a good idea

My mother ranted about the council today. With good reason; Hounslow Council are fucking awful and there should be a complete audit of their spending and practices. But the ranting got kind of excessive and sowed the seeds of an idea.

For the most part, I hate complaining. Kind of. I love to rant every once in awhile, because it's fun to cut loose and eviscerate something that bothers you with wit, obscenities or sometimes both. But complaining, at its essence, is whining. And that bugs me. Especially as it's necessary. There are loads of people and organisations of people doing fucking badly at their jobs and they need to be brought to account. As people we have to not stand for their shit, call them on it, tell them they suck and it's just not good enough, or they'll just keep on doing it.

But it still irks me. Because threat of complaint is a shitty excuse to do a good job, or to fulfill responsibility. It should be done for a purpose, not for fear of complaint.

So I've decided, every time I complain about something - even on this blog - I'm going to come up with an idea. It doesn't have to be directly related to the issue I'm complaining about, but it has to be proactive at heart. I have to write it down. It can be anything: from an idea for a story to an idea for new forms of local government. It doesn't have to be feasible, but it helps: extra credit for feasible. Ideas balance whining. That's my theory.

So that's my idea. And it wasn't even me that bitched this time, so I'm going into this thing with credit.

renaissance, sliced onions and oil

It's not that I haven't been doing much, it's just that I haven't been writing about it.

So I jumped on the tube Tuesday morning, seeking enlightenment. Not in the traditional religious sense though; more of an intellectual aesthetic sense. On the way I discovered personal prejudice. I don't like bugs on the underground. I was standing, gripping the overhead rail listening to Aerosmith (weird, huh?) on my iPod and the guy on my left, trying to be macho and avoid holding on to the handrail, had a massive bug crawling over his back.

It may not have been that massive, but I thrive on hyperbole, so deal with it.

Anyway, I thought at first it was a spider. They tend to crawl on backs more often than normal bugs. But only six legs confirmed it was a bug. A strange bug; it looked like an ant but had a weird tortoise-shell pattern. I've not seen an ant like it. They're normally shiny. In any case, as Steve Tyler sang about love in an elevator (as cheesy rock as it is, any band that sings about fucking in an elevator kicks fucking arse in my book) I considered tube etiquette regarding fellow passengers and bugs. Should I tell the dude? Should I tap him on the shoulder and be like, "Dude, you've got a big bug on you - thought it was a spider but it looks more like an ant in camoflage" or should I keep my mouth shut?

I kept my mouth shut.

And then the love in an elevator became a dude lookin' like a lady. Weird fucking band.

But it struck me as terribly out of place, this ant. If it was an ant. Whatever it was, it looked more like it should have been scurrying from behind a garden plant and not on the tube. I don't know why, but it began to irk me. I'm sure there's an ecosystem within the London Underground - rats play a big part certainly - but I think this ant wasn't part of it. I think it had hitched the wrong ride. It must have been uncomfortable; about as home as a giraffe in the Yukon. It didn't belong.

But enough of ants.

The British Museum's Michaelangelo exhibition - more examples of true genius than you can shake an easel at - has generated a massive amount of press and has pundits falling over themselves to praise and pillory. I thought I'd check it out for myself, to see if the world's greatest interior decorator's (go fuck yourself Lawrence Llwellyn-Bowen) sketches were worthy of the heaps and heaps of praise they are receiving. Or, if in fact they were mostly fakes, as one iconoclastic critic has suggested. Well, they are indeed works of true genius, born of an incredible time of history. And the iconoclastic critic is more of a total moron IMHO.

Who am I kidding? My opinion's not that humble. The guy's a fucking idiot.

But go and see the exhibition. It's remarkable and humbling to see sketches that exhibit more genius than the finished work of many artists considered brilliant. His retirement project was designing St Peter's Basilica. Most people these days play golf and spoil their grandchildren.

Progress?

My hands, no matter how many times I wash them, smell of garlic and onions at the moment. I chopped 3 kilos of onions yesterday, and crushed 3 heads of garlic. I have used a lot of soap. I am a clean individual. But I still smell of garlic. And onions. They reek.

Everyone should go and see Syriana. Exceptional, frightening and thought-provoking, it struck me far more than I thought it would.

