If your interested which i don't suppose you are but you're maybe still reading this at least.  I've made a comic, it's called 'The Misadventures of Me.'  You can find it here...

 http://misadventuresroger.tumblr.com/

screw the lines

I don't mean to disappoint you but I'm not a very good speaker. I er, I mumble, tail off, repeat myself and have tendencies to use the wrong word to describe something with a degree of selfconfidence that on occasion is laughable and probably pitying.  I can manipulate but it'd probably be so ham-fisted I might as well give you the blueprints. 

I mean I don't lie but have a tendency to exaggerate beyond believable doubt. There's always a point but more often than not it needs to be extracted from the prolapsed pile of backwards sentences, veering emphasis and shameful punctuation spluttered out my hole.

Saying that, in my life I have exhibited moments of charisma, possibly even something resembling charm, and noted occasional witticisms that can divide opinion yet gather a crowd. Sometimes the clarity of some words that happen to trip out even get used beyond their own utterance.   Electronically scribed, my words have harvested over 20,000 readers (20,013 to stress the overuse of "over"), though most of these are Russian robots. A view is a view even if you're not looking. I said that, just then.

If spellcheckers didn't exist my sentences would read like drunk texts from illiterate infant idiots.  But it does, and maybe you weren't to know until I just told you. Though we all have little helpers don't we, do we? I have a habit of feeling I know you when I don't and then not knowing you when I do. It's not a habit more a flaw or a back-handed compliment to you or to me I haven't worked it out because I'm not as intelligent as you think. Which is now pretty low and sinking with the only thing stopping it from plunging into negativity is the fact that you're reading me and you regard yourself with above average intelligence, just wittering and twittering? Not even a sadist has this much free time nowadays, you're almost hooked, but to what? The arrangement of words to a preformulated set of rules to explain intangible impossible ideas? We're both quite flippant aren't we?

Phonies

...HOW DO YOU DO 

Phonies  

More and more people I see doing it. I used to only see them for a moment, checking it or sometimes at the back of a bus killing time, chasing the snake, acting like they were popular but in reality just flicking through their previous messages or typing some considered reply, but now they are everywhere and everyone.

Heads tilted down, staring, transfixed on the screen in their hands, some tap, others swipe a bit, most just stare.  Life passes, they stare, life dies, they stare, life gets reborn in a miraculous turn of events that defies even our collective knowledge, they didn't notice because they were too busy staring.  And staring, and staring. And still staring.  At least the hands free mentals are actually talking to someone, flailing arms with those suspicious brain controlling headsets flashing their blue or green lights, beaming up small-talk to their alien captives. It’s ok, no one noticed, they were too busy staring.     

Sorry, what? Huh, you talking?

When did preoccupation replace occupation?  Experience isn’t sacred, it’s constantly interrupted or we interrupt experience because we feel something might be happening somewhere else or someone might have done something that we don’t know about, or we just got bored of time, a lull, a low point, a point invariably in the past we would have endured, day dreamed, fantasied about killing the protagonist of this tedium is now spent tapping and staring. And the good experiences, those whiz bang moments, shared special times, they’re now just material for an update, a comment, or hastily shot video?  Are we living for the moment or has the moment become just another timeline, a footnote to our electronic life?  We'd rather look at screens of each other than of each other.  Type thoughts to all and sundry than talk truth to that special somebody.

Smarty pants

They need constant recharge, they cost as much as a computer, they shatter if you rest them wrongly or on anything harder than cotton wool.  They get stolen loads, with almost all your personal details on them.  They're big, they're heavy, they're always there to snap you drunk or in an compromising, unflattering or just plain private situations, 17,000 times in varying degrees of awfulness so they can later find the worst and delete the rest, like a journo with an agenda, you become the below z-list celebrity to their own superstar selves.  Uploaded into their lifestyle magazine 'Cindy out 'n' bout' what fame, what cheek.

