Mandatory Lurking

An Eternal Drain

2011-11-16T15:58:00.004Z

Close your eyes, give them our cash,
Do you see output falling, do you understand?
Do you feel the same, am I only dreaming?
Is this churning an eternal drain?

I believe we're going to bleed,
For the profits of bastards, we are asked not to see
Do you feel the same, am I only dreaming
Or is this gurning an eternal drain?

We don't face the pain and hide inside from the rain
A game so broken, that we don't even have a name
I don't want to lose our future

Oh

Embrace the pain, sun shines through the rain
Make the c*nts who caused it face up to the pain
I don't want to lose this feeling

Close your eyes and give me your hand
Do you feel my heart beating, do you understand?
Do you feel the same, am I only dreaming
Or are we learning that we need a new game?

Is this burning an eternal drain?

An eternal drain?

Theme: failure of deregulation

2011-07-07T09:54:00.002Z

So we have the second great crisis of deregulation embodied by the phone-hacking scandal, on the back of the (still continuing, no matter what they try to tell you) financial crisis.

In the 1980s businesses all over the world, but especially in the UK, successfully lobbied for deregulation and privatisation on the grounds of efficiency gains. After 20-30 years of this it has been conclusively proved to be a failure - unrestrained and so called self-regulating markets do not self-regulate, not even in their own self-interest.

Banks and Newspapers (and energy companies, supermarkets etc) need to be regulated by the state on a number of key grounds:
Honesty / Transparency
Viability / Probity
Serving the public interest

If any of these tests are failed (at a strategic, not a one-off tactical level) then the businesses should be nationalised or at the very least all the management replaced with NO compensation.

We need change in our society. Huge corporations who shape our world must be made genuinely accountable to society - if this can't work then they should be forcibly split apart and restructured so that they do so.

Perdit spolia principi pecuniarum?

2011-02-24T11:36:00.004Z

To the south, tyrants know
That it's time for them to go;
The cracks are starting to show:
An end to exploitation?
Reassertion of the nations
Against the
Against the
Against the selfish rule of the corporations?

In the north, trouble brews
As inequality lights the fuse
Angered by the bankers' abuse
The people start to realise
That growth is based on real lies
They can see
They can see
They can see the truth with real eyes

In our hearts we can see
Violence is our reality
You can watch it on TV
Sold arms to corrupt regimes
It's exactly what it seems
We caused these
We caused these
We caused these unpleasant scenes

Strategic priorities
Inconvenient realities
It's people that feel the squeeze
Of greed and morals
Of their rulers' quarrels
Liberals rest
Liberals rest
Liberals rest on their illiberal laurels

The United States understands
Genuinely democratic Muslim lands
Will be no friend of Uncle Sam's
Remove troops from our soil
From Israeli aid recoil
Get your hands
Get your hands
Get your hands off our oil

Greed is manufactured in the world-factory to maintain the new caste system

2010-01-29T10:38:00.005Z

To desire
Is, we are told, what makes us real
To consume
and to submit, for the nation's weal
Wherefore
Wherefore
Can we not just be?
And do, and love, and think and feel?

The cancer that
Gnaws on the hearts and minds of men
Is our desire
To have, to own, to keep, when
All we need
All we need
Is simply made and grown
And the reason for our lust is beyond our ken

The machine
That we all feed, it makes for to desire
So that we
Will spend our lives and blood in fire
Otherwise
Otherwise
Why should we live like this?
Working to enrich those whose wants will never tire

The illusion
Is one that serves some more than the poor
The deceit
Of democracy, is what we're working for
Not for love
Not for love
But for the profit of the few
So that they may feel that they are worth so much more

No wonder
We lose our faith, in god, in Blair, in Brown
For if it is all a lie
Why should the Queen retain her crown?
Starving child
Starving child
Is there nothing more we could do
But protest, donate and wear a guilty frown?

A factory for
The rich, is what our green world has become
Toiling to
Keep our own chains, and maintain the slums
Fairness
Fairness
Is deep within our souls
For our consciences are not so dumb

Time for change
And not just tinkering, but wholesale overthrow
Of the puppets of the rich
And the corporations in their greedy rows
Corruption
Corruption
Not just of this green world
But of our minds, and hearts, I suppose

Bonus Bandits and Billy Bragg

2010-01-19T13:53:00.001Z

I used to bank my chips
With an aggressive lending machine
The profits they seemed healthy
But I knew it was not what it seemed

"Do you want debt advice?"
Was what I heard them say
But in the language of the ghetto
That means "How much more can you pay?"

I wanted to free me
In my dreams I could see me
Running naked in the woods round Barclays
Trying to get away from the loan shark please
Unsecured debt
and the unrestrained bonus culture that was lurking
round the Gherkin

At a little low-level table we would talk
I carved the interest rate on a little wooden fork
Into the bank came the bonus bandit gang
They snatched the fork from out my hand

The bonus bandits looked at me
To assert my masculinity
I said "Oi!!"
They said "What?"
I said "Nothing".

(with deepest apologies to Bill Bailey and Billy Bragg)

Tell the fucking truth

2010-01-04T16:36:00.001Z

Tell the fucking truth

They write of pride and glory
They write of courage and shame
They tell you of your history
And who died in who's name

They make you sing of freedom
Chant of Christian peace and love
They make you think of your fellow man
And give praise unto God above

They tell you a tale of reason
Of progress, rights and law
Of liberty, equality and fraternity
Of all the good things worth dying for

They speak of unfairness
Of man's inhumanity to man
Of choice and also of happiness
And that they've got a plan

But they don't speak the truth
Not the whole nor nothing but
They tend to forget or underplay
The things that don't sound so good

Concentration camps in Africa
And poison gas in Iraq
Nerve gas and atomic bombs
We're kept well in the dark

The origins of fortunes
And the deals made by kings
The weapons sold for Nazi gold
And even less pleasant things

The wars to sell China opium
And WMD shipped to Saddam
The arming of the Muhajadeen
And dirty coups in Iran

The installation of dictators
Who'd let us rape their poor
Propping up medieval sheiks
To stop the commies at the door

Firebombing Dresden
Agent Orange and Napalm
Worldwide slavery
It's hard to stay so calm

The theft of the world's resources
So we can live like pigs
Creaming off the profits
From starving, diseased kids

We champion Capital not people
Profit and not Society
Ignorance not education
Selfishness not responsibility

We worship God but not each other
We bow to cash, not to thought
We never think about who has paid
For the pleasures that we've bought

They re-invent the enemy
To keep us all in line
Commies, druggies, Islamists
No enemies of mine

They speak to us of peril
And launch bloody wars
To keep themselves in power
And don't even show remorse

They lie, cheat, steal, and kill
And then manipulate the truth
Why should we have any standards?
When our leaders are this 'good'?

Berlusconi's prostitutes
Papal lies about contraception
Zionist walls across the land
And the 'immaculate conception'

Blair's lies about Iraq
Thierry Henry's handball
GW Bush's cocaine past
Hypocrites and cheaters all

The destruction of the planet
So we can live our plastic lives
With plastic food, in plastic towns
Watch plastic people on Sky

The insatiable triumph of greed
And the fruits of our lust
Billions more people
Turning the earth to dust

They argue over legal detail
They argue over proof
But if they want my respect
They should tell the fucking truth

Mad-owner - We bought your shares (tune of Like a prayer)

2009-12-05T14:01:00.003Z

Banks are a mystery, everyone should stand alone
You make me take the blame
And pay for your home

Chorus:
When you make me pay, it's more than just unfair
You're down on your knees, and you want to take me there
In the bailout hour, I can see you cower
We bought your shares and we know that you don't care

I pay your charge, I hear the future sighing
It's so large, I pay your charge
Feels like dying
I close my account, Oh God I think growth's stalling
I wonder why, open my eyes
Lenin help me

(chorus)

Like a child you issue demands to me
You're in control just like a child
Now I'm dancing
It's a ponzi scheme, no end and no beginning
We're stuck with you, it's like a dream
Let the cash sing

(chorus)

Charges are so unfair, the courts won't take us there
Just like the BNP, it is a mystery
Just like a dream, you are not what you seem
Thanks to Brown and Blair, so large your charge will take us there

We bought your shares, but you just don't care
It's like ponzi scheme to me

Twenty Years (more like 200)

2009-11-03T19:12:00.004Z

I've been reading A People's History of American Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_American_Empire) recently, and it's made me think again about some of the assumptions and ironies of the story of Great Britain. Given our current approach to multi-culturalism, it saddens me to think of the cultural and linguistic heritage that these islands have lost as a result of the monoglottal and mono-structural aggression of the English political system in the last 500 years (and beyond).

The Irish part of these islands' history has been somewhat obliterated by this centralising drive, to the point where there are now more Urdu speakers in the UK than speakers of Scottish Gaelic, driven out of the country or genocidally massacred by the government and the interests of private business during the eighteenth century.

And yet once the barbaric Angles of Northumbria were converted to Christianity and introduced to literacy by Irish speaking monks.

It's not just the Americans who have a less than pure history of internal political, social, economic and racial aggression.

'Seo do leabhar,
Sea do pheann.
"Dean do leasan", thuirt iad riumsa,
"'S gunn eirich sibh suas anns an t-saoghal
'S gheibh sibh an adhart ann."

Fichead bliadhna'airson firinn
B'fheudar dhomh feitheamh
'S b'fheudar dhomh lorg
Fichead bliadhn' de bhreugan
Thug iad eachdraidh air falbh bhuainn.

Dh'ionnsaich sinn a leithid ann
Canan's bardachd, bardachd Bheurla
Ceol na Gearmailt
Eachdraidh na Spainnt
'S b'e sin an eachdraidh mheallt

Bhon sgoil do'n oilthigh chaidh sinn ann
A' leantail foghlum, tuilleadh foghlum
Mar amadan air deiradh streang
Seorsa de dh'fhoghlum 'nam cheann

Fichead bliadhna'airson firinn
B'fheudar dhomh feitheamh
'S b'fheudar dhomh lorg
Fichead bliadhn' de bhreugan
Thug iad eachdraidh air falbh bhuainn.

Ach dh'eirich mi suas anns an t-saoghal
Fhuair mi deise, 's fhuair mi leine
Fhuair mi aite ann an suilean dhaoin
Fada bhon mhonadh mi'n drasd

Carson a chum iad eadchraidh bhuainn
Innsidh mi dhut, tha iad gealltach
Mas eirich clann nan Gaidheal suas
Le ceistean sireach is cruaidh'

Twenty Years of Deceit
They denied me knowledge of myself

(Thanks to Runrig, and Howard Zinn)

Car Clamping / Cemetry Gates

2009-11-03T18:56:00.004Z

A dreaded shopping day
So I meet you at the car park gates
Contract Law is on my side
A dreaded clamping day
So I meet you at the car park gates
English property law is not on your side
While your wild clamp is on mine

So I go inside and I gravely read the signs
All those laws, all those rules
Where are they now ?
With thugs, and threats
And signage just like thine
It was unclear
And then you clamped
And then you fined
It seems so unfair
I want to cry

You say : "You accepted the contract when you parked"
And you claim this cash as your own
You've fought well, and I've heard they've paid
A thousand times (maybe less, maybe more)
If you must write rules
The laws you use should be our own
Don't make them up or threaten, I moan
'Cause there's always someone, somewhere
With a big nose, who knows
And who trips you up and laughs
When you fall
Who'll trip you up and laugh
When you fall

You say : "Pay an extra £50 call out fee"
Words which could only be your own
And I produce the cash
And off was ripped
(It started way before 2004)

A dreaded shopping day
So I meet you at the car park gates
Contract Law is on my side
A dreaded clamping day
So I meet you at the car park gates
Although possession is on your side
You lose
'Cause the CPRs are on mine

Sure !

(With apologies to the Smiths, but none to private car clampers)

Beyond the utmost harbour-bar

2009-10-30T14:32:00.001Z

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
but journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I’ll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!

— J. R. R. Tolkein (1892 - 1973)

A year of music so far

2009-09-15T15:49:00.003Z

I've seen loads of amazing, mainly dance, bands and DJs this year. It's been emotional, to say the least. I've probably forgotten some, particularly at the two big festivals (Glade and Ozora)...

Thanks to Eartheart for keeping us going with Chai and pizzapizzapizza hotorganicpizza at Ozora - lifesavers;
The Hungarian crew near the chillout tent for bean bags, massage and general good vibes;
RNID for Don't Lose the Music and for their commitment at Glade;
My legs for not dying on me;
The weather for (mostly) not sh*tting too hard on us, and especially for the sun coming out during Hallucinogen;
The Sketchy cafe;
All the crew at Cohesion for amazing vibes every month, and Sati and Prozak in particular;
Rammstein;
Simon Posford;
Duncan for booking Get Loaded;
Donna for smiling and general loveliness;
Lucian for sorting out Ozora and for unmatched balls-deep commitment to hard rave;
Tinski for late night psy;
Albert Hofmann;
Red Bull;
Easyjet and BA but not fugging Ryanair;
My bed.

January
Hospitality

February
Lucid

March
Cohesion
Inferno @ Electric Ballroom

April
Alpha Omega - Hallucinogen, Earthling
Don't Lose the Music - Above & Beyond and Silent Disco, inter alia
Luminopolis

May
Cohesion
Peer Gynt (the fugging emperor)
A Great Philosopher Once Wrote
Totenfeier

July
Cohesion
Glade - Squarepusher, Booka Shade, Underworld, Beardyman, Tristan, Earthling, Andy C and many more

August
Tiesto
Inferno @ Electric Ballroom
Ozora - Transwave, Protoculture, Juno Reactor, Hallucinogen, Shpongle, Talamasca, Eat Static, Kraak, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Arc-I, Entheogenic, and more than I could ever list or even remember
Get Loaded - Krafty Kuts, Roni Size, Booka Shade, Royksopp, Pendulum, Orbital

September
Cohesion
Constanza - Folk dancing, Jazz Powered Train, Tinski

Travelling without moving

2009-09-15T11:50:00.002Z

The psy extends life
The psy expands consciousness
The psy is vital to space travel

Travel without moving

Thanks to Tinski for the epic 2 hour Astral Projection set in Constanza. Amazing.

