i blog every day

522: Cough .... coughcough ..... cough

2012-02-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

You know when you have that feeling in your bronciholes and your bronchioles? The sort of stretched, achy, gooey feeling which causes painful spasmodic leaps of the chest, in turn causing the expulsion of a thick muchoid substance and a sound like cough or hack? Of course you do, we've all been there. It's called a cough, isn't it; you've all had one. Many of you probably have one now, what with it been winter in the northern hemisphere and the probability of any random person in the world living in the northern hemisphere being approximately 9/10 (or whatever, I don't understand betting odds at all... point is, I think, 90% of the world live in the north, where it is winter. In winter human beings get this thing called the common cold, it's pretty common and often results in a cough).

There is one person in this room, me, and I am coughing. From this small sample I infer that 100% of the world's human being population are coughing. I know I am. But perhaps it is not the cough and the humanity that are linked. It could simply be that 100% of the worlds blond-haired, bespectacled, 30-year old males are currently coughing. Or it may be indication that 100% of people with a little bit of dry skin on their left ring finger, who have no known Transylvanian ancestry, and who have eaten pizza in the last week, are coughing. Suppose that is the case. Go on, suppose it. I have only my self to observe, therefore can only assume that everyone is like me. I will refuse to believe otherwise even if presented with evidence that negates my conceptions. Evidence that doesn't back me up is not evidence at all. Ignore it. I know I will.

Remember that strange phenomena I explained earlier? The thing I referred to as a cough? The thing with coffing, is it's just so moreish; it's almost addictive. Even though I want to quit I just keep going back to it. I try to go cold turkey, to just plain quit: stop. But after a few minutes I feel the urge, the black dog, the dead cat clawing at my back; that tickle that tempts one. I've tried water, toddies, methadone, mephadrone, but nothing helps. They just postpone the inevitable. The water and/or the toddy give moments of release and then soon again the cough comes back as if it never left.

Cough medicine exists, it is a thing you can buy. It comes in many different brands, in different bottles aimed at different target markets, but they all have one thing in common. They are a big fucking cunting shit-faced fuckery of a waste of time and money. They do not fucking work and are a complete rip off. F'act. Her is what happens: You pour yourself a spoon~ or capful and knock it back. The instructions inform you it will provide hours of instant relief by coating your red-raw throat with a silky-smooth wash of medicated goodness. They tell you to only use every few hours, and imply that you will only need to.

The reality is that you receive relief lasting a few moments. Just as with a sip of water or toddy the tickle that precedes the cough returns after seconds or minutes. With water and, to a lesser extent, toddy you can keep sipping as and when required. With cough medicine, that is it. Wait a few hours for your next ineffectual hit. Don't be fooled by the adverts. Don't believe the hype. And don't, if at all possible, start coughing in the first place. It's like a downward spiral, the proverbial tube of pringles. One you cough you just can't stop. Take it from me. I've been there; to hell and back. I've been to the very bottom, and now with god's help I can get through this......

........

cough

521: Me & Herring

2012-02-11T04:38:00.000-08:00

Monday night in Lancaster. We drove up after work from Manchester to pay a brief visit to my parents so they could wish me a happy birthday, then we said farewell and went to the Lancaster Grand Theatre to watch Richard Herring perform his current show What Is Love, Anyway? The previous night he had been at The Lowry, Salford which is about ten minutes walk from my house. It had been sold out when I was looking for tickets a few weeks earlier, and anyway I much preferred the idea of watching him perform in a much smaller venue in my beloved/despised home town Lancaster. It was his first visit to Lancaster and this seemed to be reflected in the embarrassingly large number of empty seats. However the mood was good and the laughs came loudly and often.

As usual for a Richard Herring stand-up routine there is a theme (this time is obviously Love, following on from Jesus in Christ on a Bike, fascism in Hitler Moustache) that is rigorously dissected. The theme is the focus and the stories he tells are the source of the humour; there is little time of gags. It's not good form to go into too much detail about the content of a comedy show when writing a review, and it is especially wrong to give away any of the jokes, so I will skim over this bit. There are personal details such as a Valentine's day card Herring's father gave to his mother when they were both 13, Herring's own diary entries and a poem he wrote as a teenager, and a touching yet hilarious story about the mental decline of his grandmother.

Me & Herring (note Chuckle Brothers in the background)

It's a wonderful, hilarious and thoughtful show. I'm glad it was this one I went to see with my fiancee, as opposed to say Hitler Moustache. When I watched the DVD of Hitler Moustache with her she quickly became exhausted and exasperated by the shouty ranty manner of Herring, and the way in which he doesn't finish a sentence before starting the next one when he gets worked up. Richard Herring is getting married (in April I think) and I am too (in May), so perhaps we are getting sappy, soppy, wimpy, girly. I hope not.

After the show Herring appeared spontaneously in the theatre foyer to sign the free programmes and punt his DVDs (which can be bought from Go Faster Stripe, a fantastic independent producer of comedy DVDs). Four years ago he did a show called Oh Fuck, I'm 40 so I got him to sign my programme Oh Fuck, You're 30 and I also got a happy birthday for good measure. I apologised "on behalf of the idiots of Lancaster for not turning up," which he said didn't matter. I bought Lee & Herring's Fist of Fun series one DVD on which he wrote something which looks like "MCR," or ""MGR"... maybe "MBR".... I have no idea. After I had my picture with him I said "I hope you were smiling," to which he replied "I was, but it was insincere". OK, fanboy section over.

Great birthday, great show. Hope Herring returns to Lancaster next time around, although I fear that all the old school Lee & Herring fans of my generation have, like me, moved away to Manchester, London or further afield. We'll see next month when Stewart Lee performs his current show Carpet Remnant World at The Dukes in Lancaster.

520: Brainstorming in the Inventor's Lab

2012-02-11T03:37:00.000-08:00

Watching series three of 24 and there is a new face; one that I was almost certain I recognised from something else. You know the situation: you think who is that, what have they been in so using Wikipedia or IMDB you find the character, follow the link to the actor's page then see what else they have been in. In this case the character was Jack Bauer's new assistant in the CTU office, Chloe O'Brian, played by the actress Mary Lynn Rajskub who I have never heard of. I was sure I recognised her from something, but the only roles she has portrayed that I have seen are a minor character in shitty film Road Trip and an Art Garfunkle fan in an episode of Flight of the Conchords. Neither of these were strong enough links to be the place where I recognised her from. This leads me to the conclusion that I didn't actually recognise her at all. So maybe she just looks like someone. She looks very slightly like Juliette Lewis, but I don't think that's it. Which leads me to my amazing new invention:

I have invented (but not in any way built, made, manufactured or planned) a piece of software on that internet that tells you who people look like. You take a screen grab from a film or TV show, or a photograph of your face, or the face of a friend (we all have them... faces I mean, not friends), and the software analyses the face with all technical stuff and internet power, and then provides a list of similarly appearanced famous people who you might be thinking of. That way you will always be able to get an answer to the important question who does she look like? Now all I need is a piece of string, some double sided sticky tape, an adult to help me with the scissors, a blow torch and a nail gun and I can build this shit. Yeah, I'm on it.

Invention number two: shovel gloves. Shovel/spade heads that you wear on your hands; useful for picking up piles of litter or leaves and depositing them into a bin bag that someone is holding open for you. I would be utterly amazed if these don't already exist somewhere, but a very brief google of the term "shovel gloves" reveals only the bizarre and unrelated website Shovelglove.com. This is a very basic html website describing a physical workout that involves wrapping a jumper around the head of a sledgehammer and waving the thing about a bit. Genius, in no literal sense of the word. It's very funny including such gems as "The only other exercise I do is walk (I say only, but I think walking is even more important for long term health than shovelglove) ," and "I didn't want to grovel on my stomach on the floor, like some degraded beast. There must be some kind of movement I can do standing up, with the dignity of a human being, I thought". And thus we have one kind of shovel glove, in a very different form than the one I have postulated.

End of brainstorming session.

519: an offered opinion on a thing

2012-02-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

“I believe that decisions about the timing and manner of death belong to the individual as a human right. I believe it is wrong to withhold medical methods of terminating life painlessly and swiftly when an individual has a rational and clear-minded sustained wish to end his or her life.”

Professor A C Grayling, Dignity in Dying Patron

I was guided via twitter, as happens, to a blog post I find so baffling and stupid I just had to speak up; so here goes. It's written by a man called Simon Duffy and is called How Euthanasia leads to Eugenics. I've never heard of Simon Duffy and know nothing about him; that's not meant to be a snide who is he comment, just a statement of fact. According to his biography he is leader of The Centre for Welfare Reform, of which I also know nothing about, but it seems decent. It aims "to increase social justice, promote citizenship, strengthen families and enrich our communities," which sounds good to me; and although I am going to comment negatively on Simon Duffy's blog post I make no similar comment about the good work of the Centre for Welfare Reform. (At least, I assume they do good work, because as I mentioned I've never heard of them!)

How Euthanasia leads to Eugenics

…a [Nazi] Ministry of Justice Commission on the Reform of the Criminal Code drafted a similar law sanctioning "mercy killing" of people suffering from incurable diseases. The law read, in part:

"Clause 1: Whoever is suffering from an incurable or terminal illness which is a major burden to him or others, can request mercy killing by a doctor, provided it is his express wish and has the approval of a specially empowered doctor.

"Clause 2: The life of a person who because of incurable mental illness requires permanent institutionalisation and is not able to sustain an independent existence, may be prematurely terminated by medical procedures in a painless and covert manner."
From Forgotten Crimes by Susanne E Evans

Notice that the first clause is almost exactly what those seeking to advance euthanasia in the UK are putting forward as a reasonable legal measure. And notice the easy and natural step to by-passing the question of voluntary choice for those who might be deemed lacking mental capacity.

There is hardly a break between euthanasia and eugenics - the first creates the licence to ignore the dignity of human life, the second gives others the duty to ignore it.

I really don't know where to start with the blind, vicious and bloody embarrassing stupidity of this statement. (I quoted Simon Duffy's post in full as it is short and appears convinced of its own completeness. Read the original here.) The title How Euthanasia leads to Eugenics sets out a difficult and bizarre idea and claims that it will offer evidence How.

Let's be clear: Eugenics is an awful idea and one that has no place at all in a civilised, humane and egalitarian society. But euthanasia is a good thing; the right of a terminally ill individual to choose the time and place of their own death, to allow them the dignity of choosing the end over a long and painful drawn out death.

Simon Duffy seems to believe that because a statement numbered "Clause 1" about euthanasia is followed in some list somewhere by a statement numbered "Clause 2" about eugenics, that this some how magically constitutes evidence of 1 leading to 2. I'd like to test this logic and see if it holds up to scrutiny by writing my own list:

Clause 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Clause 2: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

The first clause is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the second is from the bible, Exodus 22:18. They clearly have nothing in common; I have just semi-randomly chosen them to appear in a list together. I chose the first because I agree with it, and the second because I don't. It's a stupid and pathetic point I'm attempting to make, but no stupider or more pathetic than the one Simon Duffy fumbles with.
(From now on whenever I mention clauses I'm talking about the ones Simon Duffy quotes, and not the irrelevant ones I just picked.)

He claims there is an easy and natural step between the two clauses, from voluntary in the first to involuntary in the second in the case of individuals whose mental illness does not allow their consent. I can see no easy or natural step there, nor any evidence that their may be one lurking in the shadows. One is voluntary, the other is not; these are not similar, they are opposite. Where is this easy and natural step? Where is it?

After his weak, fleeting and begging the question argument to support his hypothesis comes the poor conclusion: "There is hardly a break between euthanasia and eugenics - the first creates the licence to ignore the dignity of human life, the second gives others the duty to ignore it."

I argue that the right of a terminally ill patient, in full mental capacity to understand their choice, to choose to die is demanded by human dignity. Personally if I was in constant agonising pain, immobile in a bed, living with the knowledge of a certain imminent death I would demand the right to choose my own way out. If I was suffering from a degenerative brain disease, during the time I was still with it I would like to request that when it got to the point when I was no longer able to think, write, and recognise my loved ones I be euthanized. At that point, I believe there would be nothing left of me.

The second clause needs further consideration before a conclusion can be reached. A point that Duffy has failed to mention is that it refers to "incurable mental illness requir[ing] permanent institutionalisation". If this was on the Criminal Code of Nazi Germany it was written not only in a part of the world where illiberalism was destroying millions of lives, but it was written in a time when mental illness was much less well understood.

In the past just about any mental illness was considered incurable and people were institutionalised with all sorts of things that today are treatable. They even considered all sorts of crazy things to be mental illness that we don't in today's more enlightened times; homosexuality for example.

Of course the second clause is disgusting, but its probable meaning when it was written bears little relation to how it can be interpreted today; and above all there is no reason to suggest it logically follows from the first clause.

In conclusion:
Reasonably consented euthanasia: good
Eugenics: bad
Obviously.

(If my argument comes across as rambling or confusing, don't worry, it probably is. It's not supposed to be an essay; I'm not handing it in to be marked. I've just rushed it out. It's more of a rant than anything.)

“I wish to be treated as a responsible adult and believe that people should be legally able to register their wish for an assistance with suicide, if needed. I support Dignity in Dying primarily to help change the law on assisted suicide.”

Sir Michael Holroyd CBE, Dignity in Dying Patron

518: All the W's: Writing, Whisky, Work, Wondering, www

2012-02-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

I was lazily on my way to sleep, reading in bed, after having a glass of my birthday whisky (a thirty year old single malt Highland MacDuff), having already set my alarm for 6:30am, well aware that I will struggle to drag myself from the pit in a little over six hours from now. I was doing that, but then realised that I really ought to put in a little bit of time on the typewriter. The blog, which I have spent so much time on over the last year and a half, is in danger of slipping away. Recently over the weekend I have neglected it, but generally over the last few three or four months (maybe longer) there has been a creeping lack of dedication. I used to be able to do one, on the day, every day, without fail, regardless of how I felt. And that was absolutely the point.

It didn't matter if what I wrote was dreadful, exhausted, needy, pitiful shite as long as I wrote something; it was the eternal exercise in writing something, anything, every day. Recently I have found myself becoming self conscious for now particular reason. I worry that a blog post may be uninteresting and so I make my excuses and ignore my responsibility; I just don't bother. Ten I find myself desperately trying to catch up a couple of times a week, usually at the weekend. This goes against everything I started the blog for. I decided to do it daily, as opposed to just a few times a week, so that I would do it daily and not be rushing a few every Sunday night like so much ignored homework. I'm doing this, essentially, for the future; for my future, and that of my soon-to-be wife, and the children we will one day have. If I don't read and write every day I will eventually be dragged back into the laziness of the non-writer; excusing inactivity away with the imaginary affliction of writer's block. Writing is a habit; this blog is that habit. Keep up the habit and use the acquired skills for commercial gain at some point in the future: novels, stories, columns, articles, radio script, TV?

Some days, at work or in the shower, fully formed ideas for blog posts leap into my mind, often accompanied by the prose to compose the opening paragraph, leaving my a convenient jumping point to complete the article. When this happens I can't write fast enough to keep up with my racing thoughts, but I give it a good go. When this happens I need to grab the opportunity to move onto the novel I am writing, which exists variously as a complete chapter, two incomplete chapters in two states of incompletion, some characters with traits and relationships, approximately three interweaving plots, themes, and bits and scraps of other stuff.

So now that I have jumped from my bed and written this blog post (as well as one I started earlier, but haven't finished yet, but am about to), I would, were I a free man, stay up for many more hours writing (and possibly having another nip of birthday whisky). But I am not a free man, I have a day job to get up for and minimum wage to earn; so it is up to me to find reasonable and realistic times to write, lest I spend the rest of my life making excuses and writing a 'daily' occasional blog about nothing.

517: Surprise

2012-02-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Now I join an elite group of people. No, I'm not a member of the Privy Council, the chess grandmasters, or the mile high club. No, I am now a person who has had a surprise party thrown for them. I'm a person who has walked into my own flat, wondered why all the lights were turned off, and then screamed fuck me at the sudden explosions of party poppers, flash bulbs and cries of surprise! Then realised the dark room I had just shouted fuck into included very young talkative children - my niece and the two boys of a friend. Fortunately for me the party wasn't hampered (or enlivened) by children loudly and repeatedly proclaiming knowledge of their explicitly expanding vocabulary. "Happy Birthday, and thanks for teaching my kids how to say fuck, you dick."

It turns out my friends, family and fiancee are a scheming bunch engaged in midnight trysts in deserted multi-storey parking facilities to exchange briefcase and cipher for bundles of cash with non-consecutive serial numbers. Jack Bauer and Mr. Monk couldn't have telegraphed this conspiracy. The snipers on the rooftops should have tipped me off, but my defences were lowered because of the sodium pentothal that was administered to me against my will and knowledge. I'm sorry friends, family and fiancee but I will be reporting you all of tribunal at The Hague International Court of Justice for crimes against something something mumble mumble, yeah.

Then I was forced to enjoy imbibing alcohol and having fun; forced to have fun! With bossy games of pass-the-parcel and all music that I like; it was terrible. Music that I like, played in a room I feel comfortable in, surrounded by people I like and love, eating food, moving around and making laughing sounds with my face. It was just awful. You should have been there. It was like a party, for my birthday, and I got to spend the day doing nice things and having a good time. If that doesn't sound suspicious I don't know what does.

Regularly throughout the evening people expressed disbelief that I had not cottoned onto the conspiracy, but I really had no idea. At no point in the weeks, days, hours and minutes leading up to the party did I suspect anything at all was going on. This is a testament to the ingenuity of my friends and the amazing hard work and dedication of my fiancee. I must really be fucking amazing to deserve all that. Now I have a year and a half to plot a birthday to remind my fiancee how fucking amazing she is... Oh no, why has she set the bar so high!?

I had a great birthday; thanks everyone :)

516: 1,700 tweets later

2012-02-07T02:28:00.000-08:00

I started writing this on Friday night and for some reason, probably sleep-related, I never finished it. Then over the course of an unprecedentedly jolly birthday weekend, the whole blogging enterprise became sidelined. It's all over now; I'm a decrepit old man, picking up the broken pieces of his neglected blog. So here's the thing wot i wrote on Friday:

Those 1,700 tweets I've sent off into an almost entirely unresponsive world, my ever-oscillating clutch of between 251 and 257 followers, have now become worth it. I have had my first direct reply from a celebrity, a highly respected stand-up comedian who "just wants to be on telly". I tweeted "It's my 30^th birthday on Monday and all I want is tickets for @herring1967 in Lancaster," and he replied "@iblogeveryday you'll be glad to hear there are plenty left! Hopefully 200 of your friends will all buy you one".

The last time I got a little star struck was aged 13 coming back from the school trip to France; the coach stopped at a service station somewhere in the middle of England and Tony Robinson was sat in a cafe drinking coffee and smoking roll-ups. We formed a disorderly queue for autographs while our teacher apologised for the inconvenience. I got a signed rizla and biazrrely nicked his docked out roll-up. Don't know why, but it seemed like normal behaviour at the time.

I received a card in the post from my nana and grandad with a pair of socks printed with the wording 30 and cool making it entirely official; I am 30 (nearly) and, apparantly, cool. The socks don't make it entirely clear about whether I have always been cool. I haven't always been 30, and will not be for another two days. So will I magically become cool on Monday, have I always been cool, or will I only be 30 and cool when I'm actually wearing the darn socks.

515: Make mine a Top Totty

2012-02-03T12:35:00.000-08:00

Instead of doing something important like sorting out this country's fucked-up libel law, you know like they should be, some MPs, well, one, is engaging herself with something entirely more trivial, and all together more overstepping the mark and impinging on free speech and free enterprise. That was a rambling and overlong sentence I know, but I'm full of petty and futile rage. According to MEN, Metro and BBC News, Labour MP shadow equalities minister Kate Green took offence to a beer called Top Totty being sold at the Westminster pub, The Strangers' Bar. The pump has a cute drawing of a blonde lady in a white bikini and a description of Top Totty, a blonde beer, as a "stunningly seductive, voluptuous variety of hops with a fruity, fresh finish".

Kate Green saw it, was offended, (or perhaps didn't actually see it because the BBC says she was "'disturbed' to hear it was on sale" my italics) and within 90 minutes her actions had somehow lead to Top Totty being withdrawn from sale. This can only be described as a gross misuse of her influence to stifle free speech and free enterprise. No members of the public she represents were offended, she was acting entirely on own whim, and even if it is offencive, so fucking what? Free speech is of paramount importance, even if it causes offence. Being offended by something does not give you the right to remove it from the public domain; it gives you the right to complain and be upset. The right to cause offence should always trump the right to be offended.

What makes this especially disgusting is Kate Green's abuse of her power. Today I walked past the main entrance to the shop I work in. I rarely see in the windows because I enter and leave via a staff entrance on the other side of the building. I noticed a very very large poster advertising underwear and comprising entirely of a photography of a staggeringly sexy model looking sultry in her bra and knickers. Sights like this are common and I am confident in saying that Kate Green sees them as often as we all do. Is she constantly staggering around in a persistent tut of indignant offence? Does she fight against every commercial sexualised image of a semi-clad female? Or is she merely flexing her muscles against Top Totty and The Strangers' Bar because she knows she has some direct influence?

