Lives of the saints: Saint Patrick

For a long time saint Patrick made me uncomfortable.  The story you hear is that St Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland which is either an ecological disaster or a metaphor for gross religious intolerance. But I have recently discovered St Patrick's whole story which brought him up in my estimation. When he was a young boy in either Scotland or Wales (suspect suspiciously definitely not England, St Paddy isn't English). One day he was stolen away from his parents and sold in Ireland as a slave. In his childhood he suffered greatly, swearing revenge without fail each day before bedding down in straw like a dog.

One day the young St Patrick escaped and found his way to England, to become a soldier and have his revenge on the heathens who had so wronged him. On his way to join the army, he met with a wandering monk. They paused on the road to break bread together. Patrick told the monk of his life and his imminent vengeance. When he had told all there was to tell, the monk was silent for a few minutes. Then the monk spoke of forgiveness and turning your cheek. While the monk spoke God put forgiveness into St Patrick's heart and called him into the church. Patrick that very day decided to abandon his quest for vengeance and to go with the monk to the church that he may learn to forgive.

In the next years Patrick became a priest then a bishop. All this time he never forgot his youth spent as a slave with the pagans across the water. As time passed and his pain grew distant he began to feel sorry for them. He grieved that they would never know the love of God that he swam in. Next comes the part of the story which is usually told; He went to Ireland with a mission and drove all of the pagan snakes from Ireland.  To my mind this is the least important part of the tale. The conversion of Ireland is a great achievement to be sure, but it's hardly an equal to the courage of Jude, the kindness of Nick or the faith of Joan. The conversion isn't what makes Patrick a saint. It's the miracle of his forgiveness that makes him a saint and an inspiration.

I'm a staunch atheist but one thing that I like about Christianity is its focus on forgiveness (preached, if not always practiced). St Patrick embodies this. The fact remains that he didn't go over the water with fire and steel but instead brought with him the peace and love which he believed would save his tormentors souls. I wish I could be so forgiving.

Why we celebrate this man by drinking Guinness until we piss black is beyond me.

My next post will cover my St Patrick's celebrations in a catch up, in which I will not speak of St Patrick once (although my brother is home from Uni, his name is Patrick but he isn't a saint)

* (or a great crime depending on your perspective)

Catch up 1: Change is as good as a rest?

Okay this is hard I have a confession to make. I work in a call center. I'm one of those black hearted bastards who unerringly call you just when you need to take your souffle out of your home or shortly before 'Le petit mort' or just after the double legectomy (transfemoral amputation). Please leave abuse in the comments but do try for originality of heard it all before.  Okay anyway is being tense, really tense, for a few weeks. There's been a stink of uncertainty and doubt.  This week was the payoff it was positively Wagnerian.

On Friday were told that everything that is the way we work was changing will be going on to PAYE and we didn't really know what was going to happen or what this meant to us. I spent the weekend worrying. Monday opened with an impassioned speech from our boss telling is about the bleak new pay scale and bonus packet and her resignation. At the time she made it sound like is her resignation was on on ideological grounds. Then there was an old almost a mass walkout when we were told that we would be on minimum wage and we would find our appointment bonus cut. The problem was not so much the minimum wage for the adults but, because of the way minimum wage works in England, would have been a disaster for the under 21’s in the call center. Where I work there are a lot of under 18's and minimum wage would have been a big hit for them. Our old boss seemed to go to bat for them as though trying to get some kind of all equality. But it eventually came out to that everyone would be paid the same minimum wage.

Tuesday opened with our new boss (bafflingly absent Tuesday) announcing a 21p pay rise to show us some respect. He also gave a speech about how things were to change. He  promised us a new professional environment, incentives on top of commission clean, off this and an overall new climate friendly competition and professionalism. He also asked us to let Facebook know what was happening (which is why I am speaking about this. Work stuff like this is something that I feel doesn't really belong in the public sphere) and for the record it seems the so far they'vebeen true to their word and it seems that our new boss is scattering around incentives like confetti. Really expensive confetti, with metallic sparkly bits. Wednesday was fairly free from work drama (except me being in a tense race for The top seller incentive, nearly gave me a heart attack. It was dreadful, I don’t like myself when I get competitive) several family bits going off, here are the usual plumbing and genetic tests, basically a standard day.

