Put it Away!

or: How I Know that Bared Human Flesh is an Abomination.

This is a piece I wrote (facetiously) for my comedy groups communal blog The ACRE Fourthought. The topic was nudity, and this is what I done written. I will post a link at the end should you wish to read the other ACREs pieces.

*****

Good heavens! Scarcely can I venture from the grounds of my land, nor peep from the upper echelons of my towers without my oracles suffering a cannonade of unfiltered humanity. I cannot bear to see bared flesh, it makes my stomach churn with the violence of a child drowned in a storm. I must apologise for the strength of that analogy, but I feel it is entirely necessary to kindle in you an appreciation for quite how distasteful I find the sight of skin. Grargh!

Humanity developed clothing for a reason. It is because our bodies are hateful to us. The soul within the body is trapped, like a dignified gentleman bedecked in formal regalia forced to travel via a zorb ball of muck, carried aloft on a canal of effluent. It is clear in both examples that we are better than such things, and must strive to rise above of our imperfect transport.

The bodhisattva Siddhartha Gautama knew well this problem, but incorrectly identified that it is life itself that is suffering. Wrong, Siddy, wrong. It is our bodies which are the source of suffering. Look at them for Cruijff's sake! They are loose, sagging, peach hemp sacks holding on for dear life! The Sisyphean effort of the human form to defy gravity is a pathetic reminder of our imperfection and must be summarily ignored. Of course not everybody agrees with me, and those whose conclusions differ from my own are, quite simply, cretinheaded pocks.

There are even such fools as believe the human body is a thing of beauty!!! I have a mouthful of vomit simply considering such an untenable position. Beautiful, they say. Good spirits, I should fucking well say not! The droop of a breast and a willy's wrinkles and not things to be celebrated. They are things to be covered up, as all fundamentalists correctly know. However, they also believe that god created us perfect, which is clear nonsense. No sensible thought had a hand in designing a human being. Should we shit when standing, our excrement would travel down the backs of our legs, which is wholly unpleasant. A further example of the imperfection of humanity are the people who, most perversely of all, enjoy these sorts of things. People who would like nothing more than to have flecks of faecal matter in their eyelashes. Dirty dogs! It is horrifying to think that even if people appear decently dressed, it is still possible they are harbouring essence of dookie in the hair near their eyes, the eyes they are looking at you with. Cack. But I digress.

No, I will digress. Surely we cannot be perfect beings, how perfect can we be when in experiments run by Berrendium University, 98% of sane humans were unable to differentiate between an image of a testicle sack or of an elbow. What caring creator would copy and paste between two such incompatible areas? Not a cowing one! It wouldn't and didn't happen.

I was once so disgusted with my own physicality that I bit a chunk of flesh straight out of my arm, but this only succeeded in upsetting me further.

Cover yourself up!

It just occurred to me that you could be naked reading this, and it revolts me. I'm freezing cold right now and I'm wearing a quarter of a million togs worth of duvet. How cold must you be whilst naked? Very cold indeed, but of course you cannot feel the cold because you are being protected by Diabolus, King of Hell, who loves nudity because he is perversion. Cover yourself up or burn forever in angry sulphur! Get some wool about you for the love of all that is good.

It is an undeniable fact that all bad things happen when at least some part of the skin is clearly visible. The only human who ever successfully lived without sin was Breton Diarckaluuma who was born into a large hessian sack and spent his entire life in there, being fed by his parents who gunged porridge through the side of the sack. The only way they could tell whether he was a girl or a boy was asking him to provide a detailed verbal account of his genitals, which he did with undignified eagerness.

I had sexual intercourse once, and I was so ashamed with both my own body and the body of my accomplice I drowned us both in a vat of dimethylmercury where we both would have died had I not INSISTED that we be clothed in an Iron Maiden of kevlar. I patented this cleansing procedure under the name Nudity-Expunging Baptism. Whenever I masturbate I don't look.

Fashion today is like the worst kind of cooking, tiny proportions and inappropriately ineffective dressing. Just as a sprig of parsley does not cover up a big bowl of oats, so too is vacuum-packing yourself in skimpy garments which do not cover up your skin unsightly.

If my expert evidence has still failed to convince you, consider this, every single person in the history of the world who has ever died at some point had their skin showing. The exception of course is Breton Diarckaluuma, who is alive and well in space, hidden. Be decent and cover up your inane appearance, and you too could live forever.

*****

The full blog is here.

Robot

This is another migration of a piece I wrote for The ACRE FourThoughts blog, this time on the subject of 'Robot'.  For the pieces of the other contributors on the same subject click on this bit of text here.

