The Astonishing Simplicity of the Human Knee.

Ok, I finally throw up my hands and admit that the mechanics of the human body are totally beyond my ken. I’d have thought that your knee was a pretty complicated thing, with all bits of ligament and bone and like tissue and shit in there. But it seems not. Did you know that only two things can go wrong with your knee? It can have fluid in it, or it can be arthritic. That’s it. Serious. When I went to the doctor’s yesterday because my knee has been spazzing on me for about four days – refusing to bend, twanging with stabbing pain, and generally under-achieving as a joint – he sort of tapped it – no fluid – and looked at my last blood test – no arthritis – and that was the end of that. I, in my ignorance, pushed the subject a little, assuming (as the layman is prone to do) that pain + joint immobility = trouble. And let me tell you that I was put FIRMLY in my place. “You have to expect a little pain in your life.” Were my doctor’s exact words. Looking into matters further would be a fool’s errand, and whether or not I can walk or bear my own weight is frankly none of his concern.

I hope I don’t sound ungrateful or sarcastic. Doctors train for years to affect the correct tone of patronising dismissal while maintaining an unassailable sense of their own infallibility, and it’s really a privilege to play a small part in the off-handedly condescending dance of their trade. I wouldn’t be a G.P. for all the money in the world: and judging by how cheap my doctor’s wig is, all the money in the world is not what he is earning.

Covering people with eyeballs and mirrors doesn't make you Salvador Dalí. It does make me want to stab you in the face, though.

Ok. Syd Barrett’s dead, and the rest of Pink Floyd are still alive and raking in the cash. Proof of the non-existence of God, anyone?

To add insult to injury, Muse have a new album out; and somehow, people are buying it. What the hell is all that about anyway? One Radiohead is already one too many. That's maths you can't argue with. I’d have thought that marketing a Muse album would be like trying to interest someone in a second tumour.

Especially when the artwork looks like this:



Dude. Even Peter Gabriel doesn’t try and get away with this shit anymore.

Next week, my Dad will be releasing an album of thinly-veiled Placebo covers with artwork featuring a picture of an old man sitting naked and blindfolded on a throne in a field of sunflowers.

Dead sunflowers.

My Hero.

Wow. Long time, no nuthin.

If I’m going to get back into this blog (and I wouldn’t suggest you read this as any kind of assertion that this is at all likely to happen), I’ma have to start out small; and this seems like a good place to start.

I was coming home from work last night, getting onto the bus with a couple of bags of shopping, all hot and impatient and irritated at the crowdedness and how I wasn’t going to get a seat, when I noticed this dude sitting just ahead of me. He had that so-immaculately-turned-out-you-just-take-it-for-granted-that-he’s-gay thing going on, and as a result, kind of stood out on the 243; over-neat hair combed up into this slick little micro-fin, his outfit a tightly-orchestrated symphony in sheepskin, lambswool, weathered leather, and other animal by-products spanning all points of the cream-through-beige spectrum. So there he is, and he’s all fiddling around in his man-bag with a look of mild perturbation, till he fishes out a teensy little aerosol canister, which turns out to be – and I thought these only existed in cartoons from the fifties – a little atomiser of breath-freshener. For real. Anyway, so he unselfconsciously opens up his mouth, right there on the 243 going up Tottenham High Road on it’s way to Wood Green, and spritzes his tongue with a couple of puffs of delicately minty vapour. At this point, he’s already my hero; that’s the bravest thing I’ve seen since, I don’t know, since Tom Cruise rescued that baby or something. But then. Oh my god, and he didn’t even turn a hair: then, in one fluid movement, he rotates his little atomiser 180 degrees and sprays it three times directly into the exposed armpit of the woman standing in front of him.

Cynicism is no defence.

