US bugs UN diplomats in advance of war, Metafilter fails to discuss it
What was the NSA wanting to do with its wiretap intel? Twist arms? Influence votes? That's what the Observer thinks. The memo itself, from which this information is gleaned, has already been argued about at length on Metafilter, and includes bizarre pointers to the Guardian's style guide to try and rubbish the memo itself.

I'm all for balanced discussion, but what amazes me is that, on Metafilter for god's sake, there are only two notable defences of a newspaper's right to assume a position on a war, and support it with hard-won information.

You'd think that the Observer hadn't done its research properly and needed MeFis to check its sources to stop the story blowing up in its face. Need I point out here that blogging is *not journalism*?

And they've just got the man believed to be ultimately responsible for September 11... apart from Osama bin Laden, that is.

Aside from all that, Gareth Gates stammers during an interview (shock! horror!) and Nigel Slater gets his chin slippy. With fondue.

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq
Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, some more Iraq news, Iraq.

American Police arrest man for talking in library

"I think Bush is out of control", the man said to a woman who he'd seen, in a library, wearing an anti-war badge. Shortly, police arrested him under the US's so-called Patriot Act and kept him in a police station for 5 hours. The man, understandably, is annoyed and intending to sue everyone concerned.

But how did they know he was at the library? Well, the Patriot Act, I understand, means that US law enforcement officials can spy on all sorts of things in their valiant lookout for Threatening People: library records, google searches (and with the recent takeover of Blogger, oh shit, my life's on the line too), student records, realtime phone communications, and christ, maybe even what you buy on Amazon, for all I know.

All I can say is, thank god its powers don't reach beyond US citizens! For now...

Meanwhile, this is what's going on in today's papers in Northern Ireland.

September, Bush, Blair, Iraq

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope at the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

-- from September 1, 1939 - W.H. Auden

Sort of fitting. This should be next week's UN Resolution.

Get ready for it...
...whatever it might be. Ready.gov, the US disaster-plan website, has been spectacularly parodied by many sites - best links here and here. Oh, how I laughed!

There is a serious undercurrent to all this, though. Just how many people in that massive country are going to be panicked beyond all reason by this so-called 'information drive'? Of course people should have information. The small question of useful timing seems to have been misunderstood in this case, I think.

Keep it clean
Heheheee. :o)

Watch wine grow...
...here. It makes me reach for the corkscrew every time.

COMMENT! Dammit.
You see those little 'comment?' links below each posting?

They WORK. They're there for a REASON. Bloody USE them. Grrrr, grrrrr. Growl. Am I being scary and persuasive enough? I don't care. But it'd be nice to have some evidence that people actually visited this site, and read it.

And you can see what you, and everyone else, has posted, too. Don't be shy. *sniffle*

Just thoughts in my head

Let it snow...
...let it snow, let it snow. As more than 20 (yes, twenty) inches of snow fall over Washington DC, the rest of America's East Coast is hit by severe snowstorms... again. And even the Chesapeake Bay is frozen.

Self-promotion
Dammit, I felt like publishing something of my own today. Hope you enjoy. (Adobe PDF.)

Consumer rights
Here's a message I just got from a friend of mine:

we've just bought some jaffa cakes in the office. on the tube it says "this tube should always contain 15 jaffa cakes" so when we had eaten all but one we phoned their customer complaints department to tell them there was only one left. i laughed so much i nearly wet myself.

History...?
I was leafing through an old diary today and came across this. Sorry it's so long, but hell. I was intense when I was 19! And not a little scary, looking back on it!

Wed. 30th July 1997

A rather slow day today. ... I need to be in touch with people. And that works both ways.

Poetry. Nothing much on that front. Why call yourself a poet when you aren't one? Is being a poet thinking about things poetically, or is it just a craft? I suppose it depends on the individual, on their commitment, on how much they write. Anne really is a writer - ever since I've known her she's always had something on the go and always something searching in terms of personality or people - or the self. I'm not a poet of anything in particular - I wonder if I ever will be?

In the afternoon went to an exhibition in the Abbott Hall Art Gallery in Kendal - Sublime Inspiration. The artistry of mountains, paintings and photos. A couple of superb Turners. Then back here.

Watched Morse in the evening - set in Pembroke College, Oxford. No shots filmed near the set of rooms I occupied for a night. Then I went out for a walk in the raining darkness. Dad says there have been a couple of guys hanging around here today with a notepad. They came up to the steps apparently, hanging round the car as well. Hope nothing happens - I'm not entirely sure it will but am sure that it's mostly unlikely - at leasst tomorrow. Gaytime TV starts in less than 5 minutes so will have to go. Back soon maybe.

-back- Dad doesn't want me to watch Gaytime TV - he hasn't said so but is uncharacteristically going to watch a film which is on at this time - and is avoiding my gaze. Bugger. And I thought he'd progressed a bit on that front. He seemed fairly relaxed about about my sexuality when it was touched upon earlier this week. He's just shifted in his chair, and is fiddling with things - sure sign that he's bored but his foot is going round and round so he doesn't want me to know. The time is past for that kind of limitation - it passed years ago in my opinion. That didn't stop him limiting at all, though.

This place seems so different from a year ago... Anne said in her letter that sometimes she thinks that she loves me and other times she knows she must not. I think I shock a lot of people. Anyway. No more now.

100 Poets 3 published
nthposition have just published the 3rd Edition (pdf) of their ever-more-famous-by-the-second poetry chapbook. You know what to do.

I hope!

Old friends...
I've been sitting with a lot of old friends recently. They've all come over visiting from London to live with me, and it's really great to see them all again. They're books, before you think I've suddenly become popular.



One of the best and most treasured is this one, pictured above and expanded upon here. If you're into wine, buy it. If you're into reading, find it in a bookshop and leaf through it and then buy it. If you're into both, of course you already have it so you don't need me to tell you. And if you're not into either wine or reading... why the hell have you got this far??

New Edition
100 Poets Against The War, Todd Swift's eBook mentioned in my last post but one, is out in a new edition which I've added to my server. Get it, and the original, from the sidebar (above the blogrolling links)!

Hobbit Love
So, Merry and Frodo are in love. Really. There are pictures, and comment. When will they come out?

It might just be rumour, and a matter of chance.

You can't hide a poet behind a bush.
A few days ago, America's First Lady Laura Bush was forced to cancel one of her White House poetry symposiums because my American friends were threatening to use their poetry to make a stand against war.

The Guardian quotes Mrs Bush's spokeswoman: "While Mrs Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum."

What does Mrs Bush think literature is?? In my opinion, she is bordering on being openly stupid if she truly believes that any poet worth their salt will sit politely at a nice afternoon gathering to talk about poetry when aggression is in the offing and must be questioned.

Luckily, an enterprising poet and publisher, Sam Hamill, has set up a website, Poets Against The War, and Todd Swift has published an eBook filled with contributions by established poets from all over the world.

The eBook is hosted on this website in Adobe pdf format - download it from the link in the lefthand bar, copy it to serve from your site, print it and leave it in coffeeshops... up to you!

Dammit.
I want some snow.



Like this.

Brutal cradling, Elusive message, Uneven film

The story is simple enough. 8 Mile presents: Eminem as you've never seen him before. Erm, hang on - that means 'Eminem as we've definitely seen him before, many times'. The master of the moody glare, the mellifluous rap and the lost-boy-loud-boy crossover. But this is a Curtis Hanson film. Curtis Hanson, the director of Wonder Boys and L.A. Confidential, is the last person I would have expected to direct a film like this one. But dammit, he makes it different to all the usual 'music star as film star' films you've ever seen.

