My Dad...

Dear Reader.

My dad finished his job today (did I mention that?) he's getting a new job Vicaring in a different parish and all this week we kept saying "you see James you really had a wonderful life" (Its an "It's a Wonderful Life" reference! Shame on you for not knowing!) because everywhere he's been there have been people thanking him for how he's helped them and help them turn their life around and sometimes it was for things he'd almost forgotten about, tiny little things he's just turned up at right moment for and he's just done his job. That's the weirdest thing about my dads job because as a vicar you kind of float in and out of people's lives whenever they meet a cross road. So you're there for weddings and deaths and births and suicide attempts and messy divorces. So sometimes my dad ends up doing the service that becomes important to someone and helps them because you say the right thing to help them through what they're feeling or he ends up doing youth work and helping people then or doing a school assembly that brings people to a different life. A good vicar will be in the background of everyone's life changing moments but almost always like a ghost.
But with my dad its kind of bigger than that he seems to have been in the background of almost every comity in the Calder Valley so there seems to be hundreds of things where he was there with the little suggestion that drove things through or the little idea that someone else took up and changed things and got all the credit for. My dad effected so many lives in so many ways that essentially when the time came for his leaving party it felt like everyone in the village turned up.

I understand why my dad enjoys his job and I admire him for it, but there is no way I would ever want to be a vicar because you seem to just have to know what to do and then you do it.

He'll be missed at Crag and Mytholmroyd but he needs to go find another part of the world to change. I hope they're ready for him...

Weird things that happen on the YouTube.

Dear Reader

I have been watching allot of YouTube series recently and there are a couple of things that I've descorvered which kind of show that the worlds allot weirder than we once thought it was.

the first one is DJ Paige Railstone. Now you may be wondering why this is worthy of mention since its just some artist trying to advertise her work pretty normal but it quickly gets weirder when you find out that the existence of DJ Paige Railstone, from her music career to her personal history to her appearance and personality, is entirely made up. She is a myth made up by "The Vlogbrothers" after they wondered if they could convince the internet that she existed, so they gave her a Facebook account and a fan page and a twitter account and all the usual stuff that musicians have to sell their music and essentially asked everyone who subscribed (commonly known as Nerdfighters) to Google it as often as possible, to the extent that at one point if you typed in "Paige" you would get her on auto fill (now you have to do "Paige r" but its still impressive).

It doesn't stop there after that their subscribers started posting on YouTube. Some just talking about her some posting their music in her name some claiming they've been to one of her gigs and some, where, like this video (which gets 10/10 for both creepiness and impressiveness), they actually claim to be her.

To Quote John Green "Allot of people have been asking me if she's made up, and they've asked whether she's real. We did make her up, but that doesn't mean she's not real."

Either way it does show the power of mass internet subscription. From the Nerdfighter's charitable apeal to making Google auto fill give the word "awesome" whenever you type in the question "is Hank Green..." (the other vlogbrother) to even calling a human being into existence, the masses have the power. (DFTBA!)

the next weird thing is this that two very separate Vloggers (Bryarly Bishop and Charlie of Charlieissocoollike)are now dating and apropriately after a year they both announced it to their subscribers.

Which is lovely because they seem to be such lovely people, they have so much in common and they're both really lucky to have found someone where you kind of just feel that they are the male and female versions of each other (I tried to make that not sound weird but that's how it is). But anyway the weird thing about it is how it feels for the subscribers. Because for me at least, before Charlie posted about her I didn't know about her Vlogg existed at all so it very much feels like the two great crowds of subscribers are now meeting for the first time. And it kind of feels like they're two super defensive parents meeting the new partner and their family at the same time. We're all very happy that Charlie has found love but we're kind of scrutinising her and thinking "if you hurt him! You will pay!" Which, if you think about it is REALLY weird, because I've never met either of them!

The last one is just Genius! There have been a series of someone funny reads "fifty shades of grey" videos but this is the best! The thing is when I heard about it I laughed because I could imagine what a horrible sound it would be but when I got to it, I discovered it was exactly how I imagined it and weirder. Frankly I'm putting it here because I just want everyone in the world to know of its existence (much better than fricking Gangnam Style anyway). I would pay so much money for him to read the entire book.

By the way Reader the reason why I was away for so long was frankly because there are far too many page views on that post I did on ginger people and I worry you only look because its got that picture of Amy Pond which kind of depresses me.

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE!

Venomous

Dear Reader.

Okay, so, a while ago I posted this poem by Tanya Davis called "How to be Alone" and because I've recently just returned to University and I'm a bit of a sap I've been watching it more often than usual. So I was on YouTube flicking through the comments (there was my first mistake) and they were pretty tame and positive as a whole for a YouTube stream as you would kind of expect for this kind of video. Lots of people said it was really good and it helped them and stuff. But then I found this.

Comment

I found this right after my husband passed and it helped me

be ok with been alone. I'd never been totally alone before.

Thanks for helping me thru it.

Reply

You don’t know how it is to be alone, Try being alone all your life and then act like your alone. Other than that, you haven’t experienced shit

Do you ever come across a comment where you absolutely understand where that person's hatred comes from but you still hate that their hatred exists? Because you can just feel how all that loneliness has just fermented into this almost beautifully venomous ball of anger, hatred and jealousy. 

Because, though it might never comes to this, sometimes in your darkest moments you do hear the way people complain about their lives and just think "you have nothing to complain about".

