I'm Thirty-One Years Old

I bought a PlayStation 4 on Tuesday.

"But, Paul," I hear you say, "how can you afford to buy a PlayStation 4?"

The answer is simple: I can't.

I had some money left over from Christmas, but even so, it was a ridiculous thing to do. It might be the most expensive item I've ever bought (except for a flat, but that doesn't count). I can't afford this kind of lifestyle. I have one pair of jeans, one pair of shoes and I never leave the house.

I'm an idiot.

It's not even that I desperately wanted to play some of the launch titles. I just wanted a console, and thought that I'd be better off getting the newest one. That way, I won't have to buy another one until, like, the YBox comes out.

I got a bundle with LEGO Marvel Superheroes, which is lots of fun; FIFA 14, which is always entertaining; and some first-person shooter that I haven't even tried playing yet. It has some generic name like Shoot Soldier or Battlegun: The Reckoning or Stealth Bullet or Gloom Eagle: The Bang Protocols or Fight Squadron Epsilon or Killdrop Minechopper or Band of Pricks or Rifle Corps Trauma Desperado Mission Evolution Black Ops Engine Apocalypse Nightmare VII: A Bomb.

I'll try that at the weekend.

The bundle also came with some accessories, one of which is a headset. I understand you can use it to argue with 13-year-old American homophobes online, which will be lovely.

I have a feeling it's going to eat into a lot of my time, though. So I'm going to stop showering.

***

Oh man, I'm going to eat an apple now!

I've finished the apple. It was nothing special.

I've taken Monday off work. The reason is that I'm tired, and could use a longer break.

The real reason is that I'm planning to stay up until 4am watching a rubbish live stream of the 2014 WWE Royal Rumble.

That's a big wrestling match. I like the Royal Rumble. It has thirty wrestlers in it, entering at intervals, trying to throw each other over the top ring rope. The match has its own particular quirks and rhythms, like a jazz improvisation.

I have most of them on DVD or Blu-ray, so I'm something of an expert.

The best Royal Rumbles have a number of interwoven mini-stories that can instigate, continue or conclude any number of feuds. Sometimes, there will be a snake involved. Sometimes, someone will be thrown out and come back in. Sometimes one of the wrestlers will appear three times in three different identities. Sometimes one of the wrestlers will be Drew Carey. Sometimes someone will get hit in the face with a stick.

It's really rather magical.

I don't watch much wrestling these days, so the Royal Rumble is a unique chance for me to stay up late, drink instant coffee and be disappointed by everything that happens.

Then, on Monday, I can sleep.

Except I can't sleep, because I need to progress to the next stage of Killdrop Minechopper, put on my headset and swear at a foreign boy.

AND I'm going to a football match tomorrow.

My life is all go, go, apple, go.

!!~~POST #800 - GARGANTUAN WATERSHED FIESTA~~!!

The year is 1909. The place is a small European village. Bread is being baked. The baker is a man called Loïc.

Though he bakes bread, he does not think about bread. It's automatic now. Yeast never crosses his mind. He cannot spell the word "crust", either in English or his own language. He doesn't care for flour. He forgets about his oven.

He bakes, but he is not aware of it.

His mind is not on bread. It is on a dream.

This dream has visited him every night for seven weeks. It is always the same. It is as clear as day. It is so vivid that Loïc can still feel it on his skin when he awakens. The dream is more real than his waking life. The dream's smells waft through the room, eclipsing breadsmell and bunsmell alike.

Loïc lives for the dream.

He lives alone. He has never married. His parents are dead. His only brother is abroad somewhere dark and unreachable.

Loïc bakes and sells enough bread to keep himself alive. He doesn't need any more than that. All he desires is enough food to feed himself, enough water to quench himself, a roof over his head, and a comfortable bed.

He needs no luxuries.

He simply requires adequate conditions for sleep.

With the sleep comes the dream. And with the dream comes reality.

After the bread has been baked, Loïc removes it from the oven. He doesn't realise that he is doing this. It is auxiliary. Everything is auxiliary.

Time passes at a steady pace. Loïc knows not to be over-eager. He must not sleep before 8pm, or the dream will not come.

Loïc is not impatient. He is serene. He is content. He is, in his own way, enlightened. He has found a route to happiness, and a route to fulfilment. The route is under the eiderdown. The portal is a single hard pillow.

He turns out his oil lamp, and waits to be illuminated.

And it comes again. It will always come. He is not afraid. It will always come.

Even when death comes, the dream will still be there. When the mortal world is gone, the dream will be everything.

Outside his window, the people of the village laugh and drink and fret and argue and love. They are living what they assume are lives. They think about bread. They think about it every morning. And they think about the baker.

But the baker does not think about the bread. The baker does not think about the people of the village. The baker does not even think about the baker.

The baker thinks about the dream.

And the dream is this:

a small glowing window

beneath the window, a row of buttons, like those of a typewriter - one for every letter

through the window, a strange series of images

images of words, appearing as if by magic

there is colour in the window, and symbols, and sometimes pictures

sometimes the pictures are like photographs, but vivid and strange

photographs of a bearded man, adorned with colour

somehow the man and the writing are connected

the writing does not make sense

it seems like it will, and sometimes it edges close to meaning, but it falls short

the words make reference to places and people and coffee and being bored and not knowing what to write about

sometimes, there are items that have the form of jokes or humorous remarks, but they lack humour, they are not jokes

or maybe the humour is too obscure to fathom

one word recurs and seems to be important

the word is 'blog'

the dream is 'blog'

and so is the world

the world is blog

The baker wakes up from his dream at the same point every morning. He smiles. He revels in the afterglow.

A hum of contentment follows his morning routine, as he bathes and dresses.

There is bread to be made. And it will be made.

But the baker will not think of it.

He has seen through another world's window.

The dough will rise. But it will never rise as high as the baker.

***

Blog anniversary time!

This is Post #800. That's a lot of writing. It's a shame no-one reads it, but at least it means that no-one will feel short-changed when the book comes out.

On my hundredth post, I set a stupid precedent that I continue to follow. The opening picture is part of it. As is the linking to my previous milestone entries:

Post #100
Post #200
Post #300
Post #400
Post #500
Post #600
Post #700

As is a conversation with myself in the past.

In Post #700, I wrote:

So... Post #800 Paul... is the brown shirt still in your wardrobe circulation? Also, is Jeremy Hunt still Secretary for Imagining His Own Deeds?

I would say that the brown shirt is on gardening leave. It's still in the wardrobe, and still makes the occasional jaunt out (if there's a laundry emergency for example; or if I have to go to a costume party, the theme of which is "formal turds"). But it's not part of the regular rotation any more. I think it's on its last legs.

Jeremy Hunt, you'll be delighted to know, has moved away from the vital area of culture, and is now the much more trivial Health Secretary.

All we have to worry about now is the fact that he's dismantling the NHS, probably this country's greatest achievement. Hunt is killing poor people, though in a less direct way than he'd probably like.

This isn't like the halcyon days of Post #700. Things are really miserable.

