I Survey from My Lofty Snobbery-Pony

If I don’t start writing now, I feel as though I will let an entire week pass without provoking a dragon of any variety. Which is unthinkable in a week where I have been attempting to flex my creative muscles in as many arenas as is possible, so here we go with a straight retelling of my activities (we’ll see).

I began the week by forcing myself out of bed at an unreasonable hour in order to pre-record a radio show idea that my radio compadre and I had been preparing for the better part of a fortnight. The actual premise for the show, which is far more unique and thrilling in my imagination than it can possibly be in reality, has been bouncing around since the later part of last year, and it is incredibly strange and exciting to actually have an episode of it recorded.

We were shown a heartening amount of trust and were left to our own devices in the studio, which certainly helped, as a recording would probably be awkward and forced were there someone overseeing our efforts. As it transpires, I feel the first few sections were still a bit jerky and nervous, but I think we were far more affable and amusing after that.

I once again delved into the time-consuming world of editing as it was necessary to have certain errors removed, such as playing the wrong tracks (Dafydd) or mistakenly putting the ‘.co.uk’ ending when plugging the website (me). It is good that mistakes came from us both I think, as if it were one of us in particular dragging down our average this would lead to bitterness and resentment, eventually culminating in a huge fall-out where one of us is drugged, lugged into a hemp sack and dumped in the river Selsig. Which would result in an evening of drug-induced damp slumber.

More of my time was taken up with the weekly reviewing project I am involved in, or perhaps co-founder of, of which I feel it is my duty never to miss an entry. This is likely going to prove impossible, although with sufficient organisation and dedication I will be able to meet the weekly deadline ad infinitum, however it has been in the realms of both organisation and dedication that I have always been slightly lacking. My review this week was of the film Paprika, which I have seen several times before, and is a film I genuinely adore, which perhaps made it quite so easy to write a review for, if it was slightly more difficult to stop writing. In order to begin a back-catalogue of reviews I decided to watch Vexille today, so that I could accumulate notes on various pieces in order to not be forced into watching whatever is on hand on the reviewing day in question. I really enjoyed the piece, though I am glad I watched it so far away from a deadline, as some of the comments I have regarding it require research in order to substantiate them, as I don’t fancy making wild statements and invite upon myself the rocket-powered vitriol of internet geekrage (as I saw it described in a Guardian comment section, although I added the term ‘rocket-powered’ myself).

At times I don’t really understand my own dedication to the blog phenomenon, or ‘blognomenon’ if you please, with my original reasons having their roots in giving me somewhere to workshop stand-up comedy ideas in the dark where a handful of would perhaps read them. More and more it has simply become a repository for my topical musings, due to the vast amount of news I read whilst in work, and also for the logging of my day to day doings, which I don’t particularly want to make a regular occurrence, mainly due to the fact that I don’t get up to very much interesting, case in point being the fact that I have so much free time as to enable me to pump out over 1000 words a day for a blog almost every other day. I would like there to be more of the sort of stupid expansion of a story in a similar vein as drowning my radio co-presenter in a shallow river, but in reality I tend to do more of this self-referential indulgent mememememememe rubbish. Now for something hopefully amusing.

On the drive back from work every evening, it is necessary for me to pass through the main road directly in front of the University in which I studied until I graduated this summer (yay me, I am cleverclogs). Now that it is term time once again, the roads are packed with returning students and excitable freshers, and the humbuggery that non-students stereotypically feel for students has not been long in worming its way into my psyche. The short autumn days ensure that I am driving home in darkness, and nothing impacts my driving more negatively than poor-lighting conditions and excess flesh. Wednesdays are the worst, as the University clearly still runs the midweek event ‘Score’, I could tell simply by the vast swathe of vapid hatefuls swamping the road. Now in the country where I live, Wales, it was my understanding that the road was where the cars go, and human beings, for their own safety really, are to walk along the pavement. Of course, I would prefer that vacuous brain-dead knock-off trend-plebs stayed indoors, or at least out of the beam of my headlights. If I accidentally run over a dog or a cat, that would be a shame and a pity, if I ran over a ‘party animal’ it would be a nuisance. I want to get home and into the warm as quickly as is safely possible, which is one reason why I am quite so much at odds with these people who insist on getting all dressed up and going out. I also have a quarrel with the phrase ‘getting all dressed up’, because the actual process is less about putting clothes on, and more about seeing how little it is possible to wear and not be arrested and/or die from hypothermia.

As much as vacuous near-nudity both distracts and frustrates me, pride of place goes to one particular bell-end who managed to dispossess me of any nostalgia and longing I may have felt for Uni just by walking down a street. The fellow in question was weaving foolishly between the other users of the pavement, holding his hand on his forehead as though it was some sort of fin, and pulling an ‘amusing’ face. It was not this negligibly annoying behaviour that fired a nuclear dart of fury deep into my brain and withered my soul, rather it was his chosen garments. Or more specifically, the ‘hilarious’ words writ upon it. Now I would argue that a rugby shirt should be worn on a night out on only 3 occasions: 1) fancy dress, 2) St David’s Day or 3) when the rugby is on. Now having noted that no one else was in fancy dress I could guess that this fellow was a bell-end. The final nail in his coffin, the coffin of my judgemental prejudice to be exact, came as I read the words on his back and realised he must be what people refer to as a ‘character’. Emblazoned upon his shoulders was the moniker ‘Captain Poon’.

He may as well have been carrying a sign which said “You are not going to enjoy my company”.

