I am not Panda or Justin. I have no other suits. I don't even have a spare pair of pants. I think Tom now has the technology to confirm this and to discover multiple suits.
I ran out of posts yesterday, so I will now address questions and comments one by one.
Tell you what, why don't you get rid of your Internet connection and send the money that you spend on it to charity instead?
Because I don't pay for my Internet connection and I don't have a choice in the matter. I do, however, live simply - though not as simply as the average Londoner, from what I've read.
You know I've been reading your sweet one liners for two weeks... Is it your beautiful speech, your rampant intelligence or your Wildesque wit, I couldn't say...
You're the only person who could answer this question.
I bet IRL you ride a motorbike and wear a leather jacket and spend your time creating radical debate with terribly intellectual people.
I wish. However, I couldn't justify to myself the cost of a motorbike. How could I argue against the solitary and costly nature of book-reading if I had a motorbike? Randy could really get me for that one!
Could I be the [whoever to your whoever]? Oh. Wait. You've never read a book, you don't know who any of them are.
Correct. I have no idea who you are talking about. However, you could tell me about them and that way I wouldn't need to read a book. Don't you think that would be a much more enchanting experience?
Modzilla, you seem to have missed the point.
[Your Name Here], that's exactly the sort of issue I was driving at, the loss of social experience, the breakdown of social values through isolationist individualism and so on. I also have a problem with the social consequences of personal motorized transport, like cars. People don't seem to be people anymore to a person who is behind the wheel of a car. Most cars only contain one person, so they are socially isolated and feel insulated from peer influence or observation. Have you ever noticed how selfish and bad-mannered some people are when they are driving, though when met face to face they might be remarkably considerate and well-mannered?
Flowers, I'm not arguing with you because I didn't come here to argue or become involved in the flinging of personal insults. This is another example of the regrettable results of social isolation. You probably would be much more pleasant in person.
Some books matter. Some books just don't. The thing is, you have to read the fuckers to work out which is which.
An excellent point. It's an irony, a Catch-22. Perhaps there are a few books that are worth my time and attention, but finding them through all the pulp, crap and nonsense that is published eliminates the value in books for me.
My view is that on balance our time is better spent in other ways, and information better shared by more personal and social means. The vast majority of books have been mass-produced. They're not designed for you personally, for your own particular personality and circumstance. I believe there are means of deseminating information in more personally and circumstantially appropriate ways. These means don't have the pitfalls of putting a human being more intimately in contact with an inanimate object that they are with any other human - the "nose in a book", as you have probably heard said. |
