Sunday, October 31, 2004
It’s 7PM. Time for an update. Since yesterday I have walked a lot, been in pain, got a callous on my foot, and looked at a lot of fascinating – if anal – information on aviation history.
God knows why – maybe it’s the fact that there is a Vulcan Bomber for sale on ebay here . Technically, the XL391 is more of a shell, an airframe now, than anything else, but the bit I love about this is the way it says ‘no postage’. I wonder how you’d work out how to transport one of those anyway. But it spurred me on investigate it a bit further on thunder-and-lightnings and discover it might not be the best investment, unless you fancy a bit of rotting, rusting hulking airframe in your (presumably very large) back garden
“The exhaust cowlings are gone and the engine mounts are rusting fast; the landing gear is increasingly unsafe (the nose leg is actually cracked) and is sinking into the sandy soil. The cockpit is open to the public for an entrance fee but most of the instruments and controls including both joysticks have been removed, stolen or smashed by vandals.. the local council are unhappy with its condition and want it gone.”
(NB: Actual item may differ. Contents may settle in transit. etc. )
Oh well. Looks like I better cancel that bombing mission I was hoping to have next week. Though, courtesy of afore mentioned plane archive and also the history of filton airfield at this place, I’ve discovered lots of things.
WARNING:This bit has a lot of pictures:-
1)The absolute farce that was the TSR-2 aircraft program – technically superior to the it’s intended replacement (the F-111) in every way, the TSR-2 was so advanced for it’s time It was even considered being brought out of mothballs by the Conservative government FIFTEEN years after it’s cancellation as a viable and usable long term piece of technology which was able to fulfil the role that the Tornado did. And the TSR-2 certainly was very pretty.
Good god - looking at those numerals just reminds me of old episodes of Captain Scarlet and Terrahawks...
2)Or even the Bristol brabazon – intended to be a long distance airliner, but scuppered by poor timing…read about it here
3)the air-raid on Filton on 25th September 1940. It lasted precisley 49 seconds, and killed an insane amount of people. Funnily enough, it’s the only time to my knowledge that the Pier at Weston-Super-Mare has been used to help a bombing raid…
4)The General State of disrepair and neglect to a lot of Aviation history….Such as the fact that at least one cockpit rescued by an enthusiast has discovered to be radioactive, due it having been rescued from a firing range and having had depleted uranium weaponry used on it. How the hell it ever got sold to a private collector in these instances I haven’t the slightest clue, but that’s irresponsible of the mod TO say the least. Anyway…
Look at this tho’:- Not simply is this only flying courtesy of cans of soft drinks, but contrast and compare how these things could be:-
5)But I did discover what this is:-
Apart form being the cover of suede’s sci-fi lullabies album, it is the derelict shell of a BAE Lightning. You can find it at Otterburn firing range in Northumberland, where it was saved from the 'Blue cross of death', which marks out airframes to be destroyed or sold for scrap. (Such as the Valiant class, of which only one example – serial XD818 – survives, and that’s only because it was the craft that dropped the first british hydrogen bomb in operation Grapple (Though most reports claim it was serial number XD824 that dropped it but still....). It doesn’t mention such things in it’s display at Hendon air museum, presumably because the UK never wants to admit we did such things.By the way, this is a picture of the exact microsecond of detonation - which is fascinating.
FYI, The BAE Lightning at Otterburn which appears on the Suede album is of the F-3 variant, serial XP702. And it wasn’t even British – it was sold to the Saudi Arabian air force, and then shipped back to Britain.AS I found out .Anyway, here’s another picture of the otterburn lightining, and heres one of it in flight .
And looking here reminds me of getting the train to uni. Go past the Teesside Airport – aka RAF Middleton St. George – and I’d see one of these . Can you tell I used to play with matchbox fighter planes when I was young? Can you?
So, what else have I been up to?:- I went out in Brum last night. Old friend of mine called Susan – yes, she’s changed and calmed down a bit – was over from Leicester on a girly night out…To Snobs. I didnt pull. No fucking surprise there. I didn’t expect to. I’ve never pulled in Snobs. But had a great great night. Good to get out and go places, for a damn change. Though I was asked at one point whether I’d be dancing in Snobs, I had to respons with “No, im probably just going to sit on the side of the dancfloor with my pint in hand, being bitter about how none of the girls like me coz Im too much of an old fart”.
But because of the clock change, but the the time it ended (2am after the clock change, or 3am otherwise) there were no night buses anymore. Susan and her mates had all got a taxi back to their hotel – and me? I was stranded. No night buses, and problem was, I didn't have enough money for a Taxi. And the next bus was at 6.11am. This was 2.11am. There was only thing. Walk for it. On the way, I entertained myself with the idea of a childrens book about a cat with magical powers - one that sits of computer keyboards and can type in hidden passwords for a super spy hacker - call him baudolino - who holds down a dayjob as a lawyer. I think i'll call it "The magical adventures of Baudocet"....and had a chat with giles. Lovely man, is giles.
I got home at 4.57am.2 hours 46 minutes walk home. For a 7 mile walk (calculated courtesy of this . Fuckeroo, I really do walk slow nowadays.... must be all that extra bulk around my middle I suppose. No wonder my feet hate me!
God knows why – maybe it’s the fact that there is a Vulcan Bomber for sale on ebay here . Technically, the XL391 is more of a shell, an airframe now, than anything else, but the bit I love about this is the way it says ‘no postage’. I wonder how you’d work out how to transport one of those anyway. But it spurred me on investigate it a bit further on thunder-and-lightnings and discover it might not be the best investment, unless you fancy a bit of rotting, rusting hulking airframe in your (presumably very large) back garden
“The exhaust cowlings are gone and the engine mounts are rusting fast; the landing gear is increasingly unsafe (the nose leg is actually cracked) and is sinking into the sandy soil. The cockpit is open to the public for an entrance fee but most of the instruments and controls including both joysticks have been removed, stolen or smashed by vandals.. the local council are unhappy with its condition and want it gone.”
(NB: Actual item may differ. Contents may settle in transit. etc. )
Oh well. Looks like I better cancel that bombing mission I was hoping to have next week. Though, courtesy of afore mentioned plane archive and also the history of filton airfield at this place, I’ve discovered lots of things.
WARNING:This bit has a lot of pictures:-
1)The absolute farce that was the TSR-2 aircraft program – technically superior to the it’s intended replacement (the F-111) in every way, the TSR-2 was so advanced for it’s time It was even considered being brought out of mothballs by the Conservative government FIFTEEN years after it’s cancellation as a viable and usable long term piece of technology which was able to fulfil the role that the Tornado did. And the TSR-2 certainly was very pretty.
Good god - looking at those numerals just reminds me of old episodes of Captain Scarlet and Terrahawks...
2)Or even the Bristol brabazon – intended to be a long distance airliner, but scuppered by poor timing…read about it here
3)the air-raid on Filton on 25th September 1940. It lasted precisley 49 seconds, and killed an insane amount of people. Funnily enough, it’s the only time to my knowledge that the Pier at Weston-Super-Mare has been used to help a bombing raid…
4)The General State of disrepair and neglect to a lot of Aviation history….Such as the fact that at least one cockpit rescued by an enthusiast has discovered to be radioactive, due it having been rescued from a firing range and having had depleted uranium weaponry used on it. How the hell it ever got sold to a private collector in these instances I haven’t the slightest clue, but that’s irresponsible of the mod TO say the least. Anyway…
Look at this tho’:- Not simply is this only flying courtesy of cans of soft drinks, but contrast and compare how these things could be:-
5)But I did discover what this is:-
Apart form being the cover of suede’s sci-fi lullabies album, it is the derelict shell of a BAE Lightning. You can find it at Otterburn firing range in Northumberland, where it was saved from the 'Blue cross of death', which marks out airframes to be destroyed or sold for scrap. (Such as the Valiant class, of which only one example – serial XD818 – survives, and that’s only because it was the craft that dropped the first british hydrogen bomb in operation Grapple (Though most reports claim it was serial number XD824 that dropped it but still....). It doesn’t mention such things in it’s display at Hendon air museum, presumably because the UK never wants to admit we did such things.By the way, this is a picture of the exact microsecond of detonation - which is fascinating.
FYI, The BAE Lightning at Otterburn which appears on the Suede album is of the F-3 variant, serial XP702. And it wasn’t even British – it was sold to the Saudi Arabian air force, and then shipped back to Britain.AS I found out .Anyway, here’s another picture of the otterburn lightining, and heres one of it in flight .
And looking here reminds me of getting the train to uni. Go past the Teesside Airport – aka RAF Middleton St. George – and I’d see one of these . Can you tell I used to play with matchbox fighter planes when I was young? Can you?
So, what else have I been up to?:- I went out in Brum last night. Old friend of mine called Susan – yes, she’s changed and calmed down a bit – was over from Leicester on a girly night out…To Snobs. I didnt pull. No fucking surprise there. I didn’t expect to. I’ve never pulled in Snobs. But had a great great night. Good to get out and go places, for a damn change. Though I was asked at one point whether I’d be dancing in Snobs, I had to respons with “No, im probably just going to sit on the side of the dancfloor with my pint in hand, being bitter about how none of the girls like me coz Im too much of an old fart”.
But because of the clock change, but the the time it ended (2am after the clock change, or 3am otherwise) there were no night buses anymore. Susan and her mates had all got a taxi back to their hotel – and me? I was stranded. No night buses, and problem was, I didn't have enough money for a Taxi. And the next bus was at 6.11am. This was 2.11am. There was only thing. Walk for it. On the way, I entertained myself with the idea of a childrens book about a cat with magical powers - one that sits of computer keyboards and can type in hidden passwords for a super spy hacker - call him baudolino - who holds down a dayjob as a lawyer. I think i'll call it "The magical adventures of Baudocet"....and had a chat with giles. Lovely man, is giles.
I got home at 4.57am.2 hours 46 minutes walk home. For a 7 mile walk (calculated courtesy of this . Fuckeroo, I really do walk slow nowadays.... must be all that extra bulk around my middle I suppose. No wonder my feet hate me!
Saturday, October 30, 2004
OK, Bit of politics, bit of politics…
Firstly, say hello to osama Bin laden. Hello Bin!!!
Long time, no see. We missed you. Literally. We kept attackin, and you ran away, and we didn’t get you. That’s why the civilian death toll in Iraq has now hit 100,00 since the commencement of the annexation of iraq by King George the 1st.
Osama, you only killed 2,781 of us in 9/11 – that is if people believe you actually committed that atrocity. There’s an awful lot of evidence pointing towards it being a controlled demolition, a Black Op against the US people by someone other than terrorists, but still, that’s not the point. Either way, For every 1 person who died in 9/11 –we in the west have killed over 35 have died in retaliation. Way to go George! Just remember, he’s the bad guy…ok? Nevermind the fact that US led medical sanctions have killed over 500,000 children in iraq between Gulf War I and Gulf War II; or, that translates as, more children under 5 died needlessly from the result of US actions every month than died in 9/11. Hey, don’t forget, he’s the bogeyman people! Not Good ol’ George!
Hey, so anyway. Osama Bin Laden comes out of hiding some , what, 4 or 5 days before the US election. Apart from being a master of delegation - getting your staff to kill themselves for you is the ultimate in employee management, What does he say?
“It never occurred to us that the supreme commander of the US armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face those great horrors alone, at a time when they needed him badly.
"This is because it seemed to him that being preoccupied with the little child's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than being preoccupied with the planes and their ramming into the skyscrapers.
"This gave with three times the period required for carrying out the operations, praise be to God. "
How true. Much whilst I have no respect for him there, he’s certainly speaking a lot of bloody obvious stuff there. It might take something drastic like this, however, to make the US wake up to what exactly George Bush was doing that day. I mean, just look at the cv:- its shocking in its incompotence.
Anyway, Osama continued:-
“O American people, I am speaking to tell you about the ideal way to avoid another Manhattan, about war and its causes and results.
Security is an important foundation of human life and free people do not squander their security, contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. Let him tell us why we did not attack Sweden for example.
"It is known that those who hate freedom do not possess proud souls like those of the 19, may God rest their souls. We fought you because we are free and because we want freedom for our nation. When you squander our security we squander yours.
"I am surprised by you. Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened."
But to avoid the suggestion he supports Kerry, he says:
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and _each state which does not harm our security will remain safe_."
But look at it this way – I bet that Bush says – this proves that Kerry will work with terrerists, he will invite them into our homes and let them attack us. If you vote for Kerry, you are voting for Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is effectively warning people here, implying (rather than being explicit), but he stating that the US people have a choice. What more important choice could they have than the one that faces them on November 2nd
Bush will tell us: He only attacks me because he is scared of me. Bin laden is not scared of Kerry: Bin laden approves of Kerry….and A Vote for Kerry is a vote for Bin laden. A Vote for our enemies. A vote against our mighty nation.
Which is the US vs. them, with us or against us attitude all over again…
What Bush will not tell us, is that he is no closer to finding Osama Bin laden. And that every single US soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan has died in vain. That we are no closer to security of freedom. Mission FAILED.
That the entire farce, the billions of dollars, the sacrifices of personal freedoms and so forth – have all been in vain.
But bush can then say, Osama is still free, unhindered and unfound, at large, and able to orchestrate large attacks still. That the threat is real. And only a fool would turn back now.
And if that scare tactic doesn’t work in swinging the election; what about disenfranchising the legitimate US electorate with widescale election fraud? How the small matter of 57,000 missing or unposted absentee voting papers in Florida? That’s enough to swing one of the key states in the US again.
Or at the very worst, what would it take for George to enact the FEMA, declare a state of emergency and suspend elections?
An attack from Osama Bin Laden before election day? Like what happened in Spain and swung the election there? Bush wouldn’t want to have the election taken out from under him, so the only way to remain in power would be to suspend the constitution and cancel the election due to a national emergency. Bin Laden is alive, the threat is real, all he needs to do is act and BINGO!
If I found a bookies willing to take bets on al-Qaeda attacking US mainland this weekend......Do you reckon I would get an angry visit from the CIA?
Whatever it takes, George. Call me paranoid, but think about the revelation that was Operation northwoods – under the Freedom of Information Act, it reveals that the US planned to orchestrate terrorist attacks against targets such as shipping and so forth in Miami as a pretext to invade Cuba in the run up to bay of Pigs.
Let me run that by you again: the US planned to attack it’s own citizens to blame it on a country it wanted to invade. And this was 40 years ago. 9/11 isn’t even 40 months ago yet. Maybe it’s a step too far, but still….. it could happen. It doesn’t mean it will, but taking the maxim of George’s campaign – whatever it takes – who knows where it will end?
With the Osama Bin Laden election tape?
With the 57,000 missing votes?
With a terrorist attack on the US?
With the Suspension of the constitution?
With the end of Democracy as we know it?
With the installation of King George the 1st?
With the missiles flying into Tehran?
With the troops on the fields of Mediggio?
God only knows.
More news as we get it.
Firstly, say hello to osama Bin laden. Hello Bin!!!
Long time, no see. We missed you. Literally. We kept attackin, and you ran away, and we didn’t get you. That’s why the civilian death toll in Iraq has now hit 100,00 since the commencement of the annexation of iraq by King George the 1st.
Osama, you only killed 2,781 of us in 9/11 – that is if people believe you actually committed that atrocity. There’s an awful lot of evidence pointing towards it being a controlled demolition, a Black Op against the US people by someone other than terrorists, but still, that’s not the point. Either way, For every 1 person who died in 9/11 –we in the west have killed over 35 have died in retaliation. Way to go George! Just remember, he’s the bad guy…ok? Nevermind the fact that US led medical sanctions have killed over 500,000 children in iraq between Gulf War I and Gulf War II; or, that translates as, more children under 5 died needlessly from the result of US actions every month than died in 9/11. Hey, don’t forget, he’s the bogeyman people! Not Good ol’ George!
Hey, so anyway. Osama Bin Laden comes out of hiding some , what, 4 or 5 days before the US election. Apart from being a master of delegation - getting your staff to kill themselves for you is the ultimate in employee management, What does he say?
“It never occurred to us that the supreme commander of the US armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face those great horrors alone, at a time when they needed him badly.
"This is because it seemed to him that being preoccupied with the little child's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than being preoccupied with the planes and their ramming into the skyscrapers.
"This gave with three times the period required for carrying out the operations, praise be to God. "
How true. Much whilst I have no respect for him there, he’s certainly speaking a lot of bloody obvious stuff there. It might take something drastic like this, however, to make the US wake up to what exactly George Bush was doing that day. I mean, just look at the cv:- its shocking in its incompotence.
Anyway, Osama continued:-
“O American people, I am speaking to tell you about the ideal way to avoid another Manhattan, about war and its causes and results.
Security is an important foundation of human life and free people do not squander their security, contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. Let him tell us why we did not attack Sweden for example.
"It is known that those who hate freedom do not possess proud souls like those of the 19, may God rest their souls. We fought you because we are free and because we want freedom for our nation. When you squander our security we squander yours.
"I am surprised by you. Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened."
But to avoid the suggestion he supports Kerry, he says:
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and _each state which does not harm our security will remain safe_."
