wascally_weasel

05:58 pm: Hooray for Jupiter!
Jupiter does it’s asteroid/comet attracting goodness once again:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jul/21/jupiter-scar-comet-asteroid-crash

Nice bit of synchronicity for me was that a few days ago I was reading about Jupiter and how it’s gravitational mass and it’s position in solar orbit is one of the limiting factors on many of the larger objects in space that might otherwise collide with Earth and leave nothing left alive on earth bigger than the rats and the roaches.

Good work that planet.

It’s also nice to read a story that shows that there is still a place for the amateur astronomer (although, perhaps I shouldn’t use the word amateur as he must have some serious kit to be able to spot something like that surely?)

Once again though, reading the comments below the article is a helpful reminder on why I normally don’t read them anymore. Some cheerful soul, I mean troll, has posted:
“I wish the same would happen to this planet and eliminate our unequal, apathetic, money-obsessed miserable race from our graceful universe.”
We all have our bad days, but wishing ultimate doom on every living thing on the planet seems a bit of a harsh way out; at least wait until the hang-over subsides before posting in future maybe? Interestingly, the comment wishing for ultimate genocide is still on the site, someone’s more elegant solution to his problems was modded.

06:49 pm: New Blog
To avoid just spamming you all about my forthcoming bike ride, I have set up a temporary blog on Wordpress to write about The Race Against Time:

http://tinyurl.com/IHTRATBLOG

Please have a look and tell me what you think.

Cheers,

Iain

Tags: cycling, the race against time, training, trat

10:46 pm: My turbo trainer is borked, again
Was attempting to train this evening on the turbo, another (simulated) shot at Alpe d'Huez - only somewhere shortly after hairpin six (out of 21), the trainer died again*.

It was annoying as I was in to a good rhythm and was feeling pretty good too. I've worked out that I'm not going to lose a lot of weight between now and TRAT/La Marmotte so my salvation if there is any will lie in training to ride faster and climb better at the weight I currently am - possibly far too little far too late but I need to do what I can in the time left me.

So, not using the borked trainer as an excuse to quit training, I got back out to Richmond Park with the intention of putting down one fast lap - I managed an average of 19.5mph for the lap, probably my best in a very long time, especially as it was purely solo, there was no-one to draft.

It was a good day of cycling all in all - despite the busy commute this morning I managed a 16mph average on the way to work, and on the way home I slotted in behind a guy tootling along on his scooter on the Embankment and got a tow at the sweet speed of about 26mph all the way from Vauxhall Bridge Road to Chelsea Bridge, was great fun.


*It's not permanently deaded, it will just need a reinstall then endless firmware updates - these are s l o w, so it's a lengthy job best left for the weekend. Don't buy tacx turbo products kids.

Tags: cycling, getting faster again, richmond park, the embankment, the race against time, training, trat

09:28 am: "Won't you spare me over for another year?"
Last night I saw Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys at the Barbican in London. I was a bit surprised that it wasn’t a sell-out, considering that it was only the third or fourth time he has played in the UK in the 63 years he has been performing.

The support (Diana Jones) was ok, but I’m not sure that the space did her any favours, I think her act would have down a lot better in a more intimate space and probably would have fit nicely in to a more varied bill.

If you don’t know who Ralph Stanley is, you might recognise him from the soundtrack to ‘O Brother where Art Thou?’, performing the song “Oh, Death” – you would have seen and heard even more of him had you watched the companion DVD to the film. This is called ‘Down from the Mountain’ and is a recording of a live concert at The Ryman Theatre of a lot of the music from the film by the original performers – if you haven’t seen it but like that sort of music, I recommend it very highly, it’s one of the few live DVDs I’ve ever watched that actually capture the atmosphere of the live performance.

Ralph Stanley’s musical style is referred to these days as ‘Bluegrass’ but he has been performing since that genre label existed and himself refers to what he does as ‘Old time mountain style’ His band consisted of a banjo player, a fiddle, guitar and a double bass. In the traditional style they managed the sound mix by moving closer or further away from their microphones (all instruments were fully acoustic and unamplified as far as I could tell).

