Einem Offenen Brief An Patty Dohle

Dearest Patty,
                     Thank-you so much for the last letter. It was nice for it covered a time-span which I was retrospectively influencing...., it's hard when one is so busy to keep it up (ooh er) but you've done me proud you little sherbert; of course with my festive laziness I missed the christmas post; and for some strange reason a feeling of lethargy and insomnia in equal measure have rendered me fat and useless to writing; so here we are at the only obvious conclusion, an open letter.

Now, I have never done one of these sort of things, and I wish I was a subtle person, who could be all clever and let it lie, and then if anyone else comes across this peculiar little blog, would say 'ooh he's written a letter to his friend, because they're pen-friends apparently, but it's public so it's all for us aswell and carries on his usual blog-stuff, isn't that clever, and he hasn't even made a thing of it, because he's so fucking nauseatingly quirky and clever :P' - something like that, ignore the end, it isn't self deprecation, promise!

Well there we are, there we are, it's a little at odds with what private stuff in your letter you may want to have transmitted, so I will again to the nausea; Ich war wirklich schockiert und verärgert an den über-Zahlung Sache, aussprechen aussprechen Fotzen und die Tatsache, dass sie nur auf, dass ohne Vorwarnung es wirklich nur klopft man für sechs! 


I liked the eight-legged santa drawing, most amusing. I did attempt my usual reply to be bundled along with some christmas gifts, but my ability to hold onto a fountain pen for more than five minutes, went wanting, I found the wax seal though, so that crisis is over! PHEW! - But of the paragraph I wrote it was mostly about writers being chronic masturbators so, y'know.

I am having a rather brilliant Christmas with my parents actually, first for everything, eh ;) hehehehe but perhaps some emotional maturity, wake-up calls, epiphena and all that jazz has caused a mellowing in this department. Ich habe eine sehr, sehr dumpfen Schmerz in der Grube meiner Seele über die Rückkehr zur Uni, die Bastarde zu konfrontieren und Konfrontation, positive und sich für mich, aber ich denke ich bin bereit, auch ich habe BEREIT SEIN!

It will be brilliant to see you just before we go back actually, because we can 'role-play' OH HELLO! - Giving one some balls, big fat hairy words! (Balls) - oh dear I am sleep deprived, I assume your drowning in the bath as we speak, as I type :P 


Oh sleepy, ergh, ergh, erm... erm.... oh Christ! - most people here would resort to some amusing videos and a crude drawing of something, dare I? Dare I? No, I shant take the easy route, like the suicide pills they give to spacemen on doomed missions, I'll plough through the wordy asteroid belt and get the Moonpad of 'Yours Sincerely' - oooh that's one of my better analogies. 


'OH JESUS CHRIST' as Edward Woodward would say, oh it's no use! Verdammt mich und meine unersättliche Wunsch zu gefallen Tag der Sonntag, ich wollte bis Montag warten, vielleicht werde ich eine spezielle Geburtstags Blog zu tun, ist, dass traurig, dass egozentrisch, oh Gott, oh golly YA Blocko'S! Nun da sind wir vielleicht ein wenig glanzlos ist, aber ich habe es für euch, und auch da sind wir, und Sie erhalten einen richtigen Brief in der Post zuvor meine Heimsuchung, und ich werde versprechen, es zu schreiben, wenn ich weniger schläfrig und / oder bis zu Tia Maria getankt, oh wann werde ich lernen!
Yours Sincerely
Simon xxxxxxx

P.S Here is the crude drawing and amusing video for good measure :P

Thesmophoriazusae

I think it's all been a bit too personal round these parts the last few weeks. 

"Duh, it's a blog bag of slime-filth!" I hear you cry from behind your packet of sultanas...eh! - Well that's exactly what todays little ramble is about. Well it's about two things, the first is rambliness, and how it can amuse, and secondly it's randomness, a term a loath, but also hold up as an over-simplification of what my 'method' or 'voice' is, if there is such a thing.


(Yes, shush, I shall waffle about this for as long as I like, go and play with your genitals in the corner!) 


I like to assess and self-reflect that my life, and life in general is an arbritary sequence, we have no free-will, just a series of choices, we live, we die, we know why not, we never will, an absurdist mantra if you will. Now, there is a little way to cheat the stalking cuck-eyed existentialist beast, HUMOUR and DRIFTING, if one is jangled, tussled, nudged and occasionally tripped into different spheres and areas of life, without your prior consent, and if you live within your means, or stay with people you can tolerate, your life is made for you without you having to have made it. I like this. This is untrue but I like it.... for the most-part that is... 


This is where it all comes into play; people (friends - believe it or not, although I must be using the wrong term) have levelled

Have to start again. An acquantance of mine recently said 'You don't have to use every single thing you write' tempered with an exhaustive sigh; I put this in the criticism pile along with 'self-indulgent' and 'poor grammar and spelling', but it is true, I am a horder... horder of my own words, ideas, plots and fantasies, as I spend a lot of my waking life immersed in them, they are the sports and hobbies, cooking, love and sex of others, but all the neurons and synapses I have are all devoted to the rotting stream of garbage that leaks from my fingertips.... Oh christ, I am not getting my wind up this blog this evening....

I was going ruminate and expunge on the ideas of my randomly slotting ideas together, and how on first appearence you may not know what the hell I am going on about and think it all madness and jibberish, but as Polonius says 'this be madness, though there is method in it'... there is something behind it, not always considered... a sort of Jackson Pollock of thoughts and ideas... there are more ellipticals than punctuation, more apologies than spelling...

I could let one into my secrets for example MY TITLE - the apparent random title looks pretty and special, but is plucked from random and does not signify anything that follows CRAZY, not so - my whole dead brain-stem was trying to arouse itself through a 'random blog-generator' throwing up subjects, one was ARISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHY, I read up on old Ari and went on to Socrates then onto Aristohanes, and one of his surviving plays bears the above title.... *gasp*

And the other point I was going to make was on how transient the nature of life is, the whole 'WE RENT THIS WORLD' mentality, but whereas in youth this terrified me, and in adolescences gave a failed hedonism which was simply meagre self-destruction, now in the very first flush of adulthood, barely, I think it may be a positive thing, it creates modesty, throws posterity into the flame, and gives rise to THE MOMENT, my favourite thing, I attain, so rarely, and it's that THE PRESENT MOMENT - which when I write has the same feeling, of churning out the words to suit the mood of the moment, but it is not of the moment.... And that's why I no longer horde my words as much, my ego has shrunk and become realistic...

Muhummed On A Ski-Lift! I must apologize for this evening - normal service will be resumed soon - think of tonights offering as a transcript of scribbled notes from a note-book written whilst in a fit of stupidity .

NIGHT.

**WARNING: MAY NOT TRIGGER**

A large amount of ambivilence comes into writing this blog. It's irrelevent who reads it, why and when, although, it goes with my nature to being a lot more coherent about private ideas when writing, then perhaps if anyone is interested to elucidate further in public. That could be its use. But a blog has no use. A blog is. That is all...

