europe needed Britain, Britain was stronger for being in Europe. "We cannot build a prosperous, democratic, effective, efficient Europe without the the United Kingdom," he said.
Look, Sarko, Britain is in the continent of Europe whether or not it wants to drink the piss of your stupid federalist ideas. We all know the EU will be shit without Britain but Britain will not be shit without the EU, despite your old chum keeping us out with his paranoid delusions for twenty years. Britain has global trading interests, right? It wants global trading interests, yes? It doesn't want you telling us, "er, actually, you need to pay for our farmers, despite the fact that we're more or less the same size economy as you". It wants you all to piss off and enact your little ruling fantasies elsewhere, while the rest of us get on with making and losing money as God himself intended. Now its rulers may for the last 50 years have wanted to sneak us in, all the while lying to us about what it entails, but that only goes to prove that we don't actually want it:
we want money.
That's what we want.
Money is, after all, tremendously stylish.
Anyway, back to work. Any change, guv? Price of a cup of tea, sire? Oi, I can hear the stuff rattling in your pocket you lying git. No need for that attitude, sir. Change, guv? Cup of tea?
According to Yahoo news:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has addressed both Houses of Parliament and hailed Westminster as a "touchstone" for democracies around the world.
Damn straight. Life peers, hereditary peers, the whip system, a dual party system of left and a bit less left parties, fudged votes, whips on matters of personal conscience, attempts to stop bastard taxpayers finding anything out about the parasites' expenses in courts of law, a long and sorry history of doing fuck all except feathering their own stinking nests: damn right it's a "touchstone" - the sort of stone I wouldn't touch with a ten foot bargepole that's been sterilised in a mixture of boiling water, hydrochloric acid and piss. In fact it's a stone I wouldn't even take a shit on, if I were utterly desperate. I'd probably go by the roadside and have motorists give me the v signs and everything instead.
Speaking in French, Mr Sarkozy said: "For the President of the French Republic, it is a signal honour indeed to address both Houses of the British Parliament.
Well, yes, but not enough of an honour to speak to it in its native language, eh? But then again it's a barbarous tongue, the bastard offspring of some northern abomination and a hick dialect of Old French so who gives a toss anyway.
"It is indeed in these walls which house your chambers that modern political life was born. Without your Parliament, parliamentary democracy would never have existed in this shape anywhere in the world."
ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. I love it (wipes tears from eyes)! Yes: we'd never have speakers lining up with governments, governments defending speakers as one of their own, we'd never have empty chambers for 90% of the time debating issues no-one gives a toss about in ways no-one gives a toss about, we'd never have laws passed by foreign secret chambers that our own parliament has to approve, we'd never have hundreds of laws passed every year, every one restricting our range of thought, opinion and action.
Mr Sarkozy called for a new "Franco-British brotherhood for the 21st century" in which the two countries can take a lead in shaping the forces of globalisation.
Fuck me it sounds like a ghastly late 70s pop group. One whose top hit was a No.34.
Mr Sarkozy emphasised that while Europe needed Britain, Britain was stronger for being in Europe. "We cannot build a prosperous, democratic, effective, efficient Europe without the the United Kingdom," he said.
Look, Sarko, Britain is in the continent of Europe whether or not it wants to drink the piss of your stupid federalist ideas. We all know the EU will be shit without Britain but Britain will not be shit without the EU, despite your old chum keeping us out with his paranoid delusions for twenty years. Britain has global trading interests, right? It wants global trading interests, yes? It doesn't want you telling us, "er, actually, you need to pay for our farmers, despite the fact that we're more or less the same size economy as you". It wants you all to piss off and enact your little ruling fantasies elsewhere, while the rest of us get on with making and losing money as God himself intended. Now its rulers may for the last 50 years have wanted to sneak us in, all the while lying to us about what it entails, but that only goes to prove that we don't actually want it:
we want money.
That's what we want.
Money is, after all, tremendously stylish.
Anyway, back to work. Any change, guv? Price of a cup of tea, sire? Oi, I can hear the stuff rattling in your pocket you lying git. No need for that attitude, sir. Change, guv? Cup of tea?
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
National Union of Twats
Right. They can just fuck off. Fortunately I am not a member of this not-so-august institution, but for what it's worth, they can have my little resolutions and they can stick them up their own arses:
1. I will never, ever, allow a representative of Respect, the SWP, the RCP, or any other type of nutjob leftism into my classroom.
2. I will never, ever, allow any appeal for Cuba to be made in any school I teach in.
3. I will never, ever, teach that socialism is anything other than a crock of shit.
4. I will never, ever, allow any green groups to promote their hate-filled envy driven alarmism in my classroom.
5. I will always believe of the NUT that they want their own ideologies, rigorously enforced, in all classrooms.
6. I will never, ever, join the NUT nor support anyone who does.
7. I will leave my own union if it takes up this bullshit.
A quick question for NUTjobs: who the fuck gave you this free, democratic society? I suppose you think it was the fucking socialist workers' party, don't you, you dickheads.
And a quick point for the not at all biased BBC, who give some Respect twat a very long quote but never identify him as such - the NUT conference is NOT "teachers", you ARSEHOLES, it is the conference of a bunch of old lefty nobheads, who should all fuck right off. Hannah Goff doesn't seem to know much about the Respect/SWP people at the conference - luckily Biased BBC does. Or their commenters do.
1. I will never, ever, allow a representative of Respect, the SWP, the RCP, or any other type of nutjob leftism into my classroom.
2. I will never, ever, allow any appeal for Cuba to be made in any school I teach in.
3. I will never, ever, teach that socialism is anything other than a crock of shit.
4. I will never, ever, allow any green groups to promote their hate-filled envy driven alarmism in my classroom.
5. I will always believe of the NUT that they want their own ideologies, rigorously enforced, in all classrooms.
6. I will never, ever, join the NUT nor support anyone who does.
7. I will leave my own union if it takes up this bullshit.
A quick question for NUTjobs: who the fuck gave you this free, democratic society? I suppose you think it was the fucking socialist workers' party, don't you, you dickheads.