*****

The Softly Spoken Robot.

The softly spoken robot was often taken advantage of because he was so polite, and softly spoken.  He became frustrated on these occasions, but remained philosophical about them.

The softly spoken robot was well liked by his colleagues, but he was, sometimes fundamentally, misunderstood; he had few real friends.  Seeing that he was being taken advantage of by unscrupulous, brash robots, his colleagues sympathised, but did nothing.  Theories abounded when it came to the softly spoken robot: he was just shy, he was meek, he was secretly a zen master, there were as many opinions as there were robots to hold them.  They all dovetailed on one point however.  He was, indeed, a very softly spoken robot.

The softly spoken robot took some time off work during the summer, a modest amount, and travelled somewhere cultured and mature, there were museums and poets and complicated food in small portions.  The softly spoken robot enjoyed himself quietly, smiling gently and expressing his enjoyment in a restrained, dignified manner.  At the end of his holiday, he came home.

Back in work he quickly, and without complaint, slotted back into the routine.  The softly spoken robot assumed his cog-like function, and began whirring in the machine, stoicly.

A lot of extra work had been allotted to him, because, in his absence, the other, less softly spoken robots, had sluiced off a portion of their own workload and allowed it to accrue under the duties of the softly spoken robot.  They knew that he, being so softly spoken, would not complain.  And he didn’t.

The softly spoken robot was a good worker.

During his holiday, a new member of staff had been hired.  She was a young, eager, outgoing robot, bubbling over with ideals and ambition.  Still wet behind the audio inputs, it was left to the softly spoken robot to show her the ports.  During this mentoring process, the softly spoken robot came to enjoy the company of his energised colleague.  He observed her methods and interactions and came to question his softly spoken nature, which he had previously, unquestioningly, held as a virtue.

There was no grand overnight transformation, of course.  The change was a slow process, as changes of this kind always are.

As the outspoken robot acclimatised with the workplace, she slowly came to recognise the clandestine foisting of work on her softly spoken friend.  She was outraged.  She had come to be very fond of the softly spoken robot, finding his quiet nature charming and his stoic ethic admirable.  Seeing such good thoughts and deeds rewarded only with opportunistic laziness riled her at the very core.

She decided she would discuss this with the softly spoken robot.  Considering beforehand, she opted against an energetic confrontation, knowing that this would upset him in his gentle nature, and understanding that explicit confrontation is never desirable, and seldom effective.

Broaching the subject tactfully, softly but directly, she asked the softly spoken robot why he accepted the unfair situation without fuss.  The softly spoken robot’s eyes lost a little of their glow, evoking a quiet sadness where usually mellow content radiated.

“I do the best I can”, said the robot, softly.

The outspoken, but well-meaning, robot frowned, still frustrated by the inherent injustice in the situation.  Seeing that she was unsatisfied the softly spoken robot continued.

“When a situation is presented to me, I do the good thing.  I always try to conduct myself in the best way I can.  I try to do the good thing on every occasion, in every situation.  I can’t be held accountable if others conduct themselves otherwise.”

Feeling that he had made his point to the best of his abilities, the softly spoken robot clocked out, it was the end of his shift, said goodnight and went home.

It would take a little while for the outspoken robot to come to terms with the softly spoken robots black and white mindset, these processes always take time; thinking about things, really considering them, is a slow, thorough engagement.  She never fully reconciled herself with the injustice of the situation, and rightly so.

Over months, years, the two robots came to enjoy each others company more and more, and eventually they became a couple, leapfrogging the distasteful institution of dating, and opting not to get married since it was so clearly a redundant tradition, and because they lived in a society which did not allot special exemptions and privileges on those who are married.

The two robots learned a lot from each other, and were duly promoted to more prestigious positions due to their pleasant manners and their admirable work ethics.

They opted not to have children, since the robot population had become over-saturated and was having an adverse affect on their environment.  Though it was the sensible decision, it was something of a pity as less considerate robots spawned thoughtlessly, which resulted in more brash, lazy robots.

Together, the two robots worked hard, and enjoyed themselves.  The softly spoken robot learned the use of being a little more outspoken, and the outspoken robot learned the value of being a little more softly spoken.  They were content a large portion of the time, and they didn’t expect, nor did they ask, for more.

Walking up the Mountain

In line with the last entry, this is another recycle of a piece I wrote for The ACRE FourThought.  The other guys contributions on the subject can be found here.


