Merry Christmas

Enjoy the holiday season ladies and gents. I shall be back shortly after the new year, revamped and reinvigorated. Before I go, one further recommendation. Martin Amis' collection of essays, musings, and short stories, The Second Plane is a truly memorable read, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. The post below was I direct response to his final chapter. If I were to respond to the whole I could write a book myself. Love to all.

The Great Wall

Imagine for a moment the great reunification of Germany when the Berlin wall fell on November 9th 1989. Comprehend how symbolic that was and how instrumental that must have been for the country-wide free elections held just two months later. Uncanny how the date may be transcribed into the Arabic - 9/11. Imagine, then, if you will, the unforgivable, brutish, medieval attacks on the eleventh day of September in 2001: back-handedly marginalised by the short-hand, 9/11. Comprehend also what a destabilizing barrier that has presented for the awakened world. Acknowledge the Wall. The modern barrier is impassable, unassailable, insurmountable, omniscient. It defines the religious apology, the political sensitivity, the global foreign policy. Indeed, those once our neighbours across the street, now divided by the great wall, are alien, backward and corrupted. Propaganda and sullied skirmishes embrace both sides of the wall. In this case, the grass most certainly is not greener on the other side.

Final Exam

I was approached by my less than intelligent English TA this morning before the start of our final exam and she said sarcastically, "So, Mr Iddiols, are you going to show us your knowledge today?" I tell you what, dear reader, I was a fucking hero. Answering questions, identifying passages, writing essays left, right, and centre. But I'll post a video of me eating fifty dollars if I get anywhere near a grade A. Why? Because they're stupid. The exam consisted of nothing more than a memory test. Fill in the blanks from this section of Milton's Aeropagitica. From which Shakespearean sonnet does this couplet come from. Who wrote the following about this? What's the name of the sequence from which this sonnet derives? Who could have thought of a more ridiculous test, not of understanding, but of memory. Sure, if I wanted to guarantee myself an A I could have spent the last fortnight reading and rereading the assigned texts over and over so I knew them by heart, but wherein lies the analysis, the profound study of close reading, context, atmosphere, metaphor, imagery? It's all left me rather depressed yet again by the state of the American higher education system. I've undergone four courses in English here at Arizona. In two of them I've been by far the best student in the class, receiving a resounding A at the end. However, in the other two I've been left by the wayside, somehow allowed to construe a C regardless of my equal efforts. It's a disgrace.

Harry and Paul - Americans

Something about this strikes a chord. I'm glad to see that Harry Enfield has found his feet again. Very amusing.

On Torture Again

Once again, this blog has led the way in investigative journalism. It appears that everyone has been on the case since I raised some potential concerns about allied "aggressive interrogation" techniques, specifically waterboarding. Bryan picks this up from what Andrew Sullivan has maintained on his blog for a long time; it's morally abhorrent to torture another human being. But David Rose writes online for Vanity Fair, suggesting that, not only is the morality questionable, but oftentimes, it's highly unreliable as a viable source of information.

I spoke to numerous counterterrorist officials from agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Their conclusion is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts.

Now that these techniques are so effective, leaving grown men blubbering in the corner, the compulsion to make something up, or fabricate a guilty truth must be overwhelming. Therein lies the problem.

Damo

Seldom do I come to this blog to profess my wrongdoing. However, it was only my naivety that brought this falsehood upon you, so it seems appropriate. You know, a long time ago now, when I claimed Declan de Barra was the new Damien Rice? Well, I've since realised the absurdity of that statement; knee-jerk reaction as that may have been, I do still maintain his potential. Yet, to come even at odds with Damo, he has to surpass this, and do something quite so beautiful as this. Not until that time can anyone equate to the great Damien Rice. I stand before you, humbled.

Bush

Ha! Did you see how fast his reactions were. He should have been a goalkeeper or something.

In McDonalds

Speaking of which: never before has a title perfectly encpsulated the essence of a musical piece.

