The Decline of Western Civilisation Part Deux

Sometimes I do think that Al Qaeda may have a point when they rail against the decadence of western civilisation. Not that I think that a caliphate would be a good thing either, particularly for women, homosexuals or anyone who enjoys freedom of expression. However, occasionally, I am given pause for thought. I had one of those moments this morning, walking from King's Cross. I passed a newspaper kiosk and caught a glimpse of a porn magazine tucked into one of its racks. The name of this illustrious periodical? 'Arse Wrecked'.

One assumes that the title is a reference to anal sex, of course (and not, for instance, actually a medical magazine aimed at people who suffer with piles). Now I'm no prude, but how bankrupt and debauched is a culture that can produce a commercial publication named 'Arse Wrecked'? Jesus, if this is freedom of expression, I say bring back Victorian hypocrisy and repression...

First Capital Disconnect

I sometimes consider myself to be a little bit unlucky. Indeed, to paraphrase Shakespeare: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They piss us about for their sport."

Take this evening:

• I cycle to Kings Cross from Charlotte Street and congratulate myself for reaching the station in time to catch the 18.36 to Welwyn Garden City
• Find, to my chagrin, that all services in and out of Kings Cross are suspended due to "massive signal failure". I'm told to make my way to Finsbury Park, where services are now terminating and departing.
• I count myself lucky having my bike with me, as they've closed the tube station at Kings Cross due to overcrowding (no doubt due to the masses of people trying to head north via the underground).
• Start cycling up Caledonian Road to Finsbury Park, passing kids on mountain bikes trying to destroy a bin by ramming it with their vehicles
• Get to Holloway Road, thinking that at least I'm getting some extra cardiovascular exercise, and my fucking tyre gets punctured
• Cursing like a Tourettes sufferer with piles sitting on a spike, I trudge up the Seven Sisters Road to Finsbury Park
• Get to the station and find police turning passengers away. A copper tells me that no trains at all are running from Finsbury Park. He has no suggestions for what the fuck I do next
• I see loads of people still getting into station, so nip past police and get to platform
• The announcer seems as confused as everyone else, but tells us that there IS now a bloody train running from Kings Cross - rendering my cycle ride and walk entirely pointless
• Fold up bike, train eventually arrives and I join the crush of people desperate to get home. Despite the train already being rammed, we all make it onto the carriage
• Finally - two hours later - get home

Now, what infuriates me is not this country's crap transport infrastructure, it's the muddled communications and sheer cluelessness of First Capital Connect. I wonder if they're planning to form a partnership with Virgin Media?

Wired at Work!

Wires and chargers are taking over my life. It’s like a snakepit of cables on my desk at work, with headphone wires, charger cables and leads for USB devices tangled together like an electronic version of the Gordian knot. It’s no different at home, where I have two stack-and-stores full of cables and chargers for various devices around the house, probably half of which are phones that we don’t actually own any more.

I suppose it may indicate a geeky addiction to electronic consumer goods (as they call them in marketing), but I have a feeling that everyone except the most ascetic individual is experiencing the same thing.

So what’s the solution? Well, we now take wireless internet and bluetooth for granted (gone are the days when I had to run a 20m cable from the phone socket to my bondi-blue iMac upstairs!) and there’s been talk of wireless delivery of electricity to devices for a while. Ah, imagine it – an entirely wireless household!

I suppose the other solution is to simply own less stuff, but I’m not quite ready for that at this precise moment!

BTW: Fuck me, isn't the Apple MacBook Air breathtakingly beautiful?

TV Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is on Channel 4 in a Ghoulish Chicken Cruelty Experiment and I Hate Him Even More Now

Against my better judgment, I watched Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall abusing chickens and patronising poor people in Hugh’s Chicken Run (Channel 4) this week.

As one could easily guess, Hugh thinks battery-farming chickens is a BAD THING and sets about persuading the hoi-polloi in Axminster, the town near his River Cottage ‘holding’, that they should give up their £2.50 supermarket chickens. Of course, it came across as the Lord of the Manor attempting to be matey with his serfs, but then that’s what we expect from Hugh. You’d think Channel 4 would steer him away from interacting with the public. His dalek-like Old Etonian speech patterns seem even more irritating when they’re directed at ordinary people.

