Ed's Musings

Rupturing Reality

2006-11-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 5:40 P.M.

After another exhausting and devastatingly mundane day sacrificing the last remaining shreds of my beleaguered soul to the Corporate Satan, I gratefully collapse into the sole remaining vacant seat on the glorified mobile underground toilet that is the London Underground, paying little attention to the vaguely humanoid shape occupying the seating space juxtaposing mine. To my utter astonishment, this shape, by now identifiable as a probable homo sapiens female, rises, bafflingly says 'You Pervert!' and haughtily strides to a seat next to a bearded someone who looks infinitely more threatening than me (and as I have been told repeatedly that I look like a gormless blue-eyed baby 'Chandler From 'Friends'' with the intimidatingly-stubbly-facial-hair growing ability of a bowling ball, this is no achievement). Staggered by the crass unfairness, startling conceit and borderline insanity of this accusation, my jaw drops, my eyes open wide and I stare, dumbstruck, at the woman for several seconds (admittedly hardly helping her impression of me...)

Now, I'm a reasonable person. Had I been slavering over this woman, staring exclusively at her breasts and licking my lips suggestively whilst drooling uncontrollably over her feet, I could have understood why she may have felt some mild discomfort, if not actual disquiet. However, I fail to see how exactly having the nerve to even sit next to someone of the opposite sex constitutes an act of molestation unless you happen to live in an area so haplessly fundamentalist that people believe that males really do spontaneously combust at the sight of a naked female ankle which is not related to your own ankle (which makes you wonder what effect the Paris Hilton sex video would have - ten thousand nuclear holocausts??). Has it really got to the stage where merely possessing my face in public constitutes a serious sexual crime??? This is most distressing considering that I pride myself on being a true gentleman - a man capable, indeed, of keeping my eyes away from the female chest for whole seconds at a time and even, upon occasions, engaging the face of the aforementioned female in actual conversation.

Thursday, 9:30 P.M - Wembley Arena, London

Muse are indisputably the world's greatest live act. This is a statement of unqualified fact, not even remotely coloured by personal prejudice or subjectivity. The only people I will even consider permitting to be unmoved by a Muse performance are those who are paralytic and those who are dead - and I struggle to accept even these as excuses as the vast apocalyptic reverberations of Matt Bellamy's guitar would cause rippling vibrations to shudder through the thickest lead coffin in the universe. Their performance tonight causes me to remember with indignation the contemptible comments made by Lily Allen (an artist so 'genuine' that you can actually hear the pause on 'Smile' as she carefully reminds herself which consonant to drop next ('mental.... I mean, oh goodness gracious, botheration, that is, 'men-al'... there it is, marvellous. I mean wicked...') in a desperate and pitiful effort to sound like she was raised on the 'street') about Muse taking over an NME cover that she was supposedly 'promised'. To even place the two in the same sentence - let alone compare their relative quality - is to commit a blasphemous act against music so heinous and earth-shatteringly horrific that it risks creating a catastrophic and terminal rupture in the fabric of reality. Lily Allen deserves to be on a cover ahead of Muse about as much as Gandhi deserves to be placed in a blender ahead of Donald Rumsfeld.

Set List:

1. Knights Of Cydonia
2. Starlight
3. Butterflies & Hurricanes
4. Map Of The Problematique + Riff
5. City Of Delusion
6. Plug In Baby
7. Forced In
8. Hysteria
9. Citizen Erased
10. Hoodoo
11. Invincible
12. Supermassive Black Hole
13. Time Is Running Out
14. New Born
------------
15. Apocalypse Please
16. Bliss
------------
17. Muscle Museum
18. Stockholm Syndrome
19. Take A Bow
20. Brain-Dead White Noise With Infuriating Small Female Screaming Tone-Deaf Abuse Over The Top (Lily Allen Tribute)

Ed's Mood: Incandescent

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Muse - Take A Bow

Nickname Tribulations

2006-11-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

Ever wondered why I have a particular dislike for the most incomprehensibly popular of my numerous and invariably highly offensive nicknames, Eddy J?

Because it involves association with this 'man':

http://www.eddyj.com/eddyjcom/eddyjcomhome.html (scroll to the bottom...)

Call me a cynic, but I find it hard not to regard the line 'Kids love his "Fun Songs", including "The Tongue Twister Song!!"' as, at the very least, highly disturbing, if not jaw-droppingly horrifying. You would have thought that someone who would risk career suicide with these kind of worrying connotations would at least have the good sense NOT to grow a gigantic handlebar moustache and pose for photographs with a grin even more hauntingly sinister than Russell Brand's facial hair in addition, but no...

(and yes, I'm sure the song is about nothing less innocent than the pleasure one gains from the joy of sucking on a nice juicy lollipop...)

Ed's Mood: Combative

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Radiohead - I Want None Of This

Papal Psychosis

2006-09-24T03:19:00.000-07:00

Being a liberal and (metaphorically) militant atheist, I usually classify the insensate ramblings of the Pope as mere mindless, psychotic and utterly insignificant dross spewing from the addled mind of a haplessly outmoded twelth century relic. This is a man who is so hopelessly conservative that he named himself Benedict XVI. Not Benedict I or Benedict III. Benedict the six-bloody-teenth. He was given free reign to choose any name imaginable - Megapope I, Kaiser Chief I, Condomlover I - but chose one about as original as a film in which Will Ferrell and Owen Wilson combine forces to not be funny. What puzzled me so much was not that he uttered a cringeworthily stupid soundbite about Islam but that anyone - regardless of religious affiliation - remotely cared. Most people I know pay about as much heed to a papal proclamation as they do to a Tom Cruise proclamation. And remember, Tom Cruise is a man who will, in what appears to be a quite rational, sensible and considered tone (when it really merits being said whilst curled up in a foetal ball and foaming at the mouth like an unhinged lunatic), say something like this:

"75 million years ago, there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu who was in charge of 76 planets in our sector of the galaxy, including planet Earth, whose name at that time was Teegeeack. [And to think this is the most rational part of this speech]

All of the planets Xenu controlled were over-populated by, on average, 178 billion people. Social problems dictated that Xenu rid his sector of the galaxy of this overpopulation problem, so he developed a plan. [Mass genocide? Compulsory sterilisation? Compulsory watching of Elf on everlasting auto-repeat..?]

Xenu sent out tax audit demands to all these billions of people. [Ah yes! Of course! The obvious solution... death by income-based means calculation.]

As each one entered the audit centers for the income tax inspections, the people were seized, held down and injected with a mixture of alcohol and glycol, and frozen. Then, all 13.5 trillion of these frozen people were put into spaceships that looked exactly like DC8 airplanes, except that the spaceships had rocket engines instead of propellers. [Now isn't it good to know that Scientology applies rigorous scientific standards and knows that all you have to do to make a mediocre aeroplane into a supersonic atmosphere-breaking spaceship is to swap the propellers for a rocket engine...?]

Xenu's entire fleet of DC8-like spaceships then flew to planet Earth, where the frozen people were dumped in and around volcanoes in the Canary Islands and the Hawaiian Islands. When Xenu's Air Force had finished dumping the bodies into the volcanoes, hydrogen bombs were dropped into the volcanoes and the frozen space aliens were destroyed. [Yes. All of the frozen space aliens were destroyed - with one prominent exception. The frozen space alien 'Cher' continues to live with us today.]

However, Xenu's plan involved setting up electronic traps in Teegeeack's atmosphere which were designed to trap the souls or spirits of the dead space aliens. When the 13.5 trillion spirits were being blown around on the nuclear winds, the electronic traps worked like a charm and captured all the souls in the electronic, sticky fly-paper like traps. [I'm sorry. This is a hugely advanced race capable of both fitting 13.5 trillion people into a couple of infinitesimally small volcanoes and killing them all with hydrogen bombs without terminally destroying the Earth, and what do they use to trap souls? Extremely large fly paper. Right.]

The spirits of the aliens were then taken to huge multiplex cinemas that Xenu had previously instructed his forces to build on Teegeeack. In these movie theaters the spirits had to spend many days watching special 3-D movies, the purpose of which was twofold: 1) to implant into these spirits a false reality, i.e. the reality that WOGS (Hubbard's derisory term for anyone not a Scientologist) know on Earth today; and, 2) to control these spirits for all eternity so that they could never cause trouble for Xenu in this sector of the Galaxy. During these films, many false pictures were implanted into these spirits, which resulted in the spirits believing in all the things that control mankind on Earth today, including religion. The concept of religion, including God, Christ, Mohammed, Moses etc., were all an implanted false reality that to this very minute is used to control WOGS on Earth. [1. That's racist. 2. Even a vegetable with water on the brain would be capable of thinking up a more convincing adjective than 'special' to describe these miraculous prehistoric cinema multiplexes.]

When the films ended and the souls left the cinema, they started to stick together in clusters of a few thousand and remained that way until mankind began to inhabit the Earth. Today on Earth all the spirits of these aliens have attached themselves to our bodies and are the root cause of the false reality that all but Scientology's "Homo Novis" or OT 8's on earth experience. It is the job of all Scientologists to remove this false reality from the world by auditing each and every space alien spirit and human on earth to CLEAR not only this planet but the universe. For those who oppose Scientology and stand in their way like the Lisa McPherson Trust and all Scientology critics, Scientology promises to do away with them "quietly and without sorrow". [to say this sounds slightly irrational is like saying that Insane Clown Posse have a slightly crap name]

We have calculated that on average, each person on planet earth has 2,209 of these Body Thetans (BT's for short), Hubbard's term for the alien spirits, attached to you causing you and all mankind to be constrained by Xenu's false reality. The average cost for Scientology to OT 8 is a mere USD 360,000, meaning that each BT only costs USD 163 to clear. Now that is a bargain if there ever was one. [Oh yes. A bargain on a scale with swapping a multi-million pound country mansion for a tube of expired cod liver oil flavoured silly string]

To finish the story, the Loyal Officers of the Marcab Confederation finally discovered how evil Xenu was and overthrew him. He is now locked away in a mountain on one of the planets and kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery." [Yes, that's exactly right. They could have just killed the bloke, but instead they choose to spend millions of pounds a year pointlessly maintaining a ludicrous decadence. Just like Paramount]

It should be remembered that the Pope is an archaic mouthpiece for a meaningless and outdated institution whose time passed several centuries ago, not the generic voice of Western civilisation. He is a mere mild and laughable irritation - a wasp with no sting fighting the nuclear-powered behemoth of enlightened atheism. His thoughts are about as relevant to most right-thinking men and women as Chantelle's views on the existentialist philosophical tradition. They are not even remotely close to having enough import to be considered as an insult. Muslims should join everyone else in heartily laughing at him and the ridiculous institution that spawned him.

Ed's Mood: Sardonic

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Mansun - I Can Only Disappoint You

Scissor Muse (Wedding Interlude)

2006-08-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

Ooh morons, don't you know I suffer?
Ooh halfwits, can you hear me moan?
You reside behind weak defences
How long before you sell your souls?

Ooh, your lyrics are so trite
Ooh, yours is a dreadful plight
Talent wasted, formulaic shite
The superstars sucked into the shameless sell-out
Talent wasted, formulaic shite
The superstars sucked into... [into the shameless sell-out]

I thought I was deceived by no-one
You bastards, I was fooled by you
The new queens of the superficial
How long before you duet with Moby?

Ooh, you should be so contrite
Ooh, you sound like McFly-lite
Talent wasted, formulaic shite
The superstars sucked into the shameless sell-out
Talent wasted, formulaic shite
The superstars sucked into... [into the shameless sell-out]

Ed's Mood: Bitter

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Velvet Revolver - Big Machine

Matrimonial Meanderings - Part One

2006-07-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

12:30 Having acquired my best man (The Gusmeister) and ushers (Duncan, my younger sibling, and Neil, elder statesman and chief wit of the slug-infested parasitic hellhole that masqueraded as my second and third year university accommodation) and suavely attired myself in a fetching tailcoat, I have little left to do in terms of preparation other than anxiously pace around the house. My nervousness is, however, minor compared to that of the Gusmeister, who is such a perfectionist that he spends nearly an hour and a half practising the hand gestures that accompany his speech in the mirror.

14:00 We reach the church. I trip over a grave that has had the confounded cheek and selfish lack of consideration for others to position itself directly in my path and I narrowly avoid crashing head first into the accompanying headstone. This is not an auspicious start.

14:05 I trip over another poorly positioned grave. I look around suspiciously for any sniggering zombies who might be behind this conspiracy against my person.

14:10 I affix my buttonhole flora and mobile hayfever-inducing device. The streaming eyes that are the natural consequence of attaching such a malevolent pollen-filled flower to my upper chest are taken by my dad to demonstrate a complete breakdown of manly resolve. I remind him that I have not cried in public since I last saw a Will Ferrell comedy.

14:40 The guests begin to arrive, and as etiquette demands that Dani does not make an appearance in person until the ceremony begins I find myself in the unusual position of being the centre of attention for something positive. Previous times when I have been the centre of attention include a) the occasion at primary school when my appalling ineptitude for the game 'It' resulted in the near self-amputation of my left arm and an emergency rescue from the fire brigade, b) the time at secondary school when my English teacher considered my interpretation of the poem 'Goblin Market' to be so revoltingly depraved that she took me aside in class for some one-to-one counselling and c) the occasion on which I became the first person ever to score two goals in the same House Football game with my arse. This is, therefore, a new and quite disconcerting experience for me.

14:45 The Gusmeister and I enter the church to a rousing and entirely spontaneous burst of utter, contemptuous silence. I quickly calculate all the aspects of the ceremony that could go horribly wrong and the correct answer 'all of them several times over and to increasingly embarrassing and humiliating effect' provides me with little solace.

15:00 Dani arrives, but in my enfeebled state I am only able to continue to look directly forward while quivering gently. The vicar - who closely resembles a bowling ball with a not especially convincing approximation of a face - gently reminds me that it is conventional for the groom to face the bride rather than staring intently at the places on his head where the fingers and thumb go.

15:10 The immortal line 'does anyone here know of any good reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony?' is uttered at last. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to kill everyone who knew of a good reason prior to the ceremony and my other six wives are securely locked up in a safe house in Basildon, so I feel in little danger at this stage. There is no audible response to this question other than a few mild giggles and a number of 'yes, he prefers chickens', which are greeted with the contempt they deserve.

15:30 We are married. Dani, with typically endearing naivety, appears blissfully unaware of the fact that she has haplessly and unnecessarily thrown her life away and has not yet got round to even tying the knot... in her noose, let alone hanging it from the ceiling. After crossing the threshold of the church we are invited to form a slightly belated greeting line for our guests. The females are subjected to the horrific experience of an embrace and kiss from yours truly*.

* I kissed nearly 70 women on my wedding day, which seems slightly inappropriate and immoral. Fortunately, however, most of them are at least partially recovered from post-traumatic stress disorder and the others are in recession. The ones you really have to sympathise for are those who received invitations to both the church and the evening reception and were thus subjected to the horrific ordeal on two occasions. What is most concerning is that the official photographs of what should have been innocuous cheek pecks and embraces are taken from such a deceptive angle as to make it appear that I'm committing a series of increasingly horrifying and adulterous carnal acts barely seconds after my wedding with a variety of my new wife's best friends. Now I understand what my good friend Kate (who, incidentally was born on the same day as me and thus is unfortunate enough to share a birthday with Benito Mussolini and, worse, Andi Peters) was going on about when she said slightly sardonically that I was a 'good hugger'...

16:00 We are subjected to the odd tradition that demands that the new bride and groom are half-drowned in scraps of discarded coloured toilet paper as they battle their way manfully to their automotive escape route. Battered and bruised by this experience, we request a quick escape in our hird Rolls Royce Phantom and smooothly exit proceedings. As we leave Witham I breathe for the first time in four hours and foolishly begin to relax, whereupon I remember to my horror that the situation most fraught with the potential for extreme embarrassment - namely my speech - is still yet to come...

Ed's Mood: Ebullient

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Smashing Pumpkins - Rock On

Filler Track

2006-07-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

(To the theme tune of - and in homage to - the children's animated classic, Poddington Peas)

At the bottom of the gene pool
With all the rats and the flies
There's a lot of semi-people
They're called the Basildon chavs
The Basildon chavs

Authentic wedding and honeymoon update coming soon...

Ed's Mood: Tranquil

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Ephymerean Gaze - 'New One'

Anachronistic Turkeys

2006-05-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

Congratulations are due to NME today. Not only have they helped obliterate the last remaining semblance of originality and innovation from modern music by their ceaseless and utterly baffling promotion of only the most jaw-droppingly turgid three-chord dirge merchants, but they have also managed to gratuitously offend one of the few bands left who refuse to occupy this shatteringly mundane, moribund and mind-numbing genre.

This has to be the most preposterous, breathtakingly stupid and downright insulting question ever asked to a member of any band:

NME: You're playing after the Arctic Monkeys. Are you worried that you might be upstaged?

MATT BELLAMY: ..............................................?!?!?!?!

Since the Arctic Monkeys would struggle to upstage Milli Vanilli farting the Greatest Hits Of William Shatner through a megaphone, I think not.

Ed's Mood: Bewildered

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Muse - Knights of Cydonia (live)

Fantastical Flagellation

2006-05-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the fabric separating reality from utterly ludicrous fantasy was terminally ruptured. The theory that infinite parallel universes exist in which every conceivable possibility happens simultaneously was negated by the fact that a possibility occurred that is conceivable in absolutely no universes, even the one in which Dr. Jade Goody is executive director of MENSA and Chuck Norris is a woman.

Yes. The impossible happened. Colchester United, instead of faithfully following the tragic narrative of the past 68 years (i.e. spectacularly self-imploding and snatching a series of humiliating thrashings from the jaws of desperate draws), were promoted into the second tier of the professional football structure. Fortunately (in one sense), the most tenuous and desperate connection with pre-existing reality was maintained by the fact that they failed to win the league and lost it to the black vortex almost entirely inhabited by ungodly creatures clad in Burberry caps and Converse trainers who spend their days performing satanic hoodie-clad rituals by the inside light of their Nissan Micras.

Hilariously, the ridiculous comedy of this extraordinary event is even further exacerbated by the fact that teams such as Birmingham and Sunderland who regularly play host to crowds of 25,000 or more will be forced to play at Layer Road, a ground which can only be described as a small landfill site surrounded by three cow sheds and a large ditch. However, what is truly side-splitting is that instead of caviar pies and champagne-soaked hot dogs ('contains 100% authentic Crufts winner'), supporters of such teams will be forced to indulge in the Layer Road catering:

MENU

E.COLI PIE - £2.50
E.COLI PIE WITH CHEESE - £2.75
SALMONELLA BURGER - £2.50
HOT RANCID RABIES DOG - £2.50
HOT RANCID RABIES DOG WITH CHEESE - £2.75
CORNISH PASTIE (rat, grass, small Cornish child, flavourings (E101, E262, Finish Dishwasher Powder, Windex, caramel), sweeteners (Tesco Value Soap), preservatives, laxatives, industrial solvents, cat testicles) - £17.80
LUKEWARM BROWN LIQUID - £3.00
LUKEWARM BROWN LIQUID WITH MILK - £3.30
LUKEWARM BROWN LIQUID WITH COW MILK - £5.00

The match itself was a terrifyingly nerve-wracking affair, featuring almost incessantly suicidal defending and some miraculous good fortune. Even had we managed to concede the most soul-destroying of last minute winners from Yeovil, Brentford's kind generosity and consideration in allowing the opposition to score a last minute equaliser for the second consecutive week would have ensured our safe passage into the Championship. However, what was particularly unhelpful was the crass inanity of an idiotic individual sitting behind me, who appeared to believe that childishly simple mathematics was the domain of rocket physicists and that when you make a ludicrous error so implausibly stupid and criminal that genital self-flagellation with a chainsaw would barely compensate for the mental anguish it causes to others, you should blame whichever vaguely sentient being happens to be foolish enough to be sitting near you.

