A thought about alcohol

I become a much nicer, more friendly person when I'm drunk. Too much so, it could be argued. I suppose it's better than what happens with a lot of people, which is that they get aggressive, or near-psychotic, and start getting into fights. I'm the opposite. If I get confronted with that kind of trouble, I usually dispel it with loads of unthreatening amicability.

There is a downside to this. During a night out which involves beer, I can ending up entertaining the most moronic argument or slagging match and hearing the other person out, and it is only the next day, when I wake up, that I realise that sometimes a box into the face can work wonders for people who turn into a shambling mess after a drinking session. Or at the very least, walking off and leaving them on their own when their back is turned.

Current mood: Exasperated

Back in Brighton...

Exams in two weeks, and what do I do on my first day back? Go out drinking. And stay out until 7am. This is simply NOT on. I've got work to do!

Over Christmas I had ordered the DVD of 'Bear Cub', a film that first came out over a year ago but, thanks to the fact that it wasn't shown over here at the time and I missed subsequent screenings of it, one that I hadn't got around to seeing. This was wrecking my head verily, as my interest had been seriously piqued by the trailer, or more accurately, the men in the trailer. Watch it and I think you'll agree. I tried to do a screen capture of one of the scenes on the DVD and include it here, but it keeps fucking up, so no joy.

Anyway, I came back to Brighton on Sunday night (Boy, was getting a train from Gatwick at 11:20pm a barrel of laughs. Especially when the train timetable display changed the platform number of interest TWO MINUTES before the train came in) and found the DVD in my letterbox, much to my delight. A quick rendez-vous with Phil and it was decided that we would watch it on the plasma screen at his place to do it justice. With two bags of Nachos, dip, buttered popcorn, chocolate and alcohol in hand, we settled down.

Set in Madrid, the film tells the story of how a gay dentist, whose life is one big party, ends up looking after his 9-year old nephew after the mother is detained indefinitely in a different country. Add to this the fact that the boy's paternal grandmother wants custody of the child as she believes, surprise surprise, a gay man does not for a fit parent make.

The difference between this and almost every other film I've seen of gay interest is how it resonated in so many ways with me at an everyday level. Right from the opening slightly comedic sex scene, I was going 'Lord, I know what that's like.' A scene where the lead character is in the sauna having his nipples played with brought back to me how many times I've already had to tell guys that tit torture has never been my thing (I must be the only gay man on the planet who feels like this, from what I can see), a part where they are all mangled on cocaine made me laugh out loud, it brought back so many memories, and the prowling of the cruising areas reminded me of what I could avail of later, if I felt like it.

Other than that, the standard themes of HIV, homophobia etc. were dealt with in a very straight-up no-nonsense way. As a piece of art, the film didn't break a huge amount of ground, but it was probably the most realistic representation of the gay lifestyle I've seen in some time. And the men rocked. Loads of big hairy eye-candy everywhere. The only fly in the ointment was that I missed a thing about Richard Dawkins on BBC something, and also a programme about linguistics (they were doing a thing on the mauling of the English language by management-speak, a pet peeve of mine) but hey.

Anyway, it was kickin'. Get it out, and make sure you get the directors cut, with all the sex scenes left intact, so you can see it at its artistic best, har har.

So after that, we went out drinking, went back to the house, drank some more, watched some porn, and drank some more again. I then left, mystifyingly refusing the offer of a bed, at half-past bloody four in the morning and went cruising in The Bushes. There, I got entangled with a guy, and walked all the way home afterwards, thanks to the dearth of taxis around at the time. Bloody cabbies! What do they think they're doing, knocking off before 6am!

Today, I rose rather late. Lectures tomorrow. No more debauchery. There's a new man in town.

Oh déjà vu...

And onto a new year...

Well, it's been, and I got a little drunk and demented in Dingle, and now it's gone, and I'm on the last leg of the holidays. Time to get on the new year's resolutions. Smokes and alcohol shall feature, as usual. Let's see if I can make it work this year. My stomach is extremely pissed off with how I've been shovelling junk into it indiscriminately, and it's been letting me know in know uncertain terms: While I was out in partying over the past couple of days, I had to keep a toilet nearby at all times. Uurgh...

I had a fear when I came home for the holidays that I would end up getting no study done. I have got some done, but all of this work could more or less be compressed into one day. I refuse to get upset about it. I have one week left.

When I go back, I have exams at the end of January. I also have to find somewhere new to live before the 8th of February. On top of that, I have to find a proper part-time job so that I can be more self sufficient. It's going to be a busy month.

Now I go do laundry. Excitement!

Civil partnerships in the United Kingdom

I'm a bit tardy, downright sloppy in fact, in not writing about this earlier, but you'd want to have been living under a rock not to know that same-sex civil partnerships have now come to pass in the United Kingdom.

