" 'let me ask you a question,' she said. 'is there any other country in the entire world you can think of that would possibly have the downright fucking brazen insanity to give its name the prefix of great? well?'
'well...' he said ...
... 'let me help you then,' laura went on. 'not even the most mad, arrogant, syphilis-crazed dictator of what you would call a third world banana republic would do that. and,' she went on, 'if a country really was winning - if it called itself that and it really was - in the terms you respect - great, it would be ludicrous. it would be fucking pathetic. great america. how does that sound to you jeremy?' "

- from 'who's who in hell' by robert chalmers

cyril the squirrel has moths. somehow the little buggers have gotten inside his glass fronted display box and are, as we speak, frolicking and feeding amongst his already ratty fur. i ask you, shouldn't your problems be pretty much over once you're taxidermy? hasn't cyril suffered enough?

went to see a three hour ten minute production of julius caeser at the barbican, starring ralph 'call me rafe' fiennes. in a somewhat unfocussed and pleased with itself modern dress production, mr. fiennes' marc anthony had something of the rigsby about it (foreigners note - www.leonardrossiter.com/risingdamp), seemingly constantly on the verge of a hearty "yeees yeees miss jones, miss jones". the battle scenes had been redressed as a repulsively opportunistic representation of the war in iraq, despite the fact that events in the play really hold no similarity what-so-ever. there was some good acting (a little), some bad acting (a fair amount) and not a little that reminded me of 'carry on cleo'; not to mention the assassination of caeser being somewhat clumsily dealt with. hostess elisabeth's review: "i thought brutus would have been taller" -she later mentioned that when picturing brutus, she may have been thinking more of the character from popeye... um...

had what has to rank as one of, if not the worst meal i've ever had at the barbican bistro before the performance. don't go there. we both ordered steak in pepper sauce (because really, how can you fuck up a steak?) both medium rare. first they turn up both well done, practically cremated, so we send them back. the waiter apologises in a way which conveys little feeling and seems to hide a subtext along the lines of 'how dare you expect to actually receive what you ordered?'. when they return they are pink inside and yet strangely grey inside at the same time, a colour that could be called 'rey', or 'gred'; a shade i've never experienced before, particularly not in nature. the steak is tasteless, the potatoes are reheated and the pepper sauce manages to be cloyingly sweet, despite the obvious presence of peppercorns throughout. vile pretty much sums it up. i repeat, don't go there.

"you've got two hopes: bob hope and no hope." - discuss.

fainting goats anyone?
http://poststuff.entensity.net/050905/media.php?media=goats.wmv

had a very strange dream: it was about the three large grey cushions we have in the living room (strange enough already? gay enough already?), each of which, in my dream, contained inside it a small plastic animal, elephant, tiger etc. that you could feel through the material, or remove by opening up the cushion cover. and that was it. banal i know, but what the fuck is that all about?

hostess elisabeth has bought a new and lavishly priced handbag to go with her ever growing collection of the things; somewhat reticent to tell anyone the actual ticket price due to consumer guilt. don't ask me to explain the female interest in all things bag, it's all greek to me; external surrogate wombs? anyhoo, this new bag came in it's own bag, a 'bag bag' if you will, along with, wait for it... it's own moisteriser... no, no, really. 'bag moisteriser': a earwax-like substance which the proud owner is supposed to anoint their handbag with, a balm, a lotion, an unguent... which also came in it's own bag. is anyone else thinking about russian dolls?

david lynch's daily weather report:
www.davidlynch.com/dailyreport/index.html

an email from the venerable gude:
" "music purists might not be too happy at the prospect of the crazy frog outselling coldplay"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4576119.stm
i would hazard a guess and say that music purists, whatever they might be, probably arent too happy about coldplay being number 1 either..."
standards appear to be not so much slipping, as in fucking free fall. is this how the end of the world begins?

hostess elisabeth flatly refuses to admit that the british isles resembles, in any way, a witch riding a pig, or that she'd ever heard the comparison made. anyone? anyone?

a new electric toothbrush to replace the tired and terminally depleted one, that by then was keeping its charge for roughly about 48 hours. piece of shit. but of course i couldn't merely change the rechargable battery, o no, why make electrical goods user friendly? why make things easier? technology has us by the gonads, it knows we can never go back... not too long ago i was forced, again, to use an old style 'manual' toothbrush because my electric one had failed on me. now i should point out that the electric toothbrush had a timer function on it, by which, after two minutes of brushing, it would stop and start three times before continuing on, thus letting you know that you could probably stop brushing at that point, you'd done your dental duty. anyway, i was using the manual toothbrush, brushing away, making sure not to miss the back teeth, studiously trying to cover every angle when it occurred to me that i'd been brushing for ages, maybe as long as five minutes, repeating the same cleaning pattern again and again; it then struck me why i'd been doing this, i'd been waiting for the timer function to tell me to stop. on a manual. so it's come to this: slave to a toothbrush.

why is it i only ever seemed to be asked to wear a suit on the hottest days of the year? i'm beginning to think that 'they' plan it that way, leaving me floundering around, sweating like the proverbial rapist... pah.

