Valentine's Kiss...
Extracted from The Art of Kissing (1936) by Hugh Morris. Nicked from the Guardian.

Approved methods of kissing

A man must be able to sweep a woman into his strong arms, tower over her, look down into her eyes, cup her chin in his fingers, and then bend over her face and plant his eager, virile lips on her moist, slightly parted, inviting ones. All of these are impossible where the woman is the taller of the two. When the situation is reversed, the kiss becomes a ludicrous banality.

Preparing for the kiss

The breath should be kept always sweet and pure so that, when the lips are opened, the breath will be like an aromatic breeze. Sometimes it is advisable to touch the corners of the mouth with perfume. The teeth should be kept cleaned and polished. Nothing can dampen a young man's ardour, or a young woman's, for that matter, than a row of brown-stained, unkempt teeth.

How to approach a girl

In kissing a girl whose experience with osculation is limited, it is a good thing to work up to the kissing of the lips. Only an arrant fool seizes hold of such a girl, shoves his face into hers and smacks her lips. Hold her gently but firmly and allay her fears with kind, reassuring words. Your next step is to flatter her in some way. All women like to be flattered. They like to be told they are beautiful even when the mirror throws the lie back into their ugly faces.

The French "soul" kiss

There is more to your tongue than its tip. Probe further. Gently caress each other's tongues. For, in doing this, you are merging your souls. That is why this kiss was called the "soul" kiss by the French, who were said to be the first people to have perfected it. It is because of the fact that they dropped Puritanism many years ago that the French were able to perfect themselves in the art of love and, particularly, of kissing.

The "vacuum" kiss

Open your mouth a trifle, then indicate to your partner that you wish her to do likewise. Then instead of caressing her mouth, suck inward as though you were trying to draw out the innards of an orange. If she knows of this kiss variation your maid will act in the same way and withdraw the air from your mouth. In a short while, the air will have been entirely drawn out of your mouths. Your lips will adhere so tightly that there will almost be pain, instead of pleasure. But it will be highly pleasurable pain.

Electric kissing parties

Some few years ago, a peculiar kissing custom arose which deserves mention here. An excerpt from a contemporary writer will, perhaps, give us some idea of what happened.

"The ladies and gentlemen range themselves about the room. The ladies select a partner, and together they shuffle about on the carpet until they are charged with electricity , the lights in the room having been turned low. Then they kiss in the dark; and make the sparks fly for the amusement of the onlookers."

In time, you will become so inured to the slight shock that you will seek more potent shocks. These can be obtained with the use of any device worked from a battery and a coil which steps up the weak three volts of the battery.

The Ring, and others
Here's a brilliant analysis of The Ring, by Matthew Sharpe. Don't let the word 'analysis' put you off: this gets you clued in to why you were scared. If you were scared at all, that is. But I know I was.

Here are some more film links. News of movies soon in the making. A scholarly journal. A pop journal. A film and pop culture journal. An eclectic journal. A philosophical journal.

Google: fake holidays
Thoise Farkers have been messing with Google's logo! Some grinworthy work.

New writing
An experiment for tonight. I wrote this poem today, and if you have a critical (or otherwise) opinion please comment. Thanks. :o)

They're all so cruel!
All those people who are so nasty to Michael Jackson!

When's a gay man not gay?
When he's a homosexual genderqueer heteroflexible polygendered queerboi.

Peripatetic
Every time I look through the referrer logs, I'm struck by just how many people are drawn to this site because they've done a google search for a misspelled word. They haven't wanted to end up here; rather, they've been looking for the word 'peripatetic' which is actually a 'real' word, rather than peripathetic, which I made up myself.

Peripatetic: ever-moving. Continually shifting around. Often used in context: for example, a peripatetic teacher is essentially freelance, part of a teaching pool, and moves from school to school when required.

For me, the meaning of peripatetic is associated with the actions of the flâneur, a character who wanders around looking at everything, observing, commenting but ultimately not sacrificing his objectivity, his unique view. Staying quiet: being at once inside and outside the experience itself.

It seemed fitting, in choosing the title of a blog, after all, that my wandering mind should create a blog based on wandering around and looking. It's an interesting word. I like it. But it was too much its own word, too tied-down. I decided to modify it. I feel down at times, but I'm still moving. And this blog is my first ever experience with html, and my efforts are pathetic in comparison to those of others.

Hence peripathetic, this blog.

To all those google searchers out there, it's a made-up word! You're misspelling what you're actually looking for, and getting a whole list of sites which perpetuate this misspelling!

Although, thanks for the traffic. ;o) :oD

New mass - Bush - Where's the other candidate gone?
No, not an interstellar mass of gas and dust. (I heard an interesting programme on Radio 4 this morning about sound waves in gaseous areas of space. Apparently some of them have reverberations of one cycle every 50 years. Several hundred octaves below middle C, apparently. Weird.) Ahem. Yes. Not an interstellar mass of gas and dust. Although 'gas and dust' is what many people think of when they hear the word 'mass', this one promises to be exciting and, perhaps, a crowd-pleaser. There's certainly enough space for quite a crowd to gather in the building concerned: Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral, for whose centenary John Tavener has written Atma Mass. The 12-second reverberation should help things along quite nicely. Get there on the 19th of July. Fingers crossed it's not the early mass, though. :o)

Over the pond, Bush has been defending his military record (not the recent one - that's indefensible) on live TV. Apparently he went AWOL. For a year. It's really no deal at all for his presidential hopes, but it's funny that the man who said he did his duty can't explain why he wasn't on base for a year.

In Russia, where there will shortly be an election, one of President Putin's chief rivals has disappeared.He's been missing since Thursday. Presumed, by yours truly, kidnapped or murdered. Cynical me, but I can't help feeling that the police will look for him for a while and then sigh "It's useless" while gesturing with a weary hand in the direction of the Kremlin. A statement of sympathy will be issued by the Kremlin. And then his body will be found hanging from a ceiling-hook in a completely empty room, with a note below his dangling feet saying "I hung myself by levitating to this hook. It wasn't the Kremlin". The Guardian comments: The timing of Mr Rybkin's disappearance has led some to link it to his campaign. REEEally? Nooooo.....!

Humane
An article about medical students' first few encounters with a human cadaver. This is the most wonderfully gentle and well-written article I've yet read on the subject.

It's raining.
It's raining here, at least. And it's been raining all day. I got up and was faced with a wet grey blanket outside the window. I went downstairs - the same. At lunchtime the puddles still exploded quietly with circles. And right now there's a patter on the window which sadly isn't that of snow. It's still raining. So I've been distracting myself with online stuff for a while. The fruits of my wandering:

Orchestras, throw away your paper. Digital scores are better than paper ones. Hmm. I'm not sure I agree - a score is like a book, and books are always more satisfying if they're paper. There's a war on in Sudan, but not over which book is everyone's favourite there: Three Men in a Boat. There was a rather interesting article in the New York Times about different Jesus films which have emerged from Hollywood - in advance of Mel Gibson's February offering - but I won't link to it because the NYT will take it offline soon and you'll have to pay to read it all. As usual.

Decontrol, a wonderful online art gallery, found, along with much else in this posting, via MemePool's 'Art' category.

There's one artist whose work everyone likes - some a bit, most quite a lot, and a few who border on idolatry - Andy Goldsworthy. Whether he's plastering wet stones with petals and leaves, weaving feathers / making natural paintings on a meniscus / curling ice around a treetrunk / building wavy walls / stone arches with no mortar / stone eggs - again, sans concretion / pulling a filigree twig curtain across an empty space or leaving large snowballs in London during summer, his simple and beautiful work, both as a thing-in-itself and a way of relating to nature, is similar in its impact to some of Michael Longley's poetry.

Disturbing Search Requests
No, I'm not talking about the brilliant site of that name, but about two search referrals to this site within the last day. Some people search for the weirdest things: "pictures of nubile young women with disgusting older men" and "flayed human face pic medical". Ugh. Ugh. - Oh yeah, and "Maggie Gyllenhaal slap".