I'm tired. And smell of onions and garlic.

stealth-like daylight and some other nonsense

There's all sorts of weird stuff to mention.

While my mind wanders without direction much of the time, so too did my feet the other night when I walked to Fulham to see a mate. Yeah, walked to Fulham. From Chiswick. Those who know London might look at that and think "what the fuck?" but it wasn't that far. And with my limited knowledge of bus routes it made far more sense than public transport. Especially the tube, because it would have taken the same amount of time and I would have been more lost than I already was. Because I was lost. Not originally, mind. I pretty much made my way spot on until some weird nagging doubt told me that I'd taken the wrong turn off of Fulham Palace Road. So in correcting my imagined mistake I wandered aimlessly through that weird Hammersmith/Fulham no-man's-land where the street signs seem to be scattered W6 and SW6 with no apparent pattern or reason. Thousands of houses, council estates and mansion blocks, but no lights on in any of them and no people about. I noticed the lack of people because I didn't see anyone I would be too emabarrassed to ask directions from anyway (I am a guy).

In retrospect, it was very creepy. But at the time, The Best of The Proclaimers was pumping out of my iPod, and nothing's creepy when listening to The Proclaimers. Honest. You could be in a crypt watching the lid of a tomb slowly shift, powered by whatever cadaverous occupant within and be delighted that someone else was coming for a boogie.

Powered by The Proclaimers, I made my way back to the street I had been on and should have stayed on and made it, eventually to my mates flat. Where there was beer and a massive projector and a vast collection of DVDs.

So we drank beer and watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Considering the film, some other form of relaxant narcotic may have been appropriate, but beer worked pretty well. Neither of us had seen the movie and I can say without hesitation that it's genius. It exists in its own reality and for those 2 hours, you believe in that reality. There's also the whole David Bowie in Portuguese thing running through it - and that rocks. The CD is in my shopping basket at Amazon. Funding issues have not brought it to check out yet. Maybe I'll go up to Fopp today and buy it. I feel kind of in a Fopp mood.

Anyway. Rock on Steve Zissou. Watched Team America: World Police after that and chuckled heartily. Can't believe I hadn't seen it before.

By this point it was 20 past 2 in the morning and it was time for me to walk home. Now, I thought that as I knew where I was going my journey time would be drastically reduced. Fool that I was. I got home in no time - 40 minutes. Or so I thought. Unable to resist checking email before I went to bed, thinking it was about 10 past 3, I was shocked to see my computer clock saying it was 10 past 4. What trickery was this?

British Fucking Summer Time. Or BFST for short. I'd totally forgotten about losing an hour. I felt like a total moron.

So waking up to give mom her Mothers' Day card was harder work than it should have been. And then I had to tidy the Belfry for yet-another-fucking-pop-star that wants to buy the house. And they seemed to really like it. Which is terrible. I don't want them to like it. I certainly don't them to buy it. I want to win the lottery so I can buy it from my folks. That's actually my plan at the moment. As much was winning the lottery can ever actually be a plan. Which isn't very much, really.

If I did though, I'd go back to the Capital Hotel, the place dad and I took mum for lunch yesterday. Two very well-deserved Michelin stars and an awesome menu, bar, dining room, wine list, digestif list as well as superb service combined for an almost religious culinary experience. It also meant dinner was half a steak sandwich. I was going to have a few beers, but mom drank them all. I didn't begrudge her.

It was Mothers' Day after all.

one meeeeelllllliiiiiioooooonnnnnn dollars

I had a look at my hit counter this morning and over 1000 people have visited my blog. 1005, actually. Not all different people of course. But the 10 of you out there who check it out have done it 100 times or so, which is cool. And I suppose there's me as well. Compared to some of the big guys, that's nothing. They get like, 1000 hits an hour. But they spend most of their time making fun of George W Bush. And I think I've only done that twice at the most.

So for a non-political site run by someone whose friends aren't really the type to check blogs very often, 1000 hits isn't so bad. But I'm not going to let it go to my head. I'm going to chronicle the same drivel I always have. I'm not going to put a bunch of nonsensical political buzzwords in to attract google searches. No mention of cash for peerages, hurricane Katrina, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice 4-way bukake action (ew), supreme court justices, Islam, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, oil, cartoons, Christians, Intelligent Design (well, I have mentioned that, but only in exasperation BECAUSE IT'S SO FUCKING STUPID) or anything else like that to garner fresh interest.

