Thursday 26 March 2009

Art is not a waste of time

It is uncompromising in its beauty. The page, the gleaming, soaked in opportunity. It is without a doubt the graveyard of many grand ambitions. Many derelict ideas and abandoned hopes and dreams and washed away like seaweed into the mud there are...glimmers of hope. Glistening under the shining effervescent face of the young man, pen in hand, hammering away at that glorious goddess in the mind. He will create wonders.

There is nothing but possibilty on that white, pearly paper which cries out for attention, a spoiled child who has not yet been taken in hand. It will be molded how we see fit, we shall create wonders.

Sunday 22 March 2009

Sundays mornings are a waste of time. Again.

Once again Sunday morning has come around, like some disgusting cold that rears its head every so often when one least expects it. Sundays always blindside me. The bastards. the sun has vanished only to be replaced by a horrendous blanket of cloud that has descended, quite obnoxiously, on our pleasant little burg. The city is awash with the filthy vermin who only appear every so often when the sun goes away. They wear fleece, and Crocs, and sunglasses without any sense of irony whatever. How I loathe them.

Fortuitous, then, that I am hiding away in my brick bunker, in front of my magical computerbox, crafting wonders with my clacking fingertips. I have work to be doing - how terrible. Three thousand is such an impenetrably large number of words.

Jazz is not a waste of time

The city is the greatest achievement of civilisation. Within the walls and boundaries of the city all the great and magnificent art, science, culture, beauty, and wondrous sexual experimentation dissolve into the atmosphere. The city is a living, breathing, organism. It feeds, it supports life, it is a heaving, massive, orgasmic experiment. I love the city. The city at night is without a doubt the greatest of works of art.

"I've always loved the city at night, even before I knew what it was like. I come from a rural suburb of a small town on the west coast of Canada and I spent my adolescence dreaming of cities in the dark." - Kate Pullinger



Granted I did not grow up in remote Canada, but remote South Wales is certainly a similar experience.
The idea of the bustling metropolitan lifestyle appealed to me a great deal. Oddly enough, however, upon moving to the city to the first time I did not fully appreciate it - I felt greatly hoaxed, it was a ruse, they had lied to me, like they so often did. It was horrible. I found the city harsh, mean, arch, and crass. Certainly damp and cold and definitely unwelcoming. It was a whole host of negative emotion and not all that inviting.

This all changed the moment I pressed play on the CD player having recently inserted 'Basie in London'. It all, in one explosion of music, became utterly and entirely clear to me what the city meant. The trumpets and snares and saxophones and pianos and drums all seemed to ebb and flow with the people following their daily lives, people pulsed along with the beat, and the street lights glowed their fluid, nearly tactile glow - sparkles in my sunglasses at six pm as the sun had barely laid its head to rest behind the towering buildings.

The city became alive for me for the very first time - and I realised that all the sleaze and debauchery was not unwholesome or contemptible, but vivacious, eccentric, flamboyant, and above all else, absolutely necessary. Everywhere no longer seemed empty. The cars, the small dramas between two quarreling lovers, the drunks singing, the small bistros steaming their hot steam - it was all overwhelmingly exciting - I finally felt like the bus route was a vein, an artery, the side streets capillaries and the districts were the organs of the city - all served very different purposes, but they worked together as a whole to keep the fantastic organism alive.

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Blah blah wasting blah

It struck me today - as I placed down one pound and thirty pence in the metal tray of the number 43 bus - just how cruel and deceptive most people are. Myself included, myself especially. I had not wished it, though sunglasses, and a stern expression do not leave much room for doubt, but I was a vaccuous and vain and superficial monstrosity created by something which I have only recently and fully discovered to be complete artifice. For the time being. Being for time; rather. All things considered that is what we do here, on this planet, in this voidal universe. For that is all there is, truly, deeply, on a terrifying level. There is no space between here and there or over and under or London and Tokyo, for that matter because in infinite terms (to which the whole world is subject) this planet and us included takes up no space whatsoever. We do not exist. We are particles existing quantumly and yet here we are - wearing sunglasses and stern expressions. All society is distraction. distraction and redemption.
The problem I face relation to people - is that people are not relateable at all - in any sense. The society we create is vaccuous, linear, self serving, and profoundly and modrbidly redundant. It is a wide scale multi faceted, globalised artifice. It is circus, to keep us from throwing rocks at each other and rationalising things in terms of what we can actually see, design, utilise, or eat.
All the world is a stage. Truer words ne'er spoken. What a marvellous diversion. We are playing in the sandbox of oblivion. It is perplexing. Do children draw lines in the sandbox? Do children war with others. Possibly, but they get to mature, to grown to surpass that and become regular people. We as a species are stiil stuck in the sand hurling rocks.

Monday 9 March 2009

Breakfast is not a waste of time

Sat at the table; the soft spring air drifting calmly through the open doorway into the sensibly decorated kitchen, warming the face, lifting the music so. The smells of the bread toasting gently, the butter hot on the knife, the tidy eloquent way you spread the Rasberry jam on your crumpet after the silky caramel tea pours from that most quaint of teapots. The sunlight creaks through the small window, then like a tipped honey pot, it pours its golden pleasure over the tabletop, and over your face.

It appears to me that breakfast is the last bastion of civilisation. The tea, the toast, the butter, the jam, the newspaper, the coffee, the orange juice, the selection of cereals and mueslis. Everything is white and beautiful, at the breakfast table - in whatever form that might take place. There is a refreshing delight in breakfasting with that one special person whom you love most precociously- for we are all young at the breakfast table.

Sunday 1 March 2009

Spring is for wasting time and looking fine

Firstly - Happy St. David's Day everyone, it's nice being Welsh for once - it is the first day of spring if you are a meteorologist, and not if you are an astronomer - but who gives a bumbags about you, Patrick Moore? Right.

Given that Winter is now officially over, we can get on with dressing in our fitted blazers and tight jeans, sporting sunglasses and light scarves despite the fact that the British weather rarely breaks out the sun/warmth until around August 23rd, after which it promptly ceases. However it seems to put most people in a good mood, which I suppose is useful, in that it has its uses, it has its effects.
The sun and the blowing trees and light heather and lavender smell again - it effects an embracing, perennial mindset, along with the buttercup, which lasts a good long time; however the mindset is not actually chronic in nature, it is acute, but subjectively eternal. The years seem short but the days are long. The summer is not quite here, but the sunlight glancing off the windows and roofs of the houses and buildings is like the smell of baking bread, wetting the appetite for the culinary orgasm that the hot July sun will bring.

Out come those well-dressed horrors, now - the sandals, the sunglasses, the shirts; Oh! The nipples on sculpted chest. That boy would make a fine bride, were it not for that head of his which lacks any marble. He is beautiful, and I hate him. His man at arms, equally vaccuous, is tenacious and bully, ferocious, and excaptional in bed. I hate him too. They must retire to the beach, where the sun, sand, waves, screams of childish glee, may caress their stomachs and shins, echoing through the gasps of waspish Middle England.

Ah yes, Spring is here.

Guilt is a waste of time

It seems to me that so much of our lives is spent repenting things that we did a long time ago, and things that were probably the right decision at the time.

What we seem to forget is that in time, all wounds heal, all fractures mend, and all debts are repaid.
Time truly is the greatest medicine.

So much of our lives are spent regretting the past, wishing it were different - wishing for something that may or may not have been entirely imagined - a lost phantom, a figment - all memories are; without evidence, physical evidence, memories are nothing more than dust in the breeze. So with that in mind, nothing is worth regretting. Everything is forgotten, and mostly everything is forgiven.

I cannot help but feel truly humbled by the mistakes I have made, or the mistakes wmade by others which affected me. There is truth in everything, and all of us can help each other to forget the mistakes of the past, learn from them, and forge a better, happier future.

Saturday 21 February 2009

Sunny Days are a Waste of Time

The sky in South Wales is wet with blue ocean - there are puddles of clouds simmering across its misty surface; rocks of mountain penetrate the forever blue and dashes of green algae form forests and tapestry of flower and grasses. This is green living - among the glass, concrete, and stone - the lucid and the dreaming, the natural and the spacious living conditions created in the circular sky.

I am awake in this - the sun is bleating, and beating down at me - my sunglasses are alight with Holy fire and I cannot move from fear of falling into some wondrous abyss.

The red slate and brick and wall and block are made from hands that pressed the clay and worked the earth and I look on them and think they are as beautiful as the earth they sprang from.

Monday 16 February 2009

Facebook IS A WASTE OF TIME

I am sat in this dungeon of swelter, sweat and grinding teeth - the computer lab. It is quarter past one and so many are trying so desperately to finish their banal and endlessly pointless work by half past three. I guage that roughly 32% of them will make it. That's a conservative guess, though.

Some 'enchanted evening! Or rather, some enchanted afternoon, it seems to me, as I gaze over the monitor at a sea of Facebook profiles and shell my ears from the mindless machine gun clattering of chubby fingers on keys. It is a warzone, and any minute now, a bomb will fall. Someone, quite quietly, and privately, will notice that that picture they thought condemned to the fordibben tundras of the Yukon has returned with dire vengeance on its lips - captioned so poetically with 'Nikki last night! Well wasted!!!! lol :)' - Cute. Cute joke. Or more horrendously, someone will realise with staid horror that the boy they boned last weekend is secretly a woman/dog/television, and dating Cameron Diaz - or someone less exciting, because of course most people are in this room. The sniper's rifle poised at the back of Glenda and Hilda, waiting to 'confirm' their status as 'It's complicated' - who will find out? Who will care? Unfortunately, the answer to both these questions would seem to be 'absolutely fucking everybody'.

There is a supreme lack of privacy inherent in Facebook which is fundamentally repugnant to me. The ugliest side of this is that refusal to enter its swampy depths renders you a luddite, a recluse, or worse still, a pariah. I feel like I am fighting a swarm of zombified b-movie actors who tell me that once I accept my fate and get dragged kicking and screaming into the world of pretending people actually give a shit about my life - everything will be alright, and everything will be peaceful. I will love Big Brother...erm...Facebook, that is.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Love is a waste of time?

It's easy to pick on Valentine's Day because it exists as that peculiar 'holiday' that nobody actually wants but everyone seems to indulge in regardless.

For those in a relationship - of any length - there is felt a need to 'turn it up to 11' as it were. It seems silly that anyone should expect to be extra passionate and romantic just because of a tic in the calender. Moreover, if you have a headache, or are feeling a bit blue, you feel all the more shit for not wanting to 'do the duty'. It's silly, and not a particularly original complaint but it stands all the same.


That aside....Have a lovely day, love birds.

Thursday 12 February 2009

Drinking alone is a waste of time

I was supposed to be talking about something interesting today - but that just didn't pan out. Such is life.

So I am sat here - in this corner of non-existence - the light is flickering like some tedious party - and I have an empty glass. The sound of the ice clanking against the tumbler is almost enough to keep me sane. I have been staring at a blank screen for what feels like an eon. A whole age of human history has danced flourescently across this white array of pixels, where my eyes are desperately trying to find some semblance of form- some substance.

Soon it will be time to pour myself another drink. I wish to the gods of old that I had a bottle of Scotch here, instead of this loathesome and repugnant cluster of cheap bottled courage.

I have swallowed even the ice now.

Perhaps you would care to hear what I am trying to write? No?
This blog post is substitute for some actual work. Some real creative work which has eluded me, thus far it has been just out of my grasp. I am struggling like a man reaching for a wire to tap into some well of something....or shit...I dunno.

More tomorrow...or later. Night.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Tomorrow?

Tomorrow - racism in classic animation!
How exciting.

Monday 9 February 2009

Mondays and cultural isolationism are a waste of time

Everyone hates getting up on Mondays, that's an irrefutable fact, it would seem. I, however, being a do nothing layabout, have no such intense hatred towards this dullest of days. It rains, and it's the second day of the week. That is all the mileage that can be dragged out of talking about Mondays.

On to the essence -the marrow of today's entry.
It is beyond me, how we [the British], as a nation, can be so fantastically petrified of globalisation. There are people, alive in this country who are convinced that as as nation, or as a people - we are inherently superior to every other nation or people on the planet simply by virtue of being born on this rot of an island.

The idea of globalisation has obsoleted - or indeed made impossible - the political isolationism that defined US foreign policy in the early twentieth century. That level of autonomy and national introversion is now completely irrelevant, and so it should be. Whether or not the birthplace of globalisation lies in the UN, Kissinger, or the Internet, is really quite irrelevant - what matters is that today - in this world where the general elections of a foreign country are followed more eagerly than that of our own - there are still people out there who cling to an ineffable idea of 'Britishness', an idea so monstrous that those who support it should be spanked quite violently.

'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel' - Samuel Johnston is reputed to have said, and although this is reported and the context is lost to us, I am going to use the words superficially to clarify my point. Patriotism cannot be the way of the future, only the way of history - patriotism is a perfectly acceptable box in which to place national heroes, whatever one of those is; but as an ideal, as a way to deliver ones opinions, it is most revolting.

My primary disagreement with the issue lies in its prevalence, and its over saturation. It's transplant into the world of the wannabe-artistic-elite is something I find ghastly on all levels. So many conversations end with something along the lines of 'but of course, it's British, so it has to be better' or 'of course Americans never have the same heart as British films' - it's utter nonsense, and rubbish of the highest order - especially when you are comparing British and American art which, at least in dramatic terms, are nearly identical.

There is nothing charming or endearing about our national inferiority complex. Grey skies and rusty skylines do not make great art, no matter how much fans of L.S. Lowry would have you believe. There is something about a great majority of British art which seems down on itself, because it feels it has to be. But this is depressing. Not in a thought provoking, intelligent way, such as Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy, or Sam Mendes' American Beauty - both elegantly and intelligently peel away the veneer of contemporary life in a very natural and beautiful manner - but instead in a blunt, brutal, and unsatisfying 'vision' of modern Britain. The worst perpetrator of these crimes is celebrated filmmaker Shane Meadows, whose revolting idea of Britishness has led to some of the most dirty, violent, and ugly portrayals of Britain that I have had the misfortune to view. This is not clever film making. It is clearly some vile and ultimately unnecessary revolt against the staid Britishness of Brief Encounter or The Great Escape.

We are not in the gutter, but people like Shane Meadows seem to think that not only are we in the gutter, but that we should revel in this. That we are a nation of 'hard' bald men in stone wash denim jackets speaking a language that is only barely recognisable as English. Are we proud of this? Is this a view of Britain we feel pleased to throw to the world, to digest and interpret. I think not.

More tomorrow.

Sunday 8 February 2009

Weathermen are a waste of time

It has just been brought to my attention that we are to expect snow - here, in the north of England. Forgive me, but after the recent lack of snow I cannot imagine why we would have any tonight. Weathermen are notorious for their miscalculations and I dare the sky to prove me wrong.

Sundays are for wasting time

I arise in the bleak aftermath of yesterday's activities. I feel irradiated in some nuclear fallout. The sky is white and empty, and my head feels like it's been trampled by elephants. Small, pink, elephants. It is all so tragic. The worst saturday in what seems like an age, and yet I find myself reaching for the vodka. I need to get on my feet again.

It is impossible to express accurately the feeling of utter hoplessness that sundays bring. Everything is dead, everything is twitching in its post apocalyptic death throes. The street is littered with the detritus of the night before; meat and pitta line the gutters - the stench is horrific.

The bombs fell and the street was lined with Road Warrior-esque hooligans, which I studied closely from my window. They were dragging a girl around, she was probably going to wake up tomorrow and regret sleeping with Mel Gibson.

I could not sleep for hours. For the first time in a long line of pointless weekends spent in bed, angrily cursing the television for its lack of stimulating programming, for the first time in a long time I was one of those revolutionary bastards. I indulged in the seemy underbelly of our so-called civilisation. There was nothing civilised about my saturday the seventh of February. I have repulsed myself very profoundly, so that when I look in the mirror, it is not something I much want to look at any more.

Sundays are for wasting time. I have decided that today is going to be an inescapably lugubrious day; the feelings ineffable, the sunlight waning. I am going to stay in bed, and not face the vile repercussions of yesterdays despicable actions.

Saturday 7 February 2009

Following ISN'T a waste of time

If you like/love/are sexually attracted to me, you can follow my blog by clicking over there on the right!
I'd be very much impressed if you showed your interest.

Cooking is a waste of time

I have received complaints from some people that this blog does not actually contain any recipes. So, just for you, I have created (read: stolen from Delia) a recipe for Eggs Benedict. Yum.

"1 quantity Hollandaise Sauce
6 large, very fresh eggs
12 slices pancetta, grilled until crisp
3 English muffins, split in half horizontally
a little butter

Pre-heat the grill to its highest setting.
You will also need a grill pan and rack and a 10 x 14 inch (25.5 x 35 cm) baking tray.

Make the Hollandaise Sauce. Poach the eggs. When the pancetta is cooked, keep it on a warm plate while you lightly toast the split muffins on both sides. Now butter the muffins and place them on the baking tray, then top each half with two slices of pancetta. Put a poached egg on top of each muffin half and then spoon over the hollandaise, covering the egg (there should be a little over 1 tablespoon of sauce for each egg).

Now flash the Eggs Benedict under the grill for just 25-30 seconds, as close to the heat as possible, but don't take your eyes off them – they need to be tinged golden and no more. This should just glaze the surface of the hollandaise. Serve straight away on hot plates."



There? Are we done? Some lovely brunch for you.


Anyway, I'm still completely distressed that jolly Manchester is bright and sunny, while the rest of the country is bogged down in some eternal snowdrift. I am not usually so quick to wish away the sunshine but I can't help feeling a little left out. Perhaps I do not see the inherent problems with lavish amounts of white gold, perhaps I would think differently were I unable to visit the local Tescos to purchase my goods and sundries due to my doorway being covered by an inexorable wall of snow.

Perhaps. But until then I shall hurl complaints towards the skies, and indeed the rest of the country. This could all end in a vile case of sour grapes, however. Snow is underrated, you see. It is wet and soggy and looks like greasy mud when it is fading away under the heat of the sun.
Lucky bastards.


Friday 6 February 2009

Fridays are for wasting time

Today is Friday and as such all is lost.
I have decided that today should probably be spent doing something useful instead of, say, sitting around on my bum, trying desperately to sneak a glimpse of Noel Edmunds' clandestine nipples through his fabulously over the top shirt.

So, in a couple of hours (or dare I say, half an hour or so?) I will leave this fetid hovel I call a bedroom and venture forth - a boyscout into the unknown - into that most terrifying land of the outside world. Oh, what horrors await me there! Charity workers, Big Issue salesmen, and no doubt a wide variety of peculiar animals all are there for the world to tread on.

I am leaving the house (if one can call it that) so that I might sit somewhere and not be distracted by the urge to purchase things off the internet. I shall sit in some franchised coffee outlet (to be determined by distance and how bothered I can be to move later on) and craft wonders on creamy paper. With my pen, of course.

Will update later if all goes to plan.

Thursday 5 February 2009

The internet is for wasting time

This is all rather new, and silly. I'm not too up to date with the whole web culture, as it were. Shocking so it is, considering I spend the great majority of my time on it.

First and foremost - I am hopping on the bandwagon so late as to almost obsolete my presence in the so-called 'blogoshpere' - a term so vapid that it was agony pressing the keys in order to form it. This whole phenomenon has brought about an insidious revolution whereby know-nothing individuals can protrude a half-baked philosophy on pretty much anything they can get their sweaty hands upon into the arena of the popular conscience. I have been bombarded by erroneous, inflated, and downright boring text in my attempts to enjoy the fruits of this invention; and while it is true that there are fruits - sweet and wholesome, filled with literary juices - they are few and far between and it makes the struggle all the more frustrating.

So, with this in mind I have challenged myself to create something of interest to both myself and potential readers - some degree of light in this dark and sometimes thrilling web of filthy brains, spewing their collective nonsense all over their keyboards. Enough talk about poetry, Coldplay, and the shallow artworks of a seventeen year old Evanescence listeners - more talk about current affairs, and how to mend one's jeans.

Perhaps, I appear over zealous, or needlessly bitter, or worse still, perhaps both of these are true. In any case, there is a great deal to be said that remains unsaid, a fair bit of reality checking required, and moreover, a few sacred cows that need tipping. That said, I am not one for needless resentment or unnecessary cynicism; there is a time and a place for optimism, and there is a time and a place for realism. I am of the view that both can co-exsist harmoniously within one group of intelligent, mature people - and further, that it is required for sustained, interesting debate.

Rob. M.