Diversion

This blog covered a lot of ground, but ceased trading in 2010. Opinions and reactions expressed here will probably be dated accordingly. For more recent words, please go here: The Mortal Bath Thanks.

You don't say?

Hot off the presses! Drug resource centre DrugScope has revealed that Greater Manchester Police research indicates a shocking and unexpected connection...

Cocaine link to violent behaviour

who'dathunkit?

SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS etc

Happy New Year!

Economic privation, human stalemate in Gaza, seasons changing in the wrong order for the birds. It all ties in when you let it... so thanks to this unknown, unfortunate ski-lift dude for providing the globe with a significator.



The BBC article continues: "Photos show the man naked from his waist to his knees, swinging from one leg"

Says Waite:
"12. The Hanged Man.
The figure of a man is suspended head-downwards from a gibbet, to which he is attached by a rope about one of his ankles.

...It has been called falsely a card of martyrdom, a card a of prudence, a card of the Great Work, a card of duty; but we may exhaust all published interpretations and find only vanity. I will say very simply on my own part that it expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe.

He who can understand that the story of his higher nature is imbedded in this symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening that is possible, and will know that after the sacred Mystery of Death there is a glorious Mystery of Resurrection."

Pink and 42 for luck, everyone.
x

The darkness of this house has got the best of us

Browsing the morning press, I come across this gift-to-satire headline.

David Gray Warns On Torture Music

What, has he got a new album out?

It's writing itself, as me and m'colleagues keep saying. Actually, fair play to the useless twunt. I know I usually say "BabylOFF" when I hear mention of him and his irritating music, but I can always switch channels. If I had a bag over my head, a rottweiler growling at my nuts and a bunch of half-wit marines making me wank off over the Koran, I'd probably even welcome a bit of James Blunt, such would be my despair.

When I was a kid, torture was something Germans in black trench coats in movies did to elicit information from the brave soldiers who would never talk. The fact that we (Britannia) were doing it in Long Kesh kind of passed me by, what with me only being six in 1981 and that. Now, thankfully, it's again safely removed, to big metal containers in the middle of the desert, and being visited on un-people on our behalf, not our fellow countryfolk.

As Michel Foucault observed in 'Discipline and Punish', "The right to punish, therefore, is an aspect of the sovereign’s right to make war on his enemies". Torture is not about what you know but making you not matter. Like a David Gray record I can switch off.

Let go your heart...

Amnesty International site

You can stick your Magna Carta up your arse

“We are the worst in the west! We are the worst in the west! We can lock people up without charge for up to 42 days! We have beaten Magna Carta! We have beaten habeas corpus, a cornerstone of democracy! The Barons, the Whigs, Emmeline Pankhurst, Henry Hunt, the Chartists, William Morris, Lord Steyn – we have beaten them all. We have beaten them all! James Somersett, can you hear me? James Somersett, I have a message to you from the 21st Century. We have written habeas corpus out of the English legal system! James Somersett, your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!”

Water lot of nonsense!

The last thing I wrote about was the targeted adverts from Googlemail, referring to the stupidly specific items available for people with too much money and a love of the gadget. I got another one this morning, prompted, I presume, by a Scottish pal's subject line 'A wee visit', meaning a visit of small yet perfectly formed size. Astonishingly literalist computer software thought I might be interested in this product, the Shewee, which, like the Teatool(TM), is so stupid that I suspect there is actually an office full of people dedicated to thinking this rubbish up and then emailing me about it to keep me occupied.

But look, here's a photo!
This is actually and metaphorically taking the piss.

What was even funnier was the other link connected with the same email that has a bunch of testimonial comments on it. I stand aghast that there are, apparently, people who have parted with five pounds for a micturative funnel. They are surely, surely all made-up or comedy responses, though - the claim by "Joe Bloggs" to have need of recourse to the Shewee since "loosing my penis in a motor cycle accident" (that'll teach you, Joe, you Ballardian pervert, you), for example.

I wait with bated breath to see what fresh hideous novelties are marked for my attention.

Up against the wall #323,237

The decline of what we laughing til we sobbingly call Western civilisation continues unchecked as a Google spyware sidebar commercial link informs me that I am now able to purchase a 'Teatool (TM)'.

The inventor, Dr Martin Almond [at which point the whole concept began to seem like an elaborate hoax perpetrated specifically to wind me up] expects to receive £5.45 for each 'Teatool (TM)'. That's five British pounds and forty five British pence.

"So over one hundred years after the introduction of the teabag in 1904 a practical device for handling them has just become available!"

This device doesn't even have an attachment for adding sugar. I checked. Teaspoons, for the sweet, enduring love of God, TEASPOONS.

I give up, once again. It is Lent.