Every single person, or official body, she took her complaint to should have said, "you are entitled to be offended, but you have no right to remove this from sale. It is none of your business; if you don't like it, tough." What I really hate about this whole thing is that the most sensible statement appears to have come from Mike Nattrass, a MEP for horrid populist right-wing party UKIP: "This sort of knee-jerk Puritanism does more damage to the cause of equality than a thousand beer labels. It suggests that to be in favour of equality you must be a dour-faced, insult-searching misery".

As an aside I would like to address anyone who wants to complain about the objectification of women as sexual objects: I would like to suggest that women are sexual objects, as are men; indeed humans are sexual objects. How could we be described as anything else? We are objects who think about sex, have sex, think about sex, have sex, ecsextra, etc, &c... Of course we are so much more than just sexual objects, men and women alike. We are thinkers, workers, friends, scientists, artists, geniuses, idiots, and everything else and in between.

514: Hiya

2012-02-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

I say "thank you" to bus drivers because as a lot of people say "cheers" or "ta" and the first time I decided to say "thank you" (instead of "cheers" or "ta" as I used to say) the driver replied "thank you for saying thank you; it's nice to hear a thank you, instead of the usual cheers or ta". That story is not entirely true; it was a work colleague who had that conversation with a bus driver, not me. I do say "thank you" to bus drivers. If you are interested in "thank you" and bus drivers you can get more information by reading the short story Thank You by Yasunari Kawabata.

I often find myself saying "hiya" instead of "hello" or "alright". I don't enjoy saying "hiya"; every time I hear it pop out of my mouth I cringe ever so slightly. It usually pops out to shop assistants, takeaway delivery men, or the security guard on the staff entrance at work. I feel extra special levels of shame and embarrassment when the person I say it to is of Chinese appearance. What if they think I was being racist, I worry; saying "hiya" like I'm making a bad joke about kung fu or something.

There used to be a TV programme hosted by Jimmy Carr, one of his early efforts, called Distraction. It was a quiz show where competitors had to punch cactuses instead of buzzers and received electric shocks when answering questions. I'm sure it was all very distracting for them. The prizes were usually a bit shit. In one episode a Chinese-looking lady won a fairly decent sum of money, say £1000, however it was all in pound coins, and the coins were in a wheel barrow and embedded in solid concrete. To illustrate the concrete was dry he tapped it with a trowel and said to the lady something along the line of "listen, you can hear it chink," or "it makes a chink when you tap it". Her eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected racial slur and moments later Jimmy Carr realised what he had said and apologised genuinely and profusely. I really don't think he noticed the unfortunate double meaning of the word he chose until it was too late. I remember this every time I hear myself say "hiya".

While we are on the subject, I'm fed up of hearing the word "Jap's Eye" to describe the male urethra. I hadn't heard it in years and I'm ashamed to admit used to use it myself when I was younger. I have heard it a few time recently but haven't felt the opportunity has been right to challenge it. I work a lot of the time in a sort of warehouse/store room place where talk of genitalia is fairly common. Isolated outcrops of coral used to be called Niggerheads by British sailors, and Ian Fleming uses the word frequently in the James Bond novels. I doubt very much that people who still unthinkingly use the word "Jap's Eye" would be comfortable describing something as "looking like a nigger's head", and rightly they shouldn't.

513: "Look at me, I've got a phone! Here, have some music!"

2012-02-02T14:54:00.000-08:00

What better way is there to inform a gathering of commuters that you are a first-class prick, the biggest prick on the bus, than by polluting the airwaves with the tinny sound of piss-weak popular music? We've all been there; I'm not pretending to have observed something, and I'm not attempting to put a funny spin on it. I'll leave that to the shit observational comedians like Michael McIntyre, or the excellent ones like Sean Lock. I've just been on buses a lot over the last twenty years and, before mobile phones came along and developed into mp3-infested boom-boxes, they used to be quiet somber areas where the public could gather in comfortable mass meditation. Sometimes there would be spontaneous poetry readings or, on a cold day, the sharing of a flask of hot coffee and a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits. How I long for a return to those halcyon days.

Then along came mobile technology, "cell phones", bringing with them a plummet in social responsibility. Suddenly there would be a clamour to break the meditative silence with the sibilant splash of 4/4 four-to-the-floor, unimaginative melody and unchallenging lyrics that mention love but appear emotionally void. One technology wielding scrote on every bus, tram, train and subway across the land now claims the right to subject the rest of us the their poor taste in music. They're never even that excited by the music; it's not as if they are passionate and enamoured by the delirium inducing magnificence gifted to them by Erato, Euterpe and Terpsichore. No, the music is a substitute for chewing, smoking, sniffing or picking scabs. It is a pointless little unsociable habit so far removed from any real love of great music. The people who love music have headphones.

Everyone hates this (they must, I can't fathom it any other way) yet most people carry upon their person a handy piece of technology which can easily be used to lodge a protest. I have heard tutting, and seen derisive glances directed at public-mp3ing, yet I have never seen anyone just get out their own phone and start playing, equally loudly, an entirely conflicting piece of music. How would the original mp3er react; would they get the fucking message? Or would they miss it entirely, lean over to the second mp3er and say "excuse me, you wouldn't mind turning that music off, would you? It's just I'm trying to listen to some music and, well, I was listening first."

I propose an experiment. Get a group of people, I think they are called 'friends', each possessing a phone loaded with a particularly antisocial, loud, or dramatic piece of music. Pile onto a bus and sit near the person playing the pop music. This would work especially well if you gave the impression that you were all separate individuals and not a conspiring group of friends. One of you starts playing some music; may I suggest Beethoven's 5^th, or Pantera's The Great Southern Trendkill. Then when the person with the pop music starts getting uncomfortable and is visibly thinking "what's going on here?", then the next person can join in, then the next and the next, gradually building to a cacophonous chorus of mismatched dirge. Give it a go, and remember to film it and stick it on YouTube. Thanks.

512: Where's Aethelred?

2012-02-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

What ever happened to all the old names?

I don't mean old people names -granny and granda; nana and granddad- Dierdre, Edna, Edith, Dot, Hilary, Donald, Walter, Eugene, Clarence, etcetera, etc, &c. No, those names come and go in fashion and people of my generation are naming their children after their grandparents and great grandparents. I'm interested in Old English names (as opposed to old English) like Cynric, Aelfweard, Beowulf, Balthilda, Eoforwine, Aethelred, and the like. My favourite is the Old Norse king's name Cnut, which sometimes appears euphemistically as Canute to prevent delicate people from FCUK-style offence.

Before William the Bastard (as opposed to William the Fucking Cunt) conquered these shores you couldn't take two steps without bumping into an Aenglwoart, a Gunricfulf, or an Ooflbraog. Now it's all Alfies, Evies, and I can't think of any more names. There seems to be an exact cut off point of 1066 when almost all of the native names from England (or whatever it was called by the illiterate, silly-named, mud farmers who lived here) disappeared and we were left with all Frenchy names given a slight British twist. Guillaume became William, and Beowulf went the way of the British wolf.

It's fun to make up new ones -like Aetseltron, Morbausort and Weselsaut- and I'd love to burden my children with these beautiful British, bully-attracting names. It'd be fun for a while, then I'd look like a twat if I was still laughing when, as they gradually grew up, the name began to burden them. Instead I'll have to do what every good writer should do and give these names to characters instead of actual real people I have made. As long as I don't start writing fantasy fiction; that will hopefully never happen.

Sorry I'm a bit distracted; I've just discovered that loads of Aphex Twin albums are now on Spotify and in celebration I'm listening to Selected Ambient Works '85-'92 and The Richard D James Album. Ahh, utter bliss. But why not The Beowulf ð Pendraig Aelbum?

511: Can't Read, Can Use Chopsticks

2012-01-29T04:39:00.000-08:00

It was pay day on Friday so I treated my female companion and I to Yo! Sushi (get a soft-shell crab hand-roll, it's delicious), then I treated myself to the new Nick Cohen book You Can't Read This Book. If you're reading this Nick, I'd like to say two things to you: firstly, I can read it and, indeed, am reading it. How dare you make such an assumption about my literacy. Secondly, I love you Nick; every word you write speaks the truth to me; I hate you Nick, you show me how poorly I write and how dopily I think, how lazy I am in my own thinking and writing, you embarrass me in unwillingly prompting me to gush like a newly pubescent sufferer of Beatlemania. I, you know, like, don't really love you.. I was only joking, it was a joke, pff godddd, but you know, I do, sort of, admire you, I guess.

I could discuss the content of the book, You Can't Read This, which is about censorship, particularly in the 21^st century, and how the liberal Western world has become permeated with an incipient form of self-censorship designed to appease religious fundamentalists and fanatics, and is driven by fear of violent reprisal. It condemns the idea that it is bigoted to oppose Islamists (Islamic fascists using fatwa and murder to silence free speech); it condemns the liberal politicians, journalists and intellectuals who abandon their principals in favour of double-think when the rights they hold dear are challenged by the enemies of liberalism; the abandonment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali as she fought for the rights of immigrant Muslim women in Holland to live free from violence and intimidation, over the rights of immigrant Muslim men in Holland to live free to inflict violence and intimidation on their women; it condemns the idea that all cultures should be equally respected no matter how totalitarian and illiberal they are; it condemns the idea that free speech should be curtailed to spare the blushes of the pious; it condemns the idea that the illustrator of a comic or the author of a book is to blame for the violence carried out by people claiming to be offended by comics or books.

I could talk about these issues, but Nick Cohen can and does do it better than I do. As do Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc. I on the other hand would like to quote Grayson Perry, then proceed with an unrelated, inoffensive and trivial story about Yo! Sushi:

"The reason I have not gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel the real fear that someone will slit my throat," said Grayson Perry with candour rare when discussing the lack of mainstream criticism of Islamo-fascism.

So, I was in Yo! Sushi, yeah? It's a popular chain of restaurants serving Japanese food. The diners sit on bar stools along a bar circling the open-plan kitchen, while the food travels around a conveyor belt on tiny plates, colour-coded for different prices. You just lift what you want off the belt, and/or order from the menu. It's good; over-priced, but fun. Sat to my right were another couple of a similar age to us. The woman was really struggling with her chopsticks, he was managing but clumsily, and I am highly proficient having lived in Japan for eight months (Go! Me).

She said to him, "I'm not very good with chopsticks; what's the right way to hold them?" His reply both amused and annoyed me: "There is no right way; you just hold them however you like." This was so stupid and wrong that I did what anyone else would do: I started showing off, picking up very large items of food like the hairy prawns, or tiny items like single grains of rice; putting down and picking up my chopsticks without looking and in a single swift fluid motion, so they just fell into my hands perfectly placed. It was subtle: I didn't want to look like I was conspicuously showing off, but if she looked over I wanted her to see that there clearly was a right way to do it, and neither her nor her partner were doing it right. He held them as though he had just jabbed them through his clenched fist. His chop sticks had no room to open and close, no pincer movement; dear god, I was embarrassed for him.

510: My Band (A Routine)

2012-01-29T04:02:00.000-08:00

I'm going to start a band that only works on cruise ships... it'll be called A Band On Ship. It'll be great; we'll never need to play a note. Every time we are announced on stage the crowd will run screaming for the life boats. Which is good for me because I have no musical ability whatsoever. But, if the audience fail to notice the play on words, and just hear a literally-minded band name, they'll remain seated, passive-aggressively demanding I entertain them. I'll be left on stage mumbling A... Band... On... Ship... It's, it's, sort of a joke... a band on ship... I'm sorry but that joke was all I have... there will be no music this evening... sorry, good night and sorry.

What a marvellous idea if I do say so myself (and if I don't). I imagine there is absolutely nothing more simultaneous terrifying and liberating than dying painfully onstage. Looking forward to it and it seems like an unbearably painful humiliation, but I imagine looking back it wouldn't seem so bad, and might give one the power to give it another go. Of course how to respond to deathly silence is one thing, but how to respond to smart arse hecklers, drunken hecklers, or hecklers armed with google who can quickly discover that A Band On Ship is the name of the Alton Towers Resort Hotel resident band.

"Excuse me, Mr. Man on the stage," the heckler might request, after putting his hand up. "It says here that A Band On Ship is the resident band of the Alton Towers Resort Hotel. Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but I do believe we are not currently situated in the Alton Towers Resort Hotel, thus rendering present the possibility that you are not in fact A Band On Ship who are, as previously mentioned, the Alton Towers Resort Hotel resident band."

"Yes I know that." I will respond quick as a flash. "Admittedly I didn't know when I thought of the joke, only discovering so later when I too decided to google the search term "A Band On Ship", however I naively thought you, the collective "you" of this audience, would be able to momentarily suspend your disbelief in order to be rewarded with the permission to giggle. I'm sorry if that isn't enough for you. I thought the resident band at the Alton Towers Resort Hotel was sufficiently obscure that most people wouldn't have heard of them, even going so far as to assume that even people who had seen them perform at the Alton Towers Resort Hotel would not have remembered the name."

"The thought also occurred to me," I continued, "that members of the audience would not find it necessary to source attribution to every little detail, and offer a running dissection of the show. I ask you, nay, I implore you, consider in your heart whether it does indeed matter, for the joke to work, that there is in fact an existent band called A Band On Ship; that they do not in fact perform on a ship, but instead in the Alton Towers Resort Hotel, and I am not actually a real member of the band, A Band On Ship. Does it matter? I ask you."

509: Pour myself a cup of ambition

2012-01-26T13:31:00.000-08:00

A snapshot into my life in especially excruciating detail; I hope you enjoy. I compile a list of products; a particular type of stock which one might browse and purchase when out and about in the high street. These products have, to me, no names, merely numbers for example 72153. Being au fait with the workings of these product codes I am able to disregard the initial seven, knowing like I do that it merely represents my department. The following 21 is the sub-department, and the 53 indicates the style. Therefore I am able to communicate basic ideas about stock using mostly numbers. Working from a list of paper, which looks like 73423, 73283, 73342, 77923, 79893, 79223, 73123, 71293, 74291, 71912, 73989, 79128, 78992, 72912, 79932, 77272, 74322, 71232, 74321, 74121, 73122, 78829, 71923, 73192, 73192 x2, 71922, 71291, 79322, 71492, 71923, I am able to pull from the dusty stock room a large towering pile of boxes. Each box contains between nine and 40 of a product, usually individually wrapped with plastic and paper.

Standing beside the piles of boxes, I create a smaller pile three or four boxes high so that the top-most is at a comfortable working height, requiring me to neither bend nor reach beyond a limit unacceptable to me. Using a safety box opener/knife which I usually keep in my right trouser pocket I slit open the lid. Sometimes I find the safety knife has made its way into my left pocket, and there is usually a moment when I think just a minute, where has that silly little knife gone and put itself? Once the box is open, and the four leaves/tabs are folded back out of the way I proceed to unpack the stock. One at a time I lift each item from the box, remove it from its plastic bag, pull out any cardboard or paper, or any further plastic, and deposit the packaging into an orange bin bag. The bin bag is often tied to the side of a trolley (more about the trolley soon; much more), or sometimes just hung off the side of the box. Sometimes I even put the bag inside the box. More and more recently this has become my preference, as it results in the minimum need for unnecessary twisting and turning.

As each item of stock is removed from its packaging (a process we refer to as prepping; a whimsical shortening of the word preparing) it is placed in a large trolley. When the trolley is full it can then be wheeled onto the shop floor where the stock can be deposited onto the shelves in the appropriate locations. The convenience of the trolley as a medium for transporting stock lies within its possession of four small wheels (almost verging into the realm of castors), one located in each corner of the trolley's base, coming into contact with the floor, and enabling a significant increase in manoeuvrability than one would expect from a similar object lacking wheels. Once the contents of the trolley has been evacuated it can, and should, be wheeled back into the stock room and the process repeated. This is done until its time to go and have a cup of coffee.

508: iBlogEveryDay Big Cartel shop

2012-01-25T12:34:00.000-08:00

Big Cartel is a simple, easy to use, thing. It's a thing for artists to sell the artists' things wot they make with their artistic natures. I make bits of things sometimes, and pile them up in boxes and corners and under beds. You -if you are using it, which you might well, especially if you are an artist with art to sell- can create a page to sell your stuff, art, and the checkout uses PayPal. I discovered it through Cardboard Kid's very own Cardboard Kid Big Cartel shop. Now there is a very own, very own I Blog Every Day Big Cartel shop HERE. It's really nice; it's a way of life.

Two affordable pieces are currently available. Choose life; choose to read on slightly to do a look at these things. Forgive my nonsense words; I am tired and unwell and happily allowing any old rubbish to come out onto the typewriter:

"Octus" postcard

A glossy postcard of my signature "Octus" octopus drawing. The back of the postcard features a painting of a crow sticking its beak in a deer's ear. It's a classic/it's not totally crap.

£0.60

2 Photos & 2 Drawings [series of 400]

So, here is the story: I used to run around with an SLR, before the days of digital, and this habit left me with a LOT of poorly-framed, blurry, and failed photos. Being pre-digital I had no choice but to get these developed.

For your money you get two photographs randomly pulled from the box file currently propping up my desk leg. On the back of each photo I will do a drawing of your choice (illustrated here with a picture of a typewriter and another of a hot dog), and post them lovingly in an envelope with a sort-of pattern thing hand drawn on it. All together this is quite a nice, personalised piece of art.

Series of 400, each individually hand numbered, with my hand (like, I've written the number on each one, and cos each "one" contains two pictures I've labelled them, like, 1a/400, 1b/400, 2a/400, 2b/400 etcetera, etc, &c).

When ordering be sure to include a brief note (in PayPal checkout) stating what drawings you would like, otherwise I'll select something randomishly. Here are some ideas: a pig and a duckling, Harry Potter and clown, forceps and fireplace, headache and horseplay, munchkin and mooning, wedding cake and wheelbarrow, etcetera, etc, &c.

Hope that's clear.

£2.50

507: sigh

2012-01-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

You know how they used to use an 'f' in place of an 's' for some reason in old printed books, e.g. 'fcience' etc. Well, they did. I'm watching Botany: A Blooming History on BBC4, through an unpleasant fug of cold with just the slightest hint of flu symptoms, and have just been delighted by an archaic spelling of 'honeysuckle'... can you guess how they spelt it? That's right, 'honeyfuckle', ha ha, honeyfuckle, oh my days! Oh, dear; forgive me Miller and Linnaeus (fight, fight, fight).

Linnaeus gave us the binomial system for classifying life, for which we should all be eternally grateful. Someone else gave me the common cold, or some measly weaselly flu-like thing, for which I will be annoyed and pathetic for the next couple of days. I've already been accused of having man-flu, by 'my' woman, through the medium of tweeting (on twitter), and I've had enough. How much snot must a man produce, before you will call it just flu, and not man-flu? Can't remember what any of this had to do with Linnaeus.

I know it's a real nasty piece of cold because I need to keep a carrier bag near by to collect all the used tissues, and I have spent more time in bed than I have since my student days. And after writing one sentence I can't think what to say next. So, erm. Forget it. Sorry to waste your time. Here are some pictures:

506: Heh heh, Huh huh

2012-01-23T11:21:00.002-08:00

I mentioned about owning art in the last post. If I ever make a decent amount of money -decent enough to buy art- this is what I want to spend my money on:

Apparently this magnificent pair of deformed monsters were crafted by Kevin Kirkpatrick, some talented chap who does special effects and make-up for the movies. I am totally serious when I say that I would buy these now if I had the money. I've no idea how much they would set me back, and I don't know where I would put them, but I want them. My life finally has meaning, purpose.

505: BUY, ART, BUY

2012-01-23T11:21:00.001-08:00

I wish I had the money to collect art; it's long been an ambition of mine. Occasionally I manage to get the odd piece here and there: I have a print by Gareth Hacking (a.k.a Cardboard Kid), given to me as a gift, for which I owe him a piece in return. The print by Gareth is of a skeleton in silhouette; its skull inverted and swapped positions with its pelvis. I also have a unique and original Cardboard Kid stored in a shoe box alongside myriad postcards and business cards. I have many artists' post/business cards which could be considered limited edition print runs. In my "collection" there are drawings by my niece and the children of other friends and relatives, art books, old prints (some original, others reproductions), etcetera, etc, &c.

The above paragraph was just preamble to this:

Want to own a piece of "art", in the form of a lovely postcard featuring my signature "Octus" octopus drawing? Well now you can by clicking the link on the right of the page; what lucky boys and girls you are! In our house there are octopuses everywhere, most notably the one tattooed on my arm, but also the prints and paintings on the walls, and the cuddly toys all over the shop. I get at least one octopus thing every Christmas. The original drawing (as reproduced on the postcard and my twitter profile) is in a sketchbook I bound myself using found paper; damn I'm such a fucking hipster.

I've already sold one! Huzzah! Thanks to Michael Thorp, the Manchester based illustrator and designer; yes, that's him, the fellow who made the banner for this blog. He's a good lad that Michael Thorp. Go and have a look at his website now.

In final art buying news:

Get down to BLANKSPACE this Saturday and buy a bit of art. It's to raise money for independent artists, what with the government not bothering with it anymore. I'll be there, and it's the day after pay day.

Saturday 28 January 2012, 3pm - 10pm

BLANKSPACE, 43 Hulme Street, Manchester, M15 6AW

We’re opening the doors to BLANKSPACE this New-Year for Blank Media Collective’s January Sale!

