Pob Spat In My Eye And On My Grave.

In light of the revelations about Jimmy Savile and ensuing investigation: Operation Yewtree, the paranoia about kids tv presenters from the 1970's and 80's has reached fever pitch. Nothing and no one are sacrosanct. My mind is now filled with images of a Rolfaroo hopping from bush to bush with a leering grin on his face. for people over a certain age, it's as if someone came along and kicked in our collective reality tunnel. The comfortable, twee, slightly naff, play corner of our psyche has been shat in by the very people who helped to manufacture the illusion in the first place. They have poisoned the noosphere. Sensitive being that I am, I have become soul-sick. Now, everyone and everything is tainted. Not just the certainly guilty or even the suspected, but the ostensibly innocent also. Watching old clips of kids tv shows one starts looking for sinister subtexts in everything that is said. I cannot watch The Trapdoor without thinking that Berk was being sent out as some kind of procurer for the thing upstairs and poor old Boney hadn't been the same since he was skull-fucked and his brain fell out. {The claymation style on The Trapdoor always reminded me of the denouement of Evil Dead} That the fate of the kids who didn't survive Tregard's dungeon on Knightmare was indeed nasty. That Mike and Angelo was the story of a paedophile alien living in a young boy's wardrobe. Watt on earth was a shapshifting, nonce alien who caused an emotional disturbance in the young boy he abused and coerced into silence. Simon was obviously being groomed by The Witch to be part of her Satanic cult. Ohhh.. the horror... If you go down in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise, if you go down in the woods today you're sure to cover your eyes, 'Cause Mr.Noseybonk, is ramming his conk, up the arse of all of The Moomins.... Chas and Morph are spit roasting their tinfoil girlfriend Folly while Nailbrush the dog licks Morph's arse. Basil Brush, Sooty, Sweep, Gordon The Gopher and Edd The Duck  are all gang banging Sue the panda while Nobby The Sheep off Ghost Train snorts poppers with George off Rainbow. Bungle is obviously a bear and that's the way Geoffrey likes it. Just when I can't take anymore Mr.Claypole strums his lute and shoots ectoplasm into my eyes...and I awake in a cold sweat. You get the point. I suppose it has something to do with my Catholicism, with my pleasure and guilt circuits being so closely intertwined. Whenever the artist Eric Gill is mentioned I am confronted with an intellectual dichotomy: Gifted artist/depraved pervert. Can the art be divorced form the character of the artist? Can it stand alone morally? Cardinal Basil Hume once said that if Gill's Stations Of The Cross could inspire religious devotion in people then they could not be rendered an evil work, though Gill was undoubtedly a warped man. Which begs the question: What is the greatest threat to childhood innocence? Evil people whose crimes, though terrible, are slowly but surely being brought to light. {Which in itself is a sign of progress} Or the collective guilt and paranoia we are all currently feeling? The personal hurt of the minority inevitably ripples out through human society.That said, do we wish to destroy the innocence of all children? By innocence I don't mean ignorance. Instructing them in morality or carefully making them aware of the dangers presented by certain individuals is both necessary and commendable. What I don't want to see is them become cynical. All Adults Are Bastards. Trust no one. There are no innocent, unalloyed pleasures, which will not be tainted by future revealations. I for one, never had any love for Jimmy Savile's work. Though, I did enjoy Rolf's Cartoon Club and Animal Hospital. As an informed adult I have no desire to revisit such programs, but I refuse to make my innocent, child-self feel bad for liking them at the time. We have to be realistic: The world can be a shitty place, but do we want to burden future children with our complexes? The first step to healing is acceptance. We got it wrong about certain people.We based our character judgments on very little information. The availability of  said information was tightly controlled by people who KNEW. Though we will doubtless think the best of certain individuals and be disappointed in the future, does that mean we should stop seeking for and thinking the best of people? The guilt and the shame belong to the guilty, not the innocent.

