Wednesday 29 August 2007

Grandstand, Bandstand, Handstand

The hurdles is a pretty weird athletic event. It's as though we got bored with people just running round a track, but couldn't think of another distinct physical skill to add to the Olympic canon. They could have tried to institute distance urination or speed head-vibrating, but instead they got lazy and thought up hurdles. Just running, but with stuff in the way. The event might as well be called Hindered Running.

I'd love to watch the Hindered Running section of athletics. You'd have to expand it a little, though. Having little fences to jump isn't that interesting. I'd like to see the runners pelted by stale scones. You could hand them out to the audience, and ask them to throw them as the race was underway. The first athlete to the finish line, of the last athlete alive, would have shown they had the strength to succeed.

Or have each athlete's wife or husband to say they want a divorce just before the race. They can throw down their wedding ring and spit on it in disgust. Any athlete faced with that emotional trauma would have to have real strength of character to complete the event.

OR (and I'm only brainstorming here) put a badger in a flat-cap on the sidelines of the track. Not in the middle, where it's obvious; just so that the athletes can see it in their peripheral vision. "Was that a badger in a flat-cap?" they's wonder. The true athlete would give it no further thought and sprint on like an electric cheetah.

If you were on the podium, hearing our dirge of a national anthem, knowing that you'd blocked out badgers, scones, and the breakdown of your marriage, the experience would be that much sweeter.

Hindered Running. 2012 beckons.

***

Staying with sport: Kieron Dyer. I wouldn't wish a broken leg on anyone, believe me. But there comes a time when you have to realise you probably weren't made to play football. Especially when you're sullen, perenially over-rated, and seem to have legs made of nothing but masking-tape and good intentions.

The purge of the mediocre from the England team should begin with Mr Dyer.

Jermaine Jenas, you're next.

***

'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill' on The White Album is one of the weirdest songs I've ever heard. If goes from major to minor so often it makes me feel like I've gone back in time. It's a curious mix of Ziggy-era Bowie and the theme tune to some fucked-up Eastern European cartoon from the early 80s.

Them Beatles were crazy. Wrote some good songs, though.

***

I've gotta stop watching the Rockford Files. Aside from its awesome theme tune, I'm beginning to think being a Private Dick (no, I'm not going to make a joke, thank you) might be a good career move.

You get to work your own hours, all your clients are beautiful women, you get to trade witty barbs with loads of character actors, and you get to live by the sea, eating tacos for breakfast.

Now, I'm sure the perks of the job might not be quite the same if I lived in, let's say, Bolton. But I'm sure I could still have some fun. I'd need to get a distinctive car, though. All private detectives need to have the most conspicuous vehicle they can get their hands on.

I'd drive a milk float. I can just see me tailing someone on a dark winter evening:

"Hey boss, I think that milk float's following us!"
"Shut up, Rocko! There's hundreds of milk floats in this city."
"Well, shouldn't we at least speed up to 10 miles an hour, so he can't catch us?"
"I said shut up!"

***

Time well spent, I think you'll agree.

Sunday 26 August 2007

The Incredible Vanishing Instrument

Yes, I'm going for the old 'Double Post Day'. And it's not just because I'm avoiding dissertation work.

And it's not to ask if I should have used a capital 'L' for Lego. (I should, right?)

I was just listening to Springsteen's 'Born to Run' (avoiding dissertation work), and it struck me: what happened to the saxophone?

In the eighties, the saxophone was everywhere. It was the all purpose instrumental option; everywhere from Bruce (Springsteen, not Forsythe) to Sade to Duran Duran.

It seems that some time in the early nineties, it just became incredibly unfashionable. I can't pinpoint when exactly, but since then it's been absent from all popular music. (If anyone can think of exceptions, I'd be interested).

Also, my sister used to play it, which may explain why I notice its absence so much.

I think the reason it must have happened is because of what I have termed 'The Careless Whisper Effect'. This is the fact that the saxophone became the main instrument for Yuppies. I think its harsh sound symbolises the cruelty and opulence of the Thatcher years. It's also shiny, superficial and somewhat fraudulent (too good for the woodwind section? You brass-wannabe cunt!)