It's here, it's the Samsam 851vp p

The screens we thought would create a glorious open future, have not only caught but have held captive our attentions ransoming our lives as collateral with no release in sight because the captivity is our own collective illusion that we willing walked into, signing up for, spending big on smart, because why wouldn't you want smart, it's smart, it'll be like owning smart, it'll be like you're smart. It wasn't even smart, if that was the case I'd had a lot dumb phones and a genius computer that couldn't close a program without asking me if I want to. Well are you sure? You've clicked the "X" but are you? You selected the word "close," but do you, do you, do you, you fucking idiot?

How much more future?

So where's next, computers on glasses, always on screens direct into your eye, computer phones strapped to our bodies.  Implants, implants directly into our skulls, desktop towers in our stomachs, fans coming out our shitholes?

Eroding our core, sidelining direct relationships, evermore things designed to bring us closer will ultimately not be used by the advertising idealist's and marketing moguls flashy illustrations and viral adverts but more like our desperate lazy, lonely selves, getting our buzzes and preferring distance over direct contact.

 Is what we want or whether collectively we've ignored the reasons and just bought the next one, and the next one, and the next. The machines are have taken over and we haven't even noticed.  

thing-a-me

                     Thing-a-me

I didn't write this, I can't write this, I am not writing this, there is no one writing this.  How does flexing a finger to tap-tap some pre-structured preset articulation based around a sudo philosophical art school rejected hipster trope seep out of me, it's bodily witness, now accuser, victim and I suppose, perpetrator.

What's to blame for the desire to brutalise words for the consumption of one man and his dog that doesnt exist due to said loner's inibility to physically own said dog because of a unhelpful possession of an extreme form of retardation.  That and this whole scenario is set deep within the realm of utter fantasy. What? What am I writing? This obviously proves I have no soul, a stunted imagination and a distinct lack of understanding for disability.

Why? Why what? why ask the whys? It's always why? Why are we like this? Why did you leave me? Why are we here, there or anywhere? Why is everyone insignificant to my own self existence, self-dislocation, lack of connection from a shared consciousness, an elaborate hokey hippie epiphoney that seemed like it should be true. It isn't, what isn't? I don't know, cells are communicating this, I am no more real than ultra-violet is to a blind, brain-damaged fraggle, there I go again.

Perception? How whole can we be without our understanding of our whole? My brain hurts. The headaches, the hangovers, the comedowns, the comas, the strokes, the tumours, the cancers, the leftovers. The function, what point is the sustained function of self-preservation? Our brain ultimately wants to repair, wants to function, our machine wants to keep running regardless of reason. 

The whims of it's memories prevail and our lack of control over it's innate programming, addictions, attractions, desires, hunger, aggression, angst, fear, and overall weird need to explore a jagged submerged crevis inside a partially collapsed mountain for 6 six hours in minus 20 just to see a bit more rock, a cave that someone had already shown you the pictures of. These are our mothers and our fuckers. These are the real one's writing this but for what ends?

Ego? 
Proving to everyone this body can write at a slightly higher level than pre school.

Self deprivation / sympathy? 
God I feel sorry he's so mal-adjusted, awe I'll say this is "pretty interesting" to make him feel better, he might be on the edge.

Illusion of interest / intelligence?
Doesn't he talk about things I don't think or give a rats arse about? He must read a lot of shitty books.

Happiness? 
This actually makes him feel better? What kinds of disturbia haunt that skull, the freak.

Misplaced sense of self? 
He wished he was that interesting, it reads like a transcript of a college project anyway. He can't face his ordinariness. He is his nightmares and everyone else's real perception of himself, constantly asking questions like a curious child with distinctly adult testicles and no excuse for such a vivid taste in socks.

Attention? 
Why am I even here reading every single word I'm now typing like some prattle addict, there isn't even a point to these words it's just garnering yet more attention from your life, like a time thief. If I keep you reading my time credits keep rising, if I write enough you'll be dead and I'll live forever.

