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.

Widespread gusset anxiety

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, it's January the 21st of January, 2008! And I never even said 'happy new year' to the cyberworld. Do we still call it that? It seems like an age, is it Web 3.0 now? I can't keep up.

Great, so 2008 sees me in an enthusiastic frame of mind, and what could be better to ease one back into the blogosphere than the juxtapositioning of Paxman and pants?

He says - and I'm going to have trust Paxo here, as I do not use Marks and Spencer as my smalls providers - that the lack of 'adequate support' in the M & S male undergarment range is causing 'widespread gusset anxiety'. He wrote a letter to Stuart Rose about it [for some reason called Sir Stuart Rose in the above linky, and here as well, which is a bit previous - he's not actually been knighted yet...]

So that's all very funny, cheerful return to work, return to blogging, Monday smiles... Jeremy's in a win-win scenario because it makes him look both action for normal blokes bloke and also implies that he - ahem - needs that adequate support... ['yeeeeeeeees']... and certainly nothing at all to do with M&S needing some feelgood publicity and a bit of public attention. Hope Paxman's getting some money off them.

Under Dubya's tree, from Osama, hugs & kisses

While having a little holiday weekend up North recently the Hornby landscapes, Airfix kits and shiny stuff in the window of a toy emporium, the Monk Bar Model Shop, caught the eye. In we went, marvelling at the intricacies of the models, the attention to detail, the whiff of train set, etc, etc, in a happily distracted mode of nostalgia and pre-Christmas random gift perusing.

I used to make the odd model when I was a lad (by which I mean, 'When younger, I would make, occasionally, a model from a kit', not 'Bizarre creations were formed by me in my youth', nor indeed that 'In my childhood years, I would force those I viewed as singular to wear clothes I had created' - sorry, I just thought I'd better clear that up), but it has been a long time since I wielded a tub of Enamel Copper Plate or inadvertently glued my thumb to an aileron.

However, I spotted this on the shelf and felt that I could be drawn back into the world of the miniature replica - once I had stopped actually wiping the tears of laughter from each eye.





I mean, really though. I bet this wasn't what John Masefield had in mind.

Dethpicable!

An intriguing snippet found on one of the internet's many free smut networks...



Daffy: The Wilderness Years

Pedalphilia

You may have seen/heard the one about the bloke caught apparently humping his bike by now...

Avoiding the obvious jokes about what passes for entertainment in Ayrshire - be it the hapless frotterer himself or the cleaners with nothing better to do than barge in on paying guests and then shop them for doing weird stuff in the privacy of their own room - readers of this or my other blog might know that 'two wheels good, four wheels not so good' is one of my mantras, and of course I've always agreed with Freddie Mercury on the splendours of the bicycle ['BI-cycle BI-cycle'... nudge, nudge, Fred, I got yer]... but in terms of actually wanting to 'ride my bicycle'?

"You've taken that too far."

Postfacto Sexualis!

Billionaire writer J.K. Rowling has revealed that Professor Dumbledore, the sorcerer principal of the Harry Potter saga, was gay.

In a curious Moebius strip trail of self-congratulation, the usual suspects [Peter Tatchell, for example] emerged during the week to applaud this retro-active character development. Growling gushed to fans: "I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy."

For the love of God. I would have told you earlier if I'd thought of it. Perhaps she was trying to avoid a slew of tabloid headlines [The Sun: HARRY BOTTER]. Tis well known in tabloid land that GAY TEACHERS PREY ON CHILDREN, fact. 

Outing Dumbledore after the series has finished achieves precisely nothing, as the somewhat dry quote from an unnamed Stonewall source ["It's great that JK has said this. It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster."] illustrates.

If she was that committed to affirmative action, maybe she'd have had Harry and the ginger one share a bed. Imagine, 'Brokewand Mountain.' 'I wish I knew how to expeliarmus you.' etc etc

THAT would have been great. Not 'a character I killed off in the sixth book without hitherto revealing his sexuality was also casting spells for the other side, incidentally.' Bah!

Tale from an Accelerated Culture

Saturday morning, I'm on my way to get the train north to watch the football. I am hungover, I need food, I need a pen. Huge queues for every single shop in the station at King's Cross lead me out of the terminal building, through the underpass [newly refurbished and free of the odour of piss, drink and urgent sex you might once have associated with the area; well, so far anyway] to resurface on the opposite bank of the endless torrent of traffic, outside McDonalds. I stride purposefully to Ladbrokes, note that Leeds are 4/1 to beat Swansea, pick up a stubby red bookies pen [does anything look more rakish behind the ear?] and swiftly exit before the urge to waste a few quid on the lovely horses becomes too pressing.

