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i got bored at the library today and designed a new sorta buddha box, but instead of making random relaxing beeps, it would make noises at 16-19 Hz, which is the 'fear' frequency. maybe i would then put it in playgroups, libraries and banks. it might not bring down western capitalism, but it will make it feel a bit uncomfortable and anxious.

need a life.

gogol bordello: best live band evah. i'm running away to join the circus. proper report later, when liam sends the interview transcripts. brief synopsis: i expected eugene hutz to be a bit of a terror. he's not. he's a very charming, scarily intelligent and self-posessed man.

other than that, life can sometimes be more of a drab fucker than a seventeen year old emo kid with a weight problem writing livejournal poetry. hope i'm not getting old.

well, i survived. just. valentines day really brings the morons crawling out from under their rocks though. gah. don't fuckin ask me for a date if even your mother skirts around complimenting you on your looks and social skills. make note though: i wasn't speed-dating, or wearing a big 'desp'rate' sign. just goin about my everyday business, with the misfortune of running into lots of undesireable acquaintances unable to read that tricky body-language sign, 'wincing and edging away nervously'.

first offer of a date came from a short lawyer. he had acne scars and a gold chain. upon being turned down, informed me what a big mistake i was making. repeatedly. cos poor gamesmanship, lack of finesse and questioning of judgement turn girls on, yo. anyone who says otherwise is made of lies.

second fortunately came in an answerphone message, from a chap who frequently rocks a greasy ponytail, goatee, and 'oxford' hoodie, as well as a justified creepy stalker rep. it contained the words 'i guess you havn't planned anything for valentines day, so will you meet me for a drink? because my sex life is TERRIBLE at the moment.'

last of the day was a neuroscientist who happened to turn up at the comedy lecture. trenchcoat mafia chic was the look, frequent, loud assertions of his own brilliance were the conversational matter. i tried to evade him, saying i really had to go, but he'd overheard my plans for the evening in a conversation with a friend. when i turned up at the turf he was sitting there, on his own, on the table next to my group of friends. as i sat down, he slipped a baggy of pills into my pocket, telling me that he'd stolen them from the lab. classy.

urg...it's THAT day again. fortunately all offers have been underwhelming enough to turn down with reasonable brutality, although bloodshed has been kept to a minimum...time to listen to some seasonal themed music.

NICK CAVE, obviously. Bit of religious mania combined with a healthy respect for serial killer standard practice. Go for Hiding All Away, Henry Lee, pretty much anything really. not into my arms, cos that's a bit too nice.

Another Girl, Another Planet by THE ONLY ONES. cos i thought it was about sexy romance when i was little, but actually its all about the smack. heh.

Metal Fingers in my Body by ADD N TO (X). Cos nobody ever regrets a robot shag.

Suck My Left One, BIKINI KILL. gotta show em boys we're worse than queer, yo.

BUZZCOCKS. ever fallen in love is a kickin ode to unrequited crushin, but orgasm addict has a line about schoolkids. brap.
CHROMEO. Needy Girl. no...i'll call you later...i'm in the studio...whatever

Nothing says bitter like ARAB STRAP. restraining orders and 'you said that you were careful, you never were with me. i heard you fucked him four times, johnnies come in packs of three' mmm. tasty.

DEAD KENNEDIES. tdtf. natch.

DEATH IN VEGAS were pretty gash, but the sound of iggy pop purring 'aisha: i'm vibratingggg' is still pretty hot.

EURYTHMICs. why? cos it's my lamo fucking list, that's why. also missionary man is a screwed up song. it seems to reference boning both members of the clergy and siblings.

GOGOL BORDELLO. cos the only thing sexier than a ukrainian with a big tache is calling your ep 'east infection'. itchy.

JOHN LEE HOOKER. bad like jesse james. harks back to the day when if you messed with a bluesman's woman he would waste you good.