It’s a style from a different time, a gentler more respectful sort of show and it was a privilege to get to see it (I was lucky enough to see one such show before back when Steve Earle toured his Bluegrass album ‘The Mountain’ with the Del McCoury Band).

Last night was a great performance, as well as some crowd pleasers from ‘O Brother’ there was a lot of other traditional music including some gospel numbers. Late in the performance I was particularly happy to hear their version of ‘Orange Blossom Special’ a favourite of mine. My only complaint was that I would have liked it to have gone on all night.

Tags: barbican, bluegrass, diana jones, down from the mountain, freinds, gigs, live music, music, o brother where art thou, old time mountain style, ralph stanley, steve earle

04:09 pm: The Race Against Time
Been rubbish about updating recently, this is mostly because all of my efforts have been focussed on training and raising funds for The Race Against Time (TRAT) in late June and then the Marmotte a week later.

The Race Against Time (TRAT) is a fast, six day supported group ride from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Yes, you read that right – the length of the country, by bicycle, in only six days – this means an average of 146 miles a day (it took me just over 12 days on my own last year).

It’s going to be very tough, both mentally and physically and is the most challenging thing I have ever attempted on a bike. Then, a week after that ride finishes I will be at the start line of the Marmotte in France, one of the toughest one day amateur cycling events in the world (about 108 miles in length with over 5,000 metres of vertical climb, taking in four Alps, including one of the highest mountain passes in Europe).

For once I’m doing all this specifically for charity. I’m doing it in aid of the Bishop Simeon trust who raise and apply vital funds to deal with the effects of the AIDS/HIV pandemic in South Africa. I’ll write a bit more about the charity in a later post, about what it does, were the money goes and how you can help. The one thing I want to assure you is that everything involved in organising this ride has been paid for already by the riders themselves and by a corporate sponsor , the support crew are volunteers giving up their valuable time to help – so any donation you are able to give goes directly to support the charity and it’s vital work. It also helps to motivate me to train because I don’t want to let down the people supporting me.

My training hasn’t gone as well as I would have liked – I’ve been dogged by illness and minor injuries this year, from an Achilles injury hanging over from last year, to flu early in the year, then a frozen shoulder/back problem quite recently.

This means that I’m nowhere near as fit as I had hoped to be and a fair bit heavier than I planned for. The weight will be less of an issue for TRAT as having ridden much of the route in a more leisurely fashion last year, I know what to expect and there is little in the way of extreme climbs on the way. So barring a few of the bigger, steeper hills I think I’ll mostly be ok. This will be less true for the Marmotte but again, I’ll post about that ride a bit later.

For TRAT I have had to train for a lot of different things. Speed and power so that I can keep up with the fast group pace (the quicker we are the less time we have to spend out on the road), endurance to cope with the six long days of cycling (we will be getting up at five in the morning every day) and climbing to help deal with what hills there are on the way (Shap Fell, Helmsdale and Berriedale being some of the main ones to worry about).

Also, as TRAT is a group ride, I have been practicing my group riding skills – this is an essential skill, both for the safety of other riders and to get the most aerodynamic benefit from riding in a group. To get better at this, I recently joined a cycling club and now regularly meet up for their group rides. I’m no longer in the slowest group on their Saturday rides round Richmond Park (and the ‘slow’ group are no slouches either).

I was pleased to (mostly) keep up on the club run round the Surrey Hills on Sunday – this was a 60 mile hilly ride. With me in the group, it may have been a slower ride for the other riders but for me it was the fastest I have been round those hills ever – I think I was almost an average of 3mph faster than I would normally expect to be on such a ride. I’ve got better at descending too, in days past, the group would have shot away from me on a downhill, now I’m keeping up and even overtaking a few of the others.

I’ve noticed on my commute that I’m getting some of my old power back – I managed a very creditable 32mph after a sprint from the lights after Vauxhall Bridge – as well as being great fun, it blasts me away from all the chaos and jockeying for position that takes place immediately after the lights.