The January Sale is your chance to walk away with an original work of art and support further artistic development in Manchester and the UK. Each artwork has been kindly donated by artists and practitioners from Manchester, the North West and across the UK. All funds will go towards supporting Blank Media Collective’s 2012 exhibitions programme.

Come down to BLANKSPACE on Saturday 28 January to peruse the collection of original artwork available for auction or purchase artist books, prints and postcards from our January Sale Shop.

With live music from the Manchester’s very own foot-stomping lyrical genius Black Jack Barnett throughout the evening, this is a great chance to kick back, relax and buy some contemporary art.

Our live auction will take place at BLANKSPACE onSaturday 28 January from 7pm and is open to all. Visitors can bid for original contemporary artwork whilst investing in the future of arts in Manchester.

If you are unable to attend the live auction, silent bids can be made from 3pm the same day.
The January Sale is the place to go for original artwork ranging from paintings, sculpture, prints, books, photography, illustration from both established and emerging practitioners from Manchester and beyond. Start or continue your growing collection of contemporary artworks with Blank Media Collective.

504: So I turned 'round to him...

2012-01-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

So anyway, he turned 'round to me and said you can't turn 'round to me and tell me I can't go in there, and I turned 'around to him and said I can turn 'round to whoever I want and say what ever I want, and he turned 'round to me and said yeah, and I can turn 'round to whoever I want. I turned 'round to him and said this isn't getting us anywhere. And he turned 'round to me and said yeah, we're just going 'round and 'round in circles.

After hearing enough of this circular conversation I turned around to the both of them and said you can't turn 'round to him while he's turning 'round to you if, at the same time, he's turning 'round to me to tell me to keep my fucking nose out, but as I turn around to you and he turns around to me, we both either meet in the middle or run the risk of ending up back to back, or one or the other of us giving our back to the other. That way or the other madness lies. So when I turn around to you, don't turn around to me because one or both of us is likely to get lost or end up speaking to the wrong person.

So if someone turns 'round to you and starts telling you about someone who turned 'round to them and told them something and nothing about someone who turned 'round to them, I'm not joking. These things do happen, or so a bloke turned around and told me. It was quite a surprise; I've got to admit I was somewhat taken aback. So I turned 'round to him and said woah mate, watch it, and he turned around to me and said soz mate, no worries. So you see there was a happy ending.

He turned around to me...

503: NOISE

2012-01-18T16:18:00.000-08:00

SHONK-krrzzzg gjank gza-kza ka ka

tschzzz kakkkkxxxxxqu psaughk psak fragk grag

fzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zup zp ziiiiiiiiiiiiii fzap fweep fwoop

It's noise. I read Stewart Lee How I Escaped My Certain Fate in which he mentioned two names that, when combined with Spotify, got me excited about music as a powerful non-populist art form (which is a whim I indulge in periodically). Those names are Derek Bailey, a free improvising guitarist, and Evan Parker, a similarly free saxophonist. Find both on Spotify (Bailey and Parker, links open Spotify). I know next to nothing about both of these guys, but Stewart Lee won his episode of Celebrity Mastermind with Derek Bailey as his specialist subject.

Speaking of seeing Bailey performing at the Royal Festival Hall in 1997, Stewart Lee writes:

I seem to recall a moment where the septuagenarian genius, lost in concentration, actually bumped into the back wall of the stage, his guitar making a resonating clang. Looking down, he appeared to consider what had happened, and then playfully bashed the instrument into the wall a second time. I laughed and despite the wealth of different responses Bailey's music had already offered me, I never thought it would provoke laughter. But something great music shares with great comedy is the capacity to surprise, to take us out of ourselves and engender a joyous, and not necessarily mean-spirited or cynical, laughter.

[...]

Great art, whether it's laboriously crafted or spontaneously generated, tends towards the surprise factor that [George] Carlin describes [in the documentary The Aristocrats], and Bailey embodies. Derek Bailey is bold enough to refuse to gloss his work with emotional signifiers, just as George Carlin doesn't tell jokes as though they are supposed to be funny. Both make us do the work, and we get the reward of appearing to surprise ourselves. But the breakthrough moment, for me, of seeing Bailey bash his guitar into the back wall of the RFH, was realising that I could be made to laugh, against my will, in an atmosphere of high seriousness, in the temple of culture, by the simple childlike joy of surprise.

In 1999 I was a teenager doing a music technology Btec at college, recently opened up to huge vistas of hitherto unexplored music. From the previous few years listening almost entirely to various types of heavy metal I was, all of a sudden, exposed to hip hop, techno, classical, and modern. I became fascinated by Zappa which lead me to Varese and then to Cage, and my favourite Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was music like nothing I had never heard before, completely free from the predictable RAMTIFT (Rhythm, hArmony, Melody, Timbre, Intonation, Form, Timing). Unfortunately as part of my course we were required to write songs exactly matching the dictates of traditional pop. This meant that in order for a hip hop track to be eligible for a pass mark there needed to be a melody slapped on the chorus.

Mildly rebellious, pseudo-intellectual, pretentious little oik that I was (I mean "am" obviously) I responded with a song I called Spoken Like Tricky but now prefer just to call it Music is an Art (With No Place for Rules) (click to listen). Yeah, right on! I have zero music ability so the music was written and played, and the lyrics spoken, by my highly talented friend Robbie Greer (aka Stoopid Ill, aka Derogatory, aka Bobby Esmond). I bashed away expressively on the piano in accompaniment to my lyrics:

I've got a new religion called pop music

It has been forced on me and it's making me sick

[unintelligible mumbling, can't remember the words I wrote for this bit]

I don't come from the school of the Beatles or the Stones

Yeah, I hate Oasis, Steps and the Stereophones [sic]

Music is an art with no place for rules

No chords, no structure

With dissonance , with difference

Without the use of a scientific formula for creating a single,

A nice pop hit

For little boys, little girls

Little minds

For capital

The biggest disease of the Western civilisation is pop music

Four minutes and thirty three seconds

Music completely to chance occurrence

The creative function of non-control

Solid bands of sound

Indefinite pitch

A variety of articulations and special effects

As it turned out the song had a pretty formulaic structure, otherwise I would have failed the unit, and in order to be eligible for a mark we had to put some singing on it. So whatever my point was I might not have successfully got it across. My lecturer came in the control booth while I was bashing away at the piano and, I was later told, sarcastically referred to me as "The Professor". Gradually, and retrospectively sadly, I slowly became more conventional. Now I've even got to the point where I can tolerate some of the tunes in the popular hit parade!

I've just come across a book on Amazon called Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen by David Stubbs, the product description I think is worth quoting in full:

Modern art is a mass phenomenon. The Tate Modern is the most popular tourist attraction in Europe. Conceptual artists like Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst enjoy celebrity status. Works by 20th century abstract artists like Mark Rothko are selling for record breaking sums at auction, while the millions commanded by works by Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon make headline news.

However, while the general public has no trouble embracing avant garde and experimental art, there is, by contrast, mass resistance to avant garde and experimental music, although both were born at the same time under similar circumstances - and despite the fact that from Schoenberg and Kandinsky onwards, musicians and artists have made repeated efforts to establish a 'synaesthesia' between their two media.

This book examines the parallel histories of modern art and modern music and examines why one is embraced and understood and the other ignored, derided or regarded with bewilderment, as noisy, random nonsense perpetrated by, and listened to by the inexplicably crazed. It draws on interviews and often highly amusing anecdotal evidence in order to find answers to the question: Why do people get Rothko and not Stockhausen?

It's so true. But a question arises – where does art music, the avant garde, fit in peoples lives? It can exist as incidental music in strange and sinister movies and TV shows, but is that enough? I don't think so. Many people visit art galleries to view Modern and Contemporary Art, but few people buy art and live with it. I suggest the Tate Modern (and indeed other art galleries) should have a permanent music room with regular live performances from small ensembles, soloists, sound installations, tape loops, which can be listened to comfortably for long periods of time. They could offer residencies to people like Derek Bailey. It's the best idea ever.

Gzzzz-rahhh gggggggg ha hrak heep fwooo

Tsop-fla zxxxxxeeezzzzzzzzzzz -zaw dwoip

vg pflpfwp eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiieeeeeeee-gh fwap-SHK

502: Evidence for my stupidity

2012-01-18T16:12:00.000-08:00

"You have to be brave to take out that white sheet of paper and put on it words that could be evidence of your stupidity."

-Sol Saks

Here it is ; as I listen to a man fwapping a guitar, with intent or distraction I cannot tell, and attempt to process the fact that Nina killed Jack's wife in episode 24 (of 24) of series one of 24, now I have the worry of being made to look stupid by the sound symbols I place carefully hither and thither on this white sheet of paper. It's not real paper, you know. It's just a picture, an image of paper constructed in the mind of a child; a dream of paper in the pocket of a hobbled dinosaur sinking slowly to the hot tap end of the sink; a fantasy of paper plopped in the lap of an orthodontist with too much time and not enough numbing agent.

Here it is ; an attempt at bravery. Not that rescuing cats from burning houses and young families from trees kind of bravery ; not that twice saving the life of Senator Palmer kind of bravery. Not that, no. This is the bravery of a man with a blank piece of paper, nothing to say, and the stubborn unembarrassed idiocy required to persevere long enough to put a bit of black stain on a white piece of paper. This is what writers do, so the creator of TV series Bewitched, who died at 100 and raked in piles of royalty money despite only writing the pilot episode. If that isn't something to aspire to emulate I don't know what is; honestly and genuinely, I mean that.

Here it is ; the evidence of my stupidity. Evidence for my stupidity. Of/for? Is one American English usage, the other British? I just don't know. Circumstantial? Here it is ; stupidity, stubipity, swibbibbity, spop-bobbity spobbity spob, spab-pipippy popippipy prap. I proscribe sleep for symptoms such as this, and I prosecute to the fullest extent of the law for impersonating a doctor, a writer, a drama teacher, a womble, a street cleaner, an foolscap scraper, a hay baler, a cow catcher.

Here it is ; evidence if evidence is evidence is evidence were needed. 'tweren't

501: Comment

2012-01-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

In lieu of a proper post I reproduce here a comment I have just written on the following blog post http://followergerrard.com/2012/01/12/the-atheist-delusion/:

You mention "the Christian belief" repeatedly and then proceed to talk about all Christians as though they all hold the same belief. The Bible, and other sources of Christian theology, not being factual (i.e. evidence based) are all entirely open to personal interpretation. When you claim to be speaking for Christians it seems to me as though you are only speaking for yourself. The reason why scientific method holds so much power and is so much more useful than religion or philosophy as a tool for examining the world is that its conclusions are dictated by the evidence. The conclusions of religion are subject to whim, preference, wish or political dictate. One only need look at the world around us to see there is not one "Christian" outlook.

Science is the act of attempting to find the truth through observation and testing; gradually we get closer and closer to truth as science reduces error margins. Religion, if it does exist outside of the physical or material world, only does so by inhabiting the world of fiction. While science is the most accurate method of observing the real world, theology is at best an archaic, dogmatic and stunted method of fiddling aimlessly with the details of a fictional world. Every claim you make about god applies only to your own interpretation.

Being an atheist isn't an act of faith, it is the lack of an act of faith. Not believing in god came before believing in god, just the same as not being able to drive came before being able to drive; first there was the world, then there were gods and cars. All of your ideas about what god is and what god means and what god does are meaningless to an atheist (or at least this atheist) because they all rest on the unfounded assumption that god exists. The idea of god can and should be viewed as a scientific hypothesis (because it is possible that a universe created, maintained, observed, occasionally interfered with by god is very different from a godless universe). When I hypothesis is not backed up by observation and evidence it is rejected. This is the reason it is safe to assume there is no god. There might be, but given the lack of evidence there is no genuine reason to believe.

On the subject of evolution and what it says about god you conclude "Showing how evolution is the result of physical processes is not, in any way, contrary to this, but simply a description of what was physically resulting from God’s sovereign control." In a sense this is just not true. Evolution is a description of how species can form unguided exactly without "God's sovereign control". I agree that the theory of evolution is not direct evidence against the existence of god, but it does drastically reduce the gap god can safely inhabit.

Often people talk about there being some essential self, a spirit, ghost, soul whatever that exists as a duality with the brain or body. This is often said to have an immortal eternal life after the death of the temporary body. Look at it this way for an illustration of why I consider it inherently ludicrous: The soul (which for arguments sake I will describe as the bit of the brain that feels love, ecstatic reactions to art, music and nature) is a function of brain which can no more exist without that brain than the heart beat can exist without the heartbeat. Were I to suggest that I believe my heart beat (or for that matter my renal function) were to have an eternal life after the death of my body, you would be right to laugh at me.

Although your post contains some interesting ideas it is ruined by your insistence on speaking for all Christians, and by implication knowing what all Christians think. You also make claims to know so much about what your god is and does. When you say "The universe doesn’t“contain”God. God doesn’t“dwell within” the universe or “outside it (whatever that might mean)” it seems to me you are claiming to know so much that you couldn't possibly know. If you get annoyed by comparing belief in god to belief in a teapot in space, because of a semantic game placing god outside of "place", then how about this: Believing in god is like believing in a non-physical teapot that isn't in any place, is outside of space and existence, but still is somehow worth thinking about, discussing and offering praise and prayer to.

Actually the more I think about it your argument seems to be "atheists are wrong not to believe in a god that exists, because that is not the Christian god. The Christian god is actually a god that doesn't exist. So if you are going to be an atheist, at least believe in the non-existing Christian god". This sounds crazy, and indeed is, but that is the reading that comes from your blog.

If god intervenes in the physical world, where is the physical evidence. If god doesn't intervene, what's so amazing about god?

Indeed, this is a conversation between two people who don't speak the same language.

500: Boohoo, it's Blue Monday :)

2012-01-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

Full belly, couple of beers, couple of episodes of 24, warm room, chips and gravy, and all shared with the one who will be my wife in less than five months time. You know, I doubt life gets much better than this. Of course, I'm now winding her up by blasting out the free jazz saxophone sqwarks of Evan Parker, and the mid-80s complexities of Frank Zappa's bizarro rock compositions. But as far as I'm concerned this keeps us well within the confines of life doesn't get better than this. Appart from it being a Monday of course... but there will always be Mondays. I guess we'd all just better learn to live with them. Or we could rename it Sunday-II and make it another day of fishing, swimming, cycling, snorkling, belly-dancing, stamp collecting, or whatever it is decent normal people are supposed to do on a Sunday.

Figure that out without me, and get back to me as soon as possible. In the meantime I'll just be over hear readin The Horror in the Museum by H.P. Lovecraft and then doing a sleep. Yeah, this is one of those blog posts that starts of with a limp fart and goes down hill from there on in, mixed metaphors and everything. Don't be disappointed; you shouldn't be expecting more than that in the first place. It's your own fault.

So what was this thing we were saying about Mondays? Today is Blue Monday; the day in which we celebrate bullshit PR being confused with science by people who regurgitate stuff they haven't heard properly and add the word 'apparantly'. Yes, Blue Monday. Supposedly science has discovered that the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year. Apparantly, according to who, I have no idea. It's just one of those bullshit ideas that floats around, you know, like ghosts or daddy-long-legs being the world's most venomous animal but not having the teeth to administer their venom. Actually it's not a real story, it's not true, it's just a regular way for newspapers to fill up a bit of paper with yet another piece of misinformation about the meaning and purpose of science. It also allows them to portray a serious mental illness as being a temporary slight which can be shrugged off with a few days of fruit juice and exercise.

And besides, I've had a great day, and a great weekend before that. Thanks wife!

499: 24, 11 years after

2012-01-15T16:12:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post. I haven't got time to be writing blog posts and such nonsense what with all these episodes of 24 I've got to be watching. See, despite this programme starting eleven years ago, and me having heard so much good stuff about it, from friends, and from Charlie Brooker (whose words on Deadwood lead me to the best TV programme ever), I had never watched a single episode. The other day on a whim, I signed up for a free one month trial to Netflix (a kind of Spotify for film and TV) and was disappointed to discover it is mostly shit. Their are lots of crappy American comedies for stoned teenage dudes and people on dates getting a lovely little fumble up the jumper, and a small selection of mostly shit stand-up.

Really the only two things on Netflix that I have wanted to watch are 24 and Spongebob Squarepants. Both great, and Netflix is free for the first month. Anyway, I gave the first episode of 24 a tentative try on, I think, Friday night, and since then I have been completely gripped. Every second is tense, there is literally no downtime from the action. I really need to try and get in about twenty minutes sleep between now and work. Maybe a bit more than twenty minutes would be better, but Jack Bauer doesn't need sleep, and his job looks quite a bit more difficult than mine. Rarely does my day consist of kidnapping colleagues who may or may not be conspiring to kill me, my family and a famous politician. I always get two fifteen minute breaks and an hour for lunch. Poor overworked Jack Bauer doesn't get that. The only down time he gets is a sit-down in the back of a bullet proof limo, but even then he is threatening to force a wet towel down the throat of some crooked businessman.

Spongebob Squarepants is good, but it neglects cliffhangers and genuine peril. For that reason I have yet to find myself watching episode after episode without breaking for drinks and toilets. I'm only up to 4pm on the first day (series) of 24, so, yeah... end of blog... I really must be off now.

498: A thing, right, about Art, right, and, erm, Wrestling, right

2012-01-15T06:05:00.000-08:00

In 2003 I started a Contemporary Arts degree at Manchester Metropolitan University. The degree was split up into five electives – Visual Art, Creative Writing, Dance, Drama, and Music – of which most people chose to do two. Personally I chose Art and Writing. In the first year, everyone, regardless of subject, was required to do a Contextual Studies module. This was the only lecture I had in one of those great big lecture halls often seen in American 'college' movies. You were required to learn bits about all fields of the arts and how they fit into modern thinking. Every week we would split up into smaller tutorial groups, lead by MA students, in order to discuss the lectures and give presentations.

Our tutorial was lead by one of these MA students particularly notable, not for her intelligence or grasp of the subject, but for her relentless barrage of right, like, right, you know, right, right, right, punctuating her speech. This habit made it impossible to hear anything she said except for right, right, right. When I was younger I had a similar habit which my dad expunged through imitation and mockery; an act which I am grateful for. One day, right, while leading a tutorial, right, she sat on a table and pulled a chair towards her to rest her feet on. After a few beats for comic effect both of her stiletto heels went through the plastic fabric of the cushion covers. Through embarrassment her right frequency increased dramatically.

For one presentation we were required to do a polemic. As I was to understand a polemic is an extremely one-sided argument, often an attack on an opponent, and often on a highly contentious subject matter, likely to cause controversy or offence. This dictionary agrees: polemic n. 1. A controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine. There seemed to be a problem amongst many of my fellow first-years with comprehending this very simple idea. Even after having it explained some people just couldn't manage it.

The way I saw it was you just needed to pick a subject. It didn't need to be something you liked or even agreed with. It was more about a performance, an exercise in writing either something you disagree with, or something you agree with but perhaps not to such an extreme, and then presenting it in a passionate manner, aggressive even, in order to wind people up. A popular, trite, idea was Pornography as Art. Obvious, and outdated. I chose Professional Wrestling as Art, a subject which I could easily defend and go completely over the top.

One of the other students did a presentation that could easily have been called Why I Sort-Of Quite Like Salvador Dali, but to be honest it's ok if your not that into him, because I don't love him, he's just OK, yeah? Our presented polemics were supposed to encourage discussion and disagreement amongst the group, and as far as I was concerned the longer the discussion and the more aggressive and vocal the disagreement, the more successful the polemic. Her pathetic Salvador Dali presentation was met by stunned silence. Rather than saying "sorry, but that wasn't a polemic, you can do one next week," the tutorial leader said "yes, very good, now discuss". And when no one wanted to say anything, as we had been given nothing to go on, nothing to agree or disagree with, she went around the room getting us each to say something.

I began my polemic with a few words stating my subject matter, the artistic merit of Professional Wrestling. I then showed a video of the first two minutes of the independent wrestling documentary Beyond The Mat:

"I love the pageantry, the athleticism. Even the incredibly cheesy acting. I look at wrestling as theatre at its most base, and guess what? So do most of the fans. We know what's going on. Is it sport? Is it entertainment? It's both. It's wrestling.

Now let's get something straight. I know wrestling is a show, but it's not as fake as you think. Of course the winners of the matches are predetermined, and the violence is choreographed, however the result of the violence is very real.

All these years watching wrestling one thought still swirls in my mind: What sort of human being bashes another man's skull into a ring post for a living?"

A better, more concise explanation of the appeal of Professional Wrestling I have never heard. My intention with starting with this video was firstly to show some images of mainstream wrestling, recognisable faces like The Undertaker and Steve Austin, and to give a rational description of the appeal. I wanted to lull my audience into false comfort. Even mainstream wrestling is divisive: some people love it, some people think it's pathetic, but many people are indifferent to it and never give it a passing thought. I could picture people mentally preparing their "it's not art," or "maybe it is art, but it's shit art for idiots" arguments. Had I left it here the post polemic discussion would have been lukewarm at best.

I then showed a promotional video for the underground hardcore wrestling even Combat Zone Wrestling's Cage of Death V: Suspended. This featured unsimulated, but consensual, violence with weapons including broken glass, light bulbs, barbed wire, a string strimmer/weed whacker, staple guns and baseball bats, and ended with the wrestler John Zandig (also the owner of CZW) being suspended from the ceiling of the arena by meat hooks pushed through the flesh of his shoulders.

