O O T D

OOTD. No, not a misspelling of those squid-faced aliens (great description, should use it more often, and not just about the Ood) from Doctor Who. O O T D stands for One Of Those Days, and I know some people might be picky and say that the second O should not be capitalised, as in Ministry of Defence (MoD), but all I have to say to them is OOTD for now, because it is OOTD and, really them pointing out the capitalisation issue is pretty much a perfect demonstration of what OOTD should be like.

OOTD are interesting in some ways. Some people say OOTD; for example, I’m sure after a hard day’s mountain rescuing or fire-fighting, many people go home and – when asked ‘how was your day mountain fighting or fire rescuing?’ they reply simply with ‘OOTD’. But since my life is exceptionally duller than that, OOTD loses a certain, shall we say, excitement or interest whatsoever.

Getting up late doesn’t help. Not having much of a plan and a lot of things to do is an absolute killer. Skipping food yesterday probably didn’t help. Lazing around watching DVDs is a good indicator of OOTD as well. So is looking deliberately for distractions of any sort.

OOTD thus manifests itself in a feeling of absence, vagueness and general lack of motivation. Sometimes the OOTD trigger can be quite simple – for a start, I’m sure my iPod’s random shuffle this morning didn’t help (Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, followed by Carry Me (Levellers), That Which I Have Lost (George Harrison) and It Hurts (Angels + Airwaves). After that playlist, I decided to put on loud cheery songs and jump around for a bit.

Some people would probably observe that as a symptom as well. The weather doesn’t help either. OOTDs can be easily dealt with in the sun, or the rain is an equally good (Plathesque) cleanser. But for now, I’m sort of stuck with analysing my wearisome nature on this blog. Hohum. Perhaps a jog or the gym might be a good cure. Except I’m broke, so it’s going to be a jog. Or maybe chocolate (see earlier post, in particular on the health benefits).

Or I should just do a To Do list and get on with it. I guess its ironic (and appropriate) that doing the TD fixes the OOTD.

xHx

Gay-tastic

The association between fashion and homosexuality is quite fascinating. I presume it originates in the various conflations of the term ‘gay’ over the last hundred or so years, stretching from ‘happy and jolly’, via a brief period as a synonym for ‘poofter’ to the currently modish slang term for ‘a bit shit’.

The clothing aspect is of great interest though. As someone who tends to view clothes more in terms of a nuclear explosion rather than a recipe (now check that out for a shit analogy), it sometimes intrigues me how fashion and style acts as a sort of implicit uniform for the wearer and observer. Hence, long black hair, baggy trousers and a hoodie with blood, guts and zombies tends to suggest a goth or metalhead. Similarly, ridiculously tight jeans, a baggy oversize, overpatterned hoodie and a militantly dyed fringe implies some association with emocore music. I could continue listing such similarities, not all musical – umbro, nike and the chav, or the power suit and the cocktail bar, for instance.

In all of these, the uber-fashionable, uber-gay style where literally every hair is in place seems odd. All the others imply a certain choice, or a personal validation of life experience. The businesswoman proudly having broken through the glass ceiling, yet maintaining her femininity for instance. Likewise, the perverse emo approach of dressing so different from the mainstream with all their eyeliner and fringe that they end up looking the same. Perhaps I’m in a minority, but validating something as essential as the mere fact of gender through fashion strikes me as somewhat odd.

Perhaps it emerges as a reaction to homophobia, or equally, gay pride and AIDs in the 1980s. Perhaps its as entirely normal as the chav, the powersuit or the emo’s eyeliner. Perhaps my finding it weird is just a reaction against some buried uber-gay aspect of myself (I get camper when I’m drunk, apparently). All these options sound valid – from the massive, social and cultural to the minutely idiosyncratic.

Yet I feel there may be some other explanation. And one which settles down neatly nearer the idiosyncratic end of the scale.

When getting dressed yesterday I had an existential crisis as to which pair of shoes went better with my outfit.

