We'd Like to Talk about Ourselves

It was a long time ago. We

Well, we

We

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to say, but wasn’t that fun! I’m sure there was a serious point somewhere before that happened! We’ve been seriously busy, haven’t we? It’s still in fashion? It was fashionable about a month ago. Most of the peer pressure haven’t updated their blog since, so.. going out on a limb here but probably if I talk about what’s kept me busy it’ll look ok.
OK. I wasn’t really that busy unless you count Curly D. I follow Curly D around. She is very good, I don’t mean “walk on water” kind of good. Because she says it would be too close to blasphemy, so she runs instead.



Curly D has a lot to learn about control. I never seriously tried to teach her. It just didn’t feel right. Not like with Cauliflower, my brother. I showed him the breathing exercises: how to breath just the right way, then gulp and then belch. Eventually Cauliflower even surpassed the dream. We both knew the theory and I could push it out the other end as a fart, I showed him that, but I’d never actually managed what I knew, just knew must therefore be possible. The in-between bit. The intentional tummy rumbles. I couldn’t hold it, then churn it around in the middle. But he could.

Curly D wanted to burp. We were in a hotel bar in Dublin and she felt a little windy. “The trick is”, I told her, “to take a mouthful of air and gulp it down.”
“Of course, there’s a fine line to be met between achieving the burp and getting hiccups.”
“Hic”
Tried to show her how to stop but knew it was a lost cause. She just didn’t have that level of control. She didn’t hiccup for very long though.

Which reminds me, I was busy with work and it seemed it would save time if a program did the analysis for me because I had to go to Zurich for the first time in ages and talk about stuff I didn’t have time to look at before going to Zurich for the first time in ages. The trouble was I had to write the program and the world cup was being watched by me at the same time. Probably lots of bugs scuttled in while I had my eye on the match, but I do mean to finish it sometime. Kept wondering what would be the best way to watch it. I mean, write it. Haven’t got back to it because I’ve been busy trying to make myself shallow with the excuse of being healthy so I don’t have a heart attack when I’m older.

To retain some depth of character, I’ve been reading a classic but it turned out to be a comedy so I’m not entirely sure it’s helping. Catch-22 it’s called. Heller is a great writer. He reminds me of something Babette something sometimes but he’s not quite as good. It pleases me, this, because being a writer seems somehow more attainable. Not being as good at writing as someone doesn’t mean I can’t be a writer because someone else who is better than me at writing is an actual writer but isn’t as good as the other someone who isn’t a writer. So maybe it’s just a case of being good enough. But there’s a catch; Catch-2: Me not being good enough anyway. That’s some catch, that catch-2. Babette could be a writer but she needs to go to war first to have something to write about. War would also solve unemployment issues.

Being good enough would be easier if I wrote more but even easier again if I read more. But then being a good friend would be easier if I spent less time reading and more time exercising. No, not exercising, that’s so I can be a friend over a longer period, more time with friends I mean. But then I wouldn’t have anything to talk about and by that token no friends, unless I watch the world-cup. But television costs money so I have to work. But work is busy. Work would be less busy if I wrote a program to do it for me. Then I’d have more time for music.

A Guatamalan from Mexico came to Dublin and told me that because I’m Sagittarius I might have a tendency to shoot arrows in too many directions. But he’s wrong. I just don’t have enough arrows and he just doesn’t have enough targets to appreciate this. And too much knowledge of astrology and not enough of the Bible to form a convincing argument.

Out came a bunch of office workers to a rousing cheer. Picture a man in plain smart dress beginning to talk BUT AS he goes ON you reaLISE… he. is. talkinginawaythat rhyyymes. And if everyone talked in this way the world would be SO MUCH BETTER, So Much fullofstyle.. (and bad grammar). And as he gets on with saying hello to the audience a song starts, and I’m not sure how or when, and he seems to be introducing the band, Franz Ferdinand.

