TV Mag

Every Saturday I have an age old routine. Get up, have a fag, go downstairs, read the TV Mag. I've been doing this for ages, yet, somewhat surprisingly it's the first time I've ever clocked on to how pathetic the people writing in to the letters page are:

'Dad's too bad:

When is Hollyoaks going to give bad boy Ste a shot at being a dad? The poor guy's ex Amy left him holding baby Lucas - and then two strangers totally took over! I think Ste has been trying really hard compared to some dads.

Laura Henderson, Ferryden, Montrose'

O.k. so she's from Scotland...can't have much else to do...

'Saluting Susan:

I think Susan in Neighbours is fantastic for offering to be a surrogate mother for her daughter Libby. She is such a good person for trying to help. However, I understand Karl's worries. I hope he can come to terms with it because it is what Susan wants to do.

Jess Barnes, Bristol'

IT'S NOT FUCKING REAL!! YOU SAD, BORED, LONELY AND STUNNINGLY FUCKING RETARDED STUPID POND LIFE CUNTS!!!

I love Eastenders, I have watched it since I was a child and hell... sometimes I do empathize with the characters as if they were real, but not once have I ever felt compelled to write in to a T.V. magazine and make it look as if the only thing working in my brain is a small chinchilla trying to press very small buttons with an immensely sizable paw. The people who write in to complain about smut and swearing aren't even half as bad as the fuckers who write letters like the ones above because at least they have some grip on reality. Do these same people think that the Teletubbies are real? That Most Haunted isn't a huge con? That tatty old arsehole Arlene Phillips actually isn't pure bone dust inside? Or that Jeremy Clarkson isn't just a right-wing anus face, who is on the contrary a philosopher, who spouts views which are not the equivalent of a dank-tuft of rectal pubic hair? Or perhaps even they believed the misapprehension that the nation didn't just skip to the sports section of the tabloids when Jade Goody was breathing her last unintelligent breaths?

I always get up on the right side of bed..

JPH

Done

It's been over a week I know. Any posts that would have been made were taken over by essays, revision, bombshell headfuck news and just plain tiredness. So now it's only a month until Uni begins and I'm looking forward to it a lot. I believe I did enough to pass the retakes and I'm just glad they're over with.

So now what to do with the month? I could do fuck all with this next month and I'd be extremely happy. I'm mentally knackered after the past week. It's fucked me in more ways than one so I'm glad now that I can be lazy, listen to Prince, eat Pizza and watch movies now, with nothing else to be done. Being lazy is good.

Sorry for the shortness of this post, I'm sure I'll procure a humourous soon but at the moment I cannot be arsed.

JPH

Reshits - Update #3

The decision has been made that Edmund Burke just really is too complicated to continue to pursue an essay question on. I'm tentatively looking at Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his concerns for freedom with the 'social contract'. This first one is only 1,500 words, so lyrical doesn't need to be overly waxed. Rousseau seems to be a lot easier to fathom, I just seemed to forget how philosophy can tie you in knots and leave you watching Eastenders forgetting what the fuck you were just working on and what the hell it's about.

Got up at twelve this morning with the taste of skunk shit in my mouth. I really must stop smoking before I go to bed. Not talking to certain people is going well, I'm remaining calmer and more stress-free as it goes everyday.

JPH

Reshits - Update #2

It's unimaginably annoying when you're supposed to be working, reading that huge textbook which talks in alien gibberish and putting together an essay that for the rest of the night, that you end up really wanting to write a script. That's always the way and discussions with Cocky Balboa have certainly whetted my appetite to write the masterpiece we've been talking about.

It's always happened that way: when I need to work, I want to write and when I have free time I can't muster up the courage, strength or motivation to create a single poem, prose, novel, novella, script, haiku, sonnet, play, screenplay or anything remotely creative. This lack of motivation which begins from the bollocks up has to end here.

Whenever we talk about this unifying idea of my creation and his contribution (which will end up to be vast I'm sure, don't worry, we will share billing) there just seems to be a real enthusiasm and drive to go out there and get it done but it always comes at times like these, where much like a dog with constipation that has a rectal dysfunction which causes it to flop out, the summer has a decency malfunction from the rear, which flops out with Uni work.

Well, it's 03:24am and I need to sleep to more drama on my ipod with the 8th Doctor. No more nightmares please. Another Reshits update tomorrow then I shouldn't wonder. God knows who I'm even addressing, no-one reads this arse-gravy anyway.

