Venusberg | That's not your heart, it's a piece of helicopter casing

Wednesday, February 28, 2001

Topic of conversation - topic of cancer

When I got back from buying a drink, Matt, clean-living reformed boy Matt, had stolen a drag from my cigarette, and is now convinced that this is the single drag that will see him "dragged" into Hell, wrapped in Marley chains of smoke, his DNA missequencing and his entire body going completely Oncomouse.

Charming.

For Abigail - Kevin Spacey haiku.

Topic of conversation:

The high-level comic experience that is apparently Dungeons and Dragons the Movie.

Matt's sorry about snails.

I'm sure he is.

Leading on to the intimate debt owed by the above to The Phantom Menace, which seems a wery strnage thing to plagiarise, from an artistic point of view. Which in turn introduced the idea that Queen Amidala had in fact during the Queen elections been run very close by a rival candidate who would have been elected to watch her people suffer and die while the council discussed strategy. That there were party election broadcasts for the "Watching my people suffer and die while you discuss strategy in your council chamber" candidacy, and how we could track one down.

Meanwhile, just to show that people who enjoyed this film on an artistic level are in no sense different than the rest of us, here's a post from "The Pratt", at a special needs e/n site called Blookovision:

I do, pray-tell, admit that the main character was of slight annoying; but only in the sense of his battle cries. The elf's cleavage armor made me cringe too but at least she was hot (even though she was black [a monkey in "Beau Talk]). In time I learned to understand the ending and and stay open-minded to the fact that is was no more outragous than many D&D campaigns out there. It made me want to get started on a whole new campaign started. I did hate the blue lipstick but it was the emmortal words of the Baron that turned mine eyes. He explained to me that every good villain has some outstanding feature that stood out about them.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what "Beau Talk" is. But if anybody out there can shed some light on any way in which this man is anything other than a milk-stinking waste of what might with a healthier diet have been a decent meal, please tell me. I need to know.

Topic of conversation:

Metaffection, and the dangers it holds.

Topic of conversation:

The male and female orgasm models of writing. Take Space, Matter, Cities, Sausages. Things happen, and things happen. The text tells you stuff and does stuff. But when you hit

You invent Pork(TM), half pig, half fork.

If the fact that you've created nothing more than filter-tip sausages (but with good marketing) offends you, go to to paragraph 7. Otherwise, go to paragraph 9.

you can feel the money shot on your back. The rest of the passage is cuddling. Cuddling's important - without it you have porn and a punchline. Male orgasmic model of writing.

David Bowie always puts out a shit album if there's a "3" in the year. That's a historical fact, Jack.

Topic of conversation:

The coveted status of Asperger's Disorder in geek circles. Apparently, actually being autisitic is considered a touch de trop, but a nice, local disorder to explain your geekitude is quite the badge of achievement.

But does it even exist, or is it a smokescreen overindulgent mothers use of their socially retarded children, well into early middle age. And how many of the special boys and girls on Mission Possible's books are placed in exciting young Internet startups?

Topics of conversation:

The coveted status of Asperger's Disorder in geek circles. Apparently, actually being autisitic is considered a touch de trop, but a nice, local disorder to explain your geekitude is quite the badge of achievement.

But does it even exist, or is it a smokescreen overindulgent mothers use of their socially retarded children, well into early middle age. And how many of the special boys and girls on Mission Possible's books are placed in exciting young Internet startups?

Out with Matt last night, whom I find fascinating (as well as liking, obviously); he's very very bright indeed, but our minds only intersect at certain points. In this case, certain points along the bars of Hoxton.

Liquid, Hoxton's first organic bar but probably not its last, I always enjoy because the dawnstairs room in the early evening gives one the impression of drinking expensive lager in somebody's living room - nicely decorated, spacious, but a living room nonetheless. Sadly, the music was too loud for Matt, so we had a pint and departed.

The Foundry is the sort of bar which I desperately wanted to exist when I was about 16. The decor is messy, the walls are covered with art, there is an annexe made up to resemble a 1930s drawing room and everything is in an advanced state of dilapidation. Security cameras spin around meaninglessly, and a gigantic representation of a prostitute card is pinned to the ceiling. Very much as my living room would have been in a perfect 1992.

Alas, once more, a combination of music again too loud for Matt's evil genius-type ears (good DJing, though - Duran Duran and L7 in a single mighty crossfade, if memory serves) and a swelling hatred for the Hoxton Fin dogwankers in the corner table cast us on, on, on.

Bluu is a joke - a Hoxton bar for the Portobello set. Built in the old Blue Note's venue, it's like a Hoxton bar, but cleaner. The staff are reasonably attentive and competent, the beers denoted by little plaques on the bartop, the brickwork exposed only at a respectable height. It's like McHox. Still, at least you can hear yourself talk...you could probably even hear somebody sleep with your wife. Couldn't you, Matt?