But that’s not the concept on which the show has ghoulishly been focused.

The premise – or gimmick, if we’re honest Channel 4 – is that, because Hugh wasn’t allowed access to any intensive chicken farms, he builds his own to demonstrate just how awful and cruel it is.

Now, you may think this is a bit like Simon Wiesenthal creating his own Auschwitz on his allotment to show us just awful and cruel death camps were. Or Amnesty International torturing Big Brother contestants. Or animal rights activists donning the hunting pinks to pursue a fox. Surely if you’re against cruelty you don’t actively engage in it?

However, all morality and common sense (not to mention a few thousand chickens) are sacrificed on the altar of sensationalist ‘good television’. Now I notice that Jamie Oliver has imported a chicken abattoir into a TV studio for Friday’s crusading 9pm slot.

I have a suggestion for a sequel to this demented nonsense:

‘Hugh and Jamie’s Bargain Bucket’

The two TV chefs are locked naked in a cramped man-sized KFC bucket for a month with only chicken feed to eat and a grille underneath them to shit through. If they survive (obviously Channel 4 will hope that one eats the other, in order to show just how awful and cruel cannibalism is) the people of Axminster can then decide whether to have them executed in a replica of a US-style gas chamber (to show just how awful and cruel capital punishment is) or just stone them to death (to show just how awful and cruel biblical punishments for being a cunt were). Either way, that’s one series finale I’d definitely tune into…

Virgin Media Broadband Problems Continue

Following on from my last post: broadband went down again on Sunday and hasn't been reconnected since. I rang up the call centre again and, although they've apparently sorted out the billing problem, they've now lost my modem registration so that they can't reconnect.

I did ask why they obviously had that information on Saturday when we were briefly reconnected, but had now lost it, but no answer was forthcoming. I now have to ring them again from home tonight to read out the registration number on the bottom of the modem!

Now add the phone call yesterday into the mix, where I was assured that my connection was OK and there was technical issue, so would I read their 25p-a-minute support line again...

The confusion and witlessness are exasperating.

Still, here's a photo of Richard Branson's arse. Which is what Virgin Media is obviously talking out of.

More Virgin Media Idiocy

Long-standing readers of this blog will know that I have a long-standing hatred of Virgin Media, having been repeatedly let down and inconvenienced by the Frankenstein's Monster of entertainment and communication providers (see this, this and this post for starters). You'll be glad to discover that absolutely nothing has changed - the fuck-ups continue.

Our broadband access went down on Friday night and, having tested the wireless router and modem, restarting laptops and all the usual solutions, it stayed down. OK, network problem maybe? Whatever the problem, it was still down on Saturday. I had work that needed to be done, so I had to tramp into the freezing Saatchi offices in London. Once there, I found the Broadband helpline number (25p a minute!) on the Virgin Media website and the 'technical expert' couldn't help (after £2 of prevarication).

Eventually my offices were too cold to continue working, so I went home. My wife was beginning to suffer from Internet withdrawal , so she rang the helpline again. After £3 worth of 'help' she was told that we'd been cut off because our account was in arrears. In actual fact, we're in massive credit because the idiots charged me twice for 6 months.

I now ring their normal customer helpline and discover that, even though I've rung and complained about umpteen times ever since we moved house, they still haven't closed the broadband account for our old address. Which was why they'd been charging me twice. They'd stopped the direct debit but their system now showed me as defaulting on payment.

Arrrggghhhh!

A very nice woman in the call centre appeared to have sorted it out and reconnected us. Then the broadband went down again yesterday. Utterly maddening - and, of course, as a consumer, I have no way of getting recompense for their continually dire performance.

Crack Squirrel Sighting

Body tensing like a furry spring, eyes filled with whatever passes for insanity in the rodent world, the creature crouched and then leapt in a zig-zag path across the pavement and then in front of my bike. Yes, I was cycling along the Euston Road and encountering my first Crack Squirrel.

Crack squirrels are an urban myth started in Brixton, where apparently squirrels rove red-eyed and demented, tiny grey hoodies ready to strike, due to ingesting rock cocaine that had been buried or abandoned by dealers. I always dismissed the idea until I witnessed the bizarre behaviour of that tremulous tree-rat yesterday.

