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9/23/09 11:43 pm

1. woke up after a dream where everybody was having an amazing new years street party when all I wanted to do is get through the crowds and get my list of jobs done, then somebody sprayed mace in my face and I had an asthma attack (Ok, I am feeling suffocated by this life, but really subconscious, try a little harder next time)!

2. Worked hard for no pay or thanks, ache like a bastard.

3. washing up bowl and chipped pint glass conspired to remove an inch chunk from my thumb knuckle.

4. heard a loud bang, went to check on mum and found her asleep with ashtray on floor and lit cigarette starting to smolder on her duvet. Smoking in bed - the epitome of stupidity.

Its been a long day.

7/29/09 01:50 pm - Bored?

Need a way to kill a few hours?
Have an old copy of morrowind about?
Able to grow a beard?

Then here is my 5 step technique to fight boredom:

1. Grow a pirate beard
2. Load Morrowind back onto your computer
3. Half inch the expansion packs from a bay full of... well, I think you can guess
4. When you are playing and wander past a character who says 'What say you'  shout 'ARRRR SAYS I'! at the screen
5. Laugh in a slightly manic way at the continuing degeneration of your mind and pray for your next course to start sooner

7/16/09 09:07 pm - ARGH.

People often ask me 'Martin, what IS the best form of cloud seeding? Is it releasing some large particled compound into the air to act as a condenser'?

Well actually thats a lie, nobody has ever asked me that. If they ever did ask though, I would reply 'Why NO, infact, the best method of seeding clouds is to spend 40 minutes watering the garden, a thnder storm will turn up within the hour. Another good method is to light a barbeque'.

5/5/09 02:20 am

una salus victis nullam sperare salutem

4/13/09 02:27 am - Precognition

It's true, and scary, I had a precognition experience today!

I saw an advert for the new version of Reginald Perin on the BBC, starring Martin Clunes, and I instantly KNEW, without a doubt, that it will be shit!

3/9/09 06:47 pm

I seem to remember reading one of those ‘controversial’ articles a few years ago which suggested that brain cells were not exclusive to the brain, that there were small nodes of the cells present throughout the rest of the nervous system. At the time I pretty much ignored this as you would an unripe fruit, filing it away somewhere in the back of my mind until it died on the vine or ripened.

However, after 3 hours of chopping wood today I must reconsider, nay, extend this theory! I supposition that not only are these nodes present in the nervous system but also the rest of the body!

My process of reasoning:

1. I have always detested all but 1 form of strenuous physical exertion, especially hard labour, I can only assume some form of  chemical imbalance related to adrenaline, since I get exactly the same sort of  splitting headache and nausea afterwards as I do after getting to angry.

2. I currently have a headache, so this problem has not receded

3. As time has progressed not only do I mentally object less to physical exertion, but, indeed, my body complains less

4. This is not due to physical fitness  since I am far less fit than at 18

5. I drink beer after such physical labour.

The conclusion:

That, due to these brain cell nodes, my muscles and bones independently remember that THERE WILL BE BEER.

QED

Unfortunately I think that this bodily function may be at the detriment of my normal mental function (perhaps said brain cells are transitory?) since my mental soundtrack during the work started with the quiet acceptable ‘All along the watchtower’ and ended with:

Neil Armstrong, walkin’ on me face
Buzz Aldrin, walkin’ on me face
And the third one… E… ‘Es a spaceman, walkin’ on me face
All on the surfaces
And they’re looking… looking
At all the moon has got to offer.

Core Blimey trousers and no mistake!

2/17/09 09:51 am - Mornings

Why is  the logistics part of the brain the first to wake up? The part that, if it had a voice, would sound like a sergeant major? The part that insists on listing the minutiae of every single thing you have to do during the day?

     'RIGHT, UP AND AT 'EM YOU 'ORRIBLE LITTLE MAN! GET UP, GET UP! HAVE A SHOWER, GET DRESSED, MAKE THE BED, HAVE BREAKFAST, FEED THE CAT, GET READY TO GO OUT, WALK 2 MILES TO THE TRAIN STATION, RUSH THE LAST QUARTER MILE SO YOU DON'T MISS THE TRAIN, CATCH A TRAIN, THEN THE DAY CAN REEAAALLLLY GET GOING!'

