When I look back on it now...

I honestly can't remember a single reason why I thought he looked better without the beard:

"Stuck to You (The Science Song)" by Josh Ritter

Here's a cute and clever little song which I had the great pleasure of hearing live once, but unforgivably and embarrassingly could not bring to mind with any clarity over coffee today. Try not to let it make you cry:

Well there's one thing, mama
I think you should know
It is not love that makes the flowers grow
But a complex electron-transfer process known as photosynthesis when
Chlorophyll reacts with the light of day
But since you're gone, the light has gone away

And there's one more thing, mama
I think that you'll find
It is not love that makes the stars shine
But the spontaneous combustion of superheated supercondensed gases in a process known as fusion that creates new elements when the time is
Ripe, but since you're gone, stars don't shine so bright

Oh, there's another thing mamma
I think i should confide
It is not love that will turn the tide
But the net difference in the gravitational pole between the earth and the moon
As it is acted out upon the waves
But since you're gone i feel washed away

I could have been a mathematician
Studied rockets for a living
Would have worked out better in the end
But to get more specific
I rigged every law of physics
To bring you back to me again

And there's one last thing, i tell you if i can
It is not love that makes a non-stick frying pan
But a top secret trademark conglomerated, most likely carcinogenic, polyyrethanic compound spread in a microthin layer over a negatively charged alloy of aluminium, copper, iron, lead, vhs, fyi, apple pie, uh, fbi,
And some other elements too
But since you're gone
I wish i'd stuck to you

Metro Metro Man

I will probably never be a metrosexual. And don't get me wrong, I will continue to aspire in small and ineffectual ways as I have always done, but to be honest it's just not going to happen.

The thought occurred to me this morning after I had applied some E45 moisturiser, some vaseline lip therapy, passed on the brylcream (because it smelled funky being a coule of months old as it is) and as I looked at my not un-stylish but old and largely january-sales / birthday&Christmas-present clothes - or what I could see of them through my vandalised mirror - thinking I could use a haircut and wondering where I left my scissors. And in all the cuffuffle of getting out to work with that considerable beauty regime as well as considerable flu-y symptoms, I forgot to deodourise.

(Anyone know what gets permanent marker off glass by the way? I've tried nothing and... [well, you all know the gag])

So it seems the will is there, but class and the attention to detail just isn't. While I will be the second or third to admit my vanity and propensity to self-indulgence('first' being a little too hot off the mark to be honest), such things have been sadly knocked down the list of priorities in the life that has transpired for 'Better-luck-next-time' Buckles.

I use bottom of the range skin-products, charity shops would reject most of my clothes, I cut my own hair, I use a product which assures me that it is both a shampoo and a shower gel (which I also use as soap and shaving foam), and deodourant, despite it being on my list of essentials, can sometimes fall through the net. And yet I put delicately manicured (in sofar as one can without an emory board) hand on heart and say that I take pride in my appearance.

I imagine that the trouble is that I have neither the cash nor the time, and that if I work-out and do weights and get all buff, I won't be able to afford new clothes that fit; but to a certain extent it may be that I rarely ask women out on dates, and I get little encouragement or inspiration from my pathologically single and slovenly friends (there being perhaps one or two minor exceptions in the latter category) in these matters.

While I'm on the subject of looking one's best for dress-to-impress reasons, it has been put to me by a female of the species (most of whom are born with a natural inclination to self-beautify) that a lot of women do not dress up to impress others but in fact they do it "for themselves". And this is quite a common statement on such matters. I saw in a number of boob-job documentaries, that women were coached to say that they wanted cosmetic surgery "for themselves," and not to impress anyone else.

I will believe such a statement when a woman shows me, in all honesty, the new high-heels, g-string, cocktail dress and lipstick she got for eating beans on toast and watching 'Neighbours' when nobody's home.

Anyway, I'd like to think I'll get in gear when I've loadsamoney to buy all the fancy 'boysmetics,'(Hmmm... I should probably patent that word before someone makes a mint from it - meh!) I like, but the truth is I won't. I'll be too old, and possibly too fat and married and stressed.

Will money and power still be sexy in 10 years time, or am I going to need a plan 'B'?

Addendum:

I just came across the following image, and I'm now doubting that I even know what a so-called metro-sexual is

I'm pretty sure that twelve yeses or more will make you a basket case, a closet case, a deeply contemptible individual, and most likely all three.