And a quick point for the not at all biased BBC, who give some Respect twat a very long quote but never identify him as such - the NUT conference is NOT "teachers", you ARSEHOLES, it is the conference of a bunch of old lefty nobheads, who should all fuck right off. Hannah Goff doesn't seem to know much about the Respect/SWP people at the conference - luckily Biased BBC does. Or their commenters do.
Politic Drumming
I thought I would update my reader on the essenses of my political views, since I have been hanging out and reading (though not really commenting) on the Libertarian Party's forums. I agree with a lot of their policies, as I mentioned before, though not with all of their philosophies: I do think government should let people live their lives and, wherever possible, not attempt to dictate what they should think or say (and I would include hate crime legislation in that - I wouldn't want to say to an old lady who's been mugged "you see it's not that bad, it was just an attack on you, personally, and not an attack on all old ladies, so it's not as serious as hate crimes..."), and while I don't myself have any possessions except for an old Fiesta and a few books, and very little money, I applaud cash and its pursual. I particularly respect people who create work and trade, and do not respect those who claim that this is based on "exploitation", while demanding higher taxes at the point of a prison cell. I do think that quangos, commissions and committees, foundations, trusts and political charities, have too much influence over government (especially this one) and I think we've moved away from democracy and towards a sort of technocracy. The people are further removed from the makers of laws than since about 1800 and have only limited ability to change the people who make them. I'd like Britain to exist, or, if not, then England, and I don't think that those who've recently invented the concept of Europe as a single political and cultural entity have any superior claim on right, whatever they say, however much they accuse their opponents of bigotry. I don't see any better government than one elected by a people with some kind of coherence - history, language, society - a demos, if you like - just as we have at Westminster. It needs change (ho ho) obviously, but bypassing it for 27 old men in a secret smoke filled chamber isn't the way. Claiming that "Europe" is exactly the same sort of society as Britain isn't it. Giving the people no right to repeal or amend or reject laws not made or initiated by anyone representing them is not the way either.
I do have more authoritarian views but I'm happy to not have them enforced on everyone else, if that makes any kind of sense at all: unlike many I don't see the need for everyone to agree with me on x issue or for my moral panics to inform legislation on, say, smoking, computer games, alcohol, sex, or anything else. I do see how everyone's behaviour affects us all, blah blah but that is an appeal for responsibility, not a justification to legislate or regulate everything that could affect other people. In a complex, somewhat dislocated world, we need to find other people as individuals, not be told how to approach them by law (outside of a few laws on assault, etc). I think it is corrosive to assume that half the country (more or less) is seething with hate and will destroy, hurt, discriminate and terrorise others unless controlled by ever more repressive laws. I am not saying that all equalities legislation is bad, but that some of it works on the basis of mistrust and, even, a kind of hatred itself.
I don't really care whether the police want me to make their lives easier: I do not exist for their comfort and I am not a suspect in a crime unless there is reason to treat me as such - hence: no DNA database, no ID cards providing pretexts for agents of the state to demand you to account for yourself; many fewer CCTV and speed cameras; some of the 300 odd reasons for state agents to enter your home must be abolished; habeas corpus and the right to silence should exist: the police must be made accountable to the people, especially if they are going to use the media to promote their views, as they seem to do more and more. I am not a "male", nor a "suspect", nor an "offender". I am a citizen and I would thank the state to treat me as such.
The above isn't a manifesto or a thesis, just a ramble, intended to provoke thought - thought in myself, of course. I am well aware of the gaps and inconsistencies in my views, and the above, as well as feeding my narcissism is supposed to help me think some of it through.
I do have more authoritarian views but I'm happy to not have them enforced on everyone else, if that makes any kind of sense at all: unlike many I don't see the need for everyone to agree with me on x issue or for my moral panics to inform legislation on, say, smoking, computer games, alcohol, sex, or anything else. I do see how everyone's behaviour affects us all, blah blah but that is an appeal for responsibility, not a justification to legislate or regulate everything that could affect other people. In a complex, somewhat dislocated world, we need to find other people as individuals, not be told how to approach them by law (outside of a few laws on assault, etc). I think it is corrosive to assume that half the country (more or less) is seething with hate and will destroy, hurt, discriminate and terrorise others unless controlled by ever more repressive laws. I am not saying that all equalities legislation is bad, but that some of it works on the basis of mistrust and, even, a kind of hatred itself.
I don't really care whether the police want me to make their lives easier: I do not exist for their comfort and I am not a suspect in a crime unless there is reason to treat me as such - hence: no DNA database, no ID cards providing pretexts for agents of the state to demand you to account for yourself; many fewer CCTV and speed cameras; some of the 300 odd reasons for state agents to enter your home must be abolished; habeas corpus and the right to silence should exist: the police must be made accountable to the people, especially if they are going to use the media to promote their views, as they seem to do more and more. I am not a "male", nor a "suspect", nor an "offender". I am a citizen and I would thank the state to treat me as such.
The above isn't a manifesto or a thesis, just a ramble, intended to provoke thought - thought in myself, of course. I am well aware of the gaps and inconsistencies in my views, and the above, as well as feeding my narcissism is supposed to help me think some of it through.
Cool
Browsing for children's books yesterday I find that I am in Iain Dale's guide to political blogging 2007-8. How cool is that. I remember in 2006 I was No 99 on his list of top 100 tory blogs! considering I have almost no readers these days it's quite impressive.
Well done to me.
Well done to me.
Change, Pt II
I've just gone and done it, changed the blog. For a couple of days it was immutable and perfect, in the sense of being unchanged or not requiring change, now it is mutating again. Nothing ever stays the same, except for damnfool controlling governments.
I thought I'd pick up on one or two things my wonderful commenters have said but I wanted to write a new post because I wanted to blah and meander and stuff about it.
Regardless of whether any of my atoms from 1981 (say) are extant today (unlikely), I am a continuous being, of some coherence. If I am physically, objectively (ie as an object) something else, something different, the memories and the personality and the construction are the same. I am like a cathedral (though a crap one, with really rubbish stained glass and a wonky spire) with its stones replaced one by one. Same design, same object: actually the analogy breaks down a little because such cathedral is only the same space as the one which saw (say) the murder of a saint, or the crowing of monarchs. But I am the same person and I feel twinges when I hear the music of my childhood (like now -I've put Tears for Fears back on!) because of what I experienced then. Because I am I, despite being something, or some-things, else. My coherence is both a consequence of change, a process of becoming, and a state of order that has obtained despite all the possible breakings-down or victories of entropy that could have happened in the last 31 years.