But, on the bright side: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

But enough about me. Post #900 Paul! How's it going, man? Did you manage to plant some flowers in your window boxes?

Also, have you done any good tweets lately, or is that whole deal over with now?

***

In my last anniversary post, I wrote and recorded a WHOLE NEW SONG specifically for the occasion, and made a VIDEO MONTAGE. Imagine!

I haven't put as much work into this one. In fact, I haven't put any work into it. Possibly because I resented the fact that my song and video attracted no comment whatsoever. What's the point?

Ironically, the song itself was about my lack of comments, so it was probably a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It seems a shame to be so monomedia in this entry though. Maybe I could just do something quick.

That'll do.

I know your attention span is too short to listen to something long, like - I dunno - an AMAZING SONG.

But seriously, you're all great.

And very attractive.

I wonder who the most attractive reader of this blog is... (Excluding me, for several reasons)

If you think you're the most attractive reader of this blog, send a short description of yourself, on a stamped, addressed envelope to the following address:

Headscissors

8212 Scrupulous Drive

Waxahachie, TX

Please note: DO NOT SEND A PHOTOGRAPH. Only a verbal description will be accepted. And, even then, only if it's pretty vague.

***

There's a wrestler that I like called Daniel Bryan.

He's also a wrestler that everyone else likes. He's become really popular, even though he's quite small for a wrestler, and has a big beard, and is a vegan.

He has a strange intensity that makes him fun to watch.

We saw him live, years ago in Coventry (when he was called Bryan Danielson), and he got booed because he stopped his entrance music before everyone could sing along. His music was 'The Final Countdown'. "Only Americans get to hear The Final Countdown!" he said.

That's what you call being a heel.

Wrestling - or more accurately, WWE wrestling - is often full of bad writing and bad decisions. But sometimes, someone like Bryan will come along and take everyone by surprise. I hope he does well.

I don't know why I'm talking about this. Perhaps I just wanted to include some photos in this entry.

If you don't care about wrestling, come back! I'll talk about something everyone likes!

***

Isn't it fun when you put stuff between your toes? Yeah, it is! Like the toes of the other foot. Especially between the third and fourth toes.

It's really satisfying.

Different toes don't have different names like the fingers do. There's the big toe. And the...

Hang on.

Have I talked about this before?

Because I started this as a deliberately lame bit of universal writing. But if I've written it before, in earnest, I'll have egg all over my toes.

I'll search for toe content.

...

It's now several hours later.

I don't think I've ever covered this specific topic, but I certainly have written a lot about toes.

I need to change the subject. I should probably put some socks on.

***

This is enough. I will have lost people at every stage of this entry, and I can't imagine who might be left.

You must be really bored, Sarah. You really must.

Between you and me (and maybe the other Sarah if she's reading), I think you need to have a good hard look at yourself. If you're living a life where you have the time, the patience, or the temperament to read the whole of a post like this, there's something wrong.

You too, Dave.

It's embarrassing.

Don't come down to my level. It's horrible down here.

This has been a lot of fun.

I'd like to finish on a motto that has helped me in some of my darkest moments:

"I'd like to finish on a motto that has helped me in some of my darkest moments"

MAkes yOU think, mm?!

Holiday 2013 – Days Six, Seven and Eight

We continued our pattern of two days doing nothing, followed by one day of doing too much. Today (day eight), we went on another trip. This one was really nice – we went to good places that were warm and interesting. I didn’t spot any “funny” billboards though, so I’m LIVID. What does a guy gots to do to get blog fuel around heres, huh? (That’s how I talk for the duration of that sentence.)

Luckily, I’ve finished the Stewart Lee book, so my writing style will no longer be so derivative. Or if it is, it will be derivative of something completely different. I’ve just finished Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, which is an unsettling horror story. I don’t think I can write like him though.

The other thing I’ve been reading is a volume of Jamie Hernandez’s Love and Rockets comic. (His brother Gilbert also does them, but I haven’t got anything by him yet.)

Man, it is a classy comic book. It’s full of strong, complex, predominantly female, characters, beautiful artwork, wrestling, punk rock, Latino slang, sex, dinosaurs, gang violence - all combined to make incredibly funny and often moving stories. Love and Rockets began in the early eighties, and is still going (or at least was until recently). Classy, classy stuff.

I’ve started to use ‘classy’ as a compliment more and more recently. I think the word fell out of fashion when it became associated with monocles and hot tub chandeliers. But it’s time it was reclaimed for things refined, sophisticated, and of high quality. They don’t have to be posh or stuffy.

Love and Rockets is classy.

The three things I’ve recently been describing as classy are:

1)      Love and Rockets

2)      Former AWA wrestling champion Nick Bockwinkel. To be fair, he probably fits the original definition too. He was a star in the seventies and eighties. In character, he was a superior heel. Out of character, he seems like a real gentleman. Classy.

3)      Rickie Lambert, striker for Southampton FC. He's a classy footballer. People who don’t watch him regularly may think he’s just a big, strong lower-league brute. But he has a vision and touch that’s a joy to behold. He can knock the ball down, or hold it up and bring others into play. His passing is incredible. He’s a bit like Dimitar “the Scimitar” Berbatov in that he moves slowly, but everything he does is crafted beautifully. He may not have pace, but he has vision. And he scores goals. And he’s good in the air. And he’s excellent with set-pieces. And he’s never missed a penalty. And Andy Carroll is in the England squad ahead of him.

That was weird. My three things there relate to comics, wrestling and football. These are three of my main interests, but I don’t talk about them much. I suppose I worry that people won’t be interested. But how would that explain the rest of my content? I can’t be writing my usual meaningless waffle because I think people are actually reading.

My other main interest is comedy.

Hey here’s a joke that I sort-of thought about, but gave up before finishing!

My cousin wrote to the police repeatedly, claiming she was being “storked”. They didn’t seem to take her seriously. Which just goes to show – spelling matters. Ironically, she ended up pregnant.

The good thing about the storked/stalked confusion is that it’s a joke which doesn’t work either out loud or written down. The mistake might make sense in some third medium – i.e. telepathy.

Also, why would she write to the police? Also, why wouldn’t she offer any further details? Also, is this a "rape joke"?

As I said, I never finished it. There are a few kinks to work out.

4)      Comedy. Classy.

***

Isn’t it weird that “worship” and “warship” are only one letter different, but are completely different things? And, to a lesser extent, “workshop”.

I think the Turkish air is doing wonders for my ponders. When I’m back in Blighty (which is what I call my kilt), I’m going to grind to a halt. That’s why this blog is such a valuable resource. It’s like a humour reservoir. A reservoir-ha-ha, you might say. In the barren months ahead, I can revisit these blog posts and think “Storked. Yes. There’s something in that.”

Midnight Feest

I can't sleep. So I've moved my whole body from the dark comfort of bed to the slightly brighter comfort of the living room armchair. Let's make use of this consciousness. Tossing and turning is an ill wind that blows my chances of making it as a professional golfer or something.

I don't have to be coherent. It's 2:50am. The time for sense has passed. This is the hour of the hawk and the nightworm. They care not for intelligent discourse. They only care for prey and soil and the absence of traffic.