I had first heard about this when I had visited the two Craigs out in Arundel a while back. They have since availed of this new piece of legislation and on Wednesday the 21st of this month, after a 20-year 'courtship', they have gone ahead and tied the knot. They are amongst the first of all of the gay couples in the Brighton area to do so, and I wish them the very best.

Nazinger, I beg your pardon, the recently elected Pope Benedict XVMCIIwhat-fucking-ever is, of course, timely in his announcements: He has recently come out and pronounced that no priest-in-waiting may enter a seminary if he has ever exhibited tendencies toward 'the intrinsic disorder' that is homosexuality, within 3 months prior to the proposed time of enrolement. In a particularly noxious twist, the Vatican has issued this 'in response' to the revelations of child sex abuse at the hands of American priests, thus reinforcing in some of the smaller minds amongst us the 'link' that exists between homosexuality and paedophilia.

Here we fucking go again. The Vatican quite simply refusing to grow up and acknowledge the diversity that exists outside of their enclave in Rome. What they don't seem to appreciate is that at ground level, quite a lot of priests are embarassed at the stream of rubbish that is flowing out of there. Some of the less rigid amongst them may find that their job is made increasingly difficult by the pronouncements of a loathsome little toad in Rome who just cannot appreciate that guys who dig other guys are simply never going to go away. Seriously, we've been around since before biblical times, and step by step, we're winning all of our battles as time goes on. Get the fuck over it. Some priests, such as this guy here, are already 'rebelling' by refusing to give assurance that they won't engage in same-sex relations with - oh, this takes my breath away - the man they are marrying. You couldn't make up such a ridiculous scenario.

More and more, the Vatican are digging their own graves with these edicts, and widening what is already a substantial divide between them and the commmon church-goer. With public coverage and acceptance being given to the gay community more and more, we are now more visible than ever, and it has now got to the point where almost every straight person in Western Society knows or is related to someone who warms to the idea of warming up someone of their own gender, and this is where the cardinals are shooting themselves in the foot. They are forcing people to take sides, and if you were presented with the choice between a friend or relative in real life, and some abstract figure who is claimed to be represented by someone such as Ratzinger, well, I know which option I would choose. Only the most simple-minded amongst the Right need to be given instruction on how to live their life in this way.

Incidentally, it's good to see that people like Debbie Gaston aren't allowing organised religion to get in the way of their religious beliefs.

As an aside, if there is such a higher power, why are some people so readily accepting of the theory that he would have someone like Benedict as his spokesman here on Earth? If I were The Almighty, I would have long ago handed his holiness his P45 and found someone a bit more personable. Perhaps it's down to iconography, and how people have more respect for inaccessible figureheads, but I might be overreaching...

Anyhow, the partnerships have come to pass, and some political commentators, along with some of my friends, hold that it won't be long before it happens in Ireland as well. We'll see about that, but the fact that it now exists in so many European countries is good for me at the moment.

Lastly, another absolute red rag of mine. A recent letter to the editor of the Irish Times:

Madam,

Why are commentators on homosexuality so reluctant to use the word "homosexuality"? Is it an example of the Sellafield/Windscale syndrome, whereby, to change the public perception of something, all that is required is to call it by a different name?

In his article on civil partnerships for homosexual couples (Opinion and Analysis, December 21st), Niall Crowley of the Equality Authority uses the phrase "gay, lesbian, or bisexual", or some variation on it, no less than 15 times, while eschewing the term "homosexual". He evinced a similar tendency in his article on December 6th responding to the Vatican document on homosexuality.

He gives the game away right at the end of the latest article, where he uses the term 'all forms of mutually supportive relationships - same sex or heterosexual' when it would have been easier to say 'homosexual or heterosexual'.

Lest I be accused of homophobia, while I agree with the Pope's recent pronouncements on homosexuality, I have met many homosexuals over the course of my life and have generally got on well with them. I experienced a brief homosexual phase myself, lasting about a month, when I was a teenager. Many of my favourite actors - Dirk Bogarde, Sir John Gielgud, Leonard Rossiter, Denholm Elliot inter alia - were homosexuals. One of my favourite films, Death in Venice, based on the book by Thomas Mann, is about a homoerotic attraction towards a beautiful young boy.

One of the important tenets of a democracy is freedom of speech, but I have noticed over the years that if one expresses an opinion contrary to the liberal beliefs espoused by most of those working in the media - who incidentally are not representative of the so-called "plain people of Ireland" - one is accused of being accused of being conservative or intolerant or worse. For instance, as Eamonnn Gavin (December 21st), any suggestion that the number of foreigners entering this country should be restricted is met with accusations of racism. Similarly, any expression of dissent about the propriety of homosexuality is met with accusations of homophobia.

Tendentious articles such as Niall Crowley's latest two contributions are extremely annoying because they are clearly written from a politically correct perspective, the chief characteristic of which is an inability or unwillingness to speak plainly.

Yours, etc.

Discounting this clown's issues with terminology and the all-too-typical attempt to justify himself in paragraph four - I'll get to them later - one concept that needs investigation in this context is that of political correctness.

