Monday, August 29, 2005

A Plea to Deaf Ears


As I sit here listening to some b-sides from the last few singles, I really wish that Idlewild would re-release their current album acoustically, as the tracks work so much better. The version of El Capitan is sublime, whilst Love Steals Us From Lonliness, with its mournful cello, is simply haunting. If they're not going to, and in an age when albums are re-released all the time I think it'd be a missed opportunity, then if anyone knows where I can get a bootleg of their acoustic tour earlier this year, I'd be very grateful.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

The Emancipating Capabilities of Technology?

Can I just start by saying, and I don't get the opportunity to say this that often, well done to my beloved Exeter City, you've made me proud. I'm wearing my shirt with great hope today, hope for the rest of the season and that we may go one way whilst those other idiots go down. No offence to the Conference, the matches I've seen have been better than a number of the old Third Division matches I saw us play, but it'd be nice to be 'Exeter City of the Football League' once more. Anyways, to come back from 1-0 down away from home, against a fancied side, and win is a great show of character. Let's hope it continues for tommorow against that bastion of footballing excellence that is Forest Green Rovers.

That aside, its been a tirsome weekend: 21 hours worked over three days, coupled with a disastrous encounter with modern technology have left me rather worn out. And to think it could've all been so much better! I'm happy to report that in the last year I've gotten over my technology issues, mainly due to my good friend, and pirate, Christopher Rodway who has shown me just how irrational my fears actually were. However, it's noticable that this encounter happened whilst he was away. The occurance was due to my need for a new printer; technology has progressed over time and subsequently my old one doesn't speak to the now-downsized Cyber Tomb. So gleefully I marched to PC World, spending a good amount of time weighing up a) what suits my needs, b) what I can get some money off and c) what looked a little sexy. I finally settled on a little gizmo that not only prints, but scans and photocopys as well! Fear not though dear reader, an encounter with my arse it will not be getting, no matter how drunk I get. I mean try explaining that to Customer Support. However, after looking like a right prat at the checkout, by managing to pick up the only box not corresponding to what I was looking for in a pile of what I was, I eventually got home and began to set up said device. However, it doesn't work. Not even after the fourth attempt of setting it up. Instead it's sat here, at my feet, smirking worse than Micheal Howard in last year's General Election campaign. What makes it worse is that a) sodding Hewlett Packard don't provide any form of support number, aside from a website that tells you exactly what the set-up brochure does, and b) I spent a good ten minutes on the phone to PC World, doing everything I've previously done once more, only to be told 'Nah mate, I think you've got a faulty piece of hardware'. Well done sir. Keep it up and the people at Nobel will be on to you with an award. It's no wonder people get so agitated...

Anyways, 'How was Friday night?', I hear you enquire, dear reader! Well, the pizza was good, the Dalek was even better, and the wine was cheap. I, however, was rubbish: after Who had finished, I was asleep within five minutes, only to be awoken about an hour and a half later by the dulcit sounds of MTV. I didn't even get as far as the Ghost Light DVD. Oh yeah, and you'll never guess which song said channel was playing when I awoke... Yes, it was Mariah sodding Carey's We Belong Together. If this happens once more, I'm taking a restraining order out against the bloody song.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Speed of Time

Ugh, Devon seems a long time ago, even though it really was only a matter of days. The trip itself was great: there was laughter, there was strangeness, there were reunions, there was some picking at old scars, there was Exeter City sitting comfortably at the top of the Conference with Torquay bottom of their league, there were conversations with random strangers, there was a worryingly large amount of dancing and there was the strange realisation that some things/people/events are bigger than you, and can affect you in ways that make you very nervous. Eitherways it seems like, well, an experience a million miles away...

I look forward to tomorrow evening, when I can collapse with a pizza, a bottle of wine and the BBC3 repeat of Dalek. That'll keep me going during another ten hour shift. After that I'll probably fall asleep seen as though I find it hard to stay awake after 10pm, and asleep after the witching hour. Maybe its all those Demons I've been watching recently. That's definately become one of my fave words at present: Demons. Its even replaced 'Hellbeasts' as the preferred way of descrbing all things nasty. It just implies so much: from psychological states to tacky Dario Argento films, via Super Furry Animals songs, in one fowl swoop. Hurray for Demons!

Told my employer I'm leavin today. It was like Hiroshima in a call centre.

Cyber Control's songs of the moment:

Editors - Blood
Simple Minds - All the Things She Said
The Strokes - What Ever Happened?
Coldplay - Fix You
Beck - Girl

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Plans and Schemes

As I sit here about to write the (probably, unless something amazing, or tragic, happens) last post before I return back to Devon to revel in the glory of my home town, I'm truly stuck for ideas. There's so much I could talk about, and yet, at a personal level, there seems so little. No one really wants to hear me slag off my job anymore. What's more in that respect, I've only got about four weeks before I leave and so feel a bit stupid moaning about something that's coming to an end. The main problem with that situation is, as with relationships, I seem to feel that if things are dying, why stay around to drag them out? Why not save the face of both parties involved and end it there and then? I suppose they really are two different things, but that's just a thought. On a different note related to work, why do you always spend the day with really appauling songs stuck in your head? I mean, there are perfectly good current offerings from Bloc Party and The Rakes that I could easily spend the day humming, but instead I seem to be left with two absolute hams. One is Mariah Carey's We Belong Together, which is played blanketly across all music channels after 11pm at nite, the other being some abortion of a track featuring the line "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" Well, judging by your video dear, no. I don't. You're not exactly Scarlett Johanson yourself. What I'd give to spend the day with a bit of Phil to hum along to. Maybe Follow You, Follow Me or Turn it On Again. Magic.

