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Hello, sweethearts. Mr. Expressionless has sent me over an absolutely bulbous sack of questions, which I shall attempt to answer with completeness and courtesy. Or by swearing.
So, onto the questions - I am answering these in the order they were sent to me at present, in the name of simplicity.
And we begin:
- My question: Indulge my gullible self- do you actually have Mad hax0r skillz, or was that in jest?
In jest, I fear. I can tell one end of a computer from the other but any claim to l33t Hax0r Sk33lz I might make will end only in humiliation and laughter. For tech stuff, I have to rely on a dear friend, who is writing an O'Reilly book on RSS and taking over the professorship in Hypermedia at Westminster College, and as such has to crank his brain down several floors before being able to give me the information I need. Like "can I play Diablo on this, them". In exchange for his consultancy, I rugby-tackle to the ground anyone who comes near him attempting to sell him an iPod. Although that may be more for his wife's sake than mine.
- Where do you get your ideas?
You see, people will think I'm being flippant when I say "Herman's Head", but actually...I suspect that much of the weirdness in my head is a result of my recall for things of my childhood (and the emotional states therein) being far better than my recall of the more recent events that have resulted in my being the warm and wonderful person I am today (eidetic memory, full or partial, generally decaying through one's teens). Herman's Head is a good example of this as, as any fule kno, it had only 30-odd episodes, not enough for syndication, and has thus sunk beneath the waves forever, living on only in The Simpsons. Therefore my aspic-coated memories of Herman's Head are entirely of their time (about 1992, IIRC, and I often do), and the tension between that recollection and my current perceptions of the world is quite sparky and fun.
In general, a lot of my ideas I can take no credit for, but rather the genetic quirks of a decent memory and insomnia.
Although at the moment I could definitely do with more ideas - I am going through a terribly flat period, and my Blakes 7 epic is definitely in need of a shot in the arm.
- If you had to nominate one book you love above all others could you do it? What book is it? Why did you choose it?
Lordy - I'm not sure if I could. I mean, how do you decide whether the Epic of Gilgamesh is better than The Little Prince (actually, this is fairly simple - the Little Prince is better, especially if you want to have a good cry)? I love the Making Out books with a pale fire that gnaws at the marrow of my bones, but I'm not entirely sure that I would vouchsafe any one of them the laurel (except arguably "Nina Won't Tell", which FUCKING ROCKS).
Hmmm....if there were a gun to my head, I would probably suggest the Iliad, because it's the fictitious work that has probably had the greatest single impact on my life, and also because it is quite simply superb - for sheer quality of language, strength of character, and the beauty of the language.
As for book in English, the one I probably reread most frequently, at least at the moment, is "Book of Matches" by Simon Armitage. It's just very comforting that you can be popular *and* really very good indeed.
- Someone once told me privately that "Haus is so posh he makes my teeth hurt". But they meant it nicely, I know that for a fact. The question is, just how posh are you, exactly?
Um...thsi is the first of several questions about my social class, and I am going to try to pace myself.
Not that posh, basically. My speech is RP, but given the other options were East Anglia and East Midlands that's probably for the best. I pronounce "Covent Garden" to rhyme with "oven", but on the other hand I do wear white after Labour Day. I do wear suits outsdie working hours, but then I don't wear suits to work so it's probably more of a novelty thing. I am, technically speaking, a gentleman, but what that means is anybody's guess. I eat with my fork in the left hand, but I think most Brits do anyway, so that's no good.
Certainly you would have to go back a very long way to find anything resembling aristo blood in my family, and that would be Welsh, and as such probably by definition non-U.
- When was the last time, if ever, you had an involuntary kneejerk racist/sexist/homophobic thought, and how did you punish yourself?
Funny question - don't people have involuntary racist/sexist/homophobic thoughts reasonably regularly, or at least notice that they are lookign at people in terms of their race/gender/sexuality?
If one could simply float through life unaffected by the prejudices and psychoses of one's culture and education, the world would be a happy place indeed, but I don't quite know if one can. The whole point, for me at least, is to try to understand where these feelings are coming from, and why they exist in society in general and in you in particular, and then to address them?
So, in terms of the recognition/punishment paradigm, the last one I can think of was when I became twitchy about the two young black men walking towards me with their hoods up, and I punished myself by getting beaten up and my wallet nicked. But I like to think that I was thinking even at the time, "you know, in a sense we're all victims here".
- How many members of Barbelith would you say you "hated"?
Again, a funny question - and perhaps one that springs from my press rather than my person (rather like the Cerberus of PC thing above).
I wouldn't say I hated anyone on Barbelith. Some people I have limited respect for, either as a result of their opinions or the way they choose to express themselves. I think there is a question about what annoys me about the way people post later on, so I will leave that for now. Some appear to think they have vendetta between our two houses, normally as a result of wounded pride when their patented Ideological Cure for Everything is savaged as sub-Kantian drivel. Some people hold attitudes that I find repellent, or just very tiresome. Some are unable to take criticism of their ideas, or cannot take it without assuming it to be an attack on their person, but as long as they stay out of the Head Shop I'm good with that.
But hate? For me to hate somebody they'd have to have done something pretty nasty to me, or possibly be a Mugabe-level nasty in general. I can't think of anyone offhand whom I could be said to "hate" here. Some people annoy me. Some people make me angry. Some people bore my tits off, at times far further off than I could hope to travel to retrieve them before necrosis sets in. But I think it's important to distinguish between hating behaviours and hating people. |
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