My mind was racing back there in bed, inventing hypothetical scenarios and arguing hypothetical issues with hypothetical peers. I was going in circles. That's why I've started this: to drain all of my excess thought into the blog basin. Then I'll turn on a tap, and wash it away. Then I'll turn on a sixpence or a dime (depending on the exchange rate) and head back to the land of pillows, all vacant-like.

But now that I'm here, I don't have anything to say. In bed, in my head, I was all mouth and no trousers. In the cold light of night (I should close that fridge...) I'm mostly trousers, and only a tiny bit of mouth. And what mouth I have is agape at the sight of my enormous trousers.

You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. The grass is always greener on the other side. One man's meat is another man's... chaff? I forget how that goes. The long and the short of it is that I have nothing to say. But if I go back to bed, I'll suddenly be brimming over with wisdom and snappy dialogue. It's probably horizontality. It must be that that causes the thoughts to tip out. I should lie down, but it might be difficult to type.

Is horizontality a word? It doesn't seem to be. But then what's the opposite of verticality? Verticality is a word. It must have an opposite: a yin to its yang, a Moriarty to its Anti-Moriarty.

I've googled it. Horizontality turns up fine. This spell check facility is a diaster. It doesn't even recognise the word 'diaster'. Ridiculous. This is why computers could never triumph over woman or man. Isaac Asimov needs to buck his ideas up.

Here's a photo of Jerry "The King" Lawler piledriving Andy Kaufman:

That's pretty good. Though the spell check doesn't recognise 'piledriving' either. It wants a hyphen.

Well, we don't always get what we want. Sometimes we want hyphens, but they don't have any left at the shop, and the shopkeeper doesn't care that it's your birthday. How was he to know that it would be your birthday when he was requesting stock? He's not psychic. He has to order a sensible number of hyphens. If demand is unusually high, then there may not be enough hyphens for everyone Paul, so stop crying, huh? I bought you a cake.

He wouldn't want surplus hyphens taking up space in the stock room, now would he buddy? That's economics. You'll learn more about that when you're older, so let's just have some cake and try to make the best of it, OK champ? There. That's a good boy.

It's later now. I don't want to give away how long it's taken me to write this, but there's now a "3" in the time. A "3" in the time is worth a certain amount in the bush. It's like that old saying.

I don't have to go to work tomorrow. That's why this is all fine. I can make up for this sleeplack with an extended bedstay. I'll be laughing. "Ha ha ha," I'll be saying in the style of a laugh. I'll have another blog post in the bank too. This blog post. It makes sense and everything. "It makes sense and everything," I'll say to a friend, referring to this blog post. "Ha ha ha," I'll repeat. "Ha ha ha." And the friend will move away as though she doesn't even know me or what I'm doing in her kitchen.

"It's all fine," I'll say.

I think I'm making some real progress here. And sense. Progressence.

It might be time to turn in (I tuned in and copped out earlier in preparation). I'm going to turn so far in that I'll be wrapped up in my own tendrils. Encased. Cocooned. Snug as a bug in a bush as the chaff of another man's snug meat. All vacant-like.

Childhood Stories & The Lost Bear

"Macho Man" Randy Savage died yesterday.

He pretended to punch people for a living,

For a short while his picture was just above Mark E Smith's on the Guardian homepage, but seems to have been replaced by a woman in a blanket or some delicious-looking honey and treacle cake.

Randy Savage was a strange fellow - perhaps the epitome of professional wrestling: intense, flamboyant, ridiculous, athletic, coked-up and utterly enthralling.

Thinking about him got me thinking about some other things. Which is dangerous. I'm not very disciplined in my thoughts (you may have noticed that from reading my blog before).

I don't like to follow sign-posts down a well-trodden woodland track. I get distracted by a blackbird in the distance and barrel off through the trees like a hopped-up Robert Frost: muddy footed, weary legged, my face whipped by branches. I lose not only the path, but the very concept of paths.

But I've thought about what I'm going to write about. This is a rarity for me.

So I'll try to stick to the diffuse points I'm trying to make.

(Hey, isn't it strange that defuse (as in "defuse the bomb") and diffuse (as in "diffuse the situation") come from different etymological roots, but both amount to a quelling of danger? What's that? Oh, right. I'm supposed to be on the path. Sorry.)

Some signposts on the way to my destination are 'the last day at the Dell', 'performance art', childhood imagination, comic books, and the time I was engulfed by a corduroy octopus.

Except the last one isn't true.

Let's get cracking.

[Hold the Cracking. I just want to offer a disclaimer: I've probably covered some of this before. If you're a fanatical Headscissors fan, you may find this frustrating, like a Simpsons nerd enduring a clip-show. Sorry. I'll be back with a new take on cormorants next week.]

Children like stories.

These stories can come from books or television, or they can be invented. But children like the idea of grand, alternate worlds.

The real world is full of rules and barriers. As you grow-up, you're constantly testing your limits, finding out what's possible, and being forced to conform to the reasonable standards of the world.

You don't get the full world of possibility opened up to you until you get older.

If you're reading about a strange fantastical world - the world of Harry Potter, for example - you get the fun of these rules and barriers being broken. The limits of possibility are different. People can fly, monsters exist, and - crucially - children have power.

In fact this power can be realised in a genuine way when children create their own fantastical worlds. If you have an imaginary friend, or a teddy bear, or a doll, or a pliant younger sibling, you can make them do whatever you want.

Maybe not everyone does this to the same extent, but I did it a lot. I created scenarios, characters, extensions of existing books (where I was usually the star, of course).

You create stories, and these stories are interwoven with the real world. They are important to you. Really, genuinely important.

When a child loses their favourite teddy bear isn't just the loss of a toy, it's the loss of a friend, and it's felt totally genuinely. The grief caused by the loss of this toy (whilst it probably won't last as long) is just as keenly felt as the loss of a real person.

And I'm just tickling the edges of the point here - Randy Savage can probably see me in the corner of his ridiculous glasses. But I'm not ready for him yet.

You see, the thing about these stories - and the vivid role that they have in our lives is... we grow up.

Well, we're supposed to.

As you get older and are dealing with real people on a more complex level, it's expected that the invisible friends will disappear for good and the teddy bears will go away into the toy chest.

You've got more important things to deal with. Like SATs. And friends. And motorbikes. And University. And spouses (spice). And mortgages. And The Archers. And then Death.

You don't have time for the world in which you're the world's richest robot musketeer. It's not practical when you're getting your car MOT'd.

But I was never very good at growing up (as I've discussed before). And whilst I have achieved some things that adults do (I have a job, I've built a shelf, I've bought a tie, I've bandaged my own head wounds from falling shelves [with a tie]), I've held on to some of these old worlds. Possibly to an unhealthy extent.

Of course, the joy of the internet is in finding thousands of people who are just like you. And thousands that are much more pathetic.

There are three key worlds that I'm most interested in, and have been (off-and-on) since I was a child. They are comic books, football and professional wrestling.

I think they key similarity between these three worlds is the scope of the narrative. I love big, long, epic stories. I love callbacks and references to earlier events. I love a sequel that refers to an event in the original film, or a last episode of a TV show that mimics the pilot.