My Sunday

I've had an absurd day. I almost feel as though I'm trapped in some kind of flamboyant Pinter sketch. Every time I step out the flat I'm confronted with a world of preening eyes and contemplative glares, and I can't quite decide whether my face is inviting or overly intimidating. When I took my rubbish out this morning the woman who lives beneath me (who, I've decided, is mad) followed my every step from her walkway. I discovered she'd placed her potted plants just under the rubbish skip, presumably to use the shade, but that's optimistic. Then, as if I hadn't quite fulfilled my role as innocent bystander, she marched up the steps just as I was walking across in the opposite direction, struck a pose, to which I met her eye and said with a grin, "Hi there". She didn't respond. Instead, she began marching towards me and then shifted direction right at the last minute. All the while I expected a conversation so I maintained my smile and eye-contact. Weird. I cant quite decide whether to laugh or call the police. Then, as if that wasn't awkward enough, I was confronted three times in the space of three minutes on my way to the shops by the less fortunate asking for money; the last of whom I'd met the week before and gave him all my coins. I said, "hey, mate, I saw you last week". He walked off. Perhaps there's something about my face that's alluring and my speech just turns people away. I'll bear that in mind. To cap it all, I was left bewildered by my Pinter-esque encounter with the server during my weekly trip to McDonalds:

I'd like a quarter-pounder with cheese meal, please.
Would you like cheese with that?
Yes, please.
Do you want to make that a meal?
Yes, please.
Medium or large size?
Medium please.
For here or to go?
For here, please. And I'd like six chicken nuggets as well.
Ok, would you like any special sauces with that?
No, I'll be alright with the ketchup.
Oh, the ketchup is just round the corner.
Thanks.
For here or to go?
For here, please. But I'd also like three of your cookies.
Ok. For here or to go?
For here.
Can I have your name?
Yeah, it's Rob. R-O-B.
Robin?
Yes.

New Look

You may have noticed, dear pilgrim, a rather astonishing new aesthetic to this blog. Grand though it may seem, all should be taken with a pinch of salt. Although, come the new year I intend on revamping the whole stylistic of this blog on my long-term journey towards commentary heroism. Perhaps with a new webcam I'll begin a series of video blogging. Who knows? I'm rather excited now with all this free time on my hands.

Weight of the Water

By Mimi Parker, of Low.

Take a cupful from your hand
Wait for forty days
Make a river through the sand
'Til you're called by a secret name

And the weight of the water has brought me back to this

Just leave me to the river
Let it cleanse my face
I have no power to ward it
Like the baptism of the earth.

Open-Mouthed

I propose that eating with an open mouth is the most vulgar, horrid, repulsive, and leeringly deterring act one can possibly perform. I was sat across from a pair of nerds in a cafe this morning, attempting to enjoy my brunch when the pimpled, sexless, warcrafter sat directly opposite me chewed his bread with all the volition of a starved child, chomping his chops up and down, poking his lips forward and offering his tongue against his bottom lip as if it needed protecting. I had to contort in my chair to avoid the very possibility of catching him doing it in my peripheries. Surely, one of the first things you are taught as a child is not to lean on the table, not to play with your food, and certainly not to eat with your mouth open, especially in the girlfriend years. This may be why I hate chewing gum so much; people feel they therefore have the right to chew with their mouth open and make that barely audible, yet awful sound of swishing and gurgling. If I came to power the first thing I would do is ban chewing gum. There, I said it.

Three Endorsements

I have a couple of endorsements for you to kick start your weekend. First, if you haven't already discovered from my irregular poking, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo have set up an online Advent Calender. Every day you can flip open a new window to uncover a short clip of Kermodian wititainment direct from the year's archives of classic ranting and banter. Sorry to bring this to you quite late in the Advent season but now you've already got twelve clips to delve into. Secondly, A. A. Gill who I take great pleasure in loathing, has actually written an entertaining article for once between the pages of Vanity Fair. He dives the murky depths of a craze that has since been revived by the movie: the Sex and the City bus tour of New York. Amusingly, before stepping off the bus into an adult shop apparently featured in the show, Gill aptly describes the "buzz of anticipation". Finally, you may have noted that I'm not so far up my own arse that I collect old Jazz records. However, Charles Mingus, who's not known for his piano playing, released a beautifully inspired album in 1964, simply entitled, Mingus Plays Piano. It's as if you're listening to a man think with the piano, and it makes for an endearing 45 minutes. Again, what's so brilliant about the music is that Mingus is clearly not a master of the piano, but merely toying with it, allowing it to take him wherever his ability leads, stuttering and swaying his way towards symphonic beauty. If you can get your hands on a copy, do it.