That is why I hate mornings so much - why I have to medicate that bastard into oblivion and stimulate other parts with enough caffeine and nicotine to satisfy a bar full of french writers before I can face the day without weeping.

The part of the brain that deals with poetic literature would be a much better continuity announcer - 'hey there, no rush or anything, but if you feel like getting up have this haiku to think about in the shower, breakfast will be coffee cigarettes and coffee cake babe - oh yeah! Smell that Parisian style! Don't worry to much about the rest of the day, for what is time?'

12/29/08 11:22 pm - ABOMINATION

Rupert  Everett  and all involved in that ABOMINATION That they called a "Sherlock Holmes" film should have a special circle of hell built just for them 'The circle of literary blasphemy' perhaps. That is all.

12/16/08 09:59 am - A dedication.

To the future love of my life, if you exist somewhere out there, where ever you may be - Happy Christmas to you my love, may we meet soon.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff3aoSyYOVs&feature=related

12/13/08 06:41 am - "Christ mass"

Ok, it being a week and a half away from christmas I have had to consider what I would be cooking, and, it being me, the end results are predictable:

The starter will be roast figs serve with goats cheese, parma ham and honey

The Main coarse will be roast goose served with a spiced cranberry sauce, a forcemeat stuffing, rosemary roast potatoes, brussel sprouts and sweet chestnuts sauteed with pancetta and garlic butter, pigs in blankets (chippolatas wrapped in smoked streaky bacon), Steamed Broccoli and Cauliflower served in a rich blue cheese sauce and carrots roasted with corriander and ginger.

Anyway, apart from all that fat rich faff, the irony of the "traditional" christmas dinner suddenly struck me. Ok, Goose was probably the traditional christmas fare up until the second world war in this country, and is certainly the better flavoured meat. However, if you ask most people what a "traditional" Christmas dinner consists of in this country they will answer: turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, pigs in blankets, vegetables, followed by christmas pudding...

I cannot help but find this ironic considering that it is celebrating the life of a jew that lived around 2000 years ago! Although a type of turkey have existed in the far east for millenia the familiar type comes from america, along with potatoes and cranberries. As such, if we fed jesus his "birthday meal" the only thing he would be able to eat is the carrots - he would not have had turkey, cranberries or potatoes, he could not have eaten the pigs in blankets, brussel sprouts chestnuts and panceta, the forcemeat stuffing (containing pork), the cheese for the broccoli and cauliflower would not exist for a few hundred years and neither would the christmas pudding!

Ultimately, when you get right down to it, people celebrate the "birth" of Joshua by eating a meal half of which didn't exist in his time and the other half was barred to him, being pork. What can we do for our next trick? I know, let us stick a pagan totemic tree up the jaxy of an "angel"/fairy - that will certainly make the christian son of god happy!

mx

12/2/08 03:04 am - We have, without a doubt, got relationships all wrong... but is this a possible explanation why?

I was just sitting here, pondering the strange web of relationships in my life, and in those lives around me. Not the entire web of society so much as the individual intersections between the strands -  love, life, fidelity, marriage, need, desire - that strange meeting of crossing paths that causes us all so much pain. In short, relationships.

Then it struck me, or, rather, then George Bernard Shaw struck me. It often happens - for me at least literature is a physical force that barges its way into my thoughts.

In the epilogue to Pygmalion Shaw suggested something that was both shocking and intuitive to us all, even if he only dared to go so far in that time - that, ultimately, relationships will always follow a certain pattern - no matter the sex or sexuality of the partners there will always be a weak and a strong, a dominant and submissive.

I have started to wonder if this realisation of a long held truth is not the most shocking thing about this play, instead of the point then considered so amazing - that a woman could be the dominant partner.

Is it REALLY true that a relationship between a dominant and a submissive partner is the best? Looking at my family history, my friends history and MY history I have to say no.

