I am currently slightly inebriated as I just saw some pretty lights which are commonly referred to as fireworks then proceeded to visit a friend's house with a large enough party of people to defeat a level 125 dragon and drank several bottles. Due to the fact that my metaphorical weight is light, that is to say that I have a low tolerance level for alcohol I was rather drunk but having got home, the home in which I am presently sitting and what a lovely home it is, and enjoyed a nice cup of tea I realize that I may have said things I should have not and done things perhaps better not done but the emphasis is firmly on the latter. I will definitely regret this in the morning when the nice fuzzy haze of alcohol induced happiness, like a lovely pink fog made of candy floss, slowly dissolves and fragments in the sharp rays of the morning sun.
The fact that my currently intoxicated narrative voice is probably not that different to the speech mannerisms I employ when sober on this special little corner of the internet referred to by travelers as my blog is probably indicative of something but what it is I shall deduce and detect, as I am a detective and a very good one at that, in the morning because my mind will be sharper then. Although I did have a story idea (and i shall record it here in case i forget) about a detective who can solve murders when extremely drunk.
potential extract: The body lay, cold and motionless in the center of the drawing room. "My god", said Detective Stephen Baxendale, as he cast his expert eye over the scene of the crime, "This is some serious shit." Quickly he turned to his assistant, the ever present butler whose name was Timothy Fendleweed, and ordered, "Timothy, get me two bottles of beer."
"Yes sir," replied Timothy with much enthusiasm for he was a young sprightly creature eager to learn the tricks of the trade though he would not be learning anything with this particular detective since his methods were very specialized.
Just as the butler was walking away, Stephen looked at the still corpse again and shook his head, "wait Timothy," he sighed suddenly, "This looks like a tough one to solve. Make it a bottle of vodka"
"Yes sir," came the enthusiastic reply followed by the click of well polished shoes on rich marble tiles as the butler hurriedly exited the room.
Wow, that looks like a bestseller. What would the title be? The drunk detective or the Pissed Private investigator or maybe the inebriated inspector. I am sending out these alliterations like a machine designed specifically to create catchy titles, an alliteration automaton. I'm not sure 75% of this post made sense but I'm sure even if it didn't the remaining 25% will be absolutely quality reading. Anyway no one reads my blog so its fine, for all anyone cares I could spill my deepest darkest secrets on here (like I did when drunk at the after party tonight, god dammit I will regret it in ten hours time.) and no one will be any the wiser. I love society. Peace out. I did not just say peace out. And if I did, it was meant ironically.
Showing posts with label Veritable. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veritable. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Friday, 9 November 2012
Wall
Finally the end of the first week of school after a period of mind decomposing, knowledge eroding, intelligence rusting holidays. I have that feeling of having run half a marathon at too fast a pace and coming to the sudden dreadful realization that I still have another few kilometers to go. And this isn't even a normal marathon, it is a marathon through a post apocalyptic world.
The academic work that I procrastinated over the holidays has started to catch up. As a maddened blood thirsty hoard they are quickly gaining upon me, mindless and hungry like an insane army of the undead. Not even the shuffling type of zombies but the full on running type, their pale lifeless limbs pounding the ground in a frenzied rush to devour me. They had of course simply been the walking dead at the beginning of the holiday when they were first set but over time they have evolved and very soon, I suspect they will soon learn how to operate basic vehicles and become the cycling dead. Merciless lifeless hunters pedaling away at demonic speed.
It is often said that there is some metaphorical wall that any athlete will come up against during a run, at a certain desperate moment when they seem to have hit their limit and by overcoming this wall they will grow as a person as well as regain a certain energy and sense of momentum. If so, then perhaps there will be such a wall for me in my academic work as well, an opportunity for me to break through and become a generally better grade of human being as well as regain my educational capability.
In fact, I am arguably the very best type of student since, in an attempt to improve as a person generally, I am deliberately conditioning myself to come into contact with that wall of desperation as soon as possible through procrastination and work avoidance. A risky strategy of self improvement that demonstrates my tremendous courage and great aspirations of bettering myself. Hence teachers, as individuals charged with the duty of encouraging the student's growth as a person, perceiving the nature of the student and understanding their motives, should see that I am in fact an exemplary pupil whose current mindset and behaviour should be highly commended not scolded or punished.
Thus I rest my case, though whether the english teacher will accept my logic when inquiring after the distinct absence of an essay on Monday is another matter entirely and one that rests within the fickle hands of the sometimes cruel gods.
The academic work that I procrastinated over the holidays has started to catch up. As a maddened blood thirsty hoard they are quickly gaining upon me, mindless and hungry like an insane army of the undead. Not even the shuffling type of zombies but the full on running type, their pale lifeless limbs pounding the ground in a frenzied rush to devour me. They had of course simply been the walking dead at the beginning of the holiday when they were first set but over time they have evolved and very soon, I suspect they will soon learn how to operate basic vehicles and become the cycling dead. Merciless lifeless hunters pedaling away at demonic speed.
It is often said that there is some metaphorical wall that any athlete will come up against during a run, at a certain desperate moment when they seem to have hit their limit and by overcoming this wall they will grow as a person as well as regain a certain energy and sense of momentum. If so, then perhaps there will be such a wall for me in my academic work as well, an opportunity for me to break through and become a generally better grade of human being as well as regain my educational capability.
In fact, I am arguably the very best type of student since, in an attempt to improve as a person generally, I am deliberately conditioning myself to come into contact with that wall of desperation as soon as possible through procrastination and work avoidance. A risky strategy of self improvement that demonstrates my tremendous courage and great aspirations of bettering myself. Hence teachers, as individuals charged with the duty of encouraging the student's growth as a person, perceiving the nature of the student and understanding their motives, should see that I am in fact an exemplary pupil whose current mindset and behaviour should be highly commended not scolded or punished.
Thus I rest my case, though whether the english teacher will accept my logic when inquiring after the distinct absence of an essay on Monday is another matter entirely and one that rests within the fickle hands of the sometimes cruel gods.
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Within and without
I am currently stranded, trapped within a void. My house is a multistory affair divided into distinctly separate living quarters. My family owns the entirety of the large suburban construction but due to reasons of finance we rent out all but the ground floor. Due to this arrangement there is a hallway shared by all the tenants from which branches off a locked door that is the entrance to what I can refer to as my home.
After a particular alcohol fueled nocturnal excursion about a year back during which I lost my keys. My mother has refused to provide me with a new set which means I cannot enter my own abode unless she is home. In the rare instance that she is away, since I can politely ask one of the residents in the higher floors to come down and let me into the building its self, she usually hides the keys to our actual section of residence somewhere in the hallway.
Today however, she has neglected her duties to do so, hence I am currently sitting in the hallway. I am typing this on my phone, while draped tiredly over the stairs which lie directly next to the door to my beloved home. My sentiments of misery are only excentuated by the fact that the motion sensitive lights turn off every three minutes, plunging me into the evening darkness thus forcing me to stand up and display motion in order receive the short attention and glorious light of the fickle motion sensitive machine.
To further emphasize this feeling of pathetic depression, my cat has run right up to the other side of the door to venture on a campaign of continuous melancholic mewing and sad scratching. It has stayed with me these past thirty minutes, crying from the other side of the solid impenetrable rectangle of wood and despite myself I admit I am rather touched.
Now I hear the light clink of the metal front garden fence and with it the approaching footsteps of liberation. So ends my actually brief but sensationally lengthy stay, becalmed within the void.
After a particular alcohol fueled nocturnal excursion about a year back during which I lost my keys. My mother has refused to provide me with a new set which means I cannot enter my own abode unless she is home. In the rare instance that she is away, since I can politely ask one of the residents in the higher floors to come down and let me into the building its self, she usually hides the keys to our actual section of residence somewhere in the hallway.
Today however, she has neglected her duties to do so, hence I am currently sitting in the hallway. I am typing this on my phone, while draped tiredly over the stairs which lie directly next to the door to my beloved home. My sentiments of misery are only excentuated by the fact that the motion sensitive lights turn off every three minutes, plunging me into the evening darkness thus forcing me to stand up and display motion in order receive the short attention and glorious light of the fickle motion sensitive machine.
To further emphasize this feeling of pathetic depression, my cat has run right up to the other side of the door to venture on a campaign of continuous melancholic mewing and sad scratching. It has stayed with me these past thirty minutes, crying from the other side of the solid impenetrable rectangle of wood and despite myself I admit I am rather touched.
Now I hear the light clink of the metal front garden fence and with it the approaching footsteps of liberation. So ends my actually brief but sensationally lengthy stay, becalmed within the void.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Blind Blog #1
Usually I write these posts with a degree of forethought, planning and structure in order to create an architecturally interesting as well as generally health and safety law abiding literary construction. However today I don't have the energy nor the motivation to attempt this degree of creative pondering hence I shall write everything as it occurs to me though in reality, I suppose that very few people will ever see this post and of those few people, only about a cubed root of them will actually be interested enough to attempt to comprehend the chunk of text. Hence what I write here is pretty irrelevant all things considered and for all anyone cares I could write my deepest darkest secrets but remain comfortable in the knowledge that it will probably remain a complete secret to the world.
Much as many philosophers have pondered over the question, "when a tree falls in the woods but nobody hears it, does it actually make a sound?" I often ponder, "If a blog writer writes a blog but nobody reads it, has he actually wrote the blog." The answer to which is yes but for a completely depressingly futile cause. Though when all things are considered life its self is generally futile since the main aim of any organism is to leave off springs upon the planet in order to ensure the continued existence of the species and human beings are overpopulated as it is, meaning nothing that I might choose to do with my life matters in the slightest when thought of in a longer time frame.
The only thing that could make life meaningful would be a situation when the survival of humanity is genuinely at stake such as an apocalypse. Though if such an instance were to occur, I doubt I will survive since I have very few survival skills and am not very high in terms of physical fitness. My only possible advantage would be my incessant paranoia concerning a potentially immanent zombie apocalypse. Which, I occasionally consider, might be a manifestation of my lack of trust in those around me since it is that sort of fundamental fear of familiar people ebing turned into enemies that fuels the concept of the undead.
Now, that sounded quite deep. About 2000 leagues deeper than the sort of thing I usually write on this blog which is a little problematic since when somebody who is usually callous and shallow suddenly makes deep statements it tends to give the impression that they are somehow depressed. I assure you, if you are considering my mental well being at the moment (not in the sense that I might be a psychopath on the verge of going on a killing spree but in the sense that I might be suicidal) that I not in the slightest bit depressed. Though if I do become suicidal, I shall blame it on genetics, though that may be quite pseudo-scientific, since my country of origin, Japan, has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world. So much so that, when people jump in front of trains in Japan, there is barely any delay, only a polite mildly regretful announcement alerting people to a "human accident", sounding like it is more concerned with the delay caused than the loss of life, and an assurance normal services will be resumed in a short while.
Which, in one sense, is quite enviable efficiency since here in Britain, the unfortunate demise of a leaf on the rail tracks can shock Transport For London on such a deep emotional scale that they halt the entire network for a day or so, presumably in mourning. The same comparison of humanity versus efficiency can be made in other aspects as well when comparing the two countries, Britain and Japan. For example Japanese shops are staffed by extremely well mannered staff who will all greet the customer in synchronization upon entry and work at a fast near automatic mechanical pace whereas British institutions tend to employ individuals who prioritize the social relations with their fellow employee than the many customers waiting irritatedly in an ever accumulating queue.
In the end however, I would take the humanity over efficiency since it does give a sensation of actual person to person interaction. The feeling that you are living in a world composed of individual people all leading their own individual lives towards an ultimate demise but are nonetheless giving it their best shot. The feeling that there are a multitude of potentially interesting stories and melodramas mingling, bumping into each other, walking past each other throughout the packed human test tube we refer to as a city.
Although presently even this happiness is slowly being eroded by machinery. For example the automatic self checkout machines which have replaced person manned counters in some shops. They are, though they originally broke down more frequently than a depressed pubescent teenage girl with attention issues, now quite efficient and not only they prevent the human interaction that used to take place in shops but they also make the buyers into nothing more than mere mindless machines. Mechanically moving arms full of desired purchases in time to the monotonous music of the electronic beeps.
Furthermore the mass creation and release of high quality headphones and portable music players, allowing, as the adverts often quip, the user to immerse themselves in their own bubble like world, cuts off individual people. Where everyone used to travel in the bus, hearing the conversation of others, listening to snippets of other people's lives; they now have their own little musical worlds in which they hear nothing but the music they've chosen. Maybe the two people next to you are discussing methods to counter the immanently approaching zombie revolution because they are secretly a member of an underground mystical organization of zombie fighters. The story should start with you, the protagonist, hearing their conversation and being sucked into their world to be thrust into a hugely exciting adventure of epic world saving zombie decapitating proportions. But instead you're listening to Lady Gaga or One Direction or whatever is popular so you don't hear the conversation and the gates to the potentially interesting future of fiction is forever closed, the opportunity missed.
In the end this became just a strange slightly deep rant with the atmosphere of an old person ranting about the good old days. Or in a word, conservative. So to wrap it all up, I might as well end on a highly snobbish posh note by saying the moral of the story is the well worn phrase of Carpe Diem.
