two drumsticks, not chicken drumsticks, but actual drumsticks...

ok

so this is a post in where i'm writing out of a sense of guilt rather than out of burning desire to have my words immortalised online. Although now I think of it surely the sum of information that a blog can hold is essentially equal to nil? - if we consider the fact that the sum of possible information that the Internet could hold is infinite (or as close as possible to infinity as matters) and that the sum of possible writings by one man is finite, even if we multiply that one man by the number of all possible humans, we still achieve a finite number. This finite number, representing the sum of all possible human blogging on the internet, is of course set within the infinite (or as good as) world of the internet, and of course as we all know - the percentage of a finite number within an infinite system is effectively nil (or as near as matters) - so basically, in terms of anything that actually matters, no-one has ever blogged anything...

this is depressing for two reasons; first the whole futility of life thing or at the very least of blogging, secondly the fact that i think i may have stolen that argument (or something so similar that it barely matters) from Douglas Adams.

so does is matter that my poorly expressed theory is a thinly disguised argument stolen from a dead author? maybe it does - i do think that sort of thing is important

actually let me address a question to my hypothetical audience (if there is one) - does anyone else ever get the impression that anything they've ever thought before has been thought by someone else - i'm not trying to be trite but, within a certain degree, we're all going to have similar thoughts to one another - especially now that we all have access to the same information sorta thing

i know that no-one will have *exactly* the same thoughts as another - but maybe we all have similar enough thoughts to one another for the difference essentially to tend to zero

is this a good thing or a bad thing? i'm not too sure - in some ways its reassuring that we probably all have a certain sort of thoughts in common (distribution wise i'm unsure - gaussian? its a long time since i looked at stats) or is it quite disturbing and sad that, even if we have what we would consider to be fairly original ideas, the fact is that no matter that whether we're having an original idea its going to be sufficiently close to another original idea by someone else to qualify as the same idea in the long run


so anyway i'm not really sure what i'm going on above there...

i have some nice words i've found below by a woman called Joanna Newsom


"And as for my inflammatory writ?
Well, I wrote it and I was not inflamed one bit.
Advice from the master derailed that disaster;
he said "Hand that pen over to ME, poetaster!"
While across the great plains, keening lovely & awful,
ululate the last Great American Novels -
An unlawful lot, left to stutter and freeze, floodlit.
(But at least they didn't run, to their undying credit.) "

hmmm

well well well

have been a little rubbish at updating this page ain't i?

well after the horror that was my exams i figure maybe my brain has been busy healing in the last month or so - hence the inability to lay any of it down on this page

have resits in december but doubt they'll knacker me out as much as the summer exams

anyway have been thinking a lot over the last week so i'm sure it's gonna end up on here sooner or later - there's some great stuff about death and then some less exciting stuff about lobsters and maybe something about go-karts but i'm not too sure about that

oh and i've been rereading loads of jorge borges' stuff - the man was really awesome

also if anyone ever actually reads this methinks that simon joyner is a bit of a musical genius and should receive more recognition for writing pretty songs

because sometimes we need sleep too

staring into fractal clouds tearing my eyes on the cut-glass light
penetrating my lashes
and a japanese man talking to me but i see the terrible edges and the tinder tree twigs
over the tops of the church,
the steeple
and the monstrous distance

sleep and a numerous crowd of bats and music and the dull ember lighting breath,
holding their peace for the moment - a righteous crowd of pimps and prigs
speaking all at once - a dazed assembly of drifters
crowding paths and portals of the capital
fear and desperation and their awesome aching need

a godawful opening of dedicated connections with the one bright bastard spinning away from the stain on the floor with the chirping of a tattered consciousness and a hole mouthing words and a red roaring with exhausted lungs and do i know the way to South Kensington?

the wide flat spaces of the world

A) 'If you can't be happy where you are, you can't be happy anywhere'
Discuss, with examples from your own life.

B) 'Hell is Other People'
Do you agree? Demonstrate how this might or might not apply in the case of
i) The Armenian Massacres of 1915
ii) Either the life of Algernon Charles Swinburne or the death of Walt Disney
iii) the darkness before creation

(answer two of the three)


C) Construct an analogy using the saline nature of either tears or the sea and the salt that makes a dish palatable and adds piquance and savour.

(Examinees are encourages to refer to either the third daughter of Llyr or Lot's wife, but not both)


D) If I was God I would abolish...

