ploughingasmallfield

New Silat FIlm Coming out...

2009-06-27T00:23:00.000-07:00

We've been studying Silat for a little while here, did a bit over the past few years mixed up with other stuff but been training Silat exclusively (Pukulan Cimande Combat http://pukulancimandeuk.blogspot.com/ ) for a while. Good, useful, and dirty, with some interesting internal aspects as well :)

So then I'm rather looking forward to this Silat-based film coming out soon. Looks a bit Ong-Bak, but that's ok, cos that was good.

From the website: http://www.merantau-movie.com/

"In Minangkabau, West Sumatera, Yuda a skilled practitioner of Silat Harimau is in the final preparations to begin his "Merantau" a century's old rites-of-passage to be carried out by the community's young men that will see him leave the comforts of his idyllic farming village and make a name for himself in the bustling city of Jakarta. After a series of setbacks leave Yuda homeless and uncertain about his new future, a chance encounter results in him defending the orphaned Astri from becoming the latest victim of a European human trafficking ring led by the wildly psychotic, Ratger and his right-hand man Lars. With Ratger injured in the mêlée and seeking both his "merchandise" and bloody retribution, Yuda's introduction to this bustling city is a baptism of fire as he is forced to go on the run with Astri and her younger brother Adit as all the pimps and gangsters that inhabit the night hound the streets chasing their every step. With escape seemingly beyond their grasp, Yuda has no choice but to face his attackers in an adrenaline charged, jaw-dropping finale."

Short fiction piece, done for a friend...

2009-04-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

The Nihilist Defence:

“Seriously? Well now that you mention it, I do recall reading something along those lines in NO SHIT magazine, the periodical for things that are blisteringly obvious.” 16 unlocked eyes with 8 and glanced down and stared depressedly into his pint, ears stinging from the rebuke of his friend, teacher, whatever. Concentrating on the way the bubbles stuck to the inside of the glass before tumbling upwards didn’t make it any easier.

They’d been coming and meeting for coming up on a year now, they’d put an ad out on the internet, and numbered everyone who arrived for the first night. Thought it was easier that way, some of them moved around academia, some in the murky wastes of far-left and far-right politics, and most of them were slated for great things. They didn’t want their good names to be sullied by association if anyone found out what was going on in this back room: they were preparing for something but exactly what, none of them knew. As time went by, more and more of them had stopped coming, whether they’d been scared off by their own actions, or the actions of others in the group, 16 wasn’t sure. He knew for sure that questions were being asked at higher levels as to the suitability of some of the people he had been mixing with. Tonight it had only been 3 of them, but as soon as 27 had found 8 was there he made his excuses and left, faking a text message and almost sprinting out with a face which gave him away too easily. So it was just to be the two of them.

16 chose his words carefully and went on, enunciating slowly to keep his train of thought smooth and lithe to negate any chance 8 had of unravelling it and leaving it tangled and useless, “I’m not saying there’s nothing worth believing in. I’m saying there’s nothing that most people find they can make a choice to believe in. You can say that people believe in TV or something, but they wouldn’t admit they did. But if you asked them, really pressed them, they’d believe in human nature or innate goodness or something, surely”

“Bollocks. There’s no proof or anything resembling proof for any of that trite humanist shite” 8 shot back. 16 slumped down in the booth and scanned the room, inspecting the faces of the drinkers in the room. Some laughing, some looking morose, but all together. Surely it couldn’t be true that there was a complete lack of belief in the room? They had to believe in something surely, even if it was only themselves? Ok, new plan of attack, how to get round 8’s ridiculous entrenchments. This was like chess. But more like boxing.

16 looked up, stared at the point directly between 8’s eyes so he didn’t have to make eye contact, and ploughed on, “True, but then there’s no proof for anything that’s worth believing in, everything’s a tenuous arrangement of social mores, traits and…” pausing to take a sip of beer and spilling a foamy stream down his front, he went on, wiping the beer into his sweater and looking around the snug for moral support “…opinions. Houses of cards true, but at least the cards are real.”

Warming to his subject, he went on “Anyway, you’re only calling them nihilist bastards because they don’t believe what you believe – them not agreeing with you is enough, you don’t actually give a fuck about what they believe. It’s easier to say they don’t believe anything – when you look carefully most people are more romantic than nihilist.”

8 fiddled with the spilt peanuts on the table, shepherding them round his beermat, as from the table next to them, a part of secretaries from the building next door erupted into braying, cacophonous laughter. He winced, grimaced, collected himself and continued. “My friend, when you look carefully at something, you miss everything else that’s going on in the background. People aren’t romantic in the least, they just want to get a guilt-free fuck, be ignored most of the time, and pad out their nests with some flatpack trash. They might pretend to be romantic to get one or more of the previous, but the only reason the vast majority of people aren’t self-confessed nihilists is that they couldn’t fucking spell it.”

