Alasdair Watson

This year, I am mostly becoming fucked off with the number of people slagging Christmas off.

It occurs to mention this tonight, having just begun the process of wishing people a Merry Christmas proper, as I left another marvellously pleasant evening with zoo_music_girl and childeric, as the first of my chums that I was sure I wasn’t going to see again before the holidays themselves.  There are undoubtedly many of you that I’m not going to see before then, and of course I send you all the very best of wishes for the season, but this is the first time this year I’ve been out with someone and had that “Oh, no, won’t be seeing you before then, so Merry Christmas” sort of feeling.

And it’s nice.

But god knows there are a number of my friends who’ve taken to whining on about Christmas.  How it’s shit because it’s part of a religion (on in cases of extreme cranial/rectal interface because it’s the christians “stealing” the celebration off older religions), or because of having to do horrible commercial things, or because they don’t like the people they’re forced to spend it with.

The last, I have a small amount of sympathy for.  But only a very small amount.  Most of my friends are adults, and it is presumably within their gift to say (possibly a little more tactfully) “No, I won’t be spending Christmas with you – I’d rather do something I’d like, instead.”  There are a few for whom this does not apply, but only a few, and they have my every sympathy.

As for the rest of you, though: this is a season to enjoy the company of your friends and loved ones.  And I’d bloody hope you can do it all year round, and yes, I suppose I have said similar things about Valentines Day and relationships, but I cannot see any reason to say that a holiday mandated on the theoretical basis that people should have a bit of time to celebrate with those dear to them is a shit thing.  To go on about how you don’t like the season, or how crap you think it is tedious in the extreme.

If you’re complaining about having to shop, or about the people you’re spending it with, then that’s you own bloody fault for having bought into some of the extraneous and superficial hype.  It’s not about commercial nonsense.  If you’re about to tell me that the people you’re spending it with think it is, and thus you’ve got to do something in line with that, then I would suggest that you’re either spending it with the wrong people, or that you consider making them happy worth doing, and so going along with it is in the very best spirit of the season, but not simply for reasons of commerce.

Either way: I hope you all have a marvellous festive season, whether you choose to be festive or not.

[Note: if you don’t like the season, but haven’t been griping about it unsolicited in public, then this is not directed at you, so you don’t need to defend your views.  Thank you.]

[Edit: I should note that I completely respect the idea of not celebrating at all at this time of year, and I’m not out to force it on anyone (except davebushe, as he’s clearly just some kind of freak), it’s the people who piss and moan about the season that annoy me, not those who just quietly ignore it, and leave others to their fun.]

Well, I’m listening to the a bunch of excellent new music thanks to zoo_music_girl.  I’m knocking back mulled wine, because it’ll only go off, won’t it?  The room is lit badly enough that I can forget that I live in a tip.  It’s been a good weekend.  Cinema (Blade 3 – utter, utter shit, but entertaining.  The best bad movie I’ve see all year, in that regard.)  Clubbing, gaming, and then a lot of walking in the fresh air which is, I assume, why I’m so bloody tired tonight.

And I got a fair amount of use out of my new camera today.  You can see the results here, if you’re interested.

I will get to them all in the end, honest…

—

The pilot gunned the engine of the seaplane a little nervously.  If he was caught here, he was in big trouble – the area was off limits to all non-governmental traffic.  His passenger has sworn that they’d bribed all the right people in the interior ministry, but she was already an hour late returning, and his confidence was fading fast.

He’d just made up his mind to leave anyway when miss_soap came sprinting out of the jungle at the edge of the beach, and dived into the sea.  The shouts and angry yells of the local tribesmen follwed her, as she struck out toward the the plane.  A few spears splashed down in the water near her as the savages broke through the treeline themselves.

“Go, Go!” she yelled, grabbing onto a pontoon, and beginning to haul herself up, one hand holding her wide brimmed hat in place.

A few arrows bounced off the side of the plane, and more fell uselessly behind them as the they took to the air.

“Did you get what you came for?” he asked, turning round briefly to look at his passenger.

miss_soap grinned in reply, pulling a small pouch from where it’d been tied to her belt, and tipping the contents out.  It gleamed brilliant gold as it caught the sun.  “The Lost Idol of Huehueteotl.  Stolen by the Spanish in the 15th century, stolen back by the remains of an Aztec cult in the 18th century.  The museum is going to love this…”

Conciousness is a real effort this morning.  I’m not sure why, since I got seven hours kip, but there we go.  I’m just going to have to fight the urge to go back to bed, as I’ve got quite a lot to get done today. 

B Movie last night was the usual round of laughs with a large number of marvellous humans in attendance, even if the state of my lungs meant that I was rather more cautious than usual about heading for the dancefloor, and in the end, left a bit early.  But it does seem to have paid off, since my lungs don’t seem to be any more fucked than they were yesterday.  Maybe they’ll even be working properly by next weekend.

Right, time to see if I can turn this slight momentum of awakeness into the ability to leave the house…

And yes, it seems bloody obvious, but it’s always seemed bloody obvious, and still no-one does it.

Do something new, and people will love you for it.

It doesn’t have to be clever.  And if you find a trick that works with one audience, it’ll work with them all.
Digression into comics

For sale, cheap: one set of lungs.  Owner no longer wants them, and needs the space.

—

“It lives!  It lives!” 

wmute is a thing made of leftovers and lightning.  A thing clothed in borrowed flesh, strung together with fire and genius’d inspiration.  He is living proof of the ascendence of man over the laws of nature, humanity reaching up from the mire to snatch life itself from the cold firmament.

wmute is damnation itself.  A lurching, shambling thing made from the remains of murderers and madmen.  A horror born on a rain-soaked night in defiance of everything that is good or right or just.  A half-alive testament to man’s base depravity.

Rejected by a society that is no more able to tolerate him than they can accept the terrible truths he represents, wmute lives as an outcast in desolate places where decent men do not go.

And that, perhaps, is exactly as it should be…

lilitufire was a devil on the flying trapeze.  It was all in the timing, she said.  She thrilled the crowds with her death-defying aerial acrobatics – somersaulting back and forth between her astonishing assistants, high above the ground, without the benefit of a saftey net.  Men and women gasped in fear and astonishment as she flung herself across the void between the two swinging trapeze artists, nothing but empty air beneath her, executing a bewilidering series of twists and turns as she flew.

Women admired her.  Men desired her.  She had everything.  Fame, fortune, the adulation of all who saw her.

And then, one day, at the height of her powers, she quit.  Hung up her sequined leotard, dismissed her astonishing assistants, and headed out toward the sunset.  She offered no explanation, and refused to discuss the matter with anyone.  But her legend lives on, and her name is remembered, unlike so many who came after her, and we are forced to conclude that she knew exactly what she was doing, that fateful day.  After all, hadn’t she always said that her art was all in the timing?

That’s probably a little strong.  And depending on which day of the week you ask me, the philosophical message of the film is either the absolute fundamental truth about everything, about half right, or utter bollocks.

But it’s funny, and it’s different, and whether you agree with it or not, it does at least invite you to engage your brain, Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman are great, and for once I was able to watch a film with Jude Law in it without wanting to punch him.  (His character, yes.  But for once, not the man himself.  I can’t help it.  He has a punchable face.)

And now:

papamoomin is secretly a zombie voodoo baron.  Well, he was right up until I let the cat out of the bag.  He’ll probably send something horrible to come crawling in my window one night by way of revenge, but I thought you all ought to know.  In Haiti, he is known as “Papa Black Mambo”, because his vengeange is swift, and almost always fatal.  They tell the tale of the unlucky tourist who was foolish let his shadow fall across papamoomin‘s path, and how he tore the shadow off, and sent it to plague the poor tourist every night for a year and day, until the poor man returned to beg for peace.

papamoomin smiled his terrible smile, and granted the tourist his wish.

Yes, I do seem to have a cold.  Bollocks.  Early to bed with a hot toddy for me.  But before I go:

redscharlach once wrestled a bear and won.  It was a big bear, and it was savage, but redscharlach had been training for it, and she was more than ready.  She was quicker, meaner and more vicious than any bear could ever hope to be.  She hooked, and gouged, and fought as dirty as she knew how (and though you’d never think it look at her, she knew how to fight very dirty indeed), and she knocked that bear to the ground.  It never knew what had hit it.

So bear that in mind, the next time you see her.  You may enjoy her company on many levels, and indeed, her wit is sparkling, and her intellect impressive, but bear in mind, as you bask in her presence, that in addition to having mastered all the accomplishments proper to a lady of her station, redscharlach once wrestled a bear and won.

(The bear, if you’re curious, was stuffed and mounted, and now stands in the Ashmolean Museum.)

It would be fair to say that his family and friends were surprised when nils told them that he was planning to enter that world go-go dancing championships.  But if they were surpised then, it was nothing compared their mounting astonishment as he won first his heats, and then each successive round of the contest, to eventually wind up as the foremost go-go dancer in the world.

nils, of course, remains characteristically modest about his achievements.  “I wasn’t looking for fame and fortune,” he says “it was just something I felt I had to try.”  And it’s true that he seems largely unchanged by his newfound celebrity – he’s returned home to his old flat, and his old job, and life continues much as before.  When asked if he’ll dance again, he just smiles slightly.  “I’m not planning to, but I’ve still got the boots at the back of a cupboard, so I suppose anything’s possible.”