If you really think about it this isn't a very far off mutation of the phrase 

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"

isn't it? The problem with this is you're never going to meet anyone who has consistently experienced both so both sides are always going to think they have it worse. The people who have never loved at all, have never loved and lost and vice versa (does that make sense? Anyway). At the very least its better to have loved and lost because at least then you know you're capable of finding someone to love and who loves you in return. At least you know you're not broken and there's hope for some kind of love in the future. Where as at some point lonely people just start to think there must be something wrong with them.

The Realisation That Made my Day.

Dear Reader.

I was at the freashers activity fair today hwhich was a bit pointless because it was the same groups as there was last year. But I wash there partly because I was bored and partly because I was looking to see if they had finally established an SCM group because I never want to go back to CU and SCM are generally a bit more liberal, and there was all sorts of groups including the pole-dancing club (people who pole dance not a club where you go see people pole dance you understand) so I was trying to steer clear of that because of the growing crowd of Blokes either staring blankly at the "demonstration" or trying to chat the girls up and I was worried the floor was getting sticky (I know for allot people its not just about sex and all that, but for Blokey freshers just out of Sixth form, it is). And I kept looking and looking for the religious groups becuse they're usually all in the same room and I couldn't find them and I suddenly realised why. Because slap bang in the middle of all the religious groups (and nothing else) from CathSoc to the Islamic Society was placed the Pole Dancing club of Sheffield.

It was such an awkward moment of realisation when you see these women standing in this sea of religious people glaring and almost audibly thinking "are you testing me Satan?". I had to leave because I just got the giggles.

Now I hate to make generalisations about religious people because as I've already said they're often wrong and have people who are strongly the exception to the rule. I don't know what kind of Venn Diagram you could make of students who are strongly religious and students who want to take up pole-dancing but I bet the segment where it crosses over is pretty small compared to, maybe religious people who are politically active and even if there are lots of them I doubt they want to make it a one stop shop and sign up for it in front of all the other religious students. I'd imagine very few people think when they're talking to someone from the CU "oh that reminds me I need to sign up for pole-dancing" so what fresh madness possessed the organisers to do this what link do they have that I just don't get? Especially since in one of the other rooms was almost every other kind of dancing!

They didn't have CSM (*shakes fist*) so I suppose I'm going to have to be a godless heathen for the year and only hang around with Christians on Sundays.

I AM DAVE EXCLAMATION MARK YOGNAUGHT AND I HAVE FINALLY BOUGHT THIS GAME!!!

Dear Reader.

I actually bought and download a copy of the game Minecraft recently. If you've been reading recently I did a post where I talked about my obsession with watching people play Minecraft (the Yogscast mostly) and never actually doing it myself. But now I have it! Which might explain why haven't been bogging as much recently because all I'd have to say about my day would be "I did some farming today, I built a wall, then I finally finished getting the bits together that I needed for that nether portal I've been trying make", which would be rather dull, "a gaming blog" isn't really what I'm going for. but I will talk about it in relation to something my dad asked me the other day. I was playing Mine-Craft and he looked over my shoulder (not exactly used to me being a gamer) and he asked me what I saw in such an old fashioned looking game. I shall have this post as my answer.

1. Despite it's pixelated look and cubic stile its huge. In fact its infinite. The more you walk the more that the world randomly generates (while still remembering where you've been,) so that just drives you to explore more and more both up in the sky and underground and of to other universes and that just plays to human nature.
2. Like real life, you can almost play it however you want. You can spend your time farming wheat and animals or you can spend your time building houses and forts and art or you can spend your time digging down into the earth or you can spend your time hunting and killing monsters. The only rule of Minecraft (for survival mode at least) you have to survive. Beyond that there is a point where you begin to understand what it means to live and use your time efficiently in this Minecraft world (Minecraftia is the most common word I think).
3. It's scary. Surprisingly so. In fact it really plays very hard on childhood fears. The monsters only spawn in darkness meaning that often they jump out from the darkness. This game teaches you to be afraid of the dark. Its also a little bit scary because the whole idea of the thing is in the game you are the only person in the entire world (except the villagers who just seem to stare), and yet there are some structures (aside from the Mob villages) which spawn all by themselves. There's something slightly creepy about mining around and then suddenly coming across another mineshaft complete with roof supports and broken mine cart tracks (who put them there?).

Aside from the dangerous ones like the Creepers who's attack involves blowing itself up, some of the monsters are actually pretty scary in themselves. There's this one called an Enderman (based on the indie game "Slender" which is also fucking terrifying in itself) who will remain docile and passive until you look directly into is eyes it will run at you screaming. If you attack it, it will teleport (usually behind you) and will continue to attack you and hunt you down until either you or it dies. Just because you looked at it. Frankly monsters are partly scary in this game because every time you're killed you loose all the items you're carrying and you invest allot of time on that.
4. Its very Indie this is good because;
A. It encourages universe hacking. By that I mean because its an indie game there are some useful glitches still keep in that make life considerably easier which are in no way realistic however the creators still keep them in.
B. it encourages an insane number of mobs that often attract the owners attention and actually end up in the main game.
5. Herobrine.

There are hundreds of theroies around this character (or mob or monster or myth). Some think that he was a miner in the game before the game was released who now roams the land either as ghost or demon searching for his usurper to get his revenge. Some think Herobrine was the name of the game creator's brother who died tragically and now lives on as a ghost in his brother's game. Some think the entire game is actually all a dream created by prisoner who is being tortured and Herobrine is actually the character's subconscious and when arrives he will call on the player to "wake up".