I hate it when I get sucked into this shit. But it’s happened again. London is currently “lost” (and you’ll be wowed by the deftness of this vertiginous wordplay in just a few seconds) in a blizzard of hysterical publicity for Channel Four’s latest imported US drama, “Lost”. (See? I’m a wizard. Don’t feel bad, I’m sure you have something you’re good at too.) The huge glossy posters are everywhere, and they are fucking ridiculous. I mean, I thought Zoolander was a made-up film, and now I find out I’m actually living in it. In the background, a plane smoulders in dramatic metaphor. In the foreground, the entire cast toss their heads and pose in a state of artful dishevelment, in exactly the way you’d think a bunch of people who just crawled out of a plane wreck and are thankful just to be alive and not have lost an arm would pose. They are uniformly beautiful (except for the token fat guy, naturally shoved right to the back and closest to the dangerously-on-fire plane wreck, the token kid, and the token black guy, who are obviously there to inject the gritty realism which I imagine will become this series’ trademark), to the point that if they were all ever actually on the same plane, the laws of statistical probability would short-circuit and the earth would spin off it’s axis. The only disaster they look as if they’ve had anything to do with is a Christina Aguilera video. It’s horrifically laughable; like, it could be a Sam Taylor-Wood photo. It’s that bad.

And yet. Dammit. They’re so pretty. Jesus. Shoot me in the head, I hate what I’ve become. Seriously. It’s vacuous zombie wallpaper that makes me want to stab everybody involved with it in the leg and leave the knife poking out and then gaffa tape their hands behind their backs so they can’t pull it out and all they can do is look at this fuck off great knife sticking out of their leg and start freaking out. But when I walk past one of the posters, I can’t help getting sucked in by how hot everybody looks with their retarded serious faces and cataclysm-chic Armani’s rent daringly asunder to reveal taut, expensive sections of celebrity anatomy. Do you hate me? I do.

To illustrate: here is a picture of Ian Somerhalder holding a fish.



Ridiculous. But look at what his left bicep is doing while he is holding that fish. Here is a transcript of how I imagine the conversation will pan out the next time Ian Somerhalder comes round to my house:

(Sound of novelty doorbell playing La Cucaracha (I don’t have one of these yet, but my birthday’s coming up and I live in hope.))

Me: (Opening door) Ian! (Self-consciously lowers voice an octave.) Hi, come in.

Ian Somerhalder: Hey. Wow, this is a great place. What are you paying for it? Maybe I should move to Tottenham.

Me: So you didn’t have any trouble finding it?

Ian Somerhalder: Not at all. Your directions were excellent. I wish all of my friends shared your eloquence, consideration and clarity of mind. You are a fine intellect and an all-round good egg. Also, you have nice hair.

Me: Thank you. Maybe later I’ll let you brush it in front of a roaring log fire while we drink Schnapps and swap riotous off-piste skiing stories. Say, you smell of fish.

Ian Somerhalder: Yeah, they had me holding a fish on set again today.

Me: So was your left bicep doing that thing?

Ian Somerhalder: Uh-huh.

I then swoon, spasm and fall into a cataleptic fugue state for the next two and a half months.

Things I have learnt about Switzerland.

1) Shitting in Swiss airports isn’t always as simple and stress-free as you’d imagine. (Should you ever have taken the time to imagine what shitting in a Swiss airport might be like. (Oh, what; your rich inner life leaves no time for that kind of thing? Please.)) See, sometimes when you would like to have a nice relaxing poo, the Swiss are piping Michael Bolton singing “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You?” right into the bathroom as if this were somehow conducive to an expedient and healthy evacuation. Which strikes me as woolly logic. Speaking for myself, I was clenched. Not helpful for the shitting. I would therefore suggest to the Swiss that there is a time and a place for the soft rock ballad, and airport bathrooms just don’t qualify. Maybe try, like, a sealed lead chamber buried four miles beneath the moon’s surface. Or the Vatican: at least those guys have persecuted enough people that they almost deserve Michael Bolton. (Rolls eyes back in sheer unadulterated bliss at the thought of the Pope struggling to pinch one off to the strains - and I use that word with the utmost deliberation - of “Can I Touch You… There?”)*

2) In liberal Switzerland, women clean the men’s toilets. Honestly, they do. They also prop the door wide open with a bucket while so doing, which makes total sense as there are no cunning little atriums (I know it’s technically atria, but I want to get to the end of this post and still have SOME friends) or screen arrangements that would get between the rest of the terminal and your wang should you happen to be using one of the urinals while the nice Swiss lady is mopping the floor.

