Gertsamtkunstwerk

Thought for a Friday afternoon

I work in an organisation of 23,500 people, approximately. Not including the other, associated, bits which are in tens and tens of thousands.

To the best of my knowledge not one of my colleagues has a blog; nor am I aware of any one of them reading mine.

In a sense it puts the minisulity of blogging into perspective.

If you know any different, I would be curious. Confidentiality guaranteed if desired.

Time to shut down the internet

Paul Daniels' Diary

The Bloggies

Fairvue Central >> Bloggies >> Sixth Annual Weblog Awards

I will say that I have a fundamental problem with the idea of Blog Awards. I do recognise that, in the field, The Bloggies have the most solid reputation. And I am aware that readers of mine have been nominated either this year or previously, and some are/have been involved in the shortlisting process. I think anybody who wins/is shortlisted/longlisted should feel proud of their achievement. Incidentally, I have cast some votes, but specifically only for Blogs that exist on my blogroll: ie Diamond Geezer, My Boyfriend Is A Twat, Naked Blog and Baghdad Burning, and I will be delighted if when they win.

My problem is twofold. One, blogging is supposed to be 'personal' and two, it's supposed to be 'decentralised'. When I first started blogging four years ago I had some ridiculous notion that somewhere I might earn some acclaim. Four years is a long time on the internet; if I was blogging for acclaim, I would have shut up shop a long time ago. I could pretend that I blog only for me, but that would be a fraction of the truth. Nevertheless, I am conscious that my blog conspicuously fails to be anything that 'good bloggers' are supposed to be. I mean, what category is it in, for starters? However, I do monitor my site stats, both incoming hits and outgoing links, and can safely conclude that I blog for all those who want naked pictures ofJonny Wilkinson (considering he has barely played in over two years, the continuing fascinating with him is interesting)! There are no naked pictures of Jonny Wilkinson, here, or anywhere else in the public domain.

Joking aside, I started this blog because I have a need to write, and it struck me as a nicely exhibitionist way of doing so. Anyone who knows me personally, and, I suspect, many regular readers, realise that I have the attention span of a flea, hopping from one topic to another, often in a semi-obsessive way "it's a just a phase you're going through," my mother still says, failing to realise that the phases are cyclical and repeating. But still...

I recognise that the Bloggies have a certain credibility because they aggregate from a critical mass. Often, critical masses can lead to the Lowest Common Denominator; conversely, there is often a reason why things are popular. But, on the other hand, I have no lasting interest in knowing what wins the Bloggies. It's USA-based, and I, suspect, dominated by an age-group lower than me - although I will stress that DG, Zoe, and Peter are older than me, as is Mike who was shortlisted last year. Some of my favourite blogs have a minute readership, or cover subjects that simply would never appeal to suficient people to ever make them likely to be nominated. Just as the Oscars are rarely an accurate guide to what films are good or what films I would like, I don't regard Blogging Awards as anything more significant than a vague direction sign.

Still, Congratulations and Good Luck to the Three Old Farts, who along with Mike, are regular reads for me because of their quality, not because they move with the cool kids.

Let's get this blog back on the road

Moan moan angst angst. I don't think November 2005 will go down as the best blogging month ever on mmofm, what with the idiot who decided to upgrade to a newer version of the Content Management System, but did it via one of the most idiotic mistakes ever - not actually uploading the entire suite of files.

And then there was the week where I had a tricky journey over to West London for work, with two evenings out at the same time.

Then there there was the fried PC.

And in between all those blogstacles there was the repeated and sustained outage of my site, and of others that are co-hosted. Somebody somewhere being bombarded with spam, I suppose.

Even when I had bought my new laptop, there were further problems. It took me an age and a half to get onto my broadband connection. Eventually, I decided to read the instructions for my router and realised that if I had done that in the first place it would have taken me like two minutes.

And I am having to get used tot his laptop. I like it, I think it's nice, but I am struggling with the mouse. It's a metal touch pad and it really is hypersensitive. I have deleted whole paragraphs of blog posts, I have sent important friendly emails crashing into my junk folder. And so on. Not to mention the fact that I need to acclimatise to a new sitting position. I'm sure I will, but as I can't recall using a laptop since 1998, since when I have spent countless hours on conventional desktops, it will take some getting used to. The space bar in particular.

And hopefully, the next four weeks will see something that resembles normal blogging from these parts.

My blog my rules

I wrote the previous entry in a fit of annoyance last night.

Just to make things absolutely clear.

1. I hate trolling
2. I hate spam
3. I delete Off Topic comments, which are usually pretty much the same as spam/trolling.

4. In blogging, as in life, I get 'included into' nothing. If I join, it's my choice.

And if you don't like that, pogue ma hone

Wot, no blog!