Political correctness was, like many social phenomena described in detail in the media, something that never really took off. It's central premise, the neuturing of modern speech, especially was something that existed only in the minds of a select few. Terminology such as 'intellectually challenged', 'horizontally advantaged', and 'vertically challenged' most likely had a half-life of about 5 seconds, yet were touted by those in the public eye for quite some time after everyone else had sensibly begun to ignore them. In short, if it ever did exist, it really does not anymore, at least not in the form in which it was originally conceived.

Here is something else. Thanks to variety of social factors, racism, and to a lesser extent, homophobia, stopped becoming acceptable in everyday life some years back. I'm not a social commentator, I can't draw a line in the sand and say exactly where this happened, but it is now not considered good social grace to disparage someone on either of these grounds and offend anyone in mixed company, and society in general is all the better for it.

Somewhere along the line being gay, or at the very least being polysexual, became kind of hip. One reason may have been that it was a way of dissociating oneself from, or offending, the old guard, in whatever form that might have been. Another reason was that it still has a aspect of sexual experimentation to it, along with the attendant party scene, that has since been relegated to the margins in mainstream heterosexual society.

Assimilation eventually came about, and now we have come to today's situation. Racism and homophobia, seen as the preserve of the uneducated redneck who never left his home town and never saw much of the world, is now quite unfashionable. But it's still there, buried in the subconcious of people who, under different circumstances, would never have been that pushed about erasing it from within themselves before.

So now, when people want to give life to the small-minded little shit inside them without looking like the under-developed prat that they are, they need a scapegoat, and boy is the PC concept fast becoming the punchbag of modern times. They give voice to their opinions, but when those are met with protest, they say such sensitivities are borne out of a stifling form of political correctness, the implication being that most people think like them at some level and thus they are absolved. Another annoying term of excuse, with connotations of plain-speaking, is 'irreverance'.

Horseshit. Ignorance is ignorance, and while homophobia is a strong word to use in these circumstances, their comments point to the fact that they are still little boys at heart, who haven't really experienced enough of the world. It's a result of people trying to excuse themselves because they have had a certain sensibility foisted upon them that they are not ready for, at least not yet.

I've always thought that Liberal bashing is done by those who have just a little too much time on their hands, or need to get out more, but now I think of it as a odious form of self-absorption. If these people themselves found that their own rights were being infringed, their whinging would be coming out of every available news outlet, but because it's someone else, they feel free to take potshots. It's the spoiled little kid within each of them being given a voice.

There is no PC brigade. If a slur from a person in the vein mentioned above induces a negative reaction in someone else, that's because the person is being an ignoramus, not a 'plain speaker'. End of story.

This brings me to his support of the Pope. You cannot support someone who condemns gays outright, and yet suddenly immediately afterwards start bleating that you 'don't have a problem with gays'. It just doesn't wash. At all. Not with a figure like that.

Which leads me to the other two points. First, his justificaton in paragraph four. It reminds me of something...

Sometime back, I saw an episode of The Office on TV, which had Gareth, anticharismatic par excellence, talking about gays in the army. He was against it, on the grounds that they might be sexually distracted by the other men in uniform on the battlefield, but then quickly defended himself against accusations of homophobia by pointing out that he had loads of gay musicians in his record collection, such as George Michael and Freddie Mercury ("And", he points out, "They're all bummers"). It was a genius sketch, mainly because most of us, least of all me, know someone this retarded in real life. The parallels between this sketch and the guy above, is that as lines of reasoning go, it's MORONIC!

Last, the use of the term 'homosexual'. It is true that the article referred to in the letter above goes to some lengths to avoid using the term, but in order to help the reader understand why, a quick history lesson.

Once upon a time, not so long ago at all, the medical establishment regarded homosexuality as a disorder, and as such it merited listing in the bible of psychiatry, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). The term they used to describe it at that time? Yep, you guesssed it. That was where the definition first surfaced. The term 'heterosexual' enjoys nowhere near the same kind of dubious history. Even now I'm still not a fan of the homo term, it just sounds too clinical, as if the person in question is some kind of curiosity, and I've noticed at a superficial level, that it can indicate in the user a certain aversion to aspects of our lifestyle. But maybe I'm being too 'PC', and 'not representative of the plain-speaking people of Ireland'. Oh, and if you find gay men getting defensive when you disparage aspects of their community, it's probably because they have a sense of history and are sick of fighting their corner all the time. Conflict can do that to you sometimes.

So on that note, plain speakers, don't diss gays. Apart from anything else it's not cool, and it'll make you look like a twat and you won't get laid. And you've already got quite a lot of catching up to do in that department before you get to where we are.

Hah!

King Kong Kickass!

Slight spoiler ahead...

