As you will have immediately noticed, I've abandoned the dated blog format I stuck by for ages in favour of this new slick appearance. I actually like it a lot, partly because the various colours in my old look have been replaced by just grey, which is considerably more appropriate for this blog, given the title. The font for the title is cool I think, and the background, while not of my own doing, is interesting to look at. More so than the text actually. I may not be done with it yet, as I'm keen to experiment with things a little, but this is the general idea of what I want my blog to look like hereafter. The sad thing is that neither you nor I will ever see the old format again. I kept it well after it was dumped by Blogger, so there's no going back now. Still, the new look's better and I've caught up with everyone else like I should have done ages ago. Unlike with my mobile phone, which doesn't do apps and other shite, therefore it sucks according to most people.
It's good to change the look of something after a while. It renews interest in the thing in question. Personal appearances are one such thing that often benefit from an overhaul. Take me for instance. I grew my hair out for about twenty months and then kept it long like that for a further four. I grew really attached to it, but it wasn't long before I started to view it as territory rather than a good hairstyle. The bad hair days outnumbered the good ones, and the hair spent more and more time tucked behind my ears so I could see. Eventually I decided to cut it off because it had grown old for me. It wasn't reflecting my personality anymore, so it had to go. It turned out that too much of it went in the end, but my hair quickly recovered. Thus began another short haired period, and people responded to the new look positively. I also got a few new clothes around this time and redefined my self image a little. These days, I'm risking treading old ground again with my mediumish, mullety compromise of a hairstyle which may be gone quite soon if it doesn't improve.
I enjoy reminiscing about all the daft things I used to wear when I was younger, each one being an attempt redefine myself. At one point I was into German army shirts. It was not actually a bad look, but I can't see myself wearing them now. They helped give off a slightly alternative, rock and roll vibe to an otherwise slouchy, spotty and terribly awkward 15 year old. Then there was the time I tried to be a goth. Remember that anyone? No, you wouldn't because the look never even got passed the mirror before I realised how stupid I looked. When I was 13 I had a fondness for a baseball hat I owned, and I was rarely without it for a long while. It looked funny due to my hair creeping out from underneath it in a unflattering way. When the hat and the hair went, I tried experimenting with gel for a bit, but it didn't work especially well, like pretty much most things I've described thus far. Finally, special mention has to go to the time when I tried going blonde aged 16. That was met with both mockery and confusion, and lasted two weeks before getting dyed back.
So there you go, new looks are fun. They get rid of old and worn out looks long in need of replacement. As I've shown, subsequent looks aren't always good either, but sooner or later they get changed too, to something much better hopefully. In this case, I'm happy with the blog looking like this for a good while. Next time, I'll hopefully write about something interesting. In a moany, cynical fashion as per.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Advert humour
I've wondered what happens to comedy writers who fail to make an impact on TV because they're so awful at what they do. I reckon they try their hand at writing "funny" adverts. Sadly a lot of adverts these days end up being "funny", which is more than I can personally take. Too many adverts now involve a daft soap opera set up or whimsical characters that agitate you with their annoying voices or musical numbers.
The most egregious example of this advert "humour" would be the Go-Compare adverts. A lot has already been said about these, and whenever a list of the most annoying UK adverts in recent times is compiled, it invariably tops that list. Someone must have thought some guy singing opera about car insurance with a stupid moustache on was absolutely hilarious. Similarly, that CGI meerkat with a russian accent also tries to invoke some kind of humour. "Hahahah it's funny, cause he's Russian, even though meerkats aren't from Russia! It's also funny cause comparethemeerkat.com sounds really like comparethemarket.com, simples!" The other one I hate is that Ocean Finance one, where the guy is bald and dumb, and that's funny apparently. If the Simpsons are struggling to make that concept funny anymore, then what in the hell chance does Ocean Finance have of doing it.
The real problem I have with them is that they start to get caught up in their own hype. They take the original advert with its questionable but not yet outright insufferable attempt at humour, and then turn it up to eleven. Let's go back to Go-Compare. The first advert involved some boring City types having lunch while discussing insurance, before Luciano Pavarotten comes blazing in singing about the virtues of using Go-Compare. He reappeared in a suburban estate for the next advert doing pretty much the same thing. But it wasn't long before he was appearing in Egypt, space, silent movies, desert islands, the 18th Century and now in Cinderella land, all the while the theme tune was becoming even more offensively bad. "Hey guys, I bet we can make this character even more funny if we stick him in implausible situations and update the song with Egyptiany verses!" "Yeah Chuck that sounds awesome man lets do it!" I have no idea why I made those executives sound American. Americans don't piss arse about as much as us in their adverts I don't think.