I might mention Africa occasionally, because everyone else seems to forget about them.

And I might randomly mention loads of lesbian porn. Every once-in-awhile.

return of chat and hangovers

Hello.

I've not been posting very often, I know. I just haven't had much to say. You can only talk about leftovers for lunch so often. Bolognese today, as it happens. No spag though, just some nice, toasted, crusty bread. And lots of bolognese. And some innocent smoothie to wash it down and get some fruity goodness in the system.

So. Last night. It kind of crept up on me, like a Japanese Giant Salamander creeps upon a fish in high mountain rivers. Yes, I've been watching Planet Earth. I suggest you do too. It's brain candy. Like a box of assorted chocolates that doesn't have any of the rubbish flavours that you hate to get. And with everyone you eat, you get smarter. Now that's assorted chocolate. But it's not, on reflection, anything to do with last night.

Last night was assorted chocolate for the soul. Though perhaps beer festival for the soul would be more apt. The locale was The Dove, the participants were Marcus, Ru and Clair. Marcus was late but made up for it by getting very drunk. Fuller's Anniversary Ale played a crucial role insuring that Marcus was not the only one to get very drunk. That, and Clair's "small" glasses of wine and "small" vodka and tonics. Then, in one of the world's great injustices, the pub shut.

Lesser men (and women) would have been defeated, dejected and felt better this morning. But not us. This was an auspicious occasion, throwing caution and schedules to the wind - we were students again and no closing bar could defeat us. Displace us perhaps, but not defeat us. So we had a Belfry Party. That's right - we grabbed some wine and rocked out until the wee hours, dancing on beds, swigging rioja and boogying something chronic. There was sillyness, such as Marcus's insistence on emailing his boss to inform her of how wrecked he was, and the farce of arranging for morning medication. I'll save the rest of that for later.

Belfry Party!

So today's been a bit slow to the start. And I think I ate too much leftover bolognese. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it. And I think I'm meant to have an important meeting today. But the person hasn't called yet. For that I am grateful.

it's all a conspiracy

About a year ago I found myself kissing a young lady. This had been a rare occurance at the time and the situation surprised me. But moreso was her admission, post-smooch, that she couldn't take it any further as she and another friend had sworn never to sleep with me. The details of why this pact was ever agreed upon have never come to light.

They'd actually plotted against me.

It came as a shock. Having one's paranoia proved correct is crushing.

And I'm still convinced that the conspiracy extends beyond the two friends mentioned above.

So, without further ado, The Onion's own take on such things.

bit better

I'm feeling a bit better. I went out yesterday, ran errands, had an eye test - the stuff healthy people do. Still feel a bit rubbish so I haven't started exercising yet.

I have a weird thing on the retina of my left eye. Hypopigmentation. They thought it was a scar, which kind of creeped me out. Having a scar inside your eye? Ew. But no, it's just a spot where there's a bit less pigmentation than elsewhere and as such, if I understood properly, the humour doesn't stick to it properly (the humour being the jelly in the eye, not my sense of humour). The end result of which seems to be fuck all. But it has to go on my record anyway. Got a cool new pair of glasses though, so am feeling trendy and accepted in fashionable London. Or, I would if anyone noticed.

Some funny links:

For any Python fan, this is a must. Silly walks rock.

And this may be the most genius blog ever. For insight into a true cultural icon and master of the spoken word, please have a look (thanks to Capt Cook for that one).

The joy of others' misfortune

Doubled over in illness, sometimes one forgets that there is happiness in the world. Sometimes it's cheesy happiness; the reuniting of loved ones, the twinkle and promise in the eye of a young child, an engagement ring received with a "yes". Sometimes it's earned happiness; the joy of hard work being recognised by a raise, the unequaled joy of completing a novel (not quite there yet) and then having it published (still a very long way). There's occasional drunken happiness too, But there's another happiness. One that stems from the very core of human nature; it's not pretty.

