the mountain fable

It is Sunday. I have just seen a very small trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Mount Parnassus is in Greece. Mount Parnassus in turn is named after the son of the nymph Kleodora, who is called Parnassos. There was a city of which Parnassos was the leader, and that city was flooded by torrential rain; the citizens ran up the nearby mountain slopes to safety. Whether this is where the mountain got its name from is beyond me. Etymogically speaking, 'Parna' comes from the same root word for 'house' in the Luwian language, which is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, and it is closely related to Hittite. You find out about that yourselves. The '-ssos' is a placename suffix, like Knossos. God knows what that means. 'Place'? Homeplace. Fair enough. May well mean 'is ruined'. From the mountain they looked down at the city crying and basically not loving it. Why is Parnassos called Parnassos then? Don't know. Apparently, his mother, the nymph, was one of those (yeah - 'one of those') prophetic nymphs who divined by throwing stones or pebbles. Very accurate. When the citizens ran up the mountain they followed (yes, followed) the sound of howling wolves; why on earth you would follow the sound of howling wolves I have no idea, perhaps they were suicidal. Anyway, they built another city up there called Lycoreia, 'the howling of the wolves' - naturally. Orpheus, the motherfucker, lived here with his mum and beautiful aunts. Did he fuck them too?

Why did you read that? What did I write it for? Any purpose, any purple. When I was younger I remember the exact moment that I learned what "on purpose" meant. I think I had to sit on the naughty step at my childminder's house because I did something "on purpose" - but I couldn't fathom it. It sounded too much like "purple" to make any sense. Another time at my childminder's house I first heard the word "violent", which, you guessed it, I thought was "violet" - again this was explained to me. I also learned the meaning of "including", and I remember that we were watching an advert for an upcoming season of Rugrats, which mentioned that all the gang would be there or whatever "including Angelica!" (what an ironic name, looking back: she wasn't an angelic at all). It means "everyone, plus Angelica". I remember that it took a while to explain. I need to know what words mean. Words and words. Well the above history/myth lesson didn't have any purple, really, so don't get violet about it now. Or I'll get violet. Serial. "WTF IZZ SERIALZZ???" Watch the Manbearpig episode of Southpark to find out why 'serial', and not 'serious'.

It is Sunday. Sunday in a student house is basically like any other day, but definitely a little bit slower, because no one is at lectures. Sometimes people go to lectures. So after we ordered tickets for Glastonbury this morning, we lazed around for a while. It is perfectly acceptable. Yes, I can hear you squaking, "Glastonbury tickets?!" Yes yes yes, Glastonbury tickets. Yes. SI AMIGOS Y AMIGOS. I've never been before, and Glastonbury 2010 is very special because it is the 40th anniversary. I don't think it is as special as 50, because that is half a century. 40 is just four tenths of a century, which is horribly anticlimactic and blandly unspecial. Still: it is a multiple of ten, and that's worth it. Because it wouldn't be going on next year if it wasn't for that magic 40, so I suppose it's good. It's good, yeah. I want to roam amongst the hippies. Me and Becky guessed that around 50,000 people probably attended on average. But we were very incorrect. The actual number is about 175,000. Brilliant. I just want to be lost, muddy and musical, Glastonburyised. Maybe it won't be like that. I suppose I will have to wait. In the videogame, No More Heroes, 'Glastonbury' is part of a fictional manga within the fictional story of the game's storyline - he is a giant robot which some girls ride around in smashing stuff up, I presume. It is a giant robot, though. The correct term is mecha, I guess, but then again, I'm not a prick so I'll say robot. The song "PURE-WHITE GIANT TINY GLASTONBURY" is a song on the soundtrack for the game. I'd rather be a Giant Tiny than a Tiny Giant. Would you? Why not debate it among friends? Bzzzzzz. That's the sound of sarcasm. I prefer the spelling 'Glastenbury', which is a town in Vermont (USA). Glastenbury Mountain is named after the town. According to legend, the town was flooded by torrential rain and they ran up the side of the mountain to safety, following the sound of howling wolves all the way up. BZZZZ. Shut up.

Why does The Politics Show exist? It is horrid. What even is politics in the UK? It is all ratification and referendum, voting and lords and commons and stupid paper signing and reading. Lots of wobbly jowled gentlemen, some unfortunate other individuals - men and women - with no charisma, except that of a wooden, melancholic, SAD affected talking, jiggling head, or on the other hand, with all the fight and inconsequence of a stupid yappy little dog, who can be kicked easily away with something like this blog post. They have no efficacy whatsoever. No anything, no nothing. Benchers and backbenchers, benching and wrenching each other's teeth out, all the tension of a fight that just can't be cared about. Hot air, so much of it, so much that they are stifling and sweating in their stiff suits, drenching their shirts and blouses on the benches, mopping their pulsating brows, feeling the droplets coggled in their untamed eyebrows, badly done makeup running, arses burning on the bench. With all the hot air, I expect they would undress, and from that explode into orgy at any moment. They should. But they don't. Why don't they? That'd be much more exciting. But of course, bureaucracy is bureaucrazy. Everyone knows this, but everyone carries on, not caring about the mountains of forms they have to fill in for the tiniest of things, your everything on record, your children made of paper and tickboxes with signature hair and crosses for eyes, scribble of a mouth saying "mother, father, stop your form-filling-in!" and then the inevitable answer, the blank-page stare, the ballpoint pursed lips, the numbers in their eyes, this says it all: "quieten down, child, and watch this, your paper inheritence, your filing cabinet future, now, erm, tick here to agree that I haven't abused you by telling you to quieten down... then sign here - no, there, and here - again? yes, again you silly boy/girl - ah! it's another form for insulting, hang on, it's here somewhere - wait - WAIT! where are you going? you need to fill in this before you leave! answer me? - you're going to make me forge it? - what?! you don't care? you have to - you don't? what?! you'll have to sign here for that, to prove you're culpable for what you say, and that it's not my fault - PLEASE! otherwise I'll have to fill in the one that means I become your mouthpiece and gumshield, brace and retainer! - what? don't slam the door, I'll get a noise complaint form from next door? they're good at forms, please d-- NO! NO THE DOOR! SHIT! More paper for the pile ......."

And so it went that this paper pile grew to over 300 metres above sea level. The town suffered under a sudden bout of torrential rain, and it began to flood, so they did the logical thing and ran to the mountain, and up its papercut slopes, following the sound of honking members of parliament. Later they founded a town on the mountain called Empeaton, and it was a shithole, and... bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Fuck off fox hunting as well, leave the law alone. Clearly no one wants it repealed. Puck you.