But here's the thing Herobrine is entirely a myth! Entirely made up by fans of the game even down to the way he looks. there has never ever been a confirmed sighting of Herobrine and the creators of the game deny ever putting him in any of the game patches. Here's a kind of creepy quote from the creator Notch.

The Herobrine stuff is awesome and kind of scary at the same time. It really shows how little control a content producer has over the content.

I've publicly told people there's never been any such thing as Herobrine, and that I don't have any dead brothers, and that letting too many animals die in lava is a fool proof way to summon him but that you don't need to be afraid of him. He only means well, he's looking out for you, trying to warn you of the dangers you can't see. There certainly are NO physical manifestations of Herobrine that will sneak out of your computer if you leave Minecraft running at night, looming over you as you sleep with his pale eyes inches away from your face, as he tries to shout at you to wake up. Sometimes you wake up with a jolt, and he's gone, and all that lingers is the memory and faint echo of his wordless screaming. Of course it was just a dream. There's no way a morally dubious ghost with a god complex could at any point decide to haunt the children who play my game "for their own good", as there is NO SUCH THING. etc etc

Now you may be wondering why I put this last one in because isn't part of the game but a game has to be really big and scary and challenging and real if, out of the control of the creators, an entire ghost story myth can be created by its players.

Dear Mitt Romney. It's not funny any more.

*Sigh*

Dear Mitt Romney.

This is not funny any more! You have just made so many stupid slip ups that, I am really starting to worry about your mental health.

What were you thinking? What were your advisers thinking? What thought could have possibly possessed your brain that made you think that saying you don't care about 47 percent of the american public was a good idea?

I think I might have about the same chance as becoming president as you do. I, a British, labour supporting, borderline socialist, liberal, Darwin believing, Christian, at the age of nineteen believe that I might have the same chance of becoming president as you do. Or, at the very least, I could give better advice on public speaking than your people did.

1. when on a diplomatic (ass kissing) trip to Britain for the Olympics don't say that you think its going to be a failure (that's our job!)

True the British public weren't feeling too good about the Olympics either, but if you start saying it too they will rain down on you with fury and anger!

2. Even if you say "who cares? fuck the planet" in a nice way there are still going to be people who notice what you're doing.

3. You are only a Mormon try to not sound like you're an alien that has replaced the "real" Mitt Romney on behalf of the body snatchers.




Actually I think I might know what you were thinking. The 47 percent video was taken at a fundraiser. That means that the Democrat party wants money for their election campaign so they invite a lode of rich people and businessmen to these things so they can listen to you and give money if you're doing what they want you to do and generally saying "fuck the poor" (Corrupt? No! Not at all! Everyone does it!). At this point in you're life you believe there is no possibility at all that the "unwashed masses" are actually watching. Which may show that you and your advisers know nothing of the modern world. We are always watching so you  always have to be on, every man with a camera phone can be a spy for the media and we are everywhere!

Excess and Suitcases.

Dear Reader.

My parents were cleaning out the loft and they found this suitcase

and I really like it. I'm kind of into old stuff at the moment partly because generally I like things that might have a story because, frankly, I like stories and partly because I hope to some day have a house that's like Sherlock Holmes' study but this is beside my point. When I saw this suit case the first thing that came to mind was how tiny it looked to my modernised eyes. I kept asking my parents how could people actually go on holiday with these things they simply said that people would probably just wear the same clothes (or suits) over and and over. Which, with the rise of cars, lifts, suitcases with trundle wheels and generally never having to actually carry our own bloody suit cases, is an ability or habit, humanity as a whole has neglected.

I mean look this is it next to the bag that I took to greenbelt. This is shameful. Keeping in mind that I was sleeping in a tent for only four days and had to drag bloody thing through a muddy camp-site and I this wasn't my only my only bag, it really made me think about how much excess crap I take on my holidays. I actually tried packing this old suitcase and I found just by wearing my trousers twice I could survive for at least six days (at least!) and it didn't weigh that much.

Generally it got me thinking about excess crap there's all sorts of stuff people say things like you should throw away a piece of clothing if you've gone an entire year without wearing it, there was this, frankly cruel program where they take all the stuff out of the person's house and they're only allowed to keep the stuff they can remember it (psychopathic really now that I think about it. There was probably a prize).
There's this quote that I heard from William Morris apparently (thank you wiki quote) that says 

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

which is pretty good advice if you're sorting out your stuff for uni but it just shows a need for people to just go round their house and say "is this useful or beautiful" and "if its not why the hell am I keeping it?" because that's the only point to an object.

