Friday 30 October 2009

If Music be the Food of Love...

On the MotCO iPod today, ‘Sacrificium’, the new long player from everybody’s favourite mezzo-soprano, Cecilia Bartoli.



Dedicated to the (arguably thankfully) lost ‘art’ of the castrati, young fellows with their family jewels lopped off before their voices broke to preserve and enhance their vocal purity, Bartoli's latest project presents a dozen arias from obscure Baroque-era composers, including such non-household names as Nicola Porpora, Francesco Araia, Antonio Caldara and Leonardo Vinci.


For all the obscurity of the pieces (11 of which are world premiere recordings), the thing’s a tour de force. Each aria is an explosion of emotion, virtuosic music of coloratura verve and passion. It's also sumptuously packaged with a 108 page hardcover book telling everything you need to know about castration.


I like to contrast this with the similarly sublime music of a chap who plainly has not has his nads snipped off, Mr Josh Todd of the popular beat combo Buckcherry.



As he puts matters in a sensitive paean to his lady-love:


Hey, you're a crazy bitch,
But you fuck so good, I'm on top of it
When I dream I'm doing you all night
Scratches all down my back to keep me right on


I can’t decide which I like better.

Light Relief

Well after that Dan Brown book I needed some light relief. So I took up my old copy of The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Erich Fromm.


It's a thumping good read, and old Erich tackles some pretty big themes. In a world in which violence in every form seems to be increasing, Fromm ponders the whole nature/nurture thing and asks: what is there in the conditions of human existence to lead man to the orgies of destruction and violence in which he has indulged?

Well I'll tell him. As any trip down the main drag after dark will show one with eyes to see, the vast mass of folk are, in the main, filthy drunken animals fit only for senseless violence and joyless couplings in doorways.

Still. Keeps honest jobbing lawyers in claret and pies.

Thursday 29 October 2009

Noetic Science

Dan Brown all finished. There's 4 hours of my life I'll never get back.

To be fair, while it won't win any prizes, was ok for a bit of escapist tosh. But to my mind the plot rang a bit hollow from an early stage. Nothing to do with all the wonky symbology, tanks of liquid oxygen and charging about in awe-inspiring buildings, no no. Bit more fundamental than that.

You see, it seems to me that the whole silly hoopla could have been avoided if those Masonic chappies had simply exercised a bit of due diligence. Before admitting a 6 foot 4, heavily tattooed, steroid freak eunuch into the holy of holies, a swift CRB check, couple of references, the game's up, pal.

After all, I have to go through all that crap if I want to drive the neighbour's kids to a football match.

Secret society entrusted with hidden knowledge of earth-shattering power? Wouldn't trust 'em to run a whelk stall.

Public Displays of Affection

Dear God...

On my morning commute, engrossed in chapter 3 of my new Dan Brown novel (you know what? I'm pretty sure the shaven tattooed loony is that rich bloke's son whom he abandoned in some Turkish oubliette... more to follow) when my attention is diverted by them.

Always the same. Sucking each other's faces off. Like industrial suction pumps. Tongues and slobber. In a crowded carriage. At 8.30 am. Oh sweet Jesus.... he's fondling her arse, now...

OK. I'm sure you spent the night pleasuring one another to the bounds of human capability, and beyond. I just bet you wild, licentious young things got up to stuff that meat and potatoes guys like me could not even begin to imagine. But I implore you, keep it in the boudoir. Weary workers en route to the slave pits do not need to be subjected to this.

And they ming. They always ming.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

More Literary Criticism

Just started trying to re-read Paradise Lost

It kicks off rather well, I think:

"Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire
That Shepherd..."

But, Jesus wept, does it go on. And on and on. With barely a full stop to be found.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers, I'm buying the new Dan Brown.

Saturday 24 October 2009

Weak Bibliophile Joke

If you can't find the book you're looking for, you're probably shopping at the....


Thursday 22 October 2009

Industrial Relations

I'm all for this postal strike.

The relief postie came early, limited the delivery to letters that were actually addressed to MotCO Towers and appears reasonably content in carrying out his job of work.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Feminism

What do the following have in common?

Boudicca

King Alfred the Great

Richard the Lionheart

Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson

Sir Isaac Newton

Enoch Powell M.P.



Stumped?

Me too. If I hadn't been on a fact finding mission to the BNP Gift Shop.

Great to know that even racist bigots like a decent feminist icon like Boudicca...

Can't wait for Question Time



!!!UPDATE!!!

They do a decent line in Golliwogs.

But, sorry chaps: most lines are sold out in XL and XXL

Tuesday 13 October 2009

No Such Thing as Bad Publicity

Right. This is both sinister and hilarious.

The Guardian newspaper has been slapped with an injunction preventing it, for the first time anyone can remember, from reporting parliamentary proceedings, viz. a question properly placed upon the Order Paper to be answered by a minister later in the week.

Bearing in mind that the Order Paper is a document of public record and that both the question and the answer will be delivered upon the floor of the House of Commons (and anyone with half a mind to do so can go and listen to the exchange), it is Kafkaesque in the extreme that:

"The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret."

