Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Monday, 7 September 2009
Chocolate Diarrhoea Cake
If I was living in Ground Hog Day, I would like to bicycle past this every lunch break:
Girl (on scooter): Dad?
Dad (on scooter in front): Yea-as?
Girl: I love you.
Dad: I love you too Squiggles.
Girl: Do you love me more than anything? More than anything in the whole world?
Dad: Yes, more than anything in the whole world.
I wouldn’t want to live in Ground Hog Day, because life’s variety is often so very pleasing.
For instance, I just spent the weekend at Bodium with a collective of beautiful souls. Some stayed in tents, one stayed for the day, and two slept in their brand new, but very old, VW Camper (1973).
Park Farm campsite is really quite something. In the main field, there is Darren’s. Darren sells burgers. In the Green Fields, there is Darren’s competitor. He sells cup cakes and jacket potatoes.
At Park Farm, there are no predefined pitches, and the site encourages campfires by selling a bag of logs for £3.50 a pop. While we made barbecues and fire, other people had pretty lights to dress up their tents.
The site offers homemade playthings; swings, a seesaw and a death slide. The death slide was particularly popular, so never free for cavorting adults. The seesaw could fit four of us on at once and felt wonderfully dangerous. The rope swings over the River Rother sat unused, just waiting for a daring child or a drunken adult to take a dip. We liked being dry.
From the campsite, there is a lovely walk along the river. A castle and steam trains sit at the other end. Bodiam Castle is a perfect example of a late medieval moated castle. That’s not just market-speak. It’s bloody brilliant. It was built in 1385, and the fish in the moat are so big, they may have lived there that long. In the olden days, people could sit on the toilet whilst shooting arrows at the French.
The Kent and East Sussex train line isn’t the best and is very expensive. We enjoyed a bit of soot, poking our heads into the locomotive to see the hot fire, and the fact they sold Chocolate Diarrhoea Cake at the pub near Northiam Station.
Fabpants Recommends: I am going to see Darren Hayman tomorrow. Darren used to be in Hefner. I loved the album Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern. Darren released an album this year. It’s called Pram Town, after Harlow New Town’s 1950s nickname. Darren grew up near Harlow.
Here’s a taster:
Download MP3: Hayman and the Secondary Modern – Big Fish (courtesy of hefnet.com)
Download MP3: Hayman and the Secondary Modern – Pram Town (courtesy of getdropbox.com)
I’ve also been enjoying The Foster Kids. They are from Norfolk like me. I grew up with foster kids. The album is called 'At Home With The Foo Fighters'. Bands from Norfolk do create a certain bias within me. You might think it's pants.
Download MP3: The Foster Kids – Before You Change My Mind (courtesy of letterboxrecords.com)
Girl (on scooter): Dad?
Dad (on scooter in front): Yea-as?
Girl: I love you.
Dad: I love you too Squiggles.
Girl: Do you love me more than anything? More than anything in the whole world?
Dad: Yes, more than anything in the whole world.
I wouldn’t want to live in Ground Hog Day, because life’s variety is often so very pleasing.
For instance, I just spent the weekend at Bodium with a collective of beautiful souls. Some stayed in tents, one stayed for the day, and two slept in their brand new, but very old, VW Camper (1973).
Park Farm campsite is really quite something. In the main field, there is Darren’s. Darren sells burgers. In the Green Fields, there is Darren’s competitor. He sells cup cakes and jacket potatoes.
At Park Farm, there are no predefined pitches, and the site encourages campfires by selling a bag of logs for £3.50 a pop. While we made barbecues and fire, other people had pretty lights to dress up their tents.
The site offers homemade playthings; swings, a seesaw and a death slide. The death slide was particularly popular, so never free for cavorting adults. The seesaw could fit four of us on at once and felt wonderfully dangerous. The rope swings over the River Rother sat unused, just waiting for a daring child or a drunken adult to take a dip. We liked being dry.
From the campsite, there is a lovely walk along the river. A castle and steam trains sit at the other end. Bodiam Castle is a perfect example of a late medieval moated castle. That’s not just market-speak. It’s bloody brilliant. It was built in 1385, and the fish in the moat are so big, they may have lived there that long. In the olden days, people could sit on the toilet whilst shooting arrows at the French.
The Kent and East Sussex train line isn’t the best and is very expensive. We enjoyed a bit of soot, poking our heads into the locomotive to see the hot fire, and the fact they sold Chocolate Diarrhoea Cake at the pub near Northiam Station.