Thursday we had had my mum's friend (well also at this point my friend, but she was my mum's friend before I was born so it seems an aptdescription) come round for her birthday feast. She came round and we had a lovely night her spinach and Gorgonzola pasta and some champagne. It was really quite pleasant. I also let her daughter read the current draft of my story (in a bizarre twist of fate she's writing one which is broadly similar, apart from every single one of the details). so that being read for the first time was nice although I must point out I did publish a version 46 drafts ago on this very blog before I deleted it because it was Eugggh and unfairly unfinished.

Friday 

I went to work I came home I ate Thai curry, wrote this blog post, and went to bed I feel very content.

Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six: Year of the Bitch

Some song lyrics are really good. But song lyrics particularly of less well-known bands often go without any appreciation or thought and you listen to the song you enjoy the song and the meaning sometimes filters through. But I think there is a place for listening closely to lyrics and thinking about them. This is the first in what I hope will be a long series of posts which looked to analyse the lyrics of some signs a little. But I don't to do all the work I hope for lively discussion in the comments. I prefer to do little-known bands as I have dreams (or may be grandiose delusions) of that this being a way to promote bands that I like which I don't feel have achieved sufficient prominence. So although I love a lot of Bowie lyrics I probably won't be talking about them.  any song  suggestions leave in the comments.

,

Year Of The Bitch

Next year is the year of the bitch
No one will get lucky and no one will get rich
And we’ll be telling lies when we say we don’t know why
We talk about this world as if it’s all in bits

This became part of the song is really speaking about how we all contribute by our apathy to the wreck described later in the song. There's also an element of blame avoidance going on here but I don't really know what to make of that.

Next year is the year of the bitch
The panicking will peak at a piercing pitch
And everyone will hate
And obsess about their weight
And waste away in want for the things that they once ditched

This is one of my favorite verses. The several reasons are first I really like the way the rhymes work it's A A B B and then a slant of the A rhyme which is something that always makes me smile. I also love the way it so contemptuous about the things that we in our modern society find very important and it shows how poisonous our obsession with image and acceptance can be. 

Where were you when we changed our minds
Put our ideals on ice and our hearts into brine
Where were you
When we fell?

This first chorus is a very accusatory it asks the listener directly why they allowed to the state of the state of the world is in to come about.

Next year is the year of the bitch
We’ll package up our lives and take them to the tips
And sit back in our chairs
Assuming fancy airs
As it all falls round our ears drip by drip

This file is about how will probably just keep going into more and more into decadence as the world falls apart. Instead of doing something which could actually have helped we'll just get on with smoking and drinking and snorting and injecting and consuming because that seems to be the least my generation's reaction to quell hopelessness and disenfranchisement. 

And people all just stood around watering their lawns as the cities fell down
I could barely make out the time
As the air turned to ash and the sea to slime

I love the image here of the whole world and all of nature falling to pieces that almost everybody keeps bizarrely well irrigated patch of useless grass that the sake of appearances. I love the idea of a crumbled city seen from from the suburbs with a woman watering her grass in the foreground, just a really powerful image (Your Yard is Evil)

Where were you when we changed our minds
Put our ideals on ice and our hearts into brine
Where were you
When we fell?

Next year is the year of the bitch
We’ll swallow all their lies like hungry little chicks
Every consonant and vowel
Wretched, rank and foul
We’ll cling to every word like tiny little ticks

This is the only place in the cell where it seems like it's trying to blame somebody else I feel like it lashes out at the media and at the governments but really it's just another more subtle self flagellation swallowing their lives and clinging to their words doesn't sound particularly good for us. In the final analysis we let them get away with it and they did most of it in our name.

Where were you when we changed our minds
Put our ideals on ice and our hearts in brine
Where were you when we fell?
where were you when we lost ourselves
where were you?