Long-dead gay people
Sounds positively sickening, doesn't it. But a new book, Strangers: Homosexual love in the 19th Century, written by Graham Robb of Oxford Uni, runs the gamut of social, medical, and legal responses to homosexuality before turning to the ways gay people lived and wrote themselves into society. There's apparently one very interesting part which deals with whether Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were gay, which I've linked to a lengthy NYT treatment thereof. Just in case it expires, here are a few snippets from the article copyright Laura Miller:

...there is something decidedly unconventional about the sexuality of Holmes and several other popular fictional detectives... Holmes was partly based on Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin, hero of the first detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"... The brilliant amateur sleuth, a man of aristocratic family, lives in reduced circumstances as a result of ''untoward events.'' He is ''enamored of the night'' and frequents the dicier parts of town. The unnamed (but more solvent) narrator immediately perceives that ''seeking in Paris the objects I then sought . . . the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price.'' They set up housekeeping together. By day, they remain indoors with curtains drawn, burning candles and incense -- exactly the sort of behavior that, Robb notes, scandalized a London courtroom when Wilde admitted to it decades later. ...Great critics have struggled to define the eccentric charm of Doyle's tales. It has so little to do with adult sexuality because it has so little to do with adulthood. The Holmes stories take place in an idyll of perpetual boyhood, at the stage Freudians call ''latent,'' when love scenes are something to retch at and the ambivalence of grown-up life is held at bay. For all its solemnity, ''The Lord of the Rings'' partakes of the same dream. That's why sex is of small consequence in either work and the word ''adventure'' is essential to both.

So...
...there's this quietly passionate blog I've been following for a while, and what's the first ever thing I link to in its pages? This: Short of breath? Just stretch your sphincter. *sigh*

Hollywood and Art
My friend Giles's comment on Russian Ark (see yesterday's posts) was illuminating not because he thought it was a crap film, but because it wasn't a crap film in itself, but had been judged to be, all the same.

I'll try to keep this brief.

Cinemas around the world are permanently flooded with what I'll call Hollywood Product. The result of an entertainment-based studio system which exists to make money by trying to fuse producers', actors' and directors' powerhouse careers with art, Hollywood Product is the perfect partner for popcorn.

Similarities between popcorn and Hollywood Product: it is right in front of you, attractively packaged, you can eat it without having to think about the taste because the taste is always the same with each bite. It is a simple thing-in-itself, and you can't get anything out of it other than what it offers as a thing-in-itself in the first place. -- What? You're thinking I'm unfair? Think again. I'm talking about art. Name 10 Hollywood Products you'd put in your top ten list, and I guarantee that, aside from occasional plot twists (which are only formula), you could appreciate the entire 'message', the entire 'sense', of every single film by watching it - with attention - only once.

And that's what we're fed. Film after film after film, Hollywood Product is a one-bite wonder. Required intellectual participation: around 0-1%. If you thought over and over and over again about what is actually contained in Gladiator or LA Confidential or The Insider or Minority Report, you'd be none the wiser. Because there's no more wisdom to get after the first screening. We go back and see Hollywood Product a second time not to understand it better, but to be entertained.

With easy entertainment taking up around 90-100% of our local cinemas, Hollywood Product has us over a barrel. We're meant to get used to it to a massive extent - and we do. I can think of no other so-called artform which has become the locus of such a worldwide dearth of truly artistic endeavour. It's so pervasive that we've stopped being critical about film in the same way we are about music.

Giles loves Tori Amos and hates Europoppy, dancey stuff. Europop: directly comparable to the one-bite Hollywood Product. Tori Amos: repeated listenings, attention to the lyrics - and some additional research - are essential to get the 'central message' contained within each song. And, after you've done that 'legwork', there is a second step. Your additional emotional/artistic engagement will also be repaid by the song, because the content is just impressionistic enough to allow you to form a relationship between it and your own feelings and experiences. Ergo, there's art. I've picked Tori, but there are many others.

We are critical of crap shallow music, and we praise artistic effort in music. Giles does, for example. Let's call Giles Everyman for a moment. Everyman, like all of us, including myself, praises some artistically crap and shallow films. Everyman, however, duped by the pervasiveness of Hollywood Product in film, has actually been manipulateed by it as far as to say that one particular art film is the worst he's seen in his life. Everyman doesn't just say "There wasn't much action, no plot, I didn't like the lack of music I'm used to hearing or understanding". If anyone, not just Everyman, said that, they'd actually be engaging with why they felt alienated - and therefore providing themselves with a first step towards understanding.

Let me repeat that: after seeing Hollywood Product all his life, Everyman says that Russian Ark (but we could pretty much choose any art film here) is the worst film he's ever seen.

Effort and music? Acceptable and enjoyable. Effort and film? Unacceptable, apparently, and unenjoyable. But that's wrong, and inconsistent with how we all approach music and reading. Hollywood Product has spread a dearth of film art and a deification of film apathy into the minds of millions of people worldwide. What a dud we're being sold. How easily we swallow it. And how effortlessly it deadens our ability to think. And to enjoy what we could enjoy if we thought.

It's almost terrifying.

- - - - - -

Addition: The above post contains all of this. Nothing is changed. But I'll repeat myself in a different way here, since this post in its original form caused some argument in the comments list. READ THE POST CAREFULLY. Do not imply that I think what I do *not* state in the first place.

I am not saying that Giles or anyone else who doesn't like art film is unintelligent. Nor did I even suggest this. Like I say, read the post.

The reason I rail against the spread of Hollywood film in this post is that people are intelligent, and that if nobody ever used that intelligence to further their own experience, they'd only end up liking one band, or one book, or one film, for the rest of their life. There would be no adaption to new experience. There would be no inner growth. Nothing would change.

Hollywood film is so 'everywhere' that all other types of film are marginalised, so people like Giles et al don't get the opportunity to see them. Therefore, when they do for the first time, they're predictably confused or bored because Hollywood's aforementioned influence unjustly makes art film completely alien to them. However, in choosing not to apply their undoubted intelligence to it, they are doing themselves out of a heck of a lot of potential enjoyment.

That frustrates me on their behalf. And it also pisses me off - I've always been willing, for example, to listen to other types of music in an unjudgmental way. And even when I haven't liked it personally, I haven't generalised.

It's not like me...
...to not have an opinion on the Oscar nominees. Because I've usually seen at least some of the movies in question before the list is released. But here goes anyway. The Triplets of Belleville is up for Best Animated Feature. If it doesn't win it'll be no surprise, but a predictable injustice. One of the Best Picture nominations is The Return of the King. That movie is also nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Director, Musical Score, and Adapted Screenplay. Oh how they all loved it. Now, I liked it very much, too. But the books are nearly always better than the films, particularly in this case, and I really don't think that the screenplay for RotK could stand up against City of God, also a screenplay nomination.

But that's what's weird about the Oscars, every year. The categories are precisely defined. Surely Best Art Direction should mean something intellectually meaty and deep? Noooo. Truth News says "The Oscars are voted on by the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And who is in the Academy? Well might you ask. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is made up of Hollywood actors, directors, and screenwriters. Thus, the Oscars are essentially awards given by Hollywood insiders to themselves, based on whatever goofy logic they might collectively apply to the task."

The Rules usually state that, for the Art Direction award, "Recognition in the form of the Academy Statuette shall be given for the set decoration of the production receiving an award...". Oh right. So it's set decoration. Not art, then.

Voynich Manuscript Decoded
Imagine a handwritten book, hundreds of years old. It looks to have been written in English. You look more closely, and you find that the letters are unreadable.

So, you call on your librarian, academic, typo and art history friends, and they say "Aha, that's the Voynich Manuscript. Nobody's been able to decode that yet. Completely uncrackable code. Haha, what."

If you want more on the manuscript, try here and here. There's a mailing list (which should turn pretty interesting right now!) here.

However, the Voynich Manuscript has now been translated. (It's wonderfully typical of the Guardian arts people to include a story like this.) And the result?

Deliberate nonsense, intended to fool the world. A code which was unbreakable precisely because it wasn't a code at all.

But hang on. If it wasn't a code at all, how were they able to.... I mean....? *sigh*

New addition
ελευθερια - blog of a guy called Constantino who studies at a previously-kind-of-linked-to cool place - added to the blogroll. I really like the design. God, I'm nearly creaming myself over Movable Type again. (Stop it, Pete, *stop* it.)

Lots and lots
of stuff to show you. First, Mary Cheney is a lesbian, and for various reasons Michelangelo Signorile is very very riled about that. Gail Armstrong writes, as wonderfully as ever, but this tme about the perils of randy dogs.

The New York Times Book Review controversy is blogged by The Elegant Variation, with interesting questions: weak novels, or heinous control of book reviewers?

