Journal Entries
Links Bonanza - a Piece of Pointless Trivia
Posted Jan 24, 2001
I'm about halfway through my article 'Cheapass Games and Button Men' (and it's even odds whether I'll ever finish it off) but it probably already has more links in it than any other article I've written.
The Prophet
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Latest reply: Jan 24, 2001
Links Bonanza - a Piece of Pointless Trivia
Posted Jan 24, 2001
I'm probably about halfway through my article 'Cheapass Games and Button Men', but it probably already has more links in it than any other article I've written.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jan 24, 2001
Happy New Yeargh!
Posted Jan 8, 2001
So, another year slides into the mists of history, and we bid a fond hello to another landmark year in the calendar of failed science fiction predictions. No monoliths have been found on the moon, and no spaceships have been sent to Jupiter, and while Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future's time (c.1991) has been and gone with nary a stir, 2001 will occupy a similar place in such matters as 1984.
But that's mere nitpicking. On with the self-indulgent rambling.
Perhaps more importantly this whacky race that we call human has - once more - managed not to annihilate itself or contaminate the biosphere to a completely terminal level, although we can probably say "adios; we hardly knew ye" to a few species of plants, insects and shrews. I look forward with relentless optimism to an even better performance this year.
I also dare to hope for a better year for music, but it is a vain and desperate hope. I fear that the pop charts will once more be dominated by talentless yahoos of both sexes, prancing prettily though elaborate dance routines designed to detract from the stultifying mundanity of their musical 'stylings'. I fear that we will be swamped by another glut of T&A violinists, and pseudo-classical rubbish in the vein of 'Messiah 2000'. I fear that people wil start claiming that Westlife - or some other boy-band - will start being described as the new Beatles (again), despite the fact that they don't play their own instruments and have no talent. I fear that yet more teen sensations, manufactured by the dozen in the bowels of the music industry, untried by the gruelling apprenticship of the club circuits, will assail our ears with their droning. banal hymns to incompetence and barely-pubescent angst.
I dare to hope that the stunning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon might take best picture at the Academy Awards, despite being in Mandarin.
I dare to dream.
The Prophet
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Latest reply: Jan 8, 2001
So here it is...
Posted Dec 18, 2000
Ah, Christmas. It's a funny old game.
These days, I find there's a part of me that's all old and cynical and wants to forget the whole thing. That's the part that feels a sinking feeling at the sight of Christmas lights, that has learned to dread the ear-shattering, distorted wail of the stereo system on the local Rotary Club Santa float that comes round each year to scrounge for money for whatever Rotarians do with the money they collect. It probably goes to a good cause, but this part of me doesn't really care about that.
This is the part I tend to outwardly foster at this time of year. The Ebenezer Scrooge side of me, if rather less extreme. I've yet to describe Christmas as a humbug, even if I may think it sometimes.
Then there's the other side. The mildly embarrassing, deeply uncool side that wants to sing Christmas Carols and dance to - God help me - Slade and Wizzard tracks of yesteryear. The sentimental, feelgood side.
My point being, that even this second side of me, the one that buys into the whole Christmas thing, can't _stand_ modern Christmas music, and feels a cold and destructive fury at the thought of those appalling lights they strung out in London last year: Plain orange (a horrible colour), spelling out 'tis the season to be Tango'd.
Ye Gods, but if that isn't a damning endictment of the capitalist subversion of the much-vaunted 'Christmas Spirit', I don't know what is.
Perhaps the really worrying thing is that I'm getting nostalgic for a kind of glam-rock Christmas that dates practically to the time of my birth, rather than my childhood. Has Christmas really gone downhill ever since I was born? Or was it always appallingly commercial and I just wasn't around to notice?
So my Christmas wishes for this year?
Well I wish they'd let the shops do their own lights again in London this year - I know the smaller shops think it's unfair, but between that and 'It's only Christmas if you drink at least a gallon of Coke', I'm prepared to put my democratic sensibilities on hold. Some of those shop displays used to be beautiful, and this in a Britain where Christmas light displays are increasingly heavyweight and vulgar.
