I like songs.

I would list a bunch of songs I like. Unfortunately the formatting here is SO UNVBELIEVABLY TERRIBLE THAT IT WON'T ACCEPT ANY EMBEDDED LINKS.

FUCK YOU.

It's genuinely unbelievable.

So you know I just told you that my laptop broke in a protest towards my lamenting about the foibles of the modern age of technology? My iPod headphone port broke this morning: now I only have sound coming from one headphone. I am literally being raped by Karma. I didn't believe, but now I do. I swear I'm going to get in my car later to go up Katie's and it's not going to start; or the seat will explode and I'll be killed in a firebomb. Be like the fucking IRA up in my asshole. I'm frightened of doing anything. All my life is technology - which is annoying, but unavoidable - and I'd be fucked without it. For starters even if my car doesn't work I need the GPS on my Blackberry to actually find her house. Why people choose to live in the back of beyond is... well, it's beyond me. If you'll excuse the pun. I'll probably piss off the God's of Humour now (not in the Galen sense) and end up hoisted and impaled by my own petard. That'd be a rubbish way to go. Not sure how it would happen. Reminds me of the Family Guy episode... think it's called Petoria or something. Peterland was a gay amusement park, if I remember correctly. Man I haven't watched TV in a long time.

Oh yeah, more technological woes. I brought my DVD player back with me when I came home from university specifically so I could watch The West Wing when I was in bed (it's tremendously fascinating, yet brillariously soporific at the same time). Unfortunately, because I apparently have a fabulously low IQ I forgot to bring the remote. The episode I am up to is third on the disk, so if I want to watch it I'm going to have to start playing the disk like 95 minutes before I want to watch anything. Then I'll probably forget and miss the start and have to repeat the whole process.

Seriously. I'm really fucking sorry God.

Technology takes its revenge.

So I bitched about technology the other day, and what it boiled down to was that the techno-world can suck my long one. Unfortunately, the Gods of Karma and Irony seem to have a rather black sense of humour - which is logical I guess, given their jobs. Yes, my laptop froze and broke. Apparently it needs to be restored to its factory settings, which is fine. Well... it would be fine if I had the manufacturers' disks to do said reformatting and rebooting. I have no fucking idea where they are: who keeps that kind of shit in a specific place? I've got like cupboards with boxes inside of boxes inside of suitcases full of that shit: it could be in any of them. No idea. Whatever. As long as they can recover some of my most recent work and music then I'll be OK. If I lose work I could lose 6,000 words worth of work. Fuck me in the head but that'd ruin my Easter vacation. Well. I'll find out by tomorrow afternoon whether or not I am going to have to spend all of Easter chasing this thing down and rewriting thousands and thousands of words. I'll probably end up killing someone because one of my essays was fucking excellent. Worked my tits off on that badboy. I don't care about the expense, it's just the annoyance. I back up every one-to-two weeks. So don't lecture me about backing up more often: I don't want to. Go away. I shouldback up as soon as I finish a piece of work worth something. Yeah. I should be many things, and I should do many things. But I don't. So don't go pissing on my grave thanks. Bastardó.

Anyway. So that was another cost. Oh and my levels of social retard-y-ness have reached an unprecented height. Genuinely, it's beautiful to behold how atrocious I am sometimes. I would watch a sitcom about me. It'd make Curb Your Enthusiasm look like the fucking Gruffalo. Oh well. That's a whole other story. One which I will tell when I have my laptop back and fully functioning. Henceforth bear these two things in mind: if I disappear for a week or so it is because I have lost my laptop, or have had it returned to me sans the work - so I will be up to my elbows in it. If, however, I disappear forever more then you can safely assume that I have in fact died.

Yeah. Good Easter vacation so far. My friend picked up a hitch-hiker, though, so at least I'm not that moronic.

Peace.

How can you call this place a home?

Anyone? Lyric reference? Anyone? Anyone Australian? Anyone? 'Heart That Heals'? Anyone? No? You in the back there? No? Faggots. Innerpartysystem. Go listen. Then you will thank me. Fellate, plzkthx. Toronto Gay Pride 2010 is going to be fucking off the hook this year, I swear. I think one of my fellow vacay-buddies is a tad concerned that it's just going to be a fuckfest. Which it is. Precisely why I booked it for that week. I was discussing it with some friends earlier, and I came to the conclusion that the two guys coming with me are going to take it very differently.

Person A: straight female, 21, in long-term monogamous relationship.

If this person walked into our room and I was hosting an octogenarians orgy, the only remark she would make would probably be "FUCK YEAH. BODY SHOTS!?"