I'll stop now, there is no point to continue as my brain has deemed this a fruitless act given the woeful lack of direction and endless self-loathing this deformed blurt now is. If a sentence or word has resonated, that was luck, though if that word was the word 'word,' forget it.

the odd postcard

Thought I'd let anyone who reads this know I also do another thing that isnt work. I collect these postcards.  I put them on here www.theoddpostcard.blogspot.com  They're like the title suggests a bit odd.

          www.theoddpostcard.blogspot.com      

It's only you: The machine you cannot be.

It's only you: The machine you cannot be.

Self-awareness cripples the queasy, more delicate members of our homosapian race. I join this tertiary body of dysmorphics, recovering addicts and mal-adjusted self- effacing depressives whom would treat these visions as a side effect, symptom or some such undesirable realisation from the unending hallucinogen of life.

The woowse now sloshes around my internals. Everything's wrong and not quite intact. I'm starting to feel like humans should feel all the time if they hadn't ignored or stopped to pay attention to what and how things are in whatever named location they appear to be in.

I, like you have no skill, no specialty that makes me in anyway divine or noteworthy beyond whatever menial part I play in the continued tasking to keep this race from cataclysm. It’s not important not like that at least, it’s not big. You've ignored it or rather it's made itself ignore itself. The it, the interconnected composites, our functioning parts, are floating amongst our liquid plasma slopped beside our fellow organs, rising, pumping and multi stranded flexing autonomously yet unified, synced.  Though strangely ignorant to these particular thoughts I'm thinking. That's not the only thing making me sick but it assists in worsening the gurgles.

Bending fingers tension tendons, pull muscles; pump blood down swollen overhung vein tubes thinly veiled in semi opaque skin wraps for my delectable perturbation. Like a magician revealing a trick or a post modernist building brazenly showing off the parts of its sum, it's there; it's always there.

Why does it make me queasy? Hu, hu, huh. Burp! It's rising up, outa my hands, twitches, clenches hell's sharp stabbing starts. Why does it turn my food acidiser to think of us as us? Why does it make my willy give me the willies?

In this state I can't even look at attractive people without a queer revulsion permeating every attempt at my minds desperate innate attempts at feux eroticism. Yet now I’m not fantasising about the tertiary foliage atop those tree trunks or depths of that swollen glistening chest. I fixate on deficiencies and peculiarities like deep-lipped wrinkles and the reflective waxy grease of an uncleansed ear. The hump of a spot patted with foundation yet building, swelling in pustule force poised to destruct, a burst capillary amongst a sea of clarity or as I see it more potential ruptures, wriggly crazed blood vessels near that crevice where crusty sleep lay. White soft downy fluff misting attractive attention with white fear, a future bearded lady? Or worse some semi domesticated Bigfoot? Lower down locks, a sly eyed fence of stretch marks picketing a panty line.

No ones immune. Stray follicles, any lump of any sort anywhere it shouldn't. The patch of pockey red blushed skin on an overweight anemic's upper armed base coat that's almost completely hidden we're it not for the large big mac meal at the weekend and the preceding mild weather necessitating a freedom to let sweat and bare more. The sentencing continues on autopilot the only slight relief is repetition and the completion of a full identification. Then the mind kicks back in and the imagination beats my twee observations with filthy hidden horrors. Lice infestation, putrification, mutilation, diseases, cysts, warts, sores, gaping holes and stinking rotten fungus. I stop, because it stopped making sense or made too much sense. There is not a thing I cannot avoid thinking of as meat, filth or living breathing rot.

I'll start to feel normal soon. My stomach will start processing and cease exorcising. I'll see the superficial once more and ignore the depths of those pustulated sores. It'll be right, right is preferable to wrong and real.

I share this fallibility as any man or woman can. I've got ugly scars, veins, lumps, bumps and ills most if not all you care to name, but I'm the judge for you and you for me and only I wrote this.

HOW DO YOU DO . . .  
British, English, ish, shhh!

Life throws up bitter black choices, life-changing and heart-breaking scenarios for nations. Syria, for example, a nation struggling to escape the genocide and suffocation, believing what hope is left after the utter cruelty and injustice that has befallen them. A group of unfortunate citizens that sadly aren’t alone. 