Things sometimes only need to change because people in power want them to: to demonstrate their power, or their competence (funny how competence so often seems, especially in management to be defined by one's willingness change stuff); things sometimes change because they don't want you to get too comfortable. Also things change because of entropy. Bastard tendency to equilibrium. I wonder if the ethic of Logopolis is visiting itself upon our society (more power would simply speed the collapse). More money, more energy, more determination, more "vision" - more fuck ups, more laws, more enforcement, more atomisation.
As I pointed out before, entropy is winning its battle over my hair, if not my muscles, which, owing to substantial gym use, are now loci of construction, design and order. Design in the sense that I am ordering them out of flesh through my use of weights. I suppose you could argue that entropy is increasing anyway but until I "buy the farm" then I remain a source of order, even increasing order. Yes it's change, but it's also change to stay the same. To increase the order in response to decay to maintain a single existence.
fake consultant wrote apropos of my last post:
change happens, like it or not.
Yes. I did kind of deny that, but only for effect. I don't _really_ believe it. I _do_ think people use that fact in order to change stuff for their own purposes, and to destabilise and dislocate others.
CBI wrote:
In fact, the child who saw those streets WASN'T you...
You've changed.
Yes, frightening isn't it. On the other hand I still exist. Kind of. TD doesn't of course. I liked your post CBI about the identity of yourself and of Crushed. I wonder how much if at all TD has changed me, or my style of writing, or my thinking. Or how much those things have changed TD. Not much probably. I think TD, for all of his drunken sweary bloggertarianism is really still the same as me, because he will always back away from a fight. His mouth is bigger than it should be, really.
I thought I'd pick up on one or two things my wonderful commenters have said but I wanted to write a new post because I wanted to blah and meander and stuff about it.
Regardless of whether any of my atoms from 1981 (say) are extant today (unlikely), I am a continuous being, of some coherence. If I am physically, objectively (ie as an object) something else, something different, the memories and the personality and the construction are the same. I am like a cathedral (though a crap one, with really rubbish stained glass and a wonky spire) with its stones replaced one by one. Same design, same object: actually the analogy breaks down a little because such cathedral is only the same space as the one which saw (say) the murder of a saint, or the crowing of monarchs. But I am the same person and I feel twinges when I hear the music of my childhood (like now -I've put Tears for Fears back on!) because of what I experienced then. Because I am I, despite being something, or some-things, else. My coherence is both a consequence of change, a process of becoming, and a state of order that has obtained despite all the possible breakings-down or victories of entropy that could have happened in the last 31 years.
Things sometimes only need to change because people in power want them to: to demonstrate their power, or their competence (funny how competence so often seems, especially in management to be defined by one's willingness change stuff); things sometimes change because they don't want you to get too comfortable. Also things change because of entropy. Bastard tendency to equilibrium. I wonder if the ethic of Logopolis is visiting itself upon our society (more power would simply speed the collapse). More money, more energy, more determination, more "vision" - more fuck ups, more laws, more enforcement, more atomisation.
As I pointed out before, entropy is winning its battle over my hair, if not my muscles, which, owing to substantial gym use, are now loci of construction, design and order. Design in the sense that I am ordering them out of flesh through my use of weights. I suppose you could argue that entropy is increasing anyway but until I "buy the farm" then I remain a source of order, even increasing order. Yes it's change, but it's also change to stay the same. To increase the order in response to decay to maintain a single existence.
fake consultant wrote apropos of my last post:
change happens, like it or not.
Yes. I did kind of deny that, but only for effect. I don't _really_ believe it. I _do_ think people use that fact in order to change stuff for their own purposes, and to destabilise and dislocate others.
CBI wrote:
In fact, the child who saw those streets WASN'T you...
You've changed.
Yes, frightening isn't it. On the other hand I still exist. Kind of. TD doesn't of course. I liked your post CBI about the identity of yourself and of Crushed. I wonder how much if at all TD has changed me, or my style of writing, or my thinking. Or how much those things have changed TD. Not much probably. I think TD, for all of his drunken sweary bloggertarianism is really still the same as me, because he will always back away from a fight. His mouth is bigger than it should be, really.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Duh.
Too Many Short Sentences - Straw says the BBC today.
I couldn't agree more. They're one of our greatest problems right now and it all comes from crap use of commas.
Oh, I see.
I couldn't agree more. They're one of our greatest problems right now and it all comes from crap use of commas.
Oh, I see.
Change
Funny old thing, change.
It's a good song by Tears for Fears (there aren't any bad ones); although my mis-hearing of the lyrics inadvertently make it more interesting than it actually is. I thought the refrain was "you can't change", which gives it a refreshing negativist spin, but it's actually "you can change" (zzzzz). Also I thought they had been incredibly clever and written "and something on your mind/became a part of you" whereas it only says "became a point of view" - much less intruiging.
I'm not saying change is impossible or bad but I think that the progressive view that it is always a good thing should be challenged: as if progressives themselves didn't object to change anyway, wanting the clock to remain at 1974 in perpetuity. Change is primarily the means by which rulers, especially the progressive type, keep people on their toes: you prevent anyone becoming too familiar or comfortable with the law/ethics/their local street/the price of a pint - you keep them dependent on you to help them navigate the morass of increasing difference. When the means of running your life keep updating themselves you never feel as though you truly know what's going on. When the buildings of your childhood, the streets and yes, even the trees are gone, it's like a part of you has already been consigned to the grave -what made you no longer exists, some of you is hanging by a thread from the scarce reel of memory. Then doubt seeps in; disagreement and forgetting and anyone could tell you anything about your own past. So you shrug and try not to think too much about the destruction of your own history. No-one's history can keep useless buildings up of course: I mention it not for public policy reasons but rather to suggest that a shifting built environment is not always good for psychic health. I know I risk sounding like an ignorant mix of Oliver Sacks and some twat in a tent with a ouija board but we are part of where we are as much as we are discrete entities. Melting away the ground we walk on creates problems for every opportunity it brings.
