Monday, November 24, 2003
The Queen is a bloke!
So, loyal subjects of the United Kingdom and all her islands, colonies and assorted vested interests, it's official - that woman in the glitzy frock and a tiara is actually a bloke - the queen is a queen!
Oh yes, my friends, I have been inhabiting a very strange parallel universe this week, ever since I read Alexander Chancellor's article in last Saturday's Grauniad. In this, he describes a website which claims to be able to tell, with 80% accuracy, the gender of the writer of any text. It's based on linguistic research into gender differences of language use, algorithms, and clever computer programming - and was reported in Nature, the mag for geeky science boffs, so presumably a high quotient of pukkaness.
So, in the interests of academic research, I have been conducting a few experiments of my own. Cut and paste the Queen's Christmas message from 2002 into the box on this website thingummydoo, hit the submit button and there it is in black and white, the queen is a bloke! President Bush has a much higher linguistic testosterone factor than Tony Blair, and I am all over the place! In my four blog posts to date, I am twice a bloke, once such a linguistically shapely laydee that I have ringlets and a dimple, and once so completely androgynous that I'm one of those sluggy snaily things that has got all the biological bits so it can actually have sex with itself.
This is deeply disturbing to my psyche. Whilst a bloke who chatted me up on a long flight delay in Rome airport (turns out he was a drugs dealer from Hastings so it very quickly turned out to be an all round lose-lose scenario) flatteringly characterised me as "one of life's adventurers", and whilst it is a very great worldly accomplishment to be able to write in different styles for different purposes, the thing is that I didn't know I was doing it! I thought that in this tiny corner of cyberspace I was free to be me, to express the very core of my essence, my inner nature, the beautiful me that otherwise only the angels see. Do they really see some crazy mixed up psycho-sluggy thing?...
Ach weel, one really must always look on the bright side of life, and having the ability to have sex with myself would certainly be progress, so maybe it's not such a bad thing after all.
I just wonder if Prince Phillip should be told...
So, loyal subjects of the United Kingdom and all her islands, colonies and assorted vested interests, it's official - that woman in the glitzy frock and a tiara is actually a bloke - the queen is a queen!
Oh yes, my friends, I have been inhabiting a very strange parallel universe this week, ever since I read Alexander Chancellor's article in last Saturday's Grauniad. In this, he describes a website which claims to be able to tell, with 80% accuracy, the gender of the writer of any text. It's based on linguistic research into gender differences of language use, algorithms, and clever computer programming - and was reported in Nature, the mag for geeky science boffs, so presumably a high quotient of pukkaness.
So, in the interests of academic research, I have been conducting a few experiments of my own. Cut and paste the Queen's Christmas message from 2002 into the box on this website thingummydoo, hit the submit button and there it is in black and white, the queen is a bloke! President Bush has a much higher linguistic testosterone factor than Tony Blair, and I am all over the place! In my four blog posts to date, I am twice a bloke, once such a linguistically shapely laydee that I have ringlets and a dimple, and once so completely androgynous that I'm one of those sluggy snaily things that has got all the biological bits so it can actually have sex with itself.
This is deeply disturbing to my psyche. Whilst a bloke who chatted me up on a long flight delay in Rome airport (turns out he was a drugs dealer from Hastings so it very quickly turned out to be an all round lose-lose scenario) flatteringly characterised me as "one of life's adventurers", and whilst it is a very great worldly accomplishment to be able to write in different styles for different purposes, the thing is that I didn't know I was doing it! I thought that in this tiny corner of cyberspace I was free to be me, to express the very core of my essence, my inner nature, the beautiful me that otherwise only the angels see. Do they really see some crazy mixed up psycho-sluggy thing?...
Ach weel, one really must always look on the bright side of life, and having the ability to have sex with myself would certainly be progress, so maybe it's not such a bad thing after all.
I just wonder if Prince Phillip should be told...