Britain, for example can at least take endless comfort in the growing group of fearsome existentialists discussing whether fish & chips or chicken tikka masala truly defines us as a populous and could they use it as a basis for their 8 part look on the British cultural zeitgeist?

Do we need to continue this endless analysis of our nations psyche? Our quirks’ and eccentricities itemised over and over again like we’re not acutely aware of them being actual, British, people. 

Why is defining yourself something we either seem to need to do, or a matter of acute stress that we haven’t?  Books, programmes, shows, reports and articles on: What is Britishness? What does Britishness mean to you? The end of Britishness? John Bishops Britain, Jamie Great Britain, Modern Britain, Don’t ever lose your Britishness, Being British. 

Don’t we now have enough?  Enough pouring over and dragging out trite generalisations and tired old types. Underdog, self deprecating humour, weather fixation, bad food, bad teeth, bad food that’s now good, faded musical prowess, world defining language, empiristic tendancies, it goes on and on into smaller incriments to the point where we’re unaware if we’re observing Britain, England, Camden, Camden High Street, or just our shop keeper we’ve delved, hacked, and boxed so much he cries whenever we raise our eyebrows.

Our imposed economic union makes us seek some sort of belated half-hearted cultural union. Trying desperately to understand shifts that aren’t that complicated and if we’d bothered to engage more with the other three countries bound to us and maybe those few million minorities over the last century or so we would had have more of an idea by now, rather than acting like a load of wide-eyed apes gaping through at people being people. 

Saying things like:

“Ahhmm, what interesting people.”

“Ohhh, I never knew they felt like that.”

“Um whoops, I didn’t know that was why.”

“That’s disgusting, look look. Urgh, you'd never catch me doing that”

So don’t forget the minorities, yes of course, like you can forget to mention the glaring fact we’re not a mono-culture and haven’t been for sometime.  No hold it up like we’re proud, look, curry and jerk chicken, chinese and kebab, we love this!  It’s like saying; we know what you make us, but we don’t know you, but you make it so well, you can be this. This, or a bad thing.

What these features show is our myopic perspective, how we like to praise, sing, show, tour and tout to everyone this multicultural wide diverse self-important land but the simple fact that, y’know, we are the only one’s listening. It would also seem we aren’t even paying attention given are failure to pass our own citizen tests.

I hope other nations don’t have to suffer this endless psyche analysis, but I’m sure we’re not alone.  The Inuit’s probably debate the cultural impact of Pingu and wonder if igloos truly define them?  The Sweedes would undoubtedly reflect on whether anyone really knows them or really cares they’re around? And the Americans, well the Americans are on season 732 of ‘America: Great Bold and Proud Yeah!,’ an unedited series that documents everything any American has ever said as culturally important and abundantly significant to world life.  This is a nation so open about itself every part of it is on sale and ultimately replenishable like some ever fruiting hamburger tree or more accurately a Chinese plastic toy factory churning out commemorative 9/11 badges. 

Generally speaking, through travel, TV and shared experience. Culture is becoming increasingly homogenised, so instead of fighting it, go with it, become a world nation, blend and meld and become an identity that can work together in shared experience, otherwise we’ll defend and embitter, we’ll squabble and territorialise. If something is so important and great and good, it’ll shine through and if it doesn’t it probably wasn’t that great.

Unlike Syria at least we get the choice.

Speakin’ like a Lundinner

Extracted from guest blogger, Annie Harrison’s book, About the English, this is a useful list of word pronunciations as spoken mostly in Lundin, of the East Enders variety.  Spoken slowly and deliberately.

Abaat – approximately, or in the vicinity. 

Ant – I want.  Ant chips, ant money, ant work, ant to win X Factor.

Ayer-powt – the holiday starts and ends here if the flight isn’t overbooked and you haven’t forgotten your parse-powt.

Alma chizzit? - a request to establish the cost of an item.  ‘Alma chizzit for a taxi to the ayer-powt?’