Tuesday, February 27, 2001

Somebody is way too passionate about the impact of the Railgun on the game of Quake. It's not just the length that surprises me, it's the passion. It must presumably have touched a nerve with Jen

Then again, I've never really played Quake in a very big way, and never multiplayer. The closest I've ever really come to that was a 2-man Aliens vs Predator duel, played out in a huge expanse of tunnels and caves, which I adored, as it involved sneaking up on and picking off my Quake-trained blunderbus of an opponent over. And over. Again.

But I'm more of a good book man myself - if I want to raise tensions in the office, I'll just start a vicious whispering campaign.

Sometimes you just can't get rid of a bomb.....

Astonishingly, I got an e-mail asking what had happened to my "3-D green snailtrail" logo. Do you prefer the old look? Have you noticed there is a new look? Mail me.

Oh my God. Dead@32, the most ball-wrenchingly tedious blog ever - and we are not talking a soft field there - has shut its doors. No more accounts of "Sal" apparently having an affair with her ex-boyfriend to which our hero is utterly oblivious! No more revelations about their mutual lust for dogsex - our hero and "Sal" that is, not "Sal" and her ex-boyfriend! No more single update every fortnight or so saying "Wow. Things sure have been busy"! Say it ain't so, Schmoe!

Still, on the bright side, he has mercifully left us with one last gift - the most tedious sign-off message ever:

I'm done here for now. It was an interesting experience but until I can update this page more often, I'm going to let it be.

Why? Life. Life has taken over for now, and demands attention, more so than writing this journal has. I can't ignore life, I can't ignore the attention needed for this and other projects. So I have to let go of the projects which are least important, this being one of them.

Thank you all for reading, and for many of you sharing your experiences with me and other readers. I learned something about myself, and life in general, and that was an invaluable lesson I'll hold dear all of my life.

We can only salute this deity of dullness, and wish him all speed in his attempts to build a matchstick model of the library at Nashville.

Sometimes I am referred to as a "writer and consummate flirt". Sometimes.

Sometimes I shamelessly nick Meg's source code to provide a list of those in attendance at the aforementioned Bloggers' meet:

Meg, Luke, Tom, Phil, Dave, Matt, Catherine, Davo, Ian, Mo, Graybo, Vaughan, Brooke, Stephen, Cal, Nick, David, Darren.

Cheers, m'dear. I feel like a remora...

Sometimes I just can't get sacked by my floundering dotcom.

If you're reading this and the above touches a cord, mail me. I expect at least two - you know who you are.

Link from Brooke, whose blog I am not even going to attempt to spell., and whom I shall hopefully have more chance to talk to at another blogmeet. Speaking of which, thanks to leaving in a tearing hurry at 8:25, I am not among the photos. So, enjoy the gallery.

Sometimes I can't get my drunken, adulterous priest husband to stop smoking dope....

Monday, February 26, 2001

Sometimes it's inordinately hard to be a saint in the city....I'm preoccupied with the fact that my actions have consequences entirely outside their intended effect. Which, I know, is just part of being a person, but is hitting me hard right now.

Obviously it's terrible, but just think for a second. Imagine standing by the fire, feeling your skin warming, the hairs on your arms crisping, watching a huge pyre of cow, a hecatomb to Apollo...

Talk about your basic once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Steven Katz, screenwriter for Shadow of the Vampire, has got it spot on. Vampires should be vampires. You can't have people pretending to be vampires if they're not. It's a gross infringement on self-definition.

Victor's family are, in the main, goths. Given that Victor resembles (or resembled, some years ago when last I saw her) a kind of Sanrio Jennifer Lopez, this must cause a certain degree of confusion for all concerned. See her struggle with issues of vampiric identity, live and in full effect on the UpsideClown.

OK - slightly concerned that my stats show a got a visit from somebody searching for information on "noncing young girls". Meep.

Elsewhere this week, it turned out that the growth they cut off my father was cancerous, but has apparently been removed in time, my sister was hospitalised after overdosing on flu remedies, and the fallout from an unexpected confessio amantis re: me continues.

How would you score that? A six? A seven? At least nobody's died......

Friday, February 23, 2001

God, I hate putting [ ] instead of < >. I hate writing UBB script by mistake instead of HTML. I hate the way that sentence has ensured I will never again know the touch of another human hand.

I'm a little sad to be welshing on the UKBloggers meet tonight, but it really [b]is[/b] for the best. The last thing I want is for the many honeyz and playas of weblogging to see me in my current mustard-gassed state, choking on my own lung tissue and smiling weakly through a permanent froth of bloodied foam.

Not too cool. I think Egham is my Kryptonite - it robs me of my powers.

Lyrics from the theme tune to Ulysses 31, classic French cartoon and foundation stone of my inexplicable attraction to people with blue skin (Numen-phwooar, I say):

Ulysses - like a mighty warrior in the sky.
Ulysses - with his small companions by his side.
Ulysses - Unlike a king he's not protected by the Gods of every form in his way]

Do you see what I see? All his bases are belong to us....