Much as many philosophers have pondered over the question, "when a tree falls in the woods but nobody hears it, does it actually make a sound?" I often ponder, "If a blog writer writes a blog but nobody reads it, has he actually wrote the blog." The answer to which is yes but for a completely depressingly futile cause. Though when all things are considered life its self is generally futile since the main aim of any organism is to leave off springs upon the planet in order to ensure the continued existence of the species and human beings are overpopulated as it is, meaning nothing that I might choose to do with my life matters in the slightest when thought of in a longer time frame.
The only thing that could make life meaningful would be a situation when the survival of humanity is genuinely at stake such as an apocalypse. Though if such an instance were to occur, I doubt I will survive since I have very few survival skills and am not very high in terms of physical fitness. My only possible advantage would be my incessant paranoia concerning a potentially immanent zombie apocalypse. Which, I occasionally consider, might be a manifestation of my lack of trust in those around me since it is that sort of fundamental fear of familiar people ebing turned into enemies that fuels the concept of the undead.
Now, that sounded quite deep. About 2000 leagues deeper than the sort of thing I usually write on this blog which is a little problematic since when somebody who is usually callous and shallow suddenly makes deep statements it tends to give the impression that they are somehow depressed. I assure you, if you are considering my mental well being at the moment (not in the sense that I might be a psychopath on the verge of going on a killing spree but in the sense that I might be suicidal) that I not in the slightest bit depressed. Though if I do become suicidal, I shall blame it on genetics, though that may be quite pseudo-scientific, since my country of origin, Japan, has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world. So much so that, when people jump in front of trains in Japan, there is barely any delay, only a polite mildly regretful announcement alerting people to a "human accident", sounding like it is more concerned with the delay caused than the loss of life, and an assurance normal services will be resumed in a short while.
Which, in one sense, is quite enviable efficiency since here in Britain, the unfortunate demise of a leaf on the rail tracks can shock Transport For London on such a deep emotional scale that they halt the entire network for a day or so, presumably in mourning. The same comparison of humanity versus efficiency can be made in other aspects as well when comparing the two countries, Britain and Japan. For example Japanese shops are staffed by extremely well mannered staff who will all greet the customer in synchronization upon entry and work at a fast near automatic mechanical pace whereas British institutions tend to employ individuals who prioritize the social relations with their fellow employee than the many customers waiting irritatedly in an ever accumulating queue.
In the end however, I would take the humanity over efficiency since it does give a sensation of actual person to person interaction. The feeling that you are living in a world composed of individual people all leading their own individual lives towards an ultimate demise but are nonetheless giving it their best shot. The feeling that there are a multitude of potentially interesting stories and melodramas mingling, bumping into each other, walking past each other throughout the packed human test tube we refer to as a city.
Although presently even this happiness is slowly being eroded by machinery. For example the automatic self checkout machines which have replaced person manned counters in some shops. They are, though they originally broke down more frequently than a depressed pubescent teenage girl with attention issues, now quite efficient and not only they prevent the human interaction that used to take place in shops but they also make the buyers into nothing more than mere mindless machines. Mechanically moving arms full of desired purchases in time to the monotonous music of the electronic beeps.
Furthermore the mass creation and release of high quality headphones and portable music players, allowing, as the adverts often quip, the user to immerse themselves in their own bubble like world, cuts off individual people. Where everyone used to travel in the bus, hearing the conversation of others, listening to snippets of other people's lives; they now have their own little musical worlds in which they hear nothing but the music they've chosen. Maybe the two people next to you are discussing methods to counter the immanently approaching zombie revolution because they are secretly a member of an underground mystical organization of zombie fighters. The story should start with you, the protagonist, hearing their conversation and being sucked into their world to be thrust into a hugely exciting adventure of epic world saving zombie decapitating proportions. But instead you're listening to Lady Gaga or One Direction or whatever is popular so you don't hear the conversation and the gates to the potentially interesting future of fiction is forever closed, the opportunity missed.
In the end this became just a strange slightly deep rant with the atmosphere of an old person ranting about the good old days. Or in a word, conservative. So to wrap it all up, I might as well end on a highly snobbish posh note by saying the moral of the story is the well worn phrase of Carpe Diem.
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Modern
Well three cheers for the mobile age. Just minutes hence some vital emotional restrainer wound as a safety measure amongst the rusted gears that compose my mother's mind, after much straining, suddenly snapped. She declared that she had had more than enough of witnessing my idle wasting of life span and demanded that I go do my homework (which, rather predictably, I have procrastinated for the last ten days of my holiday). In order to enforce this she emphasized that I do not use the computer until I complete my allocated dose of work.
She was, however, utterly unaware of the capability of modern mobile phones due to the excellent work of which I am currently able to write this post without the clatter of keyboards or the squeal of the door to the study containing the computer. Thereby avoiding detection by my mother's bat like qualities (that is to say, she is capable of hitting people extremely hard and causing fatal injuries).
So hurrah to technology for making it easier to betray my mother's expectations. Thanks to the advances in science and with it the mobility of gadgets, I can now betray my mother where ever and when ever I so desire. I could fail to fulfill her optimistic expectations while on the move or while in my bed or even while on the toilet taking a shit. The possibilities are endless.
Of course as tools become more and more useful, the technology involved becomes more and more compact and complex. When I was a mere infant the only phone I handled was a tacky affair crudely constructed out of plastic yoghurt pots and string. It wasn't that useful but I roughly knew how it functioned and could easily articulate what had gone wrong if an error ocurred, usually by shouting something like "The strings gotten caught on the tree, you dipshit!"
However these days I carry a mobile phone around with me and when something goes wrong I haven't a hope in humid hell of comprehending its exact nature. Yes the screen says that I am in a place without signal but what actually is a signal? And how is it that I seem to get a signal if I move just three meters to my right? Is a signal like an invisible version of a string on my childhood yoghurt pot phone? If so, is there an invisible tree standing in the three meters between the area of acceptable reception and no reception? And who in this instance is the dipshit to be held accountable?
It does feel somewhat overly trusting and dangerous to depend so heavily on something whose inner workings are a complete mystery to you, nonetheless I will continue to utilize this technology because it is a tremendously useful tool.
For all I know there may be a complicated magical mystical system that allows me to send a text in exchange for a portion of my soul so that even as I needlessly transmit the three letters "LOL" in response to someone's utterly unamusing text, I'm dedicating a chunk of my very metaphysical spiritual existence to Satan. But I will still text "LOL" with a perfectly straight face regardless.
If you now think that continuous use of an unfathomable power is a stupid thing to do, think of it this way. If you were to interrogate Harry Potter (a fictional wizard who has now apparently become the unreachable role model for my generation) about how exactly magic works, he would probably break down and cry, confessing that really while he could cast spells, he had no idea of how the system actually functioned. Admitting, amongst much general weeping, that he just used the incomprehensible power of magic because it was useful and that he was the dipshit responsible.
But this ignorance did not stop him using magic to fight and defeat Voldemort in a severely anti climactic cinematic culmination of several years worth of pointless vacuous rubbish. Similarly I am not allowing my lack of knowledge to come between me and defeating my mother. Let the battle continue! Let me be victorious! Hurrah for technology!
Monday, 29 October 2012
Collision
I am an invalid. Not in the sense that I am not valued or necessary to society though that is in fact true (I suspect I am one of those people who are making minimum positive contribution to the world around them since I am distinctly unhelpful, currently unemployed and not even likely to spend money, the one redeeming trait of the undeserving rich, to aid capitalism. A fact that I am rather proud of since this means that every positive I might take away from the society I add nothing to, therefore becomes a profit for myself in its entirety with nothing given back.) but in the sense that I am injured.
Today I was injured in a truck related accident. Of all the things that it is considered mortally precariously to be involved in an accident with, one being a unicycle and ten being a jumbo jet, a truck comes in at around seven point five. The incident occurred this morning while I was out on my morning jog (to those who believed that I thought I avoided all forms of exercise like the plague, I would say that the plague was notoriously difficult to avoid, hence the high death count. The Duke of Edinburgh bronze award which I officially started two years ago and have predictably managed to procrastinate completing until this time, requires a minimum of one hour of extra curricular energy wastage every week maintained for one month).
My jogging route takes me, first from my house to the local park. This route involves crossing a rather busy road where I have had quite a few near death (that is to say, near in the same way that Brixton is near Chelsea) experiences and numerous irate horns honked angrily at my general person. The sort of road which trucks hurtle through quite frequently, with speed enough to quickly transform any careless J-walkers (I have always wondered what the J in J walkers stands for? Jurassic? Japanese? Judgmental? Jewish? Jelly?) into a splatter on the road spread thinner than my grandfather's hair (which must be very thin considering he has been dead these last eight years).
I made it across this perilous River Styx like road with some help from the zebra crossing ferryman, and entered the park which, according to my normal slightly optimistic running schedule, I would run four laps of in twenty minutes. There is a fifteen meter long section of the park where the path upon which I jog is flanked by two chest high metal fences, one marking the circumference around a basket ball court and the other a defensive barrier acting as noble protective custodians of the childrens' play area. Therefore if a spontaneously appearing truck were to drive at me while I was on that short stretch of pedestrian paving, there would be no way to dodge it.
As it happened there was a truck in the park today, a vehicle which was being used to transport the tree branches that workers were trimming in order to castrate the powers of nature within the domesticated greenery. Just as I was on my fourth lap, the obese white truck parked its self squarely in between the two fences, completely blocking my way. Through my hazy sweat and fatigue filled vision, I vaguely saw the two blurred figures at the front of the truck signaling for me to go back ten meters or so and run across the completely open flat grassland from where the fence surrounding the basket ball court ended.
As I recognized this attempt to navigate me, despite feeling worn by the exhaustion of physical movement I gritted my teeth in frustrated irritation. The concept of being moved at another's command fundamentally annoyed me, furthermore I had already run a good fifteen meters, to have to waste that non-refundable energy for the sake of a single lazy truck seemed like conceding a minor defeat to the world. Hence, dazedly mentally conjuring up something inspirational and courageous along the lines of "a true man must not giving up on his dreams and run on forwards whatever adversary might await" or something, I charged on towards the stubbornly stationary truck like a desperately unfit bull at a giant matador.
Then, at the last possible second, I changed course ninety degrees to my left, grabbing hold of the bars protecting the childrens' play area and heaved myself swiftly up onto its precarious metal frame. During the run my brain had clearly suffered some natural disaster, possibly the disproportionate amount of sweat pouring out of my pores flowing into the cranium through my ears and flooding the brain, since it seemed to me at the time that the most logical course of action concerning the fence was to, using legs still shaking weakly from the exercise of a good jog, attempt to athletically vault over it. I leaped, my black running tie fluttering elegantly behind me then I caught the tip of my shoe on the fence and fell forward into the playground, face painfully making contact with the firm muddy ground.
It also seemed that during this process (to be exact within the nanoseconds starting from my unfortunate loss of balance on the top of the fence to the graceless gravity dependent arc through the air as I fell, followed by the harsh introduction to the grassy ground) I pulled a muscle at the back of my leg which is why I have been hobbling around the house. A poor crippled victim of a truck related accident.
Today I was injured in a truck related accident. Of all the things that it is considered mortally precariously to be involved in an accident with, one being a unicycle and ten being a jumbo jet, a truck comes in at around seven point five. The incident occurred this morning while I was out on my morning jog (to those who believed that I thought I avoided all forms of exercise like the plague, I would say that the plague was notoriously difficult to avoid, hence the high death count. The Duke of Edinburgh bronze award which I officially started two years ago and have predictably managed to procrastinate completing until this time, requires a minimum of one hour of extra curricular energy wastage every week maintained for one month).
My jogging route takes me, first from my house to the local park. This route involves crossing a rather busy road where I have had quite a few near death (that is to say, near in the same way that Brixton is near Chelsea) experiences and numerous irate horns honked angrily at my general person. The sort of road which trucks hurtle through quite frequently, with speed enough to quickly transform any careless J-walkers (I have always wondered what the J in J walkers stands for? Jurassic? Japanese? Judgmental? Jewish? Jelly?) into a splatter on the road spread thinner than my grandfather's hair (which must be very thin considering he has been dead these last eight years).
I made it across this perilous River Styx like road with some help from the zebra crossing ferryman, and entered the park which, according to my normal slightly optimistic running schedule, I would run four laps of in twenty minutes. There is a fifteen meter long section of the park where the path upon which I jog is flanked by two chest high metal fences, one marking the circumference around a basket ball court and the other a defensive barrier acting as noble protective custodians of the childrens' play area. Therefore if a spontaneously appearing truck were to drive at me while I was on that short stretch of pedestrian paving, there would be no way to dodge it.
As it happened there was a truck in the park today, a vehicle which was being used to transport the tree branches that workers were trimming in order to castrate the powers of nature within the domesticated greenery. Just as I was on my fourth lap, the obese white truck parked its self squarely in between the two fences, completely blocking my way. Through my hazy sweat and fatigue filled vision, I vaguely saw the two blurred figures at the front of the truck signaling for me to go back ten meters or so and run across the completely open flat grassland from where the fence surrounding the basket ball court ended.