It seems to have been replaced by the more honest, hardworking genuine brass sections. The trumpet has regained its crown as king horn. And let's not dismiss the Flugel. That mofo is cool. I admit to joining in the preference for these instruments. It seems like the trumpet is more versatile. Is this true, or am I just biased against the good old sax?

The strange thing is that different eras become in vogue again. The seventies are cool. The eighties have become cool again, too. But this is mostly the 'cool' eighties bands that are being recycled by todays musicians.

This led me to realise that Yuppy culture will never be cool again. This is because the mainstream is never what we rediscover, but it is rather the counter-culture. The Velvets are cool, Cliff Richard is not. The Pistols are cool, Brotherhood of Man are not.

As a society we are weedling out the shit elements of culture and embracing the overlooked stuff from each era. It's a kind of Darwinian cultural selection, where you can absorb the Smiths, but can piss on Rick Astley (metaphorically).

I think that's pretty cool. The shit gets forgotten and the cream gets revisited. Maybe we are improving as a creative society.

Of course, this may mean the end of the saxophone: the Gordon Gecko of the musical world.

I hope it can be rediscovered. It doesn't have to be tarnished with the Reaganaut brush. After all, Charlie Parker was the fucking daddy.

***

Sorry about writing a poorly thought out essay. I just felt I had to write it somewhere, or I might expel the inspiration from another orifice. I ain't cleaning up THAT shit.

Diamon D. Badger

My profile (on the left) is going to be really annoying. Diamon D. Badger. It makes me sound like a South American cartoon character.

I don't think they have badgers in South America, but I may be wrong.

***

Last week, my dad asked Lucy and me to build a lego castle for some talk he was giving. It turned out to be quite the stressful enterprise.

We unearthed a big box of loose lego that I had as a kid, and tried to make a spectacular piece of architecture. Unfortunately, my lego skills were a bit rusty, and I ended up making a number of rookie mistakes (miscounting foundation blocks, overestimating wall thickness, trying to hammer blocks together using my face, etc). The end result was ok, but no better than I could have produced 15 years ago.

My intelligence has really been going downhill since primary school. I have noticed this, and it is slightly perturbing.

In primary school I was clearly the cleverest kid there (if anyone reading this went to my primary school: shush!). Leagues above everyone, helping the teachers, a real prodigy.

In secondary school I was still really clever. One of the best students in several subjects, I did well in exams and showed real promise.

In sixth form I was pretty good. Above average definately, but not quite part of the upper-echelon. I performed reasonably well, but didn't stand out.

In Uni, I was pretty far down the evolutionary chain. Not quite at the bottom (though close enough to see it), I was generally a disappointment. Often failing to achieve expectations. Dull and unspectacular, with moments of startling ineptitude.

If this trend continues, by the time I'm sixty I'll be slumped on a street corner, dribbling whiskey, reciting obscure Big Brother trivia to passing strangers.

So, if this blog is going downhill, I have an excuse. I'm already dribbling as I write this. Not whiskey, though.

***

Thomas F. Wilson seems like a fun guy:



***

I'm starting a new job this week, which will either make me so miserable I don't write anything here, or will give me some interesting stories to write about. Either way, you all win!

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Banal Observation Pack

Have you ever woken up and found that your hands are still asleep? Waking up is a disorientating experience at the best of times. But if your hands are asleep, it's like being born again.

The instinct to turn the alarm remains, but you can't use any of your fingers, so you end up just swatting at it and mashing it like a dyspraxic fawn. You knock it to the floor and can't believe that the world you have just entered could be so cruel.

You then stagger to your feet and try to avoid the clothes and shoes that Yesterday You carelessly left on the floor, then stagger to the bathroom, clumsily walking into the doorframes.

The only way I could ever convince myself to continue with the day; to stop myself to crawl back into my pillow and duvet womb, was to bargain with myself: "As soon as you get back from work, we'll go to bed. As soon as we're home. It won't be long".

And then I'd believe this lie and carry on until the next day.

I'm not looking forward to going back to work.

***

Did anyone watch The IT Crowd on Channel 4?

Anyone?