We've all met him. The man who likes a dead white guitar boy just a little bit too much.

You invent Pork(TM), half pig, half fork.

If the fact that you've created nothing more than filter-tip sausages (but with good marketing) offends you, go to to paragraph 7. Otherwise, go to paragraph 9.

This is perhaps the single sentence people will point to when writing the books on why Matt conquered the world. Giving us all a choice on the UpsideClown today.

Wednesday, February 21, 2001

Is this for real?

From clearsphere.org:

I don't know what Upsideclown is on about, but it involves Leamington, where I live. Surely a pisstake - could anybody really think that Winstons was the best pub in the town?

Bless. George presents a singularly disturbing take on the Spa town of the Midlands in Formal.

As you may know by now, Matt has extended his obsession with making everything skinable to his own site. Now, would it or would it not be amusing to design a "Matt's Skin Skin", based around the colour of Matt's insane grey skin, as seen throguh Tom's eyes. It isn't sharksin, it isn't steel.....

Personally, I'm quite happy just to have my Winamp player skinned, with a rather fine "Graphic Evilizer" from the House of Fun.

From Blue Ruin:

Being a copywriter has its minus points. I can sound so horribly glib, even when I actually mean what I am saying.

I know what she means. Increasingly, I wonder if life as a career creative actually makes it impossible to achieve much creatively outside the discipline (pace Messrs. Weldon, Sayers, Rushdie et al). Fortunately, Catherine also provides an example of how sometimes, marketing is just art with "m", "ke" and "ing" added.

God, I feel like shit. Hideous cold/cough combo which does at least seem improved from yesterday, when I was shivering in Egham on the verge of death with naught but a laptop for protection. Egham is a curious place - strabgely beautiful when the mist is at floor-level, with its old-fashioned railway crossing on the main road, but as soon as the fog lifts you realise that, if Kent is the Garden of England, Surrey is the Business Park.

Top it up with perhaps the least fun night of the year so far, and it's a recipe for groove.

Some things defy language, or at least render it a mere function of something older and darker. Allegedly.

This is almost inevitably one of them.

Fooookin' yes!

Monday, February 19, 2001

Wheeee-doggy! It had to happen - wherever there are faeries, there's lousy poetry:

In spirit do we lie,
naked but clothed in flame,
and upon our wings do we fly
amongst the stars,
amongst the rain.

Do we lie, sir? Do we? Do we? Oooh, suits you, sir! This and many other piles of loathsome stop-bullying-me-I'm-an-elf-king-in-exile jism - sorry, jaesm - can be found at Casa Lanthinel. He shaved his legs and then he was a Sidhe....

Dream meme. What can it mean?

From Jen:

Changeling is a game about normal people who suddenly realize they are faeries with the power and need to bring magic back to a cold, soulless world. Malcolm-Rannirl, the administrator of www.otherkin.net, explains that the game did "a reasonable job of drawing together various mythological components," but that it also led to a fair number of "wannabes" deciding they were elves when they were really just human geeks.

Rich Dansky, a human being who worked on the game, ran into Otherkin through a listserv called darkfae-l. The game "had just come out and there was apparently a rampaging debate on the list over how the folks at White Wolf had gotten so much of their existence right," Dansky says. "Finally, one of the list members came to the obvious conclusion that we'd gotten it right because we ourselves were in fact changelings."

Oh for wankGod's sake.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for posthumanity, and thus at a stretch prehumanity as construct. No worries. But have you noticed that these earthbound elves and angels always draw their source material from role-playing games and mediocre rock bands, never from even a basic knowledge of, say, antique Celtic languages? You'd think it would be a piece of piss for ones of their...antiquity.

And, lest we forget, such a knowledge might make them aware that few language cultures exist in which all proper nouns are required to have at least one diphthong. Arhuaine, Alyannael...it all spells fat goth to me....

Tatsuya Ishida's staring contest could run and run.....

On the plus side (and there is always a plus side), I finally got The PowerPuff Girls album - without having to use Amazon! Thank God for the high street for instant gratification. This may be the best pure pop album I've heard for years, and confirms my suspicion that the PowerPuff Girls is targeted at disaffected twentysomethings with liberal arts degrees.

Our apologies for the delay. Operators are standing by. Please stay in your homes.

Everything is happening too fast at the moment - too many demands at the same time. I'm sure that, were I called upon to apply my Mojo Jojo-sized intellect (Only one with comfortably the greatest mind on this hemisphere could invent such a fiendish plan! And it is only because my brain is comfortably the greatest on this hemisphere that I can comfortably say this sentence comfortably!) to one thing at a time, I'd be putting the finishing touches to my patent cure for everything right now.

Ah, well.

