| Tuesday, October 26, 2004 |
 | Reading the paper on the way into work yesterday - that's the work I am not at - I read a sentence along the lines of:
Leonard Cohen is mainly famous for his song 'Hallelujah', which was covered by Jeff Buckley on 'Grace' and appears on the Shrek soundtrack.
And the who with the what now? But it turns out that they're right. Well, Hallelujah. I'm sort of hoping that Shrek 2 has a comic donkey demanding crack and anal sex, but I'm prepared to settle for the stars.
Modern film confuses me. Perhaps I should consult Robert Evans? Or perhaps I just need to believe...
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| Reading the paper on the way into work yesterday - that's the work I am not at - I read a sentence along the lines of:
Leonard Cohen is mainly famous for his song 'Hallelujah', which was covered by Jef Buckley on 'Grace' and appears on the Shrek soundtrack.
And the who with the what now? But it turns out that they're right. Well, Hallelujah. I'm sort of hoping that Shrek 2 has a comic donkey demanding crack and anal sex, but I'm prepared to settle for the stars.
Modern film confuses me. Perhaps I should consult Robert Evans? Or perhaps I juts need to believe...
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| Reading the paper on the way into work yesterday - that's the work I am not at - I read a sentence along the lines of:
Leonard Cohen is mainly famous for his song 'Hallelujah', which was covered by Jef Buckley on 'Grace' and appears on the Shrek soundtrack.
And the who with the what now? But it turns out that they're right. Well, Hallelujah. I'm sort of hoping that Shrek 2 has a comic donkey demanding crack and anal sex, but I'm prepared to settle for the stars.
Modern film confuses me. Perhaps I should consult Robert Evans? Or perhaps I juts need to believe...
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| You can still be my wingman any day.
Holiday tomorrow, which is a cocking brilliant idea. It is only a frankly demonic approach to mid-term contracts that prevents me from having to take November to a great extent off. It's a strange thing - back in the day, I worked three days in the week, I worried about money, but i had so much time. I could just find a place, curl up and sleep. In fact, it was rather like being a cat - wander round a little, find somewhere warm and safe, curl up and dissolve. Like the world was on hold. I don't get to feel like that right now much, which is a pain.
On the other hand, I have just seen Julian Rhind-Tutt pick up Tamsin Greig and carry her into surgery. I love VHS. I'm not sure any other means of storing visual and audio data is ever going to... do it for me in exactly the same way. I feel much the same way about Julian Rhind-Tutt and Tamsin Greig.
Wait a second. He was in Tomb Raider? Sweet Jesus. I feel dirty now.
Am I rambling? I'm rambling. Long, uncomfortable day, tiring weekend. After a week of enforced, homebodied weakness I kind of lost it, diving first into Ray's with Kit-Cat to continue our diabolical non-smoking plan (no beer, no smoking, no cigarette machine - winner). Onwards in a shambolic retreat to the Chandos and then the inexplicably spacious Marquis of Granby with Ill and the Lantern. Such idyllic times, and such morbid conversation, couldn't last forever. A college friend, leaving for Washington, left LVPO mere minutes before we arrived. Which is a shame, because if we had intersected at the door I could have been spared LVPO. My Christ, that place sucks. A fiver to get in, and I would have happily parted with another to have had the 90 seconds surrounded by nasty suits, nasty people and staff whose good cheer was matched only by their total absence of English sucked forever out of my brain. I mean, what is the point of a place like LVPO? There are something in the way of two hundred better places to drink within walking distance, and that's before you even start counting the living rooms of total strangers and some of the less piss-stained gutters.
Ah well. Years of therapy later, we caught the departing friend up at the Golden Dragon. As loud and as polyglot, but paper tablecloths make all the difference in these situations.
Saturday and, having caught up on some company, my post-bedrest fever settled on commerce. God, I love things. I need to address thins before I end up accidentally buying everything on credit. At least the day's major purchases - this and this - were pretty small.
Speaking of which, Sunday was baby dinosaur time. Not, admittedly, something I had been pining for in my sickness, but how can you fight the power of the baby dinosaurs? A small exhibit, but excellent fun. It seems that half the dinosaurs that I thought had been edited out of history by the evolutionary civil service have now been reinstated, although my introduction of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader to the sticker books still has yet to be ratified. I was sure diplodoci had been erased, but there they were, as dumb and green as ever, but smaller.
I think I like the ankylosaur best when I was a child. I suspect a lot of basically unhappy kids go for the ankylosaurus. Low-running, unobtrusive, heavily armoured. It's not exactly the toughest metaphor in the world to unpick.
Hopefully, the next exhibition will feature the dinosaur's evolutionary brethren and showcase young Zoids. I bet Redhorn the Terrible was an achingly cute baby.