Update Me

2009-04-09T21:57:00.001Z

I am a warrior of the light
I turn all wrongs into right
I wish I could make truth
Shine in the night
But I can't

I am a warrior of the dance
I leap around in a frenzied trance
I could unleash my fearsome
Warrior stance
But I shan't

I am a warrior of the law
I make it better than 'twas before
Cos I draft Regulations
Without a flaw
Or a slant

I am a warrior of the mind
Seeking truth for all mankind
But I believe that dogma
Makes people blind
In my heart

I am a warrior for the past
Hoping that reason will stick fast
To our understanding of
humanity's unity at last
It's a start

I am a warrior of the rhyme
My musings last for all time
And they will upset
and undermine
the apple cart

I am a warrior of the psy
I never stop inquiring "why?"
I will dance
Until I die
BleepBeepFart

I am a warrior of the game
+1 Sad and +2 Shame
Roll the dice
Inside your brain
Level 3 Elf Bomberclart

I am a warrior of the walk
Panting so hard that I can't talk
Sweating like
A Mordor Orc
It's an art

I am a warrior of the beach
Listen to the waves' soft speech
Watch the
Sunset out of reach
Off the chart

It's a twenty-first century fix

2009-04-02T15:20:00.001Z

Well, they're fashionably keen, and they're fashionably straight
Sounding all Green, and blaming this on fate
But they're a drag, just watch the fights they pick
It's a twenty-first century fix, It's a twenty-first century fix

No cash, no stash, an unseemly dash by d*cks
It's a twenty-first century fix, oh yeah
They're the G20 of cool, and the bankers who wait
Sent to short term school, rarely ever hesitate
They won't waste time on elementary tricks
Cause it's a twenty-first century fix, it's a twenty-first century fix

Got the world stitched up for greedy pr*cks
It's a twenty-first century fix, oh yeah
Twenty-first century fix, oh yeah
Twenty-first century fix
It's a twenty-first century fix

We're the hedge-fund highwaymen so tired of excuses

2009-03-31T16:06:00.000Z

I'm the hedge-fund highwayman who you're too cross to mention
I spent your cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention
The devil take your stereo and your record collection!
Because I've sold them off along with your old age pension!

Stand and deliver your money or your life!
Sold down the river with trouble and strife!

I'm the hedge-fund highwayman so sick of easy fashion
The clumsy boots, washed-out roots that people thought so dashing
So what's the point of robbery when nothing's left worth taking?
Its kind of tough to tell a scruff the big mistake we're making

Stand and deliver your money or your life!
Cry me a river or stab me with a knife!

And even though you fool your souls
Your savings will be mine
All mine

We're the hedge-fund highwaymen so tired of excuses
Of deep meaning philosophies where only the taxpayer loses
We're the hedge-fund highwaymen and here's our invitation
Throw your safety overboard and join our insect nation

Stand and deliver your money or your life!
Look in the mirror the greed is still rife!

And even though you fool your souls
Your savings will be mine, all mine

Da diddley qa qa da diddley qa qa
Da diddley qa qa da diddley qa qa

Stand and deliver your money or your life!
Stand and deliver your money or your life!.

Now I'm hiding from the sun

2009-03-31T15:55:00.001Z

Every morning going slow
I'm listening to the radio
Value of shares has hit the floor
Only memories of the gains before
Out in cash land having fun
And now I'm hiding from the sun
Waiting for a visitor
I hope no-one knows I'm here for sure

Gambling laughing
Sinking loving
And now I'm not alone
In bail out land
My only home

I think it's time to make a deal
To feel the emptiness I fill
Spend my money going out
I've nothing in I'm left without
Clean my teeth and comb my hair
And look for something new to wear
And start the high life over again
Kid myself I'm having fun

I look out from my window view
There's really nothing else to do
Hide my cash maybe write a letter
Shriti says I'm getting better
Watch the mirror count the lines
The battle scars of all the good times
Look around and I can see
A thousand people just like me

Losing Laughing
Sinking Loving
And now I'm not alone
In bail out land
My only home
(x2)

Losing, Laughing, Sinking, Loving

I'm waiting for some cash
I'm only passing out

A dreaming circus

2009-03-31T15:40:00.000Z

Open up
Now open up

You lied, you faked
You cheated, you changed the stakes
Magnet toss that guy in the sky
Unrehearsed, housing bubbles burst
All in all, a dreaming circus
A fool's litany with parody
Tragedy or comedy?
Probably you've p*ssed on me

Open up, make room for me
Now open up, make room for me

Lost my cash inside your schemes
Go for the money, honey
Not the scene
Be a hedge fund star, blah blah blah
Go the whole hog
Be bigger than God

Burn the City burn, taking down Bankerstown
Burn the City burn, burn down to the ground
Burn the City burn, burn the City burn
Take down Bankerstown, burn down to the ground

Down, into the ground

Burn, burn, burn
Burn...

The banks sing for their supper

2009-03-19T17:23:00.001Z

Gordo I know you're going to be upset
'Cause I was always your golden girl
But you should know by now
I'm just a baby

You never taught me right from wrong
I need your help, Gordo please be strong
I may be flawed at heart
But I know what I'm saying

The crash you never warned me about
The crash you said I could do without
We're in an awful mess, and I don't mean maybe - please

Chorus:

Gordo don't preach, I'm in trouble deep
Gordo don't preach, the share price falls are steep
But I made up my mind, I'm keeping my gravy, oh
I'm gonna keep my gravy, mmm...

You say that you're going to save me
We can rescue our GDP
Maybe we'll be all right
Taxpayers sacrificed

But the press keep telling me to give it up
Saying it's a disgrace, I musn't live it up
What I need right now is some good advice, please

(chorus)

Gordo, Gordo if you could only see
That you must back this failed ideology
Your eggs are in our basket right now
'Cause we are in debt, we are in debt, so please

(chorus)

Gordo don't preach, we're in trouble deep
Gordo don't preach, the sterling falls are steep

Gordo don't preach, no regulatory creep
Gordo don't preach, risks all in a heap

(repeat)

Oh, I'm gonna keep your gravy, ooh
Don't you stop loving me Darling
I know, I'm keeping your gravy

2008 Rules III

2009-03-02T21:19:00.000Z

And finally...

SEPTEMBER
Gaming – Stow (Agricola, D&D, cooking, rock band aaaaaaahh)
D&D in Camden with the posse comitatus
Dogshow and others in some bizarre nonsense of a night
Viking kids D&D in Oxford (whatever happened to those pigs?)
Cohesion (unsurprisingly not very coherent)
Metallica surprise at the Dome (thanks)
Baraka Autumn Equinox Chillathon party lying on the grass and having it in front of a rather startled child in a pub

OCTOBER
Bratislava and Vienna a beautiful if un-photographed sojourn to the heart of the New Europe with a very impressive set of paintings indeed
Berlin – the woods, the art, the history museum
Performance and others in Camden
Luminopolis and Hasselt (Hallucinogen and Infected Mushroom) in the stupidest night ever and the stupidest text ever oh yes I won’t forget this in a hurry
London Film Festival (Rachel getting married; Good, Bad and Weird)

NOVEMBER
Sam’s stag (paintball, fine dining, masked pool)
The unforgettable Sam and Dawn’s wedding upon the great river
Riiiiiiiiio!
Crazy Corcovado cracked-up climb of death defying daring-do
Alex and Carolina’s Buddhist blessed wedding and mental dancing
Simone and the Special Sunrise
All night RPG in THAT villa
Heroes die young 30th Birthday party UV soaked and a special chocolate cake surprise

DECEMBER
Green-wigged Mighty Boosh in the DOME
New College Christmas dinner epic
Johnian festive farce of a farci and all night old times in college rooms
CLWG Christmas party, Claire’s party, Baraka Records @ Coven II all one fine day
Christmas in Cold Aston and Bexhill
NYE Cohesion (Sati and the psychedelic Prodigy psuite)

2008 Rules II

2009-03-02T21:09:00.000Z

JUNE
Perfect Painting for Pramit?
Windswept Primrose Hill pre-party chair sitting followed by Dolls’ Fey birthday
Final leaving mini rave madness and menace

JULY
New Haven’s 4th of July firework-lit divine lamb and parmesan burgers
Discovering the joys of US coffee brain freeze ooooooooo
Sparkling wine and even more sparkling conversation by the river in Haddon
3am New Haven to Niagara nonsense – awakened by the spray of the waterfall
Toronto sand-sleeping and full on metal moshing
Getting locked out of the car outside the McMichael collection
Waving arms in the air at the Winnipeg folk festival
Talking to Gilles Fournier about UK soaps for some unknown reason
Viewing the endless sunsets from the beaches in Vancouver (Wreck, First, Sunset…)
Sauntering around Stanley Park (more damn beaches)
Full-on Psy, full-on food and full-on raven art served up by buxom Canadian girls
Climbing the fence to crash the Capitol Hill Block Party (LESBIAN!)
The endless walk through the docks to Discovery Park and the UV soaked rave lovein
Fremont and Haight-Ashbury hippy time travel
Golden Gate park flowers and the naked woman didge dancing
Blues dancing with the Swiss girls in San Fran

AUGUST
Mad Mexico City late night walks
Amazing rain-soaked and beef-fed Anthropological Museum insanity
Trotsky’s house and the Blue House beauty
Rivera and the rest rampaging through history and art into Muralismo
Mexico’s Pacific coast and the midnight storm with the ladies
Chichen Itza astronomical predictive text echo absurdity
Meridan murals most definitely show the sumptuous schizophrenia of Mexico
Tulum beached nonsense and Cancun’s cacky counterpoint
Pramit and Ayelet’s amazing wedding (Dan dancing, Paddy, Ganesh cake)
Fiercely frenzied Finntroll soaring glasses into the crowd and saved
Cielo and Roger Sanchez plus the girl that got away
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art again and again oh my god
Vegan food and Sarita’s mac and cheese mmmmmmmmmm
Bacon and cream cheese bagels every day (I can never forget)

No alarms and no more crisis

2009-02-03T17:18:00.003Z

Economy laid out like some road-kill
No job to slowly still you
Recession that won't heal

Banks look so tired and crappy
Who blames the government?
They won't, they won’t pay for us

We'll take a quiet life
A handshake for a peerage bribe

No alarms and no more crisis
No alarms and no more crisis
No alarms and no more crisis
Sub-prime, sub-prime

Money’s final fit, and greed’s bellyache with
No alarms and no more crisis
No alarms and no more crisis
No alarms and no more crisis please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden...

Lucky?

2009-02-03T16:14:00.001Z

We’re on a roll,
We’re on a roll this time.
I hope my luck won’t change.

Bail me sirrah,
Bail me again with cash.
It's gonna be a glorious day.

Pull me out of the Blaircrash,
pull me out my mistake,
'cause you’re my superhero.
We are standing on the edge.

The head of statehas bankrolled me by name
but I don't have time for him.
It's gonna be a glorious day!
I feel my luck can’t change.

Pull me out of the Blaircrash,
pour real money atop the fake,
'cause you’re my superhero.
We are standing on the edge.

We are standing on the edge.

Money for Nothing

2009-02-03T12:18:00.001Z

I want my GDP!

Look at boom-bust that's the way we do it
We're printing money at the BoE
That ain't workin' that's the way we do it
Money for nothin' and failure's free

Now that ain't workin' that's the way we do it
Lemme tell ya our guys ain't dumb
Save the world with your little finger
Prop up the pound with your thumb
We gotta install new kinds of bullsh*t
Custom hard cash deliveries
We gotta stop this recession quickly
Saving Gordon's bacon at the HMT

See the little banker with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That little banker got his own jet airplane
That little banker he was a millionaire
We gotta instil real confidence
Custom hard cash deliveries
We gotta stop this recession quickly
Stop Peston's fame at the BBC

I shouldna learned to play the markets
I shouldna learned to bang the drum
Look at that Obama, he got it stickin' in the camera
Man we could have some fun
And he's up there, what's that? Hawaiian noises?
Hatin' on the bonus culture in the city
That ain't workin' that's the way we do it
Get your money for nothin' get your bail out free

We gotta keep the bankers happy
Custom hard cash deliveries
We gotta move these wildcat strikers
We gotta move these colour TV's, Gord
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
You play the markets at the HMT
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and HM Guarantee
Money for nothin' and HM Guarantee

All of Yout'

2009-01-30T17:39:00.001Z

I-man serve Selassie I continually,
No matter what the weak heart say.

And I know that I & I is like a tree, plant by the river of water,
and not even the dog that piss against the wall of Babylon shall escape this judgment.

For I & I know that all of the youth shall witness the day that Babylon shall fall!

The Room within societal structures and individual incentives

2009-01-28T17:27:00.003Z

The truly astonishing individuals are those that succeed despite rejection, despite the established interests that they work against, despite the leagues of potential losers who assemble against them.

So the question is, how do we, societally speaking, filter out the dangerous nutters from the innovaters and saviours? We have been historically very poor at this vital process. Many of those possessing real genius have never been recognised, recognised only after their deaths or (most tragically and comedically of all) are seen as dangers to society and disenfranchised or even killed.

The difficulty is that not only is it a thin line between madness and genius, but that the societal incentives for innovating and developing are far less effective and immediate than the individual incentives and fears about changes to the status quo. By its nature those who have power and success within society are likely to be there because of the current systems. So the rich and powerful don't usually want change. The poor and weak do, but they have no means of making it happen.

Could the room be that instrument, that filter, that enables society and individuals collectively to transgress the limitations that raw individualism and short-term selfishness have imposed on us? Could a disembodied concept free of ego be the salvation for the masses?