And the signs are all there. For all the distinct change of scene from the old-police-stations Hollywood of L.A. or the suburban cosiness of Wonder Boys, the cinematography is still rich and disciplined without you realising it, and the passionate sense of place - in this case, the tumbledown Detroit - oozes from every frame.

The plot follows, so spoiler alert!, don't read further if you don't what to find out here what you'll be able to guess after having seen the trailer. I don't mean that to be disparaging, but everyone, unless their head's been in a barrel for the past few years, knows who Eminem is and roughly how he dragged himself up the rap ladder. And everyone knows that, although Eminem isn't really Eminem in this film - he's 'Rabbit', a young white rapper who's been accepted by the black boys on the dodgy side of Detroit's 8 Mile - this story is nevertheless based around him. Around his story.

Rabbit hangs out with his friends. Rabbit is quietly determined, but appears in the film's opening shots vomiting down the toilet before a battle - a public rap sparring-match between two rappers competing for recognition from their peers. Later, he raps in a parking-lot (the amazing, evocative old Michigan Theatre, pictured left) in an impromptu conversation with a rival group of guys. His lack of security isn't quite pulled off by Eminem, though, and this is where the cracks start to appear.

Because although Eminem is very good at acting determined, his embarrassed Rabbit isn't embarrassed enough. But this is part of Rabbit, which it would take a better actor to deliver: Rabbit is weak, and aware that he's weak. He doesn't fall back on guns to make his point for him - none of the characters do, strangely, (post-9-11th-ally??) apart from one, who injures himself in a shot of poetic justice - but rap.

And that would be fine. But this is not a rap musical. It's a film. It Rabbit could really break into rap every time he got threatened and win through because of that, we'd know. But a savage beating scene gives the lie to that idea, and because of this, Rabbit's slightly-too-smooth edges don't seem right. They look right, though. Oh, yes. Because Eminem looks fantastic on screen - on that point I agree entirely with Rolling Stone. His fierceness shines, but a little too sparklingly at times. He's the angry boy with a soul, who finally gets his chance to flare in a battle, and wins through.

In terms of this film, I'm not sure why I think it's a winner. I'm not sure why I think Eminem is a winner in it, despite his weaknesses. Maybe it's Eminem. Maybe it's Curtis Hanson. Who knows?

Sprawling, untidy inspiration

Martin Scorsese's latest film, which I saw a couple of nights ago, doesn't leave me with the impression that it was a crap film. I remember parts of it with pleasure, and others with the sort of wincing, guilty pleasure you feel at the end of a particularly nasty horror film. But I remember it. I am interested about the characters. If it had been substandard work, as so many people are saying, why do I feel this way?

Gangs of New York is undoubtedly sprawling and untidy. Salon points out that it's as if Scorsese had become lost in the grime-stained playground of his imagination for too long, wanting to revel in the multiplicity of characters (there are no computer-generated crowds, and the cast is huge) and the length of time it takes (nearly three hours). But I incline more towards the New York Times's review. To my way of thinking, the general epic scope is indeed akin to the films of DW Griffith, and there was definitely a feeling throughout the film that, while perhaps the shooting and scripting didn't always mould to a satisfying story like plasticwrap over glass, the style and scope was there to provide a spectacle in and of itself.

Many critics will disagree with me, I know. But I didn't even find Amsterdam, Leonardo Di Caprio's character, awful. Of course, he wasn't impressive. But then, he wasn't meant to be. Amsterdam, the son of the gang leader Priest Vallon (solidly and calmly played by Liam Neeson) who is murdered nastily at the start, only returns vengefully to the Five Points district after some years, and as such is like a fish half-in, half-out of the water at a time when he most needs to glide, silent and deadly, towards his intended victim.

His intended victim, William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, is where the film really starts to fall apart and cohere at the same time. Dealing with the falling-apart first, Di Caprio can't stand up against older actors too well anyway, and Amsterdam isn't scripted to confront him. Instead, he woos him, scared, rather than waiting to reveal his hand. This isn't bad acting but rather a bad situation. (The worst most obvious slips Di Caprio makes during the film's entire length are slips of accent only.)

Now, to the coherence. Daniel Day-Lewis returns with one eye of porceain and one of glare and twinkle, and a voice which has been marinaded in bourbon, tobacco and grit for at least a few months. Standing so tall his character seems precarious, tottering badly at the end as intended, Day-Lewis is the true nucleus of the plot. Around his sun orbit Jim Broadbent, acting well as corrupt local politician William Tweed in his first Hollywood outing since Moulin Rouge, and John C. Reilly (of Magnolia fame). Cameron Diaz slips around tartly, thieving from the plush neighbourhoods before subsiding disappointingly into the story's love-interest, Jenny Everdeane.

All in all, it's sprawling, some characterisation is untidy, but it's not bad. People are used to thinking of Scorsese as a god who can do no wrong - or if not that, exactly, then at least as someone who is higher up there than most. So what if he wants to sprawl occasionally? Does that make this film bad, simply because of that? No. It's absolutely no worse than, for example, Gladiator. It's a lot better than The Two Towers, purely in terms of plot, characterisation and acting. And cinematographically, it's a dream. Before you buy into what the critics are all saying, go see for yourself. This is a big-screen must-see.

Photos and Trivia
If you like London, go here, now.

Talking
There are several kinds:

1. Pointless conversation used first thing in the morning to wake you up. Usually takes place with strangers at bus-stops.
2. Inner monologue. If you're lucky, it's not so much talking as thinking, but if you're unlucky like I was, you end up thinking aloud in coffeeshops over the newspaper. And people look at you strangely, so you smile back, and they don't know where to look.
3. Tentative engagement. Usually used when you're in a room with strangers and you just want to get to know one or two of them. Every sentence is a stepping-stone which might slip on the riverbed and send you flying, but you still keep walking.
4. Fluidity. Can be verbal or written, and I've been having an enjoyable few sessions of this with a few people, including Chris, over the last few days. Nothing is an effort, and freedom and clarity usually result.
5. The kind that I've just heard coming from behind the bathroom door, where dad is probably seated on the porcelain. I don't know what he's saying, but it seems he talks to himself on the toilet quite a lot. I can't say I do. Do you?

First Snow!
But not here, in Belfast, sadly. However, I've just been kidding myself with ample resources from this snow gallery.

Freedom
Look at this piece of glowing invective, from none other than The Pyongyang Times.

Notice that North Korea doesn't call itself North Korea (beware MSN pop-up). It calls itself DPRK - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. There's a slight difference. (Obviously *South* Korea doesn't exist, then. Or not really, anyway.) I think it'd be an interesting place to visit.

Iraq: Liberation, Invasion or Colonization?

Dubya has been at it again. Think for a moment, he told us. Think about what Saddam has done. Think about what we can do for Iraq. And then you'll see that we won't be invading the country, but freeing its people.

A little premature, isn't it. Or is it? Nobody knows because, at the moment, America is the only country in the entire world which has said it's going in there sometime soon. It's true that Britain's Prime Minister is hawkishly keeping his eyes open, and kicked off 2003 with a speech full of dire warnings of worldwide threats to peace and security. (Threats to peace and security, incidentally, which are anything but war on Iraq.) So far, though, he hasn't said yes. His ministers, and others, are increasingly saying no. So, where does this place George W Bush?