This act is a kind of body modification performance art. The hooks are put through temporary piercings made immediately prior to the actual performance. The effect is dramatic but the actual damage inflicted is minimal if done properly. Aside: in 2007 I frequented a micro-bar in Osaka, Japan, run by a body modification artist. Once when I was in there he and his female partner were preparing for a suspension performance later that day. She was sat on the only sofa in the room, next to me, and he came out from behind the bar and began making the temporary piercings in her arms and legs. He was using antiseptic, latex gloves, and an autoclave to sterilise his tools.

I can't find the actual video I showed, but here are some examples of the sights seen by my audience (forgive the dumb ass metal music, it seems to be a compulsory addition to wrestling videos these days):

The wrestlers in this video are quite literally risking serious injury or death, not for money (for there is none in such low budget organisations), but simply for self expression. This could not be more in keeping with the attitudes to art expressed by post-modern darlings, loved by Contemporary Art lecturers. Performance artist Chris Burden had himself nailed to a car and shot in the art with a shot gun on seperate occassions. Vito Acconci sat in a restaurant staring at someone, rubbing his own arm until it bled. For another piece he lay under a false floor in a gallery wanking, looking up through a hole at people walking above. ORLAN is a conceptual artist whose work is her own body, deformed over years by endless plastic surgery. Her performance is her surgery, and she has even sold, as art, pieces of flesh and fat removed from her body.

My argument is that wrestling, particularly of the extremely violent variety, is more powerful than typical Body Art, because it is more direct and visceral in its ability to make us think about and question the limitations and possibilities of our own bodies. I didn't need to say this at first however, because as soon as the video ended the room erupted in discussion and argument, while I sat back to enjoy. Mission accomplished. I hope the Salvador Dali girl failed hopelessly.

497: A poem (epic) about bananas

2012-01-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

Banana banana

Banana banana banana

I haven't worked out this poem yet

but there's a bit at the start

where I introduce the subject matter

subtly

It then progresses,

(the poem I mean, not the banana)

on a path of its own

encapsulating life, the wider world,

the non-banana world,

but all along anchored

by the humble banana

And so, as I said,

it started subtly

The poem not the banana

But bananas too also start

from humble beginnings,

they grow on plants

long cultivated by humans

The seeds they contain

are residual at best,

I've never known anyone complain

of a banana seed 'tween their teeth

Their name means 'finger'

in Arabic, or so I'm told

by Wikipedia

In other media,

QI to be precise,

I learn the banana plant can 'walk'

of its own accord

The truth of this I cannot confirm

It might be true,

it might not;

How would I know?

Others know and have known

496: Headache day, and unrelated banana mention

2012-01-12T13:43:00.001-08:00

I woke up this morning with a serious severe painful pain in my face, above the brow, penetrating back into my head, with the feeling its shattered my skull, like a stiletto, and is busy making immoral merry with the grey gunge of my synapses. I didn't want to, but I called in sick for work; a rare happening. Unfortunately all that could be done was drink water, take paracetamol and try to sleep through the worst of the headache. I tried to wake up, but it hurt. Waking up. Waking up hurt. I've had better days.

Recent developments have allowed me to bare staring at the computer screen for a few bloggy moments. So here I am, back again, desperately trying to eek out a word count, by clumsily forcing sentences together using words that don't fit, and attempts at jokes I don't even get. I've slept all day and, when occasionally awake, struggled to look at a book, struggled to listen to some music quietly.

I've been toying with the idea of experimenting with endurance by just writing blog posts about bananas for as long as I possibly can. If, as I intend, I'm going to write this blog for the rest of my life, it might be necessary to attempt such seemingly pointless tasks. I find the thinking behind that difficult to explain at this moment, but be gladdened and encouraged by the thought that I'll probably get around to it sometime in the next fifty years. Until that happens, its bananas all the way down.

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting continuation of my arbitrary obsession with the annoying and ever present banana (headache permitting): same banana blog, same banana url. It's bat time, bat channel. I was doing a play on that, you know, from Batman. The TV series from the 1960s. It wasn't very obvious, and it didn't really work. So I explained what I was doing to avoid confusion. I hope that's cleared that up.

495: I want to talk about bananas

2012-01-09T15:55:00.000-08:00

Two bananas, yesterday.

Bananas; love them or hate them, bananas they will remain. How can evolution be true when the banana is so clearly designed to fit in our opposabled-thumbed hands? They even come with their own naturally occurring wrappings, and by slowly turning black they have an outside indication of their internal edibility. OK, that's evolution over and done with; looks like the banana is evidence for an intelligent designer. Only one little problem that designer forgot to perfect. When he/it (not she) was working on the shape, skin, and colouration, he/it forgot to make the inside of the banana taste nice. He/it didn't even grace it with a texture that isn't like a gooey roux of wheat flour and vomit.

For the sake of brevity, and common sense, let's assume the creator of bananas -all bananas, not just some of them- was a man, and let's call that man Bananaman (not that one). Bananaman (not that one) began with a desire to create a healthy and convenient alternative to the sausage roll or Scotch egg; he thought handy, he thought healthy, he thought yummy: he contrived to create the perfect snack fit for the human hand, heart, head and large intestine. He fucked up proper and good. The meat of a banana is a globulous melting filth; a stem of white pus oozing from a phallic yellow spot; a garish gash of ghastly grunge; slightly sweet but with a soggy cold-breakfast cereal texture designed to trigger the gag reflex; a frozen yogurt lolly of puke and alienesque miasma; a hollow fruit of pure unfiltered sadness and unwanted attention; a disagreeable melange of bullying and xenophobia; a distracting subjugation of all that is good and proper; a torturous sentence of a thousand lifetimes; a dirty little secret spread wide for all to see; a snotty nose and a spotty bot; rotten, unwanted, smelly and squidgy.

"You are wrong, they're very yummy."

Once I felt the same about mushrooms. My first job; in a mushroom farm, one well-known in the Lancaster area, and situated close to Galgate village. Mini-bused from Lancaster out to the farm to spend a few evening hours in the dark, legs spread across the aisle, standing between the mushroom beds, climbing high to the third bunk. Picking the mushrooms with the special knife, breathing in the foetid cemetery vapour of the rotting earth. The smell of mushrooms was indelible. Washing would not remove it, for the sinuses were lodged deeply with stinking masses of spores. Years later (when the smell had finally dissipated) I ate soup of the day: mushroom in the university canteen. What can I say; I was depressed, it was a call for help, there were no bananas at hand. Confounding expectations the mushroom soup was delicious, and didn't kill me. I discovered many different kinds of mushrooms in many colours, shapes and sizes. I tried them raw, fried, battered, boiled, poached, scrambled and devilled. I loved them.

So, Bananaman (not that one), I ask you, where are the varieties of banana? Plantains? OK, that's a start. They are nice grilled or fried with a curry. That's it; that's all I know. There must be more? Maybe there isn't. I'm starting to think that perhaps the design argument isn't as good as it might have seemed...

494: beep beep beep

2012-01-08T14:59:00.000-08:00

The block of flats (it's a terraced house converted into three flats) has a fire alarm system with a fault. For no tangible explained reason it occasionally makes an incessant never ending beep. Or the alarm itself sounding, just a loud beep indicating some mysterious fault. To make it stop you have to input the code and then press the silence button. This doesn't stop the beeping fault, it just shuts it up for a bit. The length of time it shuts up seems to bare no relationship to anything in this universe. Just now the beeping stopped for enough time to allow me to sit down; then it started again. Other times the beeping might stop for hours or days before starting up again.

When the beeping starts it starts at a level just quiet enough to not be heard, but then one moment you notice it's there and you can never unnotice it. Beep beep beep just below the level of conscious hearing; but there it is there it is there it is. Today the beeping shuts off for only seconds at a time. I've just returned from a pointless tussle with that fucking box. I pressed in the code and hit silence. There was silence for a couple of beats and it came right back with the beeping. I repeated this a thousand times and eventually gave up. On my way back up the stairs the hall light, which is on a timer, switched itself off automatically leaving my tumbling and stumbling about in the dark. This house hates me.

Even if the beeping was to stop, it has already burned itself into my brain, meaning that I will hear it forever regardless of whether it sounds or not. I think it's off now, but can't be sure. It's not important, I just had to share.

In other news: I'm reading The Horror in the Museum by H.P. Lovecraft, a book full of 'collaborative' stories by the dark prince of 20^th century horror writing. 'Collaborative' meaning ghost-written by Lovecraft, or originally written by someone else, then rewritten by the master of the weird tale. Like any anthology of Lovecraft their are bizarre flights of fancy lasting a page or three, interspersed with longer stories often taking place within the Cthulhu Mythos. Seems good so far.

Tomorrow is Monday. Night night.

493: ramblings about nothing

2012-01-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

So, erm, blogging and that. How's that for an opening line; quite a hook, eh? Bet you can't wait to read on and find out what gripping narrative this is the preamble to. Not much; my brain is dim after a lazy Sunday in my dressing gown, eating shit and playing Civilization VI. And having not written much or indeed anything for a day I find now that writing anything at all has become a terrific imposition. I struggle to think as I struggle to say as I struggle to write: very little means anything, or so I sometimes think. It's times like this I thank blog that I write: if I didn't write, I wouldn't think, or express, or do much at all really.

And while playing Civ VI I've been watching Breakfast at Tiffany's in which a writer, played by a young Col John 'Hannibal' Smith, attempts to court the whimsically delightful, yet impossibly difficult Audrey Hepburn. There's a cat with no name, rich posh Americans, kooky New Yorkishness, a sofa made from an old bathtub cut in half longways, and errr other stuff. I'm not really paying attention: it's divided 'tween the television and whatever it is I'm writing about now.

Breakfast at Tiffany's has finished, and we've changed the DVD to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It's DVD night in the Bradshaw household. I wish I was a New York writer or a Toontown private dic then, working on my own time, I could have a bit of a lie-in tomorrow, and not bother having a shave. Got too much real life stuff I need to sort out (taxes, wedding prep, writing, day job, this, that, the other, those and the other others, etc), soooooo..... BRB.

After that little three-paragraph breakdown I decided to print out what I have so far of my novel, in order to look at it from a slightly different perspective. To read it, make notes, edits, rewrites and begin picking up and finishing what I already have. I want to get those darn pesky three chapters perfected ASAP (a couple of months or so), and then try to get a literary agent. Worth trying; might bring me fame and fortune. Less of the fame, more of the fortune preferably. Anyway, never mind...

Space Shuttle: The Complete Missions

2012-01-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

Last month the Manchester Apollo was host to Uncaged Monkeys, an evening of comedy, science and scepticism. One of the many highlights of the evening was Adam Rutherford's video tribute to NASA's recently retired Space Shuttles. Here is that video - full screen, volume up to full:

"NASA's 30-year Space Transportation System (STS) program came to an end on 21st July 2011. The Space Shuttle fleet delivered the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and dozens of satellites, space probes, crew and supplies. Two Shuttles were lost: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. The touchdown of Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center marked the end of an era, after 135 missions. This video shows all of them in chronological order. http://www.nature.com/spaceshuttle"

(Text from YouTube video description on Nature Video Channel.)

492: First they came for the...

2012-01-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator who I've never heard of either, is apparently rising through the ranks of jostling homophobes clawing to be Republican candidate for the US Presidency. He is known for his considered, insightful and forward-thinking statements such as, "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing." He thinks that people should not be allowed the right to privacy; to consensual relations with the partner of their choice; he appears to think homosexuality is equivalent to child rape and bestiality. Here he is expressing himself, over compensating for something, in an unedited interview with Associated Press.

Santorum wants to mess with the private lives of millions of people, delving into details that are absolutely none of his business, choosing to surround himself in the details of activities he claims to abhor. In 2003, back when Santorum was still senator, gay rights campaigner Dan Savage decided to mess with Santorum by launching a sort-of competition to give a crude definition to the word santorum. The winning definition was "Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum." A website was created declaring the meaning of the word, and it quickly shot to the top of Google's search ranking for the term santorum. It remains at the top, and must be quite a problem for the nasty homophobic Christian extremist and the nasty homophobic Christian extremists whose votes he lusts after.

I added my liberal, wishy-washy, limp-wristed, deviant-empowering, Satanic, dog-fucking two cents to the story mainly for the reason of being able to link to the definition of Santorum and thus contribute to its remaining at the top of Google search results. I think he deserves it, and it scares me that such extremists could seriously be considered for the Presidency of a modern country.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't Jewish.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemöller

Synth City

2012-01-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

Pete Cannon in Synth City (UK's Largest Collection of Synths)
from Behind Closed Doors DVD Magazine on Vimeo.
(All music on this video clip is by PETE CANNON.)

For more PETE CANNON click the links below:

491: No Power, No Fire

2012-01-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

At around about eleven o'clock last night the lights all died, the ever present unnoticed electrical hum of everything faded, fire and burglar alarms began calling out in unsynchronised discord. At the same exact moment a small spring-loaded book-light on a table in the bedroom reached out its little arm to me spontaneously creating a little spot of light in the darkness about two feet below my face. A sudden power cut is surprise enough but when it is unexpectedly accompanied by a mysterious prick of light just below ones face, the confusion is next-to overloading. At the time, for a few fleeting moments, the two were inexorably connected: either one was the cause of the other, or they were both caused by or predictions of a terrific and imminent event.

I soon came to my senses and looked out of the window to see that the street lights were dead on this side of the road, but the other side was unaffected, and those lucky electric-powered buggers yonder were looking out of their illuminated living rooms to see what the racket was about. In no time we had little saucers of tea lights littered about the place, my flat mate was wandering about the darkness with a hand cranked dynamo torch, and I was reading my Mutants book by the light of the headlamp I climbed Fuji with.

Soon two fire engines had pulled up outside the house and fully equipped hunks were running about thinking where's the fire, where's the fire. Finding none, and only misfiring fire alarms and darkened windows, they struggled with what to do. After some discussion and deliberation they decided the best thing to do was to turn off the spinning blue fire engine lights, and then just hang about a bit kicking up their heels. I felt like letting them blow out the tea lights just to give them something firemanny to do. They looked so disappointed.

We realised there was no hot water, and I repeatedly tried to switch on the light every time I entered a room. It was all very exciting. Our first night back in the flat after spending new year with family; I'm glad we made it back in time. I tried to turn the laptop on but it wasn't charged. I tried to put the kettle on but it wasn't feeling up to it. I tried to run some hot water but it didn't feel like showing up. Then at midnight exactly, with a wire of restarting electrical background hum, the lights came back on, things clicked and shuffled and modern life came back. I shaved in the warm water of modernity, and bathed in the bright light of Western science and the workmanship of electricity repairmen.

490: Hyenas and Humans

2012-01-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

Today I learnt the following fascinating fact about female spotted hyenas: They have no vagina. Where it should be they have a sort of small scrotum with a pad of fat inside where the testicles would be in a male. They have a long clitoris, the size of the male of the species' penis, with a small opening on the end. This opening is used for copulation and birthing. It is so small that during birth 60% of hyena babies suffocate inside the clitoris, and 9% of mothers die.

This is an evolutionary adaption of a pathological mutation, caused by a deficiency of an enzyme called aromatase in the placenta. Normally aromatase converts testosterone into estrogens, therefore in its absence the developing foetus is exposed to huge levels of male sex hormone. This creates a female pseudohermaphrodite; internally female, yet externally resembling males. In humans it is an incredibly rare mutation; in hyenas it is perfectly normal.

That fascinating fact about female hyenas was brought to you from the book Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi. Do with that information what your will. I'd always suspected there was something different about those hyenas. But never mind that; it's a great book with detailed historical accounts of mutation in humans explained using cutting edge genetic research and sympathetic writing. It's one of those great Christmas presents, the sort that Jesus would have asked for if he had known any better.

It's a proper exploration of the physical causes of mutation, and what they can tell us about the human body in its healthy and unhealthy states. It's not a freak show by any means, there is no look at this funny looking guy playing the piano, go on, look. It's a good book. One that I only own by mistake of accidentally adding it to my partner's Amazon wish list instead of my own. It was then bought, confusedly, as a Christmas gift for her, which she promptly passed on to me with a questioning eyebrow. Good tactic that, accidentally discovered. You can use it yourself.

Happy new year.

489: ...and never brought to mind...

2012-01-01T17:36:00.000-08:00

Oi, 'ow do? 'Ere, goin' well I 'ope. Etcetera, etc, &c.

This isn't a proper blog post; this isn't even the one in which I wish the world a happy new year. This is the blog post I write in the advert break of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, after a day spent making a huge, complex and delicious roast dinner for my family, drinking a decent healthy amount, and relaxing more than I deserve. Incidentally Terminator 2 is possibly the best film ever made for many different reasons; I'll talk you through this at a later post, and I will include a quote from Stephen Fry discussing the music of Abba to illustrate my case. True story.

So, it's the new year -2012- and this is the first post of the new year -2012- but this is not the post in which I officially grant a Happy New Year to the world at large. 2012. It's 2012. Let me get you up to date, with regards to my small world. Last year was 2011: I spent the whole year engaged, having proposed on Christmas Day 2010; I got a minimum wage day job at a high street retailer, and against all expectations I really like working there; I set myself two strict deadlines with regards to my partially-written novel, and failed to meet both of them (including failing National Novel Writing Month), however I did manage to break a bit of ground (plenty more work to do in 2012 however); I, with my fiancee, moved into a smaller, cheaper, damper flat, with an old friend, and as a result have been able to save a little to pay towards the wedding; read more, and written more, than ever in my life, and started to see the coalescing kernel of a serious attitude towards writing, and the hope of wee bit of a career in some form of future.

Next, I mean this, year -2012- is a year for finishing novels, getting married, looking at houses, continuing being the best uncle ever (today my four-year old niece said "Kevin, you're the best" when I said I would help her read a phonics book about Top Cat and Kit Cat), seriously considering the possibility of becoming a dad in 2013, working hard in my day job, and harder in my drive to be a professional author/writer.

Immediate ambition is to go to bed. Night night and happy new year.

488: sleep and conquer

2011-12-30T17:55:00.000-08:00

I (yes, this is about me;no, I'm not bothered if you wander off) got the laptop out, turned it on, checked my usual online spaces, getting readied for a wee blog post, then at the very last second, instead of opening a new word document, I opened Civilization IV instead. Here's where we are: The year is 1984 (read no significance into that), and I am Kevilgamesh, Eternal Leader of the mighty Sumerians.

I control almost 50% of landmass having hundreds of years ago conquered the Zulu lands, and recently having overrun all of the Chinese cities on my continent, leaving them only a single city on a tiny island, forcing them into capitulation. They now wallow as an unwilling vassal to my malevolent benevolent warmongering liberal dictatorship. I also liberated many cities from the Byzantine Empire, and have recently declared unstable paper-thin peace. I control the UN and am just about to finish the Manhattan and Apollo Projects. True story.

Then it occurred to me that there are two or three more important things I could be doing. The first is blogging, the second is reading, and the third is sleeping. None of these sound like pressing matters for the Invincible King of Sumeria, Conqueror of Worlds, Master of Technology, Great General, King of Scotland, MA, BSc, MD, etc. But I'm not him, I'm the bespectacled chap whose mum bought him a "book worm" t-shirt for Christmas, that's me.

It's 2003 now, and I've just expanded lebensraum into Byzantine lands...

487: 486 and forward

2011-12-29T05:47:00.000-08:00

Last I posted was number 486, reminding me of my first computer which did not require cabling up to a television set, did more (but not much more) than play Sonic and Toejam & Earl, and didn't come with a small plastic handheld box of buttons. The 486 gifted to our family by my grandmother and her husband had its own weighty monitor, separate speakers, a boneshaking earbashing inkjet printer, Day of the Tentacle, Sherlock Holmes & the Case of the Serrated Scalpel and Civilization, and the small plastic box with buttons rested on the tabletop and was called a mouse. The 486, unlike the Master System and Mega Drive which I have previously alluded to, came with a typewriter keyboard, and had two things called Operating Systems; Windows '95 and a clumsy scary and fascinating mess called MS Dos.

I had almost no experience with non-game systems, proper computers. At primary school, which I attended from some time in the mid eighties until ninety-three, I vaguely remember their being one computer and being allowed once to do some one fingered typing. I remember the room the computer was in, placing me I think in the second year, making me aged seven or eight. I don't recall seeing it, or hearing it mentioned ever again, let alone getting a go on it. Years later, at high school, there were DOS-type computers in an English room, and two of the Design and Technology rooms. These were BBC computers with no Windows-style interface, and slots for 5 1/4" floppy discs. I never saw a disk. The computers in the D&T rooms were never used, we got no instruction on. Sometimes someone would turn them on and type, in the white pixels on black screen, a rude word.

The computers in the English room were used once or twice, but with trepidation and reluctance from the teachers. I doubt very much that the teachers really knew what was going on. When I came to do my GCSEs we were given a small amount of instruction on Information Technology, which was limited entirely to making a basic spreadsheet; most of the time was spent trying to get the document to print via the network to the printer locked away in a teacher-only room. We were then given the opportunity to choose a half-GCSE in Information Technology. I declined and did Religious Studies instead. Some time in ninety-six or -seven-ish I remember seeing the internet for the first time. There were computers in a science room, but we weren't allowed to use them. I remember secretly looking at a geocities page about Nine Inch Nails, and being giddily excited about seeing such a thing at school.

