Category: Stray Thoughts

1. Am I the only one who thinks that there’s a joke to be made about the fact that George Bush Senior had a Vice President called Quayle, and the current V-P shooting someone whilst out on a Quail hunt? I haven’t seen anyone else comment on it, so feel free to work up the exact details of the joke yourself and drop it into conversation. No need to credit me.
2. There’s a lot of talk at the moment about the ‘death of the sitcom’, probably part-fuelled by the fact that the US Networks are having a hard time finding something which proves to have the broad appeal of Friends or Seinfeld. But it’s discussed a lot in the UK too, and there are constant references to the fact that in the 1970s, sitcoms would get huge ratings, the like of which could barely be dreamed of now. Um, everyone’s remembering that there were only three TV channels in those days, right? The maths is fairly simple, even if you only apply it to terrestrial channels: 30m ÷ 5 = 6m (if you’re lucky), and so on…
3. One of the greatest nonsenses and least impressive comebacks of all time has to be ‘Takes one to know one’. It’s so weak as to be meaningless to my mind, and effectively says ‘I have no reply to that, have a cliché’, in which case silence would surely be the better option?
4. Twice that I know of, people have noted down the title of the book I’ve been reading on the tube, presumably to see about buying a copy later if it proves their sort of thing. The first time it happened was a year or two ago, when I was reading a book about the life of Aleister Crowley. The second time was this morning, reading a quite insane travel-type book (I’ll review it here soon, as there’s a startling amount I have to say about it), when I became aware that the man next to me was scribbling the name of the book on a piece of card he’d retrieved from his pocket. I looked back to the book, where, a line or three later, the author started to recount a meeting he claimed he’d had with … Aleister Crowley. Hmm.

1. Beware the person who claims to be sensitive, for they may well be sensitive only to their own suffering, and not too worried about yours.

2. You can buy a cheap watch for 99p, but when the battery runs out, it’s usually something like £5 just to replace that. Huh?

3. Season One of ‘Lost’ didn’t exactly have the best ending of all time, did it ? Oh, they’ve opened the hatch, but you’re not going to see inside it. And Michael and Walt have sailed into the plot of Deliverance, apparently. Really unsure as to whether I’ll bother tuning in when it returns, as it was all pretty much downhill after the excellent Locke-based episode early on (was it episode 3?) – written, if memory serves, by one of the writers of Buffy. Overall: hmph.

4. And on which theme, saw King Kong last week – that’s three hours of my life I’m not going to get back. Not recommended at all, and some bits of it were frankly embarrassing (monkey on ice, Ann Darrow doing slapstick for Kong’s benefit – ugh, it’s like ‘is it still raining?’ in Four Weddings all over again).

5. Had a minor brush with being unwell recently, and as far as curatives go, I really do recommend the combination of a sofa, a stack of books/DVDs, and plentiful intake of tea. Daytime television, however, will weaken both your mental acuity and your ability to repel infection. Avoid it at all costs.

6. In its way, isn’t ethical relativism a positive stance ?

7. After seeing Kill Bill part (NOT chapter) 2 and the episodes of CSI he wrote, I’m beginning to think Quentin Tarantino has a bit of a fear of premature burial.

8. I’ve often thought that Descartes’ alleged ‘Cogito ergo sum’ is flawed both logically (it presupposes the existence of the thinker) and similarly on a linguistic level, as the conjugation of the verb to think there is in line with the first person singular, again presupposing the thinker. So whilst I’m intrigued to find out that his original Discourse on method didn’t actually contain the phrase, I’m reassured to see that the original French phrase he used – “Je pense, donc je suis” contains pretty much the same seeds of its own undoing…

1. I received many fine Christmas gifts, but I like to think that I’m one of a very limited number of people who was equally pleased to receive Volume 1 of the recent translation of Marcel Proust’s ‘A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu’ and the new Robbie Williams album.

2. There’s an advert on TV at the moment for an insurance firm solely for female drivers, called ‘Sheila’s Wheels’. Whilst I’ll acknowledge that the advert’s deliberately kitsch and tacky looking, I think they may have misjudged it – particularly in relation to their arguments about overall safety – by showing three women sitting in the front of a car which is, for much of the advert, driving backwards on the wrong side of the road.

