Erotic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

This weekend, I found a book at the second-hand bookstore they always have underneath the bridge on the South Bank, right outside the BFI.  It’s a treasure-trove of old pictures and weird stuff, and this book in particular is (I think) the best £2 I’ve ever spent.  It is (wait for it…) an EROTIC CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-ADVENTURE STORY.

Obviously I bought it straight away because “erotic” and “choose-your-own-adventure” are two phrases which should DEFINITELY be used in tandem AS OFTEN as possible, if not ALWAYS.

Sadly it turns out that the CYOA element to the book doesn’t really work; all the choices are completely lacking in context (“Choose Door 2 or Door 5”) and the narrative structure is hopeless. Also there’s only actually one ending you can get. WTF, book?!  I wanted to choose my OWN adventure!  You have misrepresented yourself to me.

The book also misrepresents itself in that it is the least erotic thing I have ever read.  And I have read* Peter Mandelson/George Osborne slash fanfiction, so I know what I am talking about.

I looked on the copyright website and it reckons that if I’m quoting something for purposes of criticism then it falls under Fair Use policy, so here we go… a close reading of Chapter 1.

It was a vast sandy beach, whipped by a warm ocean wind full of iodine.

OK, so this is already a terrible beginning.  What I want from an opening line in an erotic fiction, to set the scene and make me feel all sexy or whatever, is definitely NOT a mention of IODINE.

I could hear the waves but the sea remained out of sight, closed off by a barrier of dunes. I took off my shoes and started walking towards it.

The sand beneath the soles of my feet was cool and prickly in parts because of the vegetation. But it was a delicious sensation to feel it wed itself to my muscles so perfectly, and accompany them with each of my movements, from my toes to my heels.

When I reached the crest

Already?!

I saw the immense ocean stretch out in front of me, its grey waves wrinkled with white beneath a sky overburdened with heavy clouds.  The sound of the sea was deafening.  I walked straight towards it, facing into the wind.

I wandered along the edge of the waves for a while, following their ebb and flow on the beach, playing with them by getting my feet wet and even raising my dress and getting splashed with foam right up to my thighs.

Oof. Things are getting sexy now. I think this is supposed to represent some sort of sensual landscape of woman?  And also the foam is probably jizz.

From their wet fringe I collected small pebbles, put them in my mouth and sucked them until they lost their salty taste.

This is subtle. I wonder these salty pebbles could represent?  Could it be… COJONES?

NB I had always thought this was spelt “cahonies” as I have never written it before re: why would you. But apparently it is Spanish or something.

I kept a few, as well as some shells whose shape, gloss and colour I found pleasing.

The ebbing tide uncovered a broad band of wet sand.  I knelt down facing the sea, opened my hand and deposited the small hoard I had gathered.  Then I started building a castle.

I worked on it for a long time.  I fashioned outer walls, towers, a keep, the ramparts, turrets and battlements.  I dug a deep moat around it and let it fill up with the sea water that had soaked into the sand.

THE CASTLE… OF MYSELF.

Then with my nails and fingertips I started making slits and other openings in the wall.

I guess we will just have to get used the subtlety of prose employed here.

When I had hollowed out the main gate I was amazed to see the sand continue to crumble away behind the little excavation I had just made, as if a large sand fly were carrying on with my work.  And I was absolutely astonished to see a tiny little man emerge from this same door, naked as a worm.

Right.  This is where things start getting properly weird and the first time (but by no means the last) that this book caused me to double-take.  She BUILDS A CASTLE…and inside it there is a TINY LITTLE MAN…NAKED AS A WORM.

Naked as a worm.

At this point of reading my brain started going “Oh god oh god oh god, is she going to have sex with the tiny little man, that would be completely fucked up WHAT THE HELL”.  Perhaps your brain is currently gabbling the same question at you.  Spoilers: the answer to this question is YES.

If the idea of Big-on-Small fucking is upsetting to you then I suggest you read no further.

