So, that's over with

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Well, I managed to get through my significant birthday without too many traumas. I am now officially middle-aged. Halfway there now. If I'm lucky. Time to work harder at making the most of it all methinks.

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Re, the link to the cartoon site I posted earlier on. I know it's naughty but I've collected 20 of my favourite cartoons somewhere safe, just in case ...

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidicke/sets/1260951/

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I really wish I could draw ...

Up The Elephant and Round The Castle

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Walking home through the Elephant and Castle a few nights ago, I encountered an interesting dilemma.
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Having grown up for the last 40 years with the Elephant and Castle as part of my life I must confess to not being its greatest fan. It's a vile, dangerous place. The Elephant and Castle holds the dubious honour of being one of the very great, dare I say legendary, true London cr*p holes.

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E&C Knowhere Guide

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There are those who don’t share this opinion. To some, the name conjures up a kind of South London Cockney authenticity and romance. These guys are about 50 years too late. There was a South London Cockney authenticity and romance about the place but that was utterly obliterated in the 1960s, when the ghastly shopping centre, road and tunnel system that occupies site was constructed.

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I came across this description on the web recently …

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I visited the Elephant at Christmas after 3 months away living in America. I emerged from the Northern line tube exit, turned the corner to the left and suddenly I couldn't get over how great it smelled to me - maybe just because it was my home for so long. Caribbean food, fish and chips, diesel fumes from the many buses, dust, perfume and styling wax and bodies - all so vibrant and thoroughly energetic. The stalls around the shopping centre are ripe for bargains, and for people watching. Look, I'm not delusional - Elephant's no picture but if you want to get around by bus in south London, the likelihood is you'll be passing through, so why not stop for a minute, browse the stalls or the second hand bookstore in the shopping centre, buy a coffee and indulge in London at it's realest.

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This guy isn’t delusional, he's certifiable. He's also missed out some of the more important smells.

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Anyway, I had a meal a few nights ago with Tracy in the City and we, I, decided to walk home together rather than take the bus. Even though Christmas was weeks past, there were still some Christmas decorations dangling from high places around the shopping centre. In fairness to Lambeth Council they don't normally need to make arrangements to remove the decorations after Christmas as most are stolen, defaced or destroyed long before the traditional twelve days are up. I'm not sure what went wrong this year. Maybe it was too cold.

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I've always found the idea of decorating the Elephant quite an amusing idea; akin to sticking a stripey birthday candle in a dog turd. But, on the other hand, I suppose it's nice that people at least pretend some semblance of normal life takes place round there. The best Elephant and Castle decorating wheeze was a few years ago now. Short of the resources to do the decent thing and napalm the entire area, some bright spark came up instead with the idea of repainting the crumbling asbestos and plasterboard surrounding the shopping centre a bright shade of pink. Several pink elephant statuettes were also positioned at key strategic points around the complex. What was the intended message? The Elephant is a fun place to be? You must be pissed to be here? God knows. Since then there's been another paint job. Clearly, the pink thing didn’t go down well as it has now been replaced with a disturbing shade of red that I have only ever seen used at the Elephant and certain fast food restaurants with restricted eat-in facilities.

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Anyway, back to my dilemma. Walking past the surviving Christmas decorations Tracy commented that this meant bad luck for the Elephant for the next year or so. What she, of course, meant was worse luck for the next year or so. And then I noticed that she was acting a little nervous.

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Now, the thing is, being South London born and bred, and unemployed, my clothing was rigged South London style. South London style involves wearing no single item that cost more than £10 and sporting a proper unshaven look. Not the kind of sissy unshaven look that you get between Friday night and Monday morning. No, we're talking eight day stubble, the kind of look that simply oozes 'I could not possibly have a job looking like this. I have no money'. The very epitome of the South London look is to hold a single can of lager in one hand at waist level and look 'dodgy'.

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Actually, armed with the can of lager you could be wearing a immaculately pressed three piece morning suit and still blend in, chameleon-like with your South London surroundings. I would be able to take the most stunning candid photographs of South London street life if only I could figure out a way to use my camera whilst holding a can of beer in one hand at regulatory crotch height. Single Can of Lager Man, 'living life one can at a time', will certainly be a major character in any book I get round to writing. Maybe he'll be a Super Hero. Maybe he'll save the World. Whatever he does, he'll always have his beer with him, but never any more than one serving at any time.

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But Tracy is in work and, because she had met me straight after work, was clean shaven, smartly dressed and, worst of all carrying a handbag.
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That's why she was nervous.
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'Shit! You've come out with a handbag! Why didn't you buy a new mobile phone and wear some jewellery while you were at it you muppet! ... We're dead!'

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I thought.

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Now we come onto my dilemma.
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Naturally, I offered to carry her handbag for her.

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Which resulted in me looking like some kind of middle-aged nonce, mincing down the Kennington Park Road.

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What to do? Leave the handbag with the girlfriend and put her at risk of a mugging or, carry her handbag, be mistaken for an aged poove and get twatted accordingly?
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We decided to compromise and switched the bag a couple of times for the next mile or so depending of the perceived nature of any immediate potential threat.
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You wouldn't have this kind of fun in the shires would you.
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Right, enough of this. I'm going to dust off my inkjet and start knocking up some really nasty commemorative Charles and Camilla souvenirs to sell to mug Jap punters tomorrow in Hyde Park. Some mugs maybe.

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Going Underground

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One of the tricky things about writing a regular blog is that, inevitably, it reflects the mental state of the person writing. At the moment I'm stuck in a downbeat anti London, anti Blair, anti New Britain groove. I've been trying to write my way out of it but every day brings more material from my personal life, from the media and from friends who cheerfully add to my list of woes by filling-me in on any little snippets I may have missed.

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Claire is the latest offender. She's just sent me a link to a spoof cover of Going Underground by the Jam. Other people have sent me various links to this song over the last few weeks but Claire's version comes with a natty flash animation. It's rather good. No, it's more than that, it's fantastic.
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Going Underground

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If you’re one of the handful of net-connected people in the UK who have not listened to this file, do so now. But please bear in mind that the language, in keeping with life in London, scores about 9/10 on the f**king c*nt scale.

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(NB The original link seems to have died since I first posted this a few days ago. Until normal service is resumed, I'm temporarily hosting a mirror of the file here ...

http://www.biscuitgame.com/vault/vault.htm )

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Listening to this song is particularly poignant for me as I was massive Jam fan. I can still clearly remember hovering over the record button on my Binetone cassette recorder back in 1980 waiting for BBC to play the track for the first time. Britain was a very different place then and kids knew what they were angry about. I pity anyone who is 15 in Britain now. They're all losers and they know it. Keep buying Franz Ferdinand CDs you muppets.

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On a brighter note, I do detect the beginnings of a serious anti New Britain movement. Without merging two posts into one, I'm picking up on material, like the song link above and in the darkest corners of the media such as BBC3 that is critical of the Britain that is being shaped around us. Yet, at the same time, most of this material is essentially apolitical. Well, as far as traditional politics are concerned.

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I've mentioned this before but the old distinctions between Left and Right are increasingly meaningless. Does a couple of pence on income tax either way really matter when you consider the much more fundamental and sinister changes that are taking place around us? But, like I said that's another post.

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The finest example of the material I'm talking about is the very excellent Monkey Dust. Billed as a biting cartoon-based satire of modern urban life it's becoming increasingly more of a documentary series, and certainly more accurate than anything played on the conventional news programmes.

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Per the blurb on the BBC website ...

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The series is set in a permanent urban nightmare - a nocturnal world inhabited by the sad, the lonely and the emotionally crippled. Its satirical targets range across the whole spectrum of British society, from dysfunctional families to heartless government departments.

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This is a world of mass murderers and divorced dads, of illegal aliens and wannabe terrorists, of perverts, tramps, hookers and liars. Monkey Dust is a show that brings out the loser in everybody.