Person B: gay male, 21, single.

If this person walked into our room and I was an octogenarians orgy, there would be no remark because they'd kill me and then themselves. "Fuck yeah. Bodies".

But seriously. I am going to get my cock on. It's going to be delightful. Hopefully. Need some good fucking. Has been... weeks. Worryingly. Ah well. Man I sound like a slag.

Screw you guys, I'm going home. Seriously. I'm going home tomorrow. Can't fucking wait. See ya later, shitholeportsmouthcrapheapofshittypikeycouncilestatenotworthanythingstabbingparadiseofcunts.

Technology: hypocrisy epitomised.

There are many great hypocrisies of our age: the Digital Economy Bill, Lad's Magazines, The Government, Foreign Policy, The Police, anyone who uses Google, anyone who reads Le Biblé. Perhaps our greatest one, and most definitely our most un-enumerated, is that of technology - more specifically mobile phones, and social networking sites. Before you all (lol) get up in arms and say that I'm misappropriating blame with a callous disregard for social trends, then I suggest you sit the fuck back down until I have at least semi-explained why hypocrisy is so rife with these technological advances. I think you'll find, once I have explained thoroughly my reasoning, that I am in fact correct: you are in fact a hypocrite, and you're probably a moron too. Oh, and anyone who trolls the internet with the Irony Detector (yours truly would probably be guilty of this, although I troll the world) can pipe down as well: this 'blog' is not a method of networking, or social interaction; not unless your world-view is so fucking warped that your expectation from social interaction is one person wildly berating everyone in the room, whilst the other people sit there gently crying themselves into submission. So, not unless you're opinion of social interaction is the equivalent of working for Gordon Brown. Anyway. That's why this isn't ironic, and furthers my blithe generalisation that you're probably a moron (definitely a moron). With that in mind, let me explain why both of these things are fucking ironic, hypocritical, and last - but not least - fucking irritating.

Mobile Phones

Yeah. I get it. It's a phone which you can carry around with you. I get the needless explanatory titling; honestly, I get it. Oh, and it's not a 'mobile': that's an adjective meaning a form of movement. You can't just drop the bit that actually says what it is; if you want to abbreviate it - though why you feel the need to abbreviate when you're speaking out loud is beyond me - then you can call it a phone. Oh, and anyone who says 'mobby' is officially a cunt. "Yeah, man, your pipe is clogged, your arches are fucked, and your steering is wank". Rubbish. Mobile phones are so you can call and text people when they're not around, yeah? Is that not what they were designed for? I mean, obviously, nowadays they encompass all the things a person never knew they needed: a blurry camera with some inane amount of pixels (ITS GT TEN LOL), the ability to see websites in hilariously shitty fashion (the equivalent of trying to see the Great Wall of China by standing an inch away and staring puzzled at one of the bricks), and now you can even condense the effort required by texting! Now you don't even need to use your brain! You can just connect your gaping hole to the USB/Lan/Bit port or something, and stream your stupidity direct to the airwaves. If anyone asks me what my "PIM" is for 'Blackberry Chat' then I am going to be forced to kill everyone in the entire world.

Conversation with a friend runs thus:

Me: "*Blather blather blather irate ranting for five minutes*"

Friend: *Feverishly texting*.

Me: "Are you even listening to me?"

Friend: "Sorry, what did you juts say? I wasn't listening."

Go figure. Fucking hilarity.

'Yeah but it's the best way to communicate with people.'

No. The best way to communicate with people is what we're attempting to do right this fucking second: stand in front of each other, having a fucking conversation. How could you possibly be so thick!? If you make that assertion then I have to assume that you are devoid of all human cognition, and I will judge you unworthy of having lungs (of which I am surprised to learn that they are able to make you breathe), and will thus rip them out and feed them to my dog. Before it bites my daughter's face. And I stab it in the garden. Ha. Dangling modifiers are fun. People should use dangling modifier jokes more often.

New condition: you can only spend hours texting other people, when you are meant to be chatting to me, if you are sending text after text of beautiful dangling modifiers to reams of unwitting strangers who don't understand what it is you're trying to achieve.

