consciousness = complexity/time

i'd like to return to my thoughts on the mind briefly, if i may.

it occurred to me while reading the emperor's new mind that no-one seems to seriously be taking time into account as a factor of consciousness. penrose seemed to be hinting in towards this, perhaps even directing my thoughts, but i haven't read it anywhere explicitly; i think time-scale is key to consciousness. think about it; think about how fast an animal's internal biology moves, in terms of enzyme reactions, nerve impulses and the like. our consciousness-generating neurons fire perhaps billions of times a second, yet consciousness is something that takes place over individual seconds - which is surely why seconds are the length they are. if we were to run a simulation of consciousness on a machine at a rate we can monitor, it would not just have to be scaled down in terms of complexity, but also slowed down so much that it would take a very long time to be recognised as conscious - perhaps only by another mind running at the same rate.

in discussions about consciouness, the differences and similarities between brains and computers are always brought up. the problem that i don't think is addressed with enough weight is that each neuron of our brain is a computer, not the whole thing. to replicate, or even create, consciousness, we need a large number of linked-in machines, each connected to many others. a human brain has what, 100 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses. the plot of 'the moon is a harsh mistress' almost sounds plausible, although the internet has got a long way to come to achieve this; but what it also needs, is a reality as rich as the one a human inhabits. as the nazis demonstrated, lock a baby in a room with enough food &c. to live on, and it will still die through lack of stimulation and affection [citation needed]. without an external reality to stimulate us, our minds rot, or if we are young enough, fail to develop.

of course, any one machine can simulate the running and the commumication between several other machines at a lower rate; a classic computing time-space pay off. so one immensely powerful - perhaps impossibly powerful - machine could concivebly model all the neurons in a brain talking to each other. we can do this now with simple artificial neural networks. penrose, however, does make the quite good point that consciousness might not just be an accurate model of neurons firing, but something to do with the underlying laws of physics. let's say you could model those on a machine (although quantum theory might have other implications), but the complexity in doing anything remotely near the scale of a real brain, even a simple one, would be probitively horrendous. consider a machine modelling the laws of physics required to run itself; at what fraction of it's own potential speed would it be running the simulation at? i think that's quite a good way of telling, and perfectly illustrates my point about time being the crucial factor. it would ultimately be a perfect representation of itself, just massively slower.

so the internet _is_ like a brain; so is society. so is any graph of nodes. it is only a matter of scale - as in the number of nodes and the number of connections - and time - as in the relative time based on the frequency of communications. but also, i conject, a matter of clear division between environment and self. which is not something you'd often hear me say, and i might have to think about that a bit.

books I've read recently:

how mumbo jumbo conquered the world, francis wheen.
good, but i'm a bit suspect of the all-encompassing, ill-defined term 'mumbo jumbo' which starts with voodoo economics - a fraudulent ideology from the word go ('hey! i've got a great policy idea: tax breaks for me and my friends!')- and goes on to include just about anything wheen doesn't like. including john gray's straw dogs, interestingly. mainly because gray used to be an arch-thatcherite, in fact he used to be a lot of things and seems to change his mind as often as he can.
the irony is, of course, that by mumbo jumbo, he means the all-encompassing, ill-defined anti-sciences; so he ends up having to use of of those terms. i guess that makes it ok because the set of mumbo jumbo includes itself. what's the opposite of a paradox called again? not a tautology, but something that definies itself only because it defines itself? one of them.


A mind to murder, p.d.james.
hmmmm. if i say this book is poorly written, i mean the structure of the book glares through the narrative, and clues are painfully obvious even when the detectives take no notice initially. and the detectives are both characterised as characterless, which certainly helps. it gets good 200 pages in when they start doing some detective work, then stops 20 pages later, the twist being it was the most obvious suspect all along but you got distracted, so it's ultimately annoying.


The emperor's new mind, penrose.
i couldn't finish this, despite joyfully ploughing through the section on turing machines; it just seems i've read this book too many times already. there was a point where i'd a collection of about 5 or 7 books that meshed together into a coherent theory of reality, which i might write down one day. given all those, is one is superfluous. also it's premise, that given current science, we can't understand/replicate consciousness is a little flimsy, because what is future science going to be based on but current science?