There was no mobile phones back then either. Now my four-year old niece can play Angry Birds on an internet connected touch-screen iPhone. I will have to struggle to keep up if I don't want to become a confused old Luddite.

Here's a map of the internet (to view larger, click here):

Now you'll never get lost

486: Bits of Belfast viewed from the Back of the car

2011-12-27T05:09:00.000-08:00

"Balls on the Falls", Rise, by Wolfgang Buttress

We drove down the famous Falls Road where murals depicting things I know nothing about, turned left onto the A12, passing I guess Shankill Road nearby, then turned left again onto Clifton Street heading towards Crumlin Road and Antrim Road. On the roundabout, Carlisle Circus, from which Crumlin and Antrim roads begin, is a church in terrible state of disrepair. I didn't know any of these place names while exploring the locale from the back seat of the car, except Falls Road, and have found the rest of the places mentioned here from googlemaps and google street view.

As we moved down the A-road I saw a smallish spire with a fascinating series of geometric windows (I really don't posses the language to describe anything architectural, so I doubt I'll be able to convey what it was that drew me to it). As we turned onto Clifton Street I was able to catch a glimpse of the building up close. Adjoining buildings were named Orange Hall, and Indian Community Centre, and were in a middling state of disrepair meaning I couldn't really tell whether they were still in use or not.

The spire and church are a wonderful sad pile of stone, smashed windows and trees. The trees grow out from the stonework, above the doorways and out of every orifice, nook and cranny, giving the impression of a dishevelled old man in serious need of a shave and some care and attention.

Earlier in the journey I had seen RISE by Wofgang Buttress, the largest piece of public artwork in Belfast, commonly know as Balls on the Falls. It's a giant ball, reminiscent of a Bucky ball, with a smaller similarly constructed ball suspended inside. The whole thing rests on a bed of steel prongs like a bubble sitting on grass, or the sun rising viewed through a reed bed. It can be seen for miles around, and is beautiful. As good as, and infinitely more practical than the ridiculous B of the Bang sculpture formerly of Manchester, which began collapsing every time the wind picked up.

485: Christmas day

2011-12-27T04:04:00.000-08:00

The blog I should have posted on Christmas day.

Here is a quick Christmas morning post: Happy Christmas to friends, family, and all the people in the world I've either met, or haven't met. "Happy Christmas," or as we atheists say, "Happy Christmas!" The day that can quickly cure the worst of headachey hangovers, but then requires a nap at 11am just to get over the morning's excitement. The day that requires a black bin bag situated in the middle of the room, which quickly fills up with multicoloured paper and small pieces of used sticky tape. A day of celebration in tribute to the king of kings, the king of sunday roasts, the great and the glorious Christmas dinner. A special dinner for a special day.

Everything I think and like and love about Christmas is summed up in the Tim Minchin song White Wine in the Sun. I posted it last Christmas, and I will post it next Christmas:

I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I'd rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest

And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialisation of an ancient religion
To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I'm looking forward to Christmas
Though I'm not expecting a visit from Jesus

I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy

And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs

I'm not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolate is just fine by me

Cos I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You'll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won't understand
But you will learn someday
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who'll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if, my baby girl
When you're twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You'll know what ever comes
Your brother and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun
Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum
We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Darling, when Christmas comes
We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you...
Waiting...

I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know...

484: ...and at number something high!

2011-12-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

I entered Xmas, I mean Christmas, with a huge amount of non-specific laughter and a in-the-background televised countdown of the best Christmas songs ever, hosted by Noddy Holder, the singer from Slade. I don't actually think he chose his own top fifty, and placed them in the exact order he deemed appropriate. However I have decide to level mild opprobrium on his top three. Obviously my reason for doing so is simply that it disagrees with my own. "He" put The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl's Fairytale of New York at number three. That is obviously wrong. It goes at number one, everyone knows that. It is a song about the entirety of human relations viewed through the lens of a confusing muddled traditional public festival and high drunkenness. It has that gorgeous lyrical interplay between the strong female voice and the broken male voice. As well as proudly sporting the line "happy Christmas, your arse, I pray to god its our last" it also contains the achingly beautiful summation of love in the couple-a couplets:

I could have been someone

Well so could anyone

You took my dreams from me

When I first found you

I kept them with me babe

I put them with my own

Can't make it all alone

I've built my dreams around you

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Happy Xmas (War is Over) was at number two. I love the sentiment, but I don't feel it in any way. I view it as a bit of a let down, and would not put it at number two. If I'm honest Fairytale of New York is my number two (only just, and only recently), and Jona Lewie's Stop the Cavalry is my number three. Noddy Holder put this at number something high... certainly higher than that atrocity by Mariah Carey... I feel I have let down my parents by not emoting highly about the John and Yoko anthem. While I will not say much in favour of that song, I will say plenty in favour of Yoko and her relationship with John. I think The Beatles had had it anyway, but even if I'm wrong I still think its terrible when people moan about him finding love, and accuse her of ruining The Beatles. Pure class A bollocks. It's like giving Reagan credit for the fall of the Soviet Union: it was on its way down regardless of outside interference, rotting from the inside.

Like a big dumb wanker Noddy Holder put his own shallow cheese-fest tune at number one; you know the Slade song where he shouts It's Chrisssstmaaasssssss!!!! Yeah, that one.

483: This happened, then this

2011-12-24T06:22:00.000-08:00

My last post included the word "foccaccia", but the spell-check in blogger didn't like that word. Here is the complete and unabridged list of alternative spellings provided:

dogcatcher

cowcatcher

fogyish

flycatcher

quackish

"Zealand" was also wrong. Preferred spellings are:

Zea land

Zeal and

Sealant

I walked into a room where a family film was reeling its footage through the television. What's this? The answer I received is perhaps the single funniest, and most accurate one-sentence description of anything I have ever heard: "The Rock is the tooth fairy and Stephen Merchant is is his case worker." That literally contains every single piece of information pertinent to understanding the complexities of said film. It's called Tooth Fairy, and I highly recommend it; it's a way of life.

482: Christmas menus on the highstreet

2011-12-24T03:53:00.000-08:00

If fast food restaurants are going to milk Christmas in their advertising they should make more of an effort with their Christmas menus.

"Sausage Roll & Soup: A Taste of Christmas" proclaims the poster in the window of Greggs the baker, as it competes for the prize of shittest least-Christmassy Christmas menu in a fast food shop. The picture of the soup looked suspiciously like cream of tomato; there were no big beautiful Brussels sprouts floating enticingly in the bowl.

The McDonald's Christmas menu is pretty weird. Here it is in its entirety; let's see if we can discern anything particularly (or even remotely) "festive". There is one beef burger: The Festive Deluxe: "Treat yourself this festive season! 100% beef patty topped with honey BBQ glaze, bacon and layered with cheese, Batavia lettuce, red onions and smoky peppered mayo, all within a mighty foccaccia bun." Such Christmas classics! How much does honey BBQ, Batavia lettuce and foccaccia remind me of all those happy childhood Christmases!

Next on the menu is Cheese Melt Dippers: "Delicious melted cheese dippers – served with the Festive Tomato dip." I've no idea what makes a McDonald's Tomato sauce "festive", and I probably never will, as when we ordered this Christmas classic last week they never bothered to give us the sauce. This is an all-year-'round tradition for McDonald's: order a side that comes with a dip and precisely 75% of the time you will not receive the dip. The manager is syphoning them away to feed the giant mutant alien monster that lives in his belly and controls his actions.

What says Christmas more than an After Eight McFlurry: "Delicious soft dairy ice cream swirled with After Eight dark chocolate shells topped with a mint chocolate sauce." With a twist of logic, squinted eyes and a slight touch of gentle brain damage I suppose it's possible to think of After Eight mints as Christmassy even though they absolutely categorically are not. Make them even less Christmassy than they already are by sticking them in freezing cold ice cream. Perhaps ice cream is a Christmas dish in the Southern hemisphere, and apologies to our Australian and New Zealand cousins (and anyone else I've missed out), but Christmas is mostly in the middle of winter.

That is the entirety of McDonald's severely failed Christmas menu. Burger King does little better. Its instore posters claim its current time limited offer is a Christmas menu, but the website totally fails to mention any of this. Probably for the best since its Christmas menu is Steakhouse Angus burger, Cranberry Chicken Tendercrisp sandwich, Hot Brownie, and Jaffa Cake Fusion ice cream. Points added on for including cranberries in something, and having a hot desert...

I've just remembered McDonald's had an instore poster for a hot sweet pie with, I think, mincemeat and custard, so at least that's a nod towards making an effort. I forgot about it because I saw no mention of it on the website's xmas menu, and I'm only prepared to do the most cursory research.

I propose that more of an effort should be made on the menu if it is to be described as "Christmas". It's not enough to just call it "Christmas" if it simply isn't "Christmas". I'm not suggesting Jesus Burgers or anything like that; any fool or genius could tell you Christmas has nothing to do with Christ, its a season that has always been celebrated and was adopted as Jesus' fictional birthday by the Roman empire. They used pre-existing pagan festivals to make the transition/cultural attack easier on the happy heathen population.

Anyway, my point is, I want to see a fast food shop brave enough to put on the menu something with Brussell's sprouts in it. I want to see someone come to the blindingly obvious conclusion that pigs in blankets should be on the Christmas menu: everyone loves pigs in blankets (or knows someone who does). KFC should replace all of their chicken products with turkey for as long as they want to milk Christmas in their advertising.

481: so yeah

2011-12-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

It's officially xmas, Christmas, yule, das vinterfest; I declare it so, for I am now off work for ten days, and paying visit to my inlaws' house, which is warm, cosy, festival and fantastic. I'm not convinced it is christmas on the first of December, when certain songs and tints and hints of tinsel materialise around the borders of advertisements; but ignore the advertisers, the commercial cunts I mean clowns, i can now confirm it is christmas hoozah hoorah hooray hoozay. All I'm going to do for the duration of this post is make non-specific ramblings about being relieved to have a week and a bit off work, and excited to spend christmas with family (new), and excited to spend xmas & new year with family (original). Dear my niece, if your reading this, which your not, because you're too young, perhaps you can correct my spelling on the first and second "your/you're" of this sentence; and perhaps you could stop reading now because I am about to ruin the surprise of your xmas present: you're getting some dinosaurs – awesome.

I really hope satan brings me some dinosaurs too, and a rocket, and Mouse Trap board game, and a hat, and a cat, and a coat, and a hotel, and – no that's it. No more no less. I really struggled to get the start of this paragraph out. I intentionally wrote satan instead of santa, intending it to be a silly easy-to-miss throw-away joke, but now I've messed that up by going on about it. The only reason I started on about it, is because I struggled so much forcing out that crappy list of "things I want" that I've just sort of gone off the rails and am no longer concerned about the words, their splellink or even the meaninging of my jar ham space tortoise. See, I say, see, writing "comedy" lists is funny, I mean not funny, not funny i.e. unfunny. And since when did I start thinking I could be funny or whatever or summin.

Like someone drinking themselves to death could be conceived, understood to be, a protracted suicide, this blog post is obviously a protracted attempt at saying "I am very tired, too tired to write a coherent blog post, a little drunkin tooo too, and really outta zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

480: Frank Sidebottom, Manchester's Frank Zappa

2011-12-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

Frank Sidebottom:

Manchester's Frank Zappa

A Tale of Two Franks, you know it is, it really is!

Frank Zappa is a legendary rock guitarist and composer known for his technical mastery of his instrument and his staggeringly complex music designed to challenge his band and listeners alike.

Frank Sidebottom is a man in a papier mache head dancing around a Casio keyboard with a little cardboard puppet of himself, singing "...you know it is, it really is". I can't believe I've never noticed the wealth of similarities between the two. Just as I was chopping vegetables for my tea, and listening to Frank Sidebottom's album 5:9:88 for the fifth time this week, it hit me.

First let's get the massive difference out of the way; one which I have already alluded to. Zappa's music has a major focus on complexity and technical perfection, whereas Sidebottom's is exceedingly simple and often poorly played. But none of that really matters when there are so many similarities. I think I might use bullet points, yes I will; you know I will, I really will.

Humour

Frank Sidebottom is essentially a stand-up comedian. Chris Sievey, whose real head was located under Sidebottom's papier mache head, began as the singer in a punk band The Freshies. He created the Sidebottom character as a support act for his own band; eventually it became more popular and took over. Sidebottom is childish, creative, naive, and endlessly silly.

Frank Zappa was obsessed with silliness and humour

Satire

"American way, threatened by us," wrote Zappa on 'Concentration Moon' from We're Only In It For The Money. "Drag a few creeps away in a bus. American way, prisoner – lock. Smash every creep in the face with a rock. Don't cry, gotta go bye bye, suddenly die die. Cop kill a creep, pow pow pow."

"Hey you, riot policeman, have you got the time?" enquired Sidebottom on 'I Said, Hey You, Riot Policeman'. "They always say ask a policeman, so I am asking you. See I need to catch a bus to Wythenshawe hospital. In the mayhem and confusion, I've lost all track of time. Hey you, riot policeman, I think you do a wonderful job. It's a fabulous public service, and I think you deserve a rise. Cos bullets and guns and gas are cheap, and what's with the price of truncheons? It's fifty pounds for a couple of tickets to the riot policemans' ball."

Improvisation

Frank Zappa's stage shows allow room for long passages of improvised technically sophisticated music, whereas Frank Sidebottom's Channel M test card is an hour of improvised talking to himself and playing around on his keyboard.

Multimedia

As well as composing in a wide variety of styles of music, Zappa was also a producer, record label executive, and A&R man; his shows often included bizarre props used as Dadaist art somethings. He also made films and even animation. Sidebottom drew and painted prodigiously, and made a huge amount of props including his own head! He made radio shows, YouTube videos, animation, music videos, and a TV series; he had a beautiful website, communicated with his fans on MySpace, and apparently even wrote an award-winning episode of Pingu (click here for his own words on the subject) called Pingu's Bedtime Shadows.

Skits

Albums by both the Franks contain strange sound effects, skits, audio plays, conversation, comedy dialogue in between the more traditional song songs

Well-known "proteges"

Sidebottom gave us some well known names such as Caroline Aherne as Mrs Merton, Graham Fellows (John Shuttleworth), journalist Jon Ronson, and apparently Chris Evans was his driver. Zappa supplied Captain Beefheart, Steve Vai, Wild Man Fischer, G.T.O.s, and Alice Cooper.

Frank

Frank Zappa is called Frank. Frank Sidebottom is also called Frank. They are both called Frank.

Silly-voiced sidekicks

Frank Sidebottom has Little Frank accompanying and obstructing him everywhere he goes. Zappa liked to make puppets or pets out of his band members, turning them into characters, such as Jimmy Carl Black "the Indian of the group", and Ray White "the assistant Illinois Enema Bandit".

Music about music

The first song on Sidebottom's album 5:9:88, Airplay, documents his attempts to get a hit record and explains how he gently subverts the cliches of pop music in order to do so. The song is fantastic; the lyrics are too. A cursory search of the internet can't find them, so I'll work them out myself and stick them here for your enjoyment (at least as much as I can discern from listening through cheapo speakers):

Breakfast time again

Switch on your radio

---

Here it is again

Airplay, they're playing my song again

---

Airplay, there's nothing wrong with

Catchy little hooks

You hate but just can't seem to shake

They're going 'round your head

Right 'round

There's nothing you can do

To stop yourself

From latching on the bridge, and singing

Airplay, they're playing my song again

I'm heading for the one

Airplay, take it away!

[guitar solo]

That's the solo gone

I stuck it early in the song

To make the structure different from the last one

That's the sort of thing that you consider

When you're going for

Airplay, we're on the hook again

I'm washing your brain

Airplay, a simple refrain

But a tricky middle-8

You have to wait a few times to hear

It's not as easy on the ear

I'll take you right back to

Airplay, now you're tapping your foot again

I'm taking it up

[key change]

Airplay, I'm blowing all the stops out now

And making subtle changes to the verse

The worse is yet to come

It's the obvious ---type harmonies

----, Dollar and Bucks Fizz

Everything you wish for

Airplay, keep the chorus coming

I'm pushing it home

Airplay, Airplay

[etc]

['Airplay' by Frank Sidebottom, (p)1989 In Tape, licensing Stirling Sievey & Gemma Woods]

Zappa wrote a lot of music playing with the forms of recognised genres. For example We're Only In It For The Money ridiculed the hippy movement using subverted psychedelia, and Cruising With Ruben & the Jets played with the forms of doo-wop.

In The Real Frank Zappa Book he says "Without deviation (from the norm), 'progress' is not possible. In order to deviate successfully, one has to have at least a passing acquaintance with whatever norm one expects to deviate from".

Influences

Both artists reference their own influences explicitly over and over, both lyrically and stylistically. Sidebottom likes Sex Pistols, Freddy Mercury and Queen, and the Beatles, especially Paul McCartney. Zappa likes Edgard Varese, 50s doo-wop, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson.

Project/Object

Click the above link for Zappa's explaination of his concept of the Project/Object. It's basically the idea of using many of the same flavours, references, in-jokes, etc and sneaking them into an artist's entire output. He references "a little poodle over here, a little blow job over there"; his deep voiced MOO-WAH is heard often, and we get lots of songs about stupid men, sexual jokes, hair cuts, dancing, etc, etc, etc.

Sidebottom's Project/Object includes football, Altrincham, Altrincham FC, Timperley, Little Frank, NASA, space, rockets, Paul McCartney, television, his mum, his tea, being sent to bed with no tea, not even a great big bowl of cereal.

Collections

Zappa collected magnetic tape of every remotely musical sound he ever made or heard, and he collected musicians. Sidebottom collected He-Man figures and crudely drawn pictures of himself.

That's enough for now. You know it is... IT REALLY IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MOO-WAHHHH!!!!

479: BPM 37093

2011-12-18T16:26:00.000-08:00

Before I start, let me just say, that if you got here via a google search for BPM 37093, and are expecting an informed article about that particular carbide crystalline (I just made up that term, I hope its right, it sounds good to me) white dwarf -or diamond star- then please try to conceal your disappointment. I only say this because my blog's stats indicate that my most popular recent posts have been one with an aside mentioning Gary Speed, and another mentioning Craig Charles and Coronation Street. It seems that hundreds of people a day have been directed to my blog by google in order to find the answer to the question "has Craig Charles left Coronation Street?" I don't actually know, my only information on the subject coming from Wikipedia, the source of which I have not verified.

I have not checked recently, but I think it's probably safe to assume that the ever-oscillating relationships of the characters on Coronation Street remains more popular amongst the general public than the technical specifications of alpha-numerically designated stellar inhabitants of the Centaurus constellation. From that I hypothesise that I will not receive hundreds of misguided hits from minds inquisitive about the latest goss' regarding BPM 37093. Anyone who has got here via that route, sorry, but you are welcome to come in and have a drink; just take your shoes off at the door, and don't stay too long. And don't move anything.

Now that I've cleared that up I'd also like to inform any of my regular readers that they would do well to google BPM 37093 for information, not about an incredibly fast piece of music but, about one of the beautifully bizarre and improbable, but actual real phenomena that our amazing universe throws up. Forget the ghost that your uncle thought he saw, or your friend's mum who went to a psychic and was told about her dog being happy on the other side. Forget about all that; it's not real, therefore it's not interesting. It is inconsequential. However BPM 37093 is real, and it's fascinating. I'll say no more. Except I advise you to watch Prof Brian Cox leading up to an explanation of BPM 37093, via a description of the entire universe, in tonight's lecture A Night with the Stars. Every syllable he speaks contains more truth than all the utterances of spirits through mediums, and all the bibles, and all that crap combined. Plus every crappy word of this endless blog of mine.

Sorry again for the disappointing let down about the Coronation Street thing. If it's any help to anyone I believe Craig Charles will return, in his guise as the love-lorn beer-drinking cheeky chappy Lloyd, after he has filmed another series of Red Dwarf in which he plays love-lorn beer-drinking cheeky chappie Lister. I just hope that I don't get hundreds more people drawn here on a daily basis due to incidental appearances of popular search terms, e.g. Justin Bieber beaver Green Bay Packers Kansas City Chiefs Alvin and the Chipmunks Mission Impossible big hot sex tits porn Christmas kardashian hannukah holidays lindsay lohan. I wouldn't want that to happen. No, I'm more interested in BPM 273939, or whatever it was called.

478: The racist joke

2011-12-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

Today I was told a racist joke, the gist of which was "aren't black people like monkeys". Before the joke I was asked "do you want to hear a funny joke?" Of course, I love funny jokes. Then came the ugly set-up line, which I have decided not to extend the life of by reproducing here. In the space between set-up and punchline, I said "I don't care, I don't want to know," but still the stupid racist punchline came. Nasty, vile, shitty, ignorant, hateful, stupid and deeply pathetic, all squeezed into eight words, ten seconds and one mime.

Stony-faced I replied "That's horrible, racist, and not funny." "Yes it is, other people laughed," I was corrected. The thought that people I know would laugh at that makes me sick to my stomach with shame. The joke wasn't funny (obviously that's not the point); there was no wit concealed beneath the racism, only a shallow reiteration of a hundreds-of-years old stereotype. "That's a joke for an idiot. Only an idiot would find that funny. Anyone who tells that or laughs should be ashamed of themselves." I am right.

