Hot Vimto

ALD10 Lucy Suchman

2010-03-24T17:30:00.001Z

Lucy Suchman is an anthropologist of science and technology. She used to hold the position of Principal Scientist and manager of the Work Practice and Technology area at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Nowadays, she is the Professor of Professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology at Lancaster University, and the Co-Director of the Centre for Science Studies. Her home page is here.

Lucy's work has had a big influence on both my PhD, and the way I try to work with clients. When I was starting out in IT, everybody wanted to get down and build stuff, but compared to me, it seemed they didn't want to sit with the business people, "the users", and talk to them, and listen and observe, and find out what they do all day before they started designing stuff. That's what anthroplogists of technology do, and my journey has been all about finding out what I'm comfortable with, and what I'm good at, and how I can add value.

Lucy's most famous book (still, I think, though I'm no expert) is called 'Plans and Situated Actions'. It explores the differences between they way people talk when people ask us what we're doing ('Plans') and what we do when we are actually trying to get the job done (the Situated Action part.) This is a very important distinction for feminists, because a lot of the talk about work has been done by bosses who are male, and not by the people who actually do the work. It's also very important for knowledge workers in general, and anyone who has ever struggled to explain to an asshat bureaucrat - *cough*, sorry, to a manager, what is that's going on and why it matters. And of course, it is incredibly important for designers, who need to understand people's working practices well enough to create technology that serves its users, rather than slowing us down and getting in our way.

In a profession where most of the geeks are men who fancy themselves as engineers, I'm happy to be known as an anthropologist and an aspiring feminist.

Lucy is a real hero of mine. I'd like her to be your hero too.

September Gurls

2010-03-20T15:27:00.000Z

This is the tune that all the Alex Chilton fans seem to be playing this weekend. It's so utterly pubescent: "I loved you... well, never mind".

September gurls do so much
I was your butch and you were touched
I loved you well never mind
I've been crying all the time
December boys got it bad.
December boys got it bad.

September gurls I don't know why
How can I deny what's inside
Even thought I keep away
Maybe we'll love all our days.
December boys got it bad
December boys got it bad

When I get to bed
Late at night
That's the time
She makes things right
Ooh when she makes luv to me..

September gurls do so much
I was your butch and you were touched
I loved you well never mind
I've been crying all the time
December boys got it bad.
December boys got it bad
December boys got it bad
BIG STAR

Alex Chilton

2010-03-20T11:30:00.008Z

“Children by the million / sing for Alex Chilton
When he comes ’round
They sing “I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.“
('Alex Chilton' by The Replacements)

Alex Chilton sang about teenage love in ways that no other man managed before or since. He sang about a teenage boy's love. Songs like 'Thirteen', 'September Gurls', ''I'm In Love With A Girl" (all 1 minute 48 seconds of it!)

About a year ago, I posted the lyrics to Thirteen,

Won't you let me
Walk you home from school?
Won't you let me
meet you at the pool?

a song that perfectly expresses that astonishing season when you suddenly discover that girls are interesting (what do you mean? well... just... interesting) in a way that they have never been before. A season when you know nothing about girls, but you suddenly decide that you would quite to be with one of them.

(Be with? What the hell are you going on about?
What kind of wanting is that, wanting to be with someone?)

Alex Chilton died in New Orleans on Wednesday night. He was fifty-nine. Old for a teenager; young for a man. He was a year older than my dad when he died. (Nowadays I know, that is young.) And that song, Thirteen... that's the song about the year I discovered girls, which was also the year I discovered my dad was dying

Important stuff. A great many questions,
and no-one to answer them.

The Alex Chilton aong everybody seems to be turning to right now is 'September Gurls' (love that spelling.) I'll go and find the words, and post them here later today.

My Decade

2010-03-17T15:54:00.006Z

Ten years ago, I was working for my second Internet startup. Lastminute.com had just floated, and we were worried that the bubble was going to burst before we launched.

The bubble did burst. But it's not like we deserved any better. Ten years on, the most important events haven't been about work.

The loss of a marriage
The death of a child
Helping a friend off heroin
Bringing a paedophile to justice.

And now it's spring again, I'm starting to feel my way around.

I'm wounded, but healing.

Just so you know what all the song lyrics and cryptic references are about.

Alone With My Monsters

2010-03-14T23:18:00.008Z

(picture posed by models)

Slow down: Don't fuck with my high
I want be left alone here with my monsters
And say: now it's time
To ride to see lonely girls
And to not put the moves on them

All them tremendous brunettes around
All them tremendous brunettes
All them tremendous brunettes around

Praise now the baby genius
She skips in the shade
Of the lonely sour apple tree
While she snaps on her gum
Her gleaming teeth bared
And the shine that she shows to me

Tremendous brunettes around
All them tremendous brunttes around
Tremendous brunettes around
All them tremendous brunttes around

All of your ill-gotten games
That you have wipped up to a rich, foamy lather, girl
Nameless gnaw off my pains
Like three hundred trumpets and just one is out of tune

All them tremendous brunettes around
All them tremendous brunettes
All them tremendous brunettes around
MIKE DOUGHTY

Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.

2010-03-14T10:17:00.002Z

Once I was a sentimental thing,
Threw my heart away each spring;
Now a spring romance hasn't got a chance
Promised my first dance to winter;
All I've got to shows a splinter for my little fling!

Spring is here there's no mistaking
Robins building nests from coast to coast
My heart tries to sing
so they won't hear it breaking
Spring can really hang you up the most!

Mornings kiss wakes trees and flowers,
And to them I'd like to drink a toast;
I walk in the park just to kill lonely hours,
Spring can really hang you up the most.

Love came my way, I hope it would last;
We had our day, now that's all in the past!
Spring came along a season of song,
Full of sweet promise but something went wrong!

Doctors once prescribed a tonic,
Sulphur and molasses was the dose;
Didn't help a bit, my condition must be chronic,
Spring can really hang you up the most!

All alone, the party's over,
Old man winter was a gracious host;
But when you keep praying for snow to hide the clover
Spring can really hang you up the most!

Sung By: ELLA FITZGERALD

Too Much Caffeine

2010-03-13T13:58:00.005Z

Video on YouTube

Hangin' round
Downtown by myself
And I had too much time
To sit and think about myself

And then there she was
Like double cherry pie
Yeah there she was
Like disco superfly

I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting
Devious stares in my direction
Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream

Hangin' round
Downtown by myself
And I had too much caffeine
And I was thinkin' 'bout myself

And then there she was
In platform double suede
Yeah there she was
Like disco lemonade

I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting
Devious stares in my direction
Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this must be my dream.

Words and Music: JOHN WOZNIAK
Performed by: MARCY PLAYGROUND

Video on YouTube

Mainly Angry

2010-03-09T18:41:00.004Z

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

2010-03-07T12:25:00.007Z

The ink wasn't even dry on that last post when I hard that Mark Linkous was dead.

Mark was the leader of a band called Sparklehorse. I didn't know him, I just bought his records. He'd try to kill himself before. His family released the news. They didn't give details.

So I got out my copy of

Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot

( yes, that is the title of the album; yes, it is all one word)
and I had a little cry.

Suicide is still an alarmingly common form of death among men. Especially young men. Me? I prefer the crying.

Spring In My Heart

2010-03-07T11:20:00.003Z

It's spring in my heart.
Time to begin again.

Keep The Wrong Ones Out

2010-03-05T11:38:00.003Z

I know. I've been neglecting the blog again.
(I've been in France. It's not an excuse. Sorry.)

When I was a child, I learned to be very good at getting people to leave me alone. Especially predatory paedophiles.
(Are there non-predatory paedophiles?)

Unfortunately persuading people to stay away from me is probably my most sophisticated social skill.

I think it's time I developed some others.

Something for the Weekend

2010-02-14T22:36:00.000Z

Catholics

2010-02-11T21:07:00.000Z

Oh, it's all fun and games until someone loses their faith.

Teaching the Cat About Mornings

2010-02-11T08:56:00.002Z

I woke up; it was only fifteen minutes before the alarm went off, so my frustration at being awake in the night immediately changed to "cool! I'm alert, and I can face the day!".

Then, my cat came into the bedroom and decided to sit on my chest. So I talked to her, and stroked her, until I realised that I was trapped, and couldn't do a thing without pushing her off me. So, I gently explained what I was about to do:

"Sorry, baby, but I have to put the kettle on.."

"And now I have to put the heating on..."

"And now I have to put some trousers on..."

It's all about putting stuff on isn't it? I never realised before quite how much.

Tennage Dreams, Pt. 2

2010-02-09T09:08:00.005Z

Once again. XKCD says it better than I could. It's true. I was a legend in my own mind! Everybody thought I was... a bit odd.