Why go to the nightclub at all? Why not let your imaginary wife go in your stead while you bench-press your children in your gender-sensitive livingroom and gucci shoes? Or better still: try to be less of a twat?

Too Long A Sacrifice

I have written at least twice before (here & in more detail: here) on the type of evening where everything starts off very tame and civilised and steadily (but stealthily however) descends into the kind of ill-behaviour that would cause you to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself... were it not all so damn hilarious. I think a new word is required for this feeling with which a large majority of us must surely be acquainted, and my humble suggestion is "hilarishame".

So I had one such evening on Sunday night (yes, a further mockery of my recent extolling of the virtues of abstinence), and while I could happily write a long account of it, one of the peculiar qualities of hilarishame is that no-one who was not present in the run up to it could possibly understand or appreciate why the first half of the word is there.

So let me write about something else. Let me write about an evening I went out with the full intention of getting utterly plastered, which is a horse of a different colour altogether (as the Wizard of Oz's doorman is wont to say). One of the defining aspects of the night were certain impromtu recitals from the amphitheatre of the civic offices in the early hours; and one of the 'pieces' was a joint effort at a 'bakery' re-working of the thrid verse of the W.B Yeats' poem 'Easter 1916.' The origins of this particular idea, incidentally, being best consigned to the realm of the unspoken at this juncture.

Suffice it say by way of pre-emptive explanation that far from what you are about to read representing a belittling of Ireland's national heroes, it (for my part anyway) should reflect (if it indeed reflects anything at all) three things:
1) a mixed opinion that I have about Yeats which is not all that dissimilar to his own mixed feelings about the objects of the poem in question,
2) my love of baked products and baked-product accompaniments.
3) that it is as true now as it ever was that too long a sacrifice can make a scone of the heart.

So for what it is worth, this is one possible draft of a joint-effort act of literary sacrilege:

Easter 1916 by W.B. Yeast

Too long a baking
Can make a scone of the tart
Oh when may it be iced?
That is the baker's part, our part
To simmer upon a low flame
As a mother spoils her child
When she at last has buns
Or bread that is bun-styled.
What is it but a profiterole?
No, no, not dessert but bread
Was it un-kneaded bread afterall?
For England may eat cake
For all that is done (in the oven) and said
We know their cream; enough
To know they had cream on brown bread
And what if an excess of dough
Bewildered them till they fried?
I'll serve it hot as dessert
Johnson, Mooney and O'Brien,
Jacob and Kipling,
Now, and when time to eat,
Wherever cream is poured,
Are churned: churned utterly
A spreadable butter is born


...And for those of you who might be unaware of the original (which I can and will recite off by heart as it happens because I really do think it is an excellent poem), here it is for comparison:


.......................................Easter 1916 by W.B. Yeats

.......................................Too long a sacrifice
.......................................Can make a stone of the heart.
.......................................O when may it suffice?
.......................................That is Heaven's part, our part
.......................................To murmur name upon name,
.......................................As a mother names her child
.......................................When sleep at last has come
.......................................On limbs that had run wild.
.......................................What is it but nightfall?
.......................................No, no, not night but death;
.......................................Was it needless death after all?
.......................................For England may keep faith
.......................................For all that is done and said.
.......................................We know their dream; enough
.......................................To know they dreamed and are dead;
.......................................And what if excess of love
.......................................Bewildered them till they died?
.......................................I write it out in a verse --
.......................................MacDonagh and MacBride
.......................................And Connolly and pearse
.......................................Now and in time to be,
.......................................Wherever green is worn,
.......................................Are changed, changed utterly:
.......................................A terrible beauty is born.

Googley Wonkology

I'm a big fan of the film "Charlie and Chocolate Factory".
In the earlier version there are many great scenes, one of which involves wallpaper that has pictures of fruit which when licked, tasted like the fruit depicted. I was very much taken by this idea as a child, so much so that any time I was in someone's house who had fruit wallpaper, I could not resist giving it a surreptitious lick (and this picture suggests I'm not the only one - how great is google for this stuff??)