Probably not. It's just a room, after all.

Mind the Gap

2009-01-28T14:10:00.002Z

So, six months has passed in Mandatory Lurking world.

And a lot has happened. Although in some ways, nothing at all.

Career break
Travel
Georgia
Credit Crunch (makes it sound like a chocolate bar)
Weddings
Raves
Birthday
Back to work

I'll be breaking all this down in my 2008 Rules Part two, to follow shortly.

However, I thought I'd pontificate on responsibility. This seems to be the crucial problem facing our society and indeed the world, specifically, a lack of responsibility by virtually everyone. This is why we've created an economic system which emphasises short term profits for individuals over progress for society. This is why children are growing up unable to read or concentrate because their parents aren't bringing them up properly. This is why knife crime is rising. This is why war is still taking lives uncessarily all over the world.

The crisis brought on by this failure of individual and collective responsibility has given the state, so badly buffeted by the post Bretton-Woods economic liberalism and further by the 1980s economic and political reforms, a chance to reassert itself.

The tragedy is that government (in the UK at least) has been so undermined by its own slavish adherence to the pro-market dogma that it is inacapable of acting unilaterally and innovatively. All of the solutions have been attempts to prop up parts of a failed system. The government should be using this opportunity to CHANGE the system and move away from the individualism of the outdated cod-philosophical justification of greed that has so wrecked our world, economically, politically, socially and environmentally.

We need a SOCIETAL approach, not an INDIVIDUAL one.

In the language of the vanquished, we need to internalize the externalities. Goods need to have REAL costs reflected in price, not just incidental costs. So the price of oil should cover not just the cost to the trader in extracting and shipping it, but all of the associated costs - the damage to the environment, the social costs of the labour and materials, and, most important, a premium added to cover the cost of replacing the oil as a fuel source.

If society were able to over-ride selfish short-termism in this way, we would be able to make decent long-term decisions about our lives and those of our descendants to come, as well as the earth. At present ourselves and governments can only take short-term decisions which discount the future to zero. Governments make decisions based on staying in power another few months - companies make decisions about short and medium term profitability, individuals make decisions based on instinct and cash.

The 'credit crunch' and the downturn are all about the gap between responsibility and current reality. In not taking responsibility for the long-term consequences of our actions, we have destroyed our economy and are destroying our world.

It's time to grow up.

2008 rules

2008-06-20T12:46:00.003Z

So far:

Zummerzet cider suicide quiz death pact
Brussels UCPD nonsense
Vilnius conference absurdity
Lots of dance music including 3 day bender feat. Underworld; Andy C; 2ManyDjs; Synergy
Egyptian wonders of Cairo and Luxor
Nile balloon sunrise and floating felucca sunset mmm
Down (I never stoned the crow, no)
Amster-damned for all time in the Vondelpark
Dance of the Maiden Veils green wigged Herodian hubris
Big Break Boldly Begins leaving party complete with glow stick and psy madness
Ljubljanan riverside pleasantries
Istrian truffle-fuelled rain walking in the ragged hills
Mount Ucka and down to the coast (thalassa, thalassa!)
Rijekan industrial onslaught
Hartera paper mill rave redefining 9-5
Split and Dubrovnik ancient and medieval monsters
The peace of the islands
The salt tears of my joy run

The best thing is that it is going to keep getting better and better...

iLLogiCal pAtteRns

2008-06-20T12:38:00.001Z

Now that you know,
that something's not right..
Don't be sorry, if you can't recognise
the errors and faults in such a perfect disguise.
Only illogics can find, hidden flaws in a straight logic line.
Only erratics recognise, errors and patterns of a perfect design.

Perdidit spolia Princeps Infernorum

2008-01-08T12:21:00.000Z

But has he? Or is it more plausible that Regnat in mundo Princeps Infernorum? What with war in most regions of the world in full swing if not brewing (Kosovo? Pakistan?) ...

I just hope things start getting better.

The perils of democracy
Bush (once might be a mistake, but two Bushes? Twice?)
Religion
Appeasement
Faith Schools
Banks
Newspaper sensationalism
Tokenism
HIPs
Wal-Mart
Media pimp-whore politicans
Lying b*stard politicians being allowed back into office
Crazy Frog
Stupid X Celebrity Cum all over my Dancing Brother Big f*cking Deal or No Deal in the Jungle
Cars
Jeremy Clarkson
Kelly Clarkson
The Klaxons
Bernand Matthews
Bernard Manning
They killed Socrates
They killed Jesus (allegedly)
Death Penalty
Guns
Gambling
Violent drunkeness
Apathy
Robson and Jerome
Tolerance of nonsense (see above) - see Appeasement and Religion
Alcohol, caffeine, E-numbers and nicotine VS other drugs
Local government
SPADs
PPI
Better Regulation
Human Rights (Ok, the concept is good, just poorly laid out)
People thinking their opinions are important enough to justify writing stupid lists of things
Hypocrisy

Et de virgineo ventre procreatus

2008-01-08T12:20:00.000Z

Nice idea. Sadly not a very credible one. Despite the evidence to the contrary.

Aurum, thus et myrrham ei offerendo

2008-01-08T12:10:00.000Z

Happy New Year! May it be one of many Salmons and much happiness.

Good Salmon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_of_Wisdom

Bad Salmon (although in a good way)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salmon_of_Doubt

My Favourite Salmon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon,_King_of_Brittany

I had an awesome New Year in rockin' old Bexhill on Sea in the club boathouse. The best fireworks you've ever seen and some absurd drum and bass.

The Boathouse is a shared facility and is massive.

Have rediscovered my love of trance, and psychedelic trance in particular. Synergy Project and Club 414 in Brixton have been the site of particularly mental dancing. More to come...

Complimentalist/Complementalist?

2007-10-12T15:54:00.001Z

I would attempt to verbalise the sound. But it would be pointless. And perhaps even childish. In any case, if you ever took the time to stop and listen, and I mean really stop and listen, you would hear it yourself. Not that I recommend it. The sound of decay is unsurprisingly traumatic (perhaps even mortally so) to most.

But yet it goes on around us. One of our early actions is to filter it out so we can effortlessly glide like wafting spores through our existences without being constantly reminded of the inexorable mortality of everything. Huxley tells us remarkably coherently of these filters that we build intrinsically for ourselves to support our own efficient function. He does not distinguish between those that are self-imposed and which are societal and therefore externally imposed, even if indirectly deriving from internal impulses. Much of our early life, unconscious as it is, is spent constructing these filters.

Indeed I often wonder if those parents that do not impose order on a child (the ultra-liberal, almost laissez faire approach) are actually doing it a huge favour, or a colossal disservice. They choose not (or try not) to force the child to build the same filters as them, to constrain his or her views to align with that of society. This should shape the child better for the basic social interactions but may well stunt his or her own creative and intellectual development.

Thus the child becomes a complement to the world. In extreme cases, when he or she fits all too perfectly then he or she (I'm getting bored of this politically correct pronoun nonce-sense) could even be said to be a compliment to it. The parents have shaped the child to fit the world so perfectly that they have paid the mores, modes and methods of global culture the ultimate accolade - to shape a person in its flawless image and shadow.

But each human being can be more than a complement or compliment to the world. He (I've drawn the line) can be a substitute. Think of the truly memorable people. They are memorable because of the changes that they cause - that they substitute their view and their will for that of the world. Thus is history and our collective memory formed. This can be in political, economic, social or even moral life.

Truly alternative individuals, truly radical substitutes do not change the world. For we reject them, both individually and collectively. Sometimes this is quite right - Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy was not the way forward - but sometimes and indeed more often it is because the substitute version of the world that the individual offers challenges our assumptions or narrow self-interest too greatly. The truly astonishing individuals are those that succeed despite rejection, despite the established interests that they work against, despite the leagues of potential losers who assemble against them.

Apparent from the context?

2007-09-18T17:36:00.001Z

The possibility of the other, as well as that of making/creation, had now been seeded deep within the emerging processes of the Room. Soon, one hopes, it would be able to ask and be confuted by the great themes...

But would such themes as it stumbled upon in its first conscious-unconscious stream of consciousness (does that even make sense?) be anything but utterly incomprehensible to our animal-monkey brains? Anything but forever buried in the strangely simple strains of a non-born entity, spared the sacred screaming of birth trauma and the power of parental oversight? Probably not.

Do we ever have the capacity to understand something or someone (as yet undefined) who does not share our context, our meaning and our own psychoses? Are we trapped and defined by our own traumas and our own struggle to free ourselves from and embrace (although not usually at the same time) the modes, mores and methods of our society and background? Would the Room be able to transcend that divide twixt us and not-us, having being born and not-born as a result of our actions and omissions?

Stay with it.

The Room had one major trauma and/or (take your flamin' pick) one major psychosis typically unprocessed by manchild. That of no visual image of its own identity. Our first sight (unless of the womb or the tools of birth) will be that of an adult human. This greatly shapes our perceptions. In fact, quite a lot of our first years of life and indeed later life are spent observing members of our own species. This is also true of most creatures. Not of the Room. No sense of self-identity, let alone self or not-self.

Ouch. Nothing to ape. Nothing to observe. Nothing to react to or against. Only the gentle susurrus of energy, emotion and decay that had brought it into being in the first place.

I would attempt to verbalise the sound. But it would be pointless. And perhaps even childish. In any case, if you ever took the time to stop and listen, and I mean really stop and listen, you would hear it yourself. Not that I recommend it. The sound of decay is unsurprisingly traumatic (perhaps even mortally so) to most.

She hides her tears and quickly lets it die

2007-09-18T17:26:00.000Z

So. I haven't updated you since January, oh impassive blog-wall mine. It's all take, take, take, with you, isn't it?

January
Went to Goa - amazing - Anjuna, Psy and Sand
Karnataka - Hindu/Buddhist sculptures and Muslim forts and tombs, ruined Hampi
Hyderabad - Golconda fort and Cyberabad
Mumbai madness and Elloran eloquence
Kolkota

February
Saw P & shopping
Parsis
Trip up the river to see Mum's convent and the mill
Back home in the cold snow
In time for the response publication

More to follow...

The Room in Context (2)

2007-08-17T19:18:00.001Z

Indulge the Room, and its curiosities. For it may help free you from your own unrealised pre-conceptions and unconscious goals and fears. Of course, equally, it may not.
So upon what did the Room next seize, or chance, to lead its growth? Would it be one of these monstrous human themes - creation, nature/nurture, or even love? Could it even derive any information from such a theme, or would it simply abstract something utterly unintended or unhelpful therefrom?

The answer, dear (or indeed cheap) reader, is NO.

The next stimulus, although related, in the way that all things are intertwined, to these grandiose themes, was to be far more base, far more primitive even than these great ideas and concepts that still shape and tear society and civilisation apart.

The Room was suddenly conscious of a discarded rubber prophylactic which contained a liquid. Of course, I hardly need tell you now, it did not conceive of this in these terms. A strange container, perhaps, would be a better way of expressing its reaction. And a strange content as well, indeed.

Had the musings of dead and living poets (ah, Morrissey) given it enough context to draw meaning from this dead tube of rubber that once removed a potential life? (Don't worry, the Room is not interested in anti-abortion diatribes) Could it conceive (aha) of the implications of the tube? Again, the answer was NO.

But it did start to force the Room to accept the possibility of another, alien presence within it. Of another existence. For the tube was clearly not a thing of the Room. And therefore (our minds can seize the logic of this far faster than the Room could) someone must have made or brought it.

The possibility of the other, as well as that of making/creation, had now been seeded deep within the emerging processes of the Room. Soon, one hopes, it would be able to ask and be confuted by the great themes...

The Room in Context (1)

2007-08-06T15:47:00.001Z

Which was just as well. It wouldn't have coped well with such a world.

The youngling, the god-child and the mewling infant all have their archetypes from which they issue and to which they aspire or react against. There is always a woman, a man or a god, or some semi-divine or zoomorphic equivalent which provides us with a neat structure of derivation, which implies comparison.

In some ways, the creation of the Room's emotional framework is like the birth of the cosmos. Like the emergence of Gaia from Chaos, or the Biggest of Big Bangs, or the very existence of the Christian God, it is something of a mystery. Do you have sufficient faith to swallow that mystery? Or will you reject it as many have rejected the creation stories (we must tread carefully with 'myth' here) in their own societies? For this is as real as they are.

What did God model himself on? How did Gaia grow to become or create the parched spines that spanned the Ancient World? What does the babe, lacking a parent (even a substitute) emulate, imitate and eventually emanicipate himself from?

Our world is fascinated, however indirectly, with such anomalies, because to understand them, is to understand the universe, in some small, perhaps small-town, fashion. Witness the popularity with a span of generations of 'Tarzan' - on the face of it a simple child's tale, but actually a study (if unscientific!) of the translation of man's development into the natural world, with overtones of the recapture or reentry to that Eden that we have all lost.

But, how far we have come, dear (as you have now become to us) reader, from the idea and the feeling of the Room. Tarzan is a far easier vehicle for such a comparison or exploration of our nature and the nature of change, of development and of continuity. The idea of an abstract Room taking on the challenge of striving alone to define its identity with no pattern is harder to grasp, like a greased vine that sends our hero tumbling into the jaws of a dislocated (cinematically) crocodile or lion.

Indulge the Room, and its curiosities. For it may help free you from your own unrealised pre-conceptions and unconscious goals and fears. Of course, equally, it may not.

The Room builds itself a set of ersatz emotions

2007-05-30T16:20:00.000Z

The nodes were still growing, and had become sufficiently sophisticated to move themselves to align better with the source of whatever sound was being perceived. This movement could be detected by someone watching the Room all day, but nobody ever noticed.