I will use my self as a Guinea pig here - I am weak willed, corruptible and not totally honourable, so perhaps not the best example. Nevertheless I AM dominant in a relationship - don't hate me for it, I really can't help it. The point is, even with all my deficiencies I have still generally settled into the dominant role in a dominant-submissive relationship, which, even in the best of them, eventually resulted in a spectacular failure.

My Question is this - even in the best of relationships, is the dominant - submissive system really the ideal? When I am single (an almost permanent state these last 5 years) I have often considered those around me and thought 'No, a relationship with her could not possibly work, she is to strong of will, it would be almost constant fighting and bickering'. Would this really be a BAD thing? Maybe what a strong willed person needs is a person of equal force to match them, to fight fire with fire, to kick them in the mental crouch when they have unintentionally done so, to make them realise their own stupidity and nastiness as they are doing it rather realising it later as they come down from their own arrogant high. Maybe the 'submissive' needs a decent person who is understanding of their needs NOW, not in 10 minutes time when they have got over themselves.

Perhaps I have finally reached the age of reason... but I doubt it, I'm just waiting to go back into the fray of chemicals and insanity that is life.

10/16/08 04:46 pm - Run away if you have any sense!

Since I did it again. I couldn't help it, like so much that is wrong with society today you can blame the Daily Mail. In this case they have been constantly running adverts with the Buddy Holly song 'Everyday' on't. Since it's rather bloody catchy it got stuck in my head and the following travesty is the result, I give you The myth of Pygmalion to Buddy Holly's 'Everyday':

Every day - stone, file and plaster
smoothing off her cold alabaster
love like hers must surely come my way
a hey - a hey hey

Perhaps today - at Aphrodite's fest'val
everyone says go ahead and ask her
let love like hers please come my way
a hey, a hey hey

Every day she seems a little warmer
every way - my need doth en-charm her
come what may - you live through
true love from me.

I am sorry. I really am. There can be no salvation for one such as I.

10/1/08 06:13 pm - On Archimedes and Camus

Hmm, The arrival of 3 saplings today at my mothers front door, an apple, a pear and a plum to be precise, precipitated my headlong rush into the garden to remove the last 2 obstacles to their planting - a manky old miniature willow tethered to the ground tent like by numerous brambles and a dolorous 12 foot ornamental cherry (I ask you, what IS the point of having a cherry tree with poisonous fruit?!).

Now it has to be said, I detest the thought of such manual labour before the fact, but once I gain the impetus the task at had is not always unpleasant. Such was the case today, despite feeling like some Sisyphus who had sinned against nature whilst pushing a six foot ball of willow bow to its initial ossuary. Despite the size of the task at hand the most pleasurable part has to have been pushing over the cherry - it required the correct combination of the right hand tools and the precise angle from which to strike, and the swaying branches as I ROCKED reminded me slightly of quickbeam, but all it really required is a working knowledge of levers that has been around for over two and a half millenia.

And I think this is the root (bah, sorry, the pun strike team is in full force) of my dislike for such tasks - during arduous years of teenage weekend labour I followed the direction of irritating prols that, for all their working class credentials, seemed to lack such modern knowledge as that of Archimedes, insisted on completing such tasks with ridiculous volumes of backbreaking labour. It's nice to know that you have both the physical strength to complete the task alone and the mental capacity to apply that strength effectively. I guess, really, that it is nice to occasionally realise that you were right.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to always be right. As such, now that the familiar gurgle of adrenaline draining from my system is heard, now that the inevitable hangover and coming down remind me of another reason to detest such physical tasks, now that I quickly pop another pill to halt this path to depression, I am reminded of my failure, my crisis of faith, I am reminded of Camus.

Damn I love and hate that man (strong emotions, I think you will agree, less than 24 hours after our initial meeting) - We should all be thankful for 'The Outsider' - it is a masterpiece. But did the git have to be QUIET so masterful in its construction? Did he have to encompass the ideas I would invoke with bile and hate with such effortless, gentle, understated style? DAMN HIM!

9/5/08 02:35 am - I have Hijacked my mothers laptop to say this to pay attention!

Windows Vista is evil and I shall tell you why:

I don't deny, when it is running well, or when it is somebody elses job to fix the damn thing, Vista is a surprisingly stable platform - well... as new versions of Windows go, although that is hardly the best recomendation ever made.

