Word of the Day
eldritch (n) What one's mummy always hoped one would marry into.
A PROPOSAL
Okay, let's look at the positives...
1. She's definitely female.
2. Words of more than three syllables hold no horrors for her.
3. She seems to have a remarkably sound grasp of the 'Football, Beer and Sex' raisons d'etre.
4. Six inch heels? Need I say more?
5. She would seem to be well aware of all the erotic possibilities of a Blades' replica shirt.
6. Her knowledge of obscure bourbons is probably on a par with that of mine regarding single malt scotch.
7. She has a perfect balance of wit, sense, humour and intelligence and knows the value of a well crafted insult.
8. If I mention Sophocles, she won't think it refers to John's lesbian sister.
9. She could probably teach me a lot about html, of which I remain in total ignorance.
10. Her views on parenting are uncannily close to my own.
11. She is undoubtedly a dirty stop-out and would provide generous assistance should I chance upon a bar in serious need of propping up.
12. She reads my blog and turns not away from that which is contained therein.
And the negatives...
Well, apart from a seeming preference to Nietzsche over Wittgenstein, I can't think of any right now...but then again, I am on my second bottle of the white stuff with which I was presented last week...an eminently drinkable Chardonnay, seeing as you ask.
So, notwithstanding all those wondrously beguiling positives, there was still something holding me back. Until today that is. When three minutes and forty seconds of earworm blinded me with the realisation that not only does she...blah...blah...blah...blah, she also loves jazz!
Marry me, Jess!
Sunday, February 29, 2004
SNOWBLIND
All in all, it's been a pretty grim weekend so far. The Blades lost again to set it up nicely and the weather forecast for last night said, "mostly cloudy." Well, I've just this minute finished shovelling eight inches of 'mostly cloudy' off of my drive. Still, I think I may just have stumbled across a rather good way of clearing the previous night's alcohol out of my system.
Oh well, must dash.
All in all, it's been a pretty grim weekend so far. The Blades lost again to set it up nicely and the weather forecast for last night said, "mostly cloudy." Well, I've just this minute finished shovelling eight inches of 'mostly cloudy' off of my drive. Still, I think I may just have stumbled across a rather good way of clearing the previous night's alcohol out of my system.
Oh well, must dash.
Friday, February 27, 2004
"You've got to help me. I have a blog to update and absolutely nothing to say."
"Why don't you go for a walk round the lake, breathe some fresh air, clear the cobwebs. Usually works for me."
Did absolutely bugger all for me though.
"Then have a lazy surf, read the papers, phone up a few friends and shoot the breeze."
Nope. Squat. Sweet doo-diddley.
"Well, there's nothing else for it then."
"Yes?"
"You'll just have to start."
Well, I'll give it a go.
One of my company's contracts expired today and wasn't renewed and I've been out celebrating. Now that I'm in, I find the celebration has yet to reach its natural conclusion. My client very thoughtfully provided me with several bottles of Hungarian Cabernet Sauvignon of exceeding good vintage. 2000 was an exceptional year for the grape here and I find my appetite for the stuff quite unquenchable at the moment. They also saw fit to provide me with a case of something white, the provenance of which escapes me right now but on being presented with it, I seem to recall musing upon the fact that if this was the gear he was giving away, he must have restocked his cellar since last I saw it. And it was pretty blinding then, I can tell you.
Before you accuse me of pronoun slip, might I just make it clear that the 'they' referred to the company and the 'he', to the chairman/CEO thereof? Thankyou.
Chairman. Such an impressive word, don't you think? And one which, to my eyes anyway, still looks decidedly odd appended to my name on company correspondence. We, that is he and I, have had a chairpersons' relationship for some 13 years now and, as I owe all that I have to the largesse of his company, maybe it should have been me dispensing the Vintage this day. Naaaaaaah. Get a grip.
I remember our first meeting. I was shit scared. I mean, this was the Head Honcho of an oil company for Christ's sake and me, an Englishman on the make in post 1989 Eastern Europe. My first impressions did little to quell my fears, his aura entered the room a good few seconds before he did and all others present seemed to be in a strangely numb and stutteringly dumb state of obeisance. Then I noticed the way he walked, the way he planted his feet...as if he knew he was there, if you know what I mean. I saw the smile playing around just behind his lips. He didn't, but it was almost as if he'd winked when he looked at me and I remember thinking, "Aye, aye!"
I still have no idea why it was that he chose to reveal himself to me at that moment, but I am sure he did just as I am sure that it was a deliberate decision on his part. I've seen this guy at work with subordinates, customers and high ranking politicians and I have never seen him even for a moment exert less than total control over himself. What I saw that day, he had allowed me to see. And as I looked around, I knew that somehow he had contrived it to be for my eyes only.
The ease with which negotiations passed surprised me and it did not seem at all strange that we were the only two who seemed to find the whole situation amusing. I remember leaving his office and having to restrain myself until I was well clear of the building before letting out such a whoop that has only been heard since on the occasion of the play-off semi-final last year.
He took me to his vineyard. Blimey. Every other poor sod has a two up-one down cellar, his you could have lived in and wondered where the room service had got to. Anyway, we had a nomadic wander from barrel to barrel and had it not been for the fact that his chaffeur was on 24 hour call out, we would both have had an unscheduled swim in the lake on our way home. A chairmen's night out...bloody marvellous.
He asked me to teach him English. I'd go in with a beautifully detailed lesson plan that would last all of about 5 minutes before he'd just cut loose. I don't think he had anybody with whom he could relate without reference to a different agenda. I was an outsider, a foreigner, not even an employee and we talked about anything and everything. He would even ask my opinion on how he was bringing up his two children. The amount of trust he placed in me by opening himself up in such a way, I have never experienced from any other person. Okay, I always knew that if he asked me to jump, my reaction would have to have been, "How high?" but the fact that he never in all those 13 years actually asked should tell you something about both of us.
I only ever had to bend the truth with him on one occasion and even that was an extension of the Hippocratic oath that I exercised with him. I taught his children English and went out for a drink with his son once. I had to tell his father when he rather tentatively asked me that I had not seen him after 2 o'clock in the morning. We had agreed that it might be for the best if he alone accepted responsibility for his rather distressed state and the wonderful scent on his fingers rather than blame it all on me. I was exceeding grateful. As for the scent, you can rest assured that we didn't get it from each other.
So, an end. And yet another beginning. My company has just signed a moderately lucrative contract with a well known English language learning institution and will sign another on the morrow. Kan the Man Enterprises Inc. is still far from the breadline.
But, as I sit here in a house I designed myself and had built, looking out on an enormous garden which presently could successfully audition for a traditional Christmas card, within easy reach of several bottles of the finest malts the Isle of Islay has to offer and typing this on a beast bought with oil company money...I would be hard hearted indeed if I failed to raise a glass to the man who made it all possible. Thanks, Miklos.
"Why don't you go for a walk round the lake, breathe some fresh air, clear the cobwebs. Usually works for me."
Did absolutely bugger all for me though.
"Then have a lazy surf, read the papers, phone up a few friends and shoot the breeze."
Nope. Squat. Sweet doo-diddley.
"Well, there's nothing else for it then."
"Yes?"
"You'll just have to start."
Well, I'll give it a go.
One of my company's contracts expired today and wasn't renewed and I've been out celebrating. Now that I'm in, I find the celebration has yet to reach its natural conclusion. My client very thoughtfully provided me with several bottles of Hungarian Cabernet Sauvignon of exceeding good vintage. 2000 was an exceptional year for the grape here and I find my appetite for the stuff quite unquenchable at the moment. They also saw fit to provide me with a case of something white, the provenance of which escapes me right now but on being presented with it, I seem to recall musing upon the fact that if this was the gear he was giving away, he must have restocked his cellar since last I saw it. And it was pretty blinding then, I can tell you.
Before you accuse me of pronoun slip, might I just make it clear that the 'they' referred to the company and the 'he', to the chairman/CEO thereof? Thankyou.
Chairman. Such an impressive word, don't you think? And one which, to my eyes anyway, still looks decidedly odd appended to my name on company correspondence. We, that is he and I, have had a chairpersons' relationship for some 13 years now and, as I owe all that I have to the largesse of his company, maybe it should have been me dispensing the Vintage this day. Naaaaaaah. Get a grip.
I remember our first meeting. I was shit scared. I mean, this was the Head Honcho of an oil company for Christ's sake and me, an Englishman on the make in post 1989 Eastern Europe. My first impressions did little to quell my fears, his aura entered the room a good few seconds before he did and all others present seemed to be in a strangely numb and stutteringly dumb state of obeisance. Then I noticed the way he walked, the way he planted his feet...as if he knew he was there, if you know what I mean. I saw the smile playing around just behind his lips. He didn't, but it was almost as if he'd winked when he looked at me and I remember thinking, "Aye, aye!"
I still have no idea why it was that he chose to reveal himself to me at that moment, but I am sure he did just as I am sure that it was a deliberate decision on his part. I've seen this guy at work with subordinates, customers and high ranking politicians and I have never seen him even for a moment exert less than total control over himself. What I saw that day, he had allowed me to see. And as I looked around, I knew that somehow he had contrived it to be for my eyes only.
The ease with which negotiations passed surprised me and it did not seem at all strange that we were the only two who seemed to find the whole situation amusing. I remember leaving his office and having to restrain myself until I was well clear of the building before letting out such a whoop that has only been heard since on the occasion of the play-off semi-final last year.
He took me to his vineyard. Blimey. Every other poor sod has a two up-one down cellar, his you could have lived in and wondered where the room service had got to. Anyway, we had a nomadic wander from barrel to barrel and had it not been for the fact that his chaffeur was on 24 hour call out, we would both have had an unscheduled swim in the lake on our way home. A chairmen's night out...bloody marvellous.
He asked me to teach him English. I'd go in with a beautifully detailed lesson plan that would last all of about 5 minutes before he'd just cut loose. I don't think he had anybody with whom he could relate without reference to a different agenda. I was an outsider, a foreigner, not even an employee and we talked about anything and everything. He would even ask my opinion on how he was bringing up his two children. The amount of trust he placed in me by opening himself up in such a way, I have never experienced from any other person. Okay, I always knew that if he asked me to jump, my reaction would have to have been, "How high?" but the fact that he never in all those 13 years actually asked should tell you something about both of us.
I only ever had to bend the truth with him on one occasion and even that was an extension of the Hippocratic oath that I exercised with him. I taught his children English and went out for a drink with his son once. I had to tell his father when he rather tentatively asked me that I had not seen him after 2 o'clock in the morning. We had agreed that it might be for the best if he alone accepted responsibility for his rather distressed state and the wonderful scent on his fingers rather than blame it all on me. I was exceeding grateful. As for the scent, you can rest assured that we didn't get it from each other.
So, an end. And yet another beginning. My company has just signed a moderately lucrative contract with a well known English language learning institution and will sign another on the morrow. Kan the Man Enterprises Inc. is still far from the breadline.
But, as I sit here in a house I designed myself and had built, looking out on an enormous garden which presently could successfully audition for a traditional Christmas card, within easy reach of several bottles of the finest malts the Isle of Islay has to offer and typing this on a beast bought with oil company money...I would be hard hearted indeed if I failed to raise a glass to the man who made it all possible. Thanks, Miklos.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
I really must apologise Jess...I really am sorry. I must have read your latest about an hour ago and I've been otherwise engaged since but I've just poured myself a good two fingers of the finest, sat down in front of the beast and can hardly focus. If anyone can tell me why Jess taking a hefty right cross should have me in hysterics...I mean real tears of laughter here...I would be exceeding grateful. My own theory, for what it's worth, is that I've been right through it and come out the other side into a place where laughter is the only possible or even sane reaction.