I think I like this narrative because it provides a poetry and neatness that real life lacks. There's a justice and a romance to it. It rewards people who have been following the narrative all the way (perhaps because they don't have a girlfriend - who can say?).

And I think comic books, football and pro wrestling are all part of a longer narrative. They have all been continuous from my childhood to now, and started before I was born. They all stitch fictional or semi-fictional events to the real world, or (like a lost teddy bear) allow us to ascribe deep and genuine emotion to stuff that, in real terms, doesn't really matter.

Comic books, and specifically superhero comics, and even more specifically Marvel superhero comics, have been telling stories from the same universe for over seventy years. You can trace the histories of these characters through all that time, through world events, fashion, slang, thousands of writers and artists, various interpretations in different media, all the way up to today.

The Captain America I read about in a comic book each week is the same character that a child was reading about in 1941.

On a personal level, the characters I'm reading about now are the same as the ones I read about when I was seven. Whilst I didn't appreciate the sophistication of (some of) those stories then, I was still in the same narrative world.

So these characters mean something to me. They've been with me when I was in school, when I was a grumpy teenager, when I was a bamboozled university student, and when I'm a bearded blogger.

That continuity, that magic, that romance, that justice, is a constant companion. (Except for those ten years when I stopped reading them, but that ruins my point). These fictional characters and their fictional universe are to entwined with my real life, that they become real to me. And whilst I don't think I've ever had a hugely emotional response to events in comic books, it would be legitimate for me to do that.

Because I have had emotional responses to football. Sports are the more acceptable face of weird fanaticism for the silly things. It's a mainstream passion. People get angry and distraught and elated by football, and it's accepted. Even if it's just a bunch of whiny, overpaid prima donnas kicking a ball around a field.

Football is different of course, in that it isn't written. Its justice and beauty is temperamental and unreliable. It's manufactured by the framework of the game, rather than the determination of the events themselves.

But it has the same nostalgic bond to life. You might see an elderly fan seeing his club win a trophy for the first time ever and he'll have tears in his eyes.

And those tears won't just be happiness and the presentation of a silver cup. It will be tears for his middle-aged self who sat in the same stand with his kids, getting his hopes thwarted. It will be tears for his teenage self, who listened to the game in a French brothel before the war broke out.

It will be tears for the childhood him, who watched the same club take part in the same story - a story you can trace from now, to then, to 1880 - and wanted to see his heroes win the same meaningless trophy.

That's why the emotion is genuine. Comic books are a story. Football is a story. And we've been following it all our lives.

One of my favourite football memories was an example of the game seeming like it was written.

You always get people talking about 'fairytale moments' in sport, which usually just means a rubbish team beating a good team.

But there are times when it seems like it's been written, and your investment in such a frivolous thing is rewarded. It might be an player returning to his old club to score a last minute winner, or someone making amends for a costly mistake.

For me, it was the last game at The Dell.

The Dell was Southampton FCs stadium - the smallest in the Premiership by far - and was a bit of a tiny, cramped, shithole. There were awful trough urinals, our initial seats afforded an almost 5% visibility look at the pitch, and it was great.

We left for a our new (larger, brighter, friendlier, more boring) new ground in 2001. Anyway, in the last game of the season, we were drawing 2-2 with Arsenal and Matthew Le Tissier (idol and waning superstar) came on and scored a great last minute goal. He was the hero and scored the last (competitive) goal in the ground.

Here it is (you can skip to 4:12 to see the goal):



Everyone wanted him to do it. It made sense in terms of the narrative. Our greatest star, giving our home the appropriate send-off. So when it actually happened, it was incredible. It was like living - for just one afternoon - in a film. Even if it was a rubbish Sean Bean film, it was still a film!

It's always good when real life feels like fiction. As long as it's good fiction. I don't want my life to feel like Birds of a Feather.

(I'm wondering if I should go back and put some more jokes in this entry)

So, that's comic books and football. Which brings us to professional wrestling, which is where we started all those many words ago.

Pro wrestling is a weird combination of comic books and football. It has the form of sport, but the predetermined nature of fiction.

If an interest in comic books is about the characters seeming real through lengthy proximity, and football is about ascribing the conventions and attributes of characters to real people, what it wrestling?

It's both of those things and neither of them.

Wrestling has been in my life, more or less, since I was seven years old. It's also part of a story. In this fictional world, these people are really fighting for real championships; they're genuinely hating each other. And this fictional narrative isn't just followed by one company (like comic books), it's adhered to by companies from all over the world, with all their regional variations. It's been going since the early twentieth century, and will probably keep going in one form or another for a long time.

It's as though there's a global agreement to accept the validity of our imaginary friends, place them in the same universe, and totally accept them as real and important and worthy of attention.

Wrestling is a strange thing for me to like. I can see how 70% seems awful and hokey and its morality is hugely dubious. But when it's done right, it's the ideal combination of fiction and reality, preposterousness and real emotion.

I'm sad Randy Savage is dead. There are other wrestling deaths that have affected me more.

I think the reason they seem particularly difficult to take is that the line between the character and the performer is so blurred. My imaginary friend is the same as a real person in the real world with the same name and facial hair.

If we love a particular band, is it the musician or the music that we love? It probably varies. But even if you love the musician, you're not seeing them every week. Wrestlers wrestle all the time (which is why so many of them die young, I suppose). They become a part of my life.

The person playing the wrestler and the character/product he creates are inseparable. Where does Randall Poffo end and Randy Savage begin?

In wrestling, the artist IS the art.

This is probably true of things like ballet and other performance artists too - the human body becomes the canvass on which beautiful images are painted.

So when Randy Savage dies, I'm thinking of the seven-year-old me watching him hit someone with a sceptre, the ten-year-old me watching his gloriously emotional soap-opera reunion with his wife, the teenage me being thrilled by his insanity, or the current-day me watching him on Youtube shouting and emphasising seemingly RANDOM words.

Now that's very selfish. That's the child in me, being sad that his teddy bear was lost.

But there's the not insignificant fact that he was a real man with a real family, who will miss him in a very real way.

Here's a nice little tribute video:



As I said, I wasn't particularly upset about his death, it just sent me down this train of thought, and so I decided to write it down.

I'm quite pleased that I've managed to stick to this path and haven't staggered off the dusty trail to wallow with some hippopotamuses. I'm also glad I didn't abandon the trail as too long, even though it plainly is. And there are probably very few of my readers who are interested enough in comic books, football and wrestling to make this a worthy read.

Oh well. Rest In Peace Mr Savage.

As a tribute, I'll talk like you ALL day, yeah.

A Billion Eyes

I'm multi-tasking.

I don't think that needs a hyphen. But it doesn't really matter - I'm multi-tasking and multitasking simultaneously.

I'm currently listening to a David Ackles album, watching two FA Cup matches and writing these words (for example, the word I'm writing NOW, is "now").

I tend to do several things at once. I'm sure I've discussed this before. Maybe I'll check my previous posts (why not add another activity to the pile?). But what to search for? "Tasking"?

"Tasking" yielded no results. And "multi" produced nothing relevant. I'm sure that can't be right.

Anyway, I like to have things to occupy my eyes, ears, hands and brain. Sometimes I'll play Freecell whilst listening to music, or play the guitar whilst watching television, or fiddle whilst watching Rome burn (on Youtube).

I think it's probably because I'm AMAZING.

So I'm writing this.

The Ackles album has finished, so I'll put something else on.

I've chosen a John Peel compilation thing on Spotify. This song is by The Misunderstood. I don't know who they are.

I'm watching the football on our picture-in-picture feature. Or "PIP". That's what it's called on our remote: PIP.

I don't like to call it that. I prefer to call it juxtapovision.

Not really. But I will from now on.

Though technically, this isn't PIP. It's PAP (picture-alongside-picture?). It means both channels are equally sized, and I can enjoy both games.

By which I mean I can not really follow either of them properly, and can only see them small. It's basically an unpleasant experience all round.

At least the music is good.

And the blog writing, of course.

This should give you a flavour of my evening. It's exhausting and fulfilling.

Ooh, Tim Hardin's just come on! Good work, Peel.

I really wish I'd listened to John Peel's radio show more often when he was alive. I did listen sometimes, but I really think I would love it now. And he selfishly had to go and die.

It taught me an important lesson about taking nothing for granted, and appreciating the fleetingness of life.

Which is why I'm watching two FA Cup games, listening to music and writing a blog post, all at the same time. Making the best of my existence.

***

I don't know why I put those asterisks there. I suppose I thought I was going down a blind alley, and that the asterisks might burst their way through the brickwork and create a path to the Elysian Fields or an all-night Toys R Us.

Adam Buxton (of Adam and Joe fame) has put together a great playlist of music videos on Youtube. He does a live show called BUG where he discusses cool videos, and this is the online version.

I thought I'd post a couple of my favourites here. I don't know if people ever watch the videos I put on here, or if they always skip over them.

I should put together some kind of survey. It would be marketing research on my readership. Questions could be something like:

Q1: When Paul rambles on for a few paragraphs about something you don't understand, do you find it:
a) Fantastic
b) Educational
c) Edutastic
f) "Like the height of The Beatles"

Q2: When Paul posts an embedded video, do you:
a) Skip over it in search of more PaulWords
b) Watch it avidly
c) Stop EVERYTHING

Q3: When Paul posts an imaginary survey, do you find it:
a) An amusing experiment in form
b) A welcome means by which to communicate
c) Impossible to participate in - thus useless

I'll do a full list soon (no more than ten pages or so). Then I'll be able to really give the people what they want.

That reminds me of a joke I once wrote:

Q:How do you find out about oxygen?
A: Question air.

AAHAHAHAHA

(ie Questionnaire. They're spelled differently, but sound similar, you see. That's why the joke works so well)

I got sidetracked.

Videos!

This is really odd, quite disturbing, catchy and sweet, all at the same time.



This next one is my quirky video pioneers OK Go. Everyone's probably already seen this, but I think it's pretty cool. Especially with the constant goose appearances.



There's lots of other cool ones on the Buxton list too.

***

More asterisks there. The asterisks are my friends.

They don't find me boring.

Hey, look at this cool wrestling picture!

***

Between you and me (and I think I'm probably correct in assuming there's only two of us), I think the multitasking (and the multi-tasking, for that matter) have impacted on the quality of this post.

I haven't been able to concentrate properly, so I'm not sure if I've been my usual eloquent self.

To be fair, I haven't been eloquent since last spring. And that was only because I'd been possessed by the ghost of Noel Coward.

Oh well. At least there are some entertaining videos and a nice picture to look at.

***

Q4: Do you find Paul's self-deprecation to be:
a) Endearing
b) Unconvincing
c) Justified

***

These football matches are getting all the more one-sided. Both of them. That's half a side each. I think I should call an end to this whole experiment.

***

Q5: Paul's refusal to use question marks to punctuate what are obviously questions is:
a) Annoying?
b) Annoying.
c) I hadn't noticed. No-one noticed. Don't flatter yourself.

Mindblown

I think this needs its own blog entry. I can't really describe it - it needs to be seen:

One Year Later

Sometimes I look back at my old blogs. It's not self-indulgence (at least not to a greater extent than the ultimate indulgence of even writing a blog in the first place), but a desperate search for interesting things to say. I like to see what I was doing this time last year, and see if I can discern any amusing coincidences.

I suppose I hope that one day, I'll look at the entry from a year before, and I will have written:

"Hey Paul.

I buried some gold in the park. I can only dig it up after one year. You don't remember this, because you (I) had an operation to erase this from your brain for some reason.

Anyway, enjoy the gold.

Yours (You)
One Year Ago Paul

PS. I hope you're enjoying life under President Hilary Clinton. I'm sure she's doing a good job."

It's never usually that fruitful.

I had a look to see what I was doing a year ago today, and it was my long post about a trip to see Pro Wrestling NOAH in Coventry.

It's a bit sad, as one of the wrestlers we saw that night (and featured in the video at the end), Mistuharu Misawa died recently. It was during a match, which is quite unusual. The disproportionately huge amount of wrestler deaths are usually heart problems connected to drug use.

On a selfish level, I'm very glad to have seen him wrestle live. Anyway, it was a sad little coincidence.

It's difficult to know how to react to the death of a celebrity, especially to someone you feel a personal connection to. When Terry Wogan dies, it will be sad, but I'll be sharing the loss with millions of other people. Whereas, when someone like Misawa dies, it feels a little bit more personal. That's not to say that I wish Wogan was dead. I'd much rather he was alive.

(It would be painful in so many ways to see a Princess Diana-style mass funeral for Wogan)

Another coincidence from that entry of a year ago is that (as I'm sure you all know) the city of Coventry no longer exists in that form. It broke off into the sea, and is floating around the Northern Atlantic. It's rare for that to happen to a landlocked city, but that won't be any consolation to the people who live there.

They're attempting to rebrand themselves as New Atlantis, and the mayor has taken to carrying a trident. They've become totally self-sufficient, relying on renewable energy produced by burning Ikea furniture.

I wish them well.

I wonder what I'll be doing in a year's time...

Probably writing another one of these, ruing my prescience as Wogan's casket is paraded through the streets.

Or I'll be digging for gold again.

Wrestligion

Unusually, I have done something almost interesting recently, which should give me something to write about. I've become accustomed to just relying on stupid ideas or incoherent theories about the world to fill this blog. Having an actual event to talk about is unfamiliar, and has made me feel slightly dizzy and nauseous.

On Saturday, Lucy and I took a trip to Coventry to see some Japanese professional wrestling.

On the surface, that sounds like an odd thing to do. In fact, the juxtapostition of a strange thing (wrestling) with an amusingly mundane placename (Coventry), sounds like something a bad comedian would come up with. Well, it really happened. Don't blame me, blame God. He's really the ultimate bad comedian.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?

Because I created it! It does what I say!

Knock knock.

Who's there!