Fabpants Recommends: I am going to see Darren Hayman tomorrow. Darren used to be in Hefner. I loved the album Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern. Darren released an album this year. It’s called Pram Town, after Harlow New Town’s 1950s nickname. Darren grew up near Harlow.
Here’s a taster:
Download MP3: Hayman and the Secondary Modern – Big Fish (courtesy of hefnet.com)
Download MP3: Hayman and the Secondary Modern – Pram Town (courtesy of getdropbox.com)
I’ve also been enjoying The Foster Kids. They are from Norfolk like me. I grew up with foster kids. The album is called 'At Home With The Foo Fighters'. Bands from Norfolk do create a certain bias within me. You might think it's pants.
Download MP3: The Foster Kids – Before You Change My Mind (courtesy of letterboxrecords.com)
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Getting to Grips with Gender-Neutral Pronouns
For the first time in my life, I’ve been able to remember what the term ‘pronoun’ means for more than a millisecond.
Yesterday, I learnt about Gender Neutral Pronouns. As someone who hates using the term 'they' when the gender of a single person is unknown, I like this idea.
I got excited.
Then I made a disappointing discovery. There is no simple list of gender-neutral pronouns. Instead, there are many.
One can't just roll forward with commonly accepted usage. It's far more complicated than that.
If you're looking for a start point, Wikipedia lists an array of 'invented' gender-neutral pronouns.
This is problematic for me. Choosing is hard. Do I choose my pronouns based on popularity of use? Or, should I opt for the funkiest sounding set?
If one set was popular or had a cool ring to it, it might help. Alas, this is not the case.
It seems that in adopting a set of 'invented' pronouns, I will be attaching myself to a subset within a genre, and with it a 'School of Thought'. I will be a member of a sect rather than a great paradigm shifting force. I will be saying something by my preference of terms, which goes beyond the gender-neutral.
Faced with the choice of joining 'The Judean People's Front', 'The People's Front of Judea' or 'The Popular Front', I started to go off the idea. The revolution was a risk of losing my support. I felt the beginnings of disillusioned apathy. 'Nir', 'hys' or 'zer' are not for me. Thanks, but no thanks.
Then my attention was drawn to a grassroots uprising, with spirit - instead of theory - leading the way.
Yes, away from academia, and on the streets of Baltimore, gender-neutral pronouns have formed and proliferated. It's all been rather organic, un-invented and quite wonderful. The New Scientist got wind of the trend last year, but any of us watching 'The Wire' have been long-exposed.
Being a grammar retard, I didn't pick up on the gender-neutral 'he’s' and 'she’s' that my favourite series advertised. I'm just getting to grips with pronouns after all.
Here's where it's at. Here's where I'm back on board:
Yo – Her/His
Yos – Hers/His
Yo's - She's/He's
Yon – Her/Him
I intend to still use traditional pronouns, but perhaps for those times when I'm speaking hypothetically, about a random imagined person, with no predefined gender, a little 'Yo' will help. Paradigm shifts start small.
The New Scientist articles are here:
'Yo' is the word when 'he' or 'she' won't do
Yo! yo
Fabpants Recommends: As a great fan of The Soundtrack of Our Lives 'Behind the Music' when I lived on a different street, I am delighted with their new fat double album 'Communion'. I always have this feeling that I shouldn't like The Soundtrack of Our Lives, but I do. I love them and they're bloody brilliant live. Is it RAWK? Really? How come my ears like it so?
The band share their music via a widget. I highly recommend starting with the track 'Second Life Replay'. It's quite beautiful. 'The Ego Delusion' reminds me of the Super Furry Animals, and 'Universal Stalker' is fantastically bitter. Feeling as slushy as a lovelorn dreamer? Check out Lifeline.
Yesterday, I learnt about Gender Neutral Pronouns. As someone who hates using the term 'they' when the gender of a single person is unknown, I like this idea.
I got excited.
Then I made a disappointing discovery. There is no simple list of gender-neutral pronouns. Instead, there are many.
One can't just roll forward with commonly accepted usage. It's far more complicated than that.
If you're looking for a start point, Wikipedia lists an array of 'invented' gender-neutral pronouns.
This is problematic for me. Choosing is hard. Do I choose my pronouns based on popularity of use? Or, should I opt for the funkiest sounding set?
If one set was popular or had a cool ring to it, it might help. Alas, this is not the case.
