I haven't really stayed in a flat before, except obviously on holiday and things like that, and I must say that the lack of stairs is an interesting and overall brilliant feature. Me and Bexxer were staying at my parents' flat down in Portsmouth all this weekend - I say "all this weekend" but what I mean when I say that is Saturday night, Sunday night, left on Monday. It very much has been a floating weekend, and I feel that Friday was absolutely ages ago, as if this weekend has been very much set apart from the rest of the summer so far. Why? I don't really know. I suppose it's the way time works. Watched Brasseye last night, the SCIENCE episode - "they managed to isolate and blow up a fortnight" - very funny. Maybe this weekend past has been elastically stretched by bad science and turned into wobbly matter, and I'm floating around passing heavy water. There's a little metal Buddha in front of me, sitting on my laptop. Much more relaxed than I ever have been. I have also recently, as in an hour ago or something, had lunch. Yes, lunch. I made it as well. Butternut squash and roasted red pepper soup. With onions in as well, some vegetable stock, and a lot of pepper. It was very tasty, at least I thought it was very tasty, and it is my mum's favourite soup (she told me to make it for her) and she said it had too much pepper in it, could feel it at the back of her throat a bit in fact. Well, maybe I just like spice too much.
But the weekend was an interesting thing. It was the GRADUATION BALL! £35 a ticket, so I, and all of us, were expecting something sick. Sickly good. Bek, me, James & Sophie stayed at the flat (which is my parents' flat they bought, but rent out to some students who are not saying in it for the summer, which is why we are allowed to go down there so much), and we all got ready and whatnot, and I must say I do not ever want to wear a tuxedo again - 'black-tie' my arse, too much cummerbund that doesn't even bloody stay up, baggy baggy trousers... the only decent thing I was wearing was the shoes, which were mine. Enough about suits, though; everyone there was wearing the suit and looked a vague concoction of stupid and smart: we were all in the same boat. The same, very, very surprised boat. Surprised, because the Union at Portsmouth did not look at all like the Union inside. Well, of course the rooms were the same shapes and everything, obviously I wasn't getting lost in a stupor of bad-tasting rosé champagne, tripping over 3' x 3' sparkly dice, set up around these rooms which I didn't know, slipping over the hearty vomit of whatever and so-what... No, nothing like this. I knew where I was. It was just that the red carpets and white 'curtains' put up round the walls, and the streamers and whatnot - this all made the place look very swanky. We therefore proceeded to swank it up. We were such swankers that night. Me and James ran into a group of swankers actually, who called us swankers, for dancing. Please. Just because they think they are too cool to skank it up to the Cream DJs upstairs, just because they are so woodenly terrible at dancing, just because they were not drunk enough, just because they were swankers themselves. Deary me.
But honestly: it was a brilliant night. Well done Portsmouth, I can almost forget the brain-baking incompetence of the graduation day itself. Oh well. I'm sure I will remember the better things; who wants to remember queueing? I will instead remember the Graduation Ball. There were a lot of things to do that night. There was a helter-skelter, prompting me to sing "helter-skelter! dananananana!" every time someone mentioned it. There was a food area, with a carvery, a BBQ, a noodle bar, a pizza counter? Yes, all of that. Plus the helter-skelter of course. There was a silent disco (which was so funny - I had never been to one before, and the madness of bopping around to Jay Z and then turning around to see people doing the macarena was too much for me, clearly). There were loads of different little bar areas. Each one of these areas had a theme, however: the overall theme for the whole thing was "Seven Deadly Sins". So, there was a bar where you could sit down and chill out, which in the daytime is usually a coffee place called Via Lattea (though still attached to the Union), and that one was Sloth. I suppose because people were sitting...? Gluttony was the food area. To be honest, I didn't pay enough attention to signs and things to work out which areas were denoted by the other five sins. Shame. Even the cocktails were themed for the night, "the proud student" for example, and other things similar like "the lusty banana", "the jealous foot" - I don't know, I'm making them up, but they ran along those same, rickety lines. Oh, have remembered two other places: Envy was the silent disco (I presume beause there were two channels on the wireless headphones, and you'd get 'envious' of other people listening to the other channel? A bit tenuous), and Pride was the place where you first walked in, filled with mirrors and gold. The other three I don't know, but I imagine Lust was a quiet area near the toilets or a secluded area outside, or behind the helter-skelter. Not that it would be the official area, however. Just a lusty place.
Oh, and we saw N-Dubz play. I would say it was shit and rubbish and that it pointless and I'd rather have seen so-and-so play. I mean, luckily I have been listening to Radio 1 recently and have had ear-worm of N-Dubz tunes for longer than I would have liked. But aside from all of that, it was pretty decent. They did win the MOBO award for Best UK Newcomer, so any haters can refer themselves to that. Definitely glad I saw them. What did bother me though was that Number 1 isn't even their song - it's Tinchy Stryder's, and I think Dappy just appeared on it. Who am I to know about pop politics, though? I'm not particularly a pop person so perhaps in mind of the peradventure propping up this current subject I shall pop off. The article covering them on Wikipedia is nice and comprehensive, however: N-Dubz!
Sunday was spent lazily (me and Bek didn't get up till 2), wandered into town, cherished the new Burger King in Portsmouth (one had been closed for more than a year, which saddened us all), and then wandered back and went to see James, Josh & Jack in the evening. I had a terrible pizza from Domino's Pizza (tandoori - never, ever get it, it will set your arse on fire the next day). Slept. Monday, wandered about, clutching my stomach as the tandoori worked its terrible business deep into my bowels. I was unhappy about this. And then we left. And now I am sitting here looking out into the drizzle, wondering whether it will ever be sunny again. Will it? August is supposed to be nice. The man who cut my hair the other week told me. I saw it on the front page of a paper at the weekend, backing up the local knowledge of the barber. Fantastic. Roll on August, then. Oh, and I have done nothing for my new project since I mentioned it last week. I even emailed the creator of CRIMSON ROOM, Toshimitsu Takagi, but as of yet I have had no reply. I've read two Sherlock Holmes stories as well, or have I told you that already? Anyway, if I have or not, whatever, I found them to be very underwhelming and overestimated. Perhaps there are better stories than the two I read. Perhaps this week, or in a second, I can do some more on it. I just want it to happen right now, but my horoscope said you do have to walk before you can run. You can't just start flying before you're even born. You can't be a tree before you've been a seed. You can't step in the same river twice. Don't do this while doing this unless you want a certain other thing to occur. You must close your eyes before you can open them. Leaves only fall down. Try but do not try too hard. Learning is a key to the door of understanding. Talk in riddles and you will be muddled. All of these kinds of things. I only trust clichés, so if you want to talk to me, speak to me in clichés.
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Thursday 16 July 2009
Did I hear the Gaudeamus?
I have graduated. I won't talk about Tuesday because Tuesday was a day of nothing-much and research that I will always come back to for a while, so it isn't important. Wednesday, yesterday, however, is another matter entirely.
I am not quite sure whether the day went well, or if it went badly. I am in two minds about the whole thing - negative and positive. I suppose there are essences of these two things in everything.
I think that the graduation, not just the ceremony itself, but the whole day, just highlighted the absolute disorganisation that haunts the very foundations of the University of Portsmouth, like the spirit of termite who forgets how much it eats and ruins the very fibre of what the University stands on; it is eaten from the inside by disarray and confusion. Firstly, we arrived at the Guildhall in Portsmouth and walked down to the Park Building, which is right behind it - here is where we picked up our gowns. To say this is understating the matter entirely; the wait was lengthy, weighty. But this wasn't my main gripe with it - I didn't expect to be able to get things yesterday without queueing. But then again, should we have to queue? Perhaps if the University had organised itself better, there should have been less standing in line (as is English thing to do - we queue patiently furious).
'Line' is not the right word. We arrive and there is no one at Park to direct us anywhere. There are two purple stands in amongst a bustling throng of people, on each it says Graduation Enquiries - these are people, I thought, who are just queueing up to ask questions. So instead I followed the sign saying "return gowns --->" on the Park Building. Obviously, it wasn't where you picked up the gowns, but they told me they are in a big room at the other end of the corridor. Anyway, it transpired that the Graduation Enquiries thing was actually the queue for gowns. Should it have not said "PICK UP YOUR GOWNS HERE", or perhaps "PICK UP YOUR GOWNS HERE" - but I think
PICK UP YOUR GOWNS HERE
would have worked much better. I cannot believe that University didn't have the ingenuity to specify where exactly we were supposed to pick up the gowns. Perhaps it was the final intellectual test, an initiation for the ceremony later; if you can't find the gown-place, you don't graduate. I imagine it was just stupidity on the University's part, though. I said that 'line' was not the right word, because the crowd that was moving as one thing with hundreds of shuffling feet near the "graduation enquiries" was a queue for gowns, but it didn't particularly look like a queue, or a line. It was the complete antithesis of a line: a mass, a blob, a quivering scab, which bottlenecked as we found out that it did turn into line when we had to be filtered down through a stairway into the belly of Park. Here the queue was a line. The effect, however, was one not dissimilar to trying to push a cube through a smaller, triangular hole. A bloody mess.
