things move around

There’s nothing so unsexy as a one-track mind (depending, obviously, on the track…)

This is one of the problems I have with people. The ease with which bees get in their bonnets; the subsequent rate of expansion of their bonces. The way they get too snooty for their booties. An excess of bran in the diet makes one retentive; a deficit of the same makes one lax. Incredibly, some people achieve both states, voiding their endless vowell-bowells of great volume but miniscule substance.

These people are walking, wittering human pop-up ads - unlooked for, unavoidable, and never knowingly useful. Like an obsessive compulsive albatross, they unstintingly vomit up the same manky spew-ball of denutrified gunk, despite the last chick having long-ago bailed out of the eyrie in a desperate bid for something more palateable.

I should be more specific. Exhibit A:

Popular science has a lot to answer for. Now, the profs themselves are excused - everyone likes a bit of celebrity, and science is of course all about differing theories, open minds and all that good stuff, so we’d rather have famous boffins hectoring us than Ayatollahs or Alistair Crooked-Mouth. The problem is, they jazz up their smart ideas with okely-dokely similies and the odd seductive, slippery metaphor. Sometimes it’s seen fit to appropriate or fresh-mint a word, so as to get a bit more column-acreage. As the brightly-packaged, snappily-titled tome flies off the shelves, spreading the Good Word of Reason across the land, even though 80% of copies are bought purely for social-flaunting purposes, those who do read it become so enamoured of the go-go flimflammery, that not only do they remember nothing but the catchphrase, they mistake the catchprase for The Whole Truth, etc. A bit like another, rather older, popular Book, come to think of it.

And then what happens?

It’s meme this, and superstring that, and god’s dice the other, until nothing but a gallon of ale or a good thumping is enough to put a cork in their tiresome trumpet. No gainsaying is brooked, because it said so in a book. So anyone who doesn’t shut up and sit tight is obviously stoopid. That is, until the sequel comes along, as sequels inevitably do (this is sicence, remember? it’s an art) at which point it’s out with the old, and the star-bellied sneeches who suddenly have the sexiest peaches.

The same sorry scenario is played out in every conceivable sandbox, the same loudmouths get airtime on all known frequencies. Could they not leaven it a little? Some wry self-reference, perhaps, or an acceptance that if they were really all-knowing, they wouldn’t be sharing this crud-lined pub with infidels like me.

Alas, no; and I’ve long since run out of parsely to stop up my ears. Think I’ll go home and pray to th’amighty Paxo.

Eat bran, and the world will fall out of your bottom.

EDIT: socio-cultural theories. Anyone who bangs on about post-this that and the other without knowing what the pre was. Literary theories. Economic theories. Anyone who takes any of this shit as gospel. Architectural theories, anyone who expostulates them full stop. All the parrot-fashion evangelists who read half a book and then set up their soapbox near me. Please, the lot of you, if you’re so fucking clever, prove it, eh? It’s quite simple. You’re as thick as two short planks but what’s worse is you’re deaf as a post. So why not fuck off down the sawmill and ask to them to cut you down to size - I don’t see why I should have to do it. Have I made myself sufficiently clear?

a trip to the shops with a girl turns into a lonely devotional

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a glance at the watch. i’m early, you’re late, and vice versa. no need to spill entrails to see what time of day it is; no need to bong out a crescendo. people’s newspapers are making a right meal of this breeze. some moron’s feeding pigeons. no doubt someone is dreamin’ about writin’ a novel.

hurry up.

watching the chariots go by. a woman pushing a prambulance stumbles just in front of me. are you ok? i’m fine, do you have the time on you? i’m afraid so. last time i saw a pram like that, i was in it.

wheels like dartboards. god help us all if the brakes fail.

i stroll over to the Boots and loiter. the price of make-up is ridiculous, still, by the time you get here i’ll be the proud daddy of a trilogy - cleanse, moisturise, tone. repeat all day. no need for a rolex.

bugger this for a lark. i’m off home. you should’ve been here ages ago. maybe i’ll miss you again tomorrow.

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it’s like being on a ferret’s wheel at Blackpool

9+ hours since one a.m., and still it continues to be Thursday. It’s no coincidence that timekeeping devices, from simple oboli to atomic clocks, are predicated on circularity. People miss the point about the invention of the wheel; sure, it was of some use in transportation, but the chief consequence was that with it we invented time. Time, and wheelie-bins.

And wheelbarrows.

I could go on.

And I will, but not about transports, like camper-vans, trollies, chariots, Vauxhall Novae, velocipedes and open-cast mining machines, nor other examples of the wheel put to the honest service of mankind, like pulleys, opisometers, gyroscopes, or the Wheel of Fortune, as spun by the dubious Mr Leslie, before he was dubious.

What I will go on with is Time. Or rather, Time as we present and represent it, ad nauseum, by that incommodious vicus, the vicious circle.

[Touching the tips of my thumb and forefinger together, I zoom it in on you and snarl]

But not now. I’ll go into Time another time. Right now it’s time for elevenses.