Your creator, you heretical worm!"

God's gigs never end well. He always panics, and responds to hecklers with plagues and floods. The insurance for the comedy clubs are through the roof.

Anyway, we went to Coventry. On a bus. And stayed in a budget hotel. Lucy was thrilled. I wanted to go to Paris, and have champagne and a moonlight stroll down the Champs-Élysées.

But she said no. Let's go to Coventry. How many chances are we going to get to see Mitsuhara Misawa elbow someone in the face?

And I acquiesced.

I'm not anti-Coventry, but it's a bit of a shame that, on Pro Wrestling NOAH's first trip to the UK, they are faced with an overcast, grey city.

Still, they have a fantastic Cathedral, which I will come back to later.

I suppose the wrestling aspect of the trip requires a bit of explanation. Japanese pro-wrestling (or puroresu) is a bit different to American wrestling. There's less outside-the-ring shenanigans. It has traditionally been taken more seriously as a sport (even though there's a fair deal of Japanese-wackiness as well).

The weird thing about puroresu is the audience is different. In America the audience for wrestling is probably mainly teenage and college-aged males (and also plenty of kids). In the UK, there seems to be a higher proportion of kids at the live shows.

In Japan, there are adult professionals in the audience. Married couples. In suits. It's quite odd. Although puroresu isn't as popular as it used to be, it still feels like a unique cultural experience.

Pro Wrestling NOAH is one of the biggest puroresu companies in Japan. The reason they're called NOAH is the aforementioned Mitsuhara Misawa, left All Japan Pro Wrestling to form the company, taking with him some of the best wrestlers. So it was like taking two of every animal. I don't think breeding played much part in the venture. I also don't know know if the same kind of exploitation occurred as in the original Ark, but I suspect so.

But regardless of the makeup of domestic audiences, people who go to see NOAH on a Saturday night in Coventry are almost all geeks. We could see them around the city centre. You could just tell they were wrestling fans. Lots of bad beards and comic-book t-shirts. Mostly over or under-weight. Nasal laughs. The scum of the earth.

Of course, I am a wrestling geek too. I fit most of the profile. Being in the city for a big wrestling show was like attending a family reunion. A reunion where you realise all your relations are annoying idiots. And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Actually, I'm exaggerating a little bit. The crowd was suprisingly diverse. We arrived at the Coventry Skydome (which sounds much more impressive than it is - more of a disused ice-rink), to find a huge queue of wrestling fans snaking its way around the arena. For a foreign wrestling company to draw this many people is quite an achievement. God bless the internet.

Inside there was a huge scrum at the merchandise stand. I waited for ages, but they didn't have anything I wanted. I bought a t-shirt, just because I didn't want to feel like I wasted my time. A woman got chatting to me in the queue. She was obviously there with her son (a teenage proto-nerd, I suppose). She was one of those loud, chatty mums that I would have been torturously embarrassed by as a teen, but I quite like now. She was complaining about the queue, making jokes, chatting to everyone. Her son was cringing.

I like people like her. Because I'm quite shy, I like to have the conversation monopolised. These people are aggressively sociable. I like that, because all I need to do is butt in with the occasional quip, and don't have to shoulder the burden of conversation.

As the wrestling started, I began to lost my faith in humanity. Nerd wrestling-fans (mainly fans of the generally good, US indy-promotion Ring of Honor [the lack of a 'u' makes me wish for re-colonisation]) are notorious for starting up irritating chants. Not only are they needlessly profane - such as the 'You fucked up!' chant after every mistake - they are never funny. They're usually started by three friends who chuckle at their own genius.

A little while into the event, a couple of people shouted annoying things. Other people responded with a 'Shut the fuck up!' chant that lasted far too long. Quite how they thought this was less annoying, I have no idea.

[While all this is going on, consider how much Lucy was enjoying her day]

Luckily, this idiocy was not too pervasive. In fact, my faith in humanity was restored ten-fold by the presence of a young boy sitting behind me. He clearly only knew WWE wrestling, and had never heard of any of the Japanese stars. But he was loving it. He hated the heels and got sucked in by the action. He oooh-ed and aaah-ed at all the right places.

You can't get much better than hearing a boy, in a broad Lancashire accent, exclaiming "That were brilliant!" after a cool move.

Anyway, I won't talk too much about the specific action, as no-one is that interested. But it was a great show, enjoyed by chatty mums, naive kids and sweaty nerds alike.

Even Lucy had some fun. Although this might just have been because of the presence of the young wrestler KENTA (the capitals are necessary), who she claimed was, and I quote, "the most handsome man I've ever seen". I assume she was excluding me from that list, to give KENTA and everyone else a chance.

Here he is on the right. You be the judge: me or KENTA?

The main event featured veteran wrestler (and one of my all-time favourites) Kenta Kobashi (no relation to KENTA), competing less than a year after returning to action after beating cancer. It was pretty cool. Here's a music video of him chopping people and dropping them on their heads:

All in all, a very fun night. My wrestling geek status was confirmed. But I'm not too bothered by that. Dysfunctional though they are, I'm proud to be part of the wrestling nerd family. It's like being proud of your older brother, even though he's in prison for beating up a nurse. Admirable.

So, from the church of the wrestling ring (with Kenta Kobashi as a purple-robed, chop-throwing deity) to the more established church of the Christian faith...

We went to look around Coventry Cathedral on Sunday. The Cathedral was heavily bombed during World War II, and is pretty much a ruin. It looked pretty cool in the sunshine, and made quite a powerful statement. There were lots of monuments dedicated to peace and reconciliation. There is a statue which has a twin in Hiroshima. There are monuments displaying Coventry's ties to another war-torn city: Dresden.

Although my views on religion are well documented, it's still so tragic that the idiocy of war can wipe out beautiful things. Mankind is constantly striving for something more meaningful, and is in turn reminded of its base nature.

Next to the ruin, a modern Cathedral has been built. I like that. It's an acceptance of things having to move on, while at the same time respecting and honouring the past.

Plus, it looks cool.

The big stained-glass window at the front looks like a comic-book splash page (which can only be a good thing). I like it when churches make religion seem cool and exciting, rather than staid and restrained. If I was in charge of the church, I'd have sound effects and squibs and blood capsules in my sermon. I'd swing in like Indiana Jones, and kick a demon in the nuts.

There's a cool statue of an angel and devil hanging on one of the outside walls (see the top of the page). It looked like something from a cool Manga cartoon or, even, something from a professional wrestling match.

And here's where religion and wrestling meet.

Almost no-one over the age of ten believes wrestling is real. It's clearly choreographed. And yet annoying non-wrestling fans seem to find this really hard to accept. They're keen to point out how fake it is. "He's not even hitting him!", "The ref is so stupid!" "Why wouldn't he be knocked out after that? This is ridiculous!"

We know. We know it's not real. We know it's implausible. It's like someone who watches a Bond film, and criticises it for lacking realism. They've missed the point completely.

That is where religion should go. That's the only way forward. If they don't, they'll be left looking as ridiculous as people clinging to the idea that The Undertaker can really shoot lightning out of his bumhole.