But look at it this way – I bet that Bush says – this proves that Kerry will work with terrerists, he will invite them into our homes and let them attack us. If you vote for Kerry, you are voting for Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is effectively warning people here, implying (rather than being explicit), but he stating that the US people have a choice. What more important choice could they have than the one that faces them on November 2nd
Bush will tell us: He only attacks me because he is scared of me. Bin laden is not scared of Kerry: Bin laden approves of Kerry….and A Vote for Kerry is a vote for Bin laden. A Vote for our enemies. A vote against our mighty nation.
Which is the US vs. them, with us or against us attitude all over again…
What Bush will not tell us, is that he is no closer to finding Osama Bin laden. And that every single US soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan has died in vain. That we are no closer to security of freedom. Mission FAILED.
That the entire farce, the billions of dollars, the sacrifices of personal freedoms and so forth – have all been in vain.
But bush can then say, Osama is still free, unhindered and unfound, at large, and able to orchestrate large attacks still. That the threat is real. And only a fool would turn back now.
And if that scare tactic doesn’t work in swinging the election; what about disenfranchising the legitimate US electorate with widescale election fraud? How the small matter of 57,000 missing or unposted absentee voting papers in Florida? That’s enough to swing one of the key states in the US again.
Or at the very worst, what would it take for George to enact the FEMA, declare a state of emergency and suspend elections?
An attack from Osama Bin Laden before election day? Like what happened in Spain and swung the election there? Bush wouldn’t want to have the election taken out from under him, so the only way to remain in power would be to suspend the constitution and cancel the election due to a national emergency. Bin Laden is alive, the threat is real, all he needs to do is act and BINGO!
If I found a bookies willing to take bets on al-Qaeda attacking US mainland this weekend......Do you reckon I would get an angry visit from the CIA?
Whatever it takes, George. Call me paranoid, but think about the revelation that was Operation northwoods – under the Freedom of Information Act, it reveals that the US planned to orchestrate terrorist attacks against targets such as shipping and so forth in Miami as a pretext to invade Cuba in the run up to bay of Pigs.
Let me run that by you again: the US planned to attack it’s own citizens to blame it on a country it wanted to invade. And this was 40 years ago. 9/11 isn’t even 40 months ago yet. Maybe it’s a step too far, but still….. it could happen. It doesn’t mean it will, but taking the maxim of George’s campaign – whatever it takes – who knows where it will end?
With the Osama Bin Laden election tape?
With the 57,000 missing votes?
With a terrorist attack on the US?
With the Suspension of the constitution?
With the end of Democracy as we know it?
With the installation of King George the 1st?
With the missiles flying into Tehran?
With the troops on the fields of Mediggio?
God only knows.
More news as we get it.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Thursday, October 28, 2004
George Herbert Walker Bush, from his memoir, "A World Transformed" (1998)
'Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.'
No shit, George. No Shit.
'Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.'
No shit, George. No Shit.
Now available as a .PDF - the first Chapter of ' METALLICA: The Making of Some Kind Of Monster' from here featuring just excerpts of the Beer driven rock star that is Jaymz hetfield as, when asked about the possibility of a documentary film :-
Also, Topping the polls of TOTAL FILM magazine for the much covted role of #1 movie bad guy / villain of 2004? Ahead of Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) in SpiderMan 2, ahead of Dracula in Van Helsing, ahead of everyone else, is President George W. Bush (George W. Bush) ( yes, he has an IMDB credit here ) for his performance as the incredibly stupid Commander-In-Chief of the invading army liberators of Iraq, the latest annex* of the USA, in 'Farenheit 9/11', and other such movies. Most actors - the workshy slackers - only make one movie a year, see how many this guy has done AND he's keeps down a steady day job too. Thats Dedication. Whatever it takes, George, Whatever it takes.....it takes the piss.
Another odd thought: Treat this election in 2004 as if it is your last.It might be.And i wonder, what would it take for mad George , King Dumbya 1st, to suspend constitional rights under the Federal Emergenency Management Act?
After all, just like last time, look whats already happening in Florida. 58,000 voting forms gone missing, as documented here and fnnily enough, it only ever happens in states where Bush is related to the Governor. Not onc,e but twice. Coincidence?
*Annex - Add as subordinate part ; take posession of (as in territory) ; take without right ; add as an addition, attribute (Oxford English Dictionary , 1979)
Also, Topping the polls of TOTAL FILM magazine for the much covted role of #1 movie bad guy / villain of 2004? Ahead of Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) in SpiderMan 2, ahead of Dracula in Van Helsing, ahead of everyone else, is President George W. Bush (George W. Bush) ( yes, he has an IMDB credit here ) for his performance as the incredibly stupid Commander-In-Chief of the
Another odd thought: Treat this election in 2004 as if it is your last.It might be.And i wonder, what would it take for mad George , King Dumbya 1st, to suspend constitional rights under the Federal Emergenency Management Act?
After all, just like last time, look whats already happening in Florida. 58,000 voting forms gone missing, as documented here and fnnily enough, it only ever happens in states where Bush is related to the Governor. Not onc,e but twice. Coincidence?
*Annex - Add as subordinate part ; take posession of (as in territory) ; take without right ; add as an addition, attribute (Oxford English Dictionary , 1979)
Forgive the interlude. I just wish to point out, I have not been replaced by a gay clone of your usual graham, but instead...ladies and gentlemen...On the set of his new gang film 'Alpha Dog', Justin Timberlake.
Fuck me. (Not literally obv.This offer does not apply to men,I'd like to point out, ex-wives, non humans, the undead and so forth) . Looks like Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper. It's almost ......interesting.
Talking of Villans, guess who won the 'movie villain of the year poll' in TOTAL FILM magazine? For his performance in a certain film, President George W. Bush. . Wonder why eh? I don't.
Here's Littlejohn vs. Will Self . I do wonder how little john will cope against Michael Moore, tonight on Question Time.
np:Kraftwerk - Cochella Festival 2004. Excellent soundign audience recording - I could only tell because I could overhear two gippers in the audience having a conversation about Kraftwerk. And the new lyrics to 'Expo 2000 - Planet of Visions' pretty much ruin it, given how fantastic the new bassline is.
'Detroit. We're So Electro. Germany. We're So Electro' naff.naff. naff.
Looks like queen of sky has gone to the great blog heaven. Shame.
Oh, and last nights Bank of Mum and Dad ; about over indebted children who live at home and have returned to the 'Bank of Mum and Dad'. He worked in the City as a Systems Engineer and earned £55.5k pa. His debt? £109K. Not only did he do things like buy designer clothes only, but he got his spuds in Harrods at £2 a lb. He lived on his ex gf's floor as loads of bailifs and the like were after him. He refused to sell his car/clothes to help consolidate his debts. He also didn't see a problem in going bankrupt.
He could sell his house and was prepared to until his dad died, then he changed his mind. One of the people he owed money to was his mum - £40K worth. He ignored her as she just wept and got really stressed at his attitude.
Oh, and he also spent £500 a month on his fucking dog - that figure includes the teddies he got from Harrods for it to tear up. His name ? Warren Pickle.
What an irresponsible snob.
Fuck me. (Not literally obv.This offer does not apply to men,I'd like to point out, ex-wives, non humans, the undead and so forth) . Looks like Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper. It's almost ......interesting.
Talking of Villans, guess who won the 'movie villain of the year poll' in TOTAL FILM magazine? For his performance in a certain film, President George W. Bush. . Wonder why eh? I don't.
Here's Littlejohn vs. Will Self . I do wonder how little john will cope against Michael Moore, tonight on Question Time.
np:Kraftwerk - Cochella Festival 2004. Excellent soundign audience recording - I could only tell because I could overhear two gippers in the audience having a conversation about Kraftwerk. And the new lyrics to 'Expo 2000 - Planet of Visions' pretty much ruin it, given how fantastic the new bassline is.
'Detroit. We're So Electro. Germany. We're So Electro' naff.naff. naff.
Looks like queen of sky has gone to the great blog heaven. Shame.
Oh, and last nights Bank of Mum and Dad ; about over indebted children who live at home and have returned to the 'Bank of Mum and Dad'. He worked in the City as a Systems Engineer and earned £55.5k pa. His debt? £109K. Not only did he do things like buy designer clothes only, but he got his spuds in Harrods at £2 a lb. He lived on his ex gf's floor as loads of bailifs and the like were after him. He refused to sell his car/clothes to help consolidate his debts. He also didn't see a problem in going bankrupt.
He could sell his house and was prepared to until his dad died, then he changed his mind. One of the people he owed money to was his mum - £40K worth. He ignored her as she just wept and got really stressed at his attitude.
Oh, and he also spent £500 a month on his fucking dog - that figure includes the teddies he got from Harrods for it to tear up. His name ? Warren Pickle.
What an irresponsible snob.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Now this is interesting... and I'm not saying these two facts are related But stil...
Firstly, the conspiracy site which is run by radio host Jeff Rense (who's probably not one of those lizard people David 'Turqoise' Icke has been warning us about) which is www.rense.com , and has been very openly critical of Bush and his tactics during this campaign, exposing the whole 'earpiece' debate to a wider audience amongst other things, is missing. Fallen off the web. Does not exist. it's archived in google and so forth, but - hang on - why would it come back with a 'does not exist' message? Unless sufficient pressure has been put on the host to remove the site. Which is censorship. So much for the first amendment of Freedom of speech eh?
Now look at this article then:- . The offical George W. Bush re-election campaign site has been barred to anyone outside the US. Anyone who presumably, is not voting , is not entitled to view it. They will not pay the bandwidth for these people. In other words, they are only interested in people looking at it whose vote they might change. Therefore, what they are buying is votes. In one way. Another way is this - there was one section where you could design your own re-election posts. When we ended up with slogans such as "MORON '04" and so forth, the official website decided to block access to our attempt at subvertising in the WORLD election of Washington.
But anyone can log onto to the bush site anyway courtesy of this proxt server www.megaproxy.com . And what do we see when we get onto the site...it has a big banner. A Slogan for a Tv Advert. And What does that say?
'Whatever It Takes'.
Including running roughshod over democracy, free speech, the first amendment and so forth. Well, it looks as if, like in the film Crimson Tide the US has decided to say that 'We're To Preserve Democracy, Not Practise It'. Fuck the rest of the world, is the message. We don't care about you. We don't need you - Except for oil, and pillaging like a drunken viking on the rampage ina foreign land, I guess. Welcome to Faith-based community. Where the rest of the world and reality does matter.
I'm gonna put my feet on the ground, rather than pretending we can shape the rest of the world into what we want it to be. I'd rather have decisions based in in the unpleasant reality, becase that we're I'm gonna spend the rest of my life. 'Whatever It takes' George...Whatever it takes to get you out. Kerry may not be the best choice for America...but it couldn't be any worse than you, Bush. And Bush is another word for cunt. And that's what he's treating the rest of the world like.
For Gods sake, if you are American, and you read this blog - please consider that where Bush is taking us does not end with your borders. You are only but 4% of the world's population, yet you have 80% of it's wealth, and consume about 80% of its resources. And if it doesn't end at your borders, where will it end? Not Iraq. not Iran. With nuclear Exchanges in Tehran? or in Korea? or in the plains of meddigio - or as we call it in english....Armageddon?
There's more to the world than your country. And that's why i, for one, will not be voting for Blair next time.
Conversation at one point turned onto the topic of - who would be your celebrity fuck fantasy? Well, problem, one of My ex's already did that. He's now a corpse.
Zak Foley was his name. She and I - we'd been together for two years by that point, and living together - When he was in Carrie (the band) in '98, and no one would throw their knickers at him anymore, not like the days of being in E M F , and she had her chance. I got the train home, she got to see the inside of his hotel room. No fucking wonder we split up the next year, and that was only after she started taking weekends away with another bloke. the cow. Zac, for his sins, checked out two years later.
The moral of this story? Don't cheat on me... or someone will fuckin' die ; the end.
FACT. Cheerio for now!
Firstly, the conspiracy site which is run by radio host Jeff Rense (who's probably not one of those lizard people David 'Turqoise' Icke has been warning us about) which is www.rense.com , and has been very openly critical of Bush and his tactics during this campaign, exposing the whole 'earpiece' debate to a wider audience amongst other things, is missing. Fallen off the web. Does not exist. it's archived in google and so forth, but - hang on - why would it come back with a 'does not exist' message? Unless sufficient pressure has been put on the host to remove the site. Which is censorship. So much for the first amendment of Freedom of speech eh?
Now look at this article then:- . The offical George W. Bush re-election campaign site has been barred to anyone outside the US. Anyone who presumably, is not voting , is not entitled to view it. They will not pay the bandwidth for these people. In other words, they are only interested in people looking at it whose vote they might change. Therefore, what they are buying is votes. In one way. Another way is this - there was one section where you could design your own re-election posts. When we ended up with slogans such as "MORON '04" and so forth, the official website decided to block access to our attempt at subvertising in the WORLD election of Washington.
But anyone can log onto to the bush site anyway courtesy of this proxt server www.megaproxy.com . And what do we see when we get onto the site...it has a big banner. A Slogan for a Tv Advert. And What does that say?
'Whatever It Takes'.
Including running roughshod over democracy, free speech, the first amendment and so forth. Well, it looks as if, like in the film Crimson Tide the US has decided to say that 'We're To Preserve Democracy, Not Practise It'. Fuck the rest of the world, is the message. We don't care about you. We don't need you - Except for oil, and pillaging like a drunken viking on the rampage ina foreign land, I guess. Welcome to Faith-based community. Where the rest of the world and reality does matter.
I'm gonna put my feet on the ground, rather than pretending we can shape the rest of the world into what we want it to be. I'd rather have decisions based in in the unpleasant reality, becase that we're I'm gonna spend the rest of my life. 'Whatever It takes' George...Whatever it takes to get you out. Kerry may not be the best choice for America...but it couldn't be any worse than you, Bush. And Bush is another word for cunt. And that's what he's treating the rest of the world like.
For Gods sake, if you are American, and you read this blog - please consider that where Bush is taking us does not end with your borders. You are only but 4% of the world's population, yet you have 80% of it's wealth, and consume about 80% of its resources. And if it doesn't end at your borders, where will it end? Not Iraq. not Iran. With nuclear Exchanges in Tehran? or in Korea? or in the plains of meddigio - or as we call it in english....Armageddon?
There's more to the world than your country. And that's why i, for one, will not be voting for Blair next time.
Conversation at one point turned onto the topic of - who would be your celebrity fuck fantasy? Well, problem, one of My ex's already did that. He's now a corpse.
Zak Foley was his name. She and I - we'd been together for two years by that point, and living together - When he was in Carrie (the band) in '98, and no one would throw their knickers at him anymore, not like the days of being in E M F , and she had her chance. I got the train home, she got to see the inside of his hotel room. No fucking wonder we split up the next year, and that was only after she started taking weekends away with another bloke. the cow. Zac, for his sins, checked out two years later.
The moral of this story? Don't cheat on me... or someone will fuckin' die ; the end.
FACT. Cheerio for now!
More gushing stuff about John Peel. Especially after naming a stage at Glastonbury after him.
At least he was admirable and open in his views. Thats why he was the highlight of the TV program, Grumpy old men. Along with Will Self. If only for the immortal line:- "If you're going to have sex it should be with someone you at least like because then you might as well have a wank" .
Not to mention the fact he was recently diagnosed as diabetic , which not only didn't I know, but he found out on 11th September 2001, as he explains in this fascinating interview and here .EXCERPT: (on his diabetes)
how long have you had it?
well you don't really know do you but i was diagnosed on september the 11th. i'd just come back from the surgery and switched on the tv and the first footage of the planes hitting the world trade centre came on, then the phone rang and the doctor said i had to go straight to west suffolk hospital - which was a bit scary. i was put in a ward on a drip and they kept me there for about 3 days while they stabilised me. it was the last time i was the youngest person in a room... you discover how flatulent old geezers are, it was just disgusting - they were too lazy to get up and just shat themselves - i had to say i'd discharge myself if they didn't open the window"
has it changed much about your life?
not really no, slightly better really. i know now why i get tired and also why i get grumpy in the afternoons. you don't think of me as grumpy do you? [ all of crew go "no john" except louise who says "you're exceptionally grumpy" ] fuck you! [talk moves to discussion about "grumpy old men" (bbc2 show) ] well, as i always say, if you were genuinely grumpy, then you wouldn't do the programme. when they phone you up and say "we've got this programme and its called grumpy old men - want to be in it?" you just say "piss off". so its more like "rather agreeable old men"...
My favourite John Peel moments: due to his familiarity with all things cool and young, being an expert witness about young people's attitude to cunnilingus (that it wasn't evil and that some might like it) during the Oz trial in the 1970s - one of the things the prosecution had taken exception to on grounds of obscenity in the Oz trial was the inclusion of an advert for cunnilingus. So John Peel is saying that oral sex is nice and something to be enjoyed... when one of the journalists present passes a note to the prosecuting barrister. The barrister takes the tip-off:
Barrister: "So, Mr Peel, is it true that you once boasted on your radio show that you yourself have had a venereal disease?'