But just out side of the whole bush craft stuff where you drop yourself in the Gobi  with nothing but a toothpick, two hats and a ukulele is the fact that we don't need to carry that much around with us any more. With I pads and I phones with pretty much everything you could ever want on them from your favourite novels to your laptop files we're kind of moving away from the time when you have lots and lots of gadgets and you just have one multi-tool piece of technology. There's this idea that "cavemen" were actually much more advanced than we think because every thing they needed to exist could be carried on their person, there's even some evidence that they could carry burning embers in special pouches so they could easily light their fires again and with all these new advances in technology we're kind of returning to just that. We do not need to carry so much stuff.

this is what the case looked like when it was filled.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Dear Reader.

you know when you come across an idea or a phrase  that just describes something so perfectly that you realise you've already had the idea in your head but you've just been waiting for a way to describe it.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a recurring stock character in (mostly indie) films and novels who has all or most of the following characteristics

1. Brightness (this can just mean that they are smarter or more strong willed than anyone else or like something that is bright they just seem to stand out from everything else in the universe)
2. Loveable weirdness (be that an unusual obsession, philosophy or simply a hipster taste in the arts)
3. An ability change the way the moody male protagonist sees the world.
4. They are very pretty, not necessarily in a kind of sexy (maybe even predictable) way, but always seeming like they are way out of the protagonist's league even though she inexplicably is still attracted to him.
5. Like a pixie, being free and wild, they inevitably leave the protagonist returning him to his perhaps even more depressed and moody state.

Famous examples I know of are the character Summer Finn in the film (500) Days of Summer played by Zooey Deschanel (who almost defines the general look and feel of this stock character) and the character Clarisse McClellan in the wonderful book Fahrenheit 451 who is famous (in my life at least) for being the first fictional character from a novel I may have actually fallen in love with.

and the whole thing raises a couple of questions the first is one I can't even start to understand which is "why is it always a girl?" Don't moody girls want to meet weird wonderful imaginative boys who brighten up their lives and change and challenge how they think? Maybe I'm thinking about this all wrong or maybe its because in stories where the male characters are weird or unusual they are also the main character and a bit of an underdog which the female character eventually realises they should have been in love with all along (which is kind of the opposite of the male version).

The second cluster of questions I suppose is probably the questions asked by most of the men who go to see these films or read the books is do these women really exist or are they entirely idealised wish fulfilment fantasies? If they exist, where the hell are they? Because, like pixies, these Girls are almost mythological. Do people not see them simply because other men find them so attractive and appealing that none of them are single any more they just disappear as soon as they're created? (after a year of working in a creative writing course I can tell you this might indeed be true because there are a lot more writer arty types in a relationship than than not) but finally if women are constantly trying to emulate people they see in the media like super models and almost comically dressed celebrity idiots why aren't they emulating the Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

And before you ask I am in no way saying women look like these characters or whatever. Its just women have always had this idealised version of the perfect man who listens and is funny and bakes cakes or whatever, which has all come from the media and similarly I think what a lot of men have been trained to want by the media is someone who's just unbelievably cool.

Coolness by the way is a standard that has fallen out of favour in recent years and its a real shame. Probably because it should never have been used to described the "cool kids" at school because they weren't. My friends are, and much like the pixie I fear for the day when they realise I'm not really one of them.

Richard Feynman is "Kinda' Nutty"

Dear Reader.

This is Richard Feynman who I believe should be in the top ten coolest scientists and I can give you at least three reasons why he should.

1. He played bongos. Alot. 

This video is of him playing bongos with some guy who lived near his house (not a physicist) and people who followed him and admired him would ask this guy "well what does he talk about?" and he'd say "well we talk about stuff, sometimes we talk about bongos."

2. He cracked safes in his free time. In fact, while working for the American government he managed to guess the 9 digit code for the safe containing all the research for the Manhattan Project, in two goes. He tried what he thought were the two most obvious numbers 1. the first nine numbers Pi (3.14159265) 2. the speed of light (299 792 458 m / s).
Not done with that he turned up to work the next morning placed the Manhattan Project file on his boss's desk and said "you need to change you're password". That is pretty bad ass. I imagine him just swaggering out of there, with maybe, just, this playing in the background.

3. He has a brilliant way with words. He always seems to explain things so well but more importantly he never used a metaphore that's a "good lie" (one that sort of works).

A good metaphor

Why a you should never use a bad metaphor 

Kate Tempest.

Dear Reader

Okay... I am really supprised I haven't posted this poet. I had to check a couple of times just to be sure. This is Kate Tempest. The name you should always say when people ask is rap have any technical or literary complexity?

Eden is a tent at Greenbelt (no really the venue was called that)

Dear Reader.

I think it sounded a little weird when I said that my idea of heaven involved drinking tea in a tent. Keep in mind that this was the tent.

Greenbelt. What I learned.

Dear Reader.

I am back from the Cheltenham greenbelt festival (art, faith and justice) and after spending four days in a muddy rainy field going to seminars, music gigs, comedy gigs (I saw robin Ince live three times. Be still my rationalist heart) and poetry readings what have I discovered?

1. Water proof cagoules (good word) have a maximum capacity at which they will somehow overflow and your limbs and back will be completely soaked with guttering water.

2. I discovered this lovely singer. Grace Petrie. Which you should look up. She does do non-political songs as well.

3. if you fart and sneeze at the same time you will actually implode and cease to exist.

4. if when a cat is yawning and arching its back you press on its spine it will bust.

5. cats always land on their feet unless you butter their back.

those last three weren't from experience but I have it on good authority, from a comedian called Mike Wazniak, who wears a space man suit no less, that it's all compleately true. 

Yeah you say you don't believe it but you'll all be trying it with your cats at home.

6. Robin Ince is just quite frankly a lovely human being as well a brilliant comedian.

7a. My idea of Heaven does not feature "foie gras to the sound of trumpets", it must involve drinking tea, in a tent, to the sound of sitar players.

7b. Christian Indie Sitar players (Hindi Indie) actually exist!

