another politically incorrect posting

I Like Chinese - Eric Idle:
Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (1980)

three cheers for gilbert

for me a legacy of growing up in the sixties and seventies is a fondness for music and artists who went out of fashion years ago and are probably remembered with a degree of embarrassment

this has been the fate of a singer/songwriter i still really like - a handful of songs of his from the early seventies remain favourites of mine to this day and bring back memories of early evening saturday night variety shows hosted by the likes of cilla black (when she was still a singer) and rolf harris, where dance ensembles like 'the young generation' would gyrate around a gaudily decorated stage set singing like 'fifth dimension' a la 'up up and away in my beautiful balloon...' and perform 'hair'-inspired dance routines

anyway, here in my opinion is gilbert o'sullivan's finest three and a half minutes...



Nothing Rhymed - Gilbert O'Sullivan: Single (1970)

the ship of the fens

i love visiting old english cathedrals - i've no particular leanings towards any religion, but i do feel tranquility and a sense of the continuity of a thousand years of history, give or take a century or two, as i wander through the interiors and around the environs of these impressive medieval structures

often my visits are spontaneous - i'm usually on my way to somewhere else when i'm suddenly struck by an urge to detour to the nearest ye olde englishe towne and pass two or three pleasant hours in a stupor of peace and contemplation - not contemplation of life the universe and everything - but i find that they're great places for taking stock, reviewing and recharging the mental batteries, powered down by living too long in large cities

i always feel refreshed and positive whenever i drive away from an afternoon of directionless meanderings: gazing up at high ceilings with their magnificent arched beams, supported by thick stone columns, many with ornate statues in recesses and transitional intricate stuccoed carvings from the tops of pillars to vaulted roofs (transferring my attention to the carefully angled ceiling-reflecting mirrors once i get a crick in my neck from looking up for too long); marvelling at the beauty of medieval stained glass (those that survived the reformation) and the blurred patterns of colour they throw onto whitewashed walls as the light passes through their translucent surfaces, decrying the Victorian replacements (the nineteenth century equivalents of cecille b. demille biblical epics), and studying abstract modern windows that most cathedrals have at least one example of; stopping to read the inscriptions on the tombs of obscure bishops and clergymen, benefactors who gave generous donations to the church, thus avoiding an eternity in hell no matter what degrees of sin they committed during their lives, landed gentry powerful and rich enough to have their effigies preserved in marble, their cold hands pressed together in attitudes of prayer, the lord of the manor laid out for eternity beside his loving wife, while his mistresses probably lie buried in graveyards long since fallen into ruin and probably now covered over by a tesco superstore - the ordinary everyday people lying under shopping aisles while their administering spiritual representatives, lords and masters repose in more impressive surroundings, covered over by carved stone tablets under holier aisles, although most of their memorials now lay desecrated, a reminder of the violence of our history when henry viii's and oliver cromwell's respective armies ripped away from the stone the commemorative bronze plaques - armies of soldiers suffering from too much religious zeal or individuals with a natural disposition to violence and a spiteful desire to damage and vandalise - an attitude which has survived the centuries; then sitting in the various chapels of rememberance thinking of other soldiers from a more recent past, reading the rolls of honour and feeling thankful that i wasn't born sixty years earlier than i was or i would probably be on a memorial list or a name carved into a stone monument to the great war which my great grandfather survived mercifully intact

so it was early in june that on my way back from a weekend visit to london i saw the road sign for ely as i drove up the a11 - a cathedral which despite being so close to my home, is one i've never visited, but was always one that i kept meaning to, but for some reason, never got around to - so after 30 minutes of getting lost and driving around winding suffolk and cambridgeshire country roads, i finally came within sight of the place

ely cathedral is one of the earliest norman cathedrals built in england and was given the name 'the ship of the fens' as it was originally surrounded by the waters of the cambridgeshire fens before they were drained and the emerging land was used for farming - looking at the picture i posted at the top, you can see why the name was used - as you gazed across the flat watery fenland, it would seem to be floating on the water like a large stone ship, it's various towers giving the impression of tall masts - it's an impressive sight today when viewed from the right direction - a large structure built on rising ground, towering above the lush green fens and marshes