As I recognized this attempt to navigate me, despite feeling worn by the exhaustion of physical movement I gritted my teeth in frustrated irritation. The concept of being moved at another's command fundamentally annoyed me, furthermore I had already run a good fifteen meters, to have to waste that non-refundable energy for the sake of a single lazy truck seemed like conceding a minor defeat to the world. Hence, dazedly mentally conjuring up something inspirational and courageous along the lines of "a true man must not giving up on his dreams and run on forwards whatever adversary might await" or something, I charged on towards the stubbornly stationary truck like a desperately unfit bull at a giant matador.
Then, at the last possible second, I changed course ninety degrees to my left, grabbing hold of the bars protecting the childrens' play area and heaved myself swiftly up onto its precarious metal frame. During the run my brain had clearly suffered some natural disaster, possibly the disproportionate amount of sweat pouring out of my pores flowing into the cranium through my ears and flooding the brain, since it seemed to me at the time that the most logical course of action concerning the fence was to, using legs still shaking weakly from the exercise of a good jog, attempt to athletically vault over it. I leaped, my black running tie fluttering elegantly behind me then I caught the tip of my shoe on the fence and fell forward into the playground, face painfully making contact with the firm muddy ground.
It also seemed that during this process (to be exact within the nanoseconds starting from my unfortunate loss of balance on the top of the fence to the graceless gravity dependent arc through the air as I fell, followed by the harsh introduction to the grassy ground) I pulled a muscle at the back of my leg which is why I have been hobbling around the house. A poor crippled victim of a truck related accident.
Saturday, 27 October 2012
Fashion
On this day, after many years of slow reduction through various camp speech mannerisms, actions and choice of clothing, the last crumbling vestige of what could roughly be referred to as my masculinity departed from my outstretched arms. Gently floating away out of my desperate reach, like my prettiest laced hat in the lukewarm summer breeze (due to my current depletion of masculinity I am unable to fashion a more manly simile).
Nonetheless, I admit that this was another large step towards the crucial wavering borderline of opposing genders, the all important division which I suspect I may be dangerously close to slipping over. Before the eyeliner incident, to regain an average amount of masculinity after all the other tremendously camp things I'd done I would have probably had to spend many months in the gym (the balance system being roughly about one bench press per camp hand movement) plus several mandatory hours of laddish sexism. However taking this new eventuality into mind, it may only be a matter of time, perhaps the point has already been reached, where it is just far easier to make a visit to the sexual organ swap shop than the alternative years of gym attendance.
It has always been believed and upheld that the pinnacle of manliness, the height of macho, is courage and the ability to stand firm in the face of those you fear. This has been true for as long as men have existed from the days of the cavemen facing rampaging mammoths, to the much chronicled image of knights battling dragons and even to today, where the actions of soldiers heading into war are commended and celebrated. Furthermore, one commonly experienced phobia, one terror that many people share, is the discomforting sensation of something pointed and sharp approaching the naked eye. In that sense, the use of eyeliner is the ultimate triumph over terror, the supreme display of courage that surely demonstrates the sheer overwhelming butch powers of whoever undertakes the act.I appeal to the court that I am merely a forerunner of this new brand of masculinity which will permeate popular culture in a matter of years. If anything my overwhelming masculinity as a pioneer against terror and crusader of courage should be recognized and celebrated. The sheer amount of macho involved in the act of applying eye liner should be enough to annul all of my previous debts of femininity, leaving me a free most definitely man.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Paris
After observing my complete inactivity from afar, out of the range of noxious fumes emitted by pajamas worn all day several days in a row, my mother has finally put her foot down. And underneath that firmly descending foot lie all my hopes, dreams and aspirations of spending a relaxing half term. She has decided she will throw me out onto the streets.However not out onto any ordinary street but the streets of Paris. She has made the executive decision that I will be spending three days of my half term holiday alone in Paris for no apparent reason. She has claimed that her motive behind this illogical course of action is the improvement of my French language skills but I suspect her chief ambition is to simply get rid of me for several days.
I can, of course, vividly picture the disapproving faces of the minority of people who read my blog. Shaking their heads from side to side and wondering what on earth I am complaining about. I am to be sent, after all, with some allowance and organized lodging to what could be considered one of the cultural capitals of the world. The center of art, fine cuisine and fashion (as well as racism, riots and right wing power but those demerits are obviously far outweighed by the positivity of a single baguette).
Though this may, at first seem like a golden opportunity to study culture and fine arts, the one overwhelmingly negative factor is language. I am a being that thrives on eloquent communication, nothing gives me greater pleasure than the beautiful stringing together of an elegant and possibly offensive metaphor. To talk, to tell, to freely swim within the vast seas of vocabulary. To surf on the waves of words or to feel the gentle ebb and flow of a good narrative. To ride on the cheerful back of a pun or word play. These make up about seventy five percent of my will to continue living on this miserable spherical dung heap floating depressingly in space.The French however, typical of their generally unhelpful nature, speak French. A language which spans before me as a dry barren alien plain. Filled with hostile shadows, renegade grammatical irregularities and cunning pronunciation problems, all lurking just outside my peripheral vision, waiting for the first chance to strike the damning blow of public humiliation. In French I am a fish without water or to clumsily construct in the enemy language, like a gorilla with arthritis trying his hand at origami, "un poissons qui n'a pas d'eau"
Monday, 22 October 2012
Personal
As the damp air grows colder and the gnarled trees grow balder, the time is fast approaching the celebrated eve of Halloween. The night of the supernatural, when the terrifying ghosts of the dead are said to wander amongst us and the even more terrifying juvenile delinquents, who are still unfortunately of the living, more than definitely loiter malignantly amongst us, armed to the aggressively gritted teeth with eggs and insults.
I am also, unfortunately, still entirely unsure as to what to wear as a Halloween costume. Last year I wore a dead child, lovingly constructed out of cardboard and red paint, on my head but that has, rather cruelly, been specifically banned by the hostess of this years Halloween party.
Hence I have decided that, in the manner of a true problem solver, I shall procrastinate thinking about the costume until absolutely necessary (that is to say, on the night) and for the time being ponder about the major Western festival proceeding Halloween, the festival of Christmas (entirely ignoring some other slightly minor festivals such as the celebratory burning of the effigy of a dead terrorist bomber. I am not referring to some obscure annual Bin Laden hating celebration, which in all probability exists, in the Southern United States but to the long running British festival of Bonfire Night.)
No other festival in existence places such a damning emphasis on desolate loneliness than Christmas. Not only is it commonly celebrated in union by romantic couples, Christmas also enforces the giving of presents and cards to loved ones, friends and family. Which then automatically marks out, highlights and isolates those with few caring friends or family.
I for one remember one particularly depressing year when I received the grand total of one Christmas card. A cheaply manufactured thing, probably bought en mass at WHSmith but nonetheless treasured by me, occupying the pride of place on my windowsill for the best part of a year, as proof of the fact I was not entirely devoid of amicable companionship within this world.
The interior of the card was, to put it positively, minimalist. A white space occupied by the mechanically printed words "Merry Christmas" under which was written my name, scribbled carefully in the dead and shriveled worm like handwriting of my friend, Underling Book, and another accompanying sentence of well wishing. It was not that much but it was more than enough. The fact a card had been sent to me with intention of being sent to me, proven via the messy writing which would, to the untrained eye, appear like Arabic, was more than sufficient evidence that the sender cared about me.
However the latest card manufacturing companies would deny me even that scrap of happiness because according to their adverts people now need to go to new lengths of personalization, involving adding photos of the recipient and choosing pointless humorous fonts, in order to create a greeting card that proves they care. Which would, by default, suggest that in their expert opinion, the dear Christmas card I received (with Underling Book's near encoded writing of well wishing) is worth very little sentimental value due to the fact that it didn't have a massive photo of me cropped onto it combined with a hilarious punning title in the style of some tabloid newspaper or a poster or some other god forsaken format which has been granted the license of being sufficiently caring and festive in the eyes of the bloated greed-filled executives of greeting card personalization companies.
It has always been the ambition of humans to leave a legacy in the world, some sort of sign of their existence, to confirm their place within the universe, to leave a notable mark in society. The rulers of ancient civilizations did this by creating epic monuments, personalizing blocks of stone to leave as an indicator of their short existence on this planet. Now it seems everyone wants to be in on the act, desperate to make some personal, uniquely distinguished mark of their own on everything from a greeting card to the clothes they wear.
This trend of personalization appears to be spreading like an uncontrolled marketing infection. With decorative stickers being sold to personalize everything from your keys to your phone as if the amount of crudely made glittery diamond shaped plastic you attached to your iPhone case would help reaffirm your place within the world. Perhaps soon there will be a day when everything is personalized, every gift and every possession stamped with your face on it to confirm that the object did indeed at one point belong to you. Sperm given in at a sperm bank, each cell complete with a smiling microscopic photo of the generous man who sacrificed a minute of his time and exercised his hand to make the donation. Or organs given in for transplants, all meticulously engraved with the name and caricature of the now deceased donor. Perhaps even children put up to adoption with a photo of their not very responsible biological parents super glued to their back.
This mad wave of commercially encouraged uniqueness further causes an inflation in the value of personalization and raises the bar indicating what the bare minimum socially acceptable display of caring is. Before the arrival of the customizable cards, the simple greeting or congratulatory cards brought at a news paper agents to have someone's name hurriedly scrawled in must have seemed sufficiently personalized and caring.
Therefore it is only logical to assume something else more personalized than the current cards on offer will soon appear on the market, a vicious cycle that will continue escalating until it is no longer sufficient to just print with normal ink because normal ink is what every non-personal and therefore uncaring people are using in their greeting cards. Then what personalized liquid can you use to write your message? Why not use your own blood? After all, nothing is more personalized than your own DNA. But should you print the message on paper? Paper is what all the non-personalizing cold heartless people are using, why not used the far more personal alternative of your very own skin to show the recipient that you really care?
A truly terrifying image of the potential near future. Indeed at present it seems the one most truly frightening thing in the world is the development of personalized greeting cards which will ultimately and inevitably result in human self mutilation and destruction.
Now that gives me a sudden blindingly bright flash of artistic inspiration, since I have often heard it said that the best creations in horror are based off the real fears of the creators, perhaps I should go to this year's Halloween party dressed entirely in personalized greeting cards. I'm sure such a costume would receive a frightened scream or two.
I am also, unfortunately, still entirely unsure as to what to wear as a Halloween costume. Last year I wore a dead child, lovingly constructed out of cardboard and red paint, on my head but that has, rather cruelly, been specifically banned by the hostess of this years Halloween party.
Hence I have decided that, in the manner of a true problem solver, I shall procrastinate thinking about the costume until absolutely necessary (that is to say, on the night) and for the time being ponder about the major Western festival proceeding Halloween, the festival of Christmas (entirely ignoring some other slightly minor festivals such as the celebratory burning of the effigy of a dead terrorist bomber. I am not referring to some obscure annual Bin Laden hating celebration, which in all probability exists, in the Southern United States but to the long running British festival of Bonfire Night.)
No other festival in existence places such a damning emphasis on desolate loneliness than Christmas. Not only is it commonly celebrated in union by romantic couples, Christmas also enforces the giving of presents and cards to loved ones, friends and family. Which then automatically marks out, highlights and isolates those with few caring friends or family.
I for one remember one particularly depressing year when I received the grand total of one Christmas card. A cheaply manufactured thing, probably bought en mass at WHSmith but nonetheless treasured by me, occupying the pride of place on my windowsill for the best part of a year, as proof of the fact I was not entirely devoid of amicable companionship within this world.The interior of the card was, to put it positively, minimalist. A white space occupied by the mechanically printed words "Merry Christmas" under which was written my name, scribbled carefully in the dead and shriveled worm like handwriting of my friend, Underling Book, and another accompanying sentence of well wishing. It was not that much but it was more than enough. The fact a card had been sent to me with intention of being sent to me, proven via the messy writing which would, to the untrained eye, appear like Arabic, was more than sufficient evidence that the sender cared about me.
However the latest card manufacturing companies would deny me even that scrap of happiness because according to their adverts people now need to go to new lengths of personalization, involving adding photos of the recipient and choosing pointless humorous fonts, in order to create a greeting card that proves they care. Which would, by default, suggest that in their expert opinion, the dear Christmas card I received (with Underling Book's near encoded writing of well wishing) is worth very little sentimental value due to the fact that it didn't have a massive photo of me cropped onto it combined with a hilarious punning title in the style of some tabloid newspaper or a poster or some other god forsaken format which has been granted the license of being sufficiently caring and festive in the eyes of the bloated greed-filled executives of greeting card personalization companies.
It has always been the ambition of humans to leave a legacy in the world, some sort of sign of their existence, to confirm their place within the universe, to leave a notable mark in society. The rulers of ancient civilizations did this by creating epic monuments, personalizing blocks of stone to leave as an indicator of their short existence on this planet. Now it seems everyone wants to be in on the act, desperate to make some personal, uniquely distinguished mark of their own on everything from a greeting card to the clothes they wear.
This trend of personalization appears to be spreading like an uncontrolled marketing infection. With decorative stickers being sold to personalize everything from your keys to your phone as if the amount of crudely made glittery diamond shaped plastic you attached to your iPhone case would help reaffirm your place within the world. Perhaps soon there will be a day when everything is personalized, every gift and every possession stamped with your face on it to confirm that the object did indeed at one point belong to you. Sperm given in at a sperm bank, each cell complete with a smiling microscopic photo of the generous man who sacrificed a minute of his time and exercised his hand to make the donation. Or organs given in for transplants, all meticulously engraved with the name and caricature of the now deceased donor. Perhaps even children put up to adoption with a photo of their not very responsible biological parents super glued to their back.This mad wave of commercially encouraged uniqueness further causes an inflation in the value of personalization and raises the bar indicating what the bare minimum socially acceptable display of caring is. Before the arrival of the customizable cards, the simple greeting or congratulatory cards brought at a news paper agents to have someone's name hurriedly scrawled in must have seemed sufficiently personalized and caring.
