It’s all about me, me, ME
Long time readers may recall that I celebrate my birthday for the entire month of May, because I’m awesome like that (my actual birthday is early in May, and May is the awesomest month in Sussex). So…this was my big gift this year: a Nexus 7.
I’ve been so absorbed with it, I totally forgot I had to post today. Hell, that’s not even my photograph. Those aren’t my hands. I just grabbed a picture and ran away laughing.
I’m not posting on here with that thing, though. I think it’s of the devil. I clicked the icon for “my location” and it popped up a nice sharp picture of my actual back yard, where I was sitting at the time. I almost screamed. (That’s the scary intersection of built-in GPS and Google Earth). Under some circumstances, like Twitter, it’ll helpfully post that location for you along with your words.
I’m not taking any chances…
May 6, 2013 — 11:20 pm
Comments: 31
Let’s talk narratives…
Big day for this guy: Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party. UKIP picked up 23% of the vote in local elections across England. Yes, that is a Very Big Deal.
UKIP is a lot like the Libertarian Party in the States: their policies make great good sense, but they’re seen as a party of nuts and no-hopers.
Some of that is fair enough — there does seem to be a higher than usual proportion of whackadoodles in both parties. On the other hand, an awful lot of that is our old arch enemy The Narrative.
Try this experiment: do a Google Images search of Nigel Farage. Notice how often he’s shown making a goofy face. In almost all of them.
Okay, so maybe he just looks goofy, right? Well, you know who else looks goofy? One-eyed rubbery-faced paranoid nutcase with anger management issues Gordon Brown. Note there are one or two candid and unflattering shots on that first page, but not many.
You look how they want you to look, and UKIP has been declared the clown party by our lords and masters.
But let’s look at The Narrative, International Governance Conspiracy Edition. The BBC did a vox pop this morning featuring several hacked off Tories who voted UKIP. More than one made the same comment: we’ve got a gravely sick economy, a war on, scary times in the Middle East, tense times in the Far East, a general feeling that everything is turning to shit, and what is David Cameron obsessed with? Legalizing gay marriage.
So, riddle me this: why? Why is gay marriage suddenly the big fucking deal in Britain…and the US, and France? Why now, when everything is in crisis, and why all of these countries at the same time? It almost makes one suspect the existence of an international political Journolist.
Anyway, the Clown Party just kicked David Cameron’s ass. Have a good weekend. I know I will!
May 3, 2013 — 9:27 pm
Comments: 28
Arrrrr, that’s embarrasin’!
So, a branch of the Women’s Institute invited a retired sea captain to give a talk about pirates. When the news got around, the ladies gamely decided to dress up as pirates for the occasion.
Turns out, the talk was about Colin Darch’s ordeal at sea — kidnapped by Somali pirates, savagely beaten and held hostage for forty-five days in the Indian Ocean. Goodness, were their faces red. Cap’n Darch was a good sport about it, though, and the talk went on as planned. (Say, that granny on the right with the boots and the do-rag looks a game ‘un, doesn’t she?).
Meanwhile over in Wales, a Welsh woman pled guilty to racially aggravated harassment and was given a 12-month conditional discharge and fined £50 for calling an English woman an “English cow.” The cow in question was sleeping with her father, busting up her parents’ 32-year marriage, so tempers were high.
She could have called the woman a pustulant cunt of a hag of a cow of an elderly whore-flavored douche bucket and it would have been perfectly legal, but “English” makes it a crime.
Y’arrr, we be livin’ in stoopid times, me hearties.
May 2, 2013 — 9:52 pm
Comments: 12
Bliss
This is my pet mouse, Sixpence. The date stamp says it was 2002. Uncle B sent me flowers, and I put a carnation in her cage.
Check it out. She’s not nibbling it; she hasn’t mistaken it for food. She’s spreading the petals apart, sticking her head in as far as it will go and breathing in the scent.
She’s loving it.
It was an extraordinary thing. I put the flower in there thinking they’d eat it (she had a roommate who wasn’t interested at all) or make a nest out of it or do some other mousey thing with it. I didn’t expect to conduct an experiment on the æsthetic sensibilities of mice (you know I’m an intellectual because I stuck the ‘a’ and the ‘e’ together).
What made me think of it, we had a long drive today in beautiful, sunny weather. The lambs in the field, born in a cold and wet season, were blissing out in the sun, about the first warm sun they’ve ever felt. So were many of their mothers.
And my chickens. And the cat. It’s hard to watch so much sun worship and put store in the notion that animals are heat-seeking machines that would respond equally to the sun or a steam radiator.
Welp, I can’t walk too far down this road. I’ll end up a Jain, I swear.
May 1, 2013 — 10:40 pm
Comments: 17