The Meerkats are the worst for getting into their own hype. That bastard now has a back story stretching back to the Crimean War, and there's a whole town of russian meerkats now. Honestly, I don't get what the point of doing the adverts that way is. I forget they're even about insurance anymore, because of the riveting tales about how the town is dying over this simple name confusion, or how his great grandfather Vitaly didn't fight for meerkats to be confused with markets or some shit like that. They now even have stuffed toys and expensive ornaments made in the likeness of these creatures. I would know, I hate to sell them when I was working the summer before last. Thankfully, we realised that people were well and truly sick of them by 2011, so they did not reappear by the time I hade returned to work.
I only just noticed while writing this that it's always insurance or finance adverts that are guilty of these embarrassing attempts at being exciting or humorous. My guess is that because they're not selling a material product like an mp3 player to grab our attention with they have to resort to putting on some kind of ridiculous pantomime to get their point across. The adverts these days make the old confused.com adverts look informative and direct. I'm sure these adverts could be try to be catchy by using some decent music and simple visuals, but the hacks in the writer's chair still reckon humour is the ultimate form of expression. Which it would perhaps be if they were any fucking good at it.
The most egregious example of this advert "humour" would be the Go-Compare adverts. A lot has already been said about these, and whenever a list of the most annoying UK adverts in recent times is compiled, it invariably tops that list. Someone must have thought some guy singing opera about car insurance with a stupid moustache on was absolutely hilarious. Similarly, that CGI meerkat with a russian accent also tries to invoke some kind of humour. "Hahahah it's funny, cause he's Russian, even though meerkats aren't from Russia! It's also funny cause comparethemeerkat.com sounds really like comparethemarket.com, simples!" The other one I hate is that Ocean Finance one, where the guy is bald and dumb, and that's funny apparently. If the Simpsons are struggling to make that concept funny anymore, then what in the hell chance does Ocean Finance have of doing it.
The real problem I have with them is that they start to get caught up in their own hype. They take the original advert with its questionable but not yet outright insufferable attempt at humour, and then turn it up to eleven. Let's go back to Go-Compare. The first advert involved some boring City types having lunch while discussing insurance, before Luciano Pavarotten comes blazing in singing about the virtues of using Go-Compare. He reappeared in a suburban estate for the next advert doing pretty much the same thing. But it wasn't long before he was appearing in Egypt, space, silent movies, desert islands, the 18th Century and now in Cinderella land, all the while the theme tune was becoming even more offensively bad. "Hey guys, I bet we can make this character even more funny if we stick him in implausible situations and update the song with Egyptiany verses!" "Yeah Chuck that sounds awesome man lets do it!" I have no idea why I made those executives sound American. Americans don't piss arse about as much as us in their adverts I don't think.
The Meerkats are the worst for getting into their own hype. That bastard now has a back story stretching back to the Crimean War, and there's a whole town of russian meerkats now. Honestly, I don't get what the point of doing the adverts that way is. I forget they're even about insurance anymore, because of the riveting tales about how the town is dying over this simple name confusion, or how his great grandfather Vitaly didn't fight for meerkats to be confused with markets or some shit like that. They now even have stuffed toys and expensive ornaments made in the likeness of these creatures. I would know, I hate to sell them when I was working the summer before last. Thankfully, we realised that people were well and truly sick of them by 2011, so they did not reappear by the time I hade returned to work.
I only just noticed while writing this that it's always insurance or finance adverts that are guilty of these embarrassing attempts at being exciting or humorous. My guess is that because they're not selling a material product like an mp3 player to grab our attention with they have to resort to putting on some kind of ridiculous pantomime to get their point across. The adverts these days make the old confused.com adverts look informative and direct. I'm sure these adverts could be try to be catchy by using some decent music and simple visuals, but the hacks in the writer's chair still reckon humour is the ultimate form of expression. Which it would perhaps be if they were any fucking good at it.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
2012 and beyond
2011 is very nearly over, and I can't tell you how pleased I am. 2011 has been my annus horribilis, and feel free to mispronounce annus as anus, because it sums up much of the year in question. Don't get me wrong, there were some good times, such as working on GrayBurn's Whisky and Walking and our yet to be released sketch show, my holiday to Islay and taking up golf. But this was also the year of nearly quitting university, multiple driving test failures, crappy relationships, worsening hypochondriasis and getting overwhelmed by the prospect of a future of depressing mediocrity and failure after university. And this was the year that I swore to make the best of my life in my new year's resolution. I never thought I'd say it but I miss 2010.
As such, my resolution for 2012 is to immediately assume it's going to be insufferably bad, a quagmire in which I'd rather just drown than bother to wade all the way through to the end. That way, any positive development, no matter how tenuous, will be embraced wholeheartedly. I'm sure that will work out well enough. Although, there's all that end-of-the-world bullcrap to think about. If the apocalypse is really due in 2012, I'll not need to worry about my new resolution at all.