3. In case any of you were unsure of the restorative power of tea, I would direct your attention towards the Doctor Who Christmas Special, in which his regeneration was aided by a cuppa. And if you won’t take a medical recommendation of that order, then … well, that’s that, I guess.

4. Interesting to see that ‘Life of Brian’ was voted the top comedy film of all time in one of those end-of-year polls. When it came out, I recall it being seen as naughty and subversive as well as potentially blasphemous. May take the edge off it in a way, but I like to think it shows a certain intellectual development in social terms.

1. Unless I misheard the radio report on it, I gather that the USA delegates were so offended by remarks from the Canadian PM at a conference on the environment, that they’re threatening not to reach an agreement on the issue of global warming. But if they’re offended, wouldn’t it suggest they feel that the remarks are without basis in fact ? In which case, shouldn’t they sign ? Or do they want to prove right the person they’re saying is wrong?

I hope I misheard.

2. In recent times, people seem strangely keen to use the word ‘yourself’ instead of the word ‘you’. I’m guessing it’s almost like a politeness thing, as the use of the second person singular can seem quite accusatory, but it’s an odd thing, and I can do without it, really. Maybe yourself disagree.

3.I feel that Jeremy Clarkson and Brian Sewell share certain traits; both of them are men who have extremes of specialist knowledge in a particular field, but who have newspaper columns covering any old subject they fancy, despite the fact that their chosen approaches (Clarkson robust and manly in a teenage knee-jerk kind of way, Sewell artsy-farty in a chin-strokey BBC4 kind of way) don’t entirely work when discussing issues such as immigration.

4. One of my favourite jokes:

Two men meet at a party.

First man : I’m writing a novel.

Second man: Really ? Neither am I.

5. Just arguing with myself in my head, and realising that point 3 above might smack of hypocrisy as the existence of my online stuff in itself suggests I see myself (not yourself – see 2, above) as some kind of expert on various matters. Such as the matter of whose opinions should be seen as valid ot not. Which is sort of true, but that’s because I don’t see why their opinions on subjects outside their area of expertise should be given the exposure they are as opposed to anyone else’s. To which the voice in my head says ‘ah well, Mr Clever, what’s your area of expertise, then?’ and to which I am forced to reply, after a pause, that it appears to be that of gainsaying my postulations, questioning my own ideas and motivations, and then admitting as much by writing up the internal dialogues, and what limited conclusions are reached as a result of this process.

And that, my friends, is not as easy as I make it sound.

1. I’m pleased to see that despite even the most recent of the material being over ten years old, the Bill Hicks book ‘Love All The People’ is shelved in the News and Current Affairs section of WHSmith in Victoria train station. I think it’s what he would have wanted.

2. Despite the fanfare that accompanied its return to TV, no-one I know is watching Little Britain any more. Almost a shame, as I think the leads are very gifted comedy actors, but the scripts have become lazy and repetitive now to the extent that you can watch one episode and it’s as if you’ve watched the whole series. Which is, of course, the danger with ‘catchphrase comedy’ or ‘comedy characters’. As a non-watcher of the Catherine Tate show for just that reason, I wonder how long it’ll be before the audience starts losing interest in the same way.

3. Since I seem to be discussing things entertainmental at the mo, I recommend Rebekka Bakken’s CD ‘Is that you?’. No of course you haven’t heard of it, I’m a culture magpie whose eclecticity supply is never in danger of being cut off. Which is to say, she’s not well-known, but if you want some late-night jazz-style music, it’s spot on – for my money, the best track is ‘Didn’t I’.

4. The Conservative Party have elected David Cameron as their new leader. I think the degree of non-interest I have in this event is possibly the most interesting thing about it. It’s like Teflon to my mind, no matter what angle I try to find to make my attention or concern adhere, it just slides right off.