Sorry about that - don't know what happened...!

I'm just going for a cigarette and when I get back I might tell you about all the little things that have gone wrong in a small-with-little-impact-way.

Or not. As the case may be. I've got work to do and all that.

Mañana. Inshallah.

Unnerving search requests

I rarely look at the Activity Log associated with this site. It lists various admin things, but also what internal searches have been carried out. Most of them are neutral and sensible, most of the rest are entirely consistent with the googling that have got people here in the first place.

But a few are potentially a little disquieting. There seems to a certain amount of vanity searching by a close relative aged approximately nine years old; also a series of searches from or about the sister of someone I was madly in love with years ago. Also something current and personal about someone (I'm being deliberately vague).

Just a reminder that the internet may seem a vast anonymous amorphous place, but search engines render it very personal.

I'm thankful I have been relatively cautious. There are a few times I've wanted to write something and have held back, knowing that someone else could make a guess - correct or incorrect - about who it's about, or could make assumptions about private matters, again correctly or incorrectly. It's not the place of this blog to reveal aspects about the lives of current, former or old friends that they may not wish to be common knowledge. And I try to err on the side of caution.

Of course, when I slag off people eg work colleagues, I don't use their names, but another work colleague would be able to guess who it was. that's probbaly not very smart, but, hey...!

Guest blogging

I've set up three guest bloggers, who don't normally blog. Hopefully, I've given them detailed instructions, but if they're stuck, I've asked them to appeal to the nice kind people out there.

So please give a Big-up to the Guest Bloggers known as Joseph, Your Sister and B-in-L, who have also volunteered to be my back up RTE recorders on Monday.

What am I going on about?

If you haven't a clue what the two below posts are about, it's the Troubled Diva which decade is tops for pops? - scroll down the sidebar to 'we played...'

And it starts up again this week...

I still won't know any of the Naughties' Songs.
And I know it will be a toss up between the 60s and the 80s.

...and in 2004

1. Wombling Song - although 'my song' was Wemember You're A Womble
2. Raining Men - very encouraging for a sixteen year old straight boyfriendless girl!
3. Needles and Pins - one of those classic yet shallow 60s ditties
4. Breathe Again - uninspiring, ut I do like Unbreak My Heart
5. Dude - it's just noise

Absolutely truly dreadful. I concur with the majority of people.
Sadly, I have to put Jim Reeves first, closely followed by George Michael.
The other three must come last jointly, but because I have to decide
3. I Like to Move It
4. Somebody's Watching
5. I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing

1. Innocent Man. You're all being really hard on Billy Joel. He's ace. And my auntie's god daughter used to see him shopping in King Cullen (like Sainsburys, only not).
2. Jet - because it's Paul, who I adore, although I'm really not sure why...
3. Kylie - because it's better than the other two. BTW, why is it okay to fancy Kylie but not Jason?
4. Boys Cry - becayuse it's not quite as crap as
5. Enigma.

1. Bay City Rollers. I so loved them in the 70s, and in the 80s we used to do aerobics to this track - more, more, more please
2. Van Halen - the sort of track I have forgotten, but it pumps, it rocks, it it yells passion. If it wasn't for the extraspecialness of BCR< this would be top top top song so far
3. This is only a sliver behind Van Halen. I adore every track on Little Earthquakes. I just think then that she failed to innovate and move on
4. Jamelia - this is really rubbish, although not unpleasing to the ear; unlike
5. Merseybeats - Sheer Drivel. Is the entire top ten of this year taken up with shallow talentless substandard Beatles imitators?

Woot, I'm first!

1. Relax. Ooh, classic, classic, timeless. (and I didn't know what it meant until Mike Read banned it from Radio 1- the innocence of 16!...). This really gets me going. But I prefer Two Tribes
2. Devil Gate Drive - an icon, a star, perhaps the first real female rock star. And would be 1 by a mile for the week so far if it wasn't for holly and the Boys.
3. Flip, it's modern, and it's rap, and I quite like it, actually...
4. Renaissance - not really their best track, is it? They did some good stuff. but not really this.
5. Diane - really dire - the yoof really had it bad in the 60s, didn't they?

First again! Yah boo sucks to the rest of you
3 was Hey Mama, obviously

1. Hello - There is a pattern of me voting for the ones that (almost) everyone else hates. But this is a song full of memories of a time and a place - the place being the school hall, at the post-Ruddigore cast party, when, for the first time in my life, I was truly in love with somebody very very special, the gorgeous Martin, whom I still have great affection for*.
2. You're Sixteen - I really like this, especially the second line of this verse - I can't quite describe the effect, but it sort of swoops low. Can you imagine the outrage if it had been "You're Fifteen"?
3. Just One Look - yet another pleasant, but, ultimately, inconsequential song
4. Girls and Boys - despite really liking Oasis (at their peak) and Pulp, I never really got into Blur, which probably just shows the lack of maturity and profundity in my tastes. So this is quite low, relatively.
5. Not In Love - why bother?

