25.3.04
Belfast is interesting. So many tower blocks flying pristine flags of the Irish republic above them, so many council estate pubs eblazoned with (fresh and vivid) external murals celebrating organizations such as the UDA and, particularly, the UVF. Each one that I saw managed to unnerve me more than the last.
All this after spending twelve hours in a grim provincial airport, having had the pleasure of witnessing the flight I was supposed to board being cancelled, along with its replacement flight. Sitting in a near deserted airport at eleven o'clock at night, only to be told that my only option was to fly to somewhere where I have never wanted to go, carrying around a text that amounted to little but a catalogue of humanities worst atrocities of the twentieth century, I felt like a character in a third rate existentialist novel. All existentialist texts being third rate. Especially Nausea and Being and Nothingness, two books in that great canon of literature that consists of books owned by everyone but read by none (an easy way to determine whether or not someone has read this book is to ask if they liked it: If they say "yes", then they haven't read it).
All this after spending twelve hours in a grim provincial airport, having had the pleasure of witnessing the flight I was supposed to board being cancelled, along with its replacement flight. Sitting in a near deserted airport at eleven o'clock at night, only to be told that my only option was to fly to somewhere where I have never wanted to go, carrying around a text that amounted to little but a catalogue of humanities worst atrocities of the twentieth century, I felt like a character in a third rate existentialist novel. All existentialist texts being third rate. Especially Nausea and Being and Nothingness, two books in that great canon of literature that consists of books owned by everyone but read by none (an easy way to determine whether or not someone has read this book is to ask if they liked it: If they say "yes", then they haven't read it).
15.3.04
Shaun Ryder saying "Call the cops" on 'Step on' by the Happy Mondays: Best moment in music of the 1990's?
Wouldn't have thought so, but it's still pretty good.
Anyway, I'm off on my now suspiciously regular fortnightly hiatus, but I shall return next week. Hopefully I shall have an Isle of Man special, and actually have something to write about.
Adios, comrades!
Wouldn't have thought so, but it's still pretty good.
Anyway, I'm off on my now suspiciously regular fortnightly hiatus, but I shall return next week. Hopefully I shall have an Isle of Man special, and actually have something to write about.
Adios, comrades!
Beware anyone and any business claiming to have a philosophy, for they do not. They merely have a handful of tiresome platitudes and poorly articulated opinions. That includes Plato. In fact, especially Plato.
Anyone claiming that they have a philosophy should be humoured with a weak, disinterested smile until they go away. Do not try to be clever and point out the flaws in their claims - they shall merely attempt to be clever back, and this is as harrowing as watching a flid kid tearfully trying to master the piano.
Anyone claiming that they have a philosophy should be humoured with a weak, disinterested smile until they go away. Do not try to be clever and point out the flaws in their claims - they shall merely attempt to be clever back, and this is as harrowing as watching a flid kid tearfully trying to master the piano.
How come everything and everyone that labels itself and themselves as "erotic" manages to be completely the opposite? All of it, erotic literature, erotic photography, erotic art, erotic dancing... is the erotic there in the title specifically because there's no other way the viewer can tell? Suffice to say, I think the rule of thumb is that anything that needs to tell you it's erotic couldn't be further from.
It starts out as amusing, but then you feel bad and end up experiencing embarrassment on the behalf of whoever's responsible, then you get bored with that and put the TV on and try to forget the whole dreary experience.
Other adjectives that, when used self-referentially, imply that whatever they are helping to describe should only be approached with extreme caution:
"Sensual"
"Provocative"
"Revolutionary"
"Cutting-edge"
"Disturbing"
"Surreal"
"Unique"
"Twisted"
"Outrageous"
"Controversial"
And so on.
So many different words. Yet, used in a certain context, they all appear to mean "Soul-fuckingly pedestrian and tedious"
Having said that, you can never go wrong with "Bawdy".
It starts out as amusing, but then you feel bad and end up experiencing embarrassment on the behalf of whoever's responsible, then you get bored with that and put the TV on and try to forget the whole dreary experience.