Oryx and crake, Margaret atwood.
very good spec-fi, in a oh-that's-actually-quite-plausible, 'stand on zanzibar', kind of way. that should be reccomendation enough. i had, however, two problems with it: the statistical improbability of going out with a woman you saw in a porn film as a teenager (a completely unnecessary addition to the plot), and the open ending. wha' happened??


A goose in Southwark, one eye grey.
i found this modern penny dreadful disappointing. a bunch of people have 'spooky' (not really spooky at all) experiences, going to a cinema that's closed, seeing ghosts of cromwell and his mates discussing modern politics, meeting an 19th centuary whore in the south bank fog... i mean, smog and dead people, that was about it. the big with the horse was quite good though. still, maybe volume two is the wrong place to pick it up, and it's a great idea. it feels a bit like a zine, and that's a good thing.

word of the day: 'consilience'

"the convergence of evidence from different branches of science on a common explanation"
from 'information' by hands christian von baeyer

there's too much happening at the moment to fit all this stuff in. it's only been a week but i feel like i'm trying to cram stuff in and i always forget the interesting bits, why does that happen? why do i always end up filling in on the facts and leaving the opinion?

take, for instance, harmonicas. this was something i wanted to rant about after green man; while the previous year had been the year of the one-man band, this year had been dominated by shit harmonica playing.a significant number of acts had dreadful moments when they brought out the harmonica and just blew and sucked over the music.
PARRRR PA PAR PAAA PARRRR.

i never mentioned this, although i really wanted to.

i missing out so much. all the little things too; i'll never get that time back and i'll never know what i did with it. i probably just stayed in.

I'm realising now that I've got two weekends to write up and I can't differentiate them.

so all i can remember of the last few days goes something like this:

last night emma came round to play some music, which went well. we got through love and purple milk, emma enjoying (i gather) the versatility of my synthesiser. towards the end she was making some lovely chords and patch, but i couldn't make my damn computer record, no matter how many soundcards i plugged in, and then into each other.

Monday Rachel came round for a candle lit dinner, that briefly saw the entire flat united around the dinner table, but not for long. it's like taking shifts sometimes in this place, and i'm not pretending i'm not guilty of it too. house curry next week, guys?

Sunday sarah came round to play music, which was good but she said she wouldn't commit to a 'serious' live project. *sigh*. However, the 'mwng' (beard?) project seems to work, our voices sounded lovely together and most of the songs are fairly easy to work out. The night ended with a listen through to parklife, still hard to displace as best album of the nineties.

Saturday I woke up at rachel's, but she was gone to Birmingham. It was midday and I wasn't eating. I wandered into town with ian to look for shoes with no luck, went into forbidden planet to see if they had any signed phonograms (they didn't, but we had a nosy in the trade paperback;, then had a look up the techno-dump of Tottenham court road for an alarm clock cd player. To no avail. Went home, then over to leslie and niel's to play with georgie's magic set and break the fast; went out to meet my old school pal deb at archway and introduce her to girls girls girls; a great gig with a strong fan base in attendance.from there, caught the last line down so far south to new cross, where once I might have lived. Robbie's band, maybe myrtle tyrtle, were playing at a weird cool housing project festival. it reminded me a bit of christania. very independanty. i got there just as they were finishing. to be honest, outside the immediate area of the housing block, it was quite scary; a woman i asked for directions thought i was gonna mug her. everyone i actually saw around was really nice but sparse. I got back at half four resulting in another midday rising.

Friday after work I was the usual knackered, the usual go home for a bite and a shower and an internet, the usual hour on the tube heading out across London to the east end, the usual getting there far too late. I hunted around for the dirty three, and found they were leaving to go somewhere. It was basically another hour before we managed to sit down in some bar at the top of brick lane, morrocan style but with fairy lights. I was on water (which I never received) as I was fasting. Brick lane was a stressful horror of people, cars, darkness, and thumping music that felt like being kicked in the head. Jo left early, giving up on the night as a lost cause; ruth went off to jazz café, Rachel and I went back to hers, although because she was off early in the morning, I had assumed I would just be going back home.

Thursday I met Robbie and adam and his friends down round London bridge, an area with so much obvious history, and it felt just like thief. The shadows were actually dark enough to hide in, the streets thin and tall, even the impassable barriers of conveniently placed repairs were right where they ought to be. I gave out cds for beer, how it should be.