Therefore it is only logical to assume something else more personalized than the current cards on offer will soon appear on the market, a vicious cycle that will continue escalating until it is no longer sufficient to just print with normal ink because normal ink is what every non-personal and therefore uncaring people are using in their greeting cards. Then what personalized liquid can you use to write your message? Why not use your own blood? After all, nothing is more personalized than your own DNA. But should you print the message on paper? Paper is what all the non-personalizing cold heartless people are using, why not used the far more personal alternative of your very own skin to show the recipient that you really care?
A truly terrifying image of the potential near future. Indeed at present it seems the one most truly frightening thing in the world is the development of personalized greeting cards which will ultimately and inevitably result in human self mutilation and destruction.
Now that gives me a sudden blindingly bright flash of artistic inspiration, since I have often heard it said that the best creations in horror are based off the real fears of the creators, perhaps I should go to this year's Halloween party dressed entirely in personalized greeting cards. I'm sure such a costume would receive a frightened scream or two.
Saturday, 20 October 2012
Lobotomy
The date is the 19th of October 2012. The starting pistol is fired high into the air, simultaneously I spring forward athletically from my braced crouching position, beginning my sprint down the long metaphorical road. My two fingers (because despite being of the new supposedly technology savvy generation, I never mastered touch typing and can still only competently type with two digits) dance swiftly across the keyboard, each aggressive tap of a key imprinting a pixel articulation of my thoughts onto the blank white screen before me.
The clock ticks precious seconds away and as the ultimate countdown commences, to my relief I see that the end line, the deadline, lies just meters from my exhausted self. With a final burst of energy I propel myself forwards, the remaining few paragraphs flowing onto the page in a jumbled flood of words. The time is eleven fifty nine. Relieved I have made it, I click the beautifully vibrant button labeled "Publish". Feeling victorious, I close my eyes, I have successfully written and posted another bog within the day. Then as I open my tired eyes to look back onto the screen, a sudden ice age envelopes my heart and the exhausted yawn meets an untimely end half way up my throat. The red box stating "you are only allowed a maximum of twenty labels" lies smugly across the top of the page.
Hurriedly I delete the one extra offensive treacherous miscreant of a label that now threatens to ruin everything I have worked towards. I frantically click "publish" again, the time is midnight, in the distance a clock presumably strikes twelve and I imagine for the few seconds it takes to load my online publication, the deep resonating mournful rings of the ominous metal bell. I grit my teeth in frustration and cast my eyes onto the screen in vain hope that blogger counts midnight, the barren no man's land between two days, to be the territory of the merciful today as opposed to under the occupation of the tyrannical tomorrow.
I let out a slow sobbing sigh, the post is labeled as "20th of October".
It has finally happened, on my last post, I failed to meet the deadline. I'm sure there is a meaning to the term "deadline". Presumably if you go past the deadline you become dead in some way, but as far as I know in most every day situations people aren't killed for late paperwork, unless there exists some evil organization skilfully covering up every unpunctual excel sheet or mildly tardy report related murder (Perhaps entitled League of Uncompromising Beaurocratic Employers or LUBE for short).
Therefore if you miss a deadline, you must be dead in some other slightly more subtle way. Perhaps you become dead to whoever set you the deadline. So as soon as you fail to meet the deadline, your employer or immediate superior or whoever it was that told you to hand in that file by six o'clock in the morning sharp, no longer looks at you with the level of burning passionate friendship that they used to. Instead your employer stares coldly at you, a certain emotional distance appearing between superior and subordinate, an invisible wall suddenly erected to severe the bond of mutual trust that had grown so strong between the two of you before that fateful six o'clock in the morning blunt.
But in this instance I had set the personal deadline of one blog post a day for myself to keep and as much as I might try, it really is rather difficult to keep an emotional distance from yourself. Hence, if I want to become emotionally disconnected from myself, the only possible solution is to become generally emotionally unreceptive as a human being, this may perhaps be achieved by undergoing the great medical process of lobotomy.
Goodbye dear meager wavering mirage of a readership whose existence is more than a little doubtful, the next time we meet, I may have become an empty emotionless husk of a human being but at least I would be a punctual empty emotionless husk.
The clock ticks precious seconds away and as the ultimate countdown commences, to my relief I see that the end line, the deadline, lies just meters from my exhausted self. With a final burst of energy I propel myself forwards, the remaining few paragraphs flowing onto the page in a jumbled flood of words. The time is eleven fifty nine. Relieved I have made it, I click the beautifully vibrant button labeled "Publish". Feeling victorious, I close my eyes, I have successfully written and posted another bog within the day. Then as I open my tired eyes to look back onto the screen, a sudden ice age envelopes my heart and the exhausted yawn meets an untimely end half way up my throat. The red box stating "you are only allowed a maximum of twenty labels" lies smugly across the top of the page.
Hurriedly I delete the one extra offensive treacherous miscreant of a label that now threatens to ruin everything I have worked towards. I frantically click "publish" again, the time is midnight, in the distance a clock presumably strikes twelve and I imagine for the few seconds it takes to load my online publication, the deep resonating mournful rings of the ominous metal bell. I grit my teeth in frustration and cast my eyes onto the screen in vain hope that blogger counts midnight, the barren no man's land between two days, to be the territory of the merciful today as opposed to under the occupation of the tyrannical tomorrow.
I let out a slow sobbing sigh, the post is labeled as "20th of October".
It has finally happened, on my last post, I failed to meet the deadline. I'm sure there is a meaning to the term "deadline". Presumably if you go past the deadline you become dead in some way, but as far as I know in most every day situations people aren't killed for late paperwork, unless there exists some evil organization skilfully covering up every unpunctual excel sheet or mildly tardy report related murder (Perhaps entitled League of Uncompromising Beaurocratic Employers or LUBE for short).
Therefore if you miss a deadline, you must be dead in some other slightly more subtle way. Perhaps you become dead to whoever set you the deadline. So as soon as you fail to meet the deadline, your employer or immediate superior or whoever it was that told you to hand in that file by six o'clock in the morning sharp, no longer looks at you with the level of burning passionate friendship that they used to. Instead your employer stares coldly at you, a certain emotional distance appearing between superior and subordinate, an invisible wall suddenly erected to severe the bond of mutual trust that had grown so strong between the two of you before that fateful six o'clock in the morning blunt.
But in this instance I had set the personal deadline of one blog post a day for myself to keep and as much as I might try, it really is rather difficult to keep an emotional distance from yourself. Hence, if I want to become emotionally disconnected from myself, the only possible solution is to become generally emotionally unreceptive as a human being, this may perhaps be achieved by undergoing the great medical process of lobotomy.
Goodbye dear meager wavering mirage of a readership whose existence is more than a little doubtful, the next time we meet, I may have become an empty emotionless husk of a human being but at least I would be a punctual empty emotionless husk.
Thursday, 18 October 2012
Themes
Quite recently I was invited to a party. That in its self is a noteworthy enough fact to deserve its own smug sentence (I briefly considered allowing that statement its own paragraph but I suspect that might just go past the realms of mildly milking my good fortune and straight into the chasm of simply pathetic boasting). The very opportunity to actually go to a party is, as you might have guessed, not one that presents its self to me very frequently. So much so that being allowed attendance to a party deserves its own party in celebration which would, in turn, deserve its own party until I would be trapped in an endless nightmarish loop of partying.
However one thing that did come to my notice was the theme of the party. The dress code to which all party goers must adhere to (lest they experience the wrath of the host or the general disapproval of all other guests around them, silently criticizing them for not making an effort) was "cowboys and Indians". Now I am aware that cowboys and Indians is a common theme as well as a game that children often play, nonetheless it occurred to me how the realms of acceptability increase significantly over time because when historically considered, "cowboys and Indians" is a look back on the massacre of many native Americans by the invading settlers armed with far superior weaponry.
I may have not done terrifically well in GCSEs where the subjects of physics, chemistry or biology were concerned. I may have taken Environmental Systems and Societies ( the racially confused child between biology and geography, considered the least actually scientific but nonetheless technically scientific subject you can take with the IB education system) as my science subject. However, in terms of curiosity, investigative desires and the peioneering spirit of an explorer, I am a scientist at heart. Therefore, when I first saw the party theme, the obvious question to ask and attempt to scientifically discern the answer to through experimentation was "If the realms of acceptability grow with time passing since the actual incident, where does the delicate boarder between offensive and inoffensive lie?"
For example to what extent is it acceptable to historically update the party theme? If "Cowboys and Indians" are deemed a perfectly fine dress code; since its within the same over arching theme of morally dubious American historical exploits, would it be considered acceptable if I turned up at a party in a skin colored morph suit splattered with red and pink in parts, stained a dark charred black in others, dressed as the victim of a napalm bombing according to the theme of "Americans and Vietnamese"?
However one thing that did come to my notice was the theme of the party. The dress code to which all party goers must adhere to (lest they experience the wrath of the host or the general disapproval of all other guests around them, silently criticizing them for not making an effort) was "cowboys and Indians". Now I am aware that cowboys and Indians is a common theme as well as a game that children often play, nonetheless it occurred to me how the realms of acceptability increase significantly over time because when historically considered, "cowboys and Indians" is a look back on the massacre of many native Americans by the invading settlers armed with far superior weaponry.
I may have not done terrifically well in GCSEs where the subjects of physics, chemistry or biology were concerned. I may have taken Environmental Systems and Societies ( the racially confused child between biology and geography, considered the least actually scientific but nonetheless technically scientific subject you can take with the IB education system) as my science subject. However, in terms of curiosity, investigative desires and the peioneering spirit of an explorer, I am a scientist at heart. Therefore, when I first saw the party theme, the obvious question to ask and attempt to scientifically discern the answer to through experimentation was "If the realms of acceptability grow with time passing since the actual incident, where does the delicate boarder between offensive and inoffensive lie?"
For example to what extent is it acceptable to historically update the party theme? If "Cowboys and Indians" are deemed a perfectly fine dress code; since its within the same over arching theme of morally dubious American historical exploits, would it be considered acceptable if I turned up at a party in a skin colored morph suit splattered with red and pink in parts, stained a dark charred black in others, dressed as the victim of a napalm bombing according to the theme of "Americans and Vietnamese"?
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Similarity
Shepherd's pie and cottage pie, tangerine and mandarin, Bruce Lee and Jacky Chan. The world is full of things that are so alike they are practically indistinguishable. Though this state of affairs is by and large fine, there are moments where such confusing likenesses can cause considerable harm, such as the similarity between "acceptable banter" and "unacceptable offensive insults" or "people who are capable of verbal battles" and "individuals who give the outward appearance of being able to handle a bit of verbal jousting but are in fact easily offended". These two examples especially, when mixed together, create the perfect cocktail of social awkwardness and disaster (the sort of cocktail that leaves you feeling the sickening rocking storm of extreme inebriation without first allowing you to experience the pleasant gentle drift of mild tipsiness).
In terms of the former, I do confess that I have a tendency to lose sight of the metaphorical line in the sand occasionally, inadvertently stepping over it and tress passing in the lands of potentially serious emotional damage. Usually when people chide me, which they inevitably do, concerning whatever harmful statement I've just made, I either: take the attitude of the driver caught traveling at 80 miles per hour in a 20 miles per hour zone near a school (protesting my innocence by pointing out that there are no children out at this time of the day and even if they were I would merely be carrying out the socially helpful process of natural selection by running them over) or take an offensively defensive strategy(viciously chiding the victim of my verbal firing squad that he or she should have made clearer where the boundaries of acceptability lay by say, not just lazily drawing a line in the sand but building some sort of high towering fortress wall coated in anti-climbing paint). This habit tends to frequently lose me a vast percentage of friends out of an already frankly meager supply, hence I try to be careful in limiting and controlling the contents of my speech, monitoring what words or intentions are traveling from my brain towards my vocal cords with the vigilance of a censorship division working under a strict totalitarian regime.
Now, Underling Salmon (though she still refuses to respond to that code name) with her generally withering attitude and bitingly sarcastic remarks, gives all the outward impression of someone capable of trading insults. A fellow human with whom I could exchange shipments of casually offensive yet entertaining remarks without fear of inadvertently straying across the boarders of lasting emotional damage and social awkwardness. However, when during a conversation, I made several insulting quips (to test what looked like relatively promising waters in terms of a verbal battle) the total contents of which, when combined, amounted to something along the lines of "You are a prostitute who, without the intelligence capable of adequately passing exams, must have slept with our spineless excuse of a headmaster in order to get a place in the school" (quips, that I might emphasize, were all made in the friendly spirit of jest) I was rather disappointed by her lack of witty response or fighting attitude, instead choosing to bitterly reference these insults once in a while as if her honor had been gravely wounded.
When I expressed my disappointment in her lack of verbal sharpness and witticism, she claimed she was not yet reacting to or insulting those around her "because I'm in a hostile and unfamiliar environment. So I'm doing what all successful organisms do, observe and adapt."