But their songs held more than great timing, a beat to dance to and good voice emphasis. Their songs generally contained repetition of single pieces of a melody before they moved on to the next part of the melody coinciding with change in beat, instilling a wonderful sense of adventure, adventure perfectly reflected in the singers eyes, staring off into the distance, one arm outstretched, fingers splayed to control the tremors of music emanating from deep within his soul, body twitching to the resultant beat. Brilliant. Plus they are Scottish. They have cool accents.

Now, since you've been such good readers, I've gone and drawn you an actual picture. Don't be givin out about me leavin me camera in the car now. Or I'll bate ya.

And then Saturday was over (It was now Sunday)

It had been hard to decide whether to sleep in our wet, bet down tent or go to our car. Thankfully though, we were spared this very difficult dilemma by the presence of Curly Dee’s brother in our tent for a second night.

And we saw that it was bad. And yet, we slept in that car until half three on Sunday afternoon,



which meant we were rushing to get to the Kooks on time, the second day.

But I forgot my camera again, so...

to be continued

A Tale from Two Thousand and Six

On the Friday Eve of the two day music festival known as Oxegen, Jimlad and Curly Dee were fashionably prepared: 2 tinned rice puddings, 2 tinned scotch broths, 2 tinned stews, 3 tinned beans, 2 tinned curries, lots of parboiled rice, 1 jar coffee (fair-trade), camping pots, 2 plastic mugs, 2 plastic plates, 4 packets of crisps, 3.5 large packets of peanuts, 1 large packet of cashew nuts, 1 packet of pistachio nuts, 6 small packets of popcorn, 1 large packet of marshmallows, 2 packets of biscuits, 1 jar chocolate spread, 1 jar peanut butter, sleeping bags, airbed, torch with siren and flashy lights in case of emergency, torch, mini torch, 12 plastic bottles of cheap beer (no glass allowed), 6 cans of beer, 8 cans of stout, a little water, a bag of light clothes, coats for the rain, toiletry, tent already set up by Curly Dee’s brother, tickets 4 miles down the road, all done by 00:30. Perfect. Except, ah yes, 0 camping stoves, 0 bread and obviously, 0 cop-on. So we drove and got the tickets and drove to Punchestown with most of our food rendered almost useless, hoping that we could survive on peanuts and beer. If not, cold tinned Lidl stew would taste good to a pair of starved cadavers. Anything would taste good when you were starved, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t? Eugh. Thankfully it didn’t get to that, but I’ll never be able to look a peanut in the face again. Mind you, I could never look them in the face before, since obviously they don’t have a face for me to look them in. I did bring myself to eat some of the food they sold at the event, and survived. €7.50 was only a small part of the price I paid for daring to try that tiny pasty tray of “pasta carbonara” they sold at one of the stalls. I won’t do that again.

We got to our destination at 3:00am in the morning to be told that actually, we couldn’t get in without the car parking permit that they sold at the Ticketmasters stall, which was shut, so we would have to go home and come back tomorrow morning. But the guard on duty let us in anyway, being an understanding sort of man. As soon as we parked the car we knew it was going to be a weekend to remember. The loud conversation of passers by appeared to be an attempt to say the stupidest things that came to “mind”. I have observed this sociological behaviour before, but on a much smaller scale. It was amazing to watch this time. You see, there were so many drunk people that everyone had a chance to realise, subconsciously, that the drunk people seemed to do stupid things and get laughed at, and then PRAISED for bringing happiness to so many, and then everyone would say of the very drunkest, who always seems to be called Cooney, “Cooney’s a legend” and everyone decides, “Cooney’s a Hero”. And deep down, everybody wants to be a hero, so even in the improbable event that one isn’t drunk one does exactly the sort of stupid thing Cooney only does because he’s too drunk to do anything else. But one can’t quite measure up to Cooney’s actions so maybe a little more drink will help, and soon everybody is drunk except for the snobbish aloof observers, and me and Curly Dee. Does anyone know, is Cooney a second name or just a nickname that people give to some guy from some place of whom the only predictable thing is that they will consume large amounts of alcohol? Is there a Cooney family somewhere that carefully breeds these legends?