From experience I can say that the REAL problem comes when, for example, your hard disk randomly burns out, goes beyond death to the point where your laptop doesn't even register it's existence. At that point you install another hard drive from a different manufacturers laptop and discover that, obviously, all the specific drivers for that laptop work don't work for the current one, and due to microsoft's overly complicated attempts to make things simple for the average prol. computer user your job is impossible. For example, you find that even though older versions of windows would load a generic driver for cd/dvd drives, usb hubs etc when it encounters unrecognised hardware Vista refuses to, thus you end up with the laptop asking you to load up specific drivers for the particular hardware without the use of USB ports, ethernet connections, card readers or optical drives... a hard job if you haven't perfected thde trick of data osmosis - I tried laying the computer on a bed of cd's of drivers in the hope that a few of them would leach into the machine to no avail.

My next move was to think "I know, I shall install a copy of windows 2000 (I only have dodgy copies of 95, 98 and 2000) in the partition, dual boot it, use the generic usb port driver of 2000 to access the internet, download all the vista drivers then copy them accross to the vista partition and install them" After having installed said copy of 2000 I discover that yes, usb ports work, dvd-rom drive works, unfortunately, it seems that unless you have forknowledge of duel installing 2 windows versions and have installed a 3rd party piece of software on the vista partition (I believe it even has to be on a formated hard drive before you have installed either version) windows vista doesn't seem to support a duel boot system any more - so I can only load up windows 2000 at the current moment.

This provides a bit of a problem since all the drivers I could get from the laptops particularly unreliable manufacturers website onto a cd from my mothers laptop were vista specific, as such I have to search online for the specific drivers for 2000, fine and dandy if you have an exact list of the parts - but you don't get that when you buy a laptop - you get a general description with perhaps a couple of stickers on the actual laptop itself. For example, from the half faded label worn off through use I deduced that the GPU was something along the line of an Nvidia ?force 7000?, only today I discovered through the instillation of a freeware version of some hardware recognition software that it was something akin to "nforce 630", the manufacturers renaming it the nforce 7000? since it sounds more impressive.

All in all, so far I have a decent laptop with the capability of connecting to the internet through a life support style blue usb cable even  though it has an on board wireless connection, irritating beeps for sound, no use of it's dual processor, a nasty habit of crashing the browser whenever I try and load a webpage which may have some useful downloads and appalling resolutiuon and 16 colours which seems to prevent it from loading up any software I do have which could help to sort it out since it is to low a relolution! ARGH.

HELP ME!

2/25/08 12:49 am - Itchy

Weekend involved killing Not-Zombies of "Los Illuminados"...(hmm, what does that translate as?) on Resident evil 4, watching old south park episodes online - mainly "trapped in the closet" and late night programs about psychopaths and mass murderers - All I am saying is there had better be other non-pub weekend entertainments than this, otherwise it is going to send me round the bend... then I'm gonna get angry, and I pull my gun out, and I say I'm gonna cap this bitch if you don't get out of the closet!

2/1/08 12:31 am

"This idea of the poet (or artist in general) is an important part of what we inherit from Romanticism. For example, one aspect of this is the myth of the doomed romantic poet. (One qualification for the job of second-generation Romantic poet seems to have been an early death.)" Romantic writings, open university press.

..... Now is it just me.... or does anybody else have the image of a Python-esq comedy sketch running through their heads? - "Ahh..., Mr Byron is it? Please take a seat... now, lets just check through your qualifications...

1/27/08 03:46 pm - The reason we won't be seeing aliens any time soon...

Its rather our fault really, its... well, its the song "If I were a rich man". to be precise, its the line "I'd have all the money in the world"... The silly bugger who made that doggerel up owes humanity quiet a bit. Apart from anything else its a foolish thing to wish for - at least it is if you assume that "money" is to be taken in the present day sense - a token with no intrinsic value which is assigned by common agreement a value of work / goods to be exchanged for. Thus should one person posses ALL the money in the world the other 6.5 odd billion are simply going to agree to abandon the system - and not in the good way of culture evolving beyond money, more the bad 1/4 of the seas turn to blood, everybody has a bad time of it way.