3) Swiss wasps are persistent. And they like ham.

Ok, so I only learned three things. And two of those were about public lavatories. Please don’t take this as a reflection of… uh, anything. Plus, cut me a little – I was in Switzerland for like five hours. And: I also learned something about wasps. That’s entomology. Which is a SCIENCE.

*Wanna know the funniest thing on earth? I tried to link to that song and inadvertently downloaded the audio file, which is titled “hurl.asf”. I may never stop laughing.

The screamo band’s gonna eat all our food.

I went to see The Mae Shi with Siobhan last night: weeeird show. They were totally, like, bitchin’ and gnarly and very and stuff – I mean, they really were – but the rest of the bill was just confusing. We got there super early (because I’m a tard and refuse to have fun if I’m an inch further away from the band than is humanly possible), and right from the word go things looked kind of… well, ok, first off the DJ was playing this really featureless punk-by-numbers, and Siobhan was the only girl in the room. Danger. We’d seen one of the bands hanging out on the street outside, and they were all wearing black and trying to do skateboard tricks on a five foot wide piece of pavement while people were trying to carry their shopping home. Plus one of them was wearing a bandana. A black bandana. On his head. I’m going to say “danger” again here. Then when the first band were sound-checking, the drummer… I don’t know how to describe what it was that he was doing that so clearly flagged his band up as an acme of pre-fab skate-punk dreck, but I do know how to tell you that Siobhan and I looked at each other, and our eyes said “danger.” Anyway, so band 1 threw themselves into their loud, fast, utter-boredom-and-a-total-absence-of-ideas-masquerading-as-adrenalin-because-we’re-shouting-and-running-around-and-playing-reeeeeally-fucking-fast bullshit for what turned out to be a fifteen minute set. Relief and yay. We stared at them and willed them to go away, and they did. Result. Band #2 were less than heinous only by virtue of what came before and what came after. For about two minutes of their set they sounded kind of like Unwound, so I have to give credit for that, plus they did a pumped up cover of one of my favourite Stereolab songs, which was endearing even if they did sort of murder it a little bit.

The third band were the guys we’d seen outside. I was hoping they’d make me look like a dick for thinking that if it looks like a screamo band and it skates badly on the pavement like a screamo band, chances are it’s a screamo band. But you know what: screamo band. Right again. DANGER. Cue half an hour of an angry, emotionally constipated guy chucking himself up and down to the same three chords and yelling at people to “have some fun! You guys paid good money, right; don’t you wanna have some fun? Jeez, I dunno man… This song’s called ‘We Will Destroy You.’ One two three, AAAAWWRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!” I don’t know. Maybe this is unreasonable of me, but don’t you think that if what you do doesn’t make people happy, the problem might sometimes be with what you’re doing, rather than with people’s responses? Hey, I’m 33, what do I know.