I am a mere 31: yet I feel very, very old sometimes. Many of the places I once knew no longer exist: I cannot buy my favourite music in shops and the space in shops for my favourite books is now small as to say, effectively, "we don't want your sort here, so fuck off". So many laws are different from even 10 years ago that things I used to enjoy (an occasional cigar over a few jars in the local, say) are illegal. I literally do not understand quite a lot of what the children I teach say.
And my bald patch is absolutely fucking massive. Jeeezus.
I remember reading a lot in the 90s and you still see it today in some lefty novels (Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman springs to mind) about the "true" motivations of the opponents of change: that they were in power, they were the establishment, they were privileged, they were always wrong. But of course reformers of all kinds want to change the stuff they don't like and preserve the stuff they do in amber. No-one actually likes the idea of change. Ask Ken Livingstone if he wants change in London right now. I'm sure he'll say "Yes, but only through keeping things the same - ie me in power."
Hey ho. Time for a change, eh? Oh how I laughed.
It's a good song by Tears for Fears (there aren't any bad ones); although my mis-hearing of the lyrics inadvertently make it more interesting than it actually is. I thought the refrain was "you can't change", which gives it a refreshing negativist spin, but it's actually "you can change" (zzzzz). Also I thought they had been incredibly clever and written "and something on your mind/became a part of you" whereas it only says "became a point of view" - much less intruiging.
I'm not saying change is impossible or bad but I think that the progressive view that it is always a good thing should be challenged: as if progressives themselves didn't object to change anyway, wanting the clock to remain at 1974 in perpetuity. Change is primarily the means by which rulers, especially the progressive type, keep people on their toes: you prevent anyone becoming too familiar or comfortable with the law/ethics/their local street/the price of a pint - you keep them dependent on you to help them navigate the morass of increasing difference. When the means of running your life keep updating themselves you never feel as though you truly know what's going on. When the buildings of your childhood, the streets and yes, even the trees are gone, it's like a part of you has already been consigned to the grave -what made you no longer exists, some of you is hanging by a thread from the scarce reel of memory. Then doubt seeps in; disagreement and forgetting and anyone could tell you anything about your own past. So you shrug and try not to think too much about the destruction of your own history. No-one's history can keep useless buildings up of course: I mention it not for public policy reasons but rather to suggest that a shifting built environment is not always good for psychic health. I know I risk sounding like an ignorant mix of Oliver Sacks and some twat in a tent with a ouija board but we are part of where we are as much as we are discrete entities. Melting away the ground we walk on creates problems for every opportunity it brings.
I am a mere 31: yet I feel very, very old sometimes. Many of the places I once knew no longer exist: I cannot buy my favourite music in shops and the space in shops for my favourite books is now small as to say, effectively, "we don't want your sort here, so fuck off". So many laws are different from even 10 years ago that things I used to enjoy (an occasional cigar over a few jars in the local, say) are illegal. I literally do not understand quite a lot of what the children I teach say.
And my bald patch is absolutely fucking massive. Jeeezus.
I remember reading a lot in the 90s and you still see it today in some lefty novels (Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman springs to mind) about the "true" motivations of the opponents of change: that they were in power, they were the establishment, they were privileged, they were always wrong. But of course reformers of all kinds want to change the stuff they don't like and preserve the stuff they do in amber. No-one actually likes the idea of change. Ask Ken Livingstone if he wants change in London right now. I'm sure he'll say "Yes, but only through keeping things the same - ie me in power."
Hey ho. Time for a change, eh? Oh how I laughed.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
The Famous Mr Major Tom
This is a *genuine* Alan Freeman line, circa September 1990. I still have it on tape: the magnificent "30 Years of Number Ones" radio 1 programme that lifted me out of the desert of early 90s pop-shit and in one hour gave me The Jam, David Bowie and the Police and told me that 3 minute tracks could be amazing. Fuck me I was never the same again. Thank fuck.
*and it goes like this, very hauntingly* is how the great man introduced "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by the Police. Amen, brother, amen to that.
The line quoted in the title of this post refers, of course, to AshestoAshes,and is how Freeman concluded his airing of the song on that show. The tv show of the same name I have _not_ seen, out of aesthetic purity; nonetheless: the tin drummer's personality is expressed perfectly by the synth wailings from 3:04 to 3:34 of that track. In case you were interested.
*and it goes like this, very hauntingly* is how the great man introduced "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by the Police. Amen, brother, amen to that.
The line quoted in the title of this post refers, of course, to AshestoAshes,and is how Freeman concluded his airing of the song on that show. The tv show of the same name I have _not_ seen, out of aesthetic purity; nonetheless: the tin drummer's personality is expressed perfectly by the synth wailings from 3:04 to 3:34 of that track. In case you were interested.
Surfing the Libertarian Tide
My regular reader will probably know that I am a sort of "bloggertarian": a ranter and raver at government excesses (not that there's anything wrong with this, of course) but someone who's happy enough to endorse authoritarian regimes when it suits him (ie Rome).
Actually, now I come to think of it, this government's attempts to nationalise everything from opinions on human reproduction to crappy banks are _worth_ getting fucking angry about.
Ahem.
Anyhow, I have just joined the Libertarian Party's _website_ though not the LP itself. I don't think I can, in all honesty: but for the record, I agree with them 100% on lauranorder, education (especially), the constitution (and the EU - not Europe) and welfare. Their forum is interesting but could probably do with a few socialists to liven up the debate: I hope it becomes a real centre for debate on these key issues, while the main parties carve it all up between their smug snouts in the trough fat faces.
If that makes me a right wing bigot then so what*, fuck you.
If it makes me a hypocrite, then fair enough.
*Sorry, sorry. I meant "so weak".**
**in fact that is what I _did_ say, and anyone who says otherwise is a cunt.***
***if you don't get the reference, google it under "Ed Balls" + "twat" + "arrogant cunt" + "faux class warrior" + "dickhead" + " oh fuck I've been fucked better change Hansard before anyone gets hold of the video oh fuck Guido already did".