In a word: alone. America is massing troops in the Gulf. Britain is due to send its biggest carrier there tomorrow, but even in a few months, its commitment of people and hardware would still be less than America's. There's a very good reason for that: no concrete plans have been made because, unlike the once-in-a-lifetime groundswell of world support for pursuing Osama and the Taleban in Afghanistan, nobody in the world knows why they want to invade - Saddam is not Osama bin Laden; there's no real world interest there. Apart from America, no single country anywhere even knows if there's any point to it, but all countries can see at least one glistening end-result: OIL.

Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not suggesting for one millisecond that America just wants to boot Saddam up his hairy Arab crack and grab some black stuff. I'm really not. The American hawks do actually believe that a regime change would be beneficial to the country. Why they believe this is beyond me. Why would a population which naturally inclines to a multifarious, and sometimes violent 'clan-based' rule, possibly want democracy? They would have to take their place, and recognise their *responsibilities to*, and in, the wider world. America would allow nothing less. Of course, they'd all rather welcome Saddam's downfall because it would give them the chance to get that system established. Self-rule for Iraqis would mean a multiplicity of different local rulers. And yet the press has been so full of a single word, Iraq, that you'd almost be forgiven for thinking it's a single people.

Anyway, so what if they do or they don't have a change of regime. America doesn't like Saddam. America despises his filthy little moustache. Furthermore, the portraits of him in various heroic poses are almost as kitsch as the Stars and Stripes flying all over America. Get the shitty, weaselly sand-nigger off his perch and let's show the world we whupped his ass. Then, let's set up a postwar interregnum in Iraq, which we won't call a ruling council because that would give us too much actual responsibility, and let's make the interregnum as slow as we can so that we can get as much OIL as possible out of there.

Oh, come on Britain, you know you want to get in the car with us. Come oooonnn! :o) You'll like it, I promise. We suckee suckee. Aww, please think about it? We can't do it without you! Britain? Britain. I'm not going to ask again... Now. Get in the fuckin' car.

Weapons of Mass Destruction
Each word or phrase which is over-used becomes one of the above against the power and magic of words. The top offenders on Lake Superior State Uni's list this year (showing just how much ordinary Americans hate Bush (thank-you, Jeeeee-zus)): Material Breach; Make No Mistake About It; Weapons of Mass Destruction; Homeland Security.

Today's quiz: what literary surname links together all items on the above list?

Answer: Shakespeare.

Yes, that's right. Because the Pentagon is slipping a copy of Shakespeare's racier war-based plays into its soldiers' backpacks before they get helicoptered, shipped and flown to Iraq. I ask the next question in all seriousness: why??

Am I turning American?
5 minutes ago, I typed 'That sucks' into a message to a friend on OUT. He wrote back and told me I'd written 'That sucks'. I stared in disbelief. No, I *couldn't* have written that! I went back through my history to check. And there it was. Since my friend is Canadian, he asked me why I'd said it - us 'brits' never say it, apparently.

Well, we do now. God help me.

And. . . . . ?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, because I'm sure this happens to a lot of people, I'm feeling rather unmoved now that we're in the aftermath of 2002 turning into 2003. Today, arguably, the internet is 20 years old, but other than the usual celebrations around the world, there's not much to say.

Today is, however, the first day of something a lot bigger (to me at least) than just another year: the appearance of Samuel Pepys' Diary online. Presented in the form of a blog, the diary will be put online at a rate of one entry per day. Pepys started the diary on the 1st of January 1660 and died in 1703. That means that we have about forty years to wait before the complete text is online, but it will be a valuable experiment in whether readers will actually come back each day, or for catch-up sessions, to read something on the web that they wouldn't necessarily have read on paper.

I really don't know what more to say. I usually feel underwhelmed by New Year things. I feel much happier that it's still Christmas!

Disbelief
Two stories have set me blinking in indignation today. The first is that a strange sect masquerading as a 'scientific' cloning company claims to have successfully cloned the first human being.

The second is that steel from the now defunct World Trade Center in New York is to be used... to make a great big warship. Maybe I'm wrong, (no, really, maybe I really am - I can't remember properly) but I seem to recall that shortly after the catastrophe, the Twin Towers were lamented and the description of the buildings leant heavily towards values like peace, creativity, freedom, beauty and so on. Obviously the same sense of peace and freedom which led US law enforcement officials to jail two foreign students for being 'work shy'.

And there's one more star in heaven tonight - or one more star-maker - as news comes in that photographer Herb Ritts is dead at the age of 50.

What? A white Christmas?!
No, we didn't get one here in Northern Ireland. But Arkansas (right), Missouri, Pennsylvania and New York all had a freakish snowstorm sweep across them yesterday. We could do with some of that. There are so many warm nuggets of colour and food and drink in this house that I long to look towards the window and see snow-light, to step out of doors and hear the crunch of snow.

Blatant, Over-reactionary Lunacy
American Airport Staff scared, or insane? And I thought I was badly treated in the UK...

More comments here.

The onset
I just went out to the back garden and could tell as soon as I stepped outside that it's much, much colder tonight. The pergola is dusted with frost, and when I went to the bin, I spent a while cracking the ice around the lid so I could open it.

This is where I start to feel the onset of Christmas. There's a very bright star in the eastern sky; of course it's not that which the Three Kings saw... but things are starting to coalesce. :o)

The Little Friend

When I heard, on a winter day late last year, that Donna Tartt's second novel would soon appear, I longed to plunge back into The Secret History with new eyes, and take heed of signs, and wait, and wonder. At last, She was publishing again. At last, I would read something by Her which I hadn't read before. Her new book would be as rich and studded with jewels as Her first, and hitherto only, novel. It would change my mood for weeks on end. It would devour me over a period of perhaps three days, and I would devour it many times thereafter.

Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling; and our story shall be the education of our heroes.
This prefatory quotation from Plato, slipped ironically into the first pages of The Secret History, certainly cannot be applied to The Little Friend. It is a large book. At more than 500 pages, bound in black, and excitingly solid and bulky, it is just heavy enough to make you think you might be carrying a box of riches in your bag. You will undo the clasp, open the lid, and gaze, wide-eyed and short of breath, at the dim glitter inside.

But this is a slow book, and its richness is as thick as a midge-filled summer afternoon. While occasionally you may be allowed to canter through a few pages at most, the rest of it may as well have a "Do Not Run" signboard, presided over by some stern, angular matron. The syrupy paragraphs drop slowly and heavily through your mind, one, two... three...... and another..... Some of them are light and sweet, some as dark and tinged with bitterness as black treacle.

It's not such an easy lay as The Secret History. It won't lie down with you and engage you in sweaty abandon for days on end, only to spit you out light-headed and spinning afterwards. It will hold you firmly, talk slowly, smile in a small way, and though you may want to pull away and do something else, you'll know you have to keep listening. This tale does not tell itself simply, but then, in the American South, a story may be months in the telling...

Donnie Darko

Yes, there is a film (its young director's first) called Donnie Darko. No, I hadn't really heard of the thing until about two weeks ago, when my friend Jonny mentioned it to me. It's about... well, it's very difficult to say exactly what this film *is* about. It follows Donnie Darko through either the first or last years of his adult life, depending on how you look at it.

Feeling increasingly alienated from the world around him, Donnie, played by Jake Gyllenhaal (right), moves through it in a sensitive, troubled, and increasingly playful way. Testing the boundaries of the reailty he lives in, as directed by a big evil bunny, and fascinated by increasingly bizarre events which lead him to kickstart the mind-bending denouement, this is a film which made me laugh, well up with tears, go all hormonal for Donnie, and all motherly for him and the rest of the misguided characters (played by a wonderful cast), all at the same time. Nobody's talked about it here in Northern Ireland, where it would usually be regarded as an irrelevant piece of childish weird shit, instead of the quirky masterpiece it undoubtedly is.