You might have heard that Microsoft was all set to sue the backside off Mike Rowe about his website MikeRoweSoft. His defiance attracted huge publicity and a loyal following of supporters. He's now settled out of court for some Microsoft Certification training and an XBox. I make no comment.

Finally, if you're interested just how deep money can go, check out The Buying of the President 2004 to see who's bankrolling whose campaign. It's an interesting resource on the candidates, too.

Gooood morning campers
We'll start with the sex and move on from there, OK? Right. Sex is good and you ought to have as much of it as you can as soon as possible. - Ooops, seems I said the wrong thing, because the bible tells us to run away from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Oh well.

There's got to be something interesting to do... ah yes. If you like pretty designs, go read this review of a retrospective of graphic designer Chip Kidd's work. Then buy the book. My friend Jonny bought it for me for Christmas and it's brilliant. His designs for Donna Tartt are refined and unsettling all at once. Continuing on the design front for a moment, consider the torn-up beauty of this abandoned French papermill.

My friend Giles and I saw Russian Ark last year and while he said "That's the fucking worst fucking film I've ever seen in my fucking life," I was held captive by its homage to creativity and beauty - and all things Imperial Russia. So if you reckon that having a look at colour photos from the Tsar's court photographer might be fun - go look.

Any more than that, and I can't help you right now. I've got a pot of coffee to get through. Move along, please...

Movable Type: good. Tripod: bad.
No, I haven't migrated to Movable Type yet. Yet. But when, yesterday and earlier today, Tripod had an atrociously long and undocumented FTP outage, I thought of moving to a different host. And on my trawl around the web looking for one, I found a site which provides free blog hosting and installation of Movable Type!

You have to join a queue, satisfy their criteria, and I think you also have to submit your blog or blog idea at around 0600 GMT to catch the opportunity, but my god, it'd be worth it. I'm tempted. So if this blog moves before the end of this year, you'll know why...

Hanged
This, brought to me by Anita in Scotland, is very interesting but highly disturbing. Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England. The names used for gay people in those days look funny to modern eyes - there are words like "he-strumpets" and "bumography" - but the majority of these people who were tried for sodomy were hanged. Think about that. These people were killed by the state for consensual sex. Wasn't that truly terrible?

Isn't it terrible that it still happens today...?

Homosexual homophobes
"As the two homosexual homophobes drifted into post-orgasmic slumber, they inhabited a dream world where all things were possible...". Trucker Fags in Denial. Not suitable for work, and you can only read the comic in reverse order. I would describe it but I don't want to spoil the surprise...

Your own handwriting as a font
For free. This is so cool.

"Don't make jokes," Student Warns
From the UK newspaper Independent:

A British student apologised yesterday for joking that she was taking three bombs on board a flight in the United States.

Speaking after she was released on bail from a Miami jail, Samantha Marson, 21, said she "wasn't thinking" when she made the comments.

Police said she told a member of the airport security staff during a baggage check: "Hey be careful, I have three bombs in here." Asked to repeat herself, she allegedly made the same statement two more times.

Ms Marson, who was arrested before boarding a London-bound British Airways flight at Miami airport on Saturday, said the claims were a "mistake" and warned other people not to make jokes.

I thought for a moment that I was reading The Onion. You can just see the treatment they'd give it: Students and other young people are to be warned against irony before boarding domestic or international flights, after lighthearted comments were heard. The departures hall was cleared as police carried out a search. A student later apologised. Cassie Gibbon, 23, said: "I was asked if my baggage could have been tampered with, and told them that it certainly could have been, at any time. I'm sorry it was so lame." A security official commented that "Air travel is a serious business. I'm serious".

Ephemera... or not?
Whatever you judge it to be, I just put this list of stuff about me on another page, so if you want, feel free.

Weird and wonderful
Tiny American liberal arts colleges. Say what you like about Europe; it has nothing like these.

Letters, and what they make
Tanka and Mondo - more Tanka - Haiku - The Narrow Road to the Deep North (marvellous) - outlines of letters - Lettrisme - Concrete and Visual poetry - one of my favourite books reviewed - the man who wrote it - in the 18th century, money and words went together - Poetry Dead? Not a chance! - Dear G.W. Bush, your poetry's not poetry - TrueFire - Sylvia Plath written into life - Old head-in-the-oven in her own words - and again, she shines - Sylvia's voice.

Maggie
Jake Gyllenhaal's sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal, interviewed in today's Observer Review.

Ang Lee and Annie Proulx...
...helped by a couple of hot young men, are going to help to slap a taboo out of Hollywood! Brokeback Mountain, a relatively little-known novella by Proulx, is being brought to the screen by Lee (and just for that reason, I can't wait to see it). But the catch for Hollywood is that it's about 2 cowboys who do the usual working-cowboy thing together, meet girlfriends, marry, bring up kids - yadda yadda.

And they fuck. Together.

Aside from the fact that this is the first time that Hollywood has even come close to accepting a portrayal as no-shit as this, what has really got me hot for this movie is that Jake Gyllenhaal (yay!!!) and Heath Ledger (who?) are in talks about playing the 2 lead roles. Neither of them are gay, of course, and aside from Jake's beauty, this is why it's such exciting news. I knew Jake was a no-bullshit actor and all. But this just *underlines* how no-bullshit he is.

Sexy Priests!
So I saw this link, and I thought 'what the hell'? And then clicked and started laughing. Not having seen Graham Norton feature this calendar of handsome young members of the priesthood, I wasn't aware of it. Now that I am, I'm torn. I don't know whether I want to just laugh at it, buy it, or sit back and grin as I imagine various old ladies from Ireland to Italy saying "Ooooh, young man!" or "Ehi, che bello giovane uomo!" Sexy priests, heheheh. :o)

Memories
Randomly, because I feel like it.

Sitting beside a stream in the Lake District with Marc // Looking endlessly into a Christmas Tree decoration when I was a kid // Showing my first poem to a friend in school, and getting laughed at // The first ever wank // Making pots of real coffee for the grownups and not having any because it was too bitter // Waking up with no memory on my first day alone at uni // Pretending to be a magician when I was 5 // A rainstorm that was so heavy the rain bounced off the road to my waist // Crying when I realised the man in santa's grotto wasn't really santa // Waking up to find my pillow covered with my own blood // My dad pointing at a rolled-up carpet by the side of an overgrown path and saying "There's a body in there" // Foxcubs in a cave // Saying fuck for the first time // Feeling sick with excitement at my first music lesson

Robert Kilroy-Silk
has resigned as a TV / BBC presenter! Yay! :oD This is what he had to say.

I believe this is the right moment to leave the programme and concentrate my energies in other directions.

Yeah, Robbie boy. Damn right! Well done for making the right decision at last! As for your 'energies' - huh?

I will continue to lead the Kilroy Television Company Ltd and in addition to our existing commitments to the BBC, we will be bringing new ideas and programmes to the BBC and other broadcasters.

Are you going to call your new programme "Sand-niggers and Wifebeaters: Travels Through Afghanistan"?

I have been overwhelmed by the support from the general public, (hmm. easily overwhelmed, then) and I continue to believe that it is my right to express my views, however uncomfortable they may be.

Aha! So you recognise that you're an insensitive wanker then? :o)

However, I recognise the difficulties this has caused the BBC, and I believe my decision is the right way to resolve the situation.

Erm. Maybe I'm missing something here, but what about the difficulties caused to the thousands of Hindi and Arab people who you shat on from your unjustly great height, asshole?

New things, old things
Last night, I got home from a CV-delivery mission in town. Grr. And then made risotto for dinner, and dad gave me the usual praise for just how fantastic it tasted. :o) After dinner I got an SMS from Andy, and we arranged he'd come down to Belfast in the car and we'd go to the sauna. The gay sauna. The gay sauna I always said I'd never go to because 'that sort of thing disgusts me'. I generalise ignorantly just as much as the next person however, so read on.

So, I hung around, practised piano for a while, got called by Andy who needed directions, and then he came up the road in the rain.

It was the first time we'd met up in Belfast, and it was nice to be able to play host for a while. Dad was actually nice to him, which was unexpected and cool. I showed him brilliantly shit 70s and 80s photos of me and my family. Since I really couldn't decide whether or not we should go to the sauna, I thought fuck it, I'll have to go otherwise I'll be condemning something without having experienced it. As well as that, it'd been ages since I'd been in a proper sauna.

