I'll Just Slip This In Under The Radar Then

Not exactly written for blog format. Probably too 'concept album' for it's original imagining. See if you can spot the stage direction (it's not very hard)

It’s hard trying to write comedy you know. I thought i’d try a different style - a bit of Frankie Boyle. Lay into the people I saw on the street and in disabled homes and that. You know. It was 8am. What I was doing up at that time - I don’t know. I saw a woman on her way to work in co-op fatigues. I saw her clearly. Eyed her with malice of aforethought... Fat arse? Yes, but obvious. Mundane. Lot’s of people have fat arses. Bad trousers? Yes, flared, vaguely bell-bottom vibe, potentially by george at asda. But again, the same, lots of people from low-income areas have bad fitting unfashionable trousers. And she was in work gear so... you know, can’t really tear into her that much eh. Overall? Commonplace. Not funny. Sad little life, crawling to work at Asda in the morning? Maybe but I’m pretty sad so I gave up with that one. I got to the bus stop. An enormously fat man waddles out of the bookies. Been done! You can’t just say some people are fat, smell terrible and are in the bookies at the minute it opens in the morning and expect a laugh (wait for laugh) Do you think that’s what got him out of bed? Maybe he was collecting winnings, which lends a little glory to an otherwise powerfully inglorious figure. So I’m at a loss, though it was certainly a morning devoid of sanctimony, and for that I was grateful. Had a bit of a breakdown at 21 or so (it’s true, I did) and I seem to have cultivated from that point this false impression of myself - like this: ‘i’m so nice, i’m good and positive, jesus best watch out’, and so on. When in fact I’m a... expletive deleted. Always have been. So have you. It was nice to get back in touch and have a mind filled with bile again. Forsaking it was a silly move. There is a frothing hatred just under the surface in all of us... presumably. Not just being nice, that’s fine, that’s the discipline, but thinking nice, trying to think nice all the time! Trying to subvert negative thoughts of which i felt too aware into saccharine nonsense, in a misguided attempt to be good... well it’s a fucking pain. Almost literally in fact. Mentally. Man wasn’t meant to be good and holy, he was meant to be a cunt. Like I mentioned - like Frankie. He is the everyman superman. Frankie Boyle - ‘also thus sprake zarathustra’... plus jokes about spastics. Glad I don’t work at co-op though. Been there, done that. This was before the days of the ad and jingle. I could have got her on that I suppose. ‘Oi! Love! Du du du du, du der!’ But then, I’ve been a postie - and postman pat, postman pat say the mong children, thinking for all the world they are being original. So perhaps that says something about this particular spiteful comedy mode... There are greater peaks. But will I ever scale them? Who gives a fuck.

Confession Time and Other Mediums

I used to read poetry like a Philistine. I've just realised. It is blazingly apparent to me, all of a sudden. I opened an old book from University and... saw the horror of my annotations. I observed my mark left. These were notes made in pen - an utter crisis of poor form. I saw at last the reality. I had been un-reading it in that time, before. Hardly bothered since. Non-reading. Never had I sat down and read the stuff properly.

It was introduced by syllabus and never my own industry. For shame! My plea to the honorable jury is that nowhere in the syllabus did it explicitly state that I had to grow as a person, and a man, in order to actually understand the material. That seems a bit of cheap shot to me in retrospect, I don't know about you. How are your studies doing by the way? I hope they are going well.

It seems that I made a slow transition as a thinker. Like the lumbering laborious about-face of a tremendous rusting cargo ship... I was slow to turn. HOONK! The matter studied like a slim rock pool full of crabs rather than the wider ocean. It's been a scandal. See the fishwives leer something awful as I wander back to town waving my soggy GCSE with ill-considered optimism. You should join the Navy, see the world, son. Much more reputable.

Now steady with the words of congratulation and matey slaps on the back. Hold your praise, contain your joy. I only managed to get about 12 stanzas and a half through the dedication of the poem I was reading before my mind started to confuddle with it's usual obsfucatory tricks. A sly combination of mounting wonder and criticism mingled glutinously to slow the pace of reading, before bringing it to a ponderous halt. With a face - a mooey - no doubt mounting with near intolerable gloom I find myself here at the internet, telling you what I saw there when I arrived there, clear as bell.

A side note: why is a bell clear? lazy language that, cliche. Doesn't mean anything no more.