The joke was told to me in private, one on one, but word obviously got around as someone else approached me later with a sort of "I hear you didn't like the joke. I've got a worse one. Do you want to hear it?" What the hell is wrong with people. You would not make these jokes among black people because you know it is wrong. Why do you think that because I am white I will happily be complicit in racism? Insult someone to their face with a joke like that and you would deserve the punch you would probably get. "People tell jokes about other people all the time," I was informed as if to justify it. Because something is common it can't be bad? Cancer is pretty common too.

"No, I don't want to hear an even more racist joke." I can't believe I actually had to say that. I said it to the people concerned, and I'll say it again: Telling jokes like that, and laughing at them, is disgusting, pathetic behaviour. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You have a right to say them if you think that's the way you want to live your life, but don't be surprised if people look down at you; don't be surprised if you lose friends.

I was brought up to respect people. To not accept stereotypes, to question preconceptions, to not join in with bullying and hateful baaing, to not be scared of the new and different, to treat my fellow humans like humans, to learn and always strive to know and understand, to be polite and considerate, but to challenge ignorance and injustice. (That makes it sound like my parents had me in super hero training.)

I get the feeling that people seem to think its a good thing to laugh at racist jokes, even (or especially) when you don't really agree with the sentiment of the joke. That is fucking dumb. These kind of jokes are always about reinforcing crass generalisations and ugly stereotypes. Where is the humour in that? Surely the point of a joke is that it is funny. If you know a joke is "wrong", but it is not actually funny, why are you laughing just at its "wrongness"?

Laughing at or telling racist jokes doesn't necessarily make you a racist. At best you are thoughtless and inconsiderate; at worst, yes, you are just a racist. Even if you are not a racist, but you are laughing at or telling a racist joke, you are still doing something racist, and how is that any better?

Also, when you tell a racist joke you are making a very strong assumption about the listener. You have decided "this looks like the sort of person who would laugh along with me at my nasty little stereotype"; let us share a sordid giggle at the inferiority of other races. That is an insult, not just to the people who are the butt of the joke, not just to the human race as a whole, but to the individual you have assumed is stupid enough to laugh at your shitty joke.

And I'm still owed the "funny joke" I was promised.

477: The obituary I never wanted to write

2011-12-16T14:44:00.000-08:00

Christopher Hitchens is dead.

I have spent the last hour reading old articles by Christopher Hitchens, and poring over sad and respectful obituaries, looking for quotes to open this blog post. I wanted one about his own attitude to death, his own loathing of the semi-mythical "deathbed conversion" so often attributed to public unbelievers. But instead I just read and read and read. His words are brilliant. His sentences and his thoughts all perfectly constructed.

When I took my compulsory two-minute glance at twitter before getting in the shower this morning I saw the top trend "Christopher Hitchens" and immediately I knew. Since his diagnosis, in 2010, of esophageal cancer his thoughts on mortality and cancer have been lucid, touching and public. His wonderful televised interviews showed the same sharp mind, even as the head that contained it lost its hair to the ravages of chemotherapy. Despite the public knowledge that he did not have long left his death was still able to take me by surprise. He continued writing and publishing at a rate far exceeding most healthy authors (see Slate and Vanity Fair), and it seemed to me that he might go on for ever.

I, I suspect like many other similarly-minded people, am not ashamed to admit that I shed a tear on more than one occasion today. First upon hearing the news this morning, and second when I returned home and read Peter Hitchens' (Christopher's brother, and his political polar opposite) touching obituary In Memoriam, my courageous brother, 1949-2011. It was the following few words that got me:

At one stage – and I am so sad this never happened – he wrote to me saying he hoped for a ‘soft landing’ (code, I think for abandoning any further attempts to combat his disease) and to go home to his beautiful apartment in Washington DC.

There, he suggested, we could go through his bookshelves, as there were some books and other possessions he wanted me to have. I couldn’t have cared less about these things, but I had greatly hoped to have that conversation, which would have been a particularly good way of saying farewell.

But alas, it never happened. He never went home and now never will. Never, there it is, that inflexible word that trails close behind that other non-negotiable syllable, death.

My brief tears were not the hysterical mania of those weeping over the death of Princess Diana, but a sign of respect shown to a great intellectual general, and a sign of respect shown to that unbeatable and eternal abstinence, death. Death, unfortunately is the end, and Christopher proudly succumbed knowing that full well.

Soon after his diagnosis Christopher wrote Topic of Cancer, an article for Vanity Fair, about his recent thoughts and experiences. In it he briefly considered:

Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Centre rise again? To read—if not indeed write—the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger? But I understand this sort of non-thinking for what it is: sentimentality and self-pity.

and now we must deal with the fact that all future events in the worlds of politics and religion will be spared his sharp analysis and unflinching criticism. Sleep a little easier, peddlers of bullshit and oppression.

Thank you Christopher for a lifetime of wonderful words and insightful analysis. Thank you to the doctors that treated you, the nurses, the research scientists, the fund-raisers, the charitable donaters, the doctors that didn't treat you but treat others every day. Thank you.

476: Christmas and Craig Charles

2011-12-15T13:11:00.001-08:00

Creeping up to Christmas and the urge to make everything "Irish" is back. Irish coffee, etc. I blogged the other day about drinking whiskey and milk; that is basically Irish milk. I've seen it; they all have it on their breakfast cereal, the Irish do. I've seen it with my own overactive imagination. Were it not for the importance of being upstanding, hardworking and respectable in life and in the day job it might be nice to start a cold winter morning with an Irish coffee. So as I said before, I've recently blogged about sticking whiskey in other stuff. I don't want to portray an image of a whiskey sloshing sop, but you know; so be it...

One week left of work and then that amazing thing is upon us all: ten work free days of family, food, and heavy digestion on the sofa in front of Gremlins and It's A Wonderful Life. Tenuous link of the day: Coronation Street is on telly right now, Lloyd played by Craig Charles just appeared, Craig Charles shot to fame as Dave Lister in Red Dwarf, in the Grant Naylor novel Better Than Life based on Red Dwarf Lister's favourite film is It's A Wonderful Life, and when he is trapped in the eponymous fatally addictive virtual reality game he lives in the plot of said Christmas film. Glad I got that out of my system. Do with that information what you will.

Craig Charles has just left Coronation Street to film a new series of Red Dwarf. I've long, looonnngg since given up any hope for a decent new Dwarf. Not since the end of series six has a good series been made; not since the recasting of Kristine Kochanski from the awesome, funny, sexy Clare Grogran to the useless somebody someone. Erm... final Craig Charles thought: my fiancee used to teach dance and/or drama to his two wee kids. She's met him; I haven't. He was my hero when I was a wee kiddy nerd for BBC comedy/sci-fi. I even bought his poetry/stand-up comedy VHS Craig Charles Live. He has fantastic music taste.

475: Folk (English)

2011-12-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

When Stewart Lee talks, about anything really, I listen. Occasionally he will put out a radio documentary about something or other, interesting to himself, and I will think ooh that's interesting and follow along with piqued interest. His 2005 episode of the radio show Chain Reaction where he interviewed graphic novel author Alan Moore was almost solely responsible for creating my interest in Moore's output, and in modern graphic novels as a whole. Before that my interest in comics had dwindled as I grew up and left Asterix, Tank Girl, and Beano/Dandy behind me. Thank you Mr. Lee.

Watching his Mastermind appearance with the specialist subject of improvisational guitarist Derek Bailey, helped push along my re-interest in Captain Beefheart and its companion interest in avant garde and general weirdness. Stewart Lee's radio documentary White Face, Dark Heart, on the obscure phenomena of the Hopi Native American Clown Ceremony during which the nominated clowns break all normal conventions of behaviour, got me interested in the intellectualisation of the base nature of comedy (or whatever): stuff is funny... why... Anyway, point I'm trying to make is that Stewart Lee is interesting, interested in disparate subjects, and able to make strange and unexpected subjects exciting.

Stewart Lee's latest radio documentary is It's Got Bells On, part of Radio 2's Dance Season, is on the subject of Mor ris, rapper sword, clog, and other forms of traditional English folk dancing. Now, I must at this point state that I am a Morris dancer; it's true. OK, it's not true, but it once was. At primary school we did a Morris dance and performed it at Lancaster town hall, probably circa 1989. We had little white costumes, like cricketers but you know cool. Bells on our knees, and wooden sticks we clashed together like sparring martial artists. That fact allows me to say I was doing it before it was cool; so fuck you hipsters. Etc.

Strange how English folk is uncool (except amongst mustachioed hipsters who are all to aware of its cool/uncool paradox, and people interested in steam trains who are oblivious to coolness), yet American folk and Irish folk is very cool, and other traditional forms of World music are always popular. English folk, especially Morris music seems highly accordion based. To me this is very reminiscent of shanties, chanties, sea music. England was a seafaring nation; Ireland wasn't. Maybe the distaste for English folk is a kind of post-colonial guilt. Perhaps it is part of the same phenomena that makes a traditional fish n chips hard to find whereas Chinese food, curry, pizza, burger and fries, and even sushi are incredibly easy to find. The fact that so many "full English" breakfasts are missing the black pudding.

As with anything now, in order to make old things relevant again, the go-to cliched way is to mix everything with hip hop elements. As with English folk, clog dance has been mixed with hip hip dance. The documentary has led me to Time Gentleman Please, a recent collaborative effort 'tween cloggers and hip-hoppers, and watching the following video it works so amazingly unexpectedly well. It shows how hip-hop and folk are both raw, improvised, un(high)cultured, competitive.

So at this moment, while its firmly in my mind I am totally pro-Morris, pro-English folk. I want a big tankard of ale and some bells for my knees. Let's, in all seriousness, have 5000 Morris dancers for the opening ceremony of London 2012.

474: wot im reding

2011-12-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

A quick post tonight about all things being connected, everything must be viewed holistically; any one thing, no matter how seemingly impossible, improbable, unlikely or irrelevant can and does have startling consequences in unseen and unconsidered areas of activity. I'm reading a fantastic charity shop find: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, soon to be followed by The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, which I believe is the sequel. Many people my age, and of my ever-so slightly geeky disposition, probably got into ol' Douggie in their young youths reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I never read that until I was an adult, but loved it and gradually read all three, four, or five of them. They are very funny, packed full of incredibly bizarre and exciting ideas, but it's all over the place; huge story arcs that take half a sentence to happen, very little plot, just bumming about the galaxy stumbling in and out of strange scenarios passively. Good though. And thanks for all the fish. Dirk Gently is all together different, although written in very much the same comic voice. It has some sci-fi elements, some mystery/whodunit stuff, and great depths of weirdness. So it's not that different, apparently I was wrong. It's very similar. It does seem more plot driven, and I'm very excited to find out how all the storylines will pull together. You see, everything is connected. Every disparate detail of the universe is actually part of the same sequence of events; this is part of that and that is part of the other. There is an electric monk (an appliance designed to conveniently believe stuff so the owner can get on with more important things) from another universe, a strange Cambridge don with a mysterious abacus and rooms, a horse, a computer programmer, his bos who is murdered by the monk, the ghost of the murdered man, a former magazine editor, a thing with a salt cellar embedded in a fake ancient Grecian pot, hypnotism, an ex-secretary, an holistic detective called Svald Cjelli, and a bunch of storylines excitingly and amusingly coming together. Right, that's enough of my own shitty writing. I'm off to do some reading. Soz. Bye.

473: Book review: The Cure for All Cancers (!)

2011-12-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

On Saturday last (whenever that was) I ordered three super-cheap, super-shit books off Amazon, as research for an aspect of the novel I am gradually writing... very gradually. Of the three books I ordered two turned up within the predicted time, and the third has yet to turn up a week after ordering. If I was the paranoid type, which I may be (I daren't look at myself closely enough to find out, in case it triggers a mass mental breakdown of a kind usually only seen in the moving pictures), I would believe that the third book had been intercepted by agents loyal to the author and founder of a particular group, said group's current leader, or fringe acolytes desperate to penetrate the inner circle.

I am researching a variety of cranks, crackpots, (s)C A Mmers, and general predators on the credulous or vulnerable. The two books that have arrived are The Biggest Secret by David Icke, apparently "the conspiracy theorists' Rosetta Stone", and The Cure For All Cancers, a poisonous and tedious faux-medical textbook by Hulda Regehr Clark, who sadly died of cancer despite "discovering" that all disease, cancer and AIDS included, are caused by parasites which can be eradicated using a "zapper" electric shock device. The third book, which was filtered out of my post by North American movie-star high-ranking OT levelled ninjas, was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard, a book which having not read I am entirely unable to make comment on. I'm sure its pseudo-scientific language, and empty content, will be invaluable to me.

The Cure For All Cancers may be the weirdest book I have ever seen. It starts with Part One: The Cause which includes the bizarre claim that the hazardously multiplying cells in the cancer patient are caused by multiplying parasitic worms and bacteria which usually live in a pond full of snails. It includes some basic information about the life cycle of the fluke, then for no particular reason links that to cancer. On the very next page is the claim "Cloves, black walnut and wormwood. These three herbs, taken together, can cure all cancers. These three herbs must be used together". Followed soon after by the sickeningly irresponsible instruction, "Do not try and substitute drugs for herbs". She is talking about 'parasiticides', as opposed specifically to relevant drugs, you know, chemotherapy, but still, when compounded all together this makes for murderously misleading information.

There are lots of numbers littered around the pages, functioning as blinding and supposedly impressive pseudo-science intended to trick the scientifically-illiterate reader into believing they are looking at actual evidence. Most of the numbers however relate to measurements for teaspoons of herbs. I can just open the pages randomly to find mad claims about all sorts of things, backed up by no evidence: "Clothes dryers are our biggest source of asbestos." "Your lungs will not heal if there is any radon. Pamphlets are available at drugstores to tell you how to seal your home from radon." "Cook your food in glass, enamel, ceramic or microwavable pots and pans. Throw away all metal ware, foil wrap, and metal-capped salt shakers since you will never use them again."

Part Two: Getting Well Again. The whole thing combined serves to make the author seem utterly confused, and desperate to pass that confusion on to the reader. One moment she is blathering about trace amounts of alcohol in breakfast cereal, the next she is claiming that benign tumours and cysts have fungus in them. There is suspicious claim piled on suspicious claim. Not being a scientist I do not know the truth or untruth behind many of these claims, but being an avid and moderately-careful reader I can plainly see that her claims are not backed up by adequate references, and no effort is made to communicate the genuinely scientific truth behind her bizarre and unrelated claims. It's just so weird.

Part Three: Case Histories is where it dredges new depths of tedium in a hopeless attempt to pass off suspect case histories as actual evidence. Case histories, especially such inconsistent ones as those presented here, are not real evidence: they are stories, anecdotes. Double-blinded placebo-controlled studies are evidence; lots of them combined and viewed together as a meta-analysis. Here instead we have 150 pages of anecdotes about cancer patients needing their teeth cleaned, drinking orange juice, feeling sick, taking herbs, having tests for parasites (or in many cases not being tested, the presence of parasites simply being assumed by the author to back up her hypothesis), getting a bit better over a short span of time.

There is no account for any of the variables that must be accounted for in the real world: the placebo effect, spontaneous remission, misdiagnoses, reaction to standard accepted treatment, tester bias, regression to the mean, etc. There also appears to be little concern for the fact that 'cancer' is actually an umbrella-term used to describe a huge variety of different diseases, with many different causes, effects, and chances of survival.

Part Four is seriously seriously seriously... weird. It begins with a couple of paragraphs which seem to be attempting to guilt-trip any sceptics still reading into believing her authority: "It is only through years of experience testing every product clients brought in [...] But obviously no one can test them all. Maybe your brand is OK!" To me this reads as "I'm the scientist, this is my book, I have eh-vee-dense, ehhh,veee,densse

I bought this drivel second hand so hopefully there is no channel by which any of the few pennies I spent can get to the author's estate or publishers.

472: I could do better, I just don't want to

2011-12-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

The Manchester Evening News (or it might have been the Metro, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention really) had a headline Drama as Cameron vetoes change to European treaty. Irrelevant of the content of the story (which repels me at the thought of distancing ourselves from Europe, but doesn't anger me due to my complete lack of knowledge on the workings of international economics) I was deeply annoyed with this headline. In fact I was unable to get past the headline, partly because I was reading it over the shoulder of someone on the bus, but mainly because it is indicative of the switch in news reporting from a focus on actual news to a focus on trivial details, sensationalism and human emotion.

The headline should have been Cameron vetoes change to European treaty: that, and that alone, is the actual news story. What purpose does the Drama as serve? Why the unnecessarily sensationalistic preamble? Grr, I hate it. Where is this drama: I suppose it exists in the mind of the cretinous hack sub-editor who spawned that piece of shit headline, but where is it in the real world, and even if it is there somewhere, who the fuck cares? Right, that little bit of anger is out of my system, so let me see if I can actually think straight about the issue.

I view this, perhaps, as being indicative (as I may have already mentioned) of a major dumbing down in news reporting. The boring facts of what actually happened are of no concern, as the news outlets weep in fear of the public switching the channel or leaving their free newspaper untaken from the vendor's hand or the bus's seat. How could we, the dipshit dribbling public, possibly be interested in a news story that isn't entirely focused on human emotion? The irrational over-reactions of clamouring sweaty humanity is all that matters. Fuck what happened. How did people feel after whatever it was that did or didn't happen? That's all that matters.

This is the reason that all science reporting in the mainstream press, from The Sun to the Observer to the BBC, is worthless nonsensical gibberish. We are spared those tedious facts in favour of the knee-jerk reactions of biased and ill-informed bystanders. Political news is similarly reduced. Surely a basic and honest understand of the workings of science and politics is the most important thing a human can have in a world where it is occasionally extremely important to make huge decisions about, for example, medical care or voting. How can we be expected to make these decisions, or even understand their meaning and value, when all the information we are served is washed away under a stream of opinion and emotion? These should be almost entirely (if not entirely entirely) unemotional and factual subjects for which to make decisions on.

But people like Drama don't they? And who really likes vetoing, Europe, or treaties? No one. Hollyoaks is, I think, a drama, isn't it? How many people watch that? And how many people watch The European Treaty Veto Show? No one. Not even me. Stupid world.

471: Whisky and milk

2011-12-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

Whisky and milk. Yeah. There was a programme about the emergence of white (mainly) middle-class British fans of black American blues, and how that lead to bands such as The Rolling Stones. There was mention of one of the Slims – I think it was Memphis Slim, but I wasn't really listening – and how, during a visit to London, it was noticed that he enjoyed drinking whisky and milk to line his stomach in preparation for the proper drinking that would comprise the rest of his life. Despite the fairly fascinating nature of the documentary I was more focused on the idea of whisky and milk, which I had never tried before.

I googled it and came up with a recipe for whisky milk punch cocktail: two parts whisky, three parts milk, five ice cubes, ground nutmeg, and one teaspoon of sugar syrup. By the time I got to the kitchen I had forgotten about the nutmeg, but I made myself a whisky and milk otherwise following this recipe. I did have to use Golden Syrup instead of the sugar syrup, and I stirred thoroughly with a chopstick instead of using a cocktail shaker. I took my first sip with trepidation and more than a little excitement. And, fuck me with that self-same chopstick -!- whisky and milk is delicious.

While I was making that, the wife was using the rest of the whisky to make her special I've-got-a-cold hot toddy (cheapo fizzy lemonade heated in a pan then poured into a mug of whisky and honey), resulting in me sitting with a glass of iced whisky milk punch in one hand and a hot mug of toddy in the other. They tasted very different going down but ended up in the same place: my happy sleepy contented stomach sinking into the pit of my heated-blanket bed. If that's not festive I don't know what the fucking buggery is.

Whisky and anything. Whisky and broccoli. Whisky from a rusty tin can. Whisky from a shoe. Whisky dripped on my forehead. Whisky and ice-cream. Whisky for breakfast. Whisky and toothpaste. Whisky and beer. Whisky and whisky. Whisky and whiskey. Whiskey and whiskey.

470: Bus Station Observations

2011-12-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

A group of people – two women and a man – stand around a pram containing the babiest fourth member of their group. One of the women held a lit cigarette directly over the infant as she yammered on about whatever crap such morons talk about. She took occasional drags, moving the cigarette to her own face, but always returning it to its position above the baby. Not once did she look in the direction of the hot smouldering fire in order to check it wasn't raining down on that innocent wee head. The man took out his own cigarette and, finding himself want of a lighter asked to borrow her cigarette for lighting off. She passed directly over the baby and he lit his from hers over the pram, leaning over with both cigarettes as he passed hers back. Two lit cigarettes waving blindly about above a pram, as the unbelievably selfish idiots gab gibberish blindly.

A black-skinned lady wanders through the large crowds of rush-hour bus-waitingers seeking out other black people. When she finds them she hands them a little leaflet; it looks to me like one of those little churchy 'remember Jesus this xmas' type things. She approaches a group of friends, one who is black and the other two are white. She hands one to the black man and he accepts it; the other two, a man and a woman, hold their hands out and she says, "No, not for you". "Sorry," says the man, and she walks off. I lose her in the crowd, plus my bus arrives and I am about to fall asleep.

The biggest recovery/breakdown vehicle ever created by man or by god is pulling a sad kaput double-decker bus up on its back two wheels. For buses to get out of the station in Piccadilly Garden they have to double back in a u-turn and head off the way they came; it's the only way out due to tram lines and one-way systems. As the breakdown truck tries to tow the double-decker around this tight hairpin-ish corner it becomes jammed in. It can't reverse and it has only inches in front before it hits the barrier. It inches hither and thither for five or ten minutes, with an ever-growing queue of buses running far behind it. Eventually it escapes, moves forward a few metres then has to stop at a zebra crossing... eventually it moves forward a few metres, then has to stop at a red light...