Maybe Aeschylus can help me out again.
Near the heart the pointed sword
Waits; when Justice gives the word,
Through and through, sour edged and strong,
Strikes the blade. For none can long
Scorn regard of right and wrong,
Break the holy laws of heaven,
And hope to find his deed forgiven.
Justice plants her anvil; Fate
Forges keen the brazen knife.
Murder still will propogate
Murder; life must fall for life,
So the avenging Fiend, renowned
For long resolve and guile profound,
Now the wheel has turned with time,
Pays in blood the ancient crime.
It does rather seem a pity that after a few thousand years of human evolution, the best we can come up with nowadays is 'What goes around, comes around', wouldn't you say? I don't think I could be that patient, though...five minutes, that's all I'd ask. Doubt if I'd need it though.
Oh well, if you have been, keep your head down.
Maybe Aeschylus can help me out again.
Near the heart the pointed sword
Waits; when Justice gives the word,
Through and through, sour edged and strong,
Strikes the blade. For none can long
Scorn regard of right and wrong,
Break the holy laws of heaven,
And hope to find his deed forgiven.
Justice plants her anvil; Fate
Forges keen the brazen knife.
Murder still will propogate
Murder; life must fall for life,
So the avenging Fiend, renowned
For long resolve and guile profound,
Now the wheel has turned with time,
Pays in blood the ancient crime.
It does rather seem a pity that after a few thousand years of human evolution, the best we can come up with nowadays is 'What goes around, comes around', wouldn't you say? I don't think I could be that patient, though...five minutes, that's all I'd ask. Doubt if I'd need it though.
Oh well, if you have been, keep your head down.
I have, after considerable thought and after reading Jess's bit on Socrates, come to the rather inevitable conclusion that hemlock was too good for him.
But seeing as we're on the classics, here's Sophocles on being a Blade.
Now once more, drenched with dew,
I walk about; lie down, but no dreams visit me.
Sleep's enemy, fear, stands guard beside me, to forbid
My eyes one instant's closing. If I sing some tune -
Since music's the one cure prescribed for heartsickness -
Why, then I weep, to think how changed this house is now
From splendour of old days, ruled by its rightful lord.
So may the gods be kind and grant release from trouble,
And send the fire to cheer this dark night with good news.
I guess his glass was half-empty, too.
He also had a few words to say about Nick Montgomery .
Come, look on him, and weep.
About Wendy, he was quite specific.
As byword for abhorrence
Another name is named:
He must also have been present on an occasion when the Blades played host to visitors from S6. I think they must have upset him.
Out of this temple! I command you, go at once!
Quit my prophetic sanctuary, lest you feel
The gleaming snake that darts winged from my golden bow,
And painfully spew forth the black foam that you suck
From the sour flesh of murderers. What place have you
Within these walls? Some pit of punishments, where heads
Are severed, eyes torn out, throats cut, manhood unmanned,
Some hell of maimings, mutilations, stonings, where
Bodies impaled on stakes melt the mute air with groans -
Your place is there! Such are the feasts you love, for which
Heaven loathes you. Is not this the truth, proclaimed in you
By every feature? Find some blood-gorged lion's den,
There make your seemly dwelling, and no more rub off
Your foulness in this house of prayer and prophecy.
Away! Graze other fields, you flock unshepherded!
No god loves such as you!
Blimey! He also had a word or two of advice for our Neil.
Wealth and honour will attend
Love of goodness gladly held;
Virtue free and uncompelled
Fears no harsh untimely end.
But the man whose stubborn soul
Steers a rash defiant course
Flouting every law's control -
He in time will furl perforce,
Late repenting, when the blast
Shreds his sail and snaps his mast.
10 out of 10 for the translator, I think there.
And in case you are beginning to entertain a soupcon of a smidgen of a particle of a scintilla of an iota of a suspicion that either Sophocles was alone in his Bladeness or that my classical education only encompassed Greeks whose names began with S, here's Euripedes on last year's play-off final.
Happy are those who never knew
Gladness, whose birth embraced misfortune,
Steeling their souls to endure adversity -
My still-remembering heart envies their stubborn will!
From joy to tears - this cruel exchange
Weighs down the mortal spirit with long despair.
And Aeschylus was quite emphatic about the source of Wendy's plight an' all.
'The hand of Zeus has cast
The proud from their high place!'
This may we say, and trace
That hand from first to last.
As Zeus foreknowing willed,
So was their end fulfilled.
Next time, we'll be looking at "Five Go off in a Caravan" and relating it to early Existentialism. Nature, nurture or Nietzsche?
Wrap up warm, now!
But seeing as we're on the classics, here's Sophocles on being a Blade.
Now once more, drenched with dew,
I walk about; lie down, but no dreams visit me.
Sleep's enemy, fear, stands guard beside me, to forbid
My eyes one instant's closing. If I sing some tune -
Since music's the one cure prescribed for heartsickness -
Why, then I weep, to think how changed this house is now
From splendour of old days, ruled by its rightful lord.
So may the gods be kind and grant release from trouble,
And send the fire to cheer this dark night with good news.
I guess his glass was half-empty, too.
He also had a few words to say about Nick Montgomery .
Come, look on him, and weep.
About Wendy, he was quite specific.
As byword for abhorrence
Another name is named:
He must also have been present on an occasion when the Blades played host to visitors from S6. I think they must have upset him.
Out of this temple! I command you, go at once!
Quit my prophetic sanctuary, lest you feel
The gleaming snake that darts winged from my golden bow,
And painfully spew forth the black foam that you suck
From the sour flesh of murderers. What place have you
Within these walls? Some pit of punishments, where heads
Are severed, eyes torn out, throats cut, manhood unmanned,
Some hell of maimings, mutilations, stonings, where
Bodies impaled on stakes melt the mute air with groans -
Your place is there! Such are the feasts you love, for which
Heaven loathes you. Is not this the truth, proclaimed in you
By every feature? Find some blood-gorged lion's den,
There make your seemly dwelling, and no more rub off
Your foulness in this house of prayer and prophecy.
Away! Graze other fields, you flock unshepherded!
No god loves such as you!
Blimey! He also had a word or two of advice for our Neil.
Wealth and honour will attend
Love of goodness gladly held;
Virtue free and uncompelled
Fears no harsh untimely end.
But the man whose stubborn soul
Steers a rash defiant course
Flouting every law's control -
He in time will furl perforce,
Late repenting, when the blast
Shreds his sail and snaps his mast.
10 out of 10 for the translator, I think there.
And in case you are beginning to entertain a soupcon of a smidgen of a particle of a scintilla of an iota of a suspicion that either Sophocles was alone in his Bladeness or that my classical education only encompassed Greeks whose names began with S, here's Euripedes on last year's play-off final.
Happy are those who never knew
Gladness, whose birth embraced misfortune,
Steeling their souls to endure adversity -
My still-remembering heart envies their stubborn will!
From joy to tears - this cruel exchange
Weighs down the mortal spirit with long despair.
And Aeschylus was quite emphatic about the source of Wendy's plight an' all.
'The hand of Zeus has cast
The proud from their high place!'
This may we say, and trace
That hand from first to last.
As Zeus foreknowing willed,
So was their end fulfilled.
Next time, we'll be looking at "Five Go off in a Caravan" and relating it to early Existentialism. Nature, nurture or Nietzsche?
Wrap up warm, now!
Monday, February 16, 2004
Sunday, February 15, 2004
I had 110 gigabytes of Winchester memory on my puta and yet it still wasn't enough. The bytes free counter was in free fall and I figured it was high time to save a lot of stuff to disc. So, I scanned the contents in an attempt to maximise returns and figured that, as I had about 75 films on hard drive and as I have a home entertainment centre which plays a variety of discs, it might be a good idea to convert all those DivX avi. files to VCD format. I managed to find a program capable of this mighty feat, downloaded it and set off. After having spent about ten minutes watching the task bar stick at 0%, I figured it might just be time to ditch the Celeron III and upgrade to something more capable of performing the task in hand within my allotted three score and ten.
One phone call to my bank manager later (beware the perils of phone banking...the illusion of wealth it gives you is exactly that...illusory) and I was informed that my company's bank account was in an exceedingly healthy state and therefore capable of fucking the tax men by supporting an upgrade of my system.
I called my friend, who owns a computer shop, and told him to book the holiday, I'm on my way. I settled on a 2 by 256 Mb dual channel memory and a Pentium IV which also entailed a video card upgrade...TV out, video capabilities and pedal to the metal. The only remaining original components are the 80 and 30 gigabyte hard drives and my audio card...I even had to buy a new case/box/container to fit the whole shebang into. At this point, I'm afraid I rather lost the plot and my friend's holiday suddenly took on Niue proportions as I bought an HP deskjet 5150 printer and a Canon scanner. The scanner was made with me in mind...three buttons only, one for a scan, one for a photocopy and one for send by e-mail...I'm a simple kinda guy.
Now because I run on Windows XP, such an upgrade meant a complete re-installation of the operating system rather than a simple refresh and I am still in the process of re-installing all the program files I lost in the process. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck might best express the feeling engendered by this rather tiresome task.
So, I finally had a system capable of working at a speed equal to that of my un-Stellad synapses and could I use it? Could I fuck! Excuse me for a minute...I have to hit the fridge...memo to self...last bottle of Stella...refresh stocks forthwith, particularly as the Blades have a match on the morrow.
I have to give you some idea of the topography of my abode in order for you to be aware of the problem with which I was faced. Any guests I may have are accommodated in the same room as my puta on a sofa bed I installed for the very purpose. I have this very day taxied my soi-disant mother-in-law to the train station and thus regained internet access. She goes to bed at 8 pm at the latest and so rather curtailed my prime time internet activity. So, throw away your Simple English text books guys, I'm back!
So it is that, rather like the Blades, I've been playing catch up today. Having finally torn myself away from the penguin games on offer at Lamps and GCB's places, I hit on my favourite blogs and was not disappointed.
I enjoyed reading about Jess's confrontation with the American Coalition of Life Activists and was well impressed with her demeanour. My reactions under such circumstances are to a) try and reason with them or, if that fails, b) resort to a grizzly violence. I am amazed at how I have changed as I have got older (I nearly said matured then, but in the interests of factual accuracy settled on the former). In the past I would have walked over hot coals to avoid confrontation but now I find I am less likely to walk away and odds on favourite to create what my parents would call a scene. Life is too short to put up with stupidity and ignorance. Sorry, mum.
I am also all agog to discover how Roger's 'Into the Tumult' pans out and moreover very impatient to inform him that Wendy are indeed fucked.
I would also like to hazard a guess that Churchill the nodding dog was indeed modelled on Bagpuss and I await the Pixar version with bated breath.
Jess's love of stories also gave me food for thought. I figured for a moment that my supply of same was rather limited but then consoled myself with the fact that they haven't been properly coaxed out of me yet. She may apply the whip, cudgel or obscure bourbon as she sees fit. And, as it appears I have now missed Valentine's day by the merest whisper, may I say that I regret not having being born in Maryland and that she has my permission to attempt to sweep me off my feet to Niue whenever the fancy takes her.
Oh well, if you have been, it sure ain't my fault.