I am hedging slightly, because I am apprehensive about going on about myself, especially, things we all keep very private, we worry about being vulnerable, going on about them. But 3 points in why it's quite nice:

1) I was told that if you are too private - people find this a turn-off, you're called 'hard work', untrustworthy, suspect, and s on....
2) It's a good way of redressing weighty themes - also in activism lending your support through personal experience may serve to demystify said theme.
3) I am getting very bored with my obsessions, anxieties and paradoxical thought problems - in fact I am wholesale abandoning all that grubbish! and setting myself down a new path - to throw myself into the path of new things.

Unfortunately I have an anxious Father, who liked and likes to tell me how dangerous the world is all the time, and for a while I believed him... but perhaps I don't now....

yes, widening life experience is the key.... musical instruments, languages and salsa's need to be learnt, meals varied and scrumful to be cooked, lands to be travelled. Books, films and music of all different varieties need to be devoured....

What it was, that I wanted to share, was of SELF-HARM, in particular my former association in the act of doing it. Now this shant be a woebetold or defense, or even an explanation why, it is more the peculiar stigma it carries.

It seems to those that show the scars or cuts they have about their person may alarm, fascinate or anger the person or persons who see them - some actively seek a response, others forget - but always it is written on the body - and you can quit the addiction of self-injuring and move on, but scars only fade so much, for me they have not.... and even a lingering look can stir a desire to repeat the process - even though I am now a million miles away from the problems theat befell me to carry it out in the first place....

And an endless procession of Long-sleeved shirts.... I don't know where I've really gone with this, I never talk or write on the subject of my self-harm, I, like many other things, feel I should not talk on the subject as I fel I ma not know what I am talking about... and in an odd reverse competitive way, I may not be the uber former-self-harmer....

This serves a little wordy button for friends and acquantances to press - IF ONE IS CURIOUS ABOUT THE SCARS ON MY ARMS, do feel free to question, but the answers shall be brief and uninteresting, as there is little of interest to say on the subject. And I do try to pride myself on saying something vaguely interesting.

Yes, I hope that's afforded you all of a curious nature, to see one can be rather non-descript about it all, but these things need to be dulled and have the shine rubbed off to take them for what they are, that's how I've moved on really. Ditto all the other peculiarities....

THE GLASS CLOSET

I'm gay.

Now you'd think something as simple as two words, would explain, identify and satisfy any question on the difference of sexual orientation, wouldn't you? Ah, well...At 14 I found out to my cost that such a simple proclamation can land one in some pretty nasty bastard-infested waters, I'll tell you that for nothing.

This isn't going to be one of those 'lecturey' blogs, where I instruct you and make you feel guilty about not understanding/not caring/being weird around the whole GAY thing... this is more a treatise on the current phenomena of what 'GAY' means to the mainstream, and obviously where I set amongst it all; it's many-varied and multi-layered and bit wibbly and silly in places, but I will try to condense into something quite simple and interesting!

The thing is, I was lucky to originally 'come out' with little understanding of sex/sexuality or connotations, identity and all those other peculiar things. I was 14, I knew I didn't have that much of an interest in girls, and that I found guys attractive, and lovely, but I was pubescent, I didn't have that much of an inclination of sex really... I can't fathom any reason why I said this fact about myself to all and sundry, there was no gain, except to be honest, although the losses were rather terrific.

You see, I had the rather fortunate circumstance, that I went to an All-Boys School, in a rather less than reputable area of South-East London; a heavy, rough and uncomprimising place, that didn't take too kindly to fay, unco-ordinated, philosophising types... and the school population after asking a long loooooooooooong stream of questions decided that I, who would not defend or argue, simply explain, as I was all calm and dream-like floating through school-life, took umbridge to this and began a systematic yet random course of attacking me in various undignified ways; from aerosol-can spray in the face, to stone throwing, spitting, punching, kicking, strange sexual advances... it was a rather difficult seven months of this, to which I never really responded... I didn't know how, or thought to...

I decided to leave this establishment and they found me a new one. Now at 15, rather war-wounded and introspective about this whole life business... further questioning of my sexuality resulted in me not willing to answer, thus a whole stigma and fear arose whenever sexuality was mentioned, in particular gayness, and I sort of developed an internalised homophobia.

When I got a bit older, and heard that there were 'LGBT youth groups' I popped along to them - but (and please, this is no sob story, just 'what happened') a lot of the other young guys and gals, were more interested in copping off with one another, and they were on this thing called 'the scene' which I didn't understand.

This scene refers to a ghettoised area of soho in which the opening gay outnumbers the arrogant heterosexual, thereby the gay population assume a strange parody of heterosexual life by being comfortable in an outside urban setting... thus making it as isolating, unkind and unwelcoming as the rest of society...

So with my self-loathing and their over-compensating self-loving.... I was a lost cause... and it wasn't until I got into a dodgy domesticated long-term relationship and went to college, that I sort of weirdly labelled myself as BISEXUAL.... something which I had to defend internally... how embarrassing I find it now... but just one note, I have had relationships with women - and I have loved women - I do love women and could fall in love with women - it's about love with me not sex so much - and so yes, Bi - ness is probably a more correct term, but I shall outline why I identify as GAY.

The reason is very simple; it is still a homophobic society, that doesn't allow for tolerance, let alone acceptance of alternative sexualities; we do not teach it to our children from a young age, as they do in other European countries, we don't have Gay Marraige, there is still acceptable prevelant anti-gay humour and a proliferation of gay-backlash in the press and tv... people are always interested in people sexuality because people think these 'closetted' people are ashamed and we like to out and shame, it's the modern witchhunt... so until it's such an ordinary fixture of life FOR THE MASSES (I know a lot of you who read this blog will have already, or have been brought up to see there is very little distinction between gays and straights, imperceptable) that gay men and women should show it - loudly....

I, through trauma, have not been able to be as open as I'd like, and I try my best, I'd never deny even in dangerous circumstances, but I, due to complete accident, I think people correlate my behaivour as 'gay' anyway, and this I do not mind, but I worry people think I mind, and want to keep it secret, or something... now this is THE GLASS CLOSET, (I keep nearly writing COFFIN) that I refer too... it is a term that denotes someone who is openly gay yet never refers to it in public and often asks for it not to be mentioned if giving interviews and so on; prime examples of this are Simon Amstell, Jodie Foster, One of Take That (I cant remember which one) so on and so on, ad infinitum.... people seem to herald these as bastians of LGBT-rights, because they 'don't make a fuss about it' and that they 'appear almost straight' how UTTERLY SICKENING, is that! - it sounds very conformist and middle-class; the only way we accept is through assimilation - no, no, no, no!

People, who through their personality are camp or outrageous, I think of Louis Spence here, are derided as setting the gay-rights movement backwards, and modern gay men go 'ya! boo! for shame!' - how dare they, that's very unkind, untrue and all the rest of it, he is just him - he may be annoying for other reasons but it's nothing to do wit hthe fact that he is gay and flamboyant... the real shaming types are the ones that just 'never refer to it' and try their best to not appear at all like a stereotype of which we are so villified and bullied for...!

Well I shant take part in this horrible display of utter conformity, I don't mind if I am mocked or if people secretly sneer, I am well-prepared now for all that....