Teenage Dreams, Pt. 1

2010-02-08T20:27:00.001Z

The Long Now

2010-02-05T07:31:00.008Z

The highlight of my week (in fact, the high light of my year so far) was seeing Brian Eno, one of my all-time heroes, speak at a conference on the reform of the financial system.

The Long Now Foundation has started a Long Finance project to look at long range planning and investment. Someone who is twenty years old today, can expect to live until they are 95. So at the very least, we need a financial system that looks seventy-five years ahead. And that's only one generation.

I was very encouraged that 400 people, mostly from banking and investment, turned up for the day, and took the ideas very seriously.

Brian Eno managed to make U2 interesting. Compared to that, reforming the banking system should not be especially difficult.

Daryl Hall: Sacred Songs

2010-01-31T12:47:00.005Z

Daryl Hall was best known for being in Hall and Oates, a classic eighties pop'n'soul duo that contained one man who looked like Freddie Mercury and another man who looked Princess Diana.

Relatively few people know about his collaborations with Robert Fripp. the guitarist best known as the leader of King Crimson, and whose particularly English weirdness is almost impossible to describe, but summed up very well by the phrase "happily married to Toyah Wilcox", which indeed he is.

I used to have this album on cassette; I wore the tape out, but then I found it on CD when I went to San Francisco. It stands the test of time, as they say.

I'm a bit disappointed to have found out that the idea for 'Without Tears' was actually taken from a book called 'Magick Without Tears' by Aleister Crowley. I'm not a fan of the occult. I liked the song because it was all about emotions, and being articulate about emotions. Even today, when I cry about all kinds of things, I care very much about being able to talk.

Without Tears

2010-01-29T14:12:00.000Z

Too much time is wasted on the world
Too much time is wasted on you, girl
Indifferent or cold
A dragged-up scene from an old dream
Does it surprise you where those feelings can go?

Too much power is wasted on the wrong words
Too much power is wasted on the words
And if there's one thing I've learned through the years
It's how to pour my heart out without tears
Without tears.

Earth magic

Looking for the lines
But never knowing that stream
Ley line the spring that's always flowing
Spirals up and down then reverse direction
Don't you wonder where the energy goes?

Too many secrets have been told this way
Too many secrets have been given away
But if there's one thing I've learned through the years
It's how to pour my heart out without tears
Without tears

Earth magic

DARYL HALL

Grace

2010-01-28T08:25:00.006Z

Hugh McLeod, the cartoonist who drew "Love Begets Love" just sent me a wonderful quote about Jeff Buckley.

I remember the late, great Jeff Buckley describing "Grace" as "the idea of your own mortality not being that bad, once you've found True Love."

I thought that was worth passing on.

Hugh sells prints of his cartoons from his website at http://www.gapingvoid.com Pay him a visit and spend a little money.

Mood Swings

2010-01-26T12:15:00.003Z

80%

20%

Twenty Ten

2010-01-25T20:34:00.001Z

I took a long holiday over Christmas and New Year, and went to stay with friends. It was the right thing to do, because I was physically and emotionally tired, and as soon as I got on the train to London I began to feel myself unfolding.

2009 was a moderately good year for me, but I feel very glad the first decade of the century is over. (Apologies to anyone who counts from one and not zero.) It was a hard decade for me, including the death of a child, the end of a marriage and, very nearly, the loss of my whole self.

We live and learn. And we love one another, the best we can.

Happy ~~New~~ Current Year, everybody.

Writ by his own hand this day,
St. Dwynwen's Day,
in the Year of Our Lord Ten Past Eight

Happy Holidays

2009-12-24T20:34:00.000Z

Gordie is spending Christmas with friends.

Twenty-Third of December

2009-12-23T16:45:00.003Z

Twenty-third of december
Covered in snow
You in the kitchen
With the lights way down low
I'm in the parlor
Playing my old guitar
Speaking to you, darling,
To find out how you are
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight

Come to me softly
Come to me quiet
Know what i'm after
I'm gonna try it

Snowstorm's on the way
We'll be stranded for a week
Come over to the window,
Look outside take a peek
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight

You know I am lonely
And in need of your company
Oh, let your love light
Shine on down on me

And we can just sit here
Look at the fire
Watch the flames leaping higher and higher
Tea on the stove food in the pan
Ain't going nowhere and we don't have many plans
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight

And you know i am lonely
I been in need of your company
Let your love shine on down on me
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight
I wanna roo you,
Wanna get through to you
I wanna woo you,
Woo you tonight

Woo you tonight, pretty baby
Woo you tonight, little darling
Woo you tonight, alright
Woo you tonight
VAN MORRISON

Hiding Your Sexual Orientation From Your Parents

2009-12-17T18:29:00.001Z

This recently de-classified material is made available to readers of HotVimto on a need-to-know basis.

(Yes, I'm still working on my thesis.)

I'm Still Here

2009-12-09T14:39:00.005Z

Hello, world of blog. I'm still here. I'm busy. I'm writing my dissertation and I don't have a lot of time for anything else. I'm happy, but feeling a lot of other emotions besides. (I have a wounded child to take care of. It's me.)

Gordie

2009-11-29T10:36:00.000Z

Hello World,

Nothing really bad is happening in my life. Nothing really good, either. I'm just writing my PhD and that is the most important thing in the world, and it cannot be postponed any longer.

I love you all, each in your own way.

Comfort Eating

2009-11-21T11:48:00.000Z

Note to self: too much 'comfort eating'. I need to lose some weight.

Anti Bullying Week

2009-11-20T13:39:00.004Z

In the UK, this week has been Anti - Bullying Week.

Yep. There's still a lot of it about. So, we're spreading positive messages, encouraging the youth to be confident and support one another .

There'll be another wacky, zany, dark and gloomy blog post along soon.

Killing Floor

2009-11-13T08:30:00.005Z

蜜柑

Do not leave satsumas where you can tread on them.

They don't complain like kittens do, but, as they die, their juices soak into your stocking, and you feel as though your foot needs its nappy changing.

(Just sayin'...)

Best Venn Diagram Ever

2009-11-12T14:00:00.000Z

There's a Fire still Burnin'

2009-11-10T00:05:00.000Z

Things I found while looking for my father:

The blues
Bars
Smoke-filled rooms
Dirty women.

I had actually discovered all of these things before the old man passed away, but I never got to share them with him. He was weak and scarred and scared, and no longer the stud he had been in his navy days. He complained about the noise at a couple of my parties, and helped me once when I got pulled in by the police, and that was about it.

After he was gone, I went looking for lessons in how to be a man. And I went looking in the company of women. Not the normal way of doing it, I think, but it just seemed to me that the old John Wayne and Clint Eastwood type of masculinity was all washed up and nowhere to go.

I was sorry that John Lennon wanted to be with Yoko rather than Paul, and Marc Bolan ended up wrapped around a tree rather than Gloria Jones [G.L.O.R.I.A], but you know, I was right. It was the late twentieth century, and the way to be a man was to listen to the ladies, and find out what they wanted.

Mary Coughlan knew what she wanted.

I got a heart that's broken hearted,
How do I mend it?
I got a crying jag that's started,
How do I end it?
Well, honey, if you're gloomy
Come around and do me
Meet me where they play the blues

A day or two ago, I started singing this song to myself. (Yes, dear reader, I had a 'crying jag'. ) It's an old jazz standard from the twenties written by Jack Teagarden, but Ms Coughlan, being a fine, forthright, hard-drinking Irishwoman from County Galway, upgraded the lyrics a bit so that you knew exactly what was on her mind.

And you know, there's crying yourself to sleep, and there's crying yourself to sleep. Sometimes , the experience can be improved, without in any way changing the underlying mood or denying it, by matching it to the right music and the right company.

People have said they've seen you dance
In hideaway places
People have said you find romance
In others' embraces
Well, honey, if you're dreamy
Come along and see me
Meet me where they play the blues

Eyes that flirt with a tear
Are common round here
And misery loves company, they say
So I'll linger 'til dawn
While the trumpet wails on
And I'm hopin' you'll happen this way

I'm sick and tired of sippin' wine
And watchin' the bubbles
How did our dreams get out of line
And land us in trouble?
Well, honey, if you're learnin'
There's a fire still burnin'
Meet me where they play
I want you wehre they play
Meet me where they play the blues
MARY COUGHLAN

Manchester, so Much to Answer For

2009-11-09T14:27:00.001Z

Welcome to the North.

Motto

2009-11-08T10:43:00.001Z

You can knock me down
But I won't get up again.

York

2009-11-07T17:08:00.000Z

York. So good they named it once.