i had not been to fen country for at least twenty years - the last time was on a field trip from my college in 1985 - in those days i was unimpressed by, what i considered to be, a flat and featureless landscape - it's the closest thing we have in england to the landscape of holland - and, like that country, it's dotted about with its fair share of windmills - but in early june, travelling through this countryside i had only vaguely explored before, i began to feel that i had neglected this part of east anglia, an area which is really my home - i drove up roads alongside networks of long straight canals which criss-crossed drained fields once marshy and waterlogged, stared out across grasslands and fields freshly ploughed or growing with green wheat and barley beginning to ripen in the patches of early summer sunshine that were occasionally breaking through the broken grey clouds over flatlands stretching out to the horizon, punctuated by copses of trees, small farms and houses and the occasional hamlet or market town - it gave me a feeling of calmness and i was surprised that after all these years of thinking how dull this scenery was, i could actually come to an appreciation of its natural beauty - the overcast day, dark sky and sporadic showers adding to the atmosphere
















of the cathedral itself i was most impressed by two features - its huge octagonal tower, the only example of a gothic dome anywhere in the world - a tower rising up to an eight-sided lantern with intricate carvings and paintings

in contrast to this is the lady chapel which appears quite bleak - a large white-washed chapter house, the interior of which was wrecked during the dissolution of the monasteries - the mutilated statues were never replaced or restored, the preceding generations preferring to keep them as a reminder of the dangers of intolerance (and that henry viii was one of our more hateful and capricious monarchs)

my friend g. in buxton, a lay reader in our local church, of which i was a member for 15 years during my childhood and teens would say to me that the peace and tranquility i feel when i walk around these old churches and cathedrals is evidence of a spiritual connection with you-know-who - and there are times during these visits when i could almost believe in a deity of some sort - but then i also realise that part of what i'm feeling is the warmness of nostalgia - years of sunday church attendance, familiar hymns, prayers and orders of service, many of which i can still recite by rote today, being lulled by the soft voices of our priests as they recited comforting words of morning prayer or holy communion, or my favourite service of evening prayer with its collect 'lighten our darkeness we beseech thee o lord and by thy great mercies, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night", which i found quite disturbing but at the same time comforting















oxnead church, a small crumbling old norman building in the middle of the norfolk countryside, surrounded by woods and fields, a warm summer evening as the sun set - dusk turning to twilight, the birdsong fading, the final blessing, the procession back to disrobe in the makeshift choir vestry which was also the small paint-peeling belfry with its single tattered rope which we would fight over to be the one to ring the bell before the start of the service - and then walking home along footpaths, cutting through farmland, breathing in the familiar smells of freshly cut grass and night scents and feeling the stillness of the evening surrounding me - a time when i spoke the prayers and sang the hymns, but they had no spiritual value

the weakness of organised religion being the empty recital of words which lose their meaning because you don't think about what you're actually saying - that's how it was for me, anyway - a-level religious studies was the final nail in the coffin for me with organised religion - studying the book of amos, the prophet foretelling the fall of the north kingdom of israel to the assyrian empire because the people lacked spiritual awareness, the words of their religious observances devoid of real feeling and understanding - empty words spoken without real belief or faith - the meaning had been lost - that was how i felt about the church and christianity in my late teens and i never went back again - for me at that particular point in my life, christianity had become a hypocritical, meaningless travesty

but then walking around ely cathedral a few weeks ago i started thinking about my youthful disillusionment - and although i didn't have a sudden religious epiphany, i thought again that maybe part of my response to such a place was a belief in the faith of the preceding generations - those who built it and those who worshipped here - a respect and admiration for the spiritual life and goodness of individuals - that alongside the religious wars, the hypocrisies and the persecutions that various sects of the christian religion have inflicted on the world down the centuries, forcing their own interpretations of scripture on societies for their own selfish ends, there have been those who have shown that the basic simple message of christianity of love and humanity in the face of any differences (stripped of the misleading layers of meaning by scholars and religious zealots over the intervening millenia and the countless additions and changes to the scriptures by all sects in order to control the lives of their congregations) is something that can be inspirational, even if you don't have any spiritual beliefs or faith in an all supreme power

gershwin meets old spice

you say carmina and i say curmana,

you say burina and i say burana,

carmina, curmana,

burina, burana...