I genuinely beleive Modern Gay-Rights Activism is as simple as going to societ 'No You're Wrong! We're Equal and seeing as we've demoralised so; we have to waste all this energy of our life in telling you the reasons OVER AND OVER AND OVER"

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallowed Cynics (Part 1)

Harry Potter is one of things that have contributed to my recanting the twatty cynic chic, that befall all young silly peoples for a time - although I think due to my anger at the world in general, such vibes stick in to the soul of ones shoe like a Great Dane's shite! But, and it's more to reassure myself that you lot, I am not really that much of a cynic and I fight critical or judgemental instincts on a daily basis. I find it hard to genuinely tear something apart unless it something that is going to cause harm to people; I.E: The Jeremy Kyle Show/War/Republicans and so on, and even then they way one goes about it perhaps doesn't really take that much sugar off the puff!

Silly bitchy personae can be funny, especially in stand-up; we love people being humiliated and having the piss-ripped by societies strange outsiders, and that Schadenfreude is a way of life.... but some people can get confused where the lines blur and be insulted, and for that one is always deeply guilt-striken and apologetic.

This goes further than that... Harry Potter was something that passed me by in the great schema of life, not out of bitter 'Oh it's shit' 'It's for kids', that weird thing that when something becomes overly popular everyone wants to give it a good kicking... sort of franchise-bullying as it were... just busy, and then when you miss the first 4 films/last 4 books you get all -'How do I get into it?'

Luckily I have a boyfriend who likes all this magical and fantastical shizz (every home should have one), and the other week, in preperation for the 7th Installment; we watched all 6 films back to back.

Now I've already glazed y eyes over the first 2, and that's fair enough; pretty standard (don't want this to escape up the arse-hole of 'review' or anything dirty and fetid like that!!!) but it did hit its stride by the tird film, and I did enjoy the cornacopia of A-list british film-stars from Michael to Imelda by route of Maggie to Emma via Alan - oh lovely stuff; that's my bread and butter of the films....

By going to the seventh, all the elements tht have bee built up over a decade really come to the fore, with real cinematic elan, it was compelling as a piece of cinema, and well executed; it is irrelevent if Daniel, Emma and (well not) Rupert aren't the best actors in the universe or that there are silly shmultzy bits; it brings lots of joy and loveliness - and it's an aesthetic point that my boyfriend is making in his dissertation - that Harry Potter lends itself to a Dickensian tradition of writing, which in turn is semi-social/political - there is Boarding House Romps and ancient legends and religious allegory, it's the oral tradition of the Celts to The Canturbury Tales - it's the same story of Good V. Evil, echoeing down the ages - it cant be a bad think that J.K is preserving it with a franchise and Multi-conglomerate it's a pleasing shape, of course if its not to you thats fine, it's got Radcliffe in his pants too! - But as all those 100's of screaming boys and girls squeal with delight and fright, alive with the magic. I had to sit next to the overweight bearded twat in a cheap leather jacket, talking derisvely and sneering scene after scene....

His personality lacked subtly and it is a wake-up call to such people that even dignified 'Oh it's not for me' is far more gentler and self-worthy than bollocky waffle! Although as a parting shot... I'd like to say when I sit entranced by some Lebanese Art-House film about the waterfalls of Nepal, which is just waterfalls for three-hours, meanish discourse on such things is just as unfair... why cant all our arty endevours just get along? All is equal in the eyes of Shareholders (so isn't!)


[GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK: Follow football for seven days and try to minimize the comparison both written/speaking/acting to Stephen Fry!!! TUT!]

Remembrance Sunday

I awoke this morning, 10.20am-ish, on the sofa; to the dulcet tones of David Dimbleby; and the vista of London's Whitehall are, deserted for an oblonged throng of people around the Cenotaph. Something compelled me to stay with the images of the procession; the bands, the ceremony and so on.

   Now, I have lived in London all my live, my Grandad fought in World War II, my Dad in the Fawklands; My Nan was a Royalist on the quiet, well not so quiet - so there is a lot in me, without me knowing, that strikes a cord inside. But they never (as far as I know) ever went to Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday, and neither have I. I always buy a poppy, and then subsequently lose it because I cannot do the pin thing right... None of this is of any consequence, what I am about to do, is qualify something that a lot of people secretly think or do but never dare to say.... 

I for a large chunk of my juvenile life been self-obsessed, and therefore had not been equipped to take in the scope of other people's life, the world or humanity in general; in adolescence, I developed a 'mentally-ill' persona, something I became secretly stuck with and couldn't shake off... well I am shaking now; and now I try to genuinely connect with the outside world.

When faced with WWI & WWII and how we remember all those who gave their lives, and I mean the phrase, because it is a service, a belief of the soldier, armaments worker, civil-servant, shop-keeper, night-warden and so on, that not as an indiviudual but a cog, one of many, many cogs in a wheel that will roll towards the freedom, and the emphatic refusal to give in to pervading evil, that's what is awe-inspiring about these people. The dignity in that idea, that being part of something; this even goes up to something such as Afghanistan; although the political ideals behind it may be more complex, the ideology of the soldier itself is the same; such as the soldier who died clearing a bomb-laden pathway for the fellow soldiers to go forward, gave his life so that could happen - in the inner workings of itself - it does mean something for the whole.

  And the process of understanding why we remember The Glorious Dead, is just as important, it is meme, in our lifetime, all the people that were involved in WW2 will be dead, and all that will be left will be a memory, this memory has to endure; because in the end, all their fighting, all the death and heartache and agony and pain, was to preserve the idea of something; of course, it's a highly emotive subject, and people can be very offended at the lack of respect for War Veteran and people currently serving alike. My heart went out especially to the former soldiers who marched suffering from Combat-Stress.

  Trying to emote to something difficult, outside one's immediate surroundings, to something that does not directly affect them, can be hard, but it is benefitial, and it's not selfish, bad or wrong not to understand, I think people just go 'Oh I don't understand or DON'T KNOW HOW I SHOULD REACT to this' that makes us shy away, made me shy away.

But I sat down and had a good think about it, and it's unimaginable to take in the magnitude of loss of life; to think of the number of deaths and take it in; I just imagine the grief you experience when you lose someone you love, a family member, in the full flow of life, through no fault of their own, and times it by 100 million; to g through each and every one takes more than a lifetime. And of course the remembrance serves as a respectful footnote.

I would like to finish by remarking on the sadness in the eyes of The Queen and even The Prime-Minister, it's a shared grief we all have.

P.S - I will make a concerted effort to attend next year. (And get a Poppy that stays on).

The Zen of Poo

After an smashing long weekend in mein little shire town out in the country, Simon has boarded a train for an elegant journey to Londontown, where he will mingle with society and undoubtedly drink vast amounts of tea and port. Being devoid of one of these infernal computer machines, I shall once more endeavour to live up to the splendour that is his blog and attempt to write something that isn't complete and utter shit. But who am I kidding, and inspired by that last sentence (and too hungover to think of anything more complicated), I decided to repost something I blogged about 6 years ago:


I found it one morning, in front of our barbecue. Round, soft, smooth texture, by the look of it.
Looked pretty fresh, but it struck me as strange... who, if that's what it was, would poo in our garden? And not just discreetly in the flowerbed or a dark corner, like the well-behaved cats do, but actually have the nerve to relieve himself in front of our barbie?
I stood there, contemplating, in the warm morning sun, inspecting the insolent pile of excrement which looked too weird to be of its kind.
Sarah, my housemate, stepped outside for her morning cigarette. I turned to her.
"Sarah?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Do you know what that is?"
Sarah stepped closer and eyed the tiny heap critically, but I could see a certain cluelessness in her face.
"Is that a turd?", I asked.
She still looked unsure. "Didn't the guys have a barbie last night? I think Russell dropped a burger."
"A burger?", I said, doubtfully. There are a lot of exaggerated claims about the quality of the English cuisine, but never would one expect for the average burger to look like shite. But then again, maybe it was an an Asda Smartprice one.

