It Could Be Worse

2003-11-18T14:30:00.000Z

Pwesents (Go Away, Harry Knowles)

[mood - too bored to look for a picture]
[music - OutKast - 'Hey Ya!']

I haven't posted much here recently because I'm about to move onto a LiveJournal, but I need to make a list of all the books I am or plan to buy people for Christmas. More will be added as I go along...

Roger - 'Smoking In Bed: Conversations With Bruce Robinson'
Giles - 'Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right' by Al Franken
Hester - Umm. Dunno yet.
Tim - 'The Victorian Underworld' by Donald Thomas
Olly - 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' by Chuck Barris
Suzanne - 'Lynch On Lynch'
Eric - 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' by Alan Moore
Mum - Dunno yet either.
Granny - 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath
Granddad - 'Goodbye To All That' by Robert Graves
Ste - 'The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay' by Michael Chabon

2003-10-21T11:27:00.000Z

Fancy a Laugh?

[mood - dandyish]
[music - Keane - 'The Last Time']

Go to amazon.com and read reviews for Al Franken's excellent book 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right'. I'm not, per se, saying that all right-wingers are idiots and all left-wingers are verbose intellectuals. It's just that some days, it does seem like it.

The Left: I never really listened with much interest to the crap coming from either the far left or the far right. Both extremes seem nutty and scary to me. But having read this book I have to say there were a LOT of things about the extreme right that I really wasn't aware of, particularly how they have taken control of the media, the Republican party - and consequently - the country - and have done so using gutter tactics. These people are a disgrace. We have to get rid of them and get some decent, people back into the top political offices of our country. I've voted for both main parties over the years. But I will NOT vote Republican again until decent, honorable, reasonable, normal thinking human beings (like John McCain) are back in charge of it.
The Right:Al Franken is a moron with moronic ideology and if you don't see it his way he has no compunction about salandering you,your family or anyones for that matter.

The Left: Read through the 1 star reviews. They make the point of Franken's book so well. The Right utilize misrepresentation, bullying, and flat out denial to promote themselves and encourage allegiance. Al's Book shows how shameful it is that it has worked so well. We need more people like Franken who don't have anything to lose by pointing out the hypocrisy.
The Right: Al Franken is a greasy and oily four-eyed midget with a very short thing between his legs. Conservatives lubricate their car wheels with the grease extracted from Al Franken's face using a sponge.

The Left:The most compelling reason to read this book is to see how easily some of the misleading statements might have been corrected by the authors skewered by Mr. Franken. Perhaps the most revealing part of this book is that so many statements in the books of others are flat-out untruths. [Whether they are lies is another issue!] The authors, their editors, and their adoring fans appear utterly impervious to the principle that oen should only contribute reliable information to the public debate. What may be worse, many of our fellow citizens seem indifferent to the specious or false information that some of the targets loose on the world. Mr. Franken's volume, read in concert with similar works by Joe Conason and David Corn, suggests that some misrepresentation or mendacity is not even considered an ethical lapse any more. Has our culture gotten so used to self-evident falsehoods that we do not even worry about spreading misinformation if it suits our purposes to do so?

The only concern that I raise is that Mr. Franken's satiric use of irony and other rhetorical devices provides him an escape route that he would not permit and has not permitted Ms. Coulter, Mr. O'Reilly, or President Bush. Mr. Franken gets to say "Just joshing" or "Can't you take a joke?" when he veers over the line. That gives him an easy out that he denies to others. I hope that fair readers will consider this difference between the satirist and his sanctimonious targets.

Both the reason to read the book and the caveat about Mr. Franken's humor may tell readers much more about the sorry state of public discourse than they care to acknowledge!
The Right:I didn't read this book, but Al Franken is a liberal weiner who has no logical bones in his body. I would never even consider reading this book because after viewing this idiot on television, I am convinced that he is as stupid as every other liberal in this country.

Like the man says, I'm starting to grow discouraged about the tone this debate is taking.

2003-10-07T10:13:00.000Z

Like Am I Hot Or Not, Only Good

[mood - flirty
[music - Tomoyasu Homei - 'Battle Without Honour Or Humanity']

Yep, I've been severely neglecting this place and a proper catch-up will follow soon. In the meantime...

Like most human beings, you are seeking a mate. Do not defy biology! But are you the type who flirts with strangers and ends up with a saucy tale to relate, or are you that person's friend, envious but shy, destined to go home alone?
With a highly paid team of apes and Norwegians, TheSpark.com has finally developed the capability to tell you just how easy (or difficult) you are to hit on successfully. Our slick new Pickup Test, manufactured with only the purest natural oils and not tested on lab animals, will sidle up to you and ogle your inner desires. It's guaranteed to score. So click here to take The Pickup Test, brought to you by Panasonic. To the testmobile!

What of my results, you ask? Well...

You have achieved the Golden Mean! You are 39% pickup-able! You're like Jen. Do you know my friend Jen? You're just like her—she's like this cool girl who's attractive and funny. I should call Jen. Or maybe you're like my friend Steve. Regardless, you like to flirt, but not with ugly people. And when you lock eyes with the right person, you know how to turn the sparks into a towering inferno. But sometimes you won't give people the time of day, which is mean when they really just need to know what time it is. In general, make sure you smell good.

2003-09-18T18:33:00.001Z

A Double Post On My Own Blog?

A double-post on my own blog? Haven't had that one before.

2003-09-18T18:33:00.000Z

Albums of the Year on Quizilla!

We Are Going To Be Friends, "White Blood
Cells"

Which song by THE WHITE STRIPES are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You're "De Stijl." You're deeply
intellectual, and most people find you very
engaging, if a little serious. However, you are
also known to at times cut loose and just have
fun.

Which White Stripes album are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are 'maps' a sweet ballad that grows
increasingly desperate
In Karen O's words 'It's a love song, rooted in the
emotion of missing someone. It's a real song,
it comes from a genuine place,It's a good song
to listen to and think about someone you love'

Which song by the yeah yeah yeahs are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

you are:the amazing sounds or orgy.
a hurricane would be happening outside,but you
don't mind.besides,you're in love.

what radiohead b-side are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm not sure that fits my own perception of 'Amazing Sounds of Orgy' - "fucking" and "terrifying" would make the shortlist of my adjectives.

Early Bowie

Which David Bowie are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

WOW! You are most like Graham Coxon.

What member of BLUR are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

Oh, and this year's best albums thus far? Are:

The Thrills - 'So Much For The City'
The White Stripes - 'Elephant'
Radiohead - 'Hail to the Thief'
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 'Fever To Tell'
Electric Six - 'Fire'
Blur - 'Think Tank'
David Bowie - 'Reality'
Northern State - 'Dying In Stereo'
Goldfrapp - 'Black Cherry'
Spiritualized - 'Amazing Grace'

2003-09-07T22:39:00.000Z

Apropos of Ass-All

[mood - elegiac
[music - Dido - 'White Flag']

A fuller entry will come soon, I promise. In the meantime, am I the only one who finds this song deeply affecting? The repeated line "I will go down with this ship" is up there with REM's use of "go it alone" in 'Half a World Away' in the 'touching use of cliches' department, and I'm not sure it should make me feel like that. Isn't it meant to be about having faith in a relationship, not despairing for it?

Oh, and I'm rightly proud of this:

You are Captain Jack Sparrow. You love to drink rum
and you walk around like you live wherever you
happen to be. You are a very dishonest person
and therefore you can be trusted to be
dishonest, honestly... You are very clever and
never forgive people if they betray you. You
are also very agile (good for climbing up ropes
and standing on the masts of sinking boats).

Which Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-09-01T08:12:00.000Z

StupidGigglyCakes

[mood - casual
[music - Madonna - 'Vogue']

Alright, this is just about a 180 degree turn from the last two entries, but man, writing the score to Young Girls And Happy Endings is so much fun! So far I've got about nine or ten songs near completion, and a few more that need a final polish. They're all really good, too.

When me and Roger resume writing the script - which shouldn't be long now - I'm going to set to work on the lyrics too. I think this has the potential to be something really special.

2003-08-30T20:37:00.000Z

Drunken Stream-Of-Consciousness

[mood - almost dead
[music - Radhiohead - 'Lost At Sea']

So let's go.
My life isn't worth as much as no-one thinks it is.
And who would notice?
And who would notice?
I can still stare
And smile
And hurt
And lie about myself
But I can't move
Soon I won't breathe
I can't
I try to recover
But I can't
Nothing is good enough
I can't
The end is nearing
There is nothing that is good enough to keep me alive
Because I can't.

2003-08-28T17:41:00.000Z

An Open Letter To My Housemates

[mood - weary
[music - Velvet Underground - 'Heroin']

Dear Gemma and Annie,

It seems significant that, since our friendship meant absolutely nothing to you in the first place, I may as well write a Letter of Friendship Termination to you rather than have it out in any more passionate way.

The first thing you've done to piss me off recently was moving out of the house without telling me. But that, while a bit of a blow, could at least be explained away as ignorance rather than malice. That's not to say that last night's events didn't contain a touch of ignorance, but you're both not stupid people and I can't imagine that you could do such things without foreknowledge of what was going to happen.

Last night was a very stressful night for me anyway. I had to appear up in court to confront someone who'd attacked me some months previously, but I thought I might be able to cope with it because I'd almost recovered from last academic year's debilitating nervous breakdown. Now I am back to square one.

The first thing that struck me about the house was that, despite the fact that you told me you weren't in, a light was on. The second thing was that I couldn't get in. I side-slammed the door, I turned the key in the opposite direction, I did everything. The door was unopenable. I left an angry message on Gemma's answer machine and moved on.

The second thing that struck me was that Annie started replying to Gemma's texts. Seeing as Gemma was allegedly in Soho, it seemed a little odd. There was, however, no reason why Annie couldn't be in Soho with you. The next thing was when my father, independently I might add, rang up pretending to be a 'PC Tate' of Northumbria police.

Annie was in. Which means Gemma was in.

You said to him that I wasn't living there any more. I've heard some callous things in my life, but deliberately denying someone a bed then throwing him out of the house without even telling him is a new level of spiteful selfish arrogance. What precisely led you to do this? Clearly the preparation predated my angry voice mail message to Gemma.

I am not an easy person to live with. I accept that. But I'd like to think I always tried to be nice to people, even when they were keeping me awake at four o'clock in the morning. I certainly never did anything that would completely fuck up somebody's life. Can you say that to yourselves?

Two points occured, both about death. The first was when I was trying to find a suitable way to communicate how I felt about you earlier this morning. The final version of my thoughts was that, if you both died tomorrow, I wouldn't bother to attend your funerals. That's how I feel about you. I do not wish death on you, of course. You deserve a long, painful, lonely life, which I hope you will recieve.

The second concerned me. As I put it to Annie once, every thought about suicide and every suicide attempt shortens your life considerably, because you can only survive an attempt or back off at the last minute so many times. All things considering, I should die some time within the next year. I shall be very surprised if I last out my 21st year. I will leave behind a nice, neat, tidy life with no loose ends, and the final manifestation of such will be that I want you both to know you are directly responsible for my eventual death. You are effectively murderers, maybe not in the eyes of the law or whoever you lie to to avoid culpability when the event happens, but certainly in my eyes. And when they discover my body, I want you to spend every night thinking about the life you ended, about the boy on the verge of recovery who you pushed back in simply because it was more convenient to you.

You both really are the most hateful pair of cunts I've ever met in my life.

Yours sincerely,
Graham Deans Williamson

2003-08-25T22:02:00.000Z

Well, I Try To Sing Along, But The Words Keep Coming Wrong

[mood - random]
[music - 'Beautiful' - Christina Aguilera. Deal w/ it]

1. WHAT IS YOUR NAME: Graham Williamson, Graham Deans McCulloch by my mother's maiden name, Graham Deans Williamson by my pen name, Sophie Laverne by my fake name (female), Philip Haagensen by my other fake name (male).

2. WHAT COLOR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING? I'm not wearing pants. See, the people reading this didn;t need to know that.

3. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW? See above. The radio.

4 WHAT ARE THE LAST 4 DIGITS OF YOUR PHONE NUMBERS? 9750 and something or other.

5. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Chicken & Mushroom Pot Noodle. Classy old me.

6. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? ? Gold. I love rarity.

7. WHAT IS THE WEATHER RIGHT NOW? Dark. It's night...

8. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Ehrm... possibly my granddad. I must ring Gemma and Tim soon...

10. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT YOU THIS? Mary Is My Honey. That is all.

11. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? None too shabby, thank you.

12. FAVORITE DRINK? Alcoholic? Kronenberg. Non-alcoholic? Ribena.

13. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? Ah, I see. Cocktail-wise, I like white Russians. And red wine is all good too.

14. FAVORITE SPORT? Cricket is the essential one.

15. HAIR COLOR? Dark brown. It's due a change.

16. EYE COLOR? Green.

17 DO YOU WEAR EYE CONTACTS? No. Glasses 'till I die! Quite aside from anything else, I freak out at the thought of having to slide a plexiglass object in between my eyelids and eyeball. Ugh.

18. SIBLINGS AND AGES? None. Nada. Zilch.

19. FAVORITE MONTH? May is my birthday, and the start of summer, providing a nice double whammy.

20. FAVORITE FOOD? At the moment, anything bolognaise-tainted.

21. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? At the cinema - 'Confidence'. On TV - 'Romeo and Juliet' (the Zeffirelli version).

22. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? Any day when I break up for holiday. Failing that, next year's US holiday...

23. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT? Constantly. And I'm male, so that's not OK, apparently. It makes me very... alone.

24. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? The scares always go down well over here.

25. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer. It's my dream to move, one day, to a country which has warm winters. I hate winter so much...

26. HUGS OR KISSES? Kisses are very special. With hugs sometimes you can feel that they're fake. Kisses are always sincere. Or at least they feel sincere. I don't want to be able to tell the difference.

27. Ok, that wasn't needed- ARE WE DISCRIMINATING AGAINST NUMBERS NOW? I hate numbers. The big numerical bastards. Discriminate all you want.

28. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? Flavour-wise? Vanilla. Sex-wise? Mind your own. ;)

29. DO YOU WANT YOUR FRIENDS TO WRITE BACK? Preferably. Most of my friends have abandoned me, so any reply is very much a welcome reply.

30. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Good Lord. I can't say.

31. WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Mary. I got it off her. Fortunately I sent her an e-mail just before she sent this to me which means I'll get a response anyway. Does this disqualify her from this question? I don't care. So ner.

32. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? 'Kitchen Confidential' (Anthony Bourdain), 'Choke' (Chuck Palahniuk), 'Labyrinths' (Jorge Luis Borges).

33. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? My uncle's employers - some chemical place.

34. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Frustration...

35. WHAT DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT? Drank, saw my parents off the premises. I lurve being alone in the house. Bwahahahahahaha....

36. FAVORITE SMELLS? Vanilla, Rice Krispie squares, matt paint, Gucci Rush perfume, urban environments, pineapple weed.

37. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? Ehhhhhrrughhhghgggghghgh.

38. HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT? One. Sibling = sadism.

39. WHAT WOULD YOU NAME YOUR FIRST SON? Alistair.

40. FIRST DAUGHTER? Lauren

41. WHERE DO YOU WORK? I'm my own creative boss. One day, I'll have my own empire. No-one believes me, but I will.

42. FAVORITE PIZZA: Hawaiian.

43. IF YOU WON A MILLION DOLLARS WHAT WOULD YOU BUY FIRST? A career in cinema.

2003-08-25T09:51:00.000Z

I Have No Words

[mood - giddy]
[listening to - 'Never Leave You' - Lumidee]

I nicked the above from my LiveJournal pals. I love those little status reports. Anyhoo:

Erm, for some reason my blog won't let me publish memes - they're evidently LJ only - but from my friend Mary's journal, I got the "What are you most likely to say during sex?" meme. It seems that my line is "I'm covered in BEES!".

2003-08-24T12:59:00.000Z

Two To Try My Patience

[mood - frustrated]
[music - 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself' - The White Stripes]

Today my mother actually literally bored me to tears. I know. I thought it was just a figure of sppech as well. At the moment she's all about insurance. Blah, blah, blah, insurance, insurance, insurance. That went on for ages. You should always look out when she starts a story with "Me and Eric..." It is guaranteed to waste a lot of time and be totally boring beyond belief.

She then went on to quiz me about why any of my careers weren't taking off, and inform me why they probably wouldn't. And she wonders why I suffer from extreme self-loathing. Then she capped it off by talking about my lost first love, Kelly. Just when I thought my mood couldn't drop any further, she explained that her paths crossed with Kelly recently over - yes! - insurance issues. It was at that point that I knew I was doomed. My brain wanted to explode through the staggering lack of interest.

Another, slightly less close to home, person who's getting on my tits is Jack White. Is it me, or is Jack White's constant pious bullshit about not wanting to hang around egotistical arseholes sounding a bit hollow these days? Considering that, you know, he crashed his car getting a gob-job from Renee Zellwegger and Kate Moss is in his new video? That's Kate Moss, the single most annoying person in the country at the moment. Fortunately, most of the people in the world who I find truly intolerable are either in America (George Bush, Angelina Jolie, Michael Savage, Julia Roberts) or Hell (Vincent Gallo), meaning that Kate Moss is the official Most Irritating Person in Britain. I hate the little anorexic crackhead and I hate her Primrose Hill fuck-happy fashionista mafia. I hate it when she teams up with that prick Bobby Gillespie and pretends to be a People's Revolutionary Supermodel. Kate, darling, the amount of cocaine you shovel up your stunted little upper-class cunty nose is equal in value to a family of four's combined yearly wages. You're not a socialist. Shut the fuck up about it.