Oh dear.

xHx

Chocolate and Health

Welcome back to yet another inane trip into my murky subconscious. I’ve decided to change the mode of address in these posts from using the specific ‘dear reader’ for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t actually have any readers, and therefore when I read these posts in the depths of the night to myself, I feel a dreadful and longing loneliness in the tortured depths of my soul. (Or some other quasi-emo rot at least). Secondly and more significantly, after the trading standards problems with the ‘Newsflash’ in the previous issue (now redesignated ‘A Regurgitated Whinge’), it seemed unfair to employ such a cruel deception to my myriad of imaginary fans (many, you may be interested to know, wear white coats and seem quite keen that I wear a very tight jumper with no arm holes). Thirdly, the more general form of address, where the reader is implied as opposed to overtly stated provides a more accessible and open form of address. Furthermore, such a form of address, dear reader, prevents the breaking up of sentences with unnecessary grammatical terms (just like that).

Well, with that minor formatting issue out of the way, dear reader, I propose that chocolate – those evil, yet sweet-tasting brown squares – are in fact good for me. I reason thus:

1. Chocolate contains sugar and caffeine, which are stimulants.
2. The higher your energy levels, the easier it is to work.
3. Therefore: Chocolate makes me more productive.

Alternatively, chocolate is justified thus:

1. It has been scientifically* proven that chocolate is a comfort food.
2. It is necessary to periodically destress and pause from work in order to continue for a longer time.
3. Such pauses should avoid leaving the immediate environs of the desk because doing so often leads to distractions.
4. Therefore: Chocolate provides me with the necessary relaxation to maintain work for longer.

I could alternatively propose that:

1. Eating chocolate is bad for your health (because eating it to excess increases cholesterol, fatness, cholesterol etc and similarly reduces skin quality, teeth etc)
2. I, as a fully self-aware and informed subject, with an intent for self-preservation act on 1) by attending the gym, eating bananas and not watching TV, all of which are proven to benefit your health.
3. Therefore: a sensible and well-balanced individual such as myself (allegedly) possesses the necessary knowledge and counter-measures to safely consume chocolate in moderation.

There are several disadvantages with the logic of the third argument. For a start, it negates argument two. For, if one has to be emotionally well-balanced and content in order to consume chocolate, it is thus unjustifiable to allow someone who is stressed or depressed to consume chocolate since they do not fulfill the mental health and stability criterion of the latter category. Similarly, such an argument could conceivably be used to justify the consumption of all sorts of other harmful substances. For example, cannabis, cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes, arsenic. All of the above have negligible health consequences in ‘moderation’ (a variable definition of this term might, however, be apposite). Similarly, they all can have fairly significant health implications when used to excess. Yet, unlike chocolate, all of the above can be seen to have a detrimental effect on one’s ability to make the relevant personal and moral decisions detailed under stage 2) of the third argument.

Thus, I would suggest that it is a misleading comparison to compare, say, my consumption of 250g of Cadburys’ finest Turkish Delight (in just over an hour, incidentally), with the consumption of a similar amount of cannabis (result: thoroughly stoned, possibly beyond speech), cocaine (result: fucked), alcohol (result: tipsy), cigarettes (about 150 a day) or arsenic (result: dead).

If there was a point to all of that, I think it got lost. If anyone finds it, could they carefully package it inside one of those bubble-wrap envelopes (I think they should be called bubbelopes) and post it to me, being careful to mark the envelope ‘DANGER! POINT ENCLOSED’ and make sure you use the Post Office’ tracking service, we know what they’re like at losing parcels.

Newsflash

Hangovers must be contagious. When I awoke at 7, I was the only person on Facebook with a hangover. Now that the day has proceeded, there are six friends with status updates that bemoan their alcohol induced agonies, and presumably more who are still lurking under duvets and groaning at the pain of daylight. Beyond the obvious ‘why do we do it’ question, I can’t really come up with anything exciting to say about this subject since it has only just occurred to me. Oh well, that’s life. I bet you wish you hadn’t invested your time in reading the above now, don’t you, dear reader? It hasn’t enriched your life, it hasn’t enriched my life, it hasn’t even got rid of my hangover. It was futile, pointless and – have you noticed how a headache makes you feel that everything is pointless.