A few hours later, Russell got up, and I asked him to come outside. "Can I have your professional opinion on something?" I asked and pointed to the brown heap which had begun to dry on the surface, cracking like African mud in a drought.
"Is that one of your burgers?"
Russell glanced at it.
"Nah", he diagnosed with a tone of expertise. "That's a turd."

Turns out it was foxes. We hear them at night, sometimes. When they scream, they sound like crying toddlers. Like babies. It is the creepiest sound to wake up to in the middle of the night.

And yet this seemingly insignificant poo taught me a lot. About liberation and innocense and never thinking twice about anything but just going with the flow... of LIFE! Of LIFE! Yes of course. It must be a peaceful existence, being a fox.
Except maybe in England. Well, they had it coming for them. If they poo in everyone's garden, no wonder fox-hunting is the big British pastime.
You just don't mess with an Englishman's garden.

No Junk Food

WARNING!!! WARNING!!! SOMETHING CONSTITUTING A NORMAL BLOG WARNING!!!

Yesterday, I found myself having to wander a reasonable stretch to our nearest ASDA superstore, for 'some bits' as they say in the common vernacular, this is the term given to the light falsly-economic shop that the 21st Century has given a ceaserian section to... the poncy language is to somehow alleviate what is going to be one of those 'health'-blogs that are rather fashionable - the irony that endless typing at a laptop is surely does not aid 'ealf.... Anyswayze to cut a long story mediocre... I promised myself a little reward for this journey, a resultant BIG MAC! - It was to be my undoing... as when I wolfed down this double pattied , drippy yellow-sauced, corrogated gherkined sliced bunned monstrosity, that within minutes I started feeling quote unquote 'peculiar'. 

         Now, I have had McDonalds and other Fast Food type place foods on a million other occasions; to think how much money I have spent; usually it's KFC and Subway; perhaps they have more nutritional value than Maccie Dee's but I am not in the business of food snobbery (secretly slighty, but that's just personal guilt) it's just 'feeling sick after', on loads of occasions I've greedily laid out and consumed bargain buckets, three double cheese-burgers, 2 whole dominator meatball explosion dominoes pizza... and the idea of that melted cheese and garlic sauce makes me salivate - but just in the way nicotene and caffeine used to make my synapses twinkle, I do 'feel' sick and wrong and ill when I consume these things - it is a bit of a self-delusion that you 'enjoy' most of this stuff - ciggies do enhance pleasure receptors slightly but only for the next fix - and salt and sugar highs are temporary we know, we know... but it's the bottom line of THINKING ITS BAD FOR YOU AND DOING IT COZ YOU LIKE IT, and actually it FEELS SICK-MAKING; and the penny dropped yesterday - I felt grumpy, sicky and frustrated; I felt wrong. 
         
      And it wasn't until I had a walk, a couple of actimels and a banana that balance was restored. As I said before I gave up caffeine, I had done it before by just having 1 coffee a day in the morning, that seemed okay, but then became 3,2,4 etc. but by replacing coffee with decaff - MIRACULOUS! - substitution is the king, I must say; that's been a real boon - so 1 coffee here and there is okay, but I have really not bothered, I just don't like it, - and it really was something I used to have ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME! - I don't even like it that much, even though I always insist on 'going for coffee'.... 


So now I am looking for an alternative to 'snacking out' or 'lazy food' because I am perfectly happy with salad's and prawn cocktails or some weird egg/caper thing - mmmmm, what it is - and silly as it is, all that junk means to me is QUANTITY, I think I am getting more (even though I am not reaaalllly) - and that's why the bulky savoury wins out.... egads! What's a boy to do! 


        Well the eclectic of tastes and a willingness to ingest just about anything may prove to be a bonus, and perhaps the task of eating in new and outre places - something new on the menu may stop this - although it's become rather sparse with the lack of monies so I needn't worry too much....


Right off to heat up the left-over chiniese from last night........mmmmm....


 

Hero Worship

It's fair to say, that, in the past (and well up to just ere the present moment) I had a bit of a thing for idolizing people. That is to say certain noted performers, writers, actors, directors, politicians and so on and so forth, that caught my imagination, inspired me and made me feel, that there are others who are peculiar and find a natty way of negotiating with the world that keeps them afloat. An added bonus perhaps that they can use their peculiarities to their own advantage - but that's a bit science fiction for me still.

I don't know if you feel the same way? I love to hear of others heroes and heroines, it does warm the pulminary muscles of my heart, it truly does. I used to (and still) feel a little shy at the idea of some of my idols. Especially as now I get older, I realise that I can meet and (for the briefest of moments) interact with said idol - some come at a price and vary strangely. Luckily the highest sainthood of idols are mostly dead, or at the point of no return (Thatcher) so it will be very unlikely I'll ever get to meet them...

Where to start in exposing this desire... I cannot quite fathom. I try and theorize till the sow comes home about WHY? WHY? of it. This insatiable desire to look over the other mans shoulder to see how he's constructing his life, so you know you're doing it right? No, no, to easy.... I like to think I am testing the waters of what one can do with this group of particles we are temporary custodians of (hehehe - love that so much - got to keep using it ;)) - they aren't little templates that I am going to go out and copy.... as I used to terrorize myself with the idea of.....*shudder* *shudder* "MY LIFE IS NOT MY OWN!" I'd howl at the moon...no, I think it genuinely is getting a feel for the many, varied and amazing ways people live, entirely outside or through gritted teeth - the accidental time and place of their birth and what becomes of them.... of course there is an element of preservation of personality long after the fleshy casing of the human has perished, and ego, ego, ego.... but it has a lot to do with being a stickler for that intense flourish of a relationship - even if it is with someone you don't know. Although unfortunately I have a tendency to 'ruminate' as a kindly Doctor once put it.... and the seeds of this are also thrown into this little aspect....

These Heroes I don't pick at random, I see a lot of potential in them and they sort of nourish me, I seek shelter in their lives; the way they've dealt with rough times when I've been going through a dank patch and so on, some philosophize, some have such an outlook, or way with words. The downside is that they intrude my normal function sometimes, they crowd into my head and I end up repeating vast swathes of their ideologies, regardless if I share the view, I will get frustrated that my life does not or never will fit THAT pattern.... they are minor concerns and I think I have just about absolved myself of that oddity....