Yeshu Raja (Jesus King)

8. Finally I discovered that describing yourself as a Christian tells someone very little about who you are. This week I have seen anything from hippie Christians to punk Christians, to Goth Christians to Hipster Christians, to Geek Christians and Bookie Christians to feminist, socialist, lesbian or gay Christians. There are Christians all over the world with different languages and traditions. Not to mention the seemingly countless denominations within our own country all with their own focus on morality and ways of worshipping god and similar to any group in fact any crowd of people if you talk to enough of them there are bound to be some you disagree with and sometimes wish would just go away (that's not religion that's just people).

In fact often I feel that those are the only type of Christians greenbelt never attracts, the people who have such a ridged idea of Christianity that they could never stand being around all the kinds of Christians I just mentioned.

If you have a picture of a Christian in you're head it could possibly be as stereotypical as when people think all gay people act, look and talk like Graham Norton or Mr. Humphrey's in "are you being served" and in the similar way being Christian doesn't take up every element of our entire existence, (often religion is one of the lights by which we see the world not just our world itself). We should never be a Christian "full stop" because if nothing else Christians should never get stuck in their own beliefs and should always be questioning where they stand on  the questions of life and always live in doubt.

I will now calm down.

Street Chess

Dear Reader.

I was in the square outside the Huddersfield library today, waiting for my parents to return from doing boring shopping and I was sitting on a bench and there was one of those plastic giant garden chess sets and suddenly this group of big gruff skin headed tattooed "working class, salt of the earth" types of men walked into the square and almost silently laid the pieces out to play and two of them played and the rest watched and ate their lunch.

And at no point did these men start talking or joking around these two giant men moved silently moved the pieces around the board and the other men watched and it was very strange because it began to take on the feeling of some of street performance. Infact it did draw a bit of a crowd of people eating their lunch, living under the ruling that staring at anything is more interesting that staring at nothing but something about the whole experience kind of made me feel better about humanity for some reason. Maybe its because chess just represents the appreciation of the human brain rather than its muscles or its bravado.

If nothing else the sheer fact that even though the chess set is left there every day for anyone to play with, none of the pieces have been stolen which I think shows something.

The clever Spider

Dear Reader.

All this week every evening my bedroom ceiling has been absolutely covered with midges now there is one fat spider.

I love spiders, because I hate flies.

There's actually a philosophical question about spiders and light bulbs.

You're walking down the street at night and you look up at the street lamps above you and you notice there are spiders webs hanging from them, completely dripping with midges and one fat Spider and as you go along you realise that lots of the spiders are doing this and they're all getting very fat.

now there are a few ways of interpreting this I won't say these are the only ones it's just something to think about (I suppose you could comment if you can think of any more). Here are some.

1.  These are very clever Spiders who, either by speeded evolution or with something like Pavlov's dog (Pavlov's Spider), have learnt to spin their webs every night in the same place so the midges (their food) who are drawn to the light will get caught in their's web because there is an association between the light and getting food.
2. The only webs you see are the ones that are in the light and there are equally fat and successful spiders in the shadows. The only way to know would be to check the area.
3. All the spiders choose their place completely randomly however the ones who build in the light are successful but may never learn to associate light with food and the next night they return to the shadows and go hungry. They aren't clever at all, they're just incredibly stupid and for one mystifying night, incredibly lucky.

Ginger people who dye their hair make me sad

Dear Reader.

Ginger people who dye their hair make me sad. 
Ginger hair is so beautiful and has so many complexities of colour and shade that to cover up, destroy even (because often it doesn't come back) something so rare and beautiful, just seems so much like self-vandalism that it just breaks my heart. I may just write a sonet to the colour ginger that is how much I like it.

Amy Pond Exibit A through to G on how beautiful ginger women are (yes I know she's just a character played by Karen Gillan but in my head she's always Amy Pond). Now Just imagine her with black hair. Do it right now. Its Weird isn't it? 

by the way this was the only picture of Amy Pond I already had on my computer. I'd like to call this at least a level three Geek joke (yes there is a system) just for the complexity of knowledge you needed to spot the double entendre. The only level ten I've come across is "there are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't". There are so many people in this world who don't get this joke that It should be the geek joke from which all geek jokes are measured.

the only level ten geek moment I've ever experienced was while listening to a remastered classic Doctor who story on BBC 7 (I think it was called the head of Morbious) I found out that the story was set on the planet Kaan at which I screamed at the top of my voice "KHAAAAAAAN!" a la Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. That's right, the multilevelled geek moment.

Literary Pilgrimage

Dear Reader.

I went here on my holiday. This is Barter Books it is one of the largest (and I would argue the nicest) second-hand bookshops in Europe. It has been described as "the British Library of second hand bookshops". It is just so beautiful and the cafe is so good and there is such a brilliant selection of books that if they don't want to give me a job I'm honestly considering living there and making it my home.

There are some places that just feel like they're sights of literary pilgrimage. The British Library, The Bodlian Library, the Nazi book burning monument in Berlin, the Gutenberg Statue in Mainz, The Gutenberg bible itself, for that matter are all monuments literature as a whole and often they're places of remembrance and gratitude that I would love to visit. I have been to the Gutenberg Statue it is often fairly ignored (there are no letters of thanks or candles left to him) but there is a weekly second-hand book market (mostly German books of course) and I love that it's there. I should say that I did leave a not to Johannes Gutenberg basically saying thank you. Good idea isn't it?