Sadly for the room, the emotional resonances from the rest of the building were rather limited. A professional (or enthusiastic amateur) sociologist might have put this down to the increasing tendency of young people to stunt their own emotional and interactional development as the world became increasingly dominated by technology and proxies for genuine face to face exchanges between real people. A historian or even an economist might have described this as the natural curve of development (depending on his or her political perspective), and rationalised it as being more efficient, as people de-personalised their decisions and interactions. A poet might have despaired at this loss of sensitivity, which was perfectly echoed in the art, music and other expressions of feeling (reality TV?) that people increasingly identified with, with faux-feeling, melodrama and vulgarity rising rapidly to the top and congealing, like scum on hot milk.

So it was these observed emotions, and imitated melodrama that the room fed itself on, as it unconsciously nurtured its primitive sensing apparatus. What could a diet of Big Brother's Little Brother's Big F*cking Deal do to a growing being? As thousands of parents throughout the land were soon to find out, somewhat horrific things for those unable to disassociate from its terrifying influence.

The poor room had not even the ineffective wishes of an aspiring parent to moderate the sewage being thrown at it.

However, one should not yet despair, gentle (or not so gentle, depending on your taste) reader. For there was hope yet. Somehow some strands of genuine creativity and fragile passion had crept through the barrage of insensitivity, short attention spans and farcical worship of the base and accessible. Especially in the music.

And it was this that was give us some glimmer of hope for the room, that it itself yet did not understand or feel. But as with many positive influences, one does not understand them, and perhaps would self-consciously reject them if one did grasp their fundamental impact on one's development and future self.

The Victorian schoolboy reading heroic tales of his ancestors and his contemporaries (perhaps even blurred together) has no understanding that these tales of self-sacrifice and courage are chiefly there to deprive him of the chance of protesting against his own sacrifice in some godforsaken hut on the north-west frontier, his throat (or worse) slashed open (or worse) by some 'savage' who his country has decided to oppress in order to make sure the cotton trader's international profits are not disturbed by the unpredictable pulses of tribal warfare and revolt.

The young girl, with a doll pressed into her hands, is unaware that this is part of a series of rituals that can only end in her loss of identity and potential in the interminable scrubbing of babies' bottoms.

The young god does not know he will be driven by destiny and myth to butcher his own family in order to renew the world again.

And yet all these horrific, corrupting influences are necessary for the species, the world, or the empire in turn to survive and prosper. Thus the insiduous needs of the status quo are impressed upon the child, the babe or the godling. In the case of the room there was no guiding force, no status quo to have its own needs taken into account either explicitly or indirectly. Thus, the room was able to develop in a true anarchic and dis-Freudian fashion, with no structures to ape or reject.

Which was just as well. It wouldn't have coped well with such a world.

The Room rumbles on

2007-03-07T17:16:00.001Z

In any case, the Room had not experienced this feeling. The Room had simply heard, broadly and simply. "How did it hear?" I don't hear you ask. The answer is and was obvious. It could not have grown ears, nor developed some sort of dolphin-like sonar. Rather, it had somehow gained the ability to receive feelings from others, to detect the emotional resonance in their activities and to distil it.

So we can deduce that not only was someone listening to New Order somewhere in the concrete anonymity of the block of flats, but that someone had been responding deeply to the music. The Room's sensitivity in using this brand new ability was still nascent and pre-pubescent in nature, and so the subtlety (assuming there was any) of that emotional response simply eluded it.

The Room lacked the ability to analyse these simplistic communications. It thus started to develop a cluster of consciousness around its emotional 'receptors' which began, slowly, even imperceptibly, to form connections and networks. This would form the basis of the Room's gradual expansion of consciousness, built around what was effectively a psychological sensing organ, however conceptual.

Over a short period of time (naturally undefined as the Room could not yet perceive, let alone measure it) the Room received increasing numbers of such responses and signals, in various alien forms, which allowed it to contrast happiness and sadness, as well as the somewhat different triumph and despair. Love and hate had not made themselves clearly known to the Room yet so many of the emotions were perceived only in a cloudly, incomplete fashion. This was probably because the Room did not understand mating, having no reproductive organs and having met no mate, and that it had no reason to hate, having never been hurt or threatened. Thus its gradually growing set of emotions and contrasts was heavily distorted by its fundamental difference with our own nature.

The nodes were still growing, and had become sufficiently sophisticated to move themselves to align better with the source of whatever sound was being perceived. This movement could be detected by someone watching the Room all day, but nobody ever noticed.

Even more of the Room

2007-03-01T20:21:00.000Z

...For the Room was sterile and immobile, crippled by its own bizarre composite, half-real nature.

Before long, the total lack of feedback was corrupting the purity of its original hope. The Room, having never experienced the reassuring glow of propaganda, or the numbing sweetness of dope, was unable to sustain its rather fragile, if simple, expression. "If only it could speak, or write, or even think properly," I can imagine you would say if you cared. But you don't, and in any case it couldn't.

Without support, without structure and most importantly of all without love or the past experience of love, hope was doomed.

The Room almost sighed as its first expression withered, and half-died (as it could not really die, being an expression of a barely existing consciousness). But the Room had gathered some momentum now and could not be so easily stopped from expressing or connecting. The next happening was to be less predictable, less easily dismissed by those who had no insight beyond that granted to them by nature.

Five floors up, in another room (but not a Room), a person, possibly another poet (but not the Poet), had activated a music playback system. It spoke in words as well as mere noises. These words echoed into the Room with a strange ease, a disturbing doubling of their existence. Without the accompanying noise the words may have proved unfamiliar even to those who knew them, and the Room definitely knew them not.

But the Room perceived them. It did not understand them, not least their subtleties and hidden messages, nor yet their context, but the words spoke unto the Room and lo, they did say:

"Heaven, a gateway, a hope"

This chimed with the faded hopes of sometime ago. But the Room lacked memory and so the chiming was a rather uncomfortable side-effect of this perception, being nonetheless the third manifestation of consciousness. Maybe the room's hope had been its own unformed and unreal subconscious overhearing (or overperceiving?) the words before they actually registered. I'm sure you know the feeling well.

Imagine you are watching a movie in your own tongue, but sub-titled with a language bored into you at school. Your eyes see the titles and you feel you can form the words before you hear the original sound, thus thinking yourself very clever. In reality, this is an illusion (unless you actually paid attention in school). You do not really understand the words but the confusing proximity makes it appear more plausible.

In any case, the Room had not experienced this feeling. The Room had simply heard, broadly and simply. "How did it hear?" I don't hear you ask. The answer is and was obvious.

More of The Room

2007-03-01T19:08:00.000Z

..Here the consciousness, not the political system, was genuinely all inclusive, and thus here there was only one – both trader and politician, doctor and assassin, cop and robber – if somewhat confused.

But no unity, however unfamiliar and however unusual, can long survive a lack of common purpose. With no shared fora for a debate, with no sources of biting satire and no free press to speak of, the Room's development of shared ideals was tepid and idle to the point of despair.

Indeed, were the Room to have had access to the concept of despair it seems likely that this would have become its bloody standard, its sacred emblem. If only the dusty (and, it must be said, unread) copy of Camus had chanced to fall open on a critical page, revealing the concept in all its glory, then the Room would have found a goal. But Camus remained unread and unfallen. The Room found another raison d'etre.

Strangely, for a consciousness so derived from decay and neglect, it was to be hope that it chanced upon. How exactly this occured eludes explanation, but, suffice it to say, one day the Room (silently) announced to itself that it hoped things were ok.

Now, to others, filled with myriad bitternesses and the sweet overflowing sense of time and thought, this may seem a trivial thing. I assure you that it was and is not. In the course of time it may of course become trivial, in the way that a child's first tears and cries are swallowed up in the lifetime of his emotions, concealed and revealed, but that their meaning to his parents is more than can be told with words. That fullness of time is not yet upon us, and so we must pretend that we can understand the importance of the hope that became the heart of the Room's existence.

The very essence of the sadness that the hope that had been born was that, of course, things were not ok. How could the Room's consciousness lead to anything other than tragedy? How could the Room's simple and all-consuming wish be met with anything other than despair? For the Room was sterile and immobile, crippled by its own bizarre composite, half-real nature.

Warrior

2007-01-28T02:25:00.000Z

I am a warrior of the light
I turn all wrongs into right
I wish I could make truth
Shine in the night
But I can't

I am a warrior of the dance
I leap around in a frenzied trance
I could unleash my fearsome
Warrior stance
But I shan't

I am a warrior of the mind
Seeking truth for all mankind
But I believe that dogma
Makes people blind
In my heart

I am a warrior for the past
Hoping that reason will stick fast
To our understanding of
humanity's unity at last
It's a start

2007

2007-01-03T13:48:00.000Z

So the new year begins.

Christmas was good - managed to relax despite a horrific 4 hour coach ride to Oxford and a slightly less horrific drive across southern England on Christmas day itself to visit the relatives.

Saw Pan's Labyrinth with K in Leicester Square. Was brilliant - the end managed to be both happy and sad - set in the Spanish Civil War with a dark fairy story moving alongside it. Also saw Deja Vu with some of my cousins on Boxing Day - also very good.

NYE in Euston ("Euston, I own you") with D and mates. Fun.

Now back at work but only until the end of the week when I go to India...

Strapped down, screaming out to die

2006-12-15T16:25:00.000Z

I put some really kick-ass thrash songs on my IScream (which is a strangely appropriate medium through which to be listening to thrash) and it's been great. I think a renaissance is in order.

ANGEL OF DEATH by SLAYER
BLOOD OF THE ZODIAC by MACHINE HEAD

Have been particularly important. I'm going to add some Arise-era Sepultura songs when I get back just to top it all off.

CREATION OF THE INSANE RULE
ALL WE HEAR
DESPERATE CRY

Good hunting.

Four hundred thousand more to die

2006-12-15T14:38:00.000Z

The longest gap in blogpostings. I'm surprised I didn't give up altogether.

So "what's happened?", I don't hear you ask. I'll tell you anyway:

OCTOBER
Battle of the Somme megagame - god it was depressing shovelling dead counters off the map
Trip to Bruxelles
B's engagement party in the Temple - amazing Oxbridge college layout
JB's birthday party including a surprise visit from Batman and a late night curry
Trip to Troon to visit the Scots
Probably a whole bunch of stuff that I've already forgotten

NOVEMBER
Pendulum @ Grace
Were the Saxons more literate than the Normans (M Clanchy says "yes, I was wrong") at IHR
K visits
Birthday party - awesome - saw loads of people (pics may appear in Flickr)
Games week in Tewkesbury - excellent
Visit to Mum and Dad - dinner out in Winchcombe
Sorting out holidays
Orestes at the Tricycle
Trip to Wales
Badminton
DT's birthday at Babushka (or whatever it's called now) - 'Tarantula'

DECEMBER
Geneva with D and T to visit A - night out in Lausanne, United Nations Building, fondue, sports
Office Pantomime x 2
Dinner with G
Team Christmas lunch featuring my famous quiz
Christmas dinner at ours
Squash with S
Axis and Allies: Pacific with B and S
Golden Gate madness continues
Workshops
Office Carol Service
Office Christmas Party

So, all up to date now. Probably see you in the New Year. Or not...

Tyranny, Oligarchy and Democracy

2006-10-02T14:10:00.000Z

BACKGROUND

Aristotle’s Politics puts forward his view of the political cycle, whereby the governmental structure moves through three forms. Each of these forms has its ‘corrupted’ version which leads to discontent, revolution, and the next stage in the cycle.

Monarchy – rule of the ONE (Monos) (typically Kingship)
Leads to Tyranny

Aristocracy – rule of the GOOD (Aristoi) (typically a land-owning or commercial group)
Leads to Oligarchy

Democracy – rule of the PEOPLE (Demos) (typically an assembly of free-born resident males)
Leads to Mob rule / Reactive democracy / Demagogracy

The city-states of Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries went through a long period of political turmoil which saw several of these states (poleis) dispute the hegemony of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. A series of states gained the lead, only to be torn down by coalitions of their rivals.

Athens, then Sparta, then Thebes, all became the dominant power, and all of them failed to build a lasting empire or system. These states were all subjugated by the Macedonians during the fourth century, and were then brought into the Roman sphere of influence during the third century.

Fascinatingly, this period of struggle saw the different states use the forms of government as a weapon in their national disputes, as well as a method of control. During the long wars between Sparta (traditionally an aristocracy with a dual kingship) and Athens (a radical democracy), the two sides used their political allies to foment unrest and gain control of vital cities, as well as imposing new governmental forms on defeated foes. Ultimately the Peloponnesian war ended when Athens collapsed after the disastrous naval defeat at Aegospotami in 404 BC and Sparta forced an oligarchic government on the Athenians.

GAME DEVELOPMENT

I wanted to use this period to explore a possible game based on these governmental forms in competition, rather than the states themselves. Players would be part of teams representing the three main forms of government, Monarchy, Oligarchy and Democracy, and would compete for control of cities, and the Greek world.

I see each major city having a ‘tray’ into which counters could be placed showing different ‘classes’, which would translate into different effects in different phases of each turn (which would probably represent 5-10 years).

The classes could be:

NOBILITY (land-owners)
Collect agricultural income
Fight as cavalry
MERCHANTS (traders)
Collect trade income
Fight as hoplites
WORKERS (industrial)
Produce trade income
Fight as hoplites OR peltasts OR sailors
FARMERS (agricultural)
Produce agricultural income
Fight as hoplites OR peltasts OR sailors
SLAVES
Can produce either income
Fight as peltasts OR sailors

The phases could be:

POLITICS
• Players make deals
• Players influence class groups
COMMERCE
• Classes generate income
• Buy slaves
• Check if trade disputes lead to war
WAR
• Check if foreign powers intervene/expand
• Hire mercenaries
• Resolve conflicts between cities (class groups provide different combat benefits)
SOCIETY
• Check for population growth
• Check for governmental change
• Collect taxes

Players would have influence cards which they would play on a particular class in a particular city, which would change its commerce, war or society effects. Different cities could also have special modifiers (e.g. Athens could have a bonus to WORKER income due to the strong commercial position of its pottery and its plentiful supply of clay, Sparta could have a combat bonus for its hoplites).

