| Wednesday, October 31, 2001 |
 | There are some things in this world I may never be able to understand entirely. The brief wrestling life of Golddust is, I suspect, one of them. Well, OK...in a "sport" based around an appeal to faggot-burning Ozark mountain trash, having a character who actually quite digs grappling with big strong men for the more natural reasons is probably not going to receive terribly sensitive handling.
Remember, kids, you are unlikely to be sharing your office with a professional wrestler. Fact.
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| Quick call to the techno kids out there. I noticed that Meg was selling her old digital camera. Now, since I take photographs much as Joey Deacon lapdanced, I suspect that putting this camera in my hands would be like giving homo australopithecus a copy of Nigel Slater's Real Food. However, my appetite whetted, I had a burrow around and found...this.
Is it not mighty?
This is the pointless dilletante's dream. I can listen to not much MP3, take not very good photos and record a very small amount of not very good video!
But seriously, folks, given that I am not very good at taking photographs, and will never be able to spare the time to get good, and quite fancy an MP3 player to get me into work of a morning, is there anything seriously wrong with this hunk a' technology? Tell me.
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| Tuesday, October 30, 2001 |
| My name is Christine, I'm 22. My boyfriend's name is John and he's 24. We've been together for over a year. We have a wonderful relationship. We are into D/s (Domination and submission) and spanking. We complete each other in every way.
Niiiiiice - this is indubitably weblog of the day. Its minimalist content seems devoted primarily to excerpts of their Im conversations. They are a bit dim. But sweet. And they complete each other in every way. Which is nice. Have they ever actually met, do you think?
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| Fuck my week-dead hamster - the hold music on Vodafone's customer service is ten-second slices of the Dandy Warhols' Bohemian Like You (and yes, I know that it is the accompaniment to their ads at present, but that doesn't make it good hold music fodder), apparently arranged at random. It's fucked up. Only with repeated listening do you notice that they appear to have cut the lines:
I guess it's fair, if he always pays the rent, and he doesn't get bent about sleeping on the couch while I'm there.
Presumably because the idea of the self-absorbed, vain, boho wanker portrayed in the song negotiating her desire to continue to share a bed with her ex is not entirely in tune with the corporate values of Vodafone.
The fact that they chose a song about self-aggrandising sub-Nathan Barley dickwaxes, precisely the people who shout about the fuckin' amaaazing night they had last night while on the train/bus/library/small family memorial service, as the background to a mobile phone ad is fundamentally inspired. Once again, people who work in advertising revealed as plucky dog-headed boys.
Rather like the decision to use a grunge-rock cover version of the Smiths' How Soon is Now as the theme tune for diabolical sub-Buffy shitstorm Charmed, before realising that literally the only lyrics they could use were:
I am the son and the heir
and
I am human and I need to be loved...just like anybody else does.
The rest being about a kind of genteel English depression at odds with the Billy Corgan lokatmyscarslookatmyscarslookstmyscars bombast required for corporate alternative music.
Genius, I tell you.
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| I'm the only person in my street who doesn't have a television licence, doesn't have a television, doesn't have a Brothercam in every room. I'm told they give furtive net-curtain shots of houses without cameras, every couple of hours, for a bit of a comic relief, a bit of viewer conformity reassurance, a bit of an excuse to bring out the placards and the petrol bombs. After all, these people must be hiding something, mustn't they?
Kevan turns in a storming Big Bertha as dystopia account on the UpsideClone, by the way. Big Barda 2 seems to have left a horrible psychic scar on the slightly more marginalised bits of British society. I think it was because by the time the first lot emerged blinking into the light, we had already seen the guttering flame of Nasty Nick's celebrity die, and could be reassured that the others would also sink into well-deserved obscurity. Whereas with the weasel-eyed gimp and the bright orange Welsh halfwit, it looked for a terrfyingly long time like they might achieve critical mass and impose themselves on the nation's consciousness long-term. Thank fuck they seem to have disappeared from any but the most trivial minds after the realisation that their celebrity was based primarily on whether weasel boy was going to shove his cock right up her or not. See also "Bigger Better Brother".