Sigh. Everything was going so w... actually it wasn't. But you know what I'm getting at. It was all going less shite.

2003-08-20T21:08:00.000Z

More Drew Quizzes

These ones taken a while back, and lovingly crafted by glitter, poster at The Drew Barrymore Collective and host of her own rather fine Drew site.

Kool. You're Dylan/Helen (aka Drew Barrymore).
You're a total tomboy (although you can also be
one of the girls), you love evil guys and
always dress to *kick evil butt* (not to look
great), basically you're down-to-earth and show
that the angels are people too. However you
need to know when to stop....

Which Charlie's Angel Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

You're Ms. Karen Pomeroy from Donnie Darko! You're
intelligent and mysterious and no one really
knows much about you. You feel passionate about
your work and the children you teach but hate
todays society. You're love interest is Noah
Wyle, but will you two ever get it on.... who
knows...

Which Drew Barrymore Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

*eek* You're Young Drew, you're rather confussed
and depressed right now and everything seems
like shit. You're not making any films or being
seen out and about (probably because you're in
rehab)...Learn to love yourself and *smile*...

Which Drew Barrymore Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Rather closer to the truth than New Drew, methinks...

Youre Penny Pacino (Drew Barrymore)!
Youre possibly the only person in the entire world
who could look so innocent while having that
much sex. Youre free-spirited, likeable and
bubbly. You also harbour a secret desire to
settle down and stop acting so wild, which you
shouldnt be embarrassed about at all. Be
embarrassed about your husband instead.

Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind
brought to you by Quizilla

I suppose I kind of cheated... I wrote that quiz. :p

You're Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell)
You're really evil, hate Charlie's guts and fancy
Dylan (or do you just wanna get her in the
sack?)
You love blowing people up (especially in
helicopters), but unfortunately it all
backfires and you blow your self to
pieces....ah well that'll teach ya to mess with
the Angels!

Which Charlie's Angel Co-Star Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-08-20T20:51:00.000Z

Sorry!

It's been so long, I know... I've been having serious computer problems, but hopefully they're all over now. Stupid machine. My step-uncle (is that even a word?) built it for me, and it's practically doubled its cost in repairs. Dammit!

Anyway. After being told that everyone's moved out of my house and I'm in charge of recruiting new people to fill the beds, I've decided to work extra-hard at levering myself out of the absolute joyless shithole we politely refer to as Newcastle. Schedule:

Cartoons for 'Private Eye'.
Scripts for short films.
Scripts for films to sell, rather than to direct.
Record an album.
Send article to Fortean Times.
Inquire about hospital radio.

One of these has to stick.

2003-08-08T23:21:00.000Z

A List Of Current, Past And Immediately Upcoming Projects

Some of this material has already appeared on Dark Dreams' message board. Do you have a problem with that? Jesus, you're petty.

1. The Advertising Series - paintings. You know, every year I vow to take up painting again, but do I ever do it?

2. Alyssa Alya - Screenplay. Adaptation of anime series 'Revolutionary Girl Utena', the only anime series I really connect with, for some reason. It would be nice to do a PG version of this, and leave all the incest and bisexuality as subtext - it's pretty much how the cartoon series goes, anyway. Stalled for no readily apparent reason. I dunno, I just don't feel like writing it just yet.

3. David Boring - Screenplay, and my current A1 obsession. Adaptation and critique of Daniel Clowes' superb graphic novel, which I plan to co-direct with someone else. The reason is because I plan to multi-task on this film: co-directing, writing and making my *cough* triumphant return to the world of acting. A lot of method dieting will be in order to fill the shoes of Clowes' uber-bony anti-hero.

4. In The Dark - Screenplay. An original black comedy which I plan to give one final polish after I'm through with the above project. One hitch is that I planned it as a vehicle for an actress I know who's now suddenly, inexplicably decided to stop talking to me. I'm determined to get back in touch with her. The part would look silly with anyone else in it.

5. Indexed Lives - Novel. A man becomes obsessed with the long-forgotten authors of books he finds at the second-hand store. A novel is something big, and at the moment I'm too preoccupied with screenplays to work anything out for this. I do occasionally give it thought, mind.

6. Lost In The Crowd - Novel. I actually finished this. One day I vow to give it a final polish and send it off somewhere.

7. The Ludlow Massacre - Screenplay, historical drama. Still researching it. The main problem with writing while at university is the lack of research time for projects like this and my oft-considered Richard Shaver biopic. One day, maybe.

8. Maldoror - Screenplay. Adaptation of the Comte du Lautreamont's novel. Nearly finished the second draft, after which I plan to PUT IT AWAY FOR A YEAR AND STOP FUCKING ABOUT WITH IT. Target date - October 2003.

9. Untitled - album project. At planning stages, as in "not even a note thought up." There are a few ideas and concepts exciting me.

10. Untitled - graphic novel. A few ideas. Plan to brainstorm with friends.

11. The White Pyramid - original, semi-autobiographical script. Stalled. I realised even I can't understand the complexities of my own structure, and had a brief Scanners moment trying to plot it out. I may do it bit-by-bit - it's a sort of picaresque.

12. Young Girls And Happy Endings - The much-vaunted funk cricket musical. I've been having some really good ideas recently. The musical part of the score is almost complete, and a story's beginning to form in my head around the songs. It's an unorthodox way of writing a musical, but it pays off. Guaranteed to be my next project, after David Boring and concurrent with the Maldoror polish.

2003-08-01T23:17:00.000Z

Drewbie

Youre New Drew! You still rock, but youre older,
more mature, and a respected producer/actress.
You still radiate style, fun, and bad girl
attitude- youre just a little more polished!

Which Drew Barrymore are YOU?!
brought to you by Quizilla

I was on the cusp of being "Lesbian Drew".

Everyone respects and looks up to you. A lot of
times you are given more credit then you think
you deserve. You are very humble, beautiful
and loving. You are a pure Goddess...

Which aspect of Drew Barrymore are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are Casey, from Mad Love. You are fun,
attractive, and sexy. You draw everyone's
attention because of your outrageous
personality, but you can be emotionally
unstable and easily depressed. Sometimes, you
can be too much of a handful to deal with.

Which Drew Barrymore Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-07-23T21:51:00.000Z

Bad

Threat rating: High. The Bush administration is
concerned that it may not get a second term.
Therefore, we are going to change the rules so
that each Democrat vote only counts as 0.2
votes because Democrat is a shorter word than
Republican

What threat to the Bush administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-07-22T20:50:00.000Z

Absolutely magnificent

The American secret service can't prevent the biggest peacetime massacre of American civilians, they can't provide a reasonable alternative to the Taliban or the Iraqi government, they can't get Iraqi civilians on their side, can't find weapons of mass destruction, can't kill Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, can't persaude anyone that the aforementioned WMDs even existed, but at least they're keeping the world safe from the menace of unfunny political cartoonists! Clicky

I wonder if we can call the FBI tip-line to bring other unfunny political cartoonists to their attention? I think Michael Heath's cartoons in the Mail on Sunday and Private Eye are so woeful they're threatening to disrupt the fabric of space and time. And that could destroy the universe!

2003-07-13T14:52:00.000Z

Off on another jaunt, this time to Norwich. Should be back Friday.

2003-07-09T09:36:00.000Z

I Like Clouds

Apologies if this entry turns out to be a barely-coherent jumble of thoughts. I went on a pretty hardcore pub crawl last night - part with Roger, who'd come over by train that day, and part after his train left - and all memory has been erased from my skull. I vaguely remember flailing around the hospital grounds at half nine eating a cone of chips and listening to the speaking clock on my mobile. Oddly, despite the fact that the hospital grounds become a junkie playground after about eight o'clock, no-one bothered me. I shall therefore resolve to get off-my-face drunk every time I walk through there. It clearly has an effect. Anyway, the cause for most of this was my discovery of Goldschlager, a shot drink with little chips of - yes! - gold in it that makes tiny cuts in the back of your throat and allows the alcohol immediate entry into your bloodstream. It's pretty hardcore. Actually, it's fatal to all animals.

So I got my results for the second year of university back today, and considering the fraught year I had, they're most impressive. All of them passes, all of them bar three in the late fifties to late sixties.

The three exceptions are interesting. One is Popular Fiction and Film Noir, which I got 72% in (go me!). One is a 50% for Studies In Art Criticism, which I didn't exactly ace, so fair enough. The other is a 41% for Medieval and Renaissance Thought and Culture, which I'm rather annoyed about. I was putting in mid-fifties marks all year, and I didn't do so badly in the exam that it would drag my mark down to this level. I can only presume that this mark is down to a missing piece of work, a commentary piece which my module tutor Howard Wickes, a massively unprofessional man at the best of times, told me "didn't matter" and "wouldn't be counted" in the final marking process.

Man. What do we pay these jackasses for again?

2003-07-06T12:27:00.000Z

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

This poem, 'Make The Pie Higher!' is composed of excerpts from the wit and wisdom of George W Bush and distributed by e-mail. I wonder which other public figures this could be done for? If I get any results, I'll share them with you.

Confessional: I killed a spider today. I didn't mean to. To compensate, I will lure the spiders who live in my skirting board out tonight and treat them exceptionally well.

2003-07-03T22:00:00.000Z

Excerpts From David Boring Dealing With 9/11

Patrons May Wish To Note That None Of These Sequences Appear In Mr. Daniel Clowes' Fantabulous Comic Book. All Material Is Copyright Graham Deans Williamson, July 2003. Infringements Will Be Met With Violence.

INT – TRAIN CARRIAGE – DAY

DAVID and the PROFESSOR are sat at a table talking.

PROFESSOR
So, are you getting out of the city before the bombing commences?

DAVID
What bombing?

PROFESSOR
Well, that’s the spirit! I heard that a shipment of parcel delivery service uniforms had been stolen by persons unknown. It makes you worry, really, does it not?

DAVID chews this information over. Is the country under attack? Has he failed to notice?

Just then, the train pulls to a halt and some more passengers get on. One of them, WANDA KRAML, bears a striking resemblance to DAVID’S scrapbook girl.

DAVID sees her in expressionist tones: as soft soul music plays, a pink spotlight picks out her face. When she walks past, she drops a bag of candy, dragging us back to reality.

WANDA
Dammit!

PROFESSOR
I mean, there are all sorts of rumours swirling around. My sister, who teaches in a nursery, said one of her pupils said the London Underground would be destroyed soon...

As the PROFESSOR continues to spout Homeland Security-balls, DAVID’S gaze slips down to WANDA’S generous rear, upended like a duck as she picks up her sweets. She stands up, and he snaps back into position.

WANDA
Don’t I know you?

DAVID
I don’t...

PROFESSOR
Edward Jaffe? I’m a professor at Corpus Christi?

WANDA
Yeah, I go to Corpus Christi. I must have seen you around.

...

INT – PASSAGE – DAY

MRS BORING and MRS CAPON are comforting an elderly man – UNCLE AUGUST – who is in an uncontrollable flood of tears. DAVID walks down the stairs. He’s bemused.

DAVID
Uncle August?

UNCLE AUGUST
Oh my God, David, it’s horrible! They’ve done it! Bombs on the Underground! Clouds of gas in London! Dead bodies everywhere! It’s the end of the world!

MRS CAPON
Apparently there have been attacks on London and New York.

DAVID
Who by?

UNCLE AUGUST
New York was even worse! There were bodies falling from the sky! They blew up the Pentagon!

MRS BORING
The Pentagon?

AUGUST cannot speak any further. He is slumped in MRS CAPON’S arms, sobbing and sniffling.

INT – OFFICE BUILDING – NEW YORK – DAY

A twitchy white-collar man, JESS KIERAN, is sweating profusely on the telephone.

JESS KIERAN
Yeah, I love you too honey. Bye. Bye.

He puts down the phone, wipes his brow, and then dials another number.

JESS KIERAN
Annabel? Hi. Jess. Yeah? You’re in work right now, OK. I was just wondering if we were still on for Forbes’ tonight. Yeah? Yeah, I’m looking forward to it too.

In the background, visible only through a window, a plane crashes into the World Trade Center.

JESS KIERAN
Hello? Hello?

He turns around. We see, superimposed on his face, a reflection of the smoking towers.

ANIMATED SEQUENCE – LONDON UNDERGROUND – DAY

The YELLOW STREAK runs into the crowded Marble Arch Station. He looks around frantically for the terrorist before a small bomb goes off. As people run for the exit, people near the blast start falling down, clutching their throats...

EXT – BIG BEN – DAY

Some days after the disaster, Big Ben’s clock face is blackened by smoke.

A grotesque face peers out of the clouds and vomits. In the vomit, images form of the planes hitting the Twin Towers, people running away from a collapsing building, fire in the Underground...

ANIMATED SEQUENCE – INT – PLANE – DAY

The YELLOW STREAK is pinned to his seat with fear as terrorists run into the cockpit. He fidgets with his mobile phone, missing the occasional number through nerves. His sweat drips onto the phone screen.

The plane ploughs into the Pennsylvania landscape.

A yellow-gloved hand pokes out of the wreckage.

INT – DAVID’S ROOM – NIGHT

DAVID’S eyes spring open. He sits up uncertainly and rubs the goo out of his eyes.

INT – KITCHEN – NIGHT

DAVID walks downstairs in his pyjamas and opens a cupboard. As he removed a bottle of water and some flour, he notices UNCLE AUGUST sitting behind him.

AUGUST
I couldn’t sleep.

DAVID
I had a nightmare. I saw God throw up and it caused the attacks.

AUGUST
That’s nonsense. Only God can create man, but any maniac can destroy him.

It’s really too late for DAVID to get into a theological discussion.

AUGUST
At this moment, I could be radiating deadly spores to you all without knowing it. It’s a disturbing thought, isn’t it?

DAVID looks down at his water bottle.

...

EXT – OUTDOOR CAFÉ – MORNING

DAVID is sitting thumbing through a local paper, drinking a glass of orange. The headline says (in Spanish) “No Words Can Describe The Horror”, yet DAVID can clearly be seen flicking past page after page of descriptions of the horror. He skips to the pullout photo section in the middle. Mixed in with the familiar images are ones of the smoke-damaged Big Ben and the wrecked Underground.

2003-07-02T23:23:00.000Z

Misguided PM

(to Ross from Dark Dreams. In one way I was right to write this, in another it really got me down)

I don't really post about dark personal shit because there's only been my trip to Cambridge recently that's severely upset me, and by the time I got back online I'd cooled down. I have a feeling I might post about it in depth before the summer's out - I have this suspicion that despite the medication I'm throwing at myself, things are getting worse and there's not much I can do about it. I don't have the first idea why, though my habit of alienating friends isn't a good start. I'm also not in a relationship. That bothers me. I'm annoyingly codependent.

I think that's half the reason people aren't replying to my messages any more - I pissed off someone VERY influential at another board, and she would be the sort of person who'd spread it around that I'm not to be trusted, and I eat little babies, and so on, so forth. As for why I don't have any friends at university, pass. Man, I feel pretty rotten now. Oh well, my own dumb fault.

I missed out my alarmingly snowballing incapability to handle myself on social occasions without crying, but I think I covered everything else.

2003-07-02T18:42:00.000Z

Amusement of the day: as I read an article about Alan Yentob, Thom Yorke, from the comfort of my CD player, barked "Hypocrite! Opportunist!" Well, he said it...

Index On Censorship (with apologies)

Thanks to Rotten Tomatoes for two articles which validate entirely what I've been saying for a good long while about the MPAA: that it doesn't work in any shape or form whatsoever. The first article informs us about their loosening of the PG and PG-13 categories; this brings them closer to the more liberal BBFC (well, comparatively - more on that later) but further away from the ideals of the average American parent. And just because I don't share their ideals doesn't mean I'm going to damn them - isn't the entire point of a ratings board to serve the public and reflect their ideals? Looking at Jack Valenti's idea of chairmanship, he reminds me of the late, unlamented BBFC head James Ferman, a man who appeared to be totally unaware of the impact his job had on the public and subsequently ran the whole operation like his own personal kingdom. Certain films (eg: The Exorcist) appeared to have been banned on the strength of little more than personal grievances, while others (anything by Spielberg or Scorsese) were awarded lenient treatment simply because Ferman liked them.

On Valenti, the best quote comes from Nell Minow, who provides unbiased and constructive assessments of movies for parents worried about what their children are watching. The fact that she, and quite a lot of other people, do this for a living, is a fairly eloquent indictment of the MPAA to begin with, but she also has this to say: "I see almost as many movies as the MPAA does, and their responses seem extremely formulaic to me. They don't care if the sex in a movie is responsible or exploitive. They don't look at the context at all. They count nipples and f-words." And she's entirely right. If you show one breast, you can get away with a PG-13 if you fight hard enough, on account of no under-13 ever having seen a breast. Even the female ones. If you show the full pair, it gets bumped up to an R. Don't believe me? Watch the nude sketching scene in Titanic and look at the camera angles. If Leonardo DiCaprio moved his elbow a few inches to the left, James Cameron might not have made the biggest film of all time.