Other adjectives that, when used self-referentially, imply that whatever they are helping to describe should only be approached with extreme caution:
"Sensual"
"Provocative"
"Revolutionary"
"Cutting-edge"
"Disturbing"
"Surreal"
"Unique"
"Twisted"
"Outrageous"
"Controversial"
And so on.
So many different words. Yet, used in a certain context, they all appear to mean "Soul-fuckingly pedestrian and tedious"
Having said that, you can never go wrong with "Bawdy".
Would it really make that much difference if song lyrics were abolished and musicians had to whistle instead?
Answer: Yes. Nearly all songs ever would be better.
Answer: Yes. Nearly all songs ever would be better.
12.3.04
What is the big deal with being a "creative person"? I understand admiration for, say, William Blake, or Mahler. I tip my hat to such people, were I to see them in the street I would shake their hand and say something along the lines of "Whilst not personally a fan of your work, I appreciate its importance. Go you!", but being in a band? Coming up with the occasional daub?
There's nothing wrong with being "creative" as is, but it seems to have become almost an accessory, as much as a pair of cufflinks or a bag. It's ceased being something a person aspires to through inspiration, and something that is merely chosen because it's deemed to be a Good Thing to be. For the past ten to fifteen years it appears to be the case that you aren't someone unless you can bang out a couple of mediocre and highly derivative works of "art". What's even worse is that this is lapped up unquestioningly. It is almost verboten to express a disinterest in "cultural persuits", or to offer an opinion of individual cases that isn't anything more than empty flattery.
A particularly aggravating trend within this perculiar mass acquisition of the ideal of the artist is that it appears to mask more worrying obscurantist attitudes to life. A reasoned and logically structured opinion or argument is met with what verges on contempt for not appearing to originate "in the heart", passion is valued over rationality, conviction over reason, belief over knowledge. It's alright to come out with ill thought out statements like "science doesn't know everything" as a catch all criticism of those who dedicate their lives to methodically investigating the structure and mechanisms of life itself, yet woe betide the poor fool who tries to poke holes in someone's beliefs. The "Creative" individual is perceived as being wise, of occupying some strange, baseless position of authority akin to that of his or her predecessors back in the Dark Ages, whilst the inquistive individual is almost a dangerous pariah seeking to disrupt this outdated status quo. A minor consequence of this is that anyone who feigns some weak element of creativity automatically shares some small part of that authority, without having to go to the trouble of informing their opinion or working to iron out the faults in their argument.
Also, I find it strange that now artists define themselves as artists. Art is defined by them, they say "I am an artist, this is my art". The number of people I have encountered who have introduced themselves in this way is astonishing. I keep asking myself "doesn't the outside world have any say in this?". Now, I do not pretend to be nearly as educated on the nature of art as I could be, but then again neither are the vast majority of people who just assume they are artists.
People approach creativity as one would any job, by filling the basic material requirements of the position and fulfilling the job description. Just as someone who goes through the finances of a small business can say that, by virtue of their occupational routine, they are a book-keeper, others believe the same can be done to qualify as an artist, or a musician.
A person, buying into the ideal and mythology of the creative individual buys a palette and presents a stained canvas to their friends, so they must therefore be an artist. Another buys a guitar, makes a noise with it, others listen, suddenly they are also an artist. Yet another buys a camera, develops their own photographs. Again, they must have the artistic spirit. All have created something, so all must be creative.
Fucking dilettante wankers.
There's nothing wrong with being "creative" as is, but it seems to have become almost an accessory, as much as a pair of cufflinks or a bag. It's ceased being something a person aspires to through inspiration, and something that is merely chosen because it's deemed to be a Good Thing to be. For the past ten to fifteen years it appears to be the case that you aren't someone unless you can bang out a couple of mediocre and highly derivative works of "art". What's even worse is that this is lapped up unquestioningly. It is almost verboten to express a disinterest in "cultural persuits", or to offer an opinion of individual cases that isn't anything more than empty flattery.
A particularly aggravating trend within this perculiar mass acquisition of the ideal of the artist is that it appears to mask more worrying obscurantist attitudes to life. A reasoned and logically structured opinion or argument is met with what verges on contempt for not appearing to originate "in the heart", passion is valued over rationality, conviction over reason, belief over knowledge. It's alright to come out with ill thought out statements like "science doesn't know everything" as a catch all criticism of those who dedicate their lives to methodically investigating the structure and mechanisms of life itself, yet woe betide the poor fool who tries to poke holes in someone's beliefs. The "Creative" individual is perceived as being wise, of occupying some strange, baseless position of authority akin to that of his or her predecessors back in the Dark Ages, whilst the inquistive individual is almost a dangerous pariah seeking to disrupt this outdated status quo. A minor consequence of this is that anyone who feigns some weak element of creativity automatically shares some small part of that authority, without having to go to the trouble of informing their opinion or working to iron out the faults in their argument.
Also, I find it strange that now artists define themselves as artists. Art is defined by them, they say "I am an artist, this is my art". The number of people I have encountered who have introduced themselves in this way is astonishing. I keep asking myself "doesn't the outside world have any say in this?". Now, I do not pretend to be nearly as educated on the nature of art as I could be, but then again neither are the vast majority of people who just assume they are artists.
People approach creativity as one would any job, by filling the basic material requirements of the position and fulfilling the job description. Just as someone who goes through the finances of a small business can say that, by virtue of their occupational routine, they are a book-keeper, others believe the same can be done to qualify as an artist, or a musician.
A person, buying into the ideal and mythology of the creative individual buys a palette and presents a stained canvas to their friends, so they must therefore be an artist. Another buys a guitar, makes a noise with it, others listen, suddenly they are also an artist. Yet another buys a camera, develops their own photographs. Again, they must have the artistic spirit. All have created something, so all must be creative.
Fucking dilettante wankers.
Is your personality so fragile you fear that being a fully developed human being would overburden it to the point of destruction? Is your sense of self so rudimentary that you have to write "me!" on photographs of yourself and point to them everytime you start doubting you're actually a person? Are you no better than a humble ant, nothing more than a biomechanical automaton whose eradication would bring few, if any, consequences for the society around you? An empty shell of a human? A despicable shadow of a sentient being? Are you a living breathing insult to conscious members of your species?
Fear not, my contemptable lump of animated meat, here are some tricks you might find useful in deluding yourself that you have some kind of business breathing the same air as us, your betters. The best thing is that these methods have already been tested, over and over, by bumbling livestock like yourself!
1. Say you're alternative: It doesn't matter what you're an alternative to, or how you're deviating from the rest of us. Hell! As has been demonstrated by your peers, it doesn't even matter if your Alternativism is merely thoughtless conformism with a minor sub-group of society whose laughably feeble main act of self definition is listening to bands that don't appear in the charts. All that matters is that *you're* alternative now. You're something, you must be a person now! Your something even has a name, so go you!
2. Constantly slag off the "Mainstream": Don't you just hate those normals? What with their clothes that differ slightly from your own, and their blues/rock derived music that is slightly different to your blues/rock derived music? They look like idiots, they are idiots! They just unquestioningly wear whatever The Man tells them to wear, or whatever their peers are all wearing. Fortunately, you only wear what all your peers wear because you choose to do so, the rest is mere coincidence, and because you would never dream of hanging around with one of "them". The worst things about those in the mainstream is because they're all so smallminded, and that they're constantly categorising and criticising you.
Well done, now you have a Nemesis! And if you have one of those, you must be something very special. Largely defining yourself in opposition to another social grouping might seem fraudulent and needy to some, but not you. You sure are "special".
3. Affect a ridiculously exteme set of views based on nothing more than your seething resentment of others! Who cares if you look like a rabid imbecile when claiming that, despite being a white middle class member of one of the most free and affluent societies on Earth, you're oppressed and victimised by The Man? An imbecile is still something, and a somthing is better than a nothing. For bonus points, use words and terminology that you don't entirely understand, like "patriarchy", "capitalist hegemony", and "neo-imperialist".
4. Take one minute element of your personality and magnify it out of all proportion: A mild sexual fetish is the preferred choice for this. Remember, you're not merely a member of society who just so happens to have a certain sexual preference, you're a member of an entire sexually orientated "culture". So what if that culture looks pretty rubbish and half arsed compared with the mighty achievements of your parent society? Who cares that Hamlet will still be remembered, and the Enlightenment still celebrated long after you and your pitiful attempts to make a something seem more than it is have turned to dust and are long forgotten? What does it matter that outsiders see your tragic flailings in a world that both intimidates and alienates you for the fraudulent gestures of an ill educated clown that they are? It doesn't matter one jot, because you're not going to meet those people. You're going to spend your life trawling grimey little fetish clubs for kicks, basing your entire social life, your entire outlook on the world, your very existence, on one small, inconsequential facet of your already tiny personality.
You can visit fetish clubs, you can read fetish magazines, you can talk about the fetish "lifestyle" with impunity, because with a bit of luck you'll have managed to surround yourself with people as stupid and insecure as yourself. People who, like you, are more than willing to lap all this delusional and escapist crap up like it's an aspirin for the soul.
5. Convince yourself that all this makes you a better person. When challenged, simply bang on about "open mindedness" in a haughty way, unaware of the doctrine of moral relativism which you're using to justify yourself, or even that it's so last decade. Remember, just because you constantly bang on about "conventional morality" exerting a repressive and unjust force upon you, this doesn't mean you can't take the conventional moral high ground. Over and over again.
Well done, now you're something! That something might be a caricature of a human being, but even so, that's as close as you're likely to get. Sit back in your newly constructed emotional womb, and relax, safe in the knowledge that the real world doesn't deem you important enough to try and get in there with you
Fear not, my contemptable lump of animated meat, here are some tricks you might find useful in deluding yourself that you have some kind of business breathing the same air as us, your betters. The best thing is that these methods have already been tested, over and over, by bumbling livestock like yourself!
1. Say you're alternative: It doesn't matter what you're an alternative to, or how you're deviating from the rest of us. Hell! As has been demonstrated by your peers, it doesn't even matter if your Alternativism is merely thoughtless conformism with a minor sub-group of society whose laughably feeble main act of self definition is listening to bands that don't appear in the charts. All that matters is that *you're* alternative now. You're something, you must be a person now! Your something even has a name, so go you!
2. Constantly slag off the "Mainstream": Don't you just hate those normals? What with their clothes that differ slightly from your own, and their blues/rock derived music that is slightly different to your blues/rock derived music? They look like idiots, they are idiots! They just unquestioningly wear whatever The Man tells them to wear, or whatever their peers are all wearing. Fortunately, you only wear what all your peers wear because you choose to do so, the rest is mere coincidence, and because you would never dream of hanging around with one of "them". The worst things about those in the mainstream is because they're all so smallminded, and that they're constantly categorising and criticising you.
Well done, now you have a Nemesis! And if you have one of those, you must be something very special. Largely defining yourself in opposition to another social grouping might seem fraudulent and needy to some, but not you. You sure are "special".
3. Affect a ridiculously exteme set of views based on nothing more than your seething resentment of others! Who cares if you look like a rabid imbecile when claiming that, despite being a white middle class member of one of the most free and affluent societies on Earth, you're oppressed and victimised by The Man? An imbecile is still something, and a somthing is better than a nothing. For bonus points, use words and terminology that you don't entirely understand, like "patriarchy", "capitalist hegemony", and "neo-imperialist".
4. Take one minute element of your personality and magnify it out of all proportion: A mild sexual fetish is the preferred choice for this. Remember, you're not merely a member of society who just so happens to have a certain sexual preference, you're a member of an entire sexually orientated "culture". So what if that culture looks pretty rubbish and half arsed compared with the mighty achievements of your parent society? Who cares that Hamlet will still be remembered, and the Enlightenment still celebrated long after you and your pitiful attempts to make a something seem more than it is have turned to dust and are long forgotten? What does it matter that outsiders see your tragic flailings in a world that both intimidates and alienates you for the fraudulent gestures of an ill educated clown that they are? It doesn't matter one jot, because you're not going to meet those people. You're going to spend your life trawling grimey little fetish clubs for kicks, basing your entire social life, your entire outlook on the world, your very existence, on one small, inconsequential facet of your already tiny personality.