One phone call to my bank manager later (beware the perils of phone banking...the illusion of wealth it gives you is exactly that...illusory) and I was informed that my company's bank account was in an exceedingly healthy state and therefore capable of fucking the tax men by supporting an upgrade of my system.
I called my friend, who owns a computer shop, and told him to book the holiday, I'm on my way. I settled on a 2 by 256 Mb dual channel memory and a Pentium IV which also entailed a video card upgrade...TV out, video capabilities and pedal to the metal. The only remaining original components are the 80 and 30 gigabyte hard drives and my audio card...I even had to buy a new case/box/container to fit the whole shebang into. At this point, I'm afraid I rather lost the plot and my friend's holiday suddenly took on Niue proportions as I bought an HP deskjet 5150 printer and a Canon scanner. The scanner was made with me in mind...three buttons only, one for a scan, one for a photocopy and one for send by e-mail...I'm a simple kinda guy.
Now because I run on Windows XP, such an upgrade meant a complete re-installation of the operating system rather than a simple refresh and I am still in the process of re-installing all the program files I lost in the process. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck might best express the feeling engendered by this rather tiresome task.
So, I finally had a system capable of working at a speed equal to that of my un-Stellad synapses and could I use it? Could I fuck! Excuse me for a minute...I have to hit the fridge...memo to self...last bottle of Stella...refresh stocks forthwith, particularly as the Blades have a match on the morrow.
I have to give you some idea of the topography of my abode in order for you to be aware of the problem with which I was faced. Any guests I may have are accommodated in the same room as my puta on a sofa bed I installed for the very purpose. I have this very day taxied my soi-disant mother-in-law to the train station and thus regained internet access. She goes to bed at 8 pm at the latest and so rather curtailed my prime time internet activity. So, throw away your Simple English text books guys, I'm back!
So it is that, rather like the Blades, I've been playing catch up today. Having finally torn myself away from the penguin games on offer at Lamps and GCB's places, I hit on my favourite blogs and was not disappointed.
I enjoyed reading about Jess's confrontation with the American Coalition of Life Activists and was well impressed with her demeanour. My reactions under such circumstances are to a) try and reason with them or, if that fails, b) resort to a grizzly violence. I am amazed at how I have changed as I have got older (I nearly said matured then, but in the interests of factual accuracy settled on the former). In the past I would have walked over hot coals to avoid confrontation but now I find I am less likely to walk away and odds on favourite to create what my parents would call a scene. Life is too short to put up with stupidity and ignorance. Sorry, mum.
I am also all agog to discover how Roger's 'Into the Tumult' pans out and moreover very impatient to inform him that Wendy are indeed fucked.
I would also like to hazard a guess that Churchill the nodding dog was indeed modelled on Bagpuss and I await the Pixar version with bated breath.
Jess's love of stories also gave me food for thought. I figured for a moment that my supply of same was rather limited but then consoled myself with the fact that they haven't been properly coaxed out of me yet. She may apply the whip, cudgel or obscure bourbon as she sees fit. And, as it appears I have now missed Valentine's day by the merest whisper, may I say that I regret not having being born in Maryland and that she has my permission to attempt to sweep me off my feet to Niue whenever the fancy takes her.
Oh well, if you have been, it sure ain't my fault.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
I finally got around to tooling around with the settings on this 'ere Blogger and reset the times to GMT + 1 which means that my blog and I are now in perfect chronological synchronisation and I must admit, it's all a tad upsetting.
Whereas before, I could look at the times of my postings in Standard Eastern or whatever it is you Blogger boffins use as the default and remain blissfully unaware of how it related to my real time, I am now forced to confront some rather unpalatable truths concerning what may loosely be described as my lifestyle.
It is a little disconcerting to realise that any daytime post from Tuesday through Thursday indicates that I am not where I am contractually obliged to be. Actually, that's not entirely true...if all the executives at the company where I teach are otherwise engaged, then why should I hang around when I could be blogging? Particularly when I negotiated a clause in my contract which guarantees me a minimum 8 hour daily payment regardless of actual teaching hours. Which sets me to wondering if there's an 'insufferably smug' emoticon I could use at this point.
Daytime posts on Monday or Friday indicate that Burns' wee observation, 'The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agly.' has stood up to the rigours of practical testing and proved to be pretty damned accurate and on the ball. These are the days I set aside for acclimatising myself to the digital age by working from home. That the work in question is marking examination scripts and is thus, strictly analogue is neither here nor there and I hope you feel ashamed of yourselves for being so finickerty.
It is also quite a revelation to realise that the posts which have caused me the most pleasure on re-reading have been those conceived in the wee small hours of Friday and Saturday, or to be more accurate, Saturday and Sunday. As you are by now no doubt aware, it is a rare occasion indeed that I enter the witching hour without having first availed myself of industrial quantities of Malt and Stella chasers and you may, therefore, share my bemusement at the fact that while Shelley and Coleridge's muse was enticed out of her shell by laudanum, mine seems to need kick starting with Laphroaig, Stella and Drum cigarette tobacco. And no, now would not be a good time to remind me of my father's maxim that, "You only get out what you put in."
What struck me most of all however, was the fact that almost all the timings of my posts can be explained by the quite simple fact that I am a father. All posts not succeptible to this simple explanation can be ascribed to the fact that I have turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the Hungarian edition of the Goddess Rampo and resolved to indeed 'sit in front of that fucking computer all sodding night.' This, you will understand, is a very free translation. The Hungarian version is much more colourful.
I have a three and a half year old daughter whose very existence prevents me from blogging from the time at which she arrives home from nursery school, gymnastics or music school until such time as she lays her sweet head to rest of an evening. I'm sure that when she is older she will realise just how abjectly selfish and wanton was her behaviour but, until such time, it will remain my lot to be pressed into service to best fulfill my parental obligations.
I seem to have drifted into fatherhood in the same way I drifted into cohabitation. No sooner had I teased open her little oyster, or so it seemed, than I was handing over morning coffee making duties and other associated services to a Hungarian, and admittedly infinitely more curvaceous, equivalent of a personal gentleman's gentleman and having to invent acceptable explanations to the inquiry, "Where have you been until this time?" Thing is, I don't recall ever inviting her to see how long it would take to leave her corporeal imprint on one side of my mattress. Actually, thinking about it, it was probably a shrewd and ruthless move on her part as I was seeing (and touching and exploring) two other lovely ladies at the time of our meeting.
Anyway, seven years passed...we survived several, shall we say indiscretions on my part (examples of sexual incontinence would be more accurate) and, although I loved her dearly, it was with a slacker's 'whatever' that I greeted her announcement that she was not going to chemically suppress her hormones any longer and attempt to achieve conception before her biological meter entered the red zone, as it were. She is my junior by ten and a half years, by the way.
Eight months later and I was watching the gentle swell of her belly and entertaining the first thoughts about how it would feel to be a father. When the swell became a distend and I was singing into the womb, "Wakey, wakey! Time to wake up and kick your mummy!", I was still no nearer an answer.
When I cut the umbilical, held her in my arms and showered her with salty tears, I was not convinced that my reaction was not more due to the indescribable wonder of the occasion rather than the first burgeoning feelings of fatherhood. I always thought it would happen automatically...that as soon as she was born, I would feel somehow different...more grown up...more responsible...more...more like a father.
Mmmmm. She was a week old when we took her to her first motorcycle rally and I went bungee-jumping for the first time. Ten days and she was in a vineyard watching her old man get deliciously inebriated. Two weeks and she got to see me on stage percussing away in St Vitus mode. Less than a year and we load her into the car for a 2000 km trip to Blighty.
And I'm still waiting. Waiting for that fresh trout slap upside the head that will tell me how to feel. I really did expect it to be instantaneous...life changing and bottom-kickingly obvious but it hasn't been like that at all. Men are not mothers. At least this one isn't anyway. Zsuzsi seemed to change overnight...she was with me on not letting Lorna disrupt our lives and stop us from doing whatever it is we wanted to...we decided to take her everywhere with us (invite us, the frog comes too) and Lorna has certainly benefitted from this but Zsuzsi's first thoughts are always with her daughter and I don't think mine are.
With me it seems more gradual, more occasional. I'll sometimes go to sleep with her in our bed and be totally overcome with just how wonderful she is and have to explain to her that tears aren't always of sadness.
It hit me when I went to pick her up from Nursery School one day and her face lit up, she came running towards me, greeted me with a cry of "Mummy!" and jumped into my arms. We got half way down the stairs and she decided she had to go back, give one of the boys a hug and promise him that she'd bring him a present on his birthday.
It's Carnival here at the moment and as Zsuzsi is a music teacher and organises a weekly class for nursery school kids and as she was compering a Carnival concert at our local theatre she got all the kids to sing and dance on the stage of our town's theatre last week. All of them dressed as rabbits...word perfect and all in synch. Would that I had an URL...I'd show you the pictures. Lorna on stage and me crying my eyes out. She escaped from my lap later that same evening, ran onto the stage where her mum was introducing the next act, grabbed the microphone, said, "I've come because I just wanted to tell you that I love you, mummy." and brought the house down.
So, maybe it's happening...slowly but surely...so slowly that perhaps I am unaware of the change. All I know is...you do anything to harm my daughter and I will snap your neck as if it were a twig.
Whereas before, I could look at the times of my postings in Standard Eastern or whatever it is you Blogger boffins use as the default and remain blissfully unaware of how it related to my real time, I am now forced to confront some rather unpalatable truths concerning what may loosely be described as my lifestyle.
It is a little disconcerting to realise that any daytime post from Tuesday through Thursday indicates that I am not where I am contractually obliged to be. Actually, that's not entirely true...if all the executives at the company where I teach are otherwise engaged, then why should I hang around when I could be blogging? Particularly when I negotiated a clause in my contract which guarantees me a minimum 8 hour daily payment regardless of actual teaching hours. Which sets me to wondering if there's an 'insufferably smug' emoticon I could use at this point.
Daytime posts on Monday or Friday indicate that Burns' wee observation, 'The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agly.' has stood up to the rigours of practical testing and proved to be pretty damned accurate and on the ball. These are the days I set aside for acclimatising myself to the digital age by working from home. That the work in question is marking examination scripts and is thus, strictly analogue is neither here nor there and I hope you feel ashamed of yourselves for being so finickerty.
It is also quite a revelation to realise that the posts which have caused me the most pleasure on re-reading have been those conceived in the wee small hours of Friday and Saturday, or to be more accurate, Saturday and Sunday. As you are by now no doubt aware, it is a rare occasion indeed that I enter the witching hour without having first availed myself of industrial quantities of Malt and Stella chasers and you may, therefore, share my bemusement at the fact that while Shelley and Coleridge's muse was enticed out of her shell by laudanum, mine seems to need kick starting with Laphroaig, Stella and Drum cigarette tobacco. And no, now would not be a good time to remind me of my father's maxim that, "You only get out what you put in."
What struck me most of all however, was the fact that almost all the timings of my posts can be explained by the quite simple fact that I am a father. All posts not succeptible to this simple explanation can be ascribed to the fact that I have turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the Hungarian edition of the Goddess Rampo and resolved to indeed 'sit in front of that fucking computer all sodding night.' This, you will understand, is a very free translation. The Hungarian version is much more colourful.
I have a three and a half year old daughter whose very existence prevents me from blogging from the time at which she arrives home from nursery school, gymnastics or music school until such time as she lays her sweet head to rest of an evening. I'm sure that when she is older she will realise just how abjectly selfish and wanton was her behaviour but, until such time, it will remain my lot to be pressed into service to best fulfill my parental obligations.