BTW, Enrique's 80-something grandfather is an expectant father. Doesn't that make you want to say 'yeuch'?

1. The Most Beautiful Girl In The World - this is cheesy, containing every cliche that we can imagine from 1970s Country. It also has a fab tune, and because, of course, it's about me, I love it
2. Streets of Philadelphia - in a very bizarre and roundabout way this has reminded me that it's ten years today that I had an operation to repair my dislocating shoulder - I was taken to Philadelphia as a recuperation. The film, that is, not the city. Have you ever been to the city of Philadelphia? Quite a strange experience, especially when you have the thickest tour guide in the history of tour guides. A really really good film, incidentally, that had me weeping buckets. Must watch it again sometime. This clip doesn't do justice to the tune, which, although not one of The Boss's best,is definitely a tune of quality
3. Wouldn't It Be Good - not a bad song, but nothing like I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me
4. Mysterious Girl - I would like to say it's forgettable. But I can remember it from first time around. No musical merit but sort of catchy. I haven't a clue why he's rereleased it - I thought he had washed up and become a never-was years ago
5. Not Fade Away - I really feel I ought to get into the Stones. There again, I've been thinking that in vain for over twenty years. This track isn't going to make me a Stones fan

Oh and I do my listening before reading your commentary - so as not to be influenced. Now of course, I just look stupid...

Ooh, but my votes are almost the same as Hg's, which makes me look clever again!

1. The Air That I Breathe - beautiful, beautiful, although kd lang's version is a million miles better. What a wonderful sentiment - all that I need is the air that I breathe and to love you. Can I give it all five votes because the other four are so dreadful as to be beyond dreadful
2. Baby I Love You. I like R Kelly, but I can do without J-Lo. However, this song only gets to be second by accident.
3. Anyone Who Had a Heart A classic song, of course. Classic, as in, you didn't have to have been born then to know it. It's quite a swayey. But Cilla Black is one of those people that makes me wish I have never been born. The Lorra lorra surprises is that this isn't actually the worst song in today's pick.
4. The Sign - it's so bad. OK, they did, all that she wants, which was okayish. But this is so dire
5. Street Dance - oh my god this was Eighties, like, my time, decade, radio on all day during the Easter hols - but I hate this so much it had actually never properly entered my memory.
I can't believe I'm doing this just two hours after getting home from a sublimely beautiful concert.

OK folks. I'm back from my Which-decade commenting hiatus. I haven't read anyone else's comments so I'm probably going to look like a plagiarist. But hey, I was at a blogmeet on Saturday. 200 miles from home.
1.Toxic - I'll vote for this just for that intro. Not bad, but it will be forgotten. Although I am reliably told by a five year old that Britney is rubbish and Kylie's much better. An eight year old says all modern pop music is rubbish.
2.Bits and Pieces. Just because Smiley Miley used to play it on the Radio One Roadshow doesn't mean it is a particularly good song - yet another tired formulaic Beatles-stylee song.
3.Jealous Mind. Nah, not me. I much preferred I Won't Run Away. Ialso felt he was the bastard love child of Adam Faith and Gary Glitter.
4.Joanna. We - and I mean me and the girls- really hated Kool and the Gang. We got to like Get down On It and the soppy one "Let's Take A Walk together along the ocean side." But not this one.
5. Without You. Oh god, I hate cheesy rip offs of ABSOL classic songs. Can I give this minus votes for being such an insult to Nillsson. Even the drum is insipid. Fast forward fast forward. And I hate Mariah Carey.

Oh fuck, I did not copy 'bastard love child' from Hg
Mike, Mike it's not fair. Hg is trying to control my mind

1. Billy Don't Be a Hero - I have just realised that i have always loved this song, and I don't think I even hav eit in my collection. The tune is so catchy, I really like the voice. And the lyrics seem meaningful.
2. Doop - I don't know this but shit give me more more more. I could freak to this. I want want I want I want I want I want
3. 99 Lufthansas -I don't think I appreciated just realised at the time what a kooky, original, innovative and utterly nonsense song this is. Class, but I prefer Berliner Luft.
4. Cha Cha Cha Slide - I really really really really like this. It's so not fair that the number ones are so ace, that this is only number four when in any other chart position it would be so up there.
5. Little Children - I shall just plagiarise what I've said for almost every other 60s record. Clue rearrange - sub Beatles standard.

(Now sneaks a look at what My mind-controller, Hg has said...)
Ooh, not bad. I might even change my vote to the Hg version ;-)
I liked Clint Bestwood, too, but I preferred Solid Air in the buttery.
Does anyone remember the midsummer's day concert from the Trent building. Best observed from the lake?