Before that, things are more difficult.

I stayed at rachel's on the friday before and walked down the market for breakfast and coffee with the gang on Saturday morning. Jasmine's pub crawl was cancelled so we had our picnic on hampstead heath instead – a classic picnic, and we even managed to get our own very decent fire going, without the instructions of luke. Newspapers help. We debased at 11 o'clock after singing through various points of cultural reference, from the sound of music to trapped in the closet (which we have adopted the sentence structure, rising in pitch at the end of every sentence). I actually do have a problem with it; it's possible I've now heard that one bar of music more than any other already, and I have dreamt I was taking part in it, a 'player', if you will. We all went our separates, some going off to jazz café, me hardcoring it out to unskinny bop to meet robin. However, my plans were foiled; I bumped into michelle on the bus back to Bethnal green, took her briefly back to rachel's to dump my stuff (leading to a situation as I knew it would, but I couldn't exactly leave her downstairs could I?). by the time we got to the pleasure unit, it was quarter past one, and it turned out they stopped letting people in at midnight. So that was rubbished. michelle and I went back to the bus stop and carted ourselves to our homes.

Sunday Rachel and I went to her mum's friend's 60th birthday party on a boat on the thames, where we spent most of the trip, from houses of parliament to the far side of the isle of dogs and back, entertaining a small excited child who believed the boat was powered by dinosaurs. Well you know, why get someone to look after your kids when you can just take them to the party with you and dump them on someone else to look after for three hours? Not that I didn't enjoy the repetitive attempts at poisoning me the kid was trying.

Monday was the locust and I didn't go. I'm not sure why not – cost, effort, last album, all of these things were factors. i did the same with euros childs tonight.

in between that monday and that friday is where it all gets difficult to pin down. can anyone remind me if i did anything with them?

i say i say

europe walks into a bar.
barman says ‘what’s that mark on your arm?’
europe says, ‘this? that’s just a bruges.’

welcome to alleggra

welcome to alleggra

Alleggra is the new, great tasting alternative to egg.

It tastes like egg, and looks like egg, and is made from soy.

however, it does contain egg.

point being?

jack kavorkian is cool

BBC NEWS | Health | Call to revamp death definition
call me morbid, call me pale; favourite article on the beeb for a long time.

weekend was good, we watched borat and a mighty wind (both of which need dissecting) and went to the natural history museum.

Borat was ok. I realise now that it's not like his sketches, using an outlandish character to poke fun at people, it's more like a mr. bean film, that just happens to use real people every now and again. The fact that many sequences are staged means you can't treat it like an exposé of people, or even being about their reactions – it's about borat. In several interviews, the other person only gets to say one word – I can't imagine the efforts gone to, arranging such things for such simple jokes. it was more impressive than funny - stunning feats of bravery and embarresment.
a mighty wind is not spinal tap. it's quiet - while it is quite funny, it's barely a comedy, verging on just a fiction-mentry. it's almost entirely plausible. the best parts were the covers of mitch's solo l.p.s, and the horrendous manager of the new - ach, i forget the name. but it would have been better if that band had occupied more of the film because they were a much greater source of humour.

on monday night sarah came round and we had fun in the garden, listening to bitch's brew on ed's mobile...

tuesday night i went to chaos and the cosmos - first band were genuinely awful, and i won't go into it other than to say that half an hour of abusive feedback is just a waste of time, even you did arrange the whole night (the 'drummer' wandering around with his head through the floor-tom was quite entertaing though). second band orion arm were completely brilliant, and exactly what today's jazz-metal obsessed youth need. they deserve to be massive; they claim to be a two piece (guitar and drums/vox) but they had a sax palyer along too. the phil collins 3, who had drawn us (me and matt and his belle) to the event were brilliantly loose and tight and pleasing. archaotic good-time humour music. the theme of their fancy dress was 'cats'.

last night i had dinner at rachel's with rachel, seb, and ruth, and latterly joined by ian. rachel made cheese and lentil loaf with ratatouille, both of which were fab. ruth is recently single, and has bought a nurse costume to wear out on friday night. i said i have one she could borrow, although the idea of her not only wearing it to a 'new rave' and perhaps even sexing in it wasn't too appealling; but it was pointed out that mine is an actual nurses outfit as worn by a nurse, and she wanted a slightly more revealing, plastic, one. so that's probably for the best she got her own.