I'm not going to do conclusions in these. I think we should conclude together in the comments.

Look at me acting as if I'm going to get comments.

Go here to buy the whole album for a price of your choosing.

8 Things I miss about Hungary.

I've recently spent almost a year of my life living in Hungary. Now I've been back for more than two months and decided to compile a list of the top eight things which I miss about Hungary. So without further ado.

1: Coat racks.

In Hungary there is always a coat rack. In offices, cafes, pubs, hallways of immigration offices, cake shops, or in fact anywhere you can reasonably expect to be to be staying inside inside for a considerable length of time. So instead of putting your account on a chair or table you can simply hang it on a coat rack which strikes me as rather civilized.

2: Good coffee

Proper coffee is everywhere in Hungary, even in places you wouldn't expect you an instant coffee in England (corner shops for instance). This means that cafes et cetera don't get a coast on having an espresso machine. Therefore I feel that the average cafe (if such a thing exists in Hungary there seems to be wild variation) has a little more pride in its particular coffee.

3: Sensible trains.

In England the cost of a train ticket is based only is based on an arcane calculation and include such there which includes such variables as crossing county boundaries, the number of stops, phase of the moon, the colour of some poor animals intestines and other auguries beyond the ken of ordinary men. In Hungary is based on mileage.

4: Sun, or a least predictable weather.

I was unsure how to name this one because when I left hungrywe had been having (past perfect continuous bam! I knew we used it.) Fairly bad weather. But this is only to be expected, in Hungary one can expect rain in the autumn. Whereas in England sun is always a surprise even in the summer. In Hungary you can reasonably expect at least eight months without needing your brother every day you can leave it at home. And it seems to me that neither winter nor autumn are endless marathons of grey.

5: My pickle lady

In a total of only market, the one opposite into spiral there is a woman who sells various pickles (lots of pickles and hungry) I am unaccountably fond of she's she's an old chrome of a woman who just happens to have the magical combination of doing really good pickles and being willing to be friendly through a significant language barrier.

6: The lake

in And there is a lake and the one which I can never remember the name of, the bomb which is very close to Tesco's (why are all of my locations in relation to supermarkets) all that is there is a field a small pond and some trees. There's also hope with beer and questionable food but it intends to be a bit of an oasis of calm in the city. I often went there with my friends and fed the ducks and turtles.

7: Budapest

a fantastic city which I find a new reason to love every time I visit. I'll do a post next week about the city. I'm being brief.

8: My flat

when I lived in hungry I lived alone, which I seem to enjoy. I love both of my flat. I liked the location of the first one which was very very close to work and the fact that I had a room that I wasn't using it all ready was totally empty. I love the abundance of furniture and decoration in the second flight which although everything choosing myself I'm able to say the top may have made similar decisions.

And of course the most important bonus number nine

in no particular order: Melinda, Marian, Monica, Monica, Tibi, Tibi, Zoltan, Zoltan, another Zoltan, Bori Laszlo Erica, Mark, Kata, peti, atilla,Tomas, Balint, Budai, Barby, Nate, Nikki, Adorian, Dori, Bianca, csilla,  Bea, Adam Danni Agnes,one more Zoltan, my groups Memphis, California, Shireoaks, Retford, Atlanta, the spring company group, the RB group bawtree,ramby and all the shires, all the summer camp kids, And of course The pickle lady. 

Dragon.

This is the first of my blog posts overrating using my new voice recognition software. So please forgive any lack of punctuation or bizarre word use that may not particularly make sense, I expect homophones to be a particular nightmare, as I’m writing this fairly late at night and don’t intend to read it properly. I think this is likely to be a blog post about the process of dictation rather than actually anything of interest but we will see something unexpected may come out of it.

Those of you who know me know that I voice found the physical act of writing difficult. Please see my post on and dyslexia and dyspraxia for further elaboration. So my handwriting is totally unreadable and also takes a really long time to achieve anything even close to being properly illegible. And typing, though significantly more legible than handwriting, remains a chore. This explains why never been much for text communication (although I’ve never been much of phone calls either so that may be more to do with me not liking to communicate at a distance) dynamos had kind of a romantic fascination with the mechanics of writing for example I only typewriter and aspire to own more older typewriters I also grieved by my total lack of Fountain pens or ability to use them. I somehow feel the typing stories into a computer lack the connection to history that these other methods of have. Which of course is interesting because dictation to a text recognition system mirrors the very first form of getting stories out to be so is almost a return to the oral tradition that I find myself focusing much more than the sound of the words. Maybe the associations with the method of recording reflect the differing natures of their literature throughout time because I find modern literature has a very temporary and also oddly communal set to it well you know that now authors and readers can communicate in a very different ways that they ever have before. Maybe if we start writing more books (if that’s even the right word for what we can be doing) I dictation we would be more likely to replicate the kind of the lyrical literature of the Victorian age return to the fabulous grand sentences of Oscar Wilde, which seem to fall into use by now only in mediocre theatre but do without doubt please the ear.

On the morality of Gok Wan

On the morality of Gok Wan

           
There is a certain sort of television program that I find absolutely fascinating they have names like; 10 years younger; Gok’s fashion fix; or my personal favourite snog, marry avoid.  I’m going to focus on snog marry avoid because it is the most illuminating for the purpose of the discussion I intend to have, as well as being the most oddly presented and incomprehensibly preachy and jingoistic of the breed.  Perhaps I have given an indication of my opinion of the show but I’ll forge on.  The premise of this entire genre is that some people are incapable of dressing themselves properly and in fact sport clothes that make them look either; frumpy, or weird, or too made up or something else equally meaningless. Then someone, the prancing stereotype reinforcing queens of queer eye for the straight guy* for example, Tuts throws petrol on the old clothes and forces (sometimes roughly) the often unwilling victim into what the current style consensus dictates is the most appropriate thing to wear.

            


My question is this are these sorts of shows morally sound.  This sounds like a ridiculously petty issue and I think it is but it does open up discussion about a number of moral issues at the very edge of their applications and I believe that if we are to have a moral code it should be applicable to all situations where it applies.  Firstly I will discuss what is probably th6ye prevailing moral philosophy in my own life, aestheticism.  Perhaps the response of aestheticism should be simple these persons who I should really stop calling victims are taken from presenting themselves in an unattractive way to a state where even if they don’t become a famous beauty they are at least no longer shambolic avatars of bad taste. However, and perhaps this is just me, there is something distasteful about a unique, if iffy, visual experience becoming an easier one. From the point of view of the participant this experience could be one of two types of emotional experiences it could be a confidence boosting lesson in making the best of ones assets, this is Gok Wan’s style, or it could be that the participant has created for his or herself state a dramatic style statement that represents her freedom and individuality being quashed and their public face normalized. I suppose that the first kind is a tolerable, if embarrassing, learning experience. But the second is less tolerable it represents nothing less than the obliteration of a unique thing and perhaps the ultimate crime of trying to paper over this newly formed gap with something utterly banal.  What is never done is refining and perfecting an already established style. The sloppy Goth is never transformed into the Goth she dreamed of looking like she is instead thrown directly into autumnal coulours or high waistbands, hipster chic or what the Americans call preppy. 