John Peel:"Well, the programme was about how one of the reasons venereal diseases spread is because if there was wider acknowledgement and discussion about them, then people would know to take preventative action"
Barrister: "So, it's true then that you have had a venereal disease."
John Peel: "Yes it's true. And anyone could get one."
Judge (interjects) : "Anyone? Please could you indicate precisely who could get one, say, in this courtroom?"
John Peel (looks around the room, to the prosecuting and defence barristers, to the public gallery and journalists, to the judge.) "Yes, anyone."
Judge: "THIS IS NOT VERY AMUSING!!!!" and suspends the trial.
The judge went on to order that the glass of water which John Peel was drinking out of be destroyed. He also admitted, years later, that when John Peel's voice came on the radio he was forced to switch it off. Shamelessly cut and pasted from elsewhere, here's selected highlights of his crankiness:-
1) "i know a lot of you young people think that the 70s were some kind of fantasy time where everything was great, but have a listen to this..." *plays 'Just Play Music' by Journey* "....that...THAT is what the 70s were like before punk..."
(2) The time he got Gary Davies to play "You Die" by Napalm Death in return for playing Kylie on his show
(3) The time he set off the Radio 1 emergency broadcast system by playing a tune by Pansonic. The record was so quiet and sub-sonic that after 30 seconds it was interrupted by "RRRRRRRRADIO ONNNNNNE!" and Wonderwall :0/
(4) Peely was the first DJ in the UK to get a copy of "Desire" by Bob Dylan and thus promptly played it on the radio. Half way through "Hurricane" he thought "wouldn't it be the worst thing in the world if I lifted the needle off the record". And then did.
(5) The time in 1987 when He started playing 'When I fall in Love' by Rick Astley only to scratch it off after 20 seconds with "only joking".
(6)The time when he was playing a really good techno record. And then saying "Since there aren't any markings on it, I'm not sure what speed that was meant to be at, so here it is at 33rpm" and playing the whole record again. Fab.
(7)Playing Sliver by Nirvana and remarking on how the guitar came in at the wrong place and playing the beginning again to illustrate the point.
(8)During a show broadcast at the same time as the premiere of Blackeyes "I'd be surprised if listening tonight, I imagine everyone's watching the rutting on BBC2"
My favourite idea? Rather than commerating him with a one minutes silence, there should be a minutes noise instead. Think about it.....
You could get four Napalm Death songs in that time.
today on the now playing experimentometer:
The Ramones - The Ramones
Sick of it All -Outtakes For the Outcast
Jean michel Jarre - Concerts in China (Peking FM Radio Broadcast)
Kraftwerk - Tokyo 1981 (Japanese FM radio Broadcast)
Now downloading: The legal downloads from Raodrunner records here and here, as well as the stuff from fatWreck Records . As well as Iron Maiden bootlegs.Why? Becuase as I'm the dole, I need to a pirate. After all, when 75% of pirates are on benefits Like me, I sort of feel obligated to live down to the reputation. So, again Why? Because I want to.
At least he was admirable and open in his views. Thats why he was the highlight of the TV program, Grumpy old men. Along with Will Self. If only for the immortal line:- "If you're going to have sex it should be with someone you at least like because then you might as well have a wank" .
Not to mention the fact he was recently diagnosed as diabetic , which not only didn't I know, but he found out on 11th September 2001, as he explains in this fascinating interview and here .EXCERPT: (on his diabetes)
how long have you had it?
well you don't really know do you but i was diagnosed on september the 11th. i'd just come back from the surgery and switched on the tv and the first footage of the planes hitting the world trade centre came on, then the phone rang and the doctor said i had to go straight to west suffolk hospital - which was a bit scary. i was put in a ward on a drip and they kept me there for about 3 days while they stabilised me. it was the last time i was the youngest person in a room... you discover how flatulent old geezers are, it was just disgusting - they were too lazy to get up and just shat themselves - i had to say i'd discharge myself if they didn't open the window"
has it changed much about your life?
not really no, slightly better really. i know now why i get tired and also why i get grumpy in the afternoons. you don't think of me as grumpy do you? [ all of crew go "no john" except louise who says "you're exceptionally grumpy" ] fuck you! [talk moves to discussion about "grumpy old men" (bbc2 show) ] well, as i always say, if you were genuinely grumpy, then you wouldn't do the programme. when they phone you up and say "we've got this programme and its called grumpy old men - want to be in it?" you just say "piss off". so its more like "rather agreeable old men"...
My favourite John Peel moments: due to his familiarity with all things cool and young, being an expert witness about young people's attitude to cunnilingus (that it wasn't evil and that some might like it) during the Oz trial in the 1970s - one of the things the prosecution had taken exception to on grounds of obscenity in the Oz trial was the inclusion of an advert for cunnilingus. So John Peel is saying that oral sex is nice and something to be enjoyed... when one of the journalists present passes a note to the prosecuting barrister. The barrister takes the tip-off:
Barrister: "So, Mr Peel, is it true that you once boasted on your radio show that you yourself have had a venereal disease?'
John Peel:"Well, the programme was about how one of the reasons venereal diseases spread is because if there was wider acknowledgement and discussion about them, then people would know to take preventative action"
Barrister: "So, it's true then that you have had a venereal disease."
John Peel: "Yes it's true. And anyone could get one."
Judge (interjects) : "Anyone? Please could you indicate precisely who could get one, say, in this courtroom?"
John Peel (looks around the room, to the prosecuting and defence barristers, to the public gallery and journalists, to the judge.) "Yes, anyone."
Judge: "THIS IS NOT VERY AMUSING!!!!" and suspends the trial.
The judge went on to order that the glass of water which John Peel was drinking out of be destroyed. He also admitted, years later, that when John Peel's voice came on the radio he was forced to switch it off. Shamelessly cut and pasted from elsewhere, here's selected highlights of his crankiness:-
1) "i know a lot of you young people think that the 70s were some kind of fantasy time where everything was great, but have a listen to this..." *plays 'Just Play Music' by Journey* "....that...THAT is what the 70s were like before punk..."
(2) The time he got Gary Davies to play "You Die" by Napalm Death in return for playing Kylie on his show
(3) The time he set off the Radio 1 emergency broadcast system by playing a tune by Pansonic. The record was so quiet and sub-sonic that after 30 seconds it was interrupted by "RRRRRRRRADIO ONNNNNNE!" and Wonderwall :0/
(4) Peely was the first DJ in the UK to get a copy of "Desire" by Bob Dylan and thus promptly played it on the radio. Half way through "Hurricane" he thought "wouldn't it be the worst thing in the world if I lifted the needle off the record". And then did.
(5) The time in 1987 when He started playing 'When I fall in Love' by Rick Astley only to scratch it off after 20 seconds with "only joking".
(6)The time when he was playing a really good techno record. And then saying "Since there aren't any markings on it, I'm not sure what speed that was meant to be at, so here it is at 33rpm" and playing the whole record again. Fab.
(7)Playing Sliver by Nirvana and remarking on how the guitar came in at the wrong place and playing the beginning again to illustrate the point.
(8)During a show broadcast at the same time as the premiere of Blackeyes "I'd be surprised if listening tonight, I imagine everyone's watching the rutting on BBC2"
My favourite idea? Rather than commerating him with a one minutes silence, there should be a minutes noise instead. Think about it.....
You could get four Napalm Death songs in that time.
today on the now playing experimentometer:
The Ramones - The Ramones
Sick of it All -Outtakes For the Outcast
Jean michel Jarre - Concerts in China (Peking FM Radio Broadcast)
Kraftwerk - Tokyo 1981 (Japanese FM radio Broadcast)
Now downloading: The legal downloads from Raodrunner records here and here, as well as the stuff from fatWreck Records . As well as Iron Maiden bootlegs.Why? Becuase as I'm the dole, I need to a pirate. After all, when 75% of pirates are on benefits Like me, I sort of feel obligated to live down to the reputation. So, again Why? Because I want to.
Evening.
Well, Another day, another blog. I could hardly sleep last night and am putting off doing some housework. In this case, As per usual. I feel like I’m in a bit of a rut sometimes, tho’.
What else happened today? Aha, yes. Possibly the funniest thing ever, courtesy of the DSS. Now when a boy and a girl share a property and one is claiming JSA, they have to assess whether they are ‘living together as husband and wife’.
Here’s the funny bit. They’re going to do it for same sex couples.
In other words, no matter who you are, no matter who you are or where you live, if you don’t live on your own, they’re gonna ask you a lot of questions to determine if you are living together as husband and wife. Their definition of living together as ‘husband and wife’ is things like – do you cook together? Do you share clothes washing? Do you buy your own washing powder? Do you help around the house? The fact of the matter is, as long as you aren’t a complete bastard to your housemate, and is occasionally quite a nice chap, then they’re going to deem your (presumably working) mate as your ‘partner’ and chop your benefits. Fucking fucking ludicrous and stupid.
Deny same sex partners the same rights, privileges and recognition, but punish them all the same. Quite simply,you could end up being punished because you’re NOT a bastard to your housemate. Stupid, petty and small minded, all it’s doing is further alienating and breaking down what little remains of the core unit of society – friends & family – in order to save some money on the social bill. Naturally, they won’t curtail military spending, obviously.
What small minded, petty bureaucracy. I can’t wait for them to start asking these questions to divorced brickies who get might, possibly get offended, at the DSS beginning to assume they chug cockjuice like water.
John Peel. 1939-2004. it’s impossible to overstate the importance of John Peel,It really is. The man who brought Led Zeppelin, Joy Division, Nirvana and Napalm Death to our airwaves; they all recorded sessions for his show, and all released them on records. From now on, Radio will be a duller place. No more will we be listening to stuff that will never get radio exposure any other way. No, from now on, it’s going to Radio 1, station of the bland and mediocre y A-B-C list records on the playlist, same as every other bland radio station all across the country. Dammit, why couldn’t it have been Dave Lee Travis instead?
Now, we’re gonna have nothing of any artistic worth on BBC Radio 1. Radio 2 is gonna be more relevant to my life...especially for new bands. Why? Wall to Wall pap like Keane, Westlife and Britney Spears on the playlist how can you expect it to be anything different ? The last truly open minded soul on national radio has gone, and I bet whatever replaces it will be truly shite. Possibly The only alternative is to have someone equally knowledgable about music willing to try newish things with a known history for getting bands in to do sessions and respected by bands – and the only person I can think of who fits that description would be Steve Lamacq. And look what happened – Radio 1 took him off the air and replaced him with fucking Zane ‘twat’ Lowe. Give lamacq the late night session and watch him fly, that’s what I reckon. Of course, they wont’ listen to me, so my opinion ain’t worth a fuck!
In a way John peel was like your dad. But that is, a cool version of your dad, who was lovable and always there. You knew he’d be on the radio and you’d never have a clue what could possibly be next. Dub Reggae or maybe even Morbid Angel, Extreme Noise Terror, or the Fall. And you’d miss that random unpredictability. Somehow I expect them to cut and paste some of his speaking from all his previous shows together into a seamless 2 hour show ‘Hi I’m John Peel and this is my last show, because I’m Dead now’ where they play all his favourite records. Thing is, The fact I’m never gonna hear those dulcet tones coming out with the classics where he would probably say 'And here's 'Unlistenable Ambulances of Doom' with their new 7" single of explodable chocolate records ; its entitled 'Eviscerating corpses out of satan's necrolepsy'. they're in session next week and jolly good it should be too.' Again, and that’s a bit odd. Anyway, a list of all the bands who’ve played sessions for him since 1992 here . And some mp3 downloads recorded for his sessions are … here
At least it’s not like Radio 2-3-4, where the broadcasters go on to the point where they practically die mid broadcast. Can you imagine that? “hi, im johnny walker and I'm 89. EIGHTY NINE! Did i tell you? At least on the radio you can't tell i smell of wee and munch old wethers originals all day…oh and it was all better in my day. They played their own instruments. Like this – “ (Cue interminable jazz records lasting 42 minutes comprised solely of atonal saxophone noises and hooting)
Perhaps the most amazing thing - One day they'll be a Fall record that John Peel never got to hear. And that is bizarre.Perhaps Dave Clarke said it best;-"we thank you all for allowing this wonderful old man to continue broadcasting when he should have been home resting with you "”
Well, Another day, another blog. I could hardly sleep last night and am putting off doing some housework. In this case, As per usual. I feel like I’m in a bit of a rut sometimes, tho’.
What else happened today? Aha, yes. Possibly the funniest thing ever, courtesy of the DSS. Now when a boy and a girl share a property and one is claiming JSA, they have to assess whether they are ‘living together as husband and wife’.
Here’s the funny bit. They’re going to do it for same sex couples.
In other words, no matter who you are, no matter who you are or where you live, if you don’t live on your own, they’re gonna ask you a lot of questions to determine if you are living together as husband and wife. Their definition of living together as ‘husband and wife’ is things like – do you cook together? Do you share clothes washing? Do you buy your own washing powder? Do you help around the house? The fact of the matter is, as long as you aren’t a complete bastard to your housemate, and is occasionally quite a nice chap, then they’re going to deem your (presumably working) mate as your ‘partner’ and chop your benefits. Fucking fucking ludicrous and stupid.
Deny same sex partners the same rights, privileges and recognition, but punish them all the same. Quite simply,you could end up being punished because you’re NOT a bastard to your housemate. Stupid, petty and small minded, all it’s doing is further alienating and breaking down what little remains of the core unit of society – friends & family – in order to save some money on the social bill. Naturally, they won’t curtail military spending, obviously.
What small minded, petty bureaucracy. I can’t wait for them to start asking these questions to divorced brickies who get might, possibly get offended, at the DSS beginning to assume they chug cockjuice like water.
John Peel. 1939-2004. it’s impossible to overstate the importance of John Peel,It really is. The man who brought Led Zeppelin, Joy Division, Nirvana and Napalm Death to our airwaves; they all recorded sessions for his show, and all released them on records. From now on, Radio will be a duller place. No more will we be listening to stuff that will never get radio exposure any other way. No, from now on, it’s going to Radio 1, station of the bland and mediocre y A-B-C list records on the playlist, same as every other bland radio station all across the country. Dammit, why couldn’t it have been Dave Lee Travis instead?
Now, we’re gonna have nothing of any artistic worth on BBC Radio 1. Radio 2 is gonna be more relevant to my life...especially for new bands. Why? Wall to Wall pap like Keane, Westlife and Britney Spears on the playlist how can you expect it to be anything different ? The last truly open minded soul on national radio has gone, and I bet whatever replaces it will be truly shite. Possibly The only alternative is to have someone equally knowledgable about music willing to try newish things with a known history for getting bands in to do sessions and respected by bands – and the only person I can think of who fits that description would be Steve Lamacq. And look what happened – Radio 1 took him off the air and replaced him with fucking Zane ‘twat’ Lowe. Give lamacq the late night session and watch him fly, that’s what I reckon. Of course, they wont’ listen to me, so my opinion ain’t worth a fuck!
In a way John peel was like your dad. But that is, a cool version of your dad, who was lovable and always there. You knew he’d be on the radio and you’d never have a clue what could possibly be next. Dub Reggae or maybe even Morbid Angel, Extreme Noise Terror, or the Fall. And you’d miss that random unpredictability. Somehow I expect them to cut and paste some of his speaking from all his previous shows together into a seamless 2 hour show ‘Hi I’m John Peel and this is my last show, because I’m Dead now’ where they play all his favourite records. Thing is, The fact I’m never gonna hear those dulcet tones coming out with the classics where he would probably say 'And here's 'Unlistenable Ambulances of Doom' with their new 7" single of explodable chocolate records ; its entitled 'Eviscerating corpses out of satan's necrolepsy'. they're in session next week and jolly good it should be too.' Again, and that’s a bit odd. Anyway, a list of all the bands who’ve played sessions for him since 1992 here . And some mp3 downloads recorded for his sessions are … here
At least it’s not like Radio 2-3-4, where the broadcasters go on to the point where they practically die mid broadcast. Can you imagine that? “hi, im johnny walker and I'm 89. EIGHTY NINE! Did i tell you? At least on the radio you can't tell i smell of wee and munch old wethers originals all day…oh and it was all better in my day. They played their own instruments. Like this – “ (Cue interminable jazz records lasting 42 minutes comprised solely of atonal saxophone noises and hooting)
Perhaps the most amazing thing - One day they'll be a Fall record that John Peel never got to hear. And that is bizarre.Perhaps Dave Clarke said it best;-"we thank you all for allowing this wonderful old man to continue broadcasting when he should have been home resting with you "”
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
I did that thing that Di suggests – when you go through your life chronologically.
It was starting to look way too much like step four of the twelve steps plan recovering addicts program to me when I gave up. It started to resemble the whole thing where you have to catalog and ‘Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves’ and then make them right and ask for forgiveness for anyone you have trespassed.
It wasn’t so much looking like a list as the anatomy of as roadcrash.
That’s when I gave up. When I realised some of the major wrongs I have done in the past, and I’ve no way of correcting the vast majority of them. I can never repent.Someone somehwere soon will take care of you, I repent, im sorry, everything is falling apart, as the lyrics go to a song that first tiem I heard the manics play it live, it brought tears to my eyes.