After hauling myself out of bed this morning at the ungodly hour- well, ungodly by Christmas holiday standards - of twenty-past eight, I got a lift to Cork with my mother and hit the shops looking for my father's Christmas present. He (my father) has given up the subtle art of dropping hints like clangers about what he wants for Christmas, and this year has simply told us directly that he wants a rather obscure yet popular traditional Irish music CD this year. God forbid that it would be easy to find, and after searching specialist shops, Golden Discs, HMV, and Virgin records, I was still empty handed. I ended up getting one of the shops to order it in, and fingers crossed I'll have it on Thursday. Other than that, that's my Christmas shopping taken care of. Our family, thank God in heaven, have opted for a Christmas Kindle setup this year, and that suits my moth-infested wallet down to the ground.

Anyway, at about 11 O'Clock I got on a bus out to Mahon Point shopping centre. Two things about Mahon point: It has one of the best shopping centres for miles around in Cork, along with one of the best cinemas as well. The other thing is that it is in ...erm...Mahon.

I have yet to come across an area anywhere in Ireland that is as drab, grey, and utterly uninspiring as this place. Housing estates as far as the eye can see, that are serviced by a bus route that is really rather shit. Hell is not other people, it is not war, it is not Bray (thank you, Linus), it is Mahon. Add to this the thought that in my attempt to escape the rabble that infest the cinemas of the city centre, I may have jumped out of the Wok and into the furnace. Oh well...

So into the shopping centre I went, found that King Kong was about to start, nabbed an early bird ticket for only EUR2.50 (the munchies were 13 fucking euro, but that's something else) and settled down to enjoy.

You don't have to know your directors to know that this has come from the maker of the Lord of the Rings. The visuals are as striking as they come (as someone who doesn't handle heights very well, I squirmed at the shots of Kong on top of the building being attacked by aircraft, and the scenes with the overgrown insects were...*shudder*) but there is still a decent heart at the centre of the film, and there aren't many in the kind of directorial company kept by Jackson that can effectively combine the two. The sets of New York in the 1930s were spot on - at least to me - and the characters all gelled well together. Naomi Watts can scream with the best of them, and Adrien Brody, whom I last saw in The Jacket, is fast becoming one of my favourite 'character' actors ("That performance was effluent"). Jack Black's film director, well, headed for caricature, but there you go.

I also liked the 'Heart of Darkness' thread running through the background, and have a look at the chase scenes with the dinosaurs and reflect on how another director has been outclassed by Jackson. You know who I mean.

Anyway, it was sad at the end. The outcome was not what you would hope for, but one that you knew was coming. Not like Godzilla, for example, where you wanted the thing dead, nay, anyone involved in the making of the film dead, by the time the end had rolled around.

So there you have it. Denis heartily recommends. Go see. The only downside was that the shitness of the transport service was highlighted when I had to wait 40 minutes afterwards to get a bus back into the city.

But the best thing? The sum total of the viewing population during this film: Four. Me, and three elderly noiseless pensioners. Just the way I like it.

Back in Mallow...

Well, I'm home since Saturday evening, though it was a pure miracle I got here at all. The last few days in brief:

Friday: Go out for a meal, in a vain attempt to be sensible and avoid getting trashed. After meal, break off from group and go meet up with Phil and head for the Star Inn.

Can anyone see in advance how this night will end up? If you said 'ending up at Phil's boozing until the early hours', you'd be right. Talk about sabotaging myself.

The Star Inn was fun, though the owner was a bit stand-offish this time, toward the end. I don't care. I'll get around to him eventually. After that, The Bulldog. The novelty of going to this place still hasn't worn off: There's always someone new to chat up.

So why did I lock mouths with someone I had been with before, who's not really my type? Aaarrrggghhh!

Anyway it was fun, and when I fell into bed at 4am I had no idea of the day that lay ahead of me.

Saturday: Wake up with a horrible hangover (Taste of Phil's gin martinis still at the back of my throat. Never drinking them again!) and in an amazing feat of mind over matter, get my nausea-wracked ass out of bed to pack for the flight home. It is in the back of my head that the flight is at 7:10pm so I aim to be at the airport an hour beforehand.

I make it to the train station at 5:27pm. I see from the TV display that the train to Gatwick airport, which I must catch if I'm to get there in time, is at 5:34. I queue, with mounting hysteria, for my train ticket, and manage to board the train at 5:33 and 30 seconds. I settle and relax, thinking to myself how lucky I am, and that even though I haven't checked my flight details for quite a while, that I was right, that the flight is at 7:10pm.

Isn't it?

I get there at 6pm and lug my bags over to the screens that tell you the flight details. The entry of interest makes my blood run cold:

1810 - Cork - EZY878 - Check-in closed

For reasons that will forever remain unknown, mostly to myself, I had got the departure time wrong by one hour. One hour in the wrong direction. Why do I put myself through these ordeals? Why?