Well, part of me actually likes the notion of a post-apocalyptic nightmare world as shown in the likes of Mad Max and countless other films from the 1980s and beyond. Right now the only prospect facing me and a lot of my friends is a banal existence as either a wage slave, or on the dole. There just aren't enough jobs anymore, and the degree, once a sure a guarantee of a well paid job, won't save thousands of us from long term unemployment or doing a low paid job which utilises none of the skills our university courses have supposedly tought us. But in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world, such dull concerns are rendered moot, and we'll all go back to what we were supposed to do from the beginning: fight to survive.
Imagine a dark, dusty landscape ravaged by war and natural disasters. Towns and cities have been transformed into fortresses, where money has been replaced by simple bartering and trade for important resources. Sometimes, those resources are just taken by force by those strong enough to do so. People no longer hoard material goods or waste time writing stupid blogs on the internet or boring each other on facebook, because mass communication met its end with most other things back in 2012. There is no longer law to protect peoples rights; they protect their rights by arms. There are no nations and ideologies, just individuals out to survive. A horrible, yet primal and simple existence.
Imagine a lone hero, sitting on a motorbike, riding down long lonely roads. He's armed to the teeth with whatever guns and blades he has picked up in his countless battles, battles over the one commodity everyone is desperate for: oil. He doesn't dream about the future, his mind is firmly in the here and now. Short term survival is all that keeps him going since he has nothing else to fight for. And he's good at it. His reputation for badassery is well known in these parts, and he is often sought by those too weak to defend themselves in order to fight their battles for them. His price is their oil, so that he may keep travelling the long roads to better places.
Oh, did I mention that was supposed to be me, if you can believe I'd actually end up as cool as that post-2012. My apologies to you though. I was going to try and make a point about how, to a certain extent, there is something more meaningful in a primal struggle to survive than a banal existence in 21st century society, but I ended up shoehorning in my own ideas for a post-apocalyptic science fiction story into the narrative. If you liked that somewhat carbon copied idea though, give me some money and I'll make it into a motion picture. That really would make my 2012 something worth talking about.
As such, my resolution for 2012 is to immediately assume it's going to be insufferably bad, a quagmire in which I'd rather just drown than bother to wade all the way through to the end. That way, any positive development, no matter how tenuous, will be embraced wholeheartedly. I'm sure that will work out well enough. Although, there's all that end-of-the-world bullcrap to think about. If the apocalypse is really due in 2012, I'll not need to worry about my new resolution at all.
Well, part of me actually likes the notion of a post-apocalyptic nightmare world as shown in the likes of Mad Max and countless other films from the 1980s and beyond. Right now the only prospect facing me and a lot of my friends is a banal existence as either a wage slave, or on the dole. There just aren't enough jobs anymore, and the degree, once a sure a guarantee of a well paid job, won't save thousands of us from long term unemployment or doing a low paid job which utilises none of the skills our university courses have supposedly tought us. But in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world, such dull concerns are rendered moot, and we'll all go back to what we were supposed to do from the beginning: fight to survive.
Imagine a dark, dusty landscape ravaged by war and natural disasters. Towns and cities have been transformed into fortresses, where money has been replaced by simple bartering and trade for important resources. Sometimes, those resources are just taken by force by those strong enough to do so. People no longer hoard material goods or waste time writing stupid blogs on the internet or boring each other on facebook, because mass communication met its end with most other things back in 2012. There is no longer law to protect peoples rights; they protect their rights by arms. There are no nations and ideologies, just individuals out to survive. A horrible, yet primal and simple existence.
Imagine a lone hero, sitting on a motorbike, riding down long lonely roads. He's armed to the teeth with whatever guns and blades he has picked up in his countless battles, battles over the one commodity everyone is desperate for: oil. He doesn't dream about the future, his mind is firmly in the here and now. Short term survival is all that keeps him going since he has nothing else to fight for. And he's good at it. His reputation for badassery is well known in these parts, and he is often sought by those too weak to defend themselves in order to fight their battles for them. His price is their oil, so that he may keep travelling the long roads to better places.
Oh, did I mention that was supposed to be me, if you can believe I'd actually end up as cool as that post-2012. My apologies to you though. I was going to try and make a point about how, to a certain extent, there is something more meaningful in a primal struggle to survive than a banal existence in 21st century society, but I ended up shoehorning in my own ideas for a post-apocalyptic science fiction story into the narrative. If you liked that somewhat carbon copied idea though, give me some money and I'll make it into a motion picture. That really would make my 2012 something worth talking about.