On the other end of the scale, one of the most heartbreaking articles about the movie industry I've read recently comes in the form of this piece on the doomed battle by the makers of upcoming William H Macy indie (and critically adored film festival smash) The Cooler, which shows the MPAA penalising a moderately explicit sex scene between consenting adults at the same time as it floods PGs with innuendo, allows 'wacky teen comedies' to slip through the net with gallons of shit, spunk and piss and gives its green card to horribly misogynous, racist blockbusters. Surely a coup can't be far away - the MPAA are looking extremely similar to the Hays Office right now.

Meanwhile, our own darling censors show why they're so adored with their official website. I'm so glad the BBFC decided to become more 'open' like this, because it provides some of the most excruciating comedy of embarrassment since Ricky Gervais' disco dance on 'The Office'. Search for all the episodes of a long-running show you like - The X Files works well for this purpose - and see how many of the episodes' certification matches up with what you'd give it. The guiding principle seems to be "We know this box set will get a 15, so why not give 12 certificates to the 15-strength episodes and vice versa?"

Their recent decisions, tallied up with the MPAA's ratings, make for peculiar reading. Observe:

Legally Blonde 2: Red White And Bland (oops, was that a typo?)
US: PG-13 (conversant to our 12A)
UK: PG (conversant to their, uh, PG)
This isn't unusual; the "mild sexual references" in many a soft PG-13 romcom prove acceptable for the kiddies in our country. Rightly so, too - these aren't often much stronger than a classic PG-cert movie like The Apartment or any Doris Day movie, so why should we give it a harder certificate for the crime of not being made in the 1950s?

I Capture The Castle
UK: PG
US: R, according to some early sources.
Oh-kay. This is pretty wack. Basically, the PG is for some mild sexual references and nudity. Anyone who thinks children look at naked people and think "sex" is probably just as guilty of sexualising children as the people they criticise. I've never heard of a gap between the MPAA and the BBFC as huge as this, and it can only be attributable to the MPAA's never-explained reasoning that violence doesn't harm people, whereas sexual thoughts do. But before us Brits start feeling superior...

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
US: R
UK: 12A
Some explanation of the UK equivalent of R-ratings. Most of them get a 15 - the ultimate in sex or gore by the MPAA's standards generally doesn't faze us. A few American films recently have got 18s (the highest rating for a cinema release over here) - most notably Secretary, Full Frontal and Cate Blanchett's forthcoming vehicle Veronica Guerin. And yeah, your Tarantinos and Finchers can generally count on an 18.

Occasionally, we take issues with the PG-13. As noted above, the conversion of PG-13s into PGs isn't that unusual. Changing a PG-13 into a 15 is rarer, but it does happen, most recently with Anger Management, which was an R rating anyway until Sony gave the MPAA a big fucking bung.

Speaking of which, the big-earning American directors generally get extremely preferential treatment from the BBFC - both The Fellowship of the Ring and Jurassic Parks one through three got PG certificates, which were debatably deserved. James Cameron is also unsurprisingly indulged. The Terminator got a 15 certificate when it was reissued on DVD, despite it having some of the most grisly sequences I've ever seen in a non-horror movie. And now this. I've never known an American R-rating go down to a 12A in this country, and it should unite both Terminator fans and the Moral Minority in gritted teeth.

$o. What could po$$ibly be behind the$e bizarre deci$ion$ by the rating$ board$?

2003-06-30T22:46:00.000Z

I'm Vanishing!

Years ago, I came up with an idea for a movie where a button-down corporate drone tries to sign a cheque, and notices his signature fading away as he writes. He tries again, but it just won't stay on the page. Over the next few weeks, his important records also start going unaccountably missing, then people stop recognising him. Eventually, he becomes entirely invisible.

I think the first seed of it came when I was a kid, and I've always considered it a creepy, original idea. I never got any further with it because I couldn't decide what would be causing this ailment. I ruled out the idea that he could be a ghost, or that it's a conspiracy, because these are the two most obvious answers. I never did come up with something original enough to work.

Fortunately, I am now in a unique position to observe the effects of this process. I'm vanishing!

It all started a couple of weeks back, when I noticed people had stopped replying to my e-mails. Then people stopped replying to my Private Messages on boards. Now I posted some comments at Holly's blog and guess what? It won't even acknowledge that a post has been made!

I considered that maybe I'd just pissed everyone off. But I have so many different circles of friends. How could I piss them all off?

People, this is serious. If you're reading this blog and you know me - which, let's face it, is plausible, unless you're in the habit of typing random English phrases, putting "blogspot.com" after them, and seeing what comes up - then send me e-mails. Preferably with naked pictures in them. Because in the story these were the only items that could break the curse. Uh-huh, yeah. That's right. I just forgot to mention it. Whatever you do, REMIND ME OF MY OWN EXISTENCE!!!

Now I'm gonna hit send, and watch Blogger tell me the message field is empty.

2003-06-26T15:25:00.000Z

At the moment, I'm doing a lot of internet searches for images to use in MS Paint collages, and I'm very impressed by Google's Image Search facility. So much so that I decided to try my patented Dumb Search Engine test: type in "Jordan" and see how many replies you get pertaining to the country as opposed to the freakish-looking quote-unquote 'glamour' model so beloved of tabloids and lad-mags alike. I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with the results!

So much so that, in the abscence of anything else to do with my life, I'm sharing some of my favourite search results for 'Jordan' with you. Please, try to contain your excitement.

I'm Jordan.

So am I. (This guy looks worryingly like my dentist. Man, he's really let himself go.

Amazingly, we're all Jordan.

God bless Jordan, and all who sail in her! (NB This joke copyright Sid James 1973)

A horrifying glimpse at Cuba Gooding Jr's next film, or some old jazz guy? You decide.

This guy's a sportsman? Standards are falling.

Glamour!

Is this not Keith off 'Six Feet Under'?

Jordan plans to move into portraiture if the modelling work dries up.

Insert own cheap double entendre here.

2003-06-24T08:35:00.000Z

Yeah, it's more quizzes. I'll get back to posting more substantial stuff soon, honest. In the meantime, this is what I got after searching for "film" at Quizilla.

In what classic Woody Allen film do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

Carrie White-Carrie

What Horror/Thriller Film Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

How hard do I rock?

Gang bang! You're a slut! You should go get
checked out at an STD clinic... Maybe you
should rethink your outview on sex - it could
be something special, ya know. Remember better
safe than sorry.

What kind of pornographic film would you most likely star in?
brought to you by Quizilla

I feel Quizilla is conspiring to tell me things about myself I didn't really need or wish to know.

You are Lolita, his most daring film. You involve a
four way triangle between a pedophile, a young
girl, her mother, and a bizarre man. Enough
said.

What Stanley Kubrick film are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

See above.

You are Godzilla! A huge mutant lizard or something
of the sort. You are into scaring and
terrorizing the city and people of Japan.

What old Horror film are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

"Heathers" is the story of your life.
Once you meet that special person, the sparks
fly, as well as the gunshots and shards of
glass. Up for a game of strip croquet any time
soon?

Which 80s Film Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Aww yes!

Summer of Sam! Adrien Brody plays a bisexual punk
rocker who loves The Who.

Which Adrien Brody film are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm currently filing a restraining order against Spike Lee. As we all should.

Bowie and Bauhaus and nicely airbrushed rug-
munching, oh my. You are The Hunger. You are
admired colosally by goths and fucktards and
Birkenstock-wielders alike. Pages and pages of
postmodern tripe is dedicated towards your
vomitisingly 80's splendor in many the thesis
of a seasoned Melbourne Uni carpet-licker.

Which appallingly retarded film are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm questioning some of his other choices, but he's right - The Hunger IS total ass.

You're Wes Anderson!

Which famous (or semi-famous) film director are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hurrah!

2003-06-22T23:10:00.000Z

More Quizzes That You Can Cope With

Utena

Which Utena girl are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Hey! I'm open to any schoolgirls who want me!

Touga

Which Utena guy are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Well, I like him.

Juliet

Which woman of Shakespeare are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nice. I love Zeffirelli's version - with Bruce Robinson as Benvolio!

What LoTR Character Are You?

Arwen... I can go for that. Yes can do.

Take the Which Spider-Man Character Are You? quiz by ZyberGoat

Stop laughing. Were you in Wonder Boys?

I am Krusty the Clown!
Which Simpsons Character are YOU?

That's uncannily accurate.

Which Rocky character are you?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

Take the Radiohead Collective Member Test.

Have I posted this before? I care not. Rock, it does.

center>According to the "Which Big Lebowski character are you?" quiz:

Why don't you check it out? Or we cut of your Johnson!

In my defence, I was just on the cusp of being Maude. Mmm.... Julianne Moore.

I fancy writing a few of my own quizzes. Anyone with a knowledge of such things want to help me?

2003-06-21T23:03:00.000Z

So, you may be asking, what was my trip like? Well, half good, half bad. The bad half - we may as well get it over with - was Cambridge. Cambridge is a beautiful town. But the people there don't deserve to live in it. Case in point - Giles introduced me to his friend Tom, a very maudlin, dandyish Nick Cave obsessive. I can't remember how it started, but me and Tom rubbed each other up the wrong way completely when drunk, and I ended up throwing a serious fit. Afterwards, I got talking to Tom, and underneath it all he's a nice guy. But what bothered me was Giles's comment:

"He's really nice, you just have to earn his respect."

In Tom's case, I got a small part of the way there, and that's great. But everyone in Cambridge is like this. And sometimes you don't WANT to earn someone's respect, you know? Sometimes - and maybe this makes me a traditionalist, but I don't care - you want someone to treat you with politeness and respect, and generally not prance around like a cock who thinks he has the keys to the universe. They don't know there's a world outside their town, or that some people don't know their chosen subject inside out. The sad thing is, most of them will luck into such cushy jobs they'll go through life thinking this and no-one will bother to challenge them.

That said, it's a lovely place, it's always nice to see the boys again, and I like Giles's squeeze Hester more and more each time I meet her. If nothing else, it taught me how to play croquet.

The good half - oh, the wonderful half - was meeting up with Alistair and Mary in Preston. Both of them I met back in the olden ZDC days, before the show became unendurable, and the website a little prickly. (No dissin' is accepted of webmasters Eija and Rich, though. None. Ever.)

Alistair is an instantly loveable person, and that's all you need to know about him. Truth be told, it would have been all you'd need to know about Mary too. But we've always had a crush on each other, and this time it followed through. A lot. Nothing physical, but it felt like it may as well have been. And we say we love one another. Well, she'll be thrilled with her first shout-out on my blog. I'm still awaiting her holiday diary updates, actually, to see what she says about me. Which is part narcissism, but a larger part indecision. I have no problem with a Relationship Talk, even one of the Where Do We Go From Here? breed, but only if it's a dark sort of conversation. So much so that I'm thinking the darkness may be why all my relationships are kind of fraught. Mary means so much to me, and I'm so waiting for a bit of happiness at last, that I want the relationship to stay - at least for now - like it was those two nights. Fluffy, fun, casual but respectful, like new relationships should be.

How the hell do I put that in words? "Dear Mary. I think it's time we had a serious talk about where our relationship is going in light of last week. We need to take more responsibility and face up to the consequences of what we did. It's not pretty, but I can't toy with your emotions like this. Ground rules need to be laid. I've decided... I want things to be happy happy happy! Wheeee!" Oh yeah. That set the right tone. That would be so fucking clever of me, especially when it's someone I care for so much and when I don't want to lose her and when I want what's best for both of us but at the same time not to worry about such things and just to enjoy her and who she is and who we are and...

Wow, I've gone into a grammatical tailspin. It must be love...

2003-06-21T22:38:00.000Z

Vampire Ho

What type of vampire are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

This is exactly what the internet was made for.

2003-06-14T22:54:00.000Z

Just a quick note to say I'll be gone for the next week, travelling around the country and visiting friends. Do not miss me when I am gone, nor cry for my loss... 'cause I'm only in Preston or Cambridge, you dozy sod.

2003-06-13T21:22:00.000Z

I've tried and I've tried and I've tried to edit this Men In Black material into a coherent passage, but I've failed. The material doesn't lend itself to coherency. So instead I'm going to gob all of my research into today's entry without editorial comment, and you can all read the unexpurgated version of what I've been reading. Duck, you sucker!

Visit:
this site
and this one

Extracts from John A Keel's superlative 'The Mothman Prophecies':
Max's Kansas City is a famous watering hole for New York's hip crowd. In the summer of 1967 an oddball character wandered into that restaurant noted for its oddball clientele. He was tall and awkward, dressed in an ill-fitting black suit that seemed out of style. His chin came to a sharp point and his eyes bulged slightly like 'thyroid eyes.' He sat down in a booth and gestured to the waitress with his long, tapering fingers.
"'Something to eat,' he mumbled. The waitress handed him a menu. He stared at it uncomprehendingly, apparently unable to read. 'Food,' he said almost pleadingly.
"'How about a steak?' she offered.
"'Good.'
"She brought him a steak with all the trimmings. He stared at it for a long moment and then picked up his knife and fork, glancing around at the other diners. It was obvious he did not know how to handle the implements! The waitress watched him as he fumbled helplessly. Finally she showed him how to cut the steak and spear it with the fork. He sawed away at the meat. Clearly he really was hungry.
"'Where are you from?' she asked gently.
"'Not from here.'
"'Where?'
"'Another world.'
"Boy, another put-on artist, she thought to herself. The other waitresses gathered in a corner and watched him as he fumbled with his food, a stranger in a strange land.
"A large white car with a faulty muffler wheezed and rattled up the back street in New Haven, West Virginia, where Connie Carpenter lived, and Jack Brown knocked at her door.
"'I'm a--a friend of Mary Hyre's.'
"His strange demeanor and disjointed questions distressed her and disturbed her husband, Keith, and her brother Larry. It quickly became obvious that he was not particularly interested in Connie's sighting of the man-bird the year before. He seemed more concerned with Mrs. Hyre and my own relationship with her (we were professional friends, nothing more).
"'What do you think--if--what would Mary Hyre do--if someone told her to stop writing about UFOs?' he asked.
"'She'd probably tell them to drop dead.' Connie replied.
"Most of the questions were stupid, even unintelligible.
After a rambling conversation he drove off into the night in his noisy car. Connie called her aunt immediately, puzzled and upset by the visit. He was such a very odd man, she noted, and he wouldn't speak at all if you weren't looking directly into his dark, hypnotic eyes. Connie, Keith and Larry not only noticed his long-fingered hands, but there was also something very peculiar about his ears. They couldn't say exactly what. But there was something...”
"On May 2, she again encountered two men. 'One was the 'boss' Hydro man in his neat coveralls,' she reported (CANADIAN UFO REPORT, #13, 1972-73). 'The other was different, younger and about 19-20. As I entered the path, the boss man indicated with his hand for the young man to get behind him. They got well off the path and waited for me, the young man a little behind his boss. The fellow stared at me as if I were some kind of freak...'
"This time she didn't invite them for tea. One odd thing she noticed during both meetings was their slow, careful way of walking. They looked at their feet and stepped uncertainly. "The next day a jeep came along the road, containing four men inspecting lines... 'carelessly dressed, workaday men, none in coveralls. The boss wasn't obviously so. They expressed no surprise at seeing me there, no concern or any particular interest. I told them two of their men had already been around the day before, inspecting the lines. They assured me yesterday's men weren't Hydro men, that somebody had been "pulling my leg."'
"Somebody was also pulling a lot of legs in cosmopolitan Long Island. In West Virginia I had heard some stories about three men who looked 'like Indians' and were accompanied by a fourth man, more normal-looking and very shabbily dressed in contrast to the other three. So I was nonplused when I heard identical descriptions from people on Long Island. [...] An elderly woman who lived alone in a house near the summit of Mount Misery, the highest point on Long Island, had received a visit from this quartet in early April 1967, immediately after a severe rainstorm."

Bibliography
Books
Brookesmith, Peter (ed), The Unexplained, ‘Who Are The Men In Black?’ (Marshall Cavendish, London, 1985)
Evans, Robert, Gassed (House of Stratus, London, 2000)
Kick, Russ (ed), ‘September 11th: No Surprise’, ‘Appendix A: More Secrets and Lies’, Everything You Know Is Wrong (Disinformation, New York, 2002)
Preston, Richard, The Demon In The Freezer (Headline, Washington, 2003)
Magazines
Various articles, Fortean Times, October 2001 (IFG Publishing, London)

2003-06-10T22:45:00.000Z

Still knees-deep in conspiracies, but I'm just surfacing to say that this has to be mentioned. Awwww!

2003-06-07T09:19:00.000Z

Yep, the Men In Black stuff will be published soon. But in the meantime, in case you were doubting my central thesis that the world is weirder than we can possibly imagine...

Nina Hartley is a veteran porn star of 70s/80s vintage. More 'mainstream' movie fans will remember her as Little Bill's wife in PT Anderson's wonderful Boogie Nights, and may have seen her on various chat shows as an intelligent and genuine defender of pornography, open marriages, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyles. And what does she get for her efforts? Fan-mail like this:

Nina

You have the best ass in the business! Can I fuck it?

No.

But that's not even the half of it.

It has been brought to my attention that you have an unathorized picture of me on your site. I demand you give me a username and password so that I may look at it myself and determine if I should sue you or not!

Send the account information to ********@hotmail.com as I do not want my wife to read this.

ps. can I buy a pair of your panties?

