Your strange perversions for the week, presented without comment beyond a barely-repressed shudder of fear:
- http://www.gimpix.com/ – leg fetishists with a difference.
- http://ld5.dyndns.org/ – anthro-macrophiles.
Category: General Blogging
Roundup
That was a fun weekend, even if the Saturday I’d planned to spend working was in fact a complete write off, as I went to a party Friday night, intending to stay for a couple of hours, missed my train, and was menaced by a Norwegian bearing something that they claimed was rum, but was obviously paint stripper, and as a result got in at half eight in the morning, and wound up sleeping through to half four, just in time to head off for Birthday drinks with the vilest man on Earth, Sick Tim. Low turnout for that, but a good laugh. Sunday, round at Andrea’s with the usual suspects for a very pleasant afternoon. So, the usual huge thanks to all involved, and apologies to all the readers I’ve just put to sleep with the dull minutiae of my life. In penance, some links.
- Strange Machine. Writings by Warren Ellis. Enjoy.
- Marie’s World Tour. Comics professional and acclaimed madwoman Marie Javins is off round the world for the year, without leaving the surface of the earth at any point. Marie is a vastly entertaining travel writer, so you really ought to stop by.
When memes weren’t that fast
I have just watched All Your Base Are Belong To Us. My head is in new and pleasing shapes.
Suicide Air
Saw The Virgin Suicides last night. Currently listening to the soundtrack by Air. It’s good throughout, but the last track “Suicide Underground” stands out as a wonderfully chill and strange piece of work. Get hold of it.
Drinking and Writing
Busy again. Weekend good – Drinking with the WEF(UK) mob again, always a laugh. New record set for attendees, and I was, of course, very, very drunk. Sunday: Chinese New Year fun. From my notes:
“The crowds have thinned from earlier, which is good. The Lion dance comes past, trailing its rhythmic cacophany of drums and cymbals, on its way to another resurant. The air is thicker than usual, filled with the smells of food cooking, sizzling in the woks along the street – vendors breaking every hygiene law in the books, but everyone having a great time. This is the sort of time London is at it’s best – packed with life and madness, something new around every corner.”
I Still Remember
Yeah, disgraceful length of time since last update. Been busy. Leave me alone. In penance, some notes from my palmtop, made over Christmas. Not that there’s anything interesting in them, but it’s content…
“The flight’s been cancelled. Everyone’s tired and sweaty and disappointed. Dad and I are trying not to pick fights with one another, but everything either one of says just gets on the other’s wick. We’re not normally like this. It’s the environment – harshly lit plastic and constant beeping. Bollocks.”
“These are the moments that make it all worthwhile. It’s about 4 on Christmas day, and I’m out for a walk. The air is cold and clear, here in Hillsborough. I can smell woodsmoke. The rest of the family went out for a walk en masse earlier, and I’ve just bumped into my cousin Richard on his way back. Standing at the top of a hill looking out across the fields and hills at the sunset. A huge flock of birds are dancing in front of it, swirling and circling as they begin to roost for the night.
There are other families out now, Christmas dinner over and done with, children riding new bikes and scooters. I’m down in the village proper, look across from the war memorial at the church, its spire eerily greenlit against the dusk-blue sky. Magic. On the way back, I stop at the top of the same hill, and look out toward Belfast’s lights, ten thousand amber jewels against the black land.”
It was a good christmas, and I’ve been meaning to mention it here for a while now.
Indulgence
Poking around an aquaintance’s website, I find a link to Torn Curtains. I’m still trying to make my mind up about this sort of thing – is it an excuse for some angsty teens and twentysomethings who ought to know better to talk self-indulgently about themselves, or is it an interesting look into the minds of other people?
Which of course leads us into the debate about the value of on-line journals. Given that these are clearly written to be viewed by other people, how far can they be trusted? I mean, I know I don’t admit to a fair number of things here that I might do in a private journal. And y’know, if I’m going to censor myself like that, then don’t I have some sort of responsibility to those that do read it not to vanish up my own arse in self-aggrandising “see how deep I am for answering these meaningful questions?” Some obligation to actually be entertaining?
I might continue this later, but right now, I’m leaving work, so I’ll just post this and think some more…
This Feeling Doesn’t Get Better With Time
So, I was reading the new issue of Sequential Tart like a good little monkey, when I came across this article. Go and read it. Now.
I’m still wondering how to react to this article. Frightening, isn’t it? I was going to mail Andrea, who’ve I’ve met a few times, and find intelligent, attractive and generally pleasant company, but then I realised that I didn’t have anything to say. What can you say in response to it? I mean, I’m not going to apologise for them, as it’s not my place to do so, and frankly, I can’t think of any way to apologise for disgusting freaks like that. “You’d ride it, but you wouldn’t want to show it’s face to your mates” is the phrase she picks out, and it really is one of the most nauseating things I’ve ever heard. I could mail her and say that no, in my experience all men do not think like that. I’m fairly confident that no-one I know thinks like that. (If you know me, and you do, then please don’t tell me, and further, never speak to me again.)
I could mail her and say that there are bound to be people out there that would have spoken up, but I think the honest truth is that, no, nine out of ten people would not, unless they were with a woman who was being made deeply uncomfortable in that way. Perhaps that can be written off to British reserve, or even the simple fear of getting a slapping, but I’m not really sure that’s an excuse. For those keeping score: yes, I include myself in that nine out ten. I’m not proud of it, and would like to claim that I would speak up, but I’m not going to lie about it – I probably wouldn’t even register that someone I didn’t know was being made uncomfortable by it. I’d be angered by it, but would probably just retreat to my book. I’m not even sure what I’d do if I was with a woman who was being upset by it. I hope I’d do something.
But as she says, how would she know I was telling the truth? I mean, clearly, there are things out there that do think like that. Hell, if I think about it, most of the women I know probably have similar stories about an encounter with some form of sub-human like that pair she describes.
What’s the point of all this? I don’t really know. I’m just trying to feel around my reaction to the piece. I don’t think the level of suspicion toward men is merited, but I have the key advantange of being a man, and some idea of how men think. But it’s all too easy to see how one could get that suspicious. All too easy.
Ah, fuck it. I hate everybody. Genocide, that’s the answer.
Christmas Eve Day
Sitting here in my grandmother’s lounge, looking out over her lawn at the wind whipping the trees. I’m always slightly awed by th sheer size of the houses round here. Anyway, the only reason I’m really posting this is on the offchance anyone reads this in the next day or two. Merry Christmas, folks.
Drinks
Big WEF(UK) drink-up yesterday. Had a fucking splendid time, marred only slightly by spending the day suffering from a cold that had me feeling like my head was stuffed with cotton wool. (If any of you were wondering why I wasn’t quite at my usual sparkling self, that’ll be why, although given that I was popping pills every few hours, I’m sure you’re all aware of it.) The resturant was fab, if a bit loud and stufy toward the end. Never been to a place where they invite you to draw on the tablecloth, and provide with chalk to do so before. I didn’t try to draw anything, because there isn’t anyone on earth that doesn’t have more artistic talent than I do, but everyone else managed to draw pretty pictures.
Thanks to all who attended for a top time, especially those hardy/mad souls for whom this was the first experience of a WEF drink-up. You’re braver people that I – there were only about five people at the first one I went to, 2 of whom I knew already. I had it easy.
Sudden strange/frightening thought: it’s only a little over a year back that we did the first WEF drinkies. It seems like so much longer.