The squirrel was leaping about - not just scuttling - and had a look on its face that reminded me of Pete Doherty emerging from rehab after a month of cold turkey and finding a dealer taunting him with a needle that's - always - out - of - reach. After I braked abruptly and narrowly avoided hitting the thing, it jumped under a bus, survived to emerge on the far side, then scampered under another car. At this point, I lost sight of it after that. Did it survive? I hope so. Had it really nibbled on a 'rock' discarded in the graveyard of St. Pancras Church or was it going crazy for some other reason (perhaps it had just heard that Leon Jackson was at number one?) Sadly, without its flattened corpse and a drug testing kit I'll never know...

Wahay! I'm off my nut on crack!

Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe Review

While working and parenting, I’m normally only able to read about 5 pages of a book at the end of the day (just before my head hits the pillow). However I’m currently working my way through a series of dense, symbolic, almost Proustian books that are keeping me awake a little longer. And they’re – mumble it apologetically – science fiction. The series is called ‘The Book of the Long Sun’ by one of my favourite writers Gene Wolfe.

Having just finished two of the four novels in this series, it could be that I'm being premature by offering a review of them. However, I'm so besotted with Wolfe's prose that I really can't wait.

I bought `Litany of the Long Sun' (the collected volume of the first two books ‘Nightside the Long Sun’ and ‘Lake of the Long Sun’) some time ago and initially found the writing too obtuse and dense to progress beyond the first few pages. Initially things happen very slowly, with a very short period of time covered in great detail. I came back to it l

ast month, however, and found that it's one of those books that deserve persistence and, ultimately, offer incredibly rich rewards.

The books are set on the interior of what I guess you'd call a planet-sized tubular colony ship (known as `the whorl'), with the `long sun' acting like a giant solar fluorescent tube up the middle, providing heat and light. The ship has been on its journey for so long that none of the inhabitants remember that their world is artificial. However, this sci-fi setting belies the feverish imagination and literary intelligence that make this book so compelling.

The plot follows the young a priest – or ‘Patera’ – Silk as he attempts to save the Sun Street Manteion, the neighbourhood church he runs. It’s in the poorest area of the city-state of Viron and is bought by a powerful criminal kingpin named Blood.

Silk worships a pantheon of Gods, whose origin can be guessed by the fact that their Olympus is called ‘Mainframe’. However, Silk’s quest to save the Manteion is driven by a divine vision bestowed by ‘the Outsider’, who may be the ‘real’ God as we understand him. Mind you, another less miraculous explanation of Silk’s epiphany is offered towards the end of ‘Lake of the Long Sun’. As you can tell already, nothing is taken as read in a Wolfe novel. Everything is open to interpretation.

Indeed, Wolfe plays games with the reader– dropping in clues can easily be missed in the plot and intertextual references that connect with other Wolfe novels. For instance, the two-headed god named Pas in the Book of the Long Sun is the tyrant Typhon encountered in the Book of the New Sun. Silk is lame like Severian, the protagonist in the aforementioned tetralogy.

The characterisation is just as slippery: Silk is an earnestly just man, who strives to stay within the moral laws of his religion, but he is still capable of justifying compromises or capitulation with the criminal Blood in self-serving ways.

The writing style reminds me of 19th Century symbolist paintings - slippery of meaning, stoked by classical allusions, vivid imagery and mythological coda. Indeed, when I read it, I feel that I'm in the world depicted in the bejewelled fantastic paintings of Gustave Moreau. I find myself dreaming of the golden baroque images that Wolfe conjures up in his writing.

Of course, only being two books in, I have no idea of how Silk's story will progress or how all the symbolic threads that are being laid out will come together and resolve themselves. However, I'm enjoying the journey immensely...

Jupiter and Semele by Gustave Moreau

Panting Towards The Christmas Finishing Line

It's wrong to wish your life away, but I really am staggering on at work, desperate for Christmas to come. Oh, for a week of festive over-indulgence with not a single campaign brief in sight.