Paradise Lost

I'm currently reading the Norton Critical Edition of Milton's Paradise Lost. It's a worthy edition of the text that includes outside sources, explanations, and any further reading that the good ol' boys at Norton feel are relevant. So, there I was nestled into Book One, during Satan's heroic speech upon being booted from Heaven, when I noticed the word colour spelt, "color". Now, call me a square, but why have the Americans felt the need to alter the text in this albeit minor, and arguably, insignificant way. Yes, if it is insignificant why would I be frustrated by it? In the same vein, however, if it is so insignificant, why the need to change it? They have not replaced the word "yon" with your, nor the word "hath" with has, which would both modify the text to an extent to bring it into the modern American world. I'm sure the literary elite of America who come to read Paradise Lost will be able to skirt the syntactical differences that, I'm fairly certain, had not been altered from the original English for some 200-odd years. Considering the great efforts they've apparently taken to make the text as recognisable to Milton's vision as possible (excuse the pun), why leave out the u? Typical.

Ronnie O'Sullivan

If there's one thing that proves I'm British it's my love of snooker. One of the many hardships of living in America is the lack of snooker coverage. Soon enough my beloved World Championships will be coming round and I'll miss the extended sets, and of course, the Masters at The Crucible. Very rarely does a wonder strike in the Premier league make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Very rarely does a mighty six straight over the bowlers arm deposit something more than a grin. But I say with pride that a perfect cannon shot off the black to open the reds by one of world's greats sends a shiver down my spine and a tear to my eye. The master of this is Ronnie O'Sullivan. Seldom is the word 'genius' employed appropriately, but in this instance, anything other would be an insult. He's been one of the best players in the world for over fifteen years and he made his first maximum break at age 15. I once heard an interesting piece of trivia that he does 100 push-ups a day. He's also the member of his local running club and frequently runs up to 150 miles per week. Somewhat strange then for a man who's peers are pale through to the bone having spent hour after hour in darkened snooker halls. He's no stranger to controversy after walking out of his World Championship quarter-final match with Stephen Hendrie, offering a Chinese journalist oral sex, checking into The Priory for drug and alcohol addiction, and being fined for ungentlemanly conduct following a match where he was deemed to have embarrassed his opponent by winning the final frame with only his left hand. He is the only player in the world who can use both his hands to equal effect; he's regularly achieved maximum breaks with his left after unveiling his ability in 2004. When he won the 2008 World Championship his 6-month old son crawled onto the table and someone from the crowd understandably shouted out: "Give him the cue!" With a talent like Ronnie's, and his unarguable genius, who could blame him. I urge anyone and everyone to watch this footage of him breaking his own world record for the fastest ever maximum. Further, in his latest interview with the BBC's Inside Sport (bullion, by the way), he provides an enlightening insight into how he sees the game: "Really big pockets [...] I see every part of the table as a help. Even the knuckles." He strikes me as quite an insecure person. He's been known to change his mind between interviews and struggle with questioning. His father has been in prison since Ronnie was a teenager for being convicted of murder, but, if anything, Ronnie claims it's helped him. Ronnie appears quite embarrassed much of the time, not necessarily humble or modest, but unsure of himself as a person outside of the snooker arena. He says he likes the trophies, not the money, he wants the physical trophies. Unlike myself, he doesn't enjoy beating people, or annoying them, or humbling them, he merely likes to win for his own sake, as if he needed any more proof that he's the greatest snooker player to have ever lived, and likely, ever to live. And he's still only 33.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Hitchens, and Waterboarding