Anyway, so they spent about forty minutes picking fights with the audience and wondering why nobody loved them, and finished with something that was seriously called “Skate or Die” – I could feel the system bucking as they played – before finally fucking off and letting The Mae Shi set their gear up; they only got to play for 24 minutes (“Skate or Die” had eaten into their set, but I guess seeing as it’s corrosive moral attack is likely to lead to the dismantling of Capitalism, Patriarchy and the rule of the privileged, it would be churlish of me to suggest that they could have wrapped their set up a little earlier), but 24 minutes of their herky-jerky spaz-pop noise terror was like drinking a cold glass of something fizzy that changed flavour in your mouth three times before you got to swallow it. They are the stop-startingest band on earth right now and one of my favourite things ever. Plus they, you know, seem like nice people. Maybe I’m naïve, but I think this is important. I was talking to Tim Mae Shi after the show, and he was saying how they’d rushed in from Rennes that morning, and they were all late and stuff, and “on the way to the venue we were all ‘Oh man, we’re gonna be late, and the screamo band’s gonna eat all our food’ – ‘cause that’s what always happens…” – and a little bead fell into place in my head. Because I had had a little voice in the back of my head saying “Don’t you think you might be being kind of harsh on the screamo kids? Aren’t you maybe judging them just on the fact that you don’t like the music? Aren’t you maybe just a bit old and miserable and out of touch?” But the good news is that I don’t think this is true! Seriously. Being in a shit band is one thing. Whining at people for not getting into what you’re doing between songs is another. Saying “Dude, last night I had this dream where I was driving my car, but then all my bones were coming through my skin and shit, and I’m like “Whoa!” I mean, how do you dream that shit? It was pretty fucked up. One two three, AAAWWRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!” is also another thing. Being abusive to a bunch of people you’ve never met – busting out your half-arsed skate moves on the street where you are totally in everyone’s way – eating other people’s food and just basically behaving like a spoiled fourteen year-old – I don’t know, maybe you have good reasons for not getting along with your parents and stuff, and maybe it’s pretty unchristian for me to be so dismissive of your cry for help. But all of the above still yells ‘self-absorbed arsehole’ to me, and this manifestation of your belligerent personality in your art could well have something to do with why you had an audience of about thirty people. I’m just saying.

My Arse vs. The Kyoto Protocol.

Here’s the thing. I’m all for not breathing poisoned air and crisping up in the sun, and I do back this up by stomping up and down turning off lights that my flatmates have unnecessarily left on, tutting and huffing my smug indignation like a Salt Lake City Evangelist finding a bunch of used syringes in Central Park. For this, I believe I am a Good Person, and it only pains me that others don’t see my virtue in action (though of course it’s nice to be able to share it with you here.) But, as with all God’s chosen, there’s a line cutting across my comfort zone over which I simply cannot will myself to step. Where in the Bible Belt this line runs somewhere between active homosexuals and having sex with a menstruating woman (“You fags better quit yo’ ass-fuckin’, or I’m gonna have to pull mah dick outa this bleeding snatch just about long enough to open up a can o’ whoop-ass all over yo’ pansy asses.” (Uh, I have a feeling this is a less than authentic portrayal of a typical Mid-American, which I feel bad about when you think how accurate their portrayals of gays have traditionally been)), for me this line is clearly situated between turning lights off in empty rooms and not flushing the toilet. Saving water is a great idea, but yeeeeuuuwwwccchhhhh. Flush the toilet. Show some consideration and don’t be a rank pig. I guess if you live alone and the smell of your pee doesn’t put you off your dinner, you can do what you like and I’m sure the planet will thank you (though it won’t shake your hand without making sure you washed it first.) But if you share a flat with, say, me: flush. Please. The warm, hoppy smell that wafts up into my face when I lift the toilet seat is not my idea of a sanitary welcome, and I don’t want to be looking at a bowlful of your olive green effluent even if I don’t have to smell it (uh, which I always do.) But that’s not even the worst of it. Peeing into someone else’s pee and breathing in the fumes is bad enough, but if I have to take a crap into that stuff and I get some backsplash, then you’ve basically pissed on my arse; and while I think it's good if we can avoid having to retreat to an underground city for twenty five years like a race of mole-people until the toxic radiation clears up, I don’t think I ever signed up for being pissed on. So in short, I’m flushing that toilet before I use it anyhow, and all you’ve achieved is getting the smell of your piss in my nostrils. The planet and I are equally grateful.