It's the happiness and joy when someone else, often someone you don't know, proves themselves so stupid that even if you've been throwing up for three days you feel fantastic about yourself. That even if you'd been knocked out of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire without a penny, you'd feel a genius, and intellectual giant in comparison to the person who'd exhibited such stupidity. Posh and Becks could look upon this person and comment "'e's a bit fick" with pride.

The nice thing about living on the Thames is the view. Mostly. But there's also the chance to see people make terribly naive and stupid decisions, underestimating the power of a tidal river. Parking in a slipway during a spring tide while residents warn you to move your car and giving them the finger instead of listening to them, only to return to find that the tide had taken you your car 20 metres before it sank by the bow of a river barge. A teacher bringing a bunch of 5 & 6 year-olds over to see the tidal island at low tide and not checking when high tide was due, leaving them trapped and in need of rescue. Heh.

The most recent episode warms the heart more, because arrogance and pride as well as stupidity led to a young man taking his girlfriend for a bit of a joy ride. Wanting to impress the young lady and to show off his (or most probably his parents') brand new Range Rover Sport he decided to take it off road. Now, in spite of the vast numbers of so-called off-road vehicles in London, there are very few accessible off-road courses. Especially at midnight. However, it happened to be low tide and so our horny boy racer thought he'd take his lady and his motor onto the river bed, 'cuz that's off road and usually under water. Sadly, Range Rover Sports aren't really designed to go off road, and certainly not underwater. As this paragon of stupidity was to find out. So finding himself, his ladyfriend and his very expensive car stuck deep in the bank of the Thames, he calls the emergency services. Once they stop laughing they send several vehicles but all they can do is tie a buoy to the top of it so that no passing boats accidentally smack into it. They'd pick it up in the morning.

Which I got on camera for posterity. I was going to send them to the owner, as anyone so galactically stupid deserves to be reminded so that they never act so stupidly again. But then I thought that with salvage costs and of course, writing off a brand new Range Rover Sport, he (or most porbably his parents) would have paid enough. Then I figured I'd offer them to Range Rover, hoping to blackmail them with how badly their car performed in a real-life off-road situation. But then remembered that anyone requiring a car for a real-life off-road situation would have bought a Defender instead.

Please remember when having a look at these photos that the car is already dead - it has spent 6 hours several metres under water.

Having been abandoned overnight, with only a buoy for company, and truly buggered as the tide line is about 4 metres over the roof.
Help arrives - yes, so trecherous is Thames mud and so heavy is the car that salvage has to be via the water.
The winching begins
The boats for one car - overkill perhaps?

The tide's coming up again - how's that little barge going to get that big fucking car out of the water?

Uh, that's how I guess. Cool.
And off home they go, to the great big Range Rover Sport graveyard. Heh.Oh - and all photos ©NCM Productions.

party tales & foodie heaven

Yesterday, more was a accomplished than ever should be with a hangover. Because Thursday night was stupidly drunken (no food + booze of various nature = drunk). It needed to be stupidly drunken because I was at a party that I shouldn't have been. You see, it was a friend's girlfriend's birthday party. But 2 months after the actual birthday. Upon arrival at a bar filled mostly with strangers, I spotted my mate and joined him at the bar. Where he told me that he and his lady had parted company 2 weeks ago. So my reason for being at the party really, really didn't want to be at a party. Here comes an oddity of human behaviour; when you're at a party you don't want to be at, instead of leaving you just drink more. So many a champagne cocktail, whisky and beer (Asahi - pure evil) later, I was really rather drunk. And my friend had left. And I was speaking at length to a divorcee from Kentucky. Then another friend showed up, kind of rescuing me from the divorcee (who was nice, but had a monopolistic tendency when it came to chat). The other friend simply shouldn't have been there but for the fact that it is indeed a small world, and he's mates with the now-ex-girlfriend of my friend's brother-in-law, married to the now-ex-girlfriend's twin sister. Whose non-birthday party it was too. And a welcome-home party to boot as she and her husband (friend of my friend) had just moved back to London from New York.

Are you confused? Good. Now drink a bathtub's worth of booze and try to work it out.