Luckily for the both of us, our brief liaison was merely a glance from a passing car, as just as he would have very little of value to add to my existence, I hardly think my clever dickery would be amusing to him, and I have no intention of debasing myself to amuse students.

At least, not now that I am no longer one myself.

Ah, hubris.

Spamphlets

Having lived for three years as a student I am now suffering an unpleasant multifaceted comedown. When the end of University was nearing I was filled with eagerness and a sense of pending elation as of a wearied grizzly at the approach of hibernation. Now, filled with the knowledge that there are no employment opportunities to be had and peering nervously into the unremitting veldt of time, I am lost as to how to fill my days, or more importantly perhaps, how to fill my days constructively, preferably in a way which will bear the fruit of financial income.

A couple of notes, here, about the last paragraph. My mind is clearly malfunctioning as I was unable to summon the word “hibernation” to my mind, spending about a minute staring blankly at the screen cupping my ears, I then typed ‘bear’ and ‘winter’ into Google, which had the word in the sample of the first hit. This is either an example of internet-savvy lateral thinking or yet another step for humanity on the slippery (and lazy) slope to utter vegetation. Also, I chose to use ‘grizzly’ in that comparison as I deemed other hibernating animals too feminine. In the animal kingdom, only the bear reaches the required standard of masculinity in order to be used in a comparative way to me. Ironically, the term ‘bear’ also has another meaning, which, while not undermining the masculine nature of the comparison, certainly suggests other, unfounded, reasons for me choosing that particular animal. Though I am indeed a large, hirsute gentleman.

I am yet to come to a conclusion on how to make money from nothing, and there is no lead available to turn my hand to alchemy, and so the only options available to me this night are either to eat or lose my mind to an internet site. Having exhausted my tolerance of other websites I have decided to, instead, to have an outpouring of premature nostalgia, in what people are never going to call ‘electronic reminiscing’. I am mostly proud that I have constructed a sentence containing both the term ‘outpouring’ and ‘premature’ without being vulgar or base, although I have now done that to some extent by alluding to the possible double entendre that could be taken from that sentence. If you are a childish sod. Which you are, clearly. No, not you.

Whilst I was still in my halcyon days as a student (roughly 3 months ago) I had noticed that if you lived in rented accommodation you would often receive a huge amount of post. There were two types of post usually; letters for other people and rubbish you don’t want. Now you would think that I would not be interested in either of these types of mail, well, you are mostly right, but also, to a smaller extent, wrong.

My favourite type of mail is letters for people who used to live in the house. This is because I am slightly anal and enjoy putting these away in a box for safekeeping should the people ever come back to the house to collect them, which they don’t. It was only in the brittle and shimmering final days of my studentship that I struck upon a brilliant idea. I delved into my memory bank in order to procure for myself a name that had often come posted through the door. I then typed it into Facebook. To my surprise, delight and nausea, he/she came up (not a hermaphrodite I am merely anonymising the person)(anonymising isn’t accepted on Word as a real word, though maybe it is an attempt to make the word more anonymous). It quickly became clear that this was definitely the correct person, due to them having affiliations with the University I was attending. I had the nagging feeling that I was undertaking behaviour of a creepy sort, especially after typing the fifth name. It is perhaps fortuitous then that the majority of ex-housemates had set their profiles to private, though mayhap less fortuitous for the housemates who hadn't. I didn’t do anything horrible, nor did I get in touch, though it is good to know that the people who’d lived in the house previously were both better qualified than me and married with children. It is good to know that the house has a strong pedigree that I can follow in the footsteps of. The ease with which I had discovered them was actually a bit frightening, and certainly spells the end of days for James Bond films. Sorry, 007. I also briefly considered a Dave Gorman style challenge of meeting everyone with un-reclaimed mail in the house and delivering it to them, although whether giving unwanted and out-of-date spam (mail not meat) to strangers would be difficult to beat into a coherent and ultimately uplifting narrative. Still, if you do undertake such a challenge and receive any sort of acclaim for it, I would like to be duly accredited, thank you.

I also enjoyed the spam and pamphlets, or spamphlets, that were addressed to me. It was in this period of my life that I discovered there were three things advertised in pamphlets; pizza, kebab and god. Now these three things fall on a sliding scale of enjoyment for me, I really enjoy a pizza, and if you offered me a kebab I would have to vehemently turn it down, whilst screaming “My body is not a temple but I would rather anal beads than kebab”. And god is even worse than that. The main difference between these three things is that when you eat a pizza it eventually becomes shit, kebab probably has shit in it, while god is complete and utter shit.

I have, however, discovered that there are more kinds of spamphlet than this. Having moved from a student town to a smaller, approaching rural, town the spamphlets which you receive are 1) fewer and, 2) less food-orientated. The three new types of spamphlets available to homeowners in towns are for: charity, fetes and racism. There’s a sliding scale here as well, with charity being good, fetes looking promising but being ultimately disappointing when you walk home with no money and a flyaway football, and racism being bad. There are also catalogues and god being advertised in these towns, but they have the nerve to knock on your actual door, on the actual front of your house, where you live, and talk to you about things (shopping and god, mainly). I had to turn a Jehova’s Witness lady away because she didn’t have an interesting hat on, I said “Madam, if you wish to waste my time with your fanciful fripperies I suggest you at least make purchase of arresting headwear”. I, of course, said no such thing, and I took a sample of her magazine in order to read it and make fun of it in public.

So I’m sure there’s something constructive for door-to-door bastards to take away from this; if you want to talk to me, bring a trilby.