Amant – a quantity of something.  ‘Kev bowt a large amant of gold on ‘is trip to Doo-boy.’ (Dubai)

Annuva – additional.

Arf panda - a large hamburger.

Art attack – freaked out, as in ‘Don't show this to Dave.  He'll ‘ave a art attack.’

Arskt – enquired.  ‘Oi arskt ya to put mushy peas wiv me chips, not on the bloody fings.’

Awss – a four-legged animal ridden by jockeys in races. 

Ass – a domestic building in which people live.

Ass band - forced to stay at home by the rain, when ill or unemployed.

Bannsa - a person employed to deny access or eject troublemakers at a club. ‘Mike’s gone got izself a job as a bannsa.’

Bave – to take a bath.


Boaf  - the two. ‘Oi Kevin, ooja fancy most, Tracy or Sharon?’ ‘Whoa!  Boaf of em!’ 

Brought – purchased.  ‘Mick’s brought a new ass.’

Burf-dye – a celebration on the date of one’s birth. ‘Appy burf-dye to yer.’

Cancel – the administrative body within a town looking after the interests of its residents. ‘Oh me gawd Daryl, wive ad annuvva letta from the cancel.’

Cantafit - fake, as in money, watches, perfume, DVDs, sports clothing.


Choona – tinned fish.


Cort a panda – small hamburger (not as big as a arf panda).

C’nav - a request: ‘C’nav some vin’gar on me ships?’

Danstez – not upstairs.

Door-a - daughter


Drekkun – what do you think?  As in ‘How many vodkas drekkun it’ll take before Darren pukes?’ 

Droive – operate or control a vehicle.  ‘If you’re droivin’ over to Kelly’s ass, c’nav a lift?’

Erz - belonging to her.

Eye-eels – high heels.

Eyebrow - cultured, intellectual, highbrow. 

Excape – get free from something.

Faazund – thousand.

Farva - a posh way to say Dad.

Fatcha – a reference to former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Faye-fool - firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty.  ‘Oi’d nevva cheat on yer darlin’.  Oi’d always be faye-fool, ‘cos I luv yer.’

Fank – thank.

Fing – thing.

Fink– thought process.

Fort – past tense of fink.

Froget – fail to remember.  ‘Don’t froget, ant a cort a panda not a arf panda.’

Frew – in one side and out the other, or, propelled through the air. ‘Who frew a cricket ball frew the winda?’

Garridje - a building where a car is kept or repaired.  ’Oi, Wayne, oi fink the motah needs to go in the garridje ‘cos it aint workin’ propa.’

Gawon - go on. ‘Gawon Kevin, eat ya granny's cabbage, it'll do yer good.’


Int - indirect suggestion.  ‘I gave Tony a sort of int that it was time for him to bave.’

Ja - do you, did you. ‘Ja like me new eye-eels, Tiffany?’

Jafta - is it really necessary? ‘Oi mate, jafta keep doin’ vat?’

Kaf - eating house open during the day.

Lad - noisy. ‘Jordan, turn that music dan.  It's too lad.’

Laafe – what you lead if you’re not dead.  ‘Nan’s very ill.  She’s got, doctors, nurses, laafe-suppowt and stuff in her ass.

Lafarjik – lacking energy. 

Leev it aht – to put something outside, or, stop it; don’t; no-way.  ‘Oi Britney!  Leev it aht, will ya?  I know yer muvva wants us to set a date, but stop goin’ on abaat it.’

Levva - material made from the skin of an animal.

Lotree - Costs £1 for a ticket to become a millionaire.

Maffs - the study of numbers.

Munf – there are 12 munfs in the calendar year.

Muvva – a posh way to say Mum.

Narra - lacking breadth, with little margin. ‘Mum wonnid to come rand but changed ‘er mind.  That was a narra excape.’ 

Nartameen - do you know what I mean?  ‘Be careful.  Tasha’s farva is roofless.  Nartameen?’


Neeva - not one, nor the other.  ‘Did you go back to Sharon’s ass or Tracy’s?’  ‘Neeva.’