Depressed, and still hungover, I went over to the check-in desk. I mention that it is probably too late to check in, and the girl there confirms this. She mentions that I should go over to their Sales desk, so I do, with leaden heart. I speak to the guy there, he gets on the phone, and manages to get me on the flight list! It turns out that the flight has been delayed by one hour, so boarding is still a possibility. After checking in my bags, I head to the departure gate. Everyone else is seriously disgruntled at the delay, I am thanking the Lord above.

I get home, check my bank balance online, and as a consequence realise that most of time at home will revolve around studying, and nothing else. Oh well, at least I took care of all the essentials first this time, but there'll be no trip to Dublin this Christmas, or anywhere else for that matter. At least New Year's Eve will be in Dingle this year, which should be cool.

Yesterday and today, I vegged.

Other than that, buckets of college coursework await. Onward ho!

After 12 years of waiting...

...I got the new Kate Bush album 'Aerial'.

I am not yet ready to pass comment on this milestone.

Aaarrrgghh! Again.

For some reason, the college network has disabled cookies at the server end, which means I can't change the settings back to what they were when I log in. The consequences? I can't log into blogger - the reason for lack of posts lately - and I can't order anything on my visa card as an online 'shopping cart' needs cookies enabled to be able to work properly.

In other news, I got entangled with the owner of the Star Inn in Brighon last night, although I ended up bringing someone else home at the end of the night. This latter guy had an interest in a third party as well, but that person wasn't too keen on our lack of specificity in the sex department (I don't really like categorisation) and opted not to come home with us as a result, so I had to make do with a standard me-and-one-other scenario. Oh well, I shouldn't complain.

Loads of work to do. No more men this side of Christmas. No alcohol either.

(Resolution lifespan: 1 hour)

An awkward moment is...

...when your mother hands you some plastic bag-wrapped toiletries she found in your room, and upon closer inspection, you see that it is two tubes of KY Jelly.

I only had one in that drawer at home though, the other one must belong to my sister. Too much information? Oh well...

The weekend with my parents over went pretty well, discounting the horrible hangover I had halfway through, and the uncomfortable bed I had made for myself with the sofa cushions laid out on the floor (My parents got my bed). I only got about 3 hours sleep last night. I only got about 2 the night before, but I didn't notice the lack of comfort so much that time as I was wasted. Thankfully the Sunday hangover didn't linger long enough to get in the way of having a Sunday roast at Dan's mother's place, which was very nice, though I had to fight to stay awake afterwards. Everyone else seemed to want to fight for me to stay awake then too. The abuse!

Now that I have some money coming to me, a sex trip to London is in order I feel. Outside of that, I am paying for all essentials for the coming months first, before I start spending money on other stuff. I have learned my lesson! A quiet christmas is for the best this year, I think. 3 more weeks (including this one) left in college.

More classes this afternoon. Unnhhh!

Thank God. THANK GOD!

My bank manager in Ireland has agreed to loan me another £1000! Oh joy and rapture! The perfect end to another hellish week of labs. Now I can have a life again, and pay the rent so I don't end up sleeping on the side of the road.

I'm pretty much done with microbe analysis now, thank fuck, but I have some computer thing on genetic engineering to do next week, and all of that is still Hebrew to me.

I say Hebrew instead of Greek, as having brushed with the former over the summer while testing Blackberry phones, Greek is positively a joy to behold compared to Hebrew. A new phrase of my invention shall be absorbed into the English language!

"Nah, mate. I don't get it. It's all Hebrew to me..."

Hmmm.

Parents tomorrow. Flat still looks like shit. Get on it Denis!

Aaaarrrrrggghhhh!!!

If I have to read about microbes of pharmaceutical importance such as Staphylococcus Aureus, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Escheria Coli and Salmonella one more time, I WILL KILL!

Aaarrrrrggghhhh!

Trying new things...

After a hellish week of labs, independent reading, and more labs, I managed to round it off in a rather novel way.

Last night I called out to Arundel, a town about 30 miles outside Brighton, and met up with two chaps, both of whom were engaged to one another, both of whom, funnily enough, were called Craig. On top of that, they both had goatees.

One other thing they had in common last night was me.

It was rather a fun threesome, though I was a bit subdued this morning as I made my way to the train station to go back to Brighton. Maybe it's the workload I have to get through for the exams after Christmas. Maybe it's that I'm sick of poverty. Maybe drinking that bottle of red wine wasn't a good idea. Maybe...

Oh BLEH! I think I'm fit only for a day in front of the TV today, but I must at least try and do some study. That, and make a start on tidying up the flat. My parents are coming around next weekend.

Dum dee dum...

I'm a bit late with this, but...

Editor free after Kemp 'assault'

Sometime last week, Rebekah Wade, poisonous editor of arguably the most poisonous and shittest newspaper in the whole world, The Sun, was held for assaulting her husband, Ross Kemp, but was later released without charge.

It would perhaps be rather politically incorrect of me to say that he should have returned the favour by clattering her up and down the street. Just a little.

Sod it. He should have stabbed her in the head. The world would be a much better place without her.