The players would also be part of factions within their teams – i.e. Trade, Land, anti-Persian, pro-Persian etc. This might encourage them to make deals with other teams. One of the notable facts about the Peloponnesian war was Democratic Thebes’s alliance with Sparta against Athens, for example. Players might have secret objectives to make a particular city strong.

The players would have influence cards which could improve a certain output, or cause specific events (such as a growth of FARMERS in one or all cities). These might be based on religious, political or philosophical concepts/events.

Finally at the end of each turn each city will check for a change of government, on the Aristotlean cycle. It should be possible to ‘jump’ stages in extreme situations, or for a war outcome to change the government automatically. The different government forms will produce different taxes, different methods of acting – democracy should require voting – and also different victory points for the teams and players.

KEY CITIES
Athens – commercial powerhouse with a strong democracy and navy
Sparta – military land-owning aristocracy supported by complex helot system.
Thebes – religious, often pro-Persian democracy
Corinth – strong commercial aristocracy
Argos – Sparta’s typically aristocratic rival
Miletus – commercial Ionian city usually under Persian rule
Syracuse – prone to monarchy, but in Sicily
Massalia – deep in the west but commercial successful

There were hundreds of city-states. How many of them are represented, and how the different regional situations are shown will determine the length of the game and the number of suitable players.

KEY ‘FOREIGN’ POWERS
Persia – massive empire – should dominate Ionia and even Aegean islands if no strong Greek power opposes them
Carthage – threatens Sicily
Macedon – should grow in strength
Thessaly – a possible threat or ally
Egypt
Rome

The Void

2006-10-02T13:52:00.000Z

It's been quiet here on mandatory lurking. That's mainly because I've been drafting like a b*stard. And so it will continue for another 6 weeks. But then I am free, if only for a little while.

"So what's been going daaaahn since August?", I don't hear you ask.

Quite a bit, really:
Amsterdam - brilliant to get away for the first time since Somerset and Latvia. Not long enough but did get to see the Van Gogh museum and plenty of other stuff too. Fantastic food, but that's because we ate Indonesian and Indian rather than the Dutch stodge;
I bought War on Terror the Boardgame. I hope no-one blows me up;
Lots and lots of gaming - back to Berlin 1953, Congress of Vienna 1814, dozens of sessions at the CLWG Conference, where I was re-elected treasurer. Somme next weekend;
All change at work. I think I am now a Policy Advisor. What everyone else thinks I am is unclear;
Half way through the Draft Guidance. Oh yes;
Caught up with lots of people - but still to catch up with a load more;
K off to Somerset to learn Chainsaws;
D back from Peru.

Hoping to manage a proper holiday in India in Jan - fingers crossed. But I've got so much leave I'll have to take it sometime.

D + G

2006-08-08T17:20:00.000Z

Not Dolce and Gabbana but Deleuze and Guattari.

The masters of the non-dendro-centric rhizome. Can the inseperable internality of the authorial polypersona not impact on our essentially biunivocal responses? Meccanosphere.

Did that make any sense? If so then you don't need to read the rest of this entry. In fact you're probably not going to be reading this blog. And well done on that decision.

Below is the ultimate D+G I have found so far. If you can tell me what it means please let me know.

'A field of anuses, just like a pack of wolves. Does not the child, on the periphery, hold onto the wolves by his anus? The jaw descends to the anus. Hold on to those wolves by your jaw and your anus. The jaw is not a wolf jaw, it's not that simple; jaw and wolf form a multiplicity that is transformed into eye and wolf, anus and wolf, as a function of other distances, at other speeds, with other multiplicities, between threshholds.'

Oh yes. Read it again. Do you get a strange feeling that this does make sense, but that you can't quite get it? I think D+G have hit on a brilliant formula. They have some excellent ideas - using Dumezil's bipolar political structure (priest/king) and then adding a third structure (the Nomad War Machine) is brilliant. The problem is that they push these ideas to the limits of sense, which is admirable. It's just that most radical thinkers like them have the courtesy to compress and edit these ideas again before publishing.

Anyway I highly recommend A Thousand Plateaus. Go for it and let me know if you ever did hold onto the wolf, via jaw or anus or even both...

Troy in Cambridge

2006-08-02T13:57:00.000Z

http://www.troy-in-england.co.uk/p0.htm

I especially enjoyed the masses of comparative place-name evidence which is (hog)Wash. Also amusing is the superb level of inconsistency - strict reliance on Homer's numbers followed by total denial about similar issues as they raise inconvenient arguments.

This is the peril of ambitions such as this - trying to back up something inherently implausible by reference to irrelevancies. Why on earth would the names stay the same if the whole myth has been reterritorialized?

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterritorialization )

The underlying arguments about migration, folk-memory and the implications thereof are very interesting, though. I can imagine a despot harnessing a folk-tale and changing some of the place-names to suit political purposes.

Brian?

2006-07-06T13:59:00.000Z

BIG

F*CKING

LOSER

L is for Loser

2006-07-05T16:31:00.000Z

Well, Sven obviously doesn't read my blog or he'd have dropped Lampard.

The sad truth is that, despite the quality of our players and some superb individual performances (Hargreaves in the QF, A Cole in the second round), the system did not work. That's the manager's responsibility. Gerrard and Lampard hardly had the ball due to our lame-ass 'hump it up to Rooney' policy, which might have worked if he'd had someone to pass to - his control of the ball from even mediocre passes was excellent. Our superb midfield (best on paper in the tournament, by far) was thus bypassed.

The few chances we did get on the edge of the area mostly fell to Lampard, who lamped the all hard over the bar. The stats don't lie - he missed 23 times by my count. I've heard plenty of people argue that "at least he got the chances" but that's meaningless - no goals, no assists = rubbish in my book.

I really feel we blew this one - even worse than 2002 when we had an excellent chance to win in a poor field. If we'd beaten Portugal I don't think the others would have been much of a challenge. I'm gutted. The worst thing is that I can't see us having a world-class passer of the ball (Beckham), such a good defence (Cole and Ferdinand were awesome) AND Rooney all together in a team again.

Terry should NOT be captain - he was dodgy on at least a few occasions (the three chances the Swedes should have taken and didn't). Gerrard is clearly the right choice - he's won the Champions League - and it will develop him, whereas Terry will shout and lead anyway.

I can't get that optimistic about the future with McClaren in charge. I really hope he'll prove me wrong but he just isn't a big enough personality to get hold of the players and sort out the midfield system, with or without Beckham. The key is to bridge midfield and attack, and the right thing to do would have been to get the 4-5-1 to work by one midfielder (Beckham) dropping back and picking the ball off Hargreaves (like Zidane or Riquelme) and the other midfielder (Gerrard or Lampard) breaking forward to support Rooney. How many times was Hargreaves given an easy option ahead of him? How many times did Rooney break into the box with someone to cross or pass to, or drag a defender away? (I'll give you a clue - the answer rhymes with "fun").

This seems obvious to me but the problem was that Sven didn't have the balls or the personality to give proper roles to Gerrard and Lampard, and he didn't make the most of Beckham either - left on the right where his lack of pace was a real problem. The best teams use their best players properly - look at France and Portugal. Brazil went out because they had the same problem - they pulled Ronaldinho deep to bring the ball out of midfield when they should have used Kaka or someone else in that role and had Ronaldinho running at defences, not at midfielders.

Similarly, Rooney should have been able to run at defences from 10 yards out, not struggling in the box with 2 or 3 defenders on him. What a waste. Given the way we were playing, it was no surprise that Crouch looked so effective when he came on in the QF - he held the ball up and waited for support, rather than trying to get in the box and score (which is what Rooney and Lampard tried to do).

Hitting sides on the break with the killer ball only works if you have attackers with the pace to go past defenders - where was Defoe? Why wasn't Lennon given a proper chance to attack? I blame the 5-1 win in Germany - we slaughtered them on the break with Owen's pace and Beckham's passing. The problem is that without a top-form Owen or other fast striker, it just doesn't work. We've been trying to play that way ever since and it didn't work.

Anyway, see you in 2 years. I still believe.

Zusammen - fussball

2006-06-29T11:45:00.000Z

Is it just me or have all the world cup songs been rubbish this year? I know we've had some shockers over the years but at least they were catchy and sing-able in the pub. I hated Vindaloo but it does have a ring to it.

All the tracks this year have sucked - no decent chorus. The official song is the worst - the chorus is about as suitable as the corporate sponsors. I think the only solution is to get the Finnish Eurovision winners to write the next one.

Anyway England should win on Saturday - without Costinha Rooney should get some space behind their midfield and I can't see their defence stopping him. As long as they don't foul him at the start of the match again I don't think it should be too tough. But having said that I'm sure they'll make us sweat.

I reckon Sven should start with
Robinson
Neville Terry Ferdinand Cole
Hargreaves
Lennon Beckham Gerrard Cole
Rooney

Lampard definitely deserved to start the tournament on his domestic form, but he's been rubbish so far - 21 missed shots is a shocking record. I know people say: "at least he's getting into the right positions" but that means p*ss all if you don't pass or shoot on target. If he wastes another bunch of good chances that could be the difference between us and the Portugeezers.

But he'll probably start with Lampard. I suppose he has to score one sometime...

More cheating b*stards

2006-06-29T11:40:00.000Z

Figo
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

I used to have respect for Figo. Even when he scored against us at Euro 2000.

Now he can f*ck off back home like the cheating swine that he is.

Cheating b*stards

2006-06-29T11:38:00.000Z

Henry
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

First post since WC started. I've been too busy watching the games.

Why has FIFA failed to deal with the outrageous cheating at the world cup? The pictures clearly show that Figo and Henry (among others) CHEATED, and successfully deceived the referee.

Well, they haven't fooled me, the cheating b*stards.

The result of this is that everyone all round the world, including the children, have seen cheats prosper.

FIFA should at least fine both players, even if they feel they can't ban them. Until this gets sorted out players will continue to cheat and fake, and the game will suffer.

Spain did not deserve to lose to France last night - and Henry's selfish, misguided and out-of-character action has cost him my respect. But this won't help - FIFA and UEFA need to act.

The Room continued...

2006-06-08T15:10:00.000Z

...Thus to write about the consciousness of a nonhuman form, as a human, is mere folly.

Thus the room did not deconstruct the looming reality of its existence. It simply became. As it began to be it did not ask itself existential questions but rather practical ones. Its first real question (to itself, of course) was “what is that?” This was in response to its sudden perception of the other, the non-self. For what lay outside the room was the phenomenal, overbearing and terrifying nonsense of everything.

Having no organs, no senses as such, the room was not able to divine what this non-self was, but it was sufficiently aware to understand the distinction. At this stage, we can realise that the room’s collective birth of a single, divided consciousness is not the same in any way to our own experience of sense, or self. A child does not understand the non-self for many months. This room, this being was made up of the ephemera of the wider world, and was not born from a union of cells, but from their death, reshaping and decay.

The carelessly collated clothes, lying in heaps for sorting, washing and ironing; one dead moth, crispy and brittle in its silent and unmourned solitude; the furniture, certainly the dominant force in terms of volume and strength; the books that stood and wilted proudly on the shelves; the unwashed and stale bedclothes; the quiet shoes and the dust and dirt that gathered in their creases and soles; the detritus of the poet’s life – letters (often unopened), pens (often unused), tangled ties (worn but once) and, of course, the walls, floor and ceiling, topped by the carpet and the paintwork.

The room’s uniting feature, as so often is the case at the start, were not its shared political beliefs, nor shared economic interest nor even its carefully selected and highly tasteful colour scheme, but rather its shared physicality and presence. Like a tribe of men rising from the desert, or the swamp, it perceived its own borders and self clearly, but lacked the ability to see beyond itself. The other emanated only fear and uncertainty. Without success, without joy, the room could not yet know excitement – only dread – the natural concern of a living being obsessed with its own survival.

But the comparisons must end there. A tribe of men surrenders individual action and decisions to a central force, usually an individual. That could not happen here – there was no disagreement, no scarcity or economies of scale that could be used here. Here the consciousness, not the political system, was genuinely all inclusive, and thus here there was only one – both trader and politician, doctor and assassin, cop and robber – if somewhat confused.

The Room continued

2006-06-07T16:52:00.000Z

(see earlier posts)

The room felt a sense of responsibility for itself for the first time, but not very clearly. In fact, it was mainly just manifested in the spines of the shelves. They were doing a sterling job; after all, poets like to read…

These spines underpinned the room, but not in some traditional, physical sense; nor yet metaphysically. The structure of consciousness, the room may or may not have been discovering, could be seen as crossing the boundaries of the physical and the non-physical. For that, indeed, is what consciousness may be – the bridge between the world of thought and the world of form. So to start with the architecturally sound pillars seemed to make sense, as they supported both the physicality of the literature and the placing of that physicality within the life-space of the poet/invader. But that’s all hokum, isn’t it?

The room, were its consciousness able to grasp the basic tenets of metaphysics, or literature, would clearly reject such high-falluting concepts as being strictly irrelevant to the process it was experiencing. Does a mother think about the socio-political landscape of expanding humanity in the moment of birth? Does a new nation consider the very concept of identity as it creates its new national anthem, national flag and national system of government. We guess not (but can only guess, being neither a new mother nor a new nation).

The situation of birth, the moment of consciousness, the concept of creation and awake-ness, does not lend itself to analysis easily. In fact, it usually excludes it. We cannot remember our own moment of genesis, neither of form nor of thought. We cannot imagine the concept of non-consciousness, even in ourselves, despite the transparent truth of the matter. Thus to write about the consciousness of a nonhuman form, as a human, is mere folly.

Same Old Day

2006-06-05T10:59:00.000Z

Phil Anselmo Loaded
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

"I never stoned the crow
Stoned the crow, no no"

I saw Down, and Phil, and P, the first two for the first time at the Astoria on Tuesday. Awesome. No support - just videos of their favourite tracks and bands (Metallica, Sabbath, Led Zep, Slayer) and then all the old tunes.