This was done, and we got our gowns in time. We were missing mortarboards. Another queue. Why did we bother wrapping tape measures round our heads? The mortarboard collection point was in a gazebo set up in a car park, with lots of cardboard boxes full of the stupid hats. Mine didn't fit. When I asked the girl helping me if she had a different size, she said 'yes, one'. One other size. So, like I asked previously, why put myself through another potentially complex-forming thing like head measuring? Now I think I've got a big head. 60cm circumference. Is that bad? Do I now need to look up 'average head measurements' on Google? Best not; people would think I was starting up some phrenologically-based eugenics scheme. Instead, I will just retain the image of my head as one which is big and misshapen. Asteroid head. I know it's not, but I'm sure you understand what I mean.
The ceremony itself, in Guildhall, was possibly one of the most boring things I have sat through in all my life. It was absolutely interminable. It was also very hot and stuffy in that hall. And, though the names of graduands and diplomates were read out quickly, it seemed to be a rather prolonged experience, during which I suffered:
Bum-ache - a terrible aching in the buttocks resulting from sitting on cheap seats for too long; cannot be dispelled by 'shifting'
Paranoid mortarboard syndrome - in which the sufferer can do nothing but check the mortarboard they are wearing; one notable symptom is constant tassel arrangement (or CTA)
Actual catastrophic tinnitus - an ache in the ears, occurring when in close proximity with loud, often piercing noise; patients often report that girls sitting directly behind them 'wooping' and the onset of ACT occur at the same time
Yawning - a large intake of breath, indicative of apathy; thought to have a 'cooling' effect on the brain and body
Restive indecision in the lower limbs - in a resting state of mind, the constant moving of the legs into different positions; causes are unknown
I'm sure I suffered a number of other pieces of annoying behaviour while I was there, but they are so annoying that I can't remember them.
I must say, though, that it wasn't really that terrifying going up onstage to shake the vice-chancellor's hand. Sheila Hancock (she is the Chancellor the University, how brilliant) was out of action for hand-shaking because she had hurt the wrist of her right hand, or just the right hand itself. She also made a lovely speech afterwards, saying that us students - graduands I suppose - should be very proud of ourselves, because if we can do this horrible walk, up onto the stage, and then all around the hall for everybody to see, we can do anything. Well, if I wasn't that scared of it, does that mean I won't be able to do that much of anything? We'll see. She also said that we are the educated "elite" - that we have been to university, and therefore are 'worth' a whole lot more than the "vacuous celebrities" on the red carpet wearing "borrowed designer dresses"; she went on to say that us in Britain have an "obsession with the mediocre", or something like that. Her speech was very nice. I think I might order a DVD of the ceremony, not to watch me raise my eyebrows to the camera onstage (one of the more minute forms of horseplay on the stage - one person purposely tripped up the stairs onto the stage; though Sheila Hancock said she enjoyed the "pratfall", I just thought it was a prat falling over), but moreover to listen to that speech again. It was inspirational.
The evening was filled with curry (I had a madras), drinking (I stayed and went out with Alex and Mark), walking around (we met the most indecisive people from the Film Studies course), and a failed botch at visiting a strip club (£10 entry does not bode well for the price of drinks therein). We went to bed when it was light. So that was good. The day ended well, despite the fact that it did not particularly start as if it would be a barrel of laughs. And to think I was toying with the idea of not going to graduation at all! Yes it was awfully boring, loftily so, but no: it wasn't all that bad. All you need is a little tolerance to get you through the day.
And there was no group on the steps of Guildhall, throwing their mortarboards in the air, smiling, laughing, kissing each other, and breaking down into a postgraduate orgy that wouldn't dissolve for hours. That's illegal in Portsmouth.
I am not quite sure whether the day went well, or if it went badly. I am in two minds about the whole thing - negative and positive. I suppose there are essences of these two things in everything.
I think that the graduation, not just the ceremony itself, but the whole day, just highlighted the absolute disorganisation that haunts the very foundations of the University of Portsmouth, like the spirit of termite who forgets how much it eats and ruins the very fibre of what the University stands on; it is eaten from the inside by disarray and confusion. Firstly, we arrived at the Guildhall in Portsmouth and walked down to the Park Building, which is right behind it - here is where we picked up our gowns. To say this is understating the matter entirely; the wait was lengthy, weighty. But this wasn't my main gripe with it - I didn't expect to be able to get things yesterday without queueing. But then again, should we have to queue? Perhaps if the University had organised itself better, there should have been less standing in line (as is English thing to do - we queue patiently furious).
'Line' is not the right word. We arrive and there is no one at Park to direct us anywhere. There are two purple stands in amongst a bustling throng of people, on each it says Graduation Enquiries - these are people, I thought, who are just queueing up to ask questions. So instead I followed the sign saying "return gowns --->" on the Park Building. Obviously, it wasn't where you picked up the gowns, but they told me they are in a big room at the other end of the corridor. Anyway, it transpired that the Graduation Enquiries thing was actually the queue for gowns. Should it have not said "PICK UP YOUR GOWNS HERE", or perhaps "PICK UP YOUR GOWNS HERE" - but I think
PICK UP YOUR GOWNS HERE
would have worked much better. I cannot believe that University didn't have the ingenuity to specify where exactly we were supposed to pick up the gowns. Perhaps it was the final intellectual test, an initiation for the ceremony later; if you can't find the gown-place, you don't graduate. I imagine it was just stupidity on the University's part, though. I said that 'line' was not the right word, because the crowd that was moving as one thing with hundreds of shuffling feet near the "graduation enquiries" was a queue for gowns, but it didn't particularly look like a queue, or a line. It was the complete antithesis of a line: a mass, a blob, a quivering scab, which bottlenecked as we found out that it did turn into line when we had to be filtered down through a stairway into the belly of Park. Here the queue was a line. The effect, however, was one not dissimilar to trying to push a cube through a smaller, triangular hole. A bloody mess.
This was done, and we got our gowns in time. We were missing mortarboards. Another queue. Why did we bother wrapping tape measures round our heads? The mortarboard collection point was in a gazebo set up in a car park, with lots of cardboard boxes full of the stupid hats. Mine didn't fit. When I asked the girl helping me if she had a different size, she said 'yes, one'. One other size. So, like I asked previously, why put myself through another potentially complex-forming thing like head measuring? Now I think I've got a big head. 60cm circumference. Is that bad? Do I now need to look up 'average head measurements' on Google? Best not; people would think I was starting up some phrenologically-based eugenics scheme. Instead, I will just retain the image of my head as one which is big and misshapen. Asteroid head. I know it's not, but I'm sure you understand what I mean.
The ceremony itself, in Guildhall, was possibly one of the most boring things I have sat through in all my life. It was absolutely interminable. It was also very hot and stuffy in that hall. And, though the names of graduands and diplomates were read out quickly, it seemed to be a rather prolonged experience, during which I suffered:
Bum-ache - a terrible aching in the buttocks resulting from sitting on cheap seats for too long; cannot be dispelled by 'shifting'
Paranoid mortarboard syndrome - in which the sufferer can do nothing but check the mortarboard they are wearing; one notable symptom is constant tassel arrangement (or CTA)
Actual catastrophic tinnitus - an ache in the ears, occurring when in close proximity with loud, often piercing noise; patients often report that girls sitting directly behind them 'wooping' and the onset of ACT occur at the same time
Yawning - a large intake of breath, indicative of apathy; thought to have a 'cooling' effect on the brain and body
Restive indecision in the lower limbs - in a resting state of mind, the constant moving of the legs into different positions; causes are unknown
I'm sure I suffered a number of other pieces of annoying behaviour while I was there, but they are so annoying that I can't remember them.
I must say, though, that it wasn't really that terrifying going up onstage to shake the vice-chancellor's hand. Sheila Hancock (she is the Chancellor the University, how brilliant) was out of action for hand-shaking because she had hurt the wrist of her right hand, or just the right hand itself. She also made a lovely speech afterwards, saying that us students - graduands I suppose - should be very proud of ourselves, because if we can do this horrible walk, up onto the stage, and then all around the hall for everybody to see, we can do anything. Well, if I wasn't that scared of it, does that mean I won't be able to do that much of anything? We'll see. She also said that we are the educated "elite" - that we have been to university, and therefore are 'worth' a whole lot more than the "vacuous celebrities" on the red carpet wearing "borrowed designer dresses"; she went on to say that us in Britain have an "obsession with the mediocre", or something like that. Her speech was very nice. I think I might order a DVD of the ceremony, not to watch me raise my eyebrows to the camera onstage (one of the more minute forms of horseplay on the stage - one person purposely tripped up the stairs onto the stage; though Sheila Hancock said she enjoyed the "pratfall", I just thought it was a prat falling over), but moreover to listen to that speech again. It was inspirational.