Eventually

2009-11-07T09:35:00.003Z

Eventually you realise
the creature in the woods
doesn't want to kill you.

When Two is Not Enough

2009-10-28T11:22:00.004Z

This morning I feel afraid.

I feel afraid of someone I haven't seen for a long, long time, who is no threat to me any more.
Maybe I'm not afraid of the person so much as the fact that I tried and failed to get that person to respect my wishes and not hurt me.

I have two strategies with difficult people: a simple strategy and a subtle strategy.

The simple strategy is that I say "please don't do that, I don't like it", as kindly and as clearly as I can, and if that doesn't get a result, I withdraw. I mean I leave the room, and only come back when I'm ready.

The subtle strategy doesn't work.

Today I'm just not happy with having the two options of the simple strategy. I don't know why. There are problem of you out there who recognise the dilemma. I have no name for it, I'm unable to let go of it, and though I feel completely safe, I am afraid.

The Dangers of Poetry

2009-10-27T08:35:00.009Z

I have developed a crush on Ada, Countess Lovelace (1815-1852).

This is all the doing of Ms. Sydney Padua, animator, and author of the 'Lovelace and Babbage' comics, one of which adorns this post. She is even more besotted with Ada than I am. I quote: "Is there a support group for 'Someone you love is manic-depressive, and has been dead for 150 years.'?"

Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, the poet, who was famously described as 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know'. Fearing that the child might have inherited her father's 'wild blood', which we would now recognise as manic depression or bipolar disorder, she resolved to have Ada educated in mathematics, to save her from the dangers of poetry.

Ada became quite a gifted mathematician and is recognised as the world's first computer programmer, for the work she did on Charles Babbage's Difference Engine.

To follow the cartoon adventures of Lovelace and Babbage and fall helplessly in love (if you're mad enough) [*], visit the artist's website at 2D Goggles, and if you have a taste for outrageous Victorian science fiction, visit the Steampunk Art exhibition at the Museum of the History of Art, Oxford.

[*] Those of you who aren't the right kind of crazy to fall in love with a geeky, pipe-smoking, bi-polar English countess may swoon over the 'alpha dog' bad boy that is Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He's in the episode 'Lovelace and Babbage vs The Economy'.

As If to Prove the Point

2009-10-25T20:31:00.002Z

As if to prove the point in my last few posts, I went away for a couple of days and went on a boys' night out with an old friend from school. It says something good about me that I have old friends and new friends, and men friends and women friends.

Right now I'm sitting home alone with a glass of wine and some tunes on the stereo, (Supergrass, The Dead Weather, Taj Mahal) doing some computer repair and wondering about doing a little bit of writing between now and ten o'clock, when Match of the Day is on. Four matches and fifteen goals in today's programme. That promises to be worth watching.

I lit a scented candle twenty minutes ago, and just realised I can't smell it. That's because I didn't light it. Ah. Easily done, easily overcome. My mind is still good at freezing, distracting, burying. I don't need those bad habits anymore, but so far I haven't figured out a way of dropping them.

This thought just drifted into my head. I can't remember a time when I was less horny in my life. Not since I was ten, at any rate; but that was pre-history, a time when I had no knowledge of such matters, and no desire to look in the mirror, wash my hair, have good clothes to change into after school, or be able to play a guitar.

The bright, light, warm, sparkling side of my nature is very quiet at the moment. The dark, difficult, broody, cynical side is fading. Do you know how hard it is to throw away old, faded clothes, even when they don't fit any more?

Choosing Life

2009-10-22T10:10:00.006+01:00

I don't find it easy to explain this to anyone, but I'm finding it very hard to adjust to wanting to be alive. It's like waking up after a sex-change operation. Actually, no it's not, because people who opt for gender realignment have lived with the conviction that they truly belong to a gender that their body doesn't express.

This is more like being given my eyesight, a great gift, undoubtedly, but one that I have always managed to live without. I'm not sure what to do with it.

For several months, I said the words that I always say, "I hate my life", my familiar Tourettian outburst of despair, and the words rang hollow, untrue, and archaic, like saying "Gadzooks" or "Verily". And recently, I've entered into a phase of life where no part of me is pulling me towards death any longer.

This is exceedingly strange and unfamiliar. I have left it a bit late, really. I am going to have to live to hundred to make up for what I've missed out on. And I'll have to find a job I can do 'til I'm ninety, because I'll never get a pension. Somebody will have to pay for me to stay in nice hotels.

I'd better finish this PhD, hadn't I?

Seventeen

2009-10-21T10:00:00.002+01:00

"They only want you
When you're seventeen:
When you're twenty-one,
You're no fun.
They take a polaroid and let you go
Say they'll let you know
So come on"

I apologise to any twenty-one year olds who read Hot Vimto, but Ladytron's "Seventeen" is one kick-ass tune. And it makes me feel happy, in a demented, teenage kind of way.

I know, I know... I'm living my life in the wrong order. But the Sex Pistols had a song called Seventeen, and it started like this:

"You're only twenty-nine
Got a lot to learn
But when your mummy dies
She will not return"

WTF that was meant to be about, I never knew. Sneering, probably. (Why wasn't it called "Twenty Nine"?) Still, the Pistols turned out to be the plastic fork, when what really mattered the chips and curry sauce.

When I was seventeen, my father had been dead six months, and I was starting to read philosophy. He'd been a long time dying, and now he was gone, I was ready to start looking for him. I discovered TS Eliot, and identified with Prufrock. I read Tarantula by Bob Dylan, and thought it was crap, and copied him anyway. I listened to a lot of Elvis Costello, the early albums, when he was dark and cynical and sexy and soulful. I listened to Astral Weeks, and Miles Davis. I lusted after older women. It was the right thing to do.

It is strange to think, that if I have children of my own, it'll be with someone who was born after punk. "No Future? Whatever happened to that?" I hear Steve Jones lives in California, and has his own radio show.

I've lived my life in the wrong order. It was the right thing to do. I've finished, so I'll start.

My Favourite Cat

2009-10-20T08:15:00.010+01:00

I want to talk a little bit about depression and creativity.

There was a time when depression was a demon sitting on my chest, a stomach full of acid I couldn't throw up, an undertow in the water, a dark magnetism stealing life from me. Now, depression is like a favourite cat that sleeps on my bed.

There are people we love in our lives, and animals and places and moods and posessions. Some of them, we wouldn't be parted from, no matter how bitter or heavy they can be, because they remind us who we are, and our reason for being in the world.

"We are wounded again in the same place" writes Jeanette Winterson, and I know what she means. "This doesn't turn us into victims. Rather, we are people in search of a transformation of the real."

When I write, I am on that kind of a search. To say something true, and be heard by someone else. To share, and be transformed.

I learned I could write when I was six or seven years old. It was the most wonderful thing I'd ever known since I learned to read. The most empowering thing, the thing with the most integrity, and yet... it opened a door to a world of forbidden things.

In my family, there are stories you don't tell.

I am a survivor, from a family of survivors. And I never wanted to survive. To flourish, yes, but to survive, no. It makes very little difference whether I am the corpse and you are the pall bearer, or the other way around. The year I discovered I could write, I discovered death. People around me started dying. I didn't make them die; I know that. But I asked questions, and I learned what people do and don't talk about, and what grown ups are afraid of.

The year of six and seven was the year I was expelled from the Garden of Eden. I had eaten from the tree of knowledge, and life would not be the same again.

Last week, my mother showed me some writing. It was quite a shock to me. It was mine. They were poems I had written, but not in my writing; they were in my nana's handwriting. My grandmother must have taken my books and copied out my words to keep for herself.

From the moment I learned to write, I learned to censor myself, to please others. That lies heavy on me, and always has done. And I know that I censored myself to protect my family.

We are people in search of a transformation of the real. And my favourite cat sleeps on my bed, and I have bad dreams, and I hear her purring.

Highs, Crashes, and Withdrawals

2009-10-17T16:01:00.009+01:00

We are wounded again in the same place. This doesn't turn us into victims. Rather, we are people in search of a transformation of the real.

The creative capacity to do this is extraordinary. Art isn't a surface activity. It comes from a deep place, and it meets the wound we each carry.

Although I knew I had plenty of personal failings, and that my mental states were unreliable, I also knew that I could do the work.

I have never taken antidepressants because I couldn't face the flatness.

I preferred the highs and the crashes, even though it meant the rages and the withdrawals, and anyway, I'd rather have my own suffering than someone else's solution.

JEANETTE WINTERSON
Wall Street Journal
October 17th, 2009
(read the full article)

Home Again

2009-10-17T11:47:00.003+01:00

I've been away for a few days working, and I went to see my mum and took her to Blackpool Illuminations. She used to take me to see them when I was a child, so it was a nice treat for us both.