The list? I wrote it. It’s far too depressing to share.
Other news today: Worked on the website uploading some stuff, chatting online, nuthin’ major.
Music breakdown for the Day:
Sleeper – The It girl
Earthtone 9 – Omega
Faith no more – Angel Dust
Wildhearts – Earth Vs. The Wildhearts
U2- Achtung Baby
U2-Zooropa
And a 2 ½ hour phone call. Erm…which means I missed Episode II of Battlestar Galactica – which is a shame, because I really like it. I’m all written out again.And I havent anything else to tell ya, so goodnight. Hugs to you, * you * and especially * YOU *
#5 in a continuing series of miserablisms from the Radiohead site:
It was starting to look way too much like step four of the twelve steps plan recovering addicts program to me when I gave up. It started to resemble the whole thing where you have to catalog and ‘Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves’ and then make them right and ask for forgiveness for anyone you have trespassed.
It wasn’t so much looking like a list as the anatomy of as roadcrash.
That’s when I gave up. When I realised some of the major wrongs I have done in the past, and I’ve no way of correcting the vast majority of them. I can never repent.Someone somehwere soon will take care of you, I repent, im sorry, everything is falling apart, as the lyrics go to a song that first tiem I heard the manics play it live, it brought tears to my eyes.
The list? I wrote it. It’s far too depressing to share.
Other news today: Worked on the website uploading some stuff, chatting online, nuthin’ major.
Music breakdown for the Day:
Sleeper – The It girl
Earthtone 9 – Omega
Faith no more – Angel Dust
Wildhearts – Earth Vs. The Wildhearts
U2- Achtung Baby
U2-Zooropa
And a 2 ½ hour phone call. Erm…which means I missed Episode II of Battlestar Galactica – which is a shame, because I really like it. I’m all written out again.And I havent anything else to tell ya, so goodnight. Hugs to you, * you * and especially * YOU *
#5 in a continuing series of miserablisms from the Radiohead site:
Sunday, October 24, 2004
#2 in a continuing series of slogans from the radiohead website:-
If you listen to me ranting and raving, don’t worry about it. It’s got a lot to do with feeling rejected. My misery, my friend. I embrace it like a long lost brother. But maybe it’s got a lot to do with the 3 pints of cider. This is miserable graham, and how do I know this, well, according to the which Radiohead song are you I am…
What Radiohead song are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Which very depressing, I thought I was at least worth something off ‘The Bends’. Or maybe even the beautiful ‘exit music’. Bleee. Maybe next time, I might make the effort to be a bit more miserable and therefore, worthy.
Anyway, I’ve decided what I might try to do is document, for your interest – and mine – whatever stuff I listen to and watch throughout the day. So far today it has been:-
Metallica – Live shit – Mexico 1993 3xCD
Metallica – Live In London 1997 (CD-R of live B-sides – 12 songs)
Slipknot – Iowa (except the shit songs, of which there are a couple)
Pet Shop Boys – Bilingual (redux – ie changed the running order)
James - 'Sound' (CDR compilation of singles)
I must be in an angry mood of something. Either that or Rock is hewn into my very bones, my very DNA.
You might notice I disabled the anonymous posting on my blog recently. Why? I don’t see how comments such as “fuck my balls, you are such an ass-bandit that you make my eyes bleed.” Help anyone, except vent some childish spleen. So if ya wanna insult me, at least I have the right to know who the hell you are now. So there.
Went out Saturday – met some people. Rebuilding my life, ya know? Starting anew. For a long time I’ve been very reclusive, very insular, and have fallen off the social circle. And why? becuase I had no need to go out. I mean, I met someone a few years ago, and surrendered the empty façade of going out to the same places every week, seeing the same people over and over again…because the whole purpose of going out – meeting new and exciting people, and maybe even possibly have sex with them , was gone. I’d found someone I wanted to be with, but it didn’t work out and now, here I am again. Full circle into misery and loneliness…woe is me. Etc. At least I don’t write narcissic poetry. Which is no slight on anyone, but it just doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t help. I'm crap at writing poetry. Utterly Hopeless. Instead I just listen to songs with miserable lyrics instead, and write here.
As for going out last night, it was odd. Someone I’d been chatting with for a while, but never met before. I like her, in that friendly getting on with each other way rather than lets fuck kind of way. Seemed like someone else liked her in that lets fuck kind of way - one of her friends lept in and asked her out. in front of me. Which was surprising when you meet someone of the opposite sex for the first time. And my response? Well, she said she’d been sworn off men. But then she said ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t want to have fun’. Fair enough, but I would never have stood a chance even If I did like her in the sexual way anyway. Which is I suppose, the rejection blues.
#3 in a continuing series of quotes from the Radiohead site:-
And then it struck me, quite why i had the rejection blues. It wasn't neccessarily because i wanted to be with this girl. I didn't. It was something else - it was the fact that even if i had wanted to be, then the very possibility of that had now disappeared. Maybe though, thats is the wrong reason. Sure, I was scared of being alone. I remembered a conversation with someone a few years ago, and he told me that there were many women who wanted to settle down and get married. I just needed to find one for me.I found one eventually, and we were both so scared of being alone, we ended up with each other. The upshot of which is, as I tend to do in relationships, is that I lose contact with a lot of people I know.They become strangers again.
As for being scared of being alone? I'm alone now. More alone than ever before. What a devil's bargain that was.
Either way, last night I went out with some people, rebuilding stuff. Very theraputic. Very much so.As one of the songs we didn't hear last night - after all, it wasn;t Rush, Saxon, Motorhead or Slipknot, says... ‘Is it enough To live in hope That one day we'll be free Without this fear? I'm going out And carrying on as normal’
Well, What else can I tell you? Yesterday I slept too late. Listened to heavy shit. Noticed the rain, and cancelled any plans I might have for going out of the house. However, given that I had to meet someone at 7pm in the centre of town, I had to leave the house anyway. It was raining, and it continued to rain. Forever, as it does.It felt like it was going to become a cut scene from The Day After Tomorrow….but there again, I’m nowhere near as good looking as Jake Glythenthall. I’m not shagging Kirsten Dunst for a start. (Boo hoo, *the irony the irony….* )
And got a little maudlin. The rejection blues. Maybe I will be alone for the rest of my life. Maybe not. I’d rather be alone though, than in a relationship which is unproductive, or fuelled by negative, parasitic energy – very hippyish, but I realise my relationship with my wife had degenerated into something which was destructive. Do I know when it happened? No. It’s a lot like love – one day you just realise it had happened, and you don’t know when exactly you got stuck in the rut or the pattern, but you only know it had happened. With love, you wake up one day and realise that’s where you are, and there’s never just an instant where it just happens. And it makes me realise that one day maybe there will be someone else out there who might want to be with me for who I am, not as a walking wallet or insecurity safety net of hitting the Big 30 without a husband/bloke. (Obv. No bitterness there. Yes, this is the divorce diary, I suppose. How I wish it could be painless and let us get on with our lives, but that’s too much to ask; but if you expect me to live like a monk until then, I might end up disappointing you).
On a different note, I find myself returning to Ignorance Is Bliss more and more often. I really do enjoy reading it - If I ever get round to linking to blogs I read, it’ll be in there. But there again, I might just end up nicking a load of code from the sidebar, because there’s some really good stuff there. She does that Blogging thing much better than I do. At least she doesn’t turn it into a daily visit to the psychoanalysts chair, like I do. Oh, the humility. I suppose it’d look like #4 on a continuing series of radiohead quotes….
Oh, and this. It’s, Wrong, Wrong, WRONG, WRONGER, WRONGEST!
New-Age Mod.
Which Subculture Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
New Age mod, my arse!Though, when exploring the options there, metalhead, was not one. That woulda suited me fine tho’.
Yes, I’m gonna sign up to the NanoWriMo thingy. Hopefully I will get somewhere with it. I’ve an idea and I think I know where it goes, have done some research, all I need to do is have the impetus of finishing it.
Here’s some crazy picture i found on the interslice. Until tomorrow...
What Radiohead song are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Which very depressing, I thought I was at least worth something off ‘The Bends’. Or maybe even the beautiful ‘exit music’. Bleee. Maybe next time, I might make the effort to be a bit more miserable and therefore, worthy.
Anyway, I’ve decided what I might try to do is document, for your interest – and mine – whatever stuff I listen to and watch throughout the day. So far today it has been:-
Metallica – Live shit – Mexico 1993 3xCD
Metallica – Live In London 1997 (CD-R of live B-sides – 12 songs)
Slipknot – Iowa (except the shit songs, of which there are a couple)
Pet Shop Boys – Bilingual (redux – ie changed the running order)
James - 'Sound' (CDR compilation of singles)
I must be in an angry mood of something. Either that or Rock is hewn into my very bones, my very DNA.
You might notice I disabled the anonymous posting on my blog recently. Why? I don’t see how comments such as “fuck my balls, you are such an ass-bandit that you make my eyes bleed.” Help anyone, except vent some childish spleen. So if ya wanna insult me, at least I have the right to know who the hell you are now. So there.
Went out Saturday – met some people. Rebuilding my life, ya know? Starting anew. For a long time I’ve been very reclusive, very insular, and have fallen off the social circle. And why? becuase I had no need to go out. I mean, I met someone a few years ago, and surrendered the empty façade of going out to the same places every week, seeing the same people over and over again…because the whole purpose of going out – meeting new and exciting people, and maybe even possibly have sex with them , was gone. I’d found someone I wanted to be with, but it didn’t work out and now, here I am again. Full circle into misery and loneliness…woe is me. Etc. At least I don’t write narcissic poetry. Which is no slight on anyone, but it just doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t help. I'm crap at writing poetry. Utterly Hopeless. Instead I just listen to songs with miserable lyrics instead, and write here.
As for going out last night, it was odd. Someone I’d been chatting with for a while, but never met before. I like her, in that friendly getting on with each other way rather than lets fuck kind of way. Seemed like someone else liked her in that lets fuck kind of way - one of her friends lept in and asked her out. in front of me. Which was surprising when you meet someone of the opposite sex for the first time. And my response? Well, she said she’d been sworn off men. But then she said ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t want to have fun’. Fair enough, but I would never have stood a chance even If I did like her in the sexual way anyway. Which is I suppose, the rejection blues.
#3 in a continuing series of quotes from the Radiohead site:-
And then it struck me, quite why i had the rejection blues. It wasn't neccessarily because i wanted to be with this girl. I didn't. It was something else - it was the fact that even if i had wanted to be, then the very possibility of that had now disappeared. Maybe though, thats is the wrong reason. Sure, I was scared of being alone. I remembered a conversation with someone a few years ago, and he told me that there were many women who wanted to settle down and get married. I just needed to find one for me.I found one eventually, and we were both so scared of being alone, we ended up with each other. The upshot of which is, as I tend to do in relationships, is that I lose contact with a lot of people I know.They become strangers again.
As for being scared of being alone? I'm alone now. More alone than ever before. What a devil's bargain that was.
Either way, last night I went out with some people, rebuilding stuff. Very theraputic. Very much so.As one of the songs we didn't hear last night - after all, it wasn;t Rush, Saxon, Motorhead or Slipknot, says... ‘Is it enough To live in hope That one day we'll be free Without this fear? I'm going out And carrying on as normal’
Well, What else can I tell you? Yesterday I slept too late. Listened to heavy shit. Noticed the rain, and cancelled any plans I might have for going out of the house. However, given that I had to meet someone at 7pm in the centre of town, I had to leave the house anyway. It was raining, and it continued to rain. Forever, as it does.It felt like it was going to become a cut scene from The Day After Tomorrow….but there again, I’m nowhere near as good looking as Jake Glythenthall. I’m not shagging Kirsten Dunst for a start. (Boo hoo, *the irony the irony….* )
And got a little maudlin. The rejection blues. Maybe I will be alone for the rest of my life. Maybe not. I’d rather be alone though, than in a relationship which is unproductive, or fuelled by negative, parasitic energy – very hippyish, but I realise my relationship with my wife had degenerated into something which was destructive. Do I know when it happened? No. It’s a lot like love – one day you just realise it had happened, and you don’t know when exactly you got stuck in the rut or the pattern, but you only know it had happened. With love, you wake up one day and realise that’s where you are, and there’s never just an instant where it just happens. And it makes me realise that one day maybe there will be someone else out there who might want to be with me for who I am, not as a walking wallet or insecurity safety net of hitting the Big 30 without a husband/bloke. (Obv. No bitterness there. Yes, this is the divorce diary, I suppose. How I wish it could be painless and let us get on with our lives, but that’s too much to ask; but if you expect me to live like a monk until then, I might end up disappointing you).
On a different note, I find myself returning to Ignorance Is Bliss more and more often. I really do enjoy reading it - If I ever get round to linking to blogs I read, it’ll be in there. But there again, I might just end up nicking a load of code from the sidebar, because there’s some really good stuff there. She does that Blogging thing much better than I do. At least she doesn’t turn it into a daily visit to the psychoanalysts chair, like I do. Oh, the humility. I suppose it’d look like #4 on a continuing series of radiohead quotes….
Oh, and this. It’s, Wrong, Wrong, WRONG, WRONGER, WRONGEST!
New-Age Mod.
Which Subculture Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
New Age mod, my arse!Though, when exploring the options there, metalhead, was not one. That woulda suited me fine tho’.
Yes, I’m gonna sign up to the NanoWriMo thingy. Hopefully I will get somewhere with it. I’ve an idea and I think I know where it goes, have done some research, all I need to do is have the impetus of finishing it.
Here’s some crazy picture i found on the interslice. Until tomorrow...
Saturday, October 23, 2004
I was very quiet yesterday. Busy, interviews with the Social Security people, and working on www.thefinalword.co.uk, as well as watching the new series of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA on sky. And you know what? It's good. Real good. Far better than I had any right to expect.
As for thefinalword.co.uk, this is what I did: News on a new iron Maiden DVD here , Tracklist for the ozzy osbourne box set , and a scathing but deserved review of the new def leppard compilation...
And a thought for the day, courtesy of the Radiohead website. #1 in a continuing series:-
As for thefinalword.co.uk, this is what I did: News on a new iron Maiden DVD here , Tracklist for the ozzy osbourne box set , and a scathing but deserved review of the new def leppard compilation...
And a thought for the day, courtesy of the Radiohead website. #1 in a continuing series:-
Thursday, October 21, 2004
A day of reflection – and the fact is, I had to visit somewhere yesterday. Wednesday Oct 20th 2004. if you’ve read this , some of this will sound familiar…
This begins on October 20 1995. Every morning, I’d try to quickly flick through the morning paper over breakfast. The paper being The Sun, Britain’s best selling rag, the epitome of everything that is wrong with tabloid journalism. Tits, sensationalism and sport coverage. My dad’s excuse was he got it for the sport coverage, but quite why he didn’t get the pink pages of the Sports Argus everyday I don’t know. This morning I couldn’t find the paper, and concluded my mom was probably reading it. Not wanting to disturb her, I didn’t venture past the shut bedroom door. She was probably having a lie in, was my reasoning.
I got up for work, as I always do, inevitably late, most probably at about quarter past eight .Which gave me five minutes to dress, wash and then to eat some cereal, do toast ,which inevitably I would put in a plastic bag, and eat on the train…..That morning tho’, I didn’t read the paper.
I ran for the train. I had a day at work, where I stayed over 20 minutes later just chatting. I got the train, walked home. I saw two cars in the driveway, and I figured at that point, “Uh oh, something’s wrong”. Upon opening the door, my dad came from the living room door, and said “Graham, Mum’s passed away”.
Ever since, I've hated that phrase.it makes it sound like nothing. it's not. it's everything. They're Dead, and no matter how you phrase it, thay isn't going to change. For gods sake, what does the phrase mean? It makes it sound reversible? Are they goign to suddenly decide that death's not really for them, that they are goign to pass back into this world and say 'Yeah, well this death thing, it didn't work out for me, it was all hot down there, so I thought I'd come back to the people who I love? '
Of course not. Don't pussyfoot around. I'm an adult. I know what death is. You don't have to protect me from it.
I sat down in the living room and just sat there silently for five minutes. 'How do you feel?' I remember I was asked. 'I don’t know how I feel' , was the answer , the only answer I could give.
Later on, I went upstairs and saw the body. My brother said the only thing he could think when he touched her was that she was so cold, All he wanted to do was stick a jumper on her so she would warm up.It’s what you do when people are cold, isn’t it?
As mark says, next to her, was the book she was reading – “Falling Angel” by William Hjortsberg; later filmed as Angel Heart. Laid open on page 83. I still have the book somewhere. Well, in fact, it’s on the bookshelf at my ex-wife’s, and I must retrieve it someday. Along with all the other books I love and miss, as is so many other memories.