Anyway, just after as this scene ends, Wonka says to Veruka Salt, "We are the music-makers, we are the dreamers of dreams." It sounded like a quote to me so I googled it and it turns out this is where it comes from:

0de
by Arthur O'Shaughnessy [1844-1881]

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion art empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample in empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth.
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

...which I think is pretty cool

Predictably Unrefined Thoughts on NYRs

Every year a lot of talk goes around about New Year's Resolutions. Personally, I 've always felt that NYRs are philosophically unsatisfying - even if you do 'succeed'. Largely this is because I've never been one to place confidence in trickery when it comes to changing your own behaviour. I reckon that if you don't like something about your behaviour, you are doing yourself damage by putting off doing anything about it until January. And generally I think that big decisions are possible and that it's healthy to just grab yourself by the shirt-collars every so often, get in your own face and tell yourself to stop being such a wussy - and mean it. The more spontaneous the hour, the day and the month: the better.

Bad habits, as we all know, come from brain-monkeys. The older I get, the more foolish, unruly, and slovenly the monkeys in my mind have become. And increasingly the monkey-tamer is becoming laisez-faire in his role and perhaps even a little simian in his own outlook. So much so, I must now admit that often he seeks to cajole rather than spank the monkeys into coming round to his way of thinking; and if that isn't bad enough his goals become weaker every year. I know that this is not a universal tendency, but I think it transpired in my own case because I had too strict a monkey-tamer in my younger years, and now, as he feels guilty about the harsh regime he employed, it is easy for the monkeys to take advantage. Whatever the reason, I now find myself riddled with intellectual monkey-business and I do hope (and it's purely coincidentally the beginning of January) to have my monkey-tamer walk in a brisk and healthy manner somewhere between the extremes in the future.

Despite this, I did not engage in any NYRing this year. I maintained my lifelong repugnance for the convention. But while I refused to be pressurised by the furrowed brow of my calendar, I did take on something similar. It was a sort of belated mini-NYR: a booze-free week (this week) undertaken in solidarity with a brave NYR-man who is impressively giving up both drinking and smoking for all of January and replacing the two with jogging and reading. Initially I thought that doing both was a step too far - that it might drive the monkeys crazy and they'd tear up the joint. In fact part of me still has this fear, but then I concluded that his monkey-tamer probably did some kind of deal and convinced the monkeys it would be worth it for the kudos. The kudos, that is, as well as the €100 that his mates bet he couldn't do it, and the greatest nicotine & alcohol binge of all time come February 1st. Beware though my friend, monkeys are not always creatures of their word. Vigilance!

But what do I and my monkeys get out of this act of solidarity-based abstinence you may well ask? Well, I get the usual benefits. Let me tell you how it has been so far: my head is clear, my energy levels are high, and I could really bloody use a drink. God I love alcohol.






Do not intoxicate this man

New Year, New Post

This blog is so rubbish these days, I'm left with two options: either delete the whole thing completely (the sad fate of the impulsively charming "maximum load") or post more often. For the moment I'm going with the latter.

I've enjoyed being asked over the past few years by people who don't know me all that well, the question, "How are you ringing in the new year?" I usually answer somewhat sarcastically (one of the reasons I'm single no doubt), something along the lines of "With a very big bell." And then go on to describe with some faux modesty how I ring bells in Christchurch Cathedral.

(That's me with the solemn look of concentration and floppy hair)

So while others hollar, yell and scramble for someone to grope, I, with a band of silent campanologists, have my sweaty hands gripped around a rope, with some intensity of concentration, while the muffled roars of New Year revellers invade the belfry.

This year, there was a party in my flat which conveniently for me is beside the Cathedral so I forwent the post-ringing inebriation in the belfry and returned to a rather surprising spontaneous applause from some very tipsy friends at the flat and to one of the best parties (for me) that we've had since we moved in there.

New Year's Eve had sucked (to use an increasingly popular americanism) my whole life up to the age of 21. But the last 5 have beeen somewhere between palpable and really fun (which is a huge improvement). The common features have been alcohol and good health, but the specifics have been in this order: being in love at 21, then bell-ringing for the following 3 years was a nice way to spend the evening and this year's New Year's Party was just downright smashin.

At quite a few parties we've had at the flat, I've been cajoled into hoola-hooping as a drunken party-piece. I've generally been reluctant but intoxicated enough to do it, but this time I actually agreed with some enthusiasm and really hammed it up, which was a bit odd because I was pretty sober, having come so late to the party.

My friend Jenny got a nice picture of said party-piece, which I'm pretty happy to share with you as it makes me look more proficient at the hoola than is actually the case. Oh yeah, I'm straight by the way, and incidentally that's not my hat... but worryingly I wish it was.

Happy New Year anyway folks, I hope you were all braver than I was when it came to resolutions. I bottled (literally) and didn't go through with my plan to give up drinking for a month.