Ms. Strangelove: Or The Psychology Of Fancying Ugly Men

It started over a week ago. I have been going through A phase of Stanley Kubrick admiration. Which in and of itself is nothing peculiar. Dr. Strangelove has always been one of my favourite films and A Clockwork Orange has long been considered, along with Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man, a family-friendly drawing-room comedy. At least in my family. Spartacus, Paths Of Glory, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey are all iconic films which have enduring appeal. The less said about Eyes Wide Shut, the better. It was during my annual viewing of Strangelove I got to thinking how I'd always wanted a T-shirt depicting Major T.J. Kong riding the bomb. I began searching the Internet for a vendor, found one, purchased said t-shirt and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. The image so often referenced, homaged and parodied is an iconic one. A testament to Kubrick's keen, adapted eye from his beginnings as a still photographer. This got me to thinking about the man riding the Bomb. A character actor by the name of Slim Pickens. I knew little about him, other than I enjoyed his performance in Blazing Saddles as Mr. Taggart. When I Googled him, I found the results rather intriguing. Born in California in 1919 Pickens was a 6'3 ex-rodeo clown and bullfighter, who had been drafted in as a last minute replacement for the injured Peter Sellers. The intrigue turned into fascination, which for three bizarre days metamorphosed into a full blown obsession. I was looking for pictures of the young Pickens dressed as a Mexican bullfighter, as a rodeo clown, in early standout performances in obscure, almost forgotten Westerns. Now, I have always fancied Peter Sellers, he was the kind of neurotic I yearned to share a psychiatric ward with. I have always appreciated George C. Scott as an actor and understood how, even with a face once described as being like " A relief  map of Afghanistan" by his then wife Colleen Dewhurst, he had a certain appeal. The tall, blond, athletic figure of Sterling Hayden was always photogenic, even in his later years. But Slim? a small eyed, broken-nosed, weird mouthed, fat man. WTF??? If one would have asked me to put money on my obsessively accruing information on one of the Dr.Strangelove cast I'd have given Tracy Reed better odds than him. But there I was, engaged in some kind compulsive Psychic Onanism as Krafft-Ebing { another sex obsessed Kraut Doktor} would term it, over a compellingly ugly man.Was it the strength of his performance as the brave but ultimately insane Major Kong? Was it the rugged allure of a man who in reality once "broke the left side of his body" ? I have no idea. Interestingly, this is not the first time this has happened. A few years back I developed a similar obsession with American comedian Rich Fulcher, a fat, unusual looking man who looks rather fetching in drag. There is no Freudian explanation for this as my own father is tall, trim, athletic and not weird looking. I can only conclude it must be something Jungian. My usual type as you may have gathered, is rather more metro than the two aforementioned gentlemen. They perhaps represent the archetypal antithesis of my conscious preferences.Which means: Slim Pickens represents my shadow... oh my God I'm going to have some kind of trippy Black Swanesque experience where I'll be naked apart from a Stetson, riding him like the bomb, I dare say reverse cowgirl also. In the morning I will emerge a more fearless and independent woman, eager for a career in either a rodeo or the USAF.  Joking aside I find the psychology of the whole thing totally absorbing. This got me thinking: Do men develop similar fascinations? Are some "Borderline Boilers" as Viz so unflatteringly terms them { your eyes say no, but your nuts say go} actually embodiments of unconscious archetypes? Answers on a postcard or via email... Mmmm I wonder, if Bolton council hasn't secretly been fluoridating the water supply without our knowledge, if these preverted manifestations are not physical evidence of an active Commie plot to pollute all of our precious bodily fluids...! Peace On Earth= Purity Of Essence!

Slim in his younger days with his left arm round Rex Allen

Why I'm Not Difficult To Work With And How The HuffPost Isn't A Democracy.

I'm not a frequent blogger. I tend to find the mindless chatter which abounds on most journals and blogs anathema. It is as if the whole online world is afflicted by a pernicious strain of logorrhea. So it is no surprise to me that I've been rejected TWICE by The Huffington Post. Once, when in my naivete, I applied in the forlorn hope of expanding my readership. Once, when my better known and connected cousin recommended me to them. I furnished them with all the necessary details and waited....for 3 months. They simply ignored me and decided I wasn't important enough to merit an explanation. On either occasion. Now some people might think that this post is a deliberate piece of self-promotion. That I am merely hoping The HuffPost will have a change of heart and decide they'd rather have me inside the tent pissing out, as opposed to outside the tent pissing in. Not So. I now wear my rejection as a badge of distinction, in much the same way Dr.Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson saw the disapproval of the US government. If the Huffington Post reject you, you most probably have the capacity for independent thought. Let me explain, The Huffington Post likes to promote itself as a bastion of liberal free thought. A free and easy place where you can blog at your leisure and express reasonable opinions in a style of your choosing. WRONG! Naughty, keep still while I whack your knuckles with this ruler. To be accepted by the Huffington post you must fit certain criteria: 1. You must be a liberal with slightly left of centre opinions. Not too left-wing, a latter day Diogenes who lives in a wine barrel and idolizes Leon Trotsky is beyond the pale. No, you must write articles about how you're heartbroken about every worthy cause going and how you nearly choked on your latte in Starbucks while reading about them. 2. You must not be too right-wing, the mere willingness to discuss immigration, religious ideology, social engineering or to take in to account somebody's gender or race makes you de facto a fascist. Please do not try to defend yourself or Somebody will end the discussion by comparing you to Hilter. 3. If you are eccentric be the right kind of eccentric e.g write whiny, needy, self-pitying articles about how much anxiety you feel about turning 30 and how you've taken to drinking  liquidized wheatgrass of a morning, in order to prolong your fucking meaningless existence. 4. If you cannot conform to any of the above criteria, BE FAMOUS. If you are as thick as the shit from an elephant's arse and are only able to sign your name with a specially sharpened crayon, The HuffPost with still oblige you, provided you were on X factor once for all of 5 minutes. These are only some of the many reasons most libertarians actually dislike, if not hate The HuffPost. They are also piss takers who are quite happy to dangle the carrot of publicity in front of people, all the while making money off the advertising on their blogs. Fuck Them and their hypocritical agenda. I'd rather be a Val Kilmer than a Miley Cyrus.