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| Monday, October 25, 2004 |
| While we're on US politics, and who realistically can drag themselves off them at this point, I challenge you to see if your guilty, furtive thoughts of Anne Coulter survive this shit. I'm not saying it was right to throw pies at her. I'm just saying.
The idea seems to be gathering momentum that this is an election of those basing their perceptions on reality and those basing their perceptions on faith. This seems ever so slightly self-serving, inasmuch as it is generally being advanced by those who put themselves on the reality side, but then I suppose that those voting on the strength of faith, in Bush, God or both, would probably not take the suggestion amiss. That's the thing about faith - it defies the evidence.
However, my suspicion, currently hardening into a conviction, is that actually the split is rather between text and television, evinced by the frankly ludicrous nature of the newspapers declaring for Kerry. First Bush's local paper, and now the impeccably GOPpy Orlando Sentinel. Basically, if it's black and white, it's Kerry all over. Whether that's enough - well, we'll see, and disturbingly soon.
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| OK, so what the Hell is up with George Pataki's hair? Is Bush trying to cetralise on Republican hairin a single location? Is this a betrayal of the people who voted for him in the belief that he would cut back big hair...
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| Friday, October 22, 2004 |
| Like Fellowship 9/11. Simple, and tells you exactly what to expect - a Farenheit 9/11 spoof set in Middle Earth. The fact that it is not actually very good is secondary.
Titles are vital. I remain bewildered that there is no film in existence, to my knowlege, called Dead Coeds' Society. That's a Greg Evigan star vehicle if ever I heard one. This before we even consider my planned treatise on the vegetative god, Drop and Give Me Plenty.
Meanwhile, the Iconoclast lives in fear of clasm. And, speaking of violent protest, dude, wouldn't you have been just a little bit tempted? I mean, you've got a darn tazer. How cool is that? Very cool, but not if you never get to use it...
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| Monday, October 18, 2004 |
| So, I'm curious. Did anyone who was aware of the Guardian's noble attempt to sway voters in Ohio by sending them letters from the left-leaning British middle classes have any doubt that this was going to happen? The celebrity examples pretty much demonstrated the problem - AS Byatt begins by quoting poetry (American poet, true, but nonetheless), and Richard Dawkins warns his recipient of the dangers of the "Tony Martin school of foreign policy". This struck me as particularly unproductive, since (a) it demonstrates that the writer cannot find an example that will have meaning and resonance for the American voter and (b) the gloss provided, "Martin was a householder who shot dead a burglar who had broken into his house in 1999", presupposes, hilariously, that the aforementioned American voter will naturally respond "And the what now? A man used a firearm to protect his home against an intruder? Contemptible! The British insistence on keeping and bearing arms is precisely the kind of thing we revolted against."
I did ponder this initiative, and wondered whether there was a case for sending along some collection of statements, communicating the general global unpopularity of Bush, the various facts generally omitted from mention by the Murdoch media ktl. However, this information is all available - from public libraries, from the Internet, from books and films sold and shown across the United States. Somebody who is not interested in seeking them out is unlikely to be swayed by what, for all that only one letter is intended for each household, is in effect a direct mailshot for sanctimony.
If you want to help Kerry get elected, I'd suggest a campaign donation. Failing that, maybe a letter to Springfield telling its random recipient that you trust their good instincts and the instincts of the American people, you're very sorry about burning down the White House, and you support entirely the democratic principles that were at least notionally established by the Revolutionary War. Oh, and that you promise to brush your teeth twice a day. Those seem, from the responses received so far, to be the pressing issues uppermost in the minds of the electorate.
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| Sunday, October 17, 2004 |
| I don't watch all that much television - certainly not enough - but I do find it endlessly fascinating.
1) John Lewis has found my weak spot. Dormice. They have dormice in their new adverts. The bastards. Now I must buy everything they sell. On the plus side, this does at least sort out whether or not I should get an XBox.
2) One for my American chums - is it actually the case the Charisma Carpenter is now acting in Charmed? I realise that it is famously hard for those with long histories in cult television to get proper jobs, but for the love of Heaven...
3) And one for my Sky-possessing chums - is it truly the case, as I suspect it may be, that Hex has actually managed to steal the aforementioned show's crown as the most hideous, embarrassing and insulting attempt to half-inch the magic Buffy beans (note: no, there was no episode involving magic beans; it's a metaphor. There was almost certainly an episode of Charmed involving magic beans, which is precisely the level Hex is going to have to limbo under) yet? I think, on an emotional level, I need it to be ground-breakingly awful.
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| I feel awful. Mainly exhaustion - the helplesness of illness, the inability to stand or move.
So, while I collect myself, have some horror.