It seems that in adopting a set of 'invented' pronouns, I will be attaching myself to a subset within a genre, and with it a 'School of Thought'. I will be a member of a sect rather than a great paradigm shifting force. I will be saying something by my preference of terms, which goes beyond the gender-neutral.
Faced with the choice of joining 'The Judean People's Front', 'The People's Front of Judea' or 'The Popular Front', I started to go off the idea. The revolution was a risk of losing my support. I felt the beginnings of disillusioned apathy. 'Nir', 'hys' or 'zer' are not for me. Thanks, but no thanks.
Then my attention was drawn to a grassroots uprising, with spirit - instead of theory - leading the way.
Yes, away from academia, and on the streets of Baltimore, gender-neutral pronouns have formed and proliferated. It's all been rather organic, un-invented and quite wonderful. The New Scientist got wind of the trend last year, but any of us watching 'The Wire' have been long-exposed.
Being a grammar retard, I didn't pick up on the gender-neutral 'he’s' and 'she’s' that my favourite series advertised. I'm just getting to grips with pronouns after all.
Here's where it's at. Here's where I'm back on board:
Yo – Her/His
Yos – Hers/His
Yo's - She's/He's
Yon – Her/Him
I intend to still use traditional pronouns, but perhaps for those times when I'm speaking hypothetically, about a random imagined person, with no predefined gender, a little 'Yo' will help. Paradigm shifts start small.
The New Scientist articles are here:
'Yo' is the word when 'he' or 'she' won't do
Yo! yo
Fabpants Recommends: As a great fan of The Soundtrack of Our Lives 'Behind the Music' when I lived on a different street, I am delighted with their new fat double album 'Communion'. I always have this feeling that I shouldn't like The Soundtrack of Our Lives, but I do. I love them and they're bloody brilliant live. Is it RAWK? Really? How come my ears like it so?
The band share their music via a widget. I highly recommend starting with the track 'Second Life Replay'. It's quite beautiful. 'The Ego Delusion' reminds me of the Super Furry Animals, and 'Universal Stalker' is fantastically bitter. Feeling as slushy as a lovelorn dreamer? Check out Lifeline.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Arrested Development
Rutland is the smallest county in England, for the half the year. That's when the tide is out in the Isle of Wight.
In June, I bought train tickets to Coventry.
As time passed, people made decisions to add a little 'travel fever fuck-up' to the mix. It was a Bank Holiday after all.
London Euston:
"You can’t get on this train, the one that goes direct to Coventry, the one you’re at the front of the queue for. You will have to get this train, then this replacement bus, then perhaps this train, or perhaps another replacement bus. We’re not too sure, but you can’t get this train. That’s for certain. It’s a Virgin train and you have a London Midland ticket. Today only Virgin ticketholders will travel direct."
Damn privatisation and a non-integrated transport system!
I have never felt so instantly travel sick as I did on the replacement bus between Hemel Hempstead and Northampton. The air was stale when we boarded. Food, sweat, bad breath and sick, melded like a witch’s pot of cackling spite and dust bogey soup. The bus driver, schooled in jerk-based acceleration and sudden-braking, set his mind on ensuring the complete imbalance of being.
A girl sat in the adjacent seat, folded first. She regurgitated her breakfast into a crisp packet. Yesterday’s supper, lunch and snacks followed. Her journey ended with bile. The woman sat behind her played bad radio on bad mobile phone speakers. The retching continued. At Wolverton, a group of Northampton Saints (Rugby) fans joined the wagon. They shouted at each other and at the woman playing the radio. The sweet smell of morning-supped alcohol added to the ambience. The radio played on.
At Northampton, my friend was read his rights.
"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention - when questioned - something which you later rely on in court."
The man had driven from Coventry to save us. This was his reward. An unmarked car blocked us into the parking space at Northampton Railway Station. A girl I’d smiled at in the station toilets got out. “Are you lost?” she asked. Within seconds, two others joined her. The university lecturer, and family man, was ordered to leave his vehicle. We sat inside quite baffled.
As quick as they came, they went. No explanation. No nothing. Just a quick sorry and back to their car park stakeout. What were we suspected of? Intention to meet up with three children, and their mother, and camp at a rather nice campsite? Criminal indeed! If they had seen the sandy play area, they would have imprisoned us for sure.