16 sighed, and took a breather. You couldn’t argue with 8 like this, it just turned into him telling you what he thought and you ended up either trying to chip away with some logical tools until he gave in and professed disinterest in the whole rigmarole, or until he blew up and the argument became a fist-swinging fight. The amount of people that couldn’t deal with him was probably around 95% of the human population, must be the day job that meant he had enough of diplomacy and just wanted to vent when he got out. People hated him, really hated him. Normally mild-mannered men and women were reduced to wrecks: a notable pacifist journalist had left the group after threatening to shank 8 in the eye with a bicycle tyre lever over a discussion about HIV infection in Africa. More people would have told him to fuck off, but you didn’t do that to him. Not when you found out who he was, what he did. 16 calmed and centred himself, reappraised the situation, jockeyed for position and went on “Just because all the BIG things people used to believe in have fallen away, political views, philosophical and ethical standpoints, doesn’t mean there’s nothing else. If you look through the rubble of all this, what’s happening. People destroying their own isolation, creating community, they’re always on Facebook, social networking, interest groups. Foucault talked about this, he called it the insurrection of subjugated knowledges”.

“Ooh Foooocoe!” 8 mimicked as he smirked over the rim of his pint, “Well done. Monkey reads! That’s pretty fucking good actually…have you been practising? Remember, you’re not allowed to defend something you actually believe in.”

“Nah, don’t believe a word of it. Facebook’s for checking up on people you hate, people are cunts, as are you. Anyway your turn, defend democracy.”

life returns to a small field ;)

2009-04-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

After a break, a long break, I'm back.

Aim is to have one long piece a week, along with smaller bits as and when.

See you soon.

Bike samba!

2007-07-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Wasn't sure whether this had added sounds on, but after a bit of checking, apparently not - everything's played live.

Couple of Short Films

2007-06-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

First - "9"
Dark and atmospheric fairy tale

2007-06-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

And second - "The Tale About the Cat and the Moon"
Portuguese animation

Ace write-up of an alleycat/streetrace

2006-08-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

From: http://www.rapha.cc/index.php?page=172

"It’s dark outside. We’re terrified. Or maybe petrified. Whichever’s worse is what we are. Riding your bike at night is an odd feeling. Everything seems slower somehow, which compensates for the fact that we’re all riding harder than we have in our lives.

Bike messenger races are like that. Even after all my years as a top amateur racer I have never ridden harder than when I’m racing an Alleycat. It’s the fear, I guess. It hangs over all of us like a chandelier made of nails waiting to drop. But we’re too fast.

The only light is from the cars we’re passing at 45 kph. Drivers see the reflection off our spokes as we blow by them. There are about thirty of us tonight. We ride through traffic like water, taking the path of least resistance, no matter what the cost. I squeeze between two lanes of cars that are coming towards me. I’m breathing heavy. The drivers mistake the fear in my eyes for lunacy, but I’m far from it. This is simply the fastest way.

I see four or five others hauling down the sidewalk like a pack of dogs. All chasing me. Any one of us could die tonight, I think. The thought gets lost as I turn left; more pressing issues are at hand. I’m pretty sure I’m winning but I have no way of knowing. At any moment someone could come out of an alleyway ahead and defeat me. Panic starts to invade my body. To lose to a stranger is one thing, but to lose to your peers is unacceptable. My legs and my head are in the battle of their lives. “Just two more minutes”, my head says. My legs reluctantly agree and I start to fly.

Everything is in perfect symmetry. I am functioning the way God has intended me to function. There are no more alleys ahead. I can taste the victory. There won’t be any zipping up of the jersey here, though. For all I know someone could blast out of one the last building’s windows, nipping me at the line. The panic comes again. I’ve waited too long for this moment. A previous second place has caused me enough sleepless nights. Twenty feet from the line and the crowd is screaming for me but all I can hear are my prayers asking to be not struck by lightening even though there isn’t a cloud in the sky. I must win…

The first thing we do is wait to make sure everyone makes it in all right. We’re like a family at the hospital with more members coming in every minute to wait for the dreadful words of a doctor. The last one arrives to the greatest applause of the night. We could hear his gasping from a block away. He plays the part of a two-wheeled grinning grim reaper.

Relief sets upon us like a cool mist and the talking begins. Horror stories and close calls are traded like sports cards. It’s the same feeling, too. Like being a kid again. Someone tells of how they ran over some guy’s foot. That unwilling spectator will probably talk about his foot for the rest of his life. We’ll only hear the story a few more times before it’s forgotten: a casualty to more exciting events. People come over and congratulate me. Others keep their distance, unsure of what to say.

I know, however, that it is the last place rider who is the true champion. There was no blessing bestowed upon him of athletic genes at birth. The agony on his face was proof of that. His lung capacity holds only asthma and cigarette smoke.

It is him that we all came to see. "

Angsty adolescent daubing

2006-08-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well...if i will look at the tabloid headlines when i'm in the papershop, it's to be expected...

Track-races, Japanese style

2006-08-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

Keirin racing is pretty much confined to Japan, and is hella tightly regulated. It's run by the Japanese government,and because Keirin's raison d'etre is actually
gambling (proceeds from which fund Japan's schools), all equipment is totally standard.

(from http://www.keirinberlin.de/Keirin_Racing_En.html)
Keirin, meaning "racing wheels" or simply "bicycle race", originated in Kokura City in November 1948. It has become a Japanese social institution attended by around 57 million spectators every year, who place bets amounting to1.15 trillion Yen annually. Keirin compares most closely with greyhound or horse racing in the West. Races are held almost every weekend at 50 tracks around Japan. The events are usually held over 4 days; entry costs only100 yen (90 Ct), there are 11 races per night with 9 riders per race.

And the crashes...ouch. This is footage from the 2005 final.