That morning, I had already ignored or slept through the usual routine of the man of the house. My dad would get up at about seven, cough profusely in the way that smokers do for about 20 minutes - not so much clearing his throat as excavating a new passage with which to breathe,leaving spittle and phlegm in the sink.They he'd sit on the bog so that when you need the bathroom to go to work, you’re confronted with an unpalatable smell of excrement and cigarette smoke that I’ve always associated with death and decay and decrepitness and the failure of being a drug addict ever since. He’d squint at you through his glasses, trying to focus on you like something that’d grown an extra head overnight, but was trying to ignore that and be polite. Then he’d whinge, moan, light up another deathstick, and then follow the usual rote of any drug addict in denial and happy to continue their addiction. Claim that it was too late, as any damage caused by smoking was done by now, and then knowing quite well how lethal it was to health, commit the slow suicide of a man possessed by the self hatred of an addict, costing him £1500 a year.
It was funny really. Despite the hole in the heart and the 40 cigarettes a day, it wasn’t lung cancer that killed my mother, but a heart attack. But smoking killed her. It really did. It's all down to the economics. Look at it this way :-
My parents once took out a loan of £3000 for an operation for my mum – she had a spinal problem and needed some surgery. They took out the loan to do it. When, the next year, she was placed on a list awaiting heart surgery, she had her first heart attack.
I was awake and heard her yelping in pain. Whimpering. Sobbing. When she said “Help me, I’m dying”, I held her hand and ran downstairs to get my dad. I woke him up – he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV, the sports channel on, lost in his comfort zone as he did every night. He looked at me confused, annoyed, like I wasn't his own son but that he'd been awoken by a mere insect bothering him at his heels, at being risen from his precious slumber. I told him, “She says she’s dying”, and he arose and went upstairs. I came upstairs with him, told her dad was here, and left. I didn’t know what else to do. I was paralysed by indecision.
An ambulance was called, and arrived. And in the middle of this, my brother came home; that’s why I curled up in a ball while he sat in the back of the ambulance, as my dad did whatever he normally fucking did anyway. Probably had a fag and a shit, at a guess, but frankly, I don’t fucking care. That sounds very heartless, but there's a reason. Let me explain why.
At the time my mother died, she was awaiting an operation on the National Health Service. It had been delayed and rescheduled three or four times. The only option was to go private, which would have cost at least three thousand quid.
On about 20 a day each, they were spending roughly £4 a day each destroying their own health with their addictions. Between the two of them, this totalled over a year, £2920. To put it in perspective - between the two of them over 30 years, that would have paid for the house in which they lived. They spent the equivalent of a second mortgage on giving themselves cancer. And less than ten years earlier, their son had been hauled into a deputy headmaster’s office and was asked if he was smoking, such was the stain that permeated on his clothes from their slow suicide.
If they had stopped smoking two years earlier, the savings would have paid for the operation that would have saved her life. And he loved his wife so much, he would rather have light up a deathstick than save her life.
And that’s’ why I hate smoking. And if I sound fucking furious, I am. Because it’s not until you sit down and work out the economics of it, as I just have, that it becomes totally clear. I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, and maybe I just don’t understand chemical dependency addiction – or maybe I just don’t understand why someone would just blithely say “I’m fucked, me” and not even pretend to be repentant, but would then carry on repeating a self-destructive pattern until dead, in an ultimate act of selfishness tantamount to second-degree suicide. For those too gutless and spineless to throw themselves in front of a train or off a tall building.
She didn't help herself really, she used the same excuses as he did, and carried on lighting up - but he could have made an effort. He chose not to. She paid the price for it, and him? Still not dead yet.He was alive enough to bring back other women less than six weeks later, and then fuck them on the same bed his wife had died in whilst his son's tried to sleep in the rooms next door. He and my mom had been married over years. Even when I've been in relationships that have ended after 20 days, I've waited longer.
Their lifestyle determined their deathstyle. All they needed was two years of not choking themselves to death, and it could have saved her life.
And that is why he blames me for her death. Why he accuses me of putting her in an early grave. Not the times he brought home 30 rugby players washing home so he could be one of the boys. Not the times when he'd disappear for what seemed like days, only coming home to eat and sleep and then go back out doing his tenpin bowling. fishing / rugby matches. Not the times he was fucking other people. Oh no, it was all my fault, because he is too chickenshit to admit that maybe sometimes, he was wrong.
I know I didn’t help, but it was because I had no idea of the severity of the situation. Part of that was denial. Mostly it was because it was kept from me. They didn’t want to upset me, to worry me, to share it. Why would they? They cared enough, not to want to upset me. To protect me from the worry and pain.
You see, she was a mother. What she did was care. Protect, nuture, look after her children and husband. All she did was be proud of her own home. That’s all she had in life, that was her role. It didn’t help when the husband acted more immaturely than her sons. For gods sake, I’ve forsaken the drink – not that I ever had a problem with it, its just that being drunk always made me feel like shit anyway and why would I want to make myself feel like that ? I’ve never smoked. I don’t do drugs. I’m pretty straightedge like that, and I never ingest anything stronger than paracetomol and caffeine. He was out boozing every weekend. But I digress….I’m not going to say I’m perfect, because I wasn’t.
She died in her sleep. There’s no way of knowing if she felt pain. Ultimately it makes no difference ; because my last memory of her is an odd one. She went to the toilet and then went back to bed. My dad’s memories were one’s he had no right to share with anyone, and ones I wish he never had. The last thing they did after he came to bed was make love, and then she slept. Forever.
He didn’t have to share that intimate precious moment with the people and strangers and workmates at the wake. Or his sons. The very people you only see at weddings and funerals. That’s something between the two of them, and only them.
Every year, I book the day off work and I go to the crematorium. There’s a ‘hall of rememberance’, they call it – not so much a hall as a small room with a book of names in the middle. It used to be inside a glass display table, flat – now they’ve replaced that with a new table, with the books raised at a 45% degree angle. You can’t look down on it now, look down in sorrow. And every year I talk to myself, as if she’s there – that building is the last place I ever saw her, at the end of the hall. All I saw was a wooden box, but I knew what was inside.
I remember the funeral, plastering on a brave place, and listening to Suede’s ‘still life’ before putting on a suit and then standing at the front of the pews, hugging my dad, and unable to sing through the tears. I remember feeling angry. I remember wanting to shout out at the body in the coffin ; I wanted to tell her ‘ Don’t you dare leave without a fight’.
And then I realised she had. She had fought. Fought death – and like everyone, lost. Fought to keep the family going, because she knew without her, there wouldn’t be a family, there would be no glue to keep it together, just two sons with a father they didn’t know anymore because he was too wrapped up in his own world, uncaring of anything that didn’t involve him, simply because he was never there. He once said his ambition was to buy his lads a pint in the pub , thats the kind of man he was. Quite frankly, I can't think of things I'd rather do less than go to the pub with my dad - a stranger to me from another generation. I'd rather he bought me a good book. But to him, being there for his children was less of a priority. I never remember him playing with me, not once. There were always more important things to do – go fishing, watch rugby matches, stand his mates to another round, pretending he was still the man, not just a man, and a broken, old man dreaming of his glory days, at that. A man resentful of his own sons, because having to care for them would have thwarted his own ambitions. After he got married, he had the idea that he would be able to resume his place on the British tenpin bowling team, maybe become a famous sportsman, maybe be watched on TV rather than simply watching. Then she became pregnant, and the cold reality that he was never going to be anyone hit home.
Maybe that’s why he holds anger at both of his sons. Why he is angry neither of them live up to his ambitions. We took his ambition from him, we made him a nobody. He became a father, and suddenly there was someone in his life other than him.And he could blame us for where he is now.
Every year, I go. Every year, I talk. I tell her how I am, what’s been happening, and every year I cry a little. Next year, it will be ten years. Maybe one day people will go there and talk to the book with my name in it instead.
And that was yesterday. A day of reflection. And this still life is all i ever do....
This begins on October 20 1995. Every morning, I’d try to quickly flick through the morning paper over breakfast. The paper being The Sun, Britain’s best selling rag, the epitome of everything that is wrong with tabloid journalism. Tits, sensationalism and sport coverage. My dad’s excuse was he got it for the sport coverage, but quite why he didn’t get the pink pages of the Sports Argus everyday I don’t know. This morning I couldn’t find the paper, and concluded my mom was probably reading it. Not wanting to disturb her, I didn’t venture past the shut bedroom door. She was probably having a lie in, was my reasoning.
I got up for work, as I always do, inevitably late, most probably at about quarter past eight .Which gave me five minutes to dress, wash and then to eat some cereal, do toast ,which inevitably I would put in a plastic bag, and eat on the train…..That morning tho’, I didn’t read the paper.
I ran for the train. I had a day at work, where I stayed over 20 minutes later just chatting. I got the train, walked home. I saw two cars in the driveway, and I figured at that point, “Uh oh, something’s wrong”. Upon opening the door, my dad came from the living room door, and said “Graham, Mum’s passed away”.
Ever since, I've hated that phrase.it makes it sound like nothing. it's not. it's everything. They're Dead, and no matter how you phrase it, thay isn't going to change. For gods sake, what does the phrase mean? It makes it sound reversible? Are they goign to suddenly decide that death's not really for them, that they are goign to pass back into this world and say 'Yeah, well this death thing, it didn't work out for me, it was all hot down there, so I thought I'd come back to the people who I love? '
Of course not. Don't pussyfoot around. I'm an adult. I know what death is. You don't have to protect me from it.
I sat down in the living room and just sat there silently for five minutes. 'How do you feel?' I remember I was asked. 'I don’t know how I feel' , was the answer , the only answer I could give.
Later on, I went upstairs and saw the body. My brother said the only thing he could think when he touched her was that she was so cold, All he wanted to do was stick a jumper on her so she would warm up.It’s what you do when people are cold, isn’t it?
As mark says, next to her, was the book she was reading – “Falling Angel” by William Hjortsberg; later filmed as Angel Heart. Laid open on page 83. I still have the book somewhere. Well, in fact, it’s on the bookshelf at my ex-wife’s, and I must retrieve it someday. Along with all the other books I love and miss, as is so many other memories.
That morning, I had already ignored or slept through the usual routine of the man of the house. My dad would get up at about seven, cough profusely in the way that smokers do for about 20 minutes - not so much clearing his throat as excavating a new passage with which to breathe,leaving spittle and phlegm in the sink.They he'd sit on the bog so that when you need the bathroom to go to work, you’re confronted with an unpalatable smell of excrement and cigarette smoke that I’ve always associated with death and decay and decrepitness and the failure of being a drug addict ever since. He’d squint at you through his glasses, trying to focus on you like something that’d grown an extra head overnight, but was trying to ignore that and be polite. Then he’d whinge, moan, light up another deathstick, and then follow the usual rote of any drug addict in denial and happy to continue their addiction. Claim that it was too late, as any damage caused by smoking was done by now, and then knowing quite well how lethal it was to health, commit the slow suicide of a man possessed by the self hatred of an addict, costing him £1500 a year.
It was funny really. Despite the hole in the heart and the 40 cigarettes a day, it wasn’t lung cancer that killed my mother, but a heart attack. But smoking killed her. It really did. It's all down to the economics. Look at it this way :-
My parents once took out a loan of £3000 for an operation for my mum – she had a spinal problem and needed some surgery. They took out the loan to do it. When, the next year, she was placed on a list awaiting heart surgery, she had her first heart attack.
I was awake and heard her yelping in pain. Whimpering. Sobbing. When she said “Help me, I’m dying”, I held her hand and ran downstairs to get my dad. I woke him up – he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV, the sports channel on, lost in his comfort zone as he did every night. He looked at me confused, annoyed, like I wasn't his own son but that he'd been awoken by a mere insect bothering him at his heels, at being risen from his precious slumber. I told him, “She says she’s dying”, and he arose and went upstairs. I came upstairs with him, told her dad was here, and left. I didn’t know what else to do. I was paralysed by indecision.
An ambulance was called, and arrived. And in the middle of this, my brother came home; that’s why I curled up in a ball while he sat in the back of the ambulance, as my dad did whatever he normally fucking did anyway. Probably had a fag and a shit, at a guess, but frankly, I don’t fucking care. That sounds very heartless, but there's a reason. Let me explain why.
At the time my mother died, she was awaiting an operation on the National Health Service. It had been delayed and rescheduled three or four times. The only option was to go private, which would have cost at least three thousand quid.
On about 20 a day each, they were spending roughly £4 a day each destroying their own health with their addictions. Between the two of them, this totalled over a year, £2920. To put it in perspective - between the two of them over 30 years, that would have paid for the house in which they lived. They spent the equivalent of a second mortgage on giving themselves cancer. And less than ten years earlier, their son had been hauled into a deputy headmaster’s office and was asked if he was smoking, such was the stain that permeated on his clothes from their slow suicide.
If they had stopped smoking two years earlier, the savings would have paid for the operation that would have saved her life. And he loved his wife so much, he would rather have light up a deathstick than save her life.
And that’s’ why I hate smoking. And if I sound fucking furious, I am. Because it’s not until you sit down and work out the economics of it, as I just have, that it becomes totally clear. I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, and maybe I just don’t understand chemical dependency addiction – or maybe I just don’t understand why someone would just blithely say “I’m fucked, me” and not even pretend to be repentant, but would then carry on repeating a self-destructive pattern until dead, in an ultimate act of selfishness tantamount to second-degree suicide. For those too gutless and spineless to throw themselves in front of a train or off a tall building.
She didn't help herself really, she used the same excuses as he did, and carried on lighting up - but he could have made an effort. He chose not to. She paid the price for it, and him? Still not dead yet.He was alive enough to bring back other women less than six weeks later, and then fuck them on the same bed his wife had died in whilst his son's tried to sleep in the rooms next door. He and my mom had been married over years. Even when I've been in relationships that have ended after 20 days, I've waited longer.
Their lifestyle determined their deathstyle. All they needed was two years of not choking themselves to death, and it could have saved her life.
And that is why he blames me for her death. Why he accuses me of putting her in an early grave. Not the times he brought home 30 rugby players washing home so he could be one of the boys. Not the times when he'd disappear for what seemed like days, only coming home to eat and sleep and then go back out doing his tenpin bowling. fishing / rugby matches. Not the times he was fucking other people. Oh no, it was all my fault, because he is too chickenshit to admit that maybe sometimes, he was wrong.
I know I didn’t help, but it was because I had no idea of the severity of the situation. Part of that was denial. Mostly it was because it was kept from me. They didn’t want to upset me, to worry me, to share it. Why would they? They cared enough, not to want to upset me. To protect me from the worry and pain.
You see, she was a mother. What she did was care. Protect, nuture, look after her children and husband. All she did was be proud of her own home. That’s all she had in life, that was her role. It didn’t help when the husband acted more immaturely than her sons. For gods sake, I’ve forsaken the drink – not that I ever had a problem with it, its just that being drunk always made me feel like shit anyway and why would I want to make myself feel like that ? I’ve never smoked. I don’t do drugs. I’m pretty straightedge like that, and I never ingest anything stronger than paracetomol and caffeine. He was out boozing every weekend. But I digress….I’m not going to say I’m perfect, because I wasn’t.
She died in her sleep. There’s no way of knowing if she felt pain. Ultimately it makes no difference ; because my last memory of her is an odd one. She went to the toilet and then went back to bed. My dad’s memories were one’s he had no right to share with anyone, and ones I wish he never had. The last thing they did after he came to bed was make love, and then she slept. Forever.
He didn’t have to share that intimate precious moment with the people and strangers and workmates at the wake. Or his sons. The very people you only see at weddings and funerals. That’s something between the two of them, and only them.
Every year, I book the day off work and I go to the crematorium. There’s a ‘hall of rememberance’, they call it – not so much a hall as a small room with a book of names in the middle. It used to be inside a glass display table, flat – now they’ve replaced that with a new table, with the books raised at a 45% degree angle. You can’t look down on it now, look down in sorrow. And every year I talk to myself, as if she’s there – that building is the last place I ever saw her, at the end of the hall. All I saw was a wooden box, but I knew what was inside.
I remember the funeral, plastering on a brave place, and listening to Suede’s ‘still life’ before putting on a suit and then standing at the front of the pews, hugging my dad, and unable to sing through the tears. I remember feeling angry. I remember wanting to shout out at the body in the coffin ; I wanted to tell her ‘ Don’t you dare leave without a fight’.
And then I realised she had. She had fought. Fought death – and like everyone, lost. Fought to keep the family going, because she knew without her, there wouldn’t be a family, there would be no glue to keep it together, just two sons with a father they didn’t know anymore because he was too wrapped up in his own world, uncaring of anything that didn’t involve him, simply because he was never there. He once said his ambition was to buy his lads a pint in the pub , thats the kind of man he was. Quite frankly, I can't think of things I'd rather do less than go to the pub with my dad - a stranger to me from another generation. I'd rather he bought me a good book. But to him, being there for his children was less of a priority. I never remember him playing with me, not once. There were always more important things to do – go fishing, watch rugby matches, stand his mates to another round, pretending he was still the man, not just a man, and a broken, old man dreaming of his glory days, at that. A man resentful of his own sons, because having to care for them would have thwarted his own ambitions. After he got married, he had the idea that he would be able to resume his place on the British tenpin bowling team, maybe become a famous sportsman, maybe be watched on TV rather than simply watching. Then she became pregnant, and the cold reality that he was never going to be anyone hit home.