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
A fool and his money are soon parted
Does anyone remember this blog? Why it's Shades of Gray, the famous blog which started out quite funny, then got shit, then was almost completely forgotten about. Well I'm back for another attempt at turning this failed abortion into something resembling a good read. I was inspired to do so when my friend Simon asked me if I ever planned to do another entry, leaving me wondering why after a point I stopped trying with Shades of Gray. To put a long story short, the ideas were no longer forthcoming and so I abandoned it. However there has been occasional interest to see this blog come back, so it has, at least for one more entry.
..........
What would you do with a lottery win? I don't mean one of those ridiculous Euromillions wins of up to and over £100 million, I mean one of those ordinary, worthless Wednesday lottery wins of around £2 million. If it were me I'd take the boring route and bank it. I'd buy a reasonably sized yet modest house in a picturesque location, a classy car, and the rest would get banked. How very dull you may think. However, this is about the wisest thing you could do. The interest payments alone would keep you living in comfortable circumstances, although perhaps not lavish splendour. If you're content with that, which I would be, then great. That's you sorted for the rest of your life. No work, enough money to go on holiday a few times a year, unlimited time to devote to your hobbies or creative ambitions (well not unlimited time, since money won't prevent your inevitable death), enough money to keep your family doing well, and the list goes on. Furthermore, should anything go wrong, something that requires a lot of money to rectify, you have a huge reserve of cash in the bank with which you can avert disaster.
The big mistake too many lottery winners make is not realising that their money, while vast, is not inexhaustable. I was of course joking when I called £2 million pounds worthless earlier, as I do have a lot of respect for money. However, it is nonetheless true that £2 million is not the same amount of money it once was. The house I said I'd buy earlier would still likely set me back over £100,000, and could get closer to five times that amount depending on various factors. As such, that's a quarter of this Wednesday's jackpot. Add a car into that and a few treats for yourself and your loved ones, and what you're left with starts to resemble a rump of its former self. So bank that rump if you want to guarantee financial security.
Of course many people don't give a moment's thought when they recieve this money. Instead they buy a huge mansion, a house on the French Riviera, half a dozen top of the line sports cars, and some even try and get their greedy hands on a boat or a private jet. There's nothing wrong with those if you can afford them, but generally speaking a smaller lottery win will not adequately cover all those costs. These people may think they've managed it in terms of upfront costs, but it's the hidden costs which snooker them. What are they going to do when their £2 million has all gone, but the utility bills for their large mansion in Cheshire still need paid? Or what about fuel for all their cars? What happens when the roof starts severely leaking in their badly undermaintained highland retreat? Presumably they've jacked in their jobs at this point, leaving them with absolutely no income whatsoever. These are very often the pitfalls which end up reducing these lottery winners to a worse position financially than they were before they bought a ticket.
They say that a fool and his money are soon parted, and this is the unfortunate truth for many past lottery winners, often trying to make ends meet in the same shitty jobs they had before, only with the additional burden of bankruptcy on their shoulders, a situation that should have been entirely averted by their winnings. So my advice is to bank it after a few modest purchases, and enjoy your life however you see fit. Make your money work for you, or you'll soon be back to working for money.
..........
What would you do with a lottery win? I don't mean one of those ridiculous Euromillions wins of up to and over £100 million, I mean one of those ordinary, worthless Wednesday lottery wins of around £2 million. If it were me I'd take the boring route and bank it. I'd buy a reasonably sized yet modest house in a picturesque location, a classy car, and the rest would get banked. How very dull you may think. However, this is about the wisest thing you could do. The interest payments alone would keep you living in comfortable circumstances, although perhaps not lavish splendour. If you're content with that, which I would be, then great. That's you sorted for the rest of your life. No work, enough money to go on holiday a few times a year, unlimited time to devote to your hobbies or creative ambitions (well not unlimited time, since money won't prevent your inevitable death), enough money to keep your family doing well, and the list goes on. Furthermore, should anything go wrong, something that requires a lot of money to rectify, you have a huge reserve of cash in the bank with which you can avert disaster.
The big mistake too many lottery winners make is not realising that their money, while vast, is not inexhaustable. I was of course joking when I called £2 million pounds worthless earlier, as I do have a lot of respect for money. However, it is nonetheless true that £2 million is not the same amount of money it once was. The house I said I'd buy earlier would still likely set me back over £100,000, and could get closer to five times that amount depending on various factors. As such, that's a quarter of this Wednesday's jackpot. Add a car into that and a few treats for yourself and your loved ones, and what you're left with starts to resemble a rump of its former self. So bank that rump if you want to guarantee financial security.