Big Cook Little Cook: Size Doesn't Matter

I must have looked like some sort of female genie to him, a supernatural giant who had emerged from some bottle washed up by the sea.  I lay down flat to be nearer his level and to observe him better. When he saw my – for him – gigantic eyes fixed on him, he crossed his hands over his miniature sex.  Then, despite the difference in size, he started to strut around and look me over in a macho little way, as if he expected me to be impressed and find him attractive.

In my head the tiny little man is basically a naked Sir Cadogen.  Is this supposed to be getting us in the mood?  I just have no idea.  ALSO WHY IS THERE A TINY LITTLE MAN ANYWAY.

I laid my hand out flat in front of him, above the moat, inviting him to climb on board.  Which he did, having gallantly bowed to kiss my finger.

His little feet pleasantly tickled my palm.  He grabbed hold of my thumb and, very gently so as not to unbalance him, I sat up in the sand.  Then I raised my hand with its precious contents to the level of my face.  He was as cute as anything.  Well-built and virile, with well-defined little muscles, his dinky little sex and his pretty, tough-guy face, fine and distinctive, ringed with greased-back hair as dark as his eyes, with their enticing, velvety, albeit slightly idiotic look.

This is definitely what I want in a lover.  Enticing, velvety, albeit slightly idiotic eyes.  HOT.

“So, doll,” he said, expanding his chest to the full, “Wotcher think?  Ever seen a body as fine…as manly as this?”

No one says “wotcher”.  NO ONE. And this is as it should be.

That’s when I noticed that his mini-cocklet was standing up proudly under my nose.  I prevented myself from bursting out laughing, so as not to annoy him and not to drop him.  I modestly lowered my eyelids and looked shocked.

My mama used to say, life is like a box of cocklets.  You never know which one you’re gonna get.

“Don’t be shy,” he said in what he thought was a reassuring tone. “Come on, take your dress off…Don’t be afraid…”

I put him down on the sand, on the other side of the moat, in case he got it into his head to run away.  For I had no intention of letting such an amusing marvel escape.

SEXY SEXY ENTRAPMENT.  I mean, who isn’t turned on by coercion?!

 Without taking my eyes off him, I got undressed in the manner of a clumsy virgin, but with the skill of a stripper,

WHAT. I can’t even imagine this.  How does one get undressed in the manner of a clumsy virgin, BUT with the skill of a stripper?  I mean, obviously you could be a virgin and a stripper at the same time, that is a thing that could happen.  But “clumsy” and “skilled” are sort of diametrically opposed.

Other things that are diametrically opposed: this book, and arousal.

in order to make him foam at the mouth even more at my – for him – colossal charms.  Then I lay on my back, closed my hand around him (in his entirety he was no bigger than the penis of an ordinary man) and placed him on my stomach.

He is the size of a penis.  I wonder where THIS is going.

On all fours he started crawling round this womanly landscape, crazy with lustful desires.  At first he climbed up to my left breast and placed himself against it, arms and legs wide trying to embrace it.  Opening his mouth wide he managed to get my boob into his mouth and he started sucking it.

NOT. PHYSICALLY. POSSIBLE.  When my boyfriend was reading this chapter (we like to get ourselves in the mood), he opened his mouth as wide as possible to demonstrate that he would not be able to fit the breast of an enormous lady into it.  I am not sure how this actually demonstrated this, but, it was definitely a thing that happened.

Boy reacts to book

At the same time I saw his little bottom undulating against my flesh and I felt his little hard rod rubbing against my breast.  Finally a large drop of sticky, warm liquid shot out against my skin.

I almost forgot the size of my partner.  Wasn’t the fact that he was a man the most important thing?

No, enormous lady protagonist apparently supposed to represent Everywoman; no it isn’t.  The most important thing here is that you are getting it on with a tiny tiny man on a beach.  Everywoman is not so sure about your life-choices, frankly.

I was now quite wet between my legs.  Thankfully he then had the good idea of venturing down there, to what was probably a real Ali Baba’s cave for him, and doing the honours.

