I'm Back - And I'm Still Angry

Weell hello, I'm back! It's a new year, the Mayans were wrong or at least inaccurate, and we're all still here so I've decided to resurrect this moribund monologue and inflict my random thoughts on an unsuspecting cybespace.
When I first began aerosoling on the cyberwall little did I know that my scribblings would elicit a response and when they did I rapidly scuttled away to lick my wounded ego and do some study into quantum physics. During this exercise I realised that, while some Marvins with planet-sized brains might indeed understand this subject, the majority of us mere mortals can only take their word for it and hope that Marvin monitors are checking their homework with sufficient diligence to ensure the planet doesn't disappear down an inter-dimensional plughole somewhere in the vicinity of Geneva. I still have thoughts on the whole quantum physics thing and how at it's most fundamental level it begins as an act of faith but that's way too complicated a stream of heresy to begin 2013 with.
So, what's been happening since my self-imposed exile in June 2009?
Well we've lost Steve Jobs for a start which for me was a major blow. Opinions on Mr Jobs are myriad and I don't know which of them is correct, perhaps all of them are, but I do know that the company he founded, lost, won back again and built into one of the biggest on the planet has provided me with tools and toys in equal measure for nearly 35 years and for that I'm personally very grateful. In the process of providing me with playthings Steve coincidentally changed the face of computing and how the human race interacts with technology. With the help of both design, sofware and technical innovators he has shifted the emphasis from the programmers to the public and made the power of computers available to all. All this earth re-shaping is, of course, only a side effect of keeping my toy box full to bursting but, hey, no body's perfect. I hope that in whatever form Steve Jobs' constituent parts have been reassembled he's bringing as much joy and hope to his new dimension. I for one miss his presence. And another thing...

What a little ray of sunshine the Olympics were in 2012 - both streams. The poor old Queen tried to brighten up the country with her shiny jubilee but, between the weather and the God-awful BBC commentary the whole shebang was enough to give you a bladder infection. But just when we though all was lost and the doom and gloom merchants were revving up for another bout of whining, lo and behold the sun came out, the athletes arrived and little old UK knocked one into the back of the net in some style. It was all helped by an amazing opening ceremony created by Danny Boyle. I don't know what we expected but I'm sure we were all holding our collective breath after the Bejing extravaganza which was both awesome and unrepeatable. How could it be followed? Well Danny boy certainly brought home the rashers with a show that was avant garde, spectacular with references that were tangential but not so obscure that our bewilderment was permanent. No mean task that and it all went off like clockwork. Most un-British. Also most un-British was the unbridled enthusiasm that the opening ceremony released among the populatioin and from the soggy trail of the Olympic flame round the nooks and crannies of the UK to Boyle's potted history encompassing all that's good about this little nation it all went to swell our enthusiasm to a perfectly timed crescendo. Brilliant.

But you knew it was too good to last. True SPOTY has attempted to breath new life into the fading corpse of our national pride but the unending doleful news of financial shennanigans, bloated bankers, tax-dodging fat cats and so on ad infinitum soon had us back in the doldrums waiting for the next bad thing.

But hey, we had two glorious weeks where we consistently punched above our weight and a further two when the paralympians, not to be outdone by their more able bodied colleagues, again raised our spirits and emotions with their strength and determination. What a year it was.

And so to 2013.

Goodbye Web, Hello Reality

Like giving up smoking, this move has been a while coming. Earlier this year I dumped Facebook then re-activated it in December as Irish relations requested friending. I've slowly come to realise that the web and it's diverse symptoms, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, NetNewsWire, iPhone apps and, yes even this blog, have taken over my spare time with inexorable creeping efficiency. Meanwhile my real life has been taking a back seat as I spend more and more time online reading stuff that enrages and amuses me by turns. While the enraged/amused balance was well in the amused section of the dial all was well but recently I have found more to be enraged at and less to be amused at and, since recent ideas on the physically damaging effects of futile and unfulfilled enragement have intruded in my post-chemotherapy brain, I've realised that something's got to change and change it will. I managed to break a 40-a-day cigarette habit thirty years ago and I see no reason why I can't do this especially since I've discovered this amazing app called Real Life 3.0. This is a multi-platform app running 24/7 and is provided under a free software license. It offers all the functionality of a Wii or an Xbox without the proprietary tie-up. Pretty neat eh? In addition it boasts over-the-air software updates though sadly these seem to reduce the apps efficiency as the hardware ages. Firmware updates take place in the background and the hardware renews itself approximately every seven years. What's more the hardware is also free though only one per individual is allowed. All in all it's an unbeatable system and I'm very excited about it's potential.

So, at midnight tonight I will tweet my last tweet, vacate all social networks and will blog only irregularly if at all. On the plus side I will spare you all the inanities that float to the top of my consciousness, the croutons from the soup of my unquiet mind, the vituperative vomit projected from my seething psyche so that's all good.

This is my second attempt to go cold turkey on the virtual world. I hope it'll be successful and I'll blog about it when it's been progress for six months or so. Oh wait...

Who's Disrespecting Whose Memory

My own views of Gordon Brown and New Labour are far from complimentary but the latest storm of bollocks issuing via the Sun is just too silly to avoid comment. I heard the Sun's editor on Radio 4 saying that it wasn't Sun but the distraught mother who was mud-slinging at GB. Oh puleease! How disingenuous can you get. Rebecca Wade could come up with better justification than that which is probably why she's moved onward and upward. Apart from the obvious comment about the PM taking the time to write personally, Mrs Janes readily admits that she only read the first part of the letter before hurling it from her like a very thin asp. I suspect that this is just the opening salvo of Rupert & James Murdoch's anti-Labour campaign leading up to the next election. I presume they hope that a Conservative government will see the wisdom of taking the flagship BBC and holing it below the waterline so it's less competition for the great competitor Murdoch. Funny how free marketeers are all for the free market until they're getting their arses kicked whereupon they come over all protectionist.