let's call the whole thing 'orff'

inside victor lewis smith:
bbc 2 (1990)

elizabeth'd out

so the sequel to 1998's 'elizabeth', 'the golden age' will be released in october concentrating on the later years of elizabeth the first's reign and her relationship with sir walter raleigh (the famous seafarer who not only discovered the potato and tobacco, but also found time to design a range of high quality bicycles)

my first reaction on reading about the new movie was, haven't we had enough about good queen bess by now...?

i mean first we had cate and geoffrey in 'elizabeth' - then there was david starkey's four part four hour biography in that partially dramatised, 'characters-staring-portentiously-at-rotating-cameras' approach that his history series tend to go in for - after this simon schama's 'a history of britain' and again david starkey's epic four-year history strand 'monarchy' gave over sizeable chunks of their running time to her reign - followed in even quicker succession by channel four's major drama, 'elizabeth I' which concentrated on her middle to later years with helen mirren playing a maturing queen (the only actress i know who's played both elizabethan monarchs) and then six months later, the bbc's four part drama 'the virgin queen' with ann-marie duff, which covered the whole sweep of her reign, retreading their original 1971 nine hour drama, 'elizabeth r' which starred the right honourable glenda jackson, mp



so many elizabeths crammed into a decade

but now, despite the liberties the film-makers took with historical facts and the chronology of the events in the first movie, i'm rather looking forward to seeing cate (i am become a virgin) blanchett and geoffrey rush reprising their roles - particularly geoff, as i thought his turn as elizabeth's spymaster, walsingham was the best thing about the original

although i have to say that my favourite portrayal of england's most famous historical virgin still remains miranda richardson's queenie in 'blackadder II' and her freudian dreams of being the pastry case of a sausage roll and sitting on top of an enormous pine tree...

f****** florence nightingale

i'm a big fan of swearing so this scene from 'big train' really appeals to me

one for the kids

Much to his mum and dad's dismay
Horace ate himself one day
He didn't stop to say his grace
He just sat down and ate his face
"We can't have this!" his dad declared
"If that lad's ate, he should be shared"
But even as he spoke, they saw
Horace eating more and more;
First his legs and then his thighs
His arms his nose his hair his eyes
"Stop him someone!" Mother cried
"Those eyeballs would be better fried!"
But all too late, for now the silly ,
Had even started on his willy
"Oh! Foolish child!" the father mourns
"You could have had that fried with prawns,
Some parsley and some tartare sauce....."
But 'H' was on his second course
His liver and his lights and lung,
His ears, his neck, his chin, his tongue;
"To think I raised him from the cot,
And now, he's going to scoff the lot!!"
His mother cried: "What shall we do?
What's left wont even make a stew!"
And as she wept, her son was seen
To eat his head, his heart, his spleen .
And there he lay ... A boy no more,
Just a stomach on the floor
None the less ... since it was his
They ate it ---- that's what Haggis is.
Well Nearly

horace - terry jones: the curse of the vampire's socks (1990)

a series of unfortunate events part two

they say good things come in threes, don't they? - a maxim george lucas should have heeded after he'd completed 'return of the jedi' in 1983

triumvirates of bad things seem to happen as well - pity george didn't take this into account either in 1999

i've had a trilogy of mishaps over the last two weeks

number one - in an effort to leave work in a hurry last saturday, i unwisely pulled up my fly zipper before ensuring all relevant pieces of equipment had been put back in their proper places, thus ensuring a zip fastener injury which made my eyes water as a stream of four-letter words issued from between my clenched teeth