The second album sounded good live - I should go and buy it I guess. Temptation's Wings, Hail the Leaf and Lifer all led savage moshing. The crowd seemed to sense me and P were up for it and gave us loads of space, which just encouraged us. I haven't moved like that for years. My neck still hasn't recovered. But they showed their mellower side with Jail.

Losing All and Stone the Crow were the best tracks, as ever.

"My lying eyes lie awake"

Eh?

2006-06-05T10:23:00.000Z

Könnt ihr mich hören
Könnt ihr mich sehen
Könnt ihr mich fühlen
Ich verstehe euch nicht

Wir verstehen euch nicht

2006-06-05T09:17:00.000Z

So another month has gone by. A pretty crazy month, actually. And now it's hot and the world cup starts this week. What could be better?

Highlights in May:

Mad trip to Paris (see below)
Sisters of Mercy (again below)
Work quiz
Brussels for work (and too knackered to go up to N's party in Ox, sadly)

Dinner with L and N in Oxford - oh the food (5 kinds of ham, cheese souffles, lamb stew with dauphinoise potatoes and chilli fennel, chocolate cheesecake, chocolate and walnut cake, cheese) and the wine!
Across on the bus (classic style) to Cambridge to see E and her baby on the base with M - superb evening preceded by a quick walk around college - no real change

Hugely successful stakeholder meeting for work

Up to Manchester with D to see T
Long, long journey via Sheffield but some brilliant views on Trans-Pennine railway
Kathmandu curry and Old School on Saturday
Didsbury pub lunch (superb) with A on Sunday
Then Felix da Housecat and friends in Sankey's Soap Sunday night
Struggled back on Monday

K's birthday and Camden shenanigans
England 6 Jamaica 0
Lying about in St. James' Park with G
CLWG - down at D's in the sunshine - mmm - Gaza, Space, Angband

And now June stretches forth like a tasty salad.

Turn the Gold to Chrome

2006-05-08T15:28:00.000Z

Three top Tolkienesque gaming experiences this weekend:

1) Skirmish game - commercial set brought by A and W - pretty good although not earth-shattering. The Nazgul should be far harder.

2) T and I did our next playtest for FTLOTT - questing was the focus and it went well - some decent solutions were arrived at - just need to neaten it up now and much of it is ready for next spring.

3) War of the Ring with the new expansion - D tried for an Elf-first tactic with the new Witch King but turned aside at the last moment and headed north to the Woodland Realm. Rivendell and Woodland Realm both under siege but should hold for a while. Heavy Elf losses including Legolas.

Ea

Avari?

2006-05-08T11:55:00.000Z

In the heat of the night
In the heat of the day
When I close my eyes
When I look your way
When I meet the fear that lies inside
When I hear you say
In the heat of the moment
Say, say, say:

"Someday,
Someday,
Someday,

Dorwinion

Paris en Printemps et les soeurs

2006-05-08T11:19:00.000Z

Went to Paris on the May Day weekend, and it rained.
Il pleut les chats et les chiens. Et aussi les chattes et les chiennes.

Went to Rex, in the Poissoniere district for the first night, after becoming rapidly appalled at the price of beer. S wanted to go to some strange looking lesbian night nearby, but we were inexorably sucked in by the bleepy techno. Actually quite a cool club, but the music was way too quiet - civilised conversations next to the speakers were completely possible - and, to be honest, a bit sh*t. Did get into it and had a decent dance until some monkey threw his beer straight in my eye. Also slightly interrupting any potential euphoria was the guy behind me shouting "allez, allez, allez-allez-allez!". Great. The best bit was this nutty North African guy with an Afro spanking the table with his hands and the ashtray. Better rhythm than the DJ.

Next day, despite late late rising, we went to the Louvre. At least, 4 of us did. The others went to the catacombs. Saw most of Denon, including the Mona, the Winged (but headless) Victory of Samothrace, all the renaissance Italian paintings, some Flemish stuff, lots of Greek and Roman statues and some other bits and pieces. Louvre is like the BM and the National Gallery rolled into one, although with lots more people and probably more tat, although the best stuff is almost as good as the National and the Uffizi. I think in terms of scope it's probably the most impressive place I've been to (Hermitage and Papal museum come close). The palace itself (three massive wings) is huge - and the ultra-modernist pyramid in the middle is cool.

Lots of decent eating ( I had three fantastic steaks in Paris) and bar-hopping accompanied by the endemic indecision and debate followed. We found a fin-de-siecle dining hall for dinner which was cheap and decent, although my steak was pretty damn raw despite my inevitably pointless 'bien cuit' requests. Bars along the Poissoniere again - we sought Absinthe Dark Dogs in vain but did have some top rap courtesy of M's drunken abuse of D and others.

I was going to repeat it but it's not suitable here.

Monday in the rain - Notre Dame (really impressed - stained glass and revamped front as well as the vaults were all really amazing). Latin Quarter (a bit like a cross between Camden and Venice without the skunk and the canals), Sorbonne (terrible grey blocky buildings), Pantheon and Saint Suplice via various parks, cafes and boulevards. Good clean fun.

Then out for the best meal - North African/French fusion via a microbrewery where I decided that the optimum 'strategic solution' was for the west to start a land war in central Asia. Staggered back via Thermidor - our late night lobster hang-out. Decided to go to Greece next.

Went back early the next day to see the Sisters of Mercy with D at the Astoria. Far too quiet but still fun. Maybe someday (they'll play the) Dominion.

Over and out

But tonight, on this small planet, on earth...

2006-04-27T17:28:00.000Z

So,

What's been going down? I (don't) hear you cry.

Quite a lot, actually.

Mighty Boosh at Brixton Academy, only marred by the fact that bl**dy Carling have taken it over and insist on selling you their rat-p*ss instead of anything decent. But the Boosh was top - nods to all their series' jokes but not too much. Cockney stump-f*ckers was probably the highlight, along with Old Greg's appearance at the last minute.

Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds at Wembley Arena. Stunning. Massive tripod on stage. Justin Hayward. Animated Richard Burton. Lights so hot you thought your head was going to pop like Arnie's in Total Recall when they get exposed to the Martian atmosphere. Ullllllllllaaa!

Salute 06 - helped out with the Megagame Makers' stand and picked up a War of the Ring expansion. Barely resisted the temptation to sp*nk all my money on lead.

New D&D - have started a new campaign with the Raynes Park Kru and D. Going well so far. I don't think they know what they're doing. If they do I wish they'd tell me.

Went home for Easter and went on a daylong seminar on Nature in Medieval art which was actually really impressive. Even if the slideshow in the dark left me struggling after lunch. Then a walk, some tidying up, and lots of top nosh. Mum made a kick-ass Spinach Lasagne thing which was brilliant.

FTLOTT is coming along well - another playtest coming up in May.

That's enough for now. Even though I must have forgotten loads. Off to Paris for the first time since I got us chucked out of the Louvre aged 4. Happy memories.

Goddess

2006-04-27T17:27:00.000Z

The Goddess

Can I describe her?
Her whose shining star spurs us to truth and goodness,
Whose words echo in our souls?

Can I believe my eyes?
That a Goddess granted to us her presence,
That her eyes did ever look upon me?

Can I feel worthy of this?
That she chose to succour us,
That she saved us from her storm?

Was I dreaming?
When I saw her flawless face,
When I heard her soothing, powerful words,
When she blessed me with her beauty?

We leap together into the unknown

2006-04-19T15:52:00.000Z

We leap together into the unknown
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

I got sent this today - one of my very favourite images from uni. There's so much going on here - look at our little faces - and so many allusions and allegories that one could draw or invent that I won't bother.

I suppose my only regret is that you can see that we're only on the ground floor, but then we wouldn't have been able to jump into the garden from my room if we weren't...

The Room continued...

2006-03-23T16:13:00.000Z

But what was important was that the room had somehow channeled its frustration, its shared loneliness, its anger and its wish to be recognised into a physical act. It would not be long before it could express its views and wishes. But what would those be…?

One day, the room was waiting for its poet, or however one should describe the inhabitant of the room from the room's own non-existant perspective, (intruder? imperialist? invader?) for longer than usual. At least, longer in experience - could it be that the expanding power of the room had allowed it to access that most sacred of human feelings: boredom? - if not actually longer in time.

The room did not have yet a sense of the imperilled nature of its own existence. Unlike a mortal being, conscious of decay and death, the room knew not these things. It had not seen the awesome power of a wrecking ball casually deployed by the signature of some urban developer who had ideas above his station from one of those ghastly shows in Olympia. It knew not the sickly sweet infection of damp, nor the silent gnawing of rats.

In short, it was like the pre-enlightenment Siddhartha Gautama. No sense of death, sickness or old age, blissfully enraptured in the all-consuming light of innocence and happy ignorance. But, like for the canonical Buddha, contented rapture was to be limited, and indeed false in the end without further, and more fundamental understanding.

The room, had it more awareness and understanding, a better sense of the bigger picture being drawn, erased and redrawn in a billion different ways by billions of different hands outside its confines, might have been afraid. What if the poet/invader never returned? Who will live here? But these questions went unasked. It wasn't up to questions, yet.

Perhaps, you are wondering, perhaps the room could no longer sense the poet. Perhaps the room has changed itself and moved beyond the spheres of the mortal realm. Perhaps the poet could not bear to enter the room in its new state. Perhaps the poet had been merged with the growing it that it was.

You must remind yourself that none of these are true. In an older time we would have said 'it was merely a coincidence' or some such uncaring dismissal. But we won't find out here what happened to the poet, oh no. Not for some time.

The room felt a sense of responsibility for itself for the first time. But not very clearly. Mainly just manifested in the spines of the shelves. They were doing a sterling job, after all. Poets like to read.

Highly Effective

2006-03-23T13:49:00.000Z

I finally went out dancing after failing to do so on Friday or Saturday nights.

Went to Grace following seeing V for Vendetta in Camden. Film was OK - club was massive. Really did me some good although my back still hurts.

Crashed out on Monday night at 7pm. Needed the sleep.

Saw Mum and Dad on Tuesday and then K and M on Wed in Camden. Remember to go back to the Spread Eagle!

Carthage game now shaping up - hopefully can finish it next week when I have some time off.

In Scotland this weekend though. Don't expect much Drum or Bass, let alone Drum and Bass.

Be lucky!

Not now not never again

2006-03-17T15:55:00.000Z

Oh - I didn't get the job.

Their loss.

Like a Million Voices call my Name

2006-03-17T15:50:00.000Z

Condoc response off safely and ahead of schedule! Amazing.

But it hasn't really got any less mad around here since then. Yesterday I wrote two presentations, my first self-assessment doc, emails and a briefing for the Chief Executive.

Carthage game on in 2 weeks time and next weekend is Scotland so need to make some progress.

Been really busy at work so not much else to report other than a very successful tryout of the eastern bit of For the Light of the Trees at CLWG. Lots of work by me and T but all paid off - brilliant. Spring 2007 is looking increasingly possible.

Must go out and dance!

Wacko ropey condoc crazy

2006-03-02T17:10:00.000Z

Sicko loopy condoc crazy
Sicko loopy condoc crazy sicko loopy joke
Bleeds you dry makes you cry
Makes you really want to choke- ho

Let's come together

2006-03-02T11:23:00.000Z

Everything seems to be heading for collision:

1) Our response is due next Wed - panic stations - I feel strangely serene about it
2) Job interview for promotion tomorrow
3) Running For the Light of the Trees on Sunday

This is both good and bad - I'm churning out stuff all the time, and most of it seems to be pretty good (my job application must have been as they sifted me (7 out of 13, apparently), but I haven't yet felt the insanity of stress yet. Not really.

Maybe it's just my naturally chilled approach...

Later,

Sound Boy

2006-03-02T11:22:00.000Z

You're too young to play that sound, boy...

...

Combination Style!

Continuation...

2006-02-21T15:52:00.000Z

How very sad.

On another occasion, the poet had attempted to charm a young lady back to his ‘place’ for some ‘coffee’. He had hinted, merely hinted, at the facilities available in his ‘place’ but had not even made cursory mention of his room or the myriad of unsung, neutered and unborn creations within it. It was lucky that the room had not been able to overhear this conversation, for it neither reflected well on the poet, or on the room itself, which might have reasonably expected to be cited as a highlight at least of the poet’s abode.

But the young lady had not accompanied the poet back to the room. Or to any other room, in fact, although this was not known to the room. If the poet had other liaisons in other rooms, then his room knew nothing of them. If he was conducting passionate affairs then the room witnessed them not. If the poet was shuddering silently (or very noisily) with another poet, a model, a tea-lady or a whore, the room shared not in the secret.

So the room witnessed no passion at all. No love. In fact, it could not even conceive of the idea of love. Let alone express it or think of it. A loveless room, in a loveless marriage of rental convenience to an unspeaking, tyrannical and even cruel partner. Without love, without trust or confidence, after a while the room began to dream strange dreams. In fact, more like murmurs than actual dreams, as the latter would imply consciousness which, as has been made clear, the room did not possess.

The murmurs began one quiet morning, with the poet still not returned from work the night before. A low susurrus began, possibly underneath the bed, creeping like a slow-moving bassline, vibrating the unsettled dust. The vibration built until it could have been audible (had anyone been listening), and peaked in what may have been a gulping sound, which knocked a discarded birthday card over on the bedside table.

The poet might have taken this as a sign – of what we will never know – had he been less preoccupied, or more sensitive to the physical state of his room. When he returned, for whatever reason, the card’s position made no visible impression on him. This was deeply frustrating, but for whom we cannot yet tell.

But what was important was that the room had somehow channeled its frustration, its shared loneliness, its anger and its wish to be recognised into a physical act. It would not be long before it could express its views and wishes. But what would those be…?

