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.

Band name generator spam

'We bet you wouldn't mind to become a super hot bedstar for your non-satisfied girlfriend!'

Indeed no. Super hot bedstar though! In at number seven...

Too many protest singers

I saw a 'news item' [man bites dog, etc] last week, but I couldn't be bothered acknowledging it. It's a slow day at work.

Where, as I have observed on occasions prior to this, to even begin? 'Horrific ordeal'? Well, nobody made you do it, you stupid cunt. And what kind of animal rights protest involves eating dead animals? And a corgi, at that? This has to be one of the most annoying 'protests' I've ever seen, and all I'm doing by talking about it is giving this publicity hound the Winalot Prime of attention he's yapping like a fucking annoying lapdog for.

His next project is, it says here, to be buried in a box under a mountain of mashed potato - in Dublin. He doesn't say why, but given his 'taste' for the obvious in his symbolism, it'll probably be something to do with the Potato Famine. What a shit-for-brains. Perhaps after that he'll turn up at a succession of supermarkets, naked, in a styrofoam box covered in shrinkwrap, standing in the fruit and veg aisle nodding obviously at the pre-packaged products.

I'd quite like to see him turn up outside his own house toting a giant replica of a tube of Preparation H, pointing it at his arse and pantomiming a pained expression.

Dog-eating wanker.

Infospam

'The corpora cavernosa are the two bodies of erectile tissue on each side of the penis.'

I can't say I learned nothing at work today, anyway. The most informative email subject yet!

Charmless mag

Something must be amiss when the Sunday papers no longer afford anything in the way of enjoyment, instead only goading my sensitive cultural antennae into a quivering fury of cognitive dissonance and disgust. Reading the hard copy of the new look Independent on Sunday has resulted in a world record number of utterances of the word 'gah', narrowly pipping the last time I watched an episode of Big Brother.

The front cover announces 'Everything you need on a Sunday. Nothing you don't.' Apparently I need stories about Jude Law, articles announcing that spending £650 on a bag is acceptable behaviour, Juliette Lewis promoting Scientology. And the acme of annoyance, 'The New Review' coverstar Alex James, in an extended puff for his autobiography 'Bit of a Blur' [and before I get stuck into him, see that hyperlink? Works online, not in the paper. Loads of articles with underlined phrases in a different colour ink. If they're left in deliberately, it's a stupid affectation. If they weren't left in deliberately, it's an editorial oversight and further proof of slap-dashery and smug complacency.]

So, Alex James. 'They were the fresh-faced art students who changed the face of pop nearly 20 years ago, and only last week they were voted the world's greatest band.' Whaaaaat?! Changed the face of pop? That was The Stone Roses, surely? I'm sure they've done very well for themselves, there were a few good records, but the 'country house' embarrassment... Fat fucking Les, I fucking ask you. To read the article you'd think they personally invented 21st Century music. If I want self-aggrandising bullshit from wordy bass guitar players, I read slalom-speaking.

Damon 'the significant composer of the past 20 years'. Again, whaaaaat?! Fucking 'The Good, the Bad & the Queen', lachrymose one idea Manu Chao knock off. Wigwam, thanks for letting us know Betty Boo was still alive, now stop it. Former drummer joins the Labour Party, who today announced that under new leader Brown [don't we get a say? Oh, just asking, sorry, carry on] they are committed to spending billions more pounds on 'anti-terror measures', while the trains of Britain stink of piss, and crawl through crumbling suburbs, overfull and slow, the buildings of Lewisham, Ladywell and New Cross [where Goldsmiths students still work, rest and play] falling to fucking pieces. Don't let anyone terrorise us, we're busy looking on in pride as our infrastructure disintegrates and millionaire popstars write about their great removed life in a very big house in the country.