DOLLY PARTON. jolene. can you smell the desperation? i can, it's a bit like petrol, which is a good smell.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND. sister ray. heheh. he said ding dong.

LOW. embrace. 'i fell down the stairs, i wished i were dead...it won't last' romance is dead. cheers sparhawk and co, you zany zany mormons.

MAGNETIC FIELDS. how fucking romantic. don't forget to feed you're bear, or it'll die. a lesson for us all.

MOGWAI. ex-cowboy. it's warm and melancholy. kind of like dying and your cats feeding on your corpse.

NEIL YOUNG. love is a rose. yeah, all spiky. right on.

PULP. babies/ underwear. jarvis cocker is hiding in your cupboard and having a dirty thought. quitting a recording career freed up a lot of time for that kinda stuff.

RAMONES. the kkk took my baby away. the only thing worse than valentine's day is having your loverrrr abducted by race hate groups. every fucking year.

RICHARD HELL. love comes in spurts. and it hurts. probably should see your gp about that, old boy. hur. hur. hur.

THE SLITS. love and romance. cos, seriously, nothing says love and romance like murder threats.

SONIC YOUTH. superstar cover. creepy post carpenter death leering with a thin veneer of desparing adoration.

a bit of TALKING HEADS. arson is way better than sex, but not quite as good as cat burglary.

TEN BENSON. nobody's wife. you can be a stinkin white trash loser lost in north london, but at least you ain't no damn woman.

THE MOLDY PEACHES, nothing came out> yeah i know it's indie as hell, but everyone needs a paen to inept, hopeless indie love. get a hobby.

THROBBING GRISTLE. something came over me. i don't know what it was, but i really hope it wasn't genesis p. orridge, cos he still scares me a bit.

SUICIDE> frankie teardrop. this anniversary, why not shoot your wife to a minimalist-synth soundtrack and then spend ten minutes screaming about how you're in hell? sure as hell beats a stilted conversation in pizza express.

THE NORMAL. warm leatherette. because crash is the most erotic novel/film concept ever. yes, even more so than battlefield earth. haha battlefield earth.


yeah and johnny thunders, the fall, good ol' lenny cohen, johnny cash, whatever. just don't send me any crappy e-cards. urgh. my inbox is skanky enough as it is.

meh back in the english department today i classified my fellow postgrads.

1)anglosaxon, norse, old and middle english: actually i'm only directly acquainted with one of this reclusive breed. from rumour and speculation, they're probably very odd and a bit cunty. i'm thinking monobrows, zits, glasses, low on the eq spectrum and an intolerable sense of superiority. actually, come to think of it, one of them fucked robbie 'cunt' dale last year, so that's definite proof of sociopathic tendencies.
2)Us. Early Modern and Englightenment, known to our tutors as the sweet-ass sixteen. geeks and outcasts the lot. nobody would survive very well on the outside. eccentric, but more sociable than most. kind of like an eighties movie about a mismatched bunch of losers overcoming their differences and personal shortcomings and working together towards a feelgood ending. except we havn't ended yet and are very protective about our neuroses.. the boys can get quite territorial about sonnets.
3)Romantics and Victorians. Terribly nice girls who feel terribly strongly about novels. Sullen, silent boys. probably also lacking in social skills. plus ca change.
4)modernists. they are better looking, better dressed and have more sex than the rest of the department put together.would never, ever be reduced to admitting robbie dale's suppurating member into their areas. occasionally deign to mingle with us, but are largely toobusy being fabulous. also don't do much work. word is that the reason that they have such fabulous lives is that they all have headfuckingly rich parents, cos unless you're a theory genius, word is that you havn't a hope in hell of getting funded. but actually nice people who everyone envies. apart from that fat trivia geek, who we suspect of being a secret early mod at heart.

