You want to know where I`ve been of late? (No, I know you dont, but play the game with me for goodness sake). It`s not very mysterious. I forgot my password. When I say password, it sounds like there`s only one, doesnt it? HAHAHAHAHA sorry - that was a teensy bit hysterical.
I have many many passwords, PIN numbers, safes, lockers, secret tunnels behind bookcases, bunches of keys, all that. Why? Because Someone wants to get into my private places, and that isnt a cause for sniggering at the back there young Snirtblinder (Snirtblinder? Where the hell did that come from?). It is an mattermostserious. That`s serious matter in cod studious, to you.
Anyway. It is very very difficult for me to remember these codes and combinations. So I was locked out of this site for a while. I confess that I did feel like a rather lucky hacker for a few minutes though, in an espionage thriller starring Liam Neeson or Harrison Ford, and me the predictably bespectacled bit part geek.
Also, I have been busy. Do you know the kind of busy? The busy you get when you`re supposed to be writing an essay or reading something worthy? Well, that. I`m now running low on ploys, having resorted to writing my blog as a means to avoid study. I have to get me to a ploy shop pronto. That`ll take the rest of the afternoon for certain, what with searching for a likely retail outlet via Google Map, then finding myself scooting round Bristol or doing the birds eye thing and staring like a virtual (and wierdly stationary) sparrow-spy along a road where someone I used to know years ago once lived ....
The weather here in Plymouth is starting to go a bit crazy. This is the forecast : BIG STORM. So dont be out in a boat of you can help it. Dont even go outside. Do my essay for me instead.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
my friend yourself
A woman at a bus stop is pouring broken eggs from a half-dozen box into the waste bin. What does this mean?
OR
You got the new job. Glory hallelujah. You`re trying to draw out as little as possible from your overdraft, as there are weeks to go before you get that first pay cheque. Even so, you find you need to get things today, which means using your debit card (again!) in a local Spar. You make up the £5 minimum purchase with 6 eggs, as you dont have any eggs at home, and intend to use them during the week ahead in various cheap but nutritious recipes. You put these eggs into your backpack, secured by paperwork and stuff, and go to the lecture theatre, which is after all where you`re meant to be.
You enjoy the lecture, which is if anything a little too informative. Hardly a problem. Afterwards you head for the bus home, and stop to rummage for your purse in preparation. The bag is sticky. Further investigastion reveals two broken eggs from the six bought earlier. You lift out the box, and just as you are pouring the viscous contents into the nearest waste receptacle, the lecturer of the lecture you just sat in on appears in front of you. You do not acknowledge her presence. She does not acknowledge yours. You know she has seen you pouring broken eggs into a bin. You know she knows who you are. She gets onto her bus. You wait for yours. What does this mean?
OR
You got the new job. Glory hallelujah. You`re trying to draw out as little as possible from your overdraft, as there are weeks to go before you get that first pay cheque. Even so, you find you need to get things today, which means using your debit card (again!) in a local Spar. You make up the £5 minimum purchase with 6 eggs, as you dont have any eggs at home, and intend to use them during the week ahead in various cheap but nutritious recipes. You put these eggs into your backpack, secured by paperwork and stuff, and go to the lecture theatre, which is after all where you`re meant to be.
You enjoy the lecture, which is if anything a little too informative. Hardly a problem. Afterwards you head for the bus home, and stop to rummage for your purse in preparation. The bag is sticky. Further investigastion reveals two broken eggs from the six bought earlier. You lift out the box, and just as you are pouring the viscous contents into the nearest waste receptacle, the lecturer of the lecture you just sat in on appears in front of you. You do not acknowledge her presence. She does not acknowledge yours. You know she has seen you pouring broken eggs into a bin. You know she knows who you are. She gets onto her bus. You wait for yours. What does this mean?
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Misheard Lyric/s
A friend of mine is compiling a list of misheard lyrics. He once showed me a teletext version of a song he loved, having videoed it with the text facility turned on, as he genuinely enjoyed its inventiveness. It was incomprehensible. I cant remember the song or the mistaken lyric, but I`ll reproduce it here if said friend sends it to me. One of which I have always been fond (misheard lyric, not the song): Tina Turner`s Steamy Windows, where `radio blasting in the front seat` becomes `randy old bastard in the front seat`. This appeals because it is 1) neat, and 2) plausible.