Bueller? (Cliche reference #30)

I thought it was really funny, and seemed quite underrated. That may be because Richard Ayoade is always very funny in eveything. It could be because it has Noel Fielding as a goth. But it's probably because Chris Morris played a fantasticly typical sitcom boss.

Anyway, they've been repeating it and the new series starts on Friday. It's worth checking out. Especially as it appears Matt Berry (of the below guitar video) is in it. They've almost got the full house of those incestuous young comedy folks from the Boosh/Marenghi group.

Also, they're apparently making a US version with Ayoade reprising his role. It could be a US Office-style success, or an Every Other US Adaptation-style failure.

***

How many Weetabix are too many?

Or is it Weetabixes?

***

I must get back to work now. I must. I really must. Really.

Really?

Yes. I'm afraid so.

Monday 20 August 2007

The Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping

I know this is hardly the most original thought, but...

damn, this summer is shit.

It's pouring with rain, and is really cold. I should be on the beach right now. Or, if not on the beach, sitting inside watching Due South repeats, feeling guilty for NOT being on the beach. It's going to be Autumn soon, and I'll have wasted my last summer as a lazy student.

My sense of dissatisfaction is compounded by the fact that I have finally found a job (and heaven knows I'm miserable now). In some ways it's good, but I'm not looking forward to the work. It sounds like it will require a lot of initiative. Fuck initiative. I liked my first job where I was doing the same thing all day every day (no, not handjobs, smart guy). I didn't have to think or talk to anyone (blowjobs). Those were the days. If I'm not doing my dream job, I want to think as little as possible, so I have more time to daydream about my dream job.

It is part time, though, while I finish my dissert (I'm going to use this as an abbeviation. Or maybe 'my just dissert'). I'm working Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. This is the best combo, as you get the greatness of the Friday, without the terrible pain of the Sunday night.

So all in all I'm not very happy. I can't think of anything to look forward to (Christmas? Fuck off).

But the ramblings of a depressed person aren't very entertaining (unless you can see them jump), so I'll try and keep a sense of fun to this blog! Way-hay! Yeah! Wacky! I... I'm... wacky.

***

I'm descended from this guy! Isn't that cool? According to a book about him, his movement was respnsible for the deaths of 20 million Chinese people.

THAT'S initiative. I should learn from him. Apart from the whole insanity/religious persecution stuff. I haven't got all week.

***

This week I think I'll have to do something. Anything. Just so I have more interesting things to say here.

Tune in next time for:

My Humiliating Arrest

Tuesday 14 August 2007

We will, right?

I think I'll stop talking about football. There's a fine line between optimism and idiocy.

Monday 13 August 2007

Fire in the Sky

The football season is back, as is my general sense of despair. I can't think of many ways in which Saints might have had a worse start to the season. Maybe if they'd been infected by a flesh-eating plague. Or if they'd relocated to Portsmouth.

Oh well, I'm sure we'll beat Peterborough in the Carling Cup tonight. I'm sure we will. We will, right?

***

I'm running out of time in which to do my dissertation, so I should probably make this a short one. Maybe I can provide a Charlie Brooker style summary...

This week, Paul has been looking a shooting stars, seen fireworks and a torchlight procession to mark the end of folk festival week, finished the second volume of Strangers In Paradise, and learned to play 'Misty Roses' on the guitar.

That makes me sound much more busy than I actually am.

***

Finally, when in need to make a post seem longer than it is, it's always good to end on a video. This is how I learned to play the guitar:


Tuesday 7 August 2007

Occult Book Review


I bought he above book for £1 at a book fair this afternoon (actually Lucy bought it, but that's not hugely important for the story).

Please excuse the dark photo, but I think it adds to the mysteriousness of the book. It's called Geomancy by Franz Hartmann, and was published in 1889. I liked it because it looks like a book out of Harry Potter or something, and could have magical powers, although I've yet to discover them.

It's actually a book about astrology. The title page alone is fantastic entertainment: The Principles of Astrological Geomancy; The Art of Divining by Punctuation, according to Cornelius Agrippa and others. I obviously took this to mean reading the future through the examination of apostrophes and the semi-colon. I am already proficient at this. I can predict just by seeing that someone has used the symbols ;-) that this person is a cunt.