It's quite a big place. They have dance music playing and the lighting's quite subdued, and there was nobody there. Well, maybe about 5 other people but that was fine. We went in the jacuzzi which was *massive* and lovely, went into the sauna room itself which was very hot. We were swiftly joined by 3 of the other guys. We stopped talking and I avoided their feral bedroom eyes until they left again.

The steam room smells really strongly of Vick (that stuff your mum put on your chest when you were a kid and had a cold). Ugh. I made some remark about being reminded of being 5 or 6 - in a gay sauna. Surreal. But it was quite nice to breathe that astringent hotness in a way - until one of the earlier 'followers' turned up. We stopped talking again, moved on to different bits. There are showers, a room where you can watch porn DVDs (without the usual crappy music backing-track), cubicles (which you'd only find in a gay sauna, because they're not strictly *sauna* cubicles... ahem) and a cafe.

(My friend Jonny told me that one of his (straight) mates miraculously got through the door one night while pissed. He asked where 'the bar' was, and got laughed at by everyone there. :o)

The place is undoubtedly used as a sweaty gay shag-palace, but has its uses. Some of which I won't be making too much use of. But it's a good sauna, and I had a good night, and I'd go there just for the lovely sauna experience.

So my night started with expectations of dinner and a quiet night in, and ended with me having done what I've not done for about 3 years, and having gotten to play host! yay!, for a change. On the way back home, I had to direct Andy on a detour from the Ormeau Road because of a security alert (prelude to these). Of course then he had to drive all the way back up to Portstewart at 3.30am, but hey. It was worth it. :o)

Ringtones in concerts...
...loud farting at operas - composer Gavin Bryars applauds the former. I would applaud the latter. If I ever went to the opera.

Shipman suicide: fallout
I've been reading the Guardian with interest this morning, as comment is made on the issue of whole-life sentences and suicide risk. Stephen Shaw, the prisons ombudsman, who has been given the task of investigating the issues surrounding Shipman's death, said that putting potentially suicidal prisoners on 24-hour surveillance is 'inhumane'.

The Prison Service itself thinks that there's no foundation to the suggestion that it's more difficult to keep prisoners safe who have no hope of release. Under UK Home Secretary David Blunkett's 'life means life' laws, enshrined in last year's Criminal Justice Act, multiple killers will never leave prison. Calls have been made to put all 'lifers' on 24-hour surveillance.

In addition, however, to Stephen Shaw's judgement that such measures would be inhumane, there aren't enough staff to do this in the first place. When Ian Huntley was transferred to prison, a 24-hour watch could not be made without using inexperinced staff. So there's no safety for the prisoner in that approach either. Other measures include the removal of window bars - places where a noose may be fastened - or different material for bed sheets so they can't be torn into strips.

Isn't all this missing the point though? The victims' relatives feel cheated that he has taken his own life while the prisons service scrabbles around in consternation, trying to figure out what to do next. "He's found a way out for himself... to admit his guilt he would have had to take on the enormity of what he had done... He has controlled us all the way through and he has controlled the last step and I hate him for it," lament the relatives. And I don't argue with their feelings.

But the collective lust to find out "why" any murderer kills - what would that give them? One thing only, I think. More pain. I ask again: what is the point of a whole-life sentence? What is the point of depriving a murderer of the opportunity to kill themselves if they wish to? To 'face up to what they've done' or 'to punish them' or 'to make sure they won't do it again'? The first reason is woolly. A person who murders might not, psychologically speaking, ever be able to 'face up to it' in the way we want them to. The second reason is inhumane, and punishment for the sake of punishment alone is unlawful, unless it is done in tandem with the third: to 'rehabilitate' the (probably unhinged) prisoner in some way. But what's the point of 'rehab' for someone who's never leaving jail in the first place? Well? How *can* there be a point - unless the point is the punishment is the point is the punishment.....?

Patrick yesterday commented here, and said that the point is simply to ensure that the prisoner serves their sentence - that's why you have suicide watch, bars, lock on the doors, prisons... OK. Fair enough on the logic of why we have prisons. But if the worst prisoners' treatment and sentencing is so haphazard and thinly thought-out, cracks will appear and sooner or later people will notice them. Today we're starting to notice.

Talk-show host, ex-MP may be abandoned by BBC
Robert Kilroy-Silk, former MP and presenter of a daily morning talk-show Kilroy, may face the end of his broadcast career. Apparently the BBC, which has suspended his show after he published an anti-Arab article in the UK Sunday Express, is now considering how to get rid of him completely. One option is to conclude that he cannot be considered able to conduct his show - modelled on issues-based audience discussion like Jerry Springer and Trisha - because his impartiality has been compromised.

There's another reason, however, for dismissing him, and for all channels worldwide to change their studio policy on these shows. A few months or a year after my mother died - I forget which - my father and sister went to London to appear on a Kilroy episode about bereavement. Having watched a couple of shows beforehand, they'd seen his warm, caring studio presence, his ability to bond with the audience members and discuss embarrassing or troubling issues with members of the public in front of a TV camera. So they probably made their decision to appear on the basis that 1. It would be a dignified way of dealing with the issue, and 2. If they had important points to make, they could be made.

They were all in the studio. The producer had started the 'audience warm-up' about 30 minutes before the air time. 5 minutes before airtime, Kilroy walked in with a couple of colleagues, and with not a word to the audience, turned his back on them while a conversation took place. It was only at the last second that he walked to his spot and turned on the smile. From then on, the show went as normal. Moving into the audience, showing charm, humour, sensitivity, etc. etc. And as soon as the credits had rolled and the day's show was off-air he immediately walked straight out of the studio without even a goodbye. Switch on, whoosh, switch off.

What a businessman masquerading as a human. I believe, in his chosen line of work, he isn't alone.

Harold Shipman Dead - Suicide watch for all murder prisoners?
Harold Shipman, the UK doctor who murdered over 200 of his elderly or incapacitated patients over several decades, was found dead in his cell at Wakefield Prison this morning. He appeared to have hanged himself.

While the breaking news has raised questions over whether or not he should have been placed on 'suicide watch', a practice whereby prisoners judged to be at risk of harming themselves are checked every 15 minutes, the reasons behind the practice itself are, to me at least, unclear. Such prisoners will often spend the rest of their natural lives in jail, segregated from society permanently because they are judged to be such a risk to the public good.

Disregarding, for the sake of argument, the view that suicide should always be prevented, what is the logic behind keeping a prisoner alive for no other reason than that they will live out their sentence invisibly behind the high walls of a jail? Punishment as eventual rehabilitation? That doesn't make sense. They'll never be let out anyway. Punishment because we just feel like making their lives a misery in return, for no other reason? That isn't allowed.

Suicide watch: a practice with logic behind it or not?

Sizzlin'. Yusssss.
Update. I lay on a hospital bed. I had my back, chest, abs, neck, knees and feet felt. I think the medical term is 'palpated' which sounds, let's face it, disgustingly clinical. Anyway. Today, not including getting changed, I took my shirt off nearly 30 times and pulled my shorts down a bit (but not all the way) just as many times. One girl lost her concentration and couldn't think of the right word to say for a few seconds. She eventually said "Erm... uh... SPLEEN!" but if she'd've been concentrating better she no doubt would've said "Erm... uh... COCK!" but that's by the by. :oD

Then there was the six-footer rugby-playing guy with strong hands who gave my insides a damn good going-over. He was all "grrr, rarr, I'm a consultant already", and spent more time looking at his supervisors than at me. And they actually told him to look at my face more!

And then there was the straight-acting gay one who was fine until I'd got my t-shirt off and then turned red and went all smiley and stuttery and said "...thankyou..." as he left. Aww. :o)

Then there was the so-called 'coffee' they gave us in the break. Yuck. Ugh. [shudder]

This is going to happen today. I swear.
Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Pete. He grew up into a slightly less little, and really rather (gorgeously) dashing, older boy, still called Pete. One day, Pete walked into a hospital and lay down on a bed and pretended to be sick so that medical students could practise their lack of skills on him.

Pete looked at the walls of the room. He sighed inwardly at the depressing atmosphere. "Oh, how can I enliven these dull hours?" thought Pete. He was a resourceful boy, so he decided to have a fantasy of what it might be like if the girl bending over him was really a boy.