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Me and Mr Google are a long time thing, but every once in a while my head is turned by the king of door to door wantonness, Mr Betterware. Oh, he too knows what a woman wants: he feeds her darkest domestic desires and brings out the fluffy duster in the most ruthless rung-climber of a woman. And ohhhh, best of all, he's the illicit love whose name one dare not speak, a series 6 Spike-Buffy bad-boy thing you know you just shouldn't do. But ohhhh, you do....
So yesterday he slipped his bulging catalogue (over 140 new products!) into my tired hands, and said, "hey, relax, I'll take care of everything". I was tired. I had a skull cracking headache. And after the last time the Mr Betterware of my wildest overactive imagination metamorphosed from Nigel Slater with bamboo spatulas to weirdy anorak old guy with gag-inducing B.O., I promised he'd never seduce me again. Maybe it was the fake snow on the lettering or the 12-month money-back guarantee; perhaps the Christmas CD for Only One Penny When You Spend £30 Or More. He's like that - one minute you're just having a drink with him, and the next, well....
You see, I just can't keep my hands off his catalogue! It has this tantalising little icon thing that says "problem solved". It's designed to look as though the words have been rubber stamped onto the page. But like, who's doing the stamping? It's a tricky question and I've wondered often, in a kind of post-coital home-shopping haze, if I could have a go. But I know now. Those words speak with such authoratitive calm, with such clear moral perspective on the frustration of not having enough airtight storage for your leftovers, that it can actually only be God, Mr Betterware his right hand man.
He knows my every shopping dilemma. There, in black and white (oh do go and check this out if you don't believe me, cos I'm not making a single word of this up!), is the thought that leaves me paralysed in Argos every Christmas Eve.
"I don't know whether they would like a pen or a radio."
It's a horrible horrible dilemma, but Mr Betterware has the solution - item 17451, pen with radio. Retractable pen, plug in earphones - fantastic - one gift for the price of two! He has solutions for everything. There's me, treating my mobile phone like some Guantanamo Bay prisoner, chucking it on a wire shelf in the sun with a charger rammed in its hole, when I could be giving it item 16432, a pink inflatable pearlised mobile phone chair on which it can relax wherever I go. Call Amnesty, pray for my soul - at £1.99 I have no possible defence.
But the more you know, the more you want...
"I want healthier, fat-free gravy"... "If only I could open cans without breaking my nails"... "I wish I could fry perfectly round eggs"...
"I wish I could fry perfectly round eggs"??!! Screeeeeeeech as the stylus skids across the cheesy shopping channel schmooze-muzak playing in the background here. Like, what, and why?!?! The home-shopping post-coital haze evaporates. I have woken up next to something I really wish I hadn't. It's weirdy anorak old guy with the B.O. again and he just won't go. The rules have definitely changed. Time was when they buggered off before you woke up but now here he is wanting to talk. And oh, worse, so much worse, he's asking me questions that tell me in no uncertain terms that I have just slept with my worst nightmare.
"How can I keep my car tidy?"
With item 17551, the roomy waste bin that clips around the front or back seat headrest and can be wiped clean after use (wiped clean?! uggghhhhh, no, don't make me think about that!!....).
"Where do I hide the loo roll?"
In item 13509, the splash proof holder(ugghhhh, you filthy bastard, you piss on the spare loo roll?.....) .
It's over. That's it. The End Of The Affair.
So yesterday he slipped his bulging catalogue (over 140 new products!) into my tired hands, and said, "hey, relax, I'll take care of everything". I was tired. I had a skull cracking headache. And after the last time the Mr Betterware of my wildest overactive imagination metamorphosed from Nigel Slater with bamboo spatulas to weirdy anorak old guy with gag-inducing B.O., I promised he'd never seduce me again. Maybe it was the fake snow on the lettering or the 12-month money-back guarantee; perhaps the Christmas CD for Only One Penny When You Spend £30 Or More. He's like that - one minute you're just having a drink with him, and the next, well....
You see, I just can't keep my hands off his catalogue! It has this tantalising little icon thing that says "problem solved". It's designed to look as though the words have been rubber stamped onto the page. But like, who's doing the stamping? It's a tricky question and I've wondered often, in a kind of post-coital home-shopping haze, if I could have a go. But I know now. Those words speak with such authoratitive calm, with such clear moral perspective on the frustration of not having enough airtight storage for your leftovers, that it can actually only be God, Mr Betterware his right hand man.