Actually, now I come to think of it, this government's attempts to nationalise everything from opinions on human reproduction to crappy banks are _worth_ getting fucking angry about.
Ahem.
Anyhow, I have just joined the Libertarian Party's _website_ though not the LP itself. I don't think I can, in all honesty: but for the record, I agree with them 100% on lauranorder, education (especially), the constitution (and the EU - not Europe) and welfare. Their forum is interesting but could probably do with a few socialists to liven up the debate: I hope it becomes a real centre for debate on these key issues, while the main parties carve it all up between their smug snouts in the trough fat faces.
If that makes me a right wing bigot then so what*, fuck you.
If it makes me a hypocrite, then fair enough.
*Sorry, sorry. I meant "so weak".**
**in fact that is what I _did_ say, and anyone who says otherwise is a cunt.***
***if you don't get the reference, google it under "Ed Balls" + "twat" + "arrogant cunt" + "faux class warrior" + "dickhead" + " oh fuck I've been fucked better change Hansard before anyone gets hold of the video oh fuck Guido already did".
Budget Fails to Curb Binge Drinking
The Tin Drummer today had 4 pints of Stella.
He did not buy them, cheaply, off a supermarket, but opted to pay the vastly marked up prices at a no-way-suffering-from-the-positive-smoking-ban-pub.
It was alright. A bit dear, mind.
He did not buy them, cheaply, off a supermarket, but opted to pay the vastly marked up prices at a no-way-suffering-from-the-positive-smoking-ban-pub.
It was alright. A bit dear, mind.
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Mortal Sins
According the blogosphere, The Pope should of said : "1. Being a Catholic" and then anything else would have come as a bonus. I find it a bit odd that the church has such immense influence in countries where hardly anyone is Catholic but anyhow. Plus that people listen to the pope on condoms but _not_ on the rest of sexual doctrine (ie keep it in your pants unless you're married), which in my not inconsiderable experience of being one of these cunts, weighs rather more heavily on the individual, seems a bit strange. Plus also the church must be actively stopping deliveries of condoms, like by hijacking vans and torching them or summat. I guess it's all true though, because unbiased commentators like St Polly of Toynbee and St George of Moonbat have frequently asserted it as fact. Ergo it must obtain.
Still, I can reassure my readers that on absolutely no account will I be immensely rich any time soon: nor, indeed, am I about to perform fiendish experiments on embryos, nor defile the environment (oh no actually I tell a lie: my little Fiesta was caning the A420 and A34 this evening in 2nd and 3rd. How much emissions is that). Nor will I be acting against fundamental human dignity, unless you count having my pants sticking out a bit.
Also as a pisshead I will be contributing far more to schoolsnospitals than any of those NewLabour twats: the fuckers are putting my taxes up again. So you can fuck off if you are one of those puritans who think that you're not puritans because it's a made up rightwing concept and all you're doing is trying to make people more respectful/better citizens/think the right thoughts - I'm making the schoolsnosptials even better with every Stella I buy. Plus I've never gone to A&E or owt like that.
Oi! Pint of Stella! and a packet of cheese&onion! Come on John, I'm thirsty!
Still, I can reassure my readers that on absolutely no account will I be immensely rich any time soon: nor, indeed, am I about to perform fiendish experiments on embryos, nor defile the environment (oh no actually I tell a lie: my little Fiesta was caning the A420 and A34 this evening in 2nd and 3rd. How much emissions is that). Nor will I be acting against fundamental human dignity, unless you count having my pants sticking out a bit.
Also as a pisshead I will be contributing far more to schoolsnospitals than any of those NewLabour twats: the fuckers are putting my taxes up again. So you can fuck off if you are one of those puritans who think that you're not puritans because it's a made up rightwing concept and all you're doing is trying to make people more respectful/better citizens/think the right thoughts - I'm making the schoolsnosptials even better with every Stella I buy. Plus I've never gone to A&E or owt like that.
Oi! Pint of Stella! and a packet of cheese&onion! Come on John, I'm thirsty!
Saturday, 8 March 2008
It's Always The Same/ It's Just A Shame That's All
Can't remember who did this - Genesis probably, in fact I think it was them.
I drew a picture of it for my dad, so much did I like it in 1982 or 1983 or whenever.
He was, like, not getting out of bed until 12.15 for Grandstand and I was like watching Saturday Superstore or something and listening to this somehow, somewhere, and so I drew this cartoon strip with me listening to this track and trying to get him up or whatever. Don't really recall. Don't suppose it matters. Long time ago. Now I'm a long way grown up and it clearly has no relevance to my life....
Still. It's got a point, though, hasn't it?
I drew a picture of it for my dad, so much did I like it in 1982 or 1983 or whenever.
He was, like, not getting out of bed until 12.15 for Grandstand and I was like watching Saturday Superstore or something and listening to this somehow, somewhere, and so I drew this cartoon strip with me listening to this track and trying to get him up or whatever. Don't really recall. Don't suppose it matters. Long time ago. Now I'm a long way grown up and it clearly has no relevance to my life....
Still. It's got a point, though, hasn't it?
Fed Up With Your Indigestion
That track makes me laugh, it's by "the fuckwits" or something. Can't remember their proper name but it ain't dissimilar.*
Anyhoo. Today's Times carries an interview with Sir Bernard Lovell, unbelievably still alive at the real and not piss-taken age of 94. Unfortunately, all I could think of was how Telly Twatteron out of the National Secular Society will respond in Monday's Times:
Dear Sir,
The interview with "Sir" Bernard Lovell was nothing short of a disgrace. It is, surely, an anomaly that in this pluralistic, multicultural, secular society, an important figure in the public sphere - and a scientist to boot - should admit to not being an atheist. My taxes - the taxes of a rational man - have supported this charlatan for fifty years, which is an affront to all right thinking atheists (although, clearly, the term "bright" is more appropriate and any other term is, in fact, an insult - and recent research shows that atheists are the most discriminated against group in the USA).