We need to get to a stage where people implicitly know religion is fake. They know the idea of a devil and burning bushes and parting the waters is hokum. They know that the ideas of God being benevolent and omnipotent are irreconcilable. But, they can say, you're missing the point.

Religion is something that we can enjoy and feel connected to. We can take it seriously at some times and mock it at others. We can feel affectionately towards it. It can draw people together. Religion is as fake as wrestling, but we still like it.

Because when all is said and done, despite the inconsistencies and the pompousness and the carny sleaziness of it all, despite all that, that bit when God hit Satan with a steel chair was pretty cool.

***

This whole thing paints the atheist as the annoying idiot, which I'm not all that happy with. I don't know if I believe any of what I wrote. It just seemed like an interesting idea.

On the way home our bus nearly got blown off the road in gale-force winds. I suppose God was angry with me. But I'd rather face a plague from him than a roaring elbow from Mitsuhara Misawa, that's for sure:

New Look For The Nineties!

I'm trying out this new blog template for a while. Just to see how it feels. At the moment, it seems very... blue.

I'm starting a new job on Wednesday, which is a relief/pain. Hopefully the job won't be too much hard work, and will allow me to write blog entries in the office, just like the old days.

I keep focussing on what I can do with my salary. I could pay a homeless man to do the "I'm not worthy" bowing mime at me every time I walk past him. A little bit of an ego boost in the morning.

This entry seems to be composed of short sentences. I don't know why. Sometimes I'm willowy and waffly and slippery. But today I'm not. I'm just short. And abrupt. They call me the Staccato Prophet.

No, they don't.

The people in the flat upstairs are having a party. And I'm sitting on my own, writing my blog on a Friday night. Still, we all know who the real winner is.

They're probably having a raucous time, alcohol flowing like wine, witty conversation, several kilos of recreational drugs. They're probably all beautiful and carefree, and sexually promiscuous. They're probably pouring champagne into a crystal fountain, discussing Wittgenstein and manually stimulating each other.

But we all know who the real winner is. He's the one about to watch WWE Smackdown with a cup of tea.

And given the choice between a beautiful bohemian orgy and a possible appearance by Chuck Palumbo - well...

the winner is obvious.

!!~~POST #100 - BUMPER ANNIVERSARY SPECTACULAR~~!!

POST #100!

Bring out the party poppers (and the other kind of poppers - it's that sort of party), crack open the champagne, invite some people you know to a place and do some things.

100 posts doesn't actually seem like that much, but I should mark the occasion.

In my first post I mentioned child pornography, and I continued writing in the same vein. Over the last 100 posts, I've covered such topics as religion, evolution, being depressed, religion again, child pornography again, rape, child rape pornography, religious pornography, and the weather. Not really! I don't think I mentioned child pornography once (until this post, where I've mentioned it five times - child pornography, I mean. Six times).

My life hasn't really changed in that time, despite moving to a new city. On looking back, there are some embarrassingly bad entries, and some genuinely funny ones. I don't seem to be getting better, though. I only hope I can last another 100 entries, and try to maintain the same level of mediocrity.

As a celebration (or as penance), this will be a special anniversary post. I can't think of anything special to do, though, so it'll probably just be like all the other ones, only a bit longer.

***

I was in a job interview today, and I was asked what three words people would use to describe me.

I chose stupid words.

"Friendly", "Consistent" and "Reliable".

These are obviously shit. For one, 'consistent', and 'reliable' basically mean the same thing. Secondly, it marks me out as utterly banal and mediocre.

Lucy thinks I should have used "GSOH". But, as I remarked to her, they didn't ask me to sum myself up in three acronyms. Otherwise I could have used "LMAO" or "MILF".

In retrospect, I should have said:

"Effervescent"

"Byzantine"

and

"Throbbing"

Welcome aboard, Mr Fung.

***

As a I was chastised below for being frugal with my Wrestlemania opinions, here's a quick run-down:

The arena was quite the spectacle, but I felt the outside setting didn't really help the crowd volume.

As for the matches:

JBL vs Finlay

A bit disappointing. I was hoping for a few more nasty punches and a bit of blood. Maybe there's more to follow in this feud. **1/2

Money In The Bank Ladder Match

Lots of goodness here, and some spots I hadn't seen before. Shelton Benjamin nearly died, Matt Hardy returned, and CM Punk won. No complaints! ***1/2

Batista vs Umaga

Another disappointing match. I wanted more cool power shit. *1/4

Chavo Guerrero vs Kane

It was nine seconds long.

Ric Flair vs Shawn Michaels

Better than I expected, very good, lots of drama. Both guys looked good - a suitable last match. Also, Michaels nearly died here:

---The video of his near death has since been taken down due to copyright bollocks. So, instead, here's a really funny dubbed Richard & Judy video by Adam Buxton. Enjoy!



---

Very emotional ending, with the standing ovation. I almost cried (but then realised I'M A MAN. I'm... *sob*... a man). ****1/4

Divas Match

It was alright, Santino is the funniest person in wrestling right now. And he got clotheslined by Snoop Dogg. *3/4

Triple H vs John Cena vs Randy Orton

Very good match, maybe slightly below expectations. I was suprised by how strongly they put over Orton. A good ending too. ****

Big Show vs Floyd 'Money' Mayweather (AKA that little guy)

100 times better than I expected. Loads of cool bits, a good ending, and highly satisfying. ****1/4

Undertaker vs Edge

Started slow, but built well. A very fun match, even if the ending was a bit predictable. ***3/4

All in all, a good 'Mania. Probably the best since WMXX. I'd recommend checking it out - and also Ric Flair's retirement speech on Raw the next night. Even though, if you don't watch wrestling it will probably be meaningless - just lots of balding men crying.

***

We watched the first episode of Dan Cruickshanks's Adventures in Architecture tonight (BBC2 9pm). We've liked the old 'Shanks (as he's called at our house) since Around the World in 80 Treasures was on a few years ago. He's one of those amiable British enthusiasts in the Michael Palin mould; all hats and speech impediments.

His enthusiasm is infectuous, and it was particularly fun to see him comment on an Indian temple decorated with depictions of various sex acts.

The most interesting part of the programme was when he visited Albi Cathedral in France. It survives as a testament to the evil legacy of the Catholic church.

The building is immense, and it's dominating presence is a physical embodiment of the oppression of the organisation.

The building itself is part ancient castle, part dystopian monolith. The columns made me think of it as something industrial. And that's what it was really - an engine for the eradication of heretics (in this case the Cathars).

Inside, there are disgustingly vivid depictions of the torment of Hell. Loads of them. The paradise part of the afterlife isn't represented. I think Heaven is kind of an inconvenience for Catholics - it distracts from the purity and ornateness of guilt and sin and eternal fire.

Lucy and I were thiking how strange it is that people still worship and swear allegiance to an organisation that has committed so much evil. The Catholic church is responsible for such genocide, and has tried so hard to repress knowledge, that you'd think it would be unthinkable for any modern person to adhere to its teachings.

It's like people in the future continuing to be Nazis, despite the Holocaust.