Maybe that’s why he holds anger at both of his sons. Why he is angry neither of them live up to his ambitions. We took his ambition from him, we made him a nobody. He became a father, and suddenly there was someone in his life other than him.And he could blame us for where he is now.
Every year, I go. Every year, I talk. I tell her how I am, what’s been happening, and every year I cry a little. Next year, it will be ten years. Maybe one day people will go there and talk to the book with my name in it instead.
And that was yesterday. A day of reflection. And this still life is all i ever do....
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
My hands they pulse. An angry welt is developing on the skin. I look down at my right knuckle and there are patches of red, where the skin has split and fallen away,, where the bleeding has ceased and instead the anti-coagulent agents have been activated.
I hate artex’d wallpaper. I hate falling down the stairs. The instinct is to put your hands out, to grab hold, to stop the fall…..and the result was my skin scraped across the artex, which cut and peeled away the skin. My hand looks like that of a boxer after a fight. Not in the swollen way, but cuts and abrasions.
Grrr.
Not as annoying as the inherent sexism that is assumed by the Department of Social Security. They want me for an interview, and have sent me a nice leaflet called ‘living together as husband and wife’.
WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?
Of couse, because my housemate / friend was NOT born with a cock, automatically they assume we are living together as husband and wife. Like fuck. How fucking sexist is that? I could be living with a bloke as a gay lover, and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid, they wouldn’t care. I’d be automatically receiving income based JSA as opposed to contribution based JSA. But because of an accident of birth, they assume such pretentious shit.
Obviously, some people try it on. Naturally, they assume I am one of them? Naturally, they assume that a man and a woman CANNOT live together or share a roof without being sexual partners, co-habiting in a relationship. Fact of the matter is, we have different rooms, different beds, we haven’t had sex since 1991 (she’s an ex from back in my teens – now I’m a thirty nothing) .
Now, I am already married, I have split from the wife, she chucked my ass out on the street without so much as a proper explanation – I still don’t know what I’ve done so wrong as to have her say ‘You’re not sleeping here anymore. I don’t care where you sleep, its not my problem’, but thank fuck I’m no longer living there. I don’t know why I married her, except for some cockamamie bullshit reason from her church which prevents unmarried people of the opposite gender being friends, lest they become overcome with the thralls of lust simply by gazing into their eyes…yes, such paranoia exists.
Anyway, because where I live it with someone who is not of the same gender, they assume I am living together with her as husband/wife, co-habiting, UNLESS proven otherwise, therefore.... I am a criminal. I am attempting fraud.
GUILTY until proven innocent, they call it in a court of law.
The fact of the matter remains, they have assumed that I am committing attempted fraud. I am therefote, de facto, a criminal. I haven’t committed a crime – I’m the one being accused and assumed.
It’s a simple fact that men and women can be friends without an automatic sexual attraction, or relationship. Millions of people do it, every single day.
But, It sort of comes back to another issue on a mailing list I’m on.
As you might now know, I’m no fan of a certain religious institution. The Church OF Jesus Christ of latter Day Saints, to give them their full title. I’ve covered them elsewhere, but their hypocrisy and corruption is plain to me. However, it’s not me you have to convince, but instead the ones still inside the church with their faith based, us the righteous against them the rest of the hellbound heathen mentality.
The church is very very concerned with sexual morality. Specifically, anything outside the confines of marriage with your partner is explicitly forbidden. Anything that may possibly lead to sexual immorality is condemned.
Consequently, all your contact with members of the opposite sex, if you are not married, is strictly monitored wherever possible. Missionaries from the church are not allowed to visit single women, or women at all, UNLESS the husband is present. Members of the church are, wherever possible, kept apart from each other. Always chaperoned in company. Because you know, leave 2 unmarried members alone for 5 seconds, and you know they will instantly just rip each other’s clothes off, just like people do in the immoral world of sin and lust.
Hell, then the next thing you know, they are saying that they’ve found the one, and getting married quickly. And then they have sex. Lots of it. To bring down their miracle baby aliens whose souls are waiting to be born, without care or thought on how they can support a family of that size with a single minimum wage income. And some people say single mothers are the drain on society…..
Thing is, if they didn’t automatically assume people were guilty, maybe they wouldn’t succumb to temptation so much. I mean, if you’re going to blamed anyway, why not go ahead and do it? The consequences aren’t going to be any different are they? No, it’s based on something else.
The assumption that everyone outside the church is wicked. Evil. In every way possible. Take one example of the paranoia : the instances of one man leaving the church, and his wife stating “if you ever abuse the children, im leaving and you are never seeing them again.” She automatically assumed that because she had decided the church was not for him, he was only doing it to commit evil. To give in to lust and depravity.
It’s the black and white, us and them mentality. Anyone not in the church is evil. They do it because they want to commit sin and evil. There is no other way but the right way, our way. And therefore, the world outside the church is one of lust, immorality and sin.
If they’d spent any time in the outside world, outside this fabrication, outside this image they have constructed of their own righteousness, a world where their bishops ask teenage boys if they masterbate in meetings to assess their righteousness. After all, everytime they masterbate, they commit a sin. They slaughter entire countries. I’ve worked out everytime I have a wank, I’m destroying the equivalent of the entire population of Sweden. Which makes me a mass murderer.Lock me up and put me away…
The way her church views it is like this: just a look of communication, is enough. It means you’ve agreed to meet up and fuck. Anything…look at the world, one of immorality and fornication, and it’s because they aren’t members of the church. The reality is black and white to them, its either you’re with us or against us.
The actual reality is very different. There’s a million shades of grey. People outside the church aren’t all murderers, robbers, rapists, and adulterers. In the churchs mind, anyone outside the church is capable of committing sin, and therefore they are, because the church isn’t stopping them. In my wifes mind, once I told her my opinion that the church was false, I ceased any use in her eyes as a husband. Why?
I couldn’t get her into the highest degree of heaven anymore.And because there was no hope of me ever joining, as one of the damned, I was simply on a highway to hell. Nothing could stop that. And therefore, nothing was going to stop me from a lifetime of robbing, stealing, mugging, and committing sexual atrocities. Was there? Eh?
Yes, im playing devils advocate here. Fact of matter remains, this us and them, black and white, right and wrong attitude costs everyone dear in its ignorance. Like the way George Bush makes faith based decisions with no input from the facts. The way that the church condemned me and my wife to a failed, pointless marriage because of it’s bizarre insistence that we get married or she’d get chucked out. That’s why we married, because her bishop threatened her with disfellowship, nothing more, and its only left us with further pain and suffering. This tragic and unneccasary divorce is the proof. And why is it unnecessary? Because if we’d never have been practically forced to marry – and im beginning to empathise with arranged marriages now – then we’d never have to go through this costly and stupid process now. We could just go our separate ways and that would be that.Wouldn’t that be easier?
But no....we married for her church. Not my church. For her.Go stick your church up your ass. It's already fucked me, go let it fuck you. For 10% of money. For some bizarre godcult. I could list all the reasons why you're not going to heaven, all the ways in which your faith is flawed and false, but you wouldn't listen. A fool and their soul are easily parted.
Life is but a million shades of grey…. But people view it in black and white. That’s why the DSS are sending me leaflets called ‘living together as husband and wife’.I’ve already got a wife, I dont live with her, AND CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE TAKE HER OFF MY HANDS ?
I don’t live in her - my wife's - house. She lives in God’s house. Maybe she should have been looking at what problems she had in her own house, her own life, rather than worrying over the afterlife and what happens in God’s house. Still, fuck it, i just want this whole sorry mess to be over. I wish it had never begun.
I hate artex’d wallpaper. I hate falling down the stairs. The instinct is to put your hands out, to grab hold, to stop the fall…..and the result was my skin scraped across the artex, which cut and peeled away the skin. My hand looks like that of a boxer after a fight. Not in the swollen way, but cuts and abrasions.
Grrr.
Not as annoying as the inherent sexism that is assumed by the Department of Social Security. They want me for an interview, and have sent me a nice leaflet called ‘living together as husband and wife’.
WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?
Of couse, because my housemate / friend was NOT born with a cock, automatically they assume we are living together as husband and wife. Like fuck. How fucking sexist is that? I could be living with a bloke as a gay lover, and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid, they wouldn’t care. I’d be automatically receiving income based JSA as opposed to contribution based JSA. But because of an accident of birth, they assume such pretentious shit.
Obviously, some people try it on. Naturally, they assume I am one of them? Naturally, they assume that a man and a woman CANNOT live together or share a roof without being sexual partners, co-habiting in a relationship. Fact of the matter is, we have different rooms, different beds, we haven’t had sex since 1991 (she’s an ex from back in my teens – now I’m a thirty nothing) .
Now, I am already married, I have split from the wife, she chucked my ass out on the street without so much as a proper explanation – I still don’t know what I’ve done so wrong as to have her say ‘You’re not sleeping here anymore. I don’t care where you sleep, its not my problem’, but thank fuck I’m no longer living there. I don’t know why I married her, except for some cockamamie bullshit reason from her church which prevents unmarried people of the opposite gender being friends, lest they become overcome with the thralls of lust simply by gazing into their eyes…yes, such paranoia exists.
Anyway, because where I live it with someone who is not of the same gender, they assume I am living together with her as husband/wife, co-habiting, UNLESS proven otherwise, therefore.... I am a criminal. I am attempting fraud.
GUILTY until proven innocent, they call it in a court of law.
The fact of the matter remains, they have assumed that I am committing attempted fraud. I am therefote, de facto, a criminal. I haven’t committed a crime – I’m the one being accused and assumed.
It’s a simple fact that men and women can be friends without an automatic sexual attraction, or relationship. Millions of people do it, every single day.
But, It sort of comes back to another issue on a mailing list I’m on.
As you might now know, I’m no fan of a certain religious institution. The Church OF Jesus Christ of latter Day Saints, to give them their full title. I’ve covered them elsewhere, but their hypocrisy and corruption is plain to me. However, it’s not me you have to convince, but instead the ones still inside the church with their faith based, us the righteous against them the rest of the hellbound heathen mentality.
The church is very very concerned with sexual morality. Specifically, anything outside the confines of marriage with your partner is explicitly forbidden. Anything that may possibly lead to sexual immorality is condemned.
Consequently, all your contact with members of the opposite sex, if you are not married, is strictly monitored wherever possible. Missionaries from the church are not allowed to visit single women, or women at all, UNLESS the husband is present. Members of the church are, wherever possible, kept apart from each other. Always chaperoned in company. Because you know, leave 2 unmarried members alone for 5 seconds, and you know they will instantly just rip each other’s clothes off, just like people do in the immoral world of sin and lust.
Hell, then the next thing you know, they are saying that they’ve found the one, and getting married quickly. And then they have sex. Lots of it. To bring down their miracle baby aliens whose souls are waiting to be born, without care or thought on how they can support a family of that size with a single minimum wage income. And some people say single mothers are the drain on society…..
Thing is, if they didn’t automatically assume people were guilty, maybe they wouldn’t succumb to temptation so much. I mean, if you’re going to blamed anyway, why not go ahead and do it? The consequences aren’t going to be any different are they? No, it’s based on something else.
The assumption that everyone outside the church is wicked. Evil. In every way possible. Take one example of the paranoia : the instances of one man leaving the church, and his wife stating “if you ever abuse the children, im leaving and you are never seeing them again.” She automatically assumed that because she had decided the church was not for him, he was only doing it to commit evil. To give in to lust and depravity.
It’s the black and white, us and them mentality. Anyone not in the church is evil. They do it because they want to commit sin and evil. There is no other way but the right way, our way. And therefore, the world outside the church is one of lust, immorality and sin.
If they’d spent any time in the outside world, outside this fabrication, outside this image they have constructed of their own righteousness, a world where their bishops ask teenage boys if they masterbate in meetings to assess their righteousness. After all, everytime they masterbate, they commit a sin. They slaughter entire countries. I’ve worked out everytime I have a wank, I’m destroying the equivalent of the entire population of Sweden. Which makes me a mass murderer.Lock me up and put me away…
The way her church views it is like this: just a look of communication, is enough. It means you’ve agreed to meet up and fuck. Anything…look at the world, one of immorality and fornication, and it’s because they aren’t members of the church. The reality is black and white to them, its either you’re with us or against us.
The actual reality is very different. There’s a million shades of grey. People outside the church aren’t all murderers, robbers, rapists, and adulterers. In the churchs mind, anyone outside the church is capable of committing sin, and therefore they are, because the church isn’t stopping them. In my wifes mind, once I told her my opinion that the church was false, I ceased any use in her eyes as a husband. Why?
I couldn’t get her into the highest degree of heaven anymore.And because there was no hope of me ever joining, as one of the damned, I was simply on a highway to hell. Nothing could stop that. And therefore, nothing was going to stop me from a lifetime of robbing, stealing, mugging, and committing sexual atrocities. Was there? Eh?
Yes, im playing devils advocate here. Fact of matter remains, this us and them, black and white, right and wrong attitude costs everyone dear in its ignorance. Like the way George Bush makes faith based decisions with no input from the facts. The way that the church condemned me and my wife to a failed, pointless marriage because of it’s bizarre insistence that we get married or she’d get chucked out. That’s why we married, because her bishop threatened her with disfellowship, nothing more, and its only left us with further pain and suffering. This tragic and unneccasary divorce is the proof. And why is it unnecessary? Because if we’d never have been practically forced to marry – and im beginning to empathise with arranged marriages now – then we’d never have to go through this costly and stupid process now. We could just go our separate ways and that would be that.Wouldn’t that be easier?
But no....we married for her church. Not my church. For her.Go stick your church up your ass. It's already fucked me, go let it fuck you. For 10% of money. For some bizarre godcult. I could list all the reasons why you're not going to heaven, all the ways in which your faith is flawed and false, but you wouldn't listen. A fool and their soul are easily parted.
Life is but a million shades of grey…. But people view it in black and white. That’s why the DSS are sending me leaflets called ‘living together as husband and wife’.I’ve already got a wife, I dont live with her, AND CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE TAKE HER OFF MY HANDS ?
I don’t live in her - my wife's - house. She lives in God’s house. Maybe she should have been looking at what problems she had in her own house, her own life, rather than worrying over the afterlife and what happens in God’s house. Still, fuck it, i just want this whole sorry mess to be over. I wish it had never begun.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Caffeine. And. Tiredness. Do . Not. Mix.
I haven’t slept. Some days, or nights even , I cannot sleep. Last night I lay in bed, the light off, the patterns on the inside of my eyeballs making pretty shapes – It was rather like watching hawkwind. Except I’ve never seen hawkwind. But I can imagine that’s what it would be like.
And there I am in bed, senses wired up to the Max, hyperalert and tense, and I know I need to be up in 6 hours, 14 minutes and 23 seconds. 22 seconds. 21 seconds…. And still I cannot sleep.
And all that’s running through my brain like a speedball, at 3000 mph, going so fast it leaves tracers on your eyeballs and the sound arrives after you’ve seen it, is WHY CAN’T I GO TO SLEEP? WHY CANT I GO TO SLEEP? WHY CAN’T I GO TO SLEEP PLEASE GOD LET ME SLEEP NOW YES NOW NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY BUT NOW! NOW! NOW!
You get the picture. Still I cannot sleep. I get up. I do things, anything, to keep me awake. To keep me going until I next time I can lapse into the recovery mode of unconciousness.
It’s about the 29th hour that you start to feel a little dizzy. Like the focus on a photograph that’s blurry around the edges. Sluggish. Oddly uninspired. Dull around the edges.
So, as to stave off the relentless onslaught of yet more hours without sleep, and feeling oddly inspired, I choose a movie with lots of shooty bang noises in it, and maybe even a little bit of fucking great cinematography. So, Saving Private Ryan it is.
One of spielbergs’ finest. Hell, that’s certainly saying something, though I was thinking halfway through it, I wonder what Spielberg is up to Now, and then realised the Terminal is still showing at the local googleplex. At promptly remembered why I’ve stopped watching Spielberg films at the cinema: Catch Me If You Can. Terrible, atrocious, dull and disinteresting. It’s enough to put me off Spielberg for life. Anyway, just about every frame of Private Ryan would make a magnificent framed poster for my wall. And that’s not something to say lightly. Brilliant brilliant work.
Anyway, after all that, I’m still knackered, and I still haven’t got much to say, so I’m off to bed.
Whats the chances I’ll like awake in bed, thoughts racing throught my brain, thoughts like WHY CANT I GO TO SLEEP WHY CANT I GO TO SLEEP eh? Very bloody High.Bloody typical, that is.
Night.
I haven’t slept. Some days, or nights even , I cannot sleep. Last night I lay in bed, the light off, the patterns on the inside of my eyeballs making pretty shapes – It was rather like watching hawkwind. Except I’ve never seen hawkwind. But I can imagine that’s what it would be like.
And there I am in bed, senses wired up to the Max, hyperalert and tense, and I know I need to be up in 6 hours, 14 minutes and 23 seconds. 22 seconds. 21 seconds…. And still I cannot sleep.