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| Thus far letter-writing had been an act of supreme formality: letters home from school to my doting parents concealing nightly fear of buggery - 'today in cookery we made sausage rolls'.
Victor is turning the writing of letters from an obligation to an absolutely genius plan to exploit the children of liberals, on the UpsideClown.
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| Kill, Shep!
The boy Armitage has come out swinging:
Mark Curry, Yvette Fielding, and Connie Huq.
And whoever emerges victorious gets napalmed by me. I could really not
care less which one of them survives.
That said, I reckon the various dogs whose names I temporarily forget
could have a fair go.
And finally:
Richard Bacon, Simon Groom and Stuart whatsit. Groom would cunt the pair
of them into oblivion.
Cunted into oblivion by Simon Groom. That has to hurt...
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| Darren scares me:
Diane Louise-Jordan, John Leslie and Katy Hill
The girls would have John Leslie out in a few moments. He would go down HARD. Louise-Jordan presents Song of Praise so has the power of Thora Hird to the max. Would you fuck with her? Katy Hill Vs. Louise Jordan is a more difficult one but imagine Hill with a shaven head and special forces training. Louise-Jordan would probably go out fighting hard and nasty -- broken back, head injuries.
Hill would have hired Hello to takes photos of the event. She would look fab!
Can't imagine how I forgot about John Leslie, who needs to be put down like the dog he is. How about a celebrity invitational featuring John Leslie, Anthea Turner and the Rock?
This is also reminding me of my most favourite ever Venusberg-inciting search request - "She dressed sexy for the execution"...
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| Best thoughts so far (uncredited to avoid lynching) - Mark Curry, Simon Groom and Peter Duncan (Groom wins, but loses an eye and is embittered for the rest of his life) and Curry, Duncan and Janet Ellis (Duncan killed by groin-aimed kick! Curry killed with pointed stick!).
Do not fuck with Janet Ellis. She's the Queen of extreme.
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| Good one from Kevan:
Noakes versus any two of the interchangeable spiky-haired teenage cokeheads
who seem to present it these days.
Although I'm not sure Noakes in his wizened condition would be able to administer the severe beatdown that I imagine is hoped to be in the offing. Maybe we could regenerate him like Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living. Or give him PCP.
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| If you could force any three former Blue Peter presenters to fight to the death for your amusement, who would they be? Tell me.
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| Fucking Matt. Fucking Matt. Here am I trying to write a mildly interesting and amusing piece for UpsideClown, and cunty-boy has to go and turn in something arsebendingly brilliant.
The seven of us there came close in to bathe in the blue glow that had meant not true but now it had an ugly tinge of truth, of death, and in a burst the room was cold, and we shook, and it was the brush of you past me I felt as we moved in - arm on bare arm - gave me an odd heat in my chest - so that I felt young, alone but at the same time warm - the tiny bumps on your upper arm, soft hairs stuck up, the touch of your flesh - like old was new - we knew as much as when we were born - babes - the touch of you - the sense of you - and the awful truth of that night - and we fell into each other, and we held each other, cheek to cheek, eyes wide, your tears on my face - as the world fell down.
Wanker.
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| Thursday, October 25, 2001 |
| Poke the bunny.
Poke the bunny.
I said, poke the fucking bunny.
Poke the bunny.
Are you deaf? Poke the bunny.
Hey, Paul? Aaaaaaagh!
TRY GETTING A RESERVATION AT DORSIA NOW YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARD
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| Well, who the fuck could have predicted that Baluchistan would have become a base for bomb-shy Taliban. Um, everybody, McDoofus.
Where things get interesting is when the same trick is pulled in neighbouring Belushistan, a tribal area of Pakistan populated by fat, pill-popping dead comedians and their more clean-living but far less amusing brothers.
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| Wednesday, October 24, 2001 |
| "These women come clattering in here like herds of wildebeest, shouting: "Oi! I think you're fucking sexy," complains Mark Blake, a Via Fossa regular. "They're always fat and bawdy, and I really don't know where they get their clothes from. They dance around, and bosoms hit the floor and the ceiling, and the other night we couldn't even get in because there were so many of them. It's like the fat ladies' Ritzy now. What they think they're going to get out if it I just don't know."
It's all Alan Davies' fault. The invasion of Canal Street. Triumph of equality or grotesque act of appropriation?
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| Tuesday, October 23, 2001 |
| I'd like to know the origins of this transcript a little better - Paul Marsden comes across as too well-controlled and on the ball, and his foil as perhaps a little too blustery and clueless. However, if it is anything like the truth, then New Labour should be embarrassed by the lack of quality and fearsomeness in its whips.
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| Monday, October 22, 2001 |
| Speaking of which, apparently a man was trapped in his shed by invisible "yobs", and rescued through the Internet. The question nobody seems to have asked is why a man would have a computer with Internet connection set up in his shed.
Cybersex and dwarf-porn, surely? The bolt was perhaps shot by the vibration of the shed as the man in question....shot his bolt.
If you have a similar outhouse Onan-oriented mishap, help is at hand. Paul - who has started namechecking Half Man Half Biscuit and thus demands love and worship - has set up an emergency "trapped in my shed" line. Makin' a difference....
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| Friday, October 19, 2001 |
| Ah, what a beautiful October morning it is - cool, crisp and clean, and I can't think of a better place to be experiencing it than knees-up-Mother-Brown, are-we-downhearted London.
On the same topic, the top 10 songs about wanking.
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| Thursday, October 18, 2001 |
| Are you in love with someone?
Yes.
Someone who isn't me?
Yes.
Then let's just stay like this. It won't take long.
Finally got around to seeing Battle Royale on Wednesday night.
It's a superb film. I was emotionally involved throughout, which - given that I have been known to gutshoot animals just to watch then die with a strange half-smile on my face - is no small achievement. Despite the enormous cast, almost every character, however little screen time they got, had a chance to impress themselves on you, and to make their passing relevant as, in most cases, they were killed. And those characters were often shallow, undeveloped, irrational or afraid, or had priorities utterly at odds with the situation, but that's how teenagers work. And yet, at the same time, it's highly stylised. This article relates it both to Japanese school systems, the zero-sum foreign policy of the thirties, and criticises its incoherence in losing the supporting alternate-history narrative of the novel it is based on. But personally, I loved the sheer senselessness of the whole thing - the way the entire operation, soldiers, government training videos and all - could be seen as springing from the deep disappointment of one seventh-grade teacher (Takeshi Kitano, turning in another winning performance). Check this for a passionately-argued view of the film as pitting children not against other children but the adults whose interest in their welfare is tangential at best. And here for attempts to restrict access to the gorefest in Japan, and Fukasaku's inspired response:
Kids, don't worry about the R-15. Just rush into the theater! I made this just for you, kids! I hope you guys have enough guts and wits to make it in!
Nice. Oh, Guardian review here, for a less partisan view.
Personally, I'm still thinking about the minor characters who refused to follow the "kill or die" imperative. The characters who organised, brokered peace, tried to engineer solutions without bloodshed, who communicated and worked against their real enemies. Characters who were brave, resourceful, clever...and it wasn't enough.
Ever get the feeling you may be one of those characters? Tell me.
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| Oh, and I finally got around to seeing Amelie , which is almost impossible to dislike. OK. the artlessness of the characters is occasionally and with hindsight a little bit artificial, but it so successfully sweeps you along and generates so much goodwill that it's hard to hold it against. Also, "Lady Di" in French sounds really funny.
I think I was in just the right mood to see it, which probably helps. Do you ever have a terrible day - you feel lousy, you are being pulled in about seven different directions at once at work, you really just want to curl up somewhere and sleep but can't justify it to yourself - which suddenly snaps right around? The catalyst in this case was meeting Abigail and seeing somebody with the coolest pink hair, and suddenly I was in that floaty happy mood where everybody is just really pretty. Not in a filthy way, but just lots more people than usual look like you might want to hang out with them. It's very cool. On the way home, passing two young women discussing how much they loved Joihn Cusack, it was only a sense of propriety that stopped me from joining in, and then perhaps singing a little loving John Cusack song.