I might have played all my record collection by then...!**

* And I'll be seeing in concert in April...

**In response to Mike's

Until then, I shall leave you with the combined decade scores for the past two years of the project. Just five more years to go, and then we shall truly know...
Which Decade is Tops for Pops!

What I thought about pop music in 2003

1. ELO
2. Fleetwood MAc
3. Kenny Ball
4. The Beloved
5. Who?*

Hve you got a nifty little Javascript that reads our scores, or are you and K taking turns in hovering and updating?

* David Sneddon, it seems - where is he now

1. Eminem - and I was sure the Naughties were crap
2. Wham - look, I was fifteen, okay. DHSS
3. Brenda Lee - unremarkable
4. Rolf Harris - Good idea until all the young trendies insisted it was cool
5. Focus - the reason punk rock was invented

No, it was D:Ream - easy to confuse, they both start with a letter.

1. Phil Collins - never thought I would ever vote Phil Collins top of any poularity list (actually, I accidentally segued in a tape-off-the-radio a superb fade from Sussudio to 1999)
2. M-People - I actually quite like them sort of.
3. Quo: not their best song, but I lurve SQ in a non-thinking way. they simply do not take themselves at all seriously
4. Mike Berry: nothing like as good as his 81 Smash Hit "sunshine of Your Smile" b/w I'm As Old As Paul McCartney (I know no light above That ever could replace Love's radiant sunshine And your lovely face; Getting Older Every Day)
5. Blazing Saddles - it das naffin for me

I'm sorry Mr Diva but I have to say - you have chosen the chart of the week before half term. The day the 83 chart was released I wrote a running commentary in my then paper-based blog on the British Rock and Pop Awards. I spent the entire half-term shut in my room listening to pop radio, emerging only to buy batteries. I have just checked the chart, and whilst it's hardly on a par with November 81 you will surprise me if my overall vote doesn't go to the 80s. Incidentally, you are remiss at not including number 12, because Wah's Story of the Blues is an absolute belta.

However,

1. Cocker/Warmes - because I like the song, so, nur,
2. Maureen Free because of the tune, which is ancient (and I know the Hello Muddah bit as well).
3. Free - No, it's from that dreary dirgy rock genre that put me off pop music in the early 70s
4. Daniel Bedingfield - I imagine it would grow on me if I let it
5. Snap - no, it's derivative

I think the people have spoken

Weird

The lovely Sarah will soon lose the last of her babay teeth. Sarah is 23 (actually, nearly 24, she shocked me in a pub by saying Shuddup Your Face was number one when she was born - and I had previously seen her as a mature adult. Or maybe I'm just getting old)

One weekend in December.

I'm not sure what happened other than general hecticness and lack of thought clarity. However, in the space of four days I failed to provide considered write-ups of the UK bloggers party, Haitink and the LSO playing Richard Strauss at the Barbican, and Don Pasquale at Covent Garden. I ought to get these covered off before next week when I start two and a half weeks of craziness of seven concerts, one opera, one staged oratorio and a ballet. And I'm kind of back to work fulltime. Well, I am back to work fulltime, except that our leave year ends at the end of February and it's probaly a good idea to reduce the 27 days annual leave I have to carry over!

The UK Bloggers party. Well, I went. It was strange. I expected to get very drunk and take loads of photos. I'm not sure that anyone took any photos, actually. Which is slightly bizarre. Drunkenness. Well, I don't think there was a lot of that, either. Full marks must go to Stroppy Cow, who, somehow, managed to fall sideways as she introduced herself with a hiccup and a glass in each hand. Style!

I did also get drunk, but I don't think it was entirely obvious until I was leaving. I went to the loo in the basement and had rather an argumentative time with the bar maid who was trying to convince me to go up the stairs to leave the premises, whilst I was adamant that I really could get out onto the street from the basement. Fortunately, everyone else had left by then...And, I think, my biggest embarrassment came when I was almost entirely stone-cold sober, and managed to walk totally into the rope that was roping off our section from the general public.

As usual, it was great to see Old Friends, and meet New Friends. From the blogroll were Jack Green Fairy, Anna Little Red Boat and the hiating Bobbie, the ultracool Mark Londonmark, Sasha Sashinka, Mike Troubled Diva, Karen and Pete Uborka dot nu, Vaughan Wherever You Are, Dave Acerbia, Cathy Bent Back Tulips and blogging Kevin, Annie London Underground, Pix Pixeldiva, Adrian 'Superstar' Sevitz, Robin Speaking as a Parent, Will This Isn't London and blogging girlfriend, hiating Dragon, and a few of the other suspects, such as Wild Funjinkie and Darren LinkMachine, who are lovely guys, but for some reason not on the role.