I seem to have drifted into fatherhood in the same way I drifted into cohabitation. No sooner had I teased open her little oyster, or so it seemed, than I was handing over morning coffee making duties and other associated services to a Hungarian, and admittedly infinitely more curvaceous, equivalent of a personal gentleman's gentleman and having to invent acceptable explanations to the inquiry, "Where have you been until this time?" Thing is, I don't recall ever inviting her to see how long it would take to leave her corporeal imprint on one side of my mattress. Actually, thinking about it, it was probably a shrewd and ruthless move on her part as I was seeing (and touching and exploring) two other lovely ladies at the time of our meeting.
Anyway, seven years passed...we survived several, shall we say indiscretions on my part (examples of sexual incontinence would be more accurate) and, although I loved her dearly, it was with a slacker's 'whatever' that I greeted her announcement that she was not going to chemically suppress her hormones any longer and attempt to achieve conception before her biological meter entered the red zone, as it were. She is my junior by ten and a half years, by the way.
Eight months later and I was watching the gentle swell of her belly and entertaining the first thoughts about how it would feel to be a father. When the swell became a distend and I was singing into the womb, "Wakey, wakey! Time to wake up and kick your mummy!", I was still no nearer an answer.
When I cut the umbilical, held her in my arms and showered her with salty tears, I was not convinced that my reaction was not more due to the indescribable wonder of the occasion rather than the first burgeoning feelings of fatherhood. I always thought it would happen automatically...that as soon as she was born, I would feel somehow different...more grown up...more responsible...more...more like a father.
Mmmmm. She was a week old when we took her to her first motorcycle rally and I went bungee-jumping for the first time. Ten days and she was in a vineyard watching her old man get deliciously inebriated. Two weeks and she got to see me on stage percussing away in St Vitus mode. Less than a year and we load her into the car for a 2000 km trip to Blighty.
And I'm still waiting. Waiting for that fresh trout slap upside the head that will tell me how to feel. I really did expect it to be instantaneous...life changing and bottom-kickingly obvious but it hasn't been like that at all. Men are not mothers. At least this one isn't anyway. Zsuzsi seemed to change overnight...she was with me on not letting Lorna disrupt our lives and stop us from doing whatever it is we wanted to...we decided to take her everywhere with us (invite us, the frog comes too) and Lorna has certainly benefitted from this but Zsuzsi's first thoughts are always with her daughter and I don't think mine are.
With me it seems more gradual, more occasional. I'll sometimes go to sleep with her in our bed and be totally overcome with just how wonderful she is and have to explain to her that tears aren't always of sadness.
It hit me when I went to pick her up from Nursery School one day and her face lit up, she came running towards me, greeted me with a cry of "Mummy!" and jumped into my arms. We got half way down the stairs and she decided she had to go back, give one of the boys a hug and promise him that she'd bring him a present on his birthday.
It's Carnival here at the moment and as Zsuzsi is a music teacher and organises a weekly class for nursery school kids and as she was compering a Carnival concert at our local theatre she got all the kids to sing and dance on the stage of our town's theatre last week. All of them dressed as rabbits...word perfect and all in synch. Would that I had an URL...I'd show you the pictures. Lorna on stage and me crying my eyes out. She escaped from my lap later that same evening, ran onto the stage where her mum was introducing the next act, grabbed the microphone, said, "I've come because I just wanted to tell you that I love you, mummy." and brought the house down.
So, maybe it's happening...slowly but surely...so slowly that perhaps I am unaware of the change. All I know is...you do anything to harm my daughter and I will snap your neck as if it were a twig.
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Cripes! I remember that night...and I really loved that flying jacket! Leave them up mate, no problem!
My oh my! Has it really been so long? How terribly remiss of me. Maybe I should configure my keyboard to call up excuses on demand...now, let me see.
F1. Retro rockets failed on re-entry.
F2. Software infected by Bkdr.Laphroaig.exe virus.
F3. Anyone got 50 forints for the meter?
F4. Wastelladagain.
F5. Abducted by aliens.
F6. Got blog on.
F7. Downloading pornography. Normal service will be resumed when feeling returns to at least one hand.
F8. Can't be arsed. Bog off!
F9. Farted too close to pilot light. Am currently at an altitude of 30,000 feet somewhere over Pasadena.
F10. Overdosed on csereznye paprika. Am busy disengaging 30 feet of lower intestine from out the U-bend.
All highly plausible of course but more than a few astronomical units distant from the truth of the matter which, as ever, turns out to be much more prosaic.
Would that but I could put my finger on it, nail it down, define it, discern its nub, core or kernel and lay it before you in its purest, undiluted form. I can feel that gland kicking in again...in the deep, dark stillness of the night when all those unanswerable questions are posed like, "Why do men have nipples?" and "Why is there always more shaving foam than I actually require left on my hand prior to shaving?" and not forgetting the classic "Why have the Blades fucked it up again?", there comes the irrefutable answer, "Bugadifino!"
I suppose it's a combination of factors really.
1. The availability to myself over the last 2 weeks of anything which might even remotely be described as leisure time has been of a quantity akin to that of brain cells at a Bush fundraiser. Negligible at best. Nugatory in the worst possible light.
2. The fact that Jess has, extremely selfishly in my opinion, buggered off to Niue and thus failed to provide me with even a word of the day for inspiration. (Just checked e-mail...welcome back, my pedocentric little playmate, you!).
3. The fear that my writing might just have caught up with my present. That I may have exhausted my store of worthwhile material.
4. Marking examination papers and consequently being exposed to so much Hunglish has resulted in several short circuits in those parts of my cerebellum responsible for the production of intelligible English.
So, whither do I proceed? Well, I could start by providing my muse with the sustenance of a sausage sandwich (English mustard, seeing as you ask) and reflecting upon such input as I have received during my brief forays into the world of cyberspace over the past couple of weeks.
Firstly, I would like to put the six dwarfs' minds at rest regarding Fred Frith. "Burning guitar solos mean nothing." was a quote from the man himself, reproduced as a headline in the NME and cut out and pasted on his bedroom wall by our friend Stephen Feather.
It's difficult for me to talk about Steve. I knew him. Since we were about 12. If you were to push me, and I can feel your pressure, I would have to admit that there was no more formative influence on my teenage years. It was he who introduced me to Radio Luxembourg, it was with him that I would compile my own charts and compare them to those of Lux on the day of release. It was with him that my awareness was politicised, walking down High Storrs Road with him chanting "Heath out!!" when we were about 14. It was he who changed my life forever by playing me The Mahavishnu Orchestra's 'Inner Mounting Flame' at about the same time. Bye bye Prog Rock! Hello world! It was he whose hesitancy in matters sexual led to my stealing his girlfriend and losing my virginity. He who introduced me to the delights of marijuana, he who enlightened me as to the psychotropic qualities of Potter's asthma cigarettes when consumed in tea form, he who stopped me from committing arson when, under the influence of said tea, I was cooking 'mushrimps' in an empty pan on a lit stove in a cottage in Tetford, he who sat on the steps of my parents' house bemoaning his luck with the ladies and being overheard by my neighbours eavesdropping from their bedroom window (the swine!). It was with him that I spent summer solstice at Arbor Low, a stone circle in Derbyshire, and I remember sitting absolutely transfixed by the fire as he played guitar at midnight...an absolute minimum of notes and yet capturing the mood to such a nicety of perfection it was almost painful. It was Steve who accompanied me on an illegal expedition to Amsterdam involving 48 grammes and a tube of toothpaste, he who went cold turkey in my living room, entrusting me with his well being for as long as it took.
Steve had a boldness that I lacked. A boldness that spilled over into recklessness. I don't really know what happened, what trigger led him to go ever further into exploring those areas that something inside me held me back from but there was a strong compulsion in Steve...a willful running away from safety...in his music, his relationships and in his choice of drugs and their recommended maximum dosage he would always push at the very limits. And yet a more normal, self effacing, gentle guy I have yet to meet. Rest in peace, Steve. I hope you found what it was you were looking for.
Suddenly, anything else I might have had to say seems rather pointless. I'm sure you will forgive an old man his tears.
F1. Retro rockets failed on re-entry.
F2. Software infected by Bkdr.Laphroaig.exe virus.
F3. Anyone got 50 forints for the meter?
F4. Wastelladagain.
F5. Abducted by aliens.
F6. Got blog on.
F7. Downloading pornography. Normal service will be resumed when feeling returns to at least one hand.
F8. Can't be arsed. Bog off!
F9. Farted too close to pilot light. Am currently at an altitude of 30,000 feet somewhere over Pasadena.
F10. Overdosed on csereznye paprika. Am busy disengaging 30 feet of lower intestine from out the U-bend.
All highly plausible of course but more than a few astronomical units distant from the truth of the matter which, as ever, turns out to be much more prosaic.
Would that but I could put my finger on it, nail it down, define it, discern its nub, core or kernel and lay it before you in its purest, undiluted form. I can feel that gland kicking in again...in the deep, dark stillness of the night when all those unanswerable questions are posed like, "Why do men have nipples?" and "Why is there always more shaving foam than I actually require left on my hand prior to shaving?" and not forgetting the classic "Why have the Blades fucked it up again?", there comes the irrefutable answer, "Bugadifino!"
I suppose it's a combination of factors really.
1. The availability to myself over the last 2 weeks of anything which might even remotely be described as leisure time has been of a quantity akin to that of brain cells at a Bush fundraiser. Negligible at best. Nugatory in the worst possible light.
2. The fact that Jess has, extremely selfishly in my opinion, buggered off to Niue and thus failed to provide me with even a word of the day for inspiration. (Just checked e-mail...welcome back, my pedocentric little playmate, you!).
3. The fear that my writing might just have caught up with my present. That I may have exhausted my store of worthwhile material.
4. Marking examination papers and consequently being exposed to so much Hunglish has resulted in several short circuits in those parts of my cerebellum responsible for the production of intelligible English.
So, whither do I proceed? Well, I could start by providing my muse with the sustenance of a sausage sandwich (English mustard, seeing as you ask) and reflecting upon such input as I have received during my brief forays into the world of cyberspace over the past couple of weeks.
Firstly, I would like to put the six dwarfs' minds at rest regarding Fred Frith. "Burning guitar solos mean nothing." was a quote from the man himself, reproduced as a headline in the NME and cut out and pasted on his bedroom wall by our friend Stephen Feather.
It's difficult for me to talk about Steve. I knew him. Since we were about 12. If you were to push me, and I can feel your pressure, I would have to admit that there was no more formative influence on my teenage years. It was he who introduced me to Radio Luxembourg, it was with him that I would compile my own charts and compare them to those of Lux on the day of release. It was with him that my awareness was politicised, walking down High Storrs Road with him chanting "Heath out!!" when we were about 14. It was he who changed my life forever by playing me The Mahavishnu Orchestra's 'Inner Mounting Flame' at about the same time. Bye bye Prog Rock! Hello world! It was he whose hesitancy in matters sexual led to my stealing his girlfriend and losing my virginity. He who introduced me to the delights of marijuana, he who enlightened me as to the psychotropic qualities of Potter's asthma cigarettes when consumed in tea form, he who stopped me from committing arson when, under the influence of said tea, I was cooking 'mushrimps' in an empty pan on a lit stove in a cottage in Tetford, he who sat on the steps of my parents' house bemoaning his luck with the ladies and being overheard by my neighbours eavesdropping from their bedroom window (the swine!). It was with him that I spent summer solstice at Arbor Low, a stone circle in Derbyshire, and I remember sitting absolutely transfixed by the fire as he played guitar at midnight...an absolute minimum of notes and yet capturing the mood to such a nicety of perfection it was almost painful. It was Steve who accompanied me on an illegal expedition to Amsterdam involving 48 grammes and a tube of toothpaste, he who went cold turkey in my living room, entrusting me with his well being for as long as it took.