The hunger is upon me now, and yet the thought of paying £3.79 for a bagel in the station - I'll say that again just in case you thought it was typographical error, THREE POUNDS AND SEVENTY NINE BRITISH PENCE for a BAGEL - is quite beyond me. I skulk 'neath the Golden Arches and, slightly dazed by the breakfast offreings blazoned across the back wall, I order a bacon, egg & cheese bagel and a small sprite, no ice. £1.79 for the bagel.

I take a seat under the T.V screen, which is playing Sky News... enmeshed in the Hegemon, there is to be no escape. I have just informed the counter slavey that when I say 'no ice' it's because I want a cup full of liquid, not half a cup of ice and some liquid, and further that his attempted explanations are useless because I used to work in McDonalds and I have retained certain useful information. I only want a cup to put my wine in on the train, I add under my breath as I slide into the seat and unwrap the bagel.

What the FUCK is this abomination? I am committing an act of eco-terrorism on myself. It is categorically the worst food I have ever eaten, slathered in oil from the cheese which tastes of nothing, and revealing one disappointment for the palate after another: the bacon which is perhaps only on nodding terms with actual pork, the defrosted bagel and the cuilnary feat of transforming an egg into bathmat. I grimly force it down as there is not time to turn into one of the Roux brothers now. I have made my bed with dirty sheets and must lie in its squalour.

On the screen, as I chew my way through this excuse for food, is an advert for the third season of Ross Kemp on Gangs, which is being teamed, for this advertisement, with a new season of Prison Break, one of which [now I come to look at them with sober eyes and without a miasma of grease clouding my mood and vision] looks moderately interesting and one of which looks like total incarcerational cobblers. On Saturday morning both programmes - bagel and feelings of oppression weighing heavily on my heart - serve only to reinforce the sensation of being trapped in the Panopticon. It's a bad world out there, and it's bad food in here.

I sit with my mouth open, flavourless oil dabbed from the corners as the ad reaches its climax. 'How much more can you take?' the gravel voice of excitement demands. 'None whatsoever,' I announce to no one at all, and crumple the bag, wrapper and clarty napkins into the Last Bin before Kings Cross. I'm leaving it.

See, Naples and Diet

I have got over myself. Adopting the nickname 'Two-Blogs', let's rock. Life's too short and all that.

Now, turning our attention to the world wide web... Italians have this week gone bonkers about rice ['Having a paddy' if you won't]. Context... [shimmery screen and harps flashback]

Mass protests were being encouraged in Italy [apparently, as yon link notes, with [stereo]typical Italian ambivalence in response] over the rising price of pasta... downing forks, disgruntled diners and chefs took a stand against the rising cost of the famous staples of Naples [I've checked to see that I'm not making a gastronomic gaffe here, it is a staple in Naples, though not as famous as pizza but that doesn't rhyme, anyway... and elsewhere. As a respondent on one discussion board suggested, 'Well, I live in Milan and we prefer rice anyway...' or words to that effect.]

Underneath all this rubbish is the now becoming more discussed notion about biofuels raised as early as 2005 by the usual suspects, which is that they are being touted/grown as the wonder solution to the oil crisis, but at the expense of both food for humans and other creatures' habitats [not that this has ever stopped us]... which seems a somewhat fuellish [sorry] response to a different issue [transport] which might be better resolved by not 'keeping the cars moving whatever happens', and in turn creating a further problem, i.e. mass starvation AND other species extinction AND gridlock... different meeting...

However, Adelaide Ajroldi and compatriot lovers of the risotto may have a fight to contend with. There appears to be a stirring in the rest of the country not just against this biofuelled threat to the traditional Italian menu, but also against other staples. Not just protests about the rising price of pasta [and other traditional ingredients], but a movement AGAINST RICE...

First of all, the news from Venice that in a [supposedly anti-pigeon] move, the Mayor's office has considered banning rice at weddings. Taken on its own, this might be nothing to do with food-related disgruntimento. However, the VERY NEXT DAY, it appears that the Vatican has taken the issue so seriously [as usual] that even people called Rice aren't to be tolerated [perhaps a good thing, although maybe genuinely nothing to do with oil/environment/aggressive foreign policy and all about diaries].

What this all means to Italy's former status as leading producer of rice in Europe one can only speculate. The people of Lombardy etc should take note: this may be a ricepaper thin premise on which to waste some time bringing a blog back up to speed, but from small grains... etc etc.

Meanwhile, back at the old homestead:

Matt's Presto Pronto Matt Surprise:
White long grain rice
Green olives (no filling)
Green or classic pesto (half a jar)
Salt
Pepper (optional whole grain)

The trick is to fry for 30 seconds when cooked/combined.