Also i've been seeing bad things on people's feet. I'm no sartorial facist, and am a big fan of the cheap n chic charity shop kind of thing, but certain shoe conventions are there for a reason. I'm talking about tan loafers, the single most important signifier of a worthless or blind person. i've been known to experience the peverse frisson of mixing brown shoes with black trousers, but really, tan is a revolting colour, especially worn on the feet, worse with tassels. i recently saw an acquaintance wearing tan winklepickers (irony is not appropriate in this case) paired with a black suit. i don't know who would wear that sort of thing apart from a noveau-riche parvenu tory scumbag. in which case they should fuck off and die, rather than cluttering my field of vision with terrible shoes.

Also, plug for mini oreos, even though they're hideously unhealthy and come from amerikkka. i'm turning into everything i hate.

yeah, i've come to the magnetic fields pretty much en retard but good show anyway. definitely one of my top acquisitions. also, when i have the cash (which i won't) i'd dig a buddha machine. heh. the idea makes me smile.

erm last week was hectic what with deciding to drop out (i know it doesn't count if you wait until you have a second degree, but leave me my fantasies of rebellion), hella work and running out of overdraft definitively. sorted now. shattered eco credentials though by trying out the new oxford-cambridge air route (long story, but one off treat, not my money). I shotgunned the front seat- almost as good as getting to go on a fire engine or a tractor. we flew up through the fog, and broke thround the cloud cover, skimming along just on top of it as the sun set. really beautiful, a lovely big clean blank.

having punctuation issues. i'm pretty anally retentive about these things, and the oxford comma bugs me, because there is no hard and fast rule about it. if you look at the subject line, the comma after commas is the oxford one. an entirely optional punctuation mark. that cannot be right.

ooh big fuss about james' frey's book, a million little pieces. sort of an emo addiction thing, as far as i can make out from not reading it. apparently a whole load of his pain was made up, and oprah is upset about being lied to. meanwhile, everyone is being terribly supportive about how J.T. Leroy is not a pre-pubescent rentboy genius, but in fact a middle-aged housewife. whatever. Leroy is a good idea, and it always seemed that his story was too close to the pot of pr gold at the end of the marketing rainbow. it is a rare drug-addled urinal bandit who is lucid enough to provide material of that quality that quickly. and it sold. but so did james frey. what worries me is that for low-end pain lit, people want real agony, like all that dave pelzer bollocks. really creepy as fuck, all this reading about how your evil stepmother injected bleach into your crotch or you got so fucked that you ate a foetus. but cos leroy is sold a little higher on the culture incline, it's ok for him to be a hoax. i have no objection to reading about suffering, but the whole marketing scheme seems yucky and voyeuristic. not that i don't enjoy a bit of voyeurism, but there's a curiously sentimental tinge to this lot that pisses me off.

cos it's just tolling, don't read so fucking much into it.

yeah, its that rather pleasant hour on sunday when oxford goes belltastic. i like it. there's a single bell that goes off at five second intervals for about three-quarters of an hour every evening, which begins to grate a little upon me delicate nerves, but the carillion (right word? wrong word?) stuff is upbeat. must have some hardcore campanologists near by. maybe they all wear matching silk bomber jackets, with gothic lettering, and go round beating up wussy handbell enthusiasts.

anyway, i'm arsing about, trying to put my life to rights, wondering why the hell i should be so worried about it at twenty two. got things pretty good here, but it still feels kind of wrong and bleh. i'm so fucking tired, to the point that when my head feels semi-clear, it's an event (emo tear).

so i think i'll go and work in brussels next year while i try to get into columbia, so if i'm gonna be a whingy moron, at least i'll be a whingy moron sitting in some prime hipster real estate (new york i mean. not belgium).

should i stay at oxford?
should i take a year out to work out what i want?
should i move to the US?
should i give a toss?
why does it sound like last decade, but worse? the nostalgia timeframe is shortening, my identity got lost in the post and i've been thinking to much about nuclear meltdown.

entrance criteria for undergraduate study, at, say an oxbridge humanities department? or excerpt from the narcisstic personality disorder dsm?

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

4. requires excessive admiration

5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes