Asking questions
I phoned person A to ask about something on the instructions of person B. Person A apparently took offence at my having the gall to call her directly – she is a PA to person D, who is very important. I think I interrupted person A in the middle of doing her nails, or maybe I didn’t snivel and crawl enough. Anyway. Person A phoned person C to complain – person C is person B’s manager. Person C pulled in person B while I was out of the office. What was I doing phoning person A? If you need to communicate with person A you bloody well start at person Z and work your way up through the chain – more fool you if you think you can save time just calling person A. Just a phone call, and all this fuss.
No, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Just ‘The Doctor’…
How much sleep do you need for everything not to appear a bit surreal the next day? I got about five hours last night, what with a late finish last night, an early start today, and a senile cat yowling for no particular reason in between. I know it’s possible to survive on a lot less sleep, but I feel a bit as if my head is wrapped in bubble wrap, and I kept staring at people on the Tube just now and considered standing up and singing “Let’s Face The Music and Dance” just to see what reaction I’d get. I didn’t.
I’m going to write a Doctor Who script. I’ve been studying the episodes I have seen so far and have highlighted the essential components of a Doctor Who episode:
- Running. Lots of running about the place.
- Upon leaving the Tardis, the Doctor should say “Ahhhhh! 24th-century Jantrabantian 4!” / wherever else, as if he’s spent at least three holidays there and knows all of the local restaurateurs.
- David Tennant must grimace. A lot.
- The supporting actors should prompt the question “Wasn’t he / she in Eastenders / Casualty / Holby City?”
- There should be several completely inexplicable things that don’t get explained, but when the Doctor gets something, he should shout “Ah! Yes! Of course!” and still not actually explain it.
Call me Nathan T Davies.
To digress, I have also had an idea about fusing two of the more popular entertainment formats currently on TV to produce a new genre of entertainment. A timelord with a Tardis arrives in various locations and times and examines people’s stools to establish their nutrition intake, before suggesting ways to eat sensibly and lose weight. He is called Doctor Poo.
There may be trouble ahead…
Nasty little scumbag
Alas, all natural highs must wear off and a rapid comedown was precipitated by the news that a west London “space” is exhibiting 14 paintings by Pete Doherty, the Bejam Byron. What makes the Bankrobber Gallery’s show deserving of the attentions of heavy artillery is the fact that the works, if we can be hysterically flattering to them for a minute, are largely drawn in Pete’s blood.
Would you pay 45k for one of Pete’s bloody paintings? from Guardian Unlimited: Lost in Showbiz.
Why is it that I nurse such a pet antipathy towards Pete Doherty? I’m not the only one.
Am I jealous of his lifestyle?
Well, no. Being a rock star might be an attractive proposition to some, but his particular brand of rock stardom centers around the production of mediocre music, and the consumption of class A drugs through every orifice and every vein.
Am I jealous of his looks?
For crying out loud, look at him.
Am I jealous of his relationship with Kate Moss?
Well, ‘they’ say she is one of the greatest supermodels ever, blessed with amazing bone structure and the ability to make any outfit look good. I say that I saw ten girls on the way in the work this morning that were more attractive than Kate, and if she has been anywhere near Pete, chances are she’s caught something nasty.
So why do I hate the jumped-up, drug-addled, scruffy, dirty looking, overrated little twat so?
Enjoy the silence
London is all about chatter, it never seems to stop. Sat in the back yard at a friend’s house last weekend at three in the morning, birds were singing. It was beautiful, but not for my benefit. They have to do it at three in the morning because they can’t make themselves heard over us the rest of the time.
Sitting in my back garden, I can hear the trains grinding round the curve from Streatham Common to Streatham, hear the low hum of drum and bass from cars cruising down the next street, hear sirens wailing down the High Road, hear planes overhead leaving and entering Heathrow and Gatwick, hear my housemate’s mobile making a noise like a TV game show buzzer when she gets a text message, and in amongst that, once in a while, a fox (Foxy may not be gone after all). All those noises and yet, for London, it’s beautifully quiet.
People don’t seem to know how to handle silence. We feel obliged to fill it by talking, turning on the TV, playing music, creating artificial noise that leaves the birds confused and us no better off. This is how you know you’re in the company of a true friend or loved one – they appreciate that it’s OK for two people to sit there in silence.
I recorded these fishermen in India in 2005, singing as they pulled their nets in to shore - you don’t get that in Streatham.
Whatever next?
Madeleine is still missing. Parliament is being lobbied, MPs are wearing yellow ribbons. A fund has launched. Prayers are being said, and David Beckham has appealed for her safe return. Up next, NATO will be scrambled, the FBI will storm Portugal, Bruce Willis will Tarzan on a burning hosepipe through the hotels of the Algarve, and Bring Maddy Home will be emblazened upon the side of the moon in burning letters ten kilometers high.
Didn’t they just used to print missing kid’s photos on the side of milk cartons?
Meaty sweeties
Mars starts using animal products
Mars, Twix, Snickers, Maltesers, Bounty, Minstrels and Milky Way now contain rennet, a substance which is extracted from the stomach lining of calves, after they have been deep frozen, ground up, and treated with acid. It’s a by-product of veal production.
Lots of jelly sweets, trifles and, duh, jelly, contain gelatin. Gelatin is produced using pork skins, pork and cattle bones, or split cattle hides.
Children eat sweets, vegetarians eat sweets, we all eat them, but isn’t it weird that you can’t taste the meatiness?
Chicken drummers and turkey twizzlers bear little or no physical resemblance to the animals they came from. Sirloin steaks, bacon, sausages and burgers are all three steps removed from the animals they came from by processing and packaging.
I’d like to introduce a new rule, to help people make a better informed decision about what they eat. I’d like to make it obligatory to show people the entire production process for meat and meat by-products, including how the animals are raised, slaughtered, processed and prepared. I’d like to make it impossible for someone to buy packaged meat, a meat sandwich, even a Mars Bar, without having a full understanding of what went into it.
I eat meat, and I’m not saying anyone should stop, but maybe if people ate less, shopped more conscientiously, just gave a flying fuck where their food came from, less meat might need to be produced. It’s not just about cute calves. The meat production industry is the single biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions on Earth.
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About this blog
Quite Random is the blog of Nathan Nelson, a human male who lives in the UK and is not entirely sure what he's going to do when he grows up but is interested in international development, photography, secularism, technology, music and movies and other things anyone of his age would be.