Last slalom-speaking blog

It's often the way. There have been occasional moments where, for me, there's been comment worthy of note on this blog, and occasional moments where I just feel like I've been typoing for the sake of it. I always meant 'slalom-speaking' to be about veering between topics, but recently I've only ever felt inclined to write bilious - so I haven't bothered - or fatuous, so I've chucked in a funny spam email or something...

I can't be bothered with commentary on stuff I don't like anymore, it makes the veins in my temples stand out, my pupils go a pale green and I grow to enormous size and want to smash things in. Sort of metaphoricartoonidoolally. Seriously, as if the world needs someone wasting their time with bitterness at stuff. It's admitting defeat. I need to write about what I like. However, if I just write about stuff I like, it won't be very slalom.

So farewell, slalom-speaking. Hello... something else.

A world in a grain of sand

I just read this little bit of speculation:


"The Tech Lab: Charles Stross

UK science fiction writer Charles Stross, author of novels Accelerando and Singularity Sky, posits a future in which all human experience is record[ed] on devices the size of a grain of sand.

...For the past 50 years we've become used to computers getting cheaper and more powerful exponentially - doubling in performance (or halving in price) roughly every 18 months.

But a parallel trend in data storage means that storage space is becoming twice as plentiful on a similar time scale - and our ability to generate data to store is also increasing, as witness the 4m CCTV cameras around the UK, and about 70m cellphone accounts, of which maybe half are associated with camera phones able to record video.

Sooner or later they're all going to be switched on, all the time and our data storage capacity is growing so fast that we need not delete anything ever again. ...If we can figure out how to read and write data on the atomic scale, you could store the sum total of all the data we recorded in 2003 on a grain of sand.

And some time after our demise, this information will be available to historians. And what a mass of information it will be. For the first time ever, they'll be able to know who was where, when, and what they said; just what words were exchanged in smoky beer halls 30 years before the revolutions that haven't happened yet: who it was who claimed to be there when they founded the Party (but didn't join until years later): and where the bodies are buried.

...For the first time ever, the human species will have an accurate and unblinking, unvarnished view of its own past as far back as the dark ages of the first decade of the 21st Century, when recorded history "really" began."

... and then we'll really go fucking mental.

Culture and culling

I love the way Ticketmaster, 3 download and the like have some sort of cultural filter/compression device going on, with all bands levelled out to equal status [One Market Under God].

"Don't miss Kaiser Chiefs"
trumpets the Ticketmaster email update. Well, if they'd just hold still...

If you want a picture of the future...

Cabinet reshuffle. Jack Straw. Minister of Justice. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

And where are they cloning these Milibands? Milibank Tower? Gah!

Never mind the "Here's your new leader, everyone - rejoice!" pictures yesterday.

"Woah, did I miss an election?" "GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN!!!"

A number of items

Previously, on slalom-speaking...

For the first time I posted something and then just took it down... it wasn't that bad, just a bit pointless and bitter. Anyway, I'm sick of writing about stuff I think is cack in such passionate tones. [It was about the Kaiser Chiefs, 'everything is average nowadays', a chance hearing of which was multi-layered and multi-faceted in its revulsive qualities. Let's move along.]

I happily discovered that someone who posted a comment on a recent post is actually my oldest pal [by which I mean in terms of service [be quiet, do]] and we continue to converge in most matters of culture.

'Going forward' I am only going to write about things that make me write enthusiastially and well. If I'm just sniping fish in barrels then it makes me sound mean-spirited and does nothing to suggest the trillions of galaxies of better worlds I imagine every day before I even break my fast.

With regard to the last bit of the above sentence, I want more Holmesian circumlocution in my quotidian utterances. Taking a cigarette of tobacco, etc.

Finally, from the spam files:
Did you know that 76% of girls prefer guys with a descent ramrod?

'Is that not some sort of mining equipment?' 'In a sense.'

Here endeth the mini-manifesto.

'Mis-pronounciation'.

Listening to 'The Only Chart That Counts' - although obviously it needs to use fingers and toes, and perhaps remove some clothing as well - this afternoon revealed something called 'Umbrella' to be selling well. [To be read in the voice of a bemused high court judge asking 'What is a Gazza?']...

Maybe it's the rap superstar combining with cutie; maybe it's the the sexed-up video, featuring Rihanna cavorting with umbrella... ['Jay-Z, mate? You just stand over here. Cheers...']; maybe it's the download it NOW dynamism of the pop economy... I am, as usual, more concerned with something else.

Neil Tennant, Pet Shop Boy and former music journalist, once remarked in interview, a propos of nothing: 'Can I just say - Elton John's 'Sacrifice'? "It's no sac-er-i-fice." There are three syllables in sacrifice.' Likewise, there are three syllables in 'Umbrella'. Umbarella. Eh-oh!

I'm not that bothered, obviously. It's just my imagination running away with me.