These places are all important to me. I would argue that culture, words and religion are probably the three things that make up my core and solidify me. I am grateful to these people and the things these places represent because I know if I never started reading I'd still be an idiot, and I kind of feel a greater need to go to these places than going to the Holy Land or the Vatican because I don't believe that god lives in certain buildings or places because she's omnipresent (though, maybe there are places where she might be more noticeable) but words are here. They are solid and it seems like they are more connected to solid places.

I know this all sounds a bit weird and insane and its probably dangerously close to being blasphemous or worshipping false idols or something, but its kind of true.

This is the book burning memorial I talked about.
A window onto a room full of empty shelves.

Is this me?

Dear Reader.

Today I'm going to get a bit philosophical and to start at the very begginning, its a very good place to start, when read you begin with A, B, C when you philosophy you begin with;

Who are you? What are you supposed to be doing? And where does the world come from?

Yes I am paraphrasing "The Sound of Music" thank you dad for the weird upbringing. these arguably are the three questions all philosophy is built on. Today I'm going to be talking about "Who are you?" but its always useful to think of philosophy in these terms especially if you want to start studying it.

So "who are you?" if you answer with your name "I am Joseph" (for example) well you need to start thinking about whether you're name makes you what you are. If I was born and given a different name would that make me a different person, do "Franks" have a certain frank quality that comes with the name? I have several  But I digress really the question "who are you?" or "who am I?" (perhaps an easier question because you know more about you than anyone else. Don't you? ...) brings me to the picture bellow.

This is me aged around aged five taken by a man named Donald who goes to my church (and quite interestingly was childhood friends with Ted Hughes the past poet lariat),

and this is me today taken on my dad's phone to test out a new app on his phone.

and just to show ballance in-between here is a picture of me looking fat in front of a boat.

are the people in these pictures the same person? because I believe I have developed a bit both physically and mentally, I have changed and developed and have been moulded by time. They have different bodies, different brains, different tastes in hats and clothes and different beliefs and ways of seeing, the boy in the first picture wanted to be an inventor, had never read a book in his life and thought girls were stupid (ironic because I know now that he was fucking idiot).

The people in these pictures are even different people by most physical standards because every cell in your body, even down to your bones and your braincells dies and is replaced in at least a year. And yet I can say to you in every picture this is a picture of me. Who am I? What makes me, me?

I suppose what this does show is that what I might be is an accumulation of things but it is one of the reasons why I like looking at these pictures because its such a complicated experience. They're me but then they're not me yet.

its a bit like that when you watch really old films of heroes doing death defying stunts you find yourself thinking "oh gosh they're going to die" and then of course you realise its just a film and they won't really die and then you realise that if its a really, really old film, then they might well be dead already.

Both dead alive and about to die at the same time.

"No." don't "bring it back!"

Dear Reader.

Its been a horrible week in Britain we've all been brought into that unpleasant world that we'd all rather leave to some other person to clean up or worse simply ignore. People have done horrible things to innocent people and children. It is monstrous. Which is why of course people post things like this with things like "who agrees?", "like or comment if you agree!" and we say just hang them or even some of us say "hanging's too good for them" torture them burn them then kill them. We say all these things on our computers behind our screens with no sense of, well I suppose reality might be the word, don't we? Do you know what I wrote in the comments for this? Between all the table banging the roaring angry arguments (often with nobody in particular) there lies for ever one, simple one word statement from me;

"No."

For so many reasons "No." not only for moral reasons over whether we should fall to their levels, is murdering murderers justice or simply revenge and if it is should law be driven by that or something higher? But also I would argue that its wrong for a much more practical reason. Sometimes courts are wrong, sometimes new evidence is found and the person is found to be innocent (though with many cases it seems incredibly obvious) but a pardon for a wrongly executed man is little use to him or his family members and there are people wrongly imprisoned and executed for murder and to say they exist doesn't make the guilty any less guilty but the phrase "within reasonable doubt" says that it is as terrible a crime (if not more so) for the state to kill an innocent man as it for it to let a guilty one go free.

By the way that "No." comment got one "like" from someone and it is one of the pieces of writing I am most proud of.

Here's Jeremy Irons talking much more eloquently than I ever could for Amnesty International.

Holy Island is a "Close Place"

Dear Reader.

Do you know the amazing thing about the silence on holy island? Its how noisy it is. The birds are constantly twittering and the sheep are constantly calling for their lambs who must have been torn away from them I'm sure, nothing can sound that sad. But one thing that amazes me is how silent the island itself is. The sea makes no sound whatsoever, the waves are completely silent and still, even though the tide can come in, in a matter of minutes and there is hardly any wind and when it comes its soft and fresh.

Have you ever heard a seal? Not the honking barking noise I know your thinking of. I mean the noise it makes when it sniffs the air before dipping its head under the water again. Its an amazing experience. You can hear it from the shore. That's how quiet it is here.

My dad said that Holy Island is a "close place". There is this really old tradition in some of the Celtish Paganism which says that holy places are places where the two circles of heaven and earth are so close that their walls almost touch if that makes sense.
But it also says that in some places it even crosses like a Venn Diagram and of course they argue this is where religious experiences happen (as I suppose does the messiah, ghosts etc where something comes through this cross over) I'm not sure if its true of course but its a good way of thinking about places like this. I hope some parts of heaven are like this.

it confuses me when the tourist parties come here because they come to a holy place and ruin it simply by being there. They roll in with their noise and their money and then they leave just when the island is at its most beautiful. If they leave when the silence returns then what's the point?