Go see.

PS. - Dec. 19th - Apparently, it caused a huge stir in America when it was released. Due to the release-date being only a few months after September 11th, and the prominence given to a jet engine and a house.

Hunting
A lack of jobs is entirely caused by too much hunting by too many people in the first place. So, because I need a job, there should be a complete ban on other people hunting, especially those with more impressive stallions than mine.

Jobless, again
Even I am starting to think that I'm hopeless. Today, in the middle of the afternoon, someone from my agency called me to tell me that someone in the very building I work in had decided to say byebye to me and quite a few other recent temp workers today - because work was slowing down before Christmas. So, my manager lived down the corridor and he didn't have the guts to tell me. And I've been employed now for a grand total of, oh, 9 days.

I could swear here, really. But there really fucking wouldn't be any fucking arsing cunting point.

Driven to Distractions

It's time I lightened the mood on here, at least. So, after a somewhat shitty day at work, here's a nice handkerchief belonging to a Shaker Man, woven by George Constantine in about 1936.

And a brilliant doorway with corridor beyond (at Chatsworth House, UK), with a little violin hung on a door. Architect thought to be Jan van der Vaart, in the 1670s.

Does any of this not ring true?

That's because the handkerchief's actually a watercolour. And beyond the doorway out of the room, there isn't a corridor at all. Just another painting.

I need more...
Time to myself, people to talk to in work, things to look forward to, ability to capture lovely memories with photographic clarity, lunch money, sleep in less time, cheese...

Something missing
That's how today has felt, really. Not in the sense that I've had nothing to do - quite the opposite. I got up earlier than I've done in ages, rocketed out of the house and into town, had breakfast and then started my new job. And kept at it without any real sort of break (except for lunch) until I got back home a while ago.

But the job involves doing *nothing* (and I mean nothing) apart from sitting in front of a computer in a small room with one other person, wearing a pair of (rather painful) headphones, and transcribing letters from the tape. So you can't even talk to the other person because you have no time and no hearing, and the only break is when you cross the room to print stuff out, or leave the room to get another tape.

I'm going to see how it goes tomorrow, but I think today's provided enough experience of the job to give me a great big "I won't like this type of work, not even slightly" signal. It would be much better, and I'd actually sort of like it, if I was in a slightly bigger room and had a variety of duties. I think I'll be calling my agency tomorrow though!

Melancholy
It's one of those days. This is the first day of advent, and just like the first day of advent last year, this one definitely doesn't feel like it. The weather is there - gales and rain - enough for you to believe it's December. But I feel dislocated. For a start, I'm now (very suddenly) not jobless. Friday afternoon, and a call comes through from my agency telling me I'm starting work on Monday (tomorrow) on an audio typist position inside the Central Services Agency, whatever is precisely is! I'm sure I'll know all about it this time tomorrow, but right now I don't have a clue. It's the usual night-before-new-job feeling.

But this time, it's compounded. Jonathan arrived from London on Friday. On Saturday, we just went around town, had lunch in Apartment, went for a drink in Bar Bacca and then for another few in Irene and Nan's. My plan, before getting drunk, was to then go home and spend a quiet evening indoors with him, eating and drinking and just generally catching up. It would have been an oasis of calm and relaxation before he left the next day, as well as a bolster before starting work again after such a long time (nearly one whole year) unemployed.

But we ended up getting drunk and going to the Kremlin, and not doing much catching up, and getting even more drunk before getting home and collapsing. I woke up this morning with a hangover from hell, knowing that Jonathan had to leave the house at 4pm, knowing I had work tomorrow... *sigh*

And now he's gone, it's raining outside, the house seems very very quiet, and the news is bad. A few minutes ago I caught myself looking at digital photos I'd taken while he was here, and wondering where he's disappeared to. God, listen to me. (Peri)pathetic indeed. But like all other emotions, melancholy rears it head sometimes, and when it does, writing about it needn't be bad. I just feel I need a few days' holiday to get myself back together again - and this on the eve of my new job. But never mind. I know I'll feel better when I've got the first week of it over. Routine always settles me, sooner or later...

Twisted meanings
Found at Chrisonomicon. Fantastic things from a fantastic blogger. Anyone know of any more examples of this?

An Adult Fairytale
Awwwww.

von Hagens still faces arrest

Professor Gunther von Hagens, who last night carried out the first public autopsy in the UK for 170 years (right), is today the subject of a discussion which could end with his arrest. Medical experts are to discuss the nature of the autopsy, and will pass a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will then decide if von Hagens has a case to answer. If he is found guilty of breaching the Anatomy Act, he could be jailed.

I think this has all been blown a bit out of proportion. Although there has been a lot of media attention (The Times - Editorial / The Guardian - Leader) most of it has concentrated on whether or not he was right or wrong to carry it out. Surely the people who paid to watch can be given that task. Yes, it's wrong in law. But *should* it be? That's the question the papers should be asking - and making an attempt to answer. Certainly, a member of a government medical ethics committee who was present at the autopsy, made encouraging noises on the principle of the thing. Is it a circus? That's hypothetical anyway. It certainly wasn't conducted as one.

Another outdated institution has been fucked with, as the UK's Princess Royal is fined for letting her mutt run riot and attack 2 kids. And finally, SpongeBob SquarePants has become a gay icon.

UK sees first public autopsy for 170 years
See the earlier post, about Gunther von Hagens. Despite a police presence, his autopsy was carried out as planned. Police sirens wailed towards Brick Lane, London, about 20 minutes before the procedure was due to start, raising fears of an arrest. In the end, however, it went ahead. The BBC again:

"There were gasps from the audience as he cut into the head of the body and sawed through the skull with a hacksaw. Accountant Louise Cotton, 40, said: 'I think it's absolutely fascinating. I've never seen anything like it before, it's just amazing.' Medical student Cristina Koppel, a fourth year student at Imperial College in London, said: 'I was a bit surprised by the speed of it all but there is no delicate way of doing this with finesse.' A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said anatomy professors would watch the autopsy to check if it breached the law but would not say if the professor would face arrest."

First public autopsy since 1800s is planned

Professor Gunther von Hagens, creator of plastination and the controversial Body Worlds exhibition, in which flayed human corpses are shown, plans to conduct a public autopsy on the night of the 20th of November 2002, in the centre of London.

But as the BBC reports, public autopsies are illegal in this country, and Prof. von Hagens may be arrested before he makes the first incision.

If you have a TV, the UK's Channel 4 plans to film the procedure when it takes place (or, more likely, von Hagens' arrest) and televise it with a debate at 11.45pm on the same day.

"There is not a single sound reason why anatomical dissections, as commonly experienced by medical students during their studies, should continue to remain the private domain of medical professionals. In a liberal democracy with an open society, excluding medical laypersons from anatomy can no longer be justified. The possibility of attending dissections that are open to the public should be an unqualified right of every citizen of legal age, if spatial and personnel-related circumstances permit." (Body Worlds website)

Thoughts, anyone?

Ahhh. *sigh*

(From Minizen)

Regal

The Queen, and Elizabeth Windsor at the state opening of Parliament earlier this month. Yeah, like the tiara, Phil. Did your wife choose it specially? (Pic captured from BBC News.)

Reading Poems
Famous poets reading their own work. I've only been really impressed with one poet's reading of their own work, and that's been Seamus Heaney. He was a good reader because he could actually speak the lines right through your ears into your emotions. He was gently animated.

Listening to some of the poets who make it into this webpage, however (and a lot more who haven't for copyright reasons), I often wish that more poets or novelists - or writers generally! - would recognise that they're not all great, or even passable, at reading their own work aloud. Ali Smith writes spare and superbly crafted fiction, but she's hopeless at reading it out.