The "Disappointment to My Parents" Meme

I apologise in advance for this, but I’ve been memed, and for once I'm complying. I’m not superstitious, and always just delete the stupid, cheerily threatening chain-mail thingies that people who should know better occasionally aim at my hotmail/myspace/mobile or whatever. It’s not that I object to being threatened; it’s more the toothlessness of the threats. Like, “If you don’t pass this on to five people within 15 minutes of reading it, you’ll have seven years bad luck!” a) What’s with the exclamation mark? Are you twelve? (Answer: probably. Are you a twelve year-old witch actually capable of cursing me? Answer: probably not.); b) “Seven years bad luck” is too amorphous to sound at all threatening; and anyway, c) how exactly do you propose I’ll be able to tell the difference from the preceeding 33 years of bad luck? Will my new bad luck be flagged up somehow, or were you just going for a smooth segue from one era of misfortune to the next? *Grits teeth and makes Sideshow Bob noise.* Or sometimes they go with: “…you won’t find love in a new relationship this year!” Again – I will notice the difference to my normal life how? In fact, there’s an implicit suggestion that if I don’t pass your stupid email on, I'll only have to wait a year to find a new relationship: which for me is like the Virgin Mary herself materialising at the foot of my bed in a cloud of white lilies and hummingbirds to give me her blessing. Way to intimidate me. Really. Or, the best yet: “…you will die!” Good grief. Nobody threw you down a well, and this is not The Ring. Draw the curtains, please – there’s a whole world out there with supermarkets full of people you can irritate in the flesh if only you could reach out and move into the light.

So my contempt for these things is pretty healthy, no? (Imagine I’m Jennifer Lopez when you read that.) Why bow to the cyber-pressure now? Well. The "Disappointment to My Parents" Meme was laid on me by the_bone, and comes with none of the wimpy, rounded-schoolgirl-handwriting-in-purple-ink-with-flowers-for-dots-on-the-i’s non-threatening threats usual to the genre: this one carries the threat of being impaled on a penguin – possibly many penguins – and, as this is the-bone, possibly many zombie penguins. That’s some serious shit, yo. Cthulhu is one thing, but I totally do not fancy waking up in the middle of the night to find myself in receipt of a vigorous spearing from dozens of pointy undead beaks like I’m suddenly in a scene from a cut-rate “Barbarella-On-Ice.” This is almost right at the bottom of my list of Ways I Would Like to Die Involving Zombies. Accordingly, please find below my unentertaining answers to five questions that have no bearing on me, my parents, or any disappointment I may have caused them.

If I could be a Scientist: I would be one of those guys who win the Ig Nobel Prize with research on homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, or a chemical investigation of a bronze statue that fails to attract pigeons.

If I could be a Musician: Um, I kind of am? But if I could be any good, I guess I’d like to be someone with a truly amazing voice, like Chan Marshall or Kristin Hersh.

If I could be a Doctor: I’d be Jim Dale in “Carry On Doctor”, because I’d get the chance to a) meet Hattie Jacques and b) give Barbara Windsor the twatting she’s been asking for.

If I could be a Painter: I kind of am? Oh, lies – I draw, it’s different. If I could be a painter, I guess I’d be Cy Twombly, Julie Mehretu, Matthew Ritchie, or Phillp Allen …I would not be John Currin, who sucks fifteen different kinds of deformed and suppurating ass, nor would I be Julian Schnabel, not only because he too is a congenital mutant ass sucker, but because his arms prolly get really tired from reaching up to the top of those giant canvases all the time. Dude, it’s only art – nobody’s gonna think you have a tiny pee-pee if you make paintings the same size as all the other guys (however, when you have to raise the ceiling of the gallery in order just to hang a picture...)

If I could be an Inn-Keeper: I would be Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail’, and would while away my days in front of a huge full-length mirror alternately wearing and not wearing a selection of ridiculously skimpy underwear.

Hmmf. Now I have to nominate three people to continue this bullshit. First choices would be Lizzie and Hari, but they’ll never do it and I’ll end up looking like Tippi Hedren in The Birds from all the zombie-pecking. So I nominate Ria, and hope that she'll pass it on to Siobhan and Simon on my behalf: they're all young and have time on their hands, and hopefully can find it in their hearts to save an old man from the waddling dead.