So what have I really been up to recently? Well, a little bit of soul-searching in respect to the usual Big Themes I like to muse on. However, I have also got back into writing some music over the past couple of weeks. Something I haven't done since the failed project Krycek disbanded about this time last year. Ah, Simon, we could have done so much. Well, at least been something other than another Nirvana tribute act in the Devon music scene. We'd have been a Radiohead one instead! Anyways, I've so far developed two tracks pretty well, calling them For Your Amusement... and Scarlet respectively. If I had to describe them, I couldn't because I'm crap like that. Imagine if Brian Molko and Billy Corgan watched some Who and then wrote some lyrics, whilst Idlewild, Suede, REM and Radiohead jammed in the background, throwing in some heavy-riffing at certain points as well. Think that's the My Chemical Romance influence coming through. In short, it's intense, and epic, but you wouldn't expect anything else from me, would you dear reader?

It's funny I should end up writing about stuff I've been writing, because looking back over the years, the amount of ideas, plans and projects I've conceptualised, but never seen through, is quite outstanding. For example, there was the Don't Waste Cake campaign of 1999, that saught to do away with wasted cake in bakeries. Then, more recently there was The International Language of Doing Nothing Well, which was supposed to be a way for all people, like myself, who felt a bit worthless to communicate with. This soon evolved into another small idea for the apathetic, titled The International Language of Doing Nothing, Well. Isn't it great what you can do with a comma here and there. Completely changes the focus of a sentence, and hence the scheme, doesn't it? It truly is wonderful the differences in meaning you can portray by just altering one word in a sentence. There was an exhibit about this at Tate Modern recently. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go but I bet it was ace.

I'd just like to think that some of current projects, or ideas, don't go the same way that Krycek, and all of the above, did and end up in the bin. It'd be nice if either my drama series (I'll Hate you Next September), my music (The Infinity Loop), or one of my Who stories ended up out there. I think the problem is, I get in the habit of thinking that what I'm doing is both pointless and crap, and so just leave it to rot away. I don't quite know how to get over these constantly creeping doubts. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be more than grateful. I'm bursting with so much creativity that it needs to find some form of outlet!

Fuck Dance, Let's Art

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Taking Back Sunday

A strange realisation has come over me the last few days, well, since last Sunday if we're looking to be precise. However, it occurred to me on the said day exactly how much I miss not having Sunday to myself. Now, I never used to do anything of great consequence with them anyways. In fact, when I was back in glorious Devon, I was quite often working, but that was only for a few hours. Yet whilst at Uni, Sunday really came into its own. Sunday was always an excuse for an early start, a lot of reading, the possiblity of a football match in the afternoon, and then the Union pub quiz in the evening. In short, they were a day for relaxing and doing stuff you enjoyed. Jesus, you can tell how much of geek I am, I actually enjoyed studying at Uni. Then again, I always stand by the statement you should study what you enjoy rather than what you're good at.

Anyways, my point is this: Sunday's are for doing things, even if that involves doing very little! At least your doing something! If you're simply watching Dawson's Creek, you're still doing something as you're endulging in the act of viewing. Sunday is not a day for being sworn at by members of the public. Sunday is not the day for trying to decode what the hell people in Leeds are trying to say. Sunday is not the day to be working a ten hour shift. Now, I'm in no way suggesting some regression back to biblical times, when people had to attend some organization for fear of being burnt alive, or having one of their children sodomised by a local 'dignitory'. Surely we went through the Enlightenment for something, after all? No. I'm suggesting that for one day a week, contemporary culture just finds an 'off' switch. Surely we can go one day without words such as 'Customer Service', or 'Mobile Phone', or both, needing to be uttered? Surely we all deserve one day where everyone just goes "Sod it. I'm going to read a book" or something?

So this Sunday, when I'm indulging in the unsavoury occasions outlined above, I know a big part of me will be yearning for (less than comfortable) wooden bench, with good friends, a drink or two, dogs running in the park and a sudoku that I won't even look at for the simple reason that I always mess them up. I'll long for a crappy tabloid, where you can colour in the letters of headlines to make new ones that seem more interesting, whilst listening to acoustic-rock music and smiling nervously at waitresses who may or may not be looking in your direction.

Come on people, join me. Lets turn the world off for a day. It moves quick enough as it is! So before this idea itself becomes redundant, why not act? I'll see you in Terra Nova, where the toilets are badly labelled and the cocktails are embarassingly named. Make mine a peroni...