To this I mockingly replied that since a human being's only advantage over an animal is the human's ability to use creative skills in order to adapt the surrounding environment to his/her needs to a certain extent (by, for example, air conditioning), by attempting to adapt to the environment Underling Salmon had joined the ranks of the animals to be no better than a toad or woodlouse.
She then responded to this by stating that there is no difference between humans and other animals to begin with. Which, in a rather pleasant cyclical fashion brings the topic right back round to similarities and differences. What exactly is the difference between a human being and an animal, two extremely similar things which some would argue are in fact the same (just as shepherd's pie is supposedly the same as cottage pie according to Wikipedia). Indeed, she continued, if the difference between humans and animals was the ability to alter the environment then beavers would be classified as human since they can alter the environment due to the fact that they can create dams, thereby blocking rivers and altering the environment.
Thus my definition of the difference between humanity and animals, which I had been quite confident was a sound argument that would be passed on as a profound word of wisdom, to run from generation to generation till far into the future, had more or less fallen on the first hurdle constructed out of branches and felled trees by a creative beaver. So if this is not the difference between an animal and a human then what is? When I have asked this question in the past, the most common and memorable answer has been "The soul", an abstract spiritual essence of humanity that resides within humans but not in animals. However if I start believing in concepts such as the soul, then I can't help but get the feeling that other illogical concepts (the bastard children born between science and blind faith) like spiritual healing, auras and homeopathy will be just around the proverbial corner, waiting for me, their non-existent over priced arms wide open for a placebo embrace.
This then leaves me with two options, either accept the existence of the soul and every other connotation such an admittance brings into my life with it (like unwanted disreputable associates of an ill-mannered friend, brought in as guests by the single impolite friend who sees the invitation into your house as a simultaneous permission for everyone he knows to also be allowed free access to your abode) or welcome the beaver as a part of the human race. The choice is hard but I have to make it, and though I may come to regret it, henceforth I shall consider all beavers as equal to myself, treating them with the respect I treat other humans (which isn't much) and allowing them all the rights that I receive (which doesn't feel like much either). But if it becomes just too much, if the pressures of drastically altering my world views over night give me a headache, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking a pain relieving pill that is not in the least bit diluted.
In terms of the former, I do confess that I have a tendency to lose sight of the metaphorical line in the sand occasionally, inadvertently stepping over it and tress passing in the lands of potentially serious emotional damage. Usually when people chide me, which they inevitably do, concerning whatever harmful statement I've just made, I either: take the attitude of the driver caught traveling at 80 miles per hour in a 20 miles per hour zone near a school (protesting my innocence by pointing out that there are no children out at this time of the day and even if they were I would merely be carrying out the socially helpful process of natural selection by running them over) or take an offensively defensive strategy(viciously chiding the victim of my verbal firing squad that he or she should have made clearer where the boundaries of acceptability lay by say, not just lazily drawing a line in the sand but building some sort of high towering fortress wall coated in anti-climbing paint). This habit tends to frequently lose me a vast percentage of friends out of an already frankly meager supply, hence I try to be careful in limiting and controlling the contents of my speech, monitoring what words or intentions are traveling from my brain towards my vocal cords with the vigilance of a censorship division working under a strict totalitarian regime.
Now, Underling Salmon (though she still refuses to respond to that code name) with her generally withering attitude and bitingly sarcastic remarks, gives all the outward impression of someone capable of trading insults. A fellow human with whom I could exchange shipments of casually offensive yet entertaining remarks without fear of inadvertently straying across the boarders of lasting emotional damage and social awkwardness. However, when during a conversation, I made several insulting quips (to test what looked like relatively promising waters in terms of a verbal battle) the total contents of which, when combined, amounted to something along the lines of "You are a prostitute who, without the intelligence capable of adequately passing exams, must have slept with our spineless excuse of a headmaster in order to get a place in the school" (quips, that I might emphasize, were all made in the friendly spirit of jest) I was rather disappointed by her lack of witty response or fighting attitude, instead choosing to bitterly reference these insults once in a while as if her honor had been gravely wounded.
When I expressed my disappointment in her lack of verbal sharpness and witticism, she claimed she was not yet reacting to or insulting those around her "because I'm in a hostile and unfamiliar environment. So I'm doing what all successful organisms do, observe and adapt."
To this I mockingly replied that since a human being's only advantage over an animal is the human's ability to use creative skills in order to adapt the surrounding environment to his/her needs to a certain extent (by, for example, air conditioning), by attempting to adapt to the environment Underling Salmon had joined the ranks of the animals to be no better than a toad or woodlouse.
She then responded to this by stating that there is no difference between humans and other animals to begin with. Which, in a rather pleasant cyclical fashion brings the topic right back round to similarities and differences. What exactly is the difference between a human being and an animal, two extremely similar things which some would argue are in fact the same (just as shepherd's pie is supposedly the same as cottage pie according to Wikipedia). Indeed, she continued, if the difference between humans and animals was the ability to alter the environment then beavers would be classified as human since they can alter the environment due to the fact that they can create dams, thereby blocking rivers and altering the environment.
Thus my definition of the difference between humanity and animals, which I had been quite confident was a sound argument that would be passed on as a profound word of wisdom, to run from generation to generation till far into the future, had more or less fallen on the first hurdle constructed out of branches and felled trees by a creative beaver. So if this is not the difference between an animal and a human then what is? When I have asked this question in the past, the most common and memorable answer has been "The soul", an abstract spiritual essence of humanity that resides within humans but not in animals. However if I start believing in concepts such as the soul, then I can't help but get the feeling that other illogical concepts (the bastard children born between science and blind faith) like spiritual healing, auras and homeopathy will be just around the proverbial corner, waiting for me, their non-existent over priced arms wide open for a placebo embrace.
This then leaves me with two options, either accept the existence of the soul and every other connotation such an admittance brings into my life with it (like unwanted disreputable associates of an ill-mannered friend, brought in as guests by the single impolite friend who sees the invitation into your house as a simultaneous permission for everyone he knows to also be allowed free access to your abode) or welcome the beaver as a part of the human race. The choice is hard but I have to make it, and though I may come to regret it, henceforth I shall consider all beavers as equal to myself, treating them with the respect I treat other humans (which isn't much) and allowing them all the rights that I receive (which doesn't feel like much either). But if it becomes just too much, if the pressures of drastically altering my world views over night give me a headache, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking a pain relieving pill that is not in the least bit diluted.
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Holiday
If leaving things that need to be done as soon as possible till last minute were a crime, I would have been arrested and taken to court long ago. The news would show chalk or pastel illustrations of my downcast face as I stood before the judge, pleading entirely guilty to the charges of irresponsible work avoidance. In short, I am a self-confessed procrastinator. Because of this trait I am forever forcing myself into a metaphorical corner, backed up and cowering against the wall, surrounded by sinister looming mountains of tasks that should have been completed hours ago but quite inexplicably, aren't.
Hence you might assume that the opportunity to take a break; to go on holiday; to flee from the menacing malicious parade of labor (seemingly forever in slow but definite pursuit) even if only for a few short weeks, would seem like my ultimate goal. A safe haven, my equivalent of the helicopter complete with ladder for the fleeing foiled villain atop a building, the beautiful oasis filled with water and vegetation for the weary desert camel rider or the inviting open toilet bowl for the severely inebriated guest in a house decorated with expensive carpets.
However that is not the case. That is a case that belonged to me about three, possibly two years ago. A worn old case, its aged leather surface scratched and eroded with time, any colour it might once have had long since faded out save in a few faint patches which stubbornly stain their ground as the last crumbling bastion of dying vibrancy. But a case not without its charms for what it lacks in outward appearance, it more than makes up for in contents, packed full of dreams, hopes, adventures, aspirations and potential I saw in the world as a young child.
Whereas my current case (the case here being a metaphor for my outlook on holidays generally) is a cold unfriendly coal black rectangle, its strong artificial geometry only emphasized by its viciously sharp clean cut corners. Polished and newly formed with a sparkling reflective surface like the back of a beetle, but for all the novelty it holds as a brand new object, it is entirely worthless due to its contents or rather a lack thereof. When its gold coloured clasps are unfastened with a precise click and its lid smoothly opened, it sits a gaping empty casket of hopeless nothingness.
Recently I have begun to see holidays as nothing more than a depressing experience where one can agonizingly consciously experience the passing of time. Of course there are enjoyable moments, events and happenings to punctuate the dull monotone aimlessness of it all but these exactly that, mere moments ina far longer sequence.
Because when you're busy, the very act of excavating a free moment to do what you enjoy becomes a goal and a reward, like precious jewels occasionally discovered while hacking through a near endless tunnel with nothing but a rusty pick axe. However when the jewels begin to line the walls where before there was depressingly solid rock, after a very brief period of elation, the jewel market goes through a very rapid inflation and after a few days of hacking through nothing but vibrant beautiful jewels, all you want is too see some patches of dank depressing rock again. Soon you are driven solely by the desire to be reunited with boring old rocks and even begin to paint jewels black with tar just to convince yourself that its dull rock and not a stunning gem but in your heart of hearts you're aware of the fact it's just not the same.
Perhaps its a trait shared by all humans generally or possibly it is just a trait held by me, a damning indicator of my weak psyche as a human unable to experience true freedom, that we cannot handle purposelessness for a prolonged period of time. Perhaps the fact I am dependent on the school to provide me with daily doses of purpose shows how poisoned I have been by the system as a whole, I have been turned an aim addict. Corrupted and enchained, unable to feel true liberation, a prisoner of my own mind, I am a victim of the system. Therefore I blame the world for the fact I cannot experience holidays with the pure innocent thoughtless joy that I once did, instead having to painfully endure the knowledge that I am doing nothing substantial with my time as I gradually waste away my holiday hours, feeling my conscience slowly decompose. In short, I blame society.
Hence you might assume that the opportunity to take a break; to go on holiday; to flee from the menacing malicious parade of labor (seemingly forever in slow but definite pursuit) even if only for a few short weeks, would seem like my ultimate goal. A safe haven, my equivalent of the helicopter complete with ladder for the fleeing foiled villain atop a building, the beautiful oasis filled with water and vegetation for the weary desert camel rider or the inviting open toilet bowl for the severely inebriated guest in a house decorated with expensive carpets.
However that is not the case. That is a case that belonged to me about three, possibly two years ago. A worn old case, its aged leather surface scratched and eroded with time, any colour it might once have had long since faded out save in a few faint patches which stubbornly stain their ground as the last crumbling bastion of dying vibrancy. But a case not without its charms for what it lacks in outward appearance, it more than makes up for in contents, packed full of dreams, hopes, adventures, aspirations and potential I saw in the world as a young child.
Whereas my current case (the case here being a metaphor for my outlook on holidays generally) is a cold unfriendly coal black rectangle, its strong artificial geometry only emphasized by its viciously sharp clean cut corners. Polished and newly formed with a sparkling reflective surface like the back of a beetle, but for all the novelty it holds as a brand new object, it is entirely worthless due to its contents or rather a lack thereof. When its gold coloured clasps are unfastened with a precise click and its lid smoothly opened, it sits a gaping empty casket of hopeless nothingness.
Recently I have begun to see holidays as nothing more than a depressing experience where one can agonizingly consciously experience the passing of time. Of course there are enjoyable moments, events and happenings to punctuate the dull monotone aimlessness of it all but these exactly that, mere moments ina far longer sequence.
Because when you're busy, the very act of excavating a free moment to do what you enjoy becomes a goal and a reward, like precious jewels occasionally discovered while hacking through a near endless tunnel with nothing but a rusty pick axe. However when the jewels begin to line the walls where before there was depressingly solid rock, after a very brief period of elation, the jewel market goes through a very rapid inflation and after a few days of hacking through nothing but vibrant beautiful jewels, all you want is too see some patches of dank depressing rock again. Soon you are driven solely by the desire to be reunited with boring old rocks and even begin to paint jewels black with tar just to convince yourself that its dull rock and not a stunning gem but in your heart of hearts you're aware of the fact it's just not the same.
Perhaps its a trait shared by all humans generally or possibly it is just a trait held by me, a damning indicator of my weak psyche as a human unable to experience true freedom, that we cannot handle purposelessness for a prolonged period of time. Perhaps the fact I am dependent on the school to provide me with daily doses of purpose shows how poisoned I have been by the system as a whole, I have been turned an aim addict. Corrupted and enchained, unable to feel true liberation, a prisoner of my own mind, I am a victim of the system. Therefore I blame the world for the fact I cannot experience holidays with the pure innocent thoughtless joy that I once did, instead having to painfully endure the knowledge that I am doing nothing substantial with my time as I gradually waste away my holiday hours, feeling my conscience slowly decompose. In short, I blame society.
Monday, 15 October 2012
Doughnut
I'm certain most people have had the experience of a disappointing doughnut. Obviously I've just made the gross assumption that whoever, out of my very meager readership, is currently unenthusiastically running their bored eyes through this block of text, lives in an area of the world where doughnuts are readily accessible. That is to say, you, the reader, are not at present living in some impoverished mud hut situated within a third world country, clicking the computer mouse with starved twig like fingers and sitting on a chair more three dimensional than you are. However if that is the case, I would recommend that you sell the computer and use the money to buy yourself food, get something nice like some doughnuts. I'm honored that reading my blog is that important to you but would suggest that staying alive is perhaps ever so slightly more vital.