The evening was filled with curry (I had a madras), drinking (I stayed and went out with Alex and Mark), walking around (we met the most indecisive people from the Film Studies course), and a failed botch at visiting a strip club (£10 entry does not bode well for the price of drinks therein). We went to bed when it was light. So that was good. The day ended well, despite the fact that it did not particularly start as if it would be a barrel of laughs. And to think I was toying with the idea of not going to graduation at all! Yes it was awfully boring, loftily so, but no: it wasn't all that bad. All you need is a little tolerance to get you through the day.
And there was no group on the steps of Guildhall, throwing their mortarboards in the air, smiling, laughing, kissing each other, and breaking down into a postgraduate orgy that wouldn't dissolve for hours. That's illegal in Portsmouth.
Monday 13 July 2009
Rationcrination & Hominism
Why are suit trousers so criminally baggy here in England? Our suits used to be tight as a whistle here before we adopted the Italian style of tailoring. It's not Italy here, is it? We have no need for trousers which would definitely slow you down, in fact, probably make you float to the ground quite nicely, if you were to jump out of a building. And you'd probably be jumping out of a building in the first place because of the suit trousers. You'd really want to kick yourself after that, wouldn't you? So then you go to kick yourself, but you slip over because of flat, stupid English loafers. Then where are you? On your arse, crying into a handkerchief that for some reason comes with a suit, dreaming of fitted trousers and shoes with laces and some detail.
It is the same conundrum every time I try to or go to hire a suit. Why must the trousers be so parachuted? I think I get so wound up about it because you end up looking around 10kg heavier than you actually are. Plus, you just literally have to dress the same as everyone else. Black tie means black tie, not a red one, a blue one, a patterned paisley one, a houndstooth one - no. For girls, however, it is called Formal. This is basically any dress on which the skirt is not too high, and the bodice not too low. Other than that, anything goes. No wonder why so many more men in the world commit suicide than women (the ratio is 4:1) - we are piledriven by conformity, into the very ground on which we stand, becoming nothing more than stunted statues that depict the very ugly, ungroomed facets of patronisation, involuntary sameness, noncommunication, and sedate sedentariness that fill the corridors of manly self-fulfilling prophecies and dull testosterone, until the whole unlively building bulges like a bulbous over-pregnant stomach, whereupon it bursts open, and the life of man begins again. And all I wanted was fitted trousers.
I also made a trip to Walton Library today. Walton on Thames (surely you've gathered that by now? Not Walton-on-the-Naze, nor Walton-on-the-Hill, definitely not Walton Superior) library. Very limited selection of books. The majority is all recent pulp and chick lit and crime thrillers that may be turned into films one day to save their authors from complete obscurity. The rest is local history and blah. If you want to find Voltaire do not go there. If you want to find Poe, you're probably better off settling with the Teletubbies homophonic offering. Hardly any Arthur Conan Doyle either. No 'Classics' section, just Fiction, Crime, Children's, History - a very vague offering. What they have done is taken their first shabby incarnation, a terrible late-70s crammed and cramped, complete with carpet tiles, and just spaced it out on a modern top floor of a new building near the Heart. Same amount of books. Practically nothing but the decor is new. I am glad for the space, I suppose, but I'm not exactly going to start two-stepping around the shelves, am I? Only unless I'm really agitated, and today I was only irritated, so that was lucky I suppose. I did get one book out, though, an Sherlock Holmes collection, but with only two of the stories in it that I wanted to read; two out of three is not too bad though (pun intended): The Crooked Man and The Resident Patient. Missing, however, The Valley - which may be a novel for all I know - and another short one, The Speckled Band.
Why have I suddenly got into crime fiction? Well, in preparation for a new project I intend to undertake, overtake, and generally dominate until it is a decent piece of writing. The research has begun well enough - a mix of the internet (what would we do without it?) and book-flicking to start with. Heavier stuff is to follow, I am sure, but it will all provide the basis for what I hope will be worth the time involved. I hope, holistically speaking, that it will be greater than the sum of its parts; what I mean is that T(R x I x W) = N. Time, Research, Imagination, Writing, and Novel. That is probably not an accurate equation, because maths prodigiousness has basically avoided me since the last sum I did on the GCSE Maths paper. Anyway, you get the general gist of what I am saying.
Another thing, I recommend that you have a go on these games: Crimson Room, Viridian Room, White Chamber. I don't know if you've heard of them before, but they have sparked the inspiration for my new project. I would say play Crimson (as it is the first), then Viridian - being a sequel to the Crimson, and then White, because it is the newest. They're kind of hard, but I think you'll enjoy trying - for a while, anyway, before you start ripping your hair out, getting bored, and wishing that I had never showed you them in the first place. I like them.
I have to ride the Indian bike now. I am being summoned.
It is the same conundrum every time I try to or go to hire a suit. Why must the trousers be so parachuted? I think I get so wound up about it because you end up looking around 10kg heavier than you actually are. Plus, you just literally have to dress the same as everyone else. Black tie means black tie, not a red one, a blue one, a patterned paisley one, a houndstooth one - no. For girls, however, it is called Formal. This is basically any dress on which the skirt is not too high, and the bodice not too low. Other than that, anything goes. No wonder why so many more men in the world commit suicide than women (the ratio is 4:1) - we are piledriven by conformity, into the very ground on which we stand, becoming nothing more than stunted statues that depict the very ugly, ungroomed facets of patronisation, involuntary sameness, noncommunication, and sedate sedentariness that fill the corridors of manly self-fulfilling prophecies and dull testosterone, until the whole unlively building bulges like a bulbous over-pregnant stomach, whereupon it bursts open, and the life of man begins again. And all I wanted was fitted trousers.
I also made a trip to Walton Library today. Walton on Thames (surely you've gathered that by now? Not Walton-on-the-Naze, nor Walton-on-the-Hill, definitely not Walton Superior) library. Very limited selection of books. The majority is all recent pulp and chick lit and crime thrillers that may be turned into films one day to save their authors from complete obscurity. The rest is local history and blah. If you want to find Voltaire do not go there. If you want to find Poe, you're probably better off settling with the Teletubbies homophonic offering. Hardly any Arthur Conan Doyle either. No 'Classics' section, just Fiction, Crime, Children's, History - a very vague offering. What they have done is taken their first shabby incarnation, a terrible late-70s crammed and cramped, complete with carpet tiles, and just spaced it out on a modern top floor of a new building near the Heart. Same amount of books. Practically nothing but the decor is new. I am glad for the space, I suppose, but I'm not exactly going to start two-stepping around the shelves, am I? Only unless I'm really agitated, and today I was only irritated, so that was lucky I suppose. I did get one book out, though, an Sherlock Holmes collection, but with only two of the stories in it that I wanted to read; two out of three is not too bad though (pun intended): The Crooked Man and The Resident Patient. Missing, however, The Valley - which may be a novel for all I know - and another short one, The Speckled Band.
Why have I suddenly got into crime fiction? Well, in preparation for a new project I intend to undertake, overtake, and generally dominate until it is a decent piece of writing. The research has begun well enough - a mix of the internet (what would we do without it?) and book-flicking to start with. Heavier stuff is to follow, I am sure, but it will all provide the basis for what I hope will be worth the time involved. I hope, holistically speaking, that it will be greater than the sum of its parts; what I mean is that T(R x I x W) = N. Time, Research, Imagination, Writing, and Novel. That is probably not an accurate equation, because maths prodigiousness has basically avoided me since the last sum I did on the GCSE Maths paper. Anyway, you get the general gist of what I am saying.
Another thing, I recommend that you have a go on these games: Crimson Room, Viridian Room, White Chamber. I don't know if you've heard of them before, but they have sparked the inspiration for my new project. I would say play Crimson (as it is the first), then Viridian - being a sequel to the Crimson, and then White, because it is the newest. They're kind of hard, but I think you'll enjoy trying - for a while, anyway, before you start ripping your hair out, getting bored, and wishing that I had never showed you them in the first place. I like them.
I have to ride the Indian bike now. I am being summoned.
Sunday 12 July 2009
'vassever'
I have just ridden home on the most fantastic of bicycles.