Whereas, at a reading a few years ago, yours truly got applauded loudly for reading his own work! Now, what exactly *is* it about hearing a writer read their own work, even though they might do it really badly? They don't add anything to the experience. You hear the same words and the same sentences, and the writer simply cannot be trusted to illuminate and nuance. So why do people part with the money?

My own bet, even though I write myself, is that people just want to be able to say they heard such-and-such reading once. Sort of interesting conversation-material, but hardly food for the soul.

Pictures
Moving ones. The latest two I've loved have been One Hour Photo and 28 Days Later... One Hour Photo has at its centre a solid, terrifyingly quiet Robin Williams who "gives an eerily still, contained performance as Sy, the put-upon express photo clerk in his vivid white shirt and retina-piercingly blue waistcoat. These are colours that match the strip-lit white of the surreally enormous discount store where he works, the police interview suite where he winds up, and indeed his own pallid skin tones - an albino in everything but his eyes", according to the Guardian review.

28 Days Later..., by contrast, is a film which is cinematically full. It lacks the washed-out emptiness of the above. But it's so fcking terrifying when nothing much is happening onscreen. The opening 20 minutes or so will either do nothing for you, or give you the feeling that the world you knew has ended, just like that, and you'd quite like to cry. Plus, the divine Cillian Murphy (pictured) has a lead role, along with Christopher Eccleston, who brings his usual bad-man-with-good-heart into frame.

Poles Apart
But there's only one South Pole, I hear you say. Haha. Wrong!
And I didn't know that so many countries think they own the place!

New Arrival in London!
My uni friend 'Justin' has arrived in London, people! And he's feeling a bit, well, washed-up and lonely after having moved down from Edinburgh. So I'm asking all my friends in the city to take a look at him here and if you like what you see (who wouldn't?) then write to him and take him out for a coffee or a drink or something. And be nice. Offenders will be prosecuted!

Mystery Bunny
Hmm. Seems I've a mustery admirer somewhere in Lanarkshire. I got 2 framed urban photos and a fluffy bunny (below) in the post today from someone who didn't include a note or a name. Weird. They did include their address though. I'm trying to figure out what to do. Should I write back? Should I try to find out who they are using more covert methods? Tell me, people.

Not quite angels on horseback...
"The Russians are wrapping the bodies of the terrorists killed in last week's siege of a Moscow theatre in pig skin in order to deter future attacks by potential Islamic fighters. The idea, according to the newspaper Moskovski Komsomol, is to turn the terrorists' own beliefs against them. While jihad martyrs believe they ascend immediately to heaven upon fulfilling their duty, Islam regards the pig as unclean. Corpses wrapped in pig skin, the Russians say, will therefore be barred from entering heaven for eternity." -- from Wired

And, hehehe. :o)

Thinking
The things we do when unemployed:
1. Don't earn any money
2. Don't get the chance to go out. Ever
3. Have loads of free time
4. After a while, treat that free time as something which will go on, because we also
5. Get used to thinking there isn't going to be a job within the next few weeks, so
6. Make plans for people to visit us, etc. in the future free time

On Thursday, I went for a little chat to Waterstone's who are looking for a goods-in temp around the Xmas period, but starting on Monday. Despite not having heard anything yet, and despite initial doubts about whether or not Jonathan and Mikey will still be able to visit (which they allayed - time off is a virtue), I'm looking forward to getting back into some sort of work. I'm meant to hear something over the weekend - i.e. before the end of tomorrow. If I don't, I'll start thinking, oh, there's another potential job which has turned me down. Dammit.

Oh, bloody hell...
There's a suspect device outside the offices of The Belfast Telegraph in Belfast City Centre. This comes a few days after other security alerts in the city, and already I'm thinking that it's going to be another Continuity IRA-attributed event. Why do paramilitary or terror groups think it's a good idea to plant devices in or near the offices of newspapers? Easy. They don't particularly care about bad press. It's the disruption they want. Last week, a similar alert inside the Telegraph building disrupted production for several hours. There's nothing like that to steal headlines and publicize their activity.

However, there are no online reports about it at the moment. I only found out because as I was leaving town, the staff radio on the bus was reorganising traffic through central control. What has shocked me, however, is a story about gross mistreatment of kittens.

Nonsense?
The USA is cowardly and ham-fisted in its attempts to tackle terrorism and present any convincing arguments about them to the world, as well as possibly guilty of deliberately allowing 9/11 to happen, according to Gore Vidal in today's Observer Review. Usually, I think he enjoys the sound of his own voice too much. But his 7,000-word article was very good indeed, in my view. Unfortunately, until some kind soul posts it to the web somewhere, you can't read it unless you can get hold of the print edition.

Silliness
First off, nearly 70% of Americans feel that a war against Iraq would make America safer. Hmm. Where the hell do they get that idea from? Now, having said that, this result did come from a site which sells really paranoid stuff. Their informational courses on such matters as nuclear, biological and chemical attack last only 45 minutes each - just enough time to either get the essentials across - or go for bust to give lurid details with a bare minimum of useful, balanced advice. Which do you reckon it would be?

About the one thing they sell which could benefit most people is a first-aid kit. But you can also choose from items such as this. Sigh.

Does anyone remember that in the days immediately after September 11th, 2001, manufacturers of nuclear bunkers were maxing out on orders? Within a few weeks, the demand died down. I began to think that maybe everyone was getting a bit more balanced again. However, as the presence of this quirky Christmas gift emporium shows, there must still be demand somewhere. They have an outlet in Manhattan. What happened to the concept that New York was famous for being almost non-American in its outlook?

Oh, and "They had given the price of Booker of the man to 'the duration of the unit of elaboración'." (Which means they've given the Man Booker Prize to 'The Life of Pi'.)

Fire-Water
I downloaded this because I thought it looked nice. Then I had second thoughts. Why the hell put ice in the bloody glass? And why such a miserly amount of the good stuff? Shame. Shame.

In other news, Northern Ireland is now back to direct rule after a rather nasty spat over the results of a raid on - among other properties - a Sinn Fein office in Parliament Buildings, Stormont.

Go here for more on this - or more on anything NI.

Memory - Reality
This is Jonathan, my... friend, for want of a very much better word, in Greenwich. I took this picture earlier this summer, saw the scene through the window, and had to capture it. It sums things up perfectly. Or disturbingly. Sometimes it's like he's blurring so much I'm not sure he's there. But I can always see him, so he always is. But blurring. Oh, god. Listen to me. Missing friends always gets to me. Now, for minor artistic effect:

Plates. So many meals eaten off these. The foundation of any good meal. :o)

Bananas. Snipped from another picture for no other reason than they look nice. I like bananas. Especially from the other side of a misted window, when I'm outside on a summer night.

Dammit. I miss this London life. Well. This bit of it.

Oh. My. God.
Conservative MP leaves Westminster for Ian Paisley's DUP. Congratulations to Andrew Hunter, who claims this week's "Tory Masochism" prize. Now we know there can never again be a Conservative Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Everyone here would revolt.

What really made me laugh was that Ian Paisley Jr., Big Ian's son, said it was "probably one of the most significant developments within unionist politics for several decades". Yes. It is! It's like piling more shit on top of an already huge pile of shit!

Whirling water
The most dangerous whirlpool in, possibly, the whole world is to be found between Scarba and Jura off the west coast of Scotland. The page linked at the start describes a typical dive there, with obviously no approaching the whirlpool!

Another great place I'd love to dive - partly because I've done no diving *at all* so I'm just more excited than scared - is Scapa Flow. Van der Vat's book The Grand Scuttle provides an electrifying story of how the wrecks of Scapa Flow came to be; this site gives more info on the experience. When I worked at Waterstone's Piccadilly, London, I spent many happy afternoons reading Dive Scapa Flow which contains great pictures of the wrecks as they are today.

Strangeness
I've never been one to believe this sort of thing, but this is just plain weird. Someone recorded a strange appearance in their home and put it on the net. The weirdness is in the sound so a soundcard and speakers may be handy.

Taking sides
"I was never a member of the IRA" states Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein's President. Okayyyyy, right. We believe you, Gerry. The book which alleges otherwise is doing nothing new. But the SDLP's leadership are reacting as if it's the first they'd heard of the matter, with leader Mark Durkan saying it "raised questions about his credibility". What balls. Everyone *knows* he was an IRA member. But does it really matter anymore? Think 'greater good', people.

Meanwhile, SF compatriot and Belfast Lord Mayor Alex Maskey has been snubbed by the UUP and DUP who are refusing to elect a deputy lord mayor. They are clearly unhappy about having a Sinn Fein member as their council leader. But acting childish isn't going to do anything but cause them to wither a bit faster.

Breaking up?
Hear'Say have called it a day. Now, I'm not going to say "thank god" about this, as I haven't ever heard anything they produced and I don't really give a crap about this sort of thing usually. What strikes me about this case is the state of mind of the people concerned. Here's a snip from the BBC story:

The break-up was confirmed by their management company as well as record label Polydor, with the group blaming public hostility and the rigours of music industry life for the break-up. In a statement, Polydor said the group felt "they had lost the support of the public and Hear'Say had come to a natural end". "The group's first plan is to spend more time with their families."

I think two things: one, the band probably never got away from the public awareness, and its own awareness, that it had been mothered (and fathered) by a TV programme in the first place; and two, why the hell are Polydor still calling these people a group when they've split up? The hard-done-by darlings' statement about public pressure suggests to me that they have leant on the embracing support of big companies too much. A successful musucuan of any kind doesn't sit back and let a TV station make them visible and successful. They fight for that. And now, the onetime band's members have to go back home. Whose fault is that?

No, really? Whose fault is it? I'm having trouble figuring that one out.

On a calmer, more hopeful note, the Eden Project is to build another dome. It already has 2 giant plastic constructions but wants a third biome dealing with drier, more arid environments. Hopefully, seagulls won't be able to peck through the plastic like they're doing with the current buildings.

Thinking
I've been doing a lot of that in the last few days, and it's usually been quiet and tense thinking. I worry about things. I don't tear my hear out over them, I don't get tearful, you know? But I do worry. I worry about my friend Giles and his difficulties with his family and living situation. I worry that we will be biting off more than we can chew if we go to war against Iraq. But most bitingly of all, I worry *about* a worry. On the 26th of this month, I realised it was the anniversary of my mum's death over 10 years ago. And I looked for a photo of her. I don't have one. So I worried about that. And then started thinking: what's with a photo? Shouldn't I be able to get by with memories if I want to see her again? I thought I was... more thoughtful than that!

Also, tonight I saw Road to Perdition - Sam Mendes' 2nd film, his first being American Beauty. I'll say more about it later - it was very good, but not 5-star material.

Busy little bees
Despite being nearly stung by one this morning, and not knowing why it was so attracted to one particular part of the frame of my specs, I like bees. But how the fck do they know what to do, where to fly, where home is? Can a complex decision-making, evaluative mind exist inside every one of those tiny ickle buzzy things? So when I found Kevin Kelly's article on the hive mind I was sort of transfixed. I'd love to take part in something like that. And I can, right now, by trying to create something.

The Others
This excellent film has finally been released to buy on DVD in the UK, and I'm a very happy boy as I went out and bought the thing today. The website only gives you the barest, starkest information about it, and in many ways that's good. It's a very spare film, but when a film is also a bloody brilliant, emotive, and genuinely frightening ghost story, spareness is often the key to success.

If you've ever seen M. R. James's Ghost Stories sitting on the shelves of a bookshop and thought "pah, Victorian crap" without reading them, you're missing out. Similarly, if you haven't seen The Others, but think it might not be worth seeing on account of its no-laughs, no-screams, dark atmosphere, try it. Rent it. I guarantee you'll be unable to leave the room alone at the end.

Nobody can say I don't do my best to plug films I really really like! Oh. The same for this one.

Signs
M Night Shyamalan's Signs isn't long released here in the UK and already there is claim and counter-claim over its merit. When I saw it, full of expectation after the twin tour-de-force of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, I was faintly disappointed. The trailer promises a film with few special effects and a lot of carefully-engineered suspense, just like Shyamalan's other movies. The trailer, quite clearly, is mistaken.

Taking place on the farm you see to the left, the opening 10 minutes see an ex-minister and his children (and younger brother, sensitively played by Joaquin Phoenix) lifted off the usual mortal coil by the discovery of crop-circles in their corn. Before long, more circles start to appear - notably in Bangalore, India, and elsewhere in the USA. The discoveries herald the appearance of UFOs in the sky near the sites of the circles. The UFOs herald a disastrous re-hash of the 9/11 anxiety in journalistic reporting, but it can't be denied it's riveting stuff at the time. I felt like standing up and leaving - and very unsettled too.

But when all's said and done, I can't help feeling that the film was a rather monumental waste of perfectly good talent. Certainly the lead character Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is very well-constructed and expertly played, but I couldn't help feeling that the others were optinal satellites in wobbly orbit around his sun. Even the director's trademark preternaturally gifted child, played well by Rory Culkin, was nothing more than an instrument for propelling Gibson towards the unsatisfying finale. Some people may be really touched; I wasn't.

Something which did impress me was the photo (right) I found on this site. What a feat! People who make crop circles definitely fucking rock! And maybe we need more stylised alien creatures handing us CDs after all. Long live the mp3; long live the aliens who give them to us.

Those of you who like poofy classical music, and more particularly baroque music, may like what I'm listening to right now. Vivaldi's Concerti con molti istromenti, available here.

I had to post this; there's nothing more I want to say right now, but if you're open-minded you might just enjoy this one. :o)

Controversial?
Maybe, but loads of people are impressed with me today. :o) Take a look at: this, this and this (editorial, but it's archived daily). I'm all nervous now about what the reactions will be!

:o)

It was faintly unreal to sit in front of the TV and watch, for the first time ever, an entire 4 hours' worth of 9-11, Ground Zero, World Trade Center, Pentagon etc. footage without a single shot of the towers falling, planes crashing. It's almost as if the TV stations here in the UK decided that it was holy time, not to be corrupted with the images of desolation and fractured reality.

But today has had a sense of fracture all the way through it for me. It's like experiencing the whole thing again. The days leading up to the attack - where you didn't know it was going to happen a year ago, but this year you do. And it does happen again, at least in my mind. It's a sort of ghost-time we're living in today. We have fresh significances beamed at us over the airwaves, but surrounding it all are the ghosts of the things we heard, the feelings we felt... where we were.

This evening we get the carnage all over again.

Surely everyone knows these by now. In case you want to remember in immediate ways, in case the horrible nature of the events still mysteriously fascinates you like me, these are good links to follow:

Web archive
Attack on America
TV Archive
Web resources
Why the towers fell

Iraq's Potential
Just got this link from Gareth, about how Iraq's potential for developing weapons of mass destruction may reach new levels of potency.

Looking for...
Just looked to see who's been here lately, and why. Surprisingly, nineteenth-century porn, muslim porn and Bud Dwyer are all optics which seem to fascinate people.

Sheesh. Maybe I'm in the wrong career.

Oh, and if anyone reading this can spare about £80 and wishes to make a donation to my outstanding phonebill of that amount so I can have my phone service back, please feel free to email. I don't know whether I'm joking or not! Sigh.

Dad's out for the whole day. I have the house entirely to myself. The hall is quiet. The bathroom door is ajar, the light left on because it can be, and I don't care. In a room downstairs the paper is open where I left it, waiting for me. Steam rises from my coffeecup. From the open window I can hear a bird singing somewhere. Dust settles slowly in the loft, rubbish settles slowly in the bin outside, and 10 minutes ago a hedgehog was snuffling along the edge of the school field at the back of the garden.

Everything is quiet. I have the freedom to sit naked if I want to, to play my music as loud or as low as I want, to wank, to read, to stretch and groan loudly while doing so... the ability to do that which I wouldn't usually do in anyone else's company.

I'm happy. :o)

The Guardian's been running a "Best British Blog" competition until today, and since I patently have had no chance of even being noticed in the thing anyway, and didn't enter, I'm putting this here. It's a kind of handy good-link thing for all those people who put the effort into their blogs.



I don't put effort in. This thing is due a major overhaul. Advice, anyone? Suggestions?

Porn discovered: Police foiled
East Belfast was in a state of shock this morning as a substantial amount of obscene material was found at the heart of a local community.

A resident of Sydenham Avenue said: "I was just coming out of the house when a large van pulled up and the neighbours started loading cardboard boxes into it in a hurry. At first I thought they were moving out but everything was so hurried and furtive."

Material removed
His suspicions were further aroused when one man took a break from loading, and puffed "I found it all on top of his wardrobe. We've got to get it out - now. I won't have it in the house.

"I've seen some things in my time, but nothing like this. Never such way-out stuff. It's dynamite."

Frantic efforts continued

A woman, believed to be the mother of the anonymous hoarder, who is believed to have fled to Australia, was shocked at the discovery. She commented: "I would never have believed it. It's all the more disgusting when you know he was such an unassuming boy. It's this sort of thing which drives families out of quiet communities like this one." Neighbours jeered the family as the van sped away.

A police spokesman, contacted by peripathetic, said "We didn't know anything about this, and the news has come too late for us to confiscate the material in question. Our usual yearly seizure of illicit pornography could have been doubled if we had due notice. We ask that anyone having seen a large consignment of tattered cardboard boxes comes forward to assist us. Rioting, republican flags in the City Hall, hardcore pornography - we have a big job on our hands."

The spokesman was unable to suggest where the consignment was bound, but said he would alert Brisbane Customs. Enquiries continue.

Okay. See an earlier post about Ciara, PDAs, and manly things. This caught my eye in connection: courtesy of this site:





Hehe. :o) HAHAHAHA. :o)

Now, this link tells you everything you need to know about stuffing a chicken. No, I'm not talking dirty, you evil-minded fiend. I'm talking about the preparation and roasting of a perfect dinner. Yum, yum.

If you want to dribble food over a book while eating the delicious bird, try looking here (not a shop, btw) to get some ideas. I particularly liked the Kerouac story. :o)

Late, again
Tonight I saw Insomnia. As a result, I'm looking at everything in a very disjointed way. The film is shot in a beautiful, harsh, floating way and has a very washed-out feel due to endless light. It's the only shooting style I've ever seen which, filmically, represents perfectly the effects of very very little sleep.



Another effect of sleep deprivation is that on re-reading the above paragraph, I thought it ended with "the effects of very little sheep". I'm not sure what effect tiny sheep would have on me, but they'd probably make me go "awww" and want to mother them. Perhaps this is a new form of verbal bastardisation, similar to spoonerisms and malapropisms.

Oh, my god. Here is something I never knew existed, but I guess in its own way it's just as normal as Scots pretend the Highland Games are. But the thing which surprised me most is that it's part of Jonathan's heritage. Allegedly. Him hailing from North Carolina and all.

This is interesting news, but of course I'd never be involved with anything like that, because of course I never play dirty. ;o)

Visitors
I feel 'out of the loop' but in a nice way. Ed's staying here for a few days. In fact currently he's going to sleep in ym granny's old bedroom, and I'm sitting here typing this, thinking I want to keep my feelers out there so I don't completely present a face of silence to the world because of visitors! :o)

It's the first time I've met Ed in the flesh, and we get on well. He's a really nice guy. And aside from the usual quietnesses which people have when they've just properly met for the first time, and the inevitable lessening of continuous talk because we're not on the phone anymore, it's going well.

Took him around the wonderful sights of Belfast. Explained all the usual things about Belfast, tried to dispel the usual misunderstandings people have about the place. You know, that it's a nest of terrorism, etc. And then realised that he doesn't have those misconceptions anyway. My god. I must either have done my job well beforehand, or he's just intelligent. I think it's the latter. :o) Going to bed now. I promise that when he's moved on to Scotland, and my time is emptier, and I'm surfing more, I'll put more links and pics in. Promise.

Alone
Felt bleary-eyed after reading this. But I guess as a child I wouldn't have played with him either. Which makes me feel guilty.

I'm also feeling alone, but not emotionally. I'm feeling very much alone with a great big piece of responsibility. I interviewed a leading figure connected with a paramilitary group this morning. It went very well, there was lots of information going. But now I can be counted as one of the very small number of people who have this sort of information, and I'm feeling very much responsible for making it public in a balanced and thoughtful way which will raise the level of thinking that Joe Bloggs on the street will engage in when thinking of punishment beatings, etc. It's scary.

The things people search for
I can understand people wanting to come to this site and read its wonders because obviously it's just superlative. (!!!) I can understand that this site is viewed by many people who do the odd weird search. Get ready for it.
I can't even *begin* to understand why anyone would search for this:


And they found me. I'm thinking of not mentioning things like this again. People who do a google search for THAT ought to be faced with a screen which says "You sad, sad bastard. We don't have any pages which match your search request. Search for something worth seeing."

Something potentially very significant for the future of Northern Ireland's handling of crime and the peace process in tandem could happen on Wednesday, handled more or less exclusively by little old me. It'll only be the start of things in that respect, but I'm excited. Meanwhile, however, a student at home for the holidays gets murdered with two twenty-somethings charged (the lack of sectarian motive leading me to suspect yet another example of the 'they all did it in the past, so we can' mentality under the surface here), a family in Carrickfergus gets pipe-bombed - and a large consignment of smuggled cigarettes is seized.

I don't mean to imply here that Northern Ireland is all bad. But I do mean to paint a picture of the crime everyone usually associates with the place and the extent to which it continues under the watchful auspices of the peace process, and also the type of crime which happens everywhere else - and shouldn't be happening in the first place if our police were completely up to the job, which I don't feel they are yet.

Still, life isn't all bad. Ed's visiting in a week's time (yay!), and I've got juicy links to supply. [1] - roomsixteen has a lovely lovely self and a lovely blog too. Check the boy out. [2] - a good place to get images online. If you need to get them, that is. And finally, [3] - wilco - have as the cover of their latest album (below) a picture of two towers, the exteriors of which are formed by multiple balconies.


I'd seen a similar tower in Croydon, memories flashed, I thought the cover was pretty, so had to show you. Photo's pretty too.

And finally...

a scan of (I think) a cat's arse. Don't ask. Because I don't know. Okay?

BUSH COMPARES US-IRAQ STRENGTHS

"And you can see that Theodore's mustache is far better than that sand-nigger Saddam's."

IRAQ SHOCKED: HUSSEIN DEFIANT


MARX: INSULTED

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."

Oh, and an essential update to my amateurish coverage of the whole September 11th thing below: Jonathan messaged me from the US to say: "Here I suspect it will be hard to spot the anniversary. There are as many flags today as there were on 9/13 last year. Of course, many of them are in shreds."

To properly read that, you have to look between the lines. There's a lot between Jonathan's lines. Always.

Police involved in the UK search for the two girls missing from Soham, Cambridgeshire, have today found 2 bodies near RAF Lakenheath after a couple, the local school's caretaker and his partner, were charged early this morning with the abduction and murder of the pair. While the news reports and papers are being coldly circumspect about whether the bodies are those of the girls, the police rush to the airbase suggests very clearly that the girls are in fact dead.

What bothers me, as well as a massive amount of other people I guess, is not that the girls were abducted per se - although that's awful enough - but that as usual we're all being presented with another playing-out of the oft-repeated mantra that it's always someone known to the victims. It's like a nightmarish villanelle. Like everyone else I'll be paying attention to the reports of how exactly they were killed. There'll be a morbid fascination there. I just can't imagine how the families must feel. They probably want the heads of the arrested couple. It's all so pathetic that last night as I watched the news item about the case, I felt like crying.

Shock! As news of sex emerges, Diocese spokesman says "If it's true, it's disgusting."

Horror! Bush spends £5 million on assistance for Saddam Hussein's opponents.

We're coming up to the first anniversary of September the 11th. Actually, that's not strictly true. I'm not sure exactly when the very very first September the 11th WAS, under the calendar system. One thing is certain: this is not the first anniversary. But academic points aside, that date this year will be the first anniversary of the atrocities which happened in various parts of the USA. And everyone's starting to talk about it again, wondering if another attack will be made elsewhere in the world, wondering whether the FBI et al will get there in time - or whether they have planned everything so well this time that they have already caught and foiled an attack and kept it quiet.

The really disquieting significance of this year's anniversary is its proximity in time to the present controversy over an impending war with Iraq. How easy it would be for Bush to garner popular support by choosing September 11, 2002 to launch all manner of ultimatums. Documentaries will screen showing the collapse of the towers, the hole in the Pentagon etc., and Patriotic American Hearts all over the world will flame against Iraq with even more determination.

It could all turn out to be a world of shit.

Far from that date being the beginning of a more aware and safer world, it seems that things have gone (very easily, as they would) the other way and we're now more paranoid, less peaceful and more apt to assume and lash out. Cut to American newscasters: "Gee, Dave, seems like quite a lot of innocent Iraqi people will get killed!" "Yes indeed, Gina, but let us not forget that they killed all those people... in our army who invaded their... villages... and now for the rest of today's news."


There's a reason that big strong lion (from the British Museum, excellent bas-relief) is dying and puking blood. It's because it took on more than it could handle.

Back to the slightly more real world of my here and now, and the safer confines of familiar and unfamiliar blogs, I was looking at the whole Twin Towers thing through the eyes of the copydesk and in a way, that's a good method for sprinboarding to other topics and other sites. So then I visited notsosoft which has a particularly interesting and infuriating posting here. Poor girl, having her own damn copyright the victim of an attempted abduction.

So, Chris and Ciara are away. Apparently what happened was that Chris got his visa at 8.30 this morning but Ciara didn't get hers until second post came at 12.30 so there was lots of panicking on her part. I hope she squeezed her willy for support.

So, right now, at about 10.30, they'll be either hanging around Heathrow or up, up and away en route to Singapore. Arriving in Singapore the equivalent time of about 3 in the morning our time, I guess. It feels weird still, but I know that it'll really hit me they've gone when we finally set up a broadband gaming sesh, and Chris frags me, and I look up thinking we're just networked and I can shout "you bastard", and then I realise he's not in the room. That'll really get me spooked!

Anyway, I'm going to shut up about it now. :o)

It's weird. Chris and Ciara are going away tomorrow, for what seems like forever but which is in fact just marginally over a year. But at least Ciara went red one final time. We bought her a stress-busting squeezable willy on a keyring. She went red. We said that since she didn't want Chris's big massive manly one, she could have that instead. She looked at it and went even redder. :o)

So, when talking pda stuff last night and discussing which one she should buy, Ciara said that she'd like to go for a slimline one like Chris Beattie's. Chris 1 (Bleakley) said "Sure, I could just give you mine" and Ciara replied "But yours is a big massive manly one, I don't want that".

Hmmmm. Riiiiiiiiight. So, Ciara doesn't want her boyfriend's big massive manly one. If I was him, I'd be offended. But I can just see the new ad campaigns for the older pdas right now: "The MANLY pda". "The best a man can get". "You'll be so comfortable with it, you'll almost forget it's there." etc.

:oD

Woohoo! First weird referral to my site from google. Someone was looking for "19th-century porn" and was directed to (among others!) this site, the one you're looking at right now.

At last. Maybe if I type something really stupid here, someone really, REALLY misguided will come to this site when they're looking for other weird stuff, like 'chinchilla sex', 'pics of young boys forced to put food down their underwear', or 'muslim porn'.

Hmmmm. I have an idea....

Chinchilla sex margaret thatcher chinchilla sex hairy nostrils chinchilla sex rotting pavlova chinchilla sex chinchilla sex. Ha!

Muahahahahahaaaa. :oD

Okay, you know the way I'd enthused about America and the superb aesthetic qualities of a lot of its citizens in the last post? Well, here's how fucking mad some of them get. There's this guy in New York who arranges kidnappings / violent abductions for people who want to get a kick out of the experience. What the hell?!?!

Maybe the people who buy into this shit would like to come over to Belfast and talk to someone who has been abducted and beaten? Hmm, maybe not. Maybe, instead, post - 09/11 America is still a place where people can buy into the thing as if it's a great piece of fun which doesn't really happen in the real world and gives you this little pleasureable feeling of being scared like you get at the cinema when you see a building exploding. Doesn't really matter and we get fun out of it. Sheesh.

The people who pay money to do this are stupid twats, even though it might well be their own money they're stupidly pouring into this enterprise. Twats, I say again. Twats. So, turning to another of them...

And you might call me a twat for putting this here, depending on where you are at this moment. hehe. ;o)

This guy seems to be exactly the cup of no-milk, gently sweetened and with-a-lemon-twist tea I like. His site is really well-designed, he looks cute, he has a line down the center of his chest, he has links to almost every single brilliant photo-art website out there, and his own is rapidly climbing the ladder too.

But like about a zillion other people like this, he lives in the USA. So along I trundle, sans sexual impulse, to blogstalker's place which seems at first glance to be an excellent digest of really good stuff. Unfortunately for my sense of worth, it turns out upon closer investigation to be exactly that, and a complete antithesis to this piece of crap.

The only good thing my pride will allow me to say about other sites such as this one - and this one - is that at least I'm picking up plenty of ideas and tips and just awareness of what makes a website good, and what can make it better. So when I finally get my finger out of my arse and my head into dreamweaver I'll be able to do something which will make at least me happy with myself.

I'm getting worried about Jonathan. He hasn't called in ages. Maybe he decided to stay in America. Then again, maybe not! :o) But I want him to send me photos of his new place in Greenwich so I can share it here. It's already sort of a part of me. "Oh yeah Pete, like someone else's house is a part of you, go fuck with someone else's head." No really. I can't describe it. I just felt good there. I felt... myself there.

But mostly in the bathroom when nobody noticed.

;o)