To the other relatively non-impoverished majority of readers, I call upon you to recall a disappointing doughnut. In particular, a jam doughnut. It may be difficult, it may be painful, but try to remember that traumatic moment you felt thoroughly emotionally let down by a piece of confectionery. Close your eyes, let your mind wander back. In fact open your eyes since the act of closing your eyes must have prevented you from reading the proceeding instructions unless your eyelids are somehow translucent like the flesh of a jellyfish. Now, close one eye but keep the other eye open to read the instructions (unless you are the jellyfish man in which case your translucent eyelids allow you to see the instructions near perfectly without your eyes necessarily being open) then relax, think pleasant calming thoughts and allow your mind to drift back like a dead body down a river.
You are a child again, your mind is pure, untainted and innocent. Words like "systematic", "infant" and "abuse" still hold no meaning for you and consequently you would be unable to accurately describe the games you play with your uncle when your parents are out, even if you wanted to. However that is not important at present, you must focus your mind on some doughnuts. Some round jam doughnuts which you assumed are packed full of sweet jam. No, not your uncle's two jam doughnuts, that is a different story for a different time, possibly involving a judge, jury and an anatomically accurate doll which you will be asked to point precisely at.
Back to the jam doughnuts. Spherical balls of fried dough with a fine snow like sprinkling upon its golden coloured surface. You take one in your hand and bringing it to your mouth and imagining the delicious explosion of sugary flavor that will spread through your mouth as the jam breaks free of its floury confines, you bite down on it. Only to find that it tastes of nothing more than slightly sweet bread. You take a second bite, quickly followed by a desperate third, panicked and frantic like a mother looking for her lost child, you search in vain for the luxurious treasure trove of jam that was promised to you from the name "jam doughnut". Finally you find it, not a treasure trove, not a medium sized storage box, not even a shoe box but barely a scientific spatula full of jam.
The unappealing globule of slightly sweet scarlet gel, the same colour and texture as congealed blood, lies sullenly, like some severely angst filled teenager sitting knees up to his chin, in a tiny corner of the doughnut. The same air of vague depression that is being emitted from the pathetic section of jam soon permeates your head, darkly filling the void left behind by the happy expectations which dissolved the moment you took your first hopeful bite. Feeling thoroughly let down by the supposed treat turned traitor, you cannot help but think to yourself, "Is that really it? After all that seemingly important build up, there's so little actual meaningful substance there!"
That feeling, the sensation of surprise, betrayal and vague disappointment, is probably what most of my readership feel at the end of one of my long winded articles and it is more than likely the precise reason why I am yet to gain any followers.
To the other relatively non-impoverished majority of readers, I call upon you to recall a disappointing doughnut. In particular, a jam doughnut. It may be difficult, it may be painful, but try to remember that traumatic moment you felt thoroughly emotionally let down by a piece of confectionery. Close your eyes, let your mind wander back. In fact open your eyes since the act of closing your eyes must have prevented you from reading the proceeding instructions unless your eyelids are somehow translucent like the flesh of a jellyfish. Now, close one eye but keep the other eye open to read the instructions (unless you are the jellyfish man in which case your translucent eyelids allow you to see the instructions near perfectly without your eyes necessarily being open) then relax, think pleasant calming thoughts and allow your mind to drift back like a dead body down a river.
You are a child again, your mind is pure, untainted and innocent. Words like "systematic", "infant" and "abuse" still hold no meaning for you and consequently you would be unable to accurately describe the games you play with your uncle when your parents are out, even if you wanted to. However that is not important at present, you must focus your mind on some doughnuts. Some round jam doughnuts which you assumed are packed full of sweet jam. No, not your uncle's two jam doughnuts, that is a different story for a different time, possibly involving a judge, jury and an anatomically accurate doll which you will be asked to point precisely at.
Back to the jam doughnuts. Spherical balls of fried dough with a fine snow like sprinkling upon its golden coloured surface. You take one in your hand and bringing it to your mouth and imagining the delicious explosion of sugary flavor that will spread through your mouth as the jam breaks free of its floury confines, you bite down on it. Only to find that it tastes of nothing more than slightly sweet bread. You take a second bite, quickly followed by a desperate third, panicked and frantic like a mother looking for her lost child, you search in vain for the luxurious treasure trove of jam that was promised to you from the name "jam doughnut". Finally you find it, not a treasure trove, not a medium sized storage box, not even a shoe box but barely a scientific spatula full of jam.
The unappealing globule of slightly sweet scarlet gel, the same colour and texture as congealed blood, lies sullenly, like some severely angst filled teenager sitting knees up to his chin, in a tiny corner of the doughnut. The same air of vague depression that is being emitted from the pathetic section of jam soon permeates your head, darkly filling the void left behind by the happy expectations which dissolved the moment you took your first hopeful bite. Feeling thoroughly let down by the supposed treat turned traitor, you cannot help but think to yourself, "Is that really it? After all that seemingly important build up, there's so little actual meaningful substance there!"
That feeling, the sensation of surprise, betrayal and vague disappointment, is probably what most of my readership feel at the end of one of my long winded articles and it is more than likely the precise reason why I am yet to gain any followers.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Urges
Sometimes there are moments when you just feel like doing a particular thing. Like when you get home after a hard day at work and you really crave a cup of tea or when you wake up first thing in the morning and experience a burning desire to have a nice refreshing shower. In my case, I have recently been feeling incessant urges to water board someone.
To those who think water boarding sounds like a form of leisure activity to be performed on some sunny remote island by tanned men and women in swimming suits, I would say that they are half right. It is a form of torture consisting of covering the victim's face with a piece of soaked cloth and pouring water onto it, thus giving the victim a perfect sensation of drowning, arguably the ultimate in sensory illusions (which makes it sound like some sort of Disney Land attraction). It has most recently made the news when it came to light that interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, a remote sunny island used to imprison a lot of tanned people, regularly used water boarding on the detainees. Whether the interrogators counted it as a leisure activity and whether the detainees were wearing swimsuits when it happened is yet an undisclosed mystery.
I wake up in the morning, sunlight crawling lazily into my window through the half open blinds (which I still treat with a mixture of suspicion and fear as I'm not entirely sure how to operate its complicated system of strings and thinly cut plastic boards yet) and walk somewhat unsteadily to my kitchen, sleep still blurring my vision. Upon arriving in the open plan culinary hub of our household, I lumber up to the sink and with a twist of the gleaming silver tap, fill a cup with cool water. As I lift the cup to drink, I ponder for a moment, looking at the glass container filled to the rim in potentially suffocating liquid, the evolution of technology from the simple well to the grand network of pipes and tunnels that now reside, spread like some aquatic web, beneath the metropolis.
Finishing my drink, I wipe my cup on the tea towel that, if soaked and placed over someone's horizontal face, could cause considerable discomfort and I briefly wonder about the intricate layers of fabric that have gone into making this simple every day tool. Scratching my itching head, I return to my bedroom whereupon my eyes fall on my school bag, within which, I know, resides a timetable that dictates that I should be arriving in my school within the next thirty minutes or be facing the consequences within the next thirty five. My mind then, bored of scuttling up this particular branch of thought, leaps nimbly onto an adjacent cognitive branch concerning the people I will surely meet through the school day. This branch then spreads out into several different twigs that can all collectively be labeled under the title, "people I know".
It is then that I feel a strong urge to water board. I really could not say why. Perhaps the cause is in some undetectable stress or irritation but I am no psychiatrist and if ordinary people like myself could easily detect the causes of irrational thoughts or desires then I'm sure that particular job would have been abolished as obsolete a long time ago. However, if I were to make a complete and random guess, a total stab in the pitch black darkness, a wild baseless assumption then it would be the fact that I hate at least sixty percent of the people I am associated with.
Acting as further cause of stress, presently at school there is a certain social reshuffle occurring. With the introduction of forty or so new, most of them female, students into what used to be an all boys school, what had been a concrete social hierarchy is currently shifting and merging. The injection of fresh blood into what was previously a stable system has acted as a catalyst for school politics, causing a chemical reaction as the result of which alliances and treaties are being written, unwritten and rewritten at the speed of light. A decisive moment of school history, when being considered a generally attractive human being or not is crucial in cementing ones social status for the next two years. In essence, whether you are subject of mockery or the mocker is as malleable as molten metal at present. However like molten metal, though it may be flexible now, it will harden and set in no time. Allowing those at the top to stay at the top and causing those trapped within the lower social echelons to be imprisoned there forever.
Therefore, taking this as a revolutionary opportunity, many of those I have long since despised and mocked have begun their ascent. With it they have altered their attitude, perhaps in an attempt to alter the past as well, where before some may not have talked to me (knowing full well I found them dull detestable individuals and had no reservations about articulating these thoughts) for fear of being verbally humiliated, they now act as if we have been the best of friends for the past few years. Irritatingly, I myself have to then bite back harsh words of hatred, that I would have happily spewed over them a few months back, because the present state of affairs dictates that all previous social levels have been flattened to create a soft even playground and any careless public display of needlessly malicious wrath could result in rapid sinking.
Therefore, at present I must content myself with hidden malignant machinations and bide my time. However just they wait, once alliances and positions have been set in stone, once this quagmire becomes solid ground yet again, I'll ensure they're back to wearing bright orange onzies on their own remote social island where I'll be waiting for them, a wet towel in one hand and a bucket full of water in the other.
To those who think water boarding sounds like a form of leisure activity to be performed on some sunny remote island by tanned men and women in swimming suits, I would say that they are half right. It is a form of torture consisting of covering the victim's face with a piece of soaked cloth and pouring water onto it, thus giving the victim a perfect sensation of drowning, arguably the ultimate in sensory illusions (which makes it sound like some sort of Disney Land attraction). It has most recently made the news when it came to light that interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, a remote sunny island used to imprison a lot of tanned people, regularly used water boarding on the detainees. Whether the interrogators counted it as a leisure activity and whether the detainees were wearing swimsuits when it happened is yet an undisclosed mystery.
I wake up in the morning, sunlight crawling lazily into my window through the half open blinds (which I still treat with a mixture of suspicion and fear as I'm not entirely sure how to operate its complicated system of strings and thinly cut plastic boards yet) and walk somewhat unsteadily to my kitchen, sleep still blurring my vision. Upon arriving in the open plan culinary hub of our household, I lumber up to the sink and with a twist of the gleaming silver tap, fill a cup with cool water. As I lift the cup to drink, I ponder for a moment, looking at the glass container filled to the rim in potentially suffocating liquid, the evolution of technology from the simple well to the grand network of pipes and tunnels that now reside, spread like some aquatic web, beneath the metropolis.
Finishing my drink, I wipe my cup on the tea towel that, if soaked and placed over someone's horizontal face, could cause considerable discomfort and I briefly wonder about the intricate layers of fabric that have gone into making this simple every day tool. Scratching my itching head, I return to my bedroom whereupon my eyes fall on my school bag, within which, I know, resides a timetable that dictates that I should be arriving in my school within the next thirty minutes or be facing the consequences within the next thirty five. My mind then, bored of scuttling up this particular branch of thought, leaps nimbly onto an adjacent cognitive branch concerning the people I will surely meet through the school day. This branch then spreads out into several different twigs that can all collectively be labeled under the title, "people I know".
It is then that I feel a strong urge to water board. I really could not say why. Perhaps the cause is in some undetectable stress or irritation but I am no psychiatrist and if ordinary people like myself could easily detect the causes of irrational thoughts or desires then I'm sure that particular job would have been abolished as obsolete a long time ago. However, if I were to make a complete and random guess, a total stab in the pitch black darkness, a wild baseless assumption then it would be the fact that I hate at least sixty percent of the people I am associated with.
Acting as further cause of stress, presently at school there is a certain social reshuffle occurring. With the introduction of forty or so new, most of them female, students into what used to be an all boys school, what had been a concrete social hierarchy is currently shifting and merging. The injection of fresh blood into what was previously a stable system has acted as a catalyst for school politics, causing a chemical reaction as the result of which alliances and treaties are being written, unwritten and rewritten at the speed of light. A decisive moment of school history, when being considered a generally attractive human being or not is crucial in cementing ones social status for the next two years. In essence, whether you are subject of mockery or the mocker is as malleable as molten metal at present. However like molten metal, though it may be flexible now, it will harden and set in no time. Allowing those at the top to stay at the top and causing those trapped within the lower social echelons to be imprisoned there forever.
Therefore, taking this as a revolutionary opportunity, many of those I have long since despised and mocked have begun their ascent. With it they have altered their attitude, perhaps in an attempt to alter the past as well, where before some may not have talked to me (knowing full well I found them dull detestable individuals and had no reservations about articulating these thoughts) for fear of being verbally humiliated, they now act as if we have been the best of friends for the past few years. Irritatingly, I myself have to then bite back harsh words of hatred, that I would have happily spewed over them a few months back, because the present state of affairs dictates that all previous social levels have been flattened to create a soft even playground and any careless public display of needlessly malicious wrath could result in rapid sinking.
Therefore, at present I must content myself with hidden malignant machinations and bide my time. However just they wait, once alliances and positions have been set in stone, once this quagmire becomes solid ground yet again, I'll ensure they're back to wearing bright orange onzies on their own remote social island where I'll be waiting for them, a wet towel in one hand and a bucket full of water in the other.