I have always found Rebekah Wade a curious proposition. She's educated enough to carve out a career that would have more cerebral connotations (apparently she's studied in the Sorbonne), and by all accounts she has some ability in the socialite/networking arena. It would not be unreasonable, then, to expect to see her establish herself in the broadsheet sector, seeing as she wanted to be a journalist since she was 14. Her ambition is, to understate it somewhat, substantial.

Unfortunately it is not ambition of the intellectual bent, and this is where the rot sets in all over the place. I have yet to see an intelligent newspaper that outsells shit like the red tops, and it's a deeply depressing indictment of the critical faculties of the general public. The Sun has always been the worst of this lot though, and when I read some time back that Wade was coming back on board as its editor, the gist of the Irish Times article was that no-one really expected her to effect many changes. Satan's emissary himself, Rupert Murdoch, likes the page 3 girls apparently, and her argument that this little feature alienates a potentially lucrative audience - women - fell on deaf ears.

An argument based on economic considerations rather than female solidarity. See what I mean?

Anyway, around the time she was made editor my curiosity was piqued, and I decided some monitoring of the integrity of the paper was in order. I shouldn't have bothered. It's hard to know who is more contemptible, the careerist c*#%s who form most of the papers staff, or the readership on the ground. I would argue that enforced sterilisation of the latter would be a service to the human race in general, but I'd wager that the journalists who write their rubbish have as much contempt for their readers as anyone, seeing as securing an internship at one of the red-tops is apparently a very competitive business.

I'm not berating the Sun for its base level, it's the fact that it's so damn obvious about its leanings it might as well come with a siren attached, and STILL it shifts serious units all over the UK. For shame. For shame.

I'm not sure which aspects of Wade's reporting have irked me the most. The consequences of the Name and Shame campaign, overseen by her while she worked at the News of the World, were as much the fault of the TOTAL FUCKING MORONS participating in the riots that followed as anyone, and all tabloids go batshit fucking mental when it comes to paedophilia, so I would have to say that it was the Sun's coverage of the 'War on Terror' (oh, how I cringe to even use the phrase) that literally had me gaping in disbelief.

I remember the editorial of the paper in this regard in the run-up to the US devastation occupation of Iraq. Tony Blair was Bush's obvious ally while most EU countries were still humming and hawing about whether to get involved or not. The Sun, subtle as always in its approach, 'rated' each country out of ten according to how willing they were to commit to Bush's cause - I vaguely remember France enjoying a position near the bottom of the league table) - and I stood there wondering how on earth a newspaper could get away with being so obviously biased. It was like the Belgrano 'Gotcha' headline in its blatantness. The reason that the Sun pulls it off, of course, is that its readers are incapable of higher intellectual thought processes and its well the husband beater knows it. What gets me is the influence this paper has (why? why? why?) and how she wields it.

I must say, though, I derived a smug sense of satisfaction when I saw its bleating yesterday, after the terror bill was defeated.

Incidentally, a story about paedophilia I linked to a while ago was made all the worse for the two innocent nursery workers wrongly accused of this crime, by what was nothing more than a call for a witch hunt issued by the Sun in 1999. Guess who was deputy editor of the newspaper at that time? You have three, and the first two don't count. It makes you wonder how many lives the evil vengeful witch has ruined altogether.

So there you have it. Rebekah Wade knows that there are a great many thick turnips out there, and boy is she more than happy to capitalise on it by playing to them. More than anything else though, she draws attention to the fact that ambition doesn't necessarily mean being good at your job, it just means manoeuvring yourself into a position of influence and making buckets of money. There you have it folks, the former no longer can be equated with the latter in journalism, it seems. When the history books are rewritten about the 'War on Terror' in Iraq, she will most likely be remembered as the voice of evil in all the madness. Her assassination is all that can save us now.

In a similar vein, I saw Piers Morgan, ex-editor of the Mirror, present a show on TV during the week entitled 'Most Pointless Celebrities'. How rich was that?

Note: The above piece should be accepted in the vein of humour in which it was (just about) intended.

A song

Now (and then) - Billy Corgan

Nice and atmospheric, this one. It's taken from his most recent release, The Future Embrace. Overall the Corgan has veered off in a more electronic synthy direction compared to the psychedelic rock-outs of his earlier stuff. It's not a million miles away from Ava Adore, by way of comparison. There's also a rather out-there cover of the Bee Gees 'To Love Somebody', a duet with Robert Smith, though the hairy one can hardly be heard at all.

He's not firing on all the cylinders that he used to when he was in the Smashing Pumpkins, and this album will take a bit of getting used to, but he still has flashes of the genius that, in my opinion, made him better than Kurt at the height of the early 90's alternative explosion. He also did a unique line in a curious sort of frontman anti-charisma, which was refreshingly different and served to scare off the casual everyman (I don't like sharing my bands with just anybody, you know).