But before anything else, I need stamp a few apologies on the minutes; monumentous things happen everyday but I neglect to note them down. Did you know I watched two films last week, in one night? Bigga than Ben and The Black Balloon? Did you know that? No. That's because I didn't say anything. What about my hair? Exactly. I got it cut the day before yesterday (Friday). Have you heard of the detective club, the Sherlocks, the Bergeracs? No, I didn't think so. I might be able to jog your memory if I mention SAN DOMENICO. Well...? Of course not, because I didn't say anything about it. The gig at Collets gym? Anything? Anyone? Blah? dfopr? eg0i93v.? bbkocc-s?
?
I'll do a "previously, on [whatever]" now to put you at ease. The films: me, Bek, Rose & Megman went to Blockbuster (a very rare thing these days, don't you think?) and could not decide on a film, so we picked two obscure ones that we'd never heard of, Bigga than Ben - which is about two Russian immigrants who come to London to make money, portraying the not-seen side of immigration (also based on these two guys' diaries) - was ok, bit low budget, but not bad at all; the other, The Black Balloon, was basically about a hectic family who move to a new place, the mother is pregnant, one of the two sons is autistic, it is set in the late 80s, and it is a 'cult' kind of film, quirky and "life-affirming" (DVD box's words, not mine) - the mum from Little Miss Sunshine is in it, so you could probably tell what kind of a film it would be. Worth a watch. Look it up.
Thursday. We didn't go to New Slang - so ignore the last blog post I did, which was pretty much all about New Slang. People are fatigued and cast deep into poverty. We have taken to eating grass. Instead people came round to my house - or my room, my triangularly challenged prism of a room - and we watched... a film! Nicely nicely. It was A Cock and Bull Story. I quite like it, but then again I have read Tristram Shandy ... partially. I don't know if that aided me in liking the film more. I am just dropping hints. It was just that. And we don't really eat grass; apparently it's very bad for you. Don't quote me on it, though, because it's just conjecture with no origins, not in my memory anyway.
'Aircut. 'Ri 'ay. Ja, Ich got mein hair cut on Freichday. Alex and I actually went together. Yes, boys can do that together as well as girls. People automatically think that, because you are a man, you either have to do everything on your own, or in big groups. Two is always homosexual. Three is self-explanatory as well. Every man is an island, just expected to be very stupid, impatient, and self-centred. We only seem self-centred because we are islands. We just walk around saying hello to people and talking dumbly about Cricket and the weather, and no man knows anything about any other man, because we are unable to make connections with each other - what kind of a person can if all they have to initiate conversation is a sackful of half-known trivialities and little words to repeat because we're all so bent on agreeing with each other: "exactly" - "exactly" - "yeah - oh, exactly". As soon as I sit down in a barber's or a hairdresser's chair I become a mute. My hands are scared stiff under the sheet that is too tight around my neck to scratch my face which has, trust my luck, suddenly become very itchy. I try to itch by moving my nose around. It never works. I look in the mirror and see that I look like a troll while I am pulling this particular face. I however walk away with a fab haircut for £15 (£13, but I gave £2 for the conversation). Job done. No longer mushroom head - an afro that did not grow up and out, but sideways and only sideways. If it had rained, I could have sheltered people next to my ears, under the great canopy of tangled hair. Next question.
SAN DOMENICO. A HUB OF SKEPTICAL CRYPTICALITIES & CONSPIRACY. + god knows what else.
[sandom=?] I don't think I can actually talk about it right now. It is too mysterious. Please go here, to see a list of search results which will explain my interest. [/sandom]
Gig @ Collets
I hate the 'at' sign being used like that. It is surely easier to press the A and then the T than to hold down shift and press the 'at' key. That kind of movement requires a complete shift of hands. If you're a smarmy touch-typist then vassever. Index fingers on the two keys with raised bumps. I've never started there, or tried to find a letter by using those stupid little bumps. You know what to do? Just quickly look down at the keyboard to have a look at what's going on. This makes sense. I feel like I'm groping around in the dark if I can't see - and in the literal sense of the word. There's nothing worse, is there? Puts me in mind of Groupecunt Lane, which popped up on Wikipedia on Friday when me and Alex were playing the start-on-a-random-article-and-use-five-clicks-to-get-to-a-chosen-article game. An exciting one at that.
The gig at Collets. It was Sophie's dad's band - policeman by day, lead singer & bass guitarist by night - and it wasn't bad at all. Very surreal to be drunk in what was essentially a bar in a health & fitness centre. Especially when we had to walk through the best part of a health & fitness centre to get to the bar. And to get out as well, of course, when we were even more drunk. The band was decent. Lovely little mix of music, reggae, rock 'n' roll, blues, Oasis (might as well be a genre, the reaction it always gets in clubs - circles and touching and singing) and, one of my favourites, Pump It Up by Elvis Costello! I spilt a glass of wine on the bar with my elbow. I don't know whose it was. No one cared. Let me say finally, I wasn't disappointed. Nice one. Felt an extreme urge to go swimming - all I could smell as we walked/jumped/ran/laughed our way out was chlorine. When that stuff is rifling up the nose, whistling and curling round the nosehairs, all you want to do is dive into a pool. Or reconstruct a swimming lesson with doggy-paddle and pissing yourself.
So that is all of that. Now I can't be bothered to talk about anything more recent. I had a curry round at Rebok's last night, a nice, tasty takeway. What did I have? I had a chicken ceylon - 'cylon' on last night's menu. Presumably originates from the old name of Sri Lanka, which was Ceylon. That's interesting isn't it. I have to admit, I do prefer the old names of countries. Persia (Iran), Siam (Thailand), Cathay (China)... and when did Burma become Myanmar? I probably sound like a terrible colonist. It sounds even worse when I say I rode home from Becky's today on what is known as the 'Indian bike' - it is a bike someone bought while travelling in India, but which cost more to ship from England to Australia (where they live now, I think) than the actual price of the bike. Becky's dad pumped the tyres up for me and I was away.
INDIAN BIKE. If you click that, you can see a nice picture of a bike which is very similar to the one which is reclining in my garage at the moment. It is the same make ('Atlas') and everything. Apparently Atlas is the leading make in India. Here are some things that 'my' bike has, which the picture doesn't: it has an interesting stand that is either side of the back wheel - you lift the bike up by the saddle so that there is enough room to kick it down with your foot. It takes the back wheel off the ground and balances on the stand - better than those shitty one-sided, one-pronged stands on regular bikes. It also has an interesting lock: pretty much an incomplete circle attached to the frame just behind the saddle; you push a lever and a metal prong slides out of one gap in the circle and completes it through the spokes of the back wheel. It comes with a key of course. And it's way too heavy to simply carry away - it weighs a good few KGs, I must say. It has a metal chain guard (is that a right word?) instead of bare chain to get tangled in.
However, it doesn't have a basket.
But before anything else, I need stamp a few apologies on the minutes; monumentous things happen everyday but I neglect to note them down. Did you know I watched two films last week, in one night? Bigga than Ben and The Black Balloon? Did you know that? No. That's because I didn't say anything. What about my hair? Exactly. I got it cut the day before yesterday (Friday). Have you heard of the detective club, the Sherlocks, the Bergeracs? No, I didn't think so. I might be able to jog your memory if I mention SAN DOMENICO. Well...? Of course not, because I didn't say anything about it. The gig at Collets gym? Anything? Anyone? Blah? dfopr? eg0i93v.? bbkocc-s?
?
I'll do a "previously, on [whatever]" now to put you at ease. The films: me, Bek, Rose & Megman went to Blockbuster (a very rare thing these days, don't you think?) and could not decide on a film, so we picked two obscure ones that we'd never heard of, Bigga than Ben - which is about two Russian immigrants who come to London to make money, portraying the not-seen side of immigration (also based on these two guys' diaries) - was ok, bit low budget, but not bad at all; the other, The Black Balloon, was basically about a hectic family who move to a new place, the mother is pregnant, one of the two sons is autistic, it is set in the late 80s, and it is a 'cult' kind of film, quirky and "life-affirming" (DVD box's words, not mine) - the mum from Little Miss Sunshine is in it, so you could probably tell what kind of a film it would be. Worth a watch. Look it up.
Thursday. We didn't go to New Slang - so ignore the last blog post I did, which was pretty much all about New Slang. People are fatigued and cast deep into poverty. We have taken to eating grass. Instead people came round to my house - or my room, my triangularly challenged prism of a room - and we watched... a film! Nicely nicely. It was A Cock and Bull Story. I quite like it, but then again I have read Tristram Shandy ... partially. I don't know if that aided me in liking the film more. I am just dropping hints. It was just that. And we don't really eat grass; apparently it's very bad for you. Don't quote me on it, though, because it's just conjecture with no origins, not in my memory anyway.