You can visit fetish clubs, you can read fetish magazines, you can talk about the fetish "lifestyle" with impunity, because with a bit of luck you'll have managed to surround yourself with people as stupid and insecure as yourself. People who, like you, are more than willing to lap all this delusional and escapist crap up like it's an aspirin for the soul.
5. Convince yourself that all this makes you a better person. When challenged, simply bang on about "open mindedness" in a haughty way, unaware of the doctrine of moral relativism which you're using to justify yourself, or even that it's so last decade. Remember, just because you constantly bang on about "conventional morality" exerting a repressive and unjust force upon you, this doesn't mean you can't take the conventional moral high ground. Over and over again.
Well done, now you're something! That something might be a caricature of a human being, but even so, that's as close as you're likely to get. Sit back in your newly constructed emotional womb, and relax, safe in the knowledge that the real world doesn't deem you important enough to try and get in there with you
9.3.04
I hate "hands on" or "dynamic" showpieces in museums. How many people leave a funfair with an appreciation of the physical principles behind the dodgems? None. Yes it might work in so far as it attracts children, but what's the point if the very purpose of the museum is obscured by rubbish games that aren't even a laugh?
Haven't been able to get Billy Joel's - 'We didn't start the fire' out of my head since I woke up this morning. For some reason I can't quite identify, it feels important to know why. Perhaps it's some kind of omen.
8.3.04
I want Steeleye Span - All Around My Hat played at my funeral. And I want the congregation to all wear hats for their "true love" who is "far, far away"
Weyhey! Around two more months of pretending I give a damn, and then my exams are over and I can stay home, in my underpants, drinking pepsi through a curly straw and smoking fags till I pass out on the floor right up until October.
I have come to accept the fact that I really am just taking the piss now. I'm going to go further than that, I'm going to celebrate it! I'm not here for any grand purpose, I have no far fetched noble agenda in mind when I open my textbooks. I'm here because my government pays my entire fees, because I'm clever enough to scam my way through the halls of academia, because I've landed on my feet, and because it beats the fuck out of having a career, and that's the way it's going to remain until I finally trip up. When that time comes, I'm just going to find some other way to chance my arm and shirk my responsibilities. By Christ, I think this is the first time I've felt truly proud of myself.
Would seriously persuing my degree be any better? I'd simply have a qualification that is defined by the educational establishment as a "basic foundation for possible future study" and so forth. So, great, I'd be a cunt in the eyes of the non-degree holders, and, every time I opened my mouth, I'd seem a presumptuous non-entity to proper authorities in my chosen field. Bollocks to it all, stop working and start playing the great game, I say.
I have come to accept the fact that I really am just taking the piss now. I'm going to go further than that, I'm going to celebrate it! I'm not here for any grand purpose, I have no far fetched noble agenda in mind when I open my textbooks. I'm here because my government pays my entire fees, because I'm clever enough to scam my way through the halls of academia, because I've landed on my feet, and because it beats the fuck out of having a career, and that's the way it's going to remain until I finally trip up. When that time comes, I'm just going to find some other way to chance my arm and shirk my responsibilities. By Christ, I think this is the first time I've felt truly proud of myself.
Would seriously persuing my degree be any better? I'd simply have a qualification that is defined by the educational establishment as a "basic foundation for possible future study" and so forth. So, great, I'd be a cunt in the eyes of the non-degree holders, and, every time I opened my mouth, I'd seem a presumptuous non-entity to proper authorities in my chosen field. Bollocks to it all, stop working and start playing the great game, I say.
5.3.04
...and so Princess Diana's making the news again. Well, the rubbish daytime TV features news at any rate.
She was unbalanced, she lived and in a state of luxury most of us can barely imagine. What more do we possibly need to know?
She was unbalanced, she lived and in a state of luxury most of us can barely imagine. What more do we possibly need to know?
4.3.04
So many programmes on antiques, valuations of antiques, valuations of antiques crammed into a game show format, rotten attempts to graft the valuation of antiques and bric a brac onto interior decorating shows (looking at shit, putting a shit price on it, and sold for dog shit pennies which are then used to buy a wicker basket in which to place the kids' clothes, etc).