On the bright side, it turns out that Clint Mansell, musical director of Requiem for a Dream, is Clint Mansell, former grebo guru. This is too fucked up for words. Thanks for destroying my life with this factlet, Darren

Thursday, February 15, 2001

In an attempt to escape the sheer saccharine hell that is Valentine's Day, fellow free-and-single gadabout Abigail and I went to see Requiem for a Dream, figuring this was about as far from romantic comedy as you were likely to get.

I was right. Requiem (as its friends call it) was a curious film - a social comedy which flipflops with astonishing abruptness into a hideous, utterly bleak descent into madness and despair. Nice. Nobody gets out unbuggered, in some cases literally.

It was an interesting film. Horrific in places, natch - Jared Leto injecting heroin into a septic sore is really unpleasant, even when it's happening to Jared Leto. Although this does shade into what Luke described as the basically MTV quality of the direction. Stock quick-cuts accompany all drug abiuse, the same ones every time, creating a convention which can then be disrupted by intercutting. The virulence of the score looms large. Split-screen is used, occasionally to good effect. People do that Steadicam-in-front apparently unmoving motion thing from the Evil Dead. A surprising amount.

Regrettably, Jared Leto is not convincing as a junkie. Jared Leto is not particularly convincing as a human being - his teeth are too good. The dramatic heart of the film rests not with the photofit male junkies, but with the female characters, who are the film's dramatic as well as moral centre. Without them, Leto and Wayans are just describing the same curve as any other smackboy.

Ellen Burstyn turns in an exceptional performance as the lonely, increasingly wretched mother, widowed and neglected by her son, whose addiction to television, status and the past end up destroying her as surely as the drugs. However, the only character with any theoretical autonomy at the end of the film, who has chosen to be both infanitilised and perverted by her addiction, is a performance of startling poise from Jennifer Connelly.

I love Jennifer Connelly. Not, I hasten to add, for the usual reasons. I love her because she is that most modern of things, a basically unsuccessful actress who nonetheless makes more money failing to be an actress than she ever could doing anything else. And, for that matter, an unsuccessful actress who is actually much better at acting than many successful actresses. And best of all, her profileat imdb reveals that she is on the verge of having made more films about the making of films she was in than she has actually made films, if you see what I mean. This is just astonishing, and much to be admired.

And...well, you've just got to love her, really. The way she only ever appears in genre pictures. The way she didn't quite grow up and out of Labyrinth-era gawkiness in the ways the studio bosses expected her to, and retained her too-big nose and coal-black slabs of eyebrow, and the fine, pale hairs forming girl-sideburns along her jawline - far too much character for a movie face. Basically, I celebrate her simultaneous success and failure at the business of stardom. And "Some Girls", which is lovely.

Actually, even if you have no interest whatsoever in the romantic comedy of Patrick Dempsey, go and click that link. It leads to perhaps the worst-designed single page in the Internet. White titles on a white background! Cyan text! It's......glorious.

Speaking of success and failure, and ugliness, is Clint Mansell a former member of Pop Will Eat Itself? Tell me.

I stood watching the green-grey waves collapse and run up the shore, hoping that one of them could be bothered to run far enough towards me to make my feet wet and cold. But the tide was going out, so that was getting less likely by the minute. Just like the rest of my life; what was once so full of promise, was now looking utterly hopeless.

James is looking for meaning in today's fresh slice of UpsideClown. He finds it in the strangest place....

Wednesday, February 14, 2001

Right, yes. I am on a number of levels an obsessive. I get habits. I need to know about things. But I can never imagine being sufficiently fucked in the head to find a use for this, much less think myself into the Lecter-like mind that spawned it. Read the Magnetic Fields concordance and weep.

Zenith plumps for the Boatman's Call. Catherine once again goes for Tindersticks, rapidly becoming the top-10-about-Valentine's-Day house band....

Valentine's Day. What is the bloody point? Those already in relationships are merely driven to ever more meretricious acts of consumption in an attempt to get sex on what would otherwise be a perfectly normalevening of not getting sex. Meanwhile, the single spin into an obscene danse macabre of cheery misery, hitting bars crammed with the other flotsam of love, or just staying in with a crate of beer and a pizza, just like every day of their life ever until they die obese and alone with noone to see their passing but Les Dennis.

A Valentine's card is a pointless mystery - a declaration of love which succeeds only if the recipient never knows who sent it. Otherwise, it fails, and is received with weary acceptance or acute revulsion. How often have you heard of the shy geeky nerd boy turning out to be the dream lover of his pneumatic colleague? Enough to count on fingers? Thumbs? Wrists?

Then again, I could just be bitter. The tally so far is two cards, or more precisely one card and a set of child's magnetised letters arriving under plain cover which, stuck to the fridge, spelled out "profoundly interested in you". Of course, if they hadn't come in bags, with a direction on each one - "Adverb", "Participle", "Preposition" and "Pronoun", I could have ended up with "Deny interruption. Sod you, elf", which would have been more demonstrative but perhaps less true to the original purpose.