Anyway:

Byron was really laying into a newly appointed Poet Laureate with gusto. Almost savage he was, apparently Tory was a comprehensive insult back then too. With aplomb, I tell you, he began then tearing some other bloke a new arsehole over Ireland. What can I say? Inspiring. Incidentally, see minute 7 and a half or so on Funny House Of Commons Moments on youtube, for William Hague giving Blair a 'how is this allowed?' personal-political nailing. See my fb page for a quick link. Also very good.

So, 12 stanzas of his dedication down - this was enough to prompt enough musing to meet myself here. This surely means I was enjoying it. Excellent. But I definitely need to get back to it, finish what I began. The spurious moment of enlightenment has been enjoyed and extended far beyond it's remit. Good though. Time to fire up the old brain and sharpen it a little more, on the whetstone of time and all that other stuff.

God And That

 Thought i'd add this. My contribution to a long argument about God. On a football forum of all places. Which is absurd because we all know that that is Pele. Or maybe Maradona. Ok or Robbie Fowler. But that's all the contenders I'm allowing for now. And they all disseminate from the same ancient, bronze age book of FIFA anyway.

It is what it says on the tin, as you'll see - a tangent. Thoughts and long drawn out bickering on the matter welcomed.

(the other guy had said something that tried to use scientific statistics to prove a religious point... generally not a hot idea, i think it was that there was an alleged (according to the UNI of EAST ANGLIA) 0.01% in 4 billion chance of the earth and it's contents coming to fruition. Long odds indeed, but given infinity... not so long. GOLDILOCKS ZONE DUDE we are already ON THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK... WOOOAHH! So anyway...)

...it's a good job that to the best of our understanding the universe is infinite in both time and space then.

tangent alert: call me a hippy burn-out but i think the phenomenon of consciousness itself is the 'solution' to the problem of infinity, by the way. in it's uniqueness, it asks the question that without itself (consciousness) wouldn't be asked. if there were no consciousness and lets presume the planet existed without it, it would just be an animal cycle of action based on instinct with no property of reflection and self-awareness. in that sense, would it even exist? it is the tree falling in a forest question.

soooo.... you know how we can't quite imagine infinity? how we have no comprehension of it, really? because it is beyond vastness? when i try and think of space-infinity as a concept i come up to a sealing wall! what is beyond that then, in my mind? apart from frustration at not having a clear answer... well maybe terry pratchett's turtles and elephants... it's as good an answer as any other! 


but it is the conscious mind that asked that question - 'how' is infinity? what is the wall that may / kind of exists to seal it all in, the one that doesn't exist? the substitute for the answer, the best a brain can do if it tries to reach the edge of the universe?

it's consciousnesses only real (probably) confusion. what/how is infinity? ...cannot compute. wall. must be something inside wall, but also outside... argh more infinity, cannot compute...

and so the mind that asks a question in a moment of esoteric (for that is consciousnesses nature) speculation and self-reflection reaches an impasse that nothing but itself can resolve. it cannot resolve it and i'd give the final answer as though it were a remainder - at the edge of infinity there is a wall. there is inside and outside that wall. here is the remainder - the in-group and out-group schematic drives the nature and history of man and woman. you can apply it to most things you like (or not like)

'with, without... and who'll deny, it's what the fighting's all about?'


- pink floyd, us and them and junk
hippy burnout report end

Not like Diet Coke

Hello everyone!

New blog then. I've been wrestling with what theme or thing to talk about. Personal, social or political? Well don't be misled by the title, yet again my title is a red herring. It is the advert which was currently blazing it's subliminal (and liminal, I suppose) messages into my already wet, salubrious and silly brain. It's sly, is what it is. But not in this case -

I think the general message was that it would be cool to be a small but large-headed puppet with almost comically oversized features, and a spunky, feisty and silly personality. Who doesn't take life too seriously and although has a boss, this is irrelevant if I were to be a large headed puppet who likes drinking Diet Coke with my similarly designed colleagues.

So... I don't think I like diet coke. Or maybe I do. It doesn't seem like a bad world, the coke drinking world. Not particularly. Basically I'm unsure. That is, on the strength of the advertising. As far as memory tells, I don't generally drink coke anyway, though it's OK if I fancy it and best with whiskey.