Now, all it takes is one passing alien with a bit to literal a state of mind and voom - theres another couple of thousand years added on before they will even THINK of making first contact. After all, would YOU like to associate with somebody who wishes to destroy themselves and kill off most of their fellow man (apart from me that is), if a species wishes for that in there popular entertainment WHAT are they going to be like in the wider matters of inter species diplomacy!?

And thats the BEST case scenario - at worst they are going to assume we are still using a bartering system of grain like the ancient Egyptians - they assume that and nobody is EVER going to come near us with a 100AU pole. Ok, RETURNING to a bartering form of currency strikes many as a fine idea, but to never have left it in the first place and yet achieved technical advances which enable space flight and radio communications will make a casual outside observer very concerned. They will start wondering just how many other things are we backwards in? What other, more important, advances have we missed out on? In short we shall look like we are very unbalanced intellectually - basically we shall be the galaxies schizophrenic, dangerous technology in the hands of individuals who may lack the ability of think in a logical manner? I don't think so.

It also makes you wonder... how much of the worlds wealth can be dammed up in the hands of one individual before it has a detrimental effect on the world economy? What should you change the lyric to? I'd have 10% of the money in the world? 1%? How safe is it?!

In short, I just don't think song writers THINK enough about the detrimental effects their throw away lyrics could have, not only on interstellar politics, but on many many other areas of life. This is why I propose that all artists of any type should be banned from attempting anything creative without first consulting a board consisting, at least, of a diplomat, a theologian, a lawyer, a criminal negotiator, a scientist and a philosopher - just to cover against any MORE unfortunate slips.

1/24/08 10:10 pm

Martin has discovered the BBC's latest patent method of finding a new comedy program - it seems to involve taking some comedian who was once good in something as a support then putting them in the staring role and getting some shit writers who wish to semi-imitate the bloody office. First Nick Frost in Hyperspace, then the crap Jack Dee thing, now an equally crap thing with the bloke from Green Wing - oh dear. How the hell did The Mighty Boosh get picked up by them?

1/22/08 03:42 pm

Over the many years I have participated in CCS (- Comedy Cockney Singing), for my own delight and delectation dont'cha know, I have come to a new appreciation of its wonders, it is like a key unlocking new wonders of thought, sing any song in such a style and a new horizon, a new world of cockney perspective is revealed.

To give you an example, I was making a luvvaly cuppa teee, and, as is my want on such occasions as the leaves steep, I started having a little sing along medly, half way through Whams "last christmas" entered my mind, when it left it looked rather different:

Last christmas I gave you my heart...
Liver and kidneys, some tatties,
Butter, flour, onion and some luvarely EELS!
I tell ya what darlin' - you made a tasty bit of dinner with that lot!

Following on from this I had planned to launch into full Bill Bailey "cathy" by Kate bush, however, the prevailing Cockney took hold of the tune and ran with it, resulting in:

MEEAAAT PIIIIIIEEE,
Bit o' MASH, Jellied EEEEELS it were LUUUUVERLY!

Anyway, just, you know, thought I would share... erm... it may be time to renew my perscrition or something...

1/11/08 03:50 pm - Time for a song...

Now, that Mr B. Dylan, I won't deny that he wrote some charming little dittys to have on in the background while you repress the masses but.... Hmm? Whats that? about equality and emanci-what?! Oh, are you sure? Really? We won't need any of that then... Anyway, as I was saying, he wrote some quiet catchy tunes, I really think he missed out on a big thing though, for example:

'How many roads must a van role down,
Before you repair the breaks?

And I'd get those tires replaced my friend,
Before you skid into any lakes.

And How many times must you get stopped by the cops,
Before you replace that front light?

The answer my friend is *your company name here* M.O.T and service,
The answer is *your company name here* M.O.T and service'.

You see? This is just one way, JUST ONE WAY that Mr Dylan could have turned his talents to something so much more important and financially rewarding than merely bringing light to a dark world, the advertising market is a big capitalist dollar after all!
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