5. Stephen Hawking has re-issued his bestselling book ‘ A Brief History of Time’ in a new edition, supposedly easier to read (but no, I don’t suppose we can get our money back if we bought the first edition). I didn’t rate the book very highly in terms of readability, though I may be in a smallish percentage of people in that I’ve actually read it to the end. As presumptuous as it may be for li’l ol’ me to disagree with the current holder of the Newton Chair at Cambridge, there was one bit which I thought Hawking was very wrong indeed about, and that related to the idea of the ‘big crunch’.

Effectively this would be the opposite of the big bang, with everything in existence foldng back down to the single superdense point of time and space and matter that it came from (if you accept the big bang theory) – like a balloon deflating after being inflated. However, Hawking then does on to argue that if space effectively runs in reverse like this, then time will as well, with events happening in reverse, and the law of cause and effect as we understand it ceasing to work – you’d know the result of a horse race, he suggests, and then be able to bet on it.

Which sounds plausible, but for the fact that if the universe is running backwards and everything is undoing itself, this would also refer to the means by which we accumulate information – that is, the synapses and neural pathways of the brain creating the connections between subjects and events. So if everything is running backwards, your brain’s connections would effectively be unravelling, and the information which Hawking’s saying you could act on would be erased like a message wiped from a chalkboard.

I’d be interested to know if he’s changed his stance on this side of things in recent times, but I don’t intend on re-reading his book in its revised form, I have to say. If you read it, do feel free to let me know.

6. Whenever they refer to the ex-Prime Minister as ‘Lady Thatcher’ it makes me think of a depilatory product.

7. If Kurt Cobain hadn’t killed himself, would the Foo Fighters exist ?

1. For those of you who’ve forgotten, we’re all about to die of Avian Flu. Just like we were all about to die of SARS a year or so ago. And AIDS before that. If the terrorist sleeper cells don’t get you, the infected bacteriological ones will, it seems. Welcome to the climate of fear. Welcome. None of this is exaggerated. Good lord, no.

2. Oh, and in case you missed the vote, George Best is now revered as a saint amongst men. Sorry, no, too late for you to cast your vote, he’s already joined the pantheon of people who everyone had mixed feelings about until their death. The process is technically referred to as Di-ification.

3. She doesn’t like to take off her clothes unless I turn off the bedside lamp, she feels too naked and exposed: the unlightable bareness of being.

4. For those of you who were worrying how the HSBC farrago referred to in my entry of Sunday 27 November has panned out, HSBC have apologised for the inconvenience and offered to give me a £75 compensatory gesture. Which would be nice if there wasn’t a debit last week on my account for £75 which I can’t account for, followed by two credits of £75 from HSBC Card Services later the same day. It might be me forgetting that I’ve arranged a debit, but the two payments in from HSBC look rather damning, I’d say. It rather looks as if they made an unauthorised debit of my account instead of compensating me, then paid it back, and then paid me the compensation amount… but, er, wouldn’t that be kind of illegal ? Can’t wait to see what they say to my letter (posted today) asking just that question. Can anyone recommend a decent bank ? Maybe one that does those offset mortgage thingies I’ve heard about ? Let me know. No, seriously.

1. Perhaps I’m just being a bit picky, but to me, the branding of the Eccleston-era Doctor Who DVD boxed set as ‘the Complete Series One’ seems rather off the mark.

2. You work for HSBC, and have falsely suspended John’s bank account despite his objections. John lodges a complaint, which is acknowledged, and an investigation commences. During this investigation, should you:

A) Send him a letter inviting him to upgrade his account to ‘bank account plus’ for an extra £12 a month?

B) Send him a letter telling him he’s a valued and important customer, and that he’s been pre-approved for a credit card?

C) Suspend his account once more without notifying him ?

Or

D) All of the above, on consecutive days?

(The answer is D. I kid you not.)

3. I see that the DVD release of the comedy series ‘Extras’ is only available in one edition. I think this is a wise move as it prevents people having to go into shops and ask for ‘the Extras DVD with the extra DVD with the DVD extras’.

4. Female circumcision is a vicious and abhorrent act of mutilation. A man having his penis cut off is a rich source of humour. Discuss why this is, using your own words as far as possible – extra points will be awarded for accurate use of the term ‘socialisation’, and reference to the work of Lorena Bobbit.

5. Will, I wonder, the location of the 2012 Olympic Village have any effect on the storylines in EastEnders ? I’d like to think so, though as anyone who lives in East London will tell you, the programme’s not exactly realistic – leaving aside the fact that it’s swarming with as many gangsters as a Scorsese film, the fact that Walford has its own tube station sets it pretty firmly in the fictional realm.

6. I gave up watching the film version of Popeye after an hour or so, during which time the Sailor Man hadn’t eaten any spinach. In a similar fashion, I used to get annoyed with the Popeye cartoons, as he always seemed to wait until the last possible opportunity before opening the can of green stuff. But I’m beginning to wonder if what I actually disliked was the fact he was holding back, as this is perhaps the tendency I find most annoying in myself (a fiercely-contended contest, obviously). Carpe diem, oh my readers, lest you should mistakenly think there will always be another opportunity for spinach. Learn from my mistakes. Hell, somebody should.

7. For those of you of an anti-ID card way of thinking, you might like to bear in mind that UK Passports will increase in cost at the start of December, the rise helping to pay for biometric information being added to passports. This latter starts in Feb 2006, as I understand it. When’s your passport due for renewal? Hmm?

8. I mentioned Doctor who earlier. If you’d said to me a decade ago that Doctor Who and a minor variation on Come Dancing would be the staples of BBC1’s Saturday evening line-up, I … well, I wouldn’t have believed you, that’s for sure.

9. Whatever happened to Deborah McKinlay ? She used to have a monthly column in Esquire in the mid-1990s, and she wrote four very funny books in as many years, but now I can’t find any apparent trace of her still being an active writer. Which would be a shame, as she was very funny indeed. If you know otherwise, please let me know.

1. I gather that the BBC have suggested that Natasha Kaplinsky should cut down on hosting entertainment programmes like ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ as they feel it undermines her credibility as a news presenter… but surely the reverse is equally true?
2. I’ve written about a variety of things since starting this blog, attacking the democratic system as it currently stands, specific politicians, and other things, but the one topic which seems to have provoked most response from people was the reference to non-caucasian women in the previous ‘stray thoughts’ entry. Which arguably reveals much more about you lot than my posting did about me, wouldn’t you say ?

1. There’s a legal challenge underway at the moment to allow the parents of girls under 16 to be notified if their daughter is having an abortion. Maybe it’s just me being harsh, but if your underage daughter is sexually active, pregnant and considering an abortion, I don’t know just how much of a useful contribution you’ll make if your daughter’s decided she’d rather you weren’t told. The evidence of parenting skills doesn’t exactly suggest a useful level of input. I have a sinking feeling that it’d just lead to a lot of horrified parents shouting and berating their daughters, which I don’t think would be entirely constructive…
2. It occurs to me that the word ‘hold’ works staggeringly well with prepositions – hold in, hold out, hold up, hold down, hold off, hold on, and so forth. Offhand I can’t think of another word which lends itself to prepositionising with such wanton abandon.
3. I’ve been physically intimate with two non-Caucasian girls in my life (on separate occasions). They both asked me if this was the first time I’d done so, and it was good to be able to give different answers to the same question.
4. Whenever I heard the theme to ‘Futurama’ it makes me think of ‘Toxygene’ by The Orb.
5. A leaflet fell out of a magazine I was reading, inviting me to join ‘Liberty’. I don’t know which is more alarming about the state of the UK today – the fact that the ‘National Council for Civil Liberties’ has had to change their name to single word which sounds like a rallying cry against oppression, or that I feel a strong need to join.
6. Good quote from Haneif Kureishi : “If you want something badly enough, you make arrangements. If you don’t want it badly enough, you make excuses.”
7. Yesterday, I passed someone on the street who I used to be very good friends with, but we had a major disagreement and haven’t spoken since (I won’t bore you with the details). She saw me and there was a look of recognition and then something like annoyance. However, I believe I saw her first, so I think I succeeded in keeping my expression neutral while she was looking at me. Though I kind of hope I looked disdainful, as if I was a scientist or antiquarian looking at an item of very mild interest.