Whitehawk Nihilism (draft 1 maybe)

We've got nothing here

Just like you've got nothing there

Only our nothing here

Is much cheaper

And where that road goes

Or where it came from

No one cares

There's patches of ground

Shops and houses

Just the same as what you think you've got

Over there

Only difference is

They're much cheaper here

And more free

Cracked eggs in the aisles

Don't matter

They're nothing

To worry about

You think your nothing

Is better than our nothing?

Nah

Who are ya?

Tired From The Week

I.

So La Choza it is open and a table is reserved

It’s Matthew’s 30th birthday, it’s the least that he deserved

I’d love to come but I’m afraid I’m feeling past my peak

I’ll have to give this one a miss, I’m tired from the week.

II.

Lou and Sue are getting married, they’re gonna tie the knot

The ceremony won’t be one to ever be forgot

It’s going to be quite hectic and right now I’m feeling meek

That’s just another symptom of being tired from the week.

III.

An election is upon us and it’s time to cast our vote 

We cannot let those people take our country by the throat

But if the loons get in then I’ll just turn the other cheek

I’m a busy guy what with being tired from the week.

IV.

I hear Red Diamond Dragon Club are playing another gig

Main support for Talking Heads, it’s gonna be quite big

But I want to be the early bird with worm within its beak

I must confess, I’ve got to rest, I’m tired from the week.

V.

Aurora Borealis is lighting up the Sussex sky!

Never before seen down here by any naked eye!

Oh no good Sir! I won’t be staying up to take a peek

I’ve got to get an early night, I’m tired from the week.

VI.

Jesus has been sighted, reports say that he’s in town

Sounds as though the Second Coming’s finally come around

Tomorrow I will roll away my own stone, so to speak

Must I tell you thrice that I am tired from the week?

VII.

Now aliens have landed and they’re calling us all out

And everyone is going to see what the fuss is all about

I’d prefer it if they tried to maintain their mystique

I have no real interest, I’m tired from the week.

VIII.

I’m going to throw a party and invite all my friends

It’s been a while, I really want to see them all again

Waiting for them to respond, the outlook’s looking bleak

Looks like they might all be feeling tired from the week.

IX.

Friends I’ve known since growing up, friends that I’ve just met

Friends from school, friends from work, friends I won’t forget

Friends of every creed and colour, belief and physique

I find it hard to believe they’re all tired from the week

X.

The birthday boy, the laughing loves, the future of the land

Light fantastic, David Byrne, a good-times party band 

Heaven-scented messengers and the truth that some still seek

What have they all been doing to make them tired from the week?

With A Beak

(another maybe for RDDC)

It's a bonny night to be a penguin
Dancing and a-surfing all day long
They don't have to do
Any performance reviews
We've got our way of being all a-wrong

I want to have myself some breakfast
I want to have a tattie scone
I want to have myself some breakfast
And eat 'til all the pain is gone

To be a thing with a beak
I want to be a thing with a beak

It's a bonny night to be a starling
In your murmuration way up high
No ifs and no buts
No education cuts
You can't be austere with the sky

I want to have myself a pub quiz
I want to have myself a try
I want to have myself a pub quiz
And maybe even win first prize

To be a thing with a beak
I want to be a thing with a beak

It's a bonny night to be a bastard
It's a bonny night to be a cad
We are all encouraged
To steal sandwiches
And rain a rain of shit upon the land

I want to have myself some whisky
I want to have a single malt
I want to have myself some whisky
We know that it's the government's fault

To be a thing with a beak
I want to be a thing with a beak

Lakeside World Darts Championship

(If RDDC can accept this song then the music world is in serious trouble)

You seemed so unimpressed
With our first date at Laserquest
The sweat and pre-pubescents
A mixture you found unpleasant
(You must get enough of that as a maths teacher)
I will appeal to your romantic side
And promise you a walk to the Lakeside
What could be more romantic
Than athletes and mathematics?

Lakeside World Darts Championship
Cupid's arrows never miss
Lakeside World Darts Championship
Oh those arrows are going to hit

Thought about the Amex, thought about bingo
All the exciting places that other people go

I know you like numbers and I like sport
This is the ideal place to court

There are 180 ways
To say “I Love You” to your face

But a trip to Frimley for you and I
Is the best way for me to hit the bullseye

I'm going to step up to the oche
Hoping for a little bit of tonsil hockey

Lakeside World Darts Championship
Cupid's arrows never miss
Lakeside World Darts Championship
Oh those arrows are going to hit

The first thing that you're going to do
When you go back to school
Is begin this little mission;
Hand over a home-made petition

To the head-teacher

In an attempt to beseech her

To install darts as part of
the Maths and PE syllabuses
And if that fails then at least
There's wrestling at Hove Town Hall in two weeks

Lakeside World Darts Championship
Cupid's arrows never miss
Lakeside World Darts Championship
Oh those arrows are going to hit

"The Fluidity of language" - draft 1

“Sticks and stones may break my bones

But names will never hurt me,”

Cool story, bro,
No one ever bled from being called a bastard,

But consider

the fluidity of language:

Throwing a glass full of words into someone's face

May annoy or upset at the most,

But words fired from high-powered cannon,

200 gallons of words a minute by

Men in protective clothing

Can knock down and injure.

Throwing words about casually in the back-garden

On a warm summer's evening

Can make a mess, ruin clothing at the most,

(It's all laughter amongst friends)

But words poured over a cloth covering

The victim's face and

Blocking the breathing passages

Can cause

Physical damage
And

Psychological damage
And

Death.

Words erode,

They drag and tear,

Coastlines collapse into swirling crumbs,

Dripping syllables onto the forehead

Bore a hole into the brain,

Words have a weight

As heavy as history,

And if enough are amassed upon you then

This weight drowns and suffocates

Leaving a body on the ocean floor,

Rusting disintegrating sediment.