*****

Uppa Mountain

I don't often walk up the mountain, but it is an activity I have come to value highly, and is something I always come back to.  There are many reasons I've gone walking up the mountain, and many things I hoped to get out of it when I did so.  I plan on muddling my way through a clumsy explanation of some of these occasions and outcomes.

As a child I lived on a street that sat on a hill, with numerous pathways surrounding that led up the mountain.  From the age that I was allowed out to play on the street we, myself and friends, would extend our play up the mountain.  I grew up clambering up grassy slopes, weaving through tress, getting muddy and covering myself in bruises.  I knew the mountain.

Taking a walk alone, I would explain the aim as escapism.  Finding some time alone.  The slow work of walking up a mountain is the perfect backdrop for a change of pace, the perfect context for working through problems that are playing upon your mind.  Sat or lying idle, the mind is a maudlin thing, obsessing over the negative, allowing mood to fester.  If you're in a bad place; frustrated, depressed, angry or similar, idleness rarely helps.  Swimming or exercising are often used to the same ends as I use walking up the mountain, I suppose, I just happened to have a mountain up which to walk.

It was probably when exams started seeming more important that I first started walking the mountain alone.  GCSEs most likely.  They let you off school when the exams are near, and I'd been driven to meltdown due to day after day of housebound revision.  It's a type of academic claustrophobia that I imagine a large number of people go through.  So when I couldn't stomach any more, I walked up the mountain.

I wouldn't consider myself a very visual person; I find that though I look at things, I hardly ever really see them, I'm not being attentive in that way.  When I walk a mountain, my eyes tend to stick to the path, watching for where my feet are going, so that I don't slip on loose stones, or set off a trap, or startle a cave bear.  It's only when I stop and actually explicitly take a look around that I see much of anything.  I'd assume to some extent we are all awed by a huge sweeping perspective view from on high, and that's always a part of a walk that I find hugely satisfying.  The rest of the walk tends to remain in my mind as a blur of colour or texture; vivid, warm and green in sunlight, cold, abstracted and desaturised in the rain.

I tend not to have much in the way of exercise in my life, I suppose I value the mental over the physical and that has manifested itself in the way my day to day activities unfold.  This was particularly true for me as a teenager.  I read, played games and watched television, I'd fallen out of any sport.  Walking up the mountain was possibly the first case of me wilfully putting myself through, and enjoying, an experience that was physically arduous.  There's a different kind of sweat that comes from effort, as opposed to the sweat of being a greasy pudge eating chocolate and playing Vigilante 8 in an overheated bedroom.  I suppose I learnt that relatively late on, unfortunately.

My worldview is fairly ego-centric generally, and I suppose it's time I widened the scope here to include other people in my mountain walk reminiscences.

One of my fondest mountain memories is a ramble I took with a good friend on a scorching day on the eve of an exam (History A-Level, if I remember correctly).  We were both jaded from the exam period, and pointedly anxious about our place in the world, as all people (teenagers particularly so, I would argue) are.  On our way back down the mountain we stopped and sat on a ruin of a small old building, a corner of brick that jutted out from the hillside.  With the sun raging down on us, we sat philosophising and righted the wrong of the world, a friendship, already strong, forged yet stronger in the cloying heat of the hillside.  The next day, at our desks in the neat examination rows, we squirmed with sunburn.

In the summer post-school and pre-Uni, a group of four of us went for a walk up the mountain, reached the top, and carried on.  The usual pathways we walked were clearly defined, yet we reached any number of turn-back points and we found ourselves just carrying on.  Paths ran out, we ran into walls, fences and thick tree-lines, and we simply found our way around, over or through.  A casual walk become something more, and finding ourselves on the opposite side of the mountain, we guessed this was the effort of our entire day.  We hit paths again, and eventually found ourselves in a town at the foot of the opposite side of the mountain.  There's a lot to be said for the daft excitement of finding yourself in a town where you've never been before, a joy that would be ruined by even rudimentary knowledge of local geography.  You never notice how few signposts actually exist until you don't know where you are.  We came home around the base of the mountain rather than going up and back over, and by the time we'd returned, it was dark and we were exhausted through and through.  It was excellent.

The only time I've been comparably exhausted from a walk up the mountain was on a day trip, again as a group of four, to the Brecon Beacons.  We got there early, trudging up the, for me, gruelling first slope, wrapped in a morning mist that turned sunlight to a blinding, all-encompassing blur, was a thoroughly satisfying experience.  I don't feel we made particularly good time, but neither were we lagging.  It is somewhat dispiriting, on some level, to see other walkers passing you, but when they passed us again going the other way, we realised they were playing a very different game.  We didn't go particularly fast, but we kept going, and only realised the folly ambitionamazingness of our approach when we turned around and saw the size and sweep of the path back to the car.  I think it's safe to say I was wiped out at the end of that expedition in a way I've been few times in my life.  Struggling excruciatingly up the last slope before the final descent I unhelpfully made my friends laugh by forcing out the curse "Jesus fuck!" as I ploughed, aching, upward.  It was boiling that day, too.