Indeed the only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves everybody's favourite libel funsters Carter-Ruck & Partners.

What's this all about? Matters of grave national security? Deeply damaging personal slanders about some incredibly important pillar of the community?

No! According to speculation on the Guido Fawkes blog, and elsewhere, it's that old chestnut Big business dumping toxic shit on Africans.

From Wikileaks (page now itself taken down): "Following press reportage about dumping off the coast of Africa, Waterson & Hicks, a UK law firm acting for the large London based oil and commodity trader, Trafigura, ordered and received this confidential report (the so-called "Minton report") into toxic dumping practices by its client along and on the Ivory Coast.

The report reveals a number of toxic dumping incidents and appears to be the report behind this extraordinary secret gagging of the Guardian newspaper (article Oct 12). "

It seems that the parliamentary question in, er, question, may be this:

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) - To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Now while the Guardian has been slapped into line - for now - the Twitterverse and the blogosphere are going stir buggo. Alex Massie in The Spectator has had the stones to pick up the story and run with it.

Odd to think that freedom to report parliamentary carry-on was initially enshrined in the 1688 Bill of Rights and has been debated, and upheld, over the subsequent 300 years or so.

With all the hoo-ha, it's virtually guaranteed that what would otherwise have been a relatively obscure piece buried on page 27 is turning into a front-page three-ring circus...


UPDATE

Wonder whether they'll be able to injunct the European Parliament?

UPDATE 2

At about 1 pm Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian's editor, announced via Twitter (somewhat appropriately) that Carter Ruck & Co. had caved in. The paper is now free to report what's been all over the net all day. Chalk it up as a victory for freedom of speech won by the bloggers.

Friday 9 October 2009

Peace

Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

WTF?

I like the cut of the chap's jib and all, but last I looked we were still embroiled in Afghanistan, Iraq. The Israelis and Palestinians are still at it and it's all gonna kick off in Iran and Pakistan any day.

Jesus: I got both his books for Xmas and found them unreadable.

I'm gonna get myself elected as the first black PM. Then I can have a Nobel prize, too.

And I deserve a chuffing peace prize: the mayhem this morning over who got the remote control first. The problem was solved by sticking MotCO Minor in the other room where there is another TV! Bish, bosh, peace restored!

The UN are flying me out to Jerusalem on Monday.

MotCO Towers, 8.30 am


It was at about this point a middle aged woman in a stupid shite mini 4x4 (Suzuki Jimny or some equal toss: if you're gonna drive a gas guzzler, drive a proper environmental crime. Like, I dunno, a BMW X6 or something. But I digress) started pipping her horn in an irritated fashion.

'What's the problem?' I ask

'I insist you move that lorry' she replies

'I'm afraid that's not possible: they're moving steel girders, each one weighs half a ton', I explain

'Well I don't care about that. It's blocking the street and I need to get through'

We go on in similar fashion for about 5 minutes. Her basic position was that there wasn't enough space to get through (there was, as matters turned out) and she couldn't proceed on her way (she could). I pointed out that there was in fact enough space (there was), or in the alternative, as MotCO street is in fact a crescent, she could turn around and go back the other way. But no! Forwards it had to be.

It ended thus:

'If you don't move that lorry I shall call the police. I must inform you that I'm a J.P.'


'I knew there was a reason I stopped appearing in magistrates' courts. The lorry stays.'

As it transpired, midst much gunning of the mighty 1.4l engine, she was able to proceed on her urgent business and park up down the street.

Turns out she was cluttering the place to walk her dog in the park out back.

Friday 2 October 2009

Thursday 1 October 2009

Literature

Biographies of great men and women are where it's at.

Today: Association football player Dwight Yorke, revealing all in his wittily titled 'Born to Score' (do you see what he did there?)

On his first date with a young maiden named Katie Price, who by all accounts has a certain notoriety for sporting a firm pair of large breasts and calling herself Jordan, Dwight had the novel idea of adding her chest of booty to his trophy cabinet of conquests. Sadly not: "My hopes for a more entertaining end to the evening were quickly dashed. Jordan made it clear nothing like that was on the agenda - she even paid for her own McDonald's."

Good to see that young people in the public eye still know how to conduct themselves with dignified restraint.

Zen

Sitting at Court, where the hoons have block-listed about 96 cases for pre-trial review at the same time.

The only rational explanation is that it's a deliberate attempt to fuck with our minds, give us Stockholm Syndrome, to the point where all futile resistance crumbles and one is prepared to accept any settlement offer, no matter how ludicrous, simply to get out of here. All around me are besuited characters gently segueing from boredom into a Zen-like state of inactivity. Strings of drool connecting their lower lips to their knees.

But not me! Armed with naught but a 3G phone and a keen dose of exhibitionism I can rise above this common herd by updating my blog.



UPDATE


They upped their offer! 2.5k for a severed limb possibly on the low side, but I'm out of here, suckers.