Late Friday evening, BBC4 were showing one of those music programmes they seem to be fond of, which are actually tests of endurance. They`re very interesting, but always overlong. Anyway, having seen this programme was a potted (hah!) history of Brit synth pop, or maybe it was music, (by the end of the programme I`d forgotten, it was that far back in time) I was all agog. The programme started out with Emerson Lake and Palmer, shot through Roxy Music to Human League, passing through Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, halted at Gary Numan and Heaven 17, sped on through Depeche Mode, calling at Georgio Moroder, Soft Cell, OMD,
Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Ultravox, New Order, oh I was pretty tired by now and heading for the sleeper carriage. The end of the line should really have been La Roux. But it ended somewhere in the 90s, I think. (I`m already confusing two programmes with each other. They were shown `back to back`, but it was the same topic.)
The upshot of this night`s futuristic sound wobbling off and on was a deep deep desire to drag out all my old vinyl and cassettes and indulge in a mammoth nostalgia fest. Instead, I dragged myself to bed. In the morning, I dragged out all my old vinyl and cassettes, and indulged in a mammoth nostalgia fest. It was bloomin ace.
On Human League`s Travelogue there`s a track with a lyric that sounds like a cut-up, or else Messrs Ware and Oakey were on something nasty. I`m talking about Crow and A Baby. Listening intently was VJB, who missed a lot of John Peel`s demo babies growing up (or dying young, as the case may have been, and often was). His excuse for having no knowledge of The Slits or New Model Army being he was somewhere far more healthy during the late 70`s - early 80`s. When it came to the bit about `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn carrion bird` what he actually heard was `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn Carry On bird`. His ensuing look of bewilderment, priceless, while trying to place Babs or Hatti into the story.
Late Friday evening, BBC4 were showing one of those music programmes they seem to be fond of, which are actually tests of endurance. They`re very interesting, but always overlong. Anyway, having seen this programme was a potted (hah!) history of Brit synth pop, or maybe it was music, (by the end of the programme I`d forgotten, it was that far back in time) I was all agog. The programme started out with Emerson Lake and Palmer, shot through Roxy Music to Human League, passing through Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, halted at Gary Numan and Heaven 17, sped on through Depeche Mode, calling at Georgio Moroder, Soft Cell, OMD,
Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Ultravox, New Order, oh I was pretty tired by now and heading for the sleeper carriage. The end of the line should really have been La Roux. But it ended somewhere in the 90s, I think. (I`m already confusing two programmes with each other. They were shown `back to back`, but it was the same topic.)
The upshot of this night`s futuristic sound wobbling off and on was a deep deep desire to drag out all my old vinyl and cassettes and indulge in a mammoth nostalgia fest. Instead, I dragged myself to bed. In the morning, I dragged out all my old vinyl and cassettes, and indulged in a mammoth nostalgia fest. It was bloomin ace.
On Human League`s Travelogue there`s a track with a lyric that sounds like a cut-up, or else Messrs Ware and Oakey were on something nasty. I`m talking about Crow and A Baby. Listening intently was VJB, who missed a lot of John Peel`s demo babies growing up (or dying young, as the case may have been, and often was). His excuse for having no knowledge of The Slits or New Model Army being he was somewhere far more healthy during the late 70`s - early 80`s. When it came to the bit about `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn carrion bird` what he actually heard was `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn Carry On bird`. His ensuing look of bewilderment, priceless, while trying to place Babs or Hatti into the story.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Star Stuff
This is a true story. That is to say, I did watch a programme about the Hubble telescope, made notes, and lost them. It`s not true in the sense that many Creative Writing students say things they`ve written are true. This is not an attempt at recreating any real event. O poo, let`s not go to that place ... just read the poem.
Black Hole Poem Gone Wrong
I was going to change my name to Stella Explosion
and undergo intense spaghettification -
to disappear over my own event horizon
after suffering grave extremes of gravitation
I would have performed this violent transformation
in front of an audience of several million
via video via You Tube for their edification
for posterity too if deemed useful at all for further scientific investigation
but the scrap of A5 paper I`d scrawled my notes on
after watching BBC4 in association
with the Open University – the kind of programme
I ruin dinner for such is my admiration
has either been a) consumed by rodent infestation
or b) disappeared into another dimension
Black Hole Poem Gone Wrong
I was going to change my name to Stella Explosion
and undergo intense spaghettification -
to disappear over my own event horizon
after suffering grave extremes of gravitation
I would have performed this violent transformation
in front of an audience of several million
via video via You Tube for their edification
for posterity too if deemed useful at all for further scientific investigation
but the scrap of A5 paper I`d scrawled my notes on
after watching BBC4 in association
with the Open University – the kind of programme
I ruin dinner for such is my admiration
has either been a) consumed by rodent infestation
or b) disappeared into another dimension
Did Sartre read Dickens?
I ask, because I`m wondering in what sense are we free to reinvent ourselves, faced with what Robert Bly, when talking about our shadow selves*, calls the `long bag` of our past lives. I`ve often agreed that hell is other people, and can see that I can be anyone I want, in my own head. But to live it is another matter.
I`m reading Great Expectations for the first time, having previously steered clear due to the many film and tv adaptations seen. I do have distinct memories of reading both Little Dorrit and Bleak House, and recall being so shocked by Mr Merdle`s suicide I had to re-read this more than once, as I didnt understand what was happening. I mean I thought it couldnt be happening. (Yes, I know it wasnt real, but within that bubble the reader creates, it was all true.) I`m intrigued by how much of Dickens work revolves around characters being haunted by the past. So I`m with Pip, in his struggle to be more than his past will allow, and curious about Jean Paul`s attitude to this kind of seeming fatalism. If I`ve understood, then for Sartre, all choice starts with the dawn of self-awareness, and from that moment on we are free. This rankles. It makes me itchy. Because I want to know how that freedom can be acted upon, if the past has, let`s say, laid down neural pathways, just to be up-to-the-minute about it, which inform and affect behaviour to such an extent that the individual is imprisoned, in some sense. And that`s just on a personal level. Then think about the rigidity of human societies, and what might happen if freedoms acted upon are at odds with the status quo. Sartre would have none of it, I`m sure. Taking responsibility at a deep level takes committment and a large dollop of insight. Pip doesn`t appear to have these requirements, so his attempts to reinvent himself as a `gentleman` are doomed to fail. And anyway, is his claim to a supposed better/higher station in life even authentic? I guess, if you examine the hypocrisy surrounding English societal structure at the time of the novel`s setting, not. So Sartre wins this round.
Then I think it`s very hard to disprove Sartre. I end up feeling he`s wrong. Not sure this counts.
* Robert Bly `A Little Book on the Human Shadow`
I`m reading Great Expectations for the first time, having previously steered clear due to the many film and tv adaptations seen. I do have distinct memories of reading both Little Dorrit and Bleak House, and recall being so shocked by Mr Merdle`s suicide I had to re-read this more than once, as I didnt understand what was happening. I mean I thought it couldnt be happening. (Yes, I know it wasnt real, but within that bubble the reader creates, it was all true.) I`m intrigued by how much of Dickens work revolves around characters being haunted by the past. So I`m with Pip, in his struggle to be more than his past will allow, and curious about Jean Paul`s attitude to this kind of seeming fatalism. If I`ve understood, then for Sartre, all choice starts with the dawn of self-awareness, and from that moment on we are free. This rankles. It makes me itchy. Because I want to know how that freedom can be acted upon, if the past has, let`s say, laid down neural pathways, just to be up-to-the-minute about it, which inform and affect behaviour to such an extent that the individual is imprisoned, in some sense. And that`s just on a personal level. Then think about the rigidity of human societies, and what might happen if freedoms acted upon are at odds with the status quo. Sartre would have none of it, I`m sure. Taking responsibility at a deep level takes committment and a large dollop of insight. Pip doesn`t appear to have these requirements, so his attempts to reinvent himself as a `gentleman` are doomed to fail. And anyway, is his claim to a supposed better/higher station in life even authentic? I guess, if you examine the hypocrisy surrounding English societal structure at the time of the novel`s setting, not. So Sartre wins this round.
Then I think it`s very hard to disprove Sartre. I end up feeling he`s wrong. Not sure this counts.
* Robert Bly `A Little Book on the Human Shadow`
Friday, 9 October 2009
Bus Rage
Do you wish to travel by public transport? Are you loud, bullish, annoying, unreasonable and prepared to share your personality defects with anyone? Then why not become a bus driver, Today! The bus companies of Plymouth need You!
On Thursday I thought I was going to die, while being driven at top speed on a screeching bus through the streets of this fair city. I was the only passenger. This was the problem. The driver had been foiled in his attempt to get back to the depot and clock off with as few saps on board as possible. I was unceremoniously dumped at Derry`s roundabout, at the traffic lights, which I`m fairly sure is illegal as well as bloody unnerving. He didnt complete the route, by stopping at a bus stop in Royal Parade; he had far bigger and better things to be doing, like lancing the cat`s boil etc.
After quitting this driver`s warm, engaging company, I stomped up the street with arms in the air, gesticulating wildly to myself, thereby frightening other pedestrians unnecessarily. What I was actually asking was somewhat rhetorical; i.e. "what is wrong with everyone?" meaning, what was wrong with that particular driver, and the one I almost became acquainted with that very morning.
The morning episode involved waiting for half an hour for two of the same buses to arrive at once, then being told I would have to have a credit note for change of a tenner - (from a £3.30 fare? Is that an inconceivably large amount of change then?) or get off again. I got off the bus, and stomped down the road, seething quietly. You can see how the second episode of bus misery was one episode too many for me to contain.
All these irritations and rudenesses would have been as nothing to one so entirely reasonable as I, if it hadnt been for the fact that in the same week, I waited for over half an hour for a bus that didnt turn up, the knock-on effects of which meant I lost income to the tune of £40. Add to that the late morning debacle, which cost me £35 in lost earnings, and maybe you`re beginning to get an idea of the mayhem, nay, incipient poverty involved in going anywhere without my very own transport. Green? My arse.
I dont really want much. A bus that comes within 10 minutes either way of it`s appointed time. A seat, though I`ll stand if needs be. A cheery smile, or failing that just plain old courtesy. (It`s called Customer Service nowadays, apparently.) Why is this so FXXXXXX DIFFICULT???
On Thursday I thought I was going to die, while being driven at top speed on a screeching bus through the streets of this fair city. I was the only passenger. This was the problem. The driver had been foiled in his attempt to get back to the depot and clock off with as few saps on board as possible. I was unceremoniously dumped at Derry`s roundabout, at the traffic lights, which I`m fairly sure is illegal as well as bloody unnerving. He didnt complete the route, by stopping at a bus stop in Royal Parade; he had far bigger and better things to be doing, like lancing the cat`s boil etc.
After quitting this driver`s warm, engaging company, I stomped up the street with arms in the air, gesticulating wildly to myself, thereby frightening other pedestrians unnecessarily. What I was actually asking was somewhat rhetorical; i.e. "what is wrong with everyone?" meaning, what was wrong with that particular driver, and the one I almost became acquainted with that very morning.
The morning episode involved waiting for half an hour for two of the same buses to arrive at once, then being told I would have to have a credit note for change of a tenner - (from a £3.30 fare? Is that an inconceivably large amount of change then?) or get off again. I got off the bus, and stomped down the road, seething quietly. You can see how the second episode of bus misery was one episode too many for me to contain.
All these irritations and rudenesses would have been as nothing to one so entirely reasonable as I, if it hadnt been for the fact that in the same week, I waited for over half an hour for a bus that didnt turn up, the knock-on effects of which meant I lost income to the tune of £40. Add to that the late morning debacle, which cost me £35 in lost earnings, and maybe you`re beginning to get an idea of the mayhem, nay, incipient poverty involved in going anywhere without my very own transport. Green? My arse.
I dont really want much. A bus that comes within 10 minutes either way of it`s appointed time. A seat, though I`ll stand if needs be. A cheery smile, or failing that just plain old courtesy. (It`s called Customer Service nowadays, apparently.) Why is this so FXXXXXX DIFFICULT???