469: Uncaged Monkeys

2011-12-08T14:47:00.001-08:00

So what were you doing last night? Watching football? Buffing the soles of your feet? Eating cheese and crackers? Drinking three cups of tea, going to bed then waking up a bit later needing a big wee? Well done, good for you, it sounds like you had a lovely time. Who, me? Oh, yes! Well I was watching Tim Minchin live performing 'White Wine in the Sun' on guitar, accompanied by Professor Brian Cox on piano. It was the glorious, sentimental, schmaltzy and perfectly perfect in every way ending to an evening of comedy, music and science, with jokes from Tim, Robin Ince, and Helen Arney; science lectures by Prof Brian, Ben Goldacre and Simon Singh; and an amazing short film by Adam Rutherford editing together NASA footage from all 135 Space Shuttle missions.

I laughed, I cried, I learnt about the enigma machine, publication fraud in medical trial data, the history of the universe, and the pope being a motherfucker protecting priests when they were getting fucking fiddly. I heard many jokes about Professor Cox's fondness for pointing and gazing wistfully up toward the heavens. I was amazed and gladdened by the crowd of 2600 people that had turned up for three hours of science lectures and in-jokes about scepticism in a rock venue, the Apollo, where I have previously seen Judas Priest, Kraftwerk and Zappa Plays Zappa.

Simon Singh, with his hair in a hi-top fade, showed us a genuine original Enigma machine, and used an emulator from his laptop on the big screen to describe the inner workings of that legendarily tricky-to-crack message encoder. Seeing one explained using the emulator – and hearing about how after the war the British government kept the cracking secret, gifted machines to allied governments like Australia, and then spied on them – was very interesting and enlightening. It was also a bit like, hearing a new one, to use a rock gig term. Much of the discussion from Cox and Goldacre was not new to me, but it's always good to be reminded and to relearn in different ways, and they are both entertaining in their knowledge and presentation.

Adam Rutherford's Space Shuttle video was amazing (but his preamble talk was rambling and boring); unfortunately I can't find it online yet, so you'll just have to take my word for it. For a similar sort of thing I recommend the movie For All Mankind, which is edited together footage from all Apollo missions to the music of Brian Eno. Tim came on and did some of my favourites, talked about his wife (like he does) who he is attempting to rebrand as his VELP (Vaginaly Endowed Life Partner) and a very funny observation about how his 35 year old wife managed to escape the Nazis in Poland, 1939. Talking, laughing, singing, powerpoint... then I got on the tram, then I fell asleep: The End.

P.S. If you genuinely have no idea what I'm going on about I recommend listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage, Robin Ince and Brian Cox's BBC R4 comedy and science show.

468: Skink!

2011-12-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

A lady got on the bus with a King Charles Spaniel wrapped in a white blanket; just its little head peaking out, with its big round eyes and its long floppy ears. She sat on the sideways-facing seat at the front, and immediately another woman – evidently a stranger to her, and sat three rows back on the other side of the bus – started talking to her about pets. Oh I love your dog this, and he's so beautiful that. Soon they were having a competitive pet-off: well, I've got a blue-grey Burmese cat, and oh yeah, well I've got a St Bernard, but it's so big I can't bring it into town, you know, for obvious practical reasons. My aunty's got a this, my mum's got a that, etcetera, etc, &c.

Recently I've had the urge to get a pet; to get myself petted-up; to be-pet my abode; etcetera, etc, &c. A cat is the obvious choice, except I occasionally enjoy doing things other than sneezing, and I live in a tiny flat. So cats are out, unfortunately. Obviously not a dog; nasty, stinking, snivelling, vermin. I'm too old, and don't have kids, so gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs and the like are out. Plus they are crap, smelly, annoying and sneezy. Tarantulas are cool, but a little unsettling. Giant land snails are not great; ok, but not great. Fish are fantastic, and are a strong contender especially a bit further down the line.

At the moment, as far as I'm concerned (for the sake of discussion I'm ignoring hypothetical and actual objections), the top contenders are Snake, Parrot, Lizard, Raven/Crow. The last on the list is the least likely; in fact it's fair to say it's probably impossible. It'd be like trying to keep a pet dolphin in a bowl of water by the kitchen window. So that narrows it down to snake, parrot and lizard. I want to rule out parrot because I lack space and I've seen the mess and heard the racket that pet birds are want to cause. Snake or lizard? A certain special lady whose opinion counts has categorically said she never want a pet snake. She is wrong, but doesn't know it yet. For the sake of tranquillity let's (temporarily) rule out snake. Lizard! I would much prefer a snake; beginning with a corn snake or similar, and then perhaps working up to a boa constrictor. But -!- there is a lizard with many similarities to a snake, and that will be my new pet. Yes, decision made – I am getting a pet skink.

One day I will own an octopus, but until then the three of us – Me, Mrs Me, and Little Mr Skink – will be very happy together. Sitting on the bus, wrapped in white blankets.

467: ahh errr um?

2011-12-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

Recently I've wanted so much to give up blogging. The whole every day thing is not appealing at the moment; I'm tired and stressed and finding it hard to pull together the energy or inclination. The only thing that's stopping me from giving up is the thought that I'm just hitting a wall, reaching a steep hill, and at the other side is easy and fun writing again. That's actually not the only reason; if I was to suggest giving up my wonderful and encouraging partner would certainly not allow it. It doesn't help that we have well and truly entered winter. The darkness as fallen, summer died fast, and every morning I awake in the dark; walk to work in the gloom, under clouds and in chill winds. In the evening I leave work in similar conditions. The occasions I leave the building, or catch sight of a window I see the cold flood waters, wash away us all, take us with the floods; the rash of negativity, is seen one-sidedly, burn away the day; the nervous, the drifting, the heaving; wash away us all, take us with the floods.

If I keep up this grimly depressing cloudhead I'll soon be preferring Eastenders to Coronation Street; god forbid. Instead of seasonal snow floating and settling, the sky fights back with heavy-hearted pelting hailstones, rattling the windowpanes and biting uncovered skin. Caught between the warring fronts of ice age and global warming with only a tiny flat in a damp old terrace in Old Trafford for protection. Armed only with a nice warm new coat; last years supply of cheap new gloves has predictably vanished so now my little fingers are chilly, woe.

Got a week and a bit off work at Christmas and I intend to come back rested and feeling as though time was well spent. For that I am going to need a Christmas cardigan and novelty bowtie (preferably musical and with a flashing LED), mulled wine, a few days with the inlaws and a few days with the blood-rellies, slippers, socks, slipper-socks, flip-flops, strike that, brussels sprouts, white wine in the sun, etc. So, yeah. Snow please.

466: Hotdogs, pigs, politics and December

2011-12-04T14:56:00.000-08:00

Waiting for a takeaway to arrive (wonton soup and shredded chili beef); watching a BBC4 doc about the history and culture of the American Diner; looking forward to Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror on Channel 4 in 25 minutes; communicating to the world in semi-sentences like facebook status updates. Communicating nothing of interest for no reason other than to communicate something. Fully aware that more blogging should be done; many days missed; much catching up to do. Fascinated by the fantastic imagery in this diner documentary. An artist who paints scenes of diners lives in a fantastic home full of tin toys, tiny Cadillacs, plastic hula girls, and old diner signs. America is a wonderful foreign fantasy land of endless roads, bottomless drinks, and towering platefuls of pancakes, eggs, and burgers.

I want a chili-dog, a corn-dog, a coca-cola; grits; coffee, black; key lime pie; biscuits and gravy. To travel empty roads with untouched horizon and crushed scorpion in tire-treads; to see and walk in the scenes of movies seen a hundred times, Goodfellas, Ghostbusters, Godfather, Natural Born Killers, The Blob, Psycho, Tremors; to live the lyrics of Tom Waits, the sound of jazz and blues and country; the desert, the bayou, the hills, mountains, creeks and gorges. From diner to diner, eating so much my picture ends up on the wall and I win a t-shirt and a certificate.

Had my takeaway (v. Disappointing, disgusting chicken, boring rice; the wontons were alright though); watched Black Mirror (the ITV news just came on now and I half expected the headline to be about the PM and a pig) and still not quite recovered from the trauma; then turned over to watch the end of An Audience with 'singer' Beyonce – a pretty disgraceful performance as far as I'm concerned in which she dances around, holding a microphone but not using it, to a recording of her own voice. Imagine going to see Pavarotti live, and instead of singing he repeatedly thrust his groin at the audience while a CD of his 'hits' played. Yes, I know Beyonce is a dancer as well as a singer, but what's the point of doing both if you can't do both at the same time. Elton John plays the piano and sings at the same time; he doesn't play the piano in accompaniment to a recording of his voice.

Imagine if she did it the other way round: instead of dancing to a mechanical recording of her voice, she actually sang whilst a robotic system of ropes and pulleys, hoists and harnesses manipulated her body in a dancing motion.

Now it's Heston's Christmas Feast followed by Father Ted Christmas Special on More4+1. This is absolute - Xmas, winter festival, yuletide, solstice, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and my own personal favourite Saturnalia – luxury.

465: November nearly over

2011-11-29T16:15:00.000-08:00

Every time I hear this song by Katy Perry it makes me think of this song by G.G. Allin. Perhaps we should introduce Katy and GG so they can satisfy their disgusting fantasies together. Perhaps if GG wasn't dead... and a filthy excuse for a human being... Anyway, forget I mentioned it; it was just a reoccurring thought I needed to get out of my system.

We are nearing the end of the month, and that means the end of National Novel Writing Month. I am ashamed to say I have failed abysmally. In the first week I got a huge amount done – leaps forward in terms of word count and general development of plot and character. The second week I was exhausted and feeling burned out – not only did I stop working on the novel, I also neglected the blog. The third and fourth weeks I have become excited about writing again, but have been concentrating on research and note taking, with a bit of time spent on actual writing. I have also tried to catch up with blogging again but am still limping a little behind.

These last couple of days I have been obsessed with following and taking a small part in this Burzynski cancer quack blog war. It's very exciting to see how quickly it has snowballed, and people whom I have great respect for have taken up the cause on twitter: Stephen Fry (@), PZ Myers (@), Simon Singh (@), Dara O Briain (@), and Ben Goldacre (@). I think it very important to stand up in support of a cause like this and, to use the cliche, say 'I'm Spartacus' even if I'm not really. Very excited to see how this develops. And amused by the random string of coincidences that drew this burgeoning mini-revolution to my attention.

Lately the dry and dusty conditions of my day job have lead to really badly cracked skin on my hands, and as a result I enjoyed an exfoliating and moisturising hand massage, using hemp hand cream, and gifted to me by my wonderful fiancee. Tomorrow we will go to the cinema and perhaps Yo! Sushi. Stike that: definitely go to Yo! Sushi. Yo God, I love Yo! Sushi. So instead of churning out the seven blog posts that'll put that important "(30)" beside the month of November in my Blog Archive, I'll be out enjoying myself. Sometimes when I'm writing I forget about life. Unless I'm actually writing about my life, which I find embarrassing and try not to do. Plus it's boring. If I was an explorer of the ruined Antarctic city of the Elder Ones, or the latest drummer in Judas Priest, I might write about my comings, goings, and doings a little more often.

Had a really good idea for a novel, or long short-story, today. It's safely recorded in my notebook; I'm glad I started taking that to work with me. Don't worry, I'll finish the first novel before I start on the third.

Night.

464: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression

2011-11-28T11:29:00.000-08:00

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
-Article 19, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Burzynski Clinic - The Streisand Effect continues to snowball, and bloggers and tweeters continue calling 'I'm Spartacus' in a stand against bullying, quackery; a stand for freedom of speech, libel reform, and scientific honesty. I blogged about Burzynski yesterday, and have no further comment to make on his clinic, other than these quotes from reputable cancer charities:

At the moment, there is very little solid scientific evidence to show that antineoplastons are effective at treating cancer, and virtually all the research in this area has been carried out by Burzynski and his team – a red flag to the scientific world.
The fact that no other labs have managed to replicate Burzynski’s apparent success with antineoplastons or are interested in developing the treatment raises questions.
As well as the doubts around the effectiveness of the treatment, the whole manner in which the clinic is offering treatment is unusual.
Furthermore, the scientific community expects the results of clinical trials to be published in the medical literature. As far as we can tell, Burzynski’s team have not published any results since 2006 which raises questions about exactly what kind of clinical trials they are running, and when we might expect to see the detailed analysis of their results.
-Cancer Research UK

Antineoplaston therapy is a complementary/alternative cancer treatment that involves using a group of synthetic chemicals called antineoplastons intended to protect the body from disease.
Thousands of patients have been treated with antineoplastons, mostly at a single clinic, and clinical trials are under way there for many types of cancer. Published clinical trial results are available for a relatively small number of patients, and the effectiveness of antineoplastons as a cancer therapy remains uncertain. Most cancer specialists believe there is insufficient evidence to recommend use of antineoplastons except perhaps in the context of clinical trials that will provide reliable information on the safety and effectiveness of this treatment.
-American Cancer Society.

Can't argue with that. Except recently a number of bloggers have decided to raise the issue due to the fact that there has been a number of uncritical reports in the mainstream press about charity fund-raising to send terminally ill cancer patients to America for treatment. It is inevitably portrayed as an amazing, experimental treatment that the NHS refuses to offer; people are rightly disgusted by the discrepancy between the actual facts and the mainstream press' interpretation/ignoring of the facts.

The reason this is becoming such a hot issue is because a representative (Marketing & Sponsorship of the Burzinsky Patient Group) of the Burzynski Clinic, a man named Marc Stephens, who appears to be pretending to be lawyer, but clearly isn't one, is sending vicious, bullying threats to any and all critic of Burzynski. This is entirely inappropriate, and not at all the actions of a reputable medical/scientific, or even legal, professional with nothing to hide. Reasoned and respectful criticism of scientific work is perfectly legitimate, and in fact is the very way in which scientific method progresses. Bullying attempts to stifle freedom of speech is entirely against all that is right and good.

To Andy Lewis of Quackometer, Marc Stephens sent this:

Be smart and considerate for your family and new child, and shut the article down..Immediately. FINAL WARNING.

To Peter Bowditch of Ratbags.com, Marc Stephens sent this:

Since you are apparently suffering from Munchausen Syndrome, which is usually diagnosed in females, so it is interesting that your first name is Peter, I would like to give you some attention. I hope you didn’t get offended. I am only speaking the truth, supported by a reference. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/munchausen-syndrome/DS00965 “Munchausen Syndrome is an attention-seeking personality disorder which is more common than statistics suggest. Munchausen Syndrome, named after a German soldier renowned for exaggerated tales, is a predominantly female disorder in which an emotionally immature person with narcissistic tendencies, low self-esteem and a fragile ego has an overwhelming need to draw attention to herself and to be the centre of attention.”
So here is the plan Mr. or Mrs. Bowbitch [sic][...]

And to Rhys Morgan, a 17-year old schoolboy, Marc Stephens has sent googlemap photos of Rhys' house, and sent this:

Please confirm your mailing address, which I have on record as [Rhys' address]. If you do not cooperate an official legal complaint requesting punitive damages will be mailed to that address. I will be contacting your school as well to inform them of your illegal acts.

Rhys' response was considered, well-researched, and assisted by professional advice ("Alan Henness, Simon Singh and Robert Dougans, associate at Bryan Cave"), and worth quoting in full here (I was going to edit it down, but it really is fantastic):

You continue to threaten to bring a claim against me for defamation.

In the event that such a claim is brought in the USA I will rely upon the well-known authority of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan 376 U.S. 254. As you may be aware, this would require your client to show proof of actual malice before they could succeed in any libel claim. My postings are clearly not malicious. I believe in their truth, and I have sought to obtain a comment from your client, or else at least ascertain any objections to specific items within the posting. I am willing to listen. I would certainly reflect your client’s position if asked.

I think I come within the circumstances envisaged by the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Underwager v Salter 22 F.3d 730 at [14]:

“…actual malice” has nothing in common with “ill will.” A person who concludes that a public figure is a knave may shout that conclusion from the mountain tops.”If the claim is brought in the English courts, you ought to be aware that in the light of the well-known decisions of Rookes v Barnard [1964] AC 1129 and Broome v Cassell [1972] AC 1028 you will not be able to bring a claim for punitive damages on these facts. You also ought to follow the procedures set out in the Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation which require you to, amongst other things, set out precisely what your client objects to and why.

This is an issue which you have failed to address. I am not asking for a legal lecture from you. What I am asking for is clear information of what your client objects to, and why. As things stand, I have heard nothing substantive; I have just received threats.This speaks volumes.

I would remind you and your client of another aspect of the well-known decision of Underwager v Salter, to which I refer above, which was expressly adopted by the Court of Appeal in England in the decision of Lord Chief Justice Judge in British

Chiropractic Association v Singh [2011] 1 WLR 133:“[Plaintiffs] cannot, simply by filing suit and crying “character assassination!”, silence those who hold divergent views, no matter how adverse those views may be to plaintiffs’ interests. Scientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation. … More papers, more discussion, better data, and more satisfactory models–not larger awards of damages–mark the path toward superior understanding of the world around us.”I also note that you threaten to mention my “illegal acts” to my school.Notwithstanding the fact that I have committed no “illegal acts”, the threat to involve my school is wholly inappropriate. If an English solicitor was to make such a threat they would be in breach of their professional obligations and subject to disciplinary proceedings by the SRA. Please inform me which US bar association you are a member of so that I can draw their attention to your threats.

463: Sunday stuff

2011-11-27T13:16:00.000-08:00

Waves of folk from a vast array of this wonderful world's ethnicity's have just passed by my window, singly and in pairs, for the last twenty minutes; all of them wielding a black bin bag and a pair of tongs each, and wearing a yellow high-visibility waistcoats with something about a church written on the back. They must be doing a litter sweep, I suppose, but I can't report on that action having not seen any being picked up. Our street is, at the moment, wonderfully free from litter; the only detritus is that left by god himself, the fallen leaves of autumn. The churchy tong-wielders don't concern themselves with leaves.

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was speak out loud the content of my dream: I can't decide if kisses are Xs or Zs. For that moment between sleep and wake this seemed like a vitally important distinction, and it seemed like an argument that had been raging for decades between sectarian camps of believers and dis-believers. This momentary thought seemed to have an entire history behind it, backed by the activities and thoughts of an entire world's population and culture. I'm over it now.

What other whimsical Sunday observations are there to be made? Oh I don't know... int it gettin dark early these days? What's music coming to? Where does the day get to? No, sorry, I'm just not feeling any of those. Oh, here we go, here's something almost worth mentioning. There was a dreadful film on this afternoon about some sexy women dressed as school girls and something something man in a dress something something Stephen Fry something something girl with a pearl earring. It was called St. Trinian's. It was on in the background being watched by my partner and occasionally glanced at by me. Meanwhile I was at the computer reading Comment is Free and all that sort of stuff.

I relented and eventually moved onto the sofa to eat my soup and watch the end of X-Factor, but again my attention was short. I pulled a book, The Illustration Handbook, off the nearest shelf and opened it random with the intention of looking at some drawings. A black ink drawing of a cat towering over a city – The Coming of the Great Cat God – with a red and yellow glowing sky, caught my attention. It was by Ronald Searle, and I began reading about him in the text beside the image. When I got to the sentence "...however, he is more famous for having created the St. Trinian's schoolgirls in his books Hurrah for St Trinian's [etc]..." I yelped with surprise. Coincidence spotting seems to be becoming a minor hobby of mine.

462: a word about football

2011-11-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

Ancient Greek football player balancing the ball.
Depiction on an Attic Lekythos.

The roads around here yesterday, as I arrived home from my first Saturday at the day job, were spilling over with cars; on yellow lines, pavements, corners. I guess there was a big crowd for the football. I then noticed 'Old Trafford' trending on twitter, and could hear the roars, oohs and ahhs, of football fans doing stuff. It always strikes me as odd that the activities of some people in shorts playing about with a ball, so close to my house, can be such a big bit of news. Newcastle United were awarded a penalty against Manchester United.... at Old Trafford! Wow! Still, United are, for now at least, my local teams so: Go Uniteds! Up the Red Devils! Etcetera!

No one wants to read me going on about football: it's bad enough having to listen to someone who knows what they are talking about, let alone a complete ignoramus like myself. But still, it sometimes creeps over the border into my thoughts what with living between the stadiums of the two biggest teams in the country; living in a city utterly obsessed and proud of it's football heritage (rightly so, I suppose). The football is like the weather – you need to know what is happening before you head out, or you might get stuck in traffic for a very long time. We have digital road signs telling us when there is a match on. Very useful.

Today brings the sad news of the sudden death of footballing legend Gary Speed, and on twitter there are reports of Shay Given crying on the pitch during Swansea vs Aston Villa. (unimportant aside: I met Shay Given during his time at Man City, in a previous job in my capacity as a menial worker in the service industry.) This two days after Stan Collymore tweets openly and bravely about his bouts of depression – read his full post here, a wonderful account of his suffering under the illness. What is going on in the footballing world? Maybe I'll watch Match of the Day for a clue.