He hung onto my hair as he descended between my spread-eagled thighs.  Then he started wiggling between my lips and right into my sheath.  He touched me and titillated me absolutely everywhere,

Again. NOT. PHYSICALLY. POSSIBLE.  Unless they were there all day, I suppose.

and his tiny limbs lent such precision to his caresses that he kept me in a state of acute pleasure.

Ok, are you ready? This is the worst bit. Hold onto your twats, people:

When he had brought me to the edge of ecstasy, he penetrated me with his whole body.  Then I came, arching back in the sand and shouting out against the noise of the sea.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO OH GOD NO MY EYES MY BRAIN THIS IS THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER READ.

Also if he did this he would almost definitely die.  And then he would get stuck up there like an old tampon, and she would probably eventually die too of TSS.  In fact I think I will make this my replacement head-canon.  It makes as much sense as anything else.

The little man climbed back up my belly where he lay down, dripping wet.  We slept together, under the wind.

Awwww. I love a happy ending.

I hope you enjoyed this critical analysis.  I have an English degree.

*written

How Twitter is Putting the ‘Social’ Back into Social Media

I tried to flog this piece to The Guardian Comment is Free, but they sent it back and said it was “a bit too meta for CiF”.  I thought that this was literally the funniest thing anyone had ever said to me ever.

There’s been a slew of articles of late about how Twitter is revitalising television viewing; recreating the shared experience of watching telly together that’s been lost since families stopped arranging their lives around the TV schedules, and transforming we lonely couch-potatoes into sparkling social media butterflies who can amass hundreds of followers just by saying something sarcastic about [INSERT POP CULTURE REFERENCE HERE].  Lucy Mangan wrote about it in The Guardian (‘How Twitter Saved Event TV’), as well as Simon Kelner in the Independent (‘How Twitter Has Become the Virtual Sitting Room of Our Time’).

There is, I can attest, something about the shared experience that makes everything televisual suddenly far more entertaining, as long as you can handle the necessary multitasking element.  Suddenly, I can’t remember how I ever managed to enjoy a TV programme without knowing which of my peers are watching at the same time and what their views are on the latest plot development.  And it seems almost impossible to believe that we ever tuned into unabashedly crass, lowest-common-denominator telly (the sort of thing tedious people tediously like to refer to as a “guilty pleasure”) without the opportunity to snigger behind our laptop screens at it, retweeting pithy one-liners from people far funnier, hotter and more cuttingly satirical than us.

Admittedly, a lot of it’s to do with ego; even the hardest of souls can’t fail to be compelled by the self-esteem boost that comes from making a particularly good joke and then seeing it retweeted to all and sundry.  There’s just something beautifully ephemeral about that perfectly-formed 140 character thought being passed on, and passed on, and passed on; until it develops a whole life of its own and goes off dancing and spinning through the meme-pool, sparkling like a gadfly for one heady moment in the sun.  But it’s also to do with community; feeling as though you belong.  So what if you’ve always felt a bit alienated from the rest of your peer-group for enjoying listening to The Archers omnibus of a Sunday?  Here’s a ready-made peer-group for you, all under one handy hashtag and all raring to discuss the goings on in Ambridge as they unfold.

Lately, however, I’ve been noticing a pull back in the other direction.  People are enjoying this new communal experience so much that they’re beginning to (in a step that can be seen as strangely regressive and counterintuitive) bring their online conversations back into real life (or ‘meatspace’, if you want to use the more derogatory term).  I’m not talking about anything so crass or simplistic as actually communicating verbally (after all, what would be the point? There’s nothing ‘social’ about that; you can’t even Like it), but about enjoying Twitter whilst also spending time with other people.  As in, actual people, who exist in all three dimensions and everything.  I’m talking about putting the ‘social’ back into ‘social media’.

That’s why the BBC Question Time tweetalong I run each month at Hackney Picturehouse is proving so popular and (can I actually write this word and still forgive myself?) zeitgeistig; people want to take their online experience and transform it into something more tangible and sociable.  We all enjoy sitting at home, yelling at the telly with a bottle of wine in one hand and a smartphone in the other – and it’s just a small step from that to doing it together, in a room full of like-minded people.