A nice boy. A boy with nice eyes, like the gay-looking one standing over there. (Pete made eyes at him and he blushed. Later, he found out that he'd failed his exam because he was staring at Pete too much.) So anyway. Pete thought of a nice boy. With warm hands and nice forearms. "Hehe," Pete grinned to himself, "Here we go" and then the girl noticed the bulge in his shorts and fainted, and Pete burst out laughing, was paid extra money by the hospital for such fab entertainment - and everyone lived happily ever after.

Recommended randomness
A fruitful surf of mine, started by wonderful bloggers, things magazine.

Armed police raid a high school (photos) -- Exquisite Corpse -- p/p, a wonderful blog placing poems within photos -- big-titted schoolgirls (oh, come on, I had to for google!) -- maps galore at The Map Room -- good design is invisible, which is why you need the Design Observer -- discuss your design issues -- hot band of the year: heavy metal umlaut -- literary excellence through experimentation (hear hear) at GutCult -- the most beautiful animated gif in the world -- Aubrey Beardsley galleries (if you don't know why you like his work yet, go here) -- the sun frozen in eternal rise or set - at Tate Modern.

Psst - classical music is dead. Again.
Apparently. Norman Lebrecht, writing in La Scena Musicale, prophesies that 2004 will mark the end of the classical record industry.

I was just discussing something like this with Andy last night. While listening to Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes, it occurred to me that 'pop' (for want of a better word) artists of today have a very much greater fanbase than classical artists for 2 reasons: 1. Pop artists are alive and performing live month on month, year on year; and: 2. They write and perform their own work. Tori's music is great music, and she is alive. And it is because of these things, as well as her overt way of being in 'the emotional present' for so many people, that she is recognised so much, bought so much, and flocked to in live performance so much.

Classical music, so the theory goes anyway, is dying because it's irrelevant. It can't be understood or enjoyed by many people. It just doesn't have much appeal. What crap.

But OK. Devil's advocate. To put it in modern talk, classical artists aren't 'artists' at all. The artists are the men and women who wrote the songs or tracks, and they're dead. Sometimes hundreds and hundreds of years dead. OK, so that's one big nail in the coffin to start with.

It also implies that the thousands and thousands of classical CDs are nothing but 'covers' - versions of original music, recorded by some musicians who didn't actually write the original in the first place.

The lyrics are all shit, and mostly really highbrow - when they're there at all. There's rarely any beat. There are no electronics. The performers look boring as fuck. You can't buy the video. Boring people - releasing nothing but hundreds of covers - of thousands of boring songs - by dead people - whose names we don't know and who don't care about us, who never knew us. These are real issues, real opinions! Anyone who thinks this sort of music can actually survive is crazy!

I don't agree. Classical music is largely lyricless, sure. Storyline is abandoned - but in favour of chords, harmonies, *music* which everyone listens to anyway! You take a chord in a Tori song, or a Black Sabbath song, or a Royksopp song. Maybe it's quiet, and long, and maybe it's got words over it, and maybe it's followed by a whole load of other chords which make you feel wistful and sad and happy all at the same time. And hey presto - classical music contains this too. Maybe even exactly the same series of chords. Maybe producing the same mood! We love Tori - or whoever we love - because something in the music gets into our heartstrings. As long as it gets there, it doesn't matter who it's by, or what they're called, or how long they lived, or whether or not we can write to them and have their autograph.

Andy loves Tori, and Fiona Apple, and Marilyn Monroe. He doesn't draw a line between Tori and Marilyn because Tori's alive and Marilyn's not. He sings along to the living soul in music, not the dead body in the coffin. He sings along to the Tori who soars in her songs, and doesn't need to know that Tori is currently alive to love her work. So if there are just no lines to be drawn in the sands of time, there's no reason to dismiss Bach in favour of Nirvana!

No reason at all. Unless of course you never heard anything by Bach in your life.

Classical music is mismarketed so continuously and solidly that it's criminal. Sure, don't alienate your core market - people who naturally like classical better than they like pop. But don't alienate people who like pop! The reason that classical lovers think they don't like pop is that pop is niche-marketed. The reason pop lovers think they don't like classical is that classical is niche-marketed. But worse - classical insults pop lovers by advertising itself to pop-lovers as, well, pop-y. They know it's not. It's just patronising of the classical market to say "This track by [insert composer's name] is really quite like your Tori Amos, so you'll love it" and expect Toriphiles to agree.

Lebrecht: "High in corporate towers, overpaid executives blame a lack of compelling new repertoire, of charismatic artists and of public tolerance for long-winded classics - in short, they blame everthing except their own failure to invest in talent... Hurt and confused, these artists refuse to admit their own assault on the classical economy in the years when the money flowed. In the CD gold rush of the early 1990s, the Berlin Philharmonic charged ?65,000 for a symphonic disc. Their fee remains the same today, but hardly anyone bothers to make records with the world's best orchestras any more."

OK, OK, economy, marketing, blah. But what gives? Advertising and money and booklet design and press launches posters and all that irrelevant crap has a great power to convince people that being closed-minded about other music is OK. They keep getting fed more of what they effortlessly love. Tori = Tori = Tori = Tori. Feeder = Feeder = Feeder = Feeder. But Feeder doesn't equal Tori. Tori doesn't equal Massive Attack. Massive Attack doesn't equal Beethoven. You have to actively jump from one to the other.

Want to save some music that seems to be dying out? First, refuse to believe that crap, and play it to your friends. But listen to their music, too. Open minds grow. Closed ones die. Keep yours growing.

Snow. Except, again, not here
There've been snowstorms in Oregon. Bastards.

Banned Words
Lake Superior State U has released its list of banned words for 2004. I'll mention a few here. Bling bling: not exactly my first choice. I rather like it. But it has become a bit of a mawkish, embarrassing phrase, to be used with a sense of irony and a self-deprecatingly lifted eyebrow. LOL: I agree. I'll mention no names here, because I really rather like the online people I talk to. But the number of times I've had conversations which are entirely "LOL" from their direction... (sigh) Embedded journalist: sounds painful. If a journalist loses that much objectivity, they probably deserve to be embedded in something. Shots rang out: hmm. I don't see why it should be banned, but yeah, alright. Shots don't 'ring out'. Bells do. Shots don't. They crack or they hiss.

It *is* 2004.
Even though I'll keep writing '2003' on things for weeks and weeks to come, it's 2004. Must remember that.

I'm un-hungover, which is good. I can't remember how much I drank last night but it was enough for me not to go to bed half-sober. When I woke up, Jonny was getting ready to go to work late, Mark was getting the car started, and Giles was wandering around looking... in need of coffee. So I made coffee. Mark came back from dropping Jonny off, and we had coffee, and I had soup. Jackass the Movie is brilliant, and I now know that if you get a sea-cucumber and shake it around a bit, it looks like it's cumming. :oD

Usually on New Year's Day I feel like a bit of a blank slate, in an empty way. Not really filled in yet. Waiting to be written on by whatever happens. But today I feel already written on. I have Things To Do. I have People To See. None of it is certain yet but there is so much to gain if I just reach out for it. I'm going to see Andy in a few days, rushed probably. I'm going to see Larry and Patrick and other people, and I need to see a man about a job.

I've got to reply to a guy who sent me a really nice email and £10 over paypal. I've got to move my computer into my bedroom. I've got to buy myself a coat.

Cooked Tarantulas
And a perfectly serious toxicological study thereof.

Violate Me (In the Violet Time)
Folk tune titles.

Complications
What was meant to happen was that today, sometime before I woke up, dad would get into the car, drive onto a ferry, travel from Northern Ireland to England and damn well stay there for nearly 2 weeks, giving me the chance to kick back, glory in having the place to myself, and be responsible for as close to fuck-all as possible.

What actually happened was that earlier tonight, when dad was packing to leave, we noticed this patch of damp on the wall in one of the bedrooms. Then Mark came over, and since he knows about stuff like that, we looked in the roofspace, and in other rooms, and found that a water tank is spilling water through the ceilings of 2 rooms. The water has even (just) made it down through to the kitchen on the ground floor. So we rigged up a system to stop the tank from filling up beyond the hole in it.

So what will actually happen is that tomorrow, when I get up, dad will have left, and I'll have to make desperate phonecalls to a plumber (who probably has a full diary), and then I'll find that it'll be new year at least before I can get it sorted. In the meantime, either: 1. ceilings will fall in - or: 2. The water tank will dry out and there'll be no water in the radiators and therefore no heating - or: 3. Some sort of combination of 1 & 2.