Facebook

Get the fuck out of the world, already. You swirling vortex of apathy. My antipathy towards your very existence is fast becoming uncontrollable, and too vast to contain within normal boundaries. We're going to have to somehow separate a portion of my brain - the part that is accumulating and accruing all this impotent rage - and then segregate it from the rest of society. Possibly within some kind of diamond (or stronger) forcefield. Then we'll have to load it on board a rocket, before blasting it off into the sun. Otherwise we're all going to be engulfed by its self-aware angst. I hate Facebook for the same reason I hate mobile phones basically: people don't get the irony and the hypocrisy. They say they use it to keep up to date with people: 93% of the time the people are ones with whom the individual has daily contact. I don't need to know that you have the shits from fajita night. No one ever needs to know that. Ever. Use it to talk to people far away, please. And stop starting groups. And then if you're going to start a group to be postmodern and retro, realise that your smugness is misplaced and misjudged: stop gurning at your own brilliance when coming up with a group entitled 'People against those stupid facebook groups that have no meaning'. That's tautology (facebook being synonymous with meaninglessness), it's patently ironic (moaning against a group by making a group?), and it's moronic (the title implies that the group serves some sort of reactionary activist purpose. No. It doesn't. It will achieve nothing. It's like naming separate particles of air. Cunt).

Fuck technology.

Elven garb.

I'm going to write a comra set in halls/residence.

[5am].

--Alarm blaring quietly.--

--Girl dressed in green, an elf, lying prostrate on the bed. Suspicious substances smoking away to her right.--

--Alarm gets louder.--

--Girl stirs.--

Nah, I'm not really. Fuck creativity. I rant better than I write.

Also, like, 201 posts now. Go me.

(Shawty's like a melody/'s like my iPod's stuck on replay). God I love shit music.

Follow up.

"Lord Mandelson has made the following state under Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998:

'In my view the provisions of the Digital Economy Bill (HL) are compatible with the Convention rights.'"

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Apologies, but the formatting on this platform is fucking mental bad.

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So I've been drinking fairly lightly for the past hour or so. Which to anyone else is like trying to out-drink a concrete elephant over the period of eight-million years. Forgive my rambling. It's not for you. It's for me.

Hung Parliament

What it is not: a really brilliant porn starring Geoff Hoon and Stephen Byers who rent out the House of Commons, and the Speaker, as a venue and participant in the 2010 porn version of the X-games. Prizes awarded for best impression of Ron Jeremy.

What it is: totally dependant on where you stand. If you've got a brain and favour the most democratic form of electoral-system (proportional representation - where votes mean something, and losing the popular vote means you lose) then you'd probably be satisfied with this outcome. If, however, you've never been educated in politics then you're probably like all the other proles in this country. You know the internet lets you find shit out for yourself, yeah? Well, as long as you never verbatim quote it. It basically means that no party has enough of a majority in the House of Commons to ever pass legislation without the aid of the minority party/ies.

What it would mean for Britain: the only possibility of this country ever being steered in the right direction. It would provide the Liberal Democrats (see below), and possibly even the Greens room to have a say in legislation. It would not, however, be fully on them - so there's no possibility of them getting stage-fright. They would simply be the party which has the crucial vote in slight ties.

What it would mean for Britain: it might mean that we encounter an American-style 'gridlock':wherein there are so many factions and political machinations battling it out over the piece of legislation that it never gets any traction in the House; basically meaning that it grinds to a halt - like traffic. Hence gridlock. This would only happen if the individuals' egos were too vast to be contained by anything so pathetic as 'the good of the country'. So, yeah, this'll probably happen. Bad news for journalists on the British equivalent of The Hill (would that be like... a bridge or something?)

The Liberal Democrats

What they are not: a liberal party.

What they are: the most liberal party in Britain (well, that has views acceptable within any form of mainstream society. The Monster-raving-loonies have some good things to say on human rights, but have patently ludicrous ideas about slavery. Or is that the Standing-at-the-back-dressed-stupidly-and-looking-stupid-party?)

What they mean for Britain: very little. The chances of the Lib Dems being elected, with a majority, in my lifetime, are so immeasurably tiny that you'd genuinely have to like... get down on your knees with a big telescope or something to see them. If you slice an atom in half, and then put that through a surrealism-blender and then shit out the contents, then sift through your own excrement. Then you'll find the chances. You'll also have a good chance to get a look at something I will discuss later on (see: The Conservatives).

What they mean for Britain: probably loads. If the Lib Dems get any kind of representation in Parliament, it'll be a good day for civil liberties, the rights of the student, gay rights, etc. etc.. Think of anyone in a minority, or anyone who has been shafted, then make them happy -- there you have the bulk of the Lib Dems' wishy-washy policy manifesto. Alas, in reality their manifesto is almost interchangeable with the other two parties'. I will discuss problems with the two-party system later. It would be a good indication that the right-wing-radicalism of parties such as the BNP (British Nationalist Party) are actually cloistered in very specific, niche parts of the country. And not as we're all concerned about: that the fear of multi-culturalism has spread so wide that people are afraid of everyone.

