sweet effay

I thought long and hard about posting this, because in certain circles that I move in it will probably damage my standing more than an admission that I spend all my spare time hanging out at Bianca's Smut Shack or something like that, but here goes: hegel.net has been given a facelift and you can now navigate round the entire system by clicking on the relevant little triangles. I've just spent the last couple of hours playing with it and can honestly say that it's definitely the most enjoyable time that I've ever spent with Hegel. I'm not saying that you'll learn anything, not least because most of the triangles don't have any articles associated with them, but it really is a lot of fun. Try it, you just might like it.

Stuck my aged Ziggy Stardust video on last night and the machine ate it! Cue instant horror along the lines of “Oh no, the video’s fucked!” After the tentative insertion of several non-crucial tapes the hypothesis had to be adjusted to “Oh no, the tape was fucked!” Unhappily this leaves me living in constant fear about the condition of some of the other tapes.

What should I do? So long as they stay in their boxes, I have a warm snugly feeling of possession, but if I take them out and play them and they get chewed up, they’re gone for good. Could I cope with that? With some of them, possibly, but if my Cardiacs tape is buggered I’ll be rolling around the floor in floods of tears. Is it better to find out and risk upset, or to keep it forever on the shelf and never know? Having an enquiring mind, I’m going to have to play it and find out so fingers crossed, eh?

In other news: I have discovered that you can get Saxon CDs cheap in HMV (and great fun they are too). They don’t seem to stock Carcass though. Oh yeah, there’s also some sort of white stuff all over the ground which Little effay insists on dragging me out to play with. ‘Oh baby, it’s cold outside’, but we’ve got five grand’s worth of central heating pumping away in the Little House on the Flatlands so what do we care?

...that taking cannabis does not turn you into a better person.

I'm amazed that I've never seen this before. Absolutely marvelous. I shall now be basing all major decisions that I am required to take on these mystical marvels.

Staying with the subject of Hawkwind, kek-w was asking about the Hawklords novels. In case my reply didn't put you off them, and because I want to see if my scanner is running properly, here's the front image and blurb from the second one:


Must dash. I need to get busy sticking bits of paper onto card and tuning in to galactic forces.

I keep meaning to add some more links, but am generally too lazy. However, the dicovery that the boys from Whorecull have jumped shipped and created a glossy new site has forced me into action.

I've also added some other stuff, but you'll just have to find them yourselves as we still have no heating and it's too cold to type much.

In case you haven't been paying attention to Undercurrent, I'll just repeat his recommendation to check out the hilarious discussion about Christianity, paganism, WWIV, and the People's Republic of China currently going on over at Hyperstition.

The heating engineers are working on the house this week. Well I say ‘heating’, but so far all they’ve done is remove every radiator and cut off the hot water supply. I am reduced to staggering from room to room in an advanced state of hypothermia. I have a single fan heater, but I only put it on for short periods as it makes noises which scare me.

Mrs and Little effay have buggered off up the road to the grandparents. I could have gone, but what’s worse than hanging around a freezing house? That’s right: Being forced to watch Eastenders with your in-laws.

I had one of those: “I’m not being funny, but what’s the point of philosophy?” conversations with the main heating engineer yesterday. Normally I would have descended to sarcasm, but it’s never a good idea to antagonize a man who is in control of your water supply. I couldn’t help noticing, though, that when he wanted help with his crossword this morning, he came to me.

If I had been in a position to antagonize him, I might well have pointed out the disparity between to his projected move to Thailand in a couple of months and his expressed approval of Enoch Powell’s ‘River’s of Blood’ speech, because "a country that allows loads of immigrants in is just asking for trouble". That’s the problem with philosophy; it makes you pick up on these sorts of things.

Still I should be warm for at least a couple of hours tomorrow as we’re off to the theatre. I wish we weren’t going to see this, though.

The engineers arrive tomorrow to sort out our central heating. This involves them buggering about in the loft, so we have spent most of the weekend clearing eight years of accumulated material out of it. As I wasn’t actually present when we moved into this house (here’s a handy tip: Anytime you have to move, try to arrange something important to do at least a hundred miles away) and the majority of our possessions had been in storage for the best part of six months before that, I came across loads of stuff that I thought had gone for good. This included the First World War bayonet that my mum gave me when I was around eight or nine and my copy of the Necronomicon (I bet you think I’m making this up don’t you?).

Also up there was a box containing all our seven inch singles. This held several nasty surprises courtesy of Mrs effay; including yet more Toyah that I had managed to repress, and (no, I’m still not making this up) Val Doonican singing ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’. However, to my great joy, it also contained The Greatest Single Ever Made which I had nicked off my sister as soon as I was old enough to operate a record player.

For those who are unaware of it, The Greatest Single Ever Made is ‘Quick Joey Small (Run Joey Run)’, released by the Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus in 1968. A touching little ditty, sung at a smart pace in a bubblegum style, it is the tale of the eponymous hero’s prison break for the purpose of getting back to his loved one, ‘Sweet Mary-Jane’, who has thoughtfully sent him a file baked inside a fudge cake in order to expedite his egress. The narrative itself is interspersed with the inappropriately cheerful-sounding chorus of

Run Joey, Joey run, run
The hounds are on your trail
Run Joey, Joey run, run
They’re gonna send you back to jail

Naturally, like all the best bubblegum songs (‘Leader of the Pack’ anybody?), there is no happy ending for the two lovers in the final verse:

Sheriff McClain ain’t got a lot of brain
But he knew one thing for sure
He took some toughs and a pair of handcuffs
And headed straight for Mary-Jane’s door

So far, so good, but what raises it to the heights of sheer genius is the wonderfully catchy call and response section between the high, clipped, nasal male lead and his whining backing singers:

Sheriff got a shotgun
He do
He fill you full of lead son
It’s true
He also got a blackjack
He’s mad
He bust your head with one whack!

What a great song.

However, one great song does not The Greatest Single Ever Made make; were that the case there are several other contenders. ‘Terry’ by Twinkle with its rousing chorus of

He rode into the night
Accelerated his motorbike
I cried to see him ride
Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it!

Comes close, although I think ‘Joey’s’ call and response section gives it the edge.

What makes this so good is that if you turn over to the B side, you find a number with the unassuming title of ‘Rumble ‘69’. Naturally, after the A side, you will be expecting some sort of bubblegum take on gang fights; a sort of poppier ‘West Side Story’. Bung it on and what do you find? A two minute proto-grunge instrumental which sounds like a cross between Ten Years After and Sonic Youth. Not only is it a surprise, but it’s also bloody good. Over the years that I’ve been listening to this record, I’ve come up with a theory as to how it came about:

My guess is that after the effort of writing the A side, the Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus were so shagged out that they didn’t have the energy to come up with another piece of bubblegum genius for the B side. Consequently, they decided to cobble together some sort of instrumental jam to fill the space. Unfortunately, their guitarist cast doubt upon his own ability to carry a convincing solo and so either the other members or the producer suggested that he overdrive his amp so as to cover up the errors and lack of flash fingering. Then, in order to ensure that this did not stand out as some sort of incongruity, some bright spark suggested that they overdrive every single amp in the studio, thereby creating the marvellous noise in question.

Yet that is still not enough to win it the accolade of The Greatest Single Ever Made. What finally clinches the deal is that both sides of this single are so perfect in their own way that I have no desire to seek out anything else the Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus have ever done (if, in fact, they ever did anything else), because I cannot conceive of it being anything other than a disappointment. That is the reason that this little vinyl circle constitutes something very special indeed.

Life in the Flatlands seems to be deteriorating badly at the minute as the Little House tumbles down around our heads. Not only has the bedroom been flooded by a burst radiator, but I was nearly decapitated by a door falling off a kitchen cupboard yesterday. Oh yeah, and the lawnmower is trashed as well.

I am currently armouring myself against the horrendous expenditure that all this will entail by regressing into teenage mode and developing an interest in late 80’s and 90’s metal: What should I be checking out?

Incidentally, several (well, two) people have asked me why I only write about frivolous stuff on this blog. Check out the bullshit that Infinite Thought has managed to attract by dint of being serious, and you can probably work out the answer for yourselves. Here is a picture of some Barbies.

I've just been checking the 'Latest Searches' feature on Cinestatic and am absolutely delighted to find that you are directed here if you search for 'pictures of goth girls in nazi uniforms'. How cool is that?

I can only apologize for not having any such pictures to hand, but here's a link to a post by Psychbloke with very fetching picture of Siouxsie.

Veritas - I ask you. I guess Kilroy and his chums think it’s a name that will appeal to the sort of Daily Express reading saddoes who look back misty-eyed to their school days when we still had an Empire and there was Latin prep and muffins for tea. Oh well, it could be worse, at least they didn’t call it Gravitas.

Watching the man of the hour launch his new party on television yesterday, I was struck by something. Like all truly rational human beings, I am an avid reader of P.G. Wodehouse and the similarity between Kilroy and Roderick Spode, leader of the Blackshorts in the Jeeves and Wooster novels, is truly remarkable.

Both are obvious bullies with a talent for making themselves look ridiculous in the eyes of all but the most stupid people (even Bertie thinks Spode is an idiot). Both have no hope whatsoever of leading a successful political party, but cause a lot of trouble in the meantime. Spode had a secret embarrassing job designing ladies’ underwear; Kilroy’s embarrassing former job is, of course, no secret.

Watching Kilroy declaiming “They are stealing our country!” yesterday, I kept wanting one of the journalists to shout out “No they’re not Robert; it’s still here. Look, you’re standing in it!” Kilroy could have then slunk off into obscurity and saved us all a lot of unpleasantness in the near future.

Nostalgia time again I’m afraid. Who remembers record decks which had a setting of 16rpm? More to the point, does anybody have any idea what the hell you were supposed to play at 16rpm? I’ve never seen anything. However, back in the days when I possessed such a beast, I once put on the Rolling Stones' Let it Bleed at 16rpm by accident and was absolutely delighted with the way ‘Midnight Rambler’ turned into a slow, threatening growl. I often used to play it like that afterwards, although my mate’s claim that playing records at the wrong speed damaged them put me off experimenting with other albums (this was the same guy who confidently asserted that you could get stoned by smoking oak leaves, so what I was doing believing him about anything is a moot question).

I’d actually forgotten all about this, but was reminded by hearing from G, who is a drama teacher busily warping the minds of impressionable young children in the foothills of the Quantocks. G is the only other person I have ever met who plays records at 16rpm. Well, when I say records, I think it is only one: Fripp & Eno’s ‘Index of Metals’ from Evening Star. In fact, he tapes it at 16rpm and gets his class to act it out in some manner, and has been doing so for years. The mind boggles: The thing sounds like spaceship crashing in slow motion. What would fourteen year olds make of it? How do they interpret it with their bodies? The weird thing is that I used to think that G would be really messing up these poor children’s heads, but these days of course, he’s probably making them really fashionable by giving them a taste for stuff like Earth and Sunn O))). I pointed this out to him, but he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.