Though I have these stories of walking up the mountain in which funny things happened, the actual benefit of walking with friends is the one I touched upon in the sunburn story.  Recently I went walking with a good friend on a whim.  Having reached a turn-back point we decided to take a side trail and check out a small forest we'd never been into.  Until that point the weather had been pleasant, and our unconsidered clothing choices reflected this.  It started raining, and we carried on.  We were in the middle of a discussion, a chat, a debate, there are so many ways to label the action of talking.  I was with a friend, up a mountain, having a walk and sharing my thoughts, my problems and sharing in his.  There's very few things I would consider being better than that in the entire world, it is a delightful pastime.  I would even go so far as to suggest that, very possibly, it is the best way to fulfil intellectual and emotional aspirations, swelling yourself in good humour and good company.

Walking up the mountain with friends is by no means the only way you can achieve this, but it is a very good way, I have found.  The views are at the very least interesting, and even if the company sours, at least you had a bit of exercise.

Everyone should make a point of walking a bit more, I think.  Unless they walk a lot already.

Social Networking

I haven't written here for ages, and so I am cheating by recycling this piece I wrote for something else.  I, along with my colleagues at The ACRE, have started a monthly project entitled The ACRE FourThought where we pick a topic and all write a piece on it.  We figured it would be interesting to see how similar/dissimilar our takes upon each subject would be.  I think they've been interesting so far.


This first piece was for the subject 'Social Networking'.


*****

Human Interaction Devoid of Real Context

I’m going to narrow this topic down to Facebook, because myspace is now a music website and I am no good at twitter.

Social networking is all things to all people; this is my broad, vague theory.  Some people believe it is for noting their every movement, some believe it is for posting sexy pictures of themselves, some believe it is for plugging their gigs/blogs/videos/podcasts/business/products/etceteras, some believe it is for eulogising the dead, some believe it is for farming, some believe it is evil.  They are all correct.

Social networking is the spectrum of human interaction rendered in digital form.  It is human interaction devoid of real context, which enables people to interact near-autistically, freed from the constraint of manner and socially recognised appropriate behaviour.  Most people are au fait with this for the most part, a quick glance at my most recent news feed shows a plug for a cancer charity, a video of a BBC Jimi Hendrix session, someone thanking their friends for birthday messages, an uploaded picture of a psychotic-looking iguana named Penny, and someone who’s posted her entire night’s plans for all to see, enabling them to conveniently set an ambush for her.  All fairly innocuous, though when you log on wanting attention, it is dispiriting to simply find a stream of people peacocking in much the same way you did the last time you were on there, leaving forced witticisms and chirpy open-ended eagerness in the hopes that people will come on board the comment train.

The main problem, as I see it, with social networking is the same problem to be had by instant messaging.  This form of communication is far removed from what I will refer to as full interaction; the face to face, all-nuance and gurning meat, the classic old-school style of actually talking to someone.  It is widely accepted that a large proportion of our interaction is interpreted through body language, to say nothing of the inflection and tone when speaking, all of which is lost through internet/purely text based communication.  It is possible to write in a very colourful, engaging, descriptive way, it is not a foregone conclusion that shades of subtlety will be lost when communicating textually.  But so few of us are writers, so few of us have the verbosity, the written skills that can be summoned off-the-cuff to flavour a running text-based conversation in a way which doesn’t fall short of what could be managed face to face.  Obviously, I am a writer, and I do have the peerless ability to pour forth beautiful text conversation, but that just succeeds in accentuating my frustration with the paucity of everyone else’s capabilities.  I know it’s not their fault they aren’t as brilliant as myself, but some amount of nuisance creeps in nevertheless.

Ironic arrogant hyperbole aside, the amount of confusion, misunderstanding and misinference that occurs due to the ambiguity of how text communication can be interpreted is a right royal pain in the arsehole and no fucking mistake.  When arguments occur in the social networking arena, you are even denied the cathartic shouting match that would give the pathetic disagreement a degree of drama in the real world.  This was fine back in the day when computer monitors were great big hefty devices, and you could launch a solid, rewarding headbutt on one, but now in the era of the flatscreen and the laptop such outbursts are far too financially taxing.