'Aircut. 'Ri 'ay. Ja, Ich got mein hair cut on Freichday. Alex and I actually went together. Yes, boys can do that together as well as girls. People automatically think that, because you are a man, you either have to do everything on your own, or in big groups. Two is always homosexual. Three is self-explanatory as well. Every man is an island, just expected to be very stupid, impatient, and self-centred. We only seem self-centred because we are islands. We just walk around saying hello to people and talking dumbly about Cricket and the weather, and no man knows anything about any other man, because we are unable to make connections with each other - what kind of a person can if all they have to initiate conversation is a sackful of half-known trivialities and little words to repeat because we're all so bent on agreeing with each other: "exactly" - "exactly" - "yeah - oh, exactly". As soon as I sit down in a barber's or a hairdresser's chair I become a mute. My hands are scared stiff under the sheet that is too tight around my neck to scratch my face which has, trust my luck, suddenly become very itchy. I try to itch by moving my nose around. It never works. I look in the mirror and see that I look like a troll while I am pulling this particular face. I however walk away with a fab haircut for £15 (£13, but I gave £2 for the conversation). Job done. No longer mushroom head - an afro that did not grow up and out, but sideways and only sideways. If it had rained, I could have sheltered people next to my ears, under the great canopy of tangled hair. Next question.
SAN DOMENICO. A HUB OF SKEPTICAL CRYPTICALITIES & CONSPIRACY. + god knows what else.
[sandom=?] I don't think I can actually talk about it right now. It is too mysterious. Please go here, to see a list of search results which will explain my interest. [/sandom]
Gig @ Collets
I hate the 'at' sign being used like that. It is surely easier to press the A and then the T than to hold down shift and press the 'at' key. That kind of movement requires a complete shift of hands. If you're a smarmy touch-typist then vassever. Index fingers on the two keys with raised bumps. I've never started there, or tried to find a letter by using those stupid little bumps. You know what to do? Just quickly look down at the keyboard to have a look at what's going on. This makes sense. I feel like I'm groping around in the dark if I can't see - and in the literal sense of the word. There's nothing worse, is there? Puts me in mind of Groupecunt Lane, which popped up on Wikipedia on Friday when me and Alex were playing the start-on-a-random-article-and-use-five-clicks-to-get-to-a-chosen-article game. An exciting one at that.
The gig at Collets. It was Sophie's dad's band - policeman by day, lead singer & bass guitarist by night - and it wasn't bad at all. Very surreal to be drunk in what was essentially a bar in a health & fitness centre. Especially when we had to walk through the best part of a health & fitness centre to get to the bar. And to get out as well, of course, when we were even more drunk. The band was decent. Lovely little mix of music, reggae, rock 'n' roll, blues, Oasis (might as well be a genre, the reaction it always gets in clubs - circles and touching and singing) and, one of my favourites, Pump It Up by Elvis Costello! I spilt a glass of wine on the bar with my elbow. I don't know whose it was. No one cared. Let me say finally, I wasn't disappointed. Nice one. Felt an extreme urge to go swimming - all I could smell as we walked/jumped/ran/laughed our way out was chlorine. When that stuff is rifling up the nose, whistling and curling round the nosehairs, all you want to do is dive into a pool. Or reconstruct a swimming lesson with doggy-paddle and pissing yourself.
So that is all of that. Now I can't be bothered to talk about anything more recent. I had a curry round at Rebok's last night, a nice, tasty takeway. What did I have? I had a chicken ceylon - 'cylon' on last night's menu. Presumably originates from the old name of Sri Lanka, which was Ceylon. That's interesting isn't it. I have to admit, I do prefer the old names of countries. Persia (Iran), Siam (Thailand), Cathay (China)... and when did Burma become Myanmar? I probably sound like a terrible colonist. It sounds even worse when I say I rode home from Becky's today on what is known as the 'Indian bike' - it is a bike someone bought while travelling in India, but which cost more to ship from England to Australia (where they live now, I think) than the actual price of the bike. Becky's dad pumped the tyres up for me and I was away.
INDIAN BIKE. If you click that, you can see a nice picture of a bike which is very similar to the one which is reclining in my garage at the moment. It is the same make ('Atlas') and everything. Apparently Atlas is the leading make in India. Here are some things that 'my' bike has, which the picture doesn't: it has an interesting stand that is either side of the back wheel - you lift the bike up by the saddle so that there is enough room to kick it down with your foot. It takes the back wheel off the ground and balances on the stand - better than those shitty one-sided, one-pronged stands on regular bikes. It also has an interesting lock: pretty much an incomplete circle attached to the frame just behind the saddle; you push a lever and a metal prong slides out of one gap in the circle and completes it through the spokes of the back wheel. It comes with a key of course. And it's way too heavy to simply carry away - it weighs a good few KGs, I must say. It has a metal chain guard (is that a right word?) instead of bare chain to get tangled in.
However, it doesn't have a basket.
Thursday 9 July 2009
we all know what thursday means
For some reason, this happens every other day. The blog, I mean. Perhaps I am just too much of a noncommittal. But you've gotta stay strong. Gotta be cool gotta be tough gotta stay together - all I know, all I know LOVE WILL SAVE THE DAY. Dubious, but it's a nice thought.
We all know what Thursday means. Thursday means...
... that I have been sitting on my arse all day but not in the I've-done-nothing sense, more in the I've-been-sitting-on-my-arse-all-day-but-doing-stuff-while-I-have-been sort of vibe. I have also been staring at my laptop monitor for too long - the rectangular shape of the screen has literally stretched my eyeballs into such an odd shape that it feels like the corners are poking into my skull and, subsequently, into my brain. My poor brain. But I feel like I have got stuff done today. On a sad note, I think I have broken my laptop a little bit and I don't know how - it doesn't quite close properly.
... that it is Friday tomorrow.
... that I sort of have to discuss what I did today if I mentioned it above. I am a slave to tangents, so please, I do apologise for jumping everywhere - I will clean up, I promise. What did I do today? Well, I am looking for sponsorship for my Masters degree (I plan to do an MA in Creative Writing), and I spent today emailing and basically putting together a letter that I can send out to some publishing houses and things. I have done all this now, and have 6 envelopes ready to post, bright and nicely tomorrow morning. One to Penguin, one to HarperCollins, one to Random House, one to Faber & Faber, one to Bloomsbury, and one to the Royal Society of Literature. I am begging to be sponsored, and pretty much offering my writing services up to the gods, be they glad or sad that I am doing so. Also, I have found six poems to send to Ambit magazine (it does poetry and short stories and art, edited by some people including Carol Ann Duffy; JG Ballard used to as well, but he died recently, so he doesn't anymore). I also think that poems shouldn't be called poems because when somebody says "poem" or "poetry" or "I like poetry" or "I am/was writing a poem", the surrounding people laugh, or wretch inwardly. This is a shame, which is why I think there should be a new name for them. I will think of it and get back to you. Ambit is here: http://www.ambitmagazine.co.uk/.
... that I haven't been at work because I don't have a job. This leads to me looking up things like this. Geek-alert at 2 o' clock! Nah - I think it is just good to find things out.
... that tonight is NEW SLANG. We love New Slang, but it doesn't love us. It is a relationship that we have cultivated over the last couple of years. It is a club night at McClusky's in Kingston. It used to play better music. It used to be at a better venue. I used to not prang so much. Last week I had a dreadful session of prang, and didn't even make it into the club. What is 'pranging'? Here is a dictionary definition of it: PRANG #1. It is also slang for cocaine. Now think of The Jungle Book (Disney film) - "I'm the king of the swingers..." - and then look here for PRANG #2. This is a PRANGER. This is why I get distracted on the internet. The meaning which we use it for is probably more related to the 'original', English-language meaning - as in, 'someone who prangs', 'pranging out'. As ever, Urban Dictionary is on hand: PRANG URBZ. On another note, a prang cat is a crack addict. Alex wrote a lovely poem about New Slang, which he sent to me via text a few minutes ago:
which often caused people to prang,
I wanna have a drink,
without a big stink
and without fear of getting raped by a gang.
Beautiful. This just about sums it up.
So it's that Thursday should-we-or-should-we-not feeling again, that one which curdles in a largely mood-killing indecision that usually means we go without wanting to anymore. We need to be decisive but I am rather worried that there won't be anyone to make a decision anyway. People being too tired? Puh-lease! Wake up! Coffee! Red Bull! Whatever! Just WAKE UP!
We all know what Thursday means. Thursday means...
... that I have been sitting on my arse all day but not in the I've-done-nothing sense, more in the I've-been-sitting-on-my-arse-all-day-but-doing-stuff-while-I-have-been sort of vibe. I have also been staring at my laptop monitor for too long - the rectangular shape of the screen has literally stretched my eyeballs into such an odd shape that it feels like the corners are poking into my skull and, subsequently, into my brain. My poor brain. But I feel like I have got stuff done today. On a sad note, I think I have broken my laptop a little bit and I don't know how - it doesn't quite close properly.