We barbecued onsite and visited Rutland Water. Rutland Water is an internationally famous nature reserve, built in the 1970s, and manmade through and through. The cycling is popular, and bikes are available for hire. We hired, rode, picnicked and rode home. For one mile, I clutched an abandoned children’s bike in my right hand, riding its adult sister. All were encouraged to escape my path.
On Sunday night it rained. Seven of us gathered in tent porch. We made a set of cards from printer paper and a mismatch of children's pens. Those cards saw action until midnight. One by one, the children, aged three, seven and ten, disappeared to sleep in the adjoining pod. Meanwhile, their abandoned £5 tent filled with water. In the candlelight, we giggled at the absurdity of it all. We could barely see. The 'one of diamonds' indeed. A suit of 14 filled our night.
The trains were kind to us on Monday. I was home in time to read Kurt Vonnegurt on the beach, soak up the sun, and look forward to tea.
August Bank Holiday Weekend. Indeed!
Fabpants Recommends: Today, I am enjoying My Toys Like Me. They have an album called 'Where We Are'.
Download MP3: My Toys Like Me – Sweetheart (courtesy of quietcolor.com)
Download MP3: My Toys Like Me – Bats (courtesy of quietcolor.com)
In June, I bought train tickets to Coventry.
As time passed, people made decisions to add a little 'travel fever fuck-up' to the mix. It was a Bank Holiday after all.
London Euston:
"You can’t get on this train, the one that goes direct to Coventry, the one you’re at the front of the queue for. You will have to get this train, then this replacement bus, then perhaps this train, or perhaps another replacement bus. We’re not too sure, but you can’t get this train. That’s for certain. It’s a Virgin train and you have a London Midland ticket. Today only Virgin ticketholders will travel direct."
Damn privatisation and a non-integrated transport system!
I have never felt so instantly travel sick as I did on the replacement bus between Hemel Hempstead and Northampton. The air was stale when we boarded. Food, sweat, bad breath and sick, melded like a witch’s pot of cackling spite and dust bogey soup. The bus driver, schooled in jerk-based acceleration and sudden-braking, set his mind on ensuring the complete imbalance of being.
A girl sat in the adjacent seat, folded first. She regurgitated her breakfast into a crisp packet. Yesterday’s supper, lunch and snacks followed. Her journey ended with bile. The woman sat behind her played bad radio on bad mobile phone speakers. The retching continued. At Wolverton, a group of Northampton Saints (Rugby) fans joined the wagon. They shouted at each other and at the woman playing the radio. The sweet smell of morning-supped alcohol added to the ambience. The radio played on.
At Northampton, my friend was read his rights.
"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention - when questioned - something which you later rely on in court."
The man had driven from Coventry to save us. This was his reward. An unmarked car blocked us into the parking space at Northampton Railway Station. A girl I’d smiled at in the station toilets got out. “Are you lost?” she asked. Within seconds, two others joined her. The university lecturer, and family man, was ordered to leave his vehicle. We sat inside quite baffled.
As quick as they came, they went. No explanation. No nothing. Just a quick sorry and back to their car park stakeout. What were we suspected of? Intention to meet up with three children, and their mother, and camp at a rather nice campsite? Criminal indeed! If they had seen the sandy play area, they would have imprisoned us for sure.
We barbecued onsite and visited Rutland Water. Rutland Water is an internationally famous nature reserve, built in the 1970s, and manmade through and through. The cycling is popular, and bikes are available for hire. We hired, rode, picnicked and rode home. For one mile, I clutched an abandoned children’s bike in my right hand, riding its adult sister. All were encouraged to escape my path.
On Sunday night it rained. Seven of us gathered in tent porch. We made a set of cards from printer paper and a mismatch of children's pens. Those cards saw action until midnight. One by one, the children, aged three, seven and ten, disappeared to sleep in the adjoining pod. Meanwhile, their abandoned £5 tent filled with water. In the candlelight, we giggled at the absurdity of it all. We could barely see. The 'one of diamonds' indeed. A suit of 14 filled our night.
The trains were kind to us on Monday. I was home in time to read Kurt Vonnegurt on the beach, soak up the sun, and look forward to tea.
August Bank Holiday Weekend. Indeed!
Fabpants Recommends: Today, I am enjoying My Toys Like Me. They have an album called 'Where We Are'.
Download MP3: My Toys Like Me – Sweetheart (courtesy of quietcolor.com)
Download MP3: My Toys Like Me – Bats (courtesy of quietcolor.com)