It's like being at the end of a marathon (not that I've ever run one, but bear with me while I let this analogy spin out): your legs are about to give way, you've had to shit yourself after 20 miles (do they sell incontinence pants for long-distance runners - 'Nike Skids' perhaps?) and you can feel your heart go all Douglas Adams. Yet you keep going, clinging to the thought of the finishing line.

In fact, I've been so keen for the festive season to come I've even been playing my 'Lovely Xmas' playlist at work. This has provoked mixed reactions, sadly. One habitually hungover account manager asked me to turn it down. I asked whether it was because she had a headache and she replied 'No, it's just shit music'. Bah, humbug indeed!

ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com

This site has rescued me from terminal grumpiness today. This is the funniest thing I've read for ages. It's a great idea - pulling stupid, Daily Mail reader comments from message boards and taking the piss out of them:

http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com

The best turn of phrase so far:

I’d like to weigh in with my important opinion on this important debate, but I’m afraid I’m busy having an important argument. We’re trying to decide whether it’s better to have an evil fireman force cat shit up your nose with a jetwash, or have dog shit slowly massaged into your gums by a stinky dentist.

Who is That Movie Deep Voiceover Man?

I just watched the ad for the DVD version of Transformers, another BIG DUMB movie. As a result, one question occurs to me. Who IS the man who does the voiceovers for ALL movie trailers and DVD ads? Is it just one man or are there a legion of them, all with the same gruff deep American voice? Can someone tell me?

Incidentally, the semiotics of the gruff, deep-voiced American voice are interesting. The deep voice is the voice of the tough-guy, but it's also paternal. The American accent denotes Hollywood authenticity, especially to a UK audience in the thrall of US culture. It seems irrational that there are no alternatives until you imagine someone else doing it. They just wouldn't seem as authoritative or exciting...

Hidebound Banners

I've been working on a Christmas banner campaign for a client, yet again coming up with creative for the usual banners (468 x 60 pixels), MPUs (300x250 pixels) and skyscrapers (120 x 600). This has led me to wonder why we're stuck with the same formats that we've had for years. Trying to get a message across in a box 468 by 60 pixels in an era of broadband media convergence just seems ridiculous. I mean, why is it 468 pixels long anyway? Seems entirely arbitrary to me (if anyone knows the reason, please do tell).

Of course, it could be argued that the formats fit around content rather than intruding upon it, thus satisfying usability requirements. However, why not have widescreen MPUs to accommodate movie trailers? Or fat banners that do something similar? They could still sit on the periphery of content, but deliver an experience that would actually entertain users.

For a young medium the internet already feels terribly hidebound in some of its traditions already...

Mila's 10th Birthday

I spent yesterday afternoon on a 10th birthday clothes shopping trip with my eldest child Mila. Although I returned exhausted after walking up and down Oxford Street twice, it was a real pleasure to see her choose outfits, putting together a ‘look’, during the day. I felt rather proud that my girl was growing up and developing her own style.

According to a lot of reportage in the middle class press, 10 year olds are all supposedly ultra-demanding and cynical ultra-consumers, adults before their time. I guess if parents allow them to be by being incapable of saying ‘no’ then it’s possible. However, maybe it betrays a fear of children growing up. Rather than fret about it, I’m going to go with the flow and enjoy Mila’s increasing sophistication and discernment.

On a very strict budget of course!

The Best Apocalypses in the World EVER!

I think everyone agrees that we now live in the future and it’s crap. My generation were told in our Usborne books that we’d be jetting around in space by now, hanging out with robots, living in a domed city on the moon or in a twisted post-nuclear war wasteland with loads of cool mutants and adventure. Instead, we’ve got really tiny computers and the slow-burn apocalypse of climate change. I mean, what kind of Armageddon is that? Where are the all mutants and road-warriors?!

Having had the benefit of a few years on this Earth, I also notice that the apocalypse is always changing. Anyway, all this leads me to the point of this entry – my list of the 5 best apocalypses EVER!

1. The biblical apocalypse

This is the daddy of apocalypses, straight from the fevered brain of Saint John. It’s got some great destruction going on after those seven seals are opened by the Lamb of God. Notable for introducing the Anti-Christ and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Plague, Famine, War and Noel Edmunds.