EDIT: title wasn’t working

who are these IT girls, do they compute?
impossible to conceive of the actual
en route to Eindhoven or Arnhemland, stop for a while
sluice weary flags with blue water

a great number of how you say refrentions
horizon a colossal deferral of understanding
in the red heart
in the desert

eyelid flickers like a lizard
these IT girls, who are they
do they compute
i said bring that flask over to me I’m thirsty

estuarines loll and then explode
like a crusading peloton of Minke

Henry, Henry, quite unfriendly, how does your garden groan? With severed heads and potting sheds full of Catholic bones.

Certain questions recur in the open-all-hours pub of unknowing, seemingly taking form from the wafted pipe-smoke, the muttering, the bellows, the phlegm and the yadda-yadda. Questions like:

Who are we? Why are we here? Is there a God or Gods? What about Ian Duncan-Smith? Does he exist? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Are our fates predestined? What exactly is Professor John Mackenzie a professor of? Sure as hell not economics…

…when through the saloon-doors barrels a tall but stooping figure; a great hush descends on the Babel and Dragon. All our questions are about to be answered. This man is of a race never before seen except in Myth. He pronounces without speaking, and his augury is infallible. He’s new in town, but recognised instantly by his snow-white attire and snow-white hair and beard as…

…a boffin.

He has discovered a formula for calculating how to grill the perfect beefburger. Our barbecues will be the envy of the world.

The Boffins. Just because they sound like a species of flightless bird, doesn’t mean they don’t know everything there is to know, and much more besides.

Feeling a bit short today (about 5′5″…) So I’m going to kick things off with the liner-notes to “Las Vegas Basement”, the last track on Julian Cope’s “Peggy Suicide” LP. Liner-notes used to be an artform in themselves, incidentally; this has been on the wane since the demise of prog but Cope revives it in his 1991 opus magnum. So this is the sort of thing that opresses me with its brilliance, and perhaps by copying it out I can shake off this dog; jump-start my own bombed-out camper-van of creativity.

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Imagine the scene. America has finished its last beers and gone home, leaving the club awash with sticky floors and cigarette butts galore. The guy who sweeps up notices that the guitar on stage is still switched on - it’s a Fender and it’s looking great. Once upon a time, this guy had a dream to be someone. He was a real dude. Then time passed and his chance was gone forever. He slipped from Dude-ness into Geezerdom (a sad state of ciggies’n'beer & dreamlessness) … until now. Now the Fender guitar calls to him. The Geezer seizes his chance to awaken his dream one last time. He climbs up onto the shallow stage, picks up the guitar, and plays one chord - Brangg - and Becomes The Dude once more … On the other side of the club, a strange but nightly scene is taking place. The enormous and greasy Barman is holding a broom above his head, ready to bring it down on the head of a cat - a large mangey Mouser. The Mouser is oblivious to all this. In his paws - and held with a vice-like grip - is a disgusting old lazy rat. The Rat has been the bane of the Mouser’s existence for some time. The Rat always escapes and these escapes bring the wrath of the Barman down on the Mouser. Every night it’s the same. The Barman, The Mouser and The Rat. It’s like they have this strange symbiotic relationship going on. Until they hear the guitar chord that is. Brangg … at which they all freeze. The next thing you see - The Mouser is sitting at the drums lighting a cigarette, the Barman is stooped over the bass guitar, his enormous pudgy hands suddenly coaxing supple haunting lines from his instrument. Meanwhile, the Rat is lying on top of the organ listening to the song which the Dude begins to play. The Dude begins his hesitant guitar solo, at which point the Rat climbs on to the keyboard and dances elegantly up and down the white notes. Working together, even for just a few minutes, the Barman, the Mouser and the Rat have made a dream come true.

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And the dish ran away with the spoon… that concludes today’s lame bootlicking.

i ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s barm no more

…anyone can become a writer. No special qualifications or experience are required […] as Mr. E.H.Metcalfe, principal of Britain’s leading writing school The Writers [sic] Bureau, explains, ‘If you want to see your work in print, one thing you must have is proper training.’

- Perennial ad in The Times

i’m sure this has been discussed before, but not right here, and not right now, so i’m going to give it a good, thorough, airing.

beef? no thanks, i’ve eaten.

why is it that the media, and everyone in its reach, refers to the former Iraqi dictator as Saddam? why not Mr Hussein? the latter would, of course, be in line with the convention for referring to world leaders, sportspeople (except snooker players and Paula Radcliffe), and great cultural figures (except Madonna).

rainy days can be whiled away reversing this convention, taking a Ba’ath in absurdity, by editing political articles to replace all references to Bush, Blair, Putin, and cheese-eating surrender-monkeys with George, Anthony, Vladimir and Jacques. what you end up with is something resembling a story for very young children, a bit like the old Billy Blue Hat books, which some of you may remember.

as to the whys and wherefores (ed - they mean the same thing, you clot), ?i can only speculate that Mr Hussein, early in his career, when he was still a trainee despot, harboured secret ambitions of being a pro-snooker player, perhaps keeping a photo of Ray Reardon on his mantlepiece.