So then an old uni friend of mine turned up, who was at school with the now-ex-girlfriend. I knew this was going to happen. In fact, it was the one expected event of the evening. However, I was delighted to find how lovely it was to see her. As she's really rather lovely. I passed the mobile number on of a mutual friend and they met up the next day. I was sort of chuffed that I'd played a part in a small reunion. Not at the time, at the time I was quite drunk and needed to go home. It wasn't until yesterday that I had any feelings of chuffed-ness.

The tube and walk home were a blur. I think I played Neil Diamond REALLY LOUD when I got back home.

Yesterday I edited the nonsense I'd written in both the book and the blog (erased forever, thank goodness) when I returned home. Not sure how Faulkner managed to write The Bear inebriated. I have trouble with my name.

After editing I went to the Van Riusdael exhibit at the Royal Academy and the Americans in Paris exhibit at the National Gallery. Both were cool, and I found myself quite surprised at some of the unifying themes of the latter. Especially as the individual artists had quite varied styles. Lots of pretty colours too.

Today was awesome. My folks, myself and a family friend went to Borough Market in Southwark to food geek out. I cannot believe it's taken me this long to get to this incredible mecca of London food. The very best veg, meat, cheese, fish, bread - everything. It was almost dizzying. I think I went through about 30 or 40 meals in my head as I walked around. Mountains of fresh-baked chocolate brownies, small wine merchants with obscure parcels of rustic French wine. Butter - oh, the wonders of proper French farmhouse butter in varying shapes and sizes. Basket upon basket of wild mushroom. We bought a lot of food. And most of this afternoon has been spent prepping it. I've got venison shanks marinating for pot roast tomorrow while there's pork belly slow-roasting in the oven for tonight's meal. And there's a lot of amazing bread. Proper, hand-kneaded bread that tastes particularly good with lashings of proper French butter. Spanish ham, salt cod, veg that looks natural - not waxed an polished but ripe and smelling incredible. Fuck supermarkets, this was the real deal and even if it is an hour of tube journey far better than going to bloody Sainsbury's or Tesco.

Southwark Cathedral rising over the market. My Dad in his Sherlock Holmes hat at one of the market entrances

Wright Brothers Oyster & Porter Bar - lunch was awesome. Ate oysters and drank porter.

One of the big fish stalls in the market - some truly cracking fish, but we were in carnivore form.

tactile

How do you respond to the realisation that you're broke? Some people budget, strictly allocating funds to only the essentials for life; some people cry into a glass of wine, wondering where they went wrong; some people seek new and more bountiful employment to ensure their income catches up with their expenditure. I went to Fopp and bought four cds. And I really enjoyed it. I hadn't actually bought cds from a shop in ages. Amazon and iTunes (and possibly LimeWire, though not if the bastards at the RIAA are reading) have been the cornerstones of my music purchases of late, mostly iTunes. And I'd forgotten how brilliant some shops are. Especially Fopp. If you have a Fopp nearby, you should shop there, because it's wicked. Their selection is brilliant, the staff is helpful and LOVE music and you feel kind of cool being a customer. I felt young and, dare I say, hip. And this is the other thing. I've been enjoying fishing out cds and listening to them instead of playing my iPod through my stereo or listening to my computer. Don't know why. There is a tactile quality to holding the cd and taking it out of its case that isn't there with an mp3 file. Weird.

In other news, old ladies aren't allowed to wear hats and an ex-teacher in France has seen too many bad movies.

Randomicity

Great name for album eh? Sort of like Synchronicity but without tantric-rain-forest Sting involved. Or talent, for that matter.

Toys

My favourites were legos. I had millions of them. It's one of those things that you bring with you into adulthood, that you had more legos than anyone. You may grow up not caring how big your house is, how cool your car is, whether your jeans are fashionable but when someone asks how many legos you had as a kid, the answer is always the same: a fuckload more than they did. It's like kids in seminary fighting over who's more pious. Or what I imagine that would be like. Devotion to the lego faith was maniacal, as was the need for recognition of that devotion.