Lets concentrate on the gooey yummy loveliness of my idols and the whys and wherefors:

1. Stephen Fry = Now he's probably the most famous of my idols, and sometimes compared (which irks) unfavourably but the reason I have adored him since the age of 14, was because at that age I read his autobiography; MOAB IS MY WASHPOT, which I urge you all to read - his honesty, his defiance, his insecurity and anger, joy and sadness, and especially the positive words on sexuality which I desperately needed to read at that time. That really springboarded me out of the closet at such a young age... although perhaps it didn't prepare me for the backlash ;)

2. Dennis Potter = This is a biggie - and one for which came at the time of a big personal struggle in my life - what inspired me about this figure and writer - was the mythology that surrounded him - the fact he was cloaked in a debilitating illness, chain-smoking, a liar, a self-inventor of his life-story that he twisted fact into fiction, fiction into fact, almost wrote scenes and constructed scripts as he was talking to people in resteraunts (usually young actresses) his sensitivity, and obsessions, especially with memory - now this helped (and hindered) and harnessed my secretive nature and also a panache for delighting myself privately about how I went about 'constructing' the conversation of evening meals with friends.... all rather strange.... I do think he is the reason I did a scriptwriting course - and although I tried not to and didn't see it, the influence in a quantity of my scripts is his....

3. Will Self = Now this is the first hero I actually met, asked questions and got to 'ogle the flesh of', as it were, I even wrote a sickening sycophantic essay at college about staring at him during a book-reading in Stockwell; he and his influences (J.G. Ballard, William Burroughs et al) I delight in because of their view of the world as an alien landscape, the association with violence and mutation, also that they also exist in the real world and well the interesting superstitions of writers I always revel in. His geekiness, bad posture and skin complexion also interested me - oh dear - yeaaahsss...

4. Germaine Greer = I always see her pop up on panel shows since the 90's especially HIGNFY, and her no-nonsense 'I don't care what you think' attitude, topped with real learning, humour and personality, I got to ask her a question at a radio recording of FRONT ROW at broadcasting house. Funnily enough I was in the front row - irony - and my question concerned 'criticism' and how she felt about it, she looked utterly shocked and didn't understand a word of it, Mark Lawson had to translate my tongue-tied verbiage for me, such a nice man.

5. Quentin Crisp = Always on the periphery of my vision since I was a child - this again - the fact I have devoured his zen philosophy of 'living in the constant present' and witty ideology of living, humour in faith goes a long way for me, I have read and reread and relistened to nearly all of his books and recordings and so on, it ironically is not his propaganda of th protest of his sexuality that most inspired me - its that mythological lifestyle that is completely his own -he transcended society, time and space by simply BEING as a consious act, and the construction of persona and the identity through uniform - oh, oh god! Such a major influence!

(YES it's all INFLUENCE isn't it - grrrr)

6. Barry Humphries = His private life and construction of public personae is so complicated, so funny, yet so simple, that he has got away with his life of eccentric, intellectual, low-humour, high-concept life, he has lived it so well and with such originality that it defies belief, and when I met him at a book-signing only last week I was a shivering wreck that spoke completele goobledegook and shook his hand twice. I left him a letter telling him how brilliant he was - the shame the shame....

Oh and there are so many more that I have met from Melvyn Bragg to Reece Sheersmith, some brief nods to full-blown conversations, but I would never agree with the opinion that I am simply STAR-GAZING, my strangeness compells me, no propels me into the orbit of these strange noted persons because I feel all my waffle and strangeness if funneled in their direction may wought some sense of perspective and we might really get a bearing on how to live this existence....

Thank-you and toodle-pip.

The Gimage Effect

Hey, not Simon this week. It's someone else...but who could I be? (hint: one of this page's followers)

How many times have you used google image search to try and find something totally innocent and dredged up an abundance of disturbing gratuitous thumbnails of varied genatalia?

Maybe I'm just unlucky but I know many people who've had the same problem. Now to put the theory to the test:

METHOD:
- Enter a word that is neither a 'private' body part or rude activity.
- See how soon a 'dirty' pic crops up...

1: Titular - relating to having a title.
First rudeness - page 3: Arty but still

2. Seamen - one who man's a ship
First rudeness - page 25! (after many puns) Fishy

3. Abreast - side by side
First rudeness - page 1 Look at the Nobel(Peace prize)s on that

4. Uranus - the seventh in planet in the solar system
First rudeness - page 5 Watch out for the axe :S

5. Fallacious - deceptive or misleading
First rudeness - page 4 Pulp

6. Puppies - young dogs
First rudeness - page 4 Bitchin

7. Pussy - containing pus
First rudeness - page 1 That won't help my cist

8. Buns - small bread rolls, often sweetened or spiced
First rudeness - page 1 They're not bakers

9. Milk - a white liquid produced by the mammary glands
First rudeness - page 2 Freudian spill

10. Pole - a long and slender piece of metal or wood
First rudeness - page 1 Search yourself you perv!

Good day readers! x

PS. Normal, mature posts will recommence next week.

(sic)

HERE IS AN IDEA [WHAT ABOUT]

MIXTAPES FOR PEOPLE YOU HATE

I hate you, so I thought I'd do something constructive about having such a 'naughty' emotion and I made a mix tape for you:

Track Listing

1. Fast Food Rockers - It's Not Easy Being Cheesy

2. Antony Hopkins - Distant Star

3. Yoko Ono - We're All Water

4. Bucks Fizz - Land Of Make-Believe

5. Sting - Fields Of Gold
6. Su Pollard - Starting Together
7. Talking Heads2(BBCAUDIO) - Playing Sandwiches
8. Archive.org - Pig Squealing
9. Cliff Richard - Wired For Sound
10. John Cage - 4.33"
11. Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy

MESS

It seems that people have particular attitudes to being 'tidy'. There is nothing more unwholesome for me, than something immaculate; whether it be a kitchen counter, a private study or even a conception... hehe... and earlier this week Mother had a moment, where we revisited my 'untidiness' which resulted in a little THOUGHT, that had been going through its 'formulations' for quite some time.  

It merely concerned itself with mortality, and the idea that a clean, neat and ordered place is a clinical, dead and empty place; with no personality, not 'lived in' as the expression goes. And with our little transient 'bit' its nice to have an accidentally strewn pattern of things which are all flowing from your own little volume of entity, perhaps. 

But seeing as, and we should all realise this, attaching a meaning after the fact; the fact being I am a messy person, through no implication other than that I am, surely we can think up the best or most 'prettily constructed' idea behind why this is so, no? 

"No, Morlock, No!"

 The 'Sunday Scribblings' stuff about 'VIEW' is at the bottom, after the preamble waffly stuff :)

In an attempt to get out of the Blog-cliche of the diarists waffle, I endevoured to pursue an ordinary 'Umbrella Subject' again... and failing to think of anything... or be told by someone else (suggestions always gratefully welcome)....

...When I was younger and much more commited to Nihilism, I used to imagine that in the future there would be a machine (in my head a whirry steam-punk one) that would be able to work out every single permatation of the ordering of words, in terms of literature. (The natural conclusion to that 'if you had 100 monkey's bashing out at a 100 typewriter's, eventually you'd get War & Peace'...) so this machine would renders writer's not only obsolete, but entirely pointless, because all the books/poems/songs/plays/opera's; so on and so forth, would all have been written; a somewhat depressing thought - but really it's my 2-dimensional mind making sense of the fact that WORDS aren't ours and they can be put in a particular order by computations in a way, perhaps in an exremely complicated way... if it's looked at another way, perhaps its to assess the relation of the Author to his or her particular words.... That's why I am just as fascinated by 'the narrative of the author themself' more than the actual work sometimes....