I see children and teenagers complaining that there's nothing to do here and I think "yes! that's the point!" Lindisfarne isn't a place where you are given things to do. There are virtually no shops and there are only a couple of landmarks to visit. Its a terrible place for tourism but it is a place where there are things to discover and make your own entertainment and you are left to fill your world with thoughts. You read, you write or you sit and think and watch. I would never recomend you come here (if nothing else that would encourage something I've already said ruins the place e.i. tourism) but I would say, like most places of pilgrimage, for people who are ready, its there.

And no I'm not sure if I'm ready for this place either.

Possibly gone for a week.

Dear Reader.

I'm going on holliday tomorrow to this half island called Lindisfarne (or holy island) and I call it a half island because its unusual because if you don't know it only really and island for about half the day (we have to get there by 2 o'clock otherwise our car won't be able to get across the causeway) and faced with what can only be described as the premise of a classic horror film with an ancient, tiny, isolated island I'm not entirely sure what the internet connection's going to be like so I may have to try to send some stuff by phone (if that works) or write everything down for my blogg and post it in ten days time when I come back. Wish me luck and pray that I don't fall into the plot of the woman in black hopefully Daniel Radcliff will turn up and he'll be able to use his training as a wizard.

Dear Reader. Why "Dear Reader"?

Dear Reader.

Since I've just gone over the 500 view mark  and I'm coming up to my hundredth post (its a small road mark I don't care) I thought I might like to explain why I keep addressing you as, "Dear Reader"...

I kind of got the idea of starting with a greeting, from watching several hundred YouTube Vloggers (video bloggers) and picking up that they usually start with the same greeting. my favourite are "Hello gentlemen and female gentlemen" from Scarf Demon and "Hey internet. Let's get drunk." from the My Harto series "My Drunk Kitchen" (both links at the bottom). Its not that uncommon in some actual bloggs I follow "hello internet :]" (Will's blogg at the bottom) actually starts with just that, the phrase "Hello internet :]" and it can be much subtler than that a lovely writer I know called Kate who starts almost every single one of her Facebook posts with this piece of punctuation "..." which is frankly a brilliant way of starting a post because it shows that its a continuation of a thought or that one post leads onto another (which is what Facebook either is or should be to you). But I'm not doing it simply because everyone else does it I'm merely pointing out that alot of people have found the soloution to a common problem. Its a unnerving experience to just blurt out and start talking to... everyone, and anyone.

Secondly it doesn't make sense to start with "dear everyone" or "dear internet" or "dear blog" or "dear diary" or even "dear friends" (because I do have a diary and I still address it "dear reader" there) firstly because I'm not addressing the internet or a blogg or a diary because they are inanimate objects and are unable to understand (I hope the internet isn't sentient) instead I'm addressing the people who view these things (in the same way a news reporter doesn't address the television). Also there's something slightly mystic about addressing something so vastly omnipresent and omnipotent as the internet these days that I wouldn't dare approach it I cannot claim to address the internet in the same way I cannot address the universe or "everyone".

thirdly it seems silly to label people who read this blogg as "fans" or "friends" or "followers" because I don't know whether you like me or even that you follow me (this may be the first blogg you see) you could be anyone. And although I do try to write this as if I were talking to a friend there are only two things I can tell about who you are 1) you are able to read (because you can read these words) so are a "Reader" and 2) you are very much dear to me, my Dear Reader. Because you make this whole thing worth doing. Without you I'm just a mad man screaming into the darkness.

Scarf Demon http://www.youtube.com/user/ScarfDemon
My Harto http://www.youtube.com/user/MyHarto

Shit Writers Say (and a shameless plug)

Dear Reader.

This is a video from some of my friends from the Sheffield Hallam creative writing course. One of the actors is a poet called Will (he does do other stuff I hasten to add) who is doing a brilliant Blogg of his own called "Hello, internet :]", a link to which I will put at the bottom, please check it out, he is considerably better than me at film reviews (as well as being just, simply a much nicer person in general) and because he's a poetry writer he publishes allot of his work.

I have to say this video is slightly too close to reality its scary. I sniff books and there was controversy in our group when someone wrote a poem that had 14 lines and called it a sonnet even though its not in iambic pentameter or had the right amount of syllables and had the nerve to say that "there are no rules in poetry." I have to stop writing now because I'm having flashbacks.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIT 10 SYLABLES INTO A LINE!!! AAAAAGH!!!

Okay Joseph. Calm down.

I have said or have heard another writer say almost every example given in this video. Though I do agree that I want to be just like JK Rowling be a 47 year old mother of three with a husband called Neil. (Thank you Wikipedia)



(http://hell0internet.wordpress.com/) here's Will's blogg!!!

Brandon Generator (among other things)

(http://www.brandongenerator.com/) <- Brandon Generator website.

Dear Reader.

Do you ever feel there are slightly too many stories where the main characters are writers with no money and/or writers block? If you're looking for a really good one I recommend "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" by George Orwell if you can read it and still want to be a writer then there's a chance studying to be a writer won't break your spirit and destroy your life. Anyway I digress, it kind of makes sense that they would. If you believe you have nothing to write about start, by writing about a character who believes he has nothing to write about.