I think nigiri-sushi has a narcotic effect on me.
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| A curious moment. Returning from the shops, I pass three twentysomething Japanese kids in Hoxton Square, who are sitting on the pavement just outside the park on pilows, apparently watching the building of a set of loft-style apartments next to the White Cube gallery.
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| Tuesday, October 16, 2001 |
| And yay Brooke, whose link to this news story - cops use helicopter for doughnut run - contains one of those superb uses of language which only Americans seem to be able to pull off:
"I don't know whose brain child it was, but it's quite an ugly child,"
I think I'm in love. With Alberquerque Police Department spokesman Brian McCutcheon.
Speaking of inappropriate use of air power, is it me or is the Powell doctrine really not a goer? Tell me.
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| Monday, October 15, 2001 |
| Yay Robyn. The small but perfectly-formed man has come up with another winner. Queerleading.
That's all right, that's OK,
You're gonna pump our dads someday.
Can you dig it?
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| Fortunately, everything is all right. The Thundercats Movie, for so long a victim of editorial balllessness, is finally to receive a theatrical release, adult content and all:
Cheetara...Cheetara...Cheetara...Cheetara....HO
Cheers, George.
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| On the bus back from my apocalyptic assault on my digestive system (feeling better a shitload of salads and organic fresh veg later, topped up with echinacea. Damn, when did this happen), I found a discarded copy of the News of the World, which has broadened its usual foci of sport and celebrity sex to include a kind of child's first book of the Afghan conflict. So, if Robbie Williams is found bagpiping Tamzin Outhwaite in the outskirts of Kandahar, we have a full house.
Anyway. Around page 35 was this - a guide to fighting anthrax contamination using easily-obtainable household products. As I read it, I became more and more depressed. The thing reminded me uncomfortably of those terribly perky "in the event of a nuclear conflict, it may be some days before local government will be able to contact outlying regions. Please keep an ear on your radio" Protect and Survive leaflets.
Weeza peepu gonna die?
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| Sunday, October 14, 2001 |
| I don't think I've ever had a day of food as unhealthy as this one. So far, my intake runs at a self-heating can of coffee (great plan. I live in a city where one is rarely more than 45 seconds away from a restaurant, bar or snack shop, and now self-heating cans are being taken out of the camping supplies shops and onto the shelves of Sainsbury's. K-rations for the terminally apathetic), two pints of beer, five cigarettes, and two cheeseburgers from the Haus of the golden arches (it's been so long since I was in a McD's that they have changed the design of the coffee cups. Too slow for fast food, man).
I think I am punishing myself for something.
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| Wednesday, October 10, 2001 |
| A shot rings out across the silent battleground of the killing fields where the World's Smallest Problem had choked into a bloody stalemate. Can the fragile ceasefire hold?
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| I was interviewed for the urban mobilities project yesterday, gleefully spreading rumours and lies and stories we made up. Actually, there's nothing like talking at somebody for two hours to clarify your thinking, and, in the light of these ruminations, coupled with recent events and discussions, I have formed a series of hypotheses regarding the physical and spatial interrelation of the "weblog" and the "weblogger", the logic of community and the preoccupations of that community. Boiled down to one basic principle, these hypotheses can probably be best expressed thus:
Weblogging needs very seriously to get laid.
Yep. Weblogging needs a shag. A couple of hours of recreational, noncommittal, grunty fun with a total stranger, secure in the knowledge that, come the morning, weblogging will write a "3" instead of an "8" in their mobile phone number and slip out onto the clean, cold street and into the rest of their life.
It's good to pork.
