Alice's Live Journal

Now Playing: Hornrimjobs' version of alice's Live Journal

Topic: Vic Jameson

Very into the audio of a bank holiday.

Listen here

Today was really awful.
I got out of bed really late because my alarm clock has broken and I cannot afford a new one at the moment.
I feel good because today I getting my lip pierced! Finally! Mom said I could and she's signed the forms and EVERYTHING!
I'm so sad. My kitten got run over this afternoon. I found him when I was coming home from school. His head was all squished. I took some photos. I'll miss him. Poor kitty.
Last night I had to shave my entire body.
Apparently, the lice that I caught from Amanda's friend are really hard to get rid of. I look quite strange with no hair and eyebrows. I'd post pictures, but my webcam is broken.
I want to tell the world that my girlfriend Amy is the bomb! She made pizza last night, and even though I burnt my lips on the cheese, it was awesome!!!
I am really annoyed with those assholes at _are_you_hotter_than_us_?, because I am so much cuter than them, and those photos don't do me justice. They can't reject me, so I'm starting my own rating community. Click here to join (the first five applicants are automatically accepted).
Today, I got a digital camera! Yes! Here's ten thousand photographs of my cat.
I want to say thanks to the world for absolutely fucking nothing! You all suck. I feel so alone, no one ever reads this journal, or even comments to let me know that I'm not suffering alone. It's cold here, and I want to die, but I cannot figure out how many of you to take with me when I go.
I went to the doctor yesterday, and he said I have bipolar disorder, which makes me different enough to be interesting, but the same as all the other cool people with bipolar disorder.
You should all do this quiz! It's amazingly accurate. You just put in your name and birthday, and it will tell you who you're sexually compatible with.
That's enough for now. But I'll leave you with my favourite Buffy fan-fiction piece I wrote last year when I was in hospital.

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The Art of Lesbian Online Dating, Vol #1

Topic: Belle de Jour

Courtesy of Merc.

Volume 1 - the art of online woo (trans: pulling that burd you fancy)

First of all young grasshoppers.. ask yourself this..

• q. - is she a social worker?
  
  a. - no.. she isnt..
  (excellent.. then we shall begin)
  
  b. - yes.. she is..
  (do not pass go.. do not collect #200.. run like the wind.. she is clearly insane.. save your efforts)



• q. - when asked what you are watching..
  
  a. - you are watching something along the lines of red/white/blue.. amelie.. or anything by jean luc besson..
  
  why? ..because you are sensitive.. and subconsciously women will assimilate watching foreign films with you being intelligent enough to read subtitles at speed..
  
  what you are really watching -
  die hard.. yippie kai yay motherfucker..



• q. - when asked what you are listening to..
  
  a. - some amazingl new band from finland/ greenland/ iceland/ the far reaches of lithuania.. (insert band name of choice - google if you have to).. a band so nouveau that the majority of music listeners havent even heard of them.. (actually.. just make up a random bizarre word if you cant be bothered googling)
  
  why? .. this demonstrates that you are "up" on new trends.. deeply fashionable.. and you score 10 cool points on the ability alone to translate the bands name into something relatively pronouncable..
  
  what you are really listening to - NWA.. findum fuckum and flee..



• q. when asked what website you are reading..
  
  a. - www.lonelyplanet.com
  
  why?.. websites like this show that you are interested in other cultures.. like travel.. like to expand your knowledge base.. and generally are a tad on the adventurous side.. plus.. subconsciously.. object of desire is probably planning the fantastic filthy holiday abroad that you might take her on if she gives it up..
  
  what you are really reading.. multi optional -
  porn.
  online mini golf.
  surfing ebay and amusing yourself by putting in random keywords like "enema" and seeing what you come up with.. then checking out the feedback profiles on people bidding on enema equipment and laying bets with your friends that you will eventially find feedback for a leather underwear purchase among the high payers..
  gossip columns.



• q. when asked what you are doing after a moment of online silence..
  
  a. making coffee.. (preferably utilising a PROPER coffee machine..)
  
  why? .. because you are cultured.. and coffee as a beverage is indicative of enjoying cafe society.. plus.. if you can make real coffee.. then you can get your arse out of bed in the morning and make her one while she lies about thinking how marvellous you are..
  nb - instant doesnt count, you cheapo scumbag.
  
  what you are actually doing -
  sitting on the toilet reading a copy of "heat" magazine.



• q. - when asked what book are you reading..
  
  a. - "bitch" or "prozac nation" by elizabeth wurtzel..
  
  why? - intelligent books for bad girls.. instant kudos.. how to misbehave in the sleekest manner possible.. this gives you the edge of having associated brains and a bit of a dangerous side..
  
  what you are really reading -
  heat,
  on the toilet.



• q. - when asked what you are wearing..
  
  a. - high quality denim (pick a brand, not bon marche).. something black up top.. decent footwear (pick a brand, not clarks)..
  an easy combo.. not one youre likely to forget.. and please.. no designer names that youre likely to give yourself away over when you spell them atrociously.. eg - john paul gootiyay.. NO!
  
  why? - because women dont date those with no idea of couture.. (at least not the ones worth pulling)
  
  what youre really wearing - pyjamas and fluffy bunny slippers.. its 2am for fucks sake..



• q. when asked about your previous relationship..
  
  a. she just wasnt right for you (you know?).. it ended badly.. but you arent bitter.. some things just arent meant to be.. sure you got burnt.. but who doesnt get hurt at times?.. you hope things turn out ok for her.. no hard feelings..
  
  why? .. this kind of phrasiology gives the impression that you only have minor baggage.. and women just love a fixer-upper.. shes thinking that with a few well placed "holding patterns" she can put your world to rights.. and have sex.
  
  what you really think -
  you hope that the cheating lying whore of an ex gets thrush.. if you never see her again then itll be too damned soon.. you would like to open the newspaper tomorrow and read all about how shes just been imprisoned for life and is going to spend the rest of her days in a cramped cell with a 300lb bulldyke called "sandra the slasher" being a prison bitch..



• on reciept of a semi provocative picture of the object of desire..
  
  appropriate response -
  shes very attractive.. but personality counts too.. youd like to get to know her better..
  
  the response that you arent supposed to verbalise -
  you want to fk her until she howls.. youd like to see her in nothing more than agent provocateur lingere.. a provoctive smile.. and wrist cuffs.. you would quite like her to walk up your back wearing heels and brandishing a whip..
  you want to kiss her belly button..
  ..from the inside.



• the discussion about butt-love.. (it always comes up, somehow)
  
  q. what are your thoughts..
  
  a. - for the moment, NOTHING.. be vague.. be noncommital.. do not shriek "eeeeeewww" like a big girls blouse.. do not laugh in a filthy manner and mutter "hubba hubba"
  
  this is a tricky subject.. it requires treading softly.. it requires being brushed over if at all possible..
  
  reason -
  of course you love it.. youre an asshound and proud.. any woman that shrieks eew and runs is clearly vanilla with no imagination and no idea about eroticism..
  BUT..
  if object of desire has not experimented with this.. she will not know the joys.. so the initial reaction will be "eeewww" .. we do not want this discussion right now.. particularly when we havent even reached "bedding" stage..
  
  *its a discussion best left to when shes writhing about telling you how youre most certainly the shag of the century*
  
  (*nb, some of you will not reach this stage to begin discourse, fret not, there are handbooks available from various online stores should the neccessity arise)



• sending a photograph..
  ahh another tricky tricky game..
  
  a - if you are attractive and you know it (clap your hands).. send.. subtle.. show no "pink".. possibly a little cleavage.. check FHM for pose ideas..
  
  b - if you are not so attractive: adobe photoshop.



• the discussion about -
  
  thai beads..
  fisting..
  swings n slings..
  dildo's, harnesses, vibrators..
  leather..
  control..
  restraint..
  b..
  d..
  s..
  m..
  sex in public..
  fetishism..
  kinks..
  
  .. see above buttlove posting and take similar noncommital 5th ammendment style action..



• now that the sex has been sorted..
  
  q. - ideally where would you take object of desire on a first date.. (object of desire will add - "anywhere in the world" - beware.. this is a culture test)
  
  a. - prague.. rome.. florence.. anywhere european thats known for class and culture..
  you will - go for a coffee in a chic bar with sidewalk seating (daytime).. go take in some sights.. buildings.. vibe.. art.. blah blah.. have a meal in a softly lit (pref candlelight - but dont push it, you soft shite) restaurant in the balmy evening open air.. have a few drinks.. go for a walk on cobbled streets.. go find a secluded view somewhere and grope alot..
  
  why? .. you are romantic.. cultured.. you dont want to go "clubbing" where the emphasis would no longer be 100% on object of desire.. you give the impression of being at ease with her company alone.. you sound like you may have a vague knowledge of what youre talking about.. women assiociate european influences with good bedroom skills.. women have a thing about plein air gropage.. i think it makes them feel "naughty"..
  
  where you would really like to go -
  vegas baby!.. neon.. strippers.. casinos.. clubs..
  
  or blackpool.. neon.. strippers.. casinos.. clubs.. chips.. beer.. and the pepsi max ride - woot!



• and when it comes to meeting up...
  of course
  you can't make it/keep putting it off/avoiding it because
  
  you are - dying of a disease/nursing a sick parent/child/busy doing an important job/hurt your back/penniless/computer keeps crashing/
  
  but actually
  
  you are - seriously socially inept with severe OCD, agaraphobia and an 80's perm plus several other disorders listed under the letter P in the DSM IV, a husband and 3 kids and the computer crashes because your # ran out in the local internet cafe..



• and finally..
  
  q. - its not just sex is it..?
  
  a. - of course not..
  
  why? .. you are deeper than a puddle.
  
  (this rule is subject to change at any time)

Source

The semantics of torture?

Now Playing: Democracy Song, Leonard Cohen

Topic: Hurtling to Obscurity

Things that spring to mind when I look at the images of our boys torturing their boys as casually as we rail against 'terrorists' and ask the kindly government to please to bring in ever more repressive devices of social control to protect us...

The War of the Words

One of the chief problems with the current exciting adventure in Iraq is that no one can agree on what to call anyone else.
In the second world war we were fighting the Germans, and the Germans were fighting us. Everyone agreed who was fighting who. That's what a proper war is like.
However, in Iraq, there isn't even any agreement on what to call the Americans. The Iraqis insist on calling them "Americans", which seems, on the face of it, reasonable. The Americans, however, insist on referring to themselves as "coalition forces". This is probably the first time in history that the United States has tried to share its military glory with someone else.
Hollywood, for example, is forever telling us it was the Americans who won the second world war. It was an American who led the break-out from the prison camp Stalag Luft III in The Great Escape; the Americans who captured the Enigma machine in the film U571; and Tom Cruise who single-handedly won the Battle of Britain (in his latest project, The Few).
So I suppose it's reassuring to find the US generals in Iraq so keen to emphasise the role played by America's partners in bringing a better way of life to Iraq.
Then there's the problem of what the Americans are going to call the Iraqis - especially the ones that they kill. You can call people who are defending their own homes from rockets and missiles launched from helicopters and tanks "fanatics and terrorists" only for so long. Eventually even newspaper readers will smell a rat.
Similarly it's fiendishly difficult to get people to accept the label "rebels" for those Iraqis killed by American snipers when - as in Falluja - they turn out to be pregnant women, 13-year-old boys and old men standing by their front gates.
It also sounds a bit lame to call ambulance drivers "fighters" - when they've been shot through the windscreen in the act of driving the wounded to hospital - and yet what other word can you use without making them sound like illegitimate targets?
I hope you're beginning to see the problem.
The key thing, I suppose, is to try to call US mercenaries "civilians" or "civilian contractors", while calling Iraqi civilians "fighters" or "insurgents".
Describing the recent attack on Najaf, the New York Times happily hit upon the word "militiamen". This has the advantage of being a bit vague (nobody really knows what a "militiaman" looks like or does), while at the same time sounding like the sort of foreigners any responsible government ought to kill on sight.
However, the semantic problems in Iraq run even deeper than that.
For example, there's the "handover of power" that's due to take place on June 30. Since no actual "power" is going to be handed over, the coalition chaps have had to find a less conclusive phrase. They now talk about the handover of "sovereignty", which is a suitably elastic notion. And besides, handing over a "notion" is a damn sight easier than handing over anything concrete.
Then again, the US insists that it has been carrying out "negotiations" with the mojahedin in Falluja. These "negotiations" consist of the US military demanding that the mojahedin hand over all their rocket-propelled grenade launchers, in return for which the US military will not blast the city to kingdom come. Now there's a danger that this all sounds like one side "threatening" the other, rather than "negotiations" - which, after all, usually implies some give and take on both sides.
As for the word "ceasefire", it's difficult to know what this signifies anymore. According to reliable witness reports from Falluja, the new American usage makes generous allowance for dropping cluster bombs and flares, and deploying artillery and snipers.
But perhaps the most exciting linguistic development is to be found away from the areas of conflict - in the calm of the Oval Office, where very few people get killed for looking out of their windows. Here words such as "strategy" and "policy" are daily applied to the kneejerk reactions of politicians and military commanders who think that brute force is the only way to resolve difficult problems in a delicate situation. As Major Kevin Collins, one of the officers in charge of the marines in Falluja, put it: "If you choose to pick a fight, we'll finish it."
In the past, one might have used a phrase such as "numbskull stupidity" rather than "strategy". But then, language has a life of its own ... which is more than one can say for a lot of innocent Iraqis.

? Terry Jones is a writer, film director, actor and Python Source

What's pathetic about the horrific images of what our boys are capable of abroad, is that it surprises none of us. War is all about propaganda, it's all about dehumanising your enemy. It's not as if history hasn't taught us this, over and over again. We send people over there to kill, to maim, to die for our principles no reason, then we act all shocked and surprised when they do as we ask.
Al Jazeera's angle.

Democracy Song

It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on ...

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Thanks to Casino Avenue and Lemonpillows for breaking the UK blog No Politics Round Here Mate Ooh No hegemony.
I'm not reproducing links to the US and UK pictures, because they make me feel sick.

Edit: I was wrong: there are some UK bloggers who live in the same world as the rest of us, and aren't afeared to talk about it. [swiftly glosses over how many of these are expat blogs...]

Conversations

Topic: LondonLifer

With apologies to anyone who's tried to talk sense to me this week.

On how to deliver a Killer Chat Up Line (conversation in a pub):
Martin: I never use chat up lines.
Me: You not only used to use them, you used to email them after to everybody with your success rate noted.
N/C: You have to be charming.
Me: Do you mean oily?
N/C: Amuse people.
Martin: Making someone laugh with a corny chat up line can work.
N/C: Yes, make her laugh, then wow her with your amazing personality.
Me: Wow her. With my ... personality. I was afraid you'd say that.
N/C: The most charming man I ever met didn't use chat up lines. He was friendly, rather like a playful labrador puppy.
Me: So when I meet her I should jump on her chest and lick her face.
N/C: That might not work so well now you mention it.
Martin: It would allow you an appropriate moment to ask about the handcuffs.

On how to Race To Lose Weight (conversation via text):
Yidaho: Did you get hold of any weighing scales yet?
Me: I managed to lose the key to my other flat, so I haven't picked them up. Still, I'm sure I've lost weight - my 'fat' clothes feel loose on me. But the normal sized clothes still provoke unsightly rolls of fat.
Yidaho: Then I've clearly won the competition
Me: No way. You haven't even mentioned that you lost any weight. How do I know you're not fatter?
Yidaho: I feel lighter when I jump.
Me: I bet I can jump higher than you. I win.
Yidaho: I was jumping with lead in my pockets. The beers are on you.
Me: Bollocks. I bet you've ballooned like Hedwig.
Yidaho: Ballooned is half right. Heck, I'm so light I have to be tethered to stay earthbound now.
Me: Beyond the bounds of realism there a tad. I'm going to blog you for this.
Yidaho: Bah... Fell for your evil plan to overcome your obvious blogstipation. *shakes fist* I'll get you back, I swear...
Me: OBVIOUS?!
Yidaho: Mrs J.S. McCorkle?
Me: Bah.
Yidaho: Hah. 1-1.

On how to Prevent a Burglar from Entering the House (conversation via telephone):
Duch: This old drunken irish guy keeps turning up and wanting to do jobs in my garden. He says he's the last remaining emember of the Birmingham Four. I'm quite scared of him - he breaks everything.
Me: He's a convicted terrorist? You could tell him not to fix your garden.
Duch: Well he's terribly charming and articulate. He offered to mow the lawn, but mowed over the cable, then broke the lawnmower into pieces trying to fix it when he was too drunk to stand. Oh shit, that's him at the door now.
Me: What, now? This minute? That's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?
Duch: Oh dear, he's banging on the door. I'm a bit worried he's going to break the door down.
Me: He's someone you barely know, you said. Why would he do that?
Duch: Should I answer?
Me: No, you're talking to me, not entertaining the local drunkery. You're on the phone.
Duch: He'll be awfully upset if he thinks that I'm ignoring him. I shan't answer. I'm in bed with no clothes on, anyway. But what if he can see the light from my bedroom?
Me: What if he can? You're not under an obligation to answer the door.
Duch: I don't want to seem rude. Oh no, he's still banging on the door. It's getting louder. I think he might break it down. I'm actually quite scared.
Me: Hang up and ring the police then, if you're that scared.
Duch: What if he breaks in? I'm too scared to hang up.
Me: You've got two phones - ring on the other one. They'll come over and tell him to stop banging on your door, and he'll get the message that you don't want to answer it right now.
(hammering sound increases)
Duch: Oh my god, he's breaking in! Oh my god!
Me: (silence)
(loud crash as door relents to pressure)
Me: Duch ... ?
Duch: (screams)
Bestmate: Why the *hell* aren't you answering the door?
Duch: BESTMATE! Oh my god! I'm so glad it's you.
Me: Oh for God's sake.
Duch: Ohhh, I thought it was the drunk Irish guy breaking down the door!
Bestmate: Do you think you can come outside and tell all your bloody stupid neighbours who are lined up in the street that me and Flamboyant aren't burglars? They're convinced we're breaking in.
Duch: Don't be silly, sort them out yourself. I'm on the phone to Vanessa.

Overtaxed

Topic: Eurotrash

I can't even begin to explain to you how tired I am, now. I reckon I've worked forty hours of overtime this week.
Despite being so sluggish that I keep catching myself sailing along in charge of a lump of dangerous metal at 60mph while looking somewhere right and thinking about cloud formations, I'm going out to have a blogmeet now (I was toying with the idea that every time I go for a jar with someone I know who happens to have, or have abandoned, or heard of blogging, I have to hop around overexcitedly and call it a blogmeet - could get confusing when I visit my blogfamily), with Martin and Looby, who no doubt will be terribly polite about how I'm too shattered to actually form anything but excruciating run-on sentences - although I do have a plan, see, I haven't drunk whiskey for 16 years, perhaps now would be a painless time to see if it restores sanity; I mean, the odds are doubtful, but it may be enjoyable trying - anyway, I'm late, and although I've lived in Lamb's Conduit street, my overstressed brain won't let me remember where it is, and I'm not going to get very far asking strangers if they know the way to Jo's house, am I (they'd helpfully point out that she moved to China years ago, I'm sure).
Oh fuck, where did that full stop come from?

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Diary of Mrs. J. S. McCorkle (Elizabeth (Lizzie) O. Clements

Topic: Eurotrash


Friday, Mar 4 , 1904

Dr. has a very bad cold from standing on cold ground planting potatoes. I read and worked on drawn work and a bonnet --- I was not well at all. Mrs. Harris went to town trading and bought a nice rocker ? Ludith sick todayd. Bro Rody and Vergin Pace came ? The cemetery association was reorganized today ? Letter from Sallie.

Saturday, Mar 5

Dr. sick on bed part of the time ? I am 61 years old today. Willie and Albert gave me a set of silver spoons. Mary some sugar, Ludith some domestic, Iola a waist. Dr. a silver dollar. Bro Rody took dinner with us. Iola cooked a cake. We paid 75 cts. To have washing done. I am not well. Took medicine. Dr. not able to go to his office. Albert came to see Dr.

Sunday, Mar 6

Dr. too sick to go to S.S. too rainy for me to go. Iola, Scott, Mr. & Mrs. Harris went. I kept Charlie, ------ Dr McConnell came to see Dr. Dr. got up and wrote a letter to Beatrice.

Monday, Mar 7

Dr. still has a bad cold with some fever ? went to his office and made three dollars --- Iola and I ironed --- read and mended --- churned ? sold 3 gallons of milk. We sent a letter to Sallie, Beatrice, Bro Joe and Bro Mc___ for the second Sunday School revival plan. We are giving Dr a course of Calomel.

Tuesday, Mar 8

Dr. in bed all day -- fever and bad cold. Bro Joe came to see Dr. ----- Willies little baby Ruth is sick. Rec?d a letter from Verlmer C-----

Wednesday, Mar 9

Dr. McCorkle grew worse at three o?clock ? Iola was painting at Mrs. Parks. I sent for her and two doctors came at once ? he suffered all night. Mr. Spencer, Iola and I set up to wait on him ? he said to me don?t think I am afraid to die, My way is bright. Mr Spencer read two books while sitting up, yet he helped us when he could. This was a bad night for Dr. was so very sick all night. Cherry and Sherril were both called in to wait on him.

Thursday, Mar 10

Dr. was still sick worse and said telephone for Sallie and Lula, I can?t live. I did and phoned for Bro Joe and sister Sue to come which they did. We did all we could to relieve him, but all in vain ? in the night he suffered very very much with cramp which results in his right side being paralyzed ? At twelve thirty Sallie came ? he knew her, but could not talk. At 4 he breathed his last.

Friday, Mar 11 Dr. died today.

I have things mixed as I am so bothered. This is the day Sallie came and Dr died. This the darkest day of my life when all is gone. Sister Sue was not here when he died but all of the children and grandchildren except Cicero and Iola May. Cicero came by night and my two brothers Henry(?) and Rufus who loved Dr so much, but doctor .......................

Saturday, Mar 12

Sister Sue, Eula, Eudora and many others came to Dr?s funeral. Bro Brown and Cousin Ellie conducted the service. Bro Evans also led in prayer and talked. Mr. Flora Wilson played the funeral march, Asleep in Jesus, and All is Well With My Soul was sung. The house was crowded with people ? crepe was draped beautifully in the church. There were many beautiful flowers brought and place on the grave.

Sunday, Mar 13

All of us staid at home. Bro Henry and Bro Rufus went home at 10:00. George and Little Maurine left on the twelve train. All of Lula?s family spent the day with us. After dinner we all went to see Willie and spent the afternoon. Elie McCorkle & Hiel came to see us. This is the first time we have all missed goint to S.S. in a long time. All of Lula?s folks spent the night and we all studied the will left by Dr. making me the executor of the will.

Monday, Mar 14

Mr. Cockroft and Albert helped me to read Dr.?s will and look over his papers. I am appointed to wind up Dr.?s business ? Mrs Mattie Brown, Dr McConnell ----- etc came to see us. Mrs Cockroft and family went to Memphis, Beatrice staid. Cicero applied for a position in our bank so as to stay with us for company ? Cicero bought some groceries for me, paid some of our debts, was very good indeed to us. Cicero is a fine boy. Beatrice gave me a black calico dress ? all of my children were here ? all are well today.

Tuesday, Mar 15

Rec?d letters of sympathy one from sister Phares, cousin Mamie McCorkle, of Eminence, KY. We rented our three rooms to Mr Harris for $5.50 -------- (visitors named) ... Sallie and Beatrice are with us. Little Gladys is a sweet interesting little girl, just three years and three months old when her grandfather died.

Source

Chill' Sos

Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Hurtling to Obscurity

In other news, I finished work at midnight today, and got a kebab on the way home. Slavering and wolfing, I spilt a drop of chilli sauce on the back of my hand. I was at that messy, wet, meaty tasteamonguous bit where you can't stop to lick up what you drop, you have to keep on shovelling, so I allowed it to sit there.

Four minutes later, the stinging of the raised, purplish weal gets my attention. Did I cut myself? A scratch? Inspection. It's the sauce.
Angry red welt forming on the back of my hand, swollen and painful.

The stuff is smeared all over my mouth, nose and chin, that sauce. Uh-oh.

A Diary of Napoleon's Life in His Own Words

Topic: Eurotrash


1804 March 1st. Pichegru was arrested yesterday. He was not able to use either his pistols or his dagger. He fought with his fists for half an hour against three or four picked policemen.

8th, Malmaison:
We are making arrests every day. I think it is certain that Georges and a few of his men are still in Paris.

9th, Paris:
The case against Moreau and Pichegru is being worked up by the Criminal Tribunal of the Seine.

10th. (To General Berthier.) Please give orders to General Ordener, whom I place at your disposal, to start to-night for Strassburg. He is to proceed to Ettenheim, to surround the city, and to seize the Duke d'Enghien, Dumouriez, an English colonel, and any other persons in the party.

12th, Malmaison:
(To General Soult.) Paris is still held closed by the police, and will be kept so until these ruffians are all under arrest. I may tell you, in the strictest confidence, that I hope to get Dumouriez. The rascal is near our frontiers.

(To General Marmont.) As soon as you reach the camp, form a line of battalions, and spend eight hours in reviewing the men one by one; listen to their complaints, inspect their arms, and see that nothing is missing. These reviews of seven or eight hours are very profitable; they accustom the men to remain under arms, and show them that their officers are not dissipating, but are concerned for their welfare, a thing that inspires the soldier with much confidence.

14th. In the present situation of Europe my policy aims straight at England. I have at Boulogne 1000 gun-boats and flatboats that will carry 100,000 men and 10,000 horses.

19th. Citoyen General Murat: I have received your letter. If the Duke de Berry were in Paris at the house of M. de Cobenzl, and if M. d'Orleans were staying with the Marquis di Gallo, not only would I have them arrested this very night and shot, but I would also have these ambassadors arrested and make them suffer the same fate; the law of nations would not be seriously affected.

There is no other prince in Paris than the Duke d'Enghien, who will arrive at Vincennes to-morrow. Get that well into your head, and don't listen to anything you may hear to the contrary.

20th. The ci-devant Duke d'Enghien, accused of having carried arms against the Republic, of having been and still being in the pay of England, of plotting with that Power against the security, internal and external, of the Republic, shall be tried by a court-martial of seven members appointed by the governor of Paris, assembled at Vincennes.

4 P.M.
(To General Murat.) The Duke d'Enghien is to be taken to the fort of Vincennes, where arrangements have been made to receive him. He is travelling under the name of Plessis.

4.30 P. M.
(To citoyen Harel.) A person whose name is to remain unknown to you is to be sent to the fort which you command; place him in the room that is vacant, taking proper precautions against his escape. The intention of the Government is that everything relating to him should be kept very secret, and that no questions should be addressed to him as to his identity, or the reason for his arrest.

(To citoyen Real.) Apparently the Duke d'Enghien started at midnight on the 17th. He will therefore soon be here. I have just issued the decree of which I enclose you a copy. Proceed to Vincennes at once to examine the prisoner. Here are the questions to put to him:

Have you borne arms against your country?

Have you accepted the pay of England?

What knowledge have you of the plot formed by England for overturning the Government of the Republic? On that plot meeting with success, were you not to enter Alsace, and even march on Paris, in given circumstances?

You must take with you the public prosecutor, who is to be the major of the special gendarmerie, and you must instruct him to put things through quickly.

21st. Execution of the Duke d'Enghien.
I will respect the judgment of public opinion when it is well founded; but when capricious it must be met with contempt. I have behind me the will of the nation and an army of 500,000 men. With that 1 can command respect for the Republic. I could have had the Duke d'Enghien shot publicly; and if I have not done so, I held back not from fear, but to prevent the secret adherents of his House from breaking out and ruining themselves. They have kept quiet; it is all I ask of them.

I will not consent to a peace with England unless she expels the Bourbons, just as Louis XIV expelled the Stuarts, because their presence in England will always be dangerous for France. Russia, Sweden, Prussia have driven them out.

22d. These people wanted an upheaval in France, and by killing me to kill the Revolution; it has been for me to defend and to avenge it. I have shown what it can do. The Duke d'Enghien was a conspirator just like any other, and it was necessary to treat him as any other might be treated. The Bourbons will always look at things through the ?il de B?uf, and are fated to live under an eternal delusion. Ah! it would have been a different matter had they appeared like Henry IV on a battlefield, all covered with dust and with blood. Kingdoms are not won by letters dated "London" and signed "Louis." I have shed blood, I shall perhaps shed more, but never in anger, and merely because bloodletting enters into the practice of political medicine.

1804 April 5th. Mr. Edward Livingston, President of the Academy of Arts of New York: I have learned with interest of the formation of a literary society in New York; and as your Academy has been so kind as to elect me a member, pray inform it that I accept with pleasure, and that I am grateful for its good opinion of me.

6th. (To Pauline Borghese.) Madam and dear sister: I learn with regret that you have not enough good sense to conform with the customs and habits of the city of Rome; that you show contempt for the inhabitants, and that Paris is your constant model. Although busy with matters of grave importance, yet I have thought it best to inform you of my views, hoping that you will conform with them.

Love your husband and your family; be obliging; accustom yourself to the habits of the city of Rome; and be persuaded that if at the age you have now reached you give way to bad advice, you can no longer count on me.

14th. The General Councils of Departments, the Electoral Colleges, and all the great Bodies of the State, demand that an end should be made of the hopes of the Bourbons by securing the Republic from the upheavals of elections and the uncertainty attending the life of an individual.

15th. It is not as a general that I rule, but because the nation believes I have the civilian qualifications for governing. My system is quite simple. It has seemed to me that under the circumstances the thing to do was to centralize power and increase the authority of the Government, so as to constitute the Nation. I am the constituent power.

I can best compare a constitution to a ship; if you allow the wind to fill your sails, you go you know not whither, according to the wind that drives you; but if you make use of the rudder, you can go to Martinique with a wind that is driving you to San Domingo. No constitution has remained fixed. Change is governed by men and by circumstances. If an overstrong government is undesirable, a weak one is much worse.

Source

Whatever you do, DON'T use this chat up technique

Topic: LondonLifer

Gullible Twat: Oh. Um, it's Vanessa.
Innocent Victim: Hi.
GT: Yeah, I met you the other weekend at < mumble mumble > ... and you said to phone you.
IV: So now you're phoning me.
GT: Yeah. So now I'm phoning you.
IV: Hi.
GT: Yeah.
IV: So ... how's your week been?
GT: I'm in a supermarket.
IV: Er ... what?
GT: Oh. Yeah, you know. Okay.
IV: Did you say you're in a supermarket?
GT: Yeah. How was your week?
IV: Fine, great. I've had a good week. You know?
GT: Erm, yeah, I'm in a supermarket. I ... er ... never mind.
IV: Right... So, what -
GT: I wondered if you wanted to go out sometime this weekend?
IV: Oh. Yeah. Erm ... sure. I'm busy. Bank holiday weekend. Looking after my nephew, out of London. What are you up to?
GT: Staying in London, as usual.
IV: As usual?
GT: Er ... yeah. Parks, forests.
IV: Parks are good.
GT: No they're not. Forests.
IV: Right.
GT: What about the weekend after?
IV: Oh. Well ... it's possible. I have more time then.
GT: Okay, so we'll meet. < mumble >day.
IV: Okay, yeah, that should be possible. ring me again next week, and we'll sort out an arrangement.
GT: An arrangement.
IV: Oh dear, I'm useless at making arrangements.
GT: Know what you mean. Yeah. So. < mumble >day, eight o'clock at the < mumble > Bar. We'll decide what to do after.
IV: Oh. Okay. Not this < mumble >day.
GT: No.
IV: Sure. Have you -
GT: Bye!
IV: Oh.

Disclaimer: in the case that anyone real ever finds this post, ever ever ever, I made it all up, alright?

The Corps of Discovery

Topic: Vic Jameson

- journals of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Sergeants Charles Floyd, Patrick Gass, John Ordway, and Private Joseph Whitehouse

March 03, 1804 Meriwether Lewis
The Commanding officer feels himself mortifyed and disappointed at the disorderly conduct of Reubin Fields, in refusing to mount guard when in the due roteen of duty he was regularly warned; nor is he less surprised at the want of discretion in those who urged his oposition to the faithfull discharge of his duty, particularly Shields, whose sense of propryety he had every reason to believe would have induced him reather to have promoted good order, than to have excited disorder and faction among the party...
... The abuse of some of the party with respect [to the] prevelege heretofore granted them of going into the country, is not less displeasing; to such as have made hunting or other business a pretext to cover their design of visiting a neighboring whiskey shop, he cannot for the present extend this previlege.....

March 09, 1804 Meriwether Lewis
(Louisiana was officially transferred from Spain to France at St. Louis, with Lewis as the chief witness)

March 10, 1804 Meriwether Lewis
(Louisiana was officially transferred from France to the United States at St. Louis.)

April 01, 1804 William Clark
(Orderly book lists the permanent detachment "destined for the Expedition through the interior of the Continent of North America")
(Three squads formed, each headed by a sergeant who was elected by the men: Pryor, Floyd, Ordway)

May 04, 1804 William Clark
("Memorandum of Articles in readiness for the Voyage" lists what the food they're taking, how much they weigh, etc.)

May 13, 1804 William Clark
River a Dubois opposet the mouth of the Missouri River

Sunday May the 13th 1804

...all in health and readiness to set out. Boats and everything Complete, with the necessary stores of provisions & such articles of merchandize as we thought ourselves authorised to procure -- tho' not as much as I think nessy. for the multitude of Inds. thro which we must pass on our road across the Continent &c. &c.

April 14, 1804 William Clark
Rained the fore part of the day...
I Set out at 4 oClock P.M, in the presence of many of the neighboring inhabitents, and proceeded on under a jentle brease up the Missourie...a heavy rain this after-noon.

May 14, 1804 Patrick Gass
The corps consisted of forty-three men ... part of the regular troops of the United States, and part engaged for this particular enterprize.
The best authenticated accounts informed us, that we were to pass through a country possessed by numerous, powerful and warlike nations of savages, of gigantic stature, fierce, treacherous and cruel; and particularly hostile to white men. And fame had united with tradition in opposing mountains to our course, which human enterprize and exertion would attempt in vain to pass.

May 14, 1804 John Ordway
A Journal commenced at River Dubois
Monday May the 14th 1804.

Showery day.

Capt. Clark Set out at 3 oClock P.M. for the western expedition. one Gun fired. a nomber of Citizens see us Start, the party consisted of 3 Sergeants & 38 Good hands, ... we Sailed up the Missouri 6 miles & encamped on the N. Side of the River.

Source

It's incipient early hay fever that makes me pick my nose, it's not a case of poor manners you know

Mood:  sharp
Topic: Belle de Jour

Having done my seven hours of unpaid overtime for the day, and hoping for a break before I crack on with the last two hours of stuff I've brought home, I'm sitting on the loo, blogging while:

• texting Harv, whom I forgot I was to meet tonight,
• picking the dirt from my thumbnail with a nail file,
• listening to Tybalt trying to over-complicate things on the voicemail,
• having a poo,
• stripped to my push up bra , old socks and too small knickers,
• chatting to my bored under-stimulated cats,
• composing my pick up lines for a phone call to someone I fancy,
• browsing blogs on kinja, particularly ones with cute pictures of kittycats,
• planning what to eat, and trying to motivate myself to include large amounts of vegetable matter in it,
• picking my nose,
• skim-reading 152 e-mails (Quote ":) I remember reading that even into the Victorian age to spell uniformly was considered crass. Spelling uniquely made you fashionable.
  Or should I say fashenebel."),
• wondering if I have time to wash the dishes before I fall asleep on the sofa like yesterday,
• trying to suck in my gut,
• realising that several doors and curtains are open, and I can be seen by any passersby.
• who will not only see me on the porcelain, but blogging from there

Overtly critical comments welcomed.

Turn-Off TV Week

Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Vic Jameson

My verdict from Turn Off TV Week: As I don't usually watch TV (having split up from a long term partner, I'm in the I Need No Material Goods phase that indicates she won in the divisions of spoils), it's embarrassing how much this experiment is teaching me, actually.
Firstly, I realise now how often I put the radio on, not to listen to it, but put it on slightly too low to hear distinctly.
Secondly, I come from Oop North in England, where tradition dictates you leave the tv on, which makes it seem ubiquitous - whereas the fashion in the posher South is to switch it off unless it has your full attention - but with the result that it's louder and more intrusive when it's on. I think I tend to associate television with the worst aspects of both halves of the country, whereas it is actually possible to have the thing on only occasionally, and at a reasonable volume.
Thirdly, choice of tv listings magazine is all. It's dawned on me that the mag I usually get (for the paparazzi shots and gossip, natch), actually foregrounds the rubbish tv, whereas if I get a more expensive magazine, there's actually lots of decent, stimulating stuff on that isn't publicised in my usual rag. So my normal anti tv snobbery is actually more of a statement of my sorry choices of reading material.
Fourthly, I realised all these things just two days into the experiment. So there's limited point in forcing yourself to not watch tv, unless you never watch tv in the first place.... (makes sense inside my head ... mumble, mumble)
Humiliating to say, I think I might actually take up watching more tv as a result of this 'speriment.
Oh the shame! Turned on by Turn Off Tv Week...

Diary of Joseph Price, (1752-1828), Quaker Farmer, Innkeeper, Undertaker, Militiaman, Diarist, Saw Mill Operator, Milestone
Topic: Casino Avenue

26th Wind N W & fine day at work at Mill Lobb helping. turnd from Double Gear to Single as it was at first 1 qt Whis 1s6 So

27th Wind N W. of[f] soon at Rees's back to breakfast, then of[f] to Mill & Got it to Go again it appears to Go very Slow but take's much Less water & goo Strong, afternoon Holgate Runing Yerkus s Lot, and 2 acres for Sister Jane & Rebecca, he Run it over on me further than Ever it was before

28th Wind N.W & Rather Cool to be pleasant Disbury plowing with the Widows horses for me in Meadow geard up Bulley & Poney & plow them all Day or till we finished the first time he was tryd

April 29th 1804 Wind S W two or 3 Light Showers before noon with thunder to W, I at Rhudolph Sibleys the Elder, he very Ill Will dye Alley Roberts their Making his Will but they Left it too Late I think he did know me, I think he is dying or Cant Live but a few hours, he made his Mark & we witness it So home at Rees Price Eat & Drink their & so home, then with Morris to Jacob Latch he pd. him on Judgment against Saml. Jarvis 21L 9s9d So home Got Prety Cool, this being first day

30th Wind W fine day at Rees Morn Sanders their Turning Trimers I helping to fix the Centers, John Wilson here I sup with him, then back to Rees's again, then of[f] at the request of Saml Evans to his house, Concerning Some Dispute between him & one hunt a Constibill [constable] that Lives in town they his wife had paid the Money & they had Gone or I would been his bail, I home by Youngs he not at home, Stopt to See Willson he very Sick, home spent 111/4Evening at Wilsons again Yerkus along back

Source

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i have not written anything good

Topic: Creepy Lesbo

I have not written anything good.
I have not looked at anything with a different eye.
I have not been anywhere and woken from my daydream to notice the world around me.

I have not spoken to someone who made me want, need, laugh, cry, or recoil.
I have not curled into my knees, wishing that something were over.
I have not stood gaping at a half chopped potato, realising something about myself - something simple but true, something that's always been true.

I have not avoided a mirror, not wanting to meet my own eye.
I have not reminisced.

I have sung the same lyric over and over and over and over, trying to make the words hurt enough to stop.
I have not measured my success by this or that or the other.
I have not been your sounding board.

I have not telephoned you.
I have not done that brave thing that still waits for me to catch up to it.
I have not hidden from myself inside a habit that dulls me.
I have not tried something new.

I have not travelled, and if I did, I did not arrive.
I have not blogged for you.

I have a task that will take me twelve hours of each day this week and sixteen of Thursday so the blog, the stories, the tales of piteous woe, and -snif- the mad random dating, will retire until Friday sets me free.

Till then, I advise you to close your eyes, think of something pretty, something you feel obligated to keep or to possess, examine it, turn it, let your mind touch it, hold it slightly too tightly, turn it this way and that, see how it looks back at you, look for fear in its eyes, feel how your touch warms it, wonder if you'll be able to let go.

Topic: Empty Fridge Light


For all you great writers out there ... blog vanity publishing.

Which reminds me of a meme that might make me look good, thus allowing me to make friends, influence people, who knows, possibly get a shag one day: Which of these have you read?

Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

Why are they all in bursts? That makes me look so like I can't stick to anything.
I own almost all of these books. And people get antsy when they recommend me some dull volume that reminded them of their life and I don't read it immediately. I have too many books waiting to be read as it is.
My flat at the moment has just one single book in it (Middlesex), plus five that Krystal leant me. The rest are all in storage somewhere in Hackney. It's peculiarly freeing, not to have all your books hanging around, taking up space.

None o' that

Topic: Yidaho

I got my car fixed! Temporarily - it still needs taking to a garage for (deep breath, it took me four weeks to learn this term) 'glow plugs'.
CarMechanic said sitting in the car park for eight weeks solid meant the battery was dead, and given the battery was apparently the size of a red postbox, I'd have to keep the car running for an hour or two to charge it up again.
An hour or two? My projected Saturday activities - dvd of Kill Bill, washing dirty knickers, cuddling cats then trying to let them excape, hoovering, picking toenails, etc - misted over. After eight weeks of becoming a pedestrian again (and it is a mindset, believe me), I had to drive for two hours.
It was a gloriously sunny warm day. Where to go?
Easy. Epping Forest.
I like South East London - I like the sort of Blitz mentality of being The Area That The Rest of London Forgot. And there are some pretty bits - Pett's Wood, Eltham Palace, Blackheath, the view from the golf course at Beckenham, Greenwich, Dulwich, the view from Crystal Palace - but you Sarf Easterners have *no idea* how beautiful the edges of Essex are. The Hollow Ponds at South Woodford, High Beach, the view on the way to Epping Green - there are so many spots where you can't see a single building. Stuff your poncey Hampstead Heath, you haven't the faintest of a fuck what a city forest is like, till you've been to Epping Forest.

The thing about charging a battery up for two hours, though, is that you can't stop. Therefore, MacDonald's drive-through ice cream and coffee were the only food groups available to me.
The thing about not having driven for eight weeks, though, is that your weakest faults are a little more noticeable than usual. In my case, that's spotting traffic lights on red.
So, hurtling along the A104 at speed, working without a map, in a car where the windows, the seats, the mats, the controls, me, everything is covered in an explosion of emergency stop coffee and runny ice cream, I bombed through the Forest, past the Chingford reservoirs, and into the rolling Essex farmland, looking for deer.

It was gorgeous. Really sunny, breezy, beautiful. After twenty minutes I was in love with driving all over again. I know as a pedestrian, I felt increasingly belligerent at drivers, but in a car, alone, not knowing or caring where you're going, you don't feel like a gas guzzling lazy polluter. You feel like a pilot.

It was so cool, and great and wicked, and class, and top, that I almost didn't mind bumping into Tybalt as I stopped off at my flat in East London on the way home. I'm not going to ruin it by blogging that. Or the mad catholic congregation who kept trying to hit me for chatting too loudly. Or blogging the annoying Goldsmith's twats on the train later, or the mad evening out at a Cuban bar, or the failed attempts to see Kelis, or the thimble fulls of tequila in an empty club, or the Officer I snogged, or how I fucked things up, or the pervert taxi driver who thought I was well up for it by seven this morning. None o' that, mate, none o' that.

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 5.45pm, BBC1, Historyonics ~ Nick Knowles presents a new slant on historical events using reconstructions and imaginary conversations. He takes an alternative look at the truths and myths surrounding the most famous highwayman of all, Dick Turpin. Oh now, this actually sounds cool. Perfect rainy Sunday afternoon blob material. Bag of crisps and some chocolate milkshake, a sofa, maybe a blanket, and this. Great.
2. 8pm, C4, Children of Abraham ~ Mark Dowd, a Catholic who trained to be a Franciscan Friar, embarks on a very personal journey to the Holy Land, Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia and the USA to explore the shared roots and deep enmities of Christianity, Islam and Judaism to try and discover if there is any hope of a shared future. Last year I had to do some research into comparing attitudes of the seven big religions, plus the multitudes of minor atheisms, on topics like blood transfusion, funeral rites, genetic experimentation, the Six Day War, etc. I found, to my extreme surprise, that anything comparative about religion is eye openingly revealing, and often teaches you much more about cultural history than my usual jaded agnosticism allows credit for.
3. 11pm, C5, World's Wildest Police Videos ~ Amazing footage of reckless criminals engaged in a range of illegal and often highly dangerous activities. Featuring the pursuit of an 81-year-old driver with Alzheimers heading the wrong way down the freeway, and the rioting students who turn a campus into a war zone. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Verdict: There's so bloody little to do on a Sunday that I'll put up with much. I like that these programmes are diverting, and set somewhere else. Will I be upset if I don't see it? We-e-ell ... the Dick Turpin and the religious prog ... maybe ...

Ghost in the Machine

Mood:  surprised
Topic: Casino Avenue

I know it's actually in itself a compliment that someone should want to, but does anyone else feel like someone's walked across your grave when you notice that someone is busy reading your archives?

[Pssst! The whole blog is archived in text format over to the left, without comments or that annoying sitemeter box that takes an age to load - if you prefer to download, read it offline, and in the right order, my sitemeter won't prickle the back of my neck about it. :D ]
[ P.S. Before anyone gets para, there was more than one person reading. I was imagining them communicating: 'oh holy crap, she's moaning about her gf again' / 'here, look, she's posting up pictures of her dinner now' / 'man this girl likes taking photos of cats', etc ]

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 7pm, C4, Russia: Land of the Tsars ~ Exploring Russia's royalty, beginning with profiles of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. It's been becoming increasingly embarrassing that my entire knowledge of Russian history has been derived from watching the bloke cavort on Boney M's song 'Ra Ra Rasputin'. This must be corrected, and quickly, before anyone realises I was making it all up.
2. 9pm, C4, Sex, Secrets and Frankie Howerd ~ A look behind the public persona of the troubled comedian. I quite like finding out that all the big comedians are manic depressive paranoiac lunatics - it makes me feel better about the jammy bastards finding it so easy to crack a joke. Howerd should be particularly good - sixties era, he should have an anecdote or two about Hancock, Sellers, Sid James and the like.
3. 10pm, C4, Rod Hull: A Bird in the Hand ~ Documentary profiling the turbulent life of Rod Hull, who with his anarchic emu puppet, became a top-ranking star of British showbusiness and a multimillionaire. The programme details both his enormous success and his subsequent downfall, and the life he led before his premature and tragic death. See what I mean? A premature and tragic death. What more could we ask of a family comedian?
I had an emu puppet toy as a kid - the thing is meant to go for anyone at the throat as Hull tries to hold a conversation. Brilliant. There IS no other toy that licenses - nay, encourages - you to viciously attack and punch other kids and even (especially) adults. Not to do so is to desecrate the spirit of the puppet. My dad rued the day I got that damn bird. And Rod always had a better fake plastic arm than any mere ventriloquist.

Verdict: Well, I'm stunned. Stunned that there's actually anything at all watchable on any of the five channels on a Saturday night, in an era when even the broadcasters admit the programming on offer is so execrable that the vast majority of viewers are renting a dvd or replaying a video. And it's all from channel four, the minority taste channel that tried to become populist, missed, and just became supine. Well done, mate. Still not unmissable, though.

She Wants My Hot Beef Injection

Topic: Creepy Lesbo

Been having a very emotional week - always embarrassing when you cry snuffily and pink nosedly for an hour in public at work. I should have been able to tell it was coming, if from the frequency of occasions when I caught myself loudly referring to both colleagues and clients as "bastards".
One single scart lead had broken you see, and somehow shorted all the sockets on that side of the building. Well it seemed a disaster at the time - to the degree that I blurted out my resignation. Not just from genericjob, oh no, that would never match my mood, from the profession as a whole.
Ah well, I only threatened to throw the telephone "through the bloody window", I didn't actually do it. And when they asked if the resignation I'd tendered had been official, I hastily admitted it had been a mere tantrum.

I blame Creepy Lesbo.
I had really vivid dreams about her last night. Notable not for being blog dreams - I had one dream last summer about writing a blog post, and though this is the first dream about another blogger I've had, it's not surprising it was about Creepy, as her blog is possibly the most honest, emotionally truthful, somehow internalised blog you can read.
No, the real weirdness about this dream was that it kept rewinding like an old and very creaky video player, and resetting itself.
Creepy was very small and little, and boyish (and cute), and we were lunching in a Borough Market cafe full of unbearable leftie yuppies. She had extremely small bony bird-hands, but despite this, I fancied her. As we chatted, my mind kept drifting off towards this attraction, our eyes met, and she returned my gaze with raw fascination, our body language mirroring each other, both skipping a breath.
Then a squealing noise would begin, and the dream would rewind ten seconds. Like a Groundhog Day character, I would sit listening to Creepy chatter on, allowing my mind to drift off into wondering if she fancied me once again.
This time, Creepy's gaze was very clearly fixed upon the short annoying straight woman with the kids at the next table, her frank, broad smile was redirected to the snotty ugly kid mewling and puking on the annoying brunette's lap, and she looked back only to enquire of me animatedly what salt beef sandwiches tasted like.
Repeatedly. All night.
No wonder I'm an emotional shipwreck today.

I'll never recover from your cruel rejection, Creepy.

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 7.30pm, BBC1, Top of the Pops ~ This week's best-selling singles, featuring live performances and pre-chart exclusives. You've got to, really, haven't you? These days, if only to laugh at the parade of scantily clad drama school ingenues flaunting themselves as if they'd never heard of a closet. Actually, I like turning on the subtitles, and laughing at the sudden revelation of unimaginably crap lyrics scrolling over the screen.
2. 8.30pm, ITV1, Inspector Morse ~ Morse takes on the case of a missing schoolgirl, revealing disturbing facts about her family along the way. I once moved to Oxford, but came back after a fortnight because the populace were so insipid I wanted to smash their heads in. The only area I could stand to be in was Burberry-Lite (the Cowley Road).
Still, not having to physically be there and put up with people ruining great atmosphere, great learning, great architecture by being so bloody uninteresting means that the place is visually rather lovely. Reading Philip Pullman's trilogies also makes you miss the dreaming spires feel of the city centre. So all said, I quite like a dash of Morse. Imagine, a genteel police inspector who solves his crimes by popping on a spot of Rachmaninov and asking the well heeled polite questions. What would Mr Conan Doyle have said?
3. 10.30pm, BBC1, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross ~ A mix of music and celebrity chat. Jonathan meets Terry Wogan, John McEnroe, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen and Melinda Messenger. Plus music from Supergrass. Gwowing up in the eighties, I'm old enough to wemember how dully obsequious all chat shows were before the great Wossy wevolutionised them. Parky was on the verge of hard hitting in those days, but Wossy burst on the scene by laughing at the stars' sad attempts to plug their latest mediocre offewing. His taste in films is gweat, and by fwiends' accounts, he's a thowoughly lovely bloke, unlike that bitchy wife with the weally huge knockers. So to see him wip the piss out of Wogan, the pwevious holder of the chat show cwown, will be intewesting.
And then there's the battle of the forty something bouffant hairstyles when Wossy meets the equally self wegarding pweener, Llewellyn Bowen. Dammit, I'm wather tempted.

Verdict: Not bad, in a trivial, inconsequential sort of a way - but bliminy, man, this is Friday night! This is supposed to be the best night for programming all week. Sheesh (shakes head sadly).

Earth Day

Christ. Getting up early, waiting for the only bath Malice will allow me to run, I check the news, noticing that Google says it's Earth day. What's Earth day?
It's actually quite hard to find out what the hell the thing means when you look up the official Earth day sites, but hidden deep below a lot of meaningless twaddle about peace bells, 'Cosmic Quests', global peace blitzes (mixed metaphor, surely?), 'Earth Trustees', and assorted rambling hippie whatnot, I found two details:
1. It's the Vernal Equinox. (Scuse me. I like the other equinoxes more. At least it's not always raining for them.)
2. This manifesto: "All individuals and institutions have a mutual responsibility to act as Trustees of Earth, seeking the choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, foster peaceful progress, awaken the wonder of life, and realize the best potential for the future of the human adventure."

I can't for the life of me see any relationship whatsoever between the two.
So I glanced at the rest of the news, just to see if anyone had 'awakened the wonder of life' ...

4 killed, 148 wounded in Riydah bombing
Basra bombings kill nearly 70, including 20 children, violence in Iraq spreads south
Sports Commentator Ron Atkinson makes racist remarks on national tv, gets fired
Mordecahi Vanunu out of jail
Anti Terror Police make more raids
9 Palestinians die in Gaza clash
Shane MacGowan beaten up
Muslim nations in emergency talks
Allegations of kickbacks and bribes in the UN-run oil-for-food programme for Iraq

And do you know, I can't decide if that lot of horrors make the yoghurt knitter's nonsense that is Earth Day look ever more irrelevant, or a testament to the sad idea that peace is a failed objective these days?

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 8pm, C5, Diana and the Camera ~ A look at the princess' relationship with the media, in particular how her life has been preserved in photographs. Basically, I'd be looking for the cleavage shots, here. And no, C5 isn't a clear picture. Distorted royal cleavage. Ooo, missus.
2. 9pm, C5, John Travolta: the Inside Story ~ John Travolta's first major interview for over 20 years, revealing his thoughts on the ups and downs of his turbulent career. I have simple needs. I want X many shots of The Boy in the Bubble, I want real pain to flicker on his face as he admits what shite Look Who's Talking was, and I want crocodile tears whenever he mentions Quentin.
3. 10pm, BBC2, The Alan Clark Diaries ~ Dramatisation of the colourful memoirs of the late Conservative MP. Revelations of Clark's affairs with the Harknesses have hit the tabloid headlines and the media are in a frenzy. Clark yearns to return to the cut and thrust of Parliament, but with his political reputation and health in steady decline, can he realise his dream? I haven't seen any of this series, but being a regular littlest-room-reader of the Spectator, the old Tory duffers of the press are agog at the dramatised depiction of one of their own. I'd want to see if they paint him as a lovable old sex offender, or as a deeply ambivalent old goat.

Verdict: It's not the sort of stuff you'd die unhappy for having missed, is it?

Torn Tortured Tendons

Mood:  energetic
Topic: Belle de Jour

Every single muscle in my body is screaming. I've had eight days off work, my job's pretty active anyway (there's no desk sitting, so you're moving all day), and added to this was the utter lunacy that made me decide to run to work early yesterday(complete with weighted backpack).

Hold up, let me say that again - after being completely horizontal all day for two weeks, I decided to run to work.

How transparent is the stupid that is this decision?
Easy peasy stupid, mega dunderhead stupid, or should I just lay down in the A road and let the Darwin effect take its course now?

I made it in 25 minutes, and was impressed with my speed, with the fact it only took me two minutes to cool off after, with the fact that despite not stretching at either end, my legs felt fine.
Till I tried to walk up the hill home again.

I ended up lain on the living room floor, whimpering every time I tried to crack the rigor mortis setting into my limbs in order to reach for a packet of crisps (super fit runner's food, doncha know?), and staggering clumsily to bed at seven. Where my tendons performed a tarantella rictus on me for the next seven hours.
Three in the morning, and, oh yeah, now I'm stretching. Now I'm desperately yanking the kinks out of my stiff leaden legs by hurting them as much as I can stand. I forgot to feed the cats, so there's scratches and no sympathy there.

Aww, cummon, don't you pity me a little bit?
It's not easy being this retarded.

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 8pm, C4, Relocation, Relocation ~ Kirstie and Phil help a couple up sticks from London's Elephant and Castle to the Wiltshire countryside, while still maintaining a small flat in the city. This is almost the reverse of my migration, fourteen years ago, into London. (And I have ended up stuck in a second home small flat in the city.) Should be interesting to see how they deal with the complete and utter lack of any cultural life or diversity in Wiltshire, however pretty the rolling Downs are. Property buying is almost a mania in London, and property buying reality tv is double that if you own a property that's risen in value by 200% in the last few years (not that I can sell the damn thing). Duch regularly telephones me with commands to switch on the teev of a Friday morning and give my opinion of the property relocation prices in Tennessee to her. It's not nice, but it's widespread.
2. 9pm, BBC1, May 33rd ~ Lia Williams stars as a woman with multiple personality disorder, who tries to escape her abusive past in a hard hitting depressing drama special, continue after the news at ten. This sounds dreadful, really dreadful, but believe me, there's sod all else on, apart from prison dramas and reality tv. You never see men in tv biopics of people with multiple personalities, do you? Way to give yourself nightmares.
3. 11pm, C4, Frasier ~ News of Sam and Luka's romance doesn't go down well with Alex. Repeat. I haven't watched Frasier in so long that I don't recognise a single one of those names, but any port in a storm - Frasier at least is always well scripted, with great timing, and it would make me feel less like death (particularly running on from the proggy above) than watching the bloody appalling Sex and the City repeats.

Verdict: That is one fucking huge waste of hours of your life. If you want to watch this stuff, might I suggest that simultaneously beating your head against a kitchen knife would rid the world of a moron, Vanessa?