At some point, the millions of dear readers who don’t exist and definitely don’t read this, will complain to trading standards about posts like this. Not only does it induce apathy and frustration but it doesn’t do what it says on the tin. For a start, the term ‘newsflash’ brings to mind the momentous, sudden update of vital news in this information driven society of ours. Up there with the invasion of Afghanistan, the death of Jim Callaghan, 9/11 and 7/7, this ‘newsflash’ is lacking in every vital component:

1. There is no new information being imparted.
2. It is not up-to-the-minute or accurate.
3. No drumrolls or trumpet parps preceded it.
4. And frankly, the whole idea of ‘flash’ is far too bright a suggestion for me at the moment.

So, pending a future public apology to all the non-existent people who read this, and a pledge to clean up my act, not do this sort of thing in the future, and if I do, to resign my blogging position forthwith, this inane ramble of a post comes to an end.

It is the end, but the moment has been prepared for…

Always amazing how often one can shove a Doctor Who quote into everyday life, isn’t it? Particularly embarassing though to identify a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the greatest philosophical minds of the last two hundred years, as in fact being said by David Tennant’s Tenth incarnation of Doctor Who in the series two episode ‘The Satan Pit’.

Moving on from my this perfectly understandable misquote, the entirely apposite Dr Who quote that is the title of this post (from season 18 story ‘Logopolis’, for those of you who are interested) marks the fact that I have, for the last time ever (probably) left the European Studies building of Cardiff University. From now on, any ties between me and that illustrious venue – with its narrow yet ‘homely’ corridors, faint smell of antiseptic and lecture theatre at a persistent 90*C throughout the year – is at an end. Oh, how I will miss the intellectual rigour of falling asleep in a variety of classes in 2.18. Or suffering seminars and a hangover in the many cupboard sized seminar rooms and offices which proliferate in its environs. Or, indeed, the grouchy security man who takes it as a personal affront that you wish to enter without your ID card. I did wonder for a while if there was a secret nuclear bunker beneath Park Place given that EUROS is the only school which to my knowledge makes you show your ID card to gain admittance…

Of course, the above exposition may, dear reader, give the impression of some form of closure, completion and general pulling down of blinds against the harsh sun of my past association with the politics faculty. This is, however, a misconception of the highest order for one of the best reasons ever:

I still have exams.

 Byee!

An Ambivalent Post

This is dedication. I’m blogging when I have spent a twenty-four hour period out of contact with any IFs (see previous post, if you must). Therefore I want to create a relaxed, chilled out sort of feeling. The sort that says, OK, these are words and they’re on the page. But that’s not really important. You see, they’re kinda soothing, washing in and out of the mind on the swash and backwash of reading, like some sort of slowly surging tidal wave.

Possibly that wasn’t the most relaxing image. How about you imagine lava, rolling down a mountain, destroying everything in its path, but no, the lava is not superheated sludge from the Earth’s core. Its happiness, enlightenment and haziness all wrapped up in one wonderful (albeit superhot) continental shift of joy.

Maybe natural disasters don’t make the best analogies for a sense of calm. Or perhaps I’m just trying to subtly cover up the superhot elephant in the room (incidentally, its grey, but also superhot), which is that I still have a lot of work to do on my essay, and therefore this Weblog is, for the first time ever, genuinely being used as a procrastination tool. I should probably get back to the old sodomy,

Byee!

RON is dead. Long live RON.

Elected unopposed is an unfortunate phrase in any context. It has overtones of Mugabe, elections in the former USSR and Tony Blair against Micheal Howard in 2005. That is, however, the only phrase apposite or appropriate for how I have somehow managed to secure seats on the execs of both Xpress radio and Labour, where first and foremost, I would like to congratulate everyone else who was elected yesterday.