At the time of writing I have 324 friends on Facebook.  These range from people I knew from school, comedians I met on the stand-up circuit, colleagues and people met briefly on random nights out.  I perhaps communicate with 7 of them with any regularity, and only 3 of them with any depth.  These are the same 3 people I will often see in person.  And in fact, the same 3 people whose words appear on this blog.  I would suggest this says more about my social interactions rather than the medium of social networking per se, but I think it certainly amplifies my habits, or perhaps the right phrase would be that it concentrates them.

Very few who use Facebook with any regularity will have fewer than, at the very least, 100 friends, and perhaps this is an outcome of a generation who grew up aspiring to be Pokemon masters, intent on catching them all.  Facebook isn’t used to chat to your friends, it is used to keep track of them, like a nosy bastard peering over the garden fence.  As they say, keep your friends close, and your enemies on Facebook.

It is ridiculous to what extent you can actually keep track of people using social networking.  There are acquaintances I haven't seen since school whose day to day lives I am familiar with because of it, which, again, can be a good or a bad thing.  In most cases it would be considered inappropriate and downright intrusive to have such a clear view into people's lives.  So why isn't it online?  Because they let us see it.  They put it up for us to see.  So have I.  You probably have as well.  This is the same reason we don’t feel weird scrolling through the 1000+ photos of those people we knew in school but haven't seen for years: it's because they put the pictures up there themselves, and allowed us access to them, wittingly or not.

I have genuinely mixed feelings about social networking.  In writing this piece I toyed with the idea of closing my accounts a couple of times.  Logging in and goggling down the newsfeed has become an unrewarding digital tic of mine.  I'm not really reading the messages, I don't really know the people on there, and for the most part I won't in any way interact with what they post.  And if I did I'd end up fussing over whether my comment was appropriate or not, whether they would understand where I was coming from.

The problem with social networking is that it isn't inherently good or bad.  Nothing really is.  It is an ever-changing chameleon beast; it can be a torrent of jokes, banal updates, bullying, publicly inappropriate photos, links, plugs, self-promotion, publicly inappropriate soppy love messages, publicly inappropriate arguments, empty token 'happy birthdays', arbitrary lying lols or infinitely unfolding comment pile-ups which result in an infinitely filled e-mail inbox notifications.

Social networking is too big a beast to fully get hold of, it wriggles and jiggles and shiggles all over the shop, depending which of the chimpanzees happens to be at the typewriter at that moment.  Once you're connected, it's much harder to disconnect.  Much like life, I often find social networking a largely unrewarding habit in which patience is occasionally rewarded with something pleasing, amusing or of interest, but those instances require a lot of sifting through valueless brown water.

I think I must just hate people.  Or dislike them, at the very least.  And with social networking, rather than in actual interaction on the physical plane, I can be playing a game and watching a show instead of listening to people.  But even then it can drag you back in.  In person, randomly chosen acquaintance A has no knowledge of Jon Irenicus, more fool them, but on Facebook there are a million Irenicus groups to choose from; "Like if you remember this banished elven cunt" (picture of Jon Irenicus), "Jon Irenicus is a mad cunt" or the spot on "Jon Irenicus is NOT a top fucking guy".

Of course none of those groups exist, but the point I was making still stands.  My life is empty, and while social networking is not singularly to blame, it isn't fucking helping.  I'm going for a sleep and complete life re-evaluation.

*****

To see the pieces of the other ACREs click on this bit here.

Mind > Words > Hands > Splurge

Lethargic.  It was not his limbs, but his brain that seemed frustratingly wearied.  Little would cajole the ponderous lump to activity, the human mind, the greatest super-computer known, dulled to a stuttering, numb withering in the face of crushing repetition, cyclic tedium.

It was a cruel trick of life that lumped this cynical, jaded creature with a station which surrounded him with the frenzied hysteria of gibbering children.  He did not subscribe to a karmic view of the world, however, and so his situation must be either attributed to a perverse emotional masochism or simple laziness.  Or a blend of the two.

“Turn the volume off, please”, the mumble escaped his barely parted lips, neither a request nor a command, more an automated response which he activated in order to avoid actually engaging with the stubborn, inconsiderate goldfish memory of the whelps whose compliance with the statement was short-lived.  Always short-lived.

Another peal of compressed, digital machinegun fire pierced the room, planned, designed and tweaked to the exact pitch of perfect annoyance by the King of Annoying Bastard Noise himself.

“Turn the volume off”.

The dropped ‘please’ and added edge of further annoyance to the repeated response was met by a swiftly muted computer and a clipped, flippant yelp of “Sorry!” from the offending gibberling.  The chittering of the children dropped out briefly in the wake of the restrained exchange, only the distracted clatter of plates from the café and the steady bass drone of the vending machine scored the room.