Now I'm back home and facing more work on my PhD (Be brave, Gordie...) The weather is starting to get chilly, and my cat Charlie is spending most of her time curled up beside me. I'm letting her sleep on my bed at night.

Here is a picture of Charlie when she was little.

To Advance An Honest Mind

2009-10-13T11:31:00.000+01:00

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
JOHN DONNE

At Seventeen

2009-10-12T16:41:00.000+01:00

I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired

The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say "Come dance with me"
And murmered vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems at seventeen
JANIS IAN

Near Death Experience

2009-10-11T20:55:00.007+01:00

I had an utterly mundane six hour journey to Liverpool today, apart from an interesting two minutes.

To the dude in the Mini Cooper who chose not to plough into the back of my car at 100mph, and chose instead to roar past me on the long grass, lurching to a halt like a Soviet spacecraft in a cornfield... thank you.

And to anyone who might have had influence on the fact that this incident happened in the short stretch of road where there was grass between the carriageways and not barriers, thank you,too.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2009-10-11T08:39:00.001+01:00

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

I watched a TV documentary on T.S. Eliot last night. I had quite forgotten the impact this poem had on me when I first read it. I was seventeen; it was a few months after my father's death.

According to the documentary, the third line of 'Prufrock' marked the beginning of modern poetry. Funny that, because to me, the word "etherised" sound hugely old fashioned. I guess that's the problem of trying to be modern: the word that signals that a work of art belongs to today's world is the one that gets out of date very quickly.

Prufrock is a monologue, of two men walking through town at night, one telling the other the tale of his life. It hardly seems to be a "Love Song" but I intuitively understood that was the whole point.

It tells the story of a young man who leaves a party, where the women are talking, and goes for a walk with his friend on a foggy night, and tries to talk about what the hell is going inside him.

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

As I said, I had completely forgotten how much this poem mattered to me when I found it. I was a man-child full of overwhelming questions.

Not that different from how I am today, really.

Do your work, then step back

2009-10-08T11:09:00.000+01:00

9

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
Tao te Ching

Taking Tiger Mountain

2009-10-07T16:36:00.005+01:00

We climbed and we climbed,
Oh, how we climbed
My, how we climbed
Over the stars to the top
Of Tiger Mountain
Forcing the lines through the snow.

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
BRIAN ENO

Childlike Vision

2009-10-04T12:09:00.003+01:00

"Down Cyprus Avenue
With the childlike vision
sweeping into view..."

I'm sorry I haven't written here very often recently. I've spent the last nine weeks concentrating on my PhD, as hard as I possibly can, in the hope that I would deliver something interesting for the start of term.

Writing a PhD is like writing the biggest essay ever (mine will come in at around 75,000 words) and there are only two things you need to know.

First, it must be an original work;
Second, it can't be an original work.

All PhD students inhabit this strange space, because we have to express our original ideas with references to lots of other people's work, in peer referenmced journals. Originality, in the form of a footnote.

I live through my words, and when I can't write (or talk) I feel like I'm in quite a traumatic place. And trying to express myself in the borrowed language of an academic tradition makes me feel like a character in a Kafka story. I understand now why deaf people feel liberated by having their own sign language, and diminished by mouthing a vocabulary they never heard spoken.

Then on Wednesday, I had a dream, that said my PhD only needs me to write 500 words.

This is, of course, not true. But I grasped what the dream meant was, I needed to write the first 500 words of my theory chapter, guiding the reader into my topic, like that bloke Dante meets at the start of the Divine Comedy [I think you mean the poet Virgil. Ed.]

I sifted through my notes and drafts, and wrote round, like a circle in a spiral, for a day, just thinking about the question of how I would talk to a reader who knew nothing about my research, and introduce them to six or seven authors and ten ot twelve key ideas, that I needed to explain my findings.

It came to 620 words, and I was starting to feel good. Then I wrote down my opening sentence.

This is the story of a market located in a city.

Then I crossed out "located" and wrote "embedded". (A bit more academic.)

Then I just crossed out "embedded" and didn't put anything.

This is the story of a market in a city.

Ten words, plain English, and it's all I need.

Because every arcane, and pretentious and high falutin' (and ultimately, academically respectable, which is what a PhD needs) concept that I need to talk about, and every author I need to cite, is an aspect of how people research markets, and the future of cities. So that's that.

Now, I have found my beginning, and I can walk to the end.

In my beginning is my end.
In my end is my beginning.

Autumnal Equinox

2009-09-22T09:05:00.000+01:00

It's not often that I wake up in the morning and feel so brilliant that I want to blog about it. (When I say "not often", it has never happened before. It's just me being English and understated for once.)

Last night I slept well, and I woke up around 3:30 (which happens a lot) and went straight back to sleep (which hardly ever happens) and went my alarm clock went off, my first thought was "Oh, good, it's morning". This, people, is not what I have been used to.

I've always loved Autumn. I don't know why, but it's like my springtime, a time for rebirth, and new beginnings. Happy Autumnal Equinox, everyone.

Train of Thought

2009-09-21T14:30:00.005+01:00

Term's about to start again. Students are preparing for nights of drinking and partying, and occasional trips to the library; and I'm chained to the laptop for the seventh week in a row, doing my best to finish the world's longest PhD thesis. Ho hum.

It was different when I was seventeen, and on my way to interviews. I took the train from Preston down to Birmingham, feeling so nervous that I went and hid in the toilet, and sang 'Astral Weeks' to myself.

"If I venture in the slipstream
Between the viaducts
of your dream
Where the immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch and the back road stop....

... to be born again."
VAN MORRISON

I can't remember much about the day, apart from the escalators at New Street station, a very nice book shop,and the length of the lecturer's moustache, like Anthony Sher in The History Man.

We talked about evolution, and religion, and I'm not sure what else. My father had been dead for not quite a year, and I was ready to make a new start.

Fathers and Sons

2009-09-19T09:58:00.008+01:00

After a day of remembering, (and a little re-imagining), today is Talk Like A Pirate Day.

So here's Jack Sparrow for you, talkin' the talk and walkin' the walk, with his dear old dad, a.k.a. the world's most dignified drug abuser, Keith Richards.

What I couldn't have learned, from a father like that...

Like the man says: it's not about living forever.
It's about living with yourself forever.

Still Daddy

2009-09-18T09:24:00.002+01:00

It's that day again; that special anniversary I blogged about a year ago. For the third year in a row, I've been remembering my stepdaughter, sitting at the foot of the oak tree we planted for her, with pages from my PhD, which I still haven't finished.

And it ain't nobody's fault but mine.

Nowadays, there isn't anybody in my life who calls me 'daddy'. If I hear the name, I'm the one who's speaking. It's my own voice, my inner child, the voice of my creativity. Asking for strength, reassurance, and courage.

For me, writing is, and always has been, the voice of integrity, the voice of enthusiasm, the voice of a young, playful, powerful six year old who has seen a lot of life, but is still enthusiastic, and knows that he's going to make something of his life.

I sat down at my desk writing at 6:45 this morning. I wrote good words. But by eight o'clock, my creativity had ebbed away. Damn. I have a full day ahead of me. I need to persevere.

I am going to make something of my life.

All Work and No Play

2009-09-15T14:05:00.004+01:00

I've said it before, I think. All work and no play makes Hot Vimto a dull blog.

I'm trying to write my PhD thesis (again) and this time, I'm determined to do something I can be proud of.

It's a lonely, solitary task, and for three or four weeks now I've had blinkers on, and been very focused on my destination. Until I get there, I'll be here in my rustic retreat, with the autumnal rain tapping on my window.

See you all again soon.

Don't Let This Happen To You

2009-09-01T22:15:00.001+01:00

A Boy's Desires

2009-08-25T17:27:00.000+01:00

I WANT to get out of here.

I WANT to go to the moon or some other planet.

I WANT to find some unicorn DNA and then grow a bunch of them and teach them to impale Claire’s friends with their horns.

from Dave Eggers' excellent short story, Max at Sea, in this week's New Yorker magazine.

I think unicorn DNA is the best revenge fantasy I've heard for a while!

Autumn

2009-08-25T08:50:00.003+01:00

I love autumn. A slight drop in the temperature, and a little bit of damp in the air, and I feel more creative, want to work, want to write, want to produce.

However, it's still August, for fuck's sake.

Destroy Everything You Touch Today

2009-08-20T18:15:00.009+01:00

Kali, the Creator / Destroyer

I was never that sure about destruction; right from the moment I first took an engine to pieces, dismantled every cog and nut, and then I realised that what I really wanted to do was put it all together and make it work.