If this method of changing a person’s outward appearance is in fact an immoral destruction of uniqueness then what of the myriad other forms of influence especially those that are infinitely more important than mere appearance.  I speak of the kind of influence wielded by parents, teachers, and Lord Henry. It was Lord Henry who himself said of influence “there is no good influence… because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. he does not think his natural thoughts or burn with his natural passions”*²  and I think that in principle I would agree if it wasn’t for one pseudo- Newtonian fact. An immutable law in human interaction as in physics any influence exerted has an equal effect on both the person influenced and also, albeit more subtly, influences the other party as well be it as small a change as fortifying ones belief in oneself or as monumental as abhorring the change you make in another and changing oneself in response. This is I suppose where the beauty is in social life it is a glittering constantly shifting web beset on all sides by the tidal forces of the media and politics as well as religion all interconnected and in flux. One man’s changes beget another’s alterations. And all this seems chaos but patterns emerge concealed as fads and fashions waves of change building person by person into a tidal surge of acceptance or appreciation. This I would argue is the core of all social change this interconnected web of personal change. Each convert strengthening the cause and passing eternally onwards until that one perspective or mannerism dominates the web then is swept away by something new.  Occasionally a group of people will encounter a shining other who changes their world whist seeming to be themselves unchanged. I am no theist but I imagine that that is what it would be like to be in the presence of a great teacher like Jesus or Ghandi. A man becomes a ripple a ripple becomes a wave then an ocean.  The other side of the coin is that in society change is often resisted. This manifests itself as the religious opposition to gay marriage or campaigns against Tesco’s in Harrogate.  This is perhaps best shown in the picture of Dorian grey, one character Basil is concerned with keeping the young Dorian grey pure and unchanged in order to preserve his natural beauty whereas Lord Henry consciously decides to fill Dorian like a vessel full of his influence and see where the pieces fall.  People who know Oscar Wildes masterpiece will know that this does not end happily. However the story of influence and resistance is not always tragic think of the influence of Ekendu on Gilgamesh or Whoopi Goldberg’s Influence on the kids in the choir in sister act 2.   I suppose the question boils down to weather makeover shows are more like Lord Henry, Whoopi Goldberg, Basil or that kids mother who doesn’t want her to sing for some unknowable reason and whether the distinction between the four makes any moral difference.

* Its ok I have F word privileges and you know what they say most Fs ares Qs. I have strong views on what I will call privileged words but am too scared to do a blog post about it due to lacking N word privileges and recently having my T word privileges revoked (there used to be a reciprocal agreement but now it’s messy)

*²This is probably the last sensible discussion of makeover shows in this blog the rest consists of a rambling discourse on the nature and morality of influence (you know how I get, or if you don’t welcome to an incomprehensible whitter)

Exquisite Words

Language is an incredibly beautiful thing is the foundation it is the seed of every civilisation, every conversation, every love, every hate, every rivalry, and every friendship. And furthermore it has the ability to stir us in ways that otherwise entirely inconceivable. This is because, in some ways, it controls even our perception of beauty. A contemporary psychological theory is posits an intimate connection between our language and our perception.  For example in a particular tribal African language  red and orange are all under the banner of a single word this in itself is as uninteresting as any other linguistic quirk. What is, however, interesting is that people who speak only this language find it almost impossibly difficult to differentiate the two colours. And I don’t mean subtly orange or subtly red I mean oranges and strawberries. The implications of this are clear.  Lacking a word for orange somehow inhibits the experience of the colour; this is a gross simplification but roll with me, because language forms our reality. Perhaps this is the reason why we English seem incapable of making a good omelette. I suppose at this point it’s important to acknowledge that Orange or perfect omelette texture can be expressed, an almost gelatinous, firm yet yielding, almost creamy texture created by slight under cooking of an egg at high temperatures with butter, this perhaps an accurate description but it lacks a certain quality the precision and evocation of the French word that I believe is something like Vabose, almost a silent onomatopoeia.

Yet even this is not enough language. The fact remains that the English language, I’m going to wax lyrical about English now please edit to include your language if you feel it appropriate, is  pure aesthetic pleasure. Poetry is to me an obvious example. Indulge me by reading the opening monologue to under milk wood out loud http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0608221.txt or listening to it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyI2YOC0rhU. The meaning of the words is unremarkable the scene described the events almost entirely prosaic. But the shapes of the words as you pronounce them, the cadence and phonetic form of each sentence pushes the monologue beyond mere meaning into the intoxicating realm of art. I love that sort of pleasure and it gets me in trouble sometimes.  The problem is that I sometimes get carried away and say things that I don’t entirely, or indeed even remotely, mean because it sounds pretty or rolls off the tongue.

Language is everything; pleasurable and practical; all reality and all fiction.

 This post didn’t really ever find its point but if you enjoyed it I think we can live without a point just this once.