Attitudes Of Entitlement

 A belated Happy New Year to all my readers. That is rather presumptuous of me I know; Imagining I have a core readership of people who follow this blog on a long-term basis, not just a random, cavalcade of casual browsers. I haven't blogged for a while, as I have been engaged in some serious consciousness studies, possible field reports to follow. I digress. I was Godmother to my niece the other day. Being a Roman Catholic {albeit rather heterodox} there was a part in the service where I had to renounce Satan. Given the sort of person I am, some of my readers may think this an unwise move, in much the same way Voltaire refused to renounce him on his deathbed, as he declared to the priest attending him: "Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies". But renounce him I did, as well as "rejecting all his empty promises". Except, this is very often easier said than done. As some of the most diabolical empty promises ever made have been made by Hollywood. Specifically to young people, although the Father Of Lies has a habit of inspiring screenwriters to produce neurosis inducing, life-envy evoking drivel for people of all ages.
   When I was a teenager I swallowed the hype. While there are some teen movies which occupy a special place in my affections {I'm thinking of movies like Catholic Boys, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Craft and The Lost Boys} for the most part they are life negating ordure. I grew up hating myself because I wasn't a stick thin, surgically enhanced, 20 something with flawless skin and teeth, as these are generally the sort of actors cast in the lead roles in teen movies. Maybe if I had been in possession of the aforementioned attributes my teenage years would've been filled with slumber parties, beach parties where people toasted by marshmallows before campfires and skinny dipped in the sea, all the while drinking liquor stolen from their rich parents' cocktail cabinets. No, my life was an angst ridden, isolated descent into madness. The enthusiasm I had as young child, was excited by the prospect of living like the teenagers in 1980's American films. This had well and truly died by the age of eleven, as negative experiences at secondary school took their toll on my mental and physical health and I was home schooled thereafter. As the years went by my heart grew colder than a dying star and I had little interest in my peers. Real teenagers lack the sophistication of the scriptwriters turning out this bilge water. Real teenagers are not the savvy proto-adults these movies would have us believe. They are more often than not, children with pretensions. Not that psychological damage caused by movies is limited to the young and unformed. There is a movie or a TV show designed to make people from every age group feel inadequate. For Teens we have movies like the American Pie franchise and TV shows like Dawson's Creek, Beverly Hills 90210, The OC and so forth. Twenty somethings should watch movies like Silver Linings Playbook. Especially if they have a mental illness. I found the depictions of the life and appearance of people with psychiatric problems highly accurate. Most psychiatric patients are in fact kooky, good looking folk who need a fun distraction like ballroom dancing. TV shows like Friends depict people living way beyond their means in New York apartments. While you feel like a total loser, clad in a towelling dressing gown, weeping on your parents' sofa. In your 30's Any movie starring Catherine Zeta Jones or Julia Roberts from the past decade plus a box set of Sex And The City ought to do it. Why isn't a reasonably attractive man willing to buy you cocktails all evening and send you random gifts of designer shoes, despite looking as if you should be running in the Grand National with an Irish midget on your back. For 40 somethings the recently released This Is Forty {doubtless the first of many such movies} middle aged dilemmas are made light of. The screwball hilarity of having dependents and a mortgage. I could go on ad nauseam but I won't. Suffice it to say if you have the temerity to grow old, start looking in your neighbours' swimming pools for rejuvenating alien space pods. If you cannot find one, it may be time to think about booking an appointment at Dignitas. That's why I've decided to stop watching certain types of movie and TV show. Perhaps I sound Churlish. It's just that sarcasm aside, I hate to think of children and young adults growing up imagining their life experiences to be invalid. Your life is as important as anyone else's on this planet. Most of the arseholes people idolize today will be forgotten in 100 yrs time. Ideas and innovations are what survive. All that will survive for a few years after most modern celebrities deaths are their poor reputations and their breast implants. Live in the now and fuck their preconceptions. Peace!