But remember, there's still time to send an anti-Valentine's card, designed by Tom. Add salt to someone's sugar this year...

Tuesday, February 13, 2001

Notes from the Underground - in response to a request for Valentine's top 10s. Links to follow.

1. Special One - Ultra Vivid Scene

Didn't trust what you said in your letter,
In retrospect I should have known better,
You shot the stars,
Right out of the sky

Ultra Vivid Scene define for me about '93-94, dealing with my first heartbreak. Fuck, that sounds facile, and in the face of everything since it is.

Plus, Kelly Deal on backing vocals.

2. The Magnetic Fields - Smoke and Mirrors

Smoke and mirrors,
Special effects,
A little fear.
A little sex.

If you don't know how much I want to marry Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson in a weird pagan ceremony, then I haven't been shouting enough. This is one of about thirty possible candidates. Joint winner with the immortal "Either you don't love me or I don't love you".

3. The Dandy Warhols - Nothing to Do

Really like it better,
Like it better than you,
And if we got a quarter, we'll call Sugarboom,
Ca-ca-ca-choo

Vapid, moronic, and utterly lovely. Reminds me of rubbing noses and knowing that, ultimately, everything was going to be OK.

Hey, man can make a mistake.

4. Money Mark - Cry

I don't really feel like a man,
Feeling Low.
Get on the keyboard,
Gonna play my organ so-lo

Glorious Hammond-y misery.

5. I Know that Loving - Tindersticks
She sinks inside me
There like chemicals
I see the birds fly
And I disgust myself
To be free of that love
Pull myself from under the weight of it all
And I hear her, hear her

Technically speaking, this should go to "Travelling Light", but I'm ready to broaden my horizons. So sad, so pretty.

6. David Devant and his Spirit Wife - I think About You

Ooh! Ah! In the garden,
With my famous purple heart on.
On the day we met,
That's the day I won't forget.
In my romantic novel,
You will call,
And I'll just grovel.
You'll tie me up with chains
And then pick my brains..

Well, quite. Time for an uptempo number. But never time for...

7. Yeah Yeah - Salad

Go down to the public house and drink them blind,
Get kicked out and wake up in the road,
I rubbed the dirt, and stared in through the window-pane.
I almost lost my mind....

Memory one of Salad is seeing them touring this album with the four-dimensional ex, interviewing Marijne and everything being lovely.

Memory two is the day I bought this album, and playing it over and over again, while waiting for my the-girlfriend to come over, having just told her that I knew she had been fucking a friend of mine's boyfriend. And - which is the part that kills - lying to me, and thinking for even a second she could get away with it. I couldn't be bothered to get up to change the disc. I hate being patronised.

8. Seeing Other People - Belle and Sebastian (yes, I know)

If I remain passive and you just want to cudddle,
Then we should be OK and we won't get in a muddle.
We're seeing other people, at least that's what we say we are doing.

Reminds me of some of the more ridiculous "We're over each other. So over each other that you can get a new boyfriend, then travel miles just to screw me senseless and hold me all night, because - hey! - what are friends for?" moments of my life. I suck so badly.

9. Diamonds in the Mine - Leonard Cohen

There are no letters in the mailbox,
And there are no grapes upon the vine,
And there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore,
And there are no diamonds in the mine.

Phlegmy misanthropy the way *you* demand it, true believers.

10. To Love Somebody - Gallon Drunk

Theres a way, everybody says
To each and every living thing.
But what good does it bring,
Without you?

Gallon Drunk viciously beat up a Bee Gees number, then stroke its hair and tell it its OK. It isn't

Monday, February 12, 2001

Things which depress me:

1) IE just crashed, and I lost a lengthy post on books I have been reading recently.

2) I also lost e-mails in progress to Catherine and Umeboshi (for the third frickin' time).

3) I have been exchanging e-mails with somebody I met through Douglas Coupland. Part of that has been asking each other questions. As it was my turn, I asked her for three good reasons why humanity should not be destroyed and replaced by fast-breeding Texlahoma alien bluecollars (long story). She couldn't think of any.

Now that is disheartening.

Jamie, as you may by now have read, is having trouble keeping his pecker up under an avalanche of nubile teen flesh. His plight has touched the heart of this young Samaritan:

This article made me mad too, reading it this morning. Yeah, I'm feeling real sympathetic for this guy who hasn't got the energy to have a couple of one night stands every weekend anymore. I'm hoping it's just a big joke (that isn't very funny) but it's a familiar story.

What I particularly like about this is the fact that anyone clicking on the link will now be taken to Neil's tales of library tension, in which one-night stands are pretty low on the horizon.

A double dose of Clown today, since things slid into chaos somewhat at the end of last week....

The morning shift today. Ken Davis was in, the Deputy Chief Co-ordinator of Public Services (Central Division); we haven't seen him since that business with the pornography in the Large Print section when Mrs. Willsden had the heart-attack and the Gazette made us front-page news.

I've been avoiding this for a while, but hey, Neil's got another quiet, observational, Carveresque cameo piece going down in his Bibliofile.

Here's how it used to work. After a hard week's grind, we'd relax for a few hours in the pub, then head on to the local totty centres. As long as you flashed lots of cash, wore a smart suit and generally behaved like a twat, you got plenty of unmerited attention. Then you plied a few kids with plenty of vodka (or Bacardi, depending on their level of sophistication) and appropriate mixer, declined the persistent pestering to 'ave a dahnce' in a token effort to preserve your dignity, and took home your pick of the two or three buzzing around you, like ordering fish in a fancy restaurant. Only cheaper and in many ways more satisfying. The next few hours you can imagine.

From the vaults, Jamie is Spent.

And covered in lovecustard.

Friday, February 09, 2001

And speaking of chainsaw-wielding psychosis, last night saw a miniature Bloggers meet:

Davo and Luke spoke much of Peter Lorre.
Matt and Tom are clearly Bond villans who are waiting for their moment. Matt complained that we weren't a community, debated the true nature of geek and caused endless fascination for Tom with his repulsively grey skin. Tom attempted to fight everyone. But we don't talk about that. Catherine slid gently into a bath of lager and charcoal, and I was astonished that senior bloggers had acknowledged me. Got to get over this self-esteem thing....

Ahem - links later - I must go.

It's jejune. It's childish. It is utterly without merit. But there are bad things about it too....

Yes, Eminem is in town, bringing with him Clowns, Carnivals and Chainsaws. Oh, and controversy. So, perhaps it's time we gave Christina Aguilera (who sounds oddly like Daphne and Celeste, who in turn sound oddly like this....) a right to reply. Will the Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up?

And speaking of Eminem, how white is Giles Foden? I think he may be the whitest man in history. "As phat as Browning"...for phuk's sake...

And the madness continues.

I have mentioned Gary Busey Fan Fiction before. I think those two stories have done more to make me a man than any other single experience. However, things are now getting out of hand.

Rutger Hauer has a short stories page. In at least one of which the author fantasizes about meeting him. And not even for a nice, logical thing like sex. Help me....

It was, of course, the mighty Rutger Hauer who once opined "it isn't easy, living in fear", or words to that effect. But not even the director's cut captures his eerily prophetic mis-take, when he uttered the fateful words "It isn't easy, living in Aberdeenshire". As Amanda MacDonald has found to her cost.

I mean, what in the name of Big Pete Fuck is going on with this shit? First up, she stops breathing during a "sex act". A paragraph or two later, it turns out this was the result a bad case of forearm across the throat, while her husband performed the aforementioned "sex act" on her with a whip. First up, how long are this man's arms?

Anyway, so far so oh-my-God-and-I-have-to-live-on-this-island. Then we find that he panics (fair enough) and hides the body, then - and this is the killer, if you'll pardon my infelicity - cleans the blood from the walls. What? I mean, sorry? Did we mishear? Was that "whip-handle" or "whisk-handle"? No offense, Mr. MacD, but this is not the way to get that elusive place on "Changing Rooms".

Another horrible, dreary, suburban homicide, without cause and without effect. It's at times like this that I wish a had a baseball bat the approximate size of Rhode Island with which to beat some sense into this stupid-ass nation....

And then there was the day. This day. This day, when I found, or was led, to The Monkees/Quantum Leap crossover fan fiction.

The world has changed, I now see the truth, I write this stark naked, my modesty protected only by crude daubings of deer's blood. My coworkers are frightened. I am complete.

And now, it's substantially normal. Meeeep....

I am confused.

Wank wank wank wank wank.

I'm not at all sure what's happened to Venusberg. I know only that my poking about its guts with a butter knife is not helping. When I get home I'll Dreamweave the little fucker into submission....

Thursday, February 08, 2001

And you. you look like Heaven,
And angel sent from a dream,
Seven hundred and seventy-seven times
Lovelier than anyone I've ever seen...

Dilemmas of the Information age, number one in the ever-popular continuing series. I find that I have joined the same mailing list as an ex-girlfriend. Now, I'm enjoying the mailing list, and I'm finding getting messages sent to my inbox in a name I wouldn't expect to see again is not so traumatic as might be expected.

Bear in mind that this was one of the all-time great relationships. Seriously. In the sense that you need to be able to work across three languages to express its importance. Which is possibly what I really miss.

However she has made it pretty clear, as it was also one of the all-time great bust-ups, that my presence in her universe is unwelcome.

So, it's a question of boundaries. Is it incumbent upon me to unsubscribe? To alert her of my presence on the list? Never to post on it? Where do the boundaries get set?

Tell me.

Wednesday, February 07, 2001

Once again Meg comes through with the links. I may be in love. This little puppy will turn the web site of your dreams into a poem. Thus, Venusberg becomes:

Venusberg body {background:#6f3636;margin: 5px;: Tahoma, Arial, ;color: white;} A {:note for
the question is, hard
to college you judge the pubic area.
And never heard of idiocy and Shannen
Doherty, all of him.
The campaign and it c There is
one
cure
for those of morning....you
would be
the opportunity to arrive
thank me, into my beloved and it
taps into my beloved
and normally it just
seen: Nowhere. ruminations.

Not sure about the first line, but....

Jack Chick, meanwhile, produces such great phrases as so much, that they have been seen using the Sissy , English & Spanish Sodomites declare war on January 26, 01 Tagalog , and the virtuoso Most Christians want to witness, at school. Catholic wafer worship sweeps the country. There is a huge dinosaur can use anywhere! See a converted Jesuit priest.

Nice.

Although these poem generators do display a worrying trend. People are thinking poetry is easier and easier, while actually writing both less and worse. You may deny this thesis (assuming you actually care). If you dare demur, I give you Quake Haikus.

I'm not much of a Sailor Moon person. Not on aesthetic grounds, only because I really don't have time for another geek obsession if I want to maintain any empathy with normal people. There is a point where, to quote, you have to either get out there or buy a Klingon Uniform and go with it.

However, I understand the appeal to a certain type of person of superpowered schoolgirls doing whatever it is that they do. I understand that it taps into certain deep parts of the human psyche (erm...).

What I don't understand is Sumo wrestlers dressed as schoolgirls.

It doesn't make me happy, or hungry, or horny. It just hurts.

Cheers, Moth. You just killed my head.

Tuesday, February 06, 2001

Things which annoy me, part one in a completely fucking endless series.

I like to eat organic foods. And yet I also sincerely believe that genetic modification is way cool. What the Hell could anyone find wrong with injecting scorpion DNA into soya. How Sci-Fi is that? Come on, if we were making scorpions more like wheat nobody would complain. What's the world coming to?

Point being, can you get genetically modified organic produce? The bollocks you can. Just because I want breakfast serials that bite back, I have to ingest pesticides.

Madness, I tell you...

I know it's childish, I know I keep coming back to this, but Jack Chick is such an absurd combination of idiocy and pure evil, he just never ceases to fascinate. Chyx clearly agree, as this spoof of the classic "Dark Dungeons" demonstrates.

However, there is a moral even in this parody, so strong is the spiritual goodness of Chick. Role-playing may not be evil per se, but if you're looking for sex before college, you may want to throttle back on it a bit....

Go tell it on the mountain - the truth behind Dumbmotherfuckergate.

A note for W-branded Republicans - James Baldwin, the writer of Go Tell it on the Mountain, was black, gay and never owned a multinational company. These are three reasons why you have never heard of him. The other is that he wrote books.

The tube strike seems to have unleashed a wave of wankertude across London. Without question, whoever raises a hand against Meg must perish in flame and torment.

Also, on the way back home yesterday, walking over London Bridge, I saw a woman being punched in the face by one of a gang of about a dozen startlingly cocky disaffected teenaged girls (who I have to say I'm rather glad left when I ran over, since I wouldn't fancy my chances against even one example of disaffected SE1 youth, let alone if she's brought her mates). It took the police about twenty minutes to arrive - thank you City of London - but fortunately she wasn't too badly hurt - just surprised.

(a note to non-Londoners. The City of London, an area of about a square mile containing the stock exchange and most of the big banking headquarters, has managed to wring a number of concessions from the authorities responsible for the greater administrative unit of London, the city - if that makes sense - by dint of the sheer amount of money it sloshes into the surrounding economy. One of these is its own police force. This is one of many reasons to give up on the whole thing in disgust and move the capital to Chelmsford).

Things that make life worthwhile, first in a continuing series:

Marks and Spencer's pressed apple and mango juice. It's the smooth-sipping elixir that tastes of morning....

In fact - God help me - breakfast today was the aforementioned juice, muesli (with organic milk, natch) and a clementine. I am really scaring myself here.

Fortunately, my boss then called to give me ulcers and a burning need for coffee. So that's OK.

Monday, February 05, 2001

If you don't have the Cartoon Network, and are not prepared to get out of bed religiously at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, you are faced with a problem which could decide how the rest of your life plays out, in true Life's Lottery style.

How can I possibly hope to be able to keep up with the bewilderingly complex web of PowerPuff Girls references that all the cool kids are exchanging at the water cooler.

Assuming you work with geeks. Um.

Anyway, help is at hand! Try easing yourself gently into a life of brightly-coloured non-sequential inconsequentiality with The PowerPuff Primer.