2. Nuclear war – the classic!

As a child, we watched Threads and The Day After which scared the living shit out of us as we lived in the world of Mutually Assured Destruction. However, comics painted a picture of survivalists battling disfigured mutants that made the post-nuclear hell sound rather exciting and fun.

3. Zombies

Somehow a virus reanimates corpses and they bite living humans, so they become zombies too. Quite why, after a few months, all the undead don’t simply rot to pieces so they can’t actually pose a threat any more isn’t explored. Maybe it’s all the preservatives in food these days?

4. Charlton Heston is the last man on Earth…

…or at least the last noble, macho, normal man on earth. Charlton Heston was the face of the apocalypse in the 1970s, railing against man’s inhumanity to man while kicking mutant/ape butt. Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes and Omega Man gave him plenty of opportunity to grimly witness the fall of man and display his righteous Romanesque profile.

5. Everyone goes blind and gets killed by intelligent plants from the stars

Speaks for itself – John Wyndham wrote Day of the Triffids in the ‘50s, but I remember the BBC series featuring John Duttine, which featured extremely badly put-together Triffids that appeared to be made by a man with Parkinsons out of fibreglass. Bad special effects didn’t stop the series terrifying the pants off me at the time, of course.

My Gym Induction with Conan the King

As some longstanding readers will know, every now and again I engage in a futile attempt to get fit. More specifically, I join a gym in an attempt to lose weight; diligently go for a few weeks; then cease to go as my willpower ebbs away like the tide on Morecombe Bay, exposing the mudflats of my laziness.

The other key element of this process is the slightly humiliating gym induction, where a hugely fit bull-male condescendingly takes me through the necessary steps to approximate some form of fitness.

Now the cycle is starting again: I’ve joined a gym near work and have started my induction process, guided back to fitness by a taciturn man-mountain of non-specific Northern/Eastern European origin named Jan (or “Yaaan” as he pronounces it). Having an induction with Yaaan is a slightly disconcerting experience. For one thing, his arms are wider than my thighs. I can’t imagine he can use a urinal, as his arms are so muscle-bound that they surely couldn’t reach round to hold his winkle. Secondly, he delivers assessments of one’s health in terse, sinister statements:

“You haf waist of vun metre. This…not good.”

“Your BMI 16%. This…not good.”

“Your flexibility is 12cm. This also…not good.”

“Your grip…adequate. This OK.”

So I’m feeling pretty crap about myself. Then he finds out I work in advertising and launches into a condemnation of my profession.

“Advertising verrr bad as teach child to vant more consume.”

I remark that I’m fully aware that capitalism isn’t a great way to run the world, but no competing system appears to be emerging and until then I have to feed and house my children somehow. Yaaan nods sagely, a bit like Conan the King on his throne agreeing to the counsel of a lowly underling. Then we’re onto the results: I have to lose 10 kilos, but Yaaan “vill help ju do zis.”

I find out just how tomorrow – I imagine it will hurt.

Positivity Week: Welwyn Garden City Edition

I spent the day in the chilly house on a windy, rain-swept day, waiting for the man to sort out my boiler (please, stop right there – this isn’t a Carry-on film), so one wouldn’t have thought there was a lot of pleasure to be had (unless we were in a Carry-on film).

But – hold on – I’m now Mr Positivity, so I can identify something that did make me smile.

Having procured my lunch from M&S, I was coming back from Welwyn Garden City’s majestic Howard Centre (it is not simply a mall, it is an architectural wonder that rivals the Colossus of Rhodes or, indeed, the Great Pyramid of Giza) when I saw big clumps of foam gliding along in the wind. Then, as I progressed along the street, I was stunned to discover a winter-wonderland of ersatz snow covering the parklands of our charming little town.

Yes, some moron had put washing-up liquid in that other Wonder of Welwyn Garden City, the Coronation Fountain. Normally I’d decry the idiocy of our nation’s cretinous youth, but today the foam looked both spectacular and seasonal. So that’s my small pleasure of the day.

Weekend of Good Things

Yes, I’m still concentrating on the good things in life! Weekend pleasurable moments include:

• Going to a windswept farm with Stan, Emily, sister-in-law Lucy and brother-in-law Lee. It was one of those ‘farm as theme park’ places. They all seem to have the same stuff in them – a ‘guinea pig village/town/suburb/conurbation’ and an ‘amazing maize maze’. (Oh, wavering close to cynicism there!) Anyway, Stan loved it and has learned the word ‘tractor’ as a result of our visit.
• Going to the gym with Lee. Admittedly it was in Stevenage (which is one place that could puncture my positivity) but going to the gym with Lee is like having a free personal trainer – so I learned a lot of useful stuff.
• Another musical rediscovery – Peter Hook of New Order’s side project ‘Revenge’. I played the vinyl album to death back in 1990. Found it again on iTunes and it still sounds great.

Positivity Week, Part Two

Today's little pleasures:

1. Nutella on toast for breakfast
2. Working Keith Chegwin into a campaign idea
3. Rediscovering Weirdo by the Charlatans - what a great organ solo in the intro...

Positivity Week, Part One

I’m trying to get into blogging again, after a long work-related lay-off. Looking at earlier posts I notice I have three modes of communication:

(a) Fulminating against modern life and (as I perceive it) other people’s idiocy

(b) Describing my own idiocy

(c) Cynicism in general

In an effort to inject some sunshine into this blog, I’ve decided to only write about nice things for a whole week, starting right here.

Er…um…

Jeez, this isn’t easy!

Erm…

OK, here goes – I’m going to describe the small things that give me pleasure. Those little delights that give me a lift during my day. Perhaps you’d like to leave comments with yours?

The little things that enhanced my day so far are:

• The consideration of Nintendo game developers

I’m playing ‘Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass’ on the DS (which is a pleasure in itself, but I won’t rhapsodise about it here) and was tickled to find that I was asked before I started the game whether I was left or right-handed. The interface was then configured for a leftie like me. Nice touch!

• Stan’s new phrase

He’s started to say ‘Oh no!’ when he drops something or otherwise has a mishap. Although he says it in a way that suggests he’s enjoying himself. It really is the most adorable thing.

The map's upside down. Oh no!

7 Fascinating Facts About Me - Yes, ME ME ME

My friend Steve has shamed me into writing something on this sad, neglected, overgrown graveyard of a blog after a long absence. His clarion call is a blog tag challenge to write 7 interesting facts about myself. Ahh, my favourite subject! No problem!

1. I used to read Tarot cards in clubs and bars. My mum had read them for years, so I picked it up by default. I would sit in chill-out rooms and read fortunes for drinks. Strangely, the readings became more accurate the drunker I got. After dabbling in Crowley and Chaos Magic, I lost interest in all things mystical in my late 20s. Perhaps my third eye got blocked?
2. I nearly killed a flatmate with a wardrobe. When I lived in a 5th floor student flat in West Ham, my friend Blaine and I lazily got rid of a wardrobe by chucking it off our balcony. Unfortunately for our other flatmate, Nicky, it landed just as she stepped out of the door at the bottom of the stairs. Fortunately, however, it missed her by about a foot. We didn’t like her much, but had no intention of manslaughter. It was a spectacular MDF explosion when it landed though!
   
3. I have an unfortunate habit of buying crap things on impulse and regretting it. The latest was the X-Rocker, a repulsive vinyl ‘gaming chair’ with build-in speakers. That went on eBay after a week…
4. When I was 6 and living in Manchester, I was mugged by two older kids for some medals given to me by my Nan’s husband Billy. As well as the medals, I was wearing a yellow plastic duck hat when accosted.
5. I got Darth Vader’s autograph from his visit to Rackhams in Leamington Spa. I must have been about 10 at the time and was a Vader fanatic (my attraction to the Dark Side has continued through employment in advertising). You had to buy some Star Wars bedding to get the autograph under normal circumstances. However, I hung around for so long that one of the staff took pity on me and got the Dark Lord to sign me a photograph during one of his breaks in the stockroom.
6. My first bike was a blue Raleigh Chipper.
7. I’ve had two letters published in the sci-fi comic, 2000AD. I was in my thirties on both occasions, so I should know better than to get excited.