The chittering soon returned.  Of course.  The chittering; filled with frantic running-commentary of their internet-use and energetic onomatopoeic outbursts to accompany their gaming exploits.

Even characterising the children as wild mutated creatures or demonspawn no longer offered the slightest amusement, his mind’s bestiary emptied of fresh forms to cast upon them.  He’d realised his mistake early, originally he had assigned a unique fell creature to each child.  This had quickly sapped his creative resources.  Instead, he decided to envision the whole gathering as a large unified group of the same race.  But imagining them as a group of goblins was too much of a disappointment.  The group dynamic was simply too dissimilar to that of a classic goblin raiding party and despite their goblinoid shape and size, and despite how their rough command of the English language fitted his approximation of the goblin common-tongue, he was unable to maintain the complex and fragile illusion within his own head.

He chose, instead, to imagine creative ways in which they could be disposed of.

He envisaged a fireball scorching their ranks, webbing holding them fast until they wasted away and a dual-attack by two great bears, terror washing before them like a tidal wave as their roars preceded their hefty approach.  Numerous scenarios played themselves wonderfully in his head before he even considered the distastefulness of contemplating the annihilation of the young.  Surely something was wrong on a fairly fundamental level in order to be able to enjoy these hypotheticals?

His favourite scenario was one in which he was summoned, or created, an insubstantial creature of roiling mist and wind, which would coalesce suddenly and bare children, like limply flailing rag-dolls, through the glassless windows of the elevated room down into the expansive reception below.

“Volume off”.

The mist creature was imbued with an instinctive and thorough knowledge of philosophical and ethical value, and also wielded the oracular power of divination.  It cast its judgement on each individual in turn, processing and deciding whether or not their lives are, or will prove to be, of any value.  If they are adjudged to be upstanding folk, wholesome and scrupulous, they will pass through unharmed as the mist blows past them.  However, the unwholesome and unscrupulous elements of society will be launched humourously overhead as the mist tornadoes them with its unusual justice.

The moral code against which the creature judges is not wholly known.  What is known is that stupid people get almost-unjustifiably short shrift.  The same is true of people with mean eyes, and those who are able to smirk in a palpably evil way.  Also, individuals who insist on speaking without moving their jaw and make a foolish noise because of it also are punished by the Ethical Mist.  Also, children who refuse to turn the volume off their computers.

“Turn the volume off”.

Sporadic Infrequent - A New Disclaimer

I am becoming more and more unreliable when it comes to keeping any sort of consistency with writing here.  I'm not even able to keep the updates for the videos we do updated with any sort of frequency.  That's why there's a torrent of updates today, that probably isn't the done thing, but anyway, here's the perfect opportunity for you to immerse yourself in the visual works of The ACRE.

Basically, the original purpose for this blog was somewhere I would make a conscious effort to write amusingly.  It was a practice space for me to write, a place I could put it outside of a notebook so that even if ideas didn't come to anything, at least some people might read it and have some amusement.  Since I started this blog, I've graduated Uni, got a job, volunteered in community radio, become active as The ACRE, made a podcast from the recording we took there, started filming little internet videos, left community radio, focused more on the filming aspect in order to get to a point where we are releasing a podcast and a video every week.  It's even got so video-focused that both myself and Dafydd (www.youtube.com/devanssongs) are releasing a (m)vlog every week on top of that.  We've even managed to stock up a backlog of videos that are waiting to be released.

Basically ideas no longer find a halfway house in written posts here, because we tend to use them all, so they appear in film form, or they end up in a podcast.

Because we're focusing explicitly on filming and video-work, other aspects are currently, more or less, in stasis.  That's why there's precious little written updates on this blog, as well as the fact we aren't doing a lot of live work at the moment.  Video is the current priority.

We are working on a longer project at the moment which is called Breath Afresh Chaos.  This is as tiny as teasers ever are.  I will post more as it comes along.

Have a good one.

6 Nations 2011: Wales Match 2

Second match of the tournament, second video of our stupidity.  This time we faced Scotland.

Come on Wales, Come on the Rugby.

6 Nations 2011: Wales Match 1

I'm not really into rugby, but I suggested we make videos about it because a lot of people are, and at this point I am all for cynically jumping on bandwagons to score some dirty views.  This is what happens when we make videos outside our understanding.

Come on Wales, Come on the Rugby.

Wales Shark 003

In it I discuss the phrase 'There's No 'I' in Team'.