Despite my good intentions, I did not circulate anything like as much as I intended, and there were people I wished I had spent more time with - although I thoroughly enjoyed the people whose time I did have. I especially regret that I inadvertently ignored Cathy all night.

And I've probably offended somebody really obvious by omitting them from this list. If so, many apologies

Hoped for and missed were Meg Me(ish) Lyle DFD, Diamond Diamond Geezer, Graybo Graybo, Stuart Hg and Jag Route 79.

We should do it more often!

Loon Day

Yup, it's my lucky day today. I've got the idiot commenters - so far, three on this post and a mad Christian unable to understand context

It worries me that stupid people are allowed on the internet...

Update: And there's more.

I would really appreciate some input from the nice, normal people!

Time for tag

It's about time I changed my tagline - it currently reads 'note literary, literal or cliterate.'

Any suggestions? A Special Prize might go to especially inspired ones...

Adrain 'Slaezy' Sevitz Rools

I thought I would tally up who has made the most comments on this site. Of course, I come top, with 594. but for you lot, the Real Stars are:

Mike 101
Daisy 102
Bluewitch 110
Jane 118
Vaughan 151
Zed 160
Karen (in her many personae) 180
Gordon 194
Scaryduck 233
Lyle 235

And the out-and-out winner is Adrian with 251.

Could we have predicted that?

(If I had included the old blog*spot comments, there would have been some additional names there. And I must give hon menshes to Lynn, and Lionel, who've been with me since Early Doors, and also to Jon, Paul and Stuart

When we borked

In case you missed them first time round* - Embarrassment of Bodily Fluids Part 1, and Embarrassment of Bodily Fluids Part 2.

We also borked Tales from the Audit Trail Part 1, a series that ought to be continued...

* A note from your parents please, explaining why

Loons update

We're up to eighty comments on the thread dominated by illiterate halfwits. And that's not including the ones I deleted out of delicacy...

And now I've just got the divil in me and want to take the piss.

One day in March

I've been intending to write this for ages but it was such a full day I never found the energy. It started with my niece's tap and ballet class which was cute to watch. All girls, of course, all in pink...! One of the mums and I were trying to persuade my nephew to join - it's more athletic than football and you wouldn't have to wear a pink leotard. This is the boy who objects to writing a rap poem at school because anything to do with singing is'sissy'. More fun was what was going on outside, which was a procession of 525 scooters and about a dozen police outriders riding along the road. They must have had a right turn further back, because the traffic in the other direction was stationery and backing as far as the eye could see in the other direction.

After dancing class it was a quick dash into Manchester. Niece and I skipped down Oxford Road from Peter Square to the Palace, even though she tried to persuade me to leave the skipping to her.

The purpose was English National Ballet's Swan Lake. It was absolutely gorgeous. I have to say that I don't really follow the story by reading the nuances of the choreography, but it is a sensual delight - the music and the dancing. I thoroughly loved it; so did Eleanor. I think she most loved the visual impact of the lake full of swans, and poor Odette dancing outside the window as Prince Siegfried was beguiled at the ball by Odile. I enjoyed those, too, as well as the athleticism of the male dancers. What was most memorable was the lighting, which may seem a strange thing to say, but it transformed a resonably good performance into a very good one. And the programme was superb, double page after double page of sumptuous colour pictures. Fabulous if you're five. Fabulous if you're *over twenty-one*.

And of course the experience was fun too. There were two intervals, so she had three Colas and two ice creams. I had one ice-cream and three waters. Although, she later told my sister that I had two gins. I suggested that she was a lying cow. I had water. 'Oh yeah I forgot.' And the other day she asked me whether I was drinking gin. Of course I was, I have gin for breakfast, I always drink gin. 'No at Barbie Swan Lake you drank water.' We also had great fun going up and down stairs in the balcony at the Palace which are very very steep, and gave me lactose in my thighs.

And there was the journey home, which took an hour and a quarter, and slightly dampens the magic of the ballet.

After wolfing down a pizza, it was back out to Manchester for the Manc blogmeet. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, meeting Lyle, Sarah, Lori, Chris and Meg. We spent the evening drinking and chatting. Very nice people, and I would love to attend another.

Belle de derniere semaine

Cynthia Payne says Belle doesn't ring true.

Cynthia used to be a neighbour of mine. She was very political, was our Cyn. Stood in the 1992 election. I think that time she was 'After Dinner Speaker'. Previously, before my time, she had been the Payne and Pleasure Party. I remember standing outside Streatham station the day the election was called, with three or four other comrades handing out "Vote Labour" leaflets. We were joined by Cynthia handing out her "Vote After Dinner Speaker" leaflets. It was a bit surreal, but we got chatting. She was very pleasant.

Coming clean

OK, I'm going to admit it, it's me.

You can see the evidence there - growing up in Manchester, now living close to the A23. Don't be fooled by the compound verb-analysing.

It all started so innocently - a period of unemployment, arising from the vagaries of the temping game.

I found all the five star hotels in London, and one-by-one I checked them out. I decided which were the best - of course, I refer to the agency in my other blog, that's merely a fiction. I operate toute seule.

The money is good, but I didn't do it for the money. No, I did it for the book deal.

The book, of course, is nothing like the weblog. Turning one's blog into a book is Mil Millington/Salam Pax and last year.

On the blog I don't name names, and of course, I won't in the book. But when I mention clients like Tommy Blur, Danny Beckstone, Griff Grate and, of course, Amy Widdlestone, you may guess who they are.

You may think that the life of a call-girl is glamorous. Or you may disgust that I am no better than a street tart. I don't care. I am no worse than the woman that marries the rich man. I am no worse than the man that seeks cheap-thrilled one-night stands, paying or free. Am I any worse than the loner who wanks over their porn stash in the middle of the night?

I sell my body for money. For centuries women like me have been derided, scorned and ostracised. Why? In a patriarchal society men fear independent autonomous women. In my profession we are honest about what lies in everybody's heart. For centuries, sex has been merely the key to species survival. Women are not supposed to enjoy sex. Only in sex can a powerful man be brought - sometimes literally - to his knees. For centuries, respectable women were kept in metaphorical - and sometimes literal - shackles, because men feared the power of woman's sex. Women were told not to enjoy sex; the courtesan was a 'fallen woman' for the service of lustful men, whose wives remained at home constantly banged up or unable to have sex.

You go to work and sit in your cubicle from 9 to 5, under the fluorescent life, destroying your soul as you enter yet more kilobitage of data. What does it mean? I spend my days with people celebrating the glory of the body, living my life, relieving the dysfunctional men of their miserable wads. I am alive and fucking; you retreat to the 'other cubicle' to beat your meat or tickle your fancy.

I am not a darling of the literati, I know nobody from Guardian, Granta or Groucho, and I am definitely not a man. Cease speculating, and return to your bleak job and your Friday-night seven-minute missionary-position obligatory screw.

Peaches on blogging

Miss Geldof says I was mad to reveal my secrets on the internet.

Nice if you can get a Times column at 14...

Update 23 June 2004: All you Peaches fans, I seriously suggest you buy this CD - Best of The Boomtown Rats - featuring Peaches' Dad on lead vocals. You won't regret getting this raw passionate rock!

A tribute to blogging

Inadvertently, I have spent the last few weeks looking at the fucking flowers. I'd like to say everything's coming up roses, but that would be premature.

I love this time of year - the way there are little green shoots pushing their way through the decomposing mussel shells in our bizarrely organic flower bed. And every day the sun sets just a little later. Today, 1611, before long, it will be ten o'clock at night.

Ever the optimist, the glass is half full, I know it's time to make a new start. The delights of having a birthday in early February is the transitional period from New Year when there is time for a reappraisal or reflection on life.

This is beginning to sound like a valedictory speech. Hold that sigh of relief, it isn't...!

I have been blogging just short of two years. It has been one of the most positive experiences in my life. For very many reasons. The second most important reason is you. You have made it what it is. Look at my blogroll - it's impressively large. And generally, it's read - every post. Not always all of them in detail, but definitely read.

The single most important thing that blogging has done for me is about me. I'm sorry that Meg dropped Not So Soft, especially for the tagline "Life unfolding". I won't presume to guess what Meg intended by that, but for a while I interpreted it as a contemporary commentary on life.

Then I began to realise that for me that blogging was a way of making life unfold. In my early days, I was inspired by Hg to get out and do things. You see the things as photographs, for me it's about becoming more rounded as a person. Time went by, and I found more of you, and you inspired to do more things. Some of you, amongst you some of my very earliest reads, have also inspired me to understand it's okay to be different and be proud of my uniqueness. (Each of us is unique, I'm not claiming to be special...).

Karen's discovery of her teenage diaries sent me on a journey. I thought it was only to the cupboard in my bedroom where my own teenage diaries are lovingly filed, but it became a longer journey into the essence of who I am. It sparked off remembrance of whom I wanted to be when I grew up when I was fifteen.

More prosaically, I have a hectic week ahead, which involves some time in a 'trendy luxury hotel', which is cheaper than the usual bog-standard-but-full-hotel. January holds other time away, and for the first time in years the television pulls me in.

Earlier this year I was struggling. Normally I walk around with half-formed blog posts in my head. I kept thinking - I could blog about that, no. What shall I blog? And suddenly, of course, you get this urge and you have to write something, and you can't understand why twenty four hours earlier you were struggling for inspiration.