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Yup, sounds like Lambeth to me.

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In particular, the latest series, Season 3 comes over with a very strong sense that the production team really didn't give a damn, said 'bollocks to it' and set out to lay down their observations without any inhibitions at all. They have achieved almost perfect television.

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Monkey Dust Episode Guide

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Coupled with the excellent The Power of Nightmares documentary a few months ago I'm left satisfied that my TV licence fee has been well spent this year, even if 99.5% of it went on other guff. Sadly, The Power of Nightmares was arguably the most important TV program made in the UK since 2001 yet hardly anybody noticed it. But a few people did and that's better than nothing.

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Power of Nightmares

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Yes, I think there are a growing number of kindred spirits out there. Disappointed optimists who despair of the way society is being manipulated. Admittedly, their stuff doesn’t make prime time but it exists and that's a big comfort in itself.

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The perils of Scandinavian Circuit Diagrams

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A few days ago I ran across a Scandinavian blog that included diagrams for what appeared to be several interesting electrical circuits. Working faithfully to the original illustrations, I've made my own version of several of the designs and, for the life of me, I can't figure out what they're supposed to do.

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The source site appears to be down now but I have created an archive of some of the circuit designs here ...
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidicke/sets/1260934/

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What am I doing wrong? Should I be using a bigger battery?
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Revenge of the Hugbot

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Top cartoon site here

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http://cheston.com/pbf/archive.html

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Some are rather good

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Life in London in 2005 - marvellous!

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And today, possibly the most perfect new story of my lifetime. A story that combines many of the factors that depress me so about life in London in 2005. This is the story I will quote from now on to anyone choosing to take me to task over my thoughts about how awful London has become. UK readers of my blog will probably have already seen this story but it's so very, very good it's worth repeating here. The quotes at the end are particularly choice …

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Stabbing in Ikea chaos
By Oliver Finegold, Evening Standard
10 February 2005

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A man was stabbed and hundreds of people were crushed as the opening of the biggest Ikea store in England descended into chaos.

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Nine ambulances were sent to the store in north London after reports that up to 20 people suffered heat exhaustion when the midnight opening turned into a riot. Staff closed the doors after half an hour amid fears the stampede could become a Hillsborough-style crush.

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Six people were still being treated in hospital today.

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More than 4,000 flocked to the new store in Edmonton last night, lured by adverts promising huge discounts, including sofas at £45 each and bed frames cut to £30.

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As soon as it was declared open, the crowds tried to push their way through the main doors, leaving many people pinned against the wall. Security guards were overwhelmed and scores of shoppers were thrown to the ground.

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A man, believed to be in his twenties, was stabbed at a Tesco petrol station yards from the store. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "It was all part of the same incident." Today the victim was "stable".

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Paramedics at the scene said they feared a disaster. An ambulance service source said. "I thought it could be another Hillsborough. It's a miracle no one was killed."

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Video footage showed shoppers fighting over furniture. One man was pinned against a wall by a burly customer as they argued over a sofa. A woman was left with blood pouring from her nose after she was pushed against a wall, while another was heard screaming in pain as she tried to escape the crush. Shoppers were stretchered into ambulances while others sat on the floor, where staff gave them first aid.

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After half an hour the store was closed - but at the main doors, staff were reduced to writing signs in black marker pen and holding them up against the windows to announce the fact. The crowd refused to disperse, and at one point some outside the main entrance tried to smash down the glass doors.

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Fights broke out between Ikea staff and shoppers. More than 30 police officers were drafted in to keep the sides apart as firefighters tried to free customers who were still trapped in the crowd.

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Meanwhile, traffic on the North Circular ground to a halt as people who had been in jams for over an hour simply abandoned their cars.

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Ikea apologised for the chaos but a spokeswoman said some shoppers had "behaved like animals".

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Customers criticised the store for being understaffed. Karni Mahmood, 37, from Enfield, said: "I'm amazed at how badly organised it was. Ikea failed to provide the staff to control such a big event. They are to blame for this mess. I was near the main doors and I couldn't move in any direction. I only came here to buy a cheap sofa."