Punk was very good at encouraging me to destroy things, and I suppose in my twenties I learned a lot about finishing things off and Moving On, and what good things you can do with anger, if you learn how. It was very wise of the Hindu religion to have a mother goddess who was also the goddess of destruction. But I never really learned to embrace destruction; it just seemed... well, too destructive.

I'm an innovation consultant now, and one of the Big Names in innovation is an economist called Josef Schumpeter, and he wrote about "waves of creative destruction" - a marvellous idea, that as part of making the world anew, there were all kinds of things that needed to be destroyed, and swept up and tidied away, because they had their day and served their purpose, and it was good that they make room for something new.

It reminds me of a story of a Budhhist monk who always drank out of a very nice cup; one day somebody said to him: "you're not supposed to get attached to possessions. Does it not bother you that one day that cup is going to break?" And the monk said: "I know that really, it's already been broken, so I just make sure that I enjoy it as much as I can."

This is my company song, and every morning, I want to come into my office and get the whole team to sing it.

When you stop worrying about whether something in your life might get broken, maybe that's the time to destroy it, and make room for something else.

Inspirational Joker Pussy

2009-08-19T13:13:00.002+01:00

My thesis has turned me into a menace to society.

I'm searching for inspiration. Writing the methodology chapter of my PhD thesis, which feels as dry as dust, and I don't want it to be, because it's an interesting topic, it's just that the conventions of academic writing mean I'm not allowed to perform it like stand up comedy, or perform it like a dialogue.

I don't even know if I'm allowed to say the word "I". So meh and fiddlesticks. A decision was taken to explore, yada yada

I am going to sink into a deep bath of warm, bubbly water, and play Jeff Buckley very loudly. Fuck you, world of dust-covered library shelves. I shall be interesting!

Eleven

2009-08-13T19:01:00.003+01:00

I have a folder of music on my hard drive called "Play Once Then Kill" In it are all the MP3's I've downloaded and never listened to. How the hell did I miss this one? I downloaded it on the 25th August 2006 and it has been sitting there until this morning, confident and patiently waiting.

Black Box Recorder was the band that Luke Haines set up after he left The Auteurs, and The Auteurs pretty much defined my early-nineties sexual persona. But this song is like catching sight of your face in the bathroom mirror on a very cold winter's morning, and remembering what you were dreaming about.

If you don't like the song, fast forward the video and just watch the last ten seconds; it's a killer. It's a true story.

When boys are just eleven
They begin to grow in height
At a faster rate than they have done before
They develop curiosity
And start to fantasize
About the things they have
Never thought of doing before

These dreams are no more harmful than
The usual thoughts that boys have
Of becoming football stars or millionaires
As long as the distinction
Between fantasy and fiction remains
It's just a nature walk
It's just the facts of life
BLACK BOX RECORDER

Mad Men

2009-08-12T14:00:00.008+01:00

Lately I've developed a real crush on Don Draper. I know. Strange, isn't it? I watched about half of series one, got hooked on series two, and bought myself series one on DVD for my birthday. Which I keep watching over and over.

The world of Mad Men is somehow contemporary, but just historical enough that I don't feel contempt for people who are superficial and glamorous. I have photographs of my parents and relatives in 1960's suits and dresses, and I can remember flicking through ancient Reader's Digest magazines full of adverts like Sterling Cooper make. (Did anybody else have a Reader's Digest childhood? There was always an article 'I Am John's Scrotum' or something.)

I'm fascinated by Don Draper's character. He reminds me of my father in my parents' wedding photographs. He's confident, and successful, and he's vulnerable. I like reading all the contradictions and nuances of the man, which I never could do with my real dad.

You can see that he has emotions, because he has brilliant ideas at work that come from the empathy he has for people. And Don likes women; he feels comfortable around women in a way that the other men don't (especially not the odious Pete Campbell).

My father used to talk about his childhood. It wasn't a happy childhood, and his stories used to scare the hell out of me. We don't hear Don Draper talking about his childhood, but we see the flashbacks.

I remember a scene from the end of Series Two when Don gets his tarot cards read, and the woman he's with (I think she might be the original Mrs Don Draper) tells him that the cards say he's connected to all the living things in the world.

"The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone."

That was a good statement for me. I wonder if it would have meant something to my father, as well?

Nowt so Queer as Folk

2009-08-10T18:58:00.009+01:00

A work of art (allegedly) photographed in King's Cross.

I've been wondering what 'fake hookers' are. Do they have sex with you, then pretend to take money? Or do they take your money, and then pretend to have sex? (I thought that was what real hookers did.)

People in London make their lives very complicated.

King's Cross was, and probably still is, one of the railway termini where young men and women would arrive from the North looking for glamour, wealth and fame. A lot of them would be recruited into being prostitutes and rent boys. The manager of Tottenham Hotspur was arrested kerb crawling for hookers at King's Cross. So was one of Brother Beyond.

Two months after this record came out, there was a huge fire at King's Cross tube station. About 30 people died. It was quite eerie listening to the song after that. The film is by Derek Jarman.

The man at the back of the queue was sent
To feel the smack of firm government
Linger by the flyposter, for a fight
It's the same story every night
I've been hurt and we've been had
You leave home, and you don't go back

Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday
Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way
Read it in a book or write it in a letter
Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee

Only last night I found myself lost
By the station called King's Cross
Dead and wounded on either side
You know it's only a matter of time
I've been good and I've been bad
I've been guilty of hanging around

Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday
Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way
Read it in a book or write it in a letter
Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee

So I went looking out today
For the one who got away
Murder walking round the block
Ending up in King's Cross
Good luck, bad luck waiting in a line
It takes more than the matter of time

Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday
Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way
Read it in a book or write it in a letter
Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee

Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday
Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way
Read it in a book or write it in a letter
Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee
And there's still no guarantee
There is still no guarantee
Words and Music by NEIL TENNANT and CHRIS LOWE

This Is The Day

2009-08-06T16:09:00.008+01:00

If you watched Kirsty Wark interview the founder of Twitter on Newsnight last night, you wouldn't have thought she made her name by ripping apart Margaret Thatcher in an interview, long, long ago in a galaxy far too close to home, when Mrs Thatcher needed to be given a bit of the sort of treatment she gave to almost everybody else.

The mature, discerning Kirsty Wark turns out to be obsessed with celebrities, and she wanted to know how we can be sure Demi Moore is real (a query that has to be on a par with wanting to know Father Christmas' blood group, although it could have been "ironic", in inverted commas. )

The experience left me craving the simple, innocent despair of my youth. Here is a video from The The, a band who will soon be forgotten, because you can't search for them on the Internet.

I like the way he takes the old blues line, "I woke up this morning" and completely negates it, and sings to a woman who looks like a miserable Emma Thompson. (The sort doctors prefer.) Even the presence of accordions cannot make this song cheerful. But I have to say, it made me feel much better in the dark.

Well, you didn't wake up this morning
Because you didn't go to bed
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red
The calendar on your wall is ticking the days off
You've been reading some old letters
You smile and think how much you've changed
All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days

You pull back your curtains
And the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying
Across a clear blue sky
This is the day
Your life will surely change
This is the day
When things fall into place

You could've done anything If you'd wanted
And all your friends and family think that you're lucky
But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with the memories
That hold your life together ... like glue

You pull back your curtains
And the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying
Across a clear blue sky
This is the day
Your life will surely change
This is the day
When things fall into place

This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day your life will surely change
Words and Music: MATT JOHNSON

Delusional

2009-08-04T16:03:00.001+01:00

Fortunately, this is one delusion I don't have.

Tentative

2009-08-01T13:03:00.004+01:00

Everything is tentative.
I don't mean provisional. I mean tentative.
kthxbai

A Close Watch

2009-07-31T23:58:00.003+01:00

Never win and never lose
There’s nothing much to choose
Between the right and wrong
Nothing lost and nothing gained
Still things aren’t quite the same
Between you and me

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I still hear your voice at night
When I turn out the light
And try to settle down
But there’s nothing much I can do
Because I can’t live without you
Any way at all

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
JOHN CALE

No Guilt

2009-07-30T23:02:00.004+01:00

Needed new posters, so I bought them
I know the cost of stamps now
The thirty-first is when I pay the phone bill
(I told them I didn't even know anybody in Toronto)

Everyday at seven I've been watching Walter
I've been reading more and looking up the hard words
I met people who can get me on the guest list
My parents said that
They would help me pay for grad school

You know I had never washed a sweater
I never knew when my hair was too long
I got the cab calls out of my hi-fi
I learned a lot since you've been gone
I've done a lot since you've been gone

Not bitter - beat a vicious cycle
Typecast as the model couple
I'm sorry but I don't feel awful
It wasn't the end of the world
I'm sorry I can't be helpless
It wasn't the end of the world

I know someone who really met Belushi
I fixed the toilet so it doesn't always run
I moved a chair over by the window
I feel better if my laundry's done

Getting by on less sleep than I used to
I had no trouble in setting up a desk
I learned the reason for a three-pronged outlet
I got 100 on my driver's test

I got a trick to get them to deliver
I called the landlord when the water turned brown
Did you know I own some valuable records?
I've done a lot since you've been gone
I've learned a lot since you've been gone

Thank you for the chance to grow up
I'm sorry but I wasn't defeated
It wasn't the end of the world.
I'm sorry but I don't feel too awful
It wasn't the end of the world.
THE WAITRESSES

All Work and No Play

2009-07-26T12:45:00.002+01:00

All work and no play makes Hot Vimto a dull blog. And Gordie a dull playmate. Still, it's for the best. I have clients who need stuff doing, and a backlog of projects to clear. And I'm thinking that one day soon, I should start up a business blog.

