2 conversations

the start of the day: a man stands on the metro platform next to me. he starts whistling loudly.

me: sounded like you were going to into 'hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy' there.
him: i've never heard it. my saddo older brother read that. he was always reading, instead of kicking a football around.
me: er.. really?
him: about 13 months older. 'course, (*sympathetically*), he lives on the other side of the pennines.. not much to do around there.

the tram arrived, i got into a different carriage.


the end of the day: everyone's packing up.
joanna, my colleague: got to run, i'm driving into manchester
me: oh, could i get a lift?
her: no, i don't think so. (exeunt)

that doesn't look as unreasonable on paper, but she did say it quite unpleasantly. the next few weeks are going to be fun, with a capital punishment.

huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh

i have to be at work in seven and a half hours. at work with those morons and that radio and steve penk. i will ask tomorrow to put a cd on, and try and fit it to their simple tastes. already, today, i have intuitively scared myself off from saying asnything 'too clever'. i'm only going back to make myself a stronger person. otherwise i would quit tomorrow.


aha! but wouldn't a strong person stand up for themselves, and say, no! i will not spend my working day in mental solitude from these ant brains! i will quit!? which is the strong approach? which is better for me in the long run? mmm.

on benefit

the next releases from gallow slutt software are planned as follows:

purple milk (grilly04cd)

1. purple milk (single version)
2. love (try to relax remix)
3. sex
4. fair trade whore
5. gold top (not yet recorded)


which will preceed:

on benefit: 8 songs of impotence and frustration for the long-term unemployed (grilly05cd)

1. the girl in the kid a top
2. the kinky friedman crime club (formerly 'quinlank')
3. fanthorpe
4. midweek cd purchase
5. forever (the berzerker)
6. klein bottle fish tank
7. purple milk (acoustic) (not yet recorded)
8. new boyfriend (not yet recorded)

that's how it looks now. the album needs a lot of re-recording before it's ready, and i'm very excited about the adventure recording 'new boyfreind', and frightened that it won't sound as good as it does in my head. it's really four songs stuck together so it shouldn't be too different, apart from sticking them together. i'm toying with th'idea of playing around with track marks and 'nested songs'. watch this space.

oh yeah, and i've remixed sex so i might put that up instead, but i can't decide which one's better. i might open it up to the forum.

it's good to be optimistic, because, bloody work. after working three days in a mark's and spencer's office doing griding data entry - taking print outs and entering the meaningless data back onto a different computer, or even deleting a series of data value by value and then entering it back into a different part of the same program, and yet still being pissed off finding out i won't be working any longer than three days - i did a 6 hour shift in carrington's in didsbury, and got thirty quid cash in hand. i felt like pissing on it. but give me thirty hours of that a week, i suppose it's not too bad. ceteris parabis, however, i'd rather be doing seven and a half hour days at seven and a half pounds an hour, and reciting 'your call is very important to us' by sparks to keep me sane (totally digging the cd, ed).

---

now. if someone rung me up, and i was in the bath, of course i'd say 'ooh, i'm just in the bath' without a second thought. but when (certain?) girls do it it's so difficulting. i can't help but imagine them naked, like when someone farts and you can't help but visualise their rippling sphincter. so why do i keep mentally rerunning the conversation to myself in my head? hmm. of course, if anyone said they were in the bath, i suppose i'd picture them naked. it can't be helped. but when certain people do it, i can't help but blush and turn very english indeed. oh, i say.

on a similar point, apparantly someone came into the offy recently with tourettes, and kept saying things like 'knickers', 'tits' and 'ooh matron'. it's great what people think is offensive. charming.

anyway i should be at home now. whoops.

the making of purple milk

last night i recorded 'purple milk (single version)' from scratch in about three hours, and it sounds awesome. i can't wait to mix, master and put it to up here for you to hear, it's a proper pop song and i'm very excited. it just happened so quickly - i spent weeks on 'love', and months on 'kid a top'. am i getting faster, or my arrangements/songs getting simpler? partly must be to do with the rebessica experiance - i wrote and recorded 'midweek cd purchase' and 'klein bottle fish tank' for a band, so i wasn't sticking down layers of studio introspection, of which there is none on 'purple milk', which is a two-riff song. kbft is a three riff song, mcdp is five. quinlank is three; fanthorpe doesn't work like that. la.
i do worry that it 'purple milk' sounds too much like part a of 'new boyfreind', which i will record next if all goes to plan. it's in the same time signature of 12/8 and has a similarly stompy chorus.

i saw an erotic film set in a bank the other day. it was called 'debit does balance'.

why are hollywood directors good at picking up drugs?
because martin scorscese!