More than that, his disclosure that he has - appallingly- played the organ in his local church all this time shows that his scientific judgement has to be called into question. If such an apparently rational man could believe in the the "flying spaghetti monster" (a most amusing and very clever satire, on religion, published against the machinations of the all powerful religious conspiracy thingy) then surely all of his theories and thoughts must be discounted. This is a man who believes in other stuff. Stuff I have never seen. This means that when he talks about other stuff I have never seen, but that I am usually happy to take on trust from experts, he cannot be believed.
Accordingly, the 50 year history of Jodrell Bank must be called into immediate question. I mean - since his mindset is so clearly askew, any views he takes must, logically, be ignored. I ask readers of this newspaper a simple question: if you were in a car driven by someone who told you he was an excellent driver, but who also said that a lovely fluffy bunny would meet you at the end of the journey, wouldn't you jump out, regardless of the speed of the car? I am not saying I disbelieve Jodrell Bank on pulsars, just that..well, you know.
And I _keep_ coming back to the central point: how dare my taxes be spent on anything that does not reflect my worldview?
Yours, Tervy Narcisseron
ps Do not attempt to reply to my letter: I have gone into hiding because I will surely be targeted by religious extremists following my exceptionally brave letter, and also interview in the Catholic Herald a couple of weeks ago aren't I brave after all it was a right hatchet job ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (ad infinitum, or rather ad finitum ha ha ha ha)
Indeed.
Besides of this crap, life goes on. Or rather it doesn't for a number of people, whose names I do not intend to list here. It came as something of a surprise to me to wake up this morning, although I had not drunk anything except mathematics last night. Perhaps that was the reason. I still thought: "fuck me, what do you know?"
Any Catholic readers I still have (and I have reason to believe that Crushed By Ingsoc still reads me) will understand this: when I was 12, I had no-one, literally no-one, to pray for during Eucharistic Prayer 1 when the priest says "Now we pray for those who have died...". Now-a-days my list goes on almost until the end of the prayer. Fuck me: friends, chums, aquaintances, favourite pop stars, family, teachers, tutors, not lovers yet thank fuck - it just pours out like a stream of mortal diarrhoea. I estimate it finishes around "on earth as it is on heaven".
for any well read atheist readers, yes I know it goes on to say "..marked with the sign of faith". So what. We're all fucking dead in the long run. All fucking dead.
For any bastard tenacious atheist readers yes I know I don't sound very positive for a Catholic. So the fuck what. Christ came for the tossers, the wankers and the fuckwits. Not for the people who had it all sorted. Hence Nietzsche calls it a slave religion, and hence now we've told him to fuck off we're still obsessed with victimhood. Nietsche would laugh then he'd fuck off down the pub. For a quick flirt with the Swedish barmaid and a boast about how when he's not in the pub he's really something quite important. Then he'd get into a fight with some twat who thought he was mad and he'd say "Oi who are you calling mad you ignorant cunt" and he'd glass the twat then he'd say "had enough have you you fuckwitted arsehole, had enough eh, you fucking cunt" and he'd kick the tosser in the bollocks when he was down then he'd say "think god isn't dead do you you fucking twat, you cocksucker, think the will to power means nothing do you you stupid fucker" then he'd punch the semi-conscious face of his opponent and say "jesus fucking christ a weak thing would fucking hide itself in a sturdy fucking barrel" and then he'd tell the fucker to get up then he'd say "fuck me you dickhead you English are all the fucking same; you lose the religion but you don't lose the fucking ethic".
Or something. [breathes in and out like Harry Enfield character c.1991]
the drums...the drums...the drums...the drums...the drums....
*=They are "The TingTings", or so I am told.
Anyhoo. Today's Times carries an interview with Sir Bernard Lovell, unbelievably still alive at the real and not piss-taken age of 94. Unfortunately, all I could think of was how Telly Twatteron out of the National Secular Society will respond in Monday's Times:
Dear Sir,
The interview with "Sir" Bernard Lovell was nothing short of a disgrace. It is, surely, an anomaly that in this pluralistic, multicultural, secular society, an important figure in the public sphere - and a scientist to boot - should admit to not being an atheist. My taxes - the taxes of a rational man - have supported this charlatan for fifty years, which is an affront to all right thinking atheists (although, clearly, the term "bright" is more appropriate and any other term is, in fact, an insult - and recent research shows that atheists are the most discriminated against group in the USA).
More than that, his disclosure that he has - appallingly- played the organ in his local church all this time shows that his scientific judgement has to be called into question. If such an apparently rational man could believe in the the "flying spaghetti monster" (a most amusing and very clever satire, on religion, published against the machinations of the all powerful religious conspiracy thingy) then surely all of his theories and thoughts must be discounted. This is a man who believes in other stuff. Stuff I have never seen. This means that when he talks about other stuff I have never seen, but that I am usually happy to take on trust from experts, he cannot be believed.
Accordingly, the 50 year history of Jodrell Bank must be called into immediate question. I mean - since his mindset is so clearly askew, any views he takes must, logically, be ignored. I ask readers of this newspaper a simple question: if you were in a car driven by someone who told you he was an excellent driver, but who also said that a lovely fluffy bunny would meet you at the end of the journey, wouldn't you jump out, regardless of the speed of the car? I am not saying I disbelieve Jodrell Bank on pulsars, just that..well, you know.
And I _keep_ coming back to the central point: how dare my taxes be spent on anything that does not reflect my worldview?
Yours, Tervy Narcisseron
ps Do not attempt to reply to my letter: I have gone into hiding because I will surely be targeted by religious extremists following my exceptionally brave letter, and also interview in the Catholic Herald a couple of weeks ago aren't I brave after all it was a right hatchet job ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (ad infinitum, or rather ad finitum ha ha ha ha)
Indeed.
Besides of this crap, life goes on. Or rather it doesn't for a number of people, whose names I do not intend to list here. It came as something of a surprise to me to wake up this morning, although I had not drunk anything except mathematics last night. Perhaps that was the reason. I still thought: "fuck me, what do you know?"