I certainly need some marketing collateral to explain what I am to people who don't know me. (You don't know how hard that is. I've been trying it out on my mother.)

Until my eloquence and originality come back to me, here's a video from twenty years ago, when I thought that being a rebel was all about not joining in, and pretending I didn't give a shit.

Apollo 11

2009-07-24T17:50:00.002+01:00

The perfect moon
Was huge above the sea
The surf was easy
Even on the reef
We were the lucky three
Who slid in our canoe
Through the flowers on the water
And tried to read the signals in the sky

We travelled with our necklaces of shell
The moon was waning
Through the nights and days
And how we dreamed of home!
But we couldn’t find the island
Where you trade the shells for feathers
We fainted in the sun’s reflected blaze

With cracking lips
I turned to tell my friends
The time had come for all of us to die
“She’s out a whole degree”
I told them as I floated
Checking readouts at my shoulder
“Re-enter at this angle and we’ll fry”

The go for override came up from earth
We took control
And we flew her with our hands
And how we dreamed of home!
We saw the South Pacific
As we fought to get her zeroed
Before the heat shield started hitting air

We came home in a roaring purple flame
And gave the mission
Back to the machines
We were the lucky three
The parachutes deployed
We were rocking like a cradle
As we drifted down in silence to the sea
Lyrics by CLIVE JAMES
Music by PETE ATKIN

Put to the Test

2009-07-16T11:41:00.006+01:00

Gordie is 54% HeteroHow heterosexual are you? Try out any Twitter name and get the real picture. Are we really the words we use? (Thanks to Stockholm Pride for this.)

Daddy

2009-07-14T09:28:00.006+01:00

Right now I feel like a small boy that wants his daddy. That's been happening a lot lately.

You know what that means...

That means that if I go back far enough into my life, there must have been a time when I wanted him and trusted him, and loved him, and felt loved by him.

Or something.

The clouds overhead are getting darker all of a sudden, and I think it's about to start raining.

Wasteful and Useless

2009-07-11T12:15:00.004+01:00

Okay, so this is how these things seem to work.

I decided I needed a bit of lie in this morning, as I was up for work at 5:30 yesterday morning. And I set the alarm for 8:10 and then ignored it. Got up at eleven.

Made a cup of coffee, and for no reason at all (other than it was Saturday, and I wasn't properly awake) started playing old mp3's I'd recorded off radio programmes.

I recorded this song on April 11th, 2006, and I don't remember ever listening to it. Until today.

Don't let me put you off. If you're doing battle with a cruel and vengeful God, keep battling. But today, I like this.

If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be, we're all okay
And not to worry
'Cause worry is wasteful and useless
In times like these

I won't be made useless
Won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

Poverty stole your golden shoes
But it didn't steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
But I knew it wasn't ever after

We'll fight, not out of spite
For someone must stand up for what's right
'Cause where there's a man who has no voice
There ours shall go singing

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

In the end only kindness matters
In the end only kindness matters

I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken
We are never broken

We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's eyes
We are God's hands
JEWEL KIRCHNER

Deacon Blues

2009-07-08T17:22:00.004+01:00

Steely Dan was a great band, and a strong influence on my cynical youth. I imagine some people will see the title to this post and think of Deacon Blue, the Scottish pop band. I would have sneered at such people back then.

There were two guys who wrote the songs, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and a bunch of really good musicians around them, most of seemed to be in the Doobie Brothers as well. They wrote very clever lyrics, and tunes with jazz chords in them: Sixths! Ninths! WTF?!?!

This isn't one of their clever lyrics; it just got stuck in my head the other day, when I free associated from "bright red Georgia clay" to "Alabama the crimson tide". I always assumed the crimson tide was a big muddy river, but it's actually something to do with photosynthetic pigments in algae.

I like the chorus. The narrator is obviously a bit of a loser, and his dream is to be a saxophone player, and a bit of a drunk. High hopes, eh? Even in his dreams, he's going to be a loser! But he wants to be a renownded loser, with a famous name. Good luck to ya, buddy.

This is the day of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers, wild gamblers
That's all in the past

You call me a fool
You say it's a crazy scheme
This one's for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
I'll make it this time
I'm ready to cross that fine line

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
Sharing the things we know and love
With those of my kind
Libations
Sensations
That stagger the mind

I crawl like a viper
Through these suburban streets
Make love to these women
Languid and bittersweet
I'll rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town
A world of my own
I'll make it my home sweet home

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

This is the night of the expanding man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be
STEELY DAN

The Lilac Paper

2009-07-08T17:12:00.004+01:00

I went to my stationery drawer to find some good paper for a letter to the bank.

I found a sheaf of pale lilac paper I once bought to print my wedding invitations on. I didn't realise I still had any of that left.

Every other time I've found that lilac paper, I've felt a deep pain in my chest. This morning, I just smiled, a little bit surprised.

It was a lovely wedding; pity about the marriage that followed.

It's Raining Today

2009-07-07T12:12:00.014+01:00

[Rain in the night...
I awake to the sound of it at my window.
The air is cool and clear.
And by ten o'clock, the sun is shining again.
I love the summer when it's like this.]

It's raining today
and I'm just about to forget
The train window girl
That wonderful day we met
She smiles through the smoke
From my cigarette
It's raining today.

But once ...
There was summer and you
And dark little rooms
And sleep in late afternoons
Those moments descend
On my window-pane.

I've hung around here too long

Listenin' to the old landlady's

Hard-luck stories

You out of me

Me out of you

We go like lovers

To replace

The empty space

Repeat our dreams to someone new.

It's raining today
And I watch the cellophane streets
No hang-ups for me
Cause hang-ups need company
The street corner girl's
A cold, trembling leaf
It's raining today
It's raining today
SCOTT WALKER

Summer Rain

2009-07-06T09:13:00.005+01:00

"I remember to this day
The bright red Georgia clay
How it stuck to the tires
After the summer rain."

I slept well, and woke to my alarm at 6:20 to find a gentle rain falling over the village. It's nice and cool in my bedroom now, where a week ago it was very humid. I pulled on a polo shirt to keep the breeze off my shoulders. I made a cup of coffee, and went looking for pants. (Priorities, I has 'em.)

Three hours later, the rain has stopped, and so has the noisy woodpecker in my neighbour's garden. The sun is shining, and there are voluptuous clouds over Torbay, like Magritte used to paint. I'd say the wind is coming from the West.

Georgia must have a similar geology to where I live. The earth around here is very red - the Devonian layer, if you're into geology. And now I'm thinking of another song:

"They call Alabama
the Crimson Tide:
call me Deacon Blues"

Hey Mister DJ

2009-07-05T11:05:00.005+01:00

I deejayed for a friend's birthday party on Friday night. I had a lot of fun. Fortunately, so did everybody else.

It was one of those big family - and - friends gatherings, where the ages go from seven to seventy, and I managed to keep everyone dancing and happy for six hours, give or take a few glitches. It was a very hot night and my fingers got very slippery; several times I cut to the next next record two minutes early. But it wasn't hard work. And there were good looking women being uninhibited, and that wasn't hard work, either.

At midnight, we went out onto the village green, and launched wish lanterns into the night sky. I hadn't seen wish lanterns before. They're like Barbie doll sized hot air balloons, with a lump of solid paraffin where the basket would be. You have to pat them and pamper then for a bit, until they heat up properly, then they suddently become very buoyant and rise up into the sky. It was a good birthday. We were all very happy.

Endings and Beginnings

2009-07-02T12:15:00.004+01:00

A man in a yellow fluorescent waistcoat came knocking at my front door. He wanted me to move my car. It was Tuesday, the hottest day of the year, and they had come to lay fresh tarmac on the road that goes from the lower well up towards Waterford.