I always thought the Pumpkins were at their best when they were doing slightly off-kilter alt. rock rather than writing rock anthems. Gish was uniformly great and possessed of Billy's greatest flash of all, Rhinoceros, and Siamese Dream kicked ass, but Pisces Iscariot...Wow. I remember hearing that when getting a lift to Limerick to visit my brother, and hearing it, I was in a trance for the whole journey. Soothe, Obscured, Blue, La Dolly Vita, Starla, just about everything on that was indie eccentricity brilliantly married with RAWK (man). Sometimes I think they should swap around their A-sides and their B-sides. And of course the Pumpkins had drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who James Iha once referred to as the most gifted of all of them.

It got a little bombastic for them with Mellon Collie, what with drug overdoses and everything, but songs like Porcelina.. and Thru the Eyes of Ruby still showed that when they pushed out the boat, they were one of the most killer bands on the planet. Then came Ava Adore, cool once you had gotten used to it, with another classy highlight in the form of For Martha. Then came Machina.., which had some low points but still a very very high one in the form of Glass and the Ghost Children. And then came the split.

Then came Zwan, a project that still threw up some good songs in spite of what some Pumpkins fans will tell you, but they split acrimoniously as well. Bad feeling and fortune seems to follow Billy like a bad smell sometimes.

Now there is this offering, which has its moments, but I suspect it won't really do it for the indie kids, if they still exist. They seem to be a dying breed now. It just isn't the same as it was in my day anymore!

It's official. I have turned into my father.

Anyway, on billycorgan.com the shaven headed one has already announced that he wants his own band back. God only knows if they'll all ever be able to sit in the same room again, let alone play together, but if it results in a return to their heyday, I'm all for it.

▪

In other news, the lab I was supposed to have today was replaced with a placement in a Pharmacy for three hours. All of the stuff I had to do under supervision was done and stamped in my logbook, so even though I'll have other visits to other clinics, I can now relax safe in the knowledge that the requirements for this aspect of the course have already been dealt with for the whole year. Woo hoo!

The weekend

..fair kicked ass. I visited London for the birthday party of Sarah. We ended up in the city centre at a club called uptight, which was like revisiting my early 20's with all the college rock they played. 2am saw Sarah, her flatmate James and I singing along to Donna Summer at the top of our voices. Getting home that night was character building, to say the least. Getting a taxi after clubs close in central London is harder to pull off than in Dublin, so we managed to squeeze onto a night bus along with what seemed like the rest of the population of suburban London for a rowdy journey home. And of course the train back to Brighton the next day was a delight.

I have also lately discovered a new love: Bloody Marys. Learn how to make them here!

Nothing much else. The college course has gone into overdrive. This week, I have a microbiology lab and a medicine design lab, the latter of which is in the same vein as the labs I did last year. Oh, I can't wait. Roll on the weekend.

More Michael Moore

New Michael Moore project gives drug companies a sick feeling.

I heard about this at a party on Friday night, and I must say I saw it coming a mile off. I'll be interested to see how he handles this, though the comment by Rachel Bloom about portrayals that aren't fair or balanced rings true to some extent. We all know that pharmaceutical companies have been guilty of some fairly substantial misdeeds, but a documentary that merely highlights these wrongs isn't going to cut it. Insight needs to be given into why these companies have never directly held up their hands and admitted their faults and mistakes.

While in this vein, I have applied for placements with two community pharmacy chains for next summer, Lloyds and Boots. I can posture in due course about how I'm above their philosophy, but for the moment I need experience and the guarantee of summer work. Hopefully these places won't stick me out in the middle of nowhere when the time comes around.

While I'm on the subject, the paycheque I got from my summer work has taken the heat off for the time being, but I can't afford to be complacent. In short? I need to start jobhunting again. YUK!

The last few days in brief

Last Friday I had a test (they don't waste time getting back into it around here), and I think it went OK.

That night, I met up with Phil and as is always the case when I meet him, there was debauchery. I heard that Schwartz, the bar I went to before, is closing down for renovations for quite some time. There were many encounters there this time, surprise surprise, though some of them were a bit clumsy thanks to my drunkeness. I ended up back at some guy's place for a while for some fun anyway, before heading home at about 4am.

Saturday saw me meet up with Danny for an all-day drinking session.

Sunday saw me go over to Danny and his girlfriend June's place for a nice roast dinner. I went straight there after doing my shopping at Asda, so I had to lug that home after the dinner, only to discover that the eggs I had bought had broken and flowed very nicely all over everything else. This is the second time this has happened. Reminder to self: Pack eggs separately from now on.

Yesterday saw me meet up with Phil again for drinks, food from an all-you-can-eat Chinese menu, and the cinema. A link was posted up recently by another blogger I know, pointing to a location where you can see the first nine minutes of 'Serenity' for free (as luck would have it, the opportunity has now passed). Once I had seen that, I was sucked in. It strikes me as a good idea for getting people to go and see a film, reel them in, and then watch them queue up to see it. In any case it was good, and I recommend.