This is a very long ramble of self-indulgent navel gazing and mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa to exculpate my guilt at being nearly incapable of paying you the courtesy of reading your - no doubt - fine words. I can't see much chance of me doing much for most of January.

So, I want each and everyone of you to leave with me at least one link to a post of yours that you want me to read. I will read that, I promise. I would hope for one a week for the remainder of January, but these rules are not prescriptive. I've asked for this before but in your modesty you have declined. I am serious this time.

Homework for the hols

Build a portal from Blogstyles and Sideblog

And your homework - (ha, you didn't think I'd let you off scot-free do you?) - I want you to come up with a list of New Year's Resolutions for me. The most splendid and the most ridiculous will win a small consideration off their Amazon wishlist, or an equivalent.

Judge's decision final and all that...

More on BJ

What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is their business etc. There is a danger if one condemns prostitution that one is seen to be on the side of the right-wingers who can’t bear the thought of anyone having sex.

Unfortunately, this idea that prostitution falls neatly into clear-cut categories of high-class tarts and crackwhores, and they have nothing in common. The truth is somewhat different. The relationship between prostitutes and punters is one of ‘use’. Perhaps, because they’re both using the other, it shouldn’t matter.

Being all liberal, we should applaud the so-called ‘Plat du jour’ because, obviously, she is a free person making a free choice. In endorsing this behaviour, we are, arguably, endorsing that which is far more exploitative. For example, child prostitution. Child prostitution covers both the teenage ‘crackwhore’ on street corners and the child smuggled in from Eastern Europe and Africa to be act effectively as slaves. You may argue that they’re not really connected – the key thing is the difference between consenting adults and exploited children. But a society that condones the objectification of women and the commercialisation of sex is not a society that makes me feel comfortable.

BdJ is all very peachy clean and non-threatening, unlike the existence of most prostitutes, even the ‘high-class’ ones. They are at high risk of being attacked and even murdered by punters, frequently raped. Furthering the myth that these women do it out of joy and pleasure is an easy way to relieve one’s conscience of the desperation that forces women into prostitution and absolves of us any responsibility. Whilst we endorse the transactional nature of high-class prostitutes I think we are also condoning the street prostitutes who proposition children, rob and blackmail random passers-by, and encourage pimps in their destructive behaviours.

And regardless of how well the writer of this work can use English, I don’t think it’s a blog and I think that anybody can write tillating stuff for a period. Keeping it up is much more difficult. So, jolly good fictional website, and let’s not allow any moral considerations interrupt our hedonistic twenty-first century existence. I know morality is passé and considered to be right wing, but the award to that site is a clear sign from the Guardians of their contempt for the weblogging community, such as it is.

Email to the Grauniad

Hello boys

Hope your erections have all subsided.

Why don't you just get the hell out of the blogosphere?

Alternatively, why don't you try reading some blogs and begin to learn about how weblogging actually works in Britain.

Fantastic - you give the award to a whore. A real slap in the fact to those of us whose lives are blighted on a daily basis by the used condoms, robbery and random violence associated with the world of whoring.

Why don't you all fuck off back to your silly little ivory tower and allow the rest of us to get on with real life.

Please grow up.

Lots of love.

A new convert to the Independent tabloid form.

Geraldine Curtis

Whoring one's so-called blog

We all do this blog thing for fun. We know that. So there's a bloody beauty contest. So, make it up, or whatever. Certainly don't have comments. Good god, no, not that interactive raw someone writing something you don't agree with. Way too risky.

Of course certain natioonal daily newspapers are ever so broadminded (And I don't mean the Daily Mail).

I'm not being funny, but I do think there is a betrayal of good faith. Oh gee, you're a journalist - you write well. Good.

So you're a whore and you provide an insight into a tiny part of existence. Hello, there are whores working on my street. Unfortunately, they're often fifteen years old, addicted to crack cocaine, taking advantage of sad losers whilst themselves being exploited by pimps and the whole cycle makes misery for far too many people. Shit, you shag for money. How cool is that? Someone I know got the clap from a whore. That was after she robbed him. When you wake up every morning to the knowledge that you could have a fresh used condom on your doorstep, you tend to have a fairly malign view of whores.

But that's okay, because your writing is beautiful, and it must have been so hard to keep it going for, ooh, all of three months. There again, I suppose it titillates those who don't understand about the connections between whoreing and drugs and violence and robbery.

Oh, wait a minute, I read the Guardian. How illiberal of me. Prostitutes are noble. Look, sister, you prostitute your body. Prostitute your soul as well. Never mind that your website isn't actually a blog. Let's see you still writing in six months time. And let's see some comments.

Obviously, some of the crack whores are victims of circumstancs. A lot more are just arrogant bitches who thought they were immune to narcotics. Let's face it, whoever has met a tart who hasn't been off her face on some narcotic or other. How big are you that you have to shag to earn a living. Some of us have studied hard. We'll be the ones laughing when you're syphillitic 'clapped out' old bag at forty mourning your lost looks and your black soul. Some of the rest of us are actually exploring the amazing world around us.

Hope you're paying tax on your whoring income.

Ooh look the grauniad has provided a glossary of blog terms. Well, allegedly blog terms anyway. Let's laugh.

The UK Bloggers Xmas party

Okay, I'm more or less lucid now. As much as I'll ever be.

I realise that in my last post I committed a cardinal sin of mentioning some names and not other. Better to mention none than miss some out.

There is a list of attendees here - non-exhaustive - at the moment it lacks Anna and Bobbie, Robin, Emma and Spengy

From there I spoke to Stuart Hydragenic; Adrian Sevitz; Ann Pixeldiva (I'm sorry, you got me at the drunk before sober stage); Cal Henderson (briefly); D Acerbia (briefly); Jackie Green Fairy; Julius Outwardly Normal (briefly); Karen and Pete Uborka (briefly); London Mark (briefly); Matt Webb Interconnected (briefly); Meg me(ish); Rich Wild FunJunkie; Stuart Autoblography (briefly); Tim Hall (briefly); Tim Ireland Bloggerheads - do read about South-West Trains; Tom Coates (I can't believe we were actually discussing the unmentionable, and it was very embarrassing when Meg joined the circle...); Tom Morris bbCity; Vaughan Wherever You Are (far too briefly); as well as the above-mentioned omittees, again far too briefly. And I am annoyed for missing Annie Mole from London Underground Blog.

It was too easy, and to enjoyable to stand by the bar. The people I was with were way too interesting. I think it's probably good form to circulate. But I'm not actually very good at social situations. I'm actually quite good at play-acting that I'm good at social situations. Not quite the same thing. I should have circulated.

Jackie is spot-on - there was a high hunk quotient there. Invidious and divisive to say which ones particularly attracted (in a purely aesthetic way, of course, you're all way too young or too married for me, and I'm not looking, anyway).

Thank you to the person (I forget whom!) who called me a token sex-symbol and stressed he meant token. Thank you to the person who told me I write too much. And sorry to everybody to whom I said "Do you want to see my scars?"

I'm also sorry for whinging and moaning about the price of drinks and the absence of cash machines - after arriving as the first 'chick', I made a dramatic exit to find money. It was good to have a dedicated venue, and I'm actually more irritated that the wine came in a thimble than it was four quid a throw. Oh, and thanks for the drinks people - they seemed to line themselves up on the bar and I don't have a clue where they came from. Thanks very much to Rich for organising it.

There are four photos on my camera. Three are blurred. *Sigh* I should have taken photos.

And, if I've missed you out, please slap me with a wet fish!

Certain absent bloggers were discussed, so don't worry. Again, invidious to mention names. But I'm sure you felt the love...

Am I pisssed>?

They are fuv=cking marvellous marvellous people. Ig you wre ther e there there ou wouls understabd how fucking marvellou sth eUk blogosphere us - names too numerous to mention and links are well beoynd my ability - bit you know whjen Stuart and Vaugan arrrive together and you don't know whic to kiss to kiss firat, and that was after the marvellous Anna Little Red thingy. aND THE SHEER EXCITEMTNT OF 'THAT WOMAN' beiing Green Fairy. or AS everuyone said #"oooooh Grreeen Fairy!!!!!!", because you know suoerstardim when you see it , and the absolutely gorgeous Adrian Sevtz.com who's going to ne a vey nice husband for some young woman on day, butright now is one of the most inteeliigent and sensitivr if unable to spell ypung men in London toen. And D of Acsrbia whoo I donb't read because he is o above amy head and ever so young, and a really nic e bloke and Karen Uborka wore her sjoes while Pete Uborka did the old '*I c ondescejs because we met once,"

All olovwely lovely people and not one beliebed ne when I said I brken off off my engagemnt t be blogmeeting.

And yes the scars are wonderfuly are superficia;

And the sgeer motonicy pf th etyoing here nuyst hav eeliminated fme from any consideraton of Rauniad weblohing award thingy/ DO three fingers know what I mean.

Good night.

Things not to say on the phone...

When a fellow blogger, male, whom you have never met, rings you at nine o'clock in the morning it's probably best not to say, "I'm lying in bed right now..."

Hope you weren't embarrassed (but I'll spare the name, just in case...)

My alarm had gone off and I was smoking first cigarette of the day, but the brain hadn't entirely clicked into gear.