ReCycle :)

2006-08-04T04:04:00.000-07:00

Are these chairs from www.bikefurniture.com the bestthingeverintheworldeverTM? Maybe. This one's made out of old bike wheels, recycled leather, and reformed bike frames/handlebars. I'm skint, but you could buy one. While you're at it, buy me one too.

Right to reply...

2006-08-04T00:06:00.000-07:00

From a while ago this, but it's starting to disintegrate so i needed to store it somehow.

This article, preceding a TV show called 'The Trouble With Gay Men' (article written by presenter) appeared in the Guardian on 21.04 this year.

Normally I can scan and leave even the most irritating fuckwitted article, hell, I've even read the Daily Mail once or twice when there's been nothing else around (though the mindwipe afterwards gets expensive). But this just took the chocolate hobnob.

So I crafted a fantastic letter about it, pointing out that although i was civilly partnered, it wasn't for everyone, and just because he's got what he wants doesn't mean there's any reason to stop agitating. I mean, did he march for the community or himself? I'm old enough to have been marching for an equal age of consent, section 28 being knocked off the books, and dull stuff like pension rights. I was marching for the age of consent after I was over 18. Why? Because it wasn't all about me. And even if we've got full equality in the eyes of the law, i'll keep marching for people in other countries who are facing jail, torture, and death, just for their sexuality. (The commercial pride festivals, however, can take a running jump).

The buggers cut the letter to fuck...missing out the main points, but the gist was (mostly) there.

The article just tweaked my fuckerbutton. It's a prime example of the London-based, moneyed, quasi-liberal masquerading as lifestyle-nazi. It's easy to say we're all equal now, when you don't know anyone who's queer and lives in a country village, or is poor, or is black. Kids growing up hear 'gay' as a catch-all insult (here is not the place to get into a discussion about the fluidity of language, 90% of those kids are using gay as an insult because gay is seen to be a bad thing) and that cannot be healthy for them.

And then he trots out the tired old stereotypes of 'drugs,saunas,weesex,rentboys,bodyfascism,yaddayadda' ...well yes, true, and not a good thing if taken to levels that become damaging, ir unsafe. But frankly A) none of these are confined to gay men, B) not all gay men partake, and C) so fucking what? (I'll return to bodyfascism at a later date though, probably the most damaging of the lot - though again NOT CONFINED TO GAY PEOPLE, NOT ALL GAY PEOPLE BLAH).

Just cos matey gets his jollies at some Islington dinner party where you can pretend everything's hunky-dory because he never leaves the hermeticically-sealed half-arsed liberal (with a little l) sanctuary of whatever organic-missionary-position-moneyed enclave he scurries around, doesn't mean he's got a right to comment on other's lifestyles. Hell, I quit drugs a while ago, but as long as they're not damaging to you then go for your life. Want to have sex with 15 people at an S+M pissparty? Just get the barriers and a bucketfull of lube and go right ahead! Not my cup of tea - but after spending years of my life fighting against what straight society told me I should do, i'll be fucked if i'll not fight as hard against some middle-class mediatart telling me what i or my friends shouldn't get up to. It strikes me that it's more about 'what will my friends think of me if those people in thongs keep gyrating on top of floats at parades, or go cruising, or...oh my...do drugs...' than any concern for the people partaking in these activities.

Maybe think, just think, that those geezers in thongs might have grown up in some backwards shithole in Lincolnshire, and be so full of fucking PRIDE that they've actually found a space where they can meet blokes, dance like fools, and be themselves, that they're going to take every chance they get. It might not last forever, they might get burnt out, but am i going to deny them that chance? Nah.

So mate, you say 'the world has changed for gay men' ? Some, i'll give you that. But look around. Look at the homophobic murders. Look at the suicide rates for gay teens. Then make judgements.

Fuck you, and the highhorse you rode in on.

Great little documentary

2006-08-03T02:13:00.000-07:00

Quality doc about female bike messengers in New York - from www.RedRidingHoodProductions.com

we're all stars!

2006-08-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently there's over 4million CCTV cameras in the UK. 4 MILLION!
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0206/p07s02-woeu.html

The facts that streetlighting has been shown to cut crime more than CCTV cameras, and that the people watching the cameras are unlikely to be police officers (like THAT should make you feel much safer anyway), and are more likely to be badly-paid council workers (who may or may not be spying on naked women in their homes http://snipurl.com/ubq0) should possibly worry you. Just taking the issue of that many things tracking you alone, it raises questions of civil liberties - the things i do may be rarely criminal, but some of the things i do i don't want people to see, even if legal, and I guess that you might be similar.

Add the CCTV issue into the whole ID card debacle (currently overbudget and well off-target), plus new car-tracking technologies, mix in a healthy does of phone and email taps from our good friends at GCHQ, Menwith Hill, and other big-brotheresque constituents of technologies like Echelon (http://sn ipurl.com/kz5f - please ignore the slightly dubious URL, it's well referenced) kinda means...well...that no longer am I or you a citizen equal to those running the show, i'm a tenant watched by a fuckwit of a landlord who doesn't trust me with the crockery.

But hey, if you've been that desensitised to surveillance through reality TV then it's a positive boon to be watched. Thing is, it's going to be a lot longer than 15 minutes you're on video for now...

short story...

