Something for the Weakened

My chair has been thrown away due to a positioning error. The error apparently occurred when someone left it near to the rubbish and the driver who collects these things assumed it to be such. This isn’t that unsurprising – it was a battered old thing when I first laid my hands on it, but the last six years spent housing my enormous posterior have really taken their toll. The foam at the fornt had long been exposed by the receding cover, though never seemed to actually come away from the chair itself. Having spent as much time sitting on it as I have, I’m sure it would have been entirely possible to clone me from the billions of flakes of my own being that encrusted it. I won’t go into seat indentation too graphically, suffice to say I fitted into it with greater ease than anyone else.

But now it’s gone off to the great skip in the sky (well, Cowley, but the point is there) and I miss the shabby old bastard. I’ve had to half inch the one used by the tubby waste of air (there are plants that could be putting that carbon dioxide clogging up his corpulent, worthless form to far better use) I’m normally forced to sit next too and it’s just not the same. It has arms which I keep knocking my elbows on. It’s too short – mine was designed for working at a chest height desk so even at it’s lowest setting was quite high. The back’s enormous and is probably doing my own back some good – now why would I want that? Besides, by the time I’m used to it I’ll have to give it back. Sigh. Even if I asked them to get me the same model, it just wouldn’t be the same. Perhaps a skip run is in order.

So last night I ended up on stage, singing the backing vocals to Respect with an eight piece band.

Which was enjoyably odd.

I’m afraid that I’ve shamelessly stolen this from the ever wonderful Warren Ellis, but I doubt most of you check the man’s blog as religiously as I do. Besides which it was just a link to someone else’s blog on his site, so I don’t feel that bad. Plus this link is actually work safe unlike the usual links to cheery genital mutilation he normally posts. Anyhoo, here you will find the poster made for what would have been the best film ever made! If they’d ever made it. Bastards. Then again, now that Hammer might be starting up under it’s new European overlords, perhaps there’s still hope . . .

I was reminded of this joke last night when the long forgotten name of Darcy D’Farcy was brought up. Suddenly all my old Roland Rat memories came bubbling up to the surface. These included this particular gag, as originally performed by Errol the Hamster (who was Welsh, so it’s not racist or anything) in an episode of (I think) the second BBC series. Anyway, the answer is Caerphilly. Might have been the one with Brian Bless This House (as he was referred to throughout) being beheaded at the end of their adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, but I’m not sure.

I’ve been using the same email address for the past seven, maybe eight years. It being needlessly complex (relating to the initials of a nickname I had been given and then exaggerated – I did not make up my own nickname. Sad little man that I am, it’s never gotten that bad), I’ve never really received any proper spam. I do on occasion get things that the incompetents at Orange think are spam, the ever excellent Page 45 mailouts and missives from this very site being the most prominent examples. I’ve never really given the address out to other sites or strangers in the past, not doing an awful lot of online shopping or paying for pornography like the majority of you lot. Yet over the past week or so, my account has finally succumbed to the relentless pressure of the spammers. My inbox has been inundated with offers to try out ‘Wondercum’, methods to increase my sperm count by ‘500%’ (that’d be nigh on a lakes worth, ladies) and, perhaps bizarrest of all, offers for the new edition of Photoshop. So what’s brought all of this on? Is it the fact that my antivirus has been switched off for over six months because I couldn’t get it working when I installed it and have been too idle to try and get it going again? Possibly. Could it be the time I typed the address out in word form on this very website? Doubtful, I know many of you read this and where you all live. In fact I’m watching you now, through my special lens. That’s how I know it wasn’t you. Is it because I attempted to make a shoddy copy of my own, possibly not entirely kosher, copy of Photoshop, which is registered to that email address? Could the fact that the subsequent attempt to load it onto another computer and register it failed utterly have any bearing on the matter? I don’t know. Technology and I are still uncomfortable bed fellows. There now follows a paraphrasing of an almost relevant Milton Jones joke, for which I can only apologise.

The sperm count? That must be a really boring job. One, two, three . . .

I said I was sorry.

And indeed I am. Well, I think so. I’ve yet to witness the finished installation yet, but apparently my own droning tones can be heard quite prominently in a piece that a friend of mine created for her final art project. You to can go and have a look/listen (thankfully I’m not represented visually) if you happen to be in the Oxford area between the nineteenth and the twenty-fourth of May. Head for the Headington Campus of Brookes University and look for the Richard Hamilton Building. Failing that, just try to listen out for a monotone voice wibbling on about ripping paper and the mathematical languages he creates in his head. I really do do that. I’ll tell you about it some time.

I’d been in a bit of a rut since the weekend (no, not that type of rut), but have monumentally cheered up thanks to live music and liquor. One of the few rays of sunshine during the two days of glumness was catching the Panorama Scientology special. Watching a fairly mild mannered BBC journo completely losing it at an Elron lovin’ zealot was highly amusing through the fug up of my mind. It reminded me of the story of the religions founding, as related by the late lamented Robert Anton Wilson fnord. Long time since I read it, so forgive me if I fudge the details, but it went something like this;

Malcalypse The Younger, founder of the Discordian disorganization (Hail Eris!) – an anti-religion that mocked the concepts of organized religions in it’s every doing, for example making everyone in the world a Discordian pope -was staying in a hotel. He gets into a lift and is followed by none other than Old Mother Hubbard himself. The lift breaks down and the pair are stuck in there for maybe an hour, waiting for someone to repair it. The two get to talking and Malcalypse explains Discordianism to Ronnie poos while he tells Malcalypse about, I dunno, Battlefield Earth or summat. El is apparently intrigued by the tax breaks (American churches do not pay tax – seperation of church and state and all that constitution kissing cobblers). The lift is fixed, they go their seperate ways and some time shortly afterwards the cul(n)t of Dianetics is born. And all inspired by a slightly mental hippies idea of a joke.

If I find a website discrediting all of my previous works and mysterious cars following me on my bike in the next couple of weeks I’ll let y’all know.

Normally when I’m having one of these pointless week’s off, I set myself goals. Little creative projects that I’m inevitably annoyed about not doing when Friday comes around. This week, however I made no such list. Has this led me to greater levels of achievement? Of course not, it’s made me even more slothful than I would normally have been. Granted, I’ve got some stuff done, but overall it has been an utter waste of my time. I for one am glad of this, though I know really shouldn’t be. Maybe I’ll get some stuff done next week . . . ha

or absent with leave as it might be called if anyone really cared about such things. Yes I’ve been neglected the online world over the past few days in part because I’ve got the week off, though mainly because I’ve been playing with the contents of the boxes my computer ordinarly sits upon. It’s been an intriguing few days in which I’ve managed to set fire to myself, almost accidentally slept (in a non-sexual way – I’m not bigging myself up I can assure you) with a cohabitant, mistakenly exposed myself to the neighbourhood and started watching Heroes. It’s possibly the finest piece of television I have ever seen and think that you should all nick off and start watching it now. Have you gone yet? Really, you’ll thank me. Go on. You know more about computers than I do, torrent it or something. Really. Go on, fuck off.

Or can I? Oh, no wait