... that it is Friday tomorrow.
... that I sort of have to discuss what I did today if I mentioned it above. I am a slave to tangents, so please, I do apologise for jumping everywhere - I will clean up, I promise. What did I do today? Well, I am looking for sponsorship for my Masters degree (I plan to do an MA in Creative Writing), and I spent today emailing and basically putting together a letter that I can send out to some publishing houses and things. I have done all this now, and have 6 envelopes ready to post, bright and nicely tomorrow morning. One to Penguin, one to HarperCollins, one to Random House, one to Faber & Faber, one to Bloomsbury, and one to the Royal Society of Literature. I am begging to be sponsored, and pretty much offering my writing services up to the gods, be they glad or sad that I am doing so. Also, I have found six poems to send to Ambit magazine (it does poetry and short stories and art, edited by some people including Carol Ann Duffy; JG Ballard used to as well, but he died recently, so he doesn't anymore). I also think that poems shouldn't be called poems because when somebody says "poem" or "poetry" or "I like poetry" or "I am/was writing a poem", the surrounding people laugh, or wretch inwardly. This is a shame, which is why I think there should be a new name for them. I will think of it and get back to you. Ambit is here: http://www.ambitmagazine.co.uk/.
... that I haven't been at work because I don't have a job. This leads to me looking up things like this. Geek-alert at 2 o' clock! Nah - I think it is just good to find things out.
... that tonight is NEW SLANG. We love New Slang, but it doesn't love us. It is a relationship that we have cultivated over the last couple of years. It is a club night at McClusky's in Kingston. It used to play better music. It used to be at a better venue. I used to not prang so much. Last week I had a dreadful session of prang, and didn't even make it into the club. What is 'pranging'? Here is a dictionary definition of it: PRANG #1. It is also slang for cocaine. Now think of The Jungle Book (Disney film) - "I'm the king of the swingers..." - and then look here for PRANG #2. This is a PRANGER. This is why I get distracted on the internet. The meaning which we use it for is probably more related to the 'original', English-language meaning - as in, 'someone who prangs', 'pranging out'. As ever, Urban Dictionary is on hand: PRANG URBZ. On another note, a prang cat is a crack addict. Alex wrote a lovely poem about New Slang, which he sent to me via text a few minutes ago:
There was a club night called New Slang,
which often caused people to prang,
I wanna have a drink,
without a big stink
and without fear of getting raped by a gang.
Beautiful. This just about sums it up.
So it's that Thursday should-we-or-should-we-not feeling again, that one which curdles in a largely mood-killing indecision that usually means we go without wanting to anymore. We need to be decisive but I am rather worried that there won't be anyone to make a decision anyway. People being too tired? Puh-lease! Wake up! Coffee! Red Bull! Whatever! Just WAKE UP!
Tuesday 7 July 2009
comings and goings.
It would be strange to relate what we did yesterday. I mean, it definitely sounds strange - it isn't what 'normal' people do. We were parked in a car park, eating lunch as you do, watching the river Thames go by quite nicely, although it wasn't exactly a lovely day. It just so happened that we were parked in Cowey Sale car park, right next to Walton Bridge - anyone not from this area will not know the gravity of those two words: Cowey & Sale. Named because it was the spot where the Anglo-Saxons used to cruise along the river, pull up, and sell small herds of livestock to traders... That isn't true, it's a lie. I don't really know why it's called that at all. Maybe I'll find out one day. Anyway, the gravity, people, the gravity of this Cowey Sale domain. Well it's basically just a massively well known spot for what people call 'gay cruising', but not just that, dogging, cottaging, tea-rooming, etc. etc. The latter two happen in the public toilets placed in a very shady area near the bridge. A perfect spot really. You wonder why it was ever closed in the first place.
It was closed? you ask. Oh yes it was. But why? you ask. Well, says I, basically a man was murdered in there last February (the 19th, which is Becky's birthday oddly enough) for being gay. There are some pretty comprehensive news articles, I'll give you three: toilets to be demolished, murder trial, bid to close gay haunt. Have a read if you want to find out what happened, what people have said. I heard that the man was stabbed in the bum... this was clearly a grossly exaggerated rumour - unless the police didn't wish to disclose such a nasty way to go.
See, so this is why it was closed. But, just a few months after the murder - before the trial even - the toilets were re-opened in June 2008. Because of demand. Demand for these awful toilets to be opened. And before you begin to think that I just don't want gay people to meet up - I would love them to meet up! Meet up everywhere, go for it, go forth and prosper, have some fun! But not here. Not only is it such an obvious place - children use the toilet, people who just need a wee or a poo use the toilet, dog walkers are always about, regular walkers not far behind, families wanting to enjoy a nice walk by the river - but it is also the place of a BRUTAL MURDER. People are unphased by this. Whenever grizzly murders take place, the places where they happen are, more often than not, demolished; why should it be any different for the Cowey Sale toilets? Just because they are a place of sordid convenience (I say sordid because anything like that - straight or gay - happening right under people's noses is not a nice thing). This is the only reason. The only person to applaud the toilets being re-opened was a spokesperson for a gay group in the area. It is clear why he would applaud it.
But why would he want to applaud it? There is no merit in these toilets whatsoever. I have to admit, I know this because we sat in that car park yesterday for a good hour. We saw people go into the toilet, normally, and come out a minute later. On the other hand, we saw people go in and not come out, for the entire duration we were there. One man parked up next to us, eyed us up for a few minutes - as if judging something - and then got out and walked to the toilets; now, when people walk to go to the toilet, there is something purposeful about their walk, something desperate in the bladder area which makes them walk with more of a stride. This man sauntered, casually as you can imagine, hands in pockets, to the toilet. And he didn't come out either. I thought, "What is so good about these toilets?" So I walked over and went in.
They are a shit hole. They are dilapidated. They absolutely stink. They look like something out of Silent Hill. They are disgusting. They are dirty. They are in disrepair. And, in there, it definitely feels as if a man has been stabbed. Back or bum - makes no difference to me: it is still a stabbing, and a fatal one at that. It is a horrible, horrible place. This makes me think they should be closed. Anyway, I did need the toilet, so I went, didn't even bother with the sinks because they made me want to vomit out of my eyeballs, and left the toilets. Howwwever, I went round the back of the toilets, because earlier we had seen a couple of guys emerge from the toilets and disappear round the back. There was nothing, so I began to walk back to the car. As I did, I looked back, and I saw a man emerging from one of the archways of the brick part of the bridge which is on the land. He didn't look dressed to be adventuring in the shrub-scrubbery, in fact, he was wearing jeans - nice ones - and a smart looking short sleeved pink-and-something shirt. I returned to the car. The girls said that the man behind me had re-entered the toilets.
We saw another strange thing yesterday. Two men pulled up to the Cowey Sale toilets in a car, with a huge dog in the back; one was a huge, no-shirted, bald, tattooed man who looked like his dog; the other was small, scrawny, older, with mad hair, a moustache, glasses, wearing a plaid shirt underneath a tracksuit...? Very odd. Anyway, these struck our attention, but according to our now veteran-esque experience of those toilets, neither was in there long enough for any 'business' to be happening. After this I went into the toilets, etc. etc. Anyway, we drove away (nothing much was happening anymore) and ended up on Desborough Island (nicknamed 'Donkey Island' - with reference to certain men's members, or just the animal, I don't know). This island is another notorious spot for dogging and other things related. There is basically a one-way road that runs onto the island, and then off again. During the course of this road there are waterworks, a few roadside car parks, and you can see that there are a few secluded paths leading off into vegetation. At the first car park we saw a man literally just standing there watching the road and a path behind him, looking, as you can imagine, very shady. Very murky. Next car park. Who did you see? you ask. Well, I says, the dynamic duo from Cowey Sale! The dogmen! Little and large! The bear and his bitch, perhaps. Needless to say, we were very scared, and hurried on.
Basically, this was all to let you know that if you look a little closer at things, and concentrate just a little more than usual, you can see all sorts of things going on in places that you just wouldn't dream of things like this ever occurring. I don't disagree with it. I just hate the Cowey Sale toilets. They aren't even nice. Please, people-that-way-inclined of Walton! of the whole world! Please meet in nicer places - surely there is no need for seediness? The Elmbridge Borough Council reckons that the toilets will only be demolished in 2012, when the Walton Bridge project is finalised, after fifty ridiculous years, after my mum and her family essentially had to kicked out of their house 40-ish years ago because they were going to build more on it - bollocks, those houses are still there, and not in the way at all.
