sweet effay

The Little House’s garden is looking less flat than usual with an incursion of moles:

I hate moles. We’ve always had the odd one, but my next door neighbour used to trap them (when he wasn’t poisoning the squirrels that is), so it wasn’t too much of a problem. Unfortunately he has since died, so it’s down to me to try to defend the old homestead. I set the dog on them, but he’s bloody useless; in fact he can’t even keep the rabbits and squirrels out. I’ve stuck smokes, gorse, and God knows what else down their runs, but they don’t give a toss. I send the Little effay out to run around and jump on the hills, but the moles just stick their heads out and tell her to keep the noise down. An ancient Norfolk resident (I’m best mates with all the old men in the village) told me that the thing to do is wait outside with a spade until you see activity, then drive the spade into the hill and toss everything into the air. Apparently moles are sensitive creatures and being hurled up like this gives them a heart attack. I wouldn’t know; I just get soil all over my head.

Still on the subject of vermin, I very kindly spent the best part of an afternoon going through Lord Goldsmith’s advice to Tony Blair, so that you don’t have to. The verdict? It’s true, the two documents are perfectly consistent, it’s just that the shorter document isn’t an accurate précis of the former. Let us clarify with an example:

The phrase

Tony Blair is the Prime Minister and he took us to war in Iraq

is perfectly consistent with the phrase

Tony Blair is the Prime Minister, although he seems to think that he is some sort of absolute ruler who can dispense with the Cabinet and manipulate evidence in order to take us into an illegal war in Iraq for which, we can but hope, history will vilify him

in that they do not contradict each other. However, the meaning of the second is significantly different from the first. So it proves with the Attorney General’s advice to our beloved leader.

Siobhan is demanding answers to the following questions, so here goes:

1. You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
My memory is so appalling that it had better be something small. I’d go for Beckett’s First Love.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I’ve read enough psychoanalysis to know that all my crushes are on fictional characters. If you mean characters in books, I only have crushes on people I’ve met. There are several fictional characters I’ve wished I was, if that counts; notably Snufkin from the Moomin books (still do, really), William Brown (Just William, etc.), and Galahad Threepwood from Wodehouse’s Blandings novels.

3. The last book you bought is:
H.G. Wells, Five Great Novels

4. The last book you read:
Asimov, Forward the Foundation. I wouldn’t recommend it.

5. What are you currently reading?
Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics and Richard Morgan, Broken Angels.

6. Five books you would take to a desert island.
Melville, Moby Dick – The greatest novel ever written. I never tire of it.
Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow – Like Moby Dick with added sex and better jokes.
Proust, In Search of Lost Time – If it counts as one choice. My second favourite novel.
Kant, The Critique of Judgment – I want the complete works really, but if I have to go for one, that would be it. The more you read Kant, the more you get out of it.
Deleuze – The Logic of Sense. Because I like this one but haven’t spent as much time reading it as most of the others.

7. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Pscychbloke to see if he reads anything but comics and Freud.
undercurrent to see if he reads anything but maths books.
kek-w in the hope that he’ll post more pulp covers of Nazis and scantily clad maidens.

I'm enjoying Toryscum immensely. You can guess what it's about, so I won't labour the point here. They also collect photos of improved election posters. Here's a sample:

For them that care (and don't think that I don't know you're there), there's an exciting Spinoza argument going on in the Thought section of Dissensus at the minute. Get stuck in, you know you want to!

Just watched Channel 4's 100 greatest albums thing. Don't worry, I'm not going to drone on about the criminal lack of Coil, Grateful Dead, Hawkwind, and Cardiacs albums therein. However, for those who missed it, the programme included the main songwriting Gallagher brother admitting that he may never come up with another album like Definitely Maybe - Hooray!!!!

The great thing about calling a general election is that it allows you to rush through all sorts of shitty legislation whilst nobody's looking. Among other things, the recent Drugs Bill inserted a clause into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 making magic mushrooms a class A drug no matter what form they are in. This means that fresh mushrooms are now illegal, so no more nipping down to the local headshop for a portion of cubensis.

Obviously it also means that it is illegal to 'possess' mushrooms by having them grow on your land. I suggest that, come the mushroom season, it is our collective responsibility as good citizens to report breaches of this fine law. I'm sure that, like myself, many of you have inadvertently stumbled across patches of farmland where these pernicious fungi manifest themselves year after year. Surely it is a matter of duty to report the landowners in question to the local constabulary and insist that they use the full force of the law to ensure that these evil people end up in jail where they belong.

Presumably as part of an attempt to establish a fanbase here in the Flatlands, Indianhead have kindly sent me a copy of their latest release, The Strongest Weapon, a collection of recordings made between 1997 and 2003. It’s probably rude to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I heard it, but the truth is that it’s actually rather good. A combination of grinding industrial beats and whooshing abstractions with the odd sample and distorted vocals, it’s quite dark but not at all unpleasant. This is due in no small part to the way that they mostly cut off the more extended moments of repetition before they become annoying, and have enough variety in the material to hold your interest. Think music for an industrial party in a damp basement rather than a soundtrack for moping in your bed-sit cutting your arms with a razor.

I think that Nick Gutterbreakz is right about the vocals, but only because the instrumental bits are better. He’s definitely wrong about Throbbing Gristle though: Genesis P-Orridge’s vocals were (with the odd exception, e.g. ‘Hamburger Lady’ and ‘Very Friendly’) the worst thing about TG. In fact I’ve long suspected that GP-O’s only talent is the ability to attract people to him who are much more talented than he is.

Anyhow, Indianhead have a website here which includes a couple of MP3’s from the album. I should point out that I actually found ‘Embolism’ to be the weakest track therein; some of the other tracks are much better. Also, I’m sure you’re all wondering the same thing as I did: ‘Higher Beings Command’ isn’t a cover of the Coil number, but a spacey thing with samples from Dune.

Okay, I admit it I'm a Teletext junkie. Surfing the Net is one thing, but it's so much effort. Real slackers veg in the living room with the stereo on full blast whilst idly pressing the 'next page' button on their remotes.

Anyhow, before it disappears, check out page 341 on Channel 4 which is currently running Christopher Ecclestone's horoscope. There you will find such fascinating information as the fact that, because he is an Aquarian, he doesn't want to be typecast. It's a cornucopia of incisive commentary which you are sure to enjoy. The only thing that spoiled it for me was the discovery that this is the first incarnation of the Doctor to be played by an actor who is younger than I am.

Royal weddings, eh? They’re not what they used to be. I remember the last time Chas got hitched: Legged it up to the Princess of Wales on Blackheath for 10 o’clock opening because the first barrel was given away free, then back down to The Jolly Woodman in Beckenham for the serious drinking. We were so pissed that we even enjoyed the Morris dancers, although I must admit that I wasn’t as pissed as some of the patrons who started coming out with sentences such as “The royal family are all right really, and there’s not a bad word to be said against the Queen.” I also wasn’t so pissed as to disagree with them; anyway, they were a reasonable bunch most days. There was a TV on in the pub, but nobody was watching it.

We fell out of the Woodman in the early evening and staggered round to Ange’s parents’ house: His mum’s a serious Royalist so they had a massive party involving barbecued fillet steak, trout, and so much alcohol that we were still working our way through it twenty-four hours later. During the course of the evening, we threw some woman into the swimming pool, only to discover that she was wearing £500 silk suit which the chlorine ruined. How we laughed.

It’s a lot more low key this time, but one thing hasn’t changed: I’m still not going near the TV (well, not until Dr Who obviously). However, I’d like to add to the celebrations in my own small way, so let’s just see the dashing groom making a tit of himself at the Pope’s funeral one more time shall we?

Good job I don’t eat breakfast, or it would have been all over the keyboard at the sight of this. To say that Blair sickens me is an understatement, but the thing that sickens me most is watching his ingratiating smile as he stammers his way through fatuous questions on the couch of popular talk shows, and then patronisingly goes on about how tough it all was at the end. Meanwhile, he carefully avoids doing interviews where they might ask him anything vaguely relevant or searching. Are Our Glorious Leader and his advisors so dense that they haven’t sussed that ITV have only got them on so they can try and win viewers from Dr Who? Isn’t it nice to see the Prime Minister willingly allowing himself to be used as a tool in a ratings war; let’s hope nobody watches the bloody fool.