Kill a winner

Well I finally finished work on my latest movie! It’s a period piece which is a real departure for me this time after all those action thrillers and confusing low-budget flicks with hidden religious meanings for unbalanced sci-fi writers. It’s called Jane Austin Roller-Girl and it tells of the teenage roller-skating adventures of the future writer of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. Owing to the manners and morals of society at that time, ‘accidently’ bumping into each other whilst roller-skating was one of the only ways of engineering close contact with opposite sex but of course that leaves the door open to actual real accidents and the crazy consequences that ensue. It’s like Shakespeare in Love but better.

So when I’m not doing that I’m also posting pictures of Jane out of 90s toon Daria, trying on Daria’s glasses. Why am I doing that? Well, pretty much as a weak way to introduce a light-hearted anecdote about being short-sighted. It’s better than that depressing Syria guff from the last 2 monthly instalments, surely? Meh! No pleasing some people.

You may have noticed that like me, Gandhi, Lennon, Koosalagoopagoop and Himmler; Daria has perfectly round glasses which are actually quite hard to get hold of these days. Pretty much all spectacles from your high-street opticians are thin and rectangular or what I call ‘advertising account executive glasses’. Ascetically they’re not for me but what with not looking like or actually being a human being that doesn’t really matter.  On a practical level, though, you can’t help but see the edges which I find highly annoying. I know, I know I’m like a grumpy old man.  I honestly thought the popularity of Harry Potter or Jon Ronson would turn the tide in my favour but no. We are solidly stuck in the age of the advertising account executive. Says it all really. Huh?

I cried when I found out I’d have to wear glasses. I knew what it meant. I didn’t want to be one of those kids. As it turned out, as soon as I got the things and realised that life wasn’t an impressionist painting, I happily turned into one of those kids and even today haven’t got over the thrill of picking out details in the middle-distance like the numbers painted on sheep or a couple of Wood Pigeons at it.

It tells you how shit-thick or highly skilled at avoiding the unpalatable obvious I am by how long I went not being able to see stuff properly. My favourite example was at junior school assemblies when we’d have to sing Christian songs with the words projected on a white-screen at the front of the hall. As I got older and had to sit further back I had real trouble reading these words and would learn them by listening to what everyone else seemed to be singing without ever facing the fact that they could all see them perfectly well. There was one song that started with the line: "Oh- Sinner-Man! Where will you run to?” Now I didn’t really know about sin and had never heard of a sinner-man so I was hearing: “Horse-in-a-man! Where will you run to?” as it sort-of made sense that if a man had a horse in him, he might want to run around, like a horse does.  However, to my mind the important question was ‘how did it get there?’ rather than ‘where will you run to?’ But I was aware that religion was a mysterious thing, full of things that didn’t make sense superficially (what one would now call metaphor and imagery)  and that this horse-man deal would probably make sense by the time I grew up. Of course I didn’t realise then that it is possible for a horse to be ‘in’ a man, as long as it’s a man horse rather than a lady horse. Oh sinner- man indeed!

So…er…If you did read it, perhaps you’re feeling a little short-changed from having just read what was essentially a ‘Gary-Davies bit-in-the-middle’- style twisted lyric. Well fuck you I’ve got loads of such material and I’m gonna fill you shitty internet up with it like foam fills a cavity or an American fills a quiet space. This one which was a going to be the introduction to a blog post years ago but got mothballed: Use it or lose it!

Back once again with the renegade master! Er…I’m afraid I don’t know any more lyrics to that song, if indeed it is a song. I could look it up on this here internet probably but you don’t always want to do that as it bursts your happy illusions like it did here (example). No it’s much better to believe that Londonbeat are singing ‘I’ve been thinking about you – Chihuahua! Or maybe they’re going on about the place in Mexico wot the dog is named after. It doesn’t really matter. We prefer Papillon’s here anyway. That constant shaking thing is weird.

Bah! Rubbish! Hey at least you dodged the bullet of what this month’s post was going to be. It was an attempt to defend the concept of the state from Libertarians, or more specifically in this case from libertarian Brendan O’Neil on the Jeremy Vine show. Whilst a strong argument, it wasn’t all that fun to compose, didn’t totally convince even me and it really just ran into the brick-wall of nobody giving a flying fuck what Brendan O’Neil thinks.  Or me, obviously. Why should they? I did broaden it out a bit to defend politicians and while it was a poorly composed half-an-argument I did like the punchline so I’ll inflict a bit on you: 

Who are the people above reproach? There are in our civilisation groups of people whose achievements mark them out as people whose merit is uncontested by all. Put them in the position of making decisions over what may or may not be done by and in a nation state and who pays for what and who should be paid for it and there you are; you got yourself a politician right there. Now obviously they don’t help themselves by being almost childishly partisan and being mostly very odd or annoyingly over-sincere people or too willing to take the opportunities for crafty self-betterment that are invariably placed under their noses or too keen to implement ill-thought out and expensive gimmicky policies  and too prone to pandering to herd-instinct news industry agenda. Yes yes. They are very annoying. That’s why Vine likes hanging around with them. It makes him feel likeable and normal. 

Poor Jeremy Vine! I wonder how many times he’s heard the phrase: “As I was saying to your researcher, Jeremy”. Usually from a lorry-driver. God, that would drive me nuts. I’m going to stop now. Not before I’ve imparted more vital information. The title was a piece of graffiti next to track on a railway bridge in a major Yorkshire town in the late 80s or early 90s but is similar to the title of this song 'ere. It has nothing to do with Michael Winner as he’s already dead in his grave. I wasn’t the first person to first person to come up with Jane Austin Roller-Girl neither, it must have been this lady who might now sue me for her bit of all the money my movie will make. Oh and I never mentioned Bee Gees as Hyenas. Dammit. Look it up on Google images. Hey long post. Sorry about the font problems.