number two - the lead of my brand new ipod headphones looped under my right heel, as leaning against the wall, i bent down to put on my trainers before i headed off to the gym the other day - as i was listening to a new playlist, my attentions were elsewhere, resulting in the lead being violently wrenched out of the headphones and my head making immediate contact with the supporting wall, as simultaneously, my shoe along with half the length of the headphone cable inside it made contact with the floor shortly followed by another stream of four letter words

number three - whilst waiting by wisma atria to cross over to wheelock place, a man wheeling a bike didn't make the lights in time and reversed into my leg, causing me in turn to reverse into a chinese lady standing behind me, who was only prevented from flying backwards and falling over by the weight of one of my clod-hopping timberlands coming down heavily on the big toe of her left foot - the poor woman put on a brave face accompanied by the obligatory 'sorry sorry sorry's' from me and the bike man

in the light of this string of misadventures, i felt the need for a spot of retail therapy - so i figured that three items of carefully selected consumer goods would compensate for three minor calamities

so i replaced my headphones with some nice over the ear sennheiser px 200s with enhanced bass, having given up on the ones you insert right into your earholes - every set of those i've ever owned continuously gave me monthly ear infections (not to mention the really annoying ones which kept popping out of my ears every five seconds once i got going on a treadmill) - i read somewhere that in-ear headphones increase the bacteria inside your inner ear by 700% when you plug them into to your unfortunate orifices - anyway, i made the right choice - they have great sound which doesn't start to cut out on one side or the other when your ears start to fill with drops of sweat during hectic aerobic activity

this wise buy was followed by the purchase of yet another 'my book' 500 gig hard drive, as we've now filled up the other two we bought in march with a string of tv episodes, movies and programmes of male anatomical interest (for want of a better phrase...) - i was mildly annoyed as the price of these hard drives has reduced by nearly 200 dollars since i last bought one

finally, i bought a new pair of gym trainers - the most comfortable i've ever owned - i wanted a pair from the new nike free range, the ones which purportedly simulate bare-foot exercise, and was encouraged greatly by the assistant in royal sporting house in ngee ann city when he told me they had them in stock up to USA size 13 (my size) - all the nike outlets i'd been in only had them up to 10-11 for some odd reason - having done a double take of me, however, the assistant strongly advised against the nikes and after 30 minutes and a pile of shoe boxes strewn across the customer seating area, i plumped for a pair of size 13 asics with very good arch supports - they hold my feet in place so they don't go sliding forwards against the front of the shoes and squash my delicate pinkies

i am now hoping for a cessation of minor disasters as they're costing me a fortune

tubercular shakespeare

T.B or not T.B.,
that is the congestion,
consumption be done about it?
of cough, of cough

woody allen: everything you always wanted to know about sex...but were afraid to ask (1973)

...so this bloke comes up to me...

i've had my fair share of drunkards and weirdos come up to me over the years to communicate random nonsense - it often happens in london and frequently on sydney's oxford street but it's never happened to me in singapore - that is until a couple of nights ago

i have been approached on a number of occasions over the years by the usual aging prostitutes who populate the environs of orchard towers and all down that side of orchard road after dusk with their familiar mantra, 'harro, where you from?' - then there are those shifty looking individuals who sidle up to you whispering 'you wanna buy copywatch?' - there's an old guy who hangs around outside muddy murphy's every night without fail carrying an old battered suitcase full of them, though i've never seen him do any business

one of the most memorable encounters i had with a local offering dubious services was from an old trishaw driver when i was walking back late one night from the now defunct drama centre in fort canning park after one of the various stage club shows i had been acting in (if that's not too strong a word for prancing across a stage in a leotard and a tutu waving a fairy wand) - 'you wanna ride, boss?' was his opening gambit which when turned down was followed up with 'you wanna woman? got nice woman for you' and finally when i turned that down he finished with 'you wanna girl?' - gobsmacked by his last offer i replied, 'no but you can call me a taxi', after which he rode away - funnily enough he didn't come back with the obvious reply, 'o.k., you're a taxi'