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Student Latyia Arpesh, 23, from Tottenham, said: "I was pushed to the ground. I tried to get up but had people all clambering over me. It was terrifying, I feared for my life."

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Plumber Gary Woodman, 39, said: "My wife was punched in the eye. She's in a lot of pain. All they had to do was plan this opening properly and the night would have passed off peacefully."

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One woman claimed she suffered an asthma attack in the store after staff refused to let in a friend who had her inhaler.

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However, an Ikea spokeswoman said: "I think it's fair to say we misjudged it and maybe were a bit naive, but some shoppers behaved like animals and started shoving and pushing everyone else. There's not much we can do to stop that.

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"We took advice from the police and council over how many people we would need for the opening. We followed all the safety guidelines."

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Ikea staff said they were shocked by the stampede. One said: "When we opened the doors there was this almighty rush. We didn't know what to do so we closed the doors straightaway, but some people got stuck in them and others were rammed up against the glass. We tried letting in people one by one but they ran through again.

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"We were looking forward to selling loads of nice furniture at very cheap prices. It was never meant to turn into a riot."

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Customer Ben Adetimle, 31, an accountant from Leytonstone, said: "I bought a sofa but as soon as I turned my back someone had stolen it. But I'm not upset, it's just furniture and it's not worth dying over."

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As paramedics treated the injured, many shoppers continued to wheel their trolleys around the store. A woman with a set of pot plants said: "I've come all the way from Birmingham for this and I can't come back empty-handed."

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Jilal Patel, 29, from Tottenham, said: "I started queuing at 11am and nothing is going to stop me from getting my sofa."

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I'm particularly taken by the suggestion that it's somehow IKEA's fault that its shoppers were violent pigs. Strange days indeed when a furniture store can be held responsible for public morality and behaviour.

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If Oliver Stone doesn't want to direct a movie about last night's events and the tragedy of war I'll do it. 'All he wanted was a nice, cheap sofa but, instead, he found carnage ... and Death. War is Hell but IKEA is worse'

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Sadly, the IKEA rampage story did not top the news today as Prince Charles announced his forthcoming marriage to CMB. The TV was full of grovelling coverage and Channel 5 interrupted Vertical Limit twice to inform us that the celebratory banquet this evening included 'smoked salmon, beef filet and lemon panacotta' on the menu. Like wow, that was so interesting. Personally, I didn't care a f*ck and was much more interested in watching a film set in Pakistan, made in New Zealand, that substituted Maoris for Pakistanis and Mt Cook for K2. But I'm a geek like that.

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One thing did cross my mind during the Prince Charles coverage though. Listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury discuss the consitutional and spiritual issues arising from the engagement I was, not for the first time, favourably impressed by the tone of his voice. If he ever tires of being the head of the Anglican Chuch a fulfilling career in flame grilled hamburger voice-overs beckons ...

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Bring on the Clowns

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I'm still pondering upon lessons I have learned from life to date. Lessons that I wish I could go back and teach to myself as a teenager.

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Yesterday, whilst sitting on a train covered in platform ooze after a fall, I became aware of the fact that a pair of eighteen year old girls were looking at me and giggling. I thought back to when I was sixteen and the sexual power and unattainable quality that eighteen year old girls seemed to have at that time.

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Well, some things don’t change. However, some things do. I am older and wiser and have discovered several things. One of those lessons is …

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Life is absurd

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We live in a Universe that contains genocide and puppies, black holes and acne, cancer and ice cream, love and pus, The Macarena and Napalm.

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Depending on your beliefs, human beings are either the product of Divine Grace or fantastic improbability. Sitting at our computers in the Developed World we represent the very pinnacle of human development. We have copious food, clothing, shelter. We have access to fantastic technology. All those physical limitations that held back our ancestors have been conquered. We are free to explore the full limit of human potential.