Steve had a boldness that I lacked. A boldness that spilled over into recklessness. I don't really know what happened, what trigger led him to go ever further into exploring those areas that something inside me held me back from but there was a strong compulsion in Steve...a willful running away from safety...in his music, his relationships and in his choice of drugs and their recommended maximum dosage he would always push at the very limits. And yet a more normal, self effacing, gentle guy I have yet to meet. Rest in peace, Steve. I hope you found what it was you were looking for.
Suddenly, anything else I might have had to say seems rather pointless. I'm sure you will forgive an old man his tears.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Right, time to take a deep breath, pour myself a few fingers of Scotland's finest (speaking of which and as it's also his favourite tipple, you'd think my ex-roving researcher would know how to spell it by now!) and attempt to further clarify yesterday's little rantlet.
First of all, I'd just like to make it clear that there was no blanket statement "I like Americans, it's America I can't stand", although as a device for summing up my general drift and as an introduction to a response it served its purpose admirably, I feel it doesn't quite encapsulate the points I was trying to make. The nail was hit, but perhaps not as squarely as it could have been.
'I can't stand' is rather too close to 'hate' for my liking and certainly does not come close to describing how I feel about America. I hate neither the country nor its people, my emotion is reserved for what the country has come to represent in the minds of many non native Americans. Even then these feelings could better be classified under the heading of 'things that make you go "Aaaaaaaaaargh!"' rather than hate. Things that provoke me to anger, to a feeling of deep frustration and sometimes despair.
America seems to have become a code for all these things, a handy catch-all, shorthand expression for all that I find wrong with the world today. And why? Well, as I said yesterday, a lot could be put down to sheer exposure...the fact that I hear more about America than I do about say, Uzbekistan (shouldn't there be an aitch in there somewhere?) but I honestly do believe that if I need to find a prime example of anything that winds me up, then I can find the best ones in the land of the free. I'm not saying that I am unable to find any cant, hypocrisy, mendacity or ignorance in the country of my birth...they are there for all to see and I do not deny it but it seems to me to be a matter of extremes.
We spent half the last century witnessing a battle of ideologies, capitalism versus communism, America against the Soviet Union, a cold war in which both sides provided the extreme version of their political creed. Europe was kind of caught in the middle with an affinity for both socialism and the free market but also with an abhorence of totalitarianism. We looked at both systems and saw the cult of the individual at work. In the USSR's case the individual happened to be the one running the whole shebang and in the States it was every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.
We looked at both extremes and felt comfortable with neither. Since 1989 however, there has been only one extreme in existence and it has not toned down its extremity in response, rather the perceived attitude seems to be "Hey, we won...told you so...we were right after all, fuck you!" Again, this is at government, foreign policy level but to us over here, this is what we see.
Now, as England is undeniably a kind of America Lite it follows that anything which gets my goat in England is mirrored in America but multiplied by the A factor, hence my use of it as that shorthand I was telling you about.
But just to even up the score a little...
Mendacity...Tony (WMD) Blair.
Hypocrisy...Secretary of State for education sending her own children to private schools.
Ignorance...well, here we're back to the average IQ, aren't we? But typical attitudes here are British is best...asylum seekers are scrounging loafers...bloody blacks coming over here, taking our jobs...Wednesday are a big club...I could go on and on.
Cant...that typical European attitude that patronises America...the "of course, if you only had our experience, culture, education etc..." Again, bollocks the lot of it.
Anyway, rest assured that it is the rampant Republicanism of Dubya and his cohorts more than anything else which pushes all my buttons as a lifelong socialist and that any American I meet is and will continue to be treated on their merits as an individual and not as a grindstone for any axes I might have to hand.
Oh, and Jess...if ever you visit Hungary, just bring a bottle of obscure Bourbon. I promise not to treat you like an embarrassing relative and the more of a spectacle you make of yourself, the better I'll like it!
Oh well, I might stick a feather in my cap but I'm damned if I'll call it macaroni.
Pip, pip!
First of all, I'd just like to make it clear that there was no blanket statement "I like Americans, it's America I can't stand", although as a device for summing up my general drift and as an introduction to a response it served its purpose admirably, I feel it doesn't quite encapsulate the points I was trying to make. The nail was hit, but perhaps not as squarely as it could have been.
'I can't stand' is rather too close to 'hate' for my liking and certainly does not come close to describing how I feel about America. I hate neither the country nor its people, my emotion is reserved for what the country has come to represent in the minds of many non native Americans. Even then these feelings could better be classified under the heading of 'things that make you go "Aaaaaaaaaargh!"' rather than hate. Things that provoke me to anger, to a feeling of deep frustration and sometimes despair.
America seems to have become a code for all these things, a handy catch-all, shorthand expression for all that I find wrong with the world today. And why? Well, as I said yesterday, a lot could be put down to sheer exposure...the fact that I hear more about America than I do about say, Uzbekistan (shouldn't there be an aitch in there somewhere?) but I honestly do believe that if I need to find a prime example of anything that winds me up, then I can find the best ones in the land of the free. I'm not saying that I am unable to find any cant, hypocrisy, mendacity or ignorance in the country of my birth...they are there for all to see and I do not deny it but it seems to me to be a matter of extremes.
We spent half the last century witnessing a battle of ideologies, capitalism versus communism, America against the Soviet Union, a cold war in which both sides provided the extreme version of their political creed. Europe was kind of caught in the middle with an affinity for both socialism and the free market but also with an abhorence of totalitarianism. We looked at both systems and saw the cult of the individual at work. In the USSR's case the individual happened to be the one running the whole shebang and in the States it was every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.
We looked at both extremes and felt comfortable with neither. Since 1989 however, there has been only one extreme in existence and it has not toned down its extremity in response, rather the perceived attitude seems to be "Hey, we won...told you so...we were right after all, fuck you!" Again, this is at government, foreign policy level but to us over here, this is what we see.
Now, as England is undeniably a kind of America Lite it follows that anything which gets my goat in England is mirrored in America but multiplied by the A factor, hence my use of it as that shorthand I was telling you about.
But just to even up the score a little...
Mendacity...Tony (WMD) Blair.
Hypocrisy...Secretary of State for education sending her own children to private schools.
Ignorance...well, here we're back to the average IQ, aren't we? But typical attitudes here are British is best...asylum seekers are scrounging loafers...bloody blacks coming over here, taking our jobs...Wednesday are a big club...I could go on and on.
Cant...that typical European attitude that patronises America...the "of course, if you only had our experience, culture, education etc..." Again, bollocks the lot of it.
Anyway, rest assured that it is the rampant Republicanism of Dubya and his cohorts more than anything else which pushes all my buttons as a lifelong socialist and that any American I meet is and will continue to be treated on their merits as an individual and not as a grindstone for any axes I might have to hand.
Oh, and Jess...if ever you visit Hungary, just bring a bottle of obscure Bourbon. I promise not to treat you like an embarrassing relative and the more of a spectacle you make of yourself, the better I'll like it!
Oh well, I might stick a feather in my cap but I'm damned if I'll call it macaroni.
Pip, pip!
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
What is it with America? No, that's not quite right. What is it with ME and America? Why is it that on a multitude of subjects ranging from Islay malts through even the Blades to the relative merits of divergent brands of cigarette papers, I can remain coherent, well-balanced and rational and yet the merest whiff of Stateside carries within it the ability to reduce me to such a state that all right thinking individuals would raise little objection were I to be assisted into one of those long-sleeved shirts with no buttons down the front?
I've never even been there unless, that is, you count the transit lounge at Puerto Rico airport and even that was dominated by more Star Spangled Banners than you could shake a stick at.
But even though I have yet to visit it, it visits me on an almost daily basis. I can go through whole days, weeks, months even without ever being exposed to anything vaguely French, German or even Austrian which is strange considering I'm typing this not 100 kms from the Austro-Hungarian border. But open a newspaper, watch a film, turn on the TV, walk into a supermarket, drive under the yellow M and it's there. In your face, up close and personal. I guess that's part of it. I never get to hear of examples of Kan bait produced by other governments and cultures as often as I do those which are so very kindly provided by the good old US of A.
What makes it all the stranger is my personal experience of Americans. I have received nothing but kindness, generosity and friendship from every single one it has ever been my pleasure to meet, either virtually or in the flesh and they have proved to be intelligent conversationalists, good company and, even if one or two of them were rather too Creationist to fit neatly against my pagan edges, incredibly well-rounded individuals.
So my problem is not with individual Americans, then. I guess what causes me the most apoplexy can be lumped under the twin headings of Government and culture.
I realise that any discussion of US government will include points that are just as valid for most of our soi-disant western democracies but it appears to me that in the case of the States, everything is so much more so...we have to multiply everything by the A factor as it were. Examples of political chicanery and skullduggery abound internationally, but you wanna bigger and better one? Look no further.
Maybe it's the romantic in me but there must have been a time when politics was a noble calling, when governments actually led and attempted to form public opinion. The abolition of slavery, prohibition, the New Deal...even Kennedy's man on the moon within a decade, all these had the touch of the radical about them, a fearlessness that is so absent from politics today. Were all the above just catching the wave, tuning in to the Zeitgeist? I think not. But could you find me a politician today who dares open their mouth without consulting the latest opinion polls, the results of which will then quite coincidentally turn out to accord with their own long held beliefs? Government by the people? God help us. Capital punishment was abolished in Germany at a time when 78% of the German people were in favour of it. The same poll today would show that the percentages have reversed.
When I said I have had no problem with any American I have met, I meant exactly that but Americans en masse are a biscuit of an entirely different texture. When considering any mass of people it is always worth remembering that the average IQ of a human is 100. The largest part of any survey of public opinion will contain the views of those whom I would not trust to give me the correct change over the counter at McDonalds never mind formulate government policy.
And it isn't as if the politicians are unaware of this. They use it and manipulate it come election time, appealing to all that is low, baseless and selfish within the mass. When did you last hear a politician genuinely appeal to our higher nature, go against the grain because what they believed in was simply the right thing to do? And if, on the off chance that you have managed to come up with such an example, Ask yourself this. Did they get re-elected?
But then again, of US domestic policy I know little. What the rest of the world cannot help but notice are the ramifications of US foreign policy. And oh, my giddy aunt, what a spaghetti nest of cant, hypocrisy and mendacity that way lies.
I neither want nor have the time to go into this to the extent it deserves but I will take an example from current affairs. This whole fandango that is Guantanamo Bay. Now, I understand that the US isn't breaking international law here. Any laws or protocols that exist regarding any aspect of this the US is not a signatory to and thus cannot be accused of treaty breaking. But surely there is such a thing as the spirit of the law even if it is absurd to suggest that US law could be valid in say, Belgium for example. But when one starts to treat foreigners with less than one would treat one's own citizens and yet expect American citizens to be treated abroad as they would be at home, something is seriously out of whack. The thing that started this whole thing off today was discovering yesterday that the commandant of the camp has described the 32 suicide attempts amongst the non-lawful combatants held there as "manipulative behaviour." He should be on Oprah.