Any Catholic readers I still have (and I have reason to believe that Crushed By Ingsoc still reads me) will understand this: when I was 12, I had no-one, literally no-one, to pray for during Eucharistic Prayer 1 when the priest says "Now we pray for those who have died...". Now-a-days my list goes on almost until the end of the prayer. Fuck me: friends, chums, aquaintances, favourite pop stars, family, teachers, tutors, not lovers yet thank fuck - it just pours out like a stream of mortal diarrhoea. I estimate it finishes around "on earth as it is on heaven".
for any well read atheist readers, yes I know it goes on to say "..marked with the sign of faith". So what. We're all fucking dead in the long run. All fucking dead.
For any bastard tenacious atheist readers yes I know I don't sound very positive for a Catholic. So the fuck what. Christ came for the tossers, the wankers and the fuckwits. Not for the people who had it all sorted. Hence Nietzsche calls it a slave religion, and hence now we've told him to fuck off we're still obsessed with victimhood. Nietsche would laugh then he'd fuck off down the pub. For a quick flirt with the Swedish barmaid and a boast about how when he's not in the pub he's really something quite important. Then he'd get into a fight with some twat who thought he was mad and he'd say "Oi who are you calling mad you ignorant cunt" and he'd glass the twat then he'd say "had enough have you you fuckwitted arsehole, had enough eh, you fucking cunt" and he'd kick the tosser in the bollocks when he was down then he'd say "think god isn't dead do you you fucking twat, you cocksucker, think the will to power means nothing do you you stupid fucker" then he'd punch the semi-conscious face of his opponent and say "jesus fucking christ a weak thing would fucking hide itself in a sturdy fucking barrel" and then he'd tell the fucker to get up then he'd say "fuck me you dickhead you English are all the fucking same; you lose the religion but you don't lose the fucking ethic".
Or something. [breathes in and out like Harry Enfield character c.1991]
the drums...the drums...the drums...the drums...the drums....
*=They are "The TingTings", or so I am told.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
T
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].
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].
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.
Friday, 11 January 2008
Get In x2
I make a point of only writing about my personal life in the most guarded, drunken, metaphorical ways (see previous post, although I wasn't drunk as it was posted at 10am or something and even I have only had four or five Stellas by then), unless it concerns Doctor Who but today I am going to bust those rules. This is why:
1) I am being taught in a European University - namely, my poetry is being studied by a student in Vienna, who has been assigned some of my work to look at. Considering that I am not worth one of Ted Hughes's bollocks, this is soooo cool.
2) The final viewing figure for the Doctor Who Xmas special goes as follows:
13.31million.
I'll just repeat that, in case you missed it:
13.31million.
This means that in my local cemetery there is a moss covered stone with "Doctor Who: 1989" inscribed at the top, and a load of "3.1m, 3.6m, 3.9m, 4.0m" figures carved underneath. This stone has now fallen below the surface and is no longer readable.
The Voyage of the Damned is the 8th most watched Who EVER, beaten by one Hartnell and six T Baker episodes.
13.31million. Wow.
The second most viewed programme of any kind (and that includes all the pornography) of 2007.
Top Banana.
1) I am being taught in a European University - namely, my poetry is being studied by a student in Vienna, who has been assigned some of my work to look at. Considering that I am not worth one of Ted Hughes's bollocks, this is soooo cool.
2) The final viewing figure for the Doctor Who Xmas special goes as follows:
13.31million.
I'll just repeat that, in case you missed it:
13.31million.
This means that in my local cemetery there is a moss covered stone with "Doctor Who: 1989" inscribed at the top, and a load of "3.1m, 3.6m, 3.9m, 4.0m" figures carved underneath. This stone has now fallen below the surface and is no longer readable.
The Voyage of the Damned is the 8th most watched Who EVER, beaten by one Hartnell and six T Baker episodes.
13.31million. Wow.
The second most viewed programme of any kind (and that includes all the pornography) of 2007.
Top Banana.
Thursday, 10 January 2008
New Labour, New Year, New TD
Owing to my failure to be consistently re-elected over a substantial period of time, it is clear that I have become out of touch with my electorate; accordingly I have decided to embark on a sustained series of reforms and modernising initiatives. The resolutions I set myself at New Year itself should be regarded more in the line of aspirations than targets; as we know, reality is dynamic and an individual needs to be just as fluid in dealing with changes to it. In my case this has meant a radical re-appraisal of outdated methods of living and a dramatic readjustment to modern challenges. Indeed, I have decided to grasp these challenges with both hands in a positive and forward looking manner.
There is a meaning to this (ie content, you know, when words do refer to real world events or objects), but I'm darned if I'm going to explain it. Writing in jargon, despite my Resolution, does give me a tingle of authority and professionalism, two things I normally run a mile from. Yes I'm being ironic, but there's a grain of truth in that the opaque language of modern life, drenched with the sentiment of positivity and control, does give me a sense of worth - for a few nanoseconds. Judging by the amount of government garbage I read in my job, I can't be the only one. By contrast, the bluntness and lack of ambiguity inherent in swearing makes it difficult to do except when there are no visible consequences. Imagine the chaos if the government sent a circular to schools saying "Just teach them to fucking read, for fuck's sake."
I mean, someone would have to do it. After spluttering in outrage for a bit, of course.
There is a meaning to this (ie content, you know, when words do refer to real world events or objects), but I'm darned if I'm going to explain it. Writing in jargon, despite my Resolution, does give me a tingle of authority and professionalism, two things I normally run a mile from. Yes I'm being ironic, but there's a grain of truth in that the opaque language of modern life, drenched with the sentiment of positivity and control, does give me a sense of worth - for a few nanoseconds. Judging by the amount of government garbage I read in my job, I can't be the only one. By contrast, the bluntness and lack of ambiguity inherent in swearing makes it difficult to do except when there are no visible consequences. Imagine the chaos if the government sent a circular to schools saying "Just teach them to fucking read, for fuck's sake."
I mean, someone would have to do it. After spluttering in outrage for a bit, of course.
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Warning
Just in case anyone is interested, the current flood of posts is to dry up, owing to the resumption of work soonish. I will try to post a bit more often than before,but I can't guarantee that I can be bothered.