2006-08-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

He lay in the forest, as he had many times before, as the sun slowly crossed the sky casting ever-changing archipelagos of light over his body as it filtered through the leaves overhead. The breeze lifted his sweat away, cooling him as it ebbed and flowed over his body like a river. A raven, sheltering from the heat, cocked her head and regarded his form diffidently. His breathing slowed, his consciousness falling into the parched earth as twigs cracked, and the dry leaves on the forest floor rustled as the wind drifted through them. His mind fell, as if into a whirlpool, and became concentrated to a single point. Roots twisted, beetles scurried over him, navigating their own forests of dense hair on his forearms. He didn't flinch: he hadn't breathed for minutes. The raven watched, then hunched her shoulders, and if in complaint, cried to the sky before lazily taking to the air and surfing away from the forest on the warm currents. The leaves fell that autumn, and the man returned to the earth.

Speaking of consumerist bastards...

2006-08-02T04:50:00.000-07:00

Picked up the bike on Monday :) I couldn't justify the expense of the cross-check, especially when i spotted my LBS was selling the Langster for a very reasonable £400. Singlespeed, nice and light, simple to work on, and nice and stealth. Just stuck some clipless pedals on and we're away. Thanks for the early bday present A, you're a star :)

I'm already in love, 2 commutes this week so far and it's quicker than driving. Just need to take the back brake off, maybe new saddle, lighter wheels, new post, maybe new bars...or i might just leave it ;)

And singlespeed's not as bad as you'd expect, even hills are doable. There's a high possibility i might convert it to fixedgear though, i'm intrigued.

QuickwannabeurbancourierblokeGO!

Quote for the day (QFTD)

2006-08-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

"I thought you didn't believe in God"
'Careful what you say friend, i may believe in more Gods than you'

Halldor Laxness - The Fish Can Sing

Boombangabang

2006-08-02T04:40:00.000-07:00

from http://www.sundayherald.com/56982

"BRITAIN is selling arms and technology which can be used by the military to 19 of the 20 nations which the UK’s own Foreign Office lists as “countries of major concern” in its human rights annual report.

The only “country of major concern” not in receipt of military know-how from the UK is North Korea. The listed countries getting shipments include: Belarus, Burma, China, Colombia, Cuba, Congo, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Nepal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe."

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Is there anything more indicative of the fact that planet is mostly populated by moneygrabbing murderous fuckwits, than the fact that we sell arms at all, but to these countries in particular?

And surely the 'Defence Industry' is a bit of a misnomer...surely the "Complete and under flaming destruction industy" or the "Severed limb and guts hanging out like a pig on a hook Industry".

Surely?

Right?

Watch this space...it's time to get a bit more involved...can i go to http://www.dsei.co.uk/ with a cinemascope, and project a looped film of limbless children and gassed Kurds onto the side of the conference building? Pretty please...

Gah Womad, Gah

2006-08-02T04:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not posting any bloody photos because i didn't take any bloody photos. I didn't want to take my camera out in case it got robbed or someone tried to sell it to someone else.

What's that you say? "Didn't you have fun?" Well...(edited highlights)

> Train delayed from lancaster, get in about 10pm, after having been up since 5am. Lovely.

> Nice night just loafing after that, amazing thunderstorm

> Go to check-in as a steward at the Oxfam thing, usual fucking high-quality organisation - large tie-dyed lady behind me in the queue "can i just ask something?" and proceeds to monopolize the checker-inners for half an hour, but i can't mince off in a big hissy fit because the checker-inner's got the last wristband and i'm fucked if i'm trekking over the other side of the site. Eventually sorted.

> 24 hours til the first shift, nothing open on site, so we pootle off to Oxford for the day. I was hoping for shouting people having a go at my be-kiltedness, but no luck. I wonder why people don't shout at 6-foot tall tattooed almost-skinheaded blokes in kilts. Fun day though, marred slightly by Americans.

> I manage to insult the (alleged) organiser to his wife - but only did so because she was being an unutterable swine and generally offensive. The story's funny but libellous.

> Shift time! And ah...yes...no tent supervisor for us then. So, would one of us mind supervising the tent? A thousand or so people you say? It doesn't matter we haven't been to a supervisor's meeting, or any of that shit. Fine, whatever. There you go A, fancy being stressed for 8 hours? The shit you hear over the walkie talkies as a supervisor puts the edge on...everybody's walking about oblivious to the fact that 10 tents just got slashed, or there's been an attempted stabbing, or there's 4 kids wandering round fronting up to festival goers.

> That's elsewhere though. Here, people are dancing like they've shat their pants. Some general hassles, but no explosions or rucks in our area so all good.

> "You'll get at least 24 hours off between shifts" Chinny reckon. After knocking off shift at 2am, at 10am, we're back on. Busybusy.

> Knock off and go for a proper wander round the site. I have never been to a festival where so many people are buying so MUCH SHIT. It seems ethical consumerism doesn't mean buying less stuff and taking the manufacturing burden off, it just means buying hideously expensive ethnic tat, that was probably made by people who get paid less than Nike's child labourers. The market/stalls/selling area compared to the free stuff/charity/music area was about 3:1, more than Glastonbury even. And the litter! Oh my god...these are supposed to be the left-leaning eco-conscious section of the community...and you can't even use a bin? Fuck...