More updates to follow soon.

Cheers,

Iain

http://www.justgiving.com/iain_houston

Tags: bikes, charities, cycles, cycling, cyclosportives, fundraising, justgiving, marmotte, sport, the race against time, training, trat

04:29 pm: Updating slowly.
I keep meaning to update this more. I have done lots - cycling, a stand up gig, some voice over work for a friends album. I will get round to updating soon, I promise.

I have also bought a canoe and may drown next weekend unless the paddles and bouyancy aids arrive soon.

12:34 am: Songs that give you chills
The above title question on the inimitable place that is yacf.co.uk had me plundering for some favourites on Youtube until about 3.15 last night.

As I think of them, in no particular order but one of 'em is by Woody by God Guthrie:

On The Nickel - Tom Waits* YouTube - Tom Waits - On The Nickel
Time of the Preacher - Willie Nelson YouTube - Willie Nelson - Time Of The Preacher
Don't let us get sick - Warren Zevon YouTube - Don't let us get sick - Warren Zevon (traducida)
Dixieland - Steve Earle** YouTube - Steve Earle - Dixieland (what you can sneak into bluegrass).
A Dance Called America - Runrig YouTube - Runrig Dance Called America
The Cutter - Runrig YouTube - Runrig - The Cutter
No Surrender - Bruce Springsteen (especially live) YouTube - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - No Surrender
Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult YouTube - SV - Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper
Ellis Unit One - Steve Earle YouTube - Steve Earle - Ellis Unit One
Down there by the train - Johnny Cash YouTube - Johnny Cash - Down There By The Train
Letter from America - Proclaimers YouTube - the proclaimers "letter from america" video
Fields of Fire - Big Country YouTube - Big Country Glasgow Barrowlands Fields of Fire
Dead Flowers*** - Townes Van Zandt YouTube - Dead Flowers
The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack - YouTube - The Last of the Mohicans - Promentory
The music in Excalibur, especially Oh Fortuna and Death of Siegfried YouTube - O Fortuna (Carmina Burana) - Carl Orff YouTube - Siegfried Funeral March
68 Guns - The Alarm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apERyZlTUZU&feature=related
Restless Natives soundtrack - Big Country http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0ztKXDSmYc
Market Square Heroes - Marillion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Dn8n4851Q&feature=related
Moonlight Shadow - Mike Oldfield http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bbST4AqzUs&feature=related
Fade to Black - Metallica http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzK_EVul6dQ&feature=related
This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie YouTube - woody guthrie-this land
I'll fly away**** - Oh Brother Where Art Thou OST YouTube - Alison Krauss-Gillian Welch - I'll Fly Away]
Superman - REM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx8ZlbGYhw8&feature=related

I had totally forgotten just how fucking good Runrig were live.

* They can play that one at my funeral.
** Probably not the best live version of this song but worth it for the intro.
*** If they don't play that at my funeral I'm coming back to haunt people.
**** If this doesn't cheer people up nothing will.


Edit: Bollocks - a straight paste didn't work, will try and sort the links by the weekend, some cracking stuff there.

Tags: songs, yacf

03:57 pm: Why ruthless use of Snopes might be wrong sometimes
Like a lot of people, I can spot an internet bullshit story with ease, especially the urban myths. In fact urban myths are really easy to spot, they lack immediately verifiable details like specific dates and locations and the friend of the friend removes them just that little bit from you and anything you can check up on. So like a lot of people I check them out on Snopes and ‘out’ the sender as a forwarder of made up email rubbish.

Actually, I think it’s me that’s missing the point not them.

The urban myth structure often makes a story 'better'. How interesting would an urban myth be if preceded by "I've got a theoretically amusing/scary anecdote to relate about something that didn't actually happen to me or anyone I know but it's kind of a good story and might just have happened to someone somewhere if you suspend disbelief and strain the laws of probability..."?

It's simply story telling, adding a personal element brings you in to it so you listen more and get more out of it. It's the same with jokes, the personal element makes for a more involving story.