Nevva – did not: ‘I nevva saw nuffink.’

New-cular pa – nuclear power.

Nuffink – zilch.

Oaf - a solemn declaration of truth or commitment.

Oi – either first person singular, ‘Oi fink new-cular pa is a bad fing.’ Or a warning, ‘Oi!  Leev it aht!  Vat’s me beer yer drinkin!’

Olladay - time taken away from home for rest and adventure.

Onnist - fair and just, without a lie. ‘I never did it, onnist.’

Ospi-dewl – where the sick are cared for.

Ov cawss – of course.

Pacific - specific.


Pa-fool - having much power or strength.


Paipa – tabloid news.


Pans an annsis - imperial weight system.  ‘Vis diet aint workin’.  I’ve put on 4 pans and 6 annsis since last munf.’ (Pounds and ounces).

Plammans - a traditional pub lunch of cheese, pickle and bread.

Prada – proud of.  ‘Ov caws I’m prada yer.’

Rand – circular, or a number of drinks purchased for a group in a pub.

Randeer - locally. ‘There ain't much suppowt for a new sports grand randeer.  Everyone’s felling lafarjik.’

Reband - period of recovery after rejection by a lover. ’Oi woz desp’rat.  Oi woz on the reband from Jason.’

Roofless - without compassion.

Sand – noise vibrations. ‘Oi don’t like the sand of vat.’

Saan-widje – a filling between two slices of bread.

Sarf – a direction of the compass, opposite to norf.

Saw-tid - fixed, resolved, arranged, done. ‘It’s all saw-tid.  Dinner at the kaf ta-morra, and ven we’ll droive to the ospi-dewl to see Nan.’

Seevin - very angry. ‘I woz seevin when I got the letta from the cancel.’ 

Shaat – loud voice.  ‘No need to shaat.  I’m standin’ right next to yer.’

Ships – deep fried potato sticks served with fish.

Ta-morra – the day following today.

Tan ass - a modern terraced house.

Teef – a set of hard, bonelike structures rooted in sockets in the jaws.

Tra-ziz - an outer garment for covering each leg from the waist to the ankles.

Toma-a – red vegetables used in ketchup.

Vat – that.

Ven - then

Viss – this.

Wanned up – manual winding of a timepiece, or tension in a person. ‘I'm all wanned up at the moment.’

Wawazat? – excuse me?  ‘Wawazat?  Who scored the winnin’ goal?’

Webbats – requesting the location of something.  ‘Oi, Stacey, webbats you put me lottree ticket?  I fink I’ve got a winner.’

Wevva – the state of the atmosphere, or, expressing doubt or choice between alternatives.  ‘On olladay, the wevva was so bad we were ass band.’  Or, ‘Del couldn’t decide wevva to ‘ave choona or ships in his saan-wije.’

Will  - wheel.  Terry grabbed the wheel and avoided death.

Winda – a glass-filled opening between the inside and outside of a house.  ‘Shut the winda.  Everyone can hear yer shaating.’

Wiv – accompanying. ‘D’you want ships wiv your cort a panda?’  

Wonnid – needed, requested.  ‘Oi wonnid to know if Baz was in, so oi tapped on the winda.’

Wor-a-fantin - A jet of water for drinking or a garden ornament.  ‘Someone nicked the gnomes by the wor-a-fantin in Dot’s gardin.’

Woyn – Alcoholic drink made from fermented grapes, bottled with a screw-top.  ‘Oi Paula, webbats you put the woyt woyn?  Oi wonnid to take it over to Muvva’s for her burf-dye ta-morra.’

Yoof – teenager.  ‘Terry’s Mum is very yoof-ful lookin’.’

Zajerate - to suggest something is better or bigger than is really is. ‘Craig, I must've told ya a fazzund times already, don't zajerate.’

Watch this:  video of band, Blur, singing Parklife in full London accent. 

Extracted from About the English by Annie Harrison.

More excerpts at blog.harrisonlavelle.com