And all that’s running through my brain like a speedball, at 3000 mph, going so fast it leaves tracers on your eyeballs and the sound arrives after you’ve seen it, is WHY CAN’T I GO TO SLEEP? WHY CANT I GO TO SLEEP? WHY CAN’T I GO TO SLEEP PLEASE GOD LET ME SLEEP NOW YES NOW NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY BUT NOW! NOW! NOW!
You get the picture. Still I cannot sleep. I get up. I do things, anything, to keep me awake. To keep me going until I next time I can lapse into the recovery mode of unconciousness.
It’s about the 29th hour that you start to feel a little dizzy. Like the focus on a photograph that’s blurry around the edges. Sluggish. Oddly uninspired. Dull around the edges.
So, as to stave off the relentless onslaught of yet more hours without sleep, and feeling oddly inspired, I choose a movie with lots of shooty bang noises in it, and maybe even a little bit of fucking great cinematography. So, Saving Private Ryan it is.
One of spielbergs’ finest. Hell, that’s certainly saying something, though I was thinking halfway through it, I wonder what Spielberg is up to Now, and then realised the Terminal is still showing at the local googleplex. At promptly remembered why I’ve stopped watching Spielberg films at the cinema: Catch Me If You Can. Terrible, atrocious, dull and disinteresting. It’s enough to put me off Spielberg for life. Anyway, just about every frame of Private Ryan would make a magnificent framed poster for my wall. And that’s not something to say lightly. Brilliant brilliant work.
Anyway, after all that, I’m still knackered, and I still haven’t got much to say, so I’m off to bed.
Whats the chances I’ll like awake in bed, thoughts racing throught my brain, thoughts like WHY CANT I GO TO SLEEP WHY CANT I GO TO SLEEP eh? Very bloody High.Bloody typical, that is.
Night.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Phrase of the day - “meaningless busywork”. (thanks to someone called Timothy Wall for this) .
Meaningless busywork is the crap we fill our lives with. Meaningless busywork is what we do to fill the time between when we get up and go to work, and when we go to bed. The perpetual illusion of being busy. Of doing something meaningful. Anything. And then, if it’s not meaningful, assigning a purpose to it to fool ourselves that what we are doing is something that truly matters. And the ability to let that which does not truly matter pass.
That’s how we see life, a lot of us.Take a step back, get some persepective. A hundred years from now, who’s going to know what I did today? Is anyone going to care? Is anyone going to know? Is anyone going to know I even ever breathed?
People often frame life in their own terms. Black and White. Right and Wrong. According to their own understanding, according to their own perspective. And then they fit the world in it, compartmentalise it, reduce it, into their own world view, so they can understand it. Rationalise it. Shrink the world into their own value system of right and wrong. That man crossing the street with the dark skin? He’s becomes not a man, he becomes an immigrant, an asylum seeker, a drain on our taxes? That single mother in the block of flats across the road? She becomes the one who had children just to get a flat. She becomes someone who gave birth just for the paycheque of social security. She becomes the sponging scum the Daily Mail and the Sun despise. And still, after all, this, we have to have posters on Buses countering these ideas. Who’d become pregnant simply for the wage of 54p an hour? That’s’ what it works out at.
These people…we reduce them. They are no longer people. They reflect our prejudices. They become bogeymen.Evil. They become targets – targets for white nationalists, who assume that removing all people with dark skin would lead to 100% full employment, zero crime, the place where we can leave our doors unlocked without fear.
Targets for those seeking scapegoats. For those who are nostalgic for a past that never existed, harkening back to some idealised version of an notional Englishness that couldn’t possibly exist in real life - like the National Front hark back to some idealised England that doesn’t exist in reality. Like the John Major’s infamous quote about an England where is sun never sets, of golf courses of village greens….Embracing a notional, non-existent nationalistic ideal, celebrating an England that never existed anyway.
The green and pleasant land of England—celebrated by Prime Minister John Major as redolent of warm beer, cycling old maids, county cricket near village church and misty mornings. An England were children and teenagers batter or murder infants and the aged.
An England where broken marriages have increased six fold between 1955 and 1988. An Englanbd with 1 million single parent families - The fastest growing group of lone parents are the mothers who have never married, and they are also the youngest and poorest. An England where Britain has Western Europe’s highest rate of teenage births. Where 35% of all live births are outside marriage. Where, by 1995 statistics state that 45% of marriages will end in divorce. An England where three million jobless in cities live in a subculture of vandalism and drugs. An England where a group of 1000 drug users has been found responsible for 75,000 crimes over a three-month period.
This is not the England John Major dreamed of. This is the real England. Simply deporting all the darkies and niggers, as the NF and BNP call them, will not magically solve all these problems. Or will it? Once the last Asian has been stuck on the Banana boat back home – despite the fact that over 50% of the UK ethnic population is BORN here, that this is their home, and they don’t know any other home 0 Then suddenly, we can shut every police station in the country. After all, crime WILL cease. After all, everytime I’ve been a victim of crime – I mean, I thought they were white people, but no, I wasn’t a victim of a gang of bored chav’s out for a fight, I was a victim of a gang of Asians in white affluent mainly white area’s looking for a race riot……
What rot. What horseshit. Of course that won’t happen. Of course crime will not cease. Crime knows no colour of skin.
This is the England John Major spoke of. The Classless England. Made of a Class that has less. Major should know better – how can someone born and raised in Brixton have such a simplistic and narrow world view?
Such simplistic reductionism is the danger of how we fit the world to suit our own prejudices and opinions. Where facts are shoehorned into meaning something they never meant in the first place – look at the way blair stated that because the sanctions against Iraq were working, it was proof that Saddam was looking for weapons all along. Look at that and tell me the facts support it. Because they don’t.
Because we live in a society where the rule of the mob is paramount. Where The Sun can claim to be doing it for the children, and advocating hatred, and attacks on adults. Where people stack pedeotricians , not understanding the difference between that and pedophile – as happened in Newport.
Or once, I wish the world would look at the facts, and then make up their mind. Rather than make up their mind and then fit the facts to their own prejudices and world view.
Look at the way that apparently, some in America are voting for Bush simply because a vote for Kerry is a vote against America, and refusing to debate anything outside that simple view of right or wrong. look here to find out. Find out of a world view comprised solely of black and white. It’s documented… here ” today's conservatives are driven by ideology, not by fact. He argues that their stock in trade is denunciation, not debate. Conservatives don't assess opponents' arguments, they demonize opponents. Truth and falsity are out of the picture; the criteria are: who's good, who's evil, who's patriotic, who's unpatriotic”
A world where we have the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, General Jerry Boykin, who once ascribed the capture of a Somali Warlord down to his beleif in God. What did he say? "Well, you know what, I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
This is coming froma general in the US Army for God’s sake.
And in the meantime, we continue our meaningless busywork, hoping to give our lives some purpose, rather than working for a purpose. Rather than working out what the purpose is. Rather than trying to make a better world, we just try to make a better world for us. Not everyone, just us. After all, we are the world. We shrink the world to fit our world views, until at the end, we shrink the world until it’s just ourselves. Just me. Me. ME. And that’s all that matters.
As the Someone once said… "The Age of Information has turned out to be an Age of Ignorance." * (* It was Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, by the way)
There’s a world outside our window, and it’s a world of dread and fear. Well, tonight, don’t thank god it’s them, instead of you. Tonight thank god it’s your world, and you can change it. Do something to change the world. The world for all of us. A better world.
A world you want to live in.
Call me a hippy if you like. I’m not bothered. There’s some things in this world more important than the approval of a million or a billion strangers. There’s something called a conscience. There’s also something called the future. Given that that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life, I’d recommend we do something about it. Sooner rather than later. Because the later we leave it, the less of a future we have, and the more of a past. And those who do not know the past are condemned to repeat it.
I’m not one to repeat the mistakes of the past. Never again. They say never again about the holocaust, but they fail to remember that millions have needlessly died in the wars since. The wars for profit. The great oil wars of the 90-91 and 2001-2004…. The wars of Vietnam. The wars of Afghanistan (1980 and 2002). The columns of flame that charred and incinerated the retreating troops in Kuwait in 1991, who wanted to go home to their families, who didn’t want to be burn alive in a Canyon of Death. After all, how many people does it take before it’s wrong? Six million like in the Holocaust? Two million – like in Cambodia? 850,000 – like in East Timor in 1994? Three thousand, like in New York ? Three?
Never again. Here’s to the future. Never Again will I let that which is wrong be ignored. Oh, for the best of intentions….
Let that which does not matter truly pass.
Some Films are works of genius. Everytime you watch them, you get something more, something new. Which is why, tonight, I treated myself to watching one of my favourite films again for the first time in a long time,.
Ladies and gentlemen…..Fight Club.
And even tonight, on what must be the 12th time I’ve watched it, I got something new from it. Nuances I never noticed before.References from one of the opening scenes to the eventual plot twist. God, Fight Club is one fuck (and a headfuck) of a film.
"When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak"
Listened to ar too many CD’s.; an INXS singles compilation , Die Krupps II:the Final Option , The Missions’ frankly awful “EverAfter live” (soundboard tapes of the ‘99 reformation tour, compressed to fuck and flat as a tundra), and then Vision Thing by the Sisters Of Mercy. At least the sisters never wrote a song with the opening couplet 'mumbo jumbo, hocus pocus'.
Cooked. Now, when i say, i mean 'heat up, follow the instructions on the packet and hope not to incinerate it'. And if i do incinerate it, i just cut off the charcoal and eat it anyway….
INCOMING!
Prompted by a conversation with a friend early in the morning…..Sometimes, I have repetitive dreams. Including one that is very odd.Something about an old, burnt out church or abbey...standing in the ruins with the grass beneath my feet, the sky blood red and fire in the distance
Occasionally I’m driving, and then I turn straight into a city street.This goes back a few years, but it comes back occasionally.
Originally, I think it started way before my recent troubles with religion. Now, my beliefs are quite simple: there is more to this world than you can touch, than you can hear, than you can see. There is something more.I don’t exactly what there is, but there’s things I cannot explain rationally. They can only be explained irrationally. By believeing in something more than logic and fact.
This dream, it started a long time ago. Way before that. It started sometime when i was Uni and was mixed up with some pagans. The really wierd pagans, not the usual ones..Now, you may say that pagans are weird and strange normally, but they’re not anymore strange or weird than , say another religion. Like, say, believing that God forgot the best bits of the bible for 2 millenia, or something.
Back in the backend of 93 to early 94, well, there was a bloke called Glyn I knew. He had a deformed leg, and constantly talking about himself. The type of self obsessed bore at parties who never shuts up, always has something to say even when he has nothing to say, the kind of guy who could make even Ghandi want to bitchslap him and say “shut the fuck up before I advocate the use of violent confrontation, you cocksmoker!”.
And he, for some reason, reminds me of the William Burroughs quote about if you meet someone who makes you feel like you've been drained a quart of plasma after meeting them, then avoid that person. Stay away from Them. Well, Glyn, He was made for that quote. I always felt drained and put upon after seeing him. Like I’d had the problems dumped on me.
It wasnt helped by him knowing where I lived.Now, the next bit, it hinges a bit on your own beliefs, but I’ll run with it anyway. Do you believe in being psychic?
Well, back in those days, I experienced things I can’t explain rationally. I've had out of body experiences - very strange. Apparently, you can do it at will if you do it correctly. The correct techniques of concentration and relaxation combined. Once, I felt myself leave my own body, which was an odd feeling. Back in those days, about 11 years ago, I could occasionally do it willingly.
This Glyn bloke, had two criminal habits. First was constantly telling everyone how good Marillion were. Well, that’s a crime in itself. But the other habit was far more dangerous. A habit of offloading all his stress and anger on other people. He'd almost attach himself to someone emotionally and then they'd be woken by strong, nauseating headaches at about 4AM, Glyns normal bedtime. Which I thought was wierd, and strange, and gave no thought to it when others warned me about it.
Until it started happening to me.
Pounding unstoppable, unexplainable migraine headaches, coming out of nowhere at 3.47am, at 4.19am, waking me, leaving me unable to sleep. Making me feel like someone was sat on the bed stopping me from moving.
I ended up doing an experiment. In my mind, building a wall around my house. A protective shield. Blocking all out not letting anything in. Nothing. Nothing could get inside the wall. I’d still get small headaches. But they’d diminish. They’d go away. I wouldn’t wake until the Postman arrived.
After about a week of this, he stopped calling round after about a week. Very wierd. Unless he was the equivalent of a psychic leech.A parasite. A psychic vampire, if you will, sapping others and
Thats what I mean by wierd pagans.
I always give people the benefit of the doubt, I always let people see my kinder side, I always have faith in people. But if they wrong me, if they take for their own advantage, then i tend to cut them dead. I won’t allow myself to be used like that again , but still...
If nothing else, it's things like that that have shown me there's something more to this world than just what I can see.
Ladies and gentlemen…..Fight Club.
And even tonight, on what must be the 12th time I’ve watched it, I got something new from it. Nuances I never noticed before.References from one of the opening scenes to the eventual plot twist. God, Fight Club is one fuck (and a headfuck) of a film.
"When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak"
Listened to ar too many CD’s.; an INXS singles compilation , Die Krupps II:the Final Option , The Missions’ frankly awful “EverAfter live” (soundboard tapes of the ‘99 reformation tour, compressed to fuck and flat as a tundra), and then Vision Thing by the Sisters Of Mercy. At least the sisters never wrote a song with the opening couplet 'mumbo jumbo, hocus pocus'.
Cooked. Now, when i say, i mean 'heat up, follow the instructions on the packet and hope not to incinerate it'. And if i do incinerate it, i just cut off the charcoal and eat it anyway….
INCOMING!
Prompted by a conversation with a friend early in the morning…..Sometimes, I have repetitive dreams. Including one that is very odd.Something about an old, burnt out church or abbey...standing in the ruins with the grass beneath my feet, the sky blood red and fire in the distance
Occasionally I’m driving, and then I turn straight into a city street.This goes back a few years, but it comes back occasionally.
Originally, I think it started way before my recent troubles with religion. Now, my beliefs are quite simple: there is more to this world than you can touch, than you can hear, than you can see. There is something more.I don’t exactly what there is, but there’s things I cannot explain rationally. They can only be explained irrationally. By believeing in something more than logic and fact.
This dream, it started a long time ago. Way before that. It started sometime when i was Uni and was mixed up with some pagans. The really wierd pagans, not the usual ones..Now, you may say that pagans are weird and strange normally, but they’re not anymore strange or weird than , say another religion. Like, say, believing that God forgot the best bits of the bible for 2 millenia, or something.
Back in the backend of 93 to early 94, well, there was a bloke called Glyn I knew. He had a deformed leg, and constantly talking about himself. The type of self obsessed bore at parties who never shuts up, always has something to say even when he has nothing to say, the kind of guy who could make even Ghandi want to bitchslap him and say “shut the fuck up before I advocate the use of violent confrontation, you cocksmoker!”.
And he, for some reason, reminds me of the William Burroughs quote about if you meet someone who makes you feel like you've been drained a quart of plasma after meeting them, then avoid that person. Stay away from Them. Well, Glyn, He was made for that quote. I always felt drained and put upon after seeing him. Like I’d had the problems dumped on me.
It wasnt helped by him knowing where I lived.Now, the next bit, it hinges a bit on your own beliefs, but I’ll run with it anyway. Do you believe in being psychic?
Well, back in those days, I experienced things I can’t explain rationally. I've had out of body experiences - very strange. Apparently, you can do it at will if you do it correctly. The correct techniques of concentration and relaxation combined. Once, I felt myself leave my own body, which was an odd feeling. Back in those days, about 11 years ago, I could occasionally do it willingly.
This Glyn bloke, had two criminal habits. First was constantly telling everyone how good Marillion were. Well, that’s a crime in itself. But the other habit was far more dangerous. A habit of offloading all his stress and anger on other people. He'd almost attach himself to someone emotionally and then they'd be woken by strong, nauseating headaches at about 4AM, Glyns normal bedtime. Which I thought was wierd, and strange, and gave no thought to it when others warned me about it.
Until it started happening to me.
Pounding unstoppable, unexplainable migraine headaches, coming out of nowhere at 3.47am, at 4.19am, waking me, leaving me unable to sleep. Making me feel like someone was sat on the bed stopping me from moving.
I ended up doing an experiment. In my mind, building a wall around my house. A protective shield. Blocking all out not letting anything in. Nothing. Nothing could get inside the wall. I’d still get small headaches. But they’d diminish. They’d go away. I wouldn’t wake until the Postman arrived.
After about a week of this, he stopped calling round after about a week. Very wierd. Unless he was the equivalent of a psychic leech.A parasite. A psychic vampire, if you will, sapping others and
Thats what I mean by wierd pagans.
I always give people the benefit of the doubt, I always let people see my kinder side, I always have faith in people. But if they wrong me, if they take for their own advantage, then i tend to cut them dead. I won’t allow myself to be used like that again , but still...
If nothing else, it's things like that that have shown me there's something more to this world than just what I can see.
Friday, October 15, 2004
An excerpt from an online conversation….
“go into your heart chakra's, find your power hobby....
"its a lie" says the knitting penguin”
Of course It’s a CGI Penguin….”