The council is just a very slow, doddery old man. This is how it is. Things take a large portion of time to happen. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved. Buildings can't just be knocked down. It needs votes. Petitions. And I can imagine the gay community being upset - I know! UPSET? Over what exactly? That they can no longer meet in the most disgusting place in Walton, the scene of a murder of a gay man by a straight, gay-hating man? Oh, please. It is not a part of society, it is a toilet, for God's sake, a TOILET. I am not saying that gay culture should not be a part of society (let's embrace it!) but what I am saying is that these seedy, excuses for meeting-places should be closed indefinitely. Straight or gay, things like this shouldn't happen.
It was closed? you ask. Oh yes it was. But why? you ask. Well, says I, basically a man was murdered in there last February (the 19th, which is Becky's birthday oddly enough) for being gay. There are some pretty comprehensive news articles, I'll give you three: toilets to be demolished, murder trial, bid to close gay haunt. Have a read if you want to find out what happened, what people have said. I heard that the man was stabbed in the bum... this was clearly a grossly exaggerated rumour - unless the police didn't wish to disclose such a nasty way to go.
See, so this is why it was closed. But, just a few months after the murder - before the trial even - the toilets were re-opened in June 2008. Because of demand. Demand for these awful toilets to be opened. And before you begin to think that I just don't want gay people to meet up - I would love them to meet up! Meet up everywhere, go for it, go forth and prosper, have some fun! But not here. Not only is it such an obvious place - children use the toilet, people who just need a wee or a poo use the toilet, dog walkers are always about, regular walkers not far behind, families wanting to enjoy a nice walk by the river - but it is also the place of a BRUTAL MURDER. People are unphased by this. Whenever grizzly murders take place, the places where they happen are, more often than not, demolished; why should it be any different for the Cowey Sale toilets? Just because they are a place of sordid convenience (I say sordid because anything like that - straight or gay - happening right under people's noses is not a nice thing). This is the only reason. The only person to applaud the toilets being re-opened was a spokesperson for a gay group in the area. It is clear why he would applaud it.
But why would he want to applaud it? There is no merit in these toilets whatsoever. I have to admit, I know this because we sat in that car park yesterday for a good hour. We saw people go into the toilet, normally, and come out a minute later. On the other hand, we saw people go in and not come out, for the entire duration we were there. One man parked up next to us, eyed us up for a few minutes - as if judging something - and then got out and walked to the toilets; now, when people walk to go to the toilet, there is something purposeful about their walk, something desperate in the bladder area which makes them walk with more of a stride. This man sauntered, casually as you can imagine, hands in pockets, to the toilet. And he didn't come out either. I thought, "What is so good about these toilets?" So I walked over and went in.
They are a shit hole. They are dilapidated. They absolutely stink. They look like something out of Silent Hill. They are disgusting. They are dirty. They are in disrepair. And, in there, it definitely feels as if a man has been stabbed. Back or bum - makes no difference to me: it is still a stabbing, and a fatal one at that. It is a horrible, horrible place. This makes me think they should be closed. Anyway, I did need the toilet, so I went, didn't even bother with the sinks because they made me want to vomit out of my eyeballs, and left the toilets. Howwwever, I went round the back of the toilets, because earlier we had seen a couple of guys emerge from the toilets and disappear round the back. There was nothing, so I began to walk back to the car. As I did, I looked back, and I saw a man emerging from one of the archways of the brick part of the bridge which is on the land. He didn't look dressed to be adventuring in the shrub-scrubbery, in fact, he was wearing jeans - nice ones - and a smart looking short sleeved pink-and-something shirt. I returned to the car. The girls said that the man behind me had re-entered the toilets.
We saw another strange thing yesterday. Two men pulled up to the Cowey Sale toilets in a car, with a huge dog in the back; one was a huge, no-shirted, bald, tattooed man who looked like his dog; the other was small, scrawny, older, with mad hair, a moustache, glasses, wearing a plaid shirt underneath a tracksuit...? Very odd. Anyway, these struck our attention, but according to our now veteran-esque experience of those toilets, neither was in there long enough for any 'business' to be happening. After this I went into the toilets, etc. etc. Anyway, we drove away (nothing much was happening anymore) and ended up on Desborough Island (nicknamed 'Donkey Island' - with reference to certain men's members, or just the animal, I don't know). This island is another notorious spot for dogging and other things related. There is basically a one-way road that runs onto the island, and then off again. During the course of this road there are waterworks, a few roadside car parks, and you can see that there are a few secluded paths leading off into vegetation. At the first car park we saw a man literally just standing there watching the road and a path behind him, looking, as you can imagine, very shady. Very murky. Next car park. Who did you see? you ask. Well, I says, the dynamic duo from Cowey Sale! The dogmen! Little and large! The bear and his bitch, perhaps. Needless to say, we were very scared, and hurried on.
Basically, this was all to let you know that if you look a little closer at things, and concentrate just a little more than usual, you can see all sorts of things going on in places that you just wouldn't dream of things like this ever occurring. I don't disagree with it. I just hate the Cowey Sale toilets. They aren't even nice. Please, people-that-way-inclined of Walton! of the whole world! Please meet in nicer places - surely there is no need for seediness? The Elmbridge Borough Council reckons that the toilets will only be demolished in 2012, when the Walton Bridge project is finalised, after fifty ridiculous years, after my mum and her family essentially had to kicked out of their house 40-ish years ago because they were going to build more on it - bollocks, those houses are still there, and not in the way at all.
The council is just a very slow, doddery old man. This is how it is. Things take a large portion of time to happen. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved. Buildings can't just be knocked down. It needs votes. Petitions. And I can imagine the gay community being upset - I know! UPSET? Over what exactly? That they can no longer meet in the most disgusting place in Walton, the scene of a murder of a gay man by a straight, gay-hating man? Oh, please. It is not a part of society, it is a toilet, for God's sake, a TOILET. I am not saying that gay culture should not be a part of society (let's embrace it!) but what I am saying is that these seedy, excuses for meeting-places should be closed indefinitely. Straight or gay, things like this shouldn't happen.
Saturday 4 July 2009
Rebaser
Yesterday 61 Hudson Road became part of chronology, part of history, and no longer that dangling sword of Damocles over my head, or over my heart; even over the collarbone or shoulder - all would be equally painful I suppose. But no longer! Well, of course, stress is a feature that doesn't really go away - i can say instead that it has been dulled. I will also decide one day whether talking in metaphors is a good idea or not.
Yesterday I also found out two other things: people can be really nice + fame, even in teaspoon-sized doses, is very exciting...
nice: I was supposed to enter the Guardian Student Media Awards '09. Wait for it, 'supposed' is a key word here. About a month ago I was notified by my housemate (ex-housemate I guess now!): ENTER THE GUARDIAN STUDENT MEDIA AWARDS. Though not actually not relayed to me in capitals, I did react as if it had been the very essence of upper-case, and basically went to enter the competition. I say 'went to' because i didn't, though I tried, because it was so absolutely complicated. I was entering the Feature Writer of the Year category, as I had written quite a few nice features over last semester, for the University of Portsmouth newspaper&magazine combination, Pugwash. Overcomplicatedness of the entry forms and a lot of needless information required (how much does everyone earn in this student publication? can we have your signature? what is the print run? how tall are you?) led me to GUN HOUSE near Portsmouth Union, to ask questions about these mysteries. There a certain Mike told me that the uni was sending off a whole bundle of entries. HANG ON! I thought, surely I should have known about this? So I emailed Tom, who had organised all of this, and basically he quelled my rage/impatience with a "hold your horses" - so, I did.
In fact, I held them for so long that I forgot about the competition until yesterday - July 3rd. The deadline of the competition. I emailed Tom, funnily enough, before I found out it was in fact the deadline, saying "am I too late?! I'll post the entries to you as soon as possible"... imagine how disappointed I was! But then, imagine how pleased I was when Tom's reply came like a chorus of angels chanting something like 'REJOICE!' or, to be more widely denomenational, a procession of Tibetan monks ringing bells, banging drums & generally jangling: He had sent the entries off, which luckily I had mentioned in a previous email to him! How brilliant is that! YES! io! eheu! This also meant that he chose me over other entrants because there is a stringent one-entrant-per-category-per-uni enforcement. Overjoyed. This is the 'nice' bit, obviously; nice of him to send off for me!
FAME: Now fame is an interesting thing. I have this pipette thing going on. What do I mean by that? Well, imagine a pipette filled with diluted fame, which is occasionally squeezed onto me very inconspicuously. This is my relationship with fame. Hardly one at all. If fame was a woman, I would probably just be looking at her from afar a lot, and these rare moments of recognition are a returned glance from her, or a 'hello'. Nothing more... anyway, I think you get the idea. To continue: There is/was an annual anthology of poems, short stories & travel writing from students at University of Portsmouth, and people associated with it, called Borderlines. I missed out on Vol. 1; I narrowly scraped into Vol. 2 with a long and ramblingly incoherent Bob Dylan-esque polemic/romantic poem; Vol. 3 I almost forgot about, but sent a couple of poems anyway.