Brandon Generator is one of the odder ones I've seen (web address at the top) it kind of reminds me of this writer called "Ben Moor" in it's ability to play with words and I think its narrated by the guy from "The Mighty Boosh" (look them up they're funny and weird). The idea was that people saw the episode every week and then they'd send in their ideas as to how the story would continue (there was a similar idea on BBC 7/Radio 4extra (depending on your era) called "Chain Gang" which I recommend you keep an eye out for) and like many things in life I've only discovered it quite a while after it was popular. If hipsters really want to avoid being mainstream the answer is not to be cutting edge and pretend to be the leaders of the mainstream instead it is better to remain loyal to things and rediscover things even after mainstream has finished playing with them. There speaks the voice of the youngest of three.

Looking back on this post I kind of realise that for everything it does I can find something else that has already done it and I don't know what that means. Does that make it bad? No. I enjoyed all these things pretty much equally. What it does mean though that I have an annoying mind that can remember these things and recognise them as recycled pasterns and point them out to me before I have the chance to enjoy it but on the plus side I have just manage to cover this post as one giant Amazon "If you enjoy this bit then you might enjoy this" style review of something that I found genuinely entertaining. The good thing about talking to you through the internet is that you already have at your finger tips the largest referencing system in the history of the world. I can say that one of the few things I know in Latin is "nolite te bastardes carborundorum" and that I first heard it in a book called "The Handmaid's Tale" and if you're intrigued you can go look it up without it being a problem.

This is Ben Moor if you're intrigued

A very socialist ceremony.

Dear Reader.

Okay I accept it the Olympic ceremony was very good (I loved the "petal cauldron")  and I'd probably agree with the way it was focused. I would agree that the industrial revolution, the NHS, children's literature, British music, radio, TV and comedy, multiculturalism and the inventor of the internet fit into the categories of "important to British history" or "something that the British people are actually proud of" and it never went too cheesily obvious which was one thing I was worried about.

I thought it was a good idea to start with the industrial revolution because though  it essentially destroyed the environment (the mill owners were definitely the baddies of the piece) this period probably was the start of what could be called "Modern Britain" with the increase of income and population growth it increased the amount of free time and started what became the "middle class" (if you believe such a thing exists) with the idea that you could become rich rather than just inheriting it, not to mention the rise of such things as women's suffrage, free healthcare and universal education. All in all I was pleased to see it was a very socialist opening ceremony (especially in the light of a conservative government) and I'm very happy to see that a Tory MP has already complained about it
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jul/28/olympics-opening-ceremony-multicultural-crap-tory-mp?newsfeed=true)
and then got in trouble for it (HA HA HA). But I think its expected that it would feel a little Labour/Socialist positive because the things it has brought are, well, worth celebrating (if nothing else its surprising that it works as well as it does).

I'm always a bit careful careful about dismissing these things a just a shiny bauble to keep people happy and quiet  because lets face it I want to become a writer (an artist of sorts). Making shiny baubles is what I'm going to be doing. I mean sometimes writers try to make a serious and complicated point and some even introduce ideas that change the world (on their good days) but really when it comes down to it's all a distraction from the monotony of everyday life and the inevitability of death. Its what they do, and it should be. The distractions are important. Distractions like, music, film, computer games and drink are fun and often beautifully so.

Say what you like about the Olympics this is one kick ass advert

Music by Elbow

Dear Reader.

I keep hearing people (mostly from other countries, American Mitt Romney for example.) saying that British people are really negative and critical and "unpatriotic" about the games and worrying that its all going to be too expensive and don't get me wrong its all true but I would argue that that's what being British is all about. We come together the most as a country when things go embarrassingly wrong for example today there was this thing where bells were being rung across the country from church bells to cow bells and there was someone there from the Olympic comity saying that everyone was so well prepared that nothing could go wrong and mid ring his hand-bell fell to pieces. My entire family cheered.

About the thinking about it being an economic, artistic, logistical balls up. Just because we think about it doesn't mean it will. I bet every country worries about this stuff but they never admit it, if the Britain is anything its a country of realists. We aproach patriotism with a sense of mistrust partly because we know the things that are recognised as "typically British" that always go with enforced patriotism are A) shit and B) not really enjoyed by the British (a lot of the time we eat fish and chips out of necessity not really for enjoyment).

The Masterson Inheritance

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Dear Reader.


I always find that comedians, are at their best when they're trying to make other comedians laugh and this format of making up an entire story on the spot leaves allot of intentional misinterpretation that's just brilliant especially since they never quite want to do what the narrator wants of them. I have BBC Radio 4extra to thank for my interest in this program (which actually finished when I was about three) who have been bringing many of these series back from the grave for people like me to enjoy. There are of course many copies of it on YouTube if you care to look.http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007jstr/The_Masterson_Inheritance_Series_1_The_Sweat_of_the_Mastersons/

Update.

Dear Reader.

I went to see my mum today. They'd done the operation and she seemed okay pretty zonked out but apart from that good. She's probably going to be all right. I told my dad that I'd been worried, because I thought he might not be able to spot it.

Sometimes I wish I could be less of a Vulcan (or a robot). I hardly ever cry when I'm sad and worse I don't know what to do when other people are crying and I feel terrible and I feel helpless for that because other people do, and it isn't just a man/woman thing either my dad's job is to be good at that and I can't. Sometimes I'm too cold, too separate. I'm self-aware enough to realise this but not enough to stop myself. I view everything I do in hindsight, and live constantly in regret.