No, I am not making this up.
Got up about 10.00am, and went to work. Went to cinema to see Collateral – surprisingly good – beautiful looking. Lots of stuff in the film look like they are intersliced or using different frame rates, but it’s a beautiful looking film. And the focus pulling on it is great, as is the depth of field. It doesn’t look like it’s been shot on Digital, not in the slightest…it’s certainly a damn pretty looking film.
Came back, ate, wrote up a couple of movie reviews, and carried on work on the website . Listened to music, been fairly dull. But I am reminded of something, from the pre MP3 days.
The days when I went to Record Fairs. Firstly, I could afford to go and secondly, could afford to squindle some squids on new. Possibly interesting music at a pound a shot. But anyway, one day, we were walking in the car park in the mid of summer, when we passed a car with an unusual feature inside it.
A dog.
In the middle of summer, and the windows were firmly closed. Now, does anyone remember the phrase ‘dogs die in hot cars’? we did.obviously the owner didn’t.
Its times like this that a pen and a piece of paper can be useful.With an obviously distressed, yelping dog barking for help, we did all we could, short of throwing a brick throw the window, which would have been difficult to justify.
A handily improvised note on the windscreen read as follows:-
"Boiled Dog.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Place dog in car in summer, closing door firmly . Leave No Window open.
2. Leave dog for several hours whilst you go to a gardening exhibition
3. Upon return, dog should be fully cooked. Check filling is hot before serving.
4. Let stand for two minutes
5. You are now ready to enjoy Boiled Dog."
We never heard from the dog again.
“go into your heart chakra's, find your power hobby....
"its a lie" says the knitting penguin”
Of course It’s a CGI Penguin….”
No, I am not making this up.
Got up about 10.00am, and went to work. Went to cinema to see Collateral – surprisingly good – beautiful looking. Lots of stuff in the film look like they are intersliced or using different frame rates, but it’s a beautiful looking film. And the focus pulling on it is great, as is the depth of field. It doesn’t look like it’s been shot on Digital, not in the slightest…it’s certainly a damn pretty looking film.
Came back, ate, wrote up a couple of movie reviews, and carried on work on the website . Listened to music, been fairly dull. But I am reminded of something, from the pre MP3 days.
The days when I went to Record Fairs. Firstly, I could afford to go and secondly, could afford to squindle some squids on new. Possibly interesting music at a pound a shot. But anyway, one day, we were walking in the car park in the mid of summer, when we passed a car with an unusual feature inside it.
A dog.
In the middle of summer, and the windows were firmly closed. Now, does anyone remember the phrase ‘dogs die in hot cars’? we did.obviously the owner didn’t.
Its times like this that a pen and a piece of paper can be useful.With an obviously distressed, yelping dog barking for help, we did all we could, short of throwing a brick throw the window, which would have been difficult to justify.
A handily improvised note on the windscreen read as follows:-
"Boiled Dog.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Place dog in car in summer, closing door firmly . Leave No Window open.
2. Leave dog for several hours whilst you go to a gardening exhibition
3. Upon return, dog should be fully cooked. Check filling is hot before serving.
4. Let stand for two minutes
5. You are now ready to enjoy Boiled Dog."
We never heard from the dog again.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
It’s 9.30pm. The air is cold by my ears. Today was the first day that, when leaving the house the air crystallised in front of me and it frosts over.
It means winter’s coming. That and the early nights, where it draws in close about 5.30pm, and starts to go dark. All this means is one thing: Welcome to Winter. Seasonally Afflictive Depression is my friend.
Winter reminds me of the north. Of Middlesbrough. Of evenings away from home, the central heating and portable heater wacked up full, shivering with cold, the air cold and gray and harsh outside…listening to Depeche Mode and Pop Will Eat Itself, and then heading up to the offlicence on Linthorpe Road for cheap sordid pornography and bottles of MD 20/20. That is, if not heading to Kwiksave or the hangar sized Somerfield – which has it’s own internal weather systems - planning meals down to the last day to avoid any foods wastage and so forth.
I miss being a student sometimes. Not as much as I miss summer. I really do like Summer. It’s warm, and sunny, and winter is none of those things.
Buses were Ok today.Not too shit. Though I did manage a late night trip to Sainsbury’s, to buy chocolate and shaving foam. Hadda be done, otherwise I’d have been even more stubbly.
And most of the time I don’t want to be alive. Sometimes I don’t feel like they’re anything in this world for me. Nothing and no-one. No wonder I have no reason to get up in the morning. Or evening.
Yes, I am being depressing. Here’s some links.
“There’s a storm coming….”
Furious george.
'By God, we've just created the Iraq syndrome!' The Bush Doctrine and reality.
The doubletalk of Bush.
Deconstructing the war on terror.
It means winter’s coming. That and the early nights, where it draws in close about 5.30pm, and starts to go dark. All this means is one thing: Welcome to Winter. Seasonally Afflictive Depression is my friend.
Winter reminds me of the north. Of Middlesbrough. Of evenings away from home, the central heating and portable heater wacked up full, shivering with cold, the air cold and gray and harsh outside…listening to Depeche Mode and Pop Will Eat Itself, and then heading up to the offlicence on Linthorpe Road for cheap sordid pornography and bottles of MD 20/20. That is, if not heading to Kwiksave or the hangar sized Somerfield – which has it’s own internal weather systems - planning meals down to the last day to avoid any foods wastage and so forth.
I miss being a student sometimes. Not as much as I miss summer. I really do like Summer. It’s warm, and sunny, and winter is none of those things.
Buses were Ok today.Not too shit. Though I did manage a late night trip to Sainsbury’s, to buy chocolate and shaving foam. Hadda be done, otherwise I’d have been even more stubbly.
And most of the time I don’t want to be alive. Sometimes I don’t feel like they’re anything in this world for me. Nothing and no-one. No wonder I have no reason to get up in the morning. Or evening.
Yes, I am being depressing. Here’s some links.
“There’s a storm coming….”
Furious george.
'By God, we've just created the Iraq syndrome!' The Bush Doctrine and reality.
The doubletalk of Bush.
Deconstructing the war on terror.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
I opened the bedroom window and glanced across the road.The Evening Mail headline at the shop was “CITY MOM SOLDIER KILLED IN DEATH”.
A million thoughts enter my mind. Panic. Fear. Dread.
I get dressed quickly and go straight to the shop. The thoughts running through my head, are, I hope its not him and I’m running through my head some phone calls I might have to make.
A War comes closer to home when it’s our own people getting killed. That’s why it didn’t matter when 500,000 children died to starvation caused by medical sanction against iraq in the years before Gulf War II – or 3,000 a month. 3,000 people die in New York, and it's a terrorist attack, an end of innocence. 3,000 babies die in iraq and it's just a statistic.
Thats why it doesn't matter that the 20,000 retreating soldiers running back to Iraq to their families, hoping not to die, who were burned alive with fuel-air explosives in the ‘corridor of death’. That’s why we aren’t the bad guys, and they are. Because when buildings in new york collapse and white faces day, it makes better television. If it happens to arabs, it’s just a statistic. As Madeleine Albright said, "Its a price we are willing to pay", ; only because we are not paying it. Someone else is paying. When its our own blood, its different.We’ve got some fucking balls to parade Bigley on the TV like a cause celebre of their inhumanity and their savageness, when what we do is fire and forget, developing new and better ways of killing people for profit.
There’s a reason for this panic. There’s a reason why, when the two towers got hit, the first person I phoned was the girlfriend: She was in town with her friend Jill. All I said to her was “are you anywhere near a TV? Get to one, We’re going to War.”
Jill’s Husband, Stuart, had been in The TA. He used to go around saying there was 'a bullet with my name on it ,and I'm not afraid to die for queen and country'. I doubt somehow the Queen even knows his name, let alone would do the same for him. Apparently, the nickname they had for him at work was ‘cannon fodder’
Everytime I read about a British soldier killed, I worry like hell. For him. For their child, and his unborn second child. It should be due anyday, now. All she wishes is that he would come back to be with her, instead she is alone in a housing complex somewhere on an Army base in Belsen, Germany, five miles from a horrific reminder of the evils of war, in the form of the holocaust museum at the Nazi death camp.
There’s no reason why a child should grow up without it’s father, simply because of some idiot with an election victory behind them (or defeat in the case of Dumbya). Thing is, we in the west own the press. We don’t put pictures of children dying in Africa on the TV. We don’t put pictures of children blown apart by Daisycutters on the front page. We don’t say what evil people we are for selling weapons to dictatorships. What we do is put pictures of smiling men on front pages. Men , who are paid to kill as part of their job. Our men, and therefore, obviously good men. And then it’s our guilt expunged. Come look at our misery, come look at our losses. Its our blood atonement, and then we go on monching triple quarter pounders and driving our SUV’s.
My point is that any death is a tragedy. The colour of the skin makes no difference. Everytime someone dies, it’s someone’s Son. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s husband. Someone’s father.
And it hurts like hell. No matter if they make the front page or not. And when I read of such glorious technological devices as the quaint and harmless sounding “daisy cutter”, which firstly covers every square yard over a space of eight football pitches with fuel vapour, and then ignites it, setting fire to everything in the area like so much human pork on a barbecue ... then it’s not quite so harmless sounding. Imagine a wall of flame across 16 square acres that sucks the air up to fuel the fire from the lungs of its victims, or normally asphyxsiate before burning to death, and tell me that we are the good side. We invented these things, not Saddam. We use these things, Saddam didn’t. And we are the good guys, remember? What do you mean you can't tell the difference?
The whole Idea is like a gun: its only a threat if it’s not your finger on the trigger. Then We’re a threat to everyone else in the world.
We shouldn’t be there, its as simple as that. We are breeding an entire continent of resentment against the west, and thinking we can use our bully boy technology to further our aims. Just because we got the power, doesn’t me we have the right. We in the west mistake the capability to do something with the idea that god gave us this technology for a reason, to do his will. Fact is, if God wanted us to do our will, we wouldn’t covet their oil, suffer from the Pride of going against this will by claiming what we want to do is his will, we Wouldn’t lie about the reasons to go to war, and we certainly would abide by the commandment “thou shalt not kill”. , rather than ordering mass bombings and invasions.There’s no difference between ordering the bombing and committing murder, and slitting their throats yourself. it's this that makes Bush a mass murderer. All we have is The bravery of being out of range, while the underclass hoping for education is going around as mercenaries – hired killers – for the ruling oligarchy of media barons and life peers.
The ultimate end of all this is that one day, the killing will stop. Only when man realises we have a limited lifespan. That people doing for profit will leave those responsible to burn in hell – like being trapped in the burning paroxysm of a ‘daisycutter’, for ever. Only when leaders realises that might is wrong, that all we are is one race, and the entire world is one big island, one landmass, with just 70% of it covered in water. One race. The human race. And if we’re not sensible, we’ll blow ourselves off this planet in a fit of insanity, having amused ourselves to death.
Until then, every death as a result of this war is a result of a senseless occupation, an invasion for no good reason except the hubris and desire by the US to dominate the world and neuter the Un. Every death is pointless and avoidable. It’s only when the number of Us troops that has died in Iraq/Afghanistan exceeds the amount that died on 9/11 will the Us people realise this is their vietnam, and that bush has been responsible for more deaths than terrorists…
There’s only one way to stop the cycle of violence. The longer we perpetuate it, the longer it will continue. And people will carry on dying a senseless pointless death.
Bring the boys back home. There’s too many children growing up without fathers, too many women growing up without husbands, already.
In the meantime, I’m scanning over the news reports, the headlines. Dreading the day when I have to make the phone calls; to my wife, to her friends, and tell her that her bridesmaid’s husband is dead. And how can anyone benefit from that?
A million thoughts enter my mind. Panic. Fear. Dread.
I get dressed quickly and go straight to the shop. The thoughts running through my head, are, I hope its not him and I’m running through my head some phone calls I might have to make.
A War comes closer to home when it’s our own people getting killed. That’s why it didn’t matter when 500,000 children died to starvation caused by medical sanction against iraq in the years before Gulf War II – or 3,000 a month. 3,000 people die in New York, and it's a terrorist attack, an end of innocence. 3,000 babies die in iraq and it's just a statistic.
Thats why it doesn't matter that the 20,000 retreating soldiers running back to Iraq to their families, hoping not to die, who were burned alive with fuel-air explosives in the ‘corridor of death’. That’s why we aren’t the bad guys, and they are. Because when buildings in new york collapse and white faces day, it makes better television. If it happens to arabs, it’s just a statistic. As Madeleine Albright said, "Its a price we are willing to pay", ; only because we are not paying it. Someone else is paying. When its our own blood, its different.We’ve got some fucking balls to parade Bigley on the TV like a cause celebre of their inhumanity and their savageness, when what we do is fire and forget, developing new and better ways of killing people for profit.
There’s a reason for this panic. There’s a reason why, when the two towers got hit, the first person I phoned was the girlfriend: She was in town with her friend Jill. All I said to her was “are you anywhere near a TV? Get to one, We’re going to War.”
Jill’s Husband, Stuart, had been in The TA. He used to go around saying there was 'a bullet with my name on it ,and I'm not afraid to die for queen and country'. I doubt somehow the Queen even knows his name, let alone would do the same for him. Apparently, the nickname they had for him at work was ‘cannon fodder’
Everytime I read about a British soldier killed, I worry like hell. For him. For their child, and his unborn second child. It should be due anyday, now. All she wishes is that he would come back to be with her, instead she is alone in a housing complex somewhere on an Army base in Belsen, Germany, five miles from a horrific reminder of the evils of war, in the form of the holocaust museum at the Nazi death camp.
There’s no reason why a child should grow up without it’s father, simply because of some idiot with an election victory behind them (or defeat in the case of Dumbya). Thing is, we in the west own the press. We don’t put pictures of children dying in Africa on the TV. We don’t put pictures of children blown apart by Daisycutters on the front page. We don’t say what evil people we are for selling weapons to dictatorships. What we do is put pictures of smiling men on front pages. Men , who are paid to kill as part of their job. Our men, and therefore, obviously good men. And then it’s our guilt expunged. Come look at our misery, come look at our losses. Its our blood atonement, and then we go on monching triple quarter pounders and driving our SUV’s.
My point is that any death is a tragedy. The colour of the skin makes no difference. Everytime someone dies, it’s someone’s Son. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s husband. Someone’s father.
And it hurts like hell. No matter if they make the front page or not. And when I read of such glorious technological devices as the quaint and harmless sounding “daisy cutter”, which firstly covers every square yard over a space of eight football pitches with fuel vapour, and then ignites it, setting fire to everything in the area like so much human pork on a barbecue ... then it’s not quite so harmless sounding. Imagine a wall of flame across 16 square acres that sucks the air up to fuel the fire from the lungs of its victims, or normally asphyxsiate before burning to death, and tell me that we are the good side. We invented these things, not Saddam. We use these things, Saddam didn’t. And we are the good guys, remember? What do you mean you can't tell the difference?
The whole Idea is like a gun: its only a threat if it’s not your finger on the trigger. Then We’re a threat to everyone else in the world.
We shouldn’t be there, its as simple as that. We are breeding an entire continent of resentment against the west, and thinking we can use our bully boy technology to further our aims. Just because we got the power, doesn’t me we have the right. We in the west mistake the capability to do something with the idea that god gave us this technology for a reason, to do his will. Fact is, if God wanted us to do our will, we wouldn’t covet their oil, suffer from the Pride of going against this will by claiming what we want to do is his will, we Wouldn’t lie about the reasons to go to war, and we certainly would abide by the commandment “thou shalt not kill”. , rather than ordering mass bombings and invasions.There’s no difference between ordering the bombing and committing murder, and slitting their throats yourself. it's this that makes Bush a mass murderer. All we have is The bravery of being out of range, while the underclass hoping for education is going around as mercenaries – hired killers – for the ruling oligarchy of media barons and life peers.
The ultimate end of all this is that one day, the killing will stop. Only when man realises we have a limited lifespan. That people doing for profit will leave those responsible to burn in hell – like being trapped in the burning paroxysm of a ‘daisycutter’, for ever. Only when leaders realises that might is wrong, that all we are is one race, and the entire world is one big island, one landmass, with just 70% of it covered in water. One race. The human race. And if we’re not sensible, we’ll blow ourselves off this planet in a fit of insanity, having amused ourselves to death.
Until then, every death as a result of this war is a result of a senseless occupation, an invasion for no good reason except the hubris and desire by the US to dominate the world and neuter the Un. Every death is pointless and avoidable. It’s only when the number of Us troops that has died in Iraq/Afghanistan exceeds the amount that died on 9/11 will the Us people realise this is their vietnam, and that bush has been responsible for more deaths than terrorists…
There’s only one way to stop the cycle of violence. The longer we perpetuate it, the longer it will continue. And people will carry on dying a senseless pointless death.
Bring the boys back home. There’s too many children growing up without fathers, too many women growing up without husbands, already.
In the meantime, I’m scanning over the news reports, the headlines. Dreading the day when I have to make the phone calls; to my wife, to her friends, and tell her that her bridesmaid’s husband is dead. And how can anyone benefit from that?
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