And that's another thing. Non-lawful combatants. What the fuck? I heard them described as non uniformed, non-members of regular army or some such. Maybe we should start rounding up any surviving members of the French resistance, then. Find a new use for Sangatte. Thing is, I don't recall the 'wars' in either Afghanistan or Iraq being agreed on at government level between all countries concerned. Maybe both those countries did in fact declare war on the US and I missed it. Maybe I'd popped out for some cigarette papers or something. America went in with a few minor 'coalition' members hanging on to their coat tails and then had the balls to decide who amongst the populations of those countries were legally entitled to fight them. Good grief!
Ooops, must go...I'll finish this later!
Right, now where was I? Oh, yeah...culture. Now I realise that this could easily turn into one of those discussions akin to that of the Jewish resistance movement in The Life of Brian..."Ok, well apart from Blues, Jazz, Gore Vidal, John Updike, David Byrne, Noam Chomsky etc...what have the Americans ever given us?"
Mind you, I would think that for all the pretty amazing things and people to have come out of America the Oprahisation of life and the cult of celebrity has been a rather high price to pay, but...onwards, ever onwards!
The fact which I find most boggling about US culture, apart from this weird and dangerous thing they've got going with the flag that is, is that for a country supposedly obsessed with individualism, they seem to have an almost irresistible desire for homogenisation. Witness the spread of retail food outlets, McDonalds, Taco Bell and Starbucks, the basic premise of which is that you will be able to walk into any of their establishments, anywhere in the States or even the world and be assured that the comestibles on offer will differ not a jot between any of them. All highly reassuring, I'm sure...after all, "You know where you are with McDonalds, don't you?" but the less variety one finds at home the more difficult it will be to accept that other cultures may have different tastes. The extrapolations of this reach far beyond the culinary.
And what is it with their cars? I read of a town somewhere in the mid-west which spent not a few million dollars on pedestrianising it's main street, turning it into a place where people could pleasantly go about their business, sit on benches and admire the specially planted foliage...a haven of calm, in fact.
It cost them a hell of a lot more to rip it all up and restore it to its original condition when people abandoned it for the out of town mall.
And the relentless dumbing down of everything. Here's Mariah Carey on the developing world.
"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
5% of the world's population consuming 20% of its resources and Mariah can't keep the size of her ass out of the discussion.
Oprah. Well, what can I say? We are being encouraged to sublimate personal responsibility and blame, to claim that we have been abducted by aliens rather than face up to the fact that we are responsible for our own lives and have fucked them up entirely unaided. No, we have to be women who fall for men who were smacked by their mothers and have to join a support group in order to share and seek closure. Bollocks, the lot of it!
The longer this goes on, the more I realise that this isn't really about America at all, only in so far as most of what I find disagreeable about the world today either originated there or finds its most obvious expression within its shores.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that I would feel right at home in one of the more genteel Commonwealths of the South now that there are no longer any 'strange and bitter fruit' hanging from the trees.
I think all I'm really yearning for is a more civilised age, a more educated and critical population...somewhere where people will say "Thankyou" when I hold the door open for them. And a world in which George W Bush would not have been trusted with the car keys, never mind those to the White House.
Oh well, maybe you think it's all been a wee bit fastuous but if you have been, put the gun down.
I've never even been there unless, that is, you count the transit lounge at Puerto Rico airport and even that was dominated by more Star Spangled Banners than you could shake a stick at.
But even though I have yet to visit it, it visits me on an almost daily basis. I can go through whole days, weeks, months even without ever being exposed to anything vaguely French, German or even Austrian which is strange considering I'm typing this not 100 kms from the Austro-Hungarian border. But open a newspaper, watch a film, turn on the TV, walk into a supermarket, drive under the yellow M and it's there. In your face, up close and personal. I guess that's part of it. I never get to hear of examples of Kan bait produced by other governments and cultures as often as I do those which are so very kindly provided by the good old US of A.
What makes it all the stranger is my personal experience of Americans. I have received nothing but kindness, generosity and friendship from every single one it has ever been my pleasure to meet, either virtually or in the flesh and they have proved to be intelligent conversationalists, good company and, even if one or two of them were rather too Creationist to fit neatly against my pagan edges, incredibly well-rounded individuals.
So my problem is not with individual Americans, then. I guess what causes me the most apoplexy can be lumped under the twin headings of Government and culture.
I realise that any discussion of US government will include points that are just as valid for most of our soi-disant western democracies but it appears to me that in the case of the States, everything is so much more so...we have to multiply everything by the A factor as it were. Examples of political chicanery and skullduggery abound internationally, but you wanna bigger and better one? Look no further.
Maybe it's the romantic in me but there must have been a time when politics was a noble calling, when governments actually led and attempted to form public opinion. The abolition of slavery, prohibition, the New Deal...even Kennedy's man on the moon within a decade, all these had the touch of the radical about them, a fearlessness that is so absent from politics today. Were all the above just catching the wave, tuning in to the Zeitgeist? I think not. But could you find me a politician today who dares open their mouth without consulting the latest opinion polls, the results of which will then quite coincidentally turn out to accord with their own long held beliefs? Government by the people? God help us. Capital punishment was abolished in Germany at a time when 78% of the German people were in favour of it. The same poll today would show that the percentages have reversed.
When I said I have had no problem with any American I have met, I meant exactly that but Americans en masse are a biscuit of an entirely different texture. When considering any mass of people it is always worth remembering that the average IQ of a human is 100. The largest part of any survey of public opinion will contain the views of those whom I would not trust to give me the correct change over the counter at McDonalds never mind formulate government policy.
And it isn't as if the politicians are unaware of this. They use it and manipulate it come election time, appealing to all that is low, baseless and selfish within the mass. When did you last hear a politician genuinely appeal to our higher nature, go against the grain because what they believed in was simply the right thing to do? And if, on the off chance that you have managed to come up with such an example, Ask yourself this. Did they get re-elected?
But then again, of US domestic policy I know little. What the rest of the world cannot help but notice are the ramifications of US foreign policy. And oh, my giddy aunt, what a spaghetti nest of cant, hypocrisy and mendacity that way lies.
I neither want nor have the time to go into this to the extent it deserves but I will take an example from current affairs. This whole fandango that is Guantanamo Bay. Now, I understand that the US isn't breaking international law here. Any laws or protocols that exist regarding any aspect of this the US is not a signatory to and thus cannot be accused of treaty breaking. But surely there is such a thing as the spirit of the law even if it is absurd to suggest that US law could be valid in say, Belgium for example. But when one starts to treat foreigners with less than one would treat one's own citizens and yet expect American citizens to be treated abroad as they would be at home, something is seriously out of whack. The thing that started this whole thing off today was discovering yesterday that the commandant of the camp has described the 32 suicide attempts amongst the non-lawful combatants held there as "manipulative behaviour." He should be on Oprah.
And that's another thing. Non-lawful combatants. What the fuck? I heard them described as non uniformed, non-members of regular army or some such. Maybe we should start rounding up any surviving members of the French resistance, then. Find a new use for Sangatte. Thing is, I don't recall the 'wars' in either Afghanistan or Iraq being agreed on at government level between all countries concerned. Maybe both those countries did in fact declare war on the US and I missed it. Maybe I'd popped out for some cigarette papers or something. America went in with a few minor 'coalition' members hanging on to their coat tails and then had the balls to decide who amongst the populations of those countries were legally entitled to fight them. Good grief!
Ooops, must go...I'll finish this later!
Right, now where was I? Oh, yeah...culture. Now I realise that this could easily turn into one of those discussions akin to that of the Jewish resistance movement in The Life of Brian..."Ok, well apart from Blues, Jazz, Gore Vidal, John Updike, David Byrne, Noam Chomsky etc...what have the Americans ever given us?"
Mind you, I would think that for all the pretty amazing things and people to have come out of America the Oprahisation of life and the cult of celebrity has been a rather high price to pay, but...onwards, ever onwards!
The fact which I find most boggling about US culture, apart from this weird and dangerous thing they've got going with the flag that is, is that for a country supposedly obsessed with individualism, they seem to have an almost irresistible desire for homogenisation. Witness the spread of retail food outlets, McDonalds, Taco Bell and Starbucks, the basic premise of which is that you will be able to walk into any of their establishments, anywhere in the States or even the world and be assured that the comestibles on offer will differ not a jot between any of them. All highly reassuring, I'm sure...after all, "You know where you are with McDonalds, don't you?" but the less variety one finds at home the more difficult it will be to accept that other cultures may have different tastes. The extrapolations of this reach far beyond the culinary.
And what is it with their cars? I read of a town somewhere in the mid-west which spent not a few million dollars on pedestrianising it's main street, turning it into a place where people could pleasantly go about their business, sit on benches and admire the specially planted foliage...a haven of calm, in fact.
It cost them a hell of a lot more to rip it all up and restore it to its original condition when people abandoned it for the out of town mall.
And the relentless dumbing down of everything. Here's Mariah Carey on the developing world.
"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
5% of the world's population consuming 20% of its resources and Mariah can't keep the size of her ass out of the discussion.
Oprah. Well, what can I say? We are being encouraged to sublimate personal responsibility and blame, to claim that we have been abducted by aliens rather than face up to the fact that we are responsible for our own lives and have fucked them up entirely unaided. No, we have to be women who fall for men who were smacked by their mothers and have to join a support group in order to share and seek closure. Bollocks, the lot of it!
The longer this goes on, the more I realise that this isn't really about America at all, only in so far as most of what I find disagreeable about the world today either originated there or finds its most obvious expression within its shores.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that I would feel right at home in one of the more genteel Commonwealths of the South now that there are no longer any 'strange and bitter fruit' hanging from the trees.
I think all I'm really yearning for is a more civilised age, a more educated and critical population...somewhere where people will say "Thankyou" when I hold the door open for them. And a world in which George W Bush would not have been trusted with the car keys, never mind those to the White House.
Oh well, maybe you think it's all been a wee bit fastuous but if you have been, put the gun down.
Saturday, January 10, 2004
I'm hurt, wounded, miffed, in high dudgeon and all in roughly equal measure but then again, I'm only on the second bottle so the chances of my mellowing as this goes on would seem pretty fair to middling should anybody feel like opening a book on it but come to think of it, as this is in no way happening in real time, it would hardly seem likely unless, of course, you are either bereft of a brain or in as addled a condition as I hope to be in a short, wee while.
So, wherefore this attack of pique? Well, much as it pains me to admit it, Jess has done me again with her word of the day. Ambisinister, I ask you! Apart from being descriptive of one possessing an uncanny ability to look like Michael Howard in both left and right profile, I can't think of anything. Actually, come to think of it...that'll do nicely. But then again, I'm easily pleased.
So, I hear you politely enquire, why is it that, despite this late flash of inspiration, I am still sulking and muttering imprecations under my breath or to put it another way or in Sheffield dialect even..."Why's tha still got blog on?"
With no further ado, hesitation or prevarication whatsoever I shall explain, elucidate and enlighten your good and patient, forebearing selves and inform you that I have been the victim of a misapprehension of gargantuan proportions.
I have been wrongly accused, wantonly, cruelly and though it pains me so to say it, spitefully, viciously and with malice aforethought of a most heinous oversight. A crime of such selfishness, vindictiveness and plain no-goodedness that I hesitate to lay it before you in all its red toothed, black cloaked and villainous evil.