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What do with do with this bounteous gift? Download pictures of tits, watch Big Brother, get drunk and snooze on the sofa.

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We make the same facial expressions when procreating and going to the toilet.

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Our universe is irrational and silly. We are irrational and silly.

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Why don’t more people stand back realise how silly this all is?

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When it comes to the absurdity of existence, people can be broadly lumped into one of two categories; those who realise this and those who don't. Those who have twigged tend to laugh at fart jokes, under-achieve and play with themselves. Those who don’t tend to become bosses.

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I am in the curious position of having had grey hair since my 20s and the aura of someone who takes things very seriously indeed. In a suit I can pass off as boss material even though I am not.

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But not for very long.
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In the course of business I found myself interacting with many people who genuinely were boss material. Sometimes it was all I could do to stop myself rapping some of them on the forehead in meetings and calling out 'Hello. Hello. Lighten up it's only a game'. Boss material people can never snap out of character, believe that what they do is important and that their goals justify pooping on people left right and centre. Boss people believe that they are the rational ones, the guys who get things done.

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That's absurd. Boss people live and die alone. Most are never really happy. Read biographies of famous bosses of years gone by. Their final moments are inevitably pathetic. Their achievements prove to be an illusion. I particularly enjoy the stories about how the corpses of William the Conqueror, Rodrigo Borgia and Oliver Cromwell were treated. But if that's a little too distant check out Howard Hughes, or Stalin, watch Citizen Cane or contact me directly for details of recent bosses I've endured who eventually were shafted as they shafted unto others. Yes sirree, there's nothing finer in life than a cold beer, comfortable shoes and a screwed boss story.

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Most bosses are fundamentally insecure. We're all born with a sense of the absurd and even those who push this sense to the back of their mind are troubled by its whispers in quiet moments. I've met some bosses who have realised this but are too far gone to change their ways. Without their mindset and motivations that have taken them where there are they are nothing. It's too late to find another path.

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Sometimes, when flying over or driving through towns and cities I'll look out of the window and think about how each town, each district, each street has it's prettiest girl, ugliest girl, it's most successful man, least successful man. For the people living in each town, district and street these matters are of great importance. It's all so serious. To me, with the perspective that 35,000ft of space conveys, no, no it's not serious. I get the same thoughts wandering around old ruins. I think about all the people who lived and died there and wonder 'Did it matter? Did any of it really matter? Did the people who lived here managed to get a few chuckles in along the way?'.

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Mmmm, this is all sounding a bit Buddhist.

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I'm not proposing that life is pointless. Not for second. But if our life does have any meaning it only comes from what we make of ourselves and those around us.

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Everything else is silly.

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Go. Go now. And take the piss out of something or someone serious. They're gagging for it.

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Boarding tube trains in style ...

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Passing through the ticket barrier at Cockfosters tube station yesterday, I saw that a train was about to leave. I sprinted towards the beeping doors, hit a greasy patch and skidded onto my arse.
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'Ha!' I thought 'My legs, bum, and jacket are covered in stinking platform goo. I won't have that happen and miss the train'.
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So, still lying flat along the platform, I crossed my arms over my chest and rolled over onto my front then back onto my rear, commando-style, neatly entering the train just as the doors closed. Several of the passengers who had boarded by more conventional means were duly impressed and stared at me suspiciously for the rest of our time together.
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Maybe it's one of those things you’d have to see in person to appreciate.
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Fortunately for me, Cockfosters is one of those stations where there is no significant gap between the train and the edge of the platform. I didn't know that in advance. I was just lucky.
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In a few days time I will be turning forty ...
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UK Mass Immigration (again)

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I have not posted for a couple of days now. Partly because I have been attending gala premieres, water-skiing and walking around Peckham but mostly because I have been mentally constipated by one particular issue that has been clogging the news lately. After much effort I have finally managed to pinch-off an enormous, ciabatta-sized mental dump. Apologies if it smells …