As a master fraudster, he's good, but easily bested by this guy. This is real Jim Thompson stuff we're talking here...

I am a movie producer in Hollywood. I am very big in the business. I want Nina to be in my next movie and I will pay her a lot of money but I lost her phone number.

Please send it to me right away.

Thanks

Or this one:

To whom it may concerned, This is ****** ******.I am trying to set up our several new homepages and we are trying to find the Good domain name.The domain name of you own looks really good to us and found that it is owned by you.Of course, it would be an important domain name to youbut we really appreciate it if we can get it forUS$1,000 with escrow. (I pay escrow fee etc.).I do appology take your time.

Thank you,

******

Or... (and this is a classic)

Hello Nina whore,

I am very rich, more money than you could imagine. I love whores, it's my hobby. I want to buy you for 1 to 2 days, sweetie. If you can suck my dick better than most of my other whores, I 'll buy you for the 2nd day.

I pay my whores top dollar so think about it.

I will be the best fuck you ever had!

If your interested in making a quick buck, contact my business manager at ************.

Charlie

How could one possibly resist?

OK, normal service resumed as soon as possible.

2003-06-02T15:31:00.000Z

Now, I'm a great believer in the Renaissance ideal that erudition for its own sake is a good thing. Which is why I'm enjoying writing David Boring, my adaptation of the brilliant Daniel Clowes comic of the same name. It's allowed me to research all sorts of stuff, specifically the behavioural habits of Men In Black and September 11th scarelore. As I go along, I'll post anything I can find here so you can enjoy the fruits of my labours as they crop up (mixed metaphor, sorry).

At the moment Snopes is proving indispensable in the latter part of my research. The UPS uniforms story is as archetypal a piece of 9/11 rumour-mongering as one could hope to discover: paranoid, inaccurate and so obviously the progeny of several hundred other myths from way back when that it's only the heightened fear in the air that keeps sensible people from dismissing it out of hand. This, however, scares me more on account of it being true. Is there no limit to human stupidity?

Then, of course, there are the things that may or may not be true. The stories - widespread after the incident - of children predicting the disaster were told in some very reputable publications, and very widely known, yet any attempt to actually locate the children with the awesome psychic powers has failed. Even the FBI have drawn a blank.

Some will note the reference to one of the boys' families leaving the country for Pakistan and infer that the child's foreknowledge of 9/11 was no act of prediction; it was an act of foreknowledge. Such talk may seem to be playing into the hands of anti-Islamic militants, but in his otherwise reliable account of the most telling warning signs for September 11th, Russ Kick says that the New York attacks were already common knowledge on the streets of Muslim communities. One can see why the authorities were reluctant to promote this - quite aside from fuelling racism, it also shows them up as being negligent on a grand scale - but this is the most poorly-sourced of Kick's pieces of evidence. Anonymous "veteran detectives" and "members of a mosque in New York" provide the quotes, vague enough to make his shift to the 'predictive children' stories - largely from the Houston Chronicle - seem entirely credible. A disappointment from a piece which, amongst other coups, pins down State Department terrorism expert Jerry Bremer as making the massively disturbing quote "We all predicted this. We had strategic warning. This is not something the analysts missed."

Possible methods of an attack on Britain I have researched include flying a plane into Big Ben, which first surfaced in the ever-unreliable Daily Mail some months after the WTC and Pentagon attacks, and seems to be as much a product of unfocused fear as the old "an Arab man in a bar told my friend to stay away from Brooklyn on Thursday..." yarn. Why would terrorists want to fly a plane into Big Ben, anyway? It may be a national landmark, but it's small beer compared with the Twin Towers, and the loss of life would be massively insufficient to follow up the American attacks. Flying a plane into the Houses of Parliament next door would be more feasible, but not conversant with Al-Qaeda's MO; they prefer to take the soft targets of civilian areas, Pentagon aside.

Other, more verifiable methods, include releasing bombs primed with ricin in the London Underground air conditioning - the exact plot which was foiled by MI5 late last year - and blowing up a bioweapon-packed oil tanker in front of a public building. Recently, when Osama bin Laden surfaced again to call for a renewed jihad against America, several such tankers went missing across Britain. They have yet to be traced, as far as I know.

Paranoid? Yeah. When cultural historians look back on the last twenty or thirty years, they'll identify paranoia as the defining force in popular culture. Paranoia that our governments are lying to us. Paranoia about aliens. Paranoia about the environment. Paranoia about our jobs, our incomes, our food, illnesses, terrorists, Black Ops, Ice Ages, superguns... we fear everything. So why, in the middle of the age of paranoia, are the Republicans so cocksure? Why is every news message board full of people disregarding the words of, say, Amnesty International when they say the War On Terror has backfired and made the world a more dangerous place? It's one thing to have convictions, but ask yourself; do you feel any safer than you did in, say, 1997? You might have had a lot of practice ignoring Israeli and Palestinian suicide bombders, but what about the ones in Casablanca? Or in your country, right now? What about that vague terror alert the government put out about Kenyan travel? What did they know? What about the communications from the Cayman Islands which reportedly warned about 9/11? Who's out there, exactly?

This is why David Boring is a work for our times. It asks the serious questions: are we significant or are we a statistic? Who controls us? Does anyone? If they do, why do so many terrible things happen? Are we being punished or is the universe meaninglessly capricious instead? If there isn't anyone driving, isn't the best response to ignore the outside world, to refuse to engage and chase your own kind of perfection instead? It's the collision between fantasy and reality that causes paranoia - the mix of frightened delusion that your world might be about to fall apart and the pragmatic belief that someone has it in for you. It's certainly the cause of the Men In Black, of whom more later.

2003-06-01T10:33:00.000Z

Hold on a second... I'm just kicking back...

*kicks back*

Ah yeah... that's the stuff.

Observant readers may have already guessed from my sunny demeanour and the fact that I'm posting again that I am back home in Middlesbrough. Because I am. Huzzah! Only the resits lie ahead of me, and I am feeling good. It's also nice to get re-acquainted with the lovely semi-industrial/semi-wasteland chic of this town, which I've always found a great inspiration to every branch of my creativity. The pineapple weed growing through the pavements... the faded graffiti on the underside of the railway bridge... the tadpoles moving through the dirt and litter in the beck... There's something enticing about it, far, far more than there is in either proper cities or proper countryside. The in-between stage is the place to be.

Of course, I won't be spending the whole holiday up here. On the 15th I'm going to see Mary in Preston - hurrah! That's something I've looked forward to for a very very long time, and now it looks like it's finally going ahead. For those not in the know, Mary was one of the first people who caught my eye back over at Hannigan.com - now sadly deceased. I thought she'd never deign to talk to me. I had a very bad case of posting newbie paranoia. Now, of course, we're thick as thieves. I linked to her blog a few days ago.

After that, without so much as a pause for breath, I'm off to Cambridge for May Week. I've only just found out the date because, as I never tire of telling people, the cream of this country's intellegensia don't know when their term ends. So much wine will be imbibed, about 36% of it simply from shaking hands with Roger and getting a hangover by osmosis.

(I said osmosis! Holy shit! Maybe I do remember something from those GCSE Biology classes!)

Updates, photos (if any), and the usual bumf will be forthcoming as it happens...

2003-05-30T22:12:00.000Z

Hey kid. Wanna see the scariest thing of all time?

For once in my life, words fail me. That ending...

2003-05-29T22:17:00.000Z

A bumper load of mildly disturbing quizzes, courtesy of Mary.

Tolkien's cool. Hobbits rock. A couple of them are
pretty hot, too. But you're not so freakishly
obsessed that people run away from you...and it
looks (*gasp!*) as though you might actually
have a sense of humor as well.
(Congratulations! There aren't many Tolkien
fans like you out there...)

What kind of Tolkien fan are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which 80s High School Movie Are You? ...aka the Molly Ringwald appreciation quiz...
brought to you by Quizilla

I've never seen Better Off Dead. Can't I be Heathers? Greatest movie about teenagers ever, bar none.

I am Celeborn, King of Lothlorien. During the War of the Ring, I succeeded in leading my forces in the conquest of Dol Guldur. People say I'm just Galadriel's pretty-trophy husband, but REALLY I'm the strong-and-silent type. In the movie, I'm played by Marton Csokas.
|| Which Lord of the Rings Elf are you? @ Ametsuchi.com ||

Ooh, he was in xXx with Asia Argento. And has done little of note bar that.

The biggie:

Aragorn

Who is your Lord of the Rings SoulMate?
brought to you by Quizilla

I can live with that. I mean, he's totally dogging Legolas...

2003-05-22T11:13:00.000Z

Angst-ridden cliches that have happened to me over the past 24 hours:

Stood up by date
Date refusing to return phone calls
Friend chatted up girl I fancied (because that's what friends are for!)
Drunkenly told Annie I loved her; got knocked back
Slept on friend's couch
Snuck out of house at early hour to avoid confrontation
Found out friend who I haven't seen in ages is dating someone who I really don't like at all

For God's sake, why does nothing good ever happen to me?

2003-05-18T15:12:00.000Z

Now, back in the day, divisions between years were much more clearly drawn. THESE are the sixteen year olds, they're doing GCSEs. THESE are the seventeen year olds. They're in their first year of A-Levels. Do not talk to each other. It is not right.

Nowadays, of course, my year's swarming with people of all ages. The big difference between school and university is that at school, events could happen like that time when I was about 17-18 and I let slip I was dating a twenty year old. As soon as I let slip - just in a conversation to a friend, you understand - the whole library just span around to face me and chorused "TWENty?"

And now here I am, being all TWENty. Does my TWENtiness make me feel like that incident was just yesterday or ages ago? I can't really tell. Something like, say, 'revising' for my A-Levels (sitting around a computer with Giles, Pete and Roger hacking the school system, in other words) still feels like it happened yesterday. Stuff like actually sitting my A-Levels, on the other hand, feels like it occurred somewhere in between the Eocene period and the start of production on Gangs of New York. So evidently the crap stuff fades from memory while the good stuff remains fresh. It's hard to say fairer than that, isn't it?

Anyway. Type the word TWENty into Yahoo and this is what you get back. Official sites for Matchbox TWENty, the popular trivia game TWENty questions, the TWENty most critical internet security vulnerabilities, the Forty-TWENty tractor (apparently the most popular tractor of its time - wow!), punctuated equilibrium at the TWENty (no, me neither), Canada's Inn on the TWENty, TWENty.com, TWENty alternatives to punishment and great American texts, and marijuana laws site four-TWENty.com. It ain't so bad being TWENty, I suppose. Better than being TWENty-three, at any rate. Now that's a mile off!

And I want to thank the M**l on S**day for giving me the best birthday present of all - the news that Matrix Larry Wachowski has left his childhood sweetheart for a superstar dominatrix and is now undergoing gender realignment treatment. Life tends to come and go - and that's fine, as long as you know - but top-whack scandal like that will live on long after I'm one hundred and TWENty.

2003-05-17T21:39:00.000Z

Facsimile of e-mail sent by Rick Santorum to George W Bush. Read today's blog message, then destroy it.

----Original Message----
From:
To:
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 7:01 AM
Subject: RE: Isn't Pingu cool?

George,

I have prepared two public statements for use regarding the you-know-what about the you-know-who. I don't know which way the winds of change are blowing in this country, George. Come to think of it, neither do you. In fact, now I reflect more fully on the matter, I'd be surprised if anyone in the Republican or Democratic parties had much of a clue. But surely one of these remarks will hit the spot. Not in that way.

RESPONSE ONE:

I fully stand by the comments I have been reported as making recently about the Gayanist Lifestyle being no better than polygamy, incest and bigamy. It is tempting to misuse our sacred constitution to excuse what we do in the bedroom, living room, kitchen or packed Mormon church, simply because these are all private places. Would you be so secure if someone was practicing being a terrorist in his own bedroom? Or killing thousands of American citizens by hijacking planes in his bedroom?

As much as it pains me to say it, the line has to be drawn somewhere. And I draw the line at ass-fucking. I do not hate homosexuals, as some commentators have attempted to smear me as implying. I merely hate homosexuality and those who practice it. Just as my esteemed colleague Mr Trent Lott may have hated blackness, but you can be assured no man loved black people as much as he did. Well, maybe Jefferson. But that's not the point. The point is; do we want an America where an unelected government is free to impose meaningless sanctions on consenting adults carrying out legal behaviour in the privacy of their own homes? And I believe that the electorate are saying "Dunno. Do we have to do anything?"

To you, the great couldn't-care-lesses,
My regards,
Rick Santorum

RESPONSE TWO:

I fully stand by the comments I have been reported as making recently about the Gayanist Lifestyle being no better than polygamy, incest and bigamy. By which I mean, homosexuality is fine if you like that sort of thing, but really, is it better than having twelve wives? Or nailing your own sister in her sweet pussy? It is the respectful opinion of Senator Rick Santorum that there is no fuckin' way that sucking another man's throbbing cock until he pumps his tasty love-juice down your throat is anywhere near as good as calling your girlfriend, her girlfriend and a couple of friends in for a sweaty, five-way, multi-penetration fuckfest! I mean - really? Pushing my tumescent member into my bitch's ass is fun, but let's not lose sight of the real issues here.

The inescapable fact of the modern political landscape is that we must form stronger bonds with Europe against our common enemies. And I have had many top-level meetings with the British Labour Party in order to facilitate this close relationship. Let me assure the people of America that there is nothing we cannot face with a bunch of swinging queers like Ron Davies and Stephen Twigg by our sides. I hope to entertain the British Prime Minister's closest ally and his Brazilian toy-boy today. For the good of America, I will do all that I can to broaden the agenda to include watersports.

Stay Republican, stay horny,
Rick Santorum

2003-05-14T16:36:00.000Z

It's rare for something to make my life infinitely easier and infinitely harder at the same time, but today's top story is a good example.

At the moment I'm researching an Anglicised adaptation of Daniel Clowes' comic book 'David Boring', and I'm looking into ways in which Al-Qaeda could make a limited biological/destructive strike on Britain. I was about to throw up my hands and just have them fly a plane into John Prescott or some other major landmark when I learn that, oh yeah, it's probably going to happen.

The bad side of this is so obvious it doesn't even deserve a mention. The good side of this, aside from ensuring I don't have to do much research, is that it's shown me Britain hasn't been so Americanised yet. We're still handling this situation with a delicacy that the mainstream American media isn't showing. Yesterday, for example, the deaths of several American and British citizens in a suicide attack in Saudi Arabia didn't merit much attention in the US press. Why? Because it doesn't toe the official Bush party line - that despite the general abscence of Al-Qaeda top brass turning up either incarcerated or killed, the war against Bin Laden's cells was a total success. If it's seen to have failed, then this negates the Bush administration's belief that this 'victory' made it safe for us to invade Iraq. And despite the fact that less than half of a 35% voter turn-out actually voted for The Chimp, all of America is standing loyally behind their glorious president.

For those who can't believe the media would be so dishonest as to the scale of any threat, I have but two words. Jayston. Blair.

I can walk outside and there's no sense of panic, nobody raiding the shelves of Kwik Save for supplies, no crashed cars or street fights. It really contradicts our every cultural stereotype of what a country in fear should look like. We've just realised what a terrorist does, and we know that the best way to fight them is to not be terrified. We may vote for the wrong people, we may do the wrong things, we may be riven by social, sexual, racial and ideological divisions, but at the heart of it? We Britons are all right, you know.

2003-05-13T15:56:00.000Z

Wowch, it's been a while. Because not only was it exam season, but - displaying the intelligence and taste they are justly known for - the university bigwigs decided to schedule two of my most important pieces of coursework smack in the middle of revision season. So normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. I'm on the piss with Jimbo tonight, so before I go off and freshen up, here's a quick summary of my arguments for my very first exam yesterday afternoon. Three hours. Three questions. English Literature 1745-1797.

1. Laurence Sterne's 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'
Sterne takes advantage of the freer divisions between science and literature of his age to write a tract on nature vs nurture, mocking the Aristotlean principles that were widely held at the time while pushing his wider thesis that any attempt to objectively relay human life in a linear fashion is doomed to failure. Wow, this is pretty good stuff. That'll give me the majority of my marks, I'm sure.

2. Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus'
Though my handwriting is rapidly deteriorating due to cramped wrists, you can probably make out that Shelley's horror is derived from a fear of the body, partially inspired by her own experiences of miscarriage, partly through the gap in sexual morality between guilt-laden society and her famously polymorphous circle of friends. The novel can be read as an inquisition into the differences between the mind and the spirit, or as an expression of Cronenbergian disease paranoia. And now I'm starting to go a bit funny. It's very hot in here and I'm tired.

3. Assorted Poetry - Mary Leapor, Elizabeth Moody and others.
I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A ile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.

2003-05-05T12:53:00.000Z

Apparently this happened in the middle of last year in America, but the first I heard of it was a brief mention in this month's Q: Big Lurch, a rapper best known for a guest spot on a Mystikal album (y'know - the bits that are farmed out to the main artist's untalented friends and labelmates) is on trial for eating a 21-year-old woman! Surfing round for additional news, I found some interesting message board posts on the case. Surely these two will end up as Attorney General one day? No? Ok then.

This was not a murder. This was a tragedy. Big Lurch has spoken with the mother, brother and sister of Tynisha. The family knows what really occured. People outside this tiny circle really dont know a damn thang. Lurch has not only spoke with the family, but he has vowed to dedicate his life to speaking to the youth about this terrible drug. A mocumentary is in the making and it will educate the youth across america, especially in the south where PCP use in running Ramphant.

Does "Take PCP and you will become a cannibal" really count as education? Maybe that's why it's a "mocumentary" rather than a documentary.

Now my name is Diana Walker and Lurch is my cousin. Alot of people have did alot of things in their lives, and I think that people should start putting they're selves in his shoes before they voice their opinions. He was a victum just like she was. He did'nt know what he was doing. He doesn't even remember anything. You think anyone in the right state of mind frame would just do something like this on a ordinary day. NO!!.... HE'S HUMAN JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELES,SO TREAT HIM LIKE ONE.

I have no words.

The main discovery in all this, of course, is that Snoop Dogg has a blog! It's called Snoop Doggy Blog - no, seriously, it is - and is slathered in porn ads, so if you're surfing at work, be careful! He's apparently still being targeted by Suge's boys, wonders what Eminem's jail term would be if he really did all the shit he raps about, and is pro-Bush (insert own crude joke here). He may, then, display all the geopolitical knowhow of a man who once confessed to a fear of being "iced by the IRA. They's crazy muthafuckas!", but his site comes highly reccommended. He also offers the best insult to Ja Rule I've read in a long time.

2003-05-02T22:12:00.000Z

‘s a strange thing, it really is. I was no more naïve five years ago than I am now, because I learn about human behaviour so slowly. I idealise, try to make everyone fit in to how I would ideally like people to behave. Sometimes – as with Jay – I meet people who share my philosophy. Other times I’m very alone. I was alone before, of course, but I was never so aware of it. And it’s not even sad, just curious.

I miss the innocence I’ve known
Playing Kiss covers, beautiful and stoned

2003-05-01T09:30:00.000Z

"Hi, I'm Grant Mitchell from Feeder, and I read the Pig Spanish Critic on It Could Be Worse every week."

Identity (Fingerprins) "Strangerum retiro de motel seedy, e discoverat y all haveo the same birthday! Ooooooo! Pausum – idea se not even remotely scary."

Confidence (Retaino su y self) "Confidence? Appearenso de Ed Burns in em filmum inspirens none."

It Runs In The Family (Genetico Philanderum) "Michael Douglas y Kirk Douglas y Whohe Douglas inspirens overloadem de la chins resemblo arses."

People I Know (Acquantancio) "Al Pacino portrado sleazebag - yay! Kim Basinger returno de la proper acting - yay! Tea Leoni y Sophie Dahl ratchet northem babe counter - yay! Que the fuck se filmum occupato two fucking screens nationwide, then?"

The Real Cancun (Dollar Absens) "Review translato del universal language de la mockery – HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! That se all."

2003-05-01T09:06:00.000Z

The best revenge! You would make Avril listen to
Sk8ter Boi over and over and over and over and
over again until she went insane and killed
herself. What a shame...

How would you torture and kill Avril Lavigne?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-04-30T22:13:00.000Z

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Extreme
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

That's so unfair! Firstly, I don't want to go to the level of hell that will contain Donald Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger, secondly I do want to go to the level which will contain Frida Kahlo and all the porn stars! Dammit, isn't it the whole point of hell that you can go there and happily repeat all of your sins forever while the pious labour under the delusion that this is an unendurable punishment?

2003-04-30T12:46:00.000Z

Once again, apologies for the delay. I've got lots of features waiting to be put up, including an account of this year's holiday, gloating over the failure of [i]The Real Cancun[/i], a hot new music critic for It Could Be Worse, and plenty more, but my computer packed in for a bit. D'oh!

Quick updates to start off - I'm making a list of bisexual celebrities with a view to starting a website on the topic over summer. I noticed that there wasn't a site which comprehensively listed them, and there was a gap in the market there. So, with contributors from Dark Dreams, I've created the following list, which will be tarted up with filmographies, discographies, biographies, photogalleryographies and the like when the site hopefully goes online. The list so far stands as (deep breath):

Adams, Joey Lauren Aguilera, Christina Alexander the Great Baez, Joan Baker, Josephine Bankhead, Tallulah Bowie, David Barrymore, Drew Bernhard, Sandra Bernstein, Leonard Burrows, Saffron Cadanet, Amanda de Chatwin, Bruce Cherry, Neneh Cho, Margaret Cooper, Alice Copland, Aaron Crowley, Aleister Cumming, Alan Dallesandro, Joe Davis Jr, Sammy Dean, James Dietrich, Marlene DiFranco, Ani Donohoe, Amanda Downey Jr, Robert Flynn, Errol Fonda, Jane Gabor, Zsa Zsa Garbo, Greta Grant, Cary Guinness, Alec Hagenbeek, Bianca Hamilton, Linda Hawkins, Sophie B Heche, Anne Hollander, Xaviera Holliday, Billie Holliday, Judy Jackson, Janet Jones, Reverend Jim Jolie, Angelina Joplin, Janis Kahlo, Frida King, Billie Jean Kinsey, Alfred Kublbock, Daniel Laughton, Charles Little Richard Love, Courtney Luna, Bigas Madonna Magrs, Paul Merman, Ethel Meulenbelt, Anja Molko, Brian Morrissey, Stephen Patrick Mulally, Megan Najimy, Kathy Nyro, Laura O’Connor, Sinead Olivier, Laurence Perkins, Anthony Phoenix, River Pink Power, Tyrone Price, Vincent Richardson, Tony Robinson, Tom Sappho Scanio, Alfonso Pecoraro Scott, Randolph Sister Smile Silverstone, Alicia Skye, Ione Smith, Anna Nicole Smith, Bessie Spigt, Frederique Springfield, Dusty Stanwyck, Barbara Stipe, Michael Thompson, Emma Touber, Rob Townsend, Pete Trossel, Patty Velasquez, Patricia Warhol, Andy Wenner, Jann Williams, Rachel

Phew! Pig Spanish Critic coming up soon, I promise.

2003-04-22T12:08:00.000Z

So farewell then, George Galloway.

Sorry - did I say farewell? I meant "fuck off". Frankly, this sentimental imbecile has been a burden to the anti-war movement for far too long. He confirms every right-winger's worst prejudices about us - that we're simplistic, syrup-brained Saddam-lovers who would rather attack an elected dictatorship than an unelected one. Presenting a balanced view of the Iraq situation does not neccessarily entail taking up cudgels against the British and American forces - it certainly does not entail encouraging Iraqi troops to take up arms against them. Towards the end of the war, his bizarrely ill-informed, callous somments were no different from Salam El-Comedius, the Iraqi information minister. He was quite clearly an advocate for a genocidal dictator. Not just arguing that he shouldn't be bombed - hell, if we bombed every unelected ruler in the world, Bush would be bricking it - but actually arguing that he was a nice man who was loved by his people and had never harmed anyone. That's not legitimate anti-war activism, that's pro-war activism, and just because he's arguing for the other side doesn't mean it's pacifism. How could it be? A death is a death is a death is a death.

Alright, he has a point when he wonders aloud about the sheer coincidence of the Daily Telegraph - a newspaper with a strong pro-war brief - just happening to find documents with his name on in a bombed out building that they just happened to be passing, but if you live with no ethics you shouldn't be surprised when unethical men plot your downfall.

My mother always told me never to laugh at someone's misfortune, yet my considered response is still "Hahahahahaha!"

2003-04-21T17:36:00.000Z

It's Monday... I haven't updated for ages... this can only mean one thing - it's time for the return of the Pig Spanish Critic to cast his acute critical eye over the week's new releases Stateside!

Holes (Penetratum)
"I null es five-year-old, abem meio knowledgium bar Holes e zero zilchamendum. Meio knowledgium de la movium extensius zu titular homosexualis pornografia magazina - ab el filmus may be unrelated."
Malibu's Most Wanted (Mostum Embarrasmentis)
"Idea de la white rapper se nillus amusement posta Eminem. Oh, postpono - 8 Mile se fucking hilarious."
Bulletproof Monk (Monk y Twat de la Dude, Where's My Car?)
"Titulum se maxima de comedis, y filmus el non over del top, es over del top de la top, y eventuallis in orbit."
Lilya 4-Ever (Immortalis Chick)
"Lukas Moodysson masterio de la comedia y Abba, ab filmus concerno teen prostitution es mope, mope, mope, mope, mope, mope, mope."
A Mighty Wind (Flatulens)
"Christopher Guest mockumentarios, overtus quality for mockery. Consequentio, meio commentarium es zero."
Chasing Papi (Returno, Papi!)
"Que the fuck is this?"

2003-04-16T12:41:00.000Z

IMDb - Actor Will Smith has spoken out against accusations his withdrawal from last month's Academy Awards was a veiled anti-war statement. Avoiding the backlash of fellow screen stars like Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, the Ali actor insists his decision not to appear at the glitzy Hollywood ceremony was based solely on the fact he felt uncomfortable celebrating as the war in Iraq raged on. He explains, "For me, personally, it just felt inappropriate to celebrate acting and performances when POWs were being taken in Iraq and the war had just begun. There's reporters over there that can tell us what's going on so we can monitor our military, we can monitor the situation. So I just felt like it was my responsibility to pay attention to what was going on."

...and now we have world peace!

2003-04-14T12:05:00.000Z

Apologies for the longer-than-usual absence - I'm home for the holidays, and have as such been neglecting the pleasures of the Internet in favour of sun, fresh air, blades of grass, and all the other things that Middlesbrough has and Newcastle doesn't. I'll give a full update on shit soon, but I wanted to share my protege with you first.

No, I haven't moved into porno, I'm talking about my new best friend, the Pig Spanish Critic. So called because he started out reviewing pigs for Bestiality In Review, he recently moved into film criticism and can be found at rottentomatoes.com and many other critical sites giving his verdict on the latest movies in his inimitable - indeed, incomprehensible - style. Here's the Pig Spanish Critic's opinions on America's Top Ten Movies this morning, with Spanish language titles.

1. Anger Management (Outclasse Comedien)
"Hombre Sandler e maximo buffoonu el encountader l Sasquatch portrado Jack Nicholson e apeshit crazy. Muchos amusement y 'Huyo es Johnny!'"
2. Phone Booth (Telephono Buethos)
"Thriller el extremo prepostero, jeuno Colin Farrell p fit as a butcher's dog, y Skeletor portrado Kiefer Sutherland."
3. What A Girl Wants (Elekra Complexo)
"Superlativo vomito del Amanda Bynes, el whino des bint."
4. Bringing Down The House (Comedia De La Daily Mail)
"Inexplicablo decisio del agento don Steve Martin y Queen Latifah (subsequentum el curvy sex goddess), ab suertum nos dubious Stepin Fetchit bullshit."
5. A Man Apart (Trogdolyta!)
"Dialoguous e appearencio Vin Diesel: Ug ug ug ug ug!"
6. Head Of State (Retourno Del 1930s)
"Amusemus maximus del negrum y presidentatos, no? No. Es bollocks."
7. Rob Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses (Horror y MTV)
"Evidentum censorius de la MPAA, feedus delusio y shock-tactics de la Rob Zombie."
8. Chicago (Chicago)
"Catherine Zeta-Jones se curvum le shagtastic, arbem Senorita Zellwegger represento bony rubber chicken."
9. The Core (Planetariat Fucked)
"Excellente comedia del Aaron Eckhart e Teena Brandon y... que? El dramatiso science-fiction? Holy shit."
10. Basic (Shoutat y Shoutum)
"Marketum emphasiso resemblo Pulpo Fictisios, sincem filmus Basic del nullo redeeming qualities."

2003-04-10T14:46:00.000Z

Oh man, Avary's Domain just gets better and better. As one poster rightly said, Bicycle Bob pretending to be a Marine is the funniest thing on the Internet at the moment. We're all taunting him for being a fucking armchair general, sitting on his mom's couch watching CNN and shouting "Kerpow! Take that, darkie!", but apparently - gasp! - he's being shipped out in two weeks. When the war's over. And there's nothing left to do bar wander around cities with guns looking for anyone who looks like Saddam Hussein. Wow, he's such a little trooper. I wonder why they didn't put him on the front line? He'd have Baghdad liberated before you could say 'John Simpson'.

Dio, who is now neck-and-neck with Roger Avary as the most-linked-to person on this site, has took up painting once again. His first effort can currently be seen a few posts down in his blog, and it's extremely good. I'm not terribly good at criticising visual arts - despite having studied it at A-level, I can only manage a blurted "This rocks/sucks" before running out of words - but his very cool friend Holly has given it a sharp appraisal in the tagboard.

Man, that's another thing I've got to start doing. Gotta start painting again. Gotta start writing a bit more once my essays and exams and shit are out of the way. Gotta start acting again. I think my memories of the last time have faded to the degree where I'm thinking it would be a good idea to start up again. Gotta start dating as well.

Oh wait! I have! I've got a date with a very pretty African lady in the New Bridge pub tonight, which I'm very much looking forward to, as it will be my first date since *thinks hard* I can't remember the year, but I think there was a war in the Balkans. No, not against Milosovec. The one before.

2003-04-08T15:59:00.000Z

I never, ever thought I'd see this. Even by Shrub's standards, the hypocrisy is jaw-dropping.

Meanwhile , the spirit of Colonel Kurtz is alive and well and living in Iraq. (scroll down to second story)

But enough about this - what's the latest news on the top story today? Well, back over to rolling coverage:

you are so smart george... please kill more dolphins george. i hate those annoying little fuckers. turd ferguson

turd. another liberal wanker. how about u live in iraq if u love it so much? oh yea u wouldn't because if u wrote that about their president they'd torture u and KILL u. Yea, but we shouldn't step in for out safety and their people. asshole liberal schmucks. Bicycle Bob

Bob, you lazy coward... are you kicking a lot of ass from your mom's couch??? Masturbating to Saved by the Bell reruns doesn't make you a patriot. Dolt. seemus_jr

hey seemus considering i was in the marines i'll take that comment with a grain of salt u pansy motherfucker. maybe u should stop staring at ac slaters ass jerkoff Bicycle Bob

nice comeback. "why don't u go and live in iraq". unoriginal bastard. i am not a democrat... but i do believe in freedom of speech. turd ferguson

Taking something with a grain of salt means you'll give it cautious consideration, Bob. Why aren't you still a marine? Did someone ask and you told? putney

Should I pay money for the syndication rights to this? I think the Daily Star are interested.

2003-04-08T10:47:00.000Z

War at Avary's Domain, Iraq Hit Too

The depressing limits to human stupidity are ploughed at Roger Avary's site in a stupid, crass, childish and really, really funny argument about the war. Edited highlights follow... we'll stay with this story all night if we have to!

wow jared against the war? who would have thought???? another dumb liberal who has no clue how the world works. keep that ivory tower clean while we make the world safe for you to spout ur bullshit crap.
jon, where do u get ur "3000) civilians? is it the iraqi troops who are dressing in civvie clothes and breaking the geneva convention? or the iraqis who are torturing or POW's? jerkoff get a clue, "bud" and get back to me asshole. maybe u should fight for ur freedom and see what it feels like but ur probably fine at home inside ur classroom - Bicycle Bob

Apparently Bob is writing to us from the 101st Cavalry Division's command post in Southern Basra. Jared

I hate liberals like Jared. They can anything they want and why? Because this is a FREE country. Why is it free? Because we fight for freedom. Mark

Yeah Mark, Iraq sure has been trying to take away my freedom! Remember that time they did nothing? Oh, and remember that time when they didn't do anything? And remember that time they tried to... oh wait, thinking of something else. This is what we call a pre-emptive strike, bud. Kill thousands and thousands of innocent people just in case one mean dude decides to do something one of these days. We waited for over a decade for him to do something but this waiting will not stand anymore! His doing nothing runs too high a risk of imposing on our personal freedoms! Surely our defence of our freedom and installation of a new, US-sanctioned government in Iraq will not spur any terrorist acts. urely everyone in the world sees this situation the same as you, Mark, and they plan on letting us have our freedom (now that Iraq's taken care of) for the rest of eternity. Jared

Yeah, that's about what I was going to say, but I'll let you take the flak, Jared. Joe Swanberg

2003-04-07T12:12:00.000Z

In all the commotion I forgot the most harrowing thing that happened to me this weekend - the button on my trousers popped off! Oh no!

Faced with the choice of wearing buttonless trousers or wearing trousers caked in my own blood, I went for the buttonless ones. And I'm still holding them up unassisted. Which can only mean two things - I have broad, child-bearing hips of the kind that most men find primally attractive (ker-ching!), or I am a fat fucker. Which can it be, I wonder? Which can it be?

2003-04-06T13:18:00.000Z

Message to Jess, AKA acidstars at Dark Dreams:

Can you get awards for bad luck? If so, I'm well in on it.

Wendy, said thirtysomething from my last message, turned out to have a partner who she didn't mention, but she said she'd be happy to go out for a drink with me, her bf and “the girl I was talking about“. Which I assume (I can't remember) was Jay. And that would undeniably have been difficult, on account of her being in Vegas and all. Still, we're about to get back together. Erm, aren't we?

Well, I thought we were, but I sent her an e-mail which might have overstepped the friendly mark and she hasn't replied yet. Wandering around university on Friday, I found most of my old friends were avoiding me, and even when they did speak to me, they quickly froze me out of the conversation. I proceeded to get very very drunk on a succession of cocktails, e-mailed a friend a note, and attempted suicide. Fortunately Annie was around to talk me out of it, and I went to bed happy and content.

[Incidentally, although I neglected to mention it in my e-mail, the person in question failed to reply to my suicide note. Man. When people stop replying to your suicide notes, that's when you know you truly are Mr. Popularity.]

I went out on Saturday night too, and met up with some people who used to go to my old local, including one woman I knew who spent two hours - two damn hours - trying to seduce me as a practical joke. She must really hate me, I thought. And I really hated her. But the night was going alright; we talked in our little group, and I got another older woman's phone number, and then, stepping outside, I copped a half-pint glass in the back of the head and a kick in the teeth.

So. How's your week been?

2003-04-04T09:46:00.000Z

From The LA Times

Sensitive to the potential for misunderstanding about the movie "What a Girl Wants," Warner Bros. has revised the print ad campaign, replacing the peace sign flashed by star Amanda Bynes with a more neutral pose. The movie opens Friday.

In the new ads, a cheerful Bynes is still standing between two unsmiling British royal guards, but instead of making the V-shaped gesture, her hand has been lowered and is on her hip.

"It was a marketing decision," made to preempt any interpretation that the company was taking a side in the Iraqi war, says a Warner Bros. Pictures spokeswoman. "Some people think, what does it mean? Are they against the war or is it a V for victory?" she says. The movie, a teen comedy about an American girl who travels to London to find her long-lost father, isn't war-related or even political, she says, and shouldn't have any "war-related perception associated with it."

From CNN

LONDON, England (AP) -- Madonna has decided to withdraw the violent, anti-war video for her new single "American Life" out of respect for the troops fighting in Iraq.

In a statement posted on her Web site Monday, the singer said the video was filmed before the war started and was not appropriate to air at this time.

"Due to the volatile state of the world and out of sensitivity and respect to the armed forces, who I support and pray for, I do not want to risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video," Madonna said.

The video for the title track of a new album shows Madonna wearing military garb next to dancers in camouflage on a fashion runway. At one point, a grenade is thrown in the direction of a lookalike of President Bush. Scenes are intercut with images of war.

...And Now We Have World Peace!

2003-04-02T16:21:00.000Z

Why hasn't Blogger published my last post, I wonder?

For the record, it read:

Bush kills journalists
Bush kills pacifists*
Bush kills children
Why 'Hearts And Minds' will fail [WARNING: contains disturbing imagery]
Pope continues slide into senility
Proliferation of bullshit in general

So, you may ask, why am I so happy?

Because I got an e-mail from the most beautiful girl in the world today. And we flirted and we chatted and we were shooting the breeze and Operation Infinite Apocalypse couldn't be further from my mind. Sometimes - and you all know I don't say this often - life doesn't suck.

*EDITOR'S NOTE: The bus with 'human shields' on it was found to have not been bombed today. I was interested in still putting the article up with a disclaimer in the spirit of completeness, but the curse of 'scrubbing' troublesome articles is infecting most websites now. Shame on them!

2003-04-01T17:12:00.000Z

I went to a cell group last night. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it's basically a small Bible studies class. I went because one of my friends, Rob, was chairing it, and religion aside, he's a nice guy. A lot of what he said - his overuse of the word "amazing" aside - was pretty seductive. That's what religion does, of course. The whole idea is to provide a vision of hope for people who don't really have any. Afterwards, I wondered whether my life was rubbish because I wasn't very religious, and therefore God was punishing me, or was it because I was still too religious, and therefore an almost Catholic sense of guilt was clinging to me?

I think the fact that I was even wondering about that probably shows the last option is true.

I don't need more religion. What I do need is more sex. No, I'm not putting out a website appeal - though, if you do want to have sex with me, the usual e-mail address is always open* - I'm just reflecting on the sudden pre-summer proliferation of libidinous opportunities available to both myself and my Thesaurus. Why, even as we speak, Jess is taking the piss out of me for being pursued by older women. ;) I met a thirtysomething in the pub on Sunday who I really think I must get back together with some time. I'm not sure if she fancied me or not - I think she did - but if not, she was pretty cool anyway.

And then there's Jay. *sighs* Jay...

But even that's not it! I plan to offer myself as a gigolo to Gemma and Annie, my housemates. Why? Well, every time they want to get their leg over, they invite people back to the house. And they always go for musicians. And last night, I was - no joke - kept awake from midnight to seven in the morning by a loud impromptu guitar concerto that resisted even my efforts to stop it at about twenty past four. (I stuck my head round the door and said "shut the fuck up!") Sex with me may not be what they want. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it's not what they want. But if it saves us from another recital of 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man', then it'll have been worth it.

Heh. Seriously, as my penance for snapping at them, they all get a free book of me.

Gemma - 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' by Chuck Barris
Katie - 'Them: Adventures With Extremists' by Jon Ronson
Annie - 'Captive State' by George Montbiot
Tim - 'Wonder Boys' by Michael Chabon

*I'm joking. Of course, I'm joking...

2003-03-27T12:55:00.000Z

Found on The Disinformation Website:

9/11 family group condemns iraq war
by CNN - March 24, 2003

A group representing family members of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks Thursday condemned the U.S. strikes against Iraq.
Quoting late civil rights leader The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the group -- called the "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" -- described the attacks as "illegal, immoral, and unjustified" in a statement sent to the media and families of September 11 victims.

The group said it was speaking out because members know how it feels to experience "shock and awe," and it does not want "other innocent families to suffer the trauma and grief that we have endured."

Which raises a question that I've been wondering about all week - what, precisely, is the difference between 'shock and awe' and terrorism? All the explanations of it - military bombardment for effect, aiming to break the willpower of the enemy and cause fear, etc - are totally indistinguishable from the explanations by Osama bin Laden of why he ordered four planes to be flown into US landmarks on September 11th, 2001.

It's one of the great unexamined details of this war, but the good news is that there aren't many such details left. The public has responded to this war with an unprecedented sense of education and intelligence, making a mockery of all those cliches that the press loves to trot out about how we're dumbing down, and that the young have no political motivation, and so forth - all demonstratably bollocks by now. It does sadden me to see people accusing the schoolkids protesting against the war of not understanding what they're doing, but the young have always been patronised. If the Guardians Of Our Morality really want young people to be less rebellious and wayward, they should try showing them a little more respect first.

Of course, there's one group who we can count on to never be informed about anything whatsoever, and that's Hollywood movie stars. I feel a surge of patriotic pride when I read about these brave men and women trying to lighten the mood of a saddened country by behaving like total idiots in public. So I'm starting a new feature on my blog - ...AND NOW WE HAVE WORLD PEACE, to highlight the silliest anti-war 'efforts' being taken in the celebrity world. According to the IMDb's gossip column:

Liz Taylor missed out on her "swan song" at the Oscars on Sunday because she was too sad to attend. Taylor had planned on bowing out of Hollywood by appearing as part of the "class photo" at the ceremony, but was mysteriously absent from the line-up. She has since sent the Academy a statement explaining she felt "saddened" by events in Iraq and thought it would be "tasteless and inappropriate" to show up.

...and now we have world peace!

2003-03-26T17:26:00.000Z

Editor's note: Unfortunately, though we like to believe It Could Be Worse is one of the more meticulously researched sites on the Internet, sometimes factual errors do slip through the net. Such was the case with Sunday's predicitons for the annual Roman Polanski Awards. Here we present the full text of the article as it was originally written before subediting mistakes distorted it. We apologise for any confusion caused.

Best Picture

Chicago will, and should, win. Whereas Gangs of New York occasionally suffered from lack of focus and The Two Towers is being held off until next year, Chicago did exactly what it set out to do in impeccable style. No complaints from me here.

Best Director

In amongst such cinematic midgets as Martin Scorsese and Pedro Almodovar, one man stood tall. No, not Rob Marshall, stoopid! He was never in with a chance. I'm talking about weasel-faced hunk Roman Polanski, director of such masterpieces as Pirates and his daring re-imagining of Macbeth in the style of 'The Young Ones'. A few dissenting voices have questioned whether the Academy will want to honour a man still fleeing from a statutory rape charge - of course they will! If there's one thing that ol' Uncle Oscar loves more than dubious accents and disabled people, it's statutory rape. Ra-ra Roman!

Best Actor

Whereas most of the press has focused on wet-behind-the-ears hacks like Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Release and Alfie Caine, the true winner of the contest may yet surprise us all... Adrien Brody! Think about it: he's young, he's dishy and he's currently single! ow can he not win! Oh, if only I was Halle Berry! (Assuming that they may share a kiss on the podium, I don't know. I'm just guessing)

Best Supporting Actor

Chris Cooper. No contest.

Best Actress

The part of the nominations that sprinkled more Oscar magic (TM) on me than any other this year! Nicole Kidman is such a great actress, and I'm happy that the Academy will ignore such no-hopers as Selma Hayek and Michael Moore's ginger wife to award a lady who's given us so many great film performances... The Peacemaker, Practical Magic, Batman Forever, Far and Away... I wish I had time to list all her great roles! I love this chick, and her nose! Hey, Mr Producer - when you do the sequel to The Hours (which is a foregone conclusion, right?) how about some hot girl/girl scenes with her sister? Maybe then, you'd get Best Picture as well!

Best Supporting Actress

While a large part of me hopes that the genius of Meryl Streep's consummately talented performance in Chicago will win the judges over, an even larger part of me knows that the award will instead be given to Oscar-darling Catherine Zeta-Jones for her brilliantly funny and touching turn in Adaptation. No complaints there.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Kaufman? Hare? Pfft! Everyone knows the mark of a good writer is one with a really complicated name - if he can sign a cheque, he must be a genius, right? Wjrnfzgnfmpfrznt Splyrjngyummimix, writer of The Pianist, I salute you!

Best Original Screenplay

How lovely it is when the Oscar frontrunner turns out to be a script that you adore just as much as the Academy. Oh wait, that happens all the time, on account of me being always right about everything. Nevertheless, Pedro Almodovar is a hot favourite with good reason. I couldn't be happier if it was My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

Best Animated Feature

Hmm... depends. Oh wait, it totally doesn't. It's going to be Spirited Away, isn't it?

Best Foreign Film

As regular readers of my blog (especially those who read the notorious 'Carrot Felch' edition of 29/2/03) will know, I'm as open-minded as the next man. But I will not stand for filthy traitors like Aki Kaurismaki winning my beloved Oscar! Yes, I know he's Finnish. But in our hearts, aren't we all behind the heroic efforts of the US to liberate the world from terrorism by bombing civilians? Instead, I vote for Nowhere In Africa. It's touching, heartfelt, dramatic and has lovely trees in it. I love those trees!

Best Score

Frida, silly.

Best Original Song

OK, so all the entries are good for this category (well, apart from U2), but isn't the obvious victor Eminem? With his dreamy good looks, popularity in da hood and twinkly-eyed charm, I fail to see how the Academy could fail to give the award to the man they all call Eminem. Because it's his name. If we're really lucky, the orchestra might play a vaguely surreal Blaxploitation-funk version of the song's Survivor-style opening riff. Keep your fingers crossed! And tune in tonight - it's going to be super-duper glitzy and glamorous! But in the best possible taste, of course, so as not to offend any Iraqis who may be in the audience.

Your pal,
Jackie Harvey

2003-03-23T14:51:00.000Z

There's a war one. And my housemates are planning a party. I'm not sure which is worse, but I'm sure that in time one of them will be. My life is a non-stop miasma of missed deadlines, incompetent efforts and boredom. I have not one friend within the whole of town. I don't have very many in the whole of the outside of town, either. The only thing that motivates me is complete self-loathing. The last person who chatted me up did so for a practical joke. Nobody will sleep with me. Last night I spent hours crying over my wasted and hopeless life, and praying for death.

So it's exactly the right time for the Oscars to coem along and depress me more. Here's my picks for the main categories, and why I think they should or will win.

Best Picture

Chicago will, and should, win. Whereas Gangs of New York occasionally suffered from lack of focus and The Two Towers is being held off until next year, Chicago did exactly what it set out to do in impeccable style. No complaints from me here.

Best Director

Rob Marshall should walk away with this one. No, seriously, he will. Whereas the commonly-held consensus is if Scorsese doesn't win this one, angry Raging Bull fans will descend on the Academy and kill them all, the MOR contingent in the Academy will still pick Marshall. Plus, best picture and best director usually pair up. I'm not knocking Marshall - in fact, I think his work is unfairly derided by many critics - but he's no Scorsese. And when you factor in the mammoth effort in getting Marty's insanely ambitious 18th-century vision to the screen, well... it should be him, right? Should be, won't be. When you consider that last year the Academy felt Ron Howard was a better director than Lynch, Scott, Jackson and Altman put together, this doesn't seem like too much of a leap of logic.

Best Actor

A tale of two performances. Undoubtedly the most exciting thing about this year's awards has been the close-to-the-bone race between Jack Nicholson's Warren Schmidt and Daniel Day-Lewis' Bill The Butcher. Two stunning performances. Two legendary actors. Two great films, to boot. Who's it going to be? In my view, Day-Lewis should just steal it, and I'm not just saying that because I like his performance better. Jack will undeniably be back with something just as good. He's got ten years of work left in him, and let's face it, he's been awarded plentifully before. With Day-Lewis, there's that added frisson that this performance could well be his last. He could very easily disappear now, retreating to the relative safety of the cobbling world. The Academy loves last chances. Which brings us neatly to...

Best Supporting Actor

Paul Newman. No contest. Although, to be fair, I'd be happy to see any of these performers walk away with the award bar Ed Harris. Harris is usually a brilliant actor, it's true, but he seems to be labouring under the delusion that the main symptom of AIDS victims is shouting. Sadly, his role in The Hours is probably second most likely to win, more a reflection of its jumble of Oscar-pleasing elements than its actual quality. John C Reilly is also in with a chance - he may nab it through the same logic that saw Jim Broadbent rewarded last year, that of being simply a great actor who's had a busy year.

Best Actress

The one I'm dreading. Though Renee Zellwegger in Chicago was stiffer than a girder, plenty of people have let her get away with, well, not exactly murder, but certainly snatching awards from her more talented co-stars. And she'll probably be rewarded again tonight, as a result of the increasing Kidman backlash. Nothing to do with her alleged homewrecking tendencies (hey, like that stopped Julia Roberts getting Best Actress!) but because in The Hours we frankly have a mediocre performance that's been overpraised to a silly extent. Like most of the roles in that film, it was little more than a grab-bag of elements familiar from other award-snaffling roles - British, check, attractive star looking ugly, check, mentally unstable, check, period drama... In a perfect world, the two-horse race common to most of this year's categories would be between Salma Hayek and Julianne Moore, with Hayek just edging past to win. But it isn't.

Best Supporting Actress

While a large part of me hopes that the genius of Catherine Zeta-Jones' consummately talented performance in Chicago will win the judges over, an even larger part of me knows that the award will instead be given to Oscar-darling Meryl Streep for her brilliantly funny and touching turn in Adaptation. No complaints there.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Allow me to be very, very cynical here. Allow me to put it forward that this year's hot tip, Charlie and Donald Kaufman's script for Adaptation, will be found guilty by the Academy of being too original, too weird and having a really, really rubbish ending. Allow me to suggest that what will win instead is David Hare's flatulent script for The Hours. Allow me to emit a low moan at the Academy being hoodwinked yet again by highbrow Brit-lit talent that isn't as good as it should be.

Best Original Screenplay

Most analysts seem to be predicting a victory for My Big Fat Greek Wedding, possibly as a result of having confused the Oscars with the People's Choice Nestle Bestest Flix Awards. Few, if any, seem to have considered the wealth of cinephilic mastery and genuine emotion that is Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven script. And they'll be laughing on the other side of their faces when it wins. Which it will. Oh yes. By contrast, I'd have voted for Talk To Her - a kaleidoscopic, intimate, imaginative script that had more influence on me than any other released this year.

Best Animated Feature

Hmm... depends. Obviously there's only been one of these awards previously, so it's hard to tell what the Academy looks for in an animated feature. If they're going for commerce, Disney's Lilo and Stitch had a good mix of critical and commercial success. If not, then Spirited Away has had some of the more orgasmic reviews in recent memory. We shall see.

Best Foreign Film

Difficult - prior to his announcement that he was boycotting the ceremony to protest the war in Iraq, I'd have said Kaurismaki's The Man Without A Past was a shoo-in. Now? Hero's a martial-arts film, Zus and Zo is almost totally unknown, and advance word on The Crime of Father Amaro is that freed from its trappings of a Catholic country it plays like a soapy melodrama. I will stop to note that Nowhere in Africa is picking up a good late buzz, and throw my hands up in confusion.

Best Score

Far From Heaven, silly.

Best Original Song

This year's surprise favourite Oscar category! Usually this is the I Thought You Were Dead awards, but there's a lot of interesting stuff here this year. So, in ascending order of probability...

'BURN IT BLUE' - CAETONO VELOSO: Not bloody likely. Although it would be wonderful to live in a world where Veloso is an Oscar-winner, all the buzz about Frida has centred on acting and score. This is easily the least-known of this year's contenders.
'LOSE YOURSELF' - EMINEM: Though you can see why it might appeal to the Academy - unimaginative soft-rock arrangement, trite lyrics - I'd be surprised if they could get past the stumbling block of Eminem's, uh, 'contentuous' past.
'FATHER AND DAUGHTER' - PAUL SIMON: My choice. Doubt the Academy will be that swayed by it, but it would be lovely to think they might.
'THE HANDS THAT BUILT AMERICA' - U2: The searing pomposity of U2's ode to themselves contains all the self-importance that the Academy usually goes for, but they're up against a tough crowd. In previous years, his would have walked it, but this year they're up against...
'I MOVE ON' - KANDER & EBB: I can't remember this song from the movie. You can't remember this song from the movie. Let's face it, even Kander and ebb would probably be pushed to hum a few bars. In fact, if I was a cynical man - which obviously I'm not - I'd say it was only included so Marshall's film could secure yet another nomination in the Best Original Song category. But are the Academy stupid enough to award a song just because of who wrote it?

Yes. Yes they are.

2003-03-21T18:42:00.000Z

POINT-COUNTERPOINT
Hoisting Bush, Blair and co thoroughly by their own petards

“I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.”
George W Bush, American President

“One person had died and there were 10 injured, he claimed. The Baghdad bombs had all hit ‘civilian places’, he added. And sure enough, we managed to scramble another trip, this time to Al-Kindi Hospital where we were told there had been five civilian casualties.”
Anton Antonowicz, journalist

“Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly…”
George W Bush, in his State of the Union address

“I feel good!”
George W Bush, shortly after hearing Baghdad had been attacked

“UN weapons inspectors say vast amounts of chemical and biological poisons, such as anthrax, VX nerve agent and mustard gas remain unaccounted for in Iraq.”
Tony Blair, British Prime Minister

“As former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said constantly, Iraq is ‘90-95 per cent’ disarmed.”
John Pilger, journalist and documentarian

“[Bill Clinton must] provide the leadership necessary to save ourselves and the world from the scourge of Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction that he refuses to relinquish.”
Petition signed by current US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 1998

“[Saddam] made it clear that Iraq was not interested in making mischief in the world. It struck us as useful to have a relationship, given that we were interested in solving the Mideast problems.”
Donald Rumsfeld, 1983

“Should terrorists obtain [weapons of mass destruction] now being manufactured and traded across the world, the carnage they could inflict to our economies, our security, to world peace, would be beyond our most vivid imagination.”
Tony Blair

“When Saddam Hussain's crimes are mentioned, it is invariably using chemical weapons against the Kurds that is cited. And some of the mystery is attached to the name of Porton Down, the secret chemical weapons centre in Wiltshire.”
BBC News, August 20, 1999

AND FINALLY…
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”
Samuel P Huntington, political theorist

2003-03-20T13:54:00.000Z

InfiniDeath Special - War Links

Stop The War Coalition
Active Resistance to the Roots Of War
ARROW's guide to events across the UK to help protest against the war.
Tyneside protests, including many events at my university.
Young people protest against the war.
Michael Moore, author and director prominent in anti-war movements.
Radiohead, band who make anti-war and general socialist links available.
Kate Adie talks about terminal censorship by Bush. Thanks to Dio for this one. Scariest story about the war thus far.
Daily Mirror, the UK's most prominent anti-war newspaper. Now, more than ever, they need to be reminded that the majority support their stance.
Disinformation - essential source for all kinds of intelligently argued dissent.
NonViolence
SmokeHammer - incidentally, both Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci were spotted on the anti-war marches in London last month.

And that's it. It only remains for me to wish you all a very happy apocalypse.

2003-03-19T17:51:00.000Z

Ah, I was going to post links part two today, but I just had to record what a lovely day it's been. I get really sentimental about summer, and today felt a lot like summer. An industrial city in the pastel-shaded midday heat. There's nothing finer in the whole of the world.

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
If I, if I'd only waited
I'd not be stuck here in this hole.

Come here, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And I swear I waited and waited,
I've got to get out of this hole

But time is on your side
It's on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It's no cause for concern

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I see no chance of release
I know I'm dead on the surface
But I'm screaming underneath

And time is on your side
It's on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It's no cause for concern

Stuck on the end of this ball and chain
And I'm on my way back down again
Stood on a bridge, tied to a noose
Sick to the stomach
You can say what you mean
But it won't change a thing
I'm sick of the secrets

Stood on the edge
Tied to a noose
You came along
And you cut me loose

You came along
And you cut me loose
You came along
And you cut me loose

(C) Chris Martin 2002

2003-03-18T19:31:00.000Z

Ding Ding! Seconds out - it's round one of my favourite links.

First up, essential daily surfing, followed by friends' sites and blogs, then celebrities I fancy. For I am shallow. Here we go!

Flick Filosopher. MaryAnn Johansen is the funniest film critic working in America, and her gleefully snide, always to-the-point reviews are essential for nayone with even a passing interest in intelligent cinema.
Fametracker. Even if they'd stopped publishing after their hilariously spot-on Fame Audit of Edward Norton, they'd be legendary.
Rotten Tomatoes. Essential reading for those interested in how a movie fares when thrown to the critics. Currently, I can reveal that Kangaroo Jack has an 8% approval rating, meaning that 8% of critics should seriously consider whether they're in the right career.
Avary's Domain. Roger Avary, co-writer of Pulp Fiction and director of The Rules of Attraction, exposes himself more on this site than most other directors would feel comfortable with. No, not in that way.
IMDb - obviously.
Film Guardian. News and Peter Bradshaw's reviews. Seek out his demolition of Peter Greenaway's Eight and a Half Women immediately.
Dark Dreams. Contains my current favourite message board, but the content is also alarmingly comprehensive. I can only presume the founders have no life... and we like it that way. (Only kidding, guys!)

2003-03-14T12:16:00.000Z

My uncle's a funny sort of a bloke. He's deeply into his music, but only a particular type of music - twee indie/folk pop. Ask him what was number one in John Peel's 1999 Festive Fifty, or whether 14 Iced Bears are better or worse than Remy Zero, and he can give you an answer straight away. Ask him who Moby is, and he'll mumble "Go, go, go, or something" and then admit that he has no idea whatsoever. During the summer of '99, when Austin Powers ruled the earth, he walked up to me with a crippled there-goes-my-cred expression, and said haltingly "I like Madonna's new single."

I informed him that Madonna had been officially cool for two years at this point, since 'Frozen' marked the official end of The Crap Years (and how crap were they, anyway? Stuff like 'Human Nature' and 'Secret' were hardly embarrassments). His face lit up. He looked like someone who'd just nervously come out of the closet, and then discovered that - hey! - he was in RuPaul's house. How super is that?

I had my own moment like that recently, when I guiltily discovered that I really liked Christina Aguilera. I mean, she does a lot of stuff to put me off. Those chaps, for a start. (Ye gods, the chaps) That bizarre Rolling Stone interview where she inexplicably derided Jennifer Love Hewitt for - ooh! - going out with too many white people. Comments like "I want to go to the Cannes Film Festival this year, but I'm not sure where it is." And the fact that, whereas the title of 'Dirrty' was presumably supposed to make people think that her libido was so huge it was distracting her from spelling correctly (or something), it actually makes me think of Alan Partridge telling Tony Hayers that his license was clean, but "yours is dirrty." But there's something about her that I'm finding increasingly easy to like.

Manufactured? Chah! If all manufactured pop stars showed her rate of development, we'd live in a wonderful world. Robbie Williams would now be onto his tenth avant-garde symphony, and that doofus with the girly hair from the Backstreet Boys would stop wanking on about how much he likes rock music and actually make a rock record. Besides, if you don't like manufactured pop music, you don't like Dusty Springfield, the Beach Boys and all Motown records. You big loser.

And I also like her as a person. If you haven't already, check out this month's Q magazine, where she talks about being more comfortable in her own skin, and just not giving a shit about some of the massively unpleasant jibes that have come her way over the past year. She's largely free ofcelebrity bullshit, and knows how to have a good time. If Mr Blackwell had been around in 1973, he'd have put David Bowie on his fatuous Worst Dressed List, no questions asked. It just goes to prove that the whole point of a really great pop star is to piss off people who like a bit of, y'know, decency and propriety and other incredibly boring things like that.

And then I discover that, well, pretty much everyone likes Christina these days, don't they? Aside from the fact that 'Dirrty' and to a lesser extent 'Beautiful' are fantastic singles, both of which went straight in at number one over here, she's got a growing army of fans amongst people like me who don't usually go for mainstream pop. At a time when Britney Spears is entering the phase where she's so desperate she'll fuck Fred Durst for publicity, and Shania Twain can release a new album without anyone noticing, she's the only member of that sect of irritating, frequently semi-naked female singers who is not only no longer irritating, but also still around, and you can see her being around long after this year's pop landscape has totally changed, too. Well, her and Pink. But as much as I quite like Pink, you don't get the crazy hair extensions with her, do you?

In the aforementioned Q interview, she said that she wants to do a film soo, preferably where she plays "an off-the-wall, psychotic character."

Oh, Christina. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

2003-03-12T17:58:00.000Z

Readers of the Daily Telegraph may be perturbed by the Telegraph's decision to replace their popular 'Peterborough' column with a new journal by the noted author and commentator Irvine Welsh. Likewise, Daily Mail readers may be wondering what Lord Dacre's purchasing of the rights to the aforesaid column will mean for their favourite paper. Well, don't despair. Here, exclusively to It Could Be Worse, we present sneak previews of Thursday's editions of both columns.

Daily Mail

I was taking a break from writing a letter to my MP about the EU's new ruling granting gay asylum seekers the chance to kill honest indigenous Britons watching the delightful activities of Mrs Hyacinth Bucket on the otherwise wretched idiot box when the phone rang. It was the noted humourist Dave Parsnip, whose hilarious reflections on the crows pecking at his allotment delights both readers of 'The Oldie' on a regular basis. I wondered whatever could the matter be?

"I was at a charity function", Parsnip explained, "and I was presented with a rare cheese from the South American nations. It was developed by the early farmers of that region to feed their fowl before some bright spark realised it was just as suitable for human consumption, hence the name - Brazilian Cock Cheese. Anyway, got out my spoon and began to tuck in, but the ominous sound of stifled laughter came from all ends of the table. Sensing I was perhaps on the bridge of a social faux pas, I politely inquired what everyone found so terribly amusing. Only then did I remember - you don't eat Cock Cheese with your spoon, you eat it with your elbows!"

Parsnip claims not to have been so tickled by a mishap since his local vicar tried to paint 'The Lord Is A Loving Shepherd' on the sign outside his church, but made an unfortunate error which rendered the last word as 'Shithead'.

Daily Telegraph

Ah fucked ma brother's dead cat the other day. A right fucken slut she woor, shakin an decomposin as ah fucked the silly hoor brainless. Buh then, as ah woor jus finishin meself off, ma brother came in an e woor right proper radge e woor.

"Irvine!" he shooted, "wor tha fuckaya doin to ma cat?"

Ah told him, if yor dinnae want people tae fuck ya dead cat, what t fock war he doin leavin it aroond, like? Any cunt could vierlate it if he kept on leavin it in the centah o the room. An e were evan more radge at this, e wos, an e stormed out in a proper huff like, an e was sayin he was gonna goe doon t docks and kill a pig. An ma wife woor inna corner, an she were screamin "Irvine man, I'm propa shagged, can ye cook the heroin foh tonight's tea like?" Well, afta all thas I woor too knackered meself to give her the beatin she desoorved, like, so ah just kicked her inna cunt an went on me way. Aye, a bin oop dem proper radge me mek barracks muh def com sned me ome Boris Pasternak, like.

Aye, life's proper shite up ere. Thank fuck ma book deal's comin throo thas autumn, mind. Ahm almoost out ae fifty poond notes to put onna fire.

2003-03-09T15:24:00.000Z

Graham's Inaugural Film Quiz!

Twenty questions, four categories, no cheating. E-mail me your answers at gdwilliamson@deathsdoor.co.uk, and answers will be announced whenever I feel like it. Oh, and DON'T use the IMDb! I didn't when I was putting this together, so I'm going to take it on trust that you won't.

ROUND ONE: Don't Give Up The Day Job

Which films featured the following pop stars in unlikely roles?

1. Pink as narrator?
2. Mick Jagger as a transvestite concentration camp inmate? (Isn't that just the worst idea ever?)
3. David Bowie as Pontius Pilate?
4. Jennifer Lopez as Nick Nolte's wife?
5. Phil Collins as a master criminal?

ROUND TWO: Parental Advisory

Which movies do we have to, erm, thank for the following (sadly) unforgettable sights?

1. A man stabbing himself in the stomach, then jizzing blood? (I swear to God I'm not making this up)
2. A sex scene between two Mexican non-professional actors, one in his twenties and the other in her seventies?
3. James van der Beek shaking hot white coconuts from his palm-tree of love?
4. Charlotte Gainsbourg shagging her (thank God) on-screen brother?
5. Marlon Brando in the bath?

ROUND THREE: From Nice To Vice

Which sweet-hearted, wouldn't-harm-a-fly stars played BAD MEN in the following movies?

1. Once Upon a Time in the West?
2. Insomnia (2002)?
3. Road to Perdition?
4. Brazil?
5. Showgirls (yeah, that's a keeper, that's one for the CV)

ROUND FOUR: Goodbye, Dignity

Which respected (or at least tolerated) directors made themselves look very silly indeed by helming the following Madonna vehicles? (Extra points will be awarded if you can name any previous films that earned them the aforementioned respect)

1. Dangerous Game, AKA Snake Eyes?
2. Swept Away?
3. Body of Evidence
4. The Next Best Thing?
5. Evita?

And that's your lot. I shall leave you with the knowledge that a man who changed his name to Mr. Jack Ass in 1997 is suing Johnny Knoxville and the gang for "defamation of character", and move on. Good luck!

2003-03-03T18:56:00.000Z

Dreams vs. Info Factuality

I had another dream last night, this time an even more troubling one than the Cat dream of 2/23/03.

I dreamt that a poll on a message board had taken me to a porn site that my old college friends Andrew and James ran. (To be fair, knowing them as I do, this is not beyon the boundaries of possibility, or indeed probability) After an age-long wrestle with the server and dire warnings about what would happen if I bypassed network censorshit, I managed to log on and found not the hard-core upside-down bukkake action that I feared from Andrew, but a series of relaively chaste shots of very pretty girls in underwear and occasional soft-core (though apparently unsimulated) sex. (Weirdly, one of the models was captioned 'Ian Somerhalder'.)

When I spoke about the site to Andrew, he affirmed that all the sex acts featured were indeed real, and he'd recruited people from the college to take part in them. I asked him where he would find girls so eager (even in my dreams, you will note that I have a skyscrapingly high opinion of myself) and followed him around all day like a twat.

Then the police came.

This was serious. At morning break I went out to buy some papers and the public-school-porn-site shit was all over them. I was being questioned by a fat bumbling police officer who amusingly missed the pages upon pages of print-outs from the site with my name on the header. Even when they left and we started bantering in a jokey fashion about how 'Chief Wiggum' there hadn't noticed the most obvious piece of evidence of the lot, there was still an uneasy feeling. We were one of the top stories of the day. The school was really pissed with us. We were in very deep water and this situation wasn't going to go away easily.

Then things got really fucked up. All of a sudden, the porn stars just died. I can't explain why. They just keeled over, as if as soon as their site died, they died. The school was planning on just slinging them away like they were rubbish, but we thought they deserved better. We pushed their bodies into discreet travel cases and took the long, long walk up to the school playing fields in blazing heat, all the time knowing that one false move would get us caught and probably imprisoned. I'd never felt such clammy, relentless fear in all my life. Eventually we managed to make it up there and held our own, amatuerish but heartfelt, funeral service.

This dream really bothered me. I could see no obvious way to interpret it, and it gave me such a paranoid, uncomfortable feeling. I was going to post it here as it is, but then something came to me when I was eating my tea that put it all into perspective.

When I was at college in real life, we used to go home on the bus. The cool kids and the posers sat at the back, the kids like me and Robin who were proud to be geeky sat at the front. One day, we spotted the kids at the back taunting this little guy in the first year, and he was so upset that he came up to the front of the bus with us. We soon discovered why they didn't want him down there.

His name was Yousef. There are hundreds of great stories about Yousef, some of which my friends didn't even believe until they met him in person. What kept on coming back to me was one of the earliest and the best, when he spent a whole bus journey interrupring our conversations by barking "HORAS! HORAS! HORAS!" When eventually we asked him what horas meant, he adopted a contemplative face and said "It is... it is to... to frig a camel."

These two stories may seem to be unconnected, but I think they say something quite important about my life. Why do I get so freaked out by my dreams when my actual life is like this?

2003-02-27T17:11:00.000Z

First class of the year today! Started at two o'clock and lasted an hour. It was with Roz Normandale, and afterwards we had a chat about how things are going just peachy, it would seem. Gemma's still fond of me despite the fact that I rarely see her, and Rosie White apparently thought the Film Noir group last semester really benefitted from my prescence. Ace!

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the staff of my local Frankie & Benny's Italian restauraunt are the greatest team of people ever assembled for one particular job. They're just like students, only older and without all the things that make students really wanky; they goof around with regular customers like myself, they have a laugh, they have good camaraderie, and yet the service is still impeccable. Fabbattoir! I was paying for my spaghetti bolognese just now and the waiter just went "Okaaaaaay!" and leaned forward to the till in this really mock-dynamic way that made me laugh quite a lot. Pratfalling waiters - every town should have some. In fact, all the staff are that cool. There's the big bullet-headed guy with the inscrutable sense of humour, there's the implausibly gorgeous and charming Ben - not the guy who the restauraunt was named after, I assume, but how do I know for sure? - the little pixie girl and the waitress with the weird gappy teeth. She's actually very attractive. I like chicks with shonky bridgeowrk - you know, Catherine Keener, Asia Argento, and all that. It's a sort of fetish. From this I can deduce that my ideal woman would be a bespectacted bosomy plus-sized Latino bisexual with really weird teeth. If you fit that description, my e-mail address is, as ever, gdwilliamson@deathsdoor.co.uk. Ladies, call me.

Hopefully it'll be links day tomorrow. I selected a load of links to sites of some note that I wanted to put up here, and I'm going home for the weekend tomorrow, so I'll be away from a computer. I think I drafted the list on Tuesday, so it's well overdue. Till then...

2003-02-25T17:49:00.001Z

What's up with this board today, I wonder?

2003-02-25T17:49:00.000Z

Wow! Fouled that up. What I meant to say was

2003-02-25T17:46:00.000Z

Peculiar experience seeing my timetable for the first time this year. There are several subjects here that I don't remember taking at all - Studies in Art Criticism, anyone? No idea what that is. It can't be worse than Popular Television, mind.

Damn, I'm hyped about The Rules of Attraction. I was just reading the account of the London premiere on Roger Avary's journal, and someone had posted on the message board that one of the three people who passed out was sat right in front of them. He just stood up and croaked "I can't take this any more", before slowly folding onto the floor. Any film that can elict that sort of reaction is clearly worth seeing. Even if you only see half of it before you keel over.

Speaking of message boards... my man Dio just sent me a PM about getting a tag board or something of that ilk put on the site. Hopefully that'll come off. I'd like to be able to conduct debates on the vital issues that I post about here (cough). The somewhat embarrassing problem is I can't understand a word of it... as soon as I see the word HTML I get scared, and start wishing Giles was still around to explain it to me. (Giles, for the uninitiated, was a friend of mine from college, now at Cambridge, whose antipathy with the universe lead him to start learning just about everything that even vaguely interested him. I saw him last over Christmas, when he was teaching himself website design) I'll try to plough through it sooner or later. I'm sure once the panic attack subsides I'll be able to get started with this.

Oh, and by the way, since launching this site, I have been deluged with mail from admirers wanting to see a photo of me. Well,

2003-02-24T11:29:00.000Z

Wonderful news! I've cleared out my university server e-mail inbox for the first time in twelve years and my three late essays have been delayed until the summer. All of which means a lighter workload for me now and a guarantee that the work will recieve a grade upon completion. You can't say fairer than that, can you?

2003-02-24T11:20:00.000Z

If there's one thing that annoys me - and there isn't; there are thousands of things that annoy me, not least my course - it's people writing in to magazines and newspapers complaining that their latest masterpiece has been cruelly misrepresented by evil reviewers. It's even worse than when people write in to complain about a review of their favourite book/film/TV show/ whatever being "wrong", mainly because it stems from a totally indefensible artistic arrogance. Mike Leigh has recently ranted about Jonathan Ross, implying that the Mirror film critic and Film 2003 host is in the pay of Warner Brothers or some such nonsense simply because Ross dared to give Leigh's latest slice of triesome self-parody, All or Nothing, a negative review. Well, I read the review, and it was quite mild - two stars out of five, with (and this should have been the giveaway) a long apologia explaining that Ross is usually a fan of Leigh. In other words, it was nowhere near the vicious kicking that Leigh implied it was, and indeed that it deserved.

Enough's enough, really. I have therefore decided to archive everyone who I've seen complaining about the misrepresentation of their work in an unjustifiable and biased fashion on this web page, so their shame will live on long after the reviews become so much pulp.

JAMES CAMERON famously announced that some major US critics should be impeached for negative reviews of Titanic, clearly mistaking the disparate statuses of 'being an Oscar-winning director' and 'being a fascist autodiktat'.
TIMOTHY GOOD wrote into Fortean Times complaining that his latest piece of saucers-in-the-sky bunk had been misrepresented to make him look insane. Well, here's the news, Tim. You are insane. Nobody who puts quotes from the News of the World on the front of their books and then expects to be taken seriously can ever stake a coherent claim for all of their marbles.
RICHARD E GRANT claimed an admittedly illiterate review of one of his performances by Jim Shelley was "like being sprayed with hot shit", evidently confusing the experience with watching Hudson Hawk.
MIKE FIGGIS claimed that UK critics had failed to grasp the full import of his masterpiece Hotel. He wrote an article - a whole article! - for the Guardian, largely focusing on Alexander Walker's claim that he was disappearing up "an artistic cul-de-sac", and demanding that he get better treatment simply because he's Mike Figgis. In the interests of a balanced debate, here is my review of Hotel.

"It takes a lot to unite me with Alexander Walker, but my God, I have never sat through such insufferable wank in my life prior to this screening of Mike Figgis' latest Hotel. Taking all the problems of his previous film Timecode 2000 and magnifying them to almost unbearable levels, Figgis seems totally unable to grasp the difference between legitimate experimentation and just dicking about with your mates and a cheap camcorder. Hundreds of movies like this are made each year. The difference is, the makers of masterworks such as 'Suzie's Sixth Birthday Party' don't expect the public to pay for them. These films are generally used only to bore the living shit out of relatives and friends, rather than innocent art-house filmgoers.

"Figgis's last three thousand films have all been about the film industry, an approach which he no doubt believes is Godardian and autobiographical, but which I would prefer to term as excruciatingly solipsistic. (Godard had a knack for navel-gazing too, and it didn't do his art any favours) The impressive formalities of Timecode 2000 did not match up to the trite movie-business satire that it concealed. Fortunately, the visual style of Hotel is aggressively poor as well, so there's less of a sense of talent going to waste behind the camera. In front of the camera, it is a different story. Talented actors are lined up for five-second cameos, while even the ones with extended roles don't have much to chew on.

"Hotel also clarifies something about Figgis that I never, ever wanted to know; he has a leering, frankly pathetic fascination with cheesecake lesbianism, so much so that I strongly believe that the only reason he ever dated Saffron Burrows is because she kisses girls - with tongues and everything! The omniprescent wobbly camera in these scenes is probably less to do with the technical incompetence that blights the entire rest of the film, more to do with Figgis enjoying a J Arthur behind the camera at the terrible Red Shoe Diaries nonsense he's capturing. We have no right to watch the home-made soft porn of an untalented director. It is invasive and uncomfortable. Actually, we may well have the right. I haven't researched the issue. But I do know that we don't want to, and would gladly pay extortion money to avoid having to watch it again.

"Reply to that, you motherfucker."

2003-02-21T13:23:00.000Z

Personality tests! I love personality tests, I do, and all my friends' blogs have plenty of logos plastered all over them, so hey! Why not? If you know of any other great personality tests that you think I'd enjoy, please e-mail them at the address that I've forgotten to provide. Hmm. I'll have to sort that out some time.

First up, the Donnie Darko personality test at http://hope.falling-star.org/donnieq.html.

Which Donnie Darko character are you? by Shay

Yay! "Congratulations, you are Donnie Darko. You're not afraid to speak what's on your mind and tell people what you're really thinking. You think about sex a lot and sometimes you wake up with your hands down your pants." See, I object to that, yet find myself curiously incapable of offering a rebuttal.

From DD, it is but a small step to Fight Club, at http://ikklepikkle.boredoflife.com/fightclub/fightclub.html, where I would appear to be...

you
are chloe

you are wasting
away under the depression of your unsatisfying life

...and you really need to get laid!...

see which character you are!

by ikklepikkle

I sense a pattern emerging here. Next up, the Pulp Fiction test at http://www.pyrrha.org/pulp/.

src="http://www.pyrrha.org/pulp/char/pumpkinbanner.jpg"
alt="What Pulp Fiction Character Are You?"> .

You talk fast, you think fast, you act fast. Stop. Calm Down. Drink some decaf and go back to hitting up liquor stores.

Take the What Pulp Fiction Character Are You? quiz.

Ooh, I honestly didn't have any idea what I'd come out as there. But Pumpkin's cool. I can go with Tim Roth. Then, I decided to find out which Radiohead collective member I was at http://gaz.nu/radiohead. And I am...

Take the Radiohead Collective Member Test.

I think I tried this before and found I was Stanley Donwood. This is actually less worrying. A couple of TV ones to round off, I think. First off, the Buffy test at http://www.cifnet.com/~geenius/buffyquiz.html. This one has to give me the right results. The guy's a geenius.

You are

Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne

. o O ( I am my thoughts. If they exist in her, Buffy contains everything that is me and she becomes me. I cease to exist. )

"Huh."

What "Buffy" Character Are You?

Nope, I'm not convinced by that at all. Actually, I wonder... if I took the test as a female, would the results be any more accurate? Let's see...

You are

"I'm rash and impulsive. It's a flaw."

What "Buffy" Character Are You?

Still wide of the mark, I think. OK, final one now. http://www.mis-focus.com/quiz/futurama.html wants to know which Futurama character I am. So I told him.

And then the page broke down. But if the little thing in the URL bar is anything to go by, I was Fry. I rock.

2003-02-21T13:00:00.000Z

EDIT: Erm, I think this post may have exemplified the phrase 'too much information'.

2003-02-20T15:41:00.000Z

Class.

You know, just for once, I'd like two working-class people to have sex.

I've always felt offended by that magazine, 'The Erotic Review', because it perpetrates the idea that the upper classes have a monopoly on legitimate sexual expression. If a Lord goes to an orgy, he's a rakish libertine. If a car mechanic goes, he's a sad suburban swinger. Never mind that wanting to know what Gordon Ramsey or Brian 'R' Sewell think about sex violates every natural law, it's the way things are done. By contrast - as the likes of Niall Griffiths, Larry Clark and Alan Warner are so keen to inform us - when the working class have sex it's animalistic. It's all about violence. It's not really lovemaking at all. I used to think sex was a great leveller. You know, we can live this life in any way we want, or any way that's forced upon us, but we all eat, we all go to the toilet, we all die and we all fuck. Now we're being told that we can't even do the last one. I look forward to the publication of 'Toilet Review', in which Victoria Coren, William Leith, Nigel Slater and other vacant media Nathans tell us in great deatil about the philosophy of shitting, and repeat their favourite fart jokes in a more refined context than your average teen gross-out comedy.

But we endorse it, don't we? There's something innately sexy about posh people. Possibly it's got do with the fact that they have the armies of stylists that can turn even Julia Roberts or Mel Gibson into something that vaguely approaches the ballpark of sexual attractiveness. Possibly - and this is my preferred explanation - it's little more than social Stockholm syndrome. I'm sure as Lenin was delivering his impassioned speeches about how the ruling classes have kept the workers in bondage for too long, someone was standing at the back thinking "As long as they keep on talking in those ice-queeny voices, they can keep us in bondage as long as they like."

Yesterday I bumped into Cat, a housemate of mine from last year. Cat was one of the few people around that floor who I always liked, but she would give very little of herself away. While Sarah, Alex and Kate's creaking bedsprings (and, in the case of Alex, conversations about wanking) kept me up all night, and Nasos stumbled in once covered in lipstick, much to my amusement, Cat kept herself more guarded than Kevin Spacey. There was occasionally a strange erotic tension between her and her friends, and Kate was once heartily amused by the amount of time she took to come out of her room with a male friend in tow when there was a fire drill once, but that's all the clues we got. Having said that, I never really thought of her sexually and during our flukey brief meeting yesterday I kept that tradition up.

Then I had this strange dream. Only fragments have returned, but I remember walking through town with Cat and a friend, and they were talking about how they occasionally go to sex clubs and nudist beaches. And they were saying it in that cut-glass Southern accent that Cat models so expertly, and it just seemed so damn normal. Like, they're rich, of course they're swingers. It's what the upper-middle classes do. I said I wouldn't mind going, and they said maybe one day they'd take me along.

(I realise at this point I'm coming off as a pervert besmirching a morally upstanding girl's name, but let me reiterate that this all seemed perfectly normal during the dream. There was no hint of implied seduction throughout. Besides, I can go much pervier than that. I mean, Salma Hayek was saying recently that you'd be surprised how many men like girls with moustaches. And I thought, yeah, I can see that. A Latino or Italian girl with a tasche has an earthy, enigmatic sexuality that... OK, I'll stop now. I'm going into too much detail and it's unwarranted. I just wanted to clear this up. Alright? Fine. Back to the dream)

And then the second of two scenes in this dream started. I was walking along with my friend (not a specific friend, a dream-friend, but including elements of Annie, Gemma and Mary, since you ask) and telling her how I felt about Cat. And she asked "So, do you think she's the one, then?"

What does that mean? It's too obvious to be my subconscious telling me I love Cat - knowing dreams, it's more likely to be telling me I've left the gas on. Besides, I don't believe in the concept of The One - you know, one perfect person out there for everyone. It's too neat. So why has this fairly innocuous dream haunted and unsettled me far more than stranger dreams? And don't get me wrong, I've had stranger dreams than that. In fact, a few days back, I had this one where I was living on a clifftop and I was watching this cult TV show about a town full of inbreds, and everything was mutating, and there was this gross, slimy orange elephant, and one episode opened with a series of info-blips, and another was set at an awards ceremony where a huge wardrobe had been erected and Julianne Moore was doing a trapeze routine in it and... I'm showing myself up again, aren't I? I must stop doing this in public.

2003-02-14T12:21:00.000Z

I couldn't sleep again last night. I blame Paul (one of several thousand Pauls who congregate in Newcastle pubs) for giving me a fearsome quantity of vodka. If God intended us to drink vodka straight, he wouldn't have invented Coca-Cola, frankly. As a result, I blacked out as soon as I got home, then woke up at about one a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep no matter how hard I tried. And if you're trying, you can't really sleep, can you?

'Daredevil' is still entertaining me. Apparently, it's really, really bad. I don't care. I'm going for the poorly suppressed man-love. Colin Farrell can really up the homoerotica quotient of a movie like no-one else.

Well, I'm going home for the weekend. I saw Gemma this morning when I was getting ready and we had a little chat, in which I told her that I hadn't been in class recently because I'd had a breakdown. Or, to put it more specifically, An Um Er Sort Of A Kind Of Breakdown Thing. I'm feeling a lot sunnier at the moment, mind. Well, the weather's better.

Only a few things are bothering me at the moment. I'm trying to get the whole slacking thing under control, like I got my drink problem under control. (Yes, I did! Shut it!) And I also wish I was still with Jay, but it's her decision and I have to respect that. The other, more bothersome thing is the absence of some of my friends. Is Mary's e-mail still broken? What about Claire? Christina I have this vague feeling that I really, really pissed off somehow, which is awful, because she's my hero. I'll have to send out some mails, I suppose.

2003-02-13T12:15:00.000Z

Why have the Blogmeisters not posted my last screed? Could it be that they're only posting messages that make me look like a tool? Or could it be that I'm not doing this properly? The decision, as ever, is yours...

The Oscar nominations on Tuesday were the most predictable in living memory. I posted four random thoughts on avary.com about them, which were, in short, too much like the Golden Globes, I want Salma Hayek to beat Zellwegger and Kidman, I want Danny Day-Lewis for best actor, and the lack of a nomination for 'City of God' is a cinematic crime on a par with their favouring Kevin Costner over Martin Scorsese in 1990. They're not bad nominations in and of themselves, I suppose, but I have faith in the Academy's ability to choose the wrong one to award from promising shortlists.

I wish there was a special category for 'Daredevil' - 'Most Blatantly Sadomasochist Popcorn Movie. Ben Affleck is on every single magazine cover in that thing, and seriously, dude, it's a gimp suit. Disturbing visual of the day - J.Lo and B.F.Lek having sex dressed as Daredevil and Electra. Oh, come on. I bet they do.

There's one thing on every newspaper's front cover at the moment, and it's Catherine Zeta-Jones. But if you turn to about page 17, you'll find that we're all about to die, according to home office reports. It's so stupid - the whole object of terrorism is to generate terror, something which I've not really felt in the air since 9/11. Then the Government puts tanks at Heathrow or whatever and petrify the bejeezus out of us! They couldn't have done it better if Bin Laden slipped them a bung!

The whole thing is dick-waving anyway. I was thinking last night about how the discussions with the Iraqui government might go - "Get rid of your weapons of mass destruction." "No. You do it first." "You're breaking UN rules." "So are you." "I'll set my dad on you..." Etc. It's so playground. Dick-waving is, of course, a constant feature of modern and ancient warfare, but the only literal example I could find of it is the incident when, at the height of his unpopularity, an aide asked Lyndon B Johnston why they were fighting in Vietnam, at which point he whipped his schlong out, slapped it on his desk and said "This is why!" I've often thought this may be the origin of the word 'johnston' to mean 'dick', but I've sadly been unable to substantiate that.

2003-01-20T19:12:00.000Z

Sober, I mean.

2003-01-20T19:11:00.000Z

Are you all sbr today? You lucky sods.

2003-01-18T23:17:00.000Z

I had a huge and consummately witty post written here, and my computer wiped it. Let's see how this works...

EDIT: Well, it doesn't seem bad so far. We'll see. I'd type it out again, but inspiration only strikes once. By which I mean, eh, maybe tomorrow.