So, dear readers...assuming you have inhaled deeply and suitably girded up your loins, maybe even availed yourselves of a bracing snifter or three and ensured that all your affairs are in order and the life insurance premiums are up to date, made provision for your surviving dependents or just emptied your bowels in preparation rather than running the risk of being embarrassed by them dropping spontaneously with shock at the enormity of my offence, I shall reveal all...
I'm afraid to say that Jess, alias MD, EC and Doc has accused me of keeping The Six Dwarfs all to myself under a veil of impenetrable secrecy.
Notwithstanding the fact that I have lost an irreplaceable roving researcher to the temptations of blogging on his own initiative, to be so accused is a wound almost visceral in its severity. I have been cut to the quick, slashed open to the very core. Maybe I should re-examine my whole conception of the world, re-define my raison d'etre, sever diplomatic ties with Maryland and consult Messrs. Sue, Grabbit and Runne, solicitors to the very liquid.
Or maybe I should just abandon the whole enterprise, crack open another bottle of Stella, chase it down with a good two fingers of fine Islay malt and admit that she might just, maybe, have a case.
After all, I was informed on the Wednesday and didn't get around to posting the link till the Thursday which, I suppose, was awfully, terribly remiss of me.
It would seem that I have chosen the second option. I have just returned from the fridge (a well trodden path if ever there was) and have tipped a hefty measure of Ardbeg into my favourite glass. Did you know that I have a fridge entirely dedicated to keeping my stocks of Stella at a constant 5°C? No? My, how depressingly ill-informed you all are.
Anyway, I'm off to find Jess in one of her usual chat-room haunts. If I'm lucky, by the time I finally manage to track her down, I'll have decided which piece of my mind I'm going to give her!
What was it that personality test said about me being histrionic?
Oh well, if you have been, mind how you go, y'all.
So, wherefore this attack of pique? Well, much as it pains me to admit it, Jess has done me again with her word of the day. Ambisinister, I ask you! Apart from being descriptive of one possessing an uncanny ability to look like Michael Howard in both left and right profile, I can't think of anything. Actually, come to think of it...that'll do nicely. But then again, I'm easily pleased.
So, I hear you politely enquire, why is it that, despite this late flash of inspiration, I am still sulking and muttering imprecations under my breath or to put it another way or in Sheffield dialect even..."Why's tha still got blog on?"
With no further ado, hesitation or prevarication whatsoever I shall explain, elucidate and enlighten your good and patient, forebearing selves and inform you that I have been the victim of a misapprehension of gargantuan proportions.
I have been wrongly accused, wantonly, cruelly and though it pains me so to say it, spitefully, viciously and with malice aforethought of a most heinous oversight. A crime of such selfishness, vindictiveness and plain no-goodedness that I hesitate to lay it before you in all its red toothed, black cloaked and villainous evil.
So, dear readers...assuming you have inhaled deeply and suitably girded up your loins, maybe even availed yourselves of a bracing snifter or three and ensured that all your affairs are in order and the life insurance premiums are up to date, made provision for your surviving dependents or just emptied your bowels in preparation rather than running the risk of being embarrassed by them dropping spontaneously with shock at the enormity of my offence, I shall reveal all...
I'm afraid to say that Jess, alias MD, EC and Doc has accused me of keeping The Six Dwarfs all to myself under a veil of impenetrable secrecy.
Notwithstanding the fact that I have lost an irreplaceable roving researcher to the temptations of blogging on his own initiative, to be so accused is a wound almost visceral in its severity. I have been cut to the quick, slashed open to the very core. Maybe I should re-examine my whole conception of the world, re-define my raison d'etre, sever diplomatic ties with Maryland and consult Messrs. Sue, Grabbit and Runne, solicitors to the very liquid.
Or maybe I should just abandon the whole enterprise, crack open another bottle of Stella, chase it down with a good two fingers of fine Islay malt and admit that she might just, maybe, have a case.
After all, I was informed on the Wednesday and didn't get around to posting the link till the Thursday which, I suppose, was awfully, terribly remiss of me.
It would seem that I have chosen the second option. I have just returned from the fridge (a well trodden path if ever there was) and have tipped a hefty measure of Ardbeg into my favourite glass. Did you know that I have a fridge entirely dedicated to keeping my stocks of Stella at a constant 5°C? No? My, how depressingly ill-informed you all are.
Anyway, I'm off to find Jess in one of her usual chat-room haunts. If I'm lucky, by the time I finally manage to track her down, I'll have decided which piece of my mind I'm going to give her!
What was it that personality test said about me being histrionic?
Oh well, if you have been, mind how you go, y'all.
Friday, January 09, 2004
Word of the Day
Irremissible (adj) Descriptive of any penalty awarded to a Premier League side when playing Nationwide opposition. Refers to the fact that should the first attempt be unsuccessful, the referee will order it re-taken until such time as a goal is scored.
Back later...pressure of work, dontcha know!
Irremissible (adj) Descriptive of any penalty awarded to a Premier League side when playing Nationwide opposition. Refers to the fact that should the first attempt be unsuccessful, the referee will order it re-taken until such time as a goal is scored.
Back later...pressure of work, dontcha know!
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Well, Jess has got me with her word of the day. There's not a lot you can do with picayune although it does rather sound like a style of cuisine which may be found in or around the New Orleans area.
She did however put me on to a couple of neat tests. I particularly liked the personality disorder one the results of which I reproduce here for your perusal.
Mmmm...histrionic, eh? Moi? Got the narcissism spot on anyway.
So, on to Dante folks! Which level of hell will I occupy? Read on and be informed.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
Blimey! Don't think I'll need to pack any warm clothes then.
Oh, and Roger the roving researcher will henceforth not be providing me with any interesting titbits as he has started up his own blog, the little devil.
She did however put me on to a couple of neat tests. I particularly liked the personality disorder one the results of which I reproduce here for your perusal.
| Disorder | Rating |
| Paranoid: | Low |
| Schizoid: | Moderate |
| Schizotypal: | Low |
| Antisocial: | Low |
| Borderline: | Low |
| Histrionic: | Moderate |
| Narcissistic: | High |
| Avoidant: | Low |
| Dependent: | Low |
| Obsessive-Compulsive: | Moderate |
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- | |
Mmmm...histrionic, eh? Moi? Got the narcissism spot on anyway.
So, on to Dante folks! Which level of hell will I occupy? Read on and be informed.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Extreme |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | High |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | High |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very High |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Extreme |
| Level 7 (Violent) | High |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | High |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | High |
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
Blimey! Don't think I'll need to pack any warm clothes then.
Oh, and Roger the roving researcher will henceforth not be providing me with any interesting titbits as he has started up his own blog, the little devil.
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Word of the Day
Couchette: (n) Female of literary persuasion who spends most of her time on her agent's chaise longe, downing industrial quantities of foreign sounding lager and bemoaning the fact that she has yet to break out of the bodice ripper market.
(n) A very laid back vegetable of the marrow family.
Well, what a long, strange trip it's been. Someone asked me to go with them and give blood yesterday. I had to decline and enlighten the poor innocent as to the exact extent of my alcohol consumption over the, for want of a much better word, holiday period.
The reason for my having spent Christmas in a malt induced fug can be traced back with some degree of accuracy to a Hungarian TV programme it was my misfortune to have watched in the days leading up to the event. It featured a hopelessly inept presenter and one of our local catholic priests (it was Kanizsa TV, you see) and consisted of said inept allowing said buffer to witter on without interruption or contradiction for what seemed an eternity in purgatory about the 'real meaning of Christmas'.
Well, I ask you. Might as well have blathered on about the real meaning of Monday for all the sense he made. To give you some example of the total bollocks produced by this self righteous, smug and yet totally illogical Christian soldier, I can only bring myself to reproduce the following, bilge and dishwater as it may be.
"Christmas is a time for the family." Okay, we'll overlook the fact that this sentence, to any right thinking speaker of any language, means absolutely bugger all and we'll try and understand it as he meant it. The only problem then is that, by implication, the rest of the year is not 'a time for the family'.
The same logic I applied to the rest of his cheap and meaningless little homilies.
"Christmas is...
...a time for reflection.
...a time to think about the message of Jesus.
...a time to think about others.
...a time of peace and goodwill to all men."
Well, I'm afraid that after all this bobbins, the corks were popping at fairly frequent intervals, I can tell you!
I could also tell you that Christmas is a time of last minute shopping, of disappointment, of not having enough batteries and having pharmaceutical resistant hangovers, but I have a suspicion you know that already.
I recovered long enough to fulfill my contractual obligations with respect to the number of examination scripts I was expected to mark but this took me until about 5 o'clock on New Year's Eve. The relevance of this will become apparent later.
Just before Christmas, a very good friend of mine, a fellow biker, had invited us to spend New Year's Eve with his family at a friend of theirs, also a biker. As this was in the home town of my partner, we thought we would avail ourselves of the opportunity of leaving our daughter with the mother in law and having an evening out together for the first time in longer than I care to remember.
We went down in convoy with my friend on the 30th, dropped off our stash of alcohol and comestibles at his friend's house, got to know our hosts and headed for her mother's. So far so good.
I worked all day on the 31st and we arrived at the party at about 7.30. My strategy was, Stella and whisky chasers as is my habit, take it slowly and everything will be hunky dory. Now, our hosts' 25 year old daughter had a drum kit in their cellar/bar/den and the last thing I remember after treating everybody to a rather fine, extemporaneous solo on the drum kit was demonstrating to the aforementioned daughter how one didn't need instruments to make music by means of another solo on the sideboard of said room at about 11 o'clock.
After that...well, I woke up at her mother's feeling none too bad but with absolutely no recall of anything after the sideboard solo. I downloaded all the photos from my camera today and I was still taking photos after the point at which my memory failed so I was active and in some kind of control afterwards. But, is there anything worse than that feeling of "Christ, what did I do? Did I throw up over the host's wife? Make a clumsy pass at his daughter?"
My partner assured me that I was quite charming all evening and only threw a slump drunk but even that information was enough to throw me into a trouser squirming fit of embarrassment. We returned to our hosts' on the 1st and they did indeed let me in which I took as a good sign. They all spoke to me as well which relieved my anxiety somewhat. The real and only test that I will be satisfied with however, is whether they invite me back again!
I can only put it down to the fact that I had been working hard for days before and right up to the time we left for the party and hadn't taken that into account when devising my strategy for the evening. My friend brought back the case of Stella I had taken and there were only six empty bottles. Six Stellas, six whiskies...a mere bagatelle. Maybe someone forced champagne down my throat at midnight...I just don't know.
Anyway, I have in my possession pictures of before during and after but due to not having a URL, they cannot be published here. Requests by e-mail will be considered on their individual merits.
If you have been, I'm sure you will understand.
Oh, and you may all wish me a very happy birthday for tomorrow!
Couchette: (n) Female of literary persuasion who spends most of her time on her agent's chaise longe, downing industrial quantities of foreign sounding lager and bemoaning the fact that she has yet to break out of the bodice ripper market.
(n) A very laid back vegetable of the marrow family.
Well, what a long, strange trip it's been. Someone asked me to go with them and give blood yesterday. I had to decline and enlighten the poor innocent as to the exact extent of my alcohol consumption over the, for want of a much better word, holiday period.
