things i said, in my head, in response to customers

"no, dear, we don't do a delivery service"

"well done, nice to see you're trying. but a good first step would be to put that doughnut down"

"did we not specify on the application form: Must Be Clean?"

"did we not specify on the application form: must possess opposable thumbs?"

"if you let that child spit on the carpet once more, i shall spit on your child"

"yes, and if you really want to talk to your angels, can i suggest alcohol"

"yes, but she's probably scared. lets face it, you are a rapist in waiting"

" i don't like you, please don't pull that ingratiating racism on me"

"the point of breasts as a feature is fine; but my dear you look like a child's picture of the sea"

"he may be gay, but still, you're a cunt"

"he's thinking my owner's a human doughball"

"i don't remember the war; no, i don't remember the war; no i don't remember rationing."

"Jesus hates you; you know that don't you? in fact he probably thinks you need a shag"

"please don't come any nearer; ew, god, no"

morbidly english grumpiness

so, I'm catching up on my ever-increasing backlog of music magazines/newspapers that have built up since early January, obviously after I've done my ironing, had my haircut, watched Lovejoy, eaten lunch etc, and i get to the Radiohead interview from the whole promoting In Rainbows thing, and i read, and it interests me. I'd forgotten how clever, funny, and thoughtful they are about what they do. i haven't yet got In Rainbows, but i shall do soon i think; its sounds ace.anyhooo it sent me back to listening to all the other albums (except Pablo Honey which is shit), its amazing how you forget some bands after they've been there so long, even after you have a relationship with them (aural that is), and just take them for granted, and semi forget how great they are.

the last few albums were all brilliant, and whilst a little bit more arty, more esoteric than the big sellers of The Bends and OK Computer, in many ways equally as good. i never liked the stadium aspect of the band (i hate stadium, i hate U2, i hate Muse, REM get worse the bigger they try to be), and since they've jettisoned that aspect and gone pure art on us, they've been sooo much more interesting. a real listening experience, shut the door, turn off the light, sit and LISTEN. i just keep coming back to Kid A, Amnesiac (my personal fave), and Hail to the Thief, and finding more there, the same way i do with the Beatles, The Smiths, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, all the greats. furthermore they seem a genuine art and pop band at the same time, the way Bowie, Roxy, Blur were. concepts, lyrical themes, real musical inventiveness. a sense of dynamic that you don;t get from most artists, but with real emotional core too.

i hope they go on for a lot longer.

my relationship with bands can be a fairly intense one, but only after time these days. the increasing funds at my disposal mean I've lost the times when i bought an album, and played it non-stop for weeks, or months because i had nothing else to do; like the true eighties child, my attention span is gnat-like sometimes, and i read books and get distracted by other things. until i end up with 25 CDs on the player top, and 10 books on my shelf, simply because they interest me, and i want them NOW. but in the end, its a system of competition, and the great will surface. Radiohead are managing that at present, as are Sleater-Kinney. And my Huxley fetish is still alive, as is my metaphysical poetry one, but new ones join and enhance the understanding, enhance the pleasure : Henry James, the Ammah's comp CD has got ace stuff on it, the baroque indie goes Tin Pan Alley-isms of the Magnetic Fields, the poetry of Jamie McKendrick. the new loves, and the old friends vie endlessly for my attention, each showing me something new. lordy, i love the books, and i love the CDs.

when I'm not indulging in these sensual pleasure (currently, along with cheese, and muffins, the only ones i get), i have the scintillating company of friends. Ammah and her wry wisdom, always seeming to know when I'm in trouble, and always reminding me i ain't alone. the folk at work who make my Saturdays a darn sight more fun than my weekdays "on the job" (titter ye not!).

i ask this, fine people, how many of you can ask a question at work, and have a friend and colleague who can sing (from a popular song of the last 50 years) an appropriate answer??eh? well, i do. Lucille, my dear, it is a unique talent. almost as unique as being able to make me smile so often; so if i get grumpy and withdrawn, please be aware it is never you. I'm just a big grouch. you were much missed in yr recent absence, by me, and the Aardvark :) i shall say no more but:

Dinner Lamb!!

goodnight, and good luck, chillun.

PS. i think I'm going to fall in love with Samantha Morton.but just temporarily. a few days or so.

PPS. the picture is Ennui by Walter Sickert (1914)

brief pinko rant

i couldn't let yet another marvellous government suggestion pass without comment. this morning's news carried the story about the possibility of the twits introducing a pledge of allegiance to the good old queen and country; and more diabolical shit about britishness. what tosh! what do think they'll achieve? i mean i certainly wouldn't pledge allegiance to the country, regardless of my citizenship, or my feelings about it. do they really think, after Iraq et al, that people are prepared to stand by their country's behaviour? is it to be my country wrong or right? well, they can cock off.
the government comes up with a daft idea like this (imported from the land of daft nationalistic ideas, the USA), with some view to improving a sense of citizenship and engagement, as well as integration. nothing wrong with that aim, really, but superficial tat like pledging oaths and having a Britishness Day won't give you that. if the government were really serious about those things, they'd increase and improve teaching of politics and history within schools. these are what really make people intelligent engaged citizens, and furthermore improve their sens of national identity by familiarising them with the structures, ideas, and history that have formed the country.
unfortunately, the government doesn't like that idea for several reasons i suspect:
1) the teaching of history and politics is such a political hot potato they scared of opening debate on it
2)this would require genuine educational reform, not merely infrastructure/funding reform; it would cost them money. also, i doubt if those ratted private providers of education the government wants to roll out via city academies (the churches, business men, charities) would be too keen on the state making them teach these subject properly.
3)the levels of intelligence, scepticism, and social and political nous teaching the subject properly would encourage, is not the sort of thing governments like to encourage. its easier to keep people dumb and obedient.
its aggravating but true. cheap options, like pledges /oaths etc are easier to deal with. genuine emancipation based on historical and political knowledge, expensive and undesirable.

ps. Lucille, my dear, your blog entry is coming :)

More and more it seems to me that i don't really like most people. My life would undoubtedly be void and pointless without the ones i do like (many of whom i love), but i think i average about 1 person in every ten that i truly like. Furthermore i reckon a lot more people would come to a similar conclusion if we weren't caught in a world where being "friendly" is considered the way to be. "Friendly", as opposed to Friendly, is that state of being deeply disingenuous,f ake, unopinionated, and just being nice to people, regardless of any real connection with them. the perverse thing about this is it wouldn't be necessary, if people could just get along being polite, and civil; without pretending that they are best mates with people. If anyone's seen Ghostworld (the film), there's a girl in that that embodies this perfectly, running up to the Scarlett and Thora characters, and just shrilling at them "hey, you guys, we should, like, soooo meet up", when its obvious to the watcher and the girls themselves that this is very unlikely. Girls in particular (careful , generalisation coming) are quite bad for doing this. men tend to get quite staggy, or quite silent in the company of people they don't like, or don't know. You could, i suppose, blame adverts, or television, or whatever, but as a society we do seem to consider insincerity acceptable; surely, i find myself wondering, we can get along without it? you know, say hello, be polite, ask questions, try not to offend unless you have to, without all that coming into it. After all human connections are rare and precious, and to behave as if everyone is your best friend is degrading to them, your real friends, and yourself. Maybe its just we fear we aren't liked, or aren't even sure what friendship is. Who knows. Montaigne's essay On Affectionate Relationships says it all, really; its about a meeting of minds, of humours, of souls (whatever they mean). and if i hold you my friend, it is real esteem, not merely acquaitanceship. i do not feel compelled to extend enthusiasm, affection, and excitement on those i do not know, i will extend civility, politeness, and a certain level of interest, but you may have to wait to get the first three. It just isn't given gratis. Few things piss me off more than insincerity. What amuses me most about it, however, is that the worst offenders for insincerity are often the ones who don't get irony, and are quick to take offence. Peculiar.

I had an eye test the other day. Strange things eye tests: you allow a person you barely know to come very close, breathe heavily, and generally make you feel slightly uncomfortable. I don't feel the same strangeness about dental work, maybe because it has that whole surgical air, maybe because when having the eye test, one can see everything. Well, not much of everything; once glasses are removed, lights dimmed, and small light shone in yr eyes, you are only aware of the vaguest of shapes. but it's definitely more invasive, somehow. mine asked me first:

"any problems?"

to which i was about to explain as briefly as i could my feeling of underachievement, alienation, anger at my employers, and occasional loneliness, when she clarified with

"with your eyes, i mean?"

i said not really, but mentioned my occasional reading problems in the evening, then she hands me a board with paragraphs of varying print sizes on it, and asks me to read the smallest. i read it with feeling and gusto, and almost an actor's assurance. she's says its brilliant, and i'm very good at reading. Somehow i always undermine my whole case. the rest of my examination involves me trying to seem fine, whilst not actually lying about anything. It's a bit like an exam for which you don't know the wrong answer.

I even managed to pick a new pair of glasses that leave me safe from appearing like Timmy Mallett.

Having finished re-readings of a couple of Huxley novels, i've come to the conclusion that he is ludicrously underrated.As intelligent, funny and self-aware an author as the twentieth century had.

I contrast this with the sales of books by Jordan, Colleen McLoughlin, and varying shades of misery memoir (you know the sort: Don't Uncle, it Chafes, Friend Of The Family(but not all of them), Death to All Nuns). I may have to write one of my own, explaining how my life was ruined by the lavishing of parental love,abject respectability,comfortable living, reasoned boundaries, and instilling of moral values. Poor Rabid grows up with parents, to be bullied for going on outings with them to a sinister "park", accruing dangerous knowledge at a leisurely pace, and having sickeningly consensual early fumblings with women. Lord knows if I hadn't grown up with this deprived background i could have made some money from writing depressing books about being ass-raped. seriously, i do feel sorry for people who have had these upbringings, but i don't reckon writing badly-written samey memoirs about it is the answer. Now, if they could actually write and wanted to turn them into fiction......

The whole Jordan(or Katie Price, now she wants to be seen as telling the truth; there's nothing like exposing the real you, is there? it was bad enough when she was stripping the outside, the inside is even more obscene) thing is more disturbing, because as far as i'm concerned she is abusing people through ideas. The number of teenage girls and boys who buy her autobiographies (she has three! three!) is really chilling. As a model of the vacuousness of pure celebrity for it's own sake, she is peerless. she has no reason for fame, no good one anyway. and yet she seems to be a role model for people. girls see her achievements as admirable, boys see her as a model for a partner. Despite her being transparently pointless and stupid. Of course the argument could be made that she has made a success of herself on her own terms. but then so does a lucrative prostitute, or a successful criminal. The manner in which we gain our money and fame is surely more important than how much we have. Let us please not pretend that wealth = success, or fame= success. what you're known for, and the attitudes you convey are more important. hands up girls, who is happy having her as model of how to get what you want?? hands up, who wants young girls growing up thinking that sex is the best way to success?

i'm a bit angry, tis true. but it seems to me another example of capitalism screwing women for its own ends. All the just rhetoric of George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Simone De Beauvoir, and countless others produces Jordan. christ, we're in trouble.

the picture at the top, more than incidentally, is by Grace Hartigan and is called Billboard (1957). a good reminder of what can happen when a person prefers to paint a picture than appear in one.

picture (not mine) and poem (mine)

George Braque- Still Life: Le Jour















Watching the Windows
He stands there, looking eastward,
in dim praise at your presence.
The rain is falling through the streetlight

from nowhere. His favourite nuisance
is back again. He cannot wait to see
where you’ll meet, accidentally,

so your husband should never know;
your bedroom light a beacon, his sight
is clear: your husband will never know.

But it’s all been cryingly told
this morning, husband found the bills,
the evening ahead is quiet and cold,
the streetlight, for now, his whole world fills

Silly man that i am, i've always hid an inner aesthete (sometimes less inner than bleedin obvious), maybe it's because i fancy myself as a dandy, like our friend on the left. which i'm not, because i'm not confident enough. but i do believe the presentation of a style is important, the presentation of a taste is important, and not merely because its fashionable, but because we are the only creation we ever truly have creative control over. But it isn't about Aestheticism alone, its about tying aestheticism to an ethos too. the personality is a creation as much as a look is. some people, mainly in fashion, have the former and not the latter(yet some still aspire, often with truly hideous results; anyone who's sampled the so-called "dandy" prose of Sebastian Horsley's recent memoir will know what i mean).

Due to the impending refurbishment of my dwellhole, somewhat forced, i've been nudged into a slightly more "Colour!Shape!Form!" state of mind than usual. It is truly amazing the effect a quick scan of a Dulux colour chart, and a flick through a furniture brochure will have. Misty Buff! amethyst! China Blue! Toffee Crunch! Lemon Sorbet! Mandarin Segment! (alright, i made the last one up); suddenly i'm seeing colours in my sleep and some weird synaesthesia when i play a Cocteau Twins album. more bizarrely, my inner William Morris seems to have appeared from nowhere, and is angling me at some very Victorian-looking colours, and some unnaturally Baroque looking tables.

i intend to keep my sensible hat on (not black top hat) though; redecoration is fine, new curtains fine, i may even be pushed into a new carpet, but no furniture. i live in this bloody space, and i can't be arsed to upturn my carefully acquired routine so i have some swankier drawers. i want it to be as brief and painless as possible. The thought of moving the 600-odd CDs and two bookcases worth of books out into the garage has got me semi-teary as it is. the things, the precious things! but i'm getting rather enthusiastic about a new colour scheme after 12 years with this one. i want nice deep intense colours, and a lot of cream or white to make sure it isn't too dark and depressing when slitty-wrist season kicks in. And it's an excuse to get some new posters in; the Ratpack and the Smiths will stay, the rest goes. I quite fancy some art posters: Rothko, Velazquez, Whistler, Hopper, who knows! The fact i'm reading a book about twentieth-century British Art is only contributing to all this frippery. fun though.

Which was what last night was. kind of. Happy drinking in a quiet mood, and then the Three Boozes came in, ripped to the gills, and being generally filthy and loud. The Nag had not seen such wassailing in a while i think; i myself had a gentle knock on the face by a friend getting overly friendly, and a story involving another drunken friend's snapped frenulum (look it up, my dears, and say a loud "ow!"), which may have been told in rebuke for knocking his ghastly shirt. Then to top it all off, when said story is getting bogged down in sketchy medical detail, and certain shouty pissed folk are unsure what is being referred to, OUT CAME THE PENISES. IN THE PUB. IN FRONT OF A LAYDEE!!

i should like to make perfectly clearly i kept my own sword very much in its scabbard. i'm not yet prone to public duels. and the two gentlemen involved should really be more than slightly embarrassed. i laughed so hard (sorry, wrong word) i still look like distant cousin of Cherie Blair this morning. thoroughly disturbing, and neither big nor clever(them, not me)

i was going to do loads of stuff about the Huxley i've been reading, but frankly it'll keep. i'm too busy worrying about my frenulum to bother (apparently, its quite a common injury).

think on this, children, and keep 'Yourself' to yourself.

cheerioh!

Evil lurks everywhere

if you are a NBF (thats non-book flogger) you may jump to the natural conclusion that booksellers and library folk regularly get together on opposing mounds of earth outside yr town centres, and throw book stands and OED's at eachother, all the while waving either cash or library cards in a mocking gesture. well, this may occur in some places, but generally i like to feel we're bound together in fraternal feeling. Two excellent bookloving groups attempting to spread literacy, and reading through the public, whilst sharing in a mutual shrug at the often ludicrous behaviour of our public.

in fact i have friends spread throughout our local libraries; and a marvellous mixture of the kind, intellectual, grizzled, and frankly mad, they are. but love i feel, not the squelchy oozy kind of love, more proud, public spirited, and friendly love. though in the past my yearnings for the odd library gel have become oozy and even fuzzy.

but, brothers and sisters, some changes are afoot at my local (library that is, my pub hasn't changed since Richard III stooped through the door and asked for a pint of Guinness). the local council was stormed by the Infidels (the Tory Party, if you don't mind foul language), and the marvellous person in charge is on record as not really seeing the point of libraries.

now i'm not generally a nationalistic person, but four things get me teary-eyed in shirt tugging blubbing jingoistic pride:

the English Legal System

the NHS (regardless of problems, still the most humane thing ever)

the codification of football

the public library system

the last must be the single most important egalitarian idea ever. imagine: the ability to borrow pretty much any book, for free; the opprtunities for entertainment, education, improvement, self discovery are endless. in the last twenty years this has come under attack, like everything else, from daft notions that everything benefits from a commercial/retail model of practice.

this is, quite frankly, BOLLOCKS.

one need only look at the utilities, the transport system, the postal system to see how much privatisation, and contracting out, ruins the quality of service of areas that need to be run for public benefit. steadily the ideas are invading libraries too.

my library system has hired, for lord knows how much money, a group of management consultants!!! yes, the single most pointless group of people history has come up with so far. a non-job; hands up, who thinks that getting people in from outside is a better idea than consulting the wonderful, imaginative folk who are familiar with particular needs of their customers, and the problems of running the system?? anyone?? i thought not.

the ideas so far seem to amount to self-service (ever been to a railway station? seen how many people use the self-service machines there, and how many still queue for an actual person? miniscule isn't it?), making people do more tasks they aren't professionally qualified to do; and a lot of cosmetic bobbins that almost certainly will have negligible effect on people. i mean, whats better a library that's empty but gorgeously styled, or a library that's old, but has most of the books you could want?

there's a whole industry built up now based on the notion that the "product's" appearance is more important than its quality. the takeover of marketing etc. of course, another reason is the growth of consultancy groups who are obsessesed with relatively cheap cosmetic change over long-term investment. thus investment goes into buildings ( as in schools, hospitals etc), but continuous investment in the necessary things to make these establishments worthwhile is ignored (books, staff, equipment etc etc).

it doesn't take Wittgenstein to work out the underlying thrust of these changes: getting rid of staff. self-service, more computer-based information, less people to help you with your enquiry.

and this stuff gets combined with small beer changes such as telling staff they aren't librarians, they are information scientists. and a spade is not a spade, it is a surgical soil scapel .

to be honest i'm not entirely against self-service, as a principle. but my insiders tell me that any reasoned problem staff can see in the new technologies is brushed aside with a couple of responses, used by business and political charlatans everywhere:

1) "it'll be fine in practice, you'll see" combined with Pollyanna-ish smile

2) "you're just being cynical, and negative and resistant to change". or use of such phrases as saboteur.

New Labour is very fond of both of these practices, especially the latter. points are not answered, plans for dealing with problems not suggested, the questioner merely attacked as being unhelpful, old-fashioned, dogmatic, unmodern. anyone who knows their Gramsci will know this is how false ideologies work, the slandering of opponents and the attempt to convince listeners that their suggestions are radical, forward-thinking, and common-sense. you don't win the argument, you merely paint critics as out-of date.Goebbels liked to do it too.

furthermore, when asked what action would be taken if the public posted complaints, employees were told pretty much that complaints would be ignored. how's that for accountability,eh? so this change is going ahead regardless of employees, regardless of practicalities, and last of all regardless of the public that uses the libraries.

my informants also gave me a link to the consultancy's website. and it's rather as you'd expect: brightly coloured, full of clever and impressive sounding mottoes, and marvellous cosmetic ideas, yet not a single instance of they actually do for the no doubt daft sums of money they receive. lots of stuff about team effectiveness, and trends.

unsurprisingly they also waffle on about Brain Gym, that marvellous mental improvement scheme that seems to be invading schools on the most dubious evidence of success. its a mere step away from Paul McKenna, and one more from Deepak bleeding Chopra. if you want an eloquent discussion of the flaws of the analysis of Brain Gym's success, you should see the brilliant Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in the Guardian (her's the link: http://www.badscience.net/?p=225 ). the top picture shows you the sort of crap folk like them come up with,; they do love diagrams, pie charts etc

its all guff i tell you. anyway. i shall end this rant here, for now. and maybe the next post will be full of the marvellous ideas and thoughts my current reading has offered me.something more positive. bye for now.