so now my dad's retired he has, apparently, taken up baking, turning out hoards of fruit cakes (his favourite) and drawing many a bewildered look in the process. back when i still lived at home, his argument had always been that my mother didn't make fruit cake often enough, claiming that her reasoning was that i did like it (good on you mum); now it would appear he's attempting to redress that situation by starting some kind of fruit cake mountain (able to be seen from space no later than 2007). from electrician to delia smith in one easy move.

sausage sculpture. no, not some smutty euphemism:
www.nipponham.co.jp/winny/kazari/index.html

the venerable gude instigates a trip out to see whitehouse support aphex twin, mark stewart and some other electronic types. it seems that the venerable gude has never seen whitehouse live which seems to all of us a most odd, if not a vaguely retarded state of affairs. so we go. the seone club is a lovely venue and we're lucky enough to nab a couch before if fills up (how old are we?). that whitehouse are still sound checking as we take a seat isn't overly encouraging for the overall piss-up brewery-ness of the evening but with an extortionate round of drinks in our hands courtesy of the evening's instigator we settle in for an enjoyable, if long, night. a précis of the initial acts:
carl michael hausswolf - rather nice noodling
yasunao tone / hecker - rather repetitive noise electronica. bit dull
mark stewart & the maffia - bewilderingly enduring drum machine funk nonsense
at which point we're expecting aphex twin... which just never seems to happen. it would appear as if all he did was dj (badly) with little or no interest to be had from the mixing or choice of sounds. what a disappointment. and then to cap it all (after the venerable gude bails out, claiming that he's too old and needs to eat something) whitehouse come on, start their set and then follow gude's example by fucking off after one and a half songs. i mean, yes there were calls of "bollocks" and bottles were thrown, then a can (empty looking) hit bennet in the face but come on boys, if you can't take a bit or argy bargy what's the point of being whitehouse? highlight of the evening though was, without doubt, watching a young couple arguing nearby. we couldn't hear what they were saying but he keeps trying to walk away and she keeps stopping him, appearing to be near to tears. this has been going on for some time when, and i don't know what he must have said to her, but she just starts slapping him, really hard across the face, again and again and again. in fact i estimate that she hit him roughly fifteen times before a bouncer pulled her off. the slapee meanwhile just stood there and took it, even bending down slightly and offering his cheek for further attack. that's entertainment.

we called it 'fluffy bunnies' in my day: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3208569

hostess elisabeth and myself trekked out to deepest essex for an old friend's wedding; and i do mean deepest: tiny country roads and the muted hum of inbred essex boys and girls having underage sex, sniffing glue and wearing cheap and ugly denim clothing seemingly radiating from behind every tree... and i do mean old friend -in that i've known him, that is robin, for something obscene like 25 years or more (and not that he's an o.a.p.). the wedding took place at leez priory -
( www.brideshead.co.uk/leez_main.html )
which is a really rather lovely and secluded venue, its attractive history and well manicured grounds all but drowning out the retarded six-toe murmurs from the surrounding countryside. it was good to see robin again after a dog's age and interesting to see a number of other faces from the past, hair slightly receded, stomachs ballooned, eyes with significantly less sparkle (haven't we all?); such is the cruelty of the aging process. what was strange was how some people mis-remember the past, some of these people from my past having exaggerated in their mind how close we were. i mean, i spent my early childhood almost exclusively with robin but with the passing of time others seem to have written themselves into the story, bolstering their role in the proceedings and milking it for all it's worth; as if it was really worth anything. the leading exponent of this reinvention first pretended that he didn't recognise me (by way of a drunken joke) and then went on to take turns both cursing his lot of a wife and child and then cursing mine because of its lack of the same. perhaps he/they were just struggling to be polite in a 'i never really liked you anyway' way but it did strike me as bizarre.

recommended: (audio) '05/10/995' -live cd- by pan sonic/ (comestible) pink lamb chops with pine nuts and rocket butter / (visual) the great drive home from the wedding, along tiny lanes in the pitch country dark / (sensorial) a new electric toothbrush

reviled: (audio) crazy fucking frog / (comestible) steak at the barbican bistro / (visual) our gates -still unfixed / (sensorial) hot suit

and finally, matrix anyone?:

"new fuel cell opens way for artificial hearts

may 13 2005 at 09:10am

tokyo - a japanese research team has developed a fuel cell that runs on blood without using toxic substances, opening the way for use in artificial hearts and other organs.

the biological fuel cell uses glucose, a sugar in blood, with a non-toxic substance used to draw electrons from glucose, said the team led by matsuhiko nishizawa, bio-engineering professor at the graduate school of state-run tohoku university.

"since the electron mediator is based on vitamin k3, which exists in human bodies, it excels in safety and could in the future generate power from blood as an implant-type fuel cell," the group said in a statement.

most other bio-fuel cells under study use a metal complex, spawning concern about harm if used for implants.

the newly developed cell in the size of a tiny coin is able to generate 0,2 milliwatts of electricity, enough to power a device that measures blood sugar level and transmits data elsewhere, the group said. - sapa-afp"

-iol.co.za