People are just telling campfire tales in the newest of ways and thinking about it, it's nice that they are sharing along something creative in a small way. I've therefore stopped ruthlessly snoping people's urban myths unless they are the dumb ones that cause unnecessary fear - like fake virus alerts or untrue warnings about stuff (like the 'don't flash your headlights at cars without headlights on as the driver will shoot you as part of a gang initiation' urban myth).

Tags: jokes, stories, urban myths

03:15 pm: "Use of armoured war elephants has been approved"
I was away for the weekend at Knaresborough (Yorkshire) where Bryony’s aunt & uncle live (well one set of them, there are many copies and they have a plan).

As well as a restful stay with good food, a bit of walking and being plied with good Belgian beers etc I had a day at the Royal Armouries museum at Leeds.

It’s well worth a visit with some great displays (including an armoured Indian war elephant). There’s a lot of stuff to get through, I spent most of the day there and didn’t see everything. Of the interactive shooting things, I was poor with a Lewis Gun, not bad with the Lee Enfield (couldn’t be exact as some of the targets seemed to fall without me firing) and good with a scoped hunting rifle. I scored nothing on the Bren but think that that one wasn’t working (I could see my strikes hitting the targets so don’t know what’s up with that).

The museum is fairly well laid out with a tower stairwell at the end, the inside of which is covered with mass displays of different types of weapons – impressive to stand at the bottom and look up. The different galleries are good as well – the museum has a very impressive collection of weapons – both in terms of numbers, type and quality of preservation – some fantastic stuff on show.

The shop was excellent and I had to resist temptation to spend far too much money (there was a good book selection too). I was saved from buying some of their ‘battle ready’ swords as they weren’t good enough – too heavy, no attempt at balance and a loose pommel on the one I tried. Some good kit for children, decent wooden axes, swords and longswords and some not bad leather armour and caps. Some good archery kit as well. Annoyingly I heard two different mothers explain why they couldn’t buy their kids a sword – “It’s pointy and dangerous”. Fancy taking a little kid to a sword museum and then not letting them have a toy sword?

I did say to one mother “My mum wouldn’t let me have a sword when I was little either, I’ve ended up buying five real ones as an adult”. I don’t think I got the message across.

On the way home today (via Leeds) I did nip back to the museum and buy a child sized crossbow, longbow and six padded arrows for each. A few quizzical looks at work today, I have promised not to shoot anyone unless they especially annoy me.

Tags: archery, beer, holidays, museums, swordfighting, swords

08:25 pm: Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppy
ABout to start a Night shift herding drunks around London. Wtf did I volunteer for this? Oh yeah, money. Not doing this again. Too tired to even respond to the NYE texts I've already received, foosh knows what I'm going to be like by 4am.

10:03 am: The office Christmas party
It's my work Christmas thingy today.

There’s actually only one reason to go to the annual ‘Christmas Do’ and that’s if you’re not there, you’re the one that’s getting slagged off. Here’s my guide on why you shouldn’t go:

1. The only thing you have in common is that you work together. That’s it. You spend more time with these sorry bastards than with your friends and family and the only reason you are going out to eat a poorly-cooked, overpriced meal and get drunk with them is that you share the same dreary place of employment. Think of this as a foretaste of being put in an old people’s home, where you will be lumped in with a bunch of people that the only thing you have in common is age, decrepitude and hopelessness.

2. It’s the worst possible time of year to go for a drink anywhere because everyone else in the country has got the same idea. Pubs and bars are now full of amateur drinkers - like the evil thin-lipped woman from accounts who despite being only 34 but acting about 55, says she only normally drinks “One sweet sherry on New Year’s Eve” but then proceeds to get smashed on strange yellow, viscous drinks that look and smell either like sick or wee. Only she spends about half a f*cking hour at the bar deciding which brand of dusty, previously undisturbed bottled vileness she wants to drink and you to pay for (she also never gets a round in despite accepting drinks off everyone).