Thursday, 11 October 2012
Alone in the Mansion
The once crowded mansion stands empty, its heavy oak doors, which once shone with a refined polish, now sit in slow lusterless decay. Those poorly maintained gates have been motionless for a few hours now, no one has entered or left since the rusty creak of the last departure which echoed forlornly through the dusty corridor. The fading gray rooms are filled with the desolate silence of an abandoned building, gone are the days when the sound of snide and mocking but nonetheless happy laughter had bounced through its sparkling structure. All have left to pursue a vast and varied life outside its thick impenetrable walls, all but one. This is the Bachelor Mansion.
The lone figure sits hunched malignantly by a fireplace black with soot, a cold empty fire place in the shape of a heart. In the figures twisted malicious hands is clutched a once fine china mug, its pristine white surface now stained to a dull yellow. The mug contains a deep dark brown fluid, tar like both in appearance and texture, very strong tea without milk or sugar. Very bitter tea. Very very bitter tea.
How did it come to this? There used to be others here with me. All snidely talking about the foolishness of love and the stupidity of relationships, mockingly discussing romantic ideals or viciously insulting those clueless fools roaming outside the mansion. Now there is only me, me and my thoughts which provide no comfort at all.
I'm certain everyone has experienced that one long distance race at school where the five or so non athletic friends line up at the starting line, smiling humorously at each other. After a brief minute of amicable discussions its decided that all of them will take it slow, go at a nice jogging pace, take it easy, cruise it, chill. The starting pistol is fired into the air and one secretly competitive supposed comrade suddenly breaks rank, running with all his strength so as to get as far ahead as possible before the others realize they have been deceived. In that instance, everyone shakes their heads and roundly agrees that the one former comrade dashing aggressively ahead is, to put it mildly, a complete dick and should be excommunicated from the alliance of the non athletic.
However this time round, we all agreed to take it easy but all except one, at the sound of the starting pistol, revealed themselves to be secretly competitive dicks charging headlong down the path of romantic success. By the time I realize what's happened and decide to quicken my jogging pace, that is at present infinitely close to a walk, it's all too late and my former comrades have crossed the finishing line, cheering as they do so. I watch them celebrate, teeth gritted and all I want to do is take the starting pistol and take careful aim at those distant , now coupled, figures.
I thought we were all on the same boat, all proudly sailing under the fluttering banner of "Awkward", the academic cynical types whose only knowledge of love came through a study of biochemistry, a bunch of social outcasts united by our ability to insult romantics in Latin. Now "Amicus" has turned "Hostis", "Callidus" has turned "Stultus", they have all recently dived into the surrounding oceans to leave me bobbing up and down on the unstable raft, feeling more than a little bit nauseous.
Riding the wave of a drunken kiss or holding onto the helpful dolphin of previously hidden charisma, my former fellow sailors swiftly move across the ocean to reach their own idyllic islands, overgrown with convenient coconut trees and pretty flowers as I watch on from a distance. My last fellow bachelor sailor dived from the raft a few hours ago, or rather was gently pulled into the waves by an enticing mermaid (I sincerely hope that this is a mermaid of slightly older, more brutal, less Disney type myths which will go on to ravenously shred and devour the ex-comrade turned turn coat). Now I stand alone, realizing suddenly that my raft has developed a hole and is sinking fast. It's either swim or drown from here and I haven't done much swimming since I received my Kellogg's Frosties 200meter swimmer badge seven years ago.
The lone figure sits hunched malignantly by a fireplace black with soot, a cold empty fire place in the shape of a heart. In the figures twisted malicious hands is clutched a once fine china mug, its pristine white surface now stained to a dull yellow. The mug contains a deep dark brown fluid, tar like both in appearance and texture, very strong tea without milk or sugar. Very bitter tea. Very very bitter tea.
How did it come to this? There used to be others here with me. All snidely talking about the foolishness of love and the stupidity of relationships, mockingly discussing romantic ideals or viciously insulting those clueless fools roaming outside the mansion. Now there is only me, me and my thoughts which provide no comfort at all.
I'm certain everyone has experienced that one long distance race at school where the five or so non athletic friends line up at the starting line, smiling humorously at each other. After a brief minute of amicable discussions its decided that all of them will take it slow, go at a nice jogging pace, take it easy, cruise it, chill. The starting pistol is fired into the air and one secretly competitive supposed comrade suddenly breaks rank, running with all his strength so as to get as far ahead as possible before the others realize they have been deceived. In that instance, everyone shakes their heads and roundly agrees that the one former comrade dashing aggressively ahead is, to put it mildly, a complete dick and should be excommunicated from the alliance of the non athletic.
However this time round, we all agreed to take it easy but all except one, at the sound of the starting pistol, revealed themselves to be secretly competitive dicks charging headlong down the path of romantic success. By the time I realize what's happened and decide to quicken my jogging pace, that is at present infinitely close to a walk, it's all too late and my former comrades have crossed the finishing line, cheering as they do so. I watch them celebrate, teeth gritted and all I want to do is take the starting pistol and take careful aim at those distant , now coupled, figures.
I thought we were all on the same boat, all proudly sailing under the fluttering banner of "Awkward", the academic cynical types whose only knowledge of love came through a study of biochemistry, a bunch of social outcasts united by our ability to insult romantics in Latin. Now "Amicus" has turned "Hostis", "Callidus" has turned "Stultus", they have all recently dived into the surrounding oceans to leave me bobbing up and down on the unstable raft, feeling more than a little bit nauseous.
Riding the wave of a drunken kiss or holding onto the helpful dolphin of previously hidden charisma, my former fellow sailors swiftly move across the ocean to reach their own idyllic islands, overgrown with convenient coconut trees and pretty flowers as I watch on from a distance. My last fellow bachelor sailor dived from the raft a few hours ago, or rather was gently pulled into the waves by an enticing mermaid (I sincerely hope that this is a mermaid of slightly older, more brutal, less Disney type myths which will go on to ravenously shred and devour the ex-comrade turned turn coat). Now I stand alone, realizing suddenly that my raft has developed a hole and is sinking fast. It's either swim or drown from here and I haven't done much swimming since I received my Kellogg's Frosties 200meter swimmer badge seven years ago.
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Racing Time
I am currently having a race against time, my computer monitor tells me that it is 23:42 at the exact moment of the writing of this sentence and if I am to stick to the one blog post a day system that I have set myself then I must complete something within the next seventeen minutes. The starting pistol has been fired and right now it feels like it's been fired horizontally next to me and I'm desperately racing the bullet. And since I am not of African origin nor am I particularly athletic, the latter perhaps more important than the former which could be perceived as a little bit racist, the likelihood that I win is extremely slim.
For one thing the very fact I've been managing to stick to the "one post a day system"(there's something not quite nice about the ring of that phrase, it somehow has an institutionalized totalitarian atmosphere similar to the Chinese "One child per family system".) considering I'm extremely easily bored and usually any of the projects which I propose with an air of self deception, knowing in my heart of hearts that it really will be the exact opposite, "will be long running" usually end up faltering to a halt two days in.
Nonetheless I've managed to soldier on this time and I've maintained some sort of structure and residual wit throughout all of my blog posts despite the fact that I have readership which is constantly on a low hanging surface skimming glide above the sea of zero. However even that glittering legacy may come to an end today as I have nine minutes left to think of a coherent topic, structure and punchline for a vaguely amusing, semi witty post which uses a needless amount of convoluted over stretched metaphors and complicated similes, combined with a lovely sprinkle of obscure analogies that do very little to actually clarify the situation. This must be what James Bond feels like upon faced with a ticking bomb which his enemy has, for reasons unknown, always left on timer, as opposed to say, triggered to explode when he gives the signal or presses a button (which would be a lot more convenient all things considered, all things in this case including a somehow invincible, invulnerable, seductive spy whose face and character changes every once in a while, each new Bond displaying a new and completely different set of features and characteristics apart from the one resoundingly common link that they are all very very white and posh). The ultimate question, the blue wire or the red wire? Should I just give up now and post an incomplete piece or post several seconds after midnight, thereby failing my daily quota.
For one thing I'm yet to even think of a proper topic for this post let alone a punchline. Hmm... Ah, the punchline is that I have in fact used the idea of not having a topic as a topic? How's that? ...A little weak perhaps?
For one thing the very fact I've been managing to stick to the "one post a day system"(there's something not quite nice about the ring of that phrase, it somehow has an institutionalized totalitarian atmosphere similar to the Chinese "One child per family system".) considering I'm extremely easily bored and usually any of the projects which I propose with an air of self deception, knowing in my heart of hearts that it really will be the exact opposite, "will be long running" usually end up faltering to a halt two days in.
Nonetheless I've managed to soldier on this time and I've maintained some sort of structure and residual wit throughout all of my blog posts despite the fact that I have readership which is constantly on a low hanging surface skimming glide above the sea of zero. However even that glittering legacy may come to an end today as I have nine minutes left to think of a coherent topic, structure and punchline for a vaguely amusing, semi witty post which uses a needless amount of convoluted over stretched metaphors and complicated similes, combined with a lovely sprinkle of obscure analogies that do very little to actually clarify the situation. This must be what James Bond feels like upon faced with a ticking bomb which his enemy has, for reasons unknown, always left on timer, as opposed to say, triggered to explode when he gives the signal or presses a button (which would be a lot more convenient all things considered, all things in this case including a somehow invincible, invulnerable, seductive spy whose face and character changes every once in a while, each new Bond displaying a new and completely different set of features and characteristics apart from the one resoundingly common link that they are all very very white and posh). The ultimate question, the blue wire or the red wire? Should I just give up now and post an incomplete piece or post several seconds after midnight, thereby failing my daily quota.
For one thing I'm yet to even think of a proper topic for this post let alone a punchline. Hmm... Ah, the punchline is that I have in fact used the idea of not having a topic as a topic? How's that? ...A little weak perhaps?
Monday, 8 October 2012
The Case of the Missing Missing Laptop
It has been a few days since I finally managed to set up a Detective Agency Club within the school and though I am yet to create promotional posters, I'm sure the days of sleuth success are on the horizon. With such hopeful sunny thoughts floating happily within my cranium, I trudged in from the contrastingly wet weather outside. Swinging, thrusting, throwing and catching my still dripping umbrella, the very picture of a slightly damp ninja in training, I pondered on the elegant power of the umbrella (A shield to protect one from the rain as well as a potential weapon with which to enter combat, therefore a near invincible multipurpose object capable of both defense and offense) and what it would be like to properly hit someone with it, dexterously wielding the umbrella as a substitute long sword.
As I was fantasizing about gladiatorial matches to the death fought entirely with umbrellas, Underling Butler (a bitter, snide and posh creature with a constant under tone of mild malice, topped off with more than a touch of private school arrogance. Capable of verbose rants and ravings, quite rich with a very well stocked and local house a minutes walk from the school gates, an optimum location to raid for supplies) trotted my way.
"Hey," he shouted clearly in a voice that I felt should be deported back to Downton Abbey, "I have an actual detective case for you!" The last time anyone had said anything like this to me, it had been Hunter Swift, reporting to me one illegal placement of an apple core within her locker, hence I inquired what the matter was without much enthusiasm.
A rather surprising reply came my way, "My laptop," declared Underling Butler, "It's been stolen" I paused for a moment, wondering whether I had fantasized those words. An actual proper valuable theft! To an underling of mine no less! What better opportunity to show my not inconsiderable skills as a detective!
After several minutes celebrating the fact Underling Butler's laptop had been stolen. I immediately took up my role as investigation leader, announcing we should start a series of inquiries and take witness statements. Underling Butler, however, suggested we consider our plan thoroughly first.
Since we were, as of yet, short of a detective office and therefore a place in which we might thoroughly discuss a plan. It was decided on going to Underling Butler's house, a minutes walk away. We made our way down the short stretch of road by a slightly unkempt common, turned quagmire by the downpour. Underling Butler at a brisk walking pace, while I skipped cheerfully along. A few seconds down the scenic, some would say picturesque or quaint, route then a swift turn left and we were before Underling Butler's house.
We rang on the doorbell, the sound of which echoed within the expensive structure of his domain, to shortly be let in by a maid. "Right, well," began Underling Butler walking towards the kitchen, a holy inner sanctuary of foodstuffs and oasis of various edible treats, "I..." here he paused. A silence filled the corridor, a silence only punctuated by the miserable, slightly pathetic shuffling of his recently castrated dog Nero, a name which somehow seemed a little too ballsy for the whining canine.
I coughed then asked why the pointlessly long pause, after I had judged the pause to be sufficiently long enough to be classified as pointlessly long. Underling Butler continued to stare at the table ahead of him and the object atop it for a few more seconds, then slowly turning around, he announced in a slightly sing song voice, "I appear to have left my laptop at home... sorry"
On the positive side, I now know what it feels like to properly hit someone with an umbrella.
As I was fantasizing about gladiatorial matches to the death fought entirely with umbrellas, Underling Butler (a bitter, snide and posh creature with a constant under tone of mild malice, topped off with more than a touch of private school arrogance. Capable of verbose rants and ravings, quite rich with a very well stocked and local house a minutes walk from the school gates, an optimum location to raid for supplies) trotted my way.