Meanwhile deep in the blank pools of their eyes in the photo of Fat fucking Les, Keith Allen's daughter cavorts in her finery with Rhys Ifans, Alex James' children 'Geronimo and twins Artemis and Galileo' - I'M SERIOUSLY NOT MAKING THIS UP - milk his goats and Damien Hirst's multi-million pound diamond skull grins blankly shiny from the mantelpiece...

We are watching the decline and fall. Up against the wall, motherfuckers! Time for something different.

Happy Bobmas!

Bob Dylan, we salute you as you blow out the candles on your groaning birthday cake.

Photograph by Matthew Rolston from Rolling Stone

'On his sixty-sixth birthday
He already is an old man'

A-ha a-ha a-hacchhh

Excellent, a stupid article to cheer me up as well. This non-story, about the impending smoking ban in public places in the UK, was in The Guardian the other day as well, and was bollocks then. As if jazz - or rock music, or fucking any kind of music for that matter - is anything to do with smoking.

I think the most disappointing aspect is that all sorts of people are viewing it as emblematic of something or other other than what it is. What happened to Joe Jackson for him to come out with this, in his capacity as a smokesperson for FOREST, the pro-smoking lobby funded by tobacco companies, on bar staff:
"The whole point of nightlife venues is that they are places to get away from work and not to be nagged like naughty children.The few people who are working should be there on that understanding," he wheezed.

Hasta la revolucion! Well, back to the piano, Jackson, because you have clearly never washed 30 ashtrays at the end of an evening, nor swept a floor hoaching with roaches, nor had someone blow smoke in your face while they were ordering a drink. Your next album [should there be one] should be songs of contrition for conflating a perfectly sensible public health measure [the same kind of thinking that banned it on aeroplanes] with a spurious civil liberties argument.

Smoking is carcinogenic, a public ban isn't about stopping people from pleasuring themselves in public [there are other laws for that, of course, like the Criminal Justice Act and the Sex Offenders Act], but about allowing everyone else their measure of freedom to drink, dance, flirt or work without red eyes, stinky clothes, sore throats, yellow walls, etc etc etc. IT'S PROPERLY BAD FOR YOU! Interestingly, Graham Chapman [according to Wikipedia's Throat Cancer article] said that the primary site for the cancer that would eventually kill him was the spot on his throat where the smoke from his pipe hit first - and he was a doctor, so I'd trust that kind of opinion.

I don't know, it's probably different for pop stars. [Does an eerie loop of 'No such thing as tomorrow...' in the Tracheotomy Man voice to fade]

'Sweet blessings from [reads] Pierre Dominguez, it says here.'

Post seasonal adjustment disorder? The belief that one has never 'achieved anything of worth, anything that rhymed with my conceptions, my dreams (for those were fine; of that, I certain)?' [Lypiatt in Antic Hay] Or just feeling a bit of a mardy bum? I suspect (c).

Still, it's hard to maintain an expression of pained sensitivity/wallow in your own chemical imbalances like some ghastly French poet from the 19th Centuree when you log in [at the silicon face] and get emails with subject lines like this:
'Your orgasms will be enhanced to the point of ecstasy, and your stamina and overall sexual health will be greatly increased.'
This from Pierre Dominguez. What a benediction. Then, in a comically vulgar counterpoint, the fat and beery companion of the sensitive Pierre pipes up. It's Virgil Trotter:
' fuck them as much as they can handle', he slurs, then in the same breath, 'do it all night don't be silly', urgently, not even pausing for punctuation or capital letters.

Splendid, splendid.

Fire and water

I have long anticipated that a musician would just give away entire product online, now here it is: North London underachievers The Crimea release a free album, speculating that the increase in publicity and fanbase will lead to more gigs, merchandise, appearances, etc. Worked for Gnarls Barkley, obviously...

Although 'Lottery Winners on Acid' got pretty much constant rotation round our way when it came out, this latest move may see them fall on their arses [what if everyone hears it and goes 'yeah?' not 'yeah!'... plus just, like, giving stuff away like, well, lottery winners on acid - pinkos!] but for now, let us appreciate the paradigm shift going forward proactively. Onwards, onwards - O the wild charge they made!