but no drunkards or loonies as such have ever given me hassle until last tuesday - i was crossing claymore road with my bag containing my sliced fish hor fun supper and my headphones over my ears, listening to 'northern sky', one of my favourite nick drake songs when a middled-aged white-haired caucasian, who must have just staggered across the road from muddy murphy's, was suddenly standing in front of me with his face so close to mine i could smell the strong odour of bourbon on his breath - i could just make out that he was asking me a question and he had a very intense look on his face - oh fuck, i thought, he's either picking a fight or asking for directions to one of the girlie bars in the four floors of whores

so i nervously removed my headphones - he spoke with a very slurred californian accent and repeated the question he had just asked

- 'are you listening to sergeant pepper?'

- er no

- 'well put it on now'

then he staggered off

just doing it - does there have to be a reason?

i've started posting again after a lengthy break - there's no particular reason why i stopped or why i started again - i did read through the whole thing back in february and decided it was a pile of old toss, although that wasn't a good enough reason to stop (if i used that criteria as a guide to anything i do, i'd never get out of bed in the morning) - i suppose i had other things to obssess over and i can't handle more than one obssessive thing at a time these days

when i read through it all again the other day, i decided it wasn't so bad and only deleted about three or four of the postings which embarrassed me by their awfulness

i do it to amuse myself - there's no other reason - i like the random nature of just writing down or plonking in gobbets of stuff that suddenly pop up into my head - of course, my character is a mix of pomposity and shallowness and i spend most of my days indulging in fairly pointless activities which i think are facets reflected quite well in this blog - if anyone happens to stumble across this inconsequential nonsense and likes it, then that's an unexpected bonus

a series of unfortunate events

i've been in the rudest health over the last two or three years but this run of unhampered well-being has recently been blipped by unexpected stomach complications of unidentifiable origins which my doctor refers to as a 'diverticular disease' in my large intestine - in other words, he doesn't really know exactly what it is and the medical diagnosis seems to be a blanket term used to cover a whole gamut of sins that can apparently be treated by pills and high fibre liquids which i thought up until the last two weeks were usually only taken by menopausal and pregnant ladies

it required a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy - completely painless processes involving cameras on the end of tubes being stuck up or down two major orifices at opposite ends of the body - completely painless as i was unconscious during the procedure - my only concern was that i didn't snore too loudly as i'm one of those people whose snoring sounds like a hectic morning at the abbatoir

i've pointed out to various friends over the last two weeks that it's odd i should have paid nearly 2000 sing dollars for a complete stranger to insert foreign objects up my arse and down my throat when i know a number of people in various countries who would do it for nothing

actually the most painful part of the process was the waiting around for the procedure - i was under the mistaken impression that they'd give me some sort of pre-med anaesthetic before i went in and that i would experience that nice drug-induced semi-conscious state where you're fairly happy and dreamy and have conversations with items of stationery - unfortunately i had to wait around for two hours watching mediacorp channel five - after an hour of martha stewart cooking with david boreanez and another show involving some english bint helping an over-enthusiastic canadian family turn their basement into an interior design bad taste nightmare from hell complete with fittings which even 1970s MFI would have rejected as too cheap and
nasty, i was ready to open a vein and pass away on the plastic chair in my small kimono and
hospital gown which barely covered my knees and would have given many of the older chinese ladies, who were frequently being wheeled past me, coronaries if i hadn't kept my legs crossed

so i now have three months worth of pills to consume, enough fybogel, which, if it were all mixed together in one big tank, allowed to congeal and strewn in the path of an invading army would cause an immediate surrender and casualties similar to yul brynner's unfortunate soldiers when they were swamped by the collapsing waters of the red sea in the ten commandments, and a series of photographs of the inside of my intestines, which look like a combination of the interiors of the axon and zygon organic spaceships from early seventies doctor who

i was a bit disappointed as other people i know who have had this exploratory surgery were given a video cd of the procedure afterwards...

i was looking forward to posting mine on youtube