Learn Welsh immaturely.  In years to come I will be viewed as the re-populariser of Welsh.  Definitely.

Wales Shark 002

This is the second video of Wales Shark.  It is about Gareth Bale.  Hopefully it is educational and funny.

PodVlogumentary

This is a documentary in vlog form explaining how we construct the podcasts.  Hilarity ensues.

God of Whoa

Here's our re-telling of the creation myth.





I hope you enjoy.

Conversion Hypocrisy

The title of this post was the placeholder name for this here sketch, which is now called: A Silly Little Internet Video. This sketch is the one I'm most proud of all we've filmed so far. Specifically from a film/directorial point of view I think it's the most sophisticated in terms of cuts and angles. Hopefully it is more interesting to watch because of it.

Thanks for watching.

TPE 0005: When you are Holding a Hammer, Everything Looks like a Nail

Here is the very fifth installment of my moribund baby.  Look at it.

The Proverbial Experiment

Here's The Proverbial Experiment in all it's playlist glory.  Hopefully.  Leave a comment if it stops working.

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Oooh, doesn't this look all nice?

TPE 0004: Home is Where You Hang Your Hat

The series that will run and run.  Here is the very fourth episode.

I hope you like it.

acrecomedy@gmail.com
www.theacre.net

bAdvertising

I figured I should finally write a little something here to commemorate the fact that come the end of this month, we of The ACRE will be celebrating our first live show.  We've done live stuff before, in our ones and twos, but this will be the first time we've collectively written an hour's show and will be performing it off our own impetus.

All the live work I've done before has comprised of doing a turn at someone else's night, on a bill of acts unrelated to me.  I'm finding it considerably more daunting to be putting on a night of which the main attraction is meant to be us.  My relationship with the Facebook event page is best described as neurotic, "What do you mean you aren't attending, Person-I-Vaguely-Knew-in-School!?  You fucking cock!" etc.

And on the other side of things the fact that there are actually confirmed attendees fills me with dread when I am holding a 10 minute script which is meant to be exactly 6 times longer within 3 weeks.  It will be.  I am going to write the hilarious fuck out of that script.  When I'm done with it it won't even know it was born.

Yes, yes, self-indulgent passive-aggression, we get it.  What is it about?

The show is cleverly hurriedly cleverly called bAdvertising, which is 1) concise, 2) amusing, 3) a clever play on the iProduct way of naming things and also 4) sums up our basic stance that it is bad.

We're running it in the Gartholwg Lifelong Learning Centre, so we are writing it as a mock adult learning course, which is apt, and is a conceit we hope will cover any sticky spots in the script ("Hay, this bit is educational, that's why you aren't laughing!").

There will be at least 1 actual joke.

I suppose I am documenting this here for posterity and to placate my own worry that though I am not specifically writing the show at this point, I am at least doing show-related work.

On the off-chance that you, the hypothetical person reading this, is within reasonable distance and of a desire to come and see it, all the details can be found here.

Now, I am going to pull a pad and pen out and actually write for it.

"Knock knock".  "Who's there?"  "Advertising."  "Advertising who?" "".

I'll finish that one off later.

TPE 0003: The Forbidden Fruit is the Sweetest

Third installment of The Proverbial Experiment.  These videos are my attempt to show commitment to an idea.

Journal of Cannonby: Don't Hate us for the Hiatus

For real.  Here it is once again.


Narrator: Me
Boris: Dafydd
Bevan: Me
Cannonby: Luke
ZX: Me


*****

Journal: The Remarkable Doings of Cannonby
Don't hate us for the hiatus


Narrator
When last we glimpsed our heroes, so many yons ago, they were in a golden suryper of a sticky situation.  The crew were involved in a pincer assault on Vinehaven, a vast castle home to a cannibalistic wine-obsessed cult, partly to rescue the kidnapped the comatose Stephen Teal and Bludonna Snow, and partly to pillage some wine.  The group of Cannonby, Bevan and ZX Ilfracombe led with a full-frontal bombardment, while the espionage team of Boris, Doktor Li Faiseas and Uh Nurse snuck in through concealed tunnels.  In dramatic fashion, Cannonby and co were able to bring down the main gate with the meta-punning use of an explosive petard, while elsewhere, Teal and Bludonna were about to be pulped into manwine by the dreadful Crimson Maude, assisted by the onlooking lackey Hazel.  Now, framed by a distant rumbling of brick and mortar, Boris and Bevan make their escape through the dense forest that envelops Vinehaven, their progress impeded by their hefty cargo, namely the deadweight of the unconscious forms of Stephen Teal and Bludonna Snow.