Woofentones #1

Here is the theme music to an imaginary TV show from the 1980s. Along the lines of 'Knight Rider', 'Airwolf', 'Street Hawk' etc... I always envisaged a 'super boat' series, only to be thwarted by some feeble Hulk Hogan vehicle.[HAHA! 'vehicle...']

The original Fruity Loops [primitive sequencing tool used by primitive sequencing tools, version 3 when I was writing this stuff, now up to version 7.0.2 in Beta - all aboard the loopin express!] sketch developed from about three failed techno songs, which resulted in the working title of 'Large Kraftsleisses in Oban'... perhaps it's best not to even wonder.

Anyway, I decided in the end to call it the semi-ambiguous 'Theme from Road Fox', which clearly incorporates elements of 'Firefox' [as in the book about a Russian plane, nicked by Clint Eastwood in the film, not the wonderful window on the web manfacturers, although both have their charms], and which might refer to a tech-spec device that, say, Kylie Minogue, clad in strictly plot-necessary black lycra/leather kit - ['Unzip me.'] might play the controller of. In fact, that 'unzip' reference now has digital meanings also, so why not have a cartoon with Kylie doing the voice where she's a virtual crime [as opposed to street] fighter or something? Zooming along the information superhighway? When I crack computer animation, I'll melt your eyes. Melt 'em, I tells ya!

I digress. Roll credits!

theme from road fox...

sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards

Having started, deleted and restarted this post about fifteen times, swithering between manifesto, apologia, rant and explanatory head notes, I decided instead to just say 'oh bondage, up yours!'. More news on exciting produkty directly, but now... I present the first in a [hopfeully increasingly frequent] diversions into non-epistolary expression plundered from the vaults at Chateau Wolfenstein... above.

Toilet humour from work

Luckily I get to read and mess about with text for a living. Today one of the transcripts contained this:

"In the broader geopolitical area, diversity is critical and it is interesting to observe the situation in the Netherlands , where they are looking at the storage of massive amounts of gas through the purchase of Norwegian Troll gas."

Pass the sprouts, Lars! IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF THE PLANET.

Enjoy the silence

Regular readers of this blah will perhaps be wondering where my scintillating chat has gone. There has been little to exercise me. I grow disillusioned with the form. It's been sunny. Whatever. Here's a picture of a lovely horse.

A Passion for Chocolate

Sometimes it's just too easy. The magic of RSS means you switch on the PC to this kind of item, about a life size chocolate sculpture of Jesus.



Fantastic. But the predictable moaning from the Catholic Church in America fails to capitalise on what is surely the most obvious potential recruitment bonanza they've had in years. Surely people will flock to join the flock when they hear what's on offer.

'Corpus Christi...'
'Mmmm! Don't mind if I do. Is that red wine?'

IT'S WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT. We already trough too much chocolate this time year anyway, we might as well invest it with some connection to the divine.

Some more of a connection, then.

Update: They decided against it. Obviously.

Sort of free at last

This morning's news of the brand new £5.3 million gorilla enclosure at London Zoo was deeply affecting. Some simian sympathies must have stirred inside - this photo of chief primate Bobby:

and the caption 'It is the first time Bobby, the male in the group, has seen the sky without bars since he was captured as a baby in Guinea.'... had me welling up.

I suspect your blogger has been reading too much Dante. 'But he gets heated rocks and everything!' Well, you can't see the moat and electric fence in this photo, obviously, and he is still in a zoo... But you get the idea.

Interesting other occurrence of Great Apes in the news today: Should other mammals be given human rights, as they share our DNA to a very close degree? Well... maybe we could just stop drilling into marmosets' heads and hooking dolphins by the eye, rather than feel the need to draw up a charter to formally regulate our behaviour.