Self-reflexive joke
I just went through the RSS feeds I subscribe to, and was really pleased to find that the people whose writing I love most haven't updated their websites at all today because they have rich and varied lives outside the internet. :o)

Wintry links...
(courtesy of Wikipedia) - Christmas Eve, snow, Silent Night, mince pies, port, frost, ice, winter, food, presents.

0871 271 3100 - The Queen's phone number!
If you're Welsh, are in Iraq, hold a gun, and have a mobile phone, you needn't be denied Her Majesty's Christmas Message at 1500GMT tomorrow. Royal Regiment of Wales and TA troops were originally intended to be the receipients of this service, but anyone can dial in and have the pleasure of hearing HM sounding a bit tinnier than usual.

For the first time in ages, possibly ever, the address hasn't been filmed in Buckingham Palace, but at a barracks. Teamwork and all that. I wonder if she's recovered yet from having Tony Blair's hand up her arse for the umpteenth time this year...

Bared teeth, torn flesh...
...and a Christmas disaster for Her Royal Highness! (Not to mention the corgi.) Rumour has it that Princess Anne is in chains in the Tower of London, with her dog at her feet, awaiting execution.

(Or, if you want to be pernickety about punctuation, we could change it to "Princess Anne is in chains in the Tower of London, with her dog at her feet awaiting execution". :o) *evil grin*

Lemon, ham and herbs
I'm making stuffing. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is on the radio. Bliss. :o)

My nights
I'm sitting here at 1 in the morning, knowing I don't have to go to bed at half one to get up for work tomorrow. This is actually really good. But I feel cheapened. Jobless again. Jonny came round tonight and we pissed ourselves laughing at a cat video, grinned at a Lemon Jelly cheesefest song, and I made rum and brandy butter and didn't spray all the sugar and butter all over the kitchen like last year. Then I came home after dropping Jonny off and right now, it just really really doesn't feel like the raw sparkling cold season it is. I need to find my accelerator and hoof it to the floor.

A *wonderful* book
The Tyger Voyage. Seeing it on this guy's blog just made me want to find it again. It's the one thing I'm going to do this evening even if I have to rummage through the entire attic.

80s TV commercials
From America, but good nevertheless.

Walking together what remains
I love this found poem. It caught my eye when I was in London and took me out of the rush to a cleaner, purer time when I was a boy interested in almost nothing apart from castles and medieval music and words. A time when I was so interested in words I'd peer at them over my glasses, so close I could see the grain in the paper and the way no letter was perfect.
I really like this colour poem too. It's more modern and at first you feel it postures too much but it's so gentle, notwithstanding a few jarring photos. And a perfect, imperious winter poem. A shy boy.

Nice Christmas present for them...
Santa Hussein drops by - and what do they do? Hold him in an undisclosed location. Anyone'd think they weren't pleased to see him!

What kind of kiss?
You have an entrancing kiss~ the kind that leaves your partner bedazzled and maybe even feeling he/she is dreaming. Quite effective; the kiss that never lessens and always blows your partner away like the first time. Take the test here.

So yeah. Here's a funny picture, and here's a very good example of why Oscar Wilde said the British Public are philistine. Goat Fucker. Holy fucking bloodstained shit. The joys of North London.

That's it for now, folks.

Hmmmmm.
Inspired by meeting Andy, I thought I'd look up 'friendship' in Wikipedia, to see whether I agreed with their expected incisiveness and wisdom. I'd expected 'friendships are... they start like... they're managed by the...." etc.

But it just redirects you to 'personal relationship'. 'Personal relationship', interestingly, fits under their umbrella of 'human love'. But a personal relationship with someone doesn't mean you love them. You can have a very real relationship with someone which is based entirely on hate... can't you?

Grin
Hehe. Oxo Tower. Heheh. Via Welshcake.

Thanksgiving
I go to the airport with Dad. We stand in the check-in queue as I worry about whether or not I'm going to be sent straight back to Belfast. I have my winter coat on, that coat which I wore for the last few days I lived in London. My bags aren't full but they carry music which I hope will be playing in Jonathan's living-room later today.
At the head of the queue, I lean forward, explaining that there may be a problem with ID. I worried about this all last night, pacing up and down in the garden, wandering nervously from room to room as I packed, wondering whether the effort was going to be in vain. The only thing in the world which matters now is the expression on the girl's face; her eyes; the cast of her mouth. Whether I can judge anything from it. Searching for my permission to leave, to spread my wings - to return home.
She runs up the little flight of stairs. We wait. Dad stands off to one side, watching. She comes back with a walkie-talkie which squawks as she says something. Her phone rings; she has a brief conversation and looks up sternly. Christ - after all this I'm going to be told: no, you can't fly, you are not who you say you are, Greenwich will be denied you! - but... no.... she's printing something out... I'm free to fly! Feeling like kissing the air, I turn and walk away, my little bag over my shoulder, following dad. We stand on the moving walkway, my heart beating slower each second. Almost in a daze, I see my fingers punch the buttons on the cash machine, see the cash poke out and be slid into my wallet by hands which are barely mine.
I snap out of it as dad gets his money. I lift my phone out, and call Jonathan. He says 'Hel-lo' and I say 'Well... I had to beat up a couple of check-in staff, storm the security office' and he laughs - 'but I'm on the flight'. I say I'll see him later, and ring off. For a second my head is full of his kitchen, him putting down a cup of coffee before sighing and starting the task ahead. I feel myself smile.
Dad and I sit down with coffee for him and a burger and coke for me. The man in front of me in the burger queue was rude to the harrassed, blushing teenager behind the counter, hateful in his old-man slacks and stern face. Dad steals most of my newspaper for a while. When I bought it I thought I was in the mood for papers but I'm not - I can't concentrate - already my mind slips through the air, quick like a dart, following the curve of the atmosphere to plummet down, down, smooth and swift to land me there.
Dad leaves. Work goes on all around me. Why do those people look so bored? Why is that suited man so glum? Do they not know what is happening? Can't they tell?! I think I must be too excited to pee but wander off happily to the toilet and find that nevertheless I can. I return, smoke a few cigarettes, read the paper cursorily, and then go through to Departures. This is where I saw Jonathan walk away from me at the end of his first visit to Belfast but this is not then, this is new and so familiar and exciting that my feet aren't touching the ground. I have spent too long away, but with even the first step towards an airport or a car we put an end to that - we travel - we arrest the process of arrest. And the actual process of travel, that movement between-times, when you are noplace and everywhere all at once - that is the knot fraying, disentangling, lying pathetic and weak at your feet. Only then do you start to walk.
And I walk.
I do a lot of walking around this time, actually. The lady at the desk tells me I need to go to Gate 24 in the International Departures lounge. Never having been there before, I go off on a trial run which is more an amble, traversing corridor after long corridor by the runways, finding the gate, and ambling back. I settle at a table which earlier this year hosted my sister and niece, get out a book and the packet of cigarettes, and read for perhaps 5 minutes before the urge to wander hauls me like a marionette through the air, moving, looking at faces and listening to voices. Getting restless and eager, I walk back to the gate to find it's full of people. the young people look at each other, and me, quite a lot. The older ones don't, or they stand looking at the runway. The plane perches tantalisingly below us. Two bright- scarfed ladies give orders, look at photos, and we board.
These planes always seem smaller than I remember them to be, and when I stand and look at the seat I've chosen it seems impossibly tiny, but when I settle into it - ah, that's it, stretch, hassle over, Jonathan and Greenwich here I come - it fits. It's comfortable. A young woman sits down one seat away from me. A breathy young asian man plunges between us and levers himself into the intervening seat. I rearrange my bag at my feet and look out of the window at the engine and the wing sweeping backwards, tip out of sight.
We taxi. The captain (why captain? Why not pilot?) tells us it's cold in London but that there was fog in Amsterdam earlier. The stewardess tells us officiously that the captain is 'in full command'. I feel like I'm in Russia but simply smile and return to the view.
The rush and G-force of the final acceleration - the cabin tilts back alarmingly - the judder from the wheels suddenly ceases to exist and we are free!, climbing steeply. The young woman beside me is sitting bolt upright, the young asian scrabbling in the seat pocket for a magazine. I survey the sweep of Strangford Lough from above. It is beautiful. From this distance and with a little squinting to blur things, I see it as the untainted Strang Fjord when Belfast was just a stream through sand with rushes whistling in the wind. A loud crunching beside me announces the arrival of a crisp- packet in the young woman's hands.
I decline the snacks and start to think of the wider issues of London. I'm going there - this is a holiday - why do I feel that I'm going home? Because I am, in a way which is elating me and depressing me and making my stomach turn alarming cartwheels of anticipation. I realise that I'm having to think of how best to get to Greenwich - that alone tells me it's no longer the familiar place it was. I start feeling disappointed until I remember why I have to plan my route. This is not forgetfulness but the flaying of the skin which grew over my eyes and mapped the city for me. It is no longer pre-ordained: it is again a slightly seething chaos. So yes! I will have to plan.
Jerked back by the ding of the seatbelt signal and the jingling of metal clasps, I realise we are landing. It's twilight, almost. There are fields, little farms, cottages with red roofs. The tyres bump onto the runway. And that's it?! One hour, give or take - that's all, to get me here? My heart starts beating faster. Reminded of how criminally easy it really is to travel, I jump up, hitting my head on the oxygen-mask cupboards and hoping nobody is inconvenienced during any possible disaster in future.
In the baggage hall, I haul one case, and another, off the conveyor. Perhaps I should buy train-tickets here. Yes - at the station all I will want to do is make straight for the platforms, so I talk to a pleasant girl at a desk and she hands me a little slip of card printed with London Bridge. I gaze at the name. The shuttle bus is painfully slow.
On the platform at the airport's satellite station, I don't wait for a train, but I think of a train. I think of all the trains I've ever been on in London. Trains which squeak, trains which jerk wildly, trains which glide and whine. Trains whose doors slide and rumble, whose doors hiss and click, whose doors close heavily with a 50s clang.
The doors in fron of me are dark-blue, and open invitingly. I step in. London Bridge? This goes to London Bridge? one voice asks. Yes, it does, I think.
Yes. It does.