Monday, 28 September 2009
a few friends I dont have
Two weeks ago now (two weeks!!) the postie left an envelope which turned out to contain poetry - not the everyday yawning kind, but some delighfully subversive greetings cards, bearing legends such as`Andy Warhol is not your friend`. I was immediately happy about this ...
Here`s the opening of `Ad Reinhart is not your friend`:
"The point is that thinking about black
all day long will only get you depressed
or turn you into a goth. ..."
Of course, if you used to be a goth but got over it, thinking about black all day long could turn you back into one again. The authors of the poems inside were Rupert M. Loydell and Peter Gillies. Further investigation (an E-mail to R.M.L.) revealed there are quite a few of these poems which will no doubt soon be available in book form. Though I rather liked the idea of them as cards. Witty; elegant.
The A38 is not your friend, or mine. But for some reason it has, tucked away by the side of its oppressively long body, let`s say under its armpit just to make the whole idea of the A38 sound interesting, a green metal hut beneath a stand of fir trees, bearing the legend
EMERGENCY SIGN STORE.
Being, at the time I spotted this hut, trapped on the coach to Exeter, I was forced to ponder what this meant. Is it
a) a store, as in workshop/shop, where signs are made to order for any emergency - as in
"Here Nige, there`s been a stampede of giant frogs in Ashburton - knock us up a sign can yer?"
b) an emergency sign store, as in a store for signs IN an emergency, such as when Nige has lost the keys to the everyday sign store, or
c) a store for emergency signs
From the three options above, I have to say I find c) the least likely.
Today there was a delightful story in The Herald - "It`s hair today for a model citizen", which tells us lucky Herald readers how Mecia (Misha? Misprint of Mercia? eh?), winner of `Britain`s Next Top Model` on Living TV, will only trust her mum to do her hair, which is okay as her mum is a hairdresser. Quote: " The competition rocketed her into the national limelight, after she beat thousands of other entrants, and appeared each week being put through a series of fashion-orientated ordeals." Now I dont know about you, but I`m having a hard time imagining what a fashion-orientated ordeal might be, unless it`s being forced to wear (a shorter version of) the latest addition to Fiona Bruce`s wardrobe. Feel free to enlighten me, please.
Here`s the opening of `Ad Reinhart is not your friend`:
"The point is that thinking about black
all day long will only get you depressed
or turn you into a goth. ..."
Of course, if you used to be a goth but got over it, thinking about black all day long could turn you back into one again. The authors of the poems inside were Rupert M. Loydell and Peter Gillies. Further investigation (an E-mail to R.M.L.) revealed there are quite a few of these poems which will no doubt soon be available in book form. Though I rather liked the idea of them as cards. Witty; elegant.
The A38 is not your friend, or mine. But for some reason it has, tucked away by the side of its oppressively long body, let`s say under its armpit just to make the whole idea of the A38 sound interesting, a green metal hut beneath a stand of fir trees, bearing the legend
EMERGENCY SIGN STORE.
Being, at the time I spotted this hut, trapped on the coach to Exeter, I was forced to ponder what this meant. Is it
a) a store, as in workshop/shop, where signs are made to order for any emergency - as in
"Here Nige, there`s been a stampede of giant frogs in Ashburton - knock us up a sign can yer?"
b) an emergency sign store, as in a store for signs IN an emergency, such as when Nige has lost the keys to the everyday sign store, or
c) a store for emergency signs
From the three options above, I have to say I find c) the least likely.
Today there was a delightful story in The Herald - "It`s hair today for a model citizen", which tells us lucky Herald readers how Mecia (Misha? Misprint of Mercia? eh?), winner of `Britain`s Next Top Model` on Living TV, will only trust her mum to do her hair, which is okay as her mum is a hairdresser. Quote: " The competition rocketed her into the national limelight, after she beat thousands of other entrants, and appeared each week being put through a series of fashion-orientated ordeals." Now I dont know about you, but I`m having a hard time imagining what a fashion-orientated ordeal might be, unless it`s being forced to wear (a shorter version of) the latest addition to Fiona Bruce`s wardrobe. Feel free to enlighten me, please.
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