I wish the Christmas number one could be something cheerful, celebratory and up tempo, without being the Tellytubbies, or the Tweenies, or Bob the Builder or Dave the Dope-Peddler or - God love 'em, because surely no-one else does - the bleeding Pokemon. Something in the vein of Slade, or Wizzard, but maybe a little less glam. Or maybe not. It won't be; it'll be Westlife or S Club 7 or Bob the Builder or something like that, because people of taste and sophistication don't buy singles anymore, especially not at Christmas, but I can wish.
I think peace on earth and goodwill to all men is probably a bit of a long shot, but I'd like to pitch for a more feelgood midwinter festival. A modern - or even post-modern - interpretation, fostering a spirit of unity, in place of the monotheistic totalitarianism of Christianity, the well-meaning but inaccesible - and frankly fabricated - world of neo-pagan solstice rights, and most especially in place of the rank commercialism which gives us a Christmas sponsored and co-opted by soft drinks.
In the absence of something better: Happy Agnostica! (
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Dec 18, 2000
So here it is...
Posted Dec 18, 2000
Ah, Christmas. It's a funny old game.
These days, I find there's a part of me that's all old and cynical and wants to forget the whole thing. That's the part that feels a sinking feeling at the sight of Christmas lights, that has learned to dread the ear-shattering, distorted wail of the stereo system on the local Rotary Club Santa float that comes round each year to scrounge for money for whatever Rotarians do with the money they collect. It probably goes to a good cause, but this part of me doesn't really care about that.
This is the part I tend to outwardly foster at this time of year. The Ebenezer Scrooge side of me, if rather less extreme. I've yet to describe Christmas as a humbug, even if I may think it sometimes.
Then there's the other side. The mildly embarrassing, deeply uncool side that wants to sing Christmas Carols and dance to - God help me - Slade and Wizzard tracks of yesteryear. The sentimental, feelgood side.
My point being, that even this second side of me, the one that buys into the whole Christmas thing, can't _stand_ modern Christmas music, and feels a cold and destructive fury at the thought of those appalling lights they strung out in London last year: Plain orange (a horrible colour), spelling out 'tis the season to be Tango'd.
Ye Gods, but if that isn't a damning endictment of the capitalist subversion of the much-vaunted 'Christmas Spirit', I don't know what is.
Perhaps the really worrying thing is that I'm getting nostalgic for a kind of glam-rock Christmas that dates practically to the time of my birth, rather than my childhood. Has Christmas really gone downhill ever since I was born? Or was it always appallingly commercial and I just wasn't around to notice?
So my Christmas wishes for this year?
Well I wish they'd let the shops do their own lights again in London this year - I know the smaller shops think it's unfair, but between that and 'It's only Christmas if you drink at least a gallon of Coke', I'm prepared to put my democratic sensibilities on hold. Some of those shop displays used to be beautiful, and this in a Britain where Christmas light displays are increasingly heavyweight and vulgar.
I wish the Christmas number one could be something cheerful, celebratory and up tempo, without being the Tellytubbies, or the Tweenies, or Bob the Builder or Dave the Dope-Peddler or - God love 'em, because surely no-one else does - the bleeding Pokemon. Something in the vein of Slade, or Wizzard, but maybe a little less glam. Or maybe not. It won't be; it'll be Westlife or S Club 7 or Bob the Builder or something like that, because people of taste and sophistication don't buy singles anymore, especially not at Christmas, but I can wish.
I think peace on earth and goodwill to all men is probably a bit of a long shot, but I'd like to pitch for a more feelgood midwinter festival. A modern - or even post-modern - interpretation, fostering a spirit of unity, in place of the monotheistic totalitarianism of Christianity, the well-meaning but inaccesible - and frankly fabricated - world of neo-pagan solstice rights, and most especially in place of the rank commercialism which gives us a Christmas sponsored and co-opted by soft drinks.
In the absence of something better: Happy Agnostica! (
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Dec 18, 2000
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