So you have to start early - good because you can get in somewhere, bad because it lengthens the drinking time available and increases the chance of everything going horribly wrong - like getting seriously hammered and ending up having a grudge f*ck with the evil thin-lipped woman from accounts (who probably lives in a house entirely decorated with pink furnishings).

Probably the best time to start is about 3.30pm – the crowds that came in at 11.30am for Christmas Lunch are slowly starting to stumble out, going on either to the next place or back to work to photocopy their genitals. To avoid getting too drunk too early you have to eat, which leads on to the next problem:

3. The food will be shit and the venue will be awful. You have to eat, it’s that or be utterly smashed by 5.30pm but it’s going to be rubbish and overpriced. Why will it be so bad?

a) You’re a captive market and you’re not coming back to this restaurant ever, ever, ever (especially after this meal) so they aren’t going to try and impress you. You’ve only come here because the place you went to last year was rubbish for all the same reasons as this one but you live on each year in eternal but vain hope of that one decent work meal.

b) Positioning at the table in the restaurant is key and you will screw this up because you foolishly stopped to get cash from an ATM (thus missing getting both a ‘good’ seat and the one free drink your boss bought everyone just before you got there). By the time you do get there, everyone is now sat down at that very long table covered in cheap ‘festive’ paper tablecloths, leaving only one space in the middle against the wall which would require you to have to clamber over and around people in order to sit down.

c) After clambering over and around people in order to sit down you find yourself sandwiched between two very fat people, who constantly talk across you. You are also sat opposite the boss. He or she will engage you throughout the meal in a very long and boring conversation about a subject you know nothing about - it’s entirely possible that this conversation will be work related and that this lack of knowledge on your part may have future implications for your career.

d) Everyone has forgotten what they ordered when they were asked to nominate about four weeks ago. The lowest paid person in the office (who bizarrely always gets landed with the thankless task of organising all this crap in the first place), hasn’t got here with the list yet. This is because immediately before you all left for the pub for a quick livener, the boss just gave her a last minute ‘quick task’ that will take about three or four hours. Several of the male members of your office when multi-beered will much later attempt to paw clumsily at her breasts or arse ‘jokingly’ hours after she eventually arrives (angry, tired and hungry) and they will fail to understand why she rebuffs them because they were “Just ‘having a bit of fun’ luv”.)

e) The restaurant owners have fitted in about 30% more people at your very long table than they usually do, so your left elbow will be in your fat neighbour’s gazpacho (it’s actually only tomato soup but it is at least cold) and your right elbow will be in the cranberry sauce that came with your other fat neighbour’s breaded melted cheese things (your starter either never arrives or has already been eaten one of your fat neighbours).

f) If you are a vegetarian, the vegetarian main meal option will either contain ham, salmon or both. In the unlikely event that the vegetarian option is any good and/or meat free, all of the available portions will get eaten by the non-vegetarians because it looked nicer than the other choices.

g) Service will be poor because half of your co-workers are bloody rude to the waiting staff and the waiters correctly suspect you probably aren’t going to tip well. If you do leave a reasonable tip, the waiters know that this will be absorbed by people like that git in the suede jacket from the office on the floor downstairs who will take £10 back from the kitty ‘in change’ because he “Didn’t have a pudding” and has conveniently forgotten drinking about two of the ten to twenty bottles of sour wine that you are now all arguing about paying for.

h) Because the restaurant owners know you aren’t coming back and aren’t going to tip, they aren’t wasting their decent chefs on you (if they have any, these are all at home on their day off). Your main meal has been at least partially prepared by the Kitchen Porter who hates all of you b*stards because none of the tips you don’t leave are making it back to him anyway. Don’t order anything with a creamy sauce.


4. The meal is done with, the arguments about the bill are over for now (although the simmering resentment over various petty details will continue well into the new year). You are now looking for the pub – a table has been reserved but you’re an hour late, the place is packed (and anyway it was a table for six and there are now twenty eight of you). All of the blokes that went straight to the pub instead of the meal because “Eating’s cheating!” are now utterly wrecked and saying “Wah-ha-ha-heyyy!!” a lot. It’s 6.30pm.