After that, we went on a tour of Brighton's legendary cruising ground, the Bushes. I'm not sure if I'd venture down there myself though, it's very dark and secluded and there have been assaults down there before. I'll see. One rather memorable part of it was when we walked down a narrow pathway, passing a group of six people. Two of them were locked in an embrace that was, to say the least, rather passionate, and the other four were engaged in, wait for it, a foursome. I wouldn't have minded stopping to look, just out of curiosity to see how the hell one co-ordinates such an encounter from a mechanical point of view alone, but I thought better of it.

We finished up in a Mausoleum watching a jazz band at around midnight, which was a pretty cool way to round off everything.

After that we went back to Phil's for a short while to watch porn on a large plasma TV (the only way to do it, really), where a German guy with loads of tattoos had everything but the kitchen sink put up his arse. I think I need to research the long-term medical implications of this. It can't be good. That tattooed guy was hot, though.

Today I did nothing.

Not feeling renewed with energy today, so off home I go now.

Oh. My. God.

Does it get more moronic that this?

America, I weep for you.

WTF?!

Comfortably esconsed on the couch last night, I was flicking channels and noticed that 'Lost Highway' was on at about midnight. As I didn't have any classes today, I decided to settle down and get into it.

Everything in it was trademark Lynch, lots of foreboding music and weird flashes, and it was the first time I'd seen Bill Pullman in a role as edgy as the one he had in this. Unsurprisingly, Patricia Arquette's character was nutso.

I'd heard it was a bit of a headfuck though, and just as I thought, halfway through the film everything was turned on it's head, with Pullman's character suddenly being replaced by the one of Balthazar Getty, only for the latter to revert back to the former toward the end. This revelation won't spoil it for you, in fact it'll give you foresight that most people will need when taking on this thing.

Lynch pulled a stunt like this with Mulholland Drive as well. As soon as Naomi Watt's character looked into the cube thing, everthing went pear-tarte-tatin and the viewer was left going ".....errr.....", but at least that one happened towards the end, so you had a chance to enjoy a relatively linear plot up until then.

My take on that cube incident in Mulholland Drive was that Betty Elms was offered a glimpse into the future of her relationship with Rita, but that's not one on which I would stake my life by any means. As for the metamorphosis in Lost Highway, I would really need to see it again. People may have thought that Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, and even Eraserhead were out there, but at least they made sense.

Still a good movie though. The saxophone playing kicked ass and the other stuff by David Bowie, Trent Reznor, and Billy Corgan's nifty 'Eye' was good too. But if anyone wants to enlighten me further on it, and indeed on Mulholland Drive as well, feel free.

At last...

Well, I'm back in Brighton a week now, and as one would expect, it's been a return to form. Dublin was cool while it lasted, though I never got to see the play A View from the Bridge, with crazy fucking hot Meloni in the main role, as it was booked out for the entire run. That was my one disappointment, but I went to see Wolf Creek in the cinema, which kicked some horror butt.

Having got off the plane on Monday morning, I met the venerable Danny in a boozer at about 4pm and stayed out until about 4am the following morning. Registering the next morning at 9:30 in the college was a barrel of laughs, I can tell you. In the course of the 12-hour bender, I lost the microchip for the electricity meter Dan had given me (I've taken on his apartment for £55 a week! Happy days...), and so I had to put up with an apartment without a power supply for a few days until I got a new one in the post. I got around this by heading to north London to visit my brother for a while, only getting back yesterday, engulfed in the fog of a hangover. It was a good few days, just lying around drinking beer and eating food. I have also acquired a new addiction: a cop show called The Shield. I always felt that there was a glut of police dramas around, what with CSI and Law and Order, and God knows what else, but this one I like. The first two series were at my bro's pad, on DVD, and I ended up watching about 9 or 10 episodes in two days. My only regret there was that I didn't bring the rest of them back with me, but that's for another time.

Lectures start tomorrow at 9am. This year looks rather more taxing than the one that has gone before it, and the department still haven't lost their irritating habit of running one subject across 3 or more consecutive lecture hours, thus making sure you stop absorbing information after about an hour. Tomorrow is a full day of lectures, but only one subject is covered: Therapeutic Aspects of Neuroendocrinology and Pharmacokinetics. I imagine we'll all be hanging over the desks by lunchtime, and there'll still be another 3 hours to go. At least I'll be catching up with more people throughout the day.

In other news that no-one could ever see coming, and that has the potential to tip the earth on its axis, I must announce that I am broke again. My grant cheque had better have arrived while I was in London. As it is, it'll take 5 days to clear into my account when I lodge it. Oh, this is all sounding strangely familiar.

Also, I'm having a crisis of faith with this blog at the moment, and am not sure whether to continue with it, move it to livejournal (or somewhere where you can password-protect some entries), or end it altogether. I've decided to keep going for the moment, though the future feels precarious. We'll see...