The logistics of this are hard to work out. Presumably, one would have to get as many constituent elements of weblogging down and dirty at the same time, although possibly not in the same place. Webloggers in relationships would be allowed, as long as they did not refer to each other by name. Webloggers in relationships with other webloggers would be necessarily excluded for obvious reasons. No fucker is allowed to reference or allude to the event on their weblog, coyly or otherwise.
So, crunch time. Would you fuck a weblogger for the common good? Are you a weblogger who would like to fuck? Tell me.
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| My admiration for the Onion's capacity to judge things just right continues to grow. This is horrible, but eerily plausible.
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| This representation of the algorithms of bird flocking, via Matt, is strangely calming.
No, "flocking". You Dick Emery twat.
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| Thursday, October 04, 2001 |
| I thought I'd write my own obituary. Instead,
I wrote the blurb for when I'm risen from the dead:
Ignite the flares, connect the phones, wind all the clocks;
the sun goes rusty like a medal in its box -
collect it from the loft. Peg out the stars,
replace the bulbs of Jupiter and Mars.
A man like that takes something with him when he dies,
but he has wept the coins that rested on his eyes,
eased out the stopper from the mouthpiece of the cave,
exhumed his own white body from the grave.
Unlock the rivers, hoist the dawn and launch the sea.
Set up the skittles of the orchard and the wood again,
now everything is clear and straight and free and good again.
-"I thought I'd write my own obituary. Instead" - Simon Armitage.
The man just fucking rocks. I was thinking of going to see him read tonight, but my loathing for Hugo Williams is such that I just can't bring myself. When will the incontinent dregs of the "New Poets" just hurry up and the fuck retire? It's embarrassing...
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| Of course, in such trying times, when the count of webloggers whose feelings have been slightly or - horribly - perhaps even seriously hurt remains unconfirmed, it can be all too easy to lose sight of what truly matters in the first place. The things that make life worth living, in a world where feathers may be ruffled at any time.
So, let us remember that today is National Poetry Day, and celebrate it with our loved ones.
But seriously, folks, what's poetry for exactly? What does it do? What is the status of poets and poetasts in the 21st century? And was Adorno right after all? Tell Me.
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| Meanwhile, as The World's Smallest Problem drags into its second day, neighbour states are being dragged, unwillingly, into the conflict. Orbyn, suspected by some to be the ringleader behind the "cliquemeet", defended her borders as a diplomatic solution seemed increasingly a desperate hope. In a prepared statement, Graybo said:
What I am annoyed about is bitchiness and elitism - slating others off because either one perceives them as inferior or superior in some way. That comment is not aimed at Robyn and Luke, but at ukbloggers in general.
We all have done it. it is the whole damn atmosphere that pisses me off. but everyone is taking it personally, because ego gets in the way of reason.
And anyone who denies the situation exists in the ukbloggers group is either blind, dumb, stupid or burying their head in the sand. Or the sort that feels superior/inferior.
The shockwaves have yet to settle. Already, Meg has tearfully confessed to having sponsored renegade blogmeets. Paul has issued a press release saying that he is so far about this shit it just isn't true. Matt has become fascinated by a shiny piece of Perl and completely missed the whole thing. Brooke has yet to tell anyone to fuck off, but that is likely to change once I set up the WSP newsfeed and invite you all to put it on your sites.
Meanwhile, in other news the world trembles on the brink of a devastating cataclysm. And now, the weather.
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| Wednesday, October 03, 2001 |
| Meanwhile, I could do with a hand from you fine, fine people. Apparently the world of weblogging -and thus, the world - is split into tribes. Warring tribes. Does anyone know which one I belong to? Does anyone know which one they belong to? Does anyone have a canonical list? On Day One of what the world's media are already calling The World's Smallest Problem, the first casualty is our certainty.
Help me. Tell me.
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| Top night last night - over to the ICA with Abigail. A little late to see the exhibition - maybe Saturday - so pootling in the shop (captured - Trigger Happy by Steven Poole, which may enrich some stuff I did on play a while ago), a fine blend of Continental cuisine and Uzbekistani service in the caff, and then a showing of Bloody Angels.