Complete in 250 words or less. Physical practicalities and human nature are to be respected. The Law of Conservation of Happiness may not be violated.
(counts for 50% of your final score)

And some machines are dropped from great heights lovingly and some bellies ache with many bumblebees (and they sting so terribly).

Baby

Black, black, black is all you see
Don't you want to be free?

Baby
Red, red fire is what you breathe
Don't you want to be clean?

Honey, the shape you're in
Is worth every dime you spent
Baby Doll

Turn out the lights
Set yourself on fire
Say goodnight
Did you have a real cool time?

Baby
Black, black, black is all you see
Don't you want to be free?

Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!

"Oh the werewolf, oh the werewolf
Comes stepping along
He don’t even break the branches where he’s gone
Once I saw him in the moonlight, when the bats were a flying
I saw the werewolf, and the werewolf was crying

Cryin’ nobody knows, nobody knows,
How I loved the man, as I teared off his clothes
Cryin’ nobody know, nobody knows my pain
When I see that it’s risen; that fool moon again

For the werewolf, for the werewolf has sympathy
For the werewolf, somebody like you and me.
And only he goes to me, man this little flute I play
All through the night, until the light of day, and we are doomed to play

For the werewolf, for the werewolf, has sympathy
For the werewolf, somebody like you and me"

heh - got told off tonight for endlessly quoting but never writing in this damn thing

but then "Like all writers , he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned."

don't think i'm no writer but like that quote - think it's more universal than merely applying to them that write.

I think it's possible that we're all guilty of that - judging others by what they lack in their life rather than what they plan - whereas we're outraged if no-one can see the depths and possibilities in our good selves (as much as we'd like them to be hidden we long for them to be public). Ee'um we really can be hypocritical wee shites can't we?

but, despite that, how much fun are people? like seriously, how cool and interesting are most people, because, and i know this sounds like mushy shit, you just never know. you may have someone fucking pinned down exactly in your mind as to who they are but they'll still surprise you. and although that can be scary sometimes it's also kinda cool i think.

right - am turning into a damn panda so gonna hit it - night

it grows darker with the day

As so with that, I thought I'd take a final walk
The tide of public opinion had started to abate
The neighbours, bless them, had turned out to be all talk
I could see their frightened faces
peering at me through the gate

I was looking for an end to this, for some kind of closure
Time moved so rapidly, I had no hope of keeping track of it
I thought of my friends who had died of exposure
And I remembered other ones who had died from the lack of it

And in my best shoes I started falling forward down the street
I stopped at a church and jostled through the crowd
And love followed just behind me, panting at my feet
As the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud

Inside I sat, seeking the presence of a God
I searched through the pictures in a leather-bound book
I found a woolly lamb dozing in an issue of blood
And a gilled Jesus shivering on a fisherman's hook

I'm not on top

"Then said Ganglere: What tidings are to be told of Ragnarok? Of this I have never heard before. Har answered: Great things are to be said thereof. First, there is a winter called the Fimbul-winter, when snow drives from all quarters, the frosts are so severe, the winds so keen and piercing, that there is no joy in the sun. There are three such winters in succession, without any intervening summer. But before these there are three other winters, during which great wars rage over all the world. Brothers slay each other for the sake of gain, and no one spares his father or mother in that manslaughter and adultery. Thus says the Vala's Prophecy:

Brothers will fight together

And become each other's bane;

Sisters' children

Their sib shall spoil.

Hard is the world,

Sensual sins grow huge.

There are ax-ages, sword-ages---

Shields are cleft in twain,---

There are wind-ages, wolf-ages,

Ere the world falls dead.

Then happens what will seem a great miracle, that the wolf devours the sun, and this will seem a great loss. The other wolf will devour the moon, and this too will cause great mischief. The stars shall be hurled from heaven. Then it shall come to pass that the earth and the mountains will shake so violently that trees will be torn up by the roots, the mountains will topple down, and all bonds and fetters will be broken and snapped. The Fenris-wolf gets loose. The sea rushes over the earth, for the Midgard-serpent writhes in giant rage and seeks to gain the land. The ship that is called Naglfar also becomes loose. It is made of the nails of dead men; wherefore it is worth warning that, when a man dies with unpared nails, he supplies a large amount of materials for the building of this ship, which both gods and men wish may be finished as late as possible. But in this flood Naglfar gets afloat. The Fenris-wolf advances with wide open mouth; the upper jaw reaches to heaven and the lower jaw is on the earth. He would open it still wider had he room. Fire flashes from his eyes and nostrils. The Midgard-serpent vomits forth venom, defiling all the air and the sea; he is very terrible, and places himself by the side of the wolf. In the midst of this clash and din the heavens are rent in twain, and the sons of Muspel come riding through the opening." - Snorri's Edda

via Andrea McLean

the sight of bridges and balloons

I've been thinking about adulthood a lot recently. this may be because of the fact that I'm 23 and its the sort of age which i always felt was when you had to be a fully paid up member of the adult world. possibly it's because I'm kinda settling into my job now and i sometimes get mistaken for someone who has his life sorted out (this unsettles me). maybe it's just this time of year - April is a time of flux and of change and I kinda feel like I need to grow somehow.

it's funny. we age, and as we do we accrue all these shards of experience and knowledge which we sow into a puppet which we call an adult. the only thing is that the one pulling the strings is still the same confused person who is staring at a bewildering world wondering what to do next.

from conversations with older generations we know that they pretty much feel the same way. that all these outward signs of adulthood are a shell and that they feel the same way as when they were younger. the fact that despite tacitly acknowledging this we still manage to go on pretending that it matters is staggering. and possibly amazing. i think that maybe i love the way we constantly strive to deceive those around us and, more importantly, ourselves. i mean that it's such a beautiful thing in a way. very few of us want, or even can i guess, to see the world as it really is. i know that i don't.

meh - thats a bit spraffy i think.

i just wonder whether there are people who really take themselves seriously. i know a few people at work who are very senior and important (at least to the firm) and i sometimes wonder whether within those stern and taciturn men there're some very puzzled kids who're wondering when they're gonna get to go out to play. sometimes i wanna give them a tickle. just to see what would happen.

the illusion of peaches

The Á Bao A Qu lived in the Tower of Victory in Chitor. The Tower of Victory consisted of many spiraling steps, at the top of which is the most beautiful landscape in the world. The Á Bao A Qu waits on the first step for a man brave enough to try to climb up. Until that point, it lies sleeping, a translucent blob, until someone passes. Then, when a man starts climbing, the creature wakes, and follows close behind. As it progresses further and further up, it begins to become clearer and more colorful. It gives off a blue light which increases as it ascends. When the climber ascends halfway up the Tower, the Á Bao A Qu's tentacles become visible. But it only reaches perfection when the climber reaches the top, and achieves Nirvana, so his acts don't cast any shadows. But almost all the time, the climber cannot reach the top, for they are not perfect. When the Á Bao A Qu realizes this, it hangs back, losing color and visibility, and tumbles back down the staircase until it reaches the bottom, once more a colorless, dormant blob. In doing so, it gives a small cry, so soft that it sounds similar to the rustling of silk. The creature has no eyes, but can see with its entire body. When touched, it feels like the fuzz on the skin of a peach. Only once in its everlasting life has the Á Bao A Qu reached its destination at the top of the tower.

and we don't care about the young folks

seems happiness is discovering that your brother has joanna newsom's first album. yipee.

also being home at easter has been dead nice. chance to catch my breath after being in london for such a long time. unfortunately looks like i'm not gonna get another chance to come up for air till september time

although glastonbury should be fun... wooo.

cannot wait till then - is gonna pretty much be an awesome weekend.

We sailed away on a winter's day
with fate as malleable as clay;
but ships are fallible, I say,
and the nautical, like all things, fades

the absense of a piano

"...the piano has been drinking, not me."
- Tom Waits

The story about the girl and the letters from God, reading psalms in the feathers of a peacock, each falling parable accompanied by the fluttering of earthly wings. But we make our own happiness.


'We make our own happiness' a missread post on someone's journal but still

True. And this is where we find ourselves. "We are No-One's parents with no simple answers", the call of every generation with aching questions, we wonder why our father's don't care about us while watching their lives spiral out of control.

It was a perfect crime, infiltrating the ticker-tape parade, now at the core and causing havok. Silent goodbyes quelling panic and stopping the bastards from calling us in and giving us the answers we haven't been looking for.


If this is what we want then why haven't we stopped looking?

If all we are is a fragment of a second of a point-of-view of a consciousness then why do these images persist?
A flotsum built craft of nostalgia and childhood dreams drifting on the seas of reality. All we have is this frail vehicle to navigate the portals of adulthood and responsibilty. Why are we gifted with such a poor choice to guide us through life? At every turn and at every different bluster we turn, and in turning contradict, weak vassel that we are, to expose ourselves as inept.

The truth is that from moment to moment we don't know ourselves any better than we know the always shifting waves. Pretence is the only aide to knowledge as we predict the changes after the strike and grow the wisdom after the assult. Participating in our delusions we fool one another. Never admitting the growing chasm in our lives as we seek to be as we wish ourselves to be seen.

Why does no-one admit that as we grow towards, so called, adulthood, these anxieties only grow deeper and more profound? As trite as it may be admit these worries it is worrisome itself that we will not open ourselves to scrutiny regarding this. If we were to admit that all our adult rules and rituals were merely subjective and oft the result of dimly remembered childhoods would be the better for it? Confessing that, like those younger, we were no more in control of our lives that those in thrall to the first passions of youth, and often the deeper, for one finds themselves the more ardent a lover for the repetition of the motions.

With the summer so long we watch our idols crashing down.

"good readers are even blacker and rarer swans than good writers... Reading, obviously, is an activity which comes after that of writing; it is more modest, more unobtrusive, more intellectual."
- Borges

this is the story of the girl who could drink only tears

Where's the percentage in wishful thinking?
Rain in the doorway and a night
of drinking

with the falling patter on a dirty cup left
outside, nothing astonishing blazed across its side,
just an old advert
for an old chocolate bar
in faded type.

Dinner etiquette,
a two headed boy with a flittering fastening shyness
flowing round him, slicing through the
silence in the room, with no shadow anymore - just a bear
and his loss.

Devestating derivative ditties which the big bad beautiful you
have created in a room just for two.
Cold eyes baby, and there's
a saxophone solo playing just for you,
with a cup full of dregs and a bed full of
thoughts of

transistions
of us from our past to our memories.
How strange it is to be a stranger to you,
no longer sounding the only alarm that you sleep for.
The midnight sun hides all your hopes.

our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea

"my conclusion this summer
was there was much too much rain
so i ran off on thursday
with a dance troupe from spain
where wine, dance and music
is the name of the game
from bilbao to madrid
my mind ain't been the same"

heh - was listening to radio 6 and they were playing a studio session of 'Freckles' by Gorky's Zygotic Mynchi. I love it when you're reminded of songs you were one mad about. Is fun to get reacquainted with old things like that.

oh - i'm really not up to scratch on poetry at all but i've been making a bit of an effort lately and i'm kinda getting into some of it. picked up a compedium of Larkin's books and been reading 'The North Ship' on the tube and it's really awesome stuff - i mean i'd obviously heard of 'they fuck you up...' (just looked up the proper title which is apparently 'This Be The Verse') but i don't think i'd read much else. Heh - apparently he's influenced by Thomas Hardy - I've still not forgiven him the ending of Tess or Mayor of Casterbridge. May see if his poetry is any less suicide inspiring.

anyway is cool innit? discovering stuff you really like that you'd previously not been a fan of - kinda like chutney, red wine and whisky (not all at the same time...) - used to hate them but now love 'em

oh and the perfect nightcap - a glass of whisky and a granny smiths - i dunno why but it works superbly together - something to do with the peatiness of the whisky and the acidity of the apple maybe???

and no i'm not currently enjoying either of the above. alas and alack etc.

"The northern sky rose high and black
Over the proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back
Happily or unhappily:

But the third went wide and far
Into an unforgiving sea
Under a fire-spilling star,
And it was rigged for a long journey."

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

hmm - may be too drunk to sleep at the moment.

another good song guys - please just listen to this song

"We've laid the cables and the wires
We've split the wood and stoked
the fires
We've lit our town so there is no
Place for crime to hide
Our little church is painted white
And in the safety of the night
We all go quiet as a mouse
For the word is out
God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
No cause for worry now
God is in the house

Moral sneaks in the White House
Computer geeks in the school house
Drug freaks in the crack house
We don't have that stuff here
We have a tiny little Force
But we need them of course
For the kittens in the trees
And at night we are on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
For God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
And no one's left in doubt
God is in the house

Homos roaming the streets in packs
Queer bashers with tyre-jacks
Lesbian counter-attacks
That stuff is for the big cities
Our town is very pretty
We have a pretty little square
We have a woman for a mayor
Our policy is firm but fair
Now that God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
Any day now He'll come out
God is in the house

Well-meaning little therapists
Goose-stepping twelve-stepping Tetotalitarianists
The tipsy, the reeling and the drop down pissed
We got no time for that stuff here
Zero crime and no fear
We've bred all our kittens white
So you can see them in the night
And at night we're on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
Since the word got out
From the North down to the South
For no-one's left in doubt
There's no fear about
If we all hold hands and very quietly shout
Hallelujah
God is in the house
God is in the house
Oh I wish He would come out
God is in the house"

And it was hanged with gold so red

ok, now there is nothing definitive about this collection at all. it is simply what come's to mind. on the other hand most of these songs are the ones i have the greatest difficulty in trying to forget when i have been playing them all day.

so here you are, my non-essential, roughly, songs i am kinda obsessed by.

in no particular order


Jeff Buckley - Corpus Christi Carol
it's a bit of a cleche to call these ethereal but dang nabbit it's true. i know a lot of people like 'hallejuliah' but this just pips it to the post as my favourite.

The Kings of Leon - Joe's Head
'They're making silly faces and it's tasting bitter sweet'. Exactly. 'People can be so cold when they're dead'. This is seriously a good good song folks. I defy you not to like this song

Famous Blue Raincoat - Leonard Cohen
'Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth. One more thin gypsy thief.' Anyone who doesn't feel moved by this song is seriously messed up. Even though you may have little idea about what LC is singing about you really feel it dammit. 'And what can I tell you my brother, my killer. What can I possibly say?'

Darker by the Day - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Is a bit personal but this song is fairly important.

Emily - Joanna Newsom
Although a bit mad, this lady is all kinds of awesome. Ignore her at your peril Mr World.

Bat For Lashes - Sad Eyes
Bit of a newer song for me to like but, Best Beloved, I really love this song. Is all kinds of pretty. If i was the ruler of a totalitatian dictatorship I would make these people my magical minstels in waiting or something

The Mama's and the Papa's - California Dreaming
Because it's important.



Anyway there you have it. A few of the songs i've been kinda obsessed over in the last few years. I'm not sure if it's particually telling but regardless they are all good music. I would recommend you listen to some of them.



"As so with that, I thought I'd take a final walk
The tide of public opinion had started to abate
The neighbours, bless them, had turned out to be all talk
I could see their frightened faces
peering at me through the gate

I was looking for an end to this, for some kind of closure
Time moved so rapidly, I had no hope of keeping track of it
I thought of my friends who had died of exposure
And I remembered other ones who had died from the lack of it

And in my best shoes I started falling forward down the street
I stopped at a church and jostled through the crowd
And love followed just behind me, panting at my feet
As the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud

Inside I sat, seeking the presence of a God
I searched through the pictures in a leather-bound book
I found a woolly lamb dozing in an issue of blood
And a gilled Jesus shivering on a fisherman's hook

Babe
It seems so long
Since you've been gone away
And I
Just got to say
That it grows darker with the day

Back on the street I saw a great big smiling sun
It was a Good day and an Evil day and all was bright and new
And it seemed to me that most destruction was being done
By those who could not choose between the two

Amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones
The streets groan with little Caesars, Napoleons and cunts
With their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones
Counting on their fingers, with crumbs down their fronts

I passed by your garden, saw you with your flowers
The Magnolias, Camellias and Azaleas so sweet
And I stood there invisible in the panicking crowds
You looked so beautiful in the rising heat
I smell smoke, see little fires bursting on the lawns
People carry on regardless, listening to their hands
Great cracks appear in the pavement, the earth yawns
Bored and disgusted, to do us down

Babe
It seems so long
Since you've been gone
And I
Just got to say
That it grows darker with the day

These streets are frozen now. I come and go
Full of a longing for something I do not know
My father sits slumped in the deepening snow
As I search, in and out, above, about, below

Babe
It seems so long
Since you went away
And I
Just got to say
That it grows darker with the day"

The Gash (Battle Hymn For The Wounded Mathematician)

'I accidentally touched my head... And noticed that I had been bleeding... For how long I didn't know'

hehe - discovered you can put pictures up on this bad boy.

this is one of my few blogs where i'm not out of my mind on something and the rather splendid ability to hit the keyboard with most of my fingers really is lovely

currently listening to a song from Thunderbox - Steaven Seagal's blues band - this is just odd, not necessarily awful, just wierd

a bit obsessed with Novalis at the moment - dunno why - i came across a quote of his (it's on my facebook profile) in a book by Roberto Callaso (incredible author - anyone who read the greek myths as a kid should read 'The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony') and really liked it but then started to read a bit about him and i just really like the stuff i've read of his although most of it isn't translated into english. sad face.


'BEFORE all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light, with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its azure flood; the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it; but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.'

As the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

Words are for those with promises to keep

'Step out the front door like a ghost
into the fog where no one notices
the contrast of white on white.

And in between the moon and you
the angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.'

is a while since i listened to the counting crows - used to be a band i liked a lot when i was a kid - however, damn it, their first album is still frickin' amazing. just heard 'round here' by chance after having media player on random and just remembered how good this song is. ooh regina spektor...

'She will kiss you til your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana
Tropicana
All the sailor boys have demons
They sing "Oh Kentucky why did you forsake me
If I was meant to sail the sea why did you make me?"
It should have been another state
Oh stay... '

is looking like a stream of consciousness here - still this is what i get for going out on a tuesday - plan is to sit here writing nonsense until i sober up enough to get a decent nights sleep and not wake up with my teeth aching

had a bit of a recent zoom around the country in the last week on my week off and as well as managing to catch up with a bunch of people i also got to catch up on my reading somewhat which was nice - reread a bunch of jasper fforde's 'Thursday Next' books which are just incredibly fun and also managed to make serious inroads into 'Mill on the Floss' (i *heart* George Elliot)

also managed to read a book of Auden's which is pretty good seeing as i always find it difficult to actually sit down and seriously read poetry for any length of time (nonwithstanding drunken poetical navel-gazing whilst all buzzy and melancholy) and i really found it full of some amazing stuff

'This lunar beauty
Has no history
Is complete and early:
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It has a lover
And is another.'

i think he's the sort of poet who i like 'cos he imbues a lot of his poems with an easily recognisible rhythm and timing (i think everyone read the Night Mail at school right?) which draws you into it - plus he seems to be quite taken (at least in the early part of his life) with sorta country ballads and songs and stuff and seems to have written some poems around styles such as that - although i also love Nick Cave for his 'Murder Ballads' which did something similar

'O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their feet are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.'

so yeah, Auden rocks, plus he just has some damn nice love poetry which is good if you're feeling sorta soppy

'Carry her over the water,
And set her down under the tree,
Where the culvers white all days and all night,
And the winds from every quarter,
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

Put a gold ring on her finger,
And press her close to your heart,
While the fish in the lake snapshots take,
And the frog, that sanguine singer,
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

The streets shall flock to your marriage,
The houses turn round to look,
The tables and chairs say suitable prayers,
And the horses drawing your carriage
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.'

ain't that nice? plus i just love the way the poem sounds - sometimes wish i'd taken english past sixth form just so i'd have had more exposure to the english language in all it's forms

'And what could be greater fun,
Once one has chosen and paid,
Than the inexpensive delight
Of a choice one might have made?'

heh - will try not to be such a geek i guess

'The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach:
The Ogre cannot master speech.

About a subjugated plain,
Among it's desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.'

right - think i've sobered up sufficiently so i reckon i oughta kick it - goodnight internet

We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands

'Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.'


just finished Madame Bovary - really damn depressing book, is not up there with good old Hardy (anyone else wanna top themselves at the end of Tess?), but still one of those books that can be quite hard to read 'cos you just know it's gonna turn out horribly

regardless tho, as much as the story is kinda unpalatable (woman's life is destroyed via her adulteries) and the protagonist generally unsympathetic (although how much is it her fault? tough call) the language is just flaming wonderful. some passages just kinda sneak up on you and stop you in your tracks by their sheer elegance


'She would come directly, charming, agitated, looking back at the glances that followed her, and with her flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her thin shoes, with all sorts of elegant trifles that he never enjoyed, and with the ineffable seduction of yielding virtue.'


plus he's one of those great writers who totally get the way it works inside a persons head, the way we justify our actions to ourselves and act out scenes from an idealised life we've created for ourselves. for all that Madame B is capricious and spoilt she merely represents the way we act when we're at our weakest and most self centered.


'"What's improper about it?" retorted the clerk. "Everybody does it in Paris!"
It was an irresistible and conclusive argument.'


hehe - love it

diary of a second rate mathematician

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
- Bertrand Russel


see here's the thing - is anyone else really missing their degree?

i know i was, at best, a mediocre mathematician - managed to scrape good results but this was more a case of cannily going with my strengths (quantum mech - did a module in advanced QM as well as my dissertation) as well as ridiculously easy subjects (mathematical finance - essentially recap of numerical algebra with some stocks and shares thrown in) and stuff i'd done before (partial differential equations - did a module on differential equations/numerical algebra for 2nd, 3rd and 4th year).

so yeah, i'm not a bonafide mathematical whizz, just a dumb kid who's sorta good with numbers, lacking that special connection in the head which enables you to just... see it y'know? and to do more than just see it - to go beyond that to the underlying intent - to the soul of the matter

if i may be so bold i'd like to compare the mathematical genius to an artist or poet - you get the feeling with these people that it doesn't matter what the circumstances of their life may be - they are compelled to act as they do - for them it's merely an expression of self to paint a masterpiece, compose a sonnet or deduce an insanely glorious proof.
i am not the best person to speak upon this subject, i know my weaknesses in this area, but, god dammit, sometimes you have a proof, constructed upon a line of reasoning so icy in it's clarity, so elegant in it's undertaking, so gobsmackingly audacious in it's ambitions that you can do no more than smile in awe

seriously kids, maths is cool, stay off the smack




God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world
- Paul Dirac

If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet
- Wolfgang Pauli


hehe, btw i *heart* Dirac

I wish I was a Yuri G

alright then... only just discovered my previous blog entry

i must say that, for someone who had had great difficulty negotiating his way through an unneccesarily complicated door, my spelling was suprisingly decent

so yeah, apparently i bought some chips on the way home. watched an episode of black books, read some poetry online and posted a blog last night all without any recollection of it in the morning save for a bleak feeling that everything in life is innately wrong (allow me, if i may, to digress right here onto a subject dear to my heart; beer. last night i was drinking stella cos i wasn't buying the drinks and we were in one of those bars that simply sells a lot of alcopops and imported lagers; easy choices for those people drawn towards bright primary colours in simple geometric shapes and soft fabrics. i know i'm a beer facist but most lager is pretty poor - i'll drink it but it always makes me feel fucking awful in the morning - no fault but my own)

this illustrates perfectly the problems with heading for drinks straight after work without eating anything - fun? hell yes - make you feel like you've taken half of saturday out to the back yard and shot it? unfortunately so. the problem is compounded when the drinks are free (last two fridays in a row) and leads to waking up with the hollow sensation that important pieces of you has been lost forever.

heh - you can tell i've been having some killer hangovers recently

oh and we were absolutely fucking mauled in the rugby today - a good thing that i didn't take one of my irish workmates up on his £50 bet

In his blue velour and silk you liberated a boy I never rated and now he's throwing discus for Liverpool and Widnes

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

oh me oh my

another Friday night - the rain not only beating upon my window in a poetic way but has just been beating against my head in a slightly more prosaic albeit just as sexual manner.

ho hum was gonna write something pertinent here regarding the poor attitude towards longentivity in todays society and the lack of consideration of recycling sorta thing - however beer, and the tolerance of the aforementioned leiasure drink have got the better of me, for today at least

however as most of this diatribe stems from my dislike of upgrading my phone (samsung - very old, about 4 and a half years if you care that much) to a newer, stronger, fitter, happier, more productive version.

i mean i get that you gotta move with the times but my phone can make calls and text adequately - i mean where's tehe premium in upgrading nowadays - especially where, for those of an artistic bent, it'll be massive congestion costs and what nto

completely forgotton my original point in my making this post - just tired and drunk

live like a fox in the snow - on a dirigible above Lapland

al - hand over the window, not gonna get in a muddle

the older that we get we know that nothing else for us is possible

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening Church appals,
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.


i kinda know how he feels - but still, you gotta look on the sunny side, we've got the olympics here in 5 years, woo!

heh but am feeling suprisingly chipper and upbeat this valentines, despite being the first one spent single for years (6, maybe 7...?). possibly it's the cash that i haven't spent or maybe it's the dissociation i've felt with the whole relationship thing recently but it's kinda ok - i really expected to feel sorta wrecked at this point. Instead i feel alright i think. Which is really kinda nice.

Aargh - just remembered that i don't get a summer holiday this year - shit

and there was a booming above you

London suits the rain. Hunkered down on it's haunches - resting quietly in the muck. No longer having to dress up for the good weather. The shirts and flip flops were shelved long ago, even the cashmere scarves and herringbone tweed jackets are back in the cupboard, now it just wears a comfortable old anorak and squats massively under the downfall.

Don't get me wrong, the city is a beautiful place and I don't particularly glory in the gloom, it's just that there's a certain woeful mystery that settles down when the air is misty and the streetlights gleam between the droplets.

A face half reflected on the streaming window, schismed consciousness as you stare at, and through, yourself. This is not the time to search for meaning in the gaze of strangers. The weather brings on a dreary introspection. Better to just let the flicker of reflections wash over you and feel the brooding rock and tar that is London, dolefully tasting it's own memories, as you pass through it in the rain.

breathing new life into the sad witch

i now have a computer - woo and woo again

secondly - i had the piss taken this weekend because i keep my bread in the freezer. is that really all too wierd to handle?

it's hard to tell sometimes if what you're doing is out of the norm - i mean it makes sense right - there's only ole' me eating the bread and it always goes moldy otherwise. plus, and this is the kicker, you can make your sandwiches in the morning with frozen bread and the temperature keeps it nice and fresh until it's defrosted, right around lunchtime. Devestating.

anyway this stuff is important and the internet is exactly the right place to keep it

lucid - i wanna speak louder than ritalin

hmm... was having a conversation with someone slightly earlier this evening (ie. late enough to be drunk but early enough to still be conversing with real live human people rather than this slightly kinky man/machine type interface we have with this here internet bloggy thing) and i was expressing an opinion about a certain matter in a lucid and coherent way which i thought would perhaps fit splendidly into this whole 'posting random crap on your blog' sorta thing

however it is only now i come to express it in written form that i realise it may not be as insightful and generally all round splendid as i previously thought

to give you some sort of idea about what i was talking about it involved girls being in the buff...

now before anyone starts burning straw effigies of me for being a male misogynistic pig dog i would like to elucidate (is that a real word??? it's too late to be at all sure about this) your good selves upon this point. i was basically saying that i kinda admire girls who are comfortable in their nakedness - ie. that when their with their fellas (or girls - not wanting to cramp any one's style) they are uninhibited enough to be happy in their own skin and nowt else.

i think this may apply to lots of people, of all genders and sexual persuasions, as in i mean if you yourself are actually comfortable being naked in front of another person then you are a) in a great relationship with another groovy person which involves lots of mutual caring of one another and heaps of fun rude stuff or b) a pretty relaxed person who has managed to at least avoid one of the many hang-ups that our folk nowadays seem to have or finally c) a great big freaking pervert who enjoys flashing their dangly bits at members of the public from carefully selected portions of shrubbery

so yeah there you go - my deep thoughts upon this thing we call life for tonight - sure it may be the slight buzzy thing going on with my vision right now or indeed the numbness spreading up the clumsy portions of meat i used to call my limbs but i feel that i may indeed be on to something which, whilst it may not be profound, will cause pretty girls to form erroneous opinions upon the depths of my personality and who will then subsequently fall in love with me and pleasure me with their mouths

(... you've all gone wrong - really you have - i meant that they would kiss me chastely upon the cheek - that would be pleasure indeed)

anyway let's close our eyes and start again anew

blogging...

hmmm.... in a bout of insomnia inspired recklessness i've signed up for one of these fancy watchamacalit blog things.

not entirely sure i have anything worthwhile posting but in the event that i do rest assured that i will faithfully inscribe it here in full gory detail

unless that is, of course, something personal to either myself or someone i know - or indeed anything that i don't want the entire tupping internet to be able to see - what am i stupid?

see that's the problem with these things - i daren't put up anything that will cause my mates to fall off their chairs laughing at me or which causes too much grief to people i care for. i have also been comprehensively assured that i compartmentalise my life too much (i thought that was everyone - surely everyone else has a different accent and indeed facial hair topography for different groups of friends?) and this presents a problem as the internet, that great old fluffy equalizer, allows all those nicely packed away compartments to be viewed at once. oh the horror.

so anyway, to move to a conclusion, i can't really see a point to this. maybe i'll come around to it and start getting a good vibe from the blogging thing. y'know, really get involved with this blog. equally however it could just be yet another record of the inanities of the life of a lost confused person in this big old lonely internet of ours.

well hopefully i should be able to get to sleep now, good night to you too