In the end I think that the memory of the poor sod whose life drained away in some god-forsaken desert is not best served by using his death to beat up an incumbent PM. It doesn't bring much glory to anyone. But what do I know?

The Delusion of Action

I was musing the other night, on the verge of sleep, y'know the green bit at the side of the B road of life, well my life anyway, about saving the planet from the idle destruction of the human race. I'm sure you've whiled away time pondering the futility of feeble actions carried out too little, too late and with not much thought. Joined up thinking is not so joined up I'm thinking. Let me give you an example.
Recently we have all been abjured the use of plastic carrier bags from the local hypermarket of your choice lest the planet implode under the combined burden of all that plastic much of it non-biodegradable. Over a similar time frame, local authorities have encouraged dog owners to pick up their pet's newly laid and frequently warm faeces for disposal in...a plastic bag? Now it seems to me that there is a definite lack of joined up thinking here and we have a decision to make on which is more dangerous to the planet, plastic or canine faecal matter. Note only canine faecal matter is to be collected in these little warm parcels not feline, vulpine, equine, bovine or avian all of which can be deposited wherever, whenever and from whatever height the shitter deems appropriate and over what ever area the fancy takes the perpetrator. Apart from the incongruity of controlling the use of placky bags in shops and simultaneously bagging the poohs of our doggy pals there's the aspect of decomposition or lack thereof of the aforementioned crap. How's it supposed to break down into it's component parts and filter back into the ground, there to be converted into further nutrients for the plant life? Or are we saving it for a rainy day when all fertiliser and soil has been converted to dust by our insatiable hunger for cheap food whereupon we can raid the landfill sites for these little semi-permanent bags of rich goodness. I dunno. You tell me.

Rat Rebranding On Course

They said it was a waste of money. They said the reputation had slipped too far down the slope of slime. It would never recover from the Black Death Thing and the living in the sewers thing and the eating anything and everything err..thing. But they were wrong and here's the proof. Cuddly or what. Personally I think this one is slightly fey but hey, it's a PR triumph and Raatchi & Raatchi have done a majestic re-branding job and worth every red cent. Two legged world rulers (current) seem to go all gooey over Pablo here who's had a few extensions, a fluff-up and blow dry, some orthodontics and little Prozac to prevent from biting the bejazus out of the moron who's holding his tail but, all-in-all it's a major coup for Rodentiae.

Look out world the rats are back on the front page. Next stop Vogue.

On the plus side I'm so glad to see that he still retains some of his gutter ways - eating your own dandruff is just so street, man. Way to go!

Mercury Nominations Come and Go Yawn!

Am I the only one not to have noticed the Mercury nominations recently. They came and went with a kind of damp squib effect that, for me at least, sounds the death knell of the ailing music awards and the final hiccup of the old music order. It seems the public in general and the music buying public in particular couldn't care less about the waning music industry's masturbatory propensities. The annual strokefest has become so soporific, self-congratulatory and dull that the only people remotely interested in these festivals of ennui are the industry faces and the over-excitable radio execs with the arrested development who're terrified of missing the 'next big thing'. The rest of us couldn't care less and the whole affair seems to matter only to a very limited audience and the 'next big thing' has already reached a worldwide public through a YouTube stunt video that's captured the imagination of the goldfish generation, the one with the 'short little span of attention' as Mr Simon put it so succinctly all those years ago. Perhaps 2010 will be the year that Big Brother, the Brits, the Mercurys et al. all disappear up their own fundamental orifices leaving just the faint whiff of their former glory behind. Fingers crossed.

The Benefits of a Mercedes Benz

I'm just now, one week on, descending from the euphoric cloud to which I was elevated last Saturday after watching Leonard Cohen and a bunch of musical virtuosi entertain a packed venue at Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands in Surrey. I was the brief owner of a MB, not I hasten to add in my inverse snobbery, one of their oh-so competent cars, but a van-like vehicle more mobile PortaCabin than sex-on-a-stick like their saloon or sports car output. Because of this minor aberration I was offered the opportunity of an early crack at the tickets for this concert and jumped at the chance to see one of the sounds of my early years made manifest.

Now, my introduction to Mr Cohen was from the early CBS samplers, possibly The Rock Machine Turns You On, and consisted of either Suzanne Takes You Down or Bird On A Wire I forget which. I'm at that sort of age. It was, I thought then, music to slit your wrists to. Dirge like, undoubtedly poetic but not my main musical staple diet. Many years later I clocked First We Take Manhattan and Dance Me To The End of Love and woke up to the fact that I had missed out on years of a major musical talent. So when MB made this offer I jumped at it. After all he's not getting any younger and neither am I. There might not be another chance.

So I, my better half and two friends braved the light drizzle and headed for the outdoors and what a night it was. To say we were blown away by his enthusiasm, joie de vivre, charisma and pure unadulterated talent is an understatement. A week later I'm still stoked by the experience and I would recommend it unhesitatingly to anyone even a non-Cohen addict. Apart from Cohen himself, his musicians were brilliant in their own right and the performance was a tight-knit one with some spectacular soloing. Watching this 74-year old skipping on and off stage between encores and the obvious joy and pleasure he showed in the music was one of the most exhilarating experiences I ever had at a gig. Although he was the centre of the show, he was more of a pivot round which his band revolved and he introduced them twice during the performance much to the audience's approval. By the end of the evening the light drizzle had developed to a steady downpour but it couldn't have mattered less and the whole crowd went away more than satisfied, me included.

Opening the show was Susan Vega who was good but seemed two-dimensional compared to the richness of the words and music that followed.