"Hey," he shouted clearly in a voice that I felt should be deported back to Downton Abbey, "I have an actual detective case for you!" The last time anyone had said anything like this to me, it had been Hunter Swift, reporting to me one illegal placement of an apple core within her locker, hence I inquired what the matter was without much enthusiasm.
A rather surprising reply came my way, "My laptop," declared Underling Butler, "It's been stolen" I paused for a moment, wondering whether I had fantasized those words. An actual proper valuable theft! To an underling of mine no less! What better opportunity to show my not inconsiderable skills as a detective!
After several minutes celebrating the fact Underling Butler's laptop had been stolen. I immediately took up my role as investigation leader, announcing we should start a series of inquiries and take witness statements. Underling Butler, however, suggested we consider our plan thoroughly first.
Since we were, as of yet, short of a detective office and therefore a place in which we might thoroughly discuss a plan. It was decided on going to Underling Butler's house, a minutes walk away. We made our way down the short stretch of road by a slightly unkempt common, turned quagmire by the downpour. Underling Butler at a brisk walking pace, while I skipped cheerfully along. A few seconds down the scenic, some would say picturesque or quaint, route then a swift turn left and we were before Underling Butler's house.
We rang on the doorbell, the sound of which echoed within the expensive structure of his domain, to shortly be let in by a maid. "Right, well," began Underling Butler walking towards the kitchen, a holy inner sanctuary of foodstuffs and oasis of various edible treats, "I..." here he paused. A silence filled the corridor, a silence only punctuated by the miserable, slightly pathetic shuffling of his recently castrated dog Nero, a name which somehow seemed a little too ballsy for the whining canine.
I coughed then asked why the pointlessly long pause, after I had judged the pause to be sufficiently long enough to be classified as pointlessly long. Underling Butler continued to stare at the table ahead of him and the object atop it for a few more seconds, then slowly turning around, he announced in a slightly sing song voice, "I appear to have left my laptop at home... sorry"
On the positive side, I now know what it feels like to properly hit someone with an umbrella.
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Procrastination
The time is fast approaching midnight and it is Sunday evening. As such there is school tomorrow starting at eight thirty in the morning sharp and there is a 3 page history essay and a write up on a Shakespearean play due in tomorrow, both of which are as of yet looking resoundingly uncompleted.
I am currently procrastinating in the same way that a man who has been pushed from the empire states building procrastinates the inevitable collision with the ground by flapping his arms and hoping the bingo wings he's acquired through many years of unhealthy eating will somehow catch the wind and allow him flight.
I admit that procrastination is not the best way forward nor is it the best habit to have since it tends to manifest its self in moments of pressure and immanent danger where concentration and willpower as opposed to the desire to do anything but what you're meant to be doing, are necessary. It's true that no airplane has ever been saved by a pilot procrastinating the emergency flight procedure with the plane falling apart around him as the ever increasing emotional and air pressure take hold.
However in other less potentially fatal circumstances, procrastination may prove its self the mother of invention (in which case the pressuring work load would be the brutally abusive and sadistic twisted father of invention). I am willing to bet serious money, in relativity to the total sum of my pitiful finances (so about five pounds and fifty seven pence) that if ever a time machine is invented, it will be invented by a procrastinator creating a machine out of the manic desire to travel back to that very morning so he could get started on the bloody 3 page history essay a few hours earlier than he actually did.
I've just given it some thought (which also took some increasingly precious time. Time is currently going through a period of extreme deflation. I am pretty sure that if time is money then the time now is worth at least a hundred times more than the time this morning) and it seems that I'm yet unable to come up with a working time machine. Hence, with sixty five minutes to midnight and the prospect of getting up at six in the morning tomorrow. I shall now leave this place to start my history essay.
I am currently procrastinating in the same way that a man who has been pushed from the empire states building procrastinates the inevitable collision with the ground by flapping his arms and hoping the bingo wings he's acquired through many years of unhealthy eating will somehow catch the wind and allow him flight.
I admit that procrastination is not the best way forward nor is it the best habit to have since it tends to manifest its self in moments of pressure and immanent danger where concentration and willpower as opposed to the desire to do anything but what you're meant to be doing, are necessary. It's true that no airplane has ever been saved by a pilot procrastinating the emergency flight procedure with the plane falling apart around him as the ever increasing emotional and air pressure take hold.
However in other less potentially fatal circumstances, procrastination may prove its self the mother of invention (in which case the pressuring work load would be the brutally abusive and sadistic twisted father of invention). I am willing to bet serious money, in relativity to the total sum of my pitiful finances (so about five pounds and fifty seven pence) that if ever a time machine is invented, it will be invented by a procrastinator creating a machine out of the manic desire to travel back to that very morning so he could get started on the bloody 3 page history essay a few hours earlier than he actually did.
I've just given it some thought (which also took some increasingly precious time. Time is currently going through a period of extreme deflation. I am pretty sure that if time is money then the time now is worth at least a hundred times more than the time this morning) and it seems that I'm yet unable to come up with a working time machine. Hence, with sixty five minutes to midnight and the prospect of getting up at six in the morning tomorrow. I shall now leave this place to start my history essay.
Saturday, 6 October 2012
Musical Musings
Last night at my school there was a small charity musical festival of sorts titled TILT where several bands composed of students of the school stood on stage to sing and play various instruments. A festival I did not attend due to several reasons. Firstly the tickets cost five pounds, with five pounds I could buy myself a decent meal at KFC or Subway or maybe even a medium portion of fries at Caffe Rouge. Secondly I was quite convinced that if I were to buy some fries to sit silently crying and eating, all alone in a dark corner of Caffe Rouge, I would still have a better Friday night out than those attending TILT due to the fact that the latter had been organized by a certain member of staff called Miss Peel.
In order to get an accurate mental image of Miss Peel, first imagine an ordinary woman. Then throw her into a cave in which dwells a horrendous dragon. The dragon then hungrily devours the woman's face, scarring her both physically and psychologically thus creating a pitiful twisted miserable human being. Miss Peel is that dragon. She can often be seen hungrily patrolling the school grounds, blond hair flowing behind her like beer regurgitated out of a car. Her features covered by a bullet proof layer of fake tan which nonetheless fails to conceal the crater like frown lines on her face, bearing greater resemblance to battle scars than wrinkles.
Because TILT had been coordinated by this monstrosity, I had been under the illusion that it would inevitably be horrendous seeing as the only thing remotely close to a party Miss Peel had ever been present at was, in all probability, her own summoning where she stood in the middle of a five pointed star as the Satanists who had brought her forth from the deepest depths of hell chanted and danced around her. However contrary to my expectations, Facebook news feed has been reliably informing me that TILT was a resounding success (as well as reliably informing me that if I Facebook like a particular photo of Jesus I will more than definitely go to heaven whereas if I were to ignore it, eternal damnation awaits) with accompanying photographs.
I have never been a musical type of human being. My taste in music does not range much beyond anime opening music (beyond this geeky borderline lies the terrifying vastness of popular culture, a place in which many a strange and horrifying beings dwell, giving out numbers and getting down on Fridays) and my only instrumental experience is the six months worth of utterly futile and fruitless violin lessons I took at the age of ten. Nonetheless even I had to concede that the photographs of people with guitars strapped across their chest, standing heroically on stage, smoke swirling around them and the flame like orange light to their back, were impressive.
Thus, for the first time in more than six years, I have begun to consider learning an instrument. However though I am blessed with the natural ability to annoy or torment, as well as the talent to ably articulate or compose aimless articles abound with artistic alliteration and draw decidedly disturbing doodles, I was not born with a single musically able bone in my body. So unmusical am I that if I were, having been killed by some ancient slightly arts-and-crafts type tribe, made into drums I would still create a horrible non rhythmic cacophony, unpleasant to listen to (which in this case, I suppose, would be some sort of petty revenge).
Tone is to me what ghosts are to most people. Something to be vaguely believed in and feared but never actually detected by the senses. I can keep rhythm in the same way football players can keep out of the paper. I am, also, by my own admission an extremely lazy individual, such a picture perfect representation of Sloth that I would volunteer myself for a portrait if a new illustrated bible were to be printed in future. Hence its surprising I've kept up this blog so far, let alone start to learn a musical instrument. Thus, when all these factors have been considered I am left with only a number of options: a)The triangle b)The rectangle c)The pentagon d)The hexagon e)The heptagon f)The octagon g)The nonagon and h)The decagon.
Though it does occur to me that (like the protagonist of some moralistic novel in which, for example, the main character starts off motivated by good will and attempting to gain money with which to hep the poor starts a lucrative business manufacturing carpets. Then over time is seduced by the allure of money its self and having run out of good carpet making material begins to round up and skin the poor to create cheap rugs to sell. Finally, having seen some suitably moving scene, the protagonist realizes that he, in compromising and pursuing alternative goals, had lost the main purpose of his deep moral journey.) I have wandered off some way from the original purpose of learning a musical instrument which was to look impressive in photographs. And while polygonic instruments are great in their own special way, one thing they are not is impressive when on stage.
A triangle simply cannot compare to the sheer magnitude of having a large guitar hung casually across your front like some large artistic shoulder bag packed full of awesome. Perhaps size is the issue here? Perhaps if there were some instrument, like a triangle but thicker and a meter in length, it would have the same gravitas as a guitar whilst maintaining the easy playability of a polygonic instrument. Sadly, at this moment in time, no such instrument exists. So until the day such a contraption arrives to revolutionize the musical scene, I shall regrettably be forced to postpone taking up an instrument.
In order to get an accurate mental image of Miss Peel, first imagine an ordinary woman. Then throw her into a cave in which dwells a horrendous dragon. The dragon then hungrily devours the woman's face, scarring her both physically and psychologically thus creating a pitiful twisted miserable human being. Miss Peel is that dragon. She can often be seen hungrily patrolling the school grounds, blond hair flowing behind her like beer regurgitated out of a car. Her features covered by a bullet proof layer of fake tan which nonetheless fails to conceal the crater like frown lines on her face, bearing greater resemblance to battle scars than wrinkles.
Because TILT had been coordinated by this monstrosity, I had been under the illusion that it would inevitably be horrendous seeing as the only thing remotely close to a party Miss Peel had ever been present at was, in all probability, her own summoning where she stood in the middle of a five pointed star as the Satanists who had brought her forth from the deepest depths of hell chanted and danced around her. However contrary to my expectations, Facebook news feed has been reliably informing me that TILT was a resounding success (as well as reliably informing me that if I Facebook like a particular photo of Jesus I will more than definitely go to heaven whereas if I were to ignore it, eternal damnation awaits) with accompanying photographs.
I have never been a musical type of human being. My taste in music does not range much beyond anime opening music (beyond this geeky borderline lies the terrifying vastness of popular culture, a place in which many a strange and horrifying beings dwell, giving out numbers and getting down on Fridays) and my only instrumental experience is the six months worth of utterly futile and fruitless violin lessons I took at the age of ten. Nonetheless even I had to concede that the photographs of people with guitars strapped across their chest, standing heroically on stage, smoke swirling around them and the flame like orange light to their back, were impressive.
Thus, for the first time in more than six years, I have begun to consider learning an instrument. However though I am blessed with the natural ability to annoy or torment, as well as the talent to ably articulate or compose aimless articles abound with artistic alliteration and draw decidedly disturbing doodles, I was not born with a single musically able bone in my body. So unmusical am I that if I were, having been killed by some ancient slightly arts-and-crafts type tribe, made into drums I would still create a horrible non rhythmic cacophony, unpleasant to listen to (which in this case, I suppose, would be some sort of petty revenge).
Tone is to me what ghosts are to most people. Something to be vaguely believed in and feared but never actually detected by the senses. I can keep rhythm in the same way football players can keep out of the paper. I am, also, by my own admission an extremely lazy individual, such a picture perfect representation of Sloth that I would volunteer myself for a portrait if a new illustrated bible were to be printed in future. Hence its surprising I've kept up this blog so far, let alone start to learn a musical instrument. Thus, when all these factors have been considered I am left with only a number of options: a)The triangle b)The rectangle c)The pentagon d)The hexagon e)The heptagon f)The octagon g)The nonagon and h)The decagon.
Though it does occur to me that (like the protagonist of some moralistic novel in which, for example, the main character starts off motivated by good will and attempting to gain money with which to hep the poor starts a lucrative business manufacturing carpets. Then over time is seduced by the allure of money its self and having run out of good carpet making material begins to round up and skin the poor to create cheap rugs to sell. Finally, having seen some suitably moving scene, the protagonist realizes that he, in compromising and pursuing alternative goals, had lost the main purpose of his deep moral journey.) I have wandered off some way from the original purpose of learning a musical instrument which was to look impressive in photographs. And while polygonic instruments are great in their own special way, one thing they are not is impressive when on stage.
A triangle simply cannot compare to the sheer magnitude of having a large guitar hung casually across your front like some large artistic shoulder bag packed full of awesome. Perhaps size is the issue here? Perhaps if there were some instrument, like a triangle but thicker and a meter in length, it would have the same gravitas as a guitar whilst maintaining the easy playability of a polygonic instrument. Sadly, at this moment in time, no such instrument exists. So until the day such a contraption arrives to revolutionize the musical scene, I shall regrettably be forced to postpone taking up an instrument.
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