the shop that sells itself

down at the marble arch end of edgware road, there's been a most remarkable thing: a shop for sale. an empty unit with adverts plastered on the windows; it looks like a real shop, possibly jewelry, perfume, mobile phones, or something else that's largely empty, but it's hard to actually see in because of all the decor on the front. plastered over it are new-media buzzwords by comittee; choice, quality, inspiration, &c. a distracting idea, the shop whose sole thing for sale is the shop itself.

last time i went past it had an update: it's being turned into a bank; something that doesn't sell anything real either, funnilly enough.

'you have a problem'

is what ed said to me. But who's got the problem? After all, he's the only person I know who, when exposed to trapped in the closet, didn't immediately want to watch it all the way through and show everyone they know.



But it's impossible to notice that titc isn't what it was. It's wandered so far away from the purity of it's original remit of the social network that expands by roughly one character per episode. Now I owe that's not strictly true but it's a good working start point.



So I propose 'fract in the closet': a computer-generated, fractal-based, adapatation, with a basic set of rules that generates endlessly varied new episodes, making sure each character can find their way back into the tangled web of relationships. For example, a new character might be married to a, be pregnant by b, go to church with c, live next door to d, went to prison with e, and so on.

isn't that what we all want?

dick around

by sparks:

All I do now is dick around, All I do now is dick around, dick around

Every day, every day, every day Every night, every night, every night Every day, every day, every day, every day, every day Every night, every night, every night, every night, every night

Overtime, more overtime, I'm conscientious by design
To reach the heights of academe To be the captain of the team
To CEO a thousand who will do the things I say to do
And I will make a lot of bread And you will find me good in bed
I will push, I will pull, I will push, I will pull
Pull a couple strings and find myself atop the corporation

Tailored to the maximum, I send another fax to them
A parking place, a new Corvette, a manicure, a private jet,
A stock incentive busting out,
"A phone call, sir."
Well, say I'm out.
"Your lady friend."
Well, put it through.
(SHE:) "Uh, listen, dear, I'm through with you."
(SHE:) "Through with you, through with you, through with you, through with you."
Yes, I think I got the point and bang, there goes my motivation
What to do, what to do, what to do, what to do,
All that I can think of was "I'm tendering my resignation."
But, all I do now is dick around
All I do now, is dick around, dick around

All I do now is dick around, when the sun goes up and the moon comes out
When the leaves are green and the leaves are brown
All I do now is dick around
I've got so much to do, gotta pick things up, gotta see things through
My, how the time does fly, gotta wave hello to a passerby
All I do now is dick around, when the sun goes up and the moon comes out
When the leaves are green and the leaves are brown
All I do now is dick around
I've got so much do
Gotta pick things up, gotta see things through
My how the time does fly, Gotta wave hello to a passerby
All I do now is dick around, when the sun goes up and the moon comes out
When the leaves are green and the leaves are brown All I do now is dick around

Think about the recent past The cynics said too good to last
But she could change her mind again Oh, no, this movie said "The End"
So I will go about my day Just dicking round, my metier
And realize that life is change And furniture to rearrange

Why the hell, why the hell, why the hell, why the hell?
Why the hell did she desert you when you were so influential?
Why the hell, why the hell, why the hell, why the hell?
Why did she desert you when you told her she was so essential?

Pull yourself up off the ground You've started liking being down

The persecution feels cool The subtle feel of garden tools
But what about that other life 'Cause this is more an afterlife
Seducing you each night and day You're never gonna break away
Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me,
Knowing that from now on what you do is strictly non-essential
Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me,
Knowing that from now on no one wonders if you've got potential

All I do is dick around, the sun goes up and the moon goes down
The leaves are green the leaves are brown
And all I do is dick around
Why the hell, why the hell, why the hell, why the hell?
Why the hell did she desert you when you were so influential?
Why the hell, why the hell, why the hell, why the hell?
Why did she desert you when you told her she was so essential?