It's not even as though the Catholic Church accepts its guilt and is trying to make a new start. It's still all about pain and suffering. I bet they'd sort out another crusade if they had the balls. Maybe we can send all the fanatical Catholics and all the fanatical Muslims to the moon, or an island somewhere, and let them wipe each other out.

That's not a very original thought, I know. It's just annoying that we have to suffer through all the bullshit. If I was God, I'd be pissed off. It is surely the ulimate proof of his non-existence that he hasn't yet come down from his cloud and broken up the fighting in Gaza, holding both sides at arm's length, saying "alright lads, leave it. It's not worth it".

***

I just had a look to see what my 50th post was about. I didn't seem to notice the milestone. I just talked about killing Evel Nievel.

I should have done something special then. In superhero comics, they always try and milk every milestone or everything it's worth, with fancy foil covers and holograms and double-sized landmark issues.

The historic 428th issue of She-Hulk! 428 issues in the making!

Collectors' Edition: 13 Year Anniversary of Aquaman's Concussion!

It's lucky I'm not that ostentatious.

Enlightenment

I had a very enjoyable day today. It was one of those days that really improves your spiritual, or at least psychological, well-being.

I'm writing this as a storm of hail-stones hits the window, and completes a day of feel very satisfied with the natural world and the experience of being alive.

The events of the day actually began last night, where Lucy and I went to go and see the Guillemots at the Oxford Academy (formerly the Zodiac). I'm sure this isn't confidential information, but my sister has joined the band. She plays the sax, keyboards and she sings too. She might be on TV soon: on a show called Sound on BBC2 on Saturday lunchtime, and on that Lily Allen show next week.

So, by virtue of this connection, we got on the guestlist and got in for free, which was useful as I am at an all-time lack of funds.

This was the first time we'd been there since its revamp, and I wasn't crazy about the result. If I'm going to see indie music, I want the venue to be filthy, stink of piss, and be generally unpleasant. That's what indie music is about. You want to be crammed in a hot room with sweaty strangers; it makes you feel part of some kind of collective (even if it is collective stench).

But the Academy is now all spacious and clean. There are new, tidy bars, and clearly marked toilets. In some ways it's nice, but it seemed a bit sterile.

The gig itself was really good. I reckon the new Guillemots single will do pretty well. One pleasant change from the Zodiac days was the occasional burst of air conditioning. Sometimes the cool air got a big reaction from the baked crowd. I wonder if the band knew what the fuss was about.

So we got home at a reasonable time, but I knew I wasn't going to have much sleep as I'd agreed to do some paid psychometric testing through my temping agency. I had to catch a bus from Oxford City Centre to a tiny village called Sandford on Thames at 7:25 in the morning, which was a bit annoying.

I'd done the tests before, and it doesn't pay much, but I think I felt it would be some kind of catharsis to be out there doing something.

On my way to the bus stop, I began to notice all the nature around. In Summertown there is birdsong all the time, even at night, and early in the morning I enjoyed watching the birds and feeling the cool air. I was experiencing a real heightened sensitivity to the world, and feeling quite positive.

On the bus ride I noticed an advert from the bus company asking: "Have you any questions?". What a strange way to put it. Not, "do you have any questions?" or "have you got any questions?". The syntax was strange, as though Thames Travel had some archaic Victorian-throwback writing for them. Or Russell Brand.

I arrived at the hotel where the tests were taking place, and it was really nice. I think it must be a converted farmhouse or something, with cool old beams and high ceilings. There was a roaring fire in the waiting area/reception, and I sat there reading my book (Umberto Eco - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana; I'm undecided about it thus far). It was so warm and comfortable. There were other people waiting to whom I chatted, most of them students - making me feel jealous and nostalgic.

Nostlagia is always tied up with jealousy. The past seems so magical and profound; it's painful that you can never return there. Of course, in the future I'll probably look back to now with the same envy. Past grass is always greener than the lawn of today.

The test was interesting. You take a questionnaire made up of questions about your preferences in a number of areas, and you're given your personality type at the end. I was slightly distracted by the fact that the woman asking me questions had incredibly big pupils. Maybe she'd taken Magic Mushrooms before arriving. Maybe I'm a figment of her imagination.

My personality type is INFP (I won't bother explaining the letters). The paragraph summarising my characteristics is:

Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and help them fulfil their potential. Adaptable, flexible and accepting unless a value is threatened.

That sounds about right. Quite positive, but then they all are. I wish they were a bit more critical:

ESFJ: Obnoxious sissy-boy

ENTJ: Freak

INTP: Utter cuntI'd respect that kind of honesty.

After it was finished I had to wait at the bus-stop in Sandford for ages. The village is tiny, with nothing going on. I listened to The Doors' The End on my iPod and it started to rain.

There was something about the freshness in the air that brought the nostalgic feeling back to me; like the wind was blowing something of the past. I can't explain it, but I felt a real visceral connection with the world around me. Maybe I had taken Magic Mushrooms...

The feeling continued on my way home, walking through North Oxford, light rain falling, the smell of the damp earth, the palpable moisture and the fragrance of the blossom trees. I felt such an appreciation for the beauty of life; of the pleasure of just living.(This is a pleasure that you can't get when you work full-time, of course. At least, I can't get it. It's too tiring. You can't sit back and experience the world because of stress and buses and annoying colleagues. If people weren't trying so hard to make a living, they'd be able to get on with the living itself. But the we're making a living we can never use; storing it up in some existential ISA. Maybe we can access it when we've retired, I don't know, but by then you're incontinent and right-wing and you've forgotten what you were saving for.)

When I got home I went to sleep, and woke up a couple of hours later, with the wind blowing through the window, and streaks of sun coming through the curtains feeling utterly at peace.

I don't know why I felt like this today. As usual I see it optimisticly. I feel good about life. I just hope I get the freedom to have more of these days.

***

I forgot to say that we went to McDonalds on the way home last night - my first visit there in about five years. It wasn't as good as I remember it. The chips weren't salty and greasy enough, and the milkshake wasn't as thick. The burger was too dry. I don't know if it was always like this, and I just remember it with grease-tinted spectacles, or if the healthy-food brigade has cut down on all the lard and sugar and offal that made the food palatable in the first place. Thanks a lot, Morgan Spurlock!

***

We were watching WWE Raw today, and Lucy pointed out that Shawn Michaels is starting to look more and more like a cat. She's right. He's got those tight, feline, face-lift features, and a lithe, wiry frame. Jerry Lawler even noted his "cat-like agility".

We came up with an amazing storyline they should do. It would have to be really subtle. One week have a cat run out of the locker-room, just in the background of a shot. Later that night, have Shawn come out, with a bandage on his hand. Don't mention it or anything.

Then, as the weeks go by, you give gradual clues. Shawn starts licking the back of his hand during a promo; he keeps landing on his feet after being thrown of the ropes; he starts chasing mice. Eventually, you could have him coughing up furballs, and reveal his was bitten by a radioactive cat, or a werecat.

It could culminate in a feud with a dog-based wrestler (perhaps the British Bulldog's son), where the loser is neutered.

I should write for the show.