---

the covers band demo tracks which i will email to the man:

superstition (wonder)

this town ain't big enough for the both of us (mael)

voice: pete
piano, clavier: jez/laz
guitars: grilly
the drums: ed
the bass guitar: thom

the worst bagel ever.

if this weekend just gone is remembered for anything, it'll be ixxy's bagels in euston station for monumentally fucking up my bagel for breakfast. how much is a plain bagel, i asked. 75p, they said. that's three pounds you'd be paying for filling. right, i'll have a sesame bagel. ixxy's had a time release bagel rack; you put them in at the top, and they are conveyed down to the bottom where they drop out toasted. oh yeah, i forgot, you cut them before you put them in. there were two asians working behind the counter, male and female, and the woman was clearly the newer, as the first bagel she dropped down it got stuck. after it was retrived, the second one went in. this one got stuck too, only this time, she couldn't get it out. the man hurriedly cut another bagel in two, but all askew, my heart sank as i could see that getting stuck as well.. but it didn't. it dropped through, pushing the other bagel out onto the counter, and both halves came with it. oh woe, i thought, as he brought out the butter, and smeared the clearly cold bagel all across it's middle. aside from the ash around the rim, it was completely uncooked. and yet i recieved it with all the grace becoming of a customer, and thanked him. and this is what the story is really about; why am i so passive? i should have laughed at him, like andyhead in venice at the ice cream seller with the deliberately limp-wristed curling skills. i should have done something about it. i wasn't in a hurry. i wish i could relive it and try again. so sad.

so that story's slightly fallacious, as the bagel is maybe the most forgettable incident. saturday, getting to london and meeting big gril in the city - nay, epi - center of london crowds, and thusm, commercialism, we went for a very nice japanese meal, of tofu teriyaki for me, which was bean sprout central and quite lovely, and a box of various things for dan. we met ed on sean connery's hand print, recorded for the 'league of extraordinary gentlemen' film, and went to chandos bar. and who was there but another durhamer called tom, who i instantly recognised but couldn't for the life of me place until he said how i knew him. it's possible that we watched the princess bride together, but that may have just been andy, the guy who got married in scandinavia, and myself and possibly jo? ah, i remember that evening; borrowing the video from jim - whatever happened to that whole crowd? the only one i have any sort of contact with is gareth, is sometimes online on msn, although we've not 'chatted' for ages -, bumping into andy and the others, andy saying, 'yeah but i've got to be up in the morning and etc.', and me resorting to the 'once in a lifetime' argument and winning. i had a quote from the spark on my bedroom door - something about christian's being more likely to spit on a person - which i had to explain in order to not seem completely outrageous to the jesus crew. ahem. oh god, where was i?

so there we were, ed, my brother and me, and we're not going to follow them into that gay club, not at that volume and not and that price - ok, £3 isn't much if i want to go in somewhere, but otherwise we can forget it. so the three of us continueud onto another sam smiths pub, charming with all the trappings of an olde pub, like bits of wall sticking out at shoulder height that you have to climb under to go to the toilet, and eventually, jez, pete, pete's mate (sorry i've forgotten your name) and even the kitchen sink, yes, cara flowers, who i've not seen since valerie on st. valentine's day last year (?). there was a hearty debate, inter-group bonding and breakages, and it was a swell night. went back to dan's and slept in his very cold living room - it was better after i moved onto the couch. i thought my sleeping bag would protect me..

on sunday, after remembering that i'd left my shoes at the front door because they, and now the carpet, were covered in poo, i left ealing with all my belongings and was at tottenham court road station by 10.00. no-one else was, or would be there for at least half an hour. i walked off down the street, stopped outside a closed megastore and asked two passing policemen where a cash point was, despite the fact that a lloys/tsb sign was visible from where we were standing (obviously i didn't realise this at the time, but i'd just been down the road where they said and there was nothing there, so i looked on. i had the best veggie sausage roll; i can't remember the shop, but there was one in bath when dan lived there. turning back and going down another road (charing cross?) i was surprised to find exactly the same shops as i'd just walked past, but in a slightly different order. if anyone tells you capitalism and globalistation are about choice, just point them round there, it was like a stuck looping cartoon background. eventually i found an independant cafe, but it was the pits and was supplied by star and j.j. fast food catering. at least there were hash browns. it was all i ate until falafel and chips at midnight; but more on that later.

i'm going to break a wierd taboo now - it's not even mentioned that it's taboo, it's so unspeakable -, and mention the band, because no-one else has. we got in and tried our best at 'this town...' and 'kate', which finally clicked for me on the train home. when the time ran out we fled across london to another studio, practiced practiced practiced, and recorded two cuts which maybe i'll be allowed to link to. i can't wait to hear them; they sounded terrible at the time, but i'm hoping that that'll have rusted away somewhat. then we went to 'east london's newest music venue', an original claim, as by music they mean smash hitz t.v. at full volume on two inescapable screens.

then i went off to see melt banana with matt and his spare ticket. 'i'm being good' were supporting, and didn't impress me much, but the banana were amazing. i've been waiting for this gig a long time, on both previous events they had sold out. i went giddy just before they came on when i realised they were finally touring 'cell scape', and they'd be playing all that crazy guitar/beat stuff - what that guy can do live with his hands and feet is incredible. on the record one wonders if it's just been messed up with protools but when he's making those noises in front of you, one must simply accept it. they remained nearly effortless for the whole performance, an hour including two encores, by the end of which, the singer's throat muscles were really starting to show, although her voice was still perfect. you think she's just cute, don't you, in her white hoody, with her little nippy voice (that's a reference to her noise, not her race), but blimey, she must do some working out - she is strong.

this morning something happened which has been waiting and building for a while - i bumped into russell preston. there i was with my shit bagel, sat on the floor, waiting for the platform to be announced, and suddenly there he was, coming over to me, and my jaw went slack. i just couldn't believe it, meeting someone i'd been so eager to re-establish contact with (i tried over friendster a while ago but didn't follow it throughand ended up looking too foolish to re-attempt). he's been in london a year. i chatted as long as i could, but trains won't wait.. maybe we'll meet up again soon..

i meant to record 'new boyfriend' tonight, but watched the first episode of the prisoner instead, which may set a worrying precedent. it's the first time i've seen it since tinyness, and do you, i think i prefer captain scarlet (at this stage). the audio mixing was terrible, background noise over one person's lines and then silence over the next! the acting was pretty crap too. very wierd camera work - generally quite bad, but with occaissional flashes and very short cuts that were quite maddening, in a good way. hmm. i'll try not to watch them all at once.

to cap things off, i've discovered that i have my own page on last fm - click the link in the side bar over there ->. then, download all my songs, install audioscrobbler, and listen to me for a while so that i get a fan. currently, 8 people recently listened to me. i'm one; who are the others? ah internet.
on a similar, and hopeful note, after looking at my profile i notice that big bruv dan 'big' gril is not only my friend, but also my musical neighbour. what tangled webs we weave!

why is breezy veruca footwear like a portrait of oliver cromwell?
because they're both wart sandal!