But all I do now, is dick around All I do now is dick around, dick around
Every day, every day, every day, every day, every day
Every night, every night, every night, every night, every night
Every day, every day, every day, every day, every day
Every night, every night, every night, every night, every night
Every day, every day, every day, every day, every day
Every night, every night, every night, every night, every night

But all I do now is dick around All I do now is dick around, dick around

And all I do now is dick around
All I do now is dick around, dick around

Then I got the late-night call,
(SHE:) "I really miss you after all"
"I had a fling and that is all,
"A stupid fling, then hit the wall."
"So take me, take me, take me back."
"I love the way you scratched my back."

(HE:) Well, there is something you should know."
(HE:) We might not be simpatico."

All I do now, is dick around All I do now, is dick around

(SHE:) "I don't care what you do, dick around, I will too."
(SHE:) "I don't care what you do, I'll dick around next to you." But all I do now, is dick around

All I do now, is dick around
Dick around

there is a video, but you need not watch it as it is half the length of the song, a compressed, ruining experience. just somehow, please, get the mp3.

I *only* called to say I love you.

I *only* called to say I love you.
Originally uploaded by Hot Grill

BBC NEWS | Health | Guinness good for you - official

BBC NEWS | Health | Guinness good for you - official

they tested lager against guinness.

this article contains the word 'guinness' 12 times, the word 'stout' once, and the word 'ale' zero times.

it contains the supposition: "They believe that "antioxidant compounds" in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls."

bbfuckingc.

2007 09 Dave & Dan at Green Man Festival

2007 09 Dave & Dan at Green Man Festival
Originally uploaded by Dimitri Kissoff

oh yeah, i forgot to mention when dan and i fashioned hats out of plasitc bags to keep the rain off.

you can't see my big bag nappy to keep my arse dry in this photo.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Space pile-up 'condemned dinos'

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Space pile-up 'condemned dinos'

how the human race can avoid being wiped out by an asteroid strike: don't all stand in the same place

the past

once again it's two weeks of diary entering!

so i went to green man two thursday's ago. brought all my baggages to work, and piled off to paddington, getting to the station ten minutes before when i thought i train was. being me, i had managed to compensate for the mad dash by setting my train for an hour later - and then forgotten i'd done this. so i found the cafe bar upstairs, ordered a pizza and a grolsch whit beer - both of which were surprisingly good - and had a last good natter with rachel. i had taken plenty of books, both as emergency reading material and head props for sleeping. i didn't get through much of them.

the train got into newport ten minutes late, meaning about thirty campers and i missed the 5-minute change over to the abergavenny. this was about predictable as anything i can ever imagine happening, and i saw it as soon as i bought my tickets online. sigh. so i left my bags with some people i'd just met, and set off into newport to do a booze run, having forgotten to get any myself. i walked into the same town as derby and leek and so many other industrial midland market towns - the undulating 3-story streets leading to a clock tower with police van parked underneath. people handing out flyers, me smiling and taking them, so i wouldn't have to speak and reveal my accent, for fear of starting a conversation or worse. eventually i found an open late shop - i had to walk into the suburbs, which were about 2 minutes away. got back and chatted to some of the other greeners a bit, there were some very nice people as you'd expect. but some were a bit boring which is always a bit disappointing.
when we got to abergavenny, an hour late at 10.35, rumours started by a tacsi driver abounded of the last bus having already gone. nonesense, declared the majority of the crowd, it said on the website they were running all night, i was told we'd be in plenty of time... &c. half an hour later, we had confirmation from someone on-site that buses stopped at half ten. it's like everyone fucked up except me. i called dan's friend alish, who'd he'd put me onto set up with, who said she'd come get me and all that but then couldn't because the warden wouldn't let her out... and so on. eventually i mangaged to squeeze in a taxi with a physics magician. wandered in and found them; it wasn't raining and i wasn't alone so my predictions kind of fell flat.

once again it's two weeks of diary entering!

so i went to green man two thursday's ago. brought all my baggages to work, and piled off to paddington, getting to the station ten minutes before when i thought i train was. being me, i had managed to compensate for the mad dash by setting my train for an hour later - and then forgotten i'd done this. so i found the cafe bar upstairs, ordered a pizza and a grolsch whit beer - both of which were surprisingly good - and had a last good natter with rachel. i had taken plenty of books, both as emergency reading material and head props for sleeping. i didn't get through much of them.

the train got into newport ten minutes late, meaning about thirty campers and i missed the 5-minute change over to the abergavenny. this was about predictable as anything i can ever imagine happening, and i saw it as soon as i bought my tickets online. sigh. so i left my bags with some people i'd just met, and set off into newport to do a booze run, having forgotten to get any myself. i walked into the same town as derby and leek and so many other industrial midland market towns - the undulating 3-story streets leading to a clock tower with police van parked underneath. people handing out flyers, me smiling and taking them, so i wouldn't have to speak and reveal my accent, for fear of starting a conversation or worse. eventually i found an open late shop - i had to walk into the suburbs, which were about 2 minutes away. got back and chatted to some of the other greeners a bit, there were some very nice people as you'd expect. but some were a bit boring which is always a bit disappointing.
when we got to abergavenny, an hour late at 10.35, rumours started by a tacsi driver abounded of the last bus having already gone. nonesense, declared the majority of the crowd, it said on the website they were running all night, i was told we'd be in plenty of time... &c. half an hour later, we had confirmation from someone on-site that buses stopped at half ten. it's like everyone fucked up except me. i called dan's friend alish, who'd he'd put me onto set up with, who said she'd come get me and all that but then couldn't because the warden wouldn't let her out... and so on. eventually i mangaged to squeeze in a taxi with a physics magician. wandered in and found them; it wasn't raining and i wasn't alone so my predictions kind of fell flat.

i sat up for a bit with alish and tom, their twelve string, and some herbal tea that i had flattered them with. the tent went up no problem as it always did. That night was absolutely freezing, even through all my layers. Foodwise I was well prepared: the keystone was the large round loaf of organic sourdough bread, with a remarkably long shelf life. Added to this was a jar of roast peppers, two packs of tofu fillets – one corn/rice, the other tofu sea cakes, both of which rocked massively – oatabix and individual cartons of flavoured soy milk (chocolate porridge for breakfast!), hit biscuits, bananas, and eventually some naff baked pretzel things too.

It rarely stopped raining, but it was never much more than a hard drizzle; my tent leaked a little. After the first night I was completely shattered, soaked through, and possibly in danger of suffering from exhaustion. I watched Joanna newsom from the perfect vantage point of a well placed café, sadly disrupted by the break-core coming from the Mexican next door.
Last year I gave a complete breakdown of everyone I saw but it’s not possible now; so many bands I merely glimpsed and I can’t remember who they were even with the listings in front of me. Euros childs was obviously great, but Richard james now seeming pretty dull. I couldn’t stand through an entire set of gruff rhys either, not for any particular reason. The north sea radio orchestra were brilliant because they were an actual orchestra, with their own program and everything, battles were fascinating and in retrospect pretty good, although I found a live video on that youtube thing that was very similar to what I saw but crikey it was boring. I caught the last couple of songs by thee, stranded horse, who seemed brilliant. Fridge were completely missable – I joked with ian about them coming out and playing a set of bad smashing pumpkins covers, only for that hebden fella to then actually play some riff that I know from Laurence playing it. eerie. And then they played forty minutes of basic go-nowhere post-rock. Again, I’m surprised at just how many bands are completely uninspired; one highly-touted band we’d walked past had a last song consisting of the three basic chords and an endless refrain of ‘it’s over now’. As ian said, repeating something doesn’t make it psychedelic.

We all had our problems of course; much of one day was spent trying to repair thalia’s new tent, which had a broken pole, with no replacements available from the on site camping shop. Only some weak gaffa tape from the general store brought it partially back under control, until a drunken sod felll over onto it at 4 the next morning and break two of the other poles. Queue more taping and seething. On Sunday I went back to my tent to get my torch, to find the whole thing had blown over – it was frequently being blown a good 45 degrees on Saturday night, waking me up as dangling socks (my washing hadn’t dried when I left) stroked my face. Generally it was too cold and wet to enjoy the bonfire this year, but when I did go up I found james Milroy once again entertaining all and sundry. On the last night we went up to the disco tent for the strangest mashup I ever did hear – b music djs (can’t believe I never went to that when I lived in Manchester) playing everything, as long as no-one knew what it was. I think I recognised one song, can’t remember what now. Possibly from the ‘welsh rare beat’ album that votel and gruff rhys put out.