The reason for my having spent Christmas in a malt induced fug can be traced back with some degree of accuracy to a Hungarian TV programme it was my misfortune to have watched in the days leading up to the event. It featured a hopelessly inept presenter and one of our local catholic priests (it was Kanizsa TV, you see) and consisted of said inept allowing said buffer to witter on without interruption or contradiction for what seemed an eternity in purgatory about the 'real meaning of Christmas'.
Well, I ask you. Might as well have blathered on about the real meaning of Monday for all the sense he made. To give you some example of the total bollocks produced by this self righteous, smug and yet totally illogical Christian soldier, I can only bring myself to reproduce the following, bilge and dishwater as it may be.
"Christmas is a time for the family." Okay, we'll overlook the fact that this sentence, to any right thinking speaker of any language, means absolutely bugger all and we'll try and understand it as he meant it. The only problem then is that, by implication, the rest of the year is not 'a time for the family'.
The same logic I applied to the rest of his cheap and meaningless little homilies.
"Christmas is...
...a time for reflection.
...a time to think about the message of Jesus.
...a time to think about others.
...a time of peace and goodwill to all men."
Well, I'm afraid that after all this bobbins, the corks were popping at fairly frequent intervals, I can tell you!
I could also tell you that Christmas is a time of last minute shopping, of disappointment, of not having enough batteries and having pharmaceutical resistant hangovers, but I have a suspicion you know that already.
I recovered long enough to fulfill my contractual obligations with respect to the number of examination scripts I was expected to mark but this took me until about 5 o'clock on New Year's Eve. The relevance of this will become apparent later.
Just before Christmas, a very good friend of mine, a fellow biker, had invited us to spend New Year's Eve with his family at a friend of theirs, also a biker. As this was in the home town of my partner, we thought we would avail ourselves of the opportunity of leaving our daughter with the mother in law and having an evening out together for the first time in longer than I care to remember.
We went down in convoy with my friend on the 30th, dropped off our stash of alcohol and comestibles at his friend's house, got to know our hosts and headed for her mother's. So far so good.
I worked all day on the 31st and we arrived at the party at about 7.30. My strategy was, Stella and whisky chasers as is my habit, take it slowly and everything will be hunky dory. Now, our hosts' 25 year old daughter had a drum kit in their cellar/bar/den and the last thing I remember after treating everybody to a rather fine, extemporaneous solo on the drum kit was demonstrating to the aforementioned daughter how one didn't need instruments to make music by means of another solo on the sideboard of said room at about 11 o'clock.
After that...well, I woke up at her mother's feeling none too bad but with absolutely no recall of anything after the sideboard solo. I downloaded all the photos from my camera today and I was still taking photos after the point at which my memory failed so I was active and in some kind of control afterwards. But, is there anything worse than that feeling of "Christ, what did I do? Did I throw up over the host's wife? Make a clumsy pass at his daughter?"
My partner assured me that I was quite charming all evening and only threw a slump drunk but even that information was enough to throw me into a trouser squirming fit of embarrassment. We returned to our hosts' on the 1st and they did indeed let me in which I took as a good sign. They all spoke to me as well which relieved my anxiety somewhat. The real and only test that I will be satisfied with however, is whether they invite me back again!
I can only put it down to the fact that I had been working hard for days before and right up to the time we left for the party and hadn't taken that into account when devising my strategy for the evening. My friend brought back the case of Stella I had taken and there were only six empty bottles. Six Stellas, six whiskies...a mere bagatelle. Maybe someone forced champagne down my throat at midnight...I just don't know.
Anyway, I have in my possession pictures of before during and after but due to not having a URL, they cannot be published here. Requests by e-mail will be considered on their individual merits.
If you have been, I'm sure you will understand.
Oh, and you may all wish me a very happy birthday for tomorrow!
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
My father died last November, although in this case it would be much more accurate to say, "I lost him." The feeling of loss seems to grow as time passes, hits me at the strangest moments and knocks all the breath out of me, leaving me for a few moments at least totally and absolutely bereft.
You didn't know my father. I'm not sure I did either. His was a world of actions not words. I only ever heard him tell my mother once that he loved her and he sure as hell never told me! And it's only now, looking back with a child of my own, that I can read his messages to me.
We never talked. Oh, we passed the time of day but we never had those father-son conversations you hear so much about or at which you suppress the urge to upchuck at the movies. But when I look back over my memories of him, I cannot think of one occasion where he failed to demonstrate how to 'do the right thing'.
We had absolutely nothing in common except our love of the Blades. He even christened my first Teddy Bear 'Jimmy Hagan' and never let the fact that I called it 'Fred' create any friction between us. He, with a stubborn streak I seem to have inherited, quite simply refused to acknowledge the fact. He, unlike me, left school at fourteen as his father could not afford the books necessary for him to go to the grammar school and needed the extra wage my father could earn. He started work as an apprentice pattern maker (and passed on to me his love and respect for a good tool and a sharp chisel) and eventually worked his way up to be the Managing Director of the specialist steels company he joined as a boy.
There are so many stories and there is so much to tell that I can't possibly include it all here but I would like to repeat the words I spoke at his funeral. More for my sake than yours...just so I have some record and reminder of what that stubborn old bugger meant to me.
"We never really know our parents, do we? Oh, we know them as Mum and Dad but never as Ivy and Ray, just two people finding their way through life as best they can...pretty much like their children.
I guess if we really want to know them, then we have to look at them through other people's eyes.
I remember when my parents came to visit me in Hungary for the first time and we took them to visit the family of a friend of mine at their small, family vineyard.
My friend's father was the same age as Dad, they were both born in 1920. He couldn't speak English and Dad couldn't speak Hungarian but after a few glasses of wine, it didn't seem to matter that much.
At the end of the evening, my friend's father came up to me and told me what a good man he thought my father was.
And I remember thinking that, despite the fact that they had no common language, despite the fact that my father was in a wheelchair and despite the fact that he had had several strokes and could not communicate very well, that part of my father was still visible...that basic, down to earth, honest goodness.
And I'd just like to repeat now what that old Hungarian said to me about my father that time...'Apa, te fasza gyerek vagy.' Thankyou."
So, what brought all this on? Well, I've just got off the phone to my mother. Up until about two years ago, she was doing everything for my wheelchair bound father. Then she fell and broke her hip while I was over in England for the summer and I had a strange reversal of roles, bathing and dressing my dad for a couple of months, doing everything for him in fact. It became apparent that mum couldn't continue taking care of dad even with health care workers three times a day at home and they had to go into a care home. I had no choice. I live and work in Hungary, I am under a contract I cannot break and I have a family to feed. And I think that was what finally did for my father. He loved his home and had worked so hard for it all his life and not being able to live there was too much. He just gave up. And now, I'm afraid that the same thing is going to happen to my mother. I wanted her to come over here and live with me but she needs care round the clock, cannot walk without assistance and both Zsuzsi and I work and cannot guarantee that at least one of us will be at home all the time.
She has just had a phone put in her room at the home and I was able to phone her today for the first time since I returned to Hungary at the end of August. Maybe it was the fact that she had been asleep for an hour when I phoned, maybe it was the sleeping pills but her already slightly slurred speech has become so bad that I could not understand a single word of what she was trying to tell me. I shall try again tomorrow morning and hopefully, she'll be less fuzzy.
So...back to the question, what is all this? Intimations of mortality? Maybe but not my own, that's for sure. I just do not know whether I'm up to facing this world without either of my parents there behind me. I'm 45 years old and yet I don't think I've ever really in the true sense of the word, grown up. I have always had somewhere to run to, a fixed point, an anchor. The thought of being cast adrift in such a hostile world is one I can well do without, thank you very much. Selfish bugger, aren't I?
Still, I don't remember this being on the curriculum at school...so much information and so little about life.
I miss you, dad.
You didn't know my father. I'm not sure I did either. His was a world of actions not words. I only ever heard him tell my mother once that he loved her and he sure as hell never told me! And it's only now, looking back with a child of my own, that I can read his messages to me.
We never talked. Oh, we passed the time of day but we never had those father-son conversations you hear so much about or at which you suppress the urge to upchuck at the movies. But when I look back over my memories of him, I cannot think of one occasion where he failed to demonstrate how to 'do the right thing'.
We had absolutely nothing in common except our love of the Blades. He even christened my first Teddy Bear 'Jimmy Hagan' and never let the fact that I called it 'Fred' create any friction between us. He, with a stubborn streak I seem to have inherited, quite simply refused to acknowledge the fact. He, unlike me, left school at fourteen as his father could not afford the books necessary for him to go to the grammar school and needed the extra wage my father could earn. He started work as an apprentice pattern maker (and passed on to me his love and respect for a good tool and a sharp chisel) and eventually worked his way up to be the Managing Director of the specialist steels company he joined as a boy.
There are so many stories and there is so much to tell that I can't possibly include it all here but I would like to repeat the words I spoke at his funeral. More for my sake than yours...just so I have some record and reminder of what that stubborn old bugger meant to me.
"We never really know our parents, do we? Oh, we know them as Mum and Dad but never as Ivy and Ray, just two people finding their way through life as best they can...pretty much like their children.
I guess if we really want to know them, then we have to look at them through other people's eyes.
I remember when my parents came to visit me in Hungary for the first time and we took them to visit the family of a friend of mine at their small, family vineyard.
My friend's father was the same age as Dad, they were both born in 1920. He couldn't speak English and Dad couldn't speak Hungarian but after a few glasses of wine, it didn't seem to matter that much.
At the end of the evening, my friend's father came up to me and told me what a good man he thought my father was.
And I remember thinking that, despite the fact that they had no common language, despite the fact that my father was in a wheelchair and despite the fact that he had had several strokes and could not communicate very well, that part of my father was still visible...that basic, down to earth, honest goodness.
And I'd just like to repeat now what that old Hungarian said to me about my father that time...'Apa, te fasza gyerek vagy.' Thankyou."
So, what brought all this on? Well, I've just got off the phone to my mother. Up until about two years ago, she was doing everything for my wheelchair bound father. Then she fell and broke her hip while I was over in England for the summer and I had a strange reversal of roles, bathing and dressing my dad for a couple of months, doing everything for him in fact. It became apparent that mum couldn't continue taking care of dad even with health care workers three times a day at home and they had to go into a care home. I had no choice. I live and work in Hungary, I am under a contract I cannot break and I have a family to feed. And I think that was what finally did for my father. He loved his home and had worked so hard for it all his life and not being able to live there was too much. He just gave up. And now, I'm afraid that the same thing is going to happen to my mother. I wanted her to come over here and live with me but she needs care round the clock, cannot walk without assistance and both Zsuzsi and I work and cannot guarantee that at least one of us will be at home all the time.
She has just had a phone put in her room at the home and I was able to phone her today for the first time since I returned to Hungary at the end of August. Maybe it was the fact that she had been asleep for an hour when I phoned, maybe it was the sleeping pills but her already slightly slurred speech has become so bad that I could not understand a single word of what she was trying to tell me. I shall try again tomorrow morning and hopefully, she'll be less fuzzy.
So...back to the question, what is all this? Intimations of mortality? Maybe but not my own, that's for sure. I just do not know whether I'm up to facing this world without either of my parents there behind me. I'm 45 years old and yet I don't think I've ever really in the true sense of the word, grown up. I have always had somewhere to run to, a fixed point, an anchor. The thought of being cast adrift in such a hostile world is one I can well do without, thank you very much. Selfish bugger, aren't I?
Still, I don't remember this being on the curriculum at school...so much information and so little about life.
I miss you, dad.
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