---

---

my last weekend in brighton was pretty much as good as any. it was fantastiic to bump into someone on on western road on friday night - it felt like the old days. it was even better that it was ed, a mate of boy robin's, and that he told us there was a house party at robin's pad, just like the old days, but without falling down the stairs .
i wonder whatever happend to that shirt?

something happened on monday too. i'm sure it was pretty nice.

it was my going away party again last tuesday night - i say again because going through my diaries i found a page of friends in durham, with two columns next to their names: 'seen' and 'said goodbye'. that was more of a rolling three day party as everyone graduated around me. this year, it was three quarters of our house (to be fair, i didn't tell thom, but then i thought the chances of him taking a day off work at two day's notice were so low it wasn't worth the effort). when the two people who had come by nine o'clock, astra and rachel (who brought the required nibbles), both left, it looked like that was it. when simon arrived at ten o'clock and was largely ignored in favor of some last minute file swapping (real men exchange files, not pleasantries) it looked like it was over. it was such a shame. the house looked swell, and my room, lit by fairy lights, candles and beautiful agony (which confused astra while she was upstairs on the 'phone) was the dream hang out. but at a last minute, the cavalry arrived - anna and robin and kate and joel so we went down stairs and the beer got drunk and the tunes got played and then 'his and hers' came on and the party ended, everyone left. i could feel it. there are times when i'm deejaying when i'm wilfully punishing my audiance, i'll admit, seguing into d.e.p.'s 'the mullet burden' before finishing with radiohead's 'fog' (or anything else), but that last night, i wanted people to stay as long as possible, and had to play to the crowd. fortunately, the crowd were friends with similar music taste, so simian, terris, tv ont'radio and pulp were quite well recieved, people bobbed along in their seats and joel said he felt like dancing (although he always does and it's a good job he didn't if it was going to involve him making the hole in the wall larger). people went, we went to bed.

on my last day in brighton, i packed. i cycled down on to the beach to watch the sun set with a pack of chips, and was mobbed by hungry seagulls, as if they were saying, 'go! go back to the north!' i mentally rode around all my haunts; the walmer castle, for pizza, guiness cocktails and beutiful songs by abi and astra; the house rach, robin and simon had, and how i would always linger too long in perfect comfort; queen's park, "...and sussex!" on may day; deep kemptown, where i saw low perform in a church with alex, near the hand in hand brew-pub; the concorde where i saw a so many excellent bands - the plan (twice), the luna, the duath, the markets, and so on; meeting john peel in the free butt (where i saw all the other really good bands)and thanking him for getting gorky's to play, but being to shy to give him a copy of dovedale joints, so jess had to do it; turning veggie and finding it so easy; the mystery of deep hove. but what really sticks in my mind from brighton is missed opportunity. i could have put a band together. i could have played at an open mic every night. we could have had a monthly dj slot in the penthouse. i could have got a better degree. i could have eaten at terre a terre. i could have gone to that gig that i didn't feel like. icould have made some of my own friends instead of leaching off alex. i could have had a university girlfriend. but maybe i couldn't! and i don't regret my time.

that last night we went out to departure lounge at the prince albert (ironically enough), but never made it, as we got distracted at robin, kate and jess's house with top trumps (see earlier post), although jess was still out and busy with mad brighton stuff. there was an excellent play somewhere near the middle: five is a good number to play with, and the more of a state people are in the more brains are needed to bolster the game (sorry if this sounds trite but it's difficult to think properly when the computer you're typing at has a two second lag between you typing the words and them appearing).
somehow, maradonna was played by robin. selecting the atribute, "famous people who sound like other famous people", she gave him an 8 (for obviously, maddonna). it was a tricky play, nearly unbeatable, but kate piped up with robin williams (for robbie williams). moving horizontally through game space, via the deck "people who were good when you were young and are still good", she went to tina turner, and played her "legs" for 9. lindfrodo christie almost had it, but i took the round with a flea. selecting the deck 'insects' after an interminable wait, i played a dung beetle, using it's "affection for poo". laurence won the round with g.g. allin; and so forth. robin donated several boxes and an amplifier to my cause, and both have already been hugely enjoyable, so thanks.
i went back to finish off packing, which happened at 4 o'clock. there was a lovely point where catherine came over and i had a reviving cup of tea, but eventually i had to spurn her to finish the job. 8 hours later my room was clean and empty of meaningful belongings (but full of unwanted furniture) and i was riding north with my father. it was a relaxed goodye to laurence; "i'd hug you but i've an erection and i'm only wearing tiny pants," i said, to which he replied, "that's ok, we'll do it next time." we don't need tears. it's better than that. but how far removed from that early meeting when he asked on leaving, "don't i get a hug?" tommy was in a very huggy mood, after sitting on his bed watching his screen saver while mitri and i packed up the car. even simona wanted a hug.