Oxford

2006-02-14T18:14:00.000Z

Amazing weekend up in Oxford:

FRIDAY
Finished my workshop and made it out of town just in time to avoid the worst of the traffic.

Went to Red bar near the station and met L and some of his work friends.

Went to Malmaison with L - ate Pigeon. Drank absurd wine.

Went upstairs to the gorgeous bar - would highly recommend it to anyone although unsurprisingly not very cheap. back to L's - incredible whisky called Bruicladdich or something - soft Islay malt.

SATURDAY
Strolled into town and met N.

Walked about in the sun and then went back to N's. Met his flatmates.

Lounged about but entertainingly so.

Went into town and met some Norwegians. Then my my mate T and her friends. Pub crawled as the licenses closed. Finally ended up watching a man apolgise and puke at the same time in a pub called the Blenheim. Filthy. Back to N's after pointless and mistaken bus trip to Abingdon. Almost abandoned in the rain but held on for cab back.

SUNDAY
Went into town with N and then coffee in the Ashmolean, followed by Pork with my Mum, Dad and grandfather. Very nice.

Staggered back home to find that we'd drawn with Sunderland. Arse.

A really short story 2

2006-02-06T18:05:00.000Z

Continues from the earlier post

In fact, it was hardly alive at all.

Hardly.

When the man entered the room he was aware of a stillness beyond his understanding. Not comprehending it, he consigned it to the dustbin of his thoughts where so many over-subtle structures, words and patterns had been consigned. This was the tragedy of the room.

The tragedy becomes irony when one considers that the man was a poet, known to his friends, when suitably prompted, as "a sensitive soul". Even this man, this poet, this sentient creation, was unable to sense the constant miscarriage of consciousness struggling to be born in front of his eyes.

For the room wanted desperately to be. It wanted the validation of its patterns, its interactions, its symbiotic desperation. It wanted to be acknowledged. If it had understood the idea, it would have wanted David Attenborough to come and whisper poignantly as he filmed it. It wanted to breathe, to consume, to copulate and shudder a little afterwards. It wished it could take decisions, speak, run, slide, drive, shoot, drink, vomit, borrow and all the things that happened within 20 or so feet of it.

At least, this is what it would have wanted, if only it could think.

All it could do was decay. And even that was due to the naturally entropic nature of the universe, not the result of the room's functions or decisions. All it could do was die, very slowly. Almost imperceptibly so, in fact, to the poet who was one of those people who looks on the bright side of everything. He could not see the fading desperation, the slow death and the stillborn existence of the room.

If only he could see it, or taste it - anything would do! Think of the realms of ideas that would flow through him and his expressive shorthand if this exisquisite nothing had occurred to him...

But nothing remained nothing. No words were written, no haikus penned nor quatrains massacred in honour of the room. No lullabies were sung, no paeans echoed and no riffs painstakingly assembled by spotty, overenthusiastic youths, about the room. No operas were composed, no requiems intoned and no harmonies warbled about the room.

Nothing was said about the room.

Once, the poet had almost said something about it in some off-hand remark to a colleague about "his place". But it was unspecific. And almost rude, certainly dismissive. The room would have been upset to hear it, had it feelings. Or ears, come to think of it. The colleague, however, was not even listening. That was as close as it had come to incarnation, to birth, to actuality.

How sad.

How very sad.

Different Story 2

2006-02-06T16:05:00.000Z

Continues from my earlier text...

Bjorn coughed and gulped at the same time.

He could hear the keen of the Irish pipes and voices drawing nearer on the reverse slope. It sounded like Satan's own legions were coming to claim them for the eternal dark. He murmured a prayer to Christ - for Bjorn held a well-hidden secret, gifted to him by his Irish mother: he was a Christian - but kept quiet enough that his friends did not hear him.

Halfdan ordered the rest of his men to turn about and face the threat to their rear. He judged the Irish would hit them first on the reverse slope. If he could break that attack quickly enough they might have time to turn again and fight off the main force struggling up the other side of the hill. It was all about the timing.

After 20 years leading the band of Gall-Goidel, Halfdan had learned to make such decisions instinctively, and to trust his gut. Over-complication and consideration were his enemies, among many others. He knew that he dare not split his force - they were certain to be outnumbered - and decided that he needed to encourage his men in the face of impending death.

"Four slave-girls to the man who kills the most", he intoned calmly, "and let's make the Valkyries wait a little longer before we drink Valhalla dry!" The second part of the sentence was roared - he needed to show them he was ready, but the calm tone had been just as critical - to reassure them he was in control.

Halfdan spat. He always spat before a battle. In fact, he spat before he did anything.

Bjorn was not reassured by the words of his leader and kinsman. This was partly because the short, heavy darts of the Irish were singing through the fog, adding to the noises now clearly audible on both sides of the hill. The young man touched the roughly carved crucifix under his jerkin, but it failed to raise his spirits. He tried to pray again but his mouth would not move, and no sound came from his throat.

Next to him, Niall stopped wheezing, his feet stopped kicking. Halfdan stooped and picked up his sword - handing it to Kjartan, one of the men he hoped would help him win the battle. "Get ready!" Halfdan roared like a wounded bull as the first Irish faces appeared through the mist.

Bjorn saw the first man appear, with his small shield held out in front of him and a javelin held high in his hand. Before he could react the Irishman screamed and fell, pierced by two spears thrown by his comrades. Bjorn heard something to his left and instinctively spun to face the noise, pushing his shield forward.

The next thing he knew he was on his back with a heavy weight on top of him, separated only by the shield. It took him a moment to realise that the weight was moving, and then he saw a blade come round the edge of the shield. He rolled away from the blade, swinging wildly with the seax-knife in his right hand, hitting only air. The Irishman's knife cut into his left hand and he yelled.

Bjorn rolled over on top of his attacker, crushing him beneath the heavy shield. His own blade was trapped underneath them both so he let go and grabbed at the Irish hand holding the knife, across himself. He couldn't muster enough leverage and he saw, not felt, the blade slide through his hand and thud against the boss of his shield. Now he began to panic.

The Irishman was holding the shield with his spare hand, preventing Bjorn from getting up. Bjorn, with his own blood dripping onto his shield, rolled over again in desperation. This caught the Irishman off guard and his hand was crushed into the earth by the rim of the shield. Critically, he dropped the knife.

Bjorn's roll had brought his spare right hand back onto the long-lost handle of his seax. He fumbled for it awkwardly and the Irishman rolled again, seeking to free his crushed hand. Fortunately for Bjorn, his opponent rolled his shoulder and neck directly onto its razor-edged blade. Bjorn lost the grip on his weapon for the second time, but the Irishman was now bleeding to death, surprisingly quietly, and let go of the shield. Bjorn rolled over twice from the shock of release.

Then he stood, now covered in Irish blood, his own blood, his piss-soaked trews, mud, and the rapidly congealing blood of Njall whose body he had inadvertently rolled into, when escaping his dying enemy. But he had no time to ponder his first kill, which had made him a man (despite the piss), as his friends were now beset on two sides. Halfdan's plan had failed and they were almost surrounded.

To be continued...

Over a month

2006-02-06T15:27:00.000Z

No posts in January. If I had any hard-core fans out there I would apologise to them for this shocking lacuna. However, I am saved from this embarassment by the lack of said fans, hard-core or otherwise.

So, what have I been doing?

Christmas and New Year
See post below. Mostly food, really. Combined with a bit of an attempt at the world's greatest sitting around. Sadly I just wasn't committed enough to set any kind of apathy record. Got some excellent presents - Peep Show 2, offer of a stereo from my Dad, lots of cool books from my Mum...

Went to the Persian exhibition at the BM between Xmas and New Year. Was excellent - really impressive casts of Persepolis, lots of decent finds and the commentary/links were really good.

New Year in Finsbury Park. Probably too sober (I don't think I even had a drink after midnight) but stayed up dancing to Lab 4 and Trance N Bass until I was stopped by the Bad Music police. Dropped in on the Camden crew beforehand which was entertaining (absinthe).

Quantock
Will post some pictures up soon. Went for the weekend to an amazing house in North Somerset with 24 people - J and C had organised. We had the whole of the youth hostel and had a great time. Walk along the coast, playing games, talking talking talking talking and also a really good sleep in a bunk bed. Top marks to Z for driving me and G down there and back.

Other events/comments/cr*p
Finished Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy. Stunning. Would recommend to all.
Went to see some lame-ass bands in Kentish Town with P and G. Unimpressive but still fun.
Work continues on me and N's empirical studies paper - I need to pull my socks up.
Brilliant megagame - Pirates of Yendor. I sank two pirates ships and avoided everyone else sinking me (despite their best efforts).
Quick look at the Museum of London's new Medieval London exhibition - worth another visit methinks.
More thoughts on military effectiveness - political inclusivity theme - need to write stuff down.
New plan to form Placebo covers band with M and P. M and I try to get in the Placebo video but are denied by a horde of minigoths.

More to follow.

Post Xmas salutations

2005-12-28T01:40:00.000Z

I hope you had a great Christmas, wherever you're reading this from.

I did.

But now I'm even fatter than usual.

Just watched Team America and Napoleon Dynamite. Now I understand what my mates were yakking on about with "I'm so ronery" and the like. But I think I'll have to see Napoleon again to tell whether it was funny or not. Unsure.

Narnia on Boxing Day was great, though. Almost too schmaltzy but not quite. The battle scenes were actually pretty impressive but no blood. Which is probably a good thing for the kiddies. But not for blood-thirsty adults.

Lots of cool presents. Great times at home and with my cousins. Even made a snowman (first of the millenium) by the sea today. It were massive. I'll try and get a picture up...

And a few days to relax will be extremely good before the carnage of 2006...

See you then!

A different story?

2005-12-22T14:37:00.000Z

A solitary trumpet blared defiance out across the hillside.

A dozen pipes of some description or other answered, but their lack of harmony or timing left the gesture hollow. It was the smaller force that were cheered by this display, perhaps due to rather than in spite of the massive odds that faced them.

Bjorn was still hidden behind his uncle's spare shield that he could hardly lift. His foster-brother Niall had told him to stay behind the shield until he could smell the fetid breath of the foe. These were Niall's last words before an arrow had burrowed savagely into his unprotected stomach, condemning the Irishman to a horrible and slow death.

Bjorn could still hear the slow, supressed wheezing from Niall a few feet away from him. That all too human sound unnerved him but was an excellent and inescapable reminder to hold his urge to look over the shield in check, lest he get an arrow in his guts too. Around him the other Gall-Goidel were anxious - the Irish arrows had stopped coming, but that meant an attack or a trick to their battle-hardened memories.

Halfdan, Bjorn's uncle, was whispering to himself as he methodically wrapped a tattered old brown rag around his helm and forehead. All the warriors there knew that this was the closest thing their little band had to a talisman. It was the flag of a British war-chief, long since ruined by being ritually dipped in the blood of their fallen enemies. There was now no way of telling what colour it had originally been, or what noble Latin words had been emblazoned upon it.

The Irish pipes had begun again, this time seemingly behind them, where the slope of the hill was shallower. The mist prevented Bjorn from seeing any of the foe, even when he dared to peep beyond the barrier of the hill. Halfdan seemed untroubled by the fact that they now appeared to be surrounded, and gestured subtlely at two of his senior warriors who moved their shields to cover the small band from the rear.

Bjorn was fumbling with his drawers and was about to relieve himself when a horrific wailing began through the sea-grey mist around him. Thoughts of urination left him and he drew his other weapon, a long Aenglish Seax-knife, designed for gutting a foe beneath the shield or poking at unprotected eyes above. His smooth hands trembled slightly, and his pee escaped to soak his thighs and clothes.

His friend Ragnald leant over to him and muttered: "Now it is time to for your knife to sing as loud and as keenly as the Irish voices now shriek."

Bjorn coughed and gulped at the same time.

A really Short Story

2005-12-22T14:18:00.000Z

The air inside his door shivered patiently, humming with the unfiltered and unsorted debris of his body. It had been undisturbed all day, wafting itself in layers, with the heavier matter descending to the fuzzy earth of the carpet, and the lighter items spiralling upwards only to be caught on the outstretched arm of a sweater, where they now lay side by side with dust mites and the scent of stale tobacco.

The cold had ensured that the solitary window to the room had been unopened for months now. No fresh breath of cleansing air, no external current to disturb the layers of dirt and dead skin. No touch of the winter sun or of the morning dew. No natural light or lunar beams. All controlled, all enclosed, silent.

Were he not to come back one day what would happen to this room? What would happen to the dust in its slow war on form? What would become of the miniscule colonies of life in the room, hidden beneath carpets or locked within the many levels of the mattress? Could the room take on an identity of its own - an ecosystem or a battleground?

Just as the stale air of the room began to demand answers to these questions, the occupant returned.

The patterns and eddies of the air were broken asunder as the door opened. The pools of light and dark behind the curtains were mercilessly crushed by the cruel flick of the ever-suffering light switch. The rug, which had been seeking to expand itself to fill the indentations made by shoes in the morning, was smashed flat in several places again by the weight of the boot.

Its own patterns, patiently constructed over the day, fell away. The silent structures of the solitary room were again replaced by the tyranny of man's laws and habits.

But the room knew no other law. It could not rebel, and did not elect its representatives. In fact, it was hardly alive at all. Hardly.

A momentary lack of precision

2005-12-22T14:13:00.000Z

So my last few posts (apart from the one on E v I) have been a little too practically informative. Just to reassure you (me?) that the point of this blog is not to chronicle reality and package it up into neat little bite-sized stories.

However, having said that, I'm not sure I can postulate a viable alternative. I'm not sure what this blog is actually for.

But I'll be making an attempt to provide less reportage and more analysis and thought.

JOKE:
What did the computer screen do on January 1st?
New's Year Resolution

Shocking lapse of input

2005-12-20T17:59:00.000Z

OK.

Quite a lot has happened.