The first thing that happened when I got out of the car was a young fellow (Not Cooney. HE was fighting someone with his jumper somewhere in one of the campsites over a personal dispute. The dispute was personal only to Cooney. The other guy didn’t have a clue why he was being attacked other than that it was Cooney. What a Hero. There were probably more Cooneys out there. Maybe they knew the reason.) who detached himself from the crowd and, drawn to my philosophical aura couldn’t help but ask me that ageless question, “Have you got any boppers”. Of course the answer changes with context but in this universe the answer happened to be, “No.” at that time. Curly Dee then entered into the mood of things with another question,
“Do you know where campsite A is?”
This provoked a thoughtful pause, and Curly Dee offered a little more information,
“I think it’s near the main stage”.
There followed a few hesitant starts to sentences until the proper form of words was found, and then,
“I don’t know, but I’D imagine that the main stage is the one with the most lights, so if you head towards the place with the most lights you should find your way. And, I don’t know about you, but I’d say…” the finger wandered vaguely for a few seconds before resting decisively on one brightly lit area (which later turned out to be exactly where the main stage was, proving the cognitive ability of our newfound companion) “it’s over there”.


Having successfully answered our question, it was our companion’s turn. “Where are my f***ing friends gone? Have you seen my friends?” We hadn’t seen them and couldn’t answer the former question, but since he had asked two in a row the game of philosophy was ruined. Had we lost? Should we continue? Besides, he hadn’t answered our true question. Where was our campsite? But where were his friends? Seeing that we were useless to each other, we parted company.

Eventually we discovered that the campsite was half an hour away and headed there with some of our beer and popcorn. We walked through the mass of tents to reach our own, almost missing it because of its easily overlooked nature. We then discovered that Curly Dee’s brother had spilled beer inside our tent, which looked a little bet down, but we fixed it up and put our airbed inside. Unfortunately it turned out that the airbed had two holes and only one stopper so it became a mat. That was ok. The main thing is that we could fit the bed into the tent, as it was easily overlooked in nature. Here is a picture to demonstrate this fact. See the tent on the left? That’s someone else’s. Our tent is the one with the red curly haired girl “in” it, laughing.



She’s laughing at this,



followed by this,




(just checking he's still alive)

Nobody seems to know this man. He was just walking through our area when he fell down, possibly on account of not being able to see. It had been noticed that his pupils were the size of pin-holes which would surely have made seeing a little difficult. Eventually some security guards came and took him away, having been alerted by some genuine humans (probably girls). We never saw him again. But anyway, the tent was supposed to be a two man tent but it turned out that three people fit in it. Curly Dee’s brother came in during the night for some reason, asking could he sleep in it. As I was asleep myself, (we had decided to come down on Friday to make the most of the weekend but since we arrived at our tent at about 4:00am after having about 4 hours sleep the night before (party) we were too tired for fun) my instinctive sarcasm rose up before my brain could tune in and said, “Sure, why not just cuddle up between me and Curly Dee (my wife) here”. So he did, being drunk of course. My sarcasm always gets me into trouble with drunk people. At least we knew him, unlike the people in his own tent who thought that they were sleeping beside him until daylight revealed someone else, a complete stranger who simply wandered off again in the morning to get lost in the vast crowd of tents.

Having had such a wonderful night’s sleep we just had to have more in the morning, and we missed all of the less interesting/unknown bands. The sky was like this:



And this is Curly Dee smiling to show how much FUN we are having:



But we plucked up the courage to brace the weather for the big bands. I was looking forward to taking these next photos. I remember reaching into my pocket in the satisfactory anticipation of getting a chance to use my latest toy, the digital camera, for something a little more momentous than worthless photos like those above. I knew these next photos would have value because I didn’t need to pay through the nose to see stupid people, but musical superstars were another story, a better story. My hand groped greedily for the shot I could show off to my friends, groped desperately. Changed pockets. Patted my coat, my trousers. Sent a signal up to my mind, waited. Waited. Waited, received a signal, check the car. The car, of course. Out of reach. Need legs. Tell mind we need legs. Mind sends a messenger down to legs. Legs turn body. Eyes! A message from eyes. It says: Can’t see stage. Mind calls a meeting between hands and eyes. A compromise is reached. We will get the camera tomorrow. Hands will produce an alternative for today’s concert, worth exactly what we have lost. A picture is worth exactly one thousand words so here you go. One thousand words each for every picture I wanted to show you.