Yesterday it was even hotter. I drove my car along that fresh tarmac, with the windows down and a light fresh tarmac smell rising from the carriageway. The hedgerows were full of elderflower and wild garlic, and I was pleased the roadmenders had managed to do their work without tearing up any greenery. My village still feels timeless and medieval, even when the road swishes smoothly under my tyres, instead of thunk a thunk thunking like I was on a horse and cart.

It's almost two months since my birthday, and I've hardly posted on my blog at all. I want you all to know that that I've been all right. I haven't been hiding, I haven't been depressed; I've just had way too much work to do. This is a good thing, except when it makes me tired. I am learning to go to bed early.

I am happy - I think - and I will try to get back into the blogging habit in July. I deserve some work life balance. Since May, everything has been endings and beginnings, and I'm doing many, many things for the first time. Got to earn a living. Would rather earn a living that had some integrity. And live long. My learning curve is long, but I trust that it bends toward happiness.

To the friends out there I've been neglecting: I love you and care for you as much as ever I did. Thank you for being someone who brings out the best in me. Your friendship makes me happy.

It's raining today. I like it.

HaHaHaHaHa

2009-06-16T10:56:00.002+01:00

From today's Daily Telegraph.

(click on the image to see the whole thing)

Nostalgia (Turned Inside Out)

2009-06-13T10:54:00.003+01:00

Saturday morning:

lie-in, coffee, radio

Chill DAB has been kind enough to remind me how weird my life used to feel.

I've never heard of this band, but if you listen to Chill on teh interwebs, their site is clever enough to tell you the band name and track name of what's playing. The Cat Empire is a band from Melbourne, which is the Australian town where the crazy artists come from.

Cool band name, too. I might have to listen to more of them.

I had nine lives
but I lost all of them
And I've been searching in the night
And I've been searching in the rain
I tried to find them
but they disappeared
they walked away they dressed in black
they left my side and all I say
is that I wasted time
when I looked for them
for now I know that things gone past
are never to be found again
I had nine lives
but lost all of them.

I had a plan
but never finished it
and I've been searching for the thought
and I've been searching in a haze
I try all days
to remember it
but now the blueprint in my mind has gone
my mind forgot the colour of direction
and my eyes they see the hands
that could have built
that could have constructed
the empire in my mind
the empire
I'll never find
I had a plan
but that was where it ended.
THE CAT EMPIRE

What Are You Like?

2009-06-07T10:53:00.009+01:00

What are you like?
You've had a right life
And taken a long ride
But oh what a cost

And all of your life
Staring at white lines
Reading the road signs
And oh what a loss

I bought this album about three or four years ago, and I've only played it twice. It's Richard Hawley's 'Coles Corner'. I know it was very well reviewed, and I must have wanted it, because I paid full price for it, but it didn't make any impact on me.

Then, this morning, I wanted some gentle waking up music, and put it in the CD. I ignored it happily for twenty minutes, then track six made me stop and listen.

Sleeping late in the afternoon
Playing your guitar

Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

Sleeping late in the afternoon
Staying out till dawn
Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

It seems to say something about where I was in my teenage years, and where I'm at now. When you're growing up, songs seem to describe your life perfectly - you go "Oh my god! this is me! This is me!" But nowadays, I pick and choose what I take.

"Born under a bad sign" doesn't describe me. It never did. But "What are you like?" is a question I ask myself often. I've lived an odd life, and I feel like I'm a late starter. Was it because I read too many road signs? It could be.

Of course, when I was a teenager, I knew everything, and I knew I was going to be brilliant. I didn't, and I wasn't. But I still might.

Now you're laying in the afterglow
And there's something that she wants to know
Are you going be the one to say
You belong to me, you belong to me

Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

Sleeping late in the afternoon
Playing your guitar

Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign
You've had a right life
Born under a bad sign

Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

Can't Buy A Thrill

2009-06-04T09:56:00.001+01:00

I put iTunes on random play, and it served up Steely Dan. This is a wonderful album. I'm wriggling in my chair to the splintered piano playing at the start of 'Fire In The Hole'.

I decline
To walk the line
They tell me that I'm lazy

Worldly wise
I realize
That everybody's crazy

A woman's voice reminds me
To serve and not to speak:
Am I myself?
Or just another freak?

Mittwoch

2009-06-04T07:20:00.000+01:00

Wednesday in German is Mittwoch, which means 'midweek'. I rather like that. It means the weekend's coming. Plus, I have a cool guitar-playing friend who works a shift as a bartender on Wednesday evenings, so I like to go and hang out with him.

This week, my work schedule was shot to hell by 4:00 p.m. on Monday, so I cancelled a trip to London, and gave my conference pass (I was due to be on a conference for two days) to a friend. She called me last night to tell me what a great conference it was, and how much she appreciated it.

I stopped work at 9:00 p.m. and went to the pub. I got half way through a glass of wine, and came home and went straight to bed.

It Wasn't What I Thought

2009-06-01T22:52:00.002+01:00

In the end, I decided it was OK for me not to write until I felt ready. In the meantime, I listened to my body and I took its advice.

My friend’s trial gave me a pain in the stomach, a griping in my guts, but it wasn't what I thought. I don't mean that quite the way it sounds. I'm talking about:

Thoughts
Emotions
Sensations

Did you know there are as many neurological transmitters in the human abdomen as there are in the human head? I found this out from Michael Gershon's 'The Second Brain'. Your head doesn't run the whole show. Your belly is responsible for an awful lot of what you are, and your gut instinct really is just that.

The last few weeks I've been letting my belly unravel and settle itself down, and when I say that it wasn't what I thought, I mean that I’ve learned a lot about how what goes on in my head hasn't really been the main event.

When I was young, and a lot less powerful than I am today, I kept myself safe. I held myself still. I was trying my best to learn how to be a man, in a setting where there was deception, cruelty, guilt and shame. I held on to my integrity. I stored my true self myself somewhere in my belly, along with all the things I knew and could not express, couldn't talk to, everything I didn't have permission to talk about. And I stored all the decodes, the passwords for unlocking it all.

My goodness: it has taken me some time to be able to unlock it. The time has come.

Shining Greatly

2009-05-18T10:01:00.001+01:00

This morning I asked the I Ching for advice.

This is what it told me:

This is a time of gain, profit and expansion. Have a place to go. Enter the stream of life with a purpose, or embark on a significant enterprise. The source above has descended, and its Tao is shining greatly.

God, revising for his exams in the garden by William Blake

(Also available in paperback)

Auguries of Innocence

2009-05-18T09:59:00.000+01:00

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
WILLIAM BLAKE

Writing is Difficult

2009-05-03T17:36:00.006+01:00

Writing is a bitch...

I've been on the road for a week, doing various kinds of things to earn a living. And I've had fun, and done well. I've been meeting people, talking, discussing problems, analysing businesses, and offering advice.

Now I have to write a bunch of reports, and though I know I can, and I want to, I hate it. It feels like it's going to be a struggle.

When I was six years old, I discovered I could write, and it was the most magical, powerful, and wonderful thing ever. I took to it like a duck to water, and by the age of eight I had my picture in the papers.

Writing, before the stars were torn down

When I was thirteen, I can remember being at home, sitting at my desk, and staring at the wall, and looking at the pen in my hands, and thinking I was sick and tired of being popular and successful.

A lot of things happened when I was thirteeen. Bad things, mostly. Regular readers of Hot Vimto may remember The House on Sandygate Lane. That was where we went to live when I was thirtteen. That's the great, hot, dry solid lump of a story that I set out to share with you last summer, and it's still stuck in my belly, making me vomit, and worse.

I'm going to hand over my voice to Sia now. Bless her, she's messed up and twisted, but she writes great songs. I sing along with her, and I dream that one day she will rescue from a dark, twisted sexual relationship with Amanda Palmer, and we will be free to love and cherish one another.

Until that day comes, we are siamese twins, conjoined at the groin and the liver.

Healing is difficult
Often results in psychosomatic
I admit to enjoying drugs
They get rid of tension, boredom and static.

Hate those adverse side-effects
Forcing the people who love me to scatter
Excuse me for being such a hypocrite
The way I see it really doesn't matter.

Why do you cock your head
To the side when you look at me?
Why are my skills in bed
More important than sanity?

To tell you the truth
I can't believe I love you so much
So much in fact that I don't know
Whether to weep or wind my watch
I have a sick sense of humour
It amazes me how points it scores
I'm addicted to vice
My best friends are pushers,
My boyfriends are whores.

Simple to see why I breathe
No one bothers me completely.