Nothing will stop me caring about David Bowie. Nothing, I tell you. He was the first musician I really admired. STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT GET OUT OF MY HEAD
Meanwhile,State prosecutors withdrew allegations made earlier in the trial that Mr Tsvangirai had spoken with Mr Menashe about the "murder" and "assassination" of Mr Mugabe after the words could not be found on the secretly recorded tape.My original joy at this has been damaged slightly by the fact that Tsvangirai still has a lot to get through, and also that this court case, and now the next one, has massively sapped the time and resources of the MDC, but maybe at least it means that Mugabe is becoming susceptible to pressure from other African leaders.
Speaking of dictators, what's so bad about New England anyway?. Personally, I rather like it.
And finally, Duffy. When the Lilac Time were supporting Voice of the Beehive, which is to say a very, very long time ago, Duffy, perhaps bewildered by the comparatively large size of the crowd (you couldn't even see the dog), called out "Anyone who is here to see us and not Voice of the Beehive, make the special Lilac Time hand signal!"
Not a hand, not a signal, not a sausage. Very sad. And thus he became the role model for the dejected everywhere. This return to success is at least proof that Robbie Williams is not necessarily entirely without utility.
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| Thursday, October 14, 2004 |
| I don't usually talk about my religion on my blog, as it seems a very personal and private thing. However, today is rather a special day, and I wanted to share it with you all.
Happy Greg Evigan's birthday! Happy Gregmass, one and all!
Although often confused with the demon Etrigan, the worship of Evigan in fact has continuity with the original cults formed among simple farming folk in the late 70s. For me and millions like me, today is a very special day,when we celebrate Greg's success in B.J. and the Bear - not what it sounds like, my English chums - and My Two Dads - also not what it sounds like. my English chums - celebrate in a more low-key way the verve and passion he brought to the character of Jake Cardigan in William Shatner's much overshatnered Tek War, and make silent prayer for Isabelle Rocks", a series based on the feature-length pilot Murder Among Friends he filmed in Toronto in 2001 which may yet be picked up as a mid-season replacement, although what season exactly we are talking about remains obscure. Greg's character, "Steve", is a private investigator whose feelings for Isabelle often overcome his better judgement - that is, a very bad private investigator.
In what will no doubt be another busy and tiring day for all of us, let's just take a moment to remember what Gregmas is all about.
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| Thursday, October 07, 2004 |
| Who knew? Probably you pundits, but I certainly didn't know that George Bush and Dick Cheney both have DUI histories. It is probably worth remembering, though, that in those days cars were a lot slower and as such there was no danger of actually causing harm to another human being while driving under the influence.
Much possessed with elections at present, probably because nothing very much is going on in my life. I have finally come out from under the big scary secret project, but am now simultaneously exhausted and suffering from terrible cabin fever, so have thrown myself out into the world, knocking back drinks with the usual suspects. Tonight a more sedate and very pleasant meeting with Kit-Cat, and soon, I think, to bed. My third space needs a third space.
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| Who knew? Probably you pundits, but I certainly didn't know that George Bush and Dick Cheney both have DUI histories. It is probably worth remembering, though, that in those days cars were a lot slower and as such there was no danger of actually causing harm to another human being while driving under the influence.
Much possessed with elections at present, probably because nothing very much is going on in my life. I have finally come out from under the big scary secret project, but am now simultaneously exhausted and suffering from terrible cabin fever, so have thrown myself out into the world, knocking back drinks with the usual suspects. Tonight a more sedate and very pleasant meeting with Kit-Cat, and soon, I think, to bed. My third space needs a third space.
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| Many long months ago, I used to write for a site called Upsideclown. Although it is currently on a potentially limitless sabbatical, it had its moments, one of which was indubitably Ritchiegate. Available in more detail here, the short version of Ritchiegate is that one of the contributors sent in a short story on the tragic and wholly fictitious demise of Ritchie Neville, spawned from a discussion of the dangers of not bolting picnic tables to the floor in elevated pub gardens, namely that one might be thrown off and strike Ritchie Neville.
This turned up on Google, and a young fan of 5ive emailed in some confusion, begging us to set her mind at rest, as "Ritchie can't be dead".
Matt asked at the time why that should be - whether, for example, Ritchie was some sort of immortal Mesoamerican river god. Looking back on this, I sincerely hope he isn't. Because otherwise he has an eternity to spend pondering how fast a human being can go from having his pick of the fourth form to shovelling pigshit with Jade Goody's ex.
The true cruelty is that it says here he was the sensitive one. Unlucky.
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| Queerbushing?
Any bets on how Fox will deal with this act of deceit on national news - that is, with one of their people attempting to lie to the American people in order to trick them into seeing Kerry as somehow effeminate and thus unworthy of their vote? I'm guessing a lengthy silence, followed by an assumption that the heat has died down, followed by a campaign about Michael Moore being a big hom.
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