Of course many people don't give a moment's thought when they recieve this money. Instead they buy a huge mansion, a house on the French Riviera, half a dozen top of the line sports cars, and some even try and get their greedy hands on a boat or a private jet. There's nothing wrong with those if you can afford them, but generally speaking a smaller lottery win will not adequately cover all those costs. These people may think they've managed it in terms of upfront costs, but it's the hidden costs which snooker them. What are they going to do when their £2 million has all gone, but the utility bills for their large mansion in Cheshire still need paid? Or what about fuel for all their cars? What happens when the roof starts severely leaking in their badly undermaintained highland retreat? Presumably they've jacked in their jobs at this point, leaving them with absolutely no income whatsoever. These are very often the pitfalls which end up reducing these lottery winners to a worse position financially than they were before they bought a ticket.
They say that a fool and his money are soon parted, and this is the unfortunate truth for many past lottery winners, often trying to make ends meet in the same shitty jobs they had before, only with the additional burden of bankruptcy on their shoulders, a situation that should have been entirely averted by their winnings. So my advice is to bank it after a few modest purchases, and enjoy your life however you see fit. Make your money work for you, or you'll soon be back to working for money.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Under renovation
There's going to be a significant shift in style and focus with my blog from now on. I don't know how many people read it, but I know at least a few who do who may be disappointed to hear this. However, the old posts will always be there to take a look at and enjoy.
When I talk about this shift in style, what I mean is that instead of it being a traditional rant about some trivial crap each time, instead I'm going to write about whatever I want in whatever mood I want to write about it in. It's basically going to be a regular blog reflecting on my thoughts or siginificant moments in my life. If you're wondering why I'm easing off my idiosyncratic ranting style, it's simply because I can't sustain it for much longer. When I first started writing this, I wanted to have an angle to make myself stand out, and I did this through ranting. But it tires after a while, and in this case I'm the one that's tired perhaps before other people are. My output has been lessening over the last few months simply because I can't think of anything to rant about in such detail as before. If you want proof of my difficulty in sustaining this blog as it is, check out the atrocity that was my last entry.
I'm always going to moan about something though, and it will be a staple of my blog entries to come, just not as the sole purpose of it. If I can put in a few funny lines in each entry I'll be happy, but of course you'll be the judge of that. Hopefully people will still be interested in what I have to say, but if you only read it just to see me overreact and be an idiot in general, that's dead in the water now.
To kick start this off, I'll briefly discuss a holiday I had at the beginning of the month to the whisky paradise of Islay. Islay, for those of you who don't know, is the southernmost of the Inner Hebrides (Western Isles of Scotland). Its major claim to fame is that it has eight working distilleries on it, some of which produce what are considered the finest single malts in the world. On my short three or four days there I visited Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Kilchoman, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain were presumably closed or didn't have visitor centres, either way we didn't visit them on the tour.
Islay itself is a nice but not amazingly interesting island, bar a few celtic crosses and the seat of the Lord of the Isles at Finlaggan. However the weather was great most of the time and the distillery tours were always interesting. Lagavulin was the best though. We had a warehouse tasting session there, and I was lucky enough to try new make spirit, ten years old, fourteen years old, eighteen years old, double matured and a rare cask strength expression, all straight from the barrel. I even got to siphon the eighteen years old Laguvalin right from the barrel, to be poured for the rest of the visitors.
I'd love to say more about my Islay trip but I'm going on a bit with this entry. All I'll say is any whisky lover should book an Islay tour; you won't regret it. Next time, I'll say a few words about a sketch show I've been in involved in.
When I talk about this shift in style, what I mean is that instead of it being a traditional rant about some trivial crap each time, instead I'm going to write about whatever I want in whatever mood I want to write about it in. It's basically going to be a regular blog reflecting on my thoughts or siginificant moments in my life. If you're wondering why I'm easing off my idiosyncratic ranting style, it's simply because I can't sustain it for much longer. When I first started writing this, I wanted to have an angle to make myself stand out, and I did this through ranting. But it tires after a while, and in this case I'm the one that's tired perhaps before other people are. My output has been lessening over the last few months simply because I can't think of anything to rant about in such detail as before. If you want proof of my difficulty in sustaining this blog as it is, check out the atrocity that was my last entry.
I'm always going to moan about something though, and it will be a staple of my blog entries to come, just not as the sole purpose of it. If I can put in a few funny lines in each entry I'll be happy, but of course you'll be the judge of that. Hopefully people will still be interested in what I have to say, but if you only read it just to see me overreact and be an idiot in general, that's dead in the water now.
To kick start this off, I'll briefly discuss a holiday I had at the beginning of the month to the whisky paradise of Islay. Islay, for those of you who don't know, is the southernmost of the Inner Hebrides (Western Isles of Scotland). Its major claim to fame is that it has eight working distilleries on it, some of which produce what are considered the finest single malts in the world. On my short three or four days there I visited Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Kilchoman, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain were presumably closed or didn't have visitor centres, either way we didn't visit them on the tour.