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Strolling around the boundaries of my 'manor' a few days ago I noticed that two new Giros Internationales shops have opened nearby in the last few weeks. Giros Internationales stores have been sprouting like mushrooms around London recently. For a moderate commission, they wire cash around the World; not too many questions asked. It is a lucrative business. Offering as it does a rather convenient way to transfer undeclared income; derived either from honest work, crime or social security, back to the home country. It is money laundering and the business is flourishing under our noses.
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http://photobucket.com/albums/v326/zuccos/biscuit/giros/

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Today, I've just listened on the radio to the UK Home Secretary explaining the latest five year plan to tackle immigration and immigration abuse in this country. Throughout the whole talk I kept thinking about all those Giros Internationales shops.

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Immigration has recently overtaken Iraq as the No.1 news story in the UK.

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But, at the end of the day, does migration really matter? London is the focal point of migration into the UK and more people have always died in London than have been born here. This city has always required a steady supply of fresh meat to sustain itself. Does the ethnicity of the twelve million people who eat, screw and die within its boundaries really matter? ...

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(If you're curious to know the answer to this question I've posted the rest of this entry here ...

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uk-mass-immigration-again.html

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... on account of it being way too long for inclusion in a blog, even by my hugemungous standards)

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Bubba Hotep

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Tracy rented a copy of Bubba Hotep for me today. Marvellous. I've been meaning to see this film for some time I was not disappointed. Not a big film by any stretch of the imagination, and extremely silly and vulgar, it still is worth any Human Being's bread and honey. Assuming you find the idea of an aged Elvis Presley and an old Black man who thinks he's JFK joining forces to battle a cursed mummy in an East Texas retirement home amusing.

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I do.

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I also enjoyed the line in the end credits about how breaking the film's copyright would incur the wrath of Bubba Hotep. Yes, I read movie credits through to the end.

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Watching the movie also reminded us that we haven’t taken a road trip through some godforsaken, trailer park-infested part of America for over a year now. I'll be checking flight prices next week.

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The only problem I had with the movie is that it made a pretty strong statement about what it feels like to be left to die in a old people's home; and wondering what the point of your life was whilst you are waiting. This issue is dealt with in a sympathetic and ultimately positive way but I probably shouldn't have watched the film just now. I turn 40, touch wood, in a week's time and I was planning to give up smoking to mark the occasion.

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This was never going to be easy and a film highlighting how little fun it is to be over 70 doesn’t help. Mind you, as a non smoker, Tracy would be happy if I quit. I don’t think she's entirely thought it through though. If Freud was right about the primary impulse behind the smoking habit, she's going to have one very sore pair of nipples for months to come.

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I'm in serious danger of becoming a health freak at this rate. I was a strict vegetarian for 15 years until a few years ago. I've dabbled with meat on and off for the last few years and frequently roll Tracy one of my special joints on Sunday evenings. However, after a particularly unpleasant experience with 250g of Tesco's premium lean mince (lean, premium AND decomposed) earlier this week we both had a rabbit and agreed to go back to the way of chlorophyll.

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Mmmm, packing in oily rags and turning vegetarian in the same month. Maybe, next month I'll buy a dachshund and invade Poland.

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Readers' activity guide to this blog entry

• There are at least three weak jokes hidden in today's blog. Can you find them?
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• Cockney rhyming slang was used on three separate, completely gratuitous and potentially confusing occasions. Did you spot them?
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• My personal favourite Sigmund Freud quote: 'I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward you shall see who is the stronger, a little girl who doesn't eat enough or a big strong man with cocaine in his body. In my last serious depression I took cocaine again and a small dose lifted me to the heights in a wonderful fashion. I am just now collecting the literature for a song of praise to this magical substance.'
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• The very wonderful Chinese Elvis has recently updated his Chinese Elvis home page, here:
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  http://www.chineseelvis.com/
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• Famous non-smoking, animal loving vegetarians of the 20th Century:
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  Adolf Hitler
  Benito Mussolini
  William Shatner

(To my knowledge none of these three names, not even William Shatner's, has ever been used in Cockney Rhyming Slang).
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