He knows my every shopping dilemma. There, in black and white (oh do go and check this out if you don't believe me, cos I'm not making a single word of this up!), is the thought that leaves me paralysed in Argos every Christmas Eve.
"I don't know whether they would like a pen or a radio."
It's a horrible horrible dilemma, but Mr Betterware has the solution - item 17451, pen with radio. Retractable pen, plug in earphones - fantastic - one gift for the price of two! He has solutions for everything. There's me, treating my mobile phone like some Guantanamo Bay prisoner, chucking it on a wire shelf in the sun with a charger rammed in its hole, when I could be giving it item 16432, a pink inflatable pearlised mobile phone chair on which it can relax wherever I go. Call Amnesty, pray for my soul - at £1.99 I have no possible defence.
But the more you know, the more you want...
"I want healthier, fat-free gravy"... "If only I could open cans without breaking my nails"... "I wish I could fry perfectly round eggs"...
"I wish I could fry perfectly round eggs"??!! Screeeeeeeech as the stylus skids across the cheesy shopping channel schmooze-muzak playing in the background here. Like, what, and why?!?! The home-shopping post-coital haze evaporates. I have woken up next to something I really wish I hadn't. It's weirdy anorak old guy with the B.O. again and he just won't go. The rules have definitely changed. Time was when they buggered off before you woke up but now here he is wanting to talk. And oh, worse, so much worse, he's asking me questions that tell me in no uncertain terms that I have just slept with my worst nightmare.
"How can I keep my car tidy?"
With item 17551, the roomy waste bin that clips around the front or back seat headrest and can be wiped clean after use (wiped clean?! uggghhhhh, no, don't make me think about that!!....).
"Where do I hide the loo roll?"
In item 13509, the splash proof holder(ugghhhh, you filthy bastard, you piss on the spare loo roll?.....) .
It's over. That's it. The End Of The Affair.
Monday, November 10, 2003
Me and Mr Google
I love him. He loves me. He understands me. He knows what I want and he brings it to me without ever needing to ask why. Loyal, intelligent, emotionally undemanding, and I think I see him smiling when I walk towards my computer. Wallala leialala. On Margate sands I can connect nothing with nothing...
But I digress....
So, me and Mr Google have had a little chat this evening and he tells me all sorts of truly fascinating things about The Piranhas. First up, oh joy of all eternal joys, I can get a Tom Hark polyphonic ringtone for my mobile! I have absolutely no idea how to make this happen technically, but oh, it is so gonna happen!! Check it out - if enough of us meet we could call each other and make like we were at a Piranhas gig!
Next up is a little history, and I discover that The Piranhas were from Brighton - and here's li'l 'ol me sitting here just 25 miles up the road. So come on Brighton Council, where is the blue plaque?... I want to visit. I want a guided tour. I want a souvenir. Check out the splendid Punk Brighton site for all your The Piranhas photo needs while you're waiting for the reunion gig. After all guys, if The Beat are playing some pub in Hastings this month, where are you, what are you doing, and when are you going to collect your polyphonic ringtone royalties?
And finally, the very fine art of skanking. Some years ago, I got bored teaching the syllabus, despite the fact that it was Alan Bennett and his first lot of Talking Heads. We talked in class, but there was something missing, and I realised that it was an appreciation of what 1980s Britian Under Thatcher was like. It wafted off the page in huge stinking guffs to me, but the tender youths in my charge had missed all that. So, we chucked the book out the window and I brought in a tape of music that encapsulated the feel of the times. The Style Council did their walls come tumbling down thing, Ghost Town rocked and we generally had a splendid lesson. At the end, one of the students said, "so come on, can you do that crap 1980s dancing thing?" and the whole class laughed in obvious acknowledgement of what "that crap 1980s dancing thing" was. I had no idea what they were talking about but today's chat with Mr Google has finally revealed all!! Go to skullyrecords and scroll down the page to the skanking animation, and there you have it, that crap 1980s dancing thing! Natch, I thought everybody danced like that....
Now I don't know about you but I'm off for a quick nostalgic skank and a polyphonic ringtone.
I love him. He loves me. He understands me. He knows what I want and he brings it to me without ever needing to ask why. Loyal, intelligent, emotionally undemanding, and I think I see him smiling when I walk towards my computer. Wallala leialala. On Margate sands I can connect nothing with nothing...
But I digress....
So, me and Mr Google have had a little chat this evening and he tells me all sorts of truly fascinating things about The Piranhas. First up, oh joy of all eternal joys, I can get a Tom Hark polyphonic ringtone for my mobile! I have absolutely no idea how to make this happen technically, but oh, it is so gonna happen!! Check it out - if enough of us meet we could call each other and make like we were at a Piranhas gig!
Next up is a little history, and I discover that The Piranhas were from Brighton - and here's li'l 'ol me sitting here just 25 miles up the road. So come on Brighton Council, where is the blue plaque?... I want to visit. I want a guided tour. I want a souvenir. Check out the splendid Punk Brighton site for all your The Piranhas photo needs while you're waiting for the reunion gig. After all guys, if The Beat are playing some pub in Hastings this month, where are you, what are you doing, and when are you going to collect your polyphonic ringtone royalties?
And finally, the very fine art of skanking. Some years ago, I got bored teaching the syllabus, despite the fact that it was Alan Bennett and his first lot of Talking Heads. We talked in class, but there was something missing, and I realised that it was an appreciation of what 1980s Britian Under Thatcher was like. It wafted off the page in huge stinking guffs to me, but the tender youths in my charge had missed all that. So, we chucked the book out the window and I brought in a tape of music that encapsulated the feel of the times. The Style Council did their walls come tumbling down thing, Ghost Town rocked and we generally had a splendid lesson. At the end, one of the students said, "so come on, can you do that crap 1980s dancing thing?" and the whole class laughed in obvious acknowledgement of what "that crap 1980s dancing thing" was. I had no idea what they were talking about but today's chat with Mr Google has finally revealed all!! Go to skullyrecords and scroll down the page to the skanking animation, and there you have it, that crap 1980s dancing thing! Natch, I thought everybody danced like that....
Now I don't know about you but I'm off for a quick nostalgic skank and a polyphonic ringtone.
Sunday, November 09, 2003
You're a long time dead - postscript
Okay, so I am now going to well and truly blow my cover and admit that at least one of the reasons why this "rank outsider" in the Park College staff fantasy football league of death II is this week's Number 1 (yep, am actually getting the Chairman's report framed - yep, really....) is because I have at least a nodding acquaintance with The Premiership On ITV on a Saturday night. Nothing else on; nothing else doing - is this why blokes know so much about football?.... No wonder even the Times Ed is carrying dating ads ("Teacher seeking teacher for torrid nights of lesson planning, maybe more?..." What, like maybe writing a scheme of work, or doing a bit of mutual marking?....).
But I digress... There I am, feet up on the sofa, a medicinal Guinness in hand, watching Wolves and Brimingham City, thinking I'm a dead cert for a few points here, with Taylor and Upson both playing for me. Clean sheet - easy! And then Wolves have the temerity to go and damn well score!! Not only do I now go straight into a negative points scenario, and that can only mean trouble on Monday morning in direct proportion to the amount of crowing I did on Friday, but it gets worse, so much worse! Wolves do this American-style goal-scoring ra-ra-ra (almost as bad as attempting to watch the Davis cup with all that banging on empty oil drums...) and what have they got for their tune? Yep, you guessed it, a bastardised and extremely inferior version of the Piranhas' 'Tom Hark'!!
Now come on, on what planet was that ever considered possible?... What? Are you seriously trying to tell me that a bunch of guys who sing "yer af ter" in that down home real orfentic London way are going to be Wolves supporters? Arsenal, Tottenham, West Ham, yes. Wolves, no. And do the Piranhas know this? For God's sake, if anybody knows the Piranhas, please can you tell them, because quite frankly, I'm right behind their court action to get an injunction against this. It's an abomination. And what words have the Wolves fans given to the tune?... I dread to think, but I can hardly imagine that they have the philosophical and spiritual weight of the original.
And besides, I don't want anyone at my funeral thinking I'm a bloody Wolves fan...
Okay, so I am now going to well and truly blow my cover and admit that at least one of the reasons why this "rank outsider" in the Park College staff fantasy football league of death II is this week's Number 1 (yep, am actually getting the Chairman's report framed - yep, really....) is because I have at least a nodding acquaintance with The Premiership On ITV on a Saturday night. Nothing else on; nothing else doing - is this why blokes know so much about football?.... No wonder even the Times Ed is carrying dating ads ("Teacher seeking teacher for torrid nights of lesson planning, maybe more?..." What, like maybe writing a scheme of work, or doing a bit of mutual marking?....).
But I digress... There I am, feet up on the sofa, a medicinal Guinness in hand, watching Wolves and Brimingham City, thinking I'm a dead cert for a few points here, with Taylor and Upson both playing for me. Clean sheet - easy! And then Wolves have the temerity to go and damn well score!! Not only do I now go straight into a negative points scenario, and that can only mean trouble on Monday morning in direct proportion to the amount of crowing I did on Friday, but it gets worse, so much worse! Wolves do this American-style goal-scoring ra-ra-ra (almost as bad as attempting to watch the Davis cup with all that banging on empty oil drums...) and what have they got for their tune? Yep, you guessed it, a bastardised and extremely inferior version of the Piranhas' 'Tom Hark'!!
Now come on, on what planet was that ever considered possible?... What? Are you seriously trying to tell me that a bunch of guys who sing "yer af ter" in that down home real orfentic London way are going to be Wolves supporters? Arsenal, Tottenham, West Ham, yes. Wolves, no. And do the Piranhas know this? For God's sake, if anybody knows the Piranhas, please can you tell them, because quite frankly, I'm right behind their court action to get an injunction against this. It's an abomination. And what words have the Wolves fans given to the tune?... I dread to think, but I can hardly imagine that they have the philosophical and spiritual weight of the original.
And besides, I don't want anyone at my funeral thinking I'm a bloody Wolves fan...
Saturday, November 08, 2003
You're a long time dead
So it seems eminently sensible to make damn sure you really are dead before some decidely third rate vicar who has been passed over for the parish again whips back the curtain at the crem and consigns you to the leaping flames of hell and/or the furnace (who does that job? y'know stoking the fires, throwing on the coal, flogging the lumps of melted brass down the knackers' yard? - yet another job in my forthcoming series, Careers Pamphlets They Don't Give You At School).
It all started on a Tuscan hillside two summers back. Me old mucker Duane and I were, well, how can I put it? Having already made sterling six o'clock-by-the-pool inroads into the Bombay Sapphire, we were busy tucking away a couple of cheeky little Chiantis when death reared its conversational head asking "so what music are you having at your funeral?" Good conversational topic for a Tuscan sunset - all kind of very John Wonder Boy I Love Him Keats and that "now more than ever seems it rich to die" stuff. And yes, unabashed literary necrophiliac that I am, I did go to Rome to see the stains on the pavement where he threw his dinner out the window...
But I digress... And we ended up so pissed that I have no recollection whatsoever of the rest of that conversation, except that when driving up the A27 some months later with the stereo on full blast, feet tapping away, singing (ahem...) at the top of my voice, I suddenly knew what my choice would be: the inestimable Gladys Knight and her magnificent Pips and Midnight Train to Georgia. Yeah, yeah, of course I'm having a few hours of gut-wrenching hymns first - if I've got to put up with being dead, you lot can damn well stand there and sing for a while! Strange choice? Favourite song? Well, no, and that's a blog for another day, but if I'm not really dead, just in a really really bad coma, or some evil demon has frozen me or something, I can absolutely guarantee that Midnight Train to Georgia will have me shaking my booty (whatever that is...) and knocking loud on the coffin lid. Just don't play it too loud or you won't hear me...
But that was then and this is now, and I've changed my mind. Well, either that, or I've added to my mind and you need to book Wembley for my farewell gig. Cos Midnight Train to Georgia is just too shallow for such a meaningful spiritual occasion. I still need something funky for the demon-freeze scenario, but I need deep too. Once more up the A27 (can you get points on your licence for being musically entranced in charge of a Ford Fiesta?...), whack in the new CD acquisition, and there it is - the absolutely unequivocal choice for the funeral of distinction: The Piranhas' 'Tom Hark'. Who? What? Has she finally disappeared into a tiny but very safe world of her own illusioning? No, fear not! This is a long lost classic hailing from the beautiful world of 1980s Scout hall discos. It may have been an arse end of London kinda thing, and you posh buggers will have to practise singing it in your best Jamie Oliver Mockney, but the chorus goes like this...
Yer af ter larf, or else yer cry;
Yer af ter live, or else yer die.
And therein lies a perfect summary of my entire philosophy on the nature of human existence. With a penny whistle, a thumping good beat, and a couple of blokes in two tone suits and pork pie hats, what more could you want from a funeral play out?
Over and out for now.
So it seems eminently sensible to make damn sure you really are dead before some decidely third rate vicar who has been passed over for the parish again whips back the curtain at the crem and consigns you to the leaping flames of hell and/or the furnace (who does that job? y'know stoking the fires, throwing on the coal, flogging the lumps of melted brass down the knackers' yard? - yet another job in my forthcoming series, Careers Pamphlets They Don't Give You At School).
It all started on a Tuscan hillside two summers back. Me old mucker Duane and I were, well, how can I put it? Having already made sterling six o'clock-by-the-pool inroads into the Bombay Sapphire, we were busy tucking away a couple of cheeky little Chiantis when death reared its conversational head asking "so what music are you having at your funeral?" Good conversational topic for a Tuscan sunset - all kind of very John Wonder Boy I Love Him Keats and that "now more than ever seems it rich to die" stuff. And yes, unabashed literary necrophiliac that I am, I did go to Rome to see the stains on the pavement where he threw his dinner out the window...
But I digress... And we ended up so pissed that I have no recollection whatsoever of the rest of that conversation, except that when driving up the A27 some months later with the stereo on full blast, feet tapping away, singing (ahem...) at the top of my voice, I suddenly knew what my choice would be: the inestimable Gladys Knight and her magnificent Pips and Midnight Train to Georgia. Yeah, yeah, of course I'm having a few hours of gut-wrenching hymns first - if I've got to put up with being dead, you lot can damn well stand there and sing for a while! Strange choice? Favourite song? Well, no, and that's a blog for another day, but if I'm not really dead, just in a really really bad coma, or some evil demon has frozen me or something, I can absolutely guarantee that Midnight Train to Georgia will have me shaking my booty (whatever that is...) and knocking loud on the coffin lid. Just don't play it too loud or you won't hear me...
But that was then and this is now, and I've changed my mind. Well, either that, or I've added to my mind and you need to book Wembley for my farewell gig. Cos Midnight Train to Georgia is just too shallow for such a meaningful spiritual occasion. I still need something funky for the demon-freeze scenario, but I need deep too. Once more up the A27 (can you get points on your licence for being musically entranced in charge of a Ford Fiesta?...), whack in the new CD acquisition, and there it is - the absolutely unequivocal choice for the funeral of distinction: The Piranhas' 'Tom Hark'. Who? What? Has she finally disappeared into a tiny but very safe world of her own illusioning? No, fear not! This is a long lost classic hailing from the beautiful world of 1980s Scout hall discos. It may have been an arse end of London kinda thing, and you posh buggers will have to practise singing it in your best Jamie Oliver Mockney, but the chorus goes like this...
Yer af ter larf, or else yer cry;
Yer af ter live, or else yer die.
And therein lies a perfect summary of my entire philosophy on the nature of human existence. With a penny whistle, a thumping good beat, and a couple of blokes in two tone suits and pork pie hats, what more could you want from a funeral play out?
Over and out for now.