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Lol, accidentally just closed this window. It saved a draft ♥♥♥ (thanks to anon. stranger for that).

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The Conservatives

What they are not: human.

What they are: piddling, elitist, remnant of when Britain had a visibly demarcated class-system; not one based on arbitrarily drawn-up poverty statistics.

What they mean for Britain: astonishingly little. Whilst the chances of them winning a huge slice of the seats is high, they probably won't win enough to form a majority government. Even if they did, their similarities to Labour are numerous: aside from the EU, it would merely be a new face left ruining the fucked place. Whilst Cameron (David) is an enigmatic, charismatic leader - and thus entirely different to Mr. Brown (nominative determinism, google it) - he's also an oleaginous creep, devoid of human emotion. Like a slick android beamed down by some sadomasochistic future-planet, emptily shaking hands with dignitaries and bemoaning the state of Britain under Labour are his only tools for betterment. One day we will have a visitation from the sick brainchild behind him, and that will be the day we realise that all politicians are in fact cast in a mould somewhere thousands of miles away - and it's not until the journey that they lose all sense of dignity.

What they mean for Britain: less EU. More elitism. Less taxes for rich-os. Blathering rubbish about the NHS, schooling, etc.. More grammar schools. Less governmental intrusion. Small government. Think of them as the Republicans. But with less guns. And slightly more brains.

Labour

What they are not: useful, a form of work, good at anything.

What they are: responsible for overseeing the death of a country which could have been salvaged. Just to list a few things they (could) be blamed for (viably, and fairly): allegedly colluding with other first-world nations in the incarceration and torture of detainees who had not been formally tried for any crime; overseeing the worst record of social-service success (like children who were tortured near to death in a place where the government had already stepped in to oversee the local social services. Incidentally, the kids who did it were known to at least 6 different agencies which represented child welfare at the time); overseeing the biggest economic slump in living history (or since like... miners or something); having the least pleasing faces in politics; politiking the life out of the legislative system; taking us on an illegitimate crusade in the middle-east, to the cost of thousands of lives of British soldiers and innocent civilians in the respective territories, and bringing back the harbinger of doom: Mr. Mandelson.

What they mean for Britain: fuck all. No possibility of them retaining the incumbency into next year.

What they mean for Britain: years more of a failing NHS, years more of failing schools, more horrendous legislation which seeks to deprive citizens of basic human rights (such as the right to privacy), years more scandal (such as cash for peers, MPs-for-hire, MPs'-claims fiascos), and years more of allowing Britain to fester in the cesspool of International ignominy and ridicule. If it were allowed, and foreseeable, we would soon be lampooned worldwide for being a laughable demonstration of a pretence of democracy. In their short - relative - tenure the Labour party has alienated every one and their sister: forcing through laws devoid of promised referendum, putting us at the forefront of illegitimate wars, etc.. With Labour there will never be electoral reform, proper gay rights, codification of civil liberties inherent within a working democratic society &c..

The BNP

What they are not: good.

What they are: right-wing-pseudo-fascists.

What they mean for Britain: I am too scared to imagine.

What they mean for Britain: no seriously I am petrified.

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Interim honourable mention for the only politician I can think of off the top of my head whom I respect: Chris Huhne. Stand-up gentlemen who should be in charge of the country. Logistically flawed, but wonderfully idealistic. Reminds me of the banner behind President Bartlett (The West Wing, Season 1): "Realistic Idealism". That'd be great.

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Two-party/tier system

What it is not: a wonderful night out involving more than one social gathering.

What it is: flawed version of election in which no one really gets what they deserve, and anyone can win even without winning the majority of the votes. See: American system of election.

What it means: fuck all. Should be done away with. Electoral reform will never happen with Labour incumbent, because it would mean the end of them. Good. Riddance. Etc.. Very loose version of democratic election. Should be called a republic. Silly. Anyway.

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No more to say. Thank god for you, eh!?

Dracula! He's in Parliament. Oh. Sorry. It's Mandelson.

Here are some criteria:

• British;
• Has the internet (... axiom);
• Likes anything classified 'entertaining';
• Fun-loving.

If you're those things (except the last, you don't have to be fun-loving: you can be morbid-loving, or tedium-loving, or un-loving, or gun-loving - I honestly don't care) then you should be doing one of the following:

• Cowering shakily in the corner;
• Angrily breaking plates;
• Quaking in your proverbial boots;
• Paddling up a stream made of human faeces, in a boat made of your own tongue - which is still attached to your body; being roughly buttfucked by a suit of armour dressed as Henry VIII;
• Gently fisting a baby.