Simple to see why I breathe
No one bothers me completely.

Waking up next to you
Your morning breath
Reminds me of Lucy
The flies in the front room
Buzz round my head
And try to seduce me

If I contract illness
The last thing I want
Is to pass it to others
Fucking leaves guilt pangs
When I start forgetting
The names of my lovers

Why do you cock your head
To the side when you look at me?
Why are my skills in bed
More important than sanity?
written and perfomed by
SIA FURLER

Laughter and Love

2009-05-03T10:29:00.001+01:00

Laughter and love are everywhere. The cathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friend at the friend.

"The Napoleon of Notting Hill"
GK Chesterton

Jukebox Plays

2009-04-26T15:15:00.004+01:00

Jukebox plays ska
I do nothing
And I don't sleep.
Days of fear
September through New Year.

When I think of my friends
Who are working
I'm afraid to go that way.
Isn't one of them
Loves the thing he does
Every one of them
Wants to get away.

I wish that I had something that
I could put my heart and soul around.
So I dream of better days
And I slip into a haze
While the jukebox plays.

Jukebox plays Doors
Strange Days and Riders On The Storm
Ray's keyboard and the sound of spray
And a long black car
Comes to drive me away.

When I think of the fate of my heroes
I'm afraid to go that way.
don't want a be a heap
On a bathroom floor
Don't want to burn out or blow away

Just want to find me something that
I could put my heart and soul around.
So I dream of better days
And I slip into a haze
While the jukebox plays.

Song From Under the Floorboards

2009-04-25T15:49:00.017+01:00

I saw my friend Amy the other day.
Amy is good with naked women.
We talked about Dostoevsky.

Amy is an artist, but she had never shown me her portfolio before. She is very good at life drawing, and has a real eye for the female form. She had several nude studies on her iPhone, and even on the small screen, the curves of her figures were beautiful and involving.

By coincidence, Amy mentioned that she wanted to read some Dostoevsky, the Russian author I alluded to the other day. I mentioned this book, and the song that Howard Devoto made of it. Devoto restored the original Russian word the translator rendered less poetically; the anonymous narrator addresses the reader from between the floorboards of his apartment.

I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it

1982 was a year when I was not good with naked women, and everything in my life felt crooked, rather than curved. "A Song from Under the Floorboards" was an existential crisis you could dance to, with an insistent opening riff that moved harmonically and went nowhere melodically. I was angry, and I felt ill and I felt ugly. These last few months, I have felt it all over again.

This is a song from under the floorboards
This is a song from where the wall is cracked
By force of habit, I am an insect
I have to confess
I'm proud as hell of that fact.

I know the highest and the best
I accord them all due respect
But the brightest jewel inside of me
Glows with pleasure at my own stupidity.

This is a song from under the floorboards ....

I was never stupid at school. Stubborn, yes; lazy, distracted... and afraid to speak out. But I did not manage to be stupid. (Yes, dear reader, I knew too much.) And I knew a good thing when I saw it.
I knew beauty, but it was not the involving kind.

I used to make phantoms I could later chase
Images of all that could be desired
Then I got tired of counting all of these blessings
And then I just got tired

This is a song from under the floorboards ...
MAGAZINE

How

2009-04-24T17:00:00.003+01:00

My real self
isn't something I find very easy to fit into
the real world.

"There is a crack
in everything...
That's how
the light gets in."
LEONARD COHEN

Strung out in Heavens High

2009-04-22T09:11:00.006+01:00

This blog post is late, just like a lot of the others and a lot of stuff in my life (filing my tax return, losing my virginity, etc etc.)

On Monday morning, I read the obituary of J.G. Ballard in the newspaper. Monday evening was the series premiere of Ashes to Ashes, the Eighties time-travel police drama.

Ashes to Ashes is set in 1982, a time of my life when the black dog of depression had already moved in on me, and I was darkly cynical. I listened to Elvis Costello albums and read Dostoevsky and Oscar Wilde, and I knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Ashes to ashes, punk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all-time low

Punk had been and gone, and the charts were filling up with dross again. 2-Tone let different races mingle, and dance together, but it didn’t stop there being two million unemployed. The New Romantic movement meant that people like Jonathan Ross were allowed to become famous. Bowie was still good for a couple more years, but Roxy Music had deteriorated into some sort of soul band.

The show captured my feelings well. Apart from the Gene Genie and Bolly-Knickers, who are the hero and heroine and therefore have to look good at all times, everyone around them was drifting into an abject state. Not tough, not soft, not principled, not a-moral; just strung out and getting low. The sex was nasty and loveless, the prostitutes were unhappy and not nice to look at, and even the arrival of Princess Margaret and a giant pink penis failed to improve the mood.

JG Ballard was a science fiction writer who wrote about the twentieth century, and the imagined twenty-first, as though he were dissecting a corpse trying to establish how it died. He describes a civilization that’s lost, only we are inside it, and losing ourselves with it right now. I discovered his work when I was sixteen, round about the time my father died, thanks to a friend I used to borrow records from, who lent me this paperback.

Ballard was trained in medicine and for part of his childhood, he and his parents were interned in a prison camp in Shanghai. I had a chronically ill father, and both my parents spoke endlessly about the war, so Ballard’s stories seemed like pointers to my own future, in a world where my father’s visions partially came true, and I was an adult capable of inhabiting this savage, whimsical, collapsing scientific experiment. I would become an illuminated man with “arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown”.

Today (I mean Monday) I remember one scene in particular from ‘The Terminal Beach’. The earth is much hotter, and London has become a tropical rainforest, and the narrator is trying to make himself a home on an abandoned scientific testing station, while grieving the deaths of his wife and son.

One day, he finds some large charts showing mutated chromosomes, and he takes them ‘home’ and hangs them on the walls of his bunker. They are his art, but he doesn’t like the pictures not having any titles, so he begins to make up titles for them. Then, one day, “passing the aircraft dump on one of his forays, he found the half-buried juke box, and tore the list of records from the selection panel, realizing that these were the most appropriate captions.”

“Thus embroidered, the charts took on many layers of associations.”

No Means

2009-04-20T08:08:00.006+01:00

"We only become what we are
by the radical and deep-seated refusal
of that which others have made of us."
John-Paul Sartre

Thanks to Howard Rheingold for Twittering this.

Hope

2009-04-18T10:33:00.004+01:00

Since I'm finding it so difficult to blog at the moment (in fact, to do any kind of writing) I may as well attempt to write about not being able to write.

I'm doing okay. My friend's trial (the weirdest school reunion imaginable) brought up some very unpleasant childhood memories, but it's all for the good.

The words "I wish I'd never been born" are less true than they have ever been. (I just haven't stopped saying them.) I might get used to this place, y'know...

That dead badger I was complaining about? I don't think it really was a badger. I think I just ate something that disagreed with me. Like... a bath towel. And I didn't chew it properly.

Everything happened when I was thirteen. I don't mean literally everything, not things like the moon landings or Princess Diana, or Richard Curtis making a good film. But it was a time of teenage weirdness.

And I had nobody I could talk to about it.

I'm ready to talk now.

I'm not really ready to talk, not yet.

Poem

2009-04-16T07:04:00.003+01:00

We are all imprisoned
In the castle of our skins
And some of us have said
So be it. If I am in jail
My castle shall become my rendezvous.
My courtyard will bloom with hyacinths
and jack-in-the-pulpits.
My moat will not restrict me but will be filled
With dolphins sitting on lily pads
And sea horses ridden by starfish.
Goldfish will make love to Black Mollies
And color my world Black Gold.
The vines entwining my windows will grow butterflies
And yellow jackets will buzz me to sleep.

NIKKI GIOVANNI

Dead Badger Syndrome

2009-04-08T10:00:00.000+01:00

So, anyways... I know I told you I was going to feel a lot freer to write and talk about a wide range of things once the court case was over, didn't I?

Well, I'm still borked.

If you need to know more, RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual.)

"People can also be prosecuted for having a dead badger. If you see a dead one, arrange for the local council to collect the carcass and dispose of it. Never try to dispose of a dead badger yourself."

Thanks to the guys at http://www.badgerland.co.uk for their helpful guide to The Protection of Badgers Act 1992.

Happy Birthday Billie Holiday

2009-04-07T20:16:00.005+01:00

"If I'm going to sing like someone else,
then I don't need to sing at all."

Billie Holiday, born April 7th, 1915

Spot the Difference

2009-04-06T07:18:00.005+01:00

The Daily Telegraph reports this morning that most airport scanners can't tell the difference between Osama bin Laden and Winona Ryder. This is probably important if you're travelling on a plane. I think Osama pays for his own clothes.