> Last shift, i get the shitty supervising end of the stick this time. Halfway through one of my stewards wander over to tell me 'i've just done some acid'. Oh that's great...thanks for that...so because you and, oh i'm sorry, you and your 3 mates that are on shift with you have decided that you can't go 8 hours without dropping something (actually, fuck it, if i was you I'D want my ego dissolved) - instead of 6 stewards to sort a tent of 1500 people or so, i've got 2 who aren't going to be absolutely fucking twisted in half an hour. Lovelyjubbly. The last 2 hours of that shift were the longest of my life. When you're worrying that a punter's going to wander over to one of your orange-jacketed fuckwits to ask where the toilets are, and be greeted by a gurning trustafarian telling them 'there's no portaloos, there's no anything anywhere man...it's just energy' it starts to wind you up. Thanks a fucking bunch you WANKERS.

> Knock off at 2am, just before we left the site witness the Police pull some drunk dude over trying to get out, and hear the quote of the weekend from the pissed bloke: "I thought you'd have more respect you fuckerssshshshsh, you should respect me, i pay your wages, reshpeckt mmmmeeee....ah...i've just wet meshelf"

> Drive back to Nottingham, collapse into bed.

In between there was some fun stuff, chilling out of the way was good, met some nice folks, and some music was ok. Though the second-best quote from some beaded-earth mother was worrying: "oh, haven't the african's got rhythm! Hmm?" summed up the experience slightly...ship the poor people in, make them dance for us, and then ship em back off. The attitude of "We don't mind them on stage of course, but we wouldnt want to live near one" seems to be a little more prevalent than it should be.

So yeh, funny weekend, but maybe not for the right reasons ;)

POTDWMW

2006-07-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

Nottingham Graveyard - next to the Quaker Meeting House, waiting for A so we could pick up a campervan we were hiring to head off down to Cornwall in.

Stopped in the park for a cig, and the sun came out from behind the clouds for all of, ooh...2 seconds and i managed to get this shot.

Taken with Pentax ME Super and KodakSuper400 film.

Middle-age beckons

2006-07-25T04:49:00.000-07:00

So, post-funeral which i'm sure will be a blast, we're off to Womad this weekend to work for Oxfam. Did the same at Glade last year, but fancied more chill this year - fewer ketamine casualties and music more suited to working at a festie (shifts were close enough together at Glade that any messiness would have been logistically impossible).

For those that don't know: Womad's a worldmusic/folky weekender in a carpark/field in Reading. Not the nicest of venues, and i've got bad memories of Reading Festival a year or so ago but i'm hoping the change of crowd from 15-year old moshers to 40-year old hippies might be an improvement. I'm expecting expensive organic burgers, lots of Guardian readers (hey, i'm one too, it's fine), and very bling baby buggies. I'm bizarrely really looking forward to it. possible highlight? Konono no.1 should be good: congotechno :)

"KONONO N°1 was founded over 25 years ago by Mingiedi, a virtuoso of the likembé (a traditional instrument sometimes called "sanza" or "thumb piano", consisting of metal rods attached to a resonator). The band's line-up includes three electric likembés (bass, medium and treble), equipped with hand-made microphones built from magnets salvaged from old car parts, and plugged into amplifiers. There's also a rhythm section which uses traditional as well as makeshift percussion (pans, pots and car parts), three singers, three dancers and a sound system featuring these famous megaphones.

The musicians come from an area which sits right across the border between Congo and Angola. Their repertoire draws largely on Bazombo trance music, but they've had to incorporate the originally-unwanted distorsions of their sound system. This has made them develop a unique style which, from a sonic viewpoint, has accidentally connected them with the aesthetics of the most experimental forms of rock and electronic music, as much through their sounds than through their sheer volume (they play in front of a wall of speakers) and their merciless grooves."

http://www.crammed.be/konono/

As should Warsaw Village Band, Salif Keita, and Bellowhead...and i have to admit i've not even heard of half the other stuff that's on so it should be an education.

By the way, if anyone's interested in stewarding for Oxfam at a number of festivals across Britain - i'd recommend it. Oxfam make a lot of money, you get a free pass, you meet sound folks, and you get to mince around backstage and lord it over the paying proles.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/events/stewards/index.htm

Seen :)

2006-07-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

PhotoOfTheDayWeekMonthWhatever (POTDWMW)

2006-07-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

I just decided to stick a photo or two up on here every so often, possibly from the Flickr page (link right>) or mebbe not - but they've all been taken by my fair hand anyway, and y'know, it's nice to brighten the place up a bit.

This one was taken at the stone circle near Robin Hood's Stride near Cratcliffe in the Peak District on a Pentax Super ME (film). It was after a day of crap climbing on the Tor, but a really good day of wandering and talking, and i snapped this just before sundown as the last of the other climbers were pissing off and it was quiet for the first time in hours. The place seemed to start breathing again, like it had been holding it in when it was busier.

Avaricious bastard...that's me...

2006-07-20T05:57:00.000-07:00

Well, that's not strictly true, but after putting myself through the hell that was A-level exam marking (2 questions x 10000) as well as a 3-day drug trial (medical whore that I am), at least some of that cash had to go to fun stuff, as well as paying off loans.

So, Utilikilt! After coveting one of these buggers for upwards of two years, and the likelihood of having two pennies to scratch together at any point soon recedes again - i bought one, and it's currently winging it's way to me now.

Is the world ready for my legs? Will I be punched in the face by chaps with wavering sexuality and too much testosterone? Do i wear pants with it? Is it fair on spectators to go climbing in it?