Another Interesting Fact:

Or rather, dear reader, the first “Another Interesting Fact” of what may turn into an ongoing part of this Blog, dependent on two factors, one being the extent to which it is popular with you, dear reader. The second factor, however, is significantly more random, in a holistic sense at least. This factor is based on the number of “Interesting Facts” (or IFs) that I experience in any twenty-four hour period. Thus, there is an infinite potential for IFs to occur in the vicinity of this blog, yet if you wish to calculate the exact proportion or probability of IFs per calendar day, it would involve dividing the average rate of IFs by some external indicator. This, I would suggest, would best be understood as a quantitative scale measuring the proportions of interesting to uninteresting phenomenology which I encounter in any one twenty four hour period. Thus, this PI2uIP scale could objectively discern the potential for IFs (and uIFs, for that matter) in my life, for potentially any specified time period. Of course, we then come to the difficult stage of cross-referencing the real world PI2uIP scale onto some measure of other datasets which could conceivably form a part of this blog. We will call this, for ease and clarity, the EBD set (Extraenous Blog Data set). Furthermore, for our formula to produce accurate and quantifiable results it would be necessary to map on certain other real life factors. For instance, the probability of a blog actually being created. This could be a simple binary indication where 0 = no blog created and 1 = blog created (the BC indicator, for want of a better term). Thus, if

PI2uIP = 1:32.56 and IFs = 2, but BC = 0, then the number of IFs recorded in the BS (Blogspace) would = 0 since it is impossible to record an IF in the BS if BC = 0.

In contrast, if

BC = 0, but PI2uIP = 1:1, thus making the IF = 0.5, then the potential for the IF being present in the BS = 0.75, and thus it is entirely probably on a level graded scale of 0 to 1 that the IF will happen to be recorded in the BS.

Such a system, however, lacks a certain theoretical rigour and mathematical finesse. Thus, I would humbly propose the system is altered to include some means of recording the level of procrastination, distraction, cooking or other distractive phenomenon which form the causal nexus behind the BC score. For clarity, I label this theoretical construct n. Thus, a proportionally higher n value would reduce the BC score proportionally, thus meaning that if:

n = BC / IF

then IF = BC * n.

And there we have it:

BC = IF / n, where IF = 1 / P2IuIP * 100.

Byeee!

A fourth post, musings on the Priesthood

I reckon I’d make a great Vicar, possibly a Catholic one. This idea occurred to me while I was procrastinating and avoiding the many grimly stressful activities which life has thrown at me (well, one essay, but I feel the need to moan). Now, before anyone runs screaming in horror at the thought of me in a long white dress…

Sorry, lost my track in transgender fantasy there.

First and foremost, most priests are single. Check. Secondly, RC priests have to be celibate. Check. Thirdly, they get to make speeches telling people what to think (I don’t want any of that “moral and spiritual guidance stuff”). Check. Fourthly, I like Gothic architecture. Plenty of opportunities for that. Fifthly, it seems a belief in some eternal and ineffable deity is required.

Hmm… Looks like maybe the established religions might not be such a good bet…

Anyone know about any Foucaultian sects who promote an agnostic/atheistic agenda, advocating an undefined and reflexively contextually justified form of spiritual knowledge, whilst refuting the potentiality for grand, over-arching metanarratives, such as those found in pretty much every global religion currently established? (Basically, a church where belief isn’t compulsory, and is always reflexively ironistic).

No, thought not. Back to the sodomy essay it is then.

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,

Byeee!

OK, perhaps I’ve lost a bet with myself…

That was it, dear reader*. I managed two days of consecutive blogging, even by my own piss-poor standards of regular contribution, that was actually really insanely bad. Frankly, I’m appalled with myself and would personally decapitate myself now as a sign of remorse were it not for the fact that I don’t want to get blood on my new laptop (did I mention it was a mac?). In theory, this post should be some sort of double-bill of updates from my roller-coaster adventure of my life. But we all know that it won’t be. Its likely to include the same drivel, half-baked jokes and meandering observations as previous posts. So, here it is, the latest declarations from the (not egocentric at all) World of Hector:

• The hangover storms predicted on last nights drinking forecast (imaginary) have not materialised, or at least rumours of their intensity have been vastly over-rated.
• The moratorium on Hector drinking was lifted for one night only last night.
• Speculations that Hector might attend the gym again in the near future have not been confirmed by any official sources.
• In other news, Hector has finished his sodomy essay (not fun) and watched Doctor Who (fun).