As a film, it seems to have polarised opinion, getting a fair bit of stick from the Norwegian jury for portraying a boondock community of a kind that simply doesn't exist in Norway. I will concede that the Lynchian influence is strong, although in fact the opening - laconic, misanthropic homicide expert arrives at crime scene in top-notch red sportscar - was more like a Norse Morse. Although Morse probably wouldn't have got his cock out.
But yes, some very good stuff for a first-time director - very strong central performance from Sorenson as Inspector Ramm, with solid and at times exceptional support from a mixed Norwegian/Swedish cast. Character and script are more important than plot, which is pretty much coherent but skittery. The photography is superb - there is always a sense of vast, crushingly indifferent landscapes just out of shot waiting to swallow up the dereliction of the village, where everything is maintained at the point of decay where it still functions but no attempt is made to disguise the depredations of the Norwegian Winter.
And, perhaps most disconcerting of all, the soundtrack, based around a psychotic rendition of "When the Saints go Marching In", was co-authored by Magne Furuholmen, of Norway's rock giants, A-Ha, still cool as fuck after all these years. Kings of Convenience? Don't make me laugh.
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| I just got the best email ever:
From: The Crotch (mycrotch@hotmail.com)
Subject: Suck my balls
FOR 3 DAYS FOR FREE!
Ok, so I didn't click on the link, but you must admit it's a new and fresh approach to push marketing. I mean, I've never sucked anyone's balls for three days before - I've never had the time spare, I like regular meals and I think it may hurt one or both parties after the first few hours - so if I was going to be induced to try it a free offer may well be very tempting.
Think I'll throw it back into the sea this time, hooever.
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| Tuesday, October 02, 2001 |
| "Celibate". "Monochrome". "Big tackle". "Additional mixing time in the studio".
Vaughan introduces us to the world of Belle and Sebastian fridge poetry. I still owe him pint-long explanations of existentialism and postmodernism, you know. Eep.
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| Speaking of dressing, the Designer Sale is a bad, bad thing. First up, you have to turn up on the first day, or forget about it. Second up, you have to have several hours fre to weed out the shit. Third up, you always panic as its about to close and buy something you really don't need - in this case a pair of white leather Joe Casely-Hayford monkey boots on top of the corduroy desert boots by the same fellow which I definitely did want, despite their Deacon-inducing lack of tread. Other captures included a pair of absurdly late-90s Helmut Lang off-white combats, and the obligatory big comfy nine longsleeve. Not a bad haul, although I've done better.
Oh, finally up, there is a reason why nobody wears Duffer of St. George. Remember it.
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| Is Mary still "existentialistic"? Oh yes.
Is Mary still looking for love? Oh yes.
Is Mary still a fucking nutcase? Oh yes. Observe this classic attempt at the world record for the most uses of "masturbate" in a single paragraph:
I hate male masturbation. I'm disgusted by it. I know that most men masturbate, and I'd begin to see a man who masturbates, but I'm looking for a man who either doesn't masturbate or who doesn't condone masturbation for himself and would prefer to live without it. If a man wanted me to seriously consider him a potential mate, he'd probably want to, eventually, completely give up (to whatever extent he may have been involved in them) masturbation, sexual fantasy, and pornography. I make no absolute value judgments about any choices a man makes regarding these things. I'm just aware of my own personal preferences and values and my need for a man who won't need to masturbate, at least after a while. I just want you to know that if you don't masturbate, or if you'd be able to live without it after getting to know me, I'd consider you a rare gem. (Please don't lie to me about this issue, because if you ever mislead me about anything while we're getting to know each other, there'd be little chance of a lasting relationship).
Another thing which implies that there is little chance of a lasting relationship with anyone who does not regard bathing as a great sacrifice in the name of love is that she expects any interested man to send her back a form letter. A form letter.
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| It makes me absurdly happy to discover that there was/is a computer game based on Philip K Dick's magnum opus, Ubik. And perhaps even more to know that it is a squad-based combat game.
Dude, this is pretty fucked up right here.
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