So many questions, so little time.

http://utilikilts.com/index.htm

Ooh...groovy

2006-07-18T05:01:00.000-07:00

Just having been thinking about how we change over time, and goals for life etc. i come across this:

http://www.futureme.org/

By which you can

a) freak people out by sending them messages from beyond the grave
b) send yourself emails, especially if you do things like "this year i will do X" - you can then set up a mail to fire off to you in a year's time to go "well...have you?"
c) coordinate nefarious deeds: "i didn't send those emails organising that party, officer, as you can see from this receipt, i was buying kittens in Dover at the time they were sent"

Life and Death

2006-07-18T04:13:00.000-07:00

Morbid title eh? After finishing my 3rd year PhD telk, we headed down to South Wales for Druid Camp. Do i call myself a Druid? It's a tough one, as there's such a range of folks into it - atheists, christians, shamans, nutters - that i'm not sure it's a coherent group in any sense apart from agreeing about the marking of the seasons, integrating with nature, and working towards an ideal of community and connection to the land, which I can't argue with. Plus it gives me an excuse to sit in a field with a lot of lovely people. So fuck it, I probably am, but I'm not sure I want to name it as such, as yet.

Anyway, it was an amazing weekend - good talks, a chance to catch up with some friends, good music, good venue, a river to swim in, and some things that healthily blasted me out of my comfort zone (the theme of the weekend was 'transformation' anyhow). All good. It's not really fair to post a vast load of pictures and details of what went on, just because you never know who is a headteacher in an alternative life - and any photos of them cavorting nekkid with an body-painted 80-year old lady with tassels might not go down too well with the governors. Suffice to say, it's on next year...so come. The big Saturday night dance was ok for a while (before it degenerated into a 'hiho-silver lining' singalong) but hopefully we'll be able to get hold of it for next year - and turn it into powerful pedal-powered/tribal-techno/lightshow-incense/loveliness.

One big downer though - I found out my Grandad had died during the festival - I'm not sure there was a better place to find out, for a variety of reasons, but it was still tough. My Dad had been up to see him for a few days the week just beforehand, and GD wasn't doing at all badly, or at least no worse than usual - if you can be doing ok when you're half blind with your back crumbling and a dodgy heart. But I got a call to say he'd fallen on Friday night, adn the paramedics had found him just after. It looked like he was dead before he hit the floor - which was something i guess, and I don't think it would have suited him to die asleep, he was the kind of stubborn old bastard that'd try to nick Death's scythe and then nut him before he'd go down.

Apparently the rest of the family aren't doing too brilliantly - but they're trying to keep busy and help his younger grandkids understand what's happened. Funeral'll be early next week: post-post-mortem, so i'll head over for that and catch up with that side of the family. Feel a bit useless in Nottingham when all that's going on in Lancaster, but i'll see what i can take or do to help them out anyway. I almost feel I've had the funeral already - as I managed to find a quiet space in the glade, and I was handily stocked with all the requirements for a personal goodbye - dark rum, a little tobacco, and a couple of sticks of incense.

So...it seems that this is about the time that the guilt kicks. Why didn't I phone last Wednesday instead of deciding to leave it for a week? Why didn't i make this much more of an effort?
But when it comes down to it, it's not him I'm upset for - he's not in pain anymore, it was a quick end, he didn't end up in a home, and he had family around him until his last day - essentially it's that, as well as being upset for members of the family that are left and were very close to him (geographically and emotionally), I'm upset for myself that that's my last Grandparent gone, and I wasn't quite as proactive as i should have been in keeping in touch. I guess I always felt that i was intruding on his current family if i got in touch (he remarried and had two more kids after my Gran divorced him 30 years or so back), and that was both an excuse and a reason for standing back a bit. That was the story of my life back when I was in my late teens and early twenties, not putting the effort in due to something i perceived in others rather than what the actual situation was - but i'd worked through pretty much everything else, and was just getting round to getting more in touch with my family. And the pisser is I'd spent a week or so setting up an altar in the house for my dead ancestors, whilst forgetting those who were still knocking around.

So kids, the take home point is...

Talk to your parents, your grandparents, your friends, your neighbours...they might well be wormfood tomorrow, and all the regret and heartache in the world isn't going to bring them back.

2006-07-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going to buy a new bike, a new bike, a new bike...

To celebrate nothing in particular, in September I'm going to be splashing the cash on one of these Surly Cross-Checks, probably from Brixton Cycles (as i like the Co-Op setup they've got going down there). Hopefully set it up as an 8-speed hub-geared lightweight, low maintenance town/hack bike, with a spare set of wheels for off road whippery.

To be frank, it's mainly because A's just got a well nice hacker, and i'm jealous. Badly :) And also i really want to cut down on using the car and my decade-old rustbucket mtb/hunkajunk isn't easy work on the roads.

(A's now selling his old bike, so if anyone wants a lovely 4-year old black Santa Cruz Chameleon (never DH'd or jumped), with Hayes Discs, Mavics, Marzocchi Bombers, and a whole stack of other shiny bits, give me a shout on j.a.davy@gmail.com for details or photos - looking for around £400 ONO).

Hahahahahahaha...(breathe)...hahahahaha

2006-07-09T05:36:00.000-07:00

From http://www.straightpride.com

The building block of Western civilization has been the Nuclear Family. StraightPride.com staffers, like billions of others living out our 'lifestyle,' believe that family, morals, and pro-creation are the backbone of our well-being.