Bad luck then ploughs in from nowhere, made up of empty pockets and dust, there was a LACK OF FUNDING! No more Borderlines. Naturally, all involved are outraged, saddened, etc., and then an email starts to circulate, with plenty of Cc's and whatever - participants? - saying 'we can do it ourselves' and 'who will lead us?', and I got involved. Not leading of course, but I got in contact with one 'leader' I suppose, Tucker Lieberman, and one thing led to another -- I sent him a poem. His hard work, plus many other people's poems + stories, resulted in a NEW anthology, more broad in scope than Borderlines - being based not only in the UK, but over ther other side of the Atlantic as well, amongst other places - which was called Never Hit By Lightning. I'm not really much of an advertiser, but I heartily urge you to check it out, and don't be worried when you read "This collection of short stories and poems explores life's dark side" - it is great stuff. Have a look here, at http://www.lulu.com/content/7323299. That is 1tsp, fame.
Yesterday I also found out two other things: people can be really nice + fame, even in teaspoon-sized doses, is very exciting...
nice: I was supposed to enter the Guardian Student Media Awards '09. Wait for it, 'supposed' is a key word here. About a month ago I was notified by my housemate (ex-housemate I guess now!): ENTER THE GUARDIAN STUDENT MEDIA AWARDS. Though not actually not relayed to me in capitals, I did react as if it had been the very essence of upper-case, and basically went to enter the competition. I say 'went to' because i didn't, though I tried, because it was so absolutely complicated. I was entering the Feature Writer of the Year category, as I had written quite a few nice features over last semester, for the University of Portsmouth newspaper&magazine combination, Pugwash. Overcomplicatedness of the entry forms and a lot of needless information required (how much does everyone earn in this student publication? can we have your signature? what is the print run? how tall are you?) led me to GUN HOUSE near Portsmouth Union, to ask questions about these mysteries. There a certain Mike told me that the uni was sending off a whole bundle of entries. HANG ON! I thought, surely I should have known about this? So I emailed Tom, who had organised all of this, and basically he quelled my rage/impatience with a "hold your horses" - so, I did.
In fact, I held them for so long that I forgot about the competition until yesterday - July 3rd. The deadline of the competition. I emailed Tom, funnily enough, before I found out it was in fact the deadline, saying "am I too late?! I'll post the entries to you as soon as possible"... imagine how disappointed I was! But then, imagine how pleased I was when Tom's reply came like a chorus of angels chanting something like 'REJOICE!' or, to be more widely denomenational, a procession of Tibetan monks ringing bells, banging drums & generally jangling: He had sent the entries off, which luckily I had mentioned in a previous email to him! How brilliant is that! YES! io! eheu! This also meant that he chose me over other entrants because there is a stringent one-entrant-per-category-per-uni enforcement. Overjoyed. This is the 'nice' bit, obviously; nice of him to send off for me!
FAME: Now fame is an interesting thing. I have this pipette thing going on. What do I mean by that? Well, imagine a pipette filled with diluted fame, which is occasionally squeezed onto me very inconspicuously. This is my relationship with fame. Hardly one at all. If fame was a woman, I would probably just be looking at her from afar a lot, and these rare moments of recognition are a returned glance from her, or a 'hello'. Nothing more... anyway, I think you get the idea. To continue: There is/was an annual anthology of poems, short stories & travel writing from students at University of Portsmouth, and people associated with it, called Borderlines. I missed out on Vol. 1; I narrowly scraped into Vol. 2 with a long and ramblingly incoherent Bob Dylan-esque polemic/romantic poem; Vol. 3 I almost forgot about, but sent a couple of poems anyway.
Bad luck then ploughs in from nowhere, made up of empty pockets and dust, there was a LACK OF FUNDING! No more Borderlines. Naturally, all involved are outraged, saddened, etc., and then an email starts to circulate, with plenty of Cc's and whatever - participants? - saying 'we can do it ourselves' and 'who will lead us?', and I got involved. Not leading of course, but I got in contact with one 'leader' I suppose, Tucker Lieberman, and one thing led to another -- I sent him a poem. His hard work, plus many other people's poems + stories, resulted in a NEW anthology, more broad in scope than Borderlines - being based not only in the UK, but over ther other side of the Atlantic as well, amongst other places - which was called Never Hit By Lightning. I'm not really much of an advertiser, but I heartily urge you to check it out, and don't be worried when you read "This collection of short stories and poems explores life's dark side" - it is great stuff. Have a look here, at http://www.lulu.com/content/7323299. That is 1tsp, fame.
Wednesday 1 July 2009
boys and girls on bikex4
It is very weird how hot days always fall short of expectations - that is, when you hear that this week is a heatwave & you think "Ah well brilliant" and prepare to practically walk around naked, and... well, it really just isn't that hot. It isn't. It's pretty hot, it's pretty humid, it's sweatybetty, but it isn't sweltering. There are so many adjectives for HOT that are used willy nilly. Boiling being one. If it was 'boiling', water would be steaming. It's just hot, OK? Not as hot as I would like. Boiling is too hot.
So I am watching Saunderino play Animal Crossing. She bloody loves it, especially fishing. Yeah, the fishing is pretty good. I mean, just now, or should I say about 20 minutes ago, she caught a fish called an arapaima. Quite interesting really, I mean - these fish actually exist in real life! Have a look, average size about 120 inches - longest ever found apparently 200 inches (the owl in the museum on Animal Crossing told us this).
So I am watching Saunderino play Animal Crossing. She bloody loves it, especially fishing. Yeah, the fishing is pretty good. I mean, just now, or should I say about 20 minutes ago, she caught a fish called an arapaima. Quite interesting really, I mean - these fish actually exist in real life! Have a look, average size about 120 inches - longest ever found apparently 200 inches (the owl in the museum on Animal Crossing told us this).
Is this fish huge or what? It is a leviathan of a fish, truly in the true true sense of the word leviathan. Please, honestly, look that word up. Leviathan. I think it's the bible or something.
Today I went on a bike ride. I haven't been on a bike ride for years. Not a proper one anyway. I did ride up to the shops about a month ago for ingredients for a cake (Victoria Sponge, naturally). The bag split on the way back, the jam and the castor sugar went literally everywhere on the pavement. Or maybe they didn't; going at such breakneck speed, I only heard them hit the floor, I didn't have time to examine the damage. Who wants to survey damage? Especially when they have done it themselves. Needless to say I was very apologetic to Becky when I rode back like a bird who'd had its wings shot through and then cut off and then replaced with plastic bags. Over apologetic, I would say, and of course angry with myself. I should have been more angry at the bag.
Anyway the bike ride was nice. We rode to West End - does that mean anything to anyone? Not THE west end, but west end woods, near Esher in Surrey...? Well that's where we went. Nice old green with decent houses around it, cricket field, a pavillion, a little war-era tin church, a pond. Then, behind all that, there are some woods. I think that best describes them, woods. Not a forest. It is prime off-road biking area - plenty of hills to go down, loads of winding dirt paths, some good views of the general area as well. Me and Alex -- imagine this, my mouse is very annoying! Touchpad on a laptop I mean. It's working again, sorry. Me&Alex climbed down a very steep hill and climbed up an even steeper one. I was in flipflops so it was even more difficult.
We worked our way back and I stood ankle-deep in the river Mole when we stopped for a three-quarters-of-the-way-home break. It seemed that way considering how much bike riding we actually did today: copious amounts, my friends, copious amounts. Felt like I was sitting on a brick, and centrally, not just on one bumcheek, right in between, so very intense sort of ache. My ached as well. You have to expect these things when cycling though, and I clearly didn't. I skimmed a few stones in the river. Few nice pictures. Little fish (tiddlers I believe is the technical name) swimming around my feet. Stayed still for long enough so that they'd nibble my feet. Bit weird. Rode back home. Water fight with little brothers. Standard. I should be getting ready.
Getting ready for what? exactly.
Well, I'm going to see The Hangover in 15 minutes with a few people. My stance is that you should just take advantage of Orange Wednesdays. Megan should be outside in a bit. But then again we shouldn't really think that time will be kept properly. Look at that fish up the top more - it is just massive. I can't believe it. It is now 10 minutes. 9 even - or is it odd? No no, I'm being silly. I keep thinking that I need some kind of a "sign off" catchphrase/saying/nugget of knowledge/pearl of wisdom. But in reality I don't really think I do.
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