And I think Cornelius Agrippa is a great name. To find out more about him, I did what people may well have done in 1889: I looked on wikipedia. His article tells us that he was a 16th century magician. Man, I'd love to have business cards printed with my profession listed as 'magician'. Anyway, he seems like an interesting fella.

What is interesting is that my Harry Potter instincts seem to be correct. If you can't be bothered to read the entry, it seems that on his deathbed he was said to have summoned demons. One, his familiar, was a black dog, which possibly gave rise to 'the Grim' discussed in the Prisoner of Azkaban.

[I know wikipedia is a dubious source, but we're talking about astrology and Harry Potter, so I think hard facts can be thrown out the window]

He is also mentioned by name in the first book, as one of the chocolate frog cards Ron is missing.

Further Potter links are found in the Hartmann Geomancy book. Of the sixteen 'geomantic symbols', one is Albus, listed as "White Head, wisdom, sagacity, clear thought". Pure Dumbledore. Another is Rubeus [Hagrid]: "Redhead, passion, vice, fiery temper".

This doesn't prove anything beyond the fact that Rowling knows stuff about astrology. But, still, it's pretty cool for a random find at book sale.

The title page of the book also promises "an appendix containing 2,048 answers to questions". I had my fingers crossed that this would just be of the form:

1) Yes
2) No
3) Maybe
4) What are you, high?
etc.

However, they seem to be in strange symbols and diagrams that I can't understand.

The book has also been annotated by a previous owner, with strange formulae and symbols. Which raises the most important question raised by this whole analysis:

Is there anyone who takes any of this bullshit seriously?

I mean, even people who believe in the whole 'talking snake, red guy with pitchfork' scene have dismissed this stuff as nonsense.

Oh well, it's still a cool and beautiful artifact. I'm going to keep it and try and give it an aura as something dark and magical for my kids to be afraid of in years to come.

Of course, my scepticism might come back to haunt me (literally). If I find a chapter in here called The Re-education of Paul Fung, I'll come back here and recant.

If the planets align themselves correctly, I might return soon with a banal anecdote, or tell you about something I saw on TV.

I'm no Hartmann or Agrippa. But I have forseen it.

Saturday 4 August 2007

Queer as Folk

Oh well. I'm not surprised, or even disappointed. Just sad.

I saw the Simpsons Movie yesterday and it was rubbish. Just really bad.

However, it wasn't bad in the way that I thought it was. I thought I'd hate it because of the lack of subtlety, the bastardisation of much-loved characters, and beacuse of an overabundance of the same in-your-face edginess that they used to lampoon (see Simpsons Seasons 9-18 for further examples of this).

It was bad because it just wasn't very funny. They raised the odd smile, but the cinema was pretty quiet throughout. How can the same people responsible for, let's face it, the best television programme ever, produce something so... bland?

It didn't do anything that a Simpsons movie should do: nothing extraordinary in plot, no inside jokes for the nerds, no opportunities for the other Springfield characters to do anything interesting.

Oh well, at least it wasn't as bad as Family Guy.

That was a joke.

***

On the other side of the news (I don't know how many sides the news has, it could be a rhombus), it's the Sidmouth Folk Festival this week! It's a pretty huge event, and the place is crammed full of smelly hippies, bored kids and paedophiles (or Morris Dancers, as they're sometimes known). The latter make the kids slightly less bored.

Today we saw traditional Japanese drumming, performed by decidedly un-Japanese people. One of them looked like Coventry City manager Ian Dowie, I noticed.

There is a big craft fair, with people selling plastic animals and pendants and cloth bags and fudge. It's funny how a festival which is ostensibly concerned with peace and harmony and stuff contains tents that are the epitome of base, carny capitalism, selling people things they don't need for exhorbitant prices. Come on, no-one needs a gemstone thimble or a sponge frog, do they?

Well, hopefully the music will be good anyway. And I can act all superior because I live here, and complain about tourists with the withering old shrubs that sit on the seafront.

***

--witty closing remark was not found--