 

And, with that metaphor well and truly done to death and a potentially grimly stressful day looming like a fat person on the horizon and absolutely ruining the sunset, that was the News at 2:10pm and I’m Hector Roddan. (Apparently, anyway).

Goodbyeee!

I’ve just lost a bet with myself.

Here it is. The second post. It actually happened. Yes, writing this is exactly how much I don’t want to continue reading some gay book about buggery in Tudor England (and who would? Probably only some idiot who chose to write an essay about it…) I am up ridiculously early, and still fiddling with (did I mention I have a new mac?) In some ways this ruins the idea of the blog as a diary, journal or record of what is “going down” in my life (OK, I shouldn’t try to use any sort of cool slang. Even in inverted commas. Frankly, dear reader, even I’m appalled that I did that.)

The reason for this ‘up-ridiculously-early’-ness is twofold. One, my entirely pointless old laptop (see previous post… Wow! Isn’t it cool I can say that now) has finally been picked up and returned to that great workshop in the sky (Microlink PCs by any other name). And Two, it is surprising how reducing the blood-alcohol balance puts a spring in your step. That’s right – I’ve stopped drinking. Ish, anyway. Monday and Tuesday didn’t count.

I still like to think of myself as a moral person for (sort-of, ish) achieving this. Given that last term and over easter, I was averaging 42 units a week, cutting down to a total of 10 since Sunday makes me feel pretty damn good. Almost as if it was actually bad for you. Miracle, huh?

And if you were expecting some deep, moral or social message in the above, you may as well whistle for it.

Byeee!

Just another project to litter the decades… (oh and by the way, I have a new mac)

Its strange how a change in your life – however small – promotes other changes, ideas, even projects to emerge. So today, having finally been driven to change my laptop by the smoke coming out of it and its inability to do anything even slightly complicated, I paid a brief trip to town and bought a mac from the nice man in Morgan Arcade. I should clarify this was actually in a shop, he wasn’t just handing them out or something. Like a sort of very well-off Big Issue seller – Big Mac, get your Big Mac here… Or maybe a chicken burger. I feel that idea has got away from me somewhat. Anyway, did I mention I have a new mac? (Oh, I did, good.) Now where was I…

This is in fact my second – but hopefully first frequent blog. The previous one quickly degenerated into a series of in jokes, inane ramblings, pontifications and contemplations of my own mortality – and all at the tender age of eighteen. (And don’t ask how this one will be any different. For a start, I’m twenty now!) Anyway, that aforementioned venture into the Blogsphere, Blogspace, Blogamatic, whatever you wish to call it, was hosted on Bebo before it went Chavtastic, feel free to check it out if you, dear reader*, ever feel the need to indulge in unnecessary teenage angst.

Of course, the chances are that this Blogathon will be just as short lived as its predecessor. This is especially pertinent since I have a time-absorbing combination of exams, essays and general hubblah to deal with. But I guess a sense of futility, inertia and politeness forces me to somehow set out what I’m going to be blogging on about. This blog will feature, possibly:

Random musings and plots to take over the world.

Big projects and their inevitable failure.

Occasional techie geekness about how good my Mac is (did I mention I’ve bought a mac?)

A generally supercilious, arrogant and impertinent study of life around me.

Rants, moans, complaints and other expressions of political opinion.

Possibly poetry.

Umm…

 

So, dear reader*, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I do writing it. Or probably quite a bit more given how turgidly rambling the first (and probably last) post has been. Though it probably doesn’t matter since it is – in the words of Stephen Fry, in a film the name of which I’ve forgotten,

“Probably just another project with which I’ve littered the decades”

Be happy, have fun and sleep well.

 

Hector