I was provided with advance warning of this individual's vegetative cabbage mentality when, shortly before kick-off, he emitted the words: 'so if we lose, Brentford have to draw to overtake us? Oh, they have to win. What happens if we draw?'.

I was incredulous. Every single Colchester United fan able to ascribe that monicker to himself or herself with the remotest modicum of confidence spent the week before the match in a state of dangerously obsessive agitation, studying the league table in the minutest of detail and learning the consequences of every conceivable result. Most were afflicted with short-term mental illness as a consequence of their actions. Yet this jaw-droppingly halfwitted, nonsensical lunatic of a man was not even capable of performing the infantile task of working out that any result for Colchester bar a loss would result in their promotion and that the only way Brentford could have any impact whatsoever was through winning their game. Unbelievable.

However, this was a mere bagatelle of braindead backwardness, barely worthy of comment, compared to the madness that followed it. After 60 minutes of the respective games Brentford were winning 2-1 and Colchester were cherishing their 0-0 scoreline, enveloped in an atmosphere of sheer and utter desperation. The mindless moron behind me said 'Bournemouth have equalised!'. Cue mass celebration in our stand.

Twenty minutes later the following conversation took place:

MINDLESS MORON: 'Are Bournemouth drawing?'
ME: 'You said they were!'
MINDLESS MORON: 'Yeah, but that text message I got might have been sent when they made it 1-1 . Didn't you check on your internet thingy?'

Dumbstruck horror afflicts all nearby

ME: 'No, you said they were drawing! (as I assumed that if you shined a torch light through your head it wouldn't be visible on the other side, I trusted you, you incorrigible idiot)'
MINDLESS MORON: 'You sh*tbag'
ME: '...................!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?'

If Colchester had failed to win promotion from there I would have had no choice but to strangle this individual with my club scarf, disembowel him, and proceed to force-feed him a choice selection of his own internal organs while rapping the refrain from 'Get Ur Freak On' by Missy Elliott (just to ensure that all his senses received an equal level of torture) and drowning him in a vat of his own bodily fluids.

Rather fortunate for him that Colchester did in fact win promotion, methinks.

Ed's Mood: Infuriated

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (just for curiosity value though - it's absolutely terrible. It resembles the Scissor Sisters on valium.)

Ed Hates: Number One - Fred Phelps

2006-04-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Oh God. This is almost too easy. Fred Phelps is one of those hilarious individuals who try to compensate for their overwhelming self-loathing, baffling medieval prejudices, inadequate phalluses and spectacularly demented stupidity by using their evangelical Christian pretences to protest about ludicrous issues. For the uninformed, Fred Phelps is an American man (I use the word 'man' loosely to include shrivelled anaemic walking corpses with the sentient powers and cogent reasoning skills of Toilet Duck) who leads a 'Church' consisting almost entirely of him and his brainwashed family. This 'Church' is so obsessively homophobic that they organised a protest at the funeral of a deceased soldier because he fought for a 'nation which condones homosexual activity' and regularly organise other protests at events which may possibly, under certain circumstances, be considered to perhaps have the vaguest semblance of a connection to something which arguably has the slightest link to condoning homosexuality. Apart from the fact that 'blaming' the soldier for this is rather like Mick Jagger blaming his rampant adultery on the evil plotting of his testicles, no sentient being gives the remotest flying Pope whether people are homosexual or not. The issue is about as significant to anyone normal as Chantelle's face.

And of course, when the preposterous zombified cabbage dies, which, judging by the fact that his views (as with those of all evangelical morons who actually believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago and that dinosaur bones are a 'test of faith' as opposed to a clear fact which obliterates their side-splittingly ridiculous delusions) confirm that his birthdate was early in the twelth century, must be very soon, surely his funeral must be protested against as he lives in a country which condones homosexuality? Why does he not live in Afghanistan, a country where decent, upstanding, jaw-droppingly deluded fundamentalist heterosexuals happily decapitate those nasty homosexuals? Hopefully while he's there he might be fortunate enough to fall prey to twenty or so nice malignant diseases and be able to swiftly enjoy the pleasures of whatever hellish afterlife is in store for him. Moron.

Here is a nice family photo of the rabid homophobic muppets. Aren't they just the cutest bigoted braindead maniacs?

Help.

Ed's Mood: Sardonic

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: The Stranglers - Walk On By

Mockney Mocking

2006-04-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

Nothing infuriates me more than the curious world of Z-List celebrity, a world where it is possible to be famous simply for not being famous and for setting back outside world perceptions of the 'Essex Girl' ten thousand years. I am speaking, of course, of the world occupied by Chantelle. This woman is so jaw-droppingly and sensationally stereotypical that she is virtually impossible to satirise. Vacuous doe-eyed stupidity? Check. A ludicrous mockney accent which is about as endearing as someone who eats kittens and as attractive as Johnny Vegas in lycra? Check. Bleached blonde hair which is about as convincing as Bill Clinton announcing that he has not had sex with someone and as realistic as the average Channel Five soft-porn plotline?

CONVENIENTLY WELL-ENDOWED BLONDE: Oooh, my gravity-defying 32FF breasts are SOO hot in this near-impossibly skimpy bikini. I'd better take it off...

CONVENIENTLY WELL-ENDOWED BLONDE TWO: Oooh, me tooo!! And I'm just SOO sweaty after my day at school/teaching those handsome young students/my nursing shift/my day at the police station/my day wearing bondage gear/my day on the Star Wars set/my day cooking food while making spectacularly tenuous innuendos involving cream and whipping/my other activity involving any kind of uniform and/or weak connection with a generic male fantasy. I'd better take my equally skimpy bikini top off too...

CONVENIENTLY WELL-ENDOWED BLONDE: You know, I'm having SUCH trouble cleaning my breasts in this conveniently located communal shower.

CONVENIENTLY WELL-ENDOWED BLONDE TWO: Ooh, let me help you with this conveniently sensual soap.

CONVENIENTLY WELL-ENDOWED BLONDE: Mmm, this is conveniently nice.

CONVENIENTLY WELL-ENDOWED BLONDE: You know, even though we're about as likely to be lesbians as Chantelle is likely to have a personality and Will Ferrell is likely to make a joke that doesn't provoke an overwhelming homicidal urge among all right-thinking sentient creatures, we're both naked, so we may as well engage in highly unrealistic and spectacularly tame lesbian sex. Oh, and the fact that as well as being blonde lesbians we're also twins and that this is technically incestuous and creates a controversial moral dilemma is completely irrelevant.

CONVENIENTLY WELL-ENDOWED BLONDE: Okay, I'll pretend to pleasure you despite the fact that my head is actually located somewhere near your ankles while you fake an orgasm by a) forming an expression that connotes vague confusion and possible constipation and b) implausibly gyrating at random intervals.

... Check. Thinks Tony Blair is a small farming village in Angola? Check.

However, someone has come close to usurping Chantelle in my list of people who must be destroyed. This person is the Pope.

Watch carefully as he transforms himself from benevolent God-fearing pensioner to homicidal child-slaughtering Sith Lord. You have been warned...

Ed's Mood: Calm

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Vangelis - Conquest of Paradise

Atheist Self-Justification

2006-03-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

1. The very notion of the Christian God is self-contradictory ('Euthyphro's Dilemma')

God is both 'good' and 'omnipotent'. So, is something 'good' because God decrees it to be so, or is it because it is 'good' that God decrees it? This is not in fact tautological. If something is 'good' because God decrees it to be so, then whatever is good is entirely and utterly arbitrary. If God had said 'murdering small children with battleaxes is good', this would be equally as acceptable as the statement 'telling the truth is good'. The definition of 'good' is relegated to 'good is whatever God says is good'. 'Good' has effectively been stripped of all positive moral connotations - it is an entirely empty and nebulous description of a divine decree.

However, if it is because something is 'good' that God decrees it, the starting description of God is equally impossible to accept as this suggests that a standard of morality exists outside of God - he is not omnipotent as he possesses no control whatsoever over what actually constitutes 'good'. God cannot logically be both 'good' (in any meaningful or self-evidently positive sense) and 'omnipotent'.

2. Everything that is regarded as true in every facet of reality requires strict standards of empirical evidence to be applied to it - unless it is religious in nature

Every scientific discovery that is regarded as 'true' must be empirically justifiable - it must be 'perceptible'. Every aspect of reality is accepted as so because it meets empirical standards (this tree can be seen, smelt, felt etc). If something has no empirical evidence to justify it (e.g. 'there is a fifty thousand foot green alien in my garden'), it is rejected as false. Why is religion separated from this need to apply empirical standards? To argue that religion is somehow 'sacred' is unhelpful - it is an entirely self-justified remark ('Why is the Bible sacred? Because the Bible says it is sacred'. Great.) and therefore this kind of statement is utterly nebulous and empty. If there is no evidence for something in any other human realm, it is immediately rejected. There is no empirical evidence to suggest that the Christian God exists - yet the notion of his existence is not rejected. Why is this? The Bible is not empirical evidence - it was written by man and has no empirically verifiable qualities to distinguish the veracity of its content from Norse stories of Thor or Greek mythology, none of which is assumed to be true.

3. The Bible is NOT the unmediated, uninterpreted 'word of God'

'35% of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of the Creator of the universe' - Sam Harris

This is plainly ridiculous (and very disturbing) for several reasons. Firstly, the very fact that the Bible has been written down inherently means that 'the word' has been mediated and interpreted by man and the acknowledged scribes (unless of course you subscribe to the belief that a copy literally and physically dropped down from Heaven). Secondly, the Bible itself is terminally riddled with contradictions and inconsistency of style - a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient deity would not make errors. Thirdly, it is horribly coloured by the now outmoded cultural norms of the day (such as the repression of women) - an all-powerful, benevolent deity would not have allowed this.

4. The Bible contains numerous calls to brutality and violence which would not be condoned by any modern, civilised, morally upright society and cannot be ignored by 'moderate Christians' without them being forced to question the very foundations of their faith

'If your brother, the son of your father or of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the spouse whom you embrace, or your most intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods," unknown to you or your ancestors before you, gods of the peoples surrounding you, whether near you or far away, anywhere throughout the world, you must not consent, you must not listen to him; you must show him no pity, you must not spare him or conceal his guilt. No, you must kill him, your hand must strike the first blow in putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God' (Deuteronomy 13:7-11)

This is effectively a call to murder all non-Christians, including atheists (who could quite easily be considered to 'serve the god(s) of materialism'). A 'moderate Christian' would either argue that this passage should be read symbolically (which appears virtually impossible in light of the fairly unambigous nature of its diatribe against non-Christians) or ignore it completely. However, this is unacceptable - if God wrote the Bible, surely it is a heretical act to selectively ignore any part of it simply because it contradicts secular and civil standards of morality? A 'true Christian' cannot selectively decide which parts of Scripture to accept based on secular or civil moral standards - if the Bible is a perfect interpretation of God's word, no other guide can be used to call into question any element within it, regardless of how repulsive or seemingly immoral it may be. Effectively, a decision to ignore any part of the Bible is, for a Christian, an inherently and entirely arbitrary one - non-religious guides are of no significance whatsoever if the Bible is uniformly perfect. Each part must necessarily be perfect as any other part. It therefore is equally justifiable for a Christian to ignore the statement 'thou shalt not steal' as the Deuteronomy verse. As Sam Harris says, 'moderation in religion... has nothing underwriting it other than the unacknowledged neglect of the letter of the divine law'. No 'divine' standard whatsoever can possibly exist to decide which elements of the Bible should be maintained by 'moderate Christians' and which should be ignored, and therefore, for a Christian, no standard exists to make this decision. Either the whole of the Bible is accepted or the whole of the Bible is rejected.

5. Christian dogma and Church interference in matters of state dangerously undermines vital stem cell research

A ball of cells in an early embryonic state is not 'sentient'. If the ball of cells cannot understand, feel or respond to pain or indeed react 'sentiently' to any stimulus whatsoever, it seems odd to regard it as possessing a 'soul' (which surely must be defined as incorporating sentience and awareness of the world). The argument against this is usually that if I 'cannot prove that the cells do not have a soul, it is not right to use the cells in stem cell research'. However, this is strange reasoning - I cannot prove that I do not have an invisible weightless elephant on my head that cannot be perceived by any human senses, but it does not mean I should operate under the belief that I do! It is far more rational to assume that the ball of cells does not have a soul than the opposite as it has been empirically and scientifically demonstrated as being likely to possess no sentience or comprehension of the world - if some justification and empirical evidence exists for one unproven point of view and none exists for another unproven one, it will always be more rational and justifiable to accept the point of view which has evidence attached to it. No proof exists to determine that I do not have an invisible weightless elephant on my head, but the basic rationality and worldly experience that suggests that I do not (no elephant has ever been known of small enough to sit on someone's head, an animal with no mass has never been known of and is therefore highly improbable, etc) suggests that it would be ridiculous to assume that I do ahead of the educated assumption that I do not.

6. The Catholic doctrine of 'Natural Law' is preposterous

'Natural law' is predicated on the idea that everything has one purpose. The purpose of the eye, for example, is to see. The purpose of sex is to procreate - therefore, any sexual act which does not result in procreation is sinful (e.g. using contraception, masturbation, etc). This is clearly ludicrous. Firstly, who decides what the 'natural purpose' of something is? If God has not unambiguously stated within the Bible what the 'natural purpose' of absolutely everything is, then it is entirely down to fallible men to decide - and any judgment they make is entirely arbitrary as no divine element to an entirely human decision can possibly exist. It would be equally justifiable to assume that the natural purpose of sex is to receive pleasure - and therefore protected sex is perfectly acceptable. Secondly, why should something only have one 'natural purpose'? Legs, for example, can be used for standing up, walking and kicking. Is it sinful to walk?? The natural purpose of sex may be to receive pleasure in certain situations and procreation in others. The Vatican condemnation of the use of contraception (even in situations where women have been raped and are pregnant with their abuser's child) is therefore entirely arbitrary (and disgusting).

Three of these ideas were shamelessly stolen from Sam Harris's 'The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason' - READ IT NOW

Ed's Mood: Furious

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Anathema - Pulled Under At 2,000 Metres A Second

Leaden Irony

2006-03-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

I thought that an appropriate (if terminally belated) response to the litany of attempts to concoct the theoretically seminal 'dream band' would be to enlighten you all as to the identities of the members of the Absolute Worst Band Imaginable:

LEAD SINGER: BILLY CORGAN

Actually I like the Smashing Pumpkins and I think that Billy Corgan is an outstanding songwriter and an acceptably accomplished guitar player. But even the most devout, insensate and stubbornly deluded fan has to admit that his singing is preposterously inept. In addition to these astonishingly dismal vocals, which can only be described as the sound that would occur if you stuck a hyena in a blender and brutally mangled its testicles, unceremoniously shoved Rod Stewart into a helium balloon and told him that you'd release three consecutive atrocious albums of dire American standards if he refused to sing or threw Janet Street-Porter into a fire, he has the misplaced ego of ten Audley Harrisons ('I'm WELL on track to win the world championship some time in 2057 mate, WELL on track') and appeared to compose his early piano parts by dropping large lead weights at random intervals on to the instrument from a great height and then writing down the results.

LEAD GUITAR: JOHNNY BUCKLAND

For those of you who continue to reside in blissful ignorance, Johnny Buckland is the 'guitarist' from infuriatingly ubiquitous adult bedwetters and creators of the musical equivalent of lukewarm Tesco Value Porridge, Coldplay. Extraordinarily, Buckland is what I can only describe as 'the poor man's Edge', operating under the less-than-charmingly naive belief that repeatedly playing a single note in the manner of someone in possession of a solitary digit and adding an assortion of soul-crushingly leaden, pitifully poor, formulaic 'echo' effects to it constitutes an 'epic guitar solo'. No, Johnny, this does not constitute an 'epic guitar solo'. It constitutes something which invariably sounds suspiciously like it was shamelessly plagiarised from the sound a mobile phone makes when it receives a new message.

'Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try
To fix you'

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP etc etc ad infinitum ad suicidal urges ad leaping desperately into the noose ad blissful terminal asphyxiation...

BASS: THAT IDIOT FROM PLACEBO

To be fair to the poor, utterly useless human vegetable of a bassist, he is left horribly exposed at the best of times by Brian Molko's satanic shrieking and godawful guitar playing. But surely, you may ask, this would give him increased motivation, if not sheer desperation, to actually acquire a remote semblance of skill at the instrument? You would be wrong. This man can only dream of discovering a fourth note.

KEYBOARDS: LINDA MCCARTNEY

Rare as it is for me to display disrespect towards someone who is not only vegetarian (and remember my maxim, chaps and chappettes - For Every Cow You Don't Eat, I'll Eat A Farm) but sadly no longer with us, I must remain faithful to my original aim and state that Paul McCartney's irritating sidekick will always occupy a legendary position in the pantheon of terrible keyboard players. Deluded individuals will probably attempt to defend her by using such ridiculous terms as 'minimalist', 'sparing' and 'subtle', but as these are all synonymous with 'is about as good as playing the piano as a baby duck is good at writing critically acclaimed existentialist poetry', I will treat their pathetic comeback with the contempt it deserves. However impressive the technology at her disposal, she always managed to ensure that her compositions sound like she had taken the demo tune from an 80s Casio keyboard, expertly removed the soul and then written a variation on it for Your One-Fingered Toddler's First Piano Book.

DRUMS: MEG WHITE

Let us be brutally and incisively honest here. No-one could possibly care less about Meg White's doubtful 'beauty', aura of charismatic mystery (which apparently is something you gain if you are incapable of speaking onstage, as opposed to a reputation for simply being spectacularly uninteresting), uniquely atrocious fashion sense and suspiciously ample mammaries if she played percussion with the dexterity of a sumo wrestler, the rhythmic appreciation of a small child clumsily thumping his baby sister over the head at random intervals with an assortion of toy trucks and the concentration of a repeatedly lobotomised goldfish with advanced Alzheimer's.

Unfortunately for her, this is exactly what she does.

Haha. Only kidding.

But seriously. She does.

Ed's Mood: Fulfilled

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Muse - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

A Lukewarm Whine

2006-02-26T03:38:00.000-08:00

This has been an extraordinarily atrocious year for music. Somehow the majestically mediocre munchkins the Kaiser Chiefs and the Arctic Monkeys have received widespread critical acclaim despite having composed the sum total of two laughably poor band names and one song between them, which they generously share with one another. Unfathomably, no-one has noticed that this single shared song is repeated fourteen times on both their respective albums and sounds like a rejected Chesney Hawkes filler track from his oft-forgotten second album, Chesney Hawkes Sings The Rejected B-Sides Of Chris De Burgh.

However, it is not the aforementioned leaches on the musical fabric of this nation but the Black Eyed Peas, who share the distinction of a catastrophically useless name, who are the subject of my ire today. After the release of 'Where Is The Love?', a malignant verruca of a song which practically begs the listener to begin a homicidal rampage against all associators with cynically corporate, formulaic, tepid, lukewarm whines sung with all the passion of a Justin Trousersnake guest chorus (i.e. (a) anyone who has composed, purchased, voluntarily listened to, (b) threatened to compose, purchase or voluntarily listen to (c) shown any sign of developing a future desire to compose, purchase or voluntarily listen to or (d) knows but does not vehemently abuse people who compose, purchase or voluntarily listen to R'N'B), most observers assumed that, until the apocalypse occurs and Keanu Reeves' vanity project Dogstar rise again, that no musical low could ever hope to match this one. Listening to Dogstar is, of course, akin to a surgeon forgetting to provide you with anaesthetic and then performing a vasectomy on you with a chainsaw.

With the release of the near-impossibly terrible 'My Humps', however, the Black Eyed Peas have bettered even their enviably and consistently high standard of musical ineptness. Spectacularly, this song manages to make the most desirable anatomical features of the female body sound like horrible mutations:

My hump
My hump
My lovely lady lumps

I'm sure even those of you fortunate enough to have avoided this ubiquitous monstrosity thus far will realise that 'hump' refers to the female backside and 'lumps' to the mammaries. Features which, I know you will agree, are virtually impossible to render unattractive if possessed by someone as physically advantaged as the lead female singer. However, whenever I accidentally listen to this particular section of the song I hear only this:

My spinal bifida
My spinal bifida
My lovely malignant tumours

Not pleasant.

Ed's Mood: Disgusted

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums

The Humourless Rant

2006-02-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

There are no jokes below. I am hacked off.

I may be writing from an inherently blinkered Western secular perspective inescapably touched by my upbringing, comfortable atheist beliefs and cultural norms, but the astonishing and ridiculous overreaction by the fundamentalist elements of the Islamic world to the Danish newspaper cartoons has utterly bamboozled me. How, precisely, is torching the Danish embassy proportional retaliation for a couple of stupid and offensive but, in global terms, pitifully inconsequential and eminently forgettable pictures??? This kind of preposterously exaggerated reaction has no place in a world where Neo-Nazi groups propagate filth on the Internet, dangerous white supremacist groups commit violent acts coloured by bigoted racial and religious hatred and suicide bombers routinely murder innocent people who have absolutely nothing to do with the policies of their government and bare less than no responsibility for them, thereby destroying support for their movements and committing acts as vile as anything performed against them. These are of no importance by comparison - they are cartoons, the insensate and supremely irrelevant scribblings of two or three fools endorsed by a single newspaper and absolutely no-one else. In a sane world the artist(s) would have been quietly condemned, a profuse apology issued to Muslims among the readership offended by the pictures and no-one would have batted an eyelid. Why the hell should the Danish prime minister have to publicly apologise for the actions of people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the thoughts, actions and policies of him or his administration??

I also believe that the pictures satirise the view of Islam perpetuated by crazed fanatics by portraying Mohammed in the light fundamentalists portray him in, and do not satirise Mohammed himself or Islam itself. The fact that Mohammed is portrayed at all is to make a far more profound and considered point - namely that Mohammed is, of course, not a suicide bomber but is regarded by fanatics as someone who advocates and encourages suicide bombing. The cartoon which portrays Mohammed as a suicide bomber is making precisely this point - it satirises the ridiculous view of Islam held by radical morons, not Islam itself. The cartoon of paradise accompanied with the slogan 'Stop - we've run out of virgins!' is, again, a satire of the ridiculous beliefs held by the fanatics and the fanatics alone - namely that paradise is some kind of everlasting misogynistic brothel for murderers. It is decidedly not a satire of Islam or Islamic beliefs, but simply a satire of those views held by a minority of fundamentalist adherents who are condemned as much by Muslims as by anyone else. This distinction may appear irrelevant as Mohammed should not appear as a graven image regardless of the nuances of the satire, but it does at least partially excuse the artist. It is one thing to find the cartoons offensive - if I was religious, I would certainly feel uneasy about someone depicting God as, for example, a murderer of homosexuals and heathens even if the cartoon was aimed to satirise the views of crazed Christian fundamentalists (of which there are plenty) as opposed to demonstrating any anti-Christian beliefs of the author. It is another to deliberately misinterpret them, ascribe a meaning to them that they do not have and idiotically blame the poorly judged mistake of a handful of people on a continent of millions.

What really infuriates me is that certain Arabic newspapers have 'retaliated' by posting cartoons satirising the Holocaust, ingenuously protesting an equivalent 'freedom of expression' that seems frustratingly alien to them. How can this possibly be regarded as in any way 'equivalent'?? Since when did the cartoons endorse a brutal gas chamber assisted mass genocide of Muslims?? A fair, equitable and justifiable response would actually have been to publish cartoons satirising Christian fundamentalist perspectives of God (something which, incidentally, occurs on a regular basis in the media in this country and which does not remotely bother anyone apart from strange radicals) or, more suitably, satirising us godless, secular, extremely bewildered people.

Finally, it has to be said that the medieval rhetoric which has accompanied this whole affair is laughable. I saw a placard carrying the idiotic slogan 'Death to freedom of expression' as if Stalinist oppression and being spoon-fed ludicrous fundamentalist dogma is somehow preferable to the occasional abuse of this right. Crazed sweeping generalisations are all-pervasive:

'Oh look, a Danish newspaper published offensive cartoons. As I can't be bothered to make the subtle distinction, let's blame the entire Danish population of millions for the actions of about five people who have absolutely nothing to do with them. French and Polish newspapers reproduced them? Let's blame the whole of Europe, most of the population of which is watching on in utter, baffled, uncomprehending bemusement'

This is a sad, sad indictment of the world.

Ed's Mood: Disillusioned and baffled

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: U2 - New Year's Day

Sublime Delusions

2006-01-31T09:12:00.000-08:00

I was grievously insulted today by an Archiving student, who ridiculously is in the same 'school' as me at UCL despite sharing absolutely no characteristics in common with the relatively normal, sane folk on my course. This student languishes under the sublimely deluded belief that archivists and their ilk are somehow superior to us Electronic Communication and Publishing students because they are doing something 'relevant' and 'exciting'. I was temporarily rendered speechless by the utter, overwhelmingly moronic idiocy of this statement. How exactly is spending eighteen hours a day sitting in a library desperately avoiding all human contact researching the Golden Years of Preston North End 1898-1898 or the History of Dishwasher Powder 1970-1984 'relevant' and 'exciting'? Frankly, I'd rather eat my own pancreas. Raw.

As a consequence of their fear of the outside world, archivists are so dangerously pale that I strongly suspect them of dissolving upon contact with sunlight. Unfortunately I have thus far been entirely unable to test this theory as this would involve physically removing one from the library, which is about as easy as swimming blindfolded across a crocodile infested lake in a meat-flavoured straitjacket.

The other principal object of my ire today is the dismal excuse for a sketch comedy that is Little Britain. The rise of this mind-numbingly predictable uselessness is a sad indictment of a frantically impatient society that requires instant comic gratification, however weakly delivered. Whatever happened to the intricate, subtle and cleverly executed humour of a 'Coupling' or a 'Scrubs'? The pathetic cow's backside of a programme that is Little Britain is characterised by a hideous cacophony of atrociously uninspired set-pieces, painfully telegraphed 'punchlines' and an increasingly desperate third series resort to the standard 'comic' fallback of urea and faeces 'jokes' to achieve even a semblance of humour. Well, it's an old truism, but even unpleasant bodily fluids can't drag this horrendous debacle out of the comedy gutter.

Here, for reference purposes, is the invariable structure of a Little Britain 'joke':

1. Matt Lucas says/does something unfunny
2. Mark Walliams says/does something equally unfunny
3. Unfunny consequences result

Repeat ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad overpowering homicidal urges.

It never ceases to astonish me just how preposterously popular this comic vacuum is. Particularly as it is one that displays the originality of a sexually deviant Liberal party leader candidate, the uproarious hilarity of accidentally slicing your own head off with a chainsaw and the profundity of a satsuma. The aspect of the programme that infuriates me the most is the fact that it operates under the chillingly complacent belief that if a spectacularly unfunny catchphrase is repeated often enough, it will somehow become amusing. You know what I have to say to that?

Mates.

Ed's Mood: Bemused

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Radiohead - 2+2=5

Cheltenham Blah

2006-01-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 24th January 2006

4:45 I stagger blearily out of my Database Systems Analysis seminar, desperately pleading with every god I know and several that I improvise on the spot to never again force me to enter the cursed four walls that have brutally imprisoned me for the last three hours. I wipe off the cold sweat and massage my temples to alleviate the symptoms of terminal brain death that are beginning to afflict me.

5:00 I try to calculate when exactly I became the type of irretrievably sadomasochistic maniac that travels to places like Cheltenham midweek to watch his football team undergo a ritual thrashing. I remember with sickening horror and a sense of gruesome disgust that I went to Hartlepool in 1995. I renounce my soul.

5:18 I catch the Cheltenham Spa train from London Paddington.

6:00-7:29 I ignore the vociferous and heated complaints of my brain and attempt Database Systems Analysis reading. For the next half hour I experience first-hand what it must be like to be stripped naked and then impaled on a javelin in front of an audience of your closest family members and friends as they watch extended graphic highlights of your sexual career on a 100" plasma screen accompanied with Dolby Surround Sound. Only this is infinitely worse.

7:30 I reach Cheltenham Spa and catch a taxi, whereupon a morose and clearly distinterested driver asks me where my destination is. I somewhat abashedly tell him. He says 'you're well spoken for a football fan' in a somewhat disbelieving and mildly insulting manner. I resiliently resist the overpowering temptation to unleash the banter-exterminating qualities of my internal David Brent and say 'well, you're fat for a taxi driver'.

7:35 Taxi driver asks the dreaded question 'so how are Colchester doing?'. Usually my reluctant and guarded response to this question is greeted with a sardonic witticism along the lines of the following:

'Ah, not bad, only one place below second bottom'
'Well, at least you're above Billingham Symphonia Ladies Under 10's 4th XI (har-de-har-har). Oh wait, you're not? Sorry'

The driver visibly blanches, is struck absolutely dumbstruck and narrowly avoids depositing the taxi in a conveniently located ditch upon hearing my reply.

7:38 A shaken and ashen-faced driver expresses his idiotic preference for horse racing ahead of football, a jaw-dropping statement of obtuseness akin to saying 'I'd rather eat my own faeces than Belgian chocolate'. I greet him with the most utterly contemptuous scowl and soul-crushingly scornful lip-curling sneer at my disposal. He misses it completely.

7:47 Having missed kick-off (and, by virtue of two minutes already having elapsed, presumably the opening three Cheltenham goals), I sprint across the street with the debonair grace of a pheasant priming itself for roadkill responsibilities towards the glorified arrangement of cow sheds that is currently moonlighting as a football ground.

7:50 After explaining to a bemused steward that my glasses' case extraordinarily and miraculously houses glasses rather than the DIY nuclear missile kit and chemical weaponry that would normally be expected, I locate a seat with the 150 other hardy, committed and supremely devoted morons who have also made the trip. I discover to my astonishment that the score remains level.

8:00 George Elokobi demonstrates his ecsquisitely executed and varied range of passing by hitting the ball into the upper tiers of the right hand stand, fortunately receiving it from the resulting throw-on and then slicing it majestically into the left-hand one.

8:02 George Elokobi blasts the ball out of the ground.

8:03 George Elokobi blasts the replacement ball out of the ground.

8:04 I wonder idly if Elokobi has been employed at a generous hourly bribe rate by a murky third-party interest to discreetly bankrupt Cheltenham Town with spiralling lost-ball costs.

8:06 Colchester's token lazy Australian Harry Kewell-esque excuse for a striker Richard Garcia unleashes an optimistic 25 yard pearoller posing all the naked menace and threat of a Care Bear on sedatives. Taken aback by the preposterously straightforward nature of the task facing him, the bewildered goalkeeper maintains a melodramatic statuesque pose as an equally surprised ball travels past him into the net. He finally engages his dive a few seconds later. 1-0.

8:10 Colchester fans sing 'we are top of the league' to an utterly apathetic and vaguely confused Cheltenham audience.

8:30 Half time.

8:45-9:30 Nothing happens of any discernible interest.

9:31 Cheltenham hit the post after their single remotely threatening attack. A few hundred slumbering fans open one eye, collectively emit the single word 'meh' and return to their dreamlike stupors.

9:33 Colchester win. I wonder if this is miraculous divine vindication for my endearing, blind commitment to a hopeless cause and then decide that it is far more likely to be a consequence of the Cheltenham team being absolutely and utterly atrocious.

Ed's Mood: Smug

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Slash's Snakepit - I Hate Everybody (But You)

Realism Schmealism

2006-01-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have recently become involved in a horrific downward spiral where I appear incapable of extended perusal of anything other than a Robert Ludlum tome. Fortunately the bloke is dead (I mean this in the most pleasant and least bloodthirsty sense) and therefore the books are finite in number, but it is mildly alarming that my expertise is so great that I can now predict plot twists and dramatic murders at least three hundred pages in advance of their happening. Anyone who has ever read one of these will know that Ludlum spent 30 years attempting to concoct the world's most ridiculous twist, peaking with his revival of an indomitable one hundred year old bedridden Hitler to lead the 4th Reich. This was accompanied by some laughable dialogue in a vain attempt to disguise the sheer ludicrousness of the idea:

'It can't be!! Oh my God!!'
'Well, it's not impossible..'

No. It's not impossible. The fact that the bloke shot himself in the head, was liberally covered in petrol, brutally disembowelled and burned into several billion tiny particles of ash would render the likelihood slim though, I believe.

Ed's Mood: Sarcastic

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: The Divine Comedy - Everybody Knows (Except You)

Dustball of Idiocy

2006-01-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

After weighty consideration I have made the revolutionary decision that I shall no longer write thousand word Blog entries that require decades to plan and millennia to read. I am instead going to grossly compromise my art and bow down before the demands of an increasingly frenetic and impatient society by condensing my thoughts into regular daily or two-daily updates. As the machinations of the inside of my head can be best visualised as a giant dustball of vegetative idiocy travelling across a bleak desert of emptiness and hitting the occasional oasis of vague inspiration every couple of hundred years or so this may prove quite a challenge.

However, I feel suitably inspired today by the horrendously atrocious serial homicide against cinema that was Match Point, which has been receiving criminally positive reviews despite utterly obliterating the previously unshakeable truth that if Scarlett Johansson (a woman so beautiful that shattered mirrors spontaneously rebuild themselves in her presence) appears in a film, it cannot be bad. Match Point is not bad. It is cataclysmically dire. It perpetuates every American stereotype about the British imaginable (we all own vast country estates, have chauffeurs, speak with insufferably posh baked-potato accents unheard of since the 1930s, work as tennis professionals at Queen's, love opera, and have a country that is so infinitesimally small that we're entirely incapable of engaging in any activity that does not take place at a world famous landmark). The 'star', Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (who you would have thought would have a slight advantage by a) being Irish and b) being an actor) is supposedly from Ireland but sounds about as Irish as Stelios Giannokopoulos and acts about as convincingly as a cabbage on sedatives with a puzzled face drawn on it by a blindfolded two year old. To be fair to the poor hapless moron, he is not assisted by a plot which is about as convincing as a Tim Henman fist-clench after winning a point on serve in the first round of the Azerbaijan Open and dialogue which is as profound as a rejected Tweenies script. Please, I beg of you, do not watch this film.

Secondly today I'd like everyone to note (as the media appears to be blissfully unaware of the existence of Essex) that after last night's preposterous 3-2 victory by the latter over Bristol City 'Sarrrfffend' and Colchester resplondently sit in 1st and 2nd in League One, which is itself utterly incredible and worthy of comment. However, the two teams remain, infuriatingly, in the incorrect order and in shameless denial of the universal, transcendent truth of Colcestrian superiority. As I struggle to find any remote justification for the righteousness of this truth I will not even try to argue constructively. However, what people often fail to realise is that the Southend mascot (a horrifying humanoid shrimp capable by its very appearance of causing terminal heart failure in the under 5s) is not a friendly human in a costume but an actual mutated sea creature created through a) decades of shrimp/sexually frustrated chav 'relations' and b) decades of direct exposure to and drinking of Southend sea water, which is so revoltingly stagnant and polluted that even looking at it requires an emergency tracheotomy and a month's strict convalescence in a health farm. A team with this horrific monstrosity as a mascot does not deserve to be in their lofty position, but should instead be fighting a doomed battle against relegation to the ninth division of the Blackwater and Dengie Pub League. Hopefully the rightful county hierarchy will be restored on Saturday with the assistance of a Colchester victory against the redoubtable Port Fail.

In homage to the Olimeister:

Haikus kill the muse
Abstract meaninglessness reigns
Shorthand poetry

Ed's Mood: Disenchanted

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Anathema - Fragile Dreams

The Portent Of Impending Doom

2005-12-17T16:04:00.000-08:00

When my parents asked me if I wished to see a film this evening, I foolishly agreed, thinking that I might as well take advantage of their free hospitality and that a pleasant evening of light entertainment might be had by all. The name of the film - The Family Stone - had absolutely no significance to me.

Two hours later, to my gut-wrenching horror, I discovered that not only was this film a 'romantic Christmas comedy', which should immediately have sent apocalyptic alarm bells pounding through the very nucleus of my soul, but that it featured the two most unbearably annoying female actresses in the known history of the universe. Extraordinarily, an actress who has existed in a permanent haze of self-satisfied, backside-clenchingly complacent self-parody for twenty years and refuses to appear in any film unless it is so vomit-inducingly sentimental and sickly that it makes Kate Winslet's death in Titanic look like the ear-slicing scene from Reservoir Dogs (Dienow Keaton) was acompanied by the unchallenged queen of cinematic and televisual excretion - Sarah Jessica Parker, famous only for playing the most irritating character in the universally despised pit-com Annoying Ladies Talk Annoying Self-Satisfied Femi-Chauvinist Bollocks In The City. I can only assume this was some kind of hideously misplaced 'joke' on the part of the casting director, who I strongly suspect as a consequence of either being or of having inappropriately close ties with Will Ferrell.

Sitting through two hours of this grotesque, cringeworthy, horrific mockery of a film is akin to being slowly roasted over a fire while being force-fed live cockroaches in a cyanide sauce and having Teletubbies Theme Tune: Extended Hot Fridge Rave Mix blasted at 200 decibels through eardrums that have already been shattered by Sarah Jessica Parker's hideous, doom-portending death-rattle of a voice. This film is as funny as dipping your face in liquid nitrogen and as emotionally resonant as a turnip with Keanu Reeves' face painted on it. I would give you a synopsis of the plot, but this would involve there actually being one. Suffice to say that this film is so appallingly bad that even someone as majestically shameless as Owen Wilson was above appearing in it, though his brother bravely compensates for his absence by putting in an admirably atrocious performance equally as dire as anything Wilson Snr. could have managed. The most depressing aspect of the film is the fact that the cloying sentiment of the script is so cynically calculated, manipulative and formulaic that it will appeal hugely to millions of candyfloss grandmothers who will all insist on bringing their poor, innocent infant grandkids along to have their minds corrupted and poisoned by this mawkish tripe. This will terminally destroy any chance of them ever forming any kind of acceptably decent cinematic taste. Those poor children.

The film was only at all amusing by pure accident. As part of the overriding aim to shamelessly sell out in every way imaginable, the author includes every conceivable type of minority figure within his/her stupendously unlikeable character list in order to appeal to as universal an audience as possible:

WRITER: Now how do I appeal to all of those minority audience sectors while appeasing my conservative fundamentalist market? Aha! I know! I'll have a disabled man... let's say, a deaf man... the other characters can patronise him horribly throughout the film, disabled people will come along to see the film because they're represented and other people will think 'wow, that is so forward thinking and inclusive'. Now who else do I need? There has to be a homosexual... no, wait! A black homosexual! I can save on characters this way. Now obviously if my homosexual characters kiss or engage in any kind of physical demonstration of love I'll lose half my American market, so I'd better ensure that they're ludicrously platonic throughout, engaging only in the most tepid and suspiciously heterosexual man-hugs and exchanging the occasional warm hand-shake and friendly nod. That's entirely realistic. I also need an annoying grandmother for the middle-aged bores audience... that'll be Diane Keaton... and someone who everyone unfairly hates at the start but who actually turns out to be a genuinely despicable person... that'll be Sarah Jessica Parker....'

Ed's Rating: 0.25/10 (the 0.25 is awarded for the belated, but desperately, desperately essential death of Dienow Keaton's character)

Continuing today's theme of cinematic sewage and expanding on a point briefly touched on earlier, I was struck by a stomach-churning realisation when seeing an advert for the upcoming monstrosity The Producers.

No-one has yet garrotted Will Ferrell.

Why is this? Will Ferrell is so spectacularly, so stunningly, so preposterously unfunny that the mere onscreen appearance of his unbearably gormless, clownlike, maddeningly dimwitted, sublimely infuriating and supremely slappable excuse for a face induces an overwhelming death wish on the part of anyone unfortunate enough to be within ten thousand miles of any cinema showing of one of his pitiful films.

EXAMPLE ONE:

SUICIDE SECT MEMBER: Erm, y'know, I'm having second thoughts about this....

SUICIDE SECT LEADER: Oh yeah? Well why don't we sit down, have a nice cup of tea and watch the film Elf...?

SUICIDE SECT MEMBER: *swallows cyanide*

EXAMPLE TWO:

MAFIA DON: Hey guys! Look what I got for tonight's entertainment!

*Mafia Don holds up Bewitched DVD, which, accompanied by anguished screams, is immediately riddled with bullet holes*

MAFIA DON: What the hell??

MAFIA MEMBER: Quick! It might still be playable! Take out the DVD player!

*DVD player is blasted with a conveniently located machine gun*

MAFIA DON: It'll have to be the PlayStation then...

*PlayStation is immediately fired upon from all angles*

MAFIA DON: Geeze! Well, luckily we've got a whole load of other illegally shipped DVD players outside..

*Mafia Member emits blood-curdling screech and shoots self in head*

MAFIA DON: Damn. Ah well, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I was dropped on the head repeatedly as a baby and am high on several shipments of hallucinogenic drugs after all.

The fact that Will Ferrell is not only still permitted to make films but shows absolutely no remorse or sense of shame for his criminally inept performances (none of which are assisted by the fact that he has the subtle comic appreciation of a three year old child shouting the names of rude body parts and burping) has drained me of all motivation to continue this entry. I leave you a wiser but utterly broken man.

Ed's Mood: Disgusted

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Arcade Fire - Wake Up

Growing Old Gracelessly

2005-11-16T20:29:00.000-08:00

Recently a horrifying fact has become apparent to me - I am getting older. This is a realisation that itself proves to all the naysayers that, despite the occasional lapse into extreme brain-addled baby amoeba mode, I am now mature enough to have the ability for sentient and rational thought.

In sad acknowledgement of this fact, I have composed Ed's Indicator of Ageing. If any of the changes in the areas detailed below have afflicted you, I suggest you abandon hope now. Ageing is irreversible. Of course, cosmetic surgery now has the sensational and fantastically useful capacity to make a 75 year old woman (Joan Collins) look like a sort of hastily constructed papier mache version of Ruby Wax (which makes you wonder with a sense of morbid and overwhelming horror what in the name of hell she looked like before the operation to convince her that it was remotely worthwhile - Keith Richards?? Freddie Krueger?? The Elephant Man??). Similarly, males with a certain rugged appearance are able to exert a remarkable attraction on young impressionable women well into their late eighties (Pierce Brosnan). However, the loss of mere physical semi-attractiveness is not the only casualty of age. Ageing is a malignant tumour affecting people throughout the world not just physically, but psychologically.

INDICATION A: CHANGING RESPONSE TO OPPOSITION GOALS

Instead of screaming in anguish, viciously thrashing the seat in front of you, gazing pathetically at the heavens, holding your head in the desperate hope that the referee will see reason and disallow the goal for sheer, excruciating unfairness and glaring homicidally at the idiotic woman (universally audible at all football matches regardless of where you sit or how good your hearing), who says 'it's only a game dear' like an infuriatingly and impossibly placid grandmother gently chiding her five year old granddaughter for insisting on checking a word in the dictionary during a particularly heated game of family Scrabble, you now simply smile wryly and shake your head like one of those evil non-partisan middle-aged phlegmatic uber-morons who go to games 'for the experience'.

INDICATION B: NEWLY IMPOSED HAIRSTYLE RESTRICTIONS

For eighteen years you rigidly adhered to the standard bowl haircut beloved of monks and people who go out with the solemn intention of buying a haircut and instead, with quite extraordinarily bad luck, repeatedly buy a large dish and some blunt sheep shears. After that you experimented with a vast variety of haircuts in the hope that one would, eventually, not result in uproarious laughter from everyone who encountered you. However, you were told recently that you are now 'too old to have spikes', a highly offensive comment which the woman in question would never have made to a hedgehog. Fortunately, as your current 'KEGS boy' quiff haircut was apparently outmoded some time in 1996 (when there clearly must have been an epidemic of spontaneous, universal appreciation of 'cool' which completely bypassed you) and the top half of your head supposedly resides in some kind of localised time vacuum this should not concern you greatly.

INDICATION C: CHANGING MUSICAL TASTE

Previously, you refused to listen to anything unless it featured ear-splittingly distorted electric guitars on the verge of obliterating their amplifiers with sheer unadulterated volume, a bassline capable of beginning a Europe-wide earthquake, drums which could make whole countries vibrate and a singer whose sole intention was to ensure he would be the last thing you ever heard. Now, you listen to Coldplay.

INDICTATION D: CHANGING PERCEPTION OF A HARDCORE NIGHT OUT

During the undergraduate years, the only night out considered acceptable to the (somewhat arbitrarily authoritative) schools of thought that dictate this was one that incorporated:

1. Fifteen drinking establishments
2. Six drinking and clubbing establishments
3. Twenty stolen traffic cones
4. Five hundred noise complaints from members of the public
5. A 3am return home
6. An all-night comedy DVD session with pizza, curry and fast food takeaway deliveries
7. At least eight times total body weight consumed in alcohol.

Somewhere along the line this has become what is now a near teetotal visit to the UCL student bar that ends before it becomes dark. Crikey.

INDICATION E: CHANGING PERCEPTION OF THE 'REAL WORLD'

Undergraduates are kindly shielded from the discomforting realisation that entering the world usually requires acquiring a career, believing that a benevolent fate smilingly bestows £400,000 executive positions on all newly graduated students requiring, at the most, nine hours attendance a week. However, you now realise as a master's student that the only way you can possibly acquire a £400,000 executive position requiring nine hours attendance a week is if you become a) a miraculously late-flowering Premiership footballer, b) a glamour model with breasts so large that they bankrupt the milk industry or c) a high-class prostitute (also with breasts so large etc etc). Consequently, you have taken the plunge. The ultimate disavowal of self. The absolute rupture with your previous identity. The complete betrayal of everything you have ever believed in. The utter desecration of every moral, maxim and truism that you have steadfastly maintained faith in throughout your life.

You now go to university to work.

WORK?!? AT UNIVERSITY?!?!? WHAT KIND OF PREPOSTEROUSLY, EXTRAORDINARILY, ABSURDLY LUDICROUS IDEA IS THAT?!? ARE YOU COMPLETELY INSANE?!?!?

Yes. The inconceivable has finally happened. I am a fraud.

Next time : Puppy Genocide 2: Return of the Canine Slaughter. I promise.

Ed's Mood: Ashamed

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Coldplay - Fix You

Porcine Pontificating

2005-10-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes your irritation at so many aspects of life is so overwhelming that expressing the depth of your exasperation within a single blog entry is a near impossibility. I have therefore decided to combat this difficulty by dividing this entry into several mini rants/expostulations directed at the maddening occurences that have blighted my existence in the last month or so.

RANT ONE: THE 'CHAV' BACKLASH

A popular movement recently has been to accuse those who utilise the term 'chav' to be insecure middle class types making a class-biased statement against those less fortunate than ourselves. This is a preposterous notion. 'Chav' refers to those who DELIBERATELY, VOLUNTARILY and of their own FREE WILL choose to wear Burberry clothing and some of the most ridiculous accessories imaginable, listen to cataclysmically atrocious music emanating from the sewage plant that hell condemned and sit outside McDonalds ('I'm Chavvin' It') insulting passers by intelligent enough to follow a life maxim that in all things, when a chav performs a certain action, always ensure that you do the exact opposite. Are newborn working-class babies extracted from the womb wearing tracksuits and Nike sponsored nappies?? Do state benefits include Burberry caps and compulsory nipple piercings?? NO. IT'S ENTIRELY THEIR CHOICE AND, ERGO, THEIR FAULT, AND THEY DESERVE TO BE OSTRACISED, INSULTED AND LAUGHED AT UPROARIOUSLY WHENEVER POSSIBLE (AND PREFERABLY MORE THAN THAT). Naysayers? Shut the hell up. This is not merely an entertaining device, but a vital and socially corrective one.

RANT TWO: AGEING BANDS LOSING ALL DISCERNIBLE QUALITY

This is particularly infuriating. Collectively, Audioslave (to pick but one from a myriad of examples) should be an imposing musical proposition, combining the innovative, politically charged band from Rage Against The Machine with the singer and lyricist Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. So, Mr Cornell, why don't you give us the full benefit of twenty years experience as a lyricist? A shattering expression of Rage Against The Machine's aggressive and incisive left-wing political ideology that wrecked the complacency of their capitalist Western audience? An example of the immense and profound philosophical insight into the very minutiae of our existence that you have gained in this time?

CHRIS CORNELL: 'To be yourself is all that you can do. Er..... aha... to be yourself is ALL that you can do! Er *eyes audience nervously*....woo-oh-oh-oh. Yeah. *audience slowly cock back collective shotgun* Quick Tom, come up with the type of original and inspired guitar solo that marked your Rage Against The Machine career! NO, NOT YET ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE CRAPPY ARPEGGIOS THAT WRECKED OUR ALREADY DIRE SECOND ALBUM YOU MUPPET! Oh bugger, we're being bottled again. RUN!'

RANT THREE: Z-LIST CELEBRITIES

I discovered to my consternation, disgust and utter bemusement today that Rebecca Loos is releasing an autobiography. The only positive arising from this pitiful and miserable affair is that to achieve fame you no longer require talent, originality or fortunate parentage. You simply need to complete the following disconcertingly straightforward tasks:

a) Sex a Beckham
b) Masturbate a pig. On television.

Can you imagine anything more utterly revolting, loathsome and disgusting? Of course not. Masturbating the pig sounds wonderful by comparison. Once you have completed these tasks, ensure that you have none of the following items in your possession:

a) A Soul

Finally, find the most desperate dregs-sucking, bottom-leaching, garbage-licking, celebrity-fellating tabloid newspaper in the world and sell your story. You will achieve instant fame. Shortly you will become famous simply for being famous in a nebulous, paradoxical, tautological, post-modern way and become the subject of philosophical treatises entitled "Pig Masturbation: The Peculiarly Paradoxical Post-Modern Paradigmatic Progression of Fame". As you possess no soul, the fact that every sane individual will regard you and all others of your ilk with a kind of incredulous scorn and horror will of course have no effect on you.

So who truly benefits from this process exactly?

a) The Pig
b) End of list.

I rest my case.

RANT FOUR: IDIOTIC FILM SEQUELS

Apparently 'Rocky VI' is no longer a hideous and nightmarish figment of the collective sado-masochistic imagination but a genuine possibility. How the plot can be anything but spectacularly unrealistic bearing in mind that Sylvester Stallone is practically fossilised I have no idea:

"Rocky is revived after being cryogenically frozen for two millennia. Now 2,065 years old, Rocky must return to the ring to avenge the defeat of 252 generations of his family at the hands of 252 generations of implausibly stereotypical Cold War relic neo-pseudo-quasi-Soviet boxers. However, Rocky has more than just the weight of history to contend with, for his arms and legs have been surgically removed by his fans in the desperate (and naive) hope that this would prevent him from ever attempting yet another increasingly ludicrous comeback. Can Rocky defy the odds yet again and become the first torso ever to win a major heavyweight championship?"

Well?

Can he?

Yes. Yes he can.

RANT FIVE: THE INFURIATING MANEOUVRES OF A MALICIOUS FATE

Extraordinarily and ludicrously, Southend won their eighth consecutive match yesterday. This is analogous to the British Virgin Islands winning eight consecutive World Cup finals, Jade Goody becoming a professor of English literature, David Davis not boring someone and Colchester United scoring a goal. However, even more shatteringly, for the third consecutive time that I have witnessed the soul-destroying spectacle that is Blackpool Hoofball Club versus Colchester the home team arbitrarily, controversially and preposterously (falling offside, committing a foul, and, most importantly of all, being in clear violation of the For God's Sake Be Fair, You've Had One Shot You Useless, Sick, Selfish Bastards treaty) scored in injury time to almost certainly deny the glorious 'Pride of Essex' (sic) points from the fixture.

But, for the first and last time that I will ever do this, mark the sequel and nice, positive, upbeat conclusion to this entry. For the first time in seven years of misery, frustration and sheer helpless anguish, Colchester responded to this implausible setback by instantaneously scoring again. Miraculously, in the 94th minute of the game Greg Halford unleashed a venomous drive from a distinctly unpromising angle (which, for Colchester, reads 'any angle from which the ball is located further than three inches out and is against a team who are unsportmanlike enough to play a goalkeeper with motor capabilities') which accelerated with beautiful and majestic precision into the far corner. I have ambiguous feelings with regard to Halford, whom Dani finds disconcertingly attractive for a goofy beanpole who sways dangerously in high winds, but I am now disposed to grant him a week's lieu from my punishment for his particular offence of being found attractive by my fiancee (death by bathing in steaming hydrochloric acid).
I may even consider downgrading him to death by exposure to dangerous levels of Craig David music poisoning.

After all, I *am* feeling very kindly disposed to him.

Ed's Mood: Mercurial

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: The Moody Blues - Melancholy Man

Finale

2005-08-04T20:14:00.000-07:00

I felt that I should delay the exciting second instalment of Puppy Genocide for now in order to relive the enthralling events of 22nd July, as, defying all known logic, reason and the rigid fabric of reality that surely demands that simplistic single-celled organisms such as myself are incapable of miraculously fooling examiners forever, I extraordinarily graduated. Uninspired as this technique is, the best way of recreating this experience is through the medium of a chronology of events:

2:15. Kate and I are presented with our robes. These are a revolting combination of black and luminous orange, ensuring that we both bear striking resemblances to queen bees. Resisting the temptation to slice off the donkey tail that forms an integral part of the mortarboard (just why the hell are we expected to wear a bricklaying aid on our heads anyway??) and spends the next three hours amusing itself and attempting to justify its entirely arbitrary existence by tickling my hayfever-plagued left eye, we move awkwardly to the auditorium.

2:30: The glorious trio of Neil, Kate and I (all our other friends bar Elly having inconsiderately graduated in the previous three ceremonies) relocate to the photography room to undergo some serial hideous embarrassment, both individual and family assisted. Oddly, we are presented with white plastic tubes to hold, all of which are curiously tied with ribbon. Images of my future self responding to requests to see my degree certificate by displaying a glorified white toilet paper dispenser float through my increasingly distressed mind.

2:45: Examing the crowd of mortarboard-clad students and idly wondering how many donkeys were massacred to make this ceremony possible, I am ushered to my allocated seat in the auditorium. I note the presence of a gigantic screen displaying the events on stage. A screen so unnecessarily huge that any kind of remotely embarrassing act on my part will be received with hearty amusement from at least 3,000 people and presumably endlessly replayed in slow motion with expert commentary analysing the exact moment when I fell over my own feet and brutally headbutted the chancellor. Since I have a reputation for performing incredibly embarrassing acts at inappropriate moments carefully nurtured from early childhood when I a) required a fire service rescue when I brilliantly trapped my arm playing a particularly passionately-fought game of It, b) fell headfirst into a pool of urine when at least 15,000 billion far superior options were open to me and c) nearly terminally impaired my breathing by inhaling nostril-shaped pebbles in a particularly retarded act of idiotic macho bravado, I am not especially confident of escaping this ceremony intact.

3:30: The ceremony commences with what appears to be a curious pagan ritual. The chancellor (Lord Richard Attenborough, best described to the ignorant as 'the bearded guy from Jurassic Park') and his educated minions perform a mysterious slow-dance as they approach the stage. Glancing at the programme in an effort to alleviate the extreme frustration this causes, I notice that the chancellor is supposedly followed by the 'University Mace', which sounds mildly alarming. Obviously failure is punished not by mere lack of permission to wear the outer skin of a giant mutated wasp and hold a glorified ribbon-tied toilet paper dispenser while wearing a bricklayer's tool attached to a donkey's tail but by some vicious public clubbing from a terrifying flesh-shredding medieval weapon engraved proudly with the Sussex University coat of arms.

4:00: After several hundred spectacularly melodramatic entrances on to stage (each student entering the stage pseudo-gloriously through Stars In Their Eyes-style smoke), I am finally nearing the front of the queue. Here, however, disaster strikes. A dressing guru is approaching me purposefully, glaring disgustedly at my hastily arranged tie and general aura of scruffy sewer dwelling former English student. Narrowly failing in garotting me, he performs an act akin to molestation on my tie, ensures that my mortarboard is in a perfect position to entirely eradicate my vision and sprays a revolting concoction of foul smelling liquid carefully selected by a team of experts from the Eau De Not Cleaned In Three Terms Student Toilette range over the rest of me.

4:15: The moment of truth is approaching with a stomach-churning inevitability. Hearing the depressingly uninspiring seven syllables that make up my name die a peasant's death on my faculty head's lips, I attempt to stride purposefully on to the stage towards a slightly bemused looking chancellor. I have the following remarkably banal conversation with the most famous person I've ever conversed with to date. ( nd no, the Muse bassist is not more famous, except in the most utterly select circles which only I am deserving enough to be in. You are not.)

LORD ATTENBOROUGH (lying expertly through teeth): Mr Jenkinson! It is an honour to meet you.
MOI (entirely baffled): Lord Attenborough. It is an honour to meet you too. Gandhi is a fantastic film.
LORD ATTENBOROUGH: Thank you very much. Thank you.
MOI: Thank you.
LORD ATTENBOROUGH: Thank you.
MOI: Thank you.
LORD ATTENBOROUGH: Thank you.
MOI: Thank you.

At this point the cringeworthy praise-fest and probably my entire lifetime ration of public fame ended with me being presented with the contents of my toilet paper dispenser and coldly kicked off stage by a high class besuited bouncer into eternal Chesney Hawkes style oblivion.

5:00: Having painfully applauded with my increasingly bruised arm appendages at least 500,000 graduates by this point, in addition to no longer feeling like a proud member of an extremely select elite I also feel like I've run a double marathon upside down with my hands. On glass.

5:15: Diamond sharpened glass.

5:30: Tipped with a lethal cocktail of Asiatic poisons.

5:45: Several decades after commencing and after several utterly baffling awards for people associated with the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Society, the catch-all society to end all catch-all societies (simply add the words 'Straight', 'Bestial' and 'Sneakers' to the description and it could be the brilliantly nebulous and arbitrary 'People Society - The Society for People Who Like Sex! With Other People! And Animals! And Shoes!') - the ceremony culminates with an address from Lord Attenborough.

6:00: Having indulged in some spectacularly revolting 'free' wine ('free with your £20 graduation ticket! The juice of mouldy grapes trampled in cheap marmite flavoured vinegar!') we relocate to engage in the mortarboard throwing ceremony. Previous exponents of this curious ritual would have turned in their graves at our extraordinary collective lack of co-ordination. Throwing my mortarboard languidly into the air, I trip over my own feet and collapse into a heap while the mortarboard falls, landing under Kate's foot and brilliantly managing to trip her up in addition. All of this hilarious improvised slapstick action is caught on camera for maximum future embarrassment. Damn.

6:15: Bidding an emotional goodbye to my stalwart friends who were intelligent enough to graduate at the same time as me, I say farewell to Brighton armed with a veritable lifetime of anecdotes to entertain my future grandchildren with when they pay me their token annual visits in my nursing home. In three depressingly short years I have advanced from an 18 year old man-child with a hair problem to a 21 year old man-child with an entirely new hair problem and a degree. Extraordinary.

Ed's Mood: Melancholy

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Martin Grech - Dali

Puppy Genocide (Part One)

2005-07-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

This will be an extremely self-absorbed entry. For this I can only offer my humblest apologies and promise solemnly that I will never again reduce myself to this decadent, narcissistic, disgusting and frankly extremely dull to read pursuit. However, in my defence, I have in the last couple of weeks a) managed to convince an otherwise perfectly intelligent and rational female that she wishes to spend the rest of her life with me and b) managed to convince otherwise perfectly intelligent and rational examiners that I have the remotest malnourished microbe of an idea what in the name of Jean-Francois 'supremely pretentious git' Lyotard postmodernism is. A resoundingly awe-inspiring achievement I'm sure you'll agree.

Unfortunately, as I am repeatedly reminded, for me and those of my ilk to achieve a semblance of comedy and entertainment value in these entries we have to be incandescently angry about something, not placidly content. Acquiring a fiancee and a high 2:1 is about as conducive to scythe-sharp wit or entertaining sardonic asides as a vicious mass genocide of cute Andrex puppies in a vat of boiling hydrochloric acid. Rest assured, however, that I will endeavour to do my best with the limited material at my disposal.

The engagement run itself is possibly the most stressful, health-shattering, psychologically torturous activity humanly imaginable. Compared to asking your future in-laws for their daughter's hand in marriage, a marathon is the equivalent of walking briskly from the kitchen table to the fridge. I present for you below a guide based on my own experience of how this process can be expected to unfold:

STAGE ONE: ASKING THE PARENTS

26th May 2005, 7:30: In my commendable, respectable, honourable and intensely, spectacularly idiotic desire to follow gentlemanly protocol, I have steeled myself to seek permission from Dani's parents before I ask the favoured female herself. Fortunately, as a consequence of having the odd redeeming feature in my otherwise utterly loathsome and despicable character I have been invited to their abode on a night before Dani returns from university, apparently providing the perfect opportunity. However, as the evening unfolds I learn to my consternation that this is only the perfect opportunity if I am as far from being sober as is humanly possible while retaining the ability to speak at least slightly cogently. An almost impossible and unheard of compromise between hardened sobriety and crazed paralytic drunkenness. Damn.

8:30: Double damn.

9:00: Bollocks.

9:30: Double bollocks.

10:00: Triple bollocks.

10:15: Quadruple bollocks. By this point I have consumed my body weight in wine and cider and it has all been infuriatingly absorbed and nullified by my extreme nervousness. By this point I could probably inject concentrated methylated spirit by the gallon into my liver and pump blue cheese scented carbon monoxide through my nose into my lungs with absolutely no bloody effect. Clearly drastric measures are required. Such as asking the damn question without having to terminally damage my internal organs first.

10:30: Quintuple bollocks arse crap.

10:35: Observing my increasingly obvious difficulties, Dani's mother Elaine enquires if there is a problem. Commencing my reply with the less than assuring 'I have s-s-s-something to ask you' I finally manage a humiliating shadow of the imposing, confident and strident lecture I had intended to deliver. I will protect myself from further embarrassment by refusing to quote this shameful rejected-Chris-Martin-lyric of a disastrously pitiful speech verbatim, but suffice to say that if a team consisting of the unmarried green puppet son of unmarried green puppet parents from my previous entry (Yoda), Big Brovaz, The Streets and David Beckham were asked to compose a speech for a similar situation (frightening idea I know), theirs would read like the transcendent philosophical insights of Socrates combined with the masterful poetry of John Milton and the technical grammatical brilliance of P.G. Wodehouse by comparison. Even if read by David Beckham after having all his teeth knocked out.

10:40: They said yes. And seemed delighted. Most mystifying. What do they know that I don't? I sense a conspiracy.

STAGE TWO: RING PURCHASE I - THE UNNECESSARY PREQUEL

2nd June, 3:00: As I have the aesthetic appreciation and cultured taste of a Basildon sewer rat, I have decided against the foolhardy plan of purchasing an expensive ring until I can seek advice from the appropriate female sources. However, even the quest for a prelimary and temporary ring is proving remarkably stressful. I have the dim recollection that Dani likes 'white gold', whatever in the hell that impossible and ludicrous paradox of a stupid English-literature-degree-esque contradiction is, but beyond this tenuous knowledge I know just as much as the next man. In other words, absolutely sod all, if not less than that. Entering 'H. Samuels', a purveyor of these mysterious goods categorised under the enigmatic term 'jewellery', I find myself surrounded by metallic objects that could be conceivably worn on a human finger. I commence the hardcore prevarication process.

3:30: Apparently 'y'know, medium' isn't a ring size. How in the hell are we males supposed to be able to ever become proficient jewellery purchasers with this kind of ridiculous mystifying complication awaiting us at every turn? Sheesh.

3:45: I purchase a 'white gold ring with cubic zirconia inset'. As opposed to a 'black silver ring with pubic slirconia inset' I suppose.

4:00: I finally stagger out of the shop clasping a box containing the aforementioned ring. Only one extremely minor task now remains.

Coming soon: Stage Three - The Proposition

Ed's Mood: Peaceful

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Coldplay - Fix You

Revenge Of The Saarrfff

2005-05-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

I have extremely depressing news to relate today. Southend United (correct pronunciation: Saarrfffend), the representatives of a town so extraordinarily unattractive that even a county with the almost infinitely relaxed moral standards of Essex (which disturbingly continues to allow both Basildon and Wickford to exist) has repeatedly attempted to reject it, have 'won' promotion to League One, enjoying an increasingly maddening, infuriating and implausible amount of luck throughout. Southend United, of course, once 'won' a two-legged LDV tie with Colchester by taking the aggregate lead in the second game with a goal which incorporated the following sequence of play:

a) A monstrously huge Southend striker/donkey given the role of shattering defender's ankles and elbowing anyone in the face who dared to challenge for any of the gigantic hoofs from the Southend goalkeeper follows his designated gameplan to the letter - namely by elbowing one of our players in the face, leaving him in agonising pain on the floor.

b) The ball, which was possibly in the vague area of the striker/donkey at the time but most probably nowhere near, is returned to a Southend defender, who of course employs the well-honed and refined tactic of hoofing it straight back upfield.

c) The other Southend striker/donkey, realising in a moment of uncomfortable self-awareness that he does not possess the ability or the intelligence to control the ball, elbows one of our remaining defenders in the face and temporarily employs basketball rules, stretching out an arm and tapping the ball to the floor with his hand.

d) Donkey/Striker B, temporarily discovering a modicum of basic human intelligence, passes the ball to Donkey/Striker A, who is nearly but not quite played onside by the original prostate defender. By this point, therefore, an offside, a handball, two fouls and a head injury have been ignored by the blissfully unaware/awe-inspiringly stupid/generously bribed referee.

e) Faced with an open goal but naturally lacking any kind of composure or finishing ability, the striker somehow endeavours to hit the Colchester United goalkeeper from four yards, the ball spinning over the unfortunate custodian and extraordinarily ending up, via the medium of a post for maximum ludicrousness and sheer, brutal unfairness, in the Colchester United net.

Somehow, in an admittedly impressive victory of determination, never-say-die-spirit, unity, uselessness, violence and cheating, Southend United have managed to maintain the application of this hoofball and hacking maxim throughout the whole season without inducing the ire of referees and, even more astonishingly, while winning the vast majority of their games. Inexplicable. Presumably the complacency and hilariously misplaced sense of superiority (based entirely on being in the old Division One once and, er, possessing a stadium which is superior to Colchester's in that it is not actually four poorly constructed cow sheds overlooking a large pile of manure with painted white markings and two goals but simply four poorly constructed sheds overlooking a large pile of manure with painted white markings and two goals) which inevitably, if mysteriously, always afflicts Southend at the slightest sign of success, will lead to their immediate and deserved relegation next season. And of course the two meetings (laughably titled 'Essex Derbies' by Southend fans desperately deluding themselves that these games will be remotely competitive) with Colchester should enable them to be firmly disciplined for their extraordinary cheek. This kind of behaviour is simply unacceptable.

Secondly today, I intend to present my thoughts on George Lucas's latest installment of everyone's favourite corporate bastard cash cow mega-franchise, Star Wars MCXVIII: The New Hope, Return, Attack And Strike Back Of The Jedi Empire And Revenge Of The Phantom Sith Menace Clones

Oh, he hasn't quite reached that number yet? I apologise.

STAR WARS III: RETURN OF THE SITH

An immediately noticeable aspect of the new film is that Hayden Christensen has improved his acting one-hundred fold for this installment. By that I mean that he can now connote evil by wearing a hood at a socially unacceptable angle in the manner of a thinking man's chav with a vague sense of individuality and scowling moodily like a small child denied his sweets. A massive improvement, I'm sure you'll all agree, from his distressing inability to distinguish himself from the resident irritating droids, C3-PO and R2D2, in the preceding film. Natalie Portman, of course, is absolutely gorgeous, so no-one cares if she can act or not.

The film follows the inexplicable descent of Anakin Skywalker from smug, annoying and impetuous Jedi to brutal child-slaughterer Sith Lord Darth Vader, attempting to wring sympathy for the hero's plight by the fact that his temptation to indulge in the dark side is provoked by the Emperor Palpatine's insistence that only by indulging in these arts can Anakin save Padme from an otherwise inevitable death from childbirth. This is an idea which appears particularly ludicrous when we see possibly the most absurdly sanitised film birth ever, Luke and Leia arriving so easily and bloodlessly that they could conceivably have been dispensed by a Jedi drinks vending machine. However, infuriating as this admission is for the sake of my usual sardonic witticisms, I actually found myself becoming emotionally involved with the plight of both Anakin and Padme and having to accept that the film had wrestled back the initiative that the previous two useless installments had lost, rediscovering the connection with the audience that the original trilogy was so successful in creating. Ian McDiarmid, who petrified me as a seven year old in episodes V and VI, is outstanding when reprising his role as the Emperor. Similarly, the fight sequences are the most impressive of any Star Wars film thus far, galling as it is to watch the tedious inevitability of the enduringly annoying and smug Ewan MacGregor beating any opponent (including those blessed with four windmill arms, each with an individual lightsabre) instead of receiving his just deserts of being brutally shredded into millions of far less smug and far more thoughtful and humble Ewan MacGregor pieces.

However, despite its clear superiority to the two preceding modern day Star Wars productions and its recommendation from me, Star Wars III has the problematic caveat, possibly as a consequence of being so emotionally involving, of also being astonishingly depressing. It is far easier to appreciate than enjoy the closing sequences of doom, death and misery. But unless you incomprehensibly watch nothing but those soul-churningly happy-clappy and spectacularly unfunny romantic comedies with about as much depth as an S Club Juniors lyric that only the most infuriatingly girly of females could possibly like, you will want to see this.

YODA: To see this you want will. Annoying pointless green glorified puppet son of annoying pointless unmarried green puppet parents am I not? Yes.

Ed's Rating: 8/10

Ed's Mood: Sarcastic

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Adam Kay and Suman Biswas - Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin

The Anti-Kilroy Vanity Project

2005-05-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

As I write, the Conservatives could still be successful in the forthcoming election. This objectively unbelievable, objectively monstrous, objectively despicable, objectively abominable, objectively revolting, objectively disgusting, objectively sickening, objectively nauseating and objectively vomit-inducing possibility must be immediately eradicated by all right (or rather left, har har, bloody hell, that's even worse than a rejected Jo Brand joke...) thinking people. In order to promote the movement I am presenting for your perusal Ed's Entirely Objective Party Guide to the General Election:

THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY: Disadvantaged by possibly the most yawn-inducingly mundane and pathetically uninspiring name ever, this collection of assorted extreme right-wing misfits cunningly masquerading as assorted centre right-wing misfits have a single policy - the compulsory death by firing squad, er, that is, relocation of all 'fake' asylum seekers ('fake' meaning 'unlikely to be brutally murdered by raging terrorists within the next five seconds').

THE LABOUR PARTY: Also disadvantaged by a phenomenally uninteresting name (great, you advocate working, that's fantastic), this centre-centre-centre-centre-left-wing party remains in government by the simple virtue of being ever so slightly less horrendously appalling an option than all but one of their challengers.

THE BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY: Paramilitary wing of the Conservative party.

VERITAS (The Robert Kilroy-Silk Anti-Arab League Vanity Project): Policies - the compulsory everlasting love, admiration and worship of that nice white middle-class man Robert Kilroy-Silk, his nice white middle-class family, his nice white middle-class education and his nice white middle-class bread. Policies slightly damaged by the fact that Robert Kilroy-Silk is not white but orange.

UNITED KINGDOM INDEPENDENCE PARTY: Outmoded white supremacist clowns who believe that 'Europe' is a clever and hallucinatory scam created by wishy-washy liberals. Advocate the restoration of 'proper' national borders and the ignoring of European affairs, brilliantly forgetting that most national borders are entirely arbitrary constructions created by psychotic warlords several thousand years ago to guard themselves from other psychotic warlords and that the term 'British national culture' has about as much depth and meaning as a tissue with the Beckhams' marriage vows written on it.

Vote Liberal Democrats, in other words.

As today's entry coincides with the pandemonium caused by forthcoming final year essay deadlines, I felt it necessary to compose a second guide - Ed's Entirely Objective Guide to Student Types and their Respective Attitudes to Work:

CATEGORY ONE - THE INFURIATINGLY STUDIOUS BASTARD

The infuriatingly studious bastard is the only known creature that has evolved the ability to literally absorb all energy and life from a room, harnessing it and converting it into excruciatingly dull intellectual seminar monologues that only fellow infuriatingly studious bastards understand or remotely care about. The infuriatingly studious bastard will complete the key readings, recommended readings, extra readings, bonus readings, barely relevant readings, completely unnecessary readings and readings that have as much significance to an English degree as an analysis of Blazin' Squad lyrics:

'Making a living with wit and brain cells, you only get lame girls, Flava gets nothing but them game girls'

'Flava' compensates for his lack of discernible intelligence and inability to spell 'flavour' by pointing out that at least loose women and female pheasants will sleep with him.

'I ride beats, yeah, I kick 'em. If you like then listen. If you hate then envy the chain status, my position, and watch me glisten in magazines and on television'

'Flava' puzzlingly assumes that listeners will envy his 'chain status', i.e. his multiple prison sentences, and enjoy the sound of him committing actual bodily harm and borderline sexual assault against music.

'I just wanna spit, why you stopping me for?'

'Flava' brutally and violently rebels against the establishment as much as a manufactured corporate-puppet-whore-illegitimate-son-of-barely-pubescent-unmarried-chavs is permitted by whining like a small child about the social etiquette rule against spitting.

'K.R.A.Z.Y., wow, that's me'

'Krazy' has a miraculous and endearing moment of self-enlightenment. Note to Krazy: exchanging a 'k' for a 'c' is about as 'crazy' as accusing George Bush of being slightly stupid.

And swiftly moving on from this entirely irrelevant but stress-relieving tangent:

CATEGORY TWO: THE HARDCORE BLAGGER

The hardcore blagger is a curious paradox. Having wasted two and a half years of his or her undergraduate degree in a perpetual alcoholic stupor, attending on average possibly one seminar and two lectures a term, the hardcore blagger is capable of a) learning the entire course half an hour before an exam and passing with flying colours, b) writing a 2:1 standard essay on psychoanalysis operating throughout under the belief that Sigmund Freud was a famous painter with a sideline in incest, c) capable of delivering a ten minute 2:1 standard presentation based on reading three sentences and having been completely unaware he/her was presenting until the tutor asked him/her to stand up and d) managing to write three entire final year dissertations about vastly differing topics based on the one paragraph of reading he/she briefly skimmed over in a bout of conscience on the first day of the first year.

CATEGORY THREE: THE COMPLACENT IDIOT

The complacent idiot is someone who believes that the whole world of academia has entered an intricate and brilliantly ingenious conspiracy directed entirely against him/her and the suppression of their brilliance. This extraordinarily arrogant belief results in them believing that whenever they receive a borderline pass as a consequence of their being useless it is not them to blame but 'jealous tutors', 'poor essay guidelines', 'incompetent marking', 'stupid deadlines' or 'failure to understand the sheer depth and quality of my work'. If a tutor marks them down they will invariably complain to the entire class and accuse the tutor of doing it in order to dissuade them from getting their essays academically published as the jealous tutor's own publications will be completely outdone. They will put absolutely no effort into their final dissertations and be self-righteously and ludicrously stunned when they fail and everyone laughs heartily at them.

CATEGORY FOUR: THE PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL SEMI-BLAGGER

All other students reside in this final category, combining inate semi-sentient intelligence and a verbal dexterity that enables them to make the earth-shatteringly obvious sound like the profound insights of a demigod philosopher with the ability to apply themselves to work when conscience/deadlines dictate. They will be lauded in their tutor's reports as 'conscientious' and 'hard-working', empty terms simply indicating 'they possess a vague and temporary form of conscience' and 'they will work hard in the last month of the year to compensate for spending the rest of the time asleep'.

According to popular student folklore, there may also be in addition a fifth category of students who both a) work hard throughout the year and b) are not actually offensive to the sensibilities of normal people, but I have never personally encountered this rare species. I can only assume that this is yet another invention of the collective unconscious, just like morality, justice, freedom and Blackadder Series Five.

Ed's Mood: Stressed

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Ours - Fallen Souls

An Exercise In Sado-Masochistic Self-Flagellation

2005-04-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

After consulting my technical director I've finally succeeded in removing the frustrating feature that only allows registered users to comment. You can now verbally abuse me as freely, anonymously and maliciously as you desire. Enjoy. Especially you Southend fans whose team I wish to annihilate, R'n'B fans whose music I wish to obliterate and Keanu Reeves fans whose idol I wish to exterminate. It's time to enter dialogue.

'C'mon. Let's be having you'.

Delia Smith wins her freestyling encounter against Good Grammar, 2005

Ed's Mood: Combative

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Runrig - Siol Ghoraidh

If It's Already Exploded, You Might As Well Eat It (Part Two)

2005-04-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

I considered manipulating the theory of post-modernism for this entry in order to justify a radical reworking of the concept of chronology in order to incorporate events which took place before the start of part one. However, since even my pretentiousness has limits and I found 'Memento' a most bewildering film, I will be charitable to my readers by following the traditional narrative format and continuing to relate events in the order they occurred.

Following the traumatic clubbing experience, we returned to Amy's cosy home environment for some well-deserved rest, recuperation and, most importantly of all, an aural reassurance that real music had not been obliterated by the petrifying, utterly incomprehensible and horrific rise of Rubbish'N'Boring. Compared to the disgusting and hellish noise shattering our beleagured eardrums for the precedinng torturous four hours, Muse sounded like a heavenly orchestra of distorted guitars and epic, sweeping, operatic vocals (note: EPIC, SWEEPING and OPERATIC is NOT synonymous with 'awful effeminate shreeking banshee-trapped-in-a-helium-balloon-with-a-red-hot-poker-up-its-arse'). Comforted by this, Neil and I relocated to our allocated quarters for one of our infamous pseudo-intellectual dialogues about our favoured philosophical topic of the day, little realising that our female colleagues were huddled outside our door. Once we were appraised of this fact by some extremely unsubtle giggling and, more disturbingly, by me returning from the bathroom and having to throw two girls out of my bed and out of the room, we shrewdly decided to scare off the females by merging the topic of arthouse cinema into the infinitely more pressing and important concern of why supposed lesbians in Channel Five soft pornography are incapable of kissing properly and always restrict themselves to the most pathetic and insipid of closed-mouth pecks. Now I have, of course, only caught odd moments of this kind of material, purely by accident and those mysterious ineffable workings of fate, and have always changed the channel immediately (naturally), so my worry is a purely selfless and detached one for those who enjoy such programming. But come on! Saliva exchange is the bare minimum requirement. In the same way WWF fans like to believe that the object of their affections is an authentic macho sport fought by hardened musclebound athletes with 'killer punch combos', 'death slams' and '360 degree crotch kick and head lock finishes' as opposed to a hapless homoerotic charade acted out by overgrown babies in lycra nappies with such jaw-dropping moves as 'killer limp-wristed slap combos', 'death tickles' and '360 degree erotic footsie and passionate hug finishes', soft porn aficionados like to be able to believe, if only briefly, that true lesbian love is occurring on screen.

Anyway, this is all of course entirely beside the point. The point being that we victoriously defeated the females and once again upheld the inevitable superiority of man over the downtrodden beings that disturbingly originated from our spare ribs and are infuriatingly incapable of kissing each other properly. There exists an alternative explanation - that the girls simply got tired and went to bed - but this is plainly ridiculous.

Bournemouth escapades over, I returned to Essex with two principal aims: a) to complete my first two dissertations and commence research on the third, and b) to watch Colchester United achieve safety in League One* (*Old Division Two**) (**Old Division Three***) (***Division where all the crap teams who aren't quite as crap as Southend but are crapper than Rotherham haplessly stagnate). The first of these aims was completed after overcoming the nightmare paranoia that attacks when one is twelve hours into a fourteen hour working session and realises that one's biggest achievement in those twelve hours was finding a new, brilliant recipe for mashed potato:

Ingredients:
1 harmless jacket potato
1 idiot
1/4 ounce of brain

Instructions:
Take potato. Do not put a fork through the potato so that air can escape. Put in microwave. Set to ten minutes. Wait until potato explodes. Scrape remains off sides of oven. Serve.

The second of these aims is currently under consideration from the Colchester United team, who are weighing the premise a) potential for bigger revenues, better quality opposition, greater opportunity to put oneself in the shop window and potential for better wages versus b) the need to put a bit of effort in for a couple of games. Fortunately, the spectacular ineptitude of Torquay United has made it apparent that the choice will be made for them. Since my last entry but one, it has been pointed out to me that Aidan Davison possesses, extraordinarily, the second best goalkeeping record in the division. I can only assume that the other goalkeepers in the league ritually tie lead weights to their feet, smear their gloves in butter, assume that the best way to put off an onrushing striker is to turn their backs on him and/or run towards the corner flag screaming with fear and think that they're top professional dodgeball players. Either that or they're all new kinds of awful.

Ed's Mood: Mellow

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: The Killers - Somebody Told Me

If It's Already Dead, You Might As Well Eat It (Part One)

2005-03-25T01:50:00.000-08:00

Fate has a delicious sense of irony. Having paid £26 for the privilege, we expected Amy's 21st birthday meal in Bournemouth on Saturday to be an ecsquisitely refined affair, held in an beautiful and charming location of awe-inspiring aesthetic value with a relaxed, understated yet subtlely cultured ambience and a soothing gentile patronage. Our chosen establishment was the Red Panda (note: where the hell does this obsession with naming restaurants and pubs after ludicrously and plainly impossibly coloured wilderbeast come from??? Ever seen a 'Red Panda'? Or a 'Blue Boar'?? Extremely angry pandas and terminally ill boars notwithstanding..). Our expectations in the latter category, however, were annihilated into oblivion within ten seconds of entering, as we noticed to our horror a hideous and revolting obstacle in our path. A monstrous, betracksuited figure clothed entirely in the most impossibly disgusting of all shades of Basildon sewage-water blue-green dexterously fingering the mother of all cancer sticks and wearing the most utterly arbitrary and pointless orange sunglasses. A man singlehandedly redefining the meaning of 'incredibly annoying ostentatious arse'. Yes. The truth will out. We entered the restaurant confidently expecting high culture and walked straight into bloody Jimmy Saville.

Overcoming the reflex nausea that was an unavoidable consequence of such an unexpected and entirely unwanted surprise, we squeezed through the small gap in the room not occupied by Jimmy Saville's ego and arranged ourselves for an evening of wanton and gratuitous super-calorific gorging. I am extremely sorry to inform all vegetarians everywhere that I rendered your lifetime work and admirable sacrificial abstinence absolutely pointless in the space of about two hours, engaging in the most wanton and entirely unnecessary duck, beef and lamb dish genocide imaginable.

In order to justify this merciless devastation, I refer you to my (slightly tenuous) and brilliantly amoral life maxim of 'if it's already dead, you might as well eat it', a maxim incorporating the secondary utilitarian statement 'since someone's going to eat it, it should be eaten by the person who'd enjoy it the most and not worry about such issues as a) a conscience or b) morals'. I am that person. Utilitarianism is a fantastic theory, residing on the basic premise 'when presented with a choice, perform the action that will bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number'. We take such intense pleasure from consuming innocent animals that no pleasure on the part of vegetarians from our not eating animals could possibly overcome ours. Therefore, not only do I ingest meat and take pleasure from it, I am MORALLY CORRECT to do so and would be a WICKED and IMMORAL EVIL PERSON to refrain. A great consolation when you're chewing brazenly on the leg of an innocent young sheep brutally massacred before it could so much as say 'baaahhhh' or appear as an extra in Emmerdale.

Continuing our path of destruction, we relocated to Jumpin' Jacks, a place which can only be described as the chav equivalent of the ludicrously titled 'Zion' in the Matrix trilogy. In other words, a superbly pretentious underground orifice with a populace of numerous ridiculously dressed individuals performing seriously conceived but uniformly hilariously performed arhythmic gyrations to spectacularly unlistenable noise that can have emanated only from the most noxious armpits of music hell. Yes. That's right. Perpetual Rubbish'N'Boring, Garage Shite and Tip-Slop, punctuated by the occasional decent rock song just to infuriate us that bit more when the threatened and belated recovery was immediately quashed with the inexplicable and bewildering playing of yet another godawful R'n'B 'anthem'.

R'n'B Anthem (n.): A hilarious ironic misnomer for excruciatingly boring, uninspired and incomprehensibly popular minimalist ear-shattering noise accompanied by a singer desperately attempting to disguise the unbearable drudgery of the instrumentation behind him/her and the glaring lack of any kind of chorus by performing increasingly irritating vocal gymnastics (see Beyonce). Often excused with the words 'it's got a beat' (correct, rubbish percussion is indeed involved, as are drums in ALMOST ALL MUSIC YOU IDIOT DUMBARSES) or 'he/she's got a really good voice' (so bloody what?!? How does that compensate even infinitesimally for the appalling musicianship behind him/her?!? The singer could sound like a Janet Street Porter impersonator projectile vomiting Crazy Frogs with individual maddening Crazy Frog ringtones for all I care).

Unable to join the Burberry-capped brigade in their insensate rituals (see Ed's University Survival Guide Part Four, hosted at www.nickmb.co.uk), we spent three hours in a trancelike state, maintaining our slim hold on sanity by performing short breathing exercises every half hour or so and visualising ourselves in a happy place with a decent music soundtrack. Never have I made so many utterly unnecessary toilet visits, knowing perfectly well that my bladder was a barren wasteland, just to gain some brief respite for my poor bleeding ears. Fortunately, my brain's excellent repression feature, blocking out all things potentially harmful to its well being, has enabled me to almost entirely forget the club's proceedings. And, finishing with another convenient philosophical theory just to suit myself, if I can't remember it, it never happened. Aaaaahhhhh. Peace.

Ed's Mood: Tranquil

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Franz Ferdinand - The Dark Of The Matinee

To be continued...

Freud, Frenchmen and Faeces

2005-03-09T03:01:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I feel that it has become increasingly essential to respond to a number of sardonic jibes aimed at my football team in recent times. Contrary to infuriatingly popular belief, Colchester United are not spectacularly underperforming because they 'suck', or indeed because of the infinitely more thoughtful and reasoned explanation that they 'suck balls' or various other unpleasant bodily parts. They are, in sharp contradistinction, underperforming as a consequence of a fundamental, sad and highly unfortunate misunderstanding of the expression 'to keep goal'.

Following the debacle that was Blackburn Rovers versus Colchester United, Aidan Davison indubitably proved, contrary to the popular belief that goalkeepers are intended to prevent balls entering the goal, that he personally considers 'goalkeeping' to be analogous to 'zookeeping':

AIDAN DAVISON: Does your goal look forlorn and empty? Do you have concern for the welfare and health of your goal? If so, then look no further. With the new Premier Deluxe 2005 Ball, your goal can regain his health and vitality! The Premier Deluxe 2005 provides the essential nutrients that your goal cannot be without - protein, carbohydrate, leather, stitching and the bladder of a pig. Nothing could be simpler. Just ensure that your goal ingests three to seven Balls an hour or so and you and your goal will become great friends. Me and my best buddies Colchester United Clock End and Colchester United Layer Road End would recommend the Premier Deluxe diet to ANY goal.

Feeding Instructions: Although your goal will accept Balls luxuriously placed in the corner prior to swallowing, nothing says 'friends forever' like a Ball rolled gently and harmlessly down the middle. Your goal is a playful creature, and will be at its happiest if the Ball a) spectacularly enters between your legs b) hilariously bounces off your backside or c) is entertainingly dropped with suspicious convenience right in front of a feeder. Some people need assistance in feeding goals - in order to achieve this, make sure they are able to feed your goal from close range by carefully dropping any Balls that come your way right in front of them. Should you accidentally block a Ball, ensure that someone else is at hand to complete the operation. It is best not to stand in front of your goal when someone is attempting to feed it. Provide kindly assistance by running away like a headless chicken on Prozac Plus from feeders who come anywhere near you and thereby ensuring that you are absolutely bloody nowhere near the Ball when the goal is fed.

As a consequence of this foolish misinterpretation, Aidan Davison is allowed to 'feed goals' nationwide to his heart's content, spectacularly failing to appreciate that other 'goalkeepers' maliciously and inhumanely starve the goal that they happen to be responsible for the welfare of. This, my friends, is the reason why Colchester United are languishing in 18th place in League One.

However, moving with extreme hastiness away from this distressing and soul-destroying subject, the principal topic reserved for my ire this week was the incorrigible and perpetually infuriating Sigmund Freud, the man who singlehandedly provides the ultimate test for 'suspension of disbelief', and more particularly my course - which states as a fundamental requirement that I am 'not allowed to criticise Freud'. For utterly incomprehensible reasons, we are not allowed to criticise a man who thought, in a victory for jaw-droppingly warped imagination over the vaguest semblance of rationality a) that young children believe that babies are born out of the arse as what can only be described as glorified faeces with faces, b) that girls have such appalling taste in mammal genitalia that they actually envy the male penis; a primitive, glorified, hairy, unfiltered tap and c) that because we are disgusted by the idea of sexual intercourse with our mothers we must therefore desire sexual intercourse with our mothers (surely the ultimate tautology?). The shocking, horrifying, brilliantly revelatory possibility that we are disgusted because we do NOT desire sex with our mothers is dismissed by Freud as a ridiculous and extreme notion. Much better to ignore the obvious explanation and construct a ludicrous, pseudo-scientific, pseudo-allegorical, pseudo-intellectual theory, painstakingly provide it with a stunningly pretentious title: 'The Oedipus Complex' (which admittedly sounds far more impressive than 'Why I Want To Have Sex With My Mum And Why You Should Too, You Annoying Normal Person') and then effectively oppose any criticism with the argument 'that's not true cos you're repressed! Ahaha! Na na na na na'. But the biggest problem with Freud's theory is that the text interpreted by psychoanalysis is effectively a passive vessel - open to any kind of insensate and stupefyingly ridiculous theory:

FREUD MEETS THE TEAM AMERICA MATT DAMON PUPPET:

FREUD: Hello!
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: Ah, I deduce from that that you desire sex with your mother.
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: Oh, and that clearly reveals that you're afraid of the female genitals because they resemble a mutilated penis.
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: And that strongly suggests that you regard the vagina as being furnished with teeth and are therefore afraid of it biting off your penis. Interesting, interesting.
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: Ah, excellent! You can't contradict me! Ahaha! Watch as I come up with increasingly ludicrous but infuriatingly unfalsifiable theories!
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: You wish to travel across the Atlantic tithed to a speedboat using two large sausage dogs as amazing phallic skis.
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: You wish to impregnate a coffee machine.
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: You wish to play strip poker with Mr. Creosote.
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: You wish to ride an amazing magical flying unicorn wielding a Star Wars light sabre whilst singing the Austrian national anthem in an amusing falsetto. And then have sex with it.
MATT DAMON: MATT DAMON!!!
FREUD: Oh I've got a good one. This really is the craziest one yet. Get this! You... *don't*... wish to have sex with your mother! Haha! Ludicrous!
MATT DAMON: MA...oh come on! Be realistic now.

This ridiculous ban on criticism requires the acceptance of such extraordinarily fanciful notions as the Eiffel Tower not being simply an impressive feat of craftsmanship but a gigantic metal erect penis which singlehandedly compensates for the poorly endowed Frenchmen who built it. It also necessitates the application of this same theory to anything which remotely resembles the male organ. The idea of playing my clarinet has lost all its attraction after this particular revelation. Most disturbingly of all, Freud is destroying my hold on reality to the extent whereby I increasingly have the worrying sensation that any object I pass may, without any prior warning, suddenly metamorphosise into a penis. Oh, and that all people are desperate to excrete faeces in the optimistic hope that it will miraculously become a baby. The situation is becoming increasingly desperate.

Ed's Mood: Infuriated

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Snow Patrol - Run

Controllers Of The Automaton Puppets

2005-02-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

One of the many things that attracted me to the blogging community was the opportunity to express my ridiculous, opinionated and prejudiced views without any fear of contradiction or censorship. I am not forced to indulge the infuriating censorship of any authority and write balanced, bland, objective essays of any true academic or philosophical value. If I want to call the Brit Awards a malignant corporate tumour feasting on the jaw-droppingly turgid monotony of the excruciatingly terrible music substitute that fills the charts then I will call the Brit Awards a malignant corporate tumour feasting on the jaw-droppingly turgid monotony of the excruciatingly terrible music substitute that fills the charts.

The Brit Awards are a malignant corporate tumour feasting on the jaw-droppingly turgid monotony of the excruciatingly terrible music substitute that fills the charts. Every year, a collective of amoral capitalist record company lowlives gather for a mutual back-slapping session to celebrate the stunning mediocrity of their respective manufactured automaton puppets. Groups such as Busted (corporate whore imitation rock-pop), Girls Aloud (hardcore extremo-bubblegum pop), The Streets (comedy 'if-I-put-together-some-hilariously-
childish-lyrics-that-sound-like-a-backwards-cabbage-wrote-them-moronic
-people-like-me-will-think-I'm-street-as-opposed-to-simply-incredibly-stupid' idiot-chav pop) and Black Eyed Peas (festering turd pop) are nonsensically rewarded for their blind obedience to their paymaster overlords in churning out the most impossibly and agonisingly atrocious noise imaginable.

However, after dismissing the hideous monstrosity as unworthy of any semi-sentient human's attention, I was horrified to notice this year that my favourite band, Muse, had been nominated in four categories, none of which qualified themselves along the lines of 'Recognition Of Real Music Award' or 'Best Band Who Are Actually A Band Award'. Even more horrifyingly, in the 'best album' category (a clear walkover for 'Absolution') Muse received the most chilling and gratuitously criminal insult imaginable. They were nominated alongside The Streets.

Mike Skinner almost defies parody. At first he was easily dismissed by all multicellular organisms as a harmless joke, exposing chav culture as something to be laughed at uproariously by all. However, just like Diego Maradona's waistline, the joke was stretched too far. Terrifyingly, what can only be described as the vacant, mindless, banal, moronic ramblings of a newborn amoeba with water on the nucleus accompanied by a rhythmic-bollocks-spouting-machine (a rapper) and 'a beat' (which, laughably, is often passed as an excuse for the verruca-esque existence of rubbish'n'boring and hip-hop, amongst other pointless genres) was a) allowed to release no less than TWO COMPLETE ALBUMS and b) critically acclaimed for 'bringing the voice of the street to the masses'. If I was the street I would be hugely offended by the insinuation that if I had a voice, I would sound like a dumbarse townie with a Burberry fetish. And yet 'A Grand Don't Come For Free' (admittedly a stunning philosophical insight for an amoeba) receives a nomination alongside the greatest operatic rock statement of the age?? This is in no way amusing. This is sick, disgusting and shameful.

Fortunately for my grasp on sanity the ultimate indignity of the amoeba winning the award did not occur. The prize was instead received by grandmother's favourites Keane for their incredible achievement of taking the tepid, lukewarm, jumper-knitting hyper-mellow comfortable-armchair and warm-slippers rock template and pushing the boundaries beyond even the levels set by the redoubtable Travis. A ludicrous decision, obviously, but not earth shatteringly mindless. Muse, in fact, were victorious in the 'Best British Live Act' category, which would have been impressive had it not been for the utter lack of competition.

Having simmered gently for a week or so over the identity of some of the 'winners' I felt that a renaming of the categories was an absolute necessity. I have therefore listed the idiotic excuses proposed as reasons for giving particular 'artists' an award, the beneficiary of each shameless justification and the name of the subliminal award that I feel they are actually receiving:

Best British Male Solo Artist (Talentless Moron Most Attuned To Idiot Chav Culture Award):

The Streets (679 / Locked On / Warner Music)

Best British Female Solo Artist (Token Award For Most Blindingly Obvious Choice Of Pseudo-Alternative But Actually Very Mainstream Attractive Female):

Joss Stone (Virgin / EMI Music)

Best British Group (Band Most Assisted By NME Driven Irrational Knee-Jerk Media Frenzy Over Vague And Debatable Semblance Of Talent Award):

Franz Ferdinand (Domino Recordings)

Best British Album (Most Mellow And Tepidly Inoffensive British Album):

'Lost Hopes And Fears' - Keane (Island / Universal Music)

Best British Single (Worst British Single):

'Your Game' - Will Young (S / BMG / Sony BMG Music)

Best British Breakthrough Act (Most Annoying New Band To Randomly Rise To Prominence On The Back Of Inexplicable Commercial Radio Frenzy Award):

Keane (Island / Universal Music)

Best British Urban Act (Excuse For Another Meaningless Award For One Of Those Annoying Useless Genres Award):

Joss Stone (Virgin / EMI Music)

Best British Rock Act (Best Excruciatingly Simplistic British 'Strokes' Garage Tribute Band Award):

Franz Ferdinand (Domino Recordings)

Best British Live Act (Best International Band):

Muse (Taste Media / Warner Music)

Brits25 - The Best Song Award (Worst Utterly Arbitrary Excuse To Give Robbie Williams An Award Award):

'Angels' - Robbie Williams

Best Pop Act (Most Ear-Shatteringly Atrocious Bunch Of Manufactured Corporate Automaton Puppet Whores Award):

McFly (Island / Universal Music)

Best International Male Solo Artist (Most Ridiculous Generalisation Ever To Cover Millions Of Vastly Differing Musicians Award):

Eminem (Shady Records / Universal Music)

Best International Female Solo Artist (Tenuous Proof That The Brits Are Not Anti-American Or Sexist Award):

Gwen Stefani (Interscope / Universal Music)

Best International Group (Worst International Group):

Scissor Sisters (Polydor / Universal Music)

Best International Album (Worst International Album):

'Scissor Sisters' - Scissor Sisters (Polydor / Universal Music)

Best International Breakthrough Act (Worst International Breakthrough Act):

Scissor Sisters (Polydor / Universal Music)

Outstanding Contribution To Music (Moronic Excuse To Give Some Poor Has-Been A Randomly Timed And Entirely Arbitrary Meaningless Award Award):

Sir Bob Geldof (no record deal, ahahaha - nice bloke, shame about the Boomtown Rats)

This shameful and embarrassing list of offences against sentience and good taste merely penetrates the surface of the dark malaise surrounding the British musical scene. Until McFly, The Streets and the Sugababes are completely eradicated by the revolution and purges that will take place when I ascend to my rightful place as a music industry emperor I cannot rest in my endeavour to expose the horrific crimes perpetuated by the controllers of the automaton puppets. The Brit Awards are merely the tip of the iceberg of corporate filth. Open your ears!

Ed's Mood: Infuriated

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: The Mars Volta - Inertiatic ESP

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

2005-02-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

Today's seminar provided an untimely reminder of the horrors of Narrative and Culture, a compulsory first year course the memory of which continues to plague me and disturb my sleep. In ten agonising weeks we experienced the same recurring pattern. Tutor asks horrifyingly vague and terminally answerable question along the lines of 'what is the meaning of life as construed by Foucaultian structuralist thought?' and looks around expectantly. Class stare back blankly. Silence. Tutor rephrases question several times in increasingly indecipherable terms. Class form a collective pseudo-thoughtful frown and sheepishly look at collective feet. Tutor becomes angry. One brave individual attempts to answer question in excruciatingly simplistic way. Tutor glares. Class become collectively frightened. Each individual loses ability to speak. Tutor asks similarly impossible question. Class brace themselves. Process repeats for two hours. Last half hour is occupied in stoney and embarrassing silence. Traumatised class stagger out. Process repeats ten times.

This morning, following eighty minutes of absolute silence, our tutor ended our misery by declaring that 'we didn't seem very motivated' and terminating the seminar. Oddly, she seemed almost surprised that we were unable to motivate ourselves to analyse the horrifying work of the most terrifying and dangerous female author ever; the woman solely responsible for viciously blasting into oblivion the spirit and maliciously destroying for eternity the remotest ability to take enjoyment from life of all English students. I speak of Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf occupies a notable position in the pantheon of modernist English writers for her extraordinary ability to write 200 page novels with no discernible narrative whatsoever. 'To The Lighthouse' is a peerless example, being the only novel ever written where the entire plot occurs in the title. There are several mind-numbingly uninteresting characters with apparent psychotic disorders. They go to a lighthouse. Reader dies of terminal boredom. The End.

However, simply as a consequence of being a) modernist (modern) and b) feminist (female), expertly positioning herself in the most nebulous and entirely meaningless of all literature buzzword categories, she is mysteriously worshipped by all English tutors, resulting in an extreme conflict between tutor and student.

SEMINAR DEBATE:

TUTOR: Virginia Woolf is the mistress of the fragmented 'stream of consciousness' style of writing, concentrating on the psychological nature of the characters as opposed to a traditional plot-driven narrative structure. Her female characters battle against their suppression in the patriarchal society they find themselves occupying, discovering a freedom of expression and identity within their own private thoughts.
STUDENT: So basically no-one ever wanted to have sex with her?
TUTOR: Haha. What I'm trying to get across to you is her phenomenal characterisation, her incisive grasp of the psychological nuances that affect each and every one of us.
STUDENT: So basically no-one ever wanted to have sex with her?
TUTOR: Very funny. She extended the philosophical debate about the truth of our identity - the intangible connection that links us to our Self - beyond any previous understanding, illuminating the truth behind our external repression.
STUDENT: So basically no-one ever wanted to have sex with her?
TUTOR: Er. Well. No, they didn't. She had a bloody huge nose.

In order to assist those poor unfortunates considering undertaking an English degree, therefore, I have kindly decided to provide all the plot information for Virginia Woolf's two most 'popular' novels and one of her most prominent short essays:

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE: Several annoying characters waste two hundred pages unnecessarily analysing in the most infuriatingly minute detail all the aspects of their frightening and psychotic natures. For no apparent reason, they go to a lighthouse, foolishly waiting until the main character has arbitrarily died. The End.

MRS DALLOWAY: One annoying character wastes two hundred pages unnecessarily analysing in the most infuriatingly minute detail all the aspects of her frightening and psychotic nature. She may or may not have lesbian tendencies depending on how much you want her to. She holds an evening party so that she can converse with other equally frightening and psychotic characters. Nothing of the remotest significance happens at the evening party. The End.

CINEMA: Virginia Woolf wastes the resources of several valuable rainforests by describing her hatred of cinema for not being pretentious or depressing enough. She wants a cinema that only pseudo-intellectuals can enjoy where everything is hopelessly and annoyingly abstract. No-one cares. The End.

In conclusion, drowning oneself in a vat of hydrochloric acid, impaling oneself on a thirty foot stake and lighting a fire directly underneath and inserting one's nether regions between the irons of sadistically hot GHD hair straighteners are all far more attractive prospects than studying anything that bears the signature of the Woolf. Make the right choice. Burn yourself.

Ed's Mood: Sardonic

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Kula Shaker - Hush

Slash Deprivation Solution

2005-01-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

VELVET REVOLVER, HAMMERSMITH APOLLO

Two weeks after seeing Velvet Revolver at their first Hammersmith Apollo gig, my friend Amy began to develop a dangerous form of SDS (Slash Deprivation Syndrome), which, for all you Essex boys out there, is not a reference to an insatiable desire to urinate but to an insatiable desire to occupy the same room as the former Guns'N'Roses guitarist. Fearing for her continued sanity and mental health, she anxiously perused Ebay in a quest to find available tickets for the second of the Hammersmith Apollo performances. Unfortunately, only paired tickets were affordable, putting her in the unenviable position of being forced to bring me along.

Arriving at 6:45 after some magnificent car navigation from Brighton and nourishment at the indiscreetly glorified Wetherspoons that is Lloyds, we were delighted to notice that misery specialists Biffy Clyro had been dropped from the list of support acts, leaving just a single obstacle between us and the appearance of Velvet Revolver. However, this obstacle proved to be a redoubtable one.

After entertaining ourselves by watching what appeared to be a constant loop of 'Team America - World Police' adverts on the big screen, The Datsuns, a New Zealand garage rock quartet on an ambitious mission to develop the concept of 'sameyness' beyond Status Quo levels and into hitherto unheard of territory, opened to desultory applause and proceeded to play the same three chord yawnfest in eleven astonishingly similar ways. Excruciatingly, the concluding version somehow managed to occupy seven minutes of agonising ear bleeding hell before the singer admitted defeat after repeated attempts to inject excitement by screeching 'WEOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!' whenever he approached the chorus in the anguished manner of a cat being neutered. Desperate attempts to influence the audience with ludicrous and plainly dishonest propaganda: 'THIS IS MOTHERF****** ROCK AND ROLL!!!' were greeted with stoney silence.

After a sixth attempt to persuade us to attend the forthcoming 'Team America: World Police', greeted with sarcastic cheering and the somewhat disturbing observation by someone in my near vicinity that 'that's an impossible angle for intercourse', apparently completely failing to notice that the fundamental premise of eunoch puppets having sex despite the irreconciliable penetration issues is not *especially* realistic in itself, the waiting for a decent band commenced. And continued for so long that the appearance of a solitary drum tech was greeted with the euphoric applause usually reserved by a Most Haunted audience for any event which carries the most pitifully tenuous possibility of a supernatural cause:

YVETTE: OH MY GOD! OH, MY GOD!!
PHIL: What is it?!? What?!?
YVETTE: I heard....A NOT IMMEDIATELY EXPLICABLE NOISE WHICH ONE IN A MILLION PEOPLE MIGHT, IF PARALYTICALLY DRUNK AND POSSESSING THE MENTAL FACULTY OF A DERANGED GOLDFISH, ASCRIBE TO SUPERNATURAL POLTERGEIST ACTIVITY!!!!
PHIL: OH MY GOD!!!!
DEREK: LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!! BUGGER ME, WHAT WAS THAT?!?
PHIL: WHAT?!?
DEREK: That house over there!!!! It was dark a minute ago and now THERE'S A LIGHT ON IN THE KITCHEN!!
PHIL: Studio historians, help us here!
HISTORIAN: I can confirm that there is a STRONG POSSIBILITY that, at some point, a person DIED IN THIS VERY TOWN! And there is no evidence to suggest that it was not in that VERY KITCHEN!!
ALL: HEEELLLPPP!!!

An hour after the warmly received disappearance of The Datsuns, Velvet Revolver entered the stage to rapturous applause, particularly for Slash, possibly the greatest guitarist ever to not possess a face. Realising too late the inherent danger posed by being five rows back and surrounded by menacing seven foot waistlines, Amy and I were caught up in a thriving mass of humanity sharing the common belief that a blistering torrent of distorted noise can only be satisfactorily received by inflicting, at the very least, terminal injury on anyone unfortunate enough to be around you. We hastily retreated with some difficulty to the outskirts of the moshpit, ironically coinciding our escape with a rare ballad.

Velvet Revolver are a fearsome live proposition, as any band featuring 3/5 of the sadly lamented classic Guns'N'Roses line-up would be expected to be. Lead singer, Scott Weiland, originally of the Stone Temple Pilots, is a strange proposition though, specialising in mysterious streams of consciousness where he attempts to ascribe divine qualities to his art:

SCOTT: People say that rock'n'roll can change the world, y'know, f***, but, f***, f****** people is what it's all about, changing the f****** life of you people, f***, yeah, that's why I f****** do this cos it's f****** amazing how it's greeted and it like enters another dimension and I'm not at all f****** drugged up on every narcotic in the world obviously cos I've packed that s*** in completely hence the dead fish eyes and constant swearing and complete bollocks I'm spouting here and why I can't finish any sentences, but, y'know, f*** that, f*** you, f*** me and f*** f***.

Sadly, although I will be pilloried for saying this by hardcore fans who say 'shut up and stop living in the past!' in a desperate attempt to disguise the fact that the past was superior, the band obstinately refused to delve into the cream of the Guns'N'Roses catalogue, instead restricting themselves to their own (admittedly excellent) material and a number of intriguing covers. All five members displayed astonishing technical skill at times and particularly Slash, rare amongst talented lead guitarists in that he is content to restrict his solo ventures to under a minute. 'Slither' and 'Fall To Pieces', signature songs from Contraband, were particularly excellent, the former displaying a completely mastery of the sledgehammer riff and the latter an equally dominant mastery of the anthemic ballad. Unfortunately the sound quality in the Hammersmith Apollo was dire, unable to withstand the ferocity of the rhythm section and drowning a number of Slash's more discreet single-string wanderings in a tirade of white distortion, which though not terminal to the performance by any means was deeply irritating. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that with superior sound quality and, subjectively, renditions of November Rain and Paradise City, the display would have been near perfect.

Ed's Rating: 9/10

Ed's Mood: Euphoric

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Velvet Revolver - Slither

House Of Flying Dire Metaphors

2005-01-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

I realised my prospects for the oncoming term were bleak when our supposed 'Literature, Media and Modern Culture' seminar 'tutor' decided to shamelessly confess that she 'knows nothing about film theory and media terminology'. Somehow she managed to overwhelm even this horrifying admission with the preposterous suggestion that we 'use [our] media expertise to inform her'. This statement is doubly ridiculous - a) it assumes that we've built up a foundation of knowledge, as opposed to knowing concepts for exactly as long as it takes to write an essay about them and forgetting about them immediately afterwards and b) that 90% of English and Media students are actually going to consider contributing vocally to a seminar. A truly ludicrous idea.

As part of this nebulously titled course an extremely reluctant contingent of students was forced to endure the hollow 'comedy' of Charlie Chaplin, surely the most spectacular unfunny comic creation ever. 'Modern Times', an epic film stretching over several millennia, was supposedly a humorous indictment of modernity and the industrialisation of the world. Well, it may have been humorous in 1936 prior to the invention of the joke anyway. Charlie Chaplin must have been the most optimistic man alive to believe that the sole remedial features of a) a stupid moustache and b) an idiotic walk would remain funny for ninety minutes of truly agonising cinematic excretion. Or indeed for 70 years of truly agonising cinematic excretion.

Continuing this theme, here's my (extremely subjective, prejudiced and transparently biased, just like all good film critics) opinion of two recent cinematic releases. And warning, these contain a vast number of spoilers:

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS

If you enjoyed the Matrix series, this film provides essential viewing material. The phenomenal action sequences within this film feature some truly mesmerising cinematography as a supposedly blind woman fends off hordes of sword wielding assassins armed only with her instincts and an impossibly accurate throw. However, the plot is ridiculous - and the dialogue far worse. In fact, my award for Most Blatant Overuse Of A Damn Stupid Simile 2004 goes to this film. For some mysterious and baffling reason the writer has the bewildering idea that 'free like the wind' is both an original and an intelligent simile. Using it once is foolhardy. Using it twice is painful. Using it repeatedly and concentrating the entire moralistic value of the film around it is plain infuriating:

HERO: So why are you called that idiotic name of yours?
HEROINE: Because I want to be free...like the wind! Fly...like the bird! Brighten the world... like the sun! Live forever... like the angels! Insert....moronic simile here!
HERO: Oh. Deep. How do we escape from the sword wielding assassins?
HEROINE: Be free... like the wind! Run...like the cheetah!
HERO: Genius. Why did you remove that dagger from your heart and throw it arbitrarily at a tree, thereby causing yourself terminal blood loss when the rational thing to do would be to wait until I finish killing this bloke I've been in hilariously overdone non-stop hand-to-hand combat with for the last year or so and then allow me to dress your wound and save your life?
HEROINE: Because I wanted to be free... like the wind! And ensure a suitably formulaic and depressing... pseudo-arty conclusion to this film!
HERO: Oh for CRYING OUT LOUD! Why don't you just roll over and die... like a BAD JOKE! Stop holding up the end credits, this sequence has lasted HALF A BLOODY HOUR NOW. DIE! DIE! DIE!
HEROINE: Don't I get a final pretentious speech crammed full of childish similes and meaningless vacuous metaphors?
HERO: NO!
HEROINE: Oh. (dies in suitably arty pose)

Ed's Summary: Enthralling action sequences and cinematography. Awful dialogue, shallow and formulaic conspiracy plot, unconvincing romance between main protagonists and a very disappointing conclusion.

Ed's Rating: 5.5/10

WHITE NOISE

White Noise is a formulaic psychological thriller about a man's deceased wife attempting to communicate with him via various recording media (cassette tape, video recorder etc). Although genuinely hair-raising and intriguing for a substantial time as the hero realises that the technology is enabling him to become aware of deaths that have not yet occurred but has absolutely no idea how this is happening, the film suffers from two principal maladies. The first of these is Michael Keaton, who brings his own special brand of woodenness to the role and is terminally handicapped by the 'hey look! it's Batman pretending to be a normal guy!' factor (which, admittedly, isn't really his fault). The second of these is yet another diabolical conclusion:

RANDOM BLOKE: Yes, it was me all along! Mwuhahaha! Bet you'd never have guessed that eh??
MICHAEL KEATON: Well, considering that a) you've appeared in the film for all of three seconds before this point, b) I and the audience know absolutely nothing about you whatsoever and c) you're utterly unnecessary and the conclusion could function quite easily without you, it hadn't actually occurred to me, no.
RANDOM BLOKE: But this film needs a villain!
MICHAEL KEATON: Shame the writers only realised that 130 minutes in really wasn't it?
RANDOM BLOKE: Shut up and die without putting up a fight or asking me anything about my motivation, character role, whether I have any kind of real point, the reason why I killed your wife and all the others, etc.
MICHAEL KEATON: Why?
RANDOM BLOKE: COS I DON'T BLOODY KNOW AND THE AUTHORS CAN'T BE ARSED TO USE THEIR INTELLIGENCE TO BRING TOGETHER THE VARIOUS MYSTIFYING NARRATIVE STRANDS IN A COHERENT AND SATISFYING WAY, OKAY?! JUST FIGURE THAT I'M A BOG STANDARD SHALLOW PSYCHO WHO DOESN'T NEED MOTIVATION!!
MICHAEL KEATON: Okay (dies).

Ed's Summary: Intriguing premise which isn't developed as well as is promised throughout the greater part of the film. Terrible conclusion.

Ed's Rating: 7/10

In other news, tonight is 'Lad's Night', taking place at that epic bastion of drinking that is Sussex University Campus. This should promise a number of amusing escapades. Usually I remain reasonably sober while those around me provide all manner of excellent material for one of these entries, so watch this space!

Ed's Mood: Excellent

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Smashing Pumpkins - Tear

Capitalist Slugs

2005-01-11T17:41:00.000-08:00

Cycling through the archives I was dismayed to find an unfinished post regarding my Hollywood presentation on Will Smith's star persona. I believe I was supposed to be going somewhere with this but unfortunately memory has faded. Real update to follow!

As part of my preparation for my seminar, I decided that I should at least make a token concession to work. Watching Men In Black II beforehand I was struck with misgivings about how exactly to convincingly intellectualise a scene where Will Smith overcomes a giant mutated slug attempting to consume an underground train. Fortunately, numerous ludicrous theories are available to your discerning English and Media student at this point:

MARXIST ANALYSIS: Will Smith's character represents the oppressed masses overcoming the terrifying, all-consuming threat posed by the disgusting 'slug' of capitalism and the business classes.

FEMINIST ANALYSIS: Will Smith's character is a parody of the unconsciously but tangibly patriarchal nature of society, saving the passive female 'passengers' with his superior masculine strength and quickness of thought.

PSYCHOANALYTIC ANALYSIS: Will Smith's character is undergoing an Oedipal trajectory; attacking the father 'slug', defeating the father 'slug' and then replacing the 'slug' in the mother (slug?)'s affections.

GENERAL IGNORANCE DISGUISING BULLCRAP MEDIA JARGON ANALYSIS: Will Smith's transcendent brand identity is particularly apparent in this scene - his charisma, charm, heroism and racial self-awareness all reflect the pre-conceptions created by his constructed image which we as the audience bring to the film.

POST-MODERN ANALYSIS: Will Smith's character resists analysis because REALITY IS FAKE, DUMBARSE REALITY FASCISTS! YAY DISTORTION AND FRAGMENTATION AND ANARCHISTIC BREAK-UP OF EVERYTHING FOREVER AND YAY MADNESS AND DESTRUCTION AND CULTURAL VANDALISM! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO! ANDY WARHOL ROCKS!

My problem was then eased by me conveniently forgetting the tape of this particular scene. This may have been fortunate, since most theories disintegrate dismally in the face of Will Smith standing in front of a six hundred foot worm and uttering the immortal words: 'Yo! People! There's a BUG! IN! THE! ELECTRICAL! SYSTEM!'. I might have spent two and a half years honing my ability to talk absolute rubbish whilst giving the impression of being extremely knowledgeable and intellectual, but that particular achievement would have been impossible even for an English and Media BA (Bullsh*tting Award) student.

Ed's Mood: Cynical

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Kasabian - Club Foot

Diabolical Burgers

2004-12-08T16:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, in honour of Miss. Hannah Sadler's astonishing longevity - 21 years occupying this world - her friend Fiona and our mutual friend Craig organised a secret birthday party designed to celebrate her impressive feat and formulate a suitable pension plan. Sadly, and unknown to us until it was too late to make a hasty and polite retreat, this party involved a visit to the most carefully and strenuously avoided of all Brighton nightspots - Creation.

For those of you fortunate enough to be ignorant of the place, Creation is a diabolical hellhole which shamelessly plays only the most utterly execrable of quasi-musical filth. As a consequence of its sado-masochistic insistence in playing only the absolute worst Rubbish'N'Boring known to mankind, it necessarily attracts a terrifyingly high audience of Extremotownies. Within ten seconds of entering the place, I was needlessly and arbitrarily shoved out of the way by one of the most pitiful examples, who decided to a) ignore the fact that I had kindly left at least seven feet of space to pass me by and b) the fact that, not actually being eight feet wide, this should have presented him with ample room to pass. He asserted his meagre masculine pride by picking on someone about half his height and about as likely to present him with a challenging physical fight as a malnourished baby woodlouse taking on the apocalypse. What a man.

Brushing myself down, I immediately had my arse pinched by what appeared to be two unfathomably large balloons on legs wearing a belt. Beginning to form doubts about my sanity and susceptibility to hallucinations, I swiftly moved away from this frightening entity and after exchanging pleasantries for a while with the birthday collective, moved on to the dance floor to await a good tune. This proved somewhat optimistic. The DJ's exultant declarations of 'cheeeeeeeeeeese coming your way!' proved to be a malicious and unfounded lie. But yes, I realise there is a certain sad and sardonic irony in proclaiming authentic cheddar to be on the way and then playing Usher, whose mastery of the jaw-droppingly uninspired and mind-numbingly excruciating three minute Rubbish'N'Boring uber-whine is absolute, or 50 Cent, the world's first talking cabbage-human hybrid:

50 CENT: Yo, I'm a P.I.M.P!

NORMAL PERSON: Pointless Idiotic Mindless Prat?

50 CENT: Dat's right man. I got some good sh*t going down dog. It's like my old song mixed with my newer song (which is exactly the same as my old song). I'm gonna call it 'Gettin' Tipsy In Da Club Wid My Bitches'. Den I'm gonna release 'Gettin' Tipsy In Da Club Wid My Bitches And My Homies', which is like my old sh*t mixed with my newer sh*t mixed with my new sh*t mixed with some sh*t to form some REALLY SH*TTY SH*T! Dat's da sh*t I'm talking about.

NORMAL PERSON: Er, do you ever talk about anything else? And can you complete a sentence without having to swear desperately like a brain dead townie struggling hopelessly against the tide of a coherent vocabulary consisting of more than four words?

50 CENT: No man, I'm street. And da street is sh*t.

However, repeated and dismal failure to play Livin' On Prayer, Sweet Child O' Mine, Bohemian Rhapsody and Growing On Me becomes swiftly unfunny. There's only so many times you can pretend to have impossibly bad taste and remain amusing, and the DJ would do well to bear this in mind. Me and Neil were forced to amuse ourselves in the absence of any musical entertainment by dominating the giant texting screen with pro-Essex anti-Brighton diatribes: 'Essex OWNS Brighton!'/'I'm not from Essex. Bloody well wish I was though.'/'If you're not from Essex, bow your head and leave quietly by the nearest exit'/'HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BROOKLYN AND CHARDONNAY! Essex OWNS Brighton!'. This was actually vaguely amusing at the time, which merely seeks to uphold my developing theory that Carlsberg combined with vodka and coke addles the mind's capacity for good humour.

Tonight my house is celebrating the end of term and onset of the Christmas period by attempting to successfully ingest 'giant breakfast burgers' at Tootsie's, these burgers being the result of an experiment designed to fit every disgustingly greasy and super-calorific substance imaginable that could be considered even remotely edible between two bread baps. I am confidently told that these burgers are so monstrously huge that it is physically impossible to successfully bite every component of the package simultaneously. I aim to prove that my capacious mouth is the exception to the rule. Bring it on!

Ed's Mood: Peachy

Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Bon Jovi - Always

Cheese and Consequence

2004-12-03T18:03:00.000-08:00

Cheese (n.) 1. Disgusting foodstuff made by acquiring the lactation of a female bovine and then allowing it to rot horribly for several weeks until it a) is a particularly nauseous combination of yellow and blue hues and b) has a smell so horrendously bad that it can suffocate anyone in a five mile radius. 2. Popular anthemic music beloved of drunken students.

I have never understood the popularity of cheese. Would you eat four week old apples that had become a suspicious shade of brown and begun to resemble a compost heap? Would you eat bananas that you'd left to 'mature' for three months?? Methinks not. It's a festering yellow lump occupied by millions of promiscuous multiplying nymphomaniac bacteria for crying out loud! And not only is it revoltingly unhygienic, it has the most noxious smell imaginable. I have absolutely no idea how you even socially approach a blue cheese without dying horribly of extreme asphyxiation, never mind actually eat the damn thing without terminally choking. And even if you survive the terminal choking, how the hell do you survive the internal lacerations and haemorraghing that must necessarily take place if you actually swallow the foul substance? Incomprehensible. Apparently the first (and thus far, only) pizza I ever ate nearly knocked me unconscious. And that was before the oven door was fully opened.

The only cheese remotely worth considering, in fact, is of the musical variety. Would you rather eat mature red leicester (NB: it's not 'red', it's 'vomit-orange'. Most cheeses suffer from a similar misnomer - 'extra mature' means 'left to rot for slightly longer'. Now 'extra rotted vomit-orange leicester' sounds a lot less attractive doesn't it?) or hear Livin' On Prayer played at ear-splitting volume to a thriving mass of exultant humanity? Fortunately Brighton, the nominal home city of Sussex University, plays host to a number of right-thinking, left-wing (what a ridiculous language English is) musical establishments which refuse to bow down before the seemingly indomitable rise of Rubbish'N'Boring and Garage Shite and faithfully adhere to a strict diet of pure cheese. Most prominent among these is the world revered Event II, which on Fridays ends the shameless corporate selling-out to the foolish multitude of the week and finally plays a solid combination of Madonna, the A-Team theme and various other songs with no semblance of a non-ironic rap or what is somewhat tenuously described as a 'beat' by idiot non-conformist super-conformists (otherwise known as 'townies'). Tonight we return to the venue infamous for the world's only genuinely sexless DJ - I have been on about twenty occasions and despite the fact that I should have the inate ability to calculate anyone's gender (quite an essential requirement that, avoids embarrassment and a punch when enquiring as to someone's cup size) the DJ defies me completely. Sam reports a bra sighting but I remain unconvinced - it may be a trick. Or a man corset.

In other self-obsessed news, today I achieved a first for one of my worst essays ever, which was very uplifting. Obviously after two and a half years of being taught to hone blagging talent to incorporate any possible subject which we know absolutely nothing about - otherwise known as English and Media BA - results are finally becoming apparent. I wrote an essay on postmodernism, which as any aspiring theorist knows, is one of those clever (for 'clever' read 'profoundly idiotic and completely unnecessary') terms which can be described but never defined - pure 24 carat blagging gold. So yet again I'm averaging a first for completely inconsequential work that has absolutely no effect on my overall mark and nothing like as much for my actual degree. D'oh.

Ed's Mood: Sombre
Ed's Incessant Auto-Repeat Musical Tip: Metallica - Astronomy

Physical Exertion: The Edge Of Reason

2004-11-08T02:14:00.000-08:00

After weeks of procrastinating, I finally became physically active last Friday. And by 'physically active' I mean that not only did I get up at a time when the sun would be visible if it wasn't hidden behind the resident murderous Brighton black cloud, I actually joined Craig, Sam and a motley crew of assorted sporting misfits to play football. This proved to be a mistake. As if the sensation of my internal organs having a bitter internal civil war (all armed to the teeth with a veritable arsenal of advanced industrial chainsaws) was not unbearable enough, I was repeatedly outshone for pace and skill by Neil, whose pre-match training routine consisted of three hours sleep followed by hardcore nicotine ingestion. Admittedly my speed and quickness of reaction has been unfavourably compared with narcoleptic slugs and tranquilised snails in the past, but this was still somewhat embarrassing. I would exaggerate the quality of my goal and suggest that it consisted of a scintillating run past three defenders followed by a calm and controlled finish past the sprawling goalkeeper, but 'mishit cross shinned in to open goal from two yards out by lazy statuesque goalhanging git' would be more accurate. Hopefully next time I play I'll be able to contribute more than what I like to describe as 'intelligent off-ball runs into space' but which are really unsubtle attempts to avoid defensive duties by moving away from nearby opposition players whenever possible.

Foolishly and somewhat suicidally, I immediately progressed from football to my gym induction. Fortunately this was significantly less strenuous and notable only for the 'calorie counter' on the running machine, which persisted in telling me for no less than three minutes that I had 'burned: 0.1 calories'. Either I have the most shockingly horrendous metabolism in history (if I maintain that rate I burn about half a slice of bread a day - my body must have a horrific backlog to deal with) or the machine is evil lying scum. I prefer to think the latter.

Tired and slightly worried about my strange thirst for physical exertion, I immediately wasted any positive effect the painful experience above might have had by gorging recklessly on free Moroccan food at Hannah's 21st birthday party in London on Saturday. I wasn't even particularly hungry, but the motivation to all genuine penniless students provided by the three premises a) free food b) immediate buffet-style access and c) limited time inspired me to hitherto unheard of heights. As the food was cooked in order to serve twelve people and only eleven were present, I kindly and diplomatically decided after careful democratic consultation with myself to eat the excess amount - I'm a very considerate person and I was concerned about offending the chef.

Finally, for those of you wondering whether or not Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason will be worthy of your attendance - it is. But admittedly I'm influenced slightly by the fact that Hugh Grant's character nearly drowns and that Colin Firth is looking upliftingly wrinkly, not that I'm at all jealous of the two infuriatingly clean-cut and suave millionaire bastards who exert an implausibly powerful sexual attraction to women despite both being in their fifth decades of existence and being slightly typecast:

HUGH GRANT: I hear, ah, that you can, er, help me with my artistic expression (strokes hair foppishly)
COLIN FIRTH: Yes. I will teach you how to register emotion. (stares coldly)
HUGH GRANT: Splendid! (smiles winningly)
COLIN FIRTH: This is happiness. (stares coldly)
HUGH GRANT: I, er, see, haha. (arches eyebrows)
COLIN FIRTH: This is sadness. (stares coldly)
HUGH GRANT: Marvellous. (smiles disarmingly)
COLIN FIRTH: This is incandescent rage and homicidal fury. (stares coldly)
HUGH GRANT: Incredible. (nibbles fingernails)
COLIN FIRTH: This is an overrated mercenary bastard incomprehensibly and bewilderingly building a whole popularly acclaimed career on an eminently forgettable nude lake scene, one facial expression and an inexplicably enduring attraction to bored middle-aged housewives (stares coldly)
HUGH GRANT: How perfectly extraordinary.... (scratches back of neck self-consciously)

Yes, I don't understand either. But then I'm not a bored housewife. And hopefully I never will be.

Ed's Mood: Upbeat
Ed's Incessant Auto Repeat Musical Tip: Ours - Meet Me In The Tower (album version, not the ear-shattering acoustic mutilation)

Purity In A Sex Mad World

2004-11-08T00:04:00.000-08:00

You might wonder what on earth someone as soulless, shallow and materialistic as me was doing at a church seminar on Sunday. My girlfriend Dani and her friend Abi were intrigued by a quiet evening debate, and invited me. In the spirit of attempting everything once, therefore, I acquiesced. I'm very far from being Christian, but in a pretentious attempt to not be completely ignorant I'm willing to listen to views that might contradict my own. I expected a reasonably exhilarating debate but was instead confronted by the most horrifyingly radical conservatism ever:

PRUDISH DANE: When I came to England, people kissed me on the cheek and I was like 'Woah! You're invading my personal space!'. I mean, in Denmark everyone hugs, and I don't know whether that's different in your culture. Can people hug here?'

'Is any sexual activity okay outside marriage?'

PRUDISH DANE: Er. No. Kissing provides a constant temptation.

Right. I'm not a complete libertarian. I don't believe in sex outside a loving, stable, long-term relationship, and would assume that most loving, stable, long-term relationships result in marriage. I appreciate and understand that Christians do not believe in sex outside marriage, it really isn't a belief far away from my own thoughts on the matter. But I've never heard anyone so astonishingly prudish and repressive as to virtually express the sentiment: 'no kissing outside marriage'. This assumes that all humans are impossibly weak creatures for whom the most inoffensive of affectionate gestures acts as some kind of ecstatically irresistible aphrodisiac, a highly offensive and condescending view. Although apparently oysters are also an aphrodisiac (yep, what you thought was indigestion, stomach cramp and projectile vomiting was in fact overpowering lust!). We also watched a video vaguely related to the subject which oddly appeared to be accompanied by a cheap Dutch porn soundtrack: 'I want you! I need you! I want you! I need you! I want you! I need you!' as if abstaining from sex is some kind of continuous desperate battle against a tuneless nymphomaniac singer with writer's block. It worries me slightly when people are this scared of a simple (and natural) biological desire and take valid religious beliefs to such a ridiculous extreme that ordinary Christians are turned off. I went expecting to have my dodgy agnostic view challenged, not supplemented. I didn't expect to be greeted by what turned out to be an ignorant atheist's dream parody of insanely radical Christians. My Christian friends were horrified, which says it all. Sheesh.

Ed's Mood: Disillusioned
Ed's Incessant Auto Repeat Musical Tip: Radiohead - Street Spirit (Live Acoustic)

Trains, Tribulations and Drunken Lunatics

2004-10-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

Friday 22nd, 1:30 A.M. After a traditional Thursday night extravaganza (namely Wetherspoons, the Marmite of alcohol supplying establishments, followed by a healthy dose of authentic cheese rock), I return home to discover that my girlfriend Dani (who, by the way, is ever-so-conveniently located in Exeter) has been repeatedly falling unconscious.

2:00 A.M. One nerve-wracking phone conversation with the groggy Dani and her frightened housemate Abbi later, I make a decision which has everything to do with calm and considered reasoning and absolutely nothing to do with impractical emotion and alcohol-induced foolhardiness. I check train times.

2:30 A.M. Discovering that the earliest train leaves at 4:00 A.M., costs a stomach-churning £95.70 and that I need to change three times and travel for six and a half hours, my resolve and love undergoes a severe and hardcore ten second examination. And passes.

2:45 A.M. I book a taxi for 3:15 A.M.

2:45 A.M. - 3:15 A.M. Me and my nocturnal fellow Essex Boy housemate Neil discuss the intricacies of the human condition and the meaning of life.

3:15 A.M. I catch aforementioned taxi.

3:30 A.M. I reach Brighton station, and have the following slightly disturbing conversation with someone I originally placed as a drunk, then a lunatic, then as a drunken lunatic:

DRUNKEN LUNATIC: Excushe me!
ME, SLIGHTLY AGITATED: Y-es...?
DRUNKEN LUNATIC: Do you know when the train ssshtation opens?
ME, SLIGHTLY AGITATED: (relieved by relative normality of question) 3:45 I think.
DRUNKEN LUNATIC: Thash cool. Schweet. Nishe. Yeah. (pause) Did you know shat if you drink a dog'sh pish you can live forever?
ME, SLIGHTLY AGITATED: Erm, no.
DRUNKEN LUNATIC: Yeah. It'sh better if you have a bath in it though. Get'sh in the poresh and the orifishes.

3:45 A.M. I blearily stagger on to the platform, and finally think to check my packing. The absolute man essentials like my iPod and various assorted music magazines are there, but I appear to have forgotten clothing. Bugger.

3:55 A.M. The train is an archaic slam-door relic that should have been condemned several thousand millennia ago. I find the seat in the carriage least likely to (a) be riddled with several billion assorted bacteria, all carrying multiple terminal diseases, (b) remove itself from its moorings and propel me into the bosom of the king-sized human Flora tub opposite me and (c) fall through the bottom of the train as soon as I apply the slightest amount of downward pressure to it.

4:00 A.M. The train reluctantly moves into action, wheels and whatever the South Central equivalent of an engine is combining to loudly scream and protest their discontent with this.

5:49 A.M. Feeling like a member of the undead whose tomb lease has expired and who is forced to wander the world forever, I get off the train and stagger through Clapham Junction in search of something vaguely resembling actual edible substance.

5:55 A.M. I eventually settle for what the acne-ridden teenager behind the till vehemently insists is a 'Beef Baguette', despite appearances to the contrary. Refraining from suggesting sardonically that 'Turd Roll' would be more accurate, and that under his new customer policy of strict honesty he also rename the 'Breakfast Sandwich' as 'Regurgitated Contents Of A Very Ill Cow's Stomach Encased In Mouldy Bread', I make my purchase.

6:03 A.M. I catch the train to Reading and am hit with the realisation that after two hours of sleep-deprived hell and worry I'm not even a third of the way through the journey. And with the even more depressing realisation that my thoughts regarding the 'Beef Baguette' were entirely correct.

7:15 A.M. After seventy minutes of acute indigestion I reach Reading, where I am confronted by the twin evils of daylight and Drunken Lunatic 2:

DRUNKEN LUNATIC 2: Hey! Nice leather jacket homeboy!
ME: Thanks.
DRUNKEN LUNATIC 2: Makesh you look like the the Fonz would look if he shtyled his hair with his spunk and didn't like girlshh.
ME: Thanks.
DRUNKEN LUNATIC 2: Wahey. Banter!

8:10 A.M. I catch the direct train to Exeter, now equipped with an actual super-extreme high-calorific Breakfast Sandwich ('contains 25% real meat!') and at least 40% of my full brain capacity, which puts me somewhere between Cabbage and Jade Goody on the intelligence scale:

Cabbage
Me
Jade Goody
Amoeba

9:00 A.M. I begin the downward spiral of clock watching. Time slows accordingly.

10:19 A.M. I reach Exeter and anxiously pace around waiting for a bus. Pensioner attempts to start mundane conversation about bus timetables and other topics that should really be on a DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE FOLLOWING MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING SUBJECTS list distributed to all new-born babies (along with 'the weather', 'pot pourri', 'shampoo', 'cosmetics', 'rambling', 'reality television', 'beautiful sights' and 'fishing'). I politely kill conversation with said pensioner.

10:45 A.M. After a desperate search for Rowanscroft Mews and Dani's university habitation I finally come across it almost by virtue of the law of averages. I decide to be cheesy and ring her from outside her window. The following soap opera writer's dream action takes place:

ME: Er, you know I said I was trying to find a way to teleport myself to Exeter...
DANI: Ye................. (phone breaks off)
ME: Wh..?
(stereotypical soap reunion before the slow-motion editing. Dani rushes through door, runs towards me and clings)
DANI: What the hell are you doing here?!

I'll break that one off there before it becomes too annoyingly sickly for reader consumption. Fortunately, Dani is fine, if tired and stressed, and I've gained a few boyfriend brownie points, which are always helpful as insurance for important football matches clashing with anniversaries and other equivalent unfortunate occurrences.

Mood: Relieved
Ed's Incessant Auto Repeat Musical Tip: The Music - Fight The Feeling

Third Time Lucky

2004-10-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

As the elite audience (for 'elite' read 'pretentious synonym for 'depressingly tiny'') of my previous attempts at maintaining a blog will be aware, I have a reputation for beginning these in a blaze of enthusiasm and then burning out almost instantaneously in true stereotypical rock star style (minus the, er, sex, drugs and discernible musical talent). There's only so much potential to repeat the same cleverly disguised joke incessantly before the content of new entries starts displaying the forward-thinking originality and radical progression of a Status Quo album:

ROSSI: 'Hey Rick, I've found a fourth chord!'
PARFITT: 'A WHAT?!?'
ROSSI: 'A fourth chord!'
PARFITT: 'Woah man, we don't want any of that proggy woah-look-at-me-I-can-actually-play-my-instrument crap! Next thing you know we'll have 25 minute jazz breakdowns and two day drum solos!'
ROSSI: 'But dude, we've been ploughing out the same song for 30 years! Someone's got to suss us eventually!'
PARFITT: 'Francis - don't mess with what you don't understand. Just don't.'

For anyone fortunate enough not to know me, I'm a third year English and Media student at Sussex University. English and Media is, of course, a rigorous and stressful discipline placing an almost unbearable strain on the students brave and resilient enough to undertake it. Many fall by the wayside, citing extreme mental scarring caused by a horrific schedule which makes the following terrifying requirements:

a) 11 o'clock starts. No words can express the true horror of being forced to dress in a socially acceptable way before midday.
b) A weekly seminar. Not a non-compulsory yearly seminar, or an optional monthly seminar, but a compulsory weekly seminar. Despicable.
c) A need to relate everything to sex. No exceptions. Pride and Prejudice is a voyage of sexual discovery. Alice in Wonderland is a tale of one woman's irrepressible orgiastic desire for rabbits and cheshire cats. And how I wish that I'd made both those up!

I intend through the next few months to document all the outrageous truth behind the hilarious assumption on the part of a naive society that students go to university to study. The very idea. A few token concessions to work are all that is required to blindly convince the outside world that students do not spend their lives in a continuous everlasting alcohol fuelled trance, punctuated only b a) food b) sleep and c) standing around on street corners looking unkempt and moody. This is a terrible, terrible misconception. Let me confirm categorically now that students do not stand around on street corners looking unkempt and moody. They stand around outside cheap underground bars looking unkempt and moody.

I will also endeavour to introduce you to the large cast of characters who occupy this strange and terrifying reality. My housemates Hannah, Jenna, Jenny, Neil, The Large Orange Lounge Slugs and The Baby Yellow Kitchen Slugs. Our cowboy letting agents HomeLets (a sadly misleading title which should be replaced with OutrageouslyExpensiveFesteringCardboardBoxLets). Our mutual friends Sam, Craig, Amy and Kate. My fantastically intriguing oddball seminar colleagues MichaelMooreMan, KeanuReevesBoy, AnnoyingObsessivelyFeministFemales 1 -59 and EssexGirlStereotype. Hopefully by the time I say my final farewells to the establishment that has seen me progress from immature boy to immature boy with bad hair and a degree I will have an everlasting document to the 'best days of my life'.

I suspect not, but hopefully.

Mood: Pensive
Ed's Incessant Auto Repeat Musical Tip: The Music - Freedom Fighters