Executive Summary

After Faithless :
Dinner with family
Office Carol Service featuring yours truly on Djembe and singing Bass
Office Pantomime with your truly appearing with Djembe (again) and flaming trousers
Flew to Latvia (Saturday 10th)
Dinner and mad sandbox-based Reggae raving
Dinner and insane Riga-wide bar roaming nonsense
3 am Pelmeni (which is not a restaurant but a Latvian ravioli)
Got up as my cousin came back to the hostel to fly back to UK
Back to work
Eurostar to Brussels (while the Council budget negotiations were going on)
Meeting at the Commission - 16 Member States
Hit the town
Bilateral at the Commission
War museum in the park
Back to London
Meeting at the DTI
Synthetic Culture with the newbies (mental)
Christmas shopping (Saturday 17th)
Christmas party in Lewisham
Back to work

All this from 7-18 December.

Mental.

Latvia and Brussels were great. Two very positive pro-EU experiences despite my natural scepticism. Met lots of cool like-minded people and had a lot of fun. But boy did I learn a lot.

And boy am I knackered!

Introvert (I) vs Extrovert (E) ?

2005-12-16T14:09:00.000Z

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch
This prompted me to think further about my I v E tendencies. I remember when I did Myers Briggs (in Putney, I think) I was E. Dad was surprised about this and was similar to me except for this distinction (I was ENTP).

Reading this article (I linked to it via Neal Stephenson's site http://www.nealstephenson.com/) I questioned my own understanding of my personaility. My assumption was that I was an I that gradually grew in confidence to become more E. I think this was partly due to the (societally-derived?) assumption that E was better than I.

Now I think that I have a strange set of joint I and E tendencies, and that I vary quite substantially between them. I clearly do a lot of my thinking by talking, and derive many of my views and ideas from interaction. But I also need quite a lot of space (maybe due to lacking siblings?) and will frequently go and sit down away from others during a party, for a while.

I also feel very drained after the 3 days of meetings (another one at DTI this morning) but enthused about the project and my own ability to contribute.

this set of circumstances has led me to consider whether the I/E divide is perhaps the right way to think about these issues. Perhaps it could be usefully split into other binary considerations which might help explain the dichotomy discussed above:

Leader v Follower
Decision v Discussion
Interaction v Contemplation

And I'm sure I could think of some more...

Riga

2005-12-11T23:42:00.000Z

Sitting in the Profitcamp in Riga Old Town.

What an amazing town. Art Deco dripping from every pore.

And so cheap. So... cheap.

I am currently being persuaded to go to somewhere called Pelmini. I am unsure. But it seems plausible...

Incitement Live

2005-12-07T16:59:00.000Z

Come

Play

My

Game

Inhale
Inhale
You're the victim!

Faithless Live

2005-12-07T15:10:00.000Z

Faithless
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

So, strangely enough it was back to Brixton for the second night running to see Faithless with the Las Tinajas crew plus Zed.

We were SEATED up in the circle which seemed very odd to start with but was brilliant - I could see the light show, hear the music and actually watch Maxi Jazz leap about in a way that his e-tweaked tired face utterly belies.

Also meant I could dance in my own space without killing people. Although there was an ever-present hum of the fear of death by plummetting. I think this added to the experience.

Opened with INSOMNIA and closed with a brilliant SALVA MEA. With a brutal and well-received WE COME 1 in the middle.

Awesome. Probably the better band of the two to see properly. And I was still shatnered from the Prodigy.

I'm still shattered, but not shatnered, today.

"And I need to get some rest"

Prodigy Live

2005-12-07T15:04:00.000Z

Prodigy Live
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

OK, so I didn't take this picture, nor is Keith able to pull off such poses anymore, but I did go to see Prodigy for the second tour running at Brixton with Dave on Monday.

It rocked. I raved. Others bled.

It was mental.
BREAK AND ENTER
THEIR LAW

What a start! I was almost wiped out after the mosh pit I started during Their Law got really messy. O-ho!

On and on came the hits - they played pretty much the lot.

Amazing.

But Oh boy did I pay.

Aggro found!

2005-11-28T18:33:00.000Z

Sheep and Spaceman Tintin
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

Colostomybag's missing piccolo player Aggro was today sighted on the moon with legendary Belgian cartoon spaceman 'Tintin'.

This news came as a massive shock to the band's loyal followers, as Aggro had once declaimed in fashionable Hoxton's Ziegfried that he "hated all that f*cking useless Belgian ruubbish" and that he'd "rather spank off a dirty monkey" than "go tae the moon wi' a wee orange boy".

Even the most tired and cynical of cr*ppy NME-stylee blag rags seemed surprised at this apparent contradiction.

So has Aggro finally flipped?
When will he run out of oxygen?
Does this mean that a Colostomybag reunion tour is in the pipeline?

And, more importantly, who cares?

>>>
NEWSFLASH
>>>

This just in - Tintin's agent Snowie claims to have signed Aggro to his label Labell. Snowie has failed to achieve world-wide success with Tintin after a series of hits with Flemish phlegm-warblers Gggraaaag.

In a shock announcement to the press, Snowie claimed that Aggro's unique piccolo technique would bring gravitas and little high pitched squeaks to the band's repetoire. Tintin's current percussionist, Captain Had Och Aye the Noo was said to be ecstatic about the new 'signing'.

"He'll bring a wee drop o' class tae the band", Haddock muttered. "And I've huurd he's no bad at the hurling, too".

343 Colostomybag fans hanged themselves worldwide after the announcement, which casts grave doubts on the likelihood of the band re-forming.

Bruxelles

2005-11-28T18:17:00.000Z

Parade
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

So I went to visit an old pal of mine (Kenzo from ColostoMyBag) in Brussels over ze weekend.

There was 4 inches of compacted snow that took 2 days to melt. My toes (and shoes) have not yet recovered.

Hence the Snowman lyrics in my last post.

FRIDAY
Eurostar a Bruxelles
Dinner in a charmant restaurant Vietnamois (?)
A Simple Plan on DVD

SATURDAY
A 3 hour walk around some Art Deco buildings and then into town
Watery Potage du jour
A strange unidentified procession through the snow (see picture)
Avant-garde C20th Russian Art at the BOZAR - Kandinsky, Malevich, Exter and others
Shopping
Dinner chez mon ami
Eurocrat party hosted by some Swiss guys - met the Czech European Council translators and two English guys working for Nestle - Swiss wine!
Walked across town at 1 am
Crazy French massage student party avec drum et bass - completement fou! - talked about metal and RPGs in French, much to mon surprise
Walk home in the snow at 4 am

SUNDAY
Streetfighter 2 HYPER
More walking in snow - Art Deco
Big Bacon Maxi Menu
Watched a car crash
Eurostar home

Woof!

Really enjoyed it. Remind me to go again some time.

We're drifting over ice

2005-11-28T18:04:00.000Z

Deflowered
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

"Children gaze
Open mouthed
Taken by surprise
Nobody
Down below
Believes
Their eyes"

Actually two children did walk past me doing the nasty to this tree in frozen Brussels, of all places. I hope they weren't traumatised. I was rather embarassed, although it doesn't show in the photo...

Socio-linguistic identifiers

2005-11-25T14:57:00.000Z

We're trained by parents and school to judge people partly by their use of the English language. And the great thing about English is that it has two built-in social identifiers that allow people to judge others without having to ask awkward questions like 'what does your father do?' which happens in some other societies.

The two identifiers are:
Accent - basically regional OR public school
Vocabulary - Anglo-Saxon, French or Latin

Accent is probably pretty self-explanatory, but Vocabulary is a little more complex. English has three main roots - the three languages listed above - and for most pre-Renaissance concepts there are several alternative words one could use. These have all become jumbled up over time and sometimes have come to mean specific types of a thing, rather than different words for the same thing.

More to follow...

Deluze and Scutari

2005-11-23T17:11:00.000Z

It's difficult trying to think whilst listening to Cult of Luna.

What makes it even harder is singing to yourself at the same time.

I'm never sure exactly how loud that sounds to everyone else.

I suspect it sounds pretty odd whatever, to be honest.

Da weekend

2005-11-23T16:56:00.000Z

Finally got round to holding my belated birthday party.

Went out on friday night to Turnmills (Dave Seaman, Sister Bliss) which was odd - about halfway through the night I remembered I'd been there before. Danced for 3+ hours which I hugely enjoyed despite not even being trolleyed.

We tried to go to Fabric for DnB mashing but the queue was so long by the time we got that that everyone got cold feet (literally) so we ran up the road to Turnmills instead. Not so good but beats standing an extra 2 hours in the cold!

Sadly I missed out on a packed Synthetic Culture which was a shame. But you can't do everything. To be honest, anything at all on a friday night is a bit of a bonus considering all the collapsing I've done in recent weeks.

The party was good - some randoms halfway through - even got a pair of custom-made Jin Kazama fighting trousers which are wicked. They are black with a flame on the bottom of the left leg. I'll have to learn the spinning kick now before I can properly use them. But it's a very good start to the year.

Sunday did nothing - not even most of the cleaning up. Monday off work so did some Xmas shopping but slightly peeved I've yet again failed to make it to Grace. Next week. Actually, no - I suspect not.

"Dance with the flames that he dictates"

Cult of Luna - Sleep

2005-11-23T16:55:00.000Z

Leave me behind the black wall of decadence.
Burn it all.
Dance with the flames that he dictates.
Breathe in the smoke and get high on misery.
Drifting deeper.
The current drags you down.

Rest your eyes.
Live amongst the shadows.

Fall into sleep.
Walk through the light.
At last you're on your own.
This time you stand alone.

As if by magic

2005-11-18T17:07:00.000Z

the shopkeeper appeared.

No, that's not right.

As if by magic, and as if it was finally taking me seriously, Blogger accepted the update to my profile.

Feanor fever

2005-11-18T16:54:00.000Z

I realised last night whilst having dinner in Finsbury Park that I have become a Tolkien anorak.

I think I spent most of my teens careening perilously close to that particular precipice, not mention any number of other fashion faux-pas fissures. But now my late twenties have arrived (despite my blog profile refusing to accept me increasing my age!) I feel I have tumbled into the terrible trough of obsession.

I'm reading Lost Tales 1 which is a real test of my theory. The book is an exploration of JRR's earliest writings about Middle Earth and the Elves and Valar. He definitely improved on them, that's all I'll say.

But I finally noticed that I was basically applying textual criticism and pretty thorough continuity analysis to a whole career of creative writing. And shaking my head when I read analysis that I disagreed with. So it's almost like my degree.

Which can't be quite right.

But the more I read (apart from the three almost identical versions of a very dull 'Elven' poem in Lost Tales, makes me more interested. Not less.

Is there a way back? Can I reach my own blessed land where my troubles and thoughts will be eased away by the divine beauty of it all?

I think I can guess the answer.

Torn into the deep of the Ocean

2005-11-14T13:28:00.000Z

Down in Eastbourne on friday after Dundee the week before. I'll have done every town in Great Britain by the time I'm finished here.

Got back really late on friday night and hence did nothing.

Put some more pictures up on saturday (my Claude - embarcation of the Queen of Sheba, and D's Canaletto - Grand Canal). They look good although we now probably need another picture to fill the wall.

Watched the All Blacks rinse Ireland 45-7 and then England beat Argentina in injury time 3-2. An amazing game! Came from behind twice to beat probably the best or second best team in the world. I really feel like we've got a shot at the World Cup if we can play like that.

Then went to Clapham for my Spain reunion. 'Twas a fantastic laugh despite me turning up only for pudding (missed the rest of the meal due to forgetting when to leave and then watching the football). Went to the pub (bumped into some people from work) and then back to J's for more drinks and some Scalextric and San Juan. Top.

Staggered home via the Tate on sunday and then achieved very little except going shopping and then watching Rome which I fell asleep during anyway.

Really good weekend but I'm worrying effective today - I'm sure it's about to catch up with me...

The new flowerpot Men

2005-11-10T11:16:00.000Z

The new flowerpot Men
Originally uploaded by Dark Hunter.

This seems like ages ago now. But we left Las Tinajas back in September which actually isn't that far back.

We're all meeting up for our reunion on Saturday which I'm really up for. It'll be just like the old days apart from the lack of sun, a private swimming pool, cheap wine and responsibilities.

Ah well.

Next summer isn't that far off...

"But now I've found
The Velvet Sun
That shines on me and you..."

The meaning of it all

2005-11-10T11:05:00.000Z

It's too early in the day to write poetry.

You muppet.

"What if we walked side by side?
Would you snap my back and kill my pride?"
CoC

The primordial stirrings of the Never-born

2005-11-10T10:59:00.000Z

Work is now hurtling towards insanity.

Too much to do to even start thinking about how to do some of it.

Eurgh.

And I've got to go to Eastbourne tomorrow.

Anyway - catch up:

Last weekend was interesting
My boss' leaving do Friday
Curry and ISS with Ben and Dave and Eda on Saturday
Chestnut (Ancient naval and weird WW2) on Sunday

pretty good...

Born Again

2005-11-10T10:48:00.000Z

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday with all the usual commitment and organisation. Kate rang me at 4:30 and asked what I was doing. Went to the Fitzroy Tavern and almost got foolishly drunk. Stopped just short at the minor head-spin stage which was very wise.

But this wasn't my real celebration. That's next weekend. This was just the warm up.

Feel rough today despite my effective exercise of self-control. Damn and blast it. Maybe some coffee would be good...

Sang 'When tears roll down' by Tears for Fears on the way in this morning. Not for money but for the joy of it all. Although joy isn't perhaps the right word to use for TfF. For the shiny but fatally flawed caterwauling of it all... I must get out of the habit of singing on the tube or near work. One day it will backfire. I'll be singing something really nasty like 'Blood for Blood' or 'Touch Me' and the Chairman will be sitting next to me:

"Hate breeds hate - My eyes have seen the decimation of all that's pure, pure
A system that feeds its machine with the blood, sweat and money of the poor, poor"

Uplifting, isn't it?