When I say 'best', I mean worth drinking at all. Must be that sour note. Which seems odd on reflection, because historically I absolutely love sweet things. Just the other day I was standing in line at Tesco's imagining the conversation that would ensue if the cashier were to (rudely) question me on the items I was buying. I was going to say that the ice cream was for the girlfriend and the Coco Pops a nephew or other child relative who might be under my care. The Rennies, I would admit bravely, were for me.

So seeing as I am 28 with the sometime palette of a child, why not sweet, gooey flavoured drinks? I've just answered my own question there, I find them gooey and odd. A fan of water - good animal instinct, me. Strange child, it's all I drank for some time. I can't even really blame my dad for tricking me with a glass of lemonade (masquerading as the pure mountain stream or tappy type stuff) and subsequently enjoying with the family as I spat it out everywhere in shock, all over the dinner table, dinners, et al. The joke seemed on him in the end there, for the cheek, but as I say - can't say I blame him.

Whoops, turns out the title wasn't a red herring after all. It was a starting point. I wonder what I would like to produce if I thought about it first? This will be the next blog - a pre-planned thematic behemoth full of previously thought ideas and things. Definitely.

Um... so anyway. I was reading a 'better your blog' blog a few days ago, and it was talking about maximizing one's blogs worthiness, circulation, use and such... It said 'provide value'. Not sure what value you've got here. The advert analysis was pithy, right? But like shooting fish in a barrel perhaps. Everyone knows to be cynical about adverts.

But cynicism is boring. That's what I've learnt in life this far. Desperately boring. Toward the things, that advertisers try to insinuate, upon the sleeping side of our consciousness? No. Cynicism is an essential weapon, all the better to live life with.

But don't let it spill out all over the joy of life. This I'm learning too. It is terribly dull. Don't be a cynic!

So try new things, author, this is a note to you. Live a little.

On Missing Brighton

Seeing as I am promoting this blog only via facebook at the moment, I thought I'd write a few lines on missing my home town. This makes thematic sense, in case you were wondering, because as facebook-based chums, I'd like to reveal a little of myself to you. Also, I don't want to reveal too much. This is of course because you are facebook chums.

Missing somewhere a bit, as I am, conforms to the 'rules of the schoolyard'. I forget at which number on Homer's list it places... but there weren't too many in there anyway. This is not the Greek writer of Odysseys we are talking. You knew that obviously, but anyway it's this:

'Never say anything unless you are sure everyone else feels the same way first.'

Well, no-one is going to pour scorn on that sentiment, that's the point I'm making. It's not too revealing. I miss my hometown a bit and have been busy with a kind of cabin fever, living away from the fresh air and the blue sight of the sea. Even at University remember, there were always summers spent back home - long summers down by the sunny sea, having a beer and all that by the stones and beneath the seagulls. I feel pretty deprived. The visits I made during summer were of course extra wonderful and pleasant as they had the flavour of something rare and special, so it wasn't all bad. I hope I'm not just staying in Manchester to make the return home all the sweeter... though I am a bit like that, I confess.

But actually, I consider Manchester home by this point. I am enjoying it here. I am developing myself, my life and so on as one hopes to, and the company of Chris (landlord, poet, friend) is not half bad. He doesn't complain too much when I smoke in my bedroom, so he wins points there for starters. Not that I do it often... Respect.

So it's Ok, Manchester is a pretty cool city (with that BIG CITY feel... just about) and there is plenty to see and do - though you have to pay a bit more attention to do it than in Brighton, which is all pretty much conglomerated within a mile radius and don't try to pretend that it's not. This is part of it's utter big town / small city, seasidey, charm. Hence, I miss it, just a little bit.

It'll always be there for me, Brighton, unlike my hair - though that is holding on valiantly as my mid-twenties concede to the late ones. Well done hair. So here we are, law of the playground respected, a tiny little piece of me and blog for you to sup upon. Less sprawling than the last two as well. More Brighton this one, to their previous, unwieldy and large Manchester. Neat, huh!

And finally... the question remains. Why so cagey? What was all that about the law of the playground, we are all adults and anyway, why bring it up at all?! If you hadn't, we wouldn't be thinking about it anyway, idiot! Well that, is as may be - but it's part of the experience that I prune the appropriate flowering branches for display on the leafy bloggering table, and it seemed an interesting part of the enterprise to consider. And revealing oneself... well that dangerous sweetness is what it is all about, and for now, here we are.


Gavin H. Prior esq etc etc