5. The rest of the evening is now the very delicate balancing act of working out your exit strategy - despite the fact that you hate everyone, you can’t leave while they are still slagging off the workmates who either didn’t come or left early (or they will start on about you the instant you leave, while you are just still in earshot). Neither can you stay too late as you risk getting very drunk and it all going horribly wrong.

It’s best to sidle off when everyone breaks up in to small groups, so that no-one notices you have gone (e.g. when all the fat blokes have started talking about football). Whatever you do, don’t misjudge your timing, get very drunk and end up having a grudge f*ck with the evil thin-lipped woman from accounts.

6. You misjudge your timing, get very drunk and ending up going home with and having a grudge f*ck with the evil thin-lipped woman from accounts. Everything in her house *is* pink.

7. You need to find a new job now or stay and feel honour bound to enter into a mutually unfulfilling and destructive relationship with the evil thin-lipped woman from accounts who is already subtly asking you if you want children.

Or is it just me?

Tags: being rubbish, christmas

12:10 pm: Cashcard cloned, account denuded.
I was somewhat shocked the other evening to find that my bank account had been mostly emptied in the last few days (and not by me!). This particular account only has a cashcard (not debit) so the only place I believe it could have been cloned from is a cashpoint.

It was more upsetting probably because I have been unwell for the last few days but it isn’t devastating because:

a) I’ll get the money back (hopefully before my rent and bills are due mid-month).
b) I managed to sort out my finances early this year and have been slowly saving a bit for, well the first time ever, so I’m ok for the next few weeks at least anyway.

What does sadden me is that the person who has stolen from me (or the bank, and ultimately all of us) probably doesn’t ‘need’ the money. I could be wrong, but basing my assumption on what purchases have been made on the two occasions when my credit card has been cloned, the purchases have been either (quite expensive) hotel accommodation or trainers etc from Footlocker.

I don’t let anyone take any card out of my sight now in pubs, shops or restaurants anymore and now always politely ask people to bring the terminal to me, haven’t had a cloned credit card since - I have found sometimes that people don’t like you insisting on this though, have other people had similar experiences?

Edit: Had the cloner spent all my money on cycle related stuff I might find it harder to persuade the bank that the transactions weren't mine.

09:47 pm: "One thing led to another and I forgot to kill myself that day..."
Considering the things that currently seem to occupy the moral minority in this country, I'm still surprised that Amy Winehouse jokes are still ok. Say "Fuck" on the radio on the answerphone of an (elderly) TV actor and your career is suddenly called in to question but it's still ok to repeat the same tired, shitty jokes about someone who appears (from the albeit hardly reliable) media evidence to be destroying themselves through addiction.

I don't find Amy Winehouse jokes funny. Amy Winehouse jokes might only be 'funny' one day if she doesn't die soon. Jokes are about a power relationship and they are at their funniest when the person joking doesn't have the power. If you're joking about an addict of any sort then I'm really fucking sure that it isn't them that have the power, unless it's over your small life for laughing at them in their moment of ultimate weakness.

I saw a particularly nasty one just now on the start of a show on BBC2 - it was on old gag but transposed on a recent photo where she looked fucked up and scarily thin.

I'm no particular fan of her musically, although I respect that she has talent, but the recent mendacious hypocrisy of our press about other events (and post event offended by replay public) really offend *me* but I have no recourse other than my own words.

Craig Ferguson nailed it here when talking about jokes about Britney Spears, why he didn't want to make them and discussing his own alcoholism - long but worth the watch (that's where the quote title is from):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbaRyDLMvA

09:50 pm: Indeceny is *everywhere* avert your eyes and you may yet be saved...
So after their other recent moral panic and a pikey baiting story (this one: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1081355/The-100-000-white-wedding-16-year-old-girl-lives-caravan.html)

The Daily "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" Mail has published a story about a 30 something virgin:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1082505/Her-date-EIGHT-years-ago-mother-baffled-Charlotte-Baird-says-Im-proud-virgin-36.html

So even *all* sex is bad now and not just the filth that Russell Brand gets up to?

I sent them this comment on the story as apparently they like people to comment on the moral issues of the day:


"I hope that after his recent public chastisement that Russell Brand can see the error of his ways, find God and maybe become worthy of a decent, pure woman like Charlotte.

Who knows, maybe they could meet one day in church and slowly get to know each other.

Obviously with his previous reputation, Charlotte wouldn't be able to trust Russell at first but after a decent interval (say five years) perhaps they could share a slowly kindling (but chaste) love until making a true commitment to each other and have their union blessed before all in the light and blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Maybe then and only then will this newspaper stop wasting my motherfucking time?

Remember "True Love Waits*" and then is really, really disappointed.

Actually the story did have an element of balance but it's just been put up as an Aunt Sally to knock the 'modern promiscuous society'. All I can say is, if society has descended into a immoral cesspit of vice and sexual corruption and indecency, I have seen and received far too little of it over the years.

Where's my serial depravity you uptight, racist, fascist fucks?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand rest.

(Tedious cycling anecdotes to resume tomorrow)


*True Love Waits was apparently Tom Waits' less successful younger brother.

02:49 pm: Tate exhibitions
I’ve been a member of the Tate for just over a fortnight now and have seen four of the paid exhibitions so far.

The first I saw was the Francis Bacon exhibition at Tate Britain – my initial reason for getting membership. I figured I would be going back there a few times and the cost of membership would be worth it.

Francis Bacon was one of the first modern artists I u8nderstood anything about back when I used to draw and paint – I remember thinking that I didn’t realise that people were allowed to make art in this way, it was very liberating and exciting. His painting of the death mask of William Blake was the one I first noticed ever.

I went to the exhibition with my friend Anya and her husband Jon (I got one of them in free as I paid for a Member + Guest card). After that we saw the Turner Prize exhibition which was a lot less interesting to me (I didn’t really see anything all that inspiring).

More recently I saw the Mark Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern and like I do with some art, walked out feeling vaguely cheated, bewildered and wondering if it’s just me that doesn’t get it.

Today’s lunchtime trip was a smashing antidote to that – the new exhibition in the Turbine Hall is breathtaking (and fun) but the best discovery was the recently opened (on Tuesday) exhibition by Cildo Meireles. Art being subjective and personal not everything is going to appeal to everyone (like Rothko in my case) but I really loved this exhibition. It’s a lot more participatory and I got a lot more from it . I don’t know if I learned any great truths from it but I walked out with a big grin on my face. Just great. Just this one was worth the membership, I’ll be going back again and again until it closes on the 11th (if only just to see how much the floor of broken glass (that you can walk on) degrades over time. I also want to run about in the room that’s almost knee deep in white powder but I wasn’t dressed for it today.

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/francisbacon/default.shtm

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/turnerprize2008/default.shtm

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/markrothko/default.shtm

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/cildomeireles/default.shtm

Tags: art, tate

04:05 pm: New York Times on Gordon Brown
Ok it's only an opinion piece but interesting reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13krugman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

03:40 pm: It's all lies I tell you. I blame the gubbinsment, etc, etc.
Like probably very many people I don’t understand the current economic situation (I once won an international award for a Management Accountancy examination so if even reasonably financially educated people like me struggle to understand it, how is the average punter to have a clue?) Is it even real?

Right wing sceptics dispute the overwhelming and proven evidence for human influenced climate change. Maybe we should pretend that their big crisis doesn’t exist either and keep spanking our paycheques on small plastic boxes of shit we don’t need, default on our credit cards then run off to the woods and live on roots and berries*?

One good thing has come out of it. Now that houses have ceased to be coin shitting machines to make us magically wealthy (apologies to Charlie Brooker who I nicked that off) maybe we will concentrate on properties as homes rather than commodities. At least we might be spared those awful property programmes that make us under achieving 30-40 something renters feel like poverty class scum. I’m looking forward to that new housing programme – ‘Repossession, Repossession, Repossession’. All the other ones can quite rightly be fucked off to the History Channel now.