I'm not particularly irate about it, I just don't understand it. Where is the attraction in watching some portly middle aged couple from Cirencester sifting through their filthy old crap and tat in the hope they'll find an Egyptian Sarcophagus or Dinosaur skeleton in amongst the old copies of Bunty which have been rotting in the garage for thirty years?
There's often something of the more uncomfortably twee aspects of stereotypes of the British, especially on bargain hunt. You've got a couple of eccentric hosts who've just fallen out of their role as the endearing scalliwag in an Agatha Christie novel, and the contestants are often just as quaintly odd. Today's are a pair of couples who are, of course, enthusiasts of the 1940's and members of a World War Two re-enactment society. Whether this activity is just an excuse for them to walk around in clothes made of curtains without having to fear being labelled a bunch of sweaty trevors is not known ("No, they're not scabby tramps, son - they're being historical). One of the men appears to enjoy posing as a member of the Wehrmacht, I dearly hope their "sessions" involve him violently throwing rocks at the other chap who's attempting to traverse a lake in a pedallo - in a re-enactment of Dunkirk; or possibly a simulated hanging for him being a member of the Britische Frei Korps.
It's not so much this supposed British culture that annoys me in itself, it's more that so much of it seems to be a weak imitation of the grander aspects of the stereotype:
Cheerful philandering is replaced with tedious swinging;
Amiable debauchery with petty indulgence;
Congenital insanity with mild eccentricity;
Confident reserve with quiet insecurity;
and so on.
Even in real life the imitations exist: Pseudo newspapers like the Daily Mail are read in place of a broadsheet; Coming from a military family substituted by a couple of weekends in the TA and sending your kids to the army gang, or whatever the militarized version of the boy scouts is; Sticking a ludicrously oversized conservatory in a garden too small to make it look anything other than a pompous nonsense takes the place of having "a decent pile".
Just, please, for the love of god, just stop pretending! Your conservatory looks stupid, the wives/husbands of your friends are all as ugly, dowdy and unremarkable as yours is, and why bother forking out for the Mail when you may as well not read it?
I'm not particularly irate about it, I just don't understand it. Where is the attraction in watching some portly middle aged couple from Cirencester sifting through their filthy old crap and tat in the hope they'll find an Egyptian Sarcophagus or Dinosaur skeleton in amongst the old copies of Bunty which have been rotting in the garage for thirty years?
There's often something of the more uncomfortably twee aspects of stereotypes of the British, especially on bargain hunt. You've got a couple of eccentric hosts who've just fallen out of their role as the endearing scalliwag in an Agatha Christie novel, and the contestants are often just as quaintly odd. Today's are a pair of couples who are, of course, enthusiasts of the 1940's and members of a World War Two re-enactment society. Whether this activity is just an excuse for them to walk around in clothes made of curtains without having to fear being labelled a bunch of sweaty trevors is not known ("No, they're not scabby tramps, son - they're being historical). One of the men appears to enjoy posing as a member of the Wehrmacht, I dearly hope their "sessions" involve him violently throwing rocks at the other chap who's attempting to traverse a lake in a pedallo - in a re-enactment of Dunkirk; or possibly a simulated hanging for him being a member of the Britische Frei Korps.
It's not so much this supposed British culture that annoys me in itself, it's more that so much of it seems to be a weak imitation of the grander aspects of the stereotype:
Cheerful philandering is replaced with tedious swinging;
Amiable debauchery with petty indulgence;
Congenital insanity with mild eccentricity;
Confident reserve with quiet insecurity;
and so on.
Even in real life the imitations exist: Pseudo newspapers like the Daily Mail are read in place of a broadsheet; Coming from a military family substituted by a couple of weekends in the TA and sending your kids to the army gang, or whatever the militarized version of the boy scouts is; Sticking a ludicrously oversized conservatory in a garden too small to make it look anything other than a pompous nonsense takes the place of having "a decent pile".
Just, please, for the love of god, just stop pretending! Your conservatory looks stupid, the wives/husbands of your friends are all as ugly, dowdy and unremarkable as yours is, and why bother forking out for the Mail when you may as well not read it?