*

More memories arrive with each station. I do not arrive at stations. They arrive at where I sit. They arrive at the terminus of my mind and wander around with their baggage, banging into things, causing scatterings and spillages. St Albans, warm, redbricked, with its squat cathedral, boyfriend's house, platforms tortured with worry over no money, frosted fields, firelit rooms. Radlett, with its taxicab office handy when you have fallen asleep on your train, Elstree and Borehamwood, magisterial with the presence of the invisible studios. Mill Hill Broadway. Too much. It's a flash at the window but too much, Hendon, Cricklewood. West Hampstead Thameslink and I strain to see the alley, the trees, the little slanted street by the name of Broomsleigh, first home to Jonathan, birthplace of so much, guardian of so little. I guard it here, I think, touching my head in my imagination. We speed on.

*

I clamber out of my seat just after Cannon Street slides away. The train is full and yellow-lit, darkened with suits, businessed with commuters away from the daily grind. And here... we slow... the platforms... suddenly I'm back in September 2000, graduated, trying to be a journalist, knowing nothing and nobody in this whole wide city and - the doors burst open, my bags are at my feet and my eyes grip the exit sign, take me through to the ticket office. Greenwich, it says. I'm smiling again. My phone is in my hand. I call Jonathan's new number with a pang: he's out of work and right now, with a rush of concentration and love, I hope he's alright. 'I'm in the middle of everything here... can you get here by yourself?' I know I can. Smiling again.

*

I'm hot in my long coat and my bags are heavy, my arms corded with the effort, but the stuttering rumble of suitcase wheels on Greenwich pavements sounds inexpressibly encouraging and on Royal Hill almost clamours to me to go faster, faster - and on Maidenstone Hill it pushes me in front of it until I twist and topple the cases at the door and rattle the letterbox. There is a sound like a plate from somewhere which sounds like the kitchen. Footsteps. And Jonathan's there at the door. Did I use the steps or have I just materialised inside the living-room? We hug. Thanksgiving.

*

'I'd love to say "Sit down, have a glass of wine, relax",' he says, 'but I need you to do some washing-up' and, looking at the kitchen, we both laugh. Giggling, I stride over to my coat and take out a cigarette. I stand outside the window, looking through the steamy panes: ladies and gentlemen!, I want to shout - this is Jonathan's Kitchen! - but I don't. I grin, clang the bin lid on my cigarette-end, and find myself inside at the sink. The pile of dishes gets cleaner, the cloth damper, as we talk. It's wonderful to be back. It's dark outside. The house is filled with wonderful smells. I feel excited and desolate for him. His job is over. But that means a new one is on the way and I refuse to countenance for even one moment the possibility that he'll have to move out of the house.
And besides, tonight the house is so completely ours that the very idea is exposed as folly. We move in and out of the kitchen. A pumpkin pie, beautiful thing, browns sweetly in the oven, indecently delicious as a tanned rentboy but homely and warm.
Cutie pie.

*

Davide et al arrive, late because of the trains, but that's alright because we're not yet ready anyway. Davide is different, almost adult in stubble, accompanied by a guy I've met before and an American I haven't. He's 'so American' but not, ageless, could be thirty, could be nineteen. We sit down while Jonathan does things in the kitchen. I feel the panic starting to subside. The bottle of wine I opened with the lady's skirt earlier has been poured, and with only the first few sips I feel expanded, tethered in the moment, anchored to the kitchen and the man who frets over dishes just inside the doorway, warm in the living-room glow. I tell them of how I am a journalist, of how I had to leave here because of money, of how I work in a carpark. But Greenwich and Jonathan's kitchen and the whole miraculous present weave such magic that nothing jumps within me as I say the c-word. It's just another thing - and the things here-and-now are perfect.
Candles in thick squat glasses glimmer warmly on the table. I smile, wondering where Willie has got to, and the guys talk of a fire on a train at New Cross, and Willie arrives, and -
Smells from the kitchen. A flotilla of pungences as fod emerges from the oven. Jonathan emerges from round the corner, barely less hot than the steaming dishes behind him, and reaches to the table for a plate, looking at us, sighing and smiling, saying 'We can just... everything's in the kitchen.....' and we troop in and back to the table, plates laden, mood on high.

*

A fraction of a second. We're all looking up. 'Well.....' someone says, and my hand moves to my glass and I raise it and in a rush of gratitude speak of Jonathan, of Greenwich, of this utter bliss, and there are Italian drawls, English murmurs, American yeahs, South African grins. Before I know it, three mouthfuls have disappeared, conversation is washing in tides over the table. The wheels are turning, pistons stretching, but this train isn't going anywhere. The steam rises. The cranberry-jar twinkles crimson like an altar-lamp. The wine glugs from the bottles. Sod the church - we're already home free.
Pumpkin pie and friends: can there be greater perfection? Not tonight. I commune earnestly with my plate. It communes earnestly with me. I grin, piefaced, down at the table. Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater. Feel like giggling. Sigh and giggle. Happiness.

*

After leaning back in our chairs, and doing a great deal more sighing and smiling, we all walk in the cold and dark to the station. Waiting by the DLR track, I give Davide + boyfriend a group hug. Jonathan and Willie and I walk back. My glass of wine on the table is still half-full so we wander around, talking, until soporificity reaches a cosy peak. Jonathan brings pillows and a duvet. I unfold the sofa, feeling here, simply... here, the world is as it is, can be, should be, and I read drunkenly a little before gathering myself into a sumptuous Jonathan-housed, Greenwiched sleep.

Heheheh.
Looking through the referer logs today, I found someone happened in on peripathetic by doing this search. Well, blow me!

Oh, sod it.
I want to live in another place than Canada, but at the same time, too. I can't be arsed to steal the links from Metafilter, so here's a post about Norway's terrifyingly beautiful Lofoten Islands. Where I want to live, as well as in Canada, but at the same time.

What a wonderful name!
The Brainerd Dispatch (of Brainerd) has the story of the winter's first big snowstorm over there on the other side of the pond. Other places which got buried beneath about 11 inches of snow include Pequot Lakes, Pillager, Hackensack, Emily and Onamia.

See, apart from the seasonal snow, these names, these wonderful wonderful names!, are partly why I want to go here, or here, and do this.

A superb paper - laid out online
We all know that you can go to a newspaper's website to read the stories. But what about look at the pictures - or see the layout of the printed page onscreen? You can't usually do that - unless you're content with Newseum's Today's Front Pages. But the UK's Guardian now has, in addition to GuardianUnlimited (the web version), The Guardian Digital Edition.