Very good.

To be continued...

Hard Times

And so it has come to this. The recession. At first I didn't believe it was real, now I'm finding it stampeding into my home, turning over tables and throwing me out, homeless. Yes friends, the recession has brought about some changes and I am left with no choice but to give you the following announcement:

I can no longer afford to keep my home. I know, Google Blogger is supposed to be free but they never tell you about the extra costs involved, the electricity bills that rise every moment I spend writing here, expensive snacks that keep me happy enough to joke about life as I type, the drugs that inspire me. You call that free rent? You call that oh wait I just said that.

I'm going to live with my friend, well not so much a friend as a personality I can't get rid of, but he has given me my own little section on his site. With his impecible ability to annoy he has decided to very obnoxiously refer to my room as a category, like he has to categorise EVERYTHING, OMG. And by the way, G stands for goodness, or gosh, or anything but God, because I'm not even allowed to use certain phrases in every day use which he somehow manages to CATEGORISE as offensive. This is not good.

Here is his site: MR PERFECT. Please come and visit. You'll find I've already settled in. It isn't as high on the property market as here is, owing to the fact that he has lived there and not me up until now, but I'm hoping you'll bring the value up and we'll somehow beat the recession. You can visit me under the categories section on the right hand side, filed nicely between his archives and my address book. Click on "The Annals of Jimlad". Do not talk to him or click on any of the other categories. He will only piss you off.

What mighty exploits do we see here recorded?

For the past five months, it has been my task to sit down and stare straight ahead, keeping my body still save for my tiny, perturbing fingers. The occasional twitch of the mouth is acceptable, lolling the head merrily from side to side less so and singing random hymns is frowned upon (yet another example of discrimination against the church).

Speaking of this, seeing that all was well amidst the brethren of one sacred society and that it was difficult for me to do more than supervise the unfolding of their plans to conquer an area far far away, I decided to bring my particular talents to bear to a more needy group close by my current residence. Being a man of action, I acted on this decision some time ago and since then I have transformed the Sunday's of this church. It is unlikely that others may have thought to do what I have done, but even if they had none could have succeeded. I have filled a place on a seat for the past months with a bottom that no one else can perfectly emulate. I have added a new voice to their music and specifically - it is my voice that has been added. I see the organist nodding to himself appreciatively as his ear singles my voice out from the masses. And how they thank me for my mere presence, marveling at my youth, prodding my eye-balls and nodding with smug satisfaction at the youthful rate of my reaction. "Ah, the passionate indignation of youth" they say.

And then there was the mighty battle with the corporation who sought to prevent me from visiting this virtual world that we know as the world, Wideweb. You may remember that I once disguised myself and infiltrated their dark tower for several months, leaving it a week or so before I found the ring and brought it on a journey to the Ottoman Empire (see Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium") with my now famous companion, Curly Dee, where I threw it into the sea from whence it came not, looking up to the heavens in satisfaction as I saw the Death Star explode in a haze of mixed metaphors. From my prior espionage I had escaped with some inside information that stood me in good stead, and yet it took a full quarter of a year (even with the aid of Curly Dee) before the way was opened for full communication to be possible with Wideweb. Even now some pamphlets have come into my possession that display an attempted theft which I must counter before I finally allow traffic through. I am currently allowing vocal communications only to pass through the portal as this involves too little information to allow even half-lives through or facilitate bandits. To my faithful followers: I will visit you more frequently when the gateway is fully operational.

