Quite Random

Venomous spouting

Adrianne’s fighting Weenies. Dough’s commenting on the area he lives in, and fighting a rear guard action against his tyrannical employers. Wascally Weasal is getting in to the history of Malta. Mum’s contemplating the prospect of an afterlife. Blogs are wonderfully diverse things. I’m getting tired of ranting about religion however, because as Dough points out, it’s almost a complete waste of time. Arguing with the devoutly religious is like shouting at a brick wall, and I sometimes do feel bad about attacking the religion which is shared by people I know and like – moderate religious friends of mine will agree with me about the lunacy of the neo-conservative Christian right in the US, faith schools, or the wearing of burqas, so in the end, the divide may not be between believers and disbelievers, simply between rational people and fundamentalists. Most of us, at least in this country, do seem to agree on the important things – at least the ones who have bothered to think about it. The people who really deserve a kick up the arse are all the intellectually lazy, conceited Weenies that would sooner die than use their brains, form an opinion, express it and argue it. Apathy will kill us all.

The argument for ranting against ‘dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads’ (as Richards Dawkins has put it in about a million interviews recently) is that their energy for coersion, manipulation, indoctrination, lobbying, fundraising, killing, terrorising and generally fucking up the world in multivarious other ways is almost without limits, and there has to be a balance. That’s why I will carry on, but try and achieve my own balance. Talk about religion maybe, but only if I can find something constructive to offer as an alternative.

As an afterthought, it appears the birds in St James’ Park are turning cannibal, where a Pelican has just swallowed a pigeon. Poor pigeon maybe - but is this a new, rather surreal form of pest control?

Punch Drunk Faust

Friday evening, I went with a few friends to see a site-specific production of Faust in London’s East End by the Punch Drunk Theatre Company. It was unlike anything else I have ever seen. This was a theatre production, but a thousand miles away from a conventional theatre production – an immersive, heady experience where the line between the story and reality became blurred to the point where it was disconcerting and dizzying.

The venue was a large warehouse building on Wapping Lane, spread over four floors, where absolutely everything, from the cavernous rooms, to the dimly lit corridors, to the lift, was part of the stage. Part of the play even happened in a dim stairwell, with the audience leaning over the banisters from above to see what was happening. Before entering the production, everyone was asked to wear white masks – presumably this was to add to the atmosphere, or to allow the actors to distinguish who was who, but walking into a large goods lift with twenty people all wearing the same mask was like stumbling into a Lynch movie or Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut - and the play hadn’t even started yet.

Telling the story of Faust’s deal with the devil in the form of Mephistopheles, the production was styled around 1940’s America – imagine the clothing and mood of Hopper’s Nighthawks. Audience members were dropped on different floors by a chirpy lift attendant, so everyone started in a different place, saw different events, and had to choose their own path through the events happening around them, following actors from room to room, wandering the sets, soaking up the atmosphere, or as I did for a while, just sitting in a picture house that was playing an old Charlton Heston movie, with a pretty usherette flirting and throwing popcorn at the people in the front row.

In a normal play, you sit with the audience, seeing all of the events unfolding in front of you at the same time – the only difference in your experience might be what angle you saw the play from, or whether you were put off by the woman in rustling sweet wrappers or wearing a big hat. In this production, every single person had a completely unique experience, and smelling the bubble gum on the usherette’s breath, taking a drink with the devil, or walking through a pine forest was an assault on the senses and the imagination.

Some of the sets - mazes of high shelves, candle-lit statuettes of the Virgin Mary that huddled in the darkness of a long corridor, or the laboratory of an elderly Faust, were enough to send me looking for the nearest exit, to escape to fresh air and reality from the sinister feel of the place. The finale of the production, where Faust disappears into darkness, and Mephistopheles swings from the ceiling and into the rafters like some kind of primeval creature, was captivating.

Even the bar maintained the illusion after the show. The bar maids spoke with warm, soft Southern drawls, and a band played jazz and blues while a hostess wandered the room with a lit cigarette and a twinkle in her eye. The sensation of being there was addictive, mesmerising and more than a little otherwordly.

The best way to get stuff done

Housework not happening? Paperwork overwhelming you? Lots of those awkward jobs you’ve been putting off for ages?

Hi, I’m Barry Scott! No. That’s not it.

The solution is simple. Start a correspondence course. Since I’ve started my course my kitchen floor has been mopped, all of my washing up done, surfaces wiped, bath scrubbed, sink plughole unblocked, old receipts shredded, light bulb replaced, shoes tidied, all episodes of the Sopranos caught up with, tea drunk, mug washed, correspondence caught up with, bank account opened, cushions rearranged, course materials prepared, lamp put in just the right place, pens arranged, notepad opened, course book opened, hole punch emptied, floor swept because I missed the bin and the hole punch holes went everywhere, another cup of tea made, mug washed.

I’m starting to wander if doing this course will be like when Arthur Dent learnt to fly - the trick, he discovered, was to throw yourself at the ground… and miss. That may not make any sense, but I (think I) mean I’m wandering if the best way for me to get studying done is to take myself by surprise. Because as soon as I think about it, everything else I need to do pops in to my head.

Advice to self when studying, based on advice programmes and online discussion:

• Make a plan, set time slots to work in
• Have a space specifically designed for study - make sure it is well-lit and warm
• Talk to your tutor if in trouble or strife
• Break projects up into manageable pieces
• Read your assessment before starting, so you know what information you need to gather

Extra advice to self, based on sheer common sense

• Don’t have a drink and watch Monk first, ‘just to take a short break before I start’
• Remove all distractions (Internet, TV and most music, classical’s OK)
• Do the washing up, it will only sit there looking reproachfully at you
• If you catch yourself reading a cereal packet because you’re still trying to procrastinate, give yourself a slap.

A year ago this week…

Meh… what would I want with a view like this when I have Brixton Tube in the mornings?

Angry Welshman

I had a very surreal conversation last night, one which had me chuckling to myself for a short while afterwards. My mobile rang, and what sounded like a 17–year-old Welsh kid comes on the line:

• “Right you, I got your number off a mate of yours right, you’ve been seen around town with my girlfriend, what have you got to say for yourself?”
• “…. errr” I said.
• “Cos I’m telling you, if I catch you with her again, there’ll be big trouble see?”
• “what’s this mate of mine’s name?”
• “I’m not telling you shit!”
• “Well if you don’t tell me how am I supposed to know what I’ve been doing?”
• “You know perfectly well what you’ve been f***ing doing”
• “I think you’ve got the wrong number mate, I don’t know your girlfriend”
• “Yes you do, don’t you lie to me, you stay the [pauses for dramatic effect] F**K away from her, do you understand me?”
• “What’s her name then?”
• “I know where you live”
• “Where?”
• “I’m telling you I’ll…”
• “No hang on mate, stay on the line, who’s your girlfriend?” I was saying as the irate Welshman hung up.

It looks like I’m in big trouble if I head over Monmouth way.

Take the veil

Aishah Azmi’s insistence upon wearing the veil in front of male colleagues would be regarded as the behaviour of a mentally unstable person, if it were not for the fact that she is Muslim. The behaviour of a great many religious people is somehow excused on the grounds of their religiosity, and we might say that is beside the point, but there is only so much crap you can put up with. Most religions are evil, hypocritical, pernicious, unjust and irrational – why not tackle them head on?

The absurdity of wearing the veil is obvious, and moderate Muslims should be the first to agree with that – it is about subjugating women. The holy trinity of Judaism and its offshoots Christianity and Islam have all been hijacked by men, the scriptures being twisted and misinterpreted with one objective – to screw women over and keep them down. The Qur’an teaches that women should lower their gaze, it is true – in the same breath as it tells men to do exactly the same thing. That obviously didn’t get through to the Muslim men who walk in front of their Burqa-adorned women, wearing jeans and shirts, not a veil in sight. The hypocrisy is sickening.

The Qur’an passage that is causing all the stink is this one:

Qur’an 24:30-31
Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty:
That will make for greater purity for them:
And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.
And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty;
That they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof;
That they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty
Except to their husbands their fathers their husbands’ fathers
Their sons their husbands’ sons
Their brothers or their brothers’ sons or
Their sisters’ sons or their women or
The slaves whom their right hands possess or
Male servants free of physical needs or
Small children who have no sense of the shame of sex;
And that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments.
And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah that ye may attain Bliss.

So the passage above says that men should lower their gaze and guard their modesty, and then goes a bit further to say that women should, basically, cover up their bosoms. There’s no mention of covering their faces, but scripture is all about interpretation isn’t it?

The Taliban continue to fight coalition forces in Afghanistan, and would happily come back, reinstate Sharia law, and bury adulterous men and women up to their waists before stoning them to death. And these stupid women still want to wear the veil? Do they support death by stoning, or another Muslim punishment, twenty-five lashes of the whip and a year’s solitary confinement?

So, it’s back to the mental instability question, because if you wear the veil, you surely have to believe in stoning and lashes – and who in their right mind would?

Slap

I have no idea where all my time is going at the moment. I seem to be losing all grip on the basics of organisation, household cleaning, cooking food that isn’t pasta, and concentrating on anything, but now is the time to give myself a sharp slap and get it together, as my course has started. Now I have paperwork coming out of my ears, an assessment due in some time now, research to do, a scientific calculator to find, and telly to ignore. And here I am blogging, and something possessed me to set up another new website to act as an online study diary. Tsk.

[Rips self away from computer]