We are not homophobic.
We do not hate gays.

StraightPride.com IS against gay marriage and civil unions. Why? That is an easy question to answer- the well being of CHILDREN. It is an undisputable fact that the best home for children is an intact, two-parent, married mom (female) and dad (male). Sexes are not interchangeable.

Indisputable? If you say so dearest. One must always think of the children.

Actually...get fucked.

A break...ish

2006-07-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

So, a most chilled weekend, after the hecticness of the last month or so. (A suggestion, don't try to do marking of 10000 A-level scripts, a philosophy MA essay, make a start on a thesis, finish sorting the garden, and other assorted bollocks - it's too much. It makes your head feel like it's full of rusty nails).

Anyhow, living in Nottingham, we're taking advantage it only being £12 return on the train to London if you book in advance. So, uber-early train down, and we got in about 8ish and proceeded to wander over to the Hayward Gallery for the 'Undercover Surrealism' exhibition. I'd see this once before, and i'd recommend it highly. I'm not at all keen on that lightweight Dali/de Chirico stuff that usually makes up the bulk of any surrealism exhibition, but this is about as far removed from that guff as it's humanly possible to get. Far enough for the fella who the exhibition revolves around (George Bataille), to have been 'excommunicated' from the surrealist's school by Andre Breton. Anyhow, you can get all the backstory you want on the link above, but safe to say, there's a hell of a lot here that you wouldn't find in a lot of exhibitions. Sounds recordings of Vodoun ceremonies, Boiffard's photos of Parisian abattoirs (source of one of the best quotations in the exhibition, and valid today "life today is free of the ominous grandeur of the places where bloods flows" or therabouts), Roman Gnostic amulets (Bataille's day job was as a curator of coins at a museum), a nice slice of Picasso's work, some early Giacomettis, plus a whole raft of other stuff. Tis recommended.

So post-that, we had a wander round town, dropped into Watkins and Atlantis, but the stock was either ropey or expensive (we were feeling skint anyhow). Managed to find a cracking 50's book on 'photographing animals' in Quinto books near the BM for 50p, though.

Scooted off up to Edgware Road to grab one of 'the finest kebabs known to man' TM, and then buggered off into Hyde Park for an hour or two with a bottle of Leffe and the Sunday papers. It was about this point we realised that it was getting busy. Mainly because it was 1) europride, 2) Roger Waters doing his 'Dark side of the moon' shtick in the park, and 3) the football. Nice mix. Hothot. Busybusy. Beerbeer. Fightfight?

To avoid all that bollocks, we handily nipped into an old banker for a quiet drink, the spanish abr of oxford road, and cracnked the radio on, bemoaned the general uselessness of the England football team (choice commentator's phrase "we deserved to go through". 1) The team that wins generally deserves to go through, and missing three penalites is generally viewed as being toilet. And 2) we? congratulations for being picked fella. Not we. They. Gah), and had a random chat with everyone wandering past, and had my ignorance of the lower reaches of the Portugese leagues put right by a (must have been hot) latex-clad TV on 6inch heels. The shame ;)

Took a wander into Soho, which was utterly rammed, danced around a bit, were mightily amused by both the stack of people trying to get to the theatre near G.A.Y. bar to see Mary Poppins..."Mummy, why's that man wearing a spangly thong, and glitter, and kissing that other man, who's dressed as Superman?", as well as the footy fans wandering through looking a bit lost. Saying that, i'm finding my gaydar needs to go back in for repair, skinheads and scallies everywhere, of various persuasions.

Prescient quote for the day "i hope England win, only cause i can't be arsed with a riot if they don't. So we wander out of Soho, and what we thought was the banging of a drum appears to be 40 or 50 beered-up retards rocking and slamming a bus. The police turn up, they charge, the retards charge back. The police charge back. It's all a bit handbags, but they kept them away from europride (1 street away), and most of them buggered off and calmed down anyway.

Not usually a huge fan of the Police, but they did pretty well: could have arrested plenty of folks but ended up just shoving em away and telling them to go home and chill out. Lots of arseyness everywhere else though, people fronting up to beggars (had to step in with one), starting on people who were "English but don't care...they don't CARE!!! CAAAAHNNNTSS". All a bit odd. It's only a game lads...only a game. i wasn't saying that about the Ashes though. I like my double-standards.

Pretty chilled after that though, just loafed around, nipped to a market or two, grabbed a pint, some lunch, and headed back, after doing a quick working to help everyone get back home safe that night. Probably didn't do a lot, but didn't do any harm right?

An attempt to get this going again...

2006-07-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

Aaaaanyway....

It's been what, months? Instead of trying to catch up with everything that's gone on, i'll pretend i've been keeping up with it, and add bits in as they come up.

Sound good?

Good...

Ploughing a small field...

2005-02-16T04:05:00.000-08:00

"I want to consider the possibility that every age has an extremely small fraction of people who go their own way without making a big production out of it: not Jean-Paul Sartre, but Boris Vian; not Goethe, but von Kliest; not Martin Heidegger, but Ludwig Wittgenstein. These are bohemians with a small b, their work breaks with fixed forms, is often about the idea of breaking with fixed forms, yet they don't try and elevate their iconoclasm into a movement, a new fixed form. These people, I call them New Monastic Individuals (NMIs), make up the class of people that belong to no class, and have no membership in a hierarchy. They form an 'unmonied aristocracy', free of bosses, supervision, and what is typically called 'work'. They work very hard, in fact, they love their work but as they do it for its intrinsic interest, their work is not much different from play. In the context of contemporary western culture, such people are an anomaly, for they have no interest in the world of business success and mass consumerism. Their credo, if it could be formulated at all, most closely approximates a haiku by the 17th-century Japanese poet Basho: "Journeying through the world to and fro, to and fro cultivating a small field" (Morris Berman)

Damn right you should be depressed!

2005-02-14T07:02:00.000-08:00

There was a point when i realised that the manner in which drugs were prescribed was possibly not always in the best interest of the patients.

I had been at my new university for a couple of months (difficult to take this as slander by the way, a) it's true, and b) it could be one of a few, i've attened and quit a few).

One of my acquaintances (a friend of a friend of someone i detested, if that's important) had been having a rough time of it. She'd not been getting on with her housemates, she was having financial difficulties, her sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer around 6 months after her mother had died of the same, her work had suffered and she had a meeting coming up with the dean of studies. She was not sleeping well, and ended up heading to the doctor for a bit of assistance. After a five-minute consultation she left witha prescription for 4 weeks worth of Prozac. I later found out that the same guy had prescribed the same for four other people I knew that week.

Speaking to her mates afterwards, she had no history of depression, had no trouble talking to her friends, and had just gone to the doctor as she wasn't sleeping well. Fuck it, she's supposed to be sad!

There's a movement towards creating a pathology of having emotions. I've no doubt there are some people who fit the bill of 'clinical depression', a chemical imbalance, that if becomes chronic/long-term, needs to be corrected with a pill before you can start on the talking cures. I've seen it, i might even have had it for a week or two, and it certainly wasn't just being sad, there was no reason for it. But i find it hard to believe that all of the 15million prescriptions (just for SSRIs like Prozac and Seroxat, not even including the tricyclics and newer antidepressants) given out in the UK in 2003 are for people suffering this kind of clinical depression.

So why are the GPs handing these out like sweeties? As far as I can see, it's cheap, it's easy, and it's much less work that sending someone for counselling. Why go through a year or more of counselling or cognitive therapy, when you can dole them a tablet that does them out into a soma-zombie (thanks Aldous), but not so much that they start to make more trouble?

What worries me, more than the drug companies climbing into the back pockets of GPs, is the creeping pathologisaton (that a word?!) of normal human emotions. Sad? Sister might die of what your mum died of? No more close family left after your sidster? WEAK! You're not allowed to be sad anymore! This is no longer a transient period which you can work through wth the support of your peers and friends (or even a professional counsellor), after which you will learn, consolidate, learn to deal and move on, recognising it for a difficult but ultimately human experience. Nah, you're ill, you are not normal, this is an extreme of emotion we are not comfortable with, take the happy pill.

Attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder? You mean you've plonked your kid in front of the telly since before they could speak? Obviously your child is'nt allowed to go outside, as the rampaging herds of AIDS-infested paedophiles will get them, but even if the paeds were castrated, we've sold off your school playing fields for the next wave of Barratt homes. The school curriculum isn't geared towards producing interested, inquisitive children with critical faculties and a joy of learning for it's own sake, nah that's outdated, lets pass those SATS! What? You mean you child has little concentration, is full of energy, is loud? Its not that they're piss bored, and would probably trade their massively overdeveloped playstation-prodding thumbs for a kickabout outside, NO! They're ill! Dose them! And don't for a minute think that it's down to the school system or parents failing the kids. One of my second cousins is ADHD (allegedly), after meeting him for the first time, and having a cracking conversation, i was told "that's the first time he's ever sat still during a family gathering". He was intelligent! And interested, and he told me he was bored at school, and his folks switched the telly on when he got in from school to shut him up, even if there was nothing on, and he wasn't allowed to go to the library or play outside. The poor bastard is that piss-bored, and you're sedating him! You sick fucks! Thats scandalous.

Anxious?! Take a pill? Personally i feel it's pretty normal to feel anxious in the middle of a supermarket, under the striplights, screaming toddlers hyped on e-numbers charging around as their fat-calved mothers debate which pregnancy test kit to buy THIS time. We've spent thousands of years as humans living outside, growing or catching our own food, in small family groups, and over the last hundred or so years we suddenly have to live in tightly-packed groups, with no privacy, cutoff from the land, nature, and all that made us what we once were? Fuck it, yes, i'm anxious. We haven't got used to this yet (and I'm not sure whether we have to devolve or evolve to get used to it).

Shy? Pill.

Want to dance? Pill.

Anxious? Pill.

Overstimulated? Pill.

Understimulated? Pill.

Unhappy with the way this rotten godforsaken ball of shit planet is going? Pill.

Pills not working anymnore? More pills.

FUCK IT! EAT EM TIL THEY'RE COMING OUT FO YOUR GODDAMN EARS! YOU ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED EMOTIONS!

I'm stressed now...i need a cigarette.

What's it all about then?

2005-02-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

Hey, how's it going?

There's something a tad narcissistic about wanting to see your words in print I guess, but short of that publishing deal, this is where it'll have to stay for the moment ;)

In fact, I'm treating this as a kind of holding area for some stuff I've written over the past x years, along with a few new bits and pieces, before I stick them on a website.

Christ knows, come back in a week or two and you might see something.

J