JPH

Reshits - Update #1

I have decided (wisely or unwisely) to use messrs Burke and Paine for my first resit essay and have come to the thoroughly thought out, sage, drawn out opinion they they're both wankers. Too interested in what was happening overseas they wrote long polemics based on natural law, rights, revolution. In short they had far too much time on their hands.

N.B. Just remembered that dream I had last night where I woke up screaming. I saw ***** in my bedroom doorway and started flying and twisting and turning away from h**. Really weird. I did however eat a cheese sandwich and listened to an 8th Doctor Radio Play which was quite sinister, so will blame it on that.

The plan is to bang the first essay of which I have to learn anew certain aspects of my course (due to my punctuality) by tomorrow night, then tackle the Marx and Hegel essay on Saturday (I know some of the Marx and Hegelian theory of alienation) leaving Sunday for revision and the rest of the week to fine tune the essays in case I get anything wrong. Sounds like a plan, now let's see if I can stick to it. It's going to be a long hard slog, not helped by me continually writing on this fetted piece of sparrow shit.

JPH

Reshits

That time of the year has come again where I have to pay for my lack of effort and discipline by doing parts of a course I hated doing in the first place ALL OVER AGAIN. It happened last year when I couldn't be arsed to go to an exam and didn't do two essays. I suppose I have improved since then: this year the only thing I've missed out is one essay, however, the poor quality of one of my exams and an essay which I was writing heartbroken have come back to put a crocodile clip on my testicles and are whispering in my ear: 'come on, do us again you potentially brilliant, currently slobbish arsehole'.

The worst thing about the course I'm having to atone and make up for is the fact that it's impossible to teach yourself unless you're a genius. I'm no thickie, don't get me wrong I'm fucking amazing, but what's the use of talent without hard work? I know all that 'dogged, hard-work with plentiful teaspoons of discipline' lifestyle would benefit me highly and stop me dreaming so that I could actually live my potential. It just takes a bit too much effort to implement.

So hello again: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, Paine, Wollstonecraft, Bentham, Mill, Hegel, Kant, Marx, Gramsci, Rawls, Nozick and Sandel. You may not recognise me chaps, I've heard of you but couldn't be bothered to introduce myself. My lecturer wanted to but I decided he was a dusty prick with a bad taste in jumpers who was also cannily reminiscent of Ted Danson as the Vicar in Three Men and a Little Lady. You've never heard of that? I recommend you watch it, it's quite funny with a solid 80's soundtrack including 'Waiting For a Star To Fall' by Boy Meets Girl.

In case you didn't realise, the whole time I was writing this spontaneous tropical current of dirge I should have been writing essays.....ahh well.

JPH

P.S. Philosophers may not like it but it's a fantastic song -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxlAK8oKgdE&feature=related

Greatest Albums- I'm that bored....

#1 Prince and The Revolution - Purple Rain
Released: June 25th 1984

1. Let's Go Crazy 10/10
2. Take Me With U 8/10

3. The Beautiful Ones 9/10

4. Computer Blue 7/10
5. Darling Nikki 9/10
6. When Doves Cry 10/10
7. I Would Die 4 U 10/10
8. Baby, I'm A Star 9/10
9. Purple Rain 11/10

Pint-sized perv Prince is sometimes unfairly put out in Michael Jackson's shadow. Of course, in terms of physical stature this happens with everyone in terms of Prince but musically I find it very hard to go along with 'Thriller is the most seminal and greatest album in recorded history'. Don't get me wrong, I love Thriller, it was an unbelievable achievement in 1982 and in the horrible music industry that we have now, it's even more of one. In an album now you get 4 decent songs and up to 10 filler tracks, all poor and hardly noteworthy by white and black acts. The whites are in love with their guitars and tales of 'real life' with tight black jeans and an appalling sense of fashion. With the black people it's delusions of grandeur taken a step further, many believing they are Michael Jackson reincarnate or simply those who came from a rough background and won't stop speaking fast over music because of it.

Michael Jackson made an album of NO FILLER in....Thriller, however, a couple of tracks like Baby Be Mine and even Thriller itself seemed out of place. Prince took it further two years later, when he made an album of NO FILLER and it sounded COMPLETE. There was no filler tracks and everything melded together. That's why Purple Rain is the best album I've ever heard. It certainly isn't as popular as Thriller or even Bad but in my opinion it's a greater achievement.

The songs display Prince's song-writing and composing ability more than any others. The lyrics, written entirely by Prince and more grounded in experience than any of his pop contemporaries are accompanied by experimental pop music, which shifts the gears and genres so many times that although the songs are different entities, they are all bound by the same threads and backbones. Darling Nikki gained the album a first: the Parental Advisory message which we see daubed on so many albums and singles now all spawned from Prince's cheeky (some would say sensual) tale about a sexual encounter with a nyphomaniac in a hotel, who the protagonist saw 'masturbating with a magazine'. Mentions of sex toys further compounded the outrage of the simple, head-scratching church going Americans.

One of the other points of the album is that it's purely enjoyable, there is not a track that you can't dance or cry to, it's just a masterpiece of accessability just like Thriller but without the duff track that a 'masterpiece' usually contains. Computer Blue is the weakest track on the album but by no means is it duff. It's a straightfoward dance number...fuck knows what it's about but that doesn't seem to matter because it fits into the album so well. Let's Go Crazy and I Would Die 4 U are joyous. The first is a song that everyone will dance to because the song simply compels it and the second a lovely...love song which is just as dancable, yet equally rousing and easy to sit and listen to.

The Beautiful Ones is a gorgeous (must stop using this word) love ballad of heartbreak and yearning for a lost love and Take Me With U is a nice, fresh sounding duet which has an ability to make me smile no matter what. Prince sounds demonic and warning in When Doves Cry, a self-confession of fault and flaws sung to the most experimental music on the album, it still sounds fresh now. Baby, I'm Star effortlessly inflames the sense of potential in all of us and confidently breezes through to the last track which is by far the most atmospheric, beautiful and emotional rock song ever written.

Purple Rain feels like sadness and awe at the same time. It's 8 mins 42 seconds of genuis from start to finish. Every note of music has been poured out with honesty and emotion and denotes further Prince's genuis and mastery in flexing his genre-changing muscles (however small they are). The string arrangement is beautiful and Prince, who's vocals i've briefly touched upon, has a pained, howling voice in the end which ecaspulates acceptance, resignation but despair. The work of his backing group The Revolution are brilliant, but that work is all orchestrated by and fitted around the great voice of Prince himself who was and is a fucking star.

The album - soundtrack to the eponymous cult film starring Prince - won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score, stayed at the top of the Billboard 100 for 24 weeks and is certified 13x Platinum as of 1996 achieving 13 million sales. Hey, it may not be as much as Thriller, Bad or even Dangerous, but in terms of quality it's at least on a par with and in my opinion, better than those 3 MJ albums. Purple Rain shows how untouchable Prince is to copycats these days, none sound like him, none look like him. It's simply an important album and a gift from heaven (as Prince may put it).

I suppose I have to mention the film, which I love. It can help those who are finding the songs hard to understand (idiots) to get them in the films framework. For When Doves Cry the comparisions to the singer's parents can be understood with the Kid's parents in the film. Morris Day and the Time are also in the film...which makes it fucking brilliant..but I really could go on about it all day so I'll stop now.

Unfortunately and understandably Purple Rain's 25th anniversary was overshadowed by Michael Jackson's death on the same day. Fake death as a ploy? We can wish. However, just like Thriller this album will stand the test of time and when the unfortunate day comes that Prince pops his 6 inch heels the last star will have died and the music industry will be an even more desolate place, with no messiah to save it.

JPH

P.S. I know I must have mentioned the words 'album' and 'song' many times but fuck it.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Fucking Hell

It's been a while since I last posted. Mainly I've been doing nothing with my time except for procrastinating, worrying, ignoring and laughing. Well, the blogging community has it's share of poor, meaningless blogs so it's about time I returned to my duty to balance the decent enough with the shit.

There is a lot of humbuggery going on in my life at the moment. The time I'm willing to have for people is slowly dwindling and I'm getting annoyed at even the slightest things. A lot of it is just me being honest. The way people talk, what they say and what they do is digging away at me. I used to be such a supposedly carefree character, now I'm an honest cunt. I'm only interested in maintaining friendships with a small handful of people and they know who they are...the people who have doubts about whether it's them aren't on my menu.

You see, there's an honest bit of blogging, not mixed up with created situations just to give the impression that I have something to say when I don't.

From the garbage of a summer I've had I can now come to several conclusions:

- Do not drunkenly insult females
- Red Dwarf before bed is a sensational idea
- Next time bunking a train, when caught, give fake name and address
- Do not spend THAT much money
- Do not be pressured into doing things when you don't want to do them
- Do not go to gigs when you're poor
- Pall Mall are VALUE for money
- Do not bring national pride into question
- Honesty IS the best policy
- Stop suffering fools

They're the only things I'll be taking away from this shitty summer. I have to start revision for resits on Monday, loans come in September 28th. Those are the most important things happening in the next 2 months.

Until next time

JPH