It's fantastic. You get the layout, story text, and press clippings, of each and every page (well, nearly) of each and every section of the paper, and its sister sunday, The Observer. No software is needed - unless of course you want to download Adobe PDFs of the pages to keep and enjoy. *smiles warmly* Register here (free for the beta).

Sodomites!
Buggerantoes! What was the world coming to?!

Bloody Salemite puritans... swings and roundabouts, really
"The Puritans saw and heard wondrous signs of God's purpose and the devil's menace: ominous lights in the sky... ...the magistrates abdicated some of their power, and most of their discretion... ... the silences in the documentary record indicate a purge of embarrassing documents by the authors or their descendants..."

Any of this sound familiar?

Music to their ears
In a way, adults know less about music than babies. But we still use it every time we talk.

Random thought
If god deposited all of us onto the planet fully formed and marked "made in Heaven" then how come he made it so damn difficult to get back in when our batteries ran out?

Miscellany
I'm not talking about Schott's Food and Drink Miscellany here, although it's part of this one. (The Schott book is the second by Ben Schott, a graduate who got bored and struck by idea genius one day, bringing forth this little bundle of delight in time for Christmas last year.)

But to complete this entry: Duncan Fallowell, a friend of mine who wrote the libretto for the opera Gormenghast, has recently published his latest novel. Mediaeval illuminated manuscripts are given a superb treatment in this book by Taschen. Northern Ireland humour can't get much better than the Portadown News. When you've seen the film and want to read it instead, go and get your movie scripts. Possibly the best cookbook ever, by Nigel Slater. And last but by no means least - the Titanic Inquiry Project.

Awwww! Bunnies!
These two little cuties have been quite shamelessly lifted from this site. I don't know what it's about, but Patrick sent the link to me in an email today, and my god, it was worth it for this little bit of soft wussy I'm-so-soppy-it-hurts gif bunny goodness.

Godfearing gay student expelled from gayfearing god school
So, this time, a student who, when 14, told his mum that he wanted to go to this private catholic school, has been expelled for being gay. Actually, he's been expelled for being gay and coming out. He still loves god, apparently, but he's launched a lawsuit, and you can check on the church's defence here. And a lot of people have a lot to say about this.

ARGH!
If Google merges with Microsoft, I'll never search with it again. Which would be a real shame. Get with it, Google. Don't merge. DO NOT MERGE. NO. BAD GOOGLE.

And deliver us from homosexuality, for thine is the kingdom...
The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the worldwide Anglican communion, has just announced the commission which will look at all the thorniest issues facing the church worldwide. It won't have the power to rescind the expected canonisation of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

It'll have the 'powers' to go "Hmm. Erm. Yeeeees. Well, those homosexuals. Well! Well!! They're like chocolates. Have one, you want even more, but it's not so good for the old tum, what? Need some evangeligestion tablets afterwards, ha-ha."

It'll be chaired, encouragingly, by the Primate of All Ireland, Dr Robin Eames. Dr Eames, when I last heard him speak, seemed to have his head firmly screwed on. Let's hope someone doesn't unscrew it on the sly.

Grrrr
You never fully realise you miss someone until they're utterly unreachable. Grrr! Why is he the only one of my friends who doesn't have a goddamn mobile phone?!

All these people
Last night the clocks were turned back. Not a massive amount of time - just an hour. British Summer Time became the usual Greenwich Mean Time. But it's not mean time. It's rich time, chestnut time, woodsmoke time, silverbreath time - and it meant more. Last night I sat there, got up, paced back and forth. It was a Saturday. I wanted my friends. And they didn't call. So I called them, and they didn't answer, so then I went online, and saw them there, and they came over, and we talked about houses and computers and work. I think about completely different things, but I talk about things like work. I worry about things like work. Particularly when there isn't any.

So, last night I told my friends I'm depressed because... I don't know why, but I'm apathetic too, and I'm having to switch career, and I don't want to switch career. I want to escape career. I want to write. That's really all I want to do. Not out of wanting comfort or an easy life. Writing, creatively, isn't an easy life. It's not comfort. It's not even an escape. It's a fight, with the world, against the world, with others, with yourself. It's a redress. It's a lens. It's work. But it's not a career. And it doesn't make money. And I don't want to have to worry about loads of things anymore. I don't want to have to worry about money. But to be paid money, I'll need to find something that I'd be willing to turn myself off and do for 9 hours a day. And I'm far too much of a misfit to actually be happy with that. So, the world's off-kilter. So, --what? It's always been.

But I told them last night. And I was shaking. And I didn't even know why I was shaking, but I told them and I was, and I don't know whether or not they respect me or are uncomfy with me or are puzzled by me. But there are all these people out there who someday I'm going to meet or work for or work against or love or hate or argue with or snog, and they don't know it. And in a way, neither do I. I just don't know.

This was originally meant to be posted on Sunday but blogger was fucking around.

Interesting stuff...
...about one aspect of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Quuuu---iiiiiiiiiick. MARCH!
If anyone, by now, wants to see a version of what happened during Operation Iraqi Freedom... well, I just thought I'd mention it... :o/

Snow
Yes, I know it's only October. No, we haven't had snow here today. But the really cold air which greeted me at the door this morning, coupled with some slight flurries forecast for the Western Isles of Scotland, made me do a little searching and I've found a couple of really great snow galleries. If you see any more, let me know.

'Gay, gay, gay - the papers are full of it these days'. ;o)
On wandering downstairs to the kitchen this morning, I reached for the pile of newsprint on the table, thinking hmm, coffee and papers, heaven. Dad had taken the main section of the paper into the living room so the Review was top of the pile. Two teenage boys lying on a bed together, looking happy, quizzical... well, just normal, really. And the headline: Have you told your mum yet? Well, I haven't told my mum because she's dead, but this lengthy article by a lady whose son came out to her last year is so touching and sane that it'd almost make you tempted to write to the woman and come out to her, even if you weren't gay.

Of course, dad probably hasn't read it. I'm not going to say anything to him about it. He's already, I'm sure, got gay overload from the content of the rest of today's paper. First, the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been warned that riot and death are the offspring of gay ordination (riot and death which wouldn't happen, presumably, if a single communion already in schism just split into two happier, more united churches), and then an article by David Aaronovitch urging them to just leave it all on the back burner, on top of a surprisingly conservative editorial warning against a split. (Better for liberals to be patient? Nah. What bollocks. Two happy churches would be better. It's not going to solve itself in a single communion. No way.) And the icing on the cake is the news that pastor / reverend / shitface Fred Phelps plans a monument furthering homophobia for Matthew Shephard's tome town.

Sex
Sex is much, much healthier than any of us realised! Thanks to a study by Queen's University here in Belfast, it's postulated that:

More sex = improved sense of smell
More sex = reduced depression
More sex = pain relief
More sex = less colds
More sex = better teeth (hehe)
More sex = more time to get to the toilet when you've got to piss a gallon

Man turns up in casualty - "NURSE! I need more sex." I can just see it now. :oD

More sex, anyone...?

Balls of Brass. Wet, warm Balls of Brass.
If you're ever in the fair city, and feel like having a dip, here's a guide to trespassing in infiltrating Toronto's luxury hotel swimming pools. Heheheh. :o)

Marriage Protection... erm, what?
So. in another great coup for the religious right in America, conservative Christian lobby-groups have George W Bush's signature on a Presidential Proclamation. Not that they had to twist his arm much to get it, either. It's about Marriage Protection Week, and he supports it wholeheartedly.

Marriage, apparently, is a union between a man and a woman. Hmmm. Not entirely so in many other countries, however. So maybe it should be "USA Marriage Protection Week". Or, better, USA Reinforcement of Creaking Social Edifices Week. I thought the US had really high divorce rates, though, so how's this Week going to help them? Oh, sorry - I lost the plot. It's not about protecting marriage at all, but pressing for denial of state financial and legal status to other partnerships. Ah, right. Makes sense now.

Growls and snapping sounds in New York City
This guy had a tiger and an alligator in his apartment. Police found out after he was admitted to hospital with rather bigger lacerations to the leg than a chihuahua or budgie could inflict. The Mayor of the city said "Clearly these animals shouldn't have been anywhere in this city other than a zoo". No shit, Sherlock Bloomberg, you idiot.