I’m not alone in having picked up on this trend.  A cursory glance down the list of upcoming shows on the SRO Audiences website reveals a new panel game presented by @wossy (Or ‘Jonathan Ross’, as he’s more commonly known IRL) called ‘Trending Topics’, as well as a show BBC Comedy are producing called ‘@cuff’, billed as a “night of live improv and stand up where your tweets and status updates make the comedy happen – the only gig we know where you are told to keep your phones on throughout!”.

At the BBCQT Tweetalong, we try to make it a bit more a mixed bag in terms of entertainment: comedians and political speakers kick off the night, there’s time to hobnob with each other in person between acts and (most important of all) a fully stocked bar.  But there’s no denying that it does make for a slightly strange atmosphere at times; even though you’re physically in the same location as the people around you, you only really feel connected to them when you open up your twitter client and tap in the appropriate hashtag.

So where is this leading?  There’s more than a smidgen of the Black Mirroresque about the idea of people sitting in rooms together, staring at a large screen on the wall and communicating with each other only via handheld devices.   But the school of thought that says modern technology is making us more and more antisocial is a complete nonsense; we’re simply moving towards new, more fluid models of interaction where there’s less emphasis put on the importance of face-to-face conversation.    And personally, I welcome that.  In real life, I never know what to do with my arms.

There’s No Such Thing as Social Media

A piece I’ve written for the Ixxus blog on why it’s unwise for organisations to ignore social media.

__________________________________________________

It’s time we all accepted the inevitable: social media isn’t going to go away.  It is not a fad.  It is here to stay.  And – bear with me here, whilst I go out on a limb – it doesn’t really, actually, exist.  At least, not in any truly meaningful way.

Almost half of the internet-using population interact with social networking sites on a daily basis.  The biggest and most pervasive of these is Facebook, which has over 500 million active users and more than 30 billion pieces of content shared each month.  To put that into some context: if Facebook were a country, it would be the third-highest populated in the world (the first and second are China and India, with America trailing far behind at a measly 311 million).  On top of that, some 10 million users create 1500 new tweets every second, and the list of other social networking sites grows ever longer by the day; just last week, Google+ joined the ranks of Myspace, LinkedIn, Diaspora, Quora, Tumblr, Formspring, and all the innumerable others jostling for position.

Quite understandably, this new influx of user-generated content – a tidal onslaught of opinion, debate, humour and plain whimsy – has many organisations running scared; particularly those that have always relied on the more traditional forms of engagement and promotion.  And the picture is only going to get more complex: the rate of change and growth on the internet is getting faster all the time, with myriad new platforms and trends to keep an eye on if you want to stay ahead of the game.  As self-styled internet guru Clay Shirky puts it,  “The old models are breaking before the new ones can be put into place”.

Personally, I believe that the answer for organisations and businesses lies in embracing openness and the online; in particular the willingness to engage with and participate in discussion online rather than operating above it or in isolation.  Dipping your toes into the fast-flowing waters of social media can seem daunting in the extreme, and with good reason; but there’s one very important thing to bear in mind at all times – and it’s this:

Even if you think you don’t want your company to get involved with social media, it probably already is.

Chances are that someone, somewhere out there, is talking about you right now.  It’s up to you whether or not you decide to get involved in that conversation, but if you choose not to then don’t be surprised if you suddenly discover that people have been talking about you behind your back – and don’t be surprised if, lacking that valuable input from you, they’ve got the wrong impression about your company or services.

The digital generation is one that is mistrustful of authority and highly sensitive to corporate interest (Don Tapslock, Growing Up Digital), so new approaches must be found: it’s no longer enough to simply throw tired old imperatives and calls-to-action into people’s faces, no matter how persuasive your type-face might be.  Dictating to the digital generation what they should like, what they should buy, and who they should aspire to be may not go down as well as expected: online, anything too corporate, too staid or too sales-y is likely to be derided, torn apart or (perhaps worse) completely ignored.