If you're not one of those things, then you're probably just like everyone else in this piddling little rain-soaked streak-of-piss excuse for a country (unless you are doing the last one, in which case you can go and get your hedonism on at one of our local overflowing prisons: booty-lube recommended, but in no way mandated).

Yes, just like the rest of you, I was woefully uninformed about this Digital Economy Bill which is just about to be shunted into our legislative collective you-there-fuck-you-in-the-head - lead by Prison Warden extraordinaire himself: Peter fuck-the-individual Mandelson. It has been put about as Britain's attempt to keep alongside the age of the booming digital world; but the masquerade of illusion has been swept aside by the winds of reality: irony herself has descended into the world and proclaimed that this bill be 'absolutely fucking stupid, 'cause it's all hating on us'. Yes, the Digital Economy Bill [Protecting YOU, the online consumer] has been wholly roundhoused by anyone and everyone who has ever googled something in their life.

What I propose to do, because I haven't yet managed to make any kind of salient point, is to put a few of the things it proposes to do into plain-speak, and then thoroughly debunk them for the wanton privacy invasion that they all are. So, because this has gotten me so unbelievably irate, please get comfortable - and if you're not British then I apologise, but frankly I don't care because you've got it so much better than we have already (unless you're like... third-world shit or something, do those guys have the internet? Whatever) so I shit on your non-British chest. Now you know how it feels to be a Brit under Labour. Not figuratively. Chest-collective-hierarchical-dumping by people with titles more impressive than their political aspirations and achievements.

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Now would be a good place to point out two things that I am doing which you might be unaware of: I am mimicking two elements of the 'bill' itself. My randomly assorted jumble of thoughts - shapeless and confusing - are meant to be a perfect mirror of the 'bill''s assembly, and the ridiculous hyperbole in the title is meant to be a reaction to the ludicrously convoluted title that the 'bill' itself has. In case you're wondering what that title is then I am afraid you'll have to hunt around for it yourself. I read it this morning somewhere but I was laughing so hard at how inanely stupid it was that I can't recall where it was. Rest assured that it was mind-blowingly retarded. As for the formation and construction of the bill: it cannot be read chronologically or logically, because each section is in fact a referral to a previous piece of legislation. Thus, without a handy guide which slices old legislation down to a sentence - and then contrasts it with the new legislation - you are going to be absolutely buggered if you want to understand this 'law' in any way, shape, or form. It would be wrong of me to suggest that such political manoeuvring was clandestine in any sense, but it's a sad fucking indictment of British legislative wrangling if we have to make law so fucking hard to understand that it can't be followed, let alone enforced.

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Before I start there was one other thing: please forgive me if I've gotten any of this wrong. The thing is so fucking hard to understand, and it's so incredibly long and harrowing, that I may have misinferred certain bits of information. As far as I am aware, this is not the case. Though this knowledge will not, of course, prevent me going wildly over the top and employing hyperbole with a shovel, until you can't see for all the mindless, angsty rhetoric I'm spewing all over your face.

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1. 'Peter Mandelson' made Commander-in-Chief of your thoughts.

I feel it necessary to explain why it is that I've hung him in inverted commas. I'm not like that crazy lady from Sturdy Wings in Role Models, who suggests that Paul Rudd and that chiselled guy aren't actually in the room by misplacing inverted commas around the word here. No, what I'm attempting to suggest - rather amusingly I think you'll agree - is that by not placing his name in inverted commas, I would be investing him with a scrap of humanity. It is a common, inherent right of any citizen of this world to be known as human. Unfortunately, rights are not irrevocable. Just because all peoples of the world deserve recognition as sapient beings does not mean I am doing a gross human-rights injustice: no, I believe that Mandelson is in fact a small primordial animal which has coagulated from the ooze of times long past, and is thus free from the confines of UN sanctions on human rights. I can roundly abuse him as hard as I like. It would also thus be incredibly hard to defame him: lowering absolute zero is a task deemed impossible. And logically so.

This legislation basically grants Lordy-Loo the right to amend any previous legislation without due process through the normal ratifying, legislative bodies of our democratic Parliamentary system. It doesn't mean he can bypass everything and just do whatever the hell he likes, but it does set a dangerous precedent for what can and can't be considered law. Naturally, however, you will have seen me argue loudly against the use of the 'snowball fallacy'. Unfortunately, what we are seeing is that it is not in fact a fallacy. It's a reality. A horrible, crusty, leering, peer-in-through-your-windows, watch-you-where-you-walk reality. One which sneaks up behind you in the night and nicks your purse and pisses on your leg. It's a fucking reality people.

We are being downtrodden by a government which allegedly colluded with the perpetration, orchestration, organisation, and facilitation of torture and gross breaches of civil and human rights. We are being molested by a government which stands idly by whilst denizens of Earth are rounded up, shipped off internationally, and then stripped of their rights, before being flogged and tortured over alleged crimes they may or may not have committed. Now we're being sold new legislation which takes any sense of individualism away from you: you yourself are locked in an internal-gaol, beneath and behind - always behind - the government. They will invade your privacy, and lock you up for it.

2. You thought baseball was just a stupid sport that Americans played? Hahaha. You're a moron. Emigrate to Britain. Don't worry about a passport: I don't think we check those.

'Three strikes: you're outta here'. Yes. If you are believed to have violated copyright three times then your ISP might be forced to revoke your internet usage. It will also be mandated to hand over your details to some preening governmental prick who fucks himself silly over the mention of filesharing. I hope to God you don't ever accidentally click on youtube. Or use Google. Or go outside. Or breathe. Or take a quote from this blog and shove it on your wall: I will sue you, and I will have the force of the government behind me. Between us we are a force to be reckoned with: one - a glamorous twenty-something conversationalist - the other - a throbbing cauldron of idiocy. Beware us.

3. Increased fines for copyright infringement.

I have very little to say about this one because it's so laughably stupid. What the fuck kind of deterrent is that; you under-educated collection of buffoons? You genuinely believe that imposing higher fines on copyright-dodgers is going to prevent anything whatsoever? To steal from Aaron Sorkin - fuck I hope he doesn't mind, ah well (he's not British) - that's like bringing back the death penalty for drug kingpins: they live with the constant fear of death anyway. People who steal shit off the internet live with the knowledge that they might face imprisonment and unlimited fines. Jacking up the fine to 50k will not deter anyone, because the kind of person forced to steal shit anyway - because of ridiculous over-market value mark-up - is not the kind of person who can afford any kind of fine. People need this stuff for free because they can't afford it: let's fine them. It's like fining a transient for begging. Patently idiotic. Who the shit is advising them on this stuff?

4. Mandelson allowed to appoint a 'General' to investigate shit.

I didn't even bother attempting to understand what the dick this one was talking about. By this point the only thing keeping me from hanging myself with my dressing-gown was the knowledge that one day I'd be free of this fucking lunacy. I'm sorry if this doesn't clarify anything, the very fact that I've been forced to use the word 'General' should probably indicate that this section doesn't deserve any attention whatsoever. Albeit probably full of references to people stealing your liberties. Then again you could look anywhere in the 'bill' for that kind of inference and allusion. Honest to god: general. I know people are fucking morons anyway, but that kind of language is ridiculous. It's like this awful thing I was transcribing today which said:

"Members of the public are calling for a public enquiry..."

They're unlikely to be calling for a fucking private one, aren't they!?

5. OFCOM (to be explained) given new oversight functions.

Just to contextualise: OFCOM is the scrutiny body in charge of ensuring schools work well, as well as checking up on a whole host of other things - like social services and LSCBs, etc.. In case you're missing the hilarity here: we're giving a new responsibility to an agency which has so far overseen at least seven horrendous, preventable, predictable atrocities perpetrated by British citizens on British children under the purview of social care. Yes. We're giving them new shit to look for. It's no wonder they're getting a bit fucking confused: they've got twenty-five amalgamated responsibilities which seemingly bear no logical relation to each other. They're trying to juggle all this shit whilst being rogered painfully by Mandelson et al. and they have my sympathies. No wonder our schools are failing.

6. Channel 4 must do more for the world.

Yes. Channel 4. You must do more for the world. We let you on the air you know. Don't worry about Channel 5 blithely getting away with its mandated 'news' content by shoving up some human detritus on the screen, and flashing colours at you for an hour. That's not news, but we don't care: it's only mandated by us. Don't worry about the BBC steadily becoming a partisan organisation which propagates only liberal views. Oh and don't worry about the awesomeness that is overspending by the BEEB. With your money. Fuck that. Don't worry about the death of Six Music: the only decent radio station in the shitting country. Never fear. Channel 4 will soon be obliged to produce some benevolent programming. Wait. They're already meant to do that? So this is effectively pointless reinstatement of previous legislation dressed up as governmental intervention in a medium gone wrong? Oh I see. Well, a channel 4 in sheep's clothing... Or however that phrase goes. I think that's a malapropism.