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
I Was Pissed
Well so much for the resolution to drink more in accordance with government targets. An outbreak of outrageous, and indeed, inappropriate rebelliousness (in felicitous concert with the onset of early middle age) conjoined with an episode of good physical health (for the first time in ages) met to produce a substantial amount of drinking tonight. Or rather, "this afternoon". You see, my type of sub-middle class rebellion (more properly entitled "contrarianism" - as it is de facto the case that lefty stereotypes are true)is against government targets and the core principles of govt agencies. Yes I know it seems ridiculous to the point of being literally fantastic, but there we are. That's my life. I don't have masses of unprotected sex, unfortunately, which means I miss out on unlimited government support, and the moral support of people who think adults cannot be expected to look after themselves sexually, but I am: overweight, a drinker, not an atheist (wow, this should have those who refuse to capitalise God and who write letters to the Torygraph from the National Secular Society in a state of apoplexy: "Sir, In these pluraristic times, it is unacceptable that a non-atheist should occupy any post in civil society..."etc etc), a lover of poetry. All these things put me outside the realm of acceptability; I am well aware of this. Alas I am not a smoker, now-a-days. In the old days, I'm thinking around 1999 here, one would drink ale, eat crisps and smoke cigars, and discuss non-atheist topics (fairies, elves, dimensional transference, God, Christ and so on) until late at night or whenever the lock-in ended. All people do these days is drink orange juice, mutter about what a good idea the smoking ban was, and how much they're in favour of equality, and how awful it is that in this day and age not everyone is an atheist. Jesus this is the age of the grey person in a power-suit going on and on about following guidelines and how anyone who doesn't agree with one is bigoted/xenophobic/homophobic/racist/full of any other kind of hate. I mean, what other reason could there be? Why don't they all fuck off and become diversity outreach co-ordinators; we pay enough tax to fund endless of these non-jobs. Even fucking poetry is stuffed full of all this crap, little grey verse telling us how evil bigotry is and how much they've suffered from not everyone telling them they're wonderful all the fucking days of their stupid little lives. Oddly enough, a lot of it appears in magazines with "Funded by the Arts Council" stamped obscenely on the inside cover. It goes a little bit like this:
I came to England in 1981
and you called me a twat
and I carried this like a ball of cold cheese
in my poor suffering gut
and you never loved my views
or agreed about Mrs Thatcher
and you're a bastard,
a fucking old Tory tosser.
or something.
Surely it's obvious that I'm a fascist, and that if you put a bomb underneath my Ford Fiesta you'd eradicate fascism for a generation, or some such bullshit. Given that I teach one day a week in a state school, I guess I'm a subsidy junkie too, but I do whatever I can to subvert it, by asking questions of Al Gore, by questioning socialism, by reading non-socialist poetry (ie not Adrian Mitchell and such crap) wherever possible, but it never works.
Bugger, I'm sobering up. Arse. I want to spend as little of 2008 as possible sober. What a ghastly state, wherein the mind is forced to locate stability and purpose in philosophy or religion, or something equally appalling. I saw on tv once that elephants dart for the trees full of fermenting oranges, or something: even animals want to get pissed, so why should it be denied us? Ah, bollocks to it all. Not even alcohol is enough - mini cheddars, now that is where life really is at.
I came to England in 1981
and you called me a twat
and I carried this like a ball of cold cheese
in my poor suffering gut
and you never loved my views
or agreed about Mrs Thatcher
and you're a bastard,
a fucking old Tory tosser.
or something.
Surely it's obvious that I'm a fascist, and that if you put a bomb underneath my Ford Fiesta you'd eradicate fascism for a generation, or some such bullshit. Given that I teach one day a week in a state school, I guess I'm a subsidy junkie too, but I do whatever I can to subvert it, by asking questions of Al Gore, by questioning socialism, by reading non-socialist poetry (ie not Adrian Mitchell and such crap) wherever possible, but it never works.
Bugger, I'm sobering up. Arse. I want to spend as little of 2008 as possible sober. What a ghastly state, wherein the mind is forced to locate stability and purpose in philosophy or religion, or something equally appalling. I saw on tv once that elephants dart for the trees full of fermenting oranges, or something: even animals want to get pissed, so why should it be denied us? Ah, bollocks to it all. Not even alcohol is enough - mini cheddars, now that is where life really is at.
The Year So Far...
Well I haven't achieved any of my resolutions yet, unless "not having sex" was one of them, which it wasn't, but then it scarcely needed to be. I certainly _have_ cut down on the booze, if not the one night stands, but then that too is circumstantial. As far as resolutions of substance are concerned - pshaw. The clouds are slinking over the valley, as if they have hangovers, and we are just where we always are - in the depths of boredom.
This being the case, here are a few heroes I'd like to enlist in 2008 to liven things up a bit:
1. Doctor Who (hopefully he'll be along anyway)
2. Ted Hughes (no chance - dead)
3. The Iron Man (see above)
4. Mrs Thatcher (chances of that are slim)
5. Ian Curtis (see no2)
6. Andy Partridge (hmm, it's not 1981 anymore)
7. Iris Murdoch (see no2)
8. Graham Thorpe (hmm, it's not 1994 anymore)
9. Sylvia Plath (see no2)
10. God (well, I guess we'll see with this one).
Although I've stuck Sylvia Plath on the list I don't really read her these days, though she was a big hero of mine many years ago, when I thought poor old Ted was just a rutter of wild animals. I suppose she could be replaced with Tanya out of EastEnders, but that's hardly a like for like swap.
This being the case, here are a few heroes I'd like to enlist in 2008 to liven things up a bit:
1. Doctor Who (hopefully he'll be along anyway)
2. Ted Hughes (no chance - dead)
3. The Iron Man (see above)
4. Mrs Thatcher (chances of that are slim)
5. Ian Curtis (see no2)
6. Andy Partridge (hmm, it's not 1981 anymore)
7. Iris Murdoch (see no2)
8. Graham Thorpe (hmm, it's not 1994 anymore)
9. Sylvia Plath (see no2)
10. God (well, I guess we'll see with this one).
Although I've stuck Sylvia Plath on the list I don't really read her these days, though she was a big hero of mine many years ago, when I thought poor old Ted was just a rutter of wild animals. I suppose she could be replaced with Tanya out of EastEnders, but that's hardly a like for like swap.
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