meish dot org: life, unfolding

I’ve got a real thing about stationery. It’s just so more-ish. New paper smells so good. Clean notebooks, shiny paperclips, reams of card - there’s something irresistable about it all.

Paperchase is like a palace of forbidden pleasures. The office stationery cupboard is like a sweet shop. Perhaps I’ve got a thing about analog things because so much of my communication these days is digital? I can’t remember the last time I used a pen to write more than my signature.

Went to a wedding bash last night at the Amadeus Centre in Little Venice. Jolly good do, all in all. I wore an enormous Audrey Hepburn style purple mushroom hat and kinky purple boots, and had to give an ad-lib best man (woman?) speech that met all the the classic wedding speech criteria (make ‘em ‘laugh, make ‘em blush, make ‘em go all mushy, make ‘em laugh again). Dinner and speeches lasted until half eleven, and dancing continued till very very late indeed. Ah, weddings. Funny old business, eh?

Charlton Heston has got a fucking nerve:

“Calling British laws “cultural cowardice and a subtle form of surrender to the criminals,” Heston said possession of a gun did not make people criminals or more likely to commit crime.

This reminds me of dark genius Bill Hicks on the difference between gun control laws in the UK and US:

“Last year in England, where guns are illegal, there were 14 deaths from hand guns. Fourteen. In America, where I think you know how we feel about guns (oh man, I’m getting all warm and tingly just saying the word): 23,000 deaths. Now let’s go over those numbers again, I realise they might be a bit confusing. England, where no-one has guns, fourteen gun related deaths last year. USA, and I think you know how we feel about guns (oops, I’m getting a stiffy just saying it), twenty-three thousand gun-related deaths. But there is absolutely no relation between having a gun, and shooting someone with it; and NOT having a gun and NOT shooting someone. And you’d be a fool and a communist to think otherwise.”

Well said, Bill.

This morning my alarm clock woke me up, and I switched it to snooze thinking “what a tit, I set my alarm and it’s Saturday.”

When the snooze alarm went off the first time, I woke up a bit more, and thought “Shit, it’s not Saturday. It’s Friday.”

When it went off the second time, I woke up even more, and nearly wept when I realised it was only Wednesday.

Required listening today: Misty Morning (Bob Marley), A Foggy Day (in London Town) (George Gershwin)

Conclusive proof that Luke and I sometimes share a brain.

Two blog posts, separated by a dividing wall and an hour and a half, unaided by planning or collusion, but uniting to express one beautiful, unchallengeable sentiment: Craig’s Christmas single will suck enormously. Fact.

“The beasts of the forest agreed to put on a splendid entertainment. As usual, at the first opportunity, the Monkey stood up and danced a paso doble, juggling raw fish and grapes. Having vastly delighted the assembly, he sat down amidst universal applause and showers of floral tributes, some of which were still planted. The Fox then took his turn, backflipping across the stage with superb grace, while whistling his own accompaniment. The audience responded with applause which deafened the assembled throng and frightened the birds out of nearby trees. Then the Badger stood up slowly, for he was very old, and recited an epic poem while tap-dancing on a watermelon. Again, the applause was rapturous. Even the frog took a turn, standing on a shoebox and puffing his cheeks out so hard that he turned purple. He, too, left the stage to great whoops and whistles of delight. The Gnu, envious of the praises bestowed on the Monkey, Fox, Badger and Frog and desiring to divert to himself the favor of the guests, proposed to stand up in his turn and dance for their amusement, reciting from great works while playing a zither and making an spinach omelette. He stumbled about the stage in so utterly ridiculous a manner and with such little grace that the Beasts, in a fit of indignation, set upon him with spiked clubs, broke three of his four legs and one rib, tweaked his nose viciously and drove him out of the assembly, shouting wild and unfounded accusations about his sexual performance. And the moral of the story? Always take a spiked club to a performance. You never know how bad the show might be”

Chipshop’s Fables

My pal Nishlord gets a mention on memepool for his stripping antics. Bless.

Oh, he’s also finally got around to putting up some of the readers’ letters actually sent in to porn mags. Having read some of these letters with Nish in the pub (handled with a combination of fingertips and great hilarity, I assure you), I heartily recommend reading them. Classic (his commentary, not the letters…) but not for the feint-hearted.

Some people look at clouds and see things. I can’t say I do.

I did once see a duck wearing a bobble hat dancing in a tree, though.

Mind you, there were probably hallucinogens involved. I’m not proud.

You know what I’d like to see? An entire site devoted to the tracklistings of popular compliation albums (I’m thinking specifically here of 80’s faves Now That’s What I Call Music… and Superchart

(I’m the proud owner of Superchart ‘83 volumes one and two, containing such gems as Flash and the Pan’s Waiting for a train, Black Lace’s immortal Superman (”Comb your hair! Brush your teeth! Now swim!”) and of course Will Powers’ Kissing with Confidence (which I spent many long nights listening to on stop-rewind-play trying to replicate the Espaliano Romance Chant in the bridge. Never got it though.))

Why don’t the people who make the NTWICM series have a site? Surely it would be an obvious way to extend the brand, capitalising on all the late-twenty-somethings who are now going “Hey, remember that album from our youth?”

(choose your own critique*):

a) Good grief. Radical changes on the other side of the park for Tom. Enormous and unannounced redesign. Very different. Very clean. Vereeeeeee nice.

b) I take it all back. Tom’s redesigned. What the fuck does he think he’s playing at? It’s so BORING and reductivist and clean. It looks like it took him twenty minutes to shove together. What’s up with that?

*(oh how very postmodern of me)