You'll never hiss "cursessssss!" again. Well, you will, but you'll know why.

First up, there aren't five of them. There are four. Four and a dog. I don't give a damn how much the English love their pets, a dog does not have the same legislative rights as a human. It isn't a human and it certainly doesn't deserve to be allowed membership of a group which would exclude the Jews and the Irish like a flash. Timmy was there to keep George happy on the nights when Anne was praying for forgiveness to the God who never wanted her to be thus unworthy. That's it.

The Famous Five get the kicking they so richly deserve on the UpsideClown.

Speaking of problems, this from Grayblogzuki:

Robyn has been picking me up on my incorrect usage of its and it's. And normally it is me that moans about that.

Now, this is just harsh. The man's in pain, Robyn; apostrophes are his last concern. I admit there's never an excuse for failing grammar, but there must surely be acceptable reasons.

(Although my anal inner sub-editor is screaming "And normally it I who moan about that, goddammit!")

Of course, some people have real problems.

In fact, for some reason sex appears to be raising its ugly head at present. Well, sex and the interrelationship of the genders. Some of it's just bodies, which, although complex machines are pretty easy to steer once you have your licence.

Still trying to work out the perfect e-mail to the big Ex, though. We'd been out of touch until the aforementioned death in the family, when I notified her, since she had known the loved one also, and received in return an incredibly sweet mail. Now I just want to find some way of apologising for the gigantic pig's ear I made of our relationship, and then leave everything in a great big chocolate closure gateau...

Of course, I know that this is an utterly pointless thing to do, upsetting for either or both parties and in no material way likely to change the current situation. That's why it has to be the best e-mail ever written. It's achievable, it's just not easy.

So, literature.

A very dear friend has just finished the first draft of her first novel, and handed it to various people to read through. I am one of those people. Which is fine. The slightly odd thing is that:

a) It is not so much thinly-veiled autobiography as the dance remix of a diary. Most romans a clef tend to have a clef. This is more of a roman a gap - you just walk straight through.

b) I'm in it.

c) There are descriptions of sex between myself and the authoress.

How do you edit this? "Needs more reverence"? "'Throbbing' a cliche, try 'mighty horseworrying'"? All most peculiar. I do think at the very least she shoudl be obliged to have sex with everybody else currently in possession of the manuscript, to create a level (albeit messy) playing field.

Friday, February 02, 2001

The point being, that hawks don't have hair, so you can't shave then. You could cut the feathers, or you could pluck them, but if we recall correctly, the spines of feathers have blood in them, so you'd end up with a hawk bleeding from a thousand tiny pipes. An attractive and interesting decoration, but one with a profoundly limited shelf life...

More beer with Matt and Catherine yesterday. Topics discussed included:

Shaving hawks (about which Matt was looking for information on the Interwebnet)

Shaving the pubic area. And balls (about which Matt found information on the Interwebnet)

The correct pronunciation of "Ernehale" (Long story)

The first bloggers' stadium tour (A great idea whose time has come. A bunch of A-listers pack out Wembley stadium, and invite questions from the audience. They then type, with the words appearing on giant screens, an account of how they were in Wembley stadium the other night and somebody asked them this question, a description of their thought processes about and leading toward their eventual answer, followed by...their eventual answer. People would be fucking in the stands, I tell you)

The Pyra situation. Inevitably

Grayblogzuki - smiling through the tears (a new background colour, a new attitude, the same seething mass of barely-concealed misery. We've all been there)

What we can do with out long, bony fingers and our big rubbery lips (Bring. It. On)

Thursday, February 01, 2001

This huge scary picture of Tom is currently my screensaver. I don't think this makes me a stalker. It's just a good image in the right colours to keep my background bustling for the rest of the day.

Question for anyone who nominated or (better yet) helped to judge the Bloggies: how do you judge a good weblog? I'm curious as to whether there are criteria beyond subjective enjoyment...

"Feats of strength only the dumbest of mungo-headed cuntwits would try to pull off". It's another very large JPEG of alienation from TVGoHome

I have successfully taken control of the International Arts Council, with the aid only of fawning and cunnilingus. My first piece of policy is to be the strict enforcement of new regulations on the content of musicals.

Victor's getting mediaeval on your prole culture ass. Virulent class consciousness and horse-fucking collide to great effect on the UpsideClown.

Venusberg.org finds Blogger very attractive...

elsewhere:

Interconnected
Plasticbag
Oh Skylab
Barcablog
Orbyn

moreover:

Brainsluice
Mo Morgan
Mothninja
Tajmahal
Wherever y'are
Prandial Post

thereafter:

Toby Kay
McCargow
Blogadoon
LinkMachineGo
Methylsalicylate
Hammersley
Joeblog
Grayblog
the Collective
Nick Jordan
Kooky Mojo
Betty Woo
Moth
Mr. Thomas G

the author:

danATvenusberg.org

and finally...

the archives