And every kid had their own names for certain pieces. An "uppy-downy" for one kid was something totally different to another kid. Because legos were kind of an on-your-own thing. Playing legos with someone else would always end badly for the following reasons:

1. There would be a fight over a piece that there was only one of.
2. There would be a communications breakdown due to the individual lego dialects developed over 100s of hours of solo playtime.
3. The person who built the cooler stuff would get beat up by the people not building cooler stuff. Even if they were bigger. How weird is that?
4. There would be rage and anger over whether it was ok for a lego person not to have hair or a helmet (it was just wrong, ok!)
5. There would be rage and anger over whether it was ok for a lego head to be used as a "one-y" in constructing something else.

And so on and so forth. What has brought on this stroll down a lego-brick lane? Well, I stumbled on this today. What does it mean? It means they had more legos than me. Gits.

Poetry

When I chose the road less travelled, or the train to Leuchars, for my education, there were some lingering doubts over my choice. All of my friends from high school were in the States and St Andrews is an awful long way from, well, anywhere really. And while I've never regretted my choice of uni, there have been the odd times when I've wondered what would have happened had I stayed in the USA. Then I read things like this (pointed out to me by the ministry's own Irony), and I realise I made the right decision.

Other Stuff

Got all my filing done. It has resulted in the revelation that I am, in fact, totally out of money.

Before I realised this, I bought some photo albums to organise photos. Now that's an opportunity to waste serious time. So I've made a deal with myself that I'm not allowed to do any more organising until I write another 15,000 words.

I am slowly mastering my parents' car. I did drive a considerable distance today with the handbrake engaged though, so there's still improvement to be made. Quite a lot, I suppose.

Giant SLR pics

Some more from my recent trip to Ireland, these proving to me that there's still a huge amount to be said for using traditional film cameras. Then again, it could just be the lens. I don't know but I really like the way some of these turned out.





Odd London pics

Snappy Snaps are thieving gypsy over-exposing bastards and no one should grace them with their custom. £30 for two rolls of film with cd transfer? Load of bollocks. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. In any case, they developed a couple of films for me today and unearthed some fun shots that I intend to share. Bastards.

This is the only one of a series of shots that came out ok. It looks odd, because that's not the sun, it's the moon, and I think I left the shutter open for about 20 seconds. All the others were badly blurred. Still not too pleased with it, as there's no detail on the moon, but everything else looks cool. And there's a weird twilight quality about it. There's also amateur lens flare kicking about.

This is my view everymorning when I exercise; riveting, really.

One of the few purposefully arty photos I've ever taken, and the first use of my tripod. I really like this if only for the reason that it's exactly what I wanted the pic to be. It's just a reflection but it came out as I hoped it would. Not common for my pictures.

a little conversation

Inner Nagging Voice: Now, repeat after me:

Me: No.

INV: Come on now.

Me: Fuck you.

INV: We've gone over this; I'm part of you, and at the moment nobody's fucking either of us. You. Whatever. Now, repeat after me:

Me: Ok, alright already.

INV: Cookies...

Me: Cookies...

INV: are...

Me: are...

INV: not...

Me: not...

INV: breakfast.

Me: breakfast.

INV: Feel better?

Me: Fuck you.

cookie monster

So, I baked cookies in Belfast. But they weren't quite as good as I'd hoped. They were yummy, don't get me wrong. But I felt compelled to improve. I'm my own harshest critic. And if you'd ever met my mother, you'd know that's saying something. Anyway, I baked another batch tonight. And they were really good. Too good. I ate lots. So I'm still in the midst of a sugar rush, trying to sort through bank statements and attempting to resurrect a long-dead PowerBook G3 for a dear friend in need of a computer that doesn't crash when breathing on it.

Here's a philosophical question - if one travels far for a certain purpose, say to host a wine tasting and doesn't, in fact, host a wine tasting, but still has, as does everyone else, a fantastic time, is that a failure? Answers in comments.

And yes, I know I'm deluding myself, as comments are so rare, but go on, leave a comment. I don't bite.

Unless it's a cookie.

thrown out

Jo threw me out while she cooked dinner on Friday night, to buy wine and poke about her new neighborhood. I took a few pics of Queen's University. Nearly got frostbite. But dinner was yummy, the wine tasted good and a couple of the pics came out ok, so it's all groovy.

The communicating passage between the old (right) and new (left) library at Queen's.

Queen's


Queen's theology college