If this all sounds like too much gloom and doom from a marketing perspective, there is an upside; and I’d argue that it’s an upside that leads to far better places that traditional models of marketing and promotion.  At a business level, social media gives companies the opportunity to communicate, engage and build relationships with customers and consumers like never before.  For perhaps the first time, we as businesses have a chance to be more than simple faceless entities and develop far more personal and human relationships online – whether that’s with customers, clients or consumers; whether that’s with potential partners, the public or the press.  Of course, creating long-lasting relationships is great news for brand loyalty – but it’s also great news for all of us, as living and breathing human beings.

And this is what I mean when I say that ‘social media’ doesn’t really exist, in the true sense of the word.  Wherever there are people, be it online or offline, they will always find ways to engage and interact and enthuse about the things that interest them.  The web has always been about communicating and socialising, ever since the early days of IRC and Usenet newsgroups – as time goes by, we simply find better and faster and more multimedia ways of doing it.  At the end of the day, it’s just people doing what they’ve always done.

‘Social media’ is just people, talking to other people – about the things that they like, and the things that they don’t like.  We ignore it at our peril.

New blog – TV reviews

Because I am ridiculous, I have started a new blog for TV reviews called Tellywanging (it’s like welly wanging, you see, but like, instead of hurling wellies around, I’m sort of hurling TV reviews into people’s FACES, against their will).

You can read my first review here:
Episodes (BBC2, Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, Matt le Blanc) S01E01

National Poetry Day

Here we are again! AS IF. I did a post on this LAST year.  Well, here’s my offering for the day. Unfortunately this is, quite accurately, what it is inside my head quite a lot of the time (particularly 10am and 3pm weekdays).

Sensory Defensiveness

Common symptoms of sensory defensiveness include intolerance of high-pitched noises, intolerance of chewing sounds, intolerance of overhead lights (especially fluorescent lighting); experiencing a feeling of being attacked upon being touched (especially from light touch or sudden touch); intolerance of certain types of fabrics in contact with the skin; intolerance of pointy objects or objects jetting towards the eyes; becoming nauseated upon smelling something that does not smell bad to neurotypical individuals; difficulty maintaining eye-contact; severe intolerance of foods due to taste, texture, or temperature; and generally becoming overwhelmed when exposed to a lot of sensory stimuli at once – Wikipedia

i hate it the most WHEN
it is EXACTLY 10am
the slavering, the slobbering, the
chunks of chuffing CHEW
OH if you knew
the time i’ve spent resenting how your
food and spit’s cementing & the
anger’s left fermenting in my browwwwwwwww

& ohGOD, i’ve kept a FILE on
your every bit of BILE, & the
time it takes each day for you to swallow.
& i never COULD admit. just how
SICK i am of IT, for i fear the
thought’s too much for you to FOLLOW.

every DAY and to the MINUTE
off you go again, you gannet, with the
food sprayed once more past your parted lips.
& i won’t succumb to murder – though
you’re only a co-worker – but for
GOD’S sake, must it everytime be CRISPS?!

Sprawling Rambles & Rambling Sprawls

So I’m only updating because Tim Minchin said he liked my blog, yeah? He has rad hair.

(Actually I’m updating because I promised Mobile Fun that I’d review a USB phone charger, and because it’s… well, it’s been a while)

Exciting updates! What the hell have I been up to?!

Well. Mostly I have been putting photographs of politicians next to trains from Thomas the Tank Engine and then laughing a lot?

WHAT IS THIS.

I CAN'T BREATHE.

So yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of that.  Too much, one might say.  But also! I have done normal things that proper people do, too. Proper people who don’t get looked at as though they are mental.

Hay Festival

My first time (shocking really, as I’m next to the Welsh border and it’s only an hour away). I’ve been to Hay-on-Wye before obviously, there were books, I had some fudge.