ALL THIS PREAMBLE was leading into something, oh yes, 'Random Subject Generator'; I found all these prompts and stuff to give you idea's and subjects to write about... I suppose it's much 'safer' than just writing about ANYTHING, although 'write the first subject that comes into your head' thing, is 'dangerous' as the likliest thing that will pop into your head is something criminal/secret/perverted.... the 'template' method is nice, because there is a supposed space for you to fill out 'your little bit', right back to tracing your chunky pencil over the dotted lines that formed the letter 'a' back at nursery...

I wanted to share a little link for Guerrila Artist Keri Smith and her wonderful and brilliant ways she gets people to generate and more importantly spread ideas into our natural envirionment as a creative antidote to capitalism and advertising.http://www.kerismith.com/


 AM GETTING TO IT...right, well now, I found through the GOOGLESPHERE, 'sunday scribblings' which comes up with 'prompty' stuff for you to write about, so lets do that....

Er...hem....

Well, here it is then....

The prompt this week is: view.  What's the view from your window?  What's your view on life?  On the current world situation? What's the best view you have ever seen?  Had?  What's your dream view?  Have you expressed your views?

 
It's hard to appreciate 'views' of any kind when your young, and as most of my experience has been 'juvenile' it's  relatively new experience to just 'take in a view', it's very much wrapped up in 'the moment' something one is always chasing after.... but being an ANGSTY type, alluded more often than not... unfortunately I do not have a good view from my TEMPORARY bedroom window, it looks out onto the neigbours rather bland minimalist garden, the bland canvas slab with a tiny window, of another neigbours back wall (distracted by the fact I can't spell neighbours but am not going to check...)  but you can just see over the fence and down the little side road and last night at about 1am there was some screeching, and two rather cumbersome arguesome types were waddling home drunk cattawalling, and I got a distinct silohette of a skinheaded male with cruthes and a slapper in a miniskirt and I felt all suburban twitchy-curtain, was shashing...

Views on life, tsk! Now this holds no odds, because I just can't have a fixed one, I have an ABSURDIST's view on life and a blank scientific explanation based on what is self-evident or the most 'tidy'... we are carbon-based lifeforms on a little rock in the solar system, in a galaxy on the outer-arm of the milky-way, in terms of scale of meaning of a lives in the sense of the transitory, the millimetric strip of time o our existence as an individual... A great line in waiting for godot goes 'we are born and we die in the same second'.... beyond this on the sense of self and personality blah blah blah.... the brain is swirling chemicals and this gives us an illusion of free-will; an over simplification, but a nice sledgehammer bleak one in the face of the chaos of the world at large - all this STUFF THAT GOES ON, is bonus, is filler.... although I do beleive in 'the eternal mystery of the human heart'....

The current world situation... it's easy to fall into that 'New World Order' conspiracy bullshit, or the idea of World War III (which I saw that Philip K. Dick was obsessed with) but yes, I do find the representation the West has of the East and visa versa, and it's very silly, although you get down to the grass-roots level and its unavoidable, all I try to do is contribute when I can concentrate on charities, and such, but this veneer of 'society' may just GO at any time, must be prepared for that....  yes, I am nt blinkered to the terror's of the world but yet it's sudden precariousness and uncaring ability for it all to be smushed up....(I am a shoe-in for the U.N. job now ;))

The best view I've ever seen; (Brain scan); I'm going through all those hills and countryside views, the shadows of clouds on meadows once filled me with an indescribable feeling of warmth....

This whole doubling up the meaning of expressing of views has become tiresome... as I am sure it has to anyone (Patty) reading it ;)

Praise the Lord, and pass me the ammunition.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

I thought I'd try and write a poem incorporating some of my 'friends' creative output, in an attempt to show the fact we're all part of an artistic/creative community.

(It's in blank-verse, which means it doesn't have to rhyme (is that what Blank-Verse means?) - ah bollocks, but it has to have the same meter ;) don't check :P) The titles ironic I am not a poet blah blah blah...

O.P.S. (Other People's Stuff) 

 Well I'll start with my boyfriend and his documentaries of folk,

Then there is Matthew Reynolds who tends to fade out, 

Offensive & Charming are two words to describe, Sophie & Henry, 

Scott Payne is a creative hurricaine and rather brilliant at it, 

And I am rather partial to Mark Hewitt, a law unto his Poodle,

As well as Andrea Miller with whom I am suitably delighted,

Who could ever forget the hybrid of man twixt Mole (Arron?!),

Then there is the unforgettable bon vivant of Patty Dohle,

Um, well I may of forgotten a load of people, but it rather serves to highlight other people's creative output all of which I do love and listen/watch/enjoy on the periphery of my vision and hopefully they'll exist in the corners of other peoples minds for many moons to come.

Meta-decompartmentalisation

Before we start, 'a bit of housekeeping',( an expression I ironically love as I try to never do actual cleaning or tidy, unless for reasons of entrophy), I must recommend a book, my Mum has been reading SUM:40 TALES FROM THE AFTERLIFE. I've been dipping in an out and this small tome, is a cheeky, flirty and wonderful little creative book about our very existence;  http://www.davideagleman.com/SUM.html Yes, it's ideas such as these that I must fill my mind with heartily to avoid avoidance and anxiety, but more on that another, brighter day.

It's good to make note of such things as existentialism and politics, especially the latter because that just makes me feel warm and fuzzy with a cup of coffee, oh yes sir.

When I was waltzing back from Wimbledon Common the other week in a peaky fit over the fact of my Fatherlessness,  when I happened upon a dirty trodden in post-it note with the word FUN scrawled on it in a strange 'spacky' hand. Now 'FUN' is something that alludes me, and I don't have FUN, I engage, I engage with this gnawing feeling in the gut and how to keep it at bay, my mind is always elsewhere.... but there is no point moaning on about this to friends, family or Dawkin's Forbid A BLOG, one must address these issues because no-one else cares or wants to. I accept this, I am genuinely looking for a way to engage in FUN as it were. More on this news when we get it.

(Sneezing like a Bastard), well as it stands, I am dedicating the next couple of weeks to preparing/rehearsing/prop-buying/sound-engineering/co-set-designing/producing/advertising This One Man Show, amongst my usual business, although a lot of the usual business will be minimized and will compliment all the work on This One Man Show.... so all the things I keep in seperate little boxes of my life will all mingle and coagulate, look it has even happened here!

I have lots of ideas for this blog that has nothing to do with this project, but I do need to keep in the habit of constantly mentioning it wherever I go, which is rather draining, in a good, I am not thinking about the fact that I am an insignificant organism on a little rock in a galaxy somewhere in this universe, a microbic dot on the eyelash of 'God'.... yes, it's good I am not concerning myself with such things.

Roll on september, and in the meantime, stick your hand down the pants of my sister-blog: http://howtoputonaonemanshow.blogspot.com/ and you'll get lots of strange stuff over the next couple of weeks at irregular intervals as well as a podcast, perhaps, all the kids are doing them these days are they not?

