We REALLY ARE fucking everything up. It's not a joke. You do realise that, don't you?

I've just written several posts and scrubbed them as they were all self-anihilating in that they banged on about our stupid culture's obsession with inaction and the pointlessness of regurgitating what we hear in the media. However, to mark the hour or so I wasted, I will sum up the jist in this bold, capitalised, bright red sentence (the style conveying the force and ill feeling I failed to summon through my deleted words)

WE ALL KNOW WE'RE FUCKING EVERYTHING UP, BUT NOBODY IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT, WHICH MAKES US DESPERATELY PATHETIC AND DESERVING OF WHATEVER IT IS WE EVENTUALLY BRING ABOUT THROUGH OUR BLIND INACTION.

best off

We all seem to have our bugbears with regard to consumerism and capitalism. I've been inspired to have a wee rant about mine after Maff revealed his disdain for carrier bag addicts and the Bro voiced his disdain for corporate fatcats.

Electric lighting. Very useful, I'm sure we'd all agree. However, useful does not equate to essential or default. So why is it, then, that virtually every household I visit are under the illusion that lights, once on, are un-turn-off-able?

Most people I know talk a good game about caring for the environment. (I don't doubt them, either. And I'm aware we're all riddled with contradictions. I, for instance, use more than my fair share of water but still have this incredibly strong principle about power wastage. But rants, as is tradition, ignore such hypocrasies, so let the tirade continue...) Yet, despite their vocal intentions, they seem to think leaving lights on all night, or TV's, or radios, etc, is perfectly OK.

When there is an excuse, it's usually "I'm going back in there in a minute".

SO?! Will it really take that much energy (your energy, not the planets) to flick the switch back on?

More often than not though, there's no excuse and its just plain selfish laziness that prevents said power-draining planet killer from being turned off. People just leave a room and turning off the light doesn't even cross their mind. It really is incredibly selfish. There's no way you can justify such wanton waste, such blinkered consumption. However many joules it takes for you to move your finger and flick the switch is infintessimally smaller than however many kilowatts of power it takes to sustain the illumination of the room you're not occupying. And if you think it's too much effort, or you 'like a room to be light when you enter it', then you have a hugely inflated sense of self-importance.

Like I mentioned earlier, there's a sense that it's just default that lights are left on, that there's not even a problem there. It's a bit like drinking and smoking - many people are barely aware that they are drugs as it's so socially acceptable. I feel like shaking such head-in-the-sand drinkers, smokers and power wasters and shouting, "WAKE UP!!"

Power comes from the consumption of precious resources which in turn pollutes the environment. It's not just there, like magic.

"leaving a light on doesn't use that much power, surely!"

It uses more than fucking nothing, and thats what a light uses when its switched off. Switching off lights must be the single most simple way a 'talks the talk' environmentalist can start walking the walk. Right?

John, I challenge you to find a stat about how much power would be saved if everyone in the country turned thier lights off. I tried, but my stat radar isn't as honed as yours. Also, is there any truth in that old statement that turning a light on/off uses more power than leaving it on all night?

My final point relates to money. In that you can save it by saving power. Especially relevant if you live in a shared house. However, if it's this point that makes your ears prick up and becomes your primary motivation to save power then you're more lost in the consumerist/capitalist structure than this post assumed.

S.A.D. BASTARD

Fucking hell, autumns coming, isn't it. I can feel it prodding and cackling as it steadily scares off the meek, fleeting and elusive beast that is our summertime.

The nights are drawing in. There's a chill in the air in the evenings. The early hints of that moist, fuggy feeling are apparent. And to follow will be winter with it's bitter, dark, all-encompassing stranglehold of miserable cold and starkness.

Things are slowing down and soon we'll be on pause. For months. Yes, all seasons apart from Spring and Summer are fucking shit.

"But autumns so beautiful!"

True, but its also dark and wet.

"ahh, winter's so cosy!"

So's a campfire on the beach until the sun comes up (at 4am instead of bloody 7am)

I emplore you all to burn tyres, drench yourself in aerosol deodorants, drive everywhere and indulge in other such 'environmentally irresponsible' behaviour in order to speed up global warming and bless our isle with a state of constant summer.

A fabulous discovery

OK, first off, when is anything we claim to be a discovery actually a discovery? unless you're the person who discovered electricity or teletext (which, as we all know, has no rational explanation and wasn't invented but discovered).

Not wishing to piss on my own bonfire further, I shall continue.

Today, in Oxfam on Western Road, I 'discovered' a gem of a record. Its by David Byrne and Brian Eno and is called My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. (see here.)

Its from 1981 and is a funky, experimental album of bass, percussion, guitars and found sounds. Eg, TV evangelists, radio chat shows and people praying. Nothing original by todays standards, then, but this record is quarter of a century old, remember.

Upon getting home, I did some internet research (ensuring I'd listened attentively all the way through at least once and made up my own mind so as not to be swayed by any reviews I came accross - I always read reviews after listening to something because I am a thoroughbred geek). It turns out that its something of a cult classic, influencing everyone from Moby to Public Enemy. Its a bit of a die cast for subsequent sample based music.

And it happens to have just been reissued for its 25th anniversary with extra tracks and a rather nice opportunity for producers. They've made some of the original tapes available, assigned an open source copyright thingy, and said anyone can have a go at remixing/reappropriating/cutting it up/etc as they see fit! Good on them - its a nod to the essence of the music that they give it 'back'. After all, a lot of what it consists of is found sound anyway. (website of samples here)

It seemed somewhat serendipitous, much like the way such music is constructed, that I should stumble across this record at this time. But that brings me back to my original point about how discoveries aren't really discoveries. Someone probably got the reissue, gave the old vinyl to Oxfam who promptly put it in their 'collectable albums' section, where I found it.

to clutz (v)

I am a notorious clutz. So much so that I've coined a new verb: to clutz. To demonstrate the many applications of this verb, I will describe some of my recent clutzes (nb - this post is inspired by my bro's blog, where he talks about little things driving him mad. Clutzing all the time drives me mad). Anyway:

1) I clutzed a brand new, extremely good record down the side of my desk as I took it off the deck, thereby nearly scratching it. Thank god it was only nearly.

2) In her wisdom, Georgie decided my plants might like some genuine rain water, so encouraged me to stick my arm out the window during a shower then sprinkle the rain on said plants. The arm wetting went without incident. Next, I skipped accross my room towards Mabel, my big potted tree. En route, I clutzed into the lid to my record deck, which was lying face up on the floor. Since I stood on the 'wall' of the lid, it flipped up (like the rakes in that episode of the Simpsons with Sideshow Bob), thereby taking a chunk of skin off my toe and bashing my shin quite hard.

3) Every time I leave the house (every time, people, I am not a man prone to exaggeration), I clutz up and leave something behind. (bike lock, wallet, keys, water bottle, the designs I need to show a client at the meeting I'm leaving for)

4) I regularly clutz into door frames, walls, trip over myself, etc. Regularly = daily.

5) I was recently chilling in my lounge, when I clutzed over a pint of water. I jumped up to grab a tea towel, sticking the spliff I was toking between my lips. Thing is, I clutzed it into my mouth lit end first. Lacking the pint of water I'd previously clutzed over, I burnt my throat.

Thats a double clutz my friends, and terminates this post.

TECHNOCHILD

Have you ever heard LP5 by Autechre? The 1st 3 tracks contain, perhaps worryingly, the closest thing to the beats I've heard in my head since I was a young lad. Frantic, skipping, ever changing, polyrhythmic, jittery madness. Maybe that’s why I was an outsider at school, cos my head ran on cold, hard techno from a young age.