7. Café owners: please form an orderly queue for a round buttfucking.

Yes. Wi-fi is to be limited so people can't let others use their connections. We wouldn't want that. We wouldn't want the possibility of the people below the poverty line - bereft of this medium for communication - ever getting their hands on some tasty bandwidth. That's ours you know. Yes, yes, doesn't this legislation sit wonderfully next to our promise to get high-speed broadband into almost every home? Aren't we wonderful. Oh I farted. Smell it. Aren't I get? No. You're a fucking moron and you're shitting all over us. What if you own a small little independent business? What if you're fucking biggest pull is the fact that you offer free wi-fi to your customers if they buy a drink? What if that closes your establishment? Frankly we don't give a shit. We're too busy wildly fellating the banking industry for garrotting us all on their own petard. Fucking cunts.

8. Digital Radio is the future.

It's not.

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Don't worry. I have little left to say. A closing thing to add, however: it's a misinformed placement of blame. The government is saying that it is your responsibility to not download -- whereas reason would tell us that it is in fact the providers whose responsibility it is to prevent there being a platform under which a user might transgress the legally accepted norms. That's a fucking dick move with no basis in emotion or rationality.

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I said to a friend: "I genuinely believe I would take my own life if someone told me I had to live in this country for the rest of my (inevitably)short life. It's the final nail in the coffin for this godforsaken shithole."

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Goodbye, Britain, it's been a fucking travesty knowing you. And fuck you, Labour, you belligerent high-minded cretinous band of elitist fucking jackasses. Go fuck yourself you cunts.

Oh, and for a fucking uproarious time jot down this sentence which precedes the entirety of the 'bill'.Carry it around with you for as long as you dare, looking at it furtively whenever you get a chance. I guarantee you won't last a day before you kill yourself for the sake of irony, or die laughing.

(See above post). ------------------

Anthropologically challenged.

I swear I used to have some body hair.

Sigh.

Why must I always do anything so that I can turn round and say "You dared me. I did it."? Sigh. Oh well. It's kinda fun.

The waiting game.

= Blue hair.

A silhouette.

Who really needs the past,
With the allure of something new?
So we split apart at last,
Went back to places that I knew...
Before you.

Oralol.

Lol.

'"I had come to the end of my Time... My Shaddowe stretched over the World.": Making Time for Gothic Space.'

The idea behind my dissertation is that I aim to exemplify why the much maligned, and ignored, concept of space as actually more important than that of time. Clasically, and particularly in the Gothic, it is the time - be it physical or implied - which is fore fronted in the criticisms. Psychoanalysts, literary reviews, criticisms, etc., each place the onus of importance on the linear, or even delineated, movement of time. Much as a determinist will argue that unseen causal laws undermine, create, and propagate each and every action; here I will argue that unseen, unconsciously recognised elements of space create the conduit through which time can pass. By analysing texts from drastically different periods - but ones with undisputed literary importance - I aim to show that whilst the progression of time remains stoic, the arena in which the action takes place - and thus the arena in which time passes - changes. This dissertation hopes to follow on from the 'Gothic' unit studied in Semester 1 of Year 2.

I will approach my aims through several different ways. First, it seems logical to argue that space can effect action and time - as without this my assumptions would be axiomatically flawed. I will analyse this suggestion by looking at the studies of 'psychogeography' - a rationale born from the late 'situationist' movement of the 1970's. I will go on to argue the case for free-will compatibility with psychogeography in literary novels. I will then conclude whether or not the basis of cause and effect has changed over the development of the Gothic genre.

Though my critical studies are far from linear - or systematic - owing to the chronological deficits, my primary comparative study will be simplified and done chronologically. The first text being early, the second late, and the third slightly later. It will be a comparative study, facilitated conveniently by the Gothic tendency of employing identifiable tropes and traditions. As archetypal devices are used, a straight comparison is feasible and logical. Although it sounds simplistic, the danger is that whilst the hypothetical looks cohesive, the reality may not be so. Further on from this is the nature of the research: the subject matter can sometimes be inordinately complex to someone not well-read in the field, and thus making the project accessible - whilst still comprehensive - will be the greatest danger I will face. There needs to be a balance between elucidating the key concepts for the uninitiated, and still helping to further literary criticism.