anyway, kolak crisps: lemon and chili flavour are delicious. not in a naff 'sensations' way, but in a tasty food way. they're made with all natural ingredients (according to the pack), are refreshingly thin, are only sold in easy news on trafalgar street, and as far as i can make out, haven't been picked up by snackspot. someone better review them quick!

and bloody heck, i know i shouldn't even mention it, but little britain is such trite! i don't understand how two previously talented people can make something so... rubbish; it's the only word, and yet be so wildly succesful. yes i only watched two scetches, but it was really painful.

oh yeah, and today, i was meant to sign on in manchester. so i go to a job centre in town, and after waiting for the lady to stop nattering to the man in the queue in front of me - who turned out to be merely an employee, and she looked somehow startled when she noticed me, even though i'd been standing there staring at her for a minute; but they don't do benefits, only adverts, so she directs me to the one in rusholme, from her list of other job centres "it's a very handy list this," she sayd to the man; "and who've youu got to thank for that?" he replied. the website he got it from, if you ask me, but if he wants to take the credit he can. well i tell you, never has a busride so short taken so long (hearing two students sat behind me continually refer to it as the 'curry mile' and never once as rusholme was interesting). off the bus, i walk down the less-than-great 'great western road' (huh, they should see the one they've got in brighton, and that one actually goes west not east) and find the job centre in question, which, as it turns out, has been closed to the public since april 2003. some fucking list.

scrobbling free

i kind of regret that 'sex' is slightly underbaked, but i just can't be bothered to polish that turd. yes, some variation in the drum loops or a break beat or two would be fun, but it was never a 'real song' anyway. maybe what i don't realise is that it could have been, if i'd have made the effort.

i never wanted to get into audio scrobbler; i never saw the point, i thought of it like another eVanity craze like myspace. but i've been suckered by the new iteration, last.fm, that promises you personalised radio, not based on tracks they play you, but on songs you listen to on your computer anyway. i've already tried to investigate one 'dj baku' who lots of people who like 'swarrrm' like - i'm guessing that genre hopping style will be quite prevelant (they're both japanese), unlike the whole more regimented 'so you like gorky's.. have you heard of belle and sebastien?' style that i'm more used to on the internet. this is data-mining done right (*polishes shot gun*).
here's my page, in case anyway wants to add me. unfortunately, my computer seems to have broken itself and won't handshake, and i can't find the options (because they're not there). also i'm leaving in two days time and i've no idea when this pc will be on the internet again, so it's all a bit futile really.

what is totally fucking futile is how wonderwall is still in the charts, and has been since day one. it seems to have dropped out of the top ten a few times along the way but it must still be there, bubbling under. on a par is the postal services 'such great' which i was listening to on a mixtape from imogen last night, which has always been riding high, along with the killers' revolutionary 'somebody told me' and franz ferdinand's epic 'take me out'. and you can see some great effects when as new album comes out (or when it hits the download programs); look! coldplay week, and system of a down week. and of course, despite few forays into the song charts, radiohead is the number one artist every week, followed by either green day or more recently coldplay, and then always the beatles. isn't that fun?

do you want to listen to four new euros childs songs and an interview? well click this link here. it's a bit annoying because the presenter is obviously trying to pretend she's on the radio, when she's an employee of a record company.

so despite being morose and longing, i do often get a strong anti-relationship feeling. i suppose this's the part of me that's 'given up'. it's not a fear of 'commitment'; it's fear of lack of control. it's not the cynical sheen that is based in jealousy, i sometimes find my self positively relieved that i don't fancy anyone at the moment. i'm sure that'll change very easily; i just hope i won't get hurt again next time.

i'm so sick of 'punk funk'. i never liked it much in the first place, but it's really starting to bloody grate.