This rather strange news development caught me for two reasons. Firstly, the obvious religious martyrdom explication delivered by the supposed mastermind was unusual in that he hadn't delivered such a claim before. One would ask, therefore, why had he not flown one of the planes into the building himself rather than have one of his abhorrent croons to do it for him if he's so beset by the concept of martyrdom? We've been told for a while now, and I believe it myself, that there's a chance the individuals who organise these attacks seldom have the total conviction they instill upon their sycophantic fleet. For example, the recent footage of a drugged teenage girl in Baghdad being strapped with a bomb by a group of jihadists reminded us of just how appallingly warped these people may become under the garb of Islam. What's more, the convict, currently held in Gitmo, looks strikingly dishevelled in all the currently circulating photographs. Is that such a surprise, however? This leads me nicely onto my main observation. Christopher Hitchens' waterboarding session over the summer exposed the lamely apologetic term, "aggressive interrogation" as wholly inappropriate. Indeed, the title of his piece, "Believe Me, It's Torture" deserves our attention. Similarly, I distinctly remember him saying from the accompanying video that "it would be bad enough if you did have something, [...] but what if you didn't have anything? What if they'd got the wrong guy? Then you really would be in danger of losing your mind very quickly?" Does Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not have the look of someone who has lost his mind? A rejuvenation of the debate surrounding the ethics of torture is at stake here and that may be the subject of a much lengthier post. Yet, for the purposes of my current avenue of thought, I simply refer to Hitchens' pertinent claim - if the American services have got the wrong guy, then waterboarding is the best way to make someone confess to something they haven't actually done. Apparently, Sheikh Mohammed held out for an impressive two minutes before being reduced to a quivering, sobbing wreck.

Top Gear Again

Add to that earlier list, Scott Walker. Well done. I see they've revamped their website...

The Big Weekend

I've since returned from Austin, Texas following my last post (which I hoped you've enjoyed many times) for a swimming invitational. I did well, breaking the 44 barrier in the 100yrd freestyle, going 20.1 in the 50, and going sub-1.40 in the 200. Unfortunately, there are no videos from that meet like there were last year, as the distributors got threatened with some kind of libel action. All the results, though, are here. Last year those times would have looked very good, but after the introduction of the new generation of racing suit (Speedo's LZR Racer, and the now infamous BlueSeventy) people are breaking new grounds in greater numbers. Still, I'm chuffed. Talking of sports viewing, why can't I find any kind of live video coverage for the upcoming Snooker World Championships or the England Cricket Tour to India? Surely, in this day and age, there must be some kind of online solution. I'll let you know.

Old Boys Tour 2008 (Trailer)

Here, fine, intelligent, mature, and educated pilgrim is a small piece I have constructed from the scraps of footage that have since been uncovered from my venture into Wales over the Summer of 2008. It's a preview, or trailer, if you will, for an upcoming feature film documenting my, and my two closest friends ascent of Mt. Snowdon in North Wales, along with any of the associated carnage either side. Humour and nostalgia can be drawn from the wreckage. I hope, however, that you can find some delight in the following video. Allow.

Top Gear Praise

I put it to you, dear reader, that BBC's Top Gear is not only the most cinematically astute program currently on television, but also the finest. Over the years Top Gear has gained popularity and a cult following, often subverting the norms of mainstream programming and distancing itself from motoring nerd-dom. What has brought me to this decision is, primarily, the cameramen. Often unnoticed, the angles, curvature, artistry, and passion of the men and women holding our glimpses into the unknown is profound. Yet interestingly, I've recently noticed a growing parallel between my own musical taste and that of the backroom producers. Over the years and seasons we've heard Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Thom Yorke, and, in the latest series, Jonny Greenwood's classical compositions for There Will Be Blood and, get this, Liars. Now, you have to move in fairly specific circles to come across such a band, and have the awareness to play the song they did during a section about the new Ferrari Scuderia. It's the sort of band that never gets talked about in the self-proclaimed, "alternative" music magazines. All in all, I've developed a distinct, unspoken, underground relationship with Top Gear. We recognize them on this blog, and we honour them.