Toodle-Pip

The Day I Relieved Amanda Holden Of Her Face: An unbiased Meditation on Britain's Got Talent

In which two young rebels (or 'hooligans' as they are known as in D. Cameronland Inc.) Two translucent, immaciated and lanky figures known as Aldous and Barclay, or A and B for short, part of the Scheduling Terrorists Insurgent's, or S.T.I's, freedom fighters determined to liberate television in the not so distant future.







It is predicted that by 2020, Britain's Got Talent will account for 93% of television, with contestants rigged up to feeding tubes and chained to stages, filmed for up 22hours a day, whilst being branded with 'X's if they deem to fall below a desired audience appreciation level.







Many International Human Rights funds and protests have resulted in little more than sanctions.







It is interesting to note that The Government's bombing of Syria occured at the same time as the BGT 2013 Semi-Final... coincidence?




Screams were being heard from the dressing room. Jem, the shows new runner, pulled at her plastic necklace from Claire's Accessories with due anxiety. "What the frube was that??" She shrieked. "Oh that's just Holden having her stitches removed" Cowell said as he waddled past. His voice was ominously trembling since the Post-oesophageal Cancer he suffered in 2015, now using a voice-box aid, he sounded a lot like a retrograde robot, which certain Anti-Cameronland Inc. News-ports have commented on, quoting "that its high frequency pitch has caused ugly middle-aged women/children to immediately flush their bowels without warning".
Mr Herring-Bone Syrup was by the door smoking a salmon, bathed in sillohette and the overwhelming smell of fish. The long-time director of BGT since 2011, whose face has never been seen, stood, 8 foot tall. Some say he's an alien, others say he was a former property developer from Leatherhead, no-one quite knows. "Don't tell Martha about the electrodes, Barry" He screamed softly, then fell away. This was BGT-Soc codeword for guard The Holden. There had been so much extra security from lower-middle-class students, since the assassination of Piers Morgan three years ago; when unexpectadly the giant glass 'X' that suspended above him for all those many moons, the one he had so many a time lit up to admonish the performers who dutifully totted out for his paternal approval..., the double-glazed letter was shattered into a million razor-sharp shards that fell with speed, raining down onto Sir Piers, splitting his very atoms, miraculously, the practical skinning and disembowling didn't kill Mr Morgan, and he died eighteen months later, every moment spent in unbeleivable agony screaming in the private ward of St. Barts. They say if you stay at The Sir Piers Morgan Memorial Ward For Anal Warts you can still hear his ghost, puckering his lips.

'But what was Holden doing?' the re-elastication of her face didn't usually take that long (they had started using elephant scrotum skin-grafts, and it really gave the non-shimmer 'realism-face' look that was so popular.) The ominous squealching put Jem on edge. She fiddled with her Primark chunky bracelet for a moment, then, knocked on the door. "Mrs Holden-Prince Harry, is everything alright?", her heart was in her mouth, (metaphorically not literally), it was very against protocol to knock on the door of any one of the Holy Trinity. "Yes," came an obviously male voice with a silly 'I am doing a Woman's voice' warblyness emanated through the door. "Oh, is everything alright?" Jem asked playing along, her overplucked eyebrows arched up with very self-aware and bad 'oh I am playing along' acting. "Oh quite alright, dear just signing some pictures of me from that show I was in before I did this one, the name of which escapes me".

Jem burst through the door, ray-gun brandished. "No-one forgets Amanda Louise Holden's awe inspiring performance in Cutting It!" She shouted, but her jaw hit the floor, when she saw, the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award nomitated actress's face in a see-through freezer-bag. Her caved in skull along with the rest of her body, laid limply, with little sign of a struggle in her favourite chair, the corpse was dressed in a really nice little dress that looked fab!

The freezer-bag containing her face was held by a lanky pale boy, who must of been at least 11foot tall, he looked like a horse in human form and smelt like one too, wearing a gold-belt and four t-shirts; A stood heroically with his prize. His accomplice B stood shaking, holding the Ice-scraper and bloodied pizza-cutter in his hands, shaking, his eyes had seen the face of Jesus ripped from its very house.

"And just what the flippity jibber is going on in here?" Jem said with her hands on her hips, with all the authority and command of Ms Hooley from Balamory.

"Eeek, we've been discovered" Squeaked A,

"Quite" replied B.

"So, can someone explain, what have you boys been up to? Naughty, naughty boys"

I don't think Aldous and Barclay were particularly impressed by Jem's intonations because they shot her in the head sixteen times and exuented with the face.

*

"Good God and Stomach Acid!" Farted Mr Herring-Bone Syrup, when he saw the mess in Ms Holden's dressing room... he was distraught and even shed a tear (or two) out of one of his face eyes. He quickly regained his composure and belted out a rather tuneful but misguided reggae version of 'The Show Must Go On' before proceeding to commit to the idea of the notion of the fact that the show must go on.

"I need to replace her, but with what".

"What are you talking about?" A said from off-screen, so when Mr Herring-Bone syrup turns to look at what you, the audience can't see, you're already thinking "Whaaaa..." hehehe.... *cough* sorry....

Quite a sight assailed his eyes in fact, a 22foot high figure in a very long beige coat, it was in fact Aldous and Barclay, disguised in a long biege coat, with Amanda Holden's face precariously perched over his own face, selotaped on in fact. The silly 'woman's' voice had returned that cut no dry-ice with the late Jem.

"Oh there you are Amanda, quickly, I have no time to question the fact your faceless corpse is in the dressing room, or the fact you've grown another 16 foot, the show is about to begin, take to your special seat Pookie-whoreness" And with that sign-off Mr Herring-Bone Syrup flew out of the window with rocket-like speed.

Wierd Britain's Got Talent Theme Music remixed by Mark Ronson Featuring Vocals from Eamonn Holmes.

When Queen Elizabeth II went the way of her father with the lung cancer, in 2015, the nation went entirely numb, and it was allowed to broadcast all future shows of BGT live from Buckingham Palace, (and all future broadcasts of The Xtra (but not X) Factor from Balmoral, something that is trying to be dissolved by The Scottish Parliament).

AND NOW FOR THE BIG FINALE BIT:

So, it's been written into the annals of history, carved on the very bosom of Brittania with a rusty little carving-tool; you had 9/11 and 7/7, and 5/15, 1/1 1/2 6/13 etc., well added to ALL OF THAT, you now have The atrocity on BGT...

It all started off, Cowell was given his liquid morphine and was rather subdued, cooing to himself quietly, stroking his little beak. The Sock-Puppet portrayed by Dame Helena Bonham-Carter in the memory of Sir Piers Morgan was warming up the 40'000 strong audience all shipped in from Belmarsh and The Home Counties; the Amanda Doppleganger was in, unnoticed in the very thickness of it.

Gummed to A and B's liver, was enough plastic explosives to blow a hole in the side of Stephanie Meyer, pretty strong stuff to penetrate that bough.

Famously, although it has since been misreported, that the bomb went off during the singing chicken's from Bognor Regis, but actually after The Cole Enquiry six years later, it was revealed that the bomb was detonated by remote control, during The Self Flagulating St. Winnifred's schoolchildren's tribute to Slipknot.

*

Luckily, due to the idea that Aldous and B will be used again in some Misadventure possibly crucifying Jeremy Kyle, that they somehow escaped from this explosion, how, why and with whose help, therin lies the mystery.


[A little first draft of something silly]

Why People Are Scared Of The Dark

Subject lovingly suggested by a friends brother Nathan Miller who said that I'm 'A man of taste' flattery will get you everywhere. If anyone wants to suggest a subject I am more than happy to accomodate.

I recently read Lucian Randall's biography of Chris Morris entitled "Disgusting Bliss", and for it's tantalising tid-bits about the reclusive, enigmatic character it probably only confirmed that Morris is mortal like the rest of us, yet extremely kind to his friends, fearless and dogged in his work-habits, but it did keep coming back to one thing 'he was afraid of the dark'. Now perhaps it is an embellished conceit to make out that this supposed psychotic shadowwy figure is really a soft and vulnerable thing like the rest of us. Perhaps, but, and I have a tendency to read far too much into things it could be, someone like Morris, the inveterate investigative journalist cannot make sense of the unknown, or maybe all those dark twisted things take shape when he's alone in the dark.

I stopped being afraid of the dark when I was about 15, I think, it came quite late, like a lot of things. Yes, it's one of the things I've really come to terms with; strange some people never do. It's not something one can heroically brag about. Perhaps I am only afraid of the dark, inside the house. Last year, when the only shortcut to my 'digs' at University, lay through a small wooded area or 'spinny', I would always avoid going through it in the dark and take the long way round adding 20-30 minutes to my journey. But just once or twice I went through it, in the middle of the night, just with the backlight from my mobile to shine my way.... and all the stumps and crooked branches of the trees took on lives of their own and at any moment someone or even worse something could jump out, it didn't matter what 'it' did, just the fact it would jump out is enough.

I was always afraid of someone being under my bed when I was younger, but up until late adolescence, the same with alin spaceships appearing outside my bedroom window... oh dear Nathan's opened a floodgate...

So 'Why' is somethin' that has been asked since time immemorial, it's why Man (and WOman) invented fire and so on and so on. Perhaps we should go past all the symbology and such and find something simple, honest and truthful...

...I've had a few scotches (it's to curb 'The Writer's Block' I've been experiencing I am usually a T-Totaller) and maybe it gives one licence to be a crap philosopher, so cue, something cringey and space-age laughable.

(Imagine Bob Dylanesque stoned tones:)

'Maybe we're so afraid of the dark because we're afraid that in the darkness we may see ourselves, and only ourselves'

Simon is not home right now, please leave a message

Simon has asked me to jump in while he is basking in Cumbrian sun with his lovely boyfriend, and supply this week's dose of the Simon-esque. Those are some big shoes to step into, and I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with a subject as well-informed and thought-provoking as what he writes (as opposed to the self-indulgent crap I produce). To be honest, it's probably not gonna happen. I'll probably look like this.
I considered the new anti-rape condom , because at first glance it seemed like a shit idea (who wants a rapist stuck in them and then get battered to death when he breaks into a panic?!), but I realised my error upon enduring listening to that South African doctor (sorry, that accent just makes me bristle), I thought it's actually rather clever... unless you forget to take it out for a date - surefire way to never see that bloke again! Made that film "Teeth" almost prophetic.
So no debate there.

The thing is, once one leaves university and joins the work force (and gets a bit older), all original thought goes out the window. I guess the Frankfurt School was onto something. You bust your ass for a pittance and spend most of your life at work, fretting over repetitive tasks and targets, just so you can keep your job, only to come home, shattered and barely able to cook dinner, much less plan protests/improvement of society. All you really want is to give your mind a little break and you end up watching Big Brother or Hollyoaks (did anyone else notice how the stuff they feed us on telly is gradually, increasingly becoming more idiotic, but we're still eating it? Then you go out and buy yourself all the mass-produced stuff to give yourself a sense of reward, or simply because owning stuff disguises one's actual poverty, and the fact that one's living conditions are perhaps not ideal, but buying things to camouflage that fact is a lot easier than going out and fighting for something better.

Reading this again makes me feel like I'm oversimplifying, but the more I apply it to my life and the lives around me, the more I see truth in it.

Best example? Football. I'm writing this as Germany is wiping the floor with England (not that I particularly care for either team or the sport itself). My little town was deserted, and one could hear the howls of pain from the various pubs surrounding the shop I worked in today. I have never ever seen so much united force and passion for anything else, other than the Blitz - and what's football in the grand scheme? War or sports, that's the two things that truly ignite people with an energy that is both frightening and awe-inspiring.

Call me a miserable cow, but that (and retail!) is quite depressing.

But then there are those little things happening that sort of give me hope. Like this woman that came into the shop and bought a stack of books for her 11-year-old son (which he had picked, mind you). And I am not talking Bloody Astrosaurs and Percy Jackson. They were books most 20-year-olds would not have read, classics. Faulkner, Steinbeck, Harper Lee, James Joyce's Ulysses, for crying out loud! I was agape and told her how amazed I am at his reading level, and how pleased to see that at least one parent seems to care that her kids are not conditioned to be morons. And she said something that was beautiful in its simplicity: "We haven't got a television, that's why he spends all his time reading."
God, he must get so much stuff done!


So what is my point? I don't know. I write self-indulgent crap, remember?
I guess it would be: Throw out your television. And stay in school! Your parents wanted you, so they can pay for it. That will teach them.

Yours truly,

Patty

Postcards From Yesteryear

The highlight of my second trip to Whitney, a little Village adjunct to Oxford, David Cameron's consituancy, was the beautiful, inspiring and infinitely kind company of my friend Ms Patty Dohle, it was also the curious litte narrative we happed upon in an Oxfam shop.

Above is the back of a postcard whach had ST-SAVIN-sur-GARTEMPE on the front. It was found amongst a lot of other dull holiday postcards, some written on and sent, some others not. But what made me buy it was what was written on it:

29/7/96

I wonder if you know this church? I'm sitting on the warm and breezy terrace here (7.0pm) looking on to a lovely hillside over the valley (where the motorway and railway lie hidden by a row of limes and hazels). The countryside round here you know - is deeply satisfying in its expansiveness + fertility - many sunflowers now. I do hope very much that Susi's face and teeth are back to normal. Love, F.

Now after getting a good laugh with its bizzarest of final lines, is not the only thing going on here. Another, less self-aware missive:

15.1.94

Dear Grum,
Mum and I are having a day out in Oxford because Dad and Fiona have gone shooting. Hope you liked my photo. I would love to have gone to the ice-show with you. Hope it was good. We went to Maxwells for lunch. Hope the company wasn't too painful ! (at the ice-show) hope to see you soon Love Rachel - Mum.

That one has a picture of an angel intwined round a large letter 'E'. Back below:

Now what intrigues me as in these small little postcards, whole swathes of people's existances are given away. I can imagine F and Rachel (probably a little girl when written, now 16 years older!) - yes the passage of time is another thing. What's gone on since.

So yes two things; must write to these people with photocopies of such postcards with either an explanation or clues as to follow on this project....

...and secondly, to start going to more second hand bookshops/Oxfam's where there are old postcards or letters with written stuff on them.

I got this one to send to an unliked acquantance:

Have Nightmares Kinder.

NEXT WEEK: A dolphin that looks like Simon Weston.