i've been working on a new game, 'card fighter 2'. i'm got some rough designs sketched out - basic rip offs of a few different card games, but it may have a really nice exchange, trade off, blow for blow dynamic. more soon.

webcest

what's going on? i don't know.

there's another new song - it's okay, but it's not another 'love'. well, sequels are never as good, are they? here it is - i give you sex.

yesterday i saw a blackbird with a white head, in the pavillion gardens. i took two photos but the daylight was too bright and i couldn't see the screen so neither came out. it wasn't a clean break into white feathers, it became patchy and then went completely white. i can't really explain it, but if that's not a sign of the apocalyse, what is?

so it's been a good period for cross platform media; last week, we watched the doom movie (yes, it was pirate, no, i'm not paying for it) and we/i've been playing the warriors computer game (bought by tommy at laurence's bequest, whether or not loz admits it). the doom movie is absolutely shit, largely because it doesn't have very much to do with doom (and if they'd done a literal translation that would probably have been shit too, so it's a complete waste of time). doom is about zombies with guns, hell, and the legions of cybernetic monsters contained therein. this film was about having an extra chromosome that turned people into either monsters or superheroes, depending on whether they were genetically good or bad. it's great science fiction, defined as 'completely fictional science'. there the monsters in this film amounted to three imps (no fireballs - they had very long tounges instead) and one daemon. i'm not going to go on.

translated the other way, the warriors game is okay as far as free-roaming brawlers go. rockstar have reinvented the beat 'em up for their own grand theft auto generation, meaning you can't just edge the screen forward pixel by pixel to trigger the next bad guy (sadly, there are no 'bad guys' in the warriors; every character, except maybe enthusiastic newby rembrandt, is a thick fucking twat). it completely expands upon the universe, by making you battle through the 'playoffs,' a la so many world cup football games, and we find out all those crazy, surreal gangs in the film that looked so fun are just petty thugs, who do nothing but pump iron, fight people who are identical but for their uniform, chase 'tail', mug, fight some more, steal, run shit protection rackets, and generally reinfect a wounded society with it's own vomit; their whole existence is an absolute drain. you get points for every thing you break, every last bin bag. the level that really turned me off it was the order to cause loads of crime to distract the police stake-out, by way of beating up factory workers. quite distasteful.

it would be cool to write a program that took current news.bbc.co.uk articles and thesaurised it into stanzas of nostradamus speak.

so simon out of simian/garden has already got another spinoff/sideproject, the usefully titled 'robert jesse and simon lord', and they have a 7" out later this month, as does euros childs, whose name i have consistenly mispronounced for eight years.

link post

Campaigners feel that Live 8 and Geldof hijacked the MPH campaign for a very different cause. Their focus was not on global poverty, but Africa. And their demands were not those of MPH, but of the Commission for Africa, a government-sponsored think-tank whose members, hand-picked by Blair and Brown, were described by Professor Paul Cammack, writing in these pages, as a ‘web of bankers, industrialists and political leaders with connections to the IMF and the World Bank, all committed to spreading the gospel of free market capitalism’.

red pepper on the betrayal at the heart of 'make poverty history'

found from linkmew,
found from uk resistance.

i wanted to link to chomsky's 'malignant design' post, but he just ended up going on about global warming, as per, and failed to develop realise it's potential.

games people play

both of these games reward rounds with points, which may be spent on armor, weapons, spells, potions, food, or saved to try and 'win' the game, although in both cases, the winner is the player who has had the most fun.

1. the cockney rhyming slang game.

this game takes the form of 'charades', in that there is one player performing, and other players have to guess what the answer is, while thinking of what there own performance will be.

a player says a sentence [X] of the form [a]B[c], where B is a word from that sentance replaced by a piece of obscure or new cockney rhyming slang of the form B (&) D, E. the mystery word E should be implied by the content, accent, and appropriate delivery, of [X]. there are two points at stake here: one each for guessing D and E. consider the following example:

i nipped down the baker's for a hugh.

the first task is to work out how this matches the pattern [a]B[c]. since hugh does not make any sense in the sentence, we can calculate that [a] = 'i nipped down the baker's for a', B = 'hugh', and [c] is empty (warning! it is possible that this is incorrect. maybe 'baker's' was the mystery rhyme, and it would make 'hugh' make sense. this is subtley implied by the possesive apostrophe and s. fortunately it is not the case).
so we are looking for rhyme of the form 'hugh (&) D, E', where E is something you would find in a bakery. the obvious solution is 'hugh and cry, pie'. a point for each correct word. thus the answer can be tackled from both directions of the rhyme and the content.

