Day 202, Baal's hymn

A great song about an amoral character.  Baal probably would have voted Tory, such is the evidence of his self interest and lack of consideration for others.

So while I bugger off and watch some people that are paid far too much for kicking a ball about, and who are likely to be, according to Sol Campbell, mostly Tories, there's some voting going on.

By way of reference to that above remark - When asked the question "Are most footballers Tories?" Campbell replied “Hahaha! Probably.”


Baal's Hymn

Whilst his mother's womb contained the growing Baal
Even then the sky was waiting quiet and pale
Naked, young, immensely marvellous
Like Baal loved it, when he came to us

That same sky remained with him in joy and care
Even when Baal slept peaceful and unaware
At night a lilac sky, a drunken Baal
Turning pious as the sky grows pale

So through hospital, cathedral, whisky bar
Baal kept moving onwards and just let things go
When Baal's tired, boys, Baal cannot fall far
He will have his sky down there below

When the sinners congregate in shame together
Baal lay naked, reveling in their distress
Only sky, a sky that will go on forever
Formed a blanket for his nakedness

And that lusty girl, the world, who'll laughing yield
To the men who'll stand the pressure of her thighs
Sometimes gave him love-bites, such as can't be healed
Baal survived it, he just used his eyes

And when Baal saw lots of corpses scattered round
He felt twice the thrill, despite the lack of room
"Space enough" said Baal, "Then I'll thicken the ground
Space enough within this woman's womb"

Any vice for Baal has got its useful side
It's the man who practices it, he can't abide
Vices have their point, once you see it as such
Stick to two for one will be too much

Slackness, softness are the sort of things to shun
Nothing could be harder than the quest for fun
Lots of strength is needed and experience too
Swollen bellies can embarrass you

Under gloomy stars and this poor veil of tears
Baal will graze a pasture till it disappears
Once it's been digested to the forest's teeth
Baal trod singing for a well earned sleep

Baal can spot the vultures in the stormy sky
As they wait up there to see if Baal will die
Sometimes Baal pretends he's dead, but vultures swoop
Baal in silence dines on vulture-soup

When the dark womb drags him down to its prize
What's the world still mean to Baal, he's overfed
So much sky is lurking still behind his eyes
He'll just have enough sky when he's dead

Once the Earth's dark womb engulfed the rotting Baal
Even then the sky was up there, quiet and pale
Naked, young, immensely marvelous
Like Baal loved it when he lived with us

SONGWRITERS
DOMINIC MULDOWNEY;BERTOLT BRECHT

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Day 201, How many pieces of tat?

Our local MP, Nick Clegg, has sent out over 20 items of leaflets, fake newspapers, pleading letters from former Tory voters, a letter from a former Tory candidate, and numerous other sundry items.  All of these over the last two months.  All of them attacking the Labour party, and some of them in Labour colours and phrased in such a way as to be ambiguous and to lure in the unwary.  Clearly his campaign appears to be being deliberately deceptive.

One of them, that's 1, item only says anything about what Nick Clegg has done for Sheffield.

Apparently he's done something for roads.

Oh good.  Roads, that's what we want.

Personally I don't give a flying fuck about the potholes, I do give a flying fuck about all the other stuff that he's fucked over.

But enough of that, here's a lovely picture of some Lib Dem leaflet crap for recycling.

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Day 200, Double century

May 5 is the 125th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 240 days remaining until the end of the year.

This day marks the approximate midpoint of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere (starting the season at the March equinox).

Thank you Wikipedia for the above facts with regard to the date today on the event of the 200th day of this numbered sequence of blogging.

Other notable '200s' are:

The West Indies batsman, Chris Gayle, was the first player to score a double century in World Cup cricket, he did so in February this year.

20 multiplied by 200 is an approximation of how many days I have woken up with a hangover

The number 200 bus runs between Wilmslow and Manchester Airport and according to 'Carlos Quarry', (a pseudonym I presume?) is "the worst bus I have ever taken".  Which as it turns out cannot be true as the driver of the number 200 didn't actually let Carlos on the bus at the Quarry Bank Mill stop, leaving Carlos to make his or her way to Manchester Airport on foot.  The driver said it was "very late" and "was not going to go", which seems implausible for a scheduled service.

63 is a ball park figure for how many periods of 200 days there have been since I turned 16

A headline from the Daily Mirror says "200 more shocking reasons why you can't trust the Tories with the NHS".  Which isn't surprising, I wouldn't trust the Tories to change a light bulb without selling off the copper from the mains cable, inserting a cardboard light bulb claiming it is the real thing, and then blaming the subsequent failure of illumination on immigrants, the low waged, and the unemployed.  Tories huh, the twats.

Here's a picture of some cats relaxing - for stress reduction purposes.

This was going to be a 200 element list, however it turns out that that was over-reaching somewhat.













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Day 199, Tough and uncompromising

In politics the "tough and uncompromising" position is often adopted during campaigning, where it appears to strike a chord and appears to be useful for stirring people up.  It is also very likely to be used in situations where there is political polarisation - witness that the kippers have to a certain extent forced other political parties to adopt more hard line and bone-headed attitudes because of this.  That much of the kippers rhetoric on immigration bears little scrutiny is of no consequence, people are attracted to this sort of bombastic attitude and the other parties, to their discredit, adopt their own variations of this mindlessness.

On the other side of the fence, that of the voter, there is also a hint of lack of compromise.  To para-phrase and generalise, the words often spoken are “None of the parties support my particular set of interest areas.”  Which is pretty likely, none of them align with mine either, and where there is a policy or position held that has more significant overlap in appeal (to me personally) there is little chance of that candidate being successful or their party taking control.  It’s not easy to palate but we have to give ground.

From the point of the politicians.  Once the electoral process is over they should drop the tough and uncompromising stance as soon as possible if they have any sense - note, David Cameron uses the phrase “tough and uncompromising” as a condiment sprinkled over almost everything he says.  Perhaps we should ask Nick Clegg what he thinks about compromise.  He seems to be the expert in demonstrating the opposite end of the scale and the damage that can do too. Since he palled up with the Tories at the last election he seems to have compromised on almost every point his party supported.  Surely to retain any credibility that he had any principles he ought to have tried a damn sight harder than he appears to in pushing his original agenda.  However with the growing mound of electoral tat he posts through my door he appears unable to defend a single action, there isn’t any example in any of the printed material that celebrates a success of his party or demonstrates any sign of remaining scruples.

I don’t want to dig at Clegg (much), though he is a fine example of someone that appears to want power at any expense even if that expense is his own credibility.  I want to have a dig at the unrealistic, simplistic, stupid way that political campaigns are run, and having a dig at the lack of education we have had to enable picking apart political arguments that are presented. And I want to dig at the way the media (and many politicians) turn the process into a mess of name-calling and gutter journalism.

There’s more to it.  Perhaps I’m expecting more, my view is almost certainly naive given my lack of political knowledge and nous in that area.  But surely we should expect more than the closing down of debate with little room for negotiation and no time for analysis.  We should be treated with much more respect even if we haven’t invested the time or don’t fully understand the details of the issues, there should be better discussion rather than the scripted bear fights that we end up with.

Tough and uncompromising doesn’t make any of the nuance or complexity of arguments visible and we end up with a veneer of knowledge that bears no semblance to reality.  Tough and uncompromising stands in the way of progress and makes expectations unrealistic.  Tough and uncompromising is posturing, muscle flexing, and meat-headed, look out for it.

Tough, uncompromising, unwelcoming

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Day 198, Old book overspill

Ancient tech books, what are they good for.

Propping up wonky tables?  You'd had to have had mighty hungry woodworm to have chewed off that much that any one of these would be of use.  A load of Netware books, critical server issues, PC hardware, and the most nostalgia filled one of all MSDOS 3.2 User Guide.

A right old cortical mess of sociology and psychology textbooks from years gone by.  Some of them classics - Education and the Working Class, Housewife (Ann Oakley), How Children Fail, The Social Psychology of Industry amongst others.

Read some of them, glanced through others, and some haven't had a page turn since they were inherited.

Is there any purpose to be served by keeping the ones that aren't ever going to be opened.

Not going to read The Cathedral & The Bazaar again, the Douglas Couplands belong to another age I'll never recoup, and is it likely that Thomas S. Szasz and his Myth of Mental Illness will ever have it's argument on questioning the legitimacy of psychiatry revealed to anyone in this house?

Can't say that any of that is going to happen.  So these things just become a burden that get lugged around when in actuality they ought to be passed on elsewhere, either to be pulped or to be used/appreciated.

But getting rid of books is just so bloody difficult, it's just not in the blood.

Better leave that pile there for a while until it becomes clear which ones to release into the wild.















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Day 197, Wrapped Tower

In 2009 those scamps Christo and Jeanne-Claude slipped into the city unnoticed and audaciously proceeded to wrap The Arts Tower.

They managed successfully to complete the stunt overnight, and as dawn broke on Saturday 10 October their plan was finally realised.  Only a small number of people were on hand to witness the unveiling and here for the first time are some images captured on that morning.

The facade here shows structural elements designed to keep the woven polypropylene fabric wrap in place.  

Here can be seen a visualisation of the duality of contempt and love for humanity depicted by a trelliswork of steel.

And finally, a symbolic portrayal of the giant monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, a great favourite of the artists, here represented in reverse-chromatic form with a dash of Tabasco at bottom left.



http://christojeanneclaude.net/artworks/projects-not-realized














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Day 196, ten years till bingo

Not long now.

Time flies like knives, fruit flies like a banana.

Any moment you might look down at your wrinkled bogey finger and discover that it's over 60.

Now this is not for me, but maybe under some circumstances that view could change.

Any number of things could happen to bring about a loss of the support mechanisms of life.

Then isolation and loneliness could be the outcome. 

It would be wrong for me to view this support system as anything other than something of value.  Just because it doesn't fit in with a current world view for a person at present.

But that isn't necessarily going to remain a constant:

• As a church organised event and not ever having believed in a god or gods that isn't appealing - that isn't going to change for many people with similar views.
• Cooking isn't an issue - that could change for many.
• There are people around when company is needed - that changes for many people.
• No matter how much fun it might be, bingo doesn't seem a great inducement - for many that won't change.

So look out.

Get in early with your game and pastime requests, whichever Capture the Flag is your favourite or Grand Theft Auto Later Years add-on pack.

Get the church pianist the sheet music for Rage, Killing in the Name.

And make sure the local curry house is providing the *hot* food, sod having it cooked on the premises.








Right.  Fuck this I'm off down the pub.








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