Boris: I still don't understand what happened back there comrade!


Bevan: It was the petard we hoisted Boris...


Boris: I didn't hoist any petards...


Bevan: Okay, it was the petard I specifically hoisted, it packed a lot more splosion than we... I had anticipated.  Not only did it collapse the main gate, it seems it also buckled the floor, plungling me into the winecellar.


Boris: It must have done more than that!  The entire castle seemed to be coming down!


Bevan: Yes, it seems our actions rocked the place to its very foundations, literally.


Boris: Mmm.  Well as dangerous as it has proved to be now, comrade, it was magnificent timing on your part, no joke!


Bevan: I would say so, yes.  From what I gather Teal and Bludonna would be halfway to the production line had I not intervened.


Boris: glorious, perfect Green Ranger ex machina, swooping in, saving the day...   You didn't have to see what happened though...


Bevan: Well I was reeling a bit from having fallen 20 feet... luckily I landed on my stiff upper lip, and that cushioned a lot of the blow.


Boris:  You should have seen it comrade!  The pillar they were going to use to pulp Bludonna


Bevan: And Teal.


Boris: the pillar came out of it's moorings and smwshed to the ground, oh Bevan, it was awful.  It caught the Doktor and Nurse directly in it's path, and one of the Vinehaven goons!


Bevan: I guessed as much, when I snapped out of my confusion, it was with an astounding swiftness that I realised I was wading through excavated viscera.


Boris: Oh, Cruijff above, what horror.  You know like when a line of blocks disappear in tetris?


Bevan: No, I mean it hasn't been invented yet...


Boris: Well, this was nothing like that it was like a band of furious gorillas brutalising an aisle of lumpy tomato soup!


Bevan:  Peace, Boris.  Let us make good our escape, ere something yet more fearful befall us.


Boris:


Narrator
As the rueful and sombre twosome trudge their way away with their comatose cargo, little do they know their progress is being surveyed by the canny and vengeful eyes of the other winecellar survivor, the sly and vicious Crimson Maude.  Meanwhile!  Back at the now-crumbling castle of Vinehaven, two stoic champions seem unflapped by the structural instability of the stronghold they are looking to scale.  With eyes set firmly at the top, Cannonby begins his ascent.


Cnby: Come, Ilfracombe!  My eyes are set firmly at the top, and I am about to begin my ascent!


ZX: For what possible reason would you decide to ape up this compromised monument?


Cnby: For this is why, follow my reason if you dare!  We're aiming for the figurehead of this organisation, no?  And where would you locate the head-honcho?  Your assumption is correct my cyber-composite super-companion... AT THE TOP!


ZX: Captain, though your enthusiasm would be amusing were I not a robotic construction, I must indicate that the logistical flaws in your reasoning are vast and manifold.


Cnby: Silence!  Your plaintive criticisms, whilst wholly grounded in logic, are but cannonfodder in the blast of my cannonlogic.  I looked up when I was outside, and I saw her, the Headpriestess.  Now, Ilfracombe, I was a face-off on the battlements, and hopefully by the time I get there, there will be a lightning storm aswell.  Now are you to become my tailgate or are you going to stay at the gate with your tail between your legs!?


ZX: Which are we here for Captain, conflict or wine?  It was my understanding that...


Cnby:  BOTH!  Both of course, why simply have your cake when you can have a battle over it and then eat is with some icing on all lovely yum yum!  It seems though you are appearing as ZX, you are seeing the world through the eyes of your ghostly viking companion Ivan.  Hear me well Ivan, gather the wine, I will head up top to make fisticuffs with the head-honcherina, and afterwards we'll have ourselves the most magnificent celebration seen under the sun.  Hold tight, and may Cruijff watch over you.


Narrator
ZX heads down to loot what wine he can find, Cannonby heads up to boot Vino in the behind.  Does Cannonby truly understand the severity of confronting Vinehaven's DreadPriestess, the merciless Mellencamp Vino?  Will ZX's efforts in the collapsing winecellar be as unproblematic as simply stealing some wine?  What plans are currently fermenting in the twisted mind of Crimson Maude?  When you find out, you might not be able to Cannonbelieve it! in the next uterus-tighteningly electrifying instalment of the Tales of Cannonby!


*****


Probably should be mentioned as a footnote that when we read this out Luke farted during one of his lines and this changed the dynamic of the script somewhat.


Why not re-read it and imagine a fart during a Cannonby line and imagine how much funnier it would be?


This'll appear on one of The ACRE Podcasts several months from now in the year 2011.


I entrust you with making your own week enjoyable.