2. top trumps
you know top trumps - the crazy statistical card game everybody loves, for half an hour. any deck gets boring as the game stretches on into infinity with no joy in sight. so why not play with all the decks in world? in your head?

a player picks something out of their head that can have a statistical attribute. given this freedom, the player may pick anyone of any skill at anything, and thus can play a tough game ("egon spengler, hair factor: 8", for instance). the remaining players must think of other things or people that have an arguably higher value in the first player's chosen field; they have to be beaten on home turf, as it were. in this, the game is not dissimilar to that other pub thinking game, 'best band'. however, when the players agree on the winner of the round (which theoretically could be the player whose go it was) the winner must 'draw a new card' from the same 'deck' as their victorius card. they are free, of course, to claim whatever deck they wish to for their next card, and play begins again. the winner of the round receives a point. if no decision can be made as to the victor of the round, a draw is declared and the players must introduce another card into the round in the same category, and continue until a clear winner arises (n.b.: this gives lower scoring players the chance to introduce a really really good card that they've just thought of, which may beat even the original card). a replacement card may only be played in the case of a draw.

a variation exists where if nothing can be thought of to beat the initial card, the losing players may challenge the active player, like in the card game 'cheat', to reveal a superior card to the one played. failing this, the cheating player has a point taken off them.


both of these games may contain long periods of silence.

books i might write, if i ever read enough to be able to do so.

these are my rough ideas;

1. a person has a life-long dream. one day, he resolves to pack his life up and follow his heart, and gets absolutely beaten down with needless, unthinking, cold force, and he is left in ruins. think '1984/brazil' without the politics, or 'gia' without the beauty.

2. a homophobic man starts writing a book about a gay man who is in love with his adopted son, and starts to realise he is writing the book from his own life, as he is lusting after his own (genetic) daughter. the reader is presented with chapters from the fictional book, which the homophobe uses to explore possible situations etc.

3. a world where war is so entrenched in society that there is no front line, and governments are as mobile as corporations. war is conducted via email, and carried out between colleagues at adjacent desks. you might notice how in some ways this reflects our current political climate.

i think i may have had more once.

ah, unpacking from a holiday you know you shouldn't have gone on. you'll hear all about it soon, but i didn't take any photos or keep a detailed diary.

there are two tracks of the new ephel duath album on their website. even tommy commented on how good 'vector (third movement)' is (after a couple of minutes of listening); it doesn't have the immediacy of 'the passage', but spends a long time in very loose jazz structure, but by the end it had blown me away all over again, and i felt it, the crazy joyous magic i remember when i first heard the passage and couldn't believe that a band existed that made music that good or interesting. the new compositions are stunning in their incoherence (their biog says of the new material: 'The concept of a song is put aside and the repetition of the riff is nearly extinct'), and i don't want to listen to the new songs outside of there context too much, but i don't quite want to buy the album yet; it has to be a special moment, like when i've some money.

i went to the job centre for 9 o'clock this morning, for my sign on, and found it closed until 10. hmm, i thought they've given me an impossible appointment. i looked at the slip of paper and saw it said 'tuesday, 9'. oh bugger. how could i do that? i knew i wasn't going to able to make tuesday, i was sure i remembered telling them.. so i went into town for a coffee, etc., and came back to plead my case at 10. so then it turned out i hadn't missed my appointment - it was on thursday, not tuesday. it even said the date on my slip. i was just so used to fucking up that i took it as read that i'd come a day late. i don't know why i'd decided it was today not tomorrow though, but at least i had indeed managed to arrange a keepable appointment. now i just have to make it out of the door again.