Islay itself is a nice but not amazingly interesting island, bar a few celtic crosses and the seat of the Lord of the Isles at Finlaggan. However the weather was great most of the time and the distillery tours were always interesting. Lagavulin was the best though. We had a warehouse tasting session there, and I was lucky enough to try new make spirit, ten years old, fourteen years old, eighteen years old, double matured and a rare cask strength expression, all straight from the barrel. I even got to siphon the eighteen years old Laguvalin right from the barrel, to be poured for the rest of the visitors.
I'd love to say more about my Islay trip but I'm going on a bit with this entry. All I'll say is any whisky lover should book an Islay tour; you won't regret it. Next time, I'll say a few words about a sketch show I've been in involved in.
Friday, 10 June 2011
Chaotic place names
As you may have noticed it's been ages since I posted anything here. The reason is that I'm completely out of ideas. Ideas which are suitable for this blog as it has come to be. Unfortunately this is a young blog and a certain amount is expected from it before I can relax and write whatever I want without feeling the need to be funny all the time. That time I feel has not yet come and so I'll continue to pidgeonhole myself into being a vaguely angry person commenting on mundane issues.
And so I'll have a whinge about place names that annoy me to varying degrees. This is only because I have absolutely nothing else to say. I told people I wouldn't bother with this but I'm desperate.
The town Dumbarton in the west of Scotland was the administrative centre for the old county of Dunbartonshire, which later became East and West Dunbartonshire. What's the problem with that? Well, it seems fine until you notice that it's DuMbarton and DuNbartonshire. Why? I don't know, but in my very mild obsession for order it seems wrong that the shire is spelt with an N and the town with an M. It just seems like a mistake. I don't know why they've done this to me.
I also hate that Northampton is the centre of Northamptonshire, but Southampton isn't the centre of Southamptonshire. No, that place doesn't exist; instead it's just Hampshire. Nobody else cares about things like this but it annoys me because its uneven, or asymmetrical, or whatever the precise term for this is. They should rename Hampshire Southamptonshire. If Northamptonshire didn't exist as a county, I probably wouldn't be bothered.
Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire is a pair I hate as well. Why the hell can't it be East and West Renfrewshire. The precedent for that has been set by East and West Dunbartonshire (grr), and similarly North and South Lanarkshire, and East, Mid and West Lothian. Orderly groupings as you have seen. Renfrewshire and then East Renfrewshire just annoys me, much like Virginia and West Virginia, although they are states with an extensive history and not arbitrary local council divisions that can be changed at a whim, and thus they are forgiven. Also forgiven are the Ayrshires, which have all but a West Ayshire, since that would have to be in the Irish Sea somewhere.
Another one which I find annoying but no one else will are the northern English counties. There's Cumbria, formerly known as Cumberland, and Northumberland. The thing that winds me up is that fact that when the divisions changed they renamed Cumberland Cumbria, thus removing the order established by having two 'umberland counties. They should change it back to Cumberland, or rename Northumberland Northumbria, like the old kingdom was called.
North Africa and South Africa is a bad case of chaotic place naming. South Africa is a country, in southern Africa which is a geographic region. Thus southern Africa's counterpart should be northern Africa. Instead people refer to northern Africa usually as North Africa. It's just wrong. If anything should be North Africa it should be the name of some non-existent country in northern Africa to keep the balance right. To further complicate issues, the America's are always known as North and South, which should be wrong because of South Africa. I'd be tempted to say that the name of South Africa is causing all the problems here, but since my flatmate is South African and no doubt reading this, I'll refrain from suggesting the country come up with something more original as a name.
Half of these are fairly justified, and others are completely frivolous. To add one last one, an appallingly ridiculous one, I'll talk about East Anglia. Apart from the fact I'd like a West Anglia, I wish Suffolk would have a town called Surwich. This is because Norfolk has a town called Norwich. The north and south balance would be perfect. Instead we get crappy Ipswich.
I am truly sorry for the quality of this output and if it hasn't killed my blog forever, it will always be remembered as a dark moment born of a complete lack of inspiration.
Until next time, if there is one.
And so I'll have a whinge about place names that annoy me to varying degrees. This is only because I have absolutely nothing else to say. I told people I wouldn't bother with this but I'm desperate.
The town Dumbarton in the west of Scotland was the administrative centre for the old county of Dunbartonshire, which later became East and West Dunbartonshire. What's the problem with that? Well, it seems fine until you notice that it's DuMbarton and DuNbartonshire. Why? I don't know, but in my very mild obsession for order it seems wrong that the shire is spelt with an N and the town with an M. It just seems like a mistake. I don't know why they've done this to me.