Slim Jim, an evil legacy of, em, evil
From now on, when we meet in public you are to call me Slim Jim. Lo! I was in a holy place and I felt god speaking to me, saying "Go forth in my name", so I said, "what is your name that I may go forth in it?", but I couldn't really hear what god was saying; the wishy (or was it washy? maybe both) feeling of being in his presence was giving way to nausea as I strained desperately to hear, and I thought I'd better stop asking questions in case god was annoyed with me. I thought well, he's given me a brain so he's obviously telling me I need to use it. So I thought about other recent revelations until it came to me.

I joined a gym (note: GYM not jim! I'm jim and the gym was in) and they had to measure my blood pressure because I wanted to do weights because they didn't take as long as other exercise even if they are boring. So. They said I had high blood pressure which I thought was strange because I am young yet and not vastly overweight. Hmm, the plot thickens. So I went to the doctor and he took some blood and tasted it, and then measured my blood pressure with a 24 hour thing and said my blood pressure was OK and the high blood pressure from the original test was because I didn't like getting my blood pressure taken, which made my blood pressure rise - sort of a Heisenberg uncertainty effect going on there (according to someone). But then he stopped and frowned. He licked his lips and ran his tongue around his mouth. "Uh.. I think.." he said, and held onto the desk. He started shuddering, slowly at first, then quickly until he was positively vibrating! Positively vibrating, not negatively mind because then he would have died of course. Then he shook himself and relaxed, and finally shifted to face me. I will never forget that look - eyes sharp and piercing, expression serious as he uttered the words that would change my life forever. "I taste high cholesterol" he spoke.

It turns out that this is my parent's fault. My father, along with most of his family are hereditary. That's what the doctor said anyway, and it means they generate more cholesterol than necessary, and apparently my father did this to me too. This is not the first time he has sought to control me from afar. He had the cheek to lend me money when I needed it in order to become a master (see He-man and the Masters of the Universe), and now I must consider the best way to give it back. Oh he says not to worry about it, but I know it is all part of a sinister plot. I know. So now I have to avoid cheese and full fat milk which I used to have every day. Apart from that I was fairly healthy but I believed in cheeses. They were my life. No chocolate either. And I have to become really active. That is why I have to become Slim Jim, not out of choice, but out of duty to my family.

It could have been worse. I was afraid that I might be turning into a diabetic at one point. I don't know what that is, but I know what diabolical is. I think it is a diabolical robot. It sounds cool but I'm in a different school. I rule. You mule. ~Eat Gruel, fool! cos I'm into maths just like Boole!

Anyway, I am going to take my considerable talent and transform the Christian Music scene by writing music that is relevant and rhymes, and is natural and living. Taking my music I will start a new type of Presbyterianism, a break-away that will be known as the Organic Presbyterians. We will state our outrage that the Westminster Catechism requires no good Christian to eat organic food and save the earth for Jesus. That is to say, it doesn't mention organic food and it should as this is moral. What new dangers will lie in wait around this corner? You will have to wait and see. I have done so much already in my short life. Now I am going forth. Slim Jim at your service.

Disclaimer: BBC have asked me to say that they have nothing to do with any embellishment of the truth here. They say they don't even know me, before anyone starts to question them to make them publicly renounce their alleged words so please, please just leave them alone. They also want to make a public statement that the explosion of the death star was coincidental to the loss of any wedding rings or any epic journey to dispose of a similarly fashioned ring, which also had nothing to do with telecommunications companies. The labels used in this piece were obviously carefully chosen to imply great adventure where there was none and the person who wrote it all is a sad, lonely man who has minimal impact on even local affairs, save that he gives the impression (by playing with phonetics) that the church is a conspiratorial society, and this has resulted in a major, baseless turn in public opinion which may shape the church of coming years. Also, typing at a computer daily is not considered an amazingly difficult task. And he doesn't even practice the piano enough, and he isn't slim. That is all the BBC have to say. Good evening.

Anything!

Just leave your comment there.

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