I ADORED it. The same sort of intellectually-trascendent revelation that I had when I first went to Latitude. Wonderful, to hear snippets of exciting conversation everywhere you went, to know you could happily interject without inevitably hating the strangers you ended up talking to.  I did the Philosophy festival on the Saturday and the Literature festival on the Sunday (I span academia, yo).  I’m not going to rave too much, but it was stunning.

Also, I got a virtually self-spoofing Guardian tote bag that is immune to parody in its ridiculousness. It is totez awesome:

Paper? Tick! Sunshine? Tick! Pimms? Tick!

Highlights inc!

• “Copyright, Copyleft & Artistic Ownership in the Digital Age”; brill stuff on a thorny issue. Feargal Sharkey was a really engaging & compelling speaker, even though I disagreed with much of what he said.  Still, at least everyone seems to be agreed that reform is needed.
• Johann Hari being adorbs.
• More Nick Clegg stalking (I know, I’m a girl possessed). He was lovely & witty & self-deprecating as ever (“I co-authored a book on this – well, it wasn’t really a book. More of a pamphlet. I just said it was a book because I thought this is a literary festival and it would sound grand. It was a leaflet, really.”)
• Stephen Fry being booked to speak for an hour and overrunning for an hour in typically verbose Stephen-fashion (“Incidentally, WHEN is the Alejandro video coming out?! It is just driving me MAD!”)
• All the speakers being given sunflowers. Glorious!

Also, Bonnie Greer was literally everywhere we went. Being fierce.

Minor quibble: I was surprised how un-foodie it was; only one vegetarian option on site, and barely any food on site at all. I was expecting, you know, grilled halloumi and houmous and venison burgers.

I also spent far too much of the weekend sitting in my car trying to charge my phone just so that I could tweet. Nightmare. #firstworldproblems

Here’s some satire, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Oh, my achey-breaky Lib Dem heart.

Latitude

I also went to Latitude! I wasn’t supposed to, it was sold out and I was very sad, but then I managed to come by a spare VIP ticket about 3 days before for less then face value.  Huzzah.

An excellent time, but unfortunately I did keep falling asleep and missing things.  Most noteably & heart-wrenchingly, Karaoke Circus & Crystal Castles, though they clashed anyway.

Highlights inc!

• Quite a lot of Robin Ince happened. Robin Ince is everywhere. He is the king of middle-class, left-wing festivals. And there were cushions on the floor of the Literary Arena! Score.
• The Actor Kevin Eldon. Obviously.
• Q&A session with Chris Morris.
• Forest! Sheep! Lake! Cocktails! All the usual, really.
• I Blame Coco played! She is the fittest thing I have ever seen?

FAO Coco, how are you real?

My favourite bit was when Colin & Mary & I were having a discussion about something wanky like “the transient nature of the campsite” and “festivals as liminal zones” (Colin & I basically talk in English Lit. essay titles once we get going, it is really irritating for anyone near us); Colin asked whether either of us ever imagined that each tent was a word and strung them together across the campsite to make sentences.  No, I said, shaking my head, “But are they present tents or past tents?”

I am literally the funniest person in the world.

Anyway!

A REVIEW

Perks of the job. Work very kindly let me take along this emergency charger for my phone, so that I didn’t have to spend half the festival sitting in the car like I did at Hay.  I’m no tech-blogger really, so you don’t get an unboxing video I’m afraid.  Here’s a picture of it though:

I actually really dig it and have been using it loads.  It works well as a charger for my G1 but comes with loads of other tips so you could easily use it as an iPhone 4 charger or an iPad charger etc – not sure how long it’d take to charge an iPad though, I’ll have to borrow m’ boss’ one for a go.

The unit itself is quite sleek and feels/looks well-made, with a nice matt finish.  It seems to hold just enough power for me to charge my phone completely about 1.5 times, perhaps 2 at the most, so I did still end up sitting in my car again occasionally, but that’s more the G1′s fault for absolutely gobbling up battery.

I like it! I shall bequeath it THREE AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE STARS.

If that sounds low, it’s just because I’m stingy. I would only give myself three and a half out of five stars as a person, too.  And I’m really into me.

Birmingham SiTP

I went to it, my second. Everyone very friendly and welcoming, and remembered who I was though I’d missed a couple of sessions

Anyway, lovely lovely Prof Chris French (wot I wrote a piece on sleep paralysis for last year) gave us a talk, on the latter, and also on anomalous psychology and pareidolia and all that malarky that always makes me wish I’d carried on with Psych after A Level.  I got a little drunk on toffee cider.

Escorted through the Peer’s Entrance

Not a euphemism. Or at least, it wasn’t until all my rt. Hon. friends the Loliticians got their grubby little hands on it.

I had a tour round Parliament! It was amazing!

Lord Faulkner kindly took me round and he properly knew his stuff.  Here are some interesting facts that he told me about:

Behind the Speakers chair is a green bag which is the petitions bag, where all the petitions sent in end up. Lord F. said that in the olden days when people would ask ”Did you get my petition?”, the Speaker would say “It’s in the bag”, and that’s the origin of the phrase “It’s in the bag”.  I squealed quite loudly when he told me this.

In front of both of the benches there are two red lines, just over two sword lengths apart, which you aren’t allowed to step over when you’re talking to ensure that you don’t fight the opposition; this is the origins of the phrase “toeing the line”.

He also explained the tradition behind Black Rod, the guy who comes with the Queen for the State Opening of Parliament. This one time! Charles I ran in demanding to see 5 MPs who he was angry with and wanted to punish, but the MPs had already legged it. The Speaker refused to tell the King where they were and said that he was under the rules of the Commons, not the rules of the King, and then they ejected Charles I from the Commons.  Hero!  So now, royals are only allowed into the Commons by invite, and when they come they have to have the door slammed shut ceremonially in their faces and then Black Rod raps on the door with his rod to be let in.

It was a bit empty as it was the last day of term before all the politicians wander off to the beach with their buckets & spades.  I watched the Lords doing a vote, and I went in the Commons chamber and had a wander around and looked at the front benches and the dispatch boxes, and I went on the Terrace Bar, and I went in the Robing Room where the Queen gets dressed before State Opening of Parliament.  I’d always envisaged it as a large walk-in wardrobe but it is in fact an entire room with quite a lot of paintings in it.

Not many Lords.

Doctor Who at the Proms

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Matt Smith! Karen Gillan! Arther Darville! Daleks! Weeping Angels!

They played Gallifrey: My Childhood, My Home along with a video of all of the Doctor’s regenerations, and we all applauded each Doctor as they passed.  Very poignant and lovely, so obviously I was sobbing my face off.

Albert Mo'Fo'ing Hall

I also went to see The Knife’s opera based around The Origin of Species, Tomorrow in a Year, but I won’t go into it here as it wasn’t all that.  A nice concept, moderately executed.  My advice is to just stay at home and listen to the album, which is great.  Cool dry ice, though.

SHERLOCK

The BBC modern-day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who) & Mark Gatiss (League of Gentleman) started airing a fortnight ago. Be still my heart.

I AM FANGIRL CENTRAL.

HUMPERDINK BANDERSNATCH. CUTHERBERT CAMEMBERT. BENDYDICK CUCUMBERPATCH. YOU HAVE A RIDICULOUS NAME. MARRY ME?

They’ve even had a sort of hamfisted go at the extended media/ ARG side of things, with character blogs (John, Sherlock, Molly) and puzzles to crack, which is sort of endearing.  And gives us lots of extra squee-worthy details like SHERLOCK AND JOHN HAD A JAMES BOND MARATHON TOGETHER, SHERLOCK AND JOHN RAN OUT OF MILK THIS ONE TIME AND SHERLOCK HAD TO ASK JOHN TO GET SOME, SHERLOCK AND JOHN ARE IN LOVE AND DEFINITELY GOING TO GET MARRIED, et cetera.

Unfortunately it’s only a three-parter. The first episode was stunning, absolutely utterly & inexorably perfect.  The second, I thought was a little weak (also not slashy enough?! hello?!).  But the second of a trilogy is always the worst, TRUFAX, so I have high-hopes for next week’s finale.  And for us getting a full series after that, please?

I would be this excited.

PS. Dear Mr Prime Minister, plz do not take our BBC.

The Day in Verse

I’ve started a project to write up the day’s news events in poem form; if not a full round-up, then at least focussing on one story.  I’m calling it The Day in Verse. I’ll try to do it daily but that probably won’t always be possible, depending on how a) busy and b) drunk I am.

Everyone seems to be making manifestos these days, so here’s mine:

The round-up gets ground up then shoved back together
The Pope, Katie Price, David Cameron, whoever
They’re none of them safe from our tedious views
In short, this is your daily pick of the news

From letter to letter, from stanza to stanza
For those who like news, it’s a bloody bonanza
For those few that don’t, well we’re making it worse -
We’re writing the bastarding thing down in verse.

We’ll still take the piss out of the daily mail
Though the times may well change, and the sun’s looking pale
If you’re feeling a chill, well just go put your cardy on
By the light of the star we’ll all observe the guardian

So join with us now, through the good and bad times
We promise to bring you the crappiest rhymes
Though don’t be aggrieved if it’s not every day
There…. probably was just nothing to say.

The lost generation, yo

Dear all,

I am feeling mardy. Here is a poem for you.

I’ve heard about them kids today
That they don’t stand a chance
They hang on streets and drag their feet
And look at you askance

And folks call them belligerent
And cite ASBOs as proof
Lamenting for a bygone age
Oh, disaffected yoof!

I’ve heard about them kids today
That they don’t have a hope
They’re on the brink of drugs and drink
They sit around and mope

And daytime chat and antiques shows
Provide little enjoyment
When towns are rife with trial and strife
And stinking unemployment

The papers and the radio
Say there’s no future for them
They’ll burn and yearn and even learn
But still there’s nothing more than

A refuse job, a retail job
Forget about career!
Just slog until the week is done
On Friday: have a beer

And so we all pack up our dreams
Work in administration
We hapless yobs, we hopeless sods
We long-lost generation

Cherry Kino

Last week I interviewed the exceptionally lovely Martha Jurksaitis, Programme Coordinator for Leeds International Film Festival, about the experimental/ avant-garde film strand Cherry Kino.  I go to the film festival every year and it’s all very exciting!

You can read the resulting article at over Culture Vulture here.

I also have a November Music Roundup now online.

Twitterhoea

As I was celebrating National Poetry Day today on twitter I wrote a twitter-themed ditty which I place here for posterity.

Actually it’s on a subject that I’ve been meaning to blog about for ages – i.e. the action of twittercynics dismissing the medium being, in essence, as retarded as if you were to diss the telephone.  YES, you can have an inane and pointless conversation over the telephone. But that is not the telephone itself’s fault.

It’s that knee-jerky, “I read this in an article today by someone else who clearly also did not get twitter and they said people only tweet about what they’re having for lunch so now I am going to parrot this view at you (even though you, unbeknownst to me, read that article too and can actually tell I am just quoting it at you verbatim, because it, like all news, was passed around the twittersphere days and days ago)”, that is so irritating.  But I won’t go on, because to be honest it’s been overblogged a little slash a lot.  So you get a crapoem instead and I will have done with the subject.

A POEM ABOUT TWITTER FOR NATIONAL POETRY DAY

Do you know who I find bitter?
It’s those people who hate twitter.
They say that it’s no use
That its users are obtuse -
If only they had known
It could be used to write a poem!
It could be used to find a job
(If you need some extra bob)
It could be used to make new friends
Or to quite innumerable ends!
It’s not the anonymity
that’s important; nor technology
It’s what you use it FOR
If you’re bored – then you’re a bore.

This poem is dedicated to my good friend Matt.  Unfortunately you cannot follow him on twitter.  Guess why.