Beware;

Lips are floodgates,

Letting loose fifty metre high torrents

Crashing onto foreign shores

Destroying homes and lives and

Those things that have taken years

Of careful nurturing and cultivation

To grow into beauty.

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But waves break me completely.

Collaboration #1

Sunrise like a cabbage,
Cliff Richard reaching a fab age,
He stretched and called Morrissey
Who was visiting Battersea,
Enquiring about a rakish boxer,
And people thought him a cat lover!
"Steve," trilled Cliff, "what are you up to?
Anything fun? And can I come to?"
"Mr. Richard," Moz said, "what joy it would be,
If you would join me at the Ritz for tea."
So Cliff threw on a salmon suit
With a cool mustard necktie to boot,
And dashed along to catch the next train,
Hoping Morrissey's ardour hadn't waned.
But lo! Fickle Steven disapproved
Of the way the garments' colours moved.
He took his leave abruptly like a full stop,
Leaving Cliff, with the boxer in a strop,
Outside a poorly-stocked HMV,
Mourning the tragic passing of humanity.

C. Sissons & J. McIntosh

Wrestling - a defence

"There are people that think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of Suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque." - Roland Barthes

The other week, me and my housemate Matt decided to watch some wrestling. It's not something that either of us regularly do, and it's not something that I've done regularly since I was at secondary school. It's generally regarded as something a little immature to do, I guess largely because it's all overwhelmingly fake, and also because it's by and large a bit silly.

But should these be reasons to look down upon wrestling? There are plenty of other cultural forms that are both silly and fake, and yet are perceived as being more respectable and valid forms of entertainment, at least in the UK. Two of my favourite TV shows, Lost and Twin Peaks, were both at times absolutely ridiculous, and it was eventually obvious that the events of both series could not transpire in reality. Yet both were critically acclaimed, and the reaction I would get if I was to introduce myself to someone as a fan of Twin Peaks would be guaranteed to be more positive than if I was to announce myself as a follower of WWE.

Agent Cooper is felled by a chokeslam in this Falls Count Anywhere match

Watching the wrestling was as gloriously silly as I thought it would be. There is something very cathartic about watching overly muscly men with ridiculous names (Randy Orton? Dolph Ziggler? Fandango?) wearing glorious costume slapping each other silly. We especially enjoyed the dwarf dressed as a bull who managed to throw a dancing wrestler three times his size over the top rope. But was surprised me was that there was a match that I thought was actually awesome.

The match opened the show, and pitted fan-favourite Daniel Bryan against the relative newcomer Bray Wyatt. Bryan plays the perennial underdog, hard-working and technically gifted, who is constantly undermined by the wrestling powers that be for not fitting the traditional poster boy champion image. He has a large beard. Wyatt heads a sinister backwoods cult, with him stylised as the charismatic demagogue. He too has a large beard. Prior to this match, Bryan appeared to have been recruited to Wyatt's family, only to turn his back on him in spectacular fashion. This set them up for their clash. Below is a link to the promo puff to the fight:

So yes, it's very similar to the ridiculousness of the serial drama, or soap, only with a bit more poetic license for the characters. It's hard to see a cult being formed in Eastenders, though it would certainly make for more exciting story lines. The acting out of the story though is also coupled with impressive athleticism. Sure, it's not proper fighting, but it takes a lot of physical exertion in the same way that acrobatics and dancing do. I was ill last week and decided to rewatch a particularly memorable match from my teenhood on Youtube which you can view here should you be this way inclined. There's a lot of elaborate jumping off of things and into things. The violence is gloriously nonsensical, but the level of both the choreographing and improvisation has to be admired. The level of beardage isn't great, but a lot of the other hair is long.

Another thing that surprised me when me and Matt watched the wrestling was how the audience reacted to what it was watching. I've often considered the typical US wrestling fan to be quite the fool, being taken in completely by the spectacle and not recognising it as such. The audience that we witnessed was much more self-aware than that. On several occasions the audience would jeer a wrestler who was being portrayed as a good character, whilst cheering and getting behind wrestlers that were obviously intended to be bad guys. They would support whoever was embodying their character best and was engaging in the most exciting moves. This independence of thought was fascinating to observe, adding an entirely new slant to the action, and providing another element for the combatants to contend with and react to. From what I've read, the WWE have had to work their storylines around fan opinion, especially with the Internet as a platform for alternative ideas, with a great capacity for discussion.

Barthes was very interested in the workings of symbol within professional wrestling, and it is interesting to look at it as a gauge of US society. The cheering of the wrong wrestler, the establishment of the anti-hero, the true and criminal anti-hero is opposed to the workings of the ruling power that controls the stage he performs upon, could illustrate some degree of dissatisfaction with the workings of the ruling powers in society away from the performance. Indeed, the character of the criminal anti-hero is one that has grown in fascination for people significantly over the last couple of decades. You only have to look at the popularity of TV such as Dexter and video games such as Grand Theft Auto to see the magnetism that the criminal anti-hero possesses for the consumer. Contemporary trends in wrestling could be another example of this.

Alternatively, it could just be bad script-writing on the part of WWE, failing to create compelling morally good characters. In the end it doesn't really matter too much, so long as some elements of the spectacle remain exciting, because there's enjoyment to be had on many different levels with wrestling; the symbolism, the stories, the athleticism, and the violence. At the next event, the bearded cultists will be doing battle with a group of morally dubious vigilante types wearing security armour. Both groups have been characterised as bad guys. It sounds exciting, in the same way that a fight between Darth Vader and Darth Maul would be infinitely more exciting than a fight between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. I think we'll be tuning in again.

Beards and animal masks - what's not to like?