That has exhausted my take on this weekend's footballing news; I'm going to have to turn down all the incoming offers of Sports' Correspondent for various international news agents, newspapers and television stations. Shame really.

Going to the Match (1928), L.S. Lowry, owned
by the Professional Footballers' Association

461: I am Spartacus (allegedly) #Burzynski

2011-11-27T04:16:00.000-08:00

WPA poster, 1936-38

The blog world is all a'twitter about Stanislaw Burzynski, and the Burzynski Clinic; and while I have no desire to be set upon by Burzynski's semi-illiterate ragin' PR-man-posing-as-a-lawyer Marc Stephens, and his insulting and threatening emails; I do want my voice to be among those speaking out against pseudo-science and those preying on the vulnerable.

Let's start from the start. Stanislaw Burzynski is a doctor (of questionable credentials) who claims to be trialing the cure for cancer. However due to the fact that he does not have the cure for cancer, he is not legally allowed to offer his 'treatment' as a medicine. Therefore he has rebranded his treatment as a clinical trial; his patients are not being treated, they are taking part in a clinical trial. However this trial has been going on for over thirty years and he his rate of published research leaves a lot to be desired. According to Cancer Research UK, this "raises questions about exactly what kind of clinical trials they are running, and when we might expect to see the detailed analysis of their results."

His business does not have the appearance of an honest scientist or medical man, whether by intent or incompetence I could not possibly know. He is (allegedly) in the business of masquerading as a medical pioneer being hounded by Big-Gov and Big-Pharma as he jus' tryna do some good for the poor suffrin' people. His disguise is thin, but his (alleged) intended (alleged) victims seem less inclined to be critical due to the pain and desperation of being a cancer sufferer, or being a close friend or relative of someone with cancer.

The latest round of Burzynski-bashing has bloomed due to a superficiality of celebrities in the UK doing their bit to raise money for the desperate family of a poor little girl. Tragically she has an incurable form of brain cancer. Her family, and many UK fund-raisers, have been duped by the Burzynski (alleged)scam, and need £200,000 to buy a little false hope. There is nothing sadder than the death of a child, but some people (quacks, psychics) will always see it as a great opportunity to make some money and boost their status.

William Hogarth: Marriage à-la-mode:The Visit to the Quack Doctor

You're entitled to disagree with me, of course, and if you do you can find (just as non-impartial) information about the miracle and hope of Burzynski's treatment here:

http://www.burzynskiclinic.com/

http://www.billiebutterflyfund.org/

or if you're in Manchester tomorrow night (Monday 28 Nov) you can go to a fund-raiser at the Comedy Store:

http://www.thecomedystore.co.uk/special_events.php?location=2&id=103

or you can make a donation here:

http://www.justgiving.com/billiebutterflyfund
It is right and good to raise money for this family, I just hope they can use the money to provide comfort and well-being for themselves, rather than wasting it.

It is the tragic and personal nature of the story that has lead to such unquestioning support from celebrities and even from reputable newspapers like The Observer. There is another side however as illustrated by the experiences of Wayne Meritt who attended the Burzynski Clinic and documents what happened in his website, Burzynski Scam. Of course, this is just another anecdote (as is this on Lymphomation.org), I just wonder why the fund-raisers are so eager to read the positive anecdotes, while ignoring the negative ones, and the lack of supporting evidence for Burzynski's treatment... anyway...

What I want, and what the world needs, is one of two things; either:

1) That Burzynski stops pretending(allegedly) to be a doctor in order to (allegedly)extract money from vulnerable people to further a pseudo-trial that produces no results.

Or:

2) That Burzynski conducts his trials with absolute transparency so that other laboratories may replicate the results he claims to have. If he does have the cure for cancer he owes it to the world to allow proper exhaustive, controlled, double-blinded research to be carried out. If, after all the accepted (because they work) rigors of scientific research, Burzynski is proved to have been right, and "antineoplastons" do cure cancer, I will immediately change my mind. And apologise for my foolishness. I suspect I will never have to do this.

In the meantime we can do some genuine good in the fight against cancer by donating to one or more of the following charities:

Cancer Research UK

The Christie

American Cancer Society

MacMillan Cancer Support

Click here for lots of LINKS about Burzynski

of particular interest is

this from the American Cancer Society

and

this from Cancer Research UK

460: The Great Stanisław Coincidence

2011-11-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

November 2011 is, for me, the month of the great Stanisław coincidence. First on Tuesday I started reading The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem. A legendary Polish science-fiction writer who I have only just discovered under recommendation from this guy. The very next morning I turned on the laptop at 7am, fired up the browser and was taken to my homepage, the endlessly useful google.co.uk (you may have heard of it). I like having google as my homepage because I enjoy the occasional surprise of a google doodle; yesterday was the most incredible day for google doodle spotting. It was an interactive game/animation depicting scenes from The Cyberiad (and possibly other stories by Stanisław Lem; I'll find out the more I read). I honestly thought I was dreaming; the coincidence was too high and it set me off for the day convinced all was not quite normal with the world.

Stanisław Lem, as an author, was new to me, and the very name Stanisław (pronounced Stanis-wav) is entirely new to me. Might make a good name for my wee future baby boy? The great Stanisław coincidence continued today. At work I read the free papers from cover to cover three or four times. Monday to Wednesday this is just The Metro, but on Thursday and Friday The Manchester Evening News is free too. The letters page in today's MEN featured a letter, from a Manchester resident called Stanisław, informing a previous correspondent about the time, location and price of a local tea dance. Then, upon coming home I began reading online an interesting series of tweets by Ben Goldacre (Bad Science), and articles from the wonderful Quackometer blog:

The Burzynski Clinic Threatens My Family.
The False Hope of the Burzynski Clinic.

These posts were inspired by something called the Burzynski Clinic (that much is obvious thus far). Burzynski exhibits many typical traits of your typical quack, and in order to avoid the kind of hassle that quacks give their critics (read the above link about threats) I'm going to stick to describing him using quotes from wikipedia:

Since December 1976, Burzynski has administered peptides and their metabolites, which he calls antineoplastons, as treatments with alleged anti-cancer activity.

Another Stanisław

There is no convincing evidence from randomized controlled trials in the scientific literature that antineoplastons are useful treatments of cancer and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved these products for the treatment of any disease.[1] The American Cancer Society has stated that there is no evidence that antineoplastons have any beneficial effects in cancer and recommended that people do not buy these products.[2] A 2004 medical review described antioneoplaston treatment as a "disproven therapy".[3] Oncologists have described Burzynski's research on antineoplastons as "flawed" and "scientific nonsense",[4] and independent scientists have been unable to reproduce the positive results reported in Burzynski's studies.[5]

In other words there seems to be an consensus amongst experts that his methodology is flawed and his results are ineffective. At best this means he gives false hope to dying people as he takes their money while contributing to the public mis-understanding of science, at worse he, well I won't say. To make matters worse The Observer have just done an unquestioning puff-piece (The worst year of my life) about the sad case of a four-year old cancer patient and the hopeful and desperate parents attempts to raise £200,000 to pay Burzynski. It's a terribly sad story, and one that loads of celebrities have helped to raise money for. That money should go to Cancer Research, who do real work in the fight against cancer, not a quack running a private alternative clinic. Click here and here for information on Burzynski from Cancer Research.

Burzynski's first name is... you guessed it: Stanisław! And that brings us to the end of the great Stanisław coincidence of November 2011. And remember readers, fight cancer and quacks, not cancer with quacks.

459: a bit of writing and some pictures of people

2011-11-23T14:05:00.000-08:00

There was a problem saying the word 'cauliflower'. It kept coming out as 'California': Caulifornia, Califlornia, California cheese. It was a stuttering-stammering loop of messy California cheese. Still, it tasted lovely. The problem word was mine, but the cauliflorniower cheese was a joint effort. It accompanied toad in the hole (vaguely following this recipe, but using self-raising flour instead of plain, vegetable oil instead of groundnut, and rosemary along with the salt and pepper; didn't bother with the onion gravy this time); forget California (I'm sorry I mentioned the godforsaken place now), this was good proper English food. Or British; or European; or Homo sapiens.

Last night, after that fantastic feed, I slept like I haven't slept in years. Asleep fast by half-past nine and waking up slowly and ill-feelingly at 6am. Aches, concrete-sinus, headache, and a proclivity to moan and complain, greeted me this morning. I wanted more than anything to stay in bed and melt into sheets in a sleepy shuffling shed of slop and sleep. Never happened; soon I was back on the bus, spreading my germs to the very people I got them from in the first place. One annoying-phone-music-person was listening to some terrifically annoying weird sort-of fast electronic salsa with a highly repetitive hyper-horn line and some tippy-tappy drums. Every time a new identical-to-the-previous song started there were many groans and heads held in hands spreading around the bus. This is the second time in the last few weeks I, and my fellow commuters, have had the hideous misfortune to be on the bus with this horrible idiot with an mp3 phone. Blah.

I have the feeling it is winter now. I wore a scarf this morning. Then I wrote this boring blog post. Then I went to bed; or will do soon. Anyway: snore. Here are some pictures of humans:

458: what is snot for?

2011-11-22T08:16:00.000-08:00

Human Enigma and friends

I have a non-specific cold in which I sort of feel fine, yet my face is like a tap, if snot came from taps, which it doesn't. It comes from my face. I'm pretty sure I've felt like this for the last two-hundred and sixty days, or thereabouts. It's not fun, I can tell you; obviously you didn't think it was fun. I don't imagine there was any envy expressed upon reading my opening sentences. In fact it's a fairly sorry state to be in. I don't know how I will cope in the dusty, poorly-ventilated atmosphere of the work place. Pop along and see the human tap easily ooze a sort of gloop; bring along a jar and collect your own specimens to keep and treasure for as long as you both shall live. Please pay in man-size boxes of tissues; for an extra special collectible bonus gift pay in Kleenex man-size Balsam tissues. I can't afford them, sad face.

Responsibility for the destruction of the rainforests personally rests upon the broken bridge of my streaming nose. The tissues are now gone and I have moved on to the pile of napkins lifted from fast food restaurants over the last few months. I knew they would come in handy for something today or one of these other days. Don't mind me, I'm just having a little episode. My eyes are glazed like disgusting doughnuts and the computer screen is a jumble of pixels and bullshit. I've taken the day off work as a compromise so I can work late on Friday and come in on Saturday, usually a day off. It's going to be the high street's busiest weekend apparently.

My day off was supposed to be a constructive one with hours of writing and coffee drinking. Instead, I've managed to make my tiny little office space habitable again; then I've sort of gazed into space through twitter, listened to a bit of music, made some important long overdue phone calls to the kind of numbers that put you on hold for extremely long periods of time, eaten a sandwich, read some of The Cyberiad by Stanis ław Lem (thanks Matthew Pearce for the recommendation), and written a paragraph about snot. I then started writing this paragraph about today, eventually arriving right here, now.

If I had some money, today would have been further wasted, and probably irretrievably, because I would have bought, downloaded, installed, played the new Telltale Games episodic adventure: Jurassic Park: The Game. I love Telltale and am happy to pay for their output. I'll be forever grateful for their continuing of the Sam and Max and Monkey Island games. Anything that drags and updates -kicking and screaming- my childhood interests into adulthood is alright with me. More Monkey Island please, please. Quick, before I grow up again.

457: trapped in comics

2011-11-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

Adam went on a business trip. After a week longer walk Eve in the garden all horny and thinking, who would it be able to satisfy both. In the mammoth and he launch sees to nemu. Mamut the scare, will begin to run and crash into the abyss.After running around the baboon. Eva after clawing, but the baboon jumps on the tree,and Eve will remain only a handful of hair from paviánovej cluster fuck. Again nothing...Goes on around the river and finally gets the right idea: jump into water, then picks up the fish and take it with her.And what then?As the mammoth died out - we know.Why are baboons bare ass - I know.But as before voňali fish - We will never know...
-Joke told in Slovak, as translated by google

Hilarious, eh? That's now my favourite ever joke. Even funnier than "Knock, Knock" "Who's there?" "Interrupting cow" "Interru-" "MOOO!" I like the bit with the paviánovej cluster fuck. That was really funny. I don't get it, but it sort of looks funny if you squint a bit and ingest some magic mushrooms. Then- HAHAHAH look at the curtains HAHAHAHA.

I just yawned and leaned back and caught sight of an old book on the shelf behind me. Its a pulp paperback of Spy vs Spy: The All New Mad Secret File on Spy vs Spy, by Prohias. It's an American thing: perhaps you've heard of it. I only knew it as a difficult and weird, but fun, Sega Master System game from a great many years ago, and didn't know it was an old comic until I found this book, wherever and whenever I originally found it. I loved it because each image takes up an entire page and there is no dialogue at all.

It reminds me of other similarly Beckettian comics – like Krazy Kat and Ignatz (Krazy loves Ignatz Mouse, but every strip ends with Ignatz hurling a brick at Krazy, and Krazy interpretting the assualt as an act of love), Drunken Bakers (two hopelessly alcoholic bakers spiral never-endingly down into perfunctory and inevitable self-destruction), Eight Ace (another Viz alcoholic: is always entrusted with £1.49 for some vital purchase, but always spends it on eight cans of Ace lager). In fact most comics/cartoons have a certain amount of repetition indicating capture within a hopeless never-ending cycle. From Simpsons, to the Beano, to Tom & Jerry, this is everywhere. Why are they called comics when they are so sad? Maybe the writers can only come up with one punchline and must recycle it forever.... that's pretty sad too.

click image for a closer read

456: Divination from the books

2011-11-20T16:20:00.000-08:00

Borbonicus Codex

I have grabbed a pile of books from the shelf – mainly religious ones and reference books – and have an urge to pull passages/entries out of them at random and see what happens. Maybe a thread will emerge, a theme. Maybe I will be able to divine the future. Worth a try?

8 Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.[180]
The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, pg. 348
William Shakespeare: Hamlet

5 Yea, how quick to be lifted up in ^apride; yea, how quick to ^bboast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity ; and how slow they are to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to ^cwalk in wisdom's paths !
The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ
Helaman 12:3-19
a Prov. 29:23
b TG Boasting.
C TG Walking in Darkness ; Walking with God.

genetics, n. the branch of biology concerned with the structure, location, abnormalities and effects of the GENES. Medical genetics is mainly concerned with the expression of abnormal genes or gene combinations in the production of disease. Knowledge of such matters allows useful GENETIC COUNSELLING.
Collins Dictionary of Medicine, pg. 254

lexical-decision task An experimental technique for evaluating the manner in which verbal information is stored in memory. The task simply requests the subject to decide as rapidly as possible whether a string of letters presented briefly is a real word or a non-word. The pattern of response latencies that the subject produces is a sensitive measure of ► lexical *memory. Also called word-nonword task.
Penguin Dictionary of Psychology 2^nd edition

The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the U.S. Reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible but in fact it isn't. Of course, the atom bomb is a weapon of mass slaughter, but the outcome of a war is decided by the people, not by one or two new types of weapons.
"Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong."
(August 1946), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 100
Quotations from Chairman Mao, pg. 140

6 Blessed are the death-defiant, for their days shall be long in the land—Cursed are the gazers toward a richer life beyond the grave, for they shall perish amidst plenty!
The Satanic Bible, Anton Szandor LaVey, pg. 34

saddlebags 1. n. Labia, piss flaps. 2. n. Scrotum. 3. n. Leathery receptacles on bicycles where testicles are stored.
Roger's Profanisaurus, Viz Das Krapital

5 Remember his wonderful works that he has performed, His miracles and the judicial decisions of his mouth.
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Psalms 105:1-32

53. They ask you to hasten on the punishment (for them): had it not been a term (of respite) appointed, the punishment would certainly have come to them: and it will certainly reach them – of a sudden while they perceive not!
The Meaning of The Holy Qur'an
Surah 29: Al-Ankabut

BLOOM (In alderman's gown and chain.) Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock better run a tramline, I say, from the cattlemarket to the river. That's the music of the future. That's my programme. Cui bono? But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom ship of finance...
James Joyce, Ulysses, pg. 452

A journey I've taken through wisdom and wit, both ancient and modern. Dubious sources all of them, yet all playing their parts well; all mean something to someone, if only the author or his fans and followers. Shakespeare warns me to remain thrifty in preparation for my forthcoming marriage; how did he know? It's almost as though he speaks to me, and me alone, over the vast human stretch of centuries; approximately half a millenia after Shakespeare wrote those words and here I am, getting married ; what an amazing coincidence.

The reference to genetics tells me to consider breeding – starting a family – and perhaps warns me to consider the risk of genetic disease. Considered alongside the passage from the Satanic Bible it is a reminder that the continuation of the genetic line is the only real source of immortality; of life after death. I am the current final link in an unbroken chain of successful reproducers stretching back four billion years to the very beginning of life on this planet. Don't be the end of a four billion year chain. The reference to saddlebags is also an obvious call to breeding.

The lexical-decision task is about my writing, and my novel. It is also about this blog post. The important detail to be gleaned from the Mao quote is the idea of people winning battles – struggles – not weapons or tools. It is I who will write the novel, not my laptop and not the internet. It is ...

...and the rest of it.... you get the idea. I'm tired ; it;s past my bed time.

Note to self/P.s.

Yesterday I had the following for tea, and I post it here just to remind myself, so I can have it again in the future. Smoked haddock fishcakes with wasabi mayonaisse, stir-fried rice vermicelli with garlic and onions, and a rosemary poached egg. And plenty of soy sauce. That was so delicious I may just make the whole thing again right now. Fortunately there is enough of everything left to have the whole delicious pile again tomorrow.

455: Shame on you

2011-11-19T06:55:00.001-08:00

I rarely have the time for these police brutality videos which are so often reposted on twitter; are so often blurry, lacking in context, or carefully chopped to make to police look like aggressors; are so often hyped up by anarchists, conspiracy theorists, and silly little fools as incontrovertible evidence of a global conspiracy. I hardly ever have an emotional response, as the videos and the comments by people who can't possibly be impartial or knowledgeable, provide no factual information with which to form an opinion.... But...

Today a video called 'Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC [University of California] Davis' is doing the rounds, and to me this video stands out for many reasons. It still lacks a certain amount of context, but what happens in it is clear to see: an armoured police man stands before a row of students seated on the path of their university campus; he raises his arm displaying his weapon, a large can of pepper spray (or other similar chemical weapon), very much in the manner of a professional wrestler playing to the audience, armed with a 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire, standing over a prostrate opponent (I'm not joking, watch the video). He then walks up and down the line spraying downwards onto the faces and heads of the peacefully protesting students.

What then follows after a couple of minutes of confusion, (in which it appears a small number of arrests are made i.e. some people are dragged away), is one of the most inspiring and beautiful acts of peaceful rebellion I, or you, are ever likely to see. Somehow the students form a semi-circle around the police officers, I suppose they are kettling them whether by accident or design, chanting Shame on you, shame on you. The police begin a tentative retreat, furtive glances, some grasping tight their strangely-shaped guns of some description.

The chant then changes to Whose University? OUR University, Whose University? OUR University, and then a peaceful invite to the police: You can go, You can go, You can go which finally results in what appears to be the police moving off the university pathway and back onto a public highway, and cheers from the protesters. It is a wonderful, tear jerking moment; one that has to mean something and should be remembered.

It doesn't really answer any questions, but it does show that small-scale peaceful protest can have some affect, and should be repeated. It doesn't provide any evidence that the US is fascist or evil, and is still just a video of one nervous, vicious, or stupid cop doing something disgusting, while his colleagues panic and try to salvage the situation. Whoever called the police onto the university campus needs to face some consequences. The university should sue the police, especially if it was uni staff who called on the police. There should be severe laws against using chemical weapons on peaceful protesters (I can't believe I actually had to type those words in that order).

If ever there were proof needed that the US was not some evil, fascist all-controlling dystopia, it is the free and easy distribution of the evidence against this police officer's crime. The video disseminates across the globe easily, and we rightly judge this as an atrocity committed against individuals, and against us all. Just remember that the world has many genuine fascist dystopias, where the pepper spraying of some students would be a minor everyday occurrence; where genocide, rape as a tool of oppression, and disappearing are the big news, but where no evidence of this can spread because the citizens are subjects without freedom; where big news is no news.

We, the comfortable people of the West, see the policeman's crime as offensive, disgusting and wrong, and this is a sign of how far we have come; how advanced and free we are; not a sign of how oppressed we are.

I have no knowledge about the facts leading up to the events of the video, nor do I know anything about what happened and will happen afterwards. I know nothing about the events in the video, except for what I think I can see, and what I conclude based on my own observations and emotions. As much as I wish I was, I am not impartial, objective, or in any way able to offer useful information; and neither are you. This is a confusing mess. I have no idea how often things like this happen, but judging by the amount of cameras filming in the video, and the speed in which the video gets out, I suspect it doesn't happen very often. But that's all I can do: suspect, wonder and worry. And be proud of the reaction of the students; proud of the free society which allows this video out; upset that one human being could treat others like insects to be spray away as an unpleasant inconvenience.

Here's the video. Watch it in full. Form your own opinions (and remember that they are only opinions; just because you think something doesn't make it true. Only conclusive evidence can make something true). (I suppose my confusion lies there – in my instinctive disgust at the policeman's crime, yet my unwillingness to view the video as evidence of a global evil; a conclusion I expect a lot of people to reach; a conclusion I view as being the opposite of the truth. Anyway, it's time I shut up.) Here's the video: