Month: September 2003

Asstuck-tastic

My eminent colleague Angel had an interesting entry last week on the subject of a certain blogger by the name of Susan. Susan’s website, In My Right Mind, offers such a cliched ultra right-wing viewpoint that must of us think it’s actually all an elaborate joke, in spite of her recent protestations to the contrary (methinks the lady doth protest too much). As she doesn’t have permalinks, I can’t link to that, but it was at the top of her blog at the time of writing: “For those of you who have been “told” that my site is a conservative “satire,” let me assure you that I am 110% Republican/Conservative/Right-Wing, proud of it, and none of this is a joke.”
The quotes are hers, by the way. I’m not entirely “sure” why certain words need to be “placed” in quotes.

Much of the recent commentary passed on her weblog has been on the subject of abortion, but that is not something I propose to go into here (for no other reason than the fact that it isn’t really the explosive political issue in the UK that it is in the US). Instead, the reason for this post is that I was amused by the consequences of my passing comment on Susan’s website (something that you can’t do on her site now that her comment functionality seems to have gone – not that I’m criticising, given my current lack of a comments section, but they are coming soon, I promise).

Anyway, I left a comment on Angel’s weblog about the fact that Susan’s site (at the time) rendered pretty horribly on the Mozilla family of browsers (my web browsing tool of choice). None of the line breaks worked properly, so all the paragraphs used to span several widths of my screen. I’m amused because, on seeing my comment she did two things:
(1) She fixed the problem.
(2) She posted this fantastic disclaimer on her site (the highlighting, and comments are mine):

“Quick notes for stupid visitors:

– I like graphics, and have lots of them on this page. If you don’t like that and don’t want to wait for them to load, then leave. My best advice for you would be to get a decent connection service so you wouldn’t have to worry about it. [Surely better advice would be to turn off graphics in your browser. Ah, no alt text, I see… – Matt]
– If this site doesn’t look perfect in your browser, I’m not too worried about it. I use Internet Explorer, not Netscape or Mozilla or any other second-rate program. [That’s a shame, actually, as I happen to think that Mozilla is a fantastic browser, for tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking if nothing else. The only problem using it is that you have to put up with websites that don’t conform properly to the HTML specifications – Matt] It’s your problem, not mine. You don’t have to stay here, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t invite you, anyway.
– I’m assuming that people who see this blog have seen other blogs, too. Therefore, I also figure that you have sense enough to know that posts and comments that are over a few days old go into the archives. Just because it doesn’t show up right away doesn’t mean that your comments have been “censored.” [Which explains why comment functionality has been completely removed from the site, how exactly? Matt]
– Last, but certainly not least, if you don’t agree with what is on this site, that’s fine. I really, truly don’t care. And you’re welcome to leave your comments on anything I write. [Er,?] Just don’t expect me to waste my precious time replying. Also, feel free to write about my blog on your blog, and use any kind of ridiculous made-up cuss word to describe me. [What, do you mean “asstuck”. It’s not ridiculous, it’s a fantastic word. We should all use it more – Matt] All it does is show your lack of creativity and intelligence.” [Surely making up words would be more creative, though? Matt]

[UPDATE: After writing this entry I came across a far more eloquent explanation of why bothering about the way other people see your site might be a good idea on Dervala’s blog.]

In other news, there’s only 4 years to go until the World Beard Championships come to London… Better get growing.

Tales from the underground (1)

…I came into work early this morning, as I’m going away for the weekend and need to get away early tonight. I was expecting that the tube at 6.30 am would be very desolate. Actually, I half expected to be the only passenger on the Victoria line, sitting in the carriage on my own with only tatty copies of yesterday’s Metro for company.

Er, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was quiet, but there were still plenty of people around. It felt like London was saying to me: “Oh, so you think you’re pretty special for getting up early? Well, you’re not; get over yourself. Other people do this every day.”

I think there’s a lesson in there for all of us…

Tales from the underground (2)

…Last night, when I got out at Clapham Common tube there were people giving out flyers at the top of the stairs where you come out onto the street. It was like an ambush, as they were standing on either side of the exit so you couldn’t avoid them. They smiled as each hapless commuter was offered a flyer and said: “Free drinks with your meal”.

For some reason, and I’m not quite sure why, I was suddenly seized by the overwhelming urge to reply: “I’m sorry, I’m a recovering alcohic” as I rejected the leaflet.

Of course I didn’t, though. I just smiled, took the flyer and threw it in the bin round the corner.

They look just like two gurus in drag

I’ve probably extolled the virtues of my MP3 player before, but I’m going to do it again. One of the wonderful things about having a large amount of music accessible on a small, portable device is that if you are suddenly seized by the urge to listen to something you haven’t heard in absolutely ages, then you can. Even better, though, is the ability to set it going on random play and see what happens. I have nearly five thousand songs at my disposal (the legacy of far too much of a mispent youth hanging around Our Price on Chapel Street, three years in Bristol wasting my grant money, and, more recently, the shockingly dangerous combination of a moderate disposable income and Internet access that’s just always there between the hours of 9 and 5).

Sometimes random play offers me songs that I don’t want to listen to, and I have to reach for the skip button, but more often than not it provides me with songs I didn’t know I wanted to hear, songs I had, frankly, even forgotten buying. (I own Tom Jones’s Reload? What the hell was I thinking?) Sometimes it’s just the segues that are interesting: there’s a certain beauty in the way that the other morning History, by The Verve, changed into a still-relevant Bill Hicks comedy routine, which in turn became Dogs Are Everywhere by Pulp. Later, early Manics turned into David Gray at the drop of a hat (in real life, it took the Manics almost 10 years to achieve essentially the same thing).

I was quite amused to discover that we were not the first people to have this idea (the background to this is here).

That reminds me, we must get that picture of a certain one of our mates unwittingly posing “like he’s enjoying the fretwork of Brain May” developed…

L’enfer, c’est les autres les trains de Virgin

Jean-Paul Satre reckoned that hell is other people. Yeah, but he never had to travel on Virgin trains, did he?

Yesterday, thanks to the good folks at Virgin, it took me 8 hours to get from Southport to London. Words fail me. You could get to New York quicker than that.

I despair, I really do

Compaq FAQ: Where do I find the “Any” key on my keyboard? (FAQ2859)

“The term ‘any key’ does not refer to a particular key on the keyboard. It simply means to strike any one of the keys on your keyboard or handheld screen.”

The Death of the Author

A couple of people have asked what my book is going to be about. Well I’m not going to tell you, simple as that. At least not yet.

Partly, it’s because, like opening your christmas presents early, it would spoil the surprise (and as I said earlier, I intend to publish bits of it as I go, so it’s not like you’ll have to wait that long anyway). When (if?) it’s finished, I might even do this to give anyone foolish enough a chance to read it properly.

Then again, I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t want to prejudice your reading of it. Like the man says, the author isn’t necessarily the best person to talk about a book. Maybe there’s a hidden meaning to it; maybe it’s all an elaborate metaphor. Who knows; I know I don’t.

Mainly, though, I don’t want to tell you what I’m going to write about because you might think it’s rubbish (the fact that you’ll eventually be able to read it and know it’s rubbish is an entirely different matter of course…)

I think this might help me over the next few weeks: the visual thesaurus.

It’s a thing of beauty.

It’s an utterly pointless exercise, and I don’t want to come over all Nick Hornby on you (and to paraphrase the old “Mary Whitehouse Experience” joke, oh, that would terrible) but this recent post of angel’s (er, that would be the one where she names her top ten albums, not the one about detox) inspired me to have a stab at naming my top ten albums. I think my top ten would have to include the following (at least for today):

1. Radiohead – The Bends
2. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses

3. Oasis – Definitely Maybe
4. Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
5. Blur – Blur
6. Manic Street Preachers – Everything Must Go
7. The Beatles – Abbey Road
8. Primal Scream – Screamadelica

9. Nirvana – Unplugged
10. The Eels – Electro-Shock Blues

You can start disagreeing with me… now!