I managed to get a lift back with alish and tom, piling the luggage up high, djing on their mp3 player, and playing guitar and uke in the back while they sang along in the front. I dumped my stuff at home and went down to London fields. It was a short week, then; three days of work and then off to my parents on Friday morning, with Rachel. I’ve not taken anyone home for about 7 years. I’ve hardly been out with anyone in 7 years but that’s not the point I’m making. We went on lovely walks and had dinner in the pub (which is now more of a restaurant, but at least it’s open). It went very well, and I even had the fortune to bring back a mountain of bedding on Monday.

Thursday, I went out on a brighton binge; sam’s birthday in the cock near oxford circus, where I would have hung around longer if he wasn’t so drunk, and if I then wasn’t going to meet robin, kate, and friends at the ghetto for ‘miss shapes’, a gay indie pop electro night. I think we danced; not real big dancing but it was still fun. There seemed to be almost a trendy trend going on, prompting the girls to wonder if lesbianism was finally cool. I left about one, and stayed up drinking and chatting with ed, who’d just got back from nice, ‘til about three. All this to Rachel’s chagrin, as them lot were all having a meal at pizza express.

So we’re up to last weekend; I think I managed to stay in pretty much the entire time. Friday I was too tired from Thursday. Saturday I tried to meet up with a Spanish girl called lorena and her boyfriend at a Singapore festival in brick lane, but I didn’t get down there until about four, when they weren’t letting anymore people in due to the hour queue (free food and booze will do that). So I just tried out the new rough trade shop, bought botch’s debut album and the new euros childs record, then accidentally got a bus to the south bank – which is actually quite interesting, and walked back up to soho for ‘lunch’ at beetroot, which I’ve wanted to test for ages. when I got home, I called Adrian, who said them lot were just heading over to see james kettle perform in Camden. Why didn’t I call when I was in town? Well they were recording but I could have tried. They never made it to Kilburn where I said I might meet them but there you are. Sunday I think I just struggled with my mp3 player and then went for dinner in the dove with Rachel. I’m sure it was a smaller portion of mash than I’m used to. Monday night the tubes struck, so girls girls girls had a brief rehearsal in our flat with me on un-asked for guest guitar, then drinks in the good ship with michelle (who’s leaving in 30 days and counting) and her friends. I went home with ed, while jez and Adrian decided for some reason to go out to piano bar.

A word on Adrian; In the last week he has once again tried to give up boozing, womanising, and meating, and comprehensively failed at all three, which would be okay if he hadn’t failed at the womanising as well as failing to give it up.
And then last night I had a roast supper with the girls of Istanbul (Rachel, jo, and ruth), drank lots of wine and chatted shit over each other all night.

if....

if they held an award cermony for the best witticism of the year, would it be called the 'turner phrase'?

i'm currently working on a joke with the punchline 'raleigh drowned him' but i can't make it grammatically make sense because you'd have to say '_they_ raleigh drowned him' and it breaks the sentance structure. bah. anyone got any ideas (other than 'give up')?

Joe Queenan: If Knocked Up is the future of cinema we're in deep trouble | Features | Guardian Unlimited Film

Joe Queenan: If Knocked Up is the future of cinema we're in deep trouble | Features | Guardian Unlimited Film

good article. although i can't help sympathise with the 'messy bloke' character. what happened to 'quirky/fun best friend'? what happened to the good old, easy-to-hate 'new lad'?

i must also add that the thought of getting someone pregnant to trap them in a relationship has occurred to me as working both ways.

"i can't see trapped in the closet ending because it's about us all"
r. kelly.

this site has all the original 12 trapped videos, plus the latest ten, in beautiful streaming hi-res... i don't want to spoil anything about the plot, but i am quite disappointed that r kelly has decided to move away from the original audio-based style of the originals - remember, the first 6 or so were released straight to radio - and basically turned it into a 'comedy' with him playing as many roles as possible. he misses the point by a quite a distance though, and it's still unintentionally hilarious rather than the hilarity he's trying for. and it contains some of the most shameful ret-conning i ever did see.

Ex Libris Records - Blue From Black Video

Ex Libris Records - Blue From Black Video