--Feedback from presentation--

Owing to the nature of my study it is self-evident that I should discuss novels of great literary importance within the genre, and ones from different time periods. With that in mind, the first primary text I am going to look at is 'The Castle of Otranto', by Horace Walpole. This text is often considered the 'first' Gothic novel, and is thus demonstrable as the benchmark for the literary characteristics and nuances pursuant in the authorship of the genre at large. It is geographically significant because of the usage of landscape - and what now are considered 'classical' settings: the castle, the forest, the dungeons, the wide expanses of rural, untamed wilderness. This text has been deconstructed repeatedly, but it is of vital importance when considering questions of space and time across the genre. The Castle of Otranto should provide fertile ground for contextualising the issues at hand - and it follows that my first analytical chapter will focus on the salient issues raised in the reading of this novel. It is important, however, to avoid cliché and needless rhetoric, because of the endless supply of literary criticisms which surround this novel. Having this knowledge, however, enables me to use it as a justification, rather than a demonstration - and that thus means that as a comparative piece it is invaluable.

To contrast the sparse rurality of Otranto, I will look at Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor. The reasoning behind this being twofold: it is a novel where time is delineated; set in an overlapping narrative between the 18th Century, and modern-times, and because Ackroyd himself can be argued to be a proponent of geographical and classical determinism. The title of my dissertation is a quote from Hawksmoor, and it exemplifies the themes that the work is going to focus on. In the novel, for instance, the protagonists' lives become intertwined, and Ackroyd argues that time is cyclical, and thus all action is pre-fated. Although the novel is thus one about fatalism, it explores themes of urban space, and the importance of transient geography as a signifier and creator of behaviour. It is also useful because if time is cyclical, then elements of this novel logically must be taken from Walpole's Castle of Otranto. This kind of intertextuality is another theme which will be necessary to explore during the course of my discussion. Hawksmoor centres on the internalised recognition of societal, and physical, boundaries: the eponymous Hawksmoor attempts to solve a series of murders galvanized, and theoretically perpetrated three-hundred years previously. In an allegory for my own research, he investigates by allowing time to outpace him, and simply focusing on how he interacts with the space - as the fatalistic 'Time' draws him inexorably to the answer he cannot avoid. Though it seems pernicious to use a novel which focuses so heavily on the importance of time, it is fact only doing so in a superficial way. Hawksmoor acknowledges the universal presence of natural, intractable laws of causation, and this enables him to systematically ignore them. He instead concentrates on physicality - and this focus will help my research progress.

In much the same way as Hawksmoor's actions are set out for him, so is my third primary text. Ian Sinclair's Lud Heat, is considered by all - including being openly acknowledged by Ackroyd in his novel's dedication - to be the premise, and basis for Hawksmoor. It is a disjointed poem which focuses on the construction of satanic churches: a theme mirrored strongly in Ackroyd's novel. The problem is, however, that the conceit is so fragmented that is becomes incredibly hard to access. The poem switches perspective, and concentrates on the physical. Whilst it may not be as helpful as the other two primary texts, it is imperative that I analyse it, and do not undervalue its importance. Because of the complexity, however, I am going to twin this work with another of Sinclair's novels: White Starling something dying.

The supervisor I am hoping to work with on my dissertation is Christopher Pittard, who is a published proponent of psychogeography and a lecturer of the 'Gothic' unit in year two. It was his recommendations which enabled me to find the texts I needed.

God got it wrong.

Perception is more important than reality. Go figure.

What makes silence so utterly captivating? Like watching a car-crash, we stand mesmerised, aghast, but mawkishly glued to the unfolding endless nothingness. Silence ensnares the senses it fails to effect. It's a juxtaposition within itself; its existence negates its ability to exist. With silence you have nothing, but without silence you have nothing. Silence is surely then everything? Did Nietzsche not argue that what was unsaid was more important than what was said? Does silence not act as a parameter, a boundary, a mark, a signifier? Does it not hint at what remains below the surface, rippling across the subconscious of our conversations? We extrapolate, seek meaning, and endlessly interpret silence: we confess a thousand sins, commit a thousand lies, perpetrate a thousand tears. We will strive our very hardest to avoid silence, even though silence is more important than anything we will ever say, see, hear, or feel.

Silence truly is everything.

FUCK YEAH.

I'M GOING TO TORONTO, BITCHES.

Dissertation.

Possible, if not probable dissertation title:

'"I had run to the end of my Time... my Shaddowe stretched over the World.": Making time for Gothic space.'

Taken from the quote:

"I had run to the end of my Time and I was at Peace. I knelt down in front of the Light, and my Shaddowe stretched over the World."

This is in turn taken from the book Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd - whom attributes the premise to Iain Sinclair's masterpiece Lud Heat. I strongly recommend you read both, and acknowledge the hilarity of my dissertation-title-pun.