I also hate that Northampton is the centre of Northamptonshire, but Southampton isn't the centre of Southamptonshire. No, that place doesn't exist; instead it's just Hampshire. Nobody else cares about things like this but it annoys me because its uneven, or asymmetrical, or whatever the precise term for this is. They should rename Hampshire Southamptonshire. If Northamptonshire didn't exist as a county, I probably wouldn't be bothered.
Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire is a pair I hate as well. Why the hell can't it be East and West Renfrewshire. The precedent for that has been set by East and West Dunbartonshire (grr), and similarly North and South Lanarkshire, and East, Mid and West Lothian. Orderly groupings as you have seen. Renfrewshire and then East Renfrewshire just annoys me, much like Virginia and West Virginia, although they are states with an extensive history and not arbitrary local council divisions that can be changed at a whim, and thus they are forgiven. Also forgiven are the Ayrshires, which have all but a West Ayshire, since that would have to be in the Irish Sea somewhere.
Another one which I find annoying but no one else will are the northern English counties. There's Cumbria, formerly known as Cumberland, and Northumberland. The thing that winds me up is that fact that when the divisions changed they renamed Cumberland Cumbria, thus removing the order established by having two 'umberland counties. They should change it back to Cumberland, or rename Northumberland Northumbria, like the old kingdom was called.
North Africa and South Africa is a bad case of chaotic place naming. South Africa is a country, in southern Africa which is a geographic region. Thus southern Africa's counterpart should be northern Africa. Instead people refer to northern Africa usually as North Africa. It's just wrong. If anything should be North Africa it should be the name of some non-existent country in northern Africa to keep the balance right. To further complicate issues, the America's are always known as North and South, which should be wrong because of South Africa. I'd be tempted to say that the name of South Africa is causing all the problems here, but since my flatmate is South African and no doubt reading this, I'll refrain from suggesting the country come up with something more original as a name.
Half of these are fairly justified, and others are completely frivolous. To add one last one, an appallingly ridiculous one, I'll talk about East Anglia. Apart from the fact I'd like a West Anglia, I wish Suffolk would have a town called Surwich. This is because Norfolk has a town called Norwich. The north and south balance would be perfect. Instead we get crappy Ipswich.
I am truly sorry for the quality of this output and if it hasn't killed my blog forever, it will always be remembered as a dark moment born of a complete lack of inspiration.
Until next time, if there is one.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
The lost art of art
Nearly a week ago now me and James went on a long walk around Edinburgh, taking in some sights I never knew even existed. Such is the nature of Edinburgh; you can uncover something new every time you go for a walk. On this occasion it was a really nice portion of the Water of Leith walkway that headed in the direction of Murrayfield stadium. It would have gone on for miles out of Edinburgh if we followed it to the end so we ducked out fairly early. We ended up next to the Gallery of Modern Art and rather than do the sensible thing we foolishly went in just to see what it was all about.
The first thing of note we saw in this place was a three storey wall painted white with black self adhesive letters spelling out random peoples names. The columns didn't match up, as if it were a work in progress or something. Riveting stuff as you can imagine. I can just see people looking at this trying to find the deeper meaning. After all something so devoid of any point is obviously trying to convey something profound. "Gee it must be trying to show a loss of indivuality by implying we are all just names in a huge directory." I don't know if my fake analysis was any good but I imagine analysing in this manner is the only way to pretend modern art isn't on the whole a load of crap.
The next thing of note we saw was a portable bar complete with toilets stuck on the sides. To be honest I don't see the point other than it maybe being fun to own a bar you can just attach to the back of your car and drive around with. Actually I'd rather just go to a real pub. We also saw a giant onion slicer. Apparently the "artist" was from Palestine and wanted to show suppression and control through it. What I saw was something that would have been fun to stick something in and slice it, which I could have done if there wasn't CCTV in the room.
One of the notable lowlights of this experience was the film room. These two short films consisted of footage of the Glasgow Uni library, and of some town in Mexico. And that was it. At this point I wasn't even interested in pretending to analyse them. The lirbary film was supposedly based on a nightmare the "artist" had set in that very library. Sounds fun doesn't it but all it was was her filming people studying and going up elevators and out the door. What a dull nightmare. Although maybe she hates studying just as much as I do. My empathy does not extend to calling it art though.
We then saw the most ridiculous thing we had seen yet. In one of the rooms, there was hanging from the ceiling four sheets of cellophane, sellotaped together and badly painted in the bottom tenth of the the whole thing. I can't even remember what the description was apart from where it said about the use of "vibrant colour." It was washed out pink with a few haphazard splats of blue, yellow and red. Me and James's brains haven't ever really recovered from the radioactive stupidity in that room. A child at primary school wouldn't get away with this quality of work past P3. I could stitch this up in twenty minutes. I can't believe for one second this "artist" has represented Scotland in something. But as the "critics" would have you think, this is the whole point. You are supposed to be evoked in this way. We are supposed to ask why she took such an approach.
Last thing we saw before we agreed it was time to get the hell out, was an inflatable caterpillar kiddies garden toy hanging from the ceiling. Yes, because true art is going to Toys R Us, buying something already completely finished, and adding your own siginificant contribution by putting it in a room. It really was time to go.
The "critics" will say I'm missing the point with modern art. To me, art is where a talented painter or sculptor uses their talent to recreate an image such as a portrait or a scene from history or mythology, and all that is required is for us to say "that's a nice painting. That's good isn't it?" Modern art is the only one where you really have to find a profound interpretation to compensate for nothing at all. Thinking and analysing is great and all but these "artists" want you to do it because it means they don't have to expend effort on a piece or spend years cultivating a talent.
I'm going to do my own modern art piece to mock modern art in general, and see if they accept it in this gallery. I'm going to buy a few buckets of green toy soldiers, you know the ones, and glue them all together into the shape of one big soldier. Then I'll come up with some daft story about how together these soldiers are stronger as one, and drop it off at the gallery.
Why do I have the distinct feeling they'll see my "art" for exactly what it is and tell me to piss off, while continuing to hang that cellophane up?
The first thing of note we saw in this place was a three storey wall painted white with black self adhesive letters spelling out random peoples names. The columns didn't match up, as if it were a work in progress or something. Riveting stuff as you can imagine. I can just see people looking at this trying to find the deeper meaning. After all something so devoid of any point is obviously trying to convey something profound. "Gee it must be trying to show a loss of indivuality by implying we are all just names in a huge directory." I don't know if my fake analysis was any good but I imagine analysing in this manner is the only way to pretend modern art isn't on the whole a load of crap.
The next thing of note we saw was a portable bar complete with toilets stuck on the sides. To be honest I don't see the point other than it maybe being fun to own a bar you can just attach to the back of your car and drive around with. Actually I'd rather just go to a real pub. We also saw a giant onion slicer. Apparently the "artist" was from Palestine and wanted to show suppression and control through it. What I saw was something that would have been fun to stick something in and slice it, which I could have done if there wasn't CCTV in the room.
One of the notable lowlights of this experience was the film room. These two short films consisted of footage of the Glasgow Uni library, and of some town in Mexico. And that was it. At this point I wasn't even interested in pretending to analyse them. The lirbary film was supposedly based on a nightmare the "artist" had set in that very library. Sounds fun doesn't it but all it was was her filming people studying and going up elevators and out the door. What a dull nightmare. Although maybe she hates studying just as much as I do. My empathy does not extend to calling it art though.
We then saw the most ridiculous thing we had seen yet. In one of the rooms, there was hanging from the ceiling four sheets of cellophane, sellotaped together and badly painted in the bottom tenth of the the whole thing. I can't even remember what the description was apart from where it said about the use of "vibrant colour." It was washed out pink with a few haphazard splats of blue, yellow and red. Me and James's brains haven't ever really recovered from the radioactive stupidity in that room. A child at primary school wouldn't get away with this quality of work past P3. I could stitch this up in twenty minutes. I can't believe for one second this "artist" has represented Scotland in something. But as the "critics" would have you think, this is the whole point. You are supposed to be evoked in this way. We are supposed to ask why she took such an approach.
Last thing we saw before we agreed it was time to get the hell out, was an inflatable caterpillar kiddies garden toy hanging from the ceiling. Yes, because true art is going to Toys R Us, buying something already completely finished, and adding your own siginificant contribution by putting it in a room. It really was time to go.
The "critics" will say I'm missing the point with modern art. To me, art is where a talented painter or sculptor uses their talent to recreate an image such as a portrait or a scene from history or mythology, and all that is required is for us to say "that's a nice painting. That's good isn't it?" Modern art is the only one where you really have to find a profound interpretation to compensate for nothing at all. Thinking and analysing is great and all but these "artists" want you to do it because it means they don't have to expend effort on a piece or spend years cultivating a talent.
I'm going to do my own modern art piece to mock modern art in general, and see if they accept it in this gallery. I'm going to buy a few buckets of green toy soldiers, you know the ones, and glue them all together into the shape of one big soldier. Then I'll come up with some daft story about how together these soldiers are stronger as one, and drop it off at the gallery.
Why do I have the distinct feeling they'll see my "art" for exactly what it is and tell me to piss off, while continuing to hang that cellophane up?
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