I still feel conned though - £37 billion of taxpayer’s money sent in yesterday to shore up the banking sector (with more to come). Interestingly, even a pro Tory newspaper today had the front page news that last year the banking sector in the UK awarded itself £17 billion in bonuses.

Even more interestingly is just how very, very quiet the Conservative party have been in the last few weeks, especially David Cameron. Poster kids (well Poster wrinkly old harridans and buffoons sometimes too) for free market economy that they are, how is it that we aren’t hearing a peep of discontent or protest at the government effectively part nationalising large parts of the UK financial services sector?
I’m not actually sure that it’s happened – it’s the sort of thing that you usually find in the very early pages of ‘Baby’s First Guide to Building a Socialist Utopia’ and something more radical than I ever thought it possible to be enacted by a UK government in any age. I suspect it shows just how badly the financial sector screwed the pooch that an awful lot of other nations are following Britain’s lead in part nationalisation of many banks (including the US if the latest news reports are to be believed).

It’s ironic that when the Tories are still odds on favourites to win the next election here, the entire economic principles that are their very ethos are being retreated from internationally and they aren’t saying a fucking word. How about “Sorry!” or "Oops!" for starters?

The good news must hopefully now be that that annoying prick off the Halifax adverts must surely be for the dustbin. In fact can we blame it all on Howard and slowly and messily sacrifice him to appease the Money Gods? Rip out his still beating putrid heart and lay it on the altar of capitalism (before giving it a last squeeze). Now that’s the sort of economics I understand.

Right enough gloom and attempts to write like a 'clever-but-witty' newspaper columnist, off to look at pictures of kittens (“I can haz an econonomic crisis plz?”)


*I am extremely guilty of this (the buying crap bit, not the defaulting on Credit Cards and running off to the woods thing. At least not since the late 90s). I think that the current World Anxiety over ecoNomic Kaos (or Wank for short) was in part precipitated by my firm intention to become wholly debt free and buy less crap I don’t need (with the exception of DVDs).

I even managed to take back and get a refund on the small plastic piece of crap that I didn’t need (but would have cost £200) that I bought on Saturday (Notes to self: (a) Don’t take credit cards to trade shows ever again; (b) stop writing in parentheses so much). I’m surprised the markets didn’t drop even more at this news. The bad news is that I would dearly love to replace this small piece of crap with a much better small piece of crap that costs £100 more (or a canoe but at least the canoe would be useful, especially if sea levels rise any time soon). So far I have resisted. In all honesty I would have probably already bought the canoe but I need the money for a deposit on a bike ride, more on that another time.

Tags: reasons to be cheerful, shrugs shoulders

09:41 pm: And my reincarnation subconscious choice is:
Alright, these things are for shit but they asked some fun questions.

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Reclusive Artist

58% Intrigue, 54% Civilization, 39% Humanity, 42% Urbanization.

<img src="http://cdn.okcimg.com/php/load_okc_image.php/images/0x0/0x0/0/15390872732669983599.jpeg" width="454" height="450"

12:14 am: The Country Band I'm Not Forming. Again.
Ok, I'm currently not forming a country/bluegrass backing band who certainly aren't called The Earles Of Mercia.

So while I'm not forming this band and defining a list of artists who aren't my influences, please let me know what instrument you won't be shredding in the stellar line up that I'm failing to coalesce around my non-existent embryonic country band.

It's all lies. Don't join us. Especially if you can play.

All right, don't try reverse psychology...

Tags: country, let there be...um...stuff., the earles of mercia

05:42 pm: Savonarolan destruction
Well I indirectly learned a bit more about Italian renaissance history today after googling the term in the above title when coming across it in a Guardian article today.

I can't decide to be grateful to Alexander Chancellor (the author of the article) for exposing me to an intersting snippet of history or to be annoyed at him for being so fucking pretentious. I'll try and be grateful in an agry way and see where that gets me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/childprotection.thailan