Saturday, March 05, 2005

Check It Out *

I don't seem to post much these days, partly cos I can't be bothered and partly cos ... I can't be bothered. Darren over at Inveresk Street does the most mentally prolific posts, as does John at Counago and Spaves, both of which, by the way, I read on a daily basis these days and both of which are for more interesting than the stuff you can read here.

I have a new participant(s) to my blog, and it's a warm welcome to John and Jane. My good friend Messalina has certain problems with this couple, which, I must say, I don't quite get - particularly considering that I believe the latter has taken her moniker from the following:
"In 38 A.D. Claudius had married Valeria Messalina, a scion of a noble house with impressive familial connections. Messalina bore him a daughter (Octavia, born in 39) and a son (Britannicus, born in 41): she was therefore the mother of the heir apparent and enjoyed influence for that reason. In the sources, Messalina is portrayed as little more than a pouting adolescent nymphomaniac who holds wild parties and arranges the deaths of former lovers or those who scorn her advances; and all this while her cuckolded husband blunders on in blissful ignorance."


You can read more about this character here.

Anyway, the point of me coming online tonight was to rant and rave about how much I hate religion. And I don't just mean that I get irritated about religion and can't wait until faith and state are separated. Oh, no. I fucking despise religion in all its forms. I hate christianity, I hate judaism, I hate islam, I hate seventh fucking day adventists, I hate buddhism, I hate mormons, I hate the fucking lot of them and all the rest. Before I go on, I must say that I do like human beings, by the way.
I think it's stupid the way that the SWP and elements of what was once a sensible left got into bed with the Muslim Association of Britain and decided that islam was "cool" and made up the myth of "islamophobia", only to give rise to the nonsense that the left should suddenly defend the indefensible of the "right" of men to cover up women's faces and such like.

I also think it's stupid that, as I may have mentioned previously, our city's mayor, who is an egomaniacal arsehold by the way, gets dragged over hot coals for hissing at a right-wing journalist that he was acting like a concentration camp guard. Now, come on, who has not used this insult when faced with either bureaucratic intransigence or jobsworths? I remember a friend of mine standing in court for a poll tax "crime" when faced with the comment that local authority workers were only doing their job by prosecuting those who didn't pay by saying: "That's what nazis said after the war!" A bit harsh, I thought, but there we go.

It's all fucking stupid. That's why, thanks to Popbitch, I was very glad to see this website. It's certainly for militant atheists like me.

Popbitch, by the way, is a great e-mail service. Please don't tell me that it's the web equivalent of reading the Sun - it's not, it's not, it's not. Even though it gives jokes such as this:

A good Samaritan, a lawyer and a priest are on a boat which begins to sink. The good Samaritansays "Women & children first". The lawyer replies "fuck 'em". The priest looks up, "have we got time"?


Or how about this:

Q. What goes into thirteen twice? A. Roman Polanski.

But it does give some good info such as this:
American artist Edward Stross has been given a jail sentence for painting a mural of Michaelangelo's Creation of Man (featuring a bare breasted woman) outside his gallery in Detroit.

So it's not all tittle tattle.

Just listened to The Streets' A Grand Don't Come For Free - isn't that young Mr Skinner a fucking genius?

* Super Furry Animals - a great example, along with the likes of, among others, The Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse, of why prog rock now is much better than it was back in circa '71-75. But, then again, prog rockers in 2025 might say: "Aren't our prog rockers much better than those who were around in 2000-05?"

10 Comments:

Blogger timesnewroman said...

Prog rock was never good or clever unless of course you were/are 15 in which case its both!

On the religious front shoot them all

8:43 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, the Messalina tag is it one remove from the original. I was reading up about the Thompson & Bywaters case, as I now visit Ilford regularly and it all happened there, not far from my fab boyfriend's house. Thompson was dubbed 'The Messalina of Ilford', which typifies the unjust treatment she received.

10:26 am  
Blogger John said...

Excellent post, and I agreed with absolutely everything until you rounded things off by praising The Streets. I've never felt so ripped off after buying an album before. Probably because he sounds just like I do after 5 pints of Ansell's. But 5 pints of Ansell's is money well spent!

10:28 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Streets is well good. Mike Skinner is a genius. Ethel Thompson was innocent.

1:06 pm  
Blogger John said...

Oops! When I said I agreed with everything, I didn't mean that the stuff at C&S was more interesting than the stuff here.

5:09 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have been fuming for the past week over the Court of Appeal upholding the 'right' of the Luton school girl to wear the jilbab in school, never mind that she was already free to wear a shalwar kameez, which as far as I can see covers you up fairly comprehensively, but would at least allow freedom of movement. I note it was her brother, a member of a fundamentalist Islamic group who was articulating his sister's 'wishes' in court. Bloody religion, I hate it.

And thanks for the welcome Reidski, it's much appreciated.
And Messalina, brain of Britain here has just realised that if I press the anon button, there won't be any picture! And I noticed in the nicko f time that I had spelt Britain wrong, which moght have made me look a wee bit foolish in that context!

(johnand)jane

8:39 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

'Moght'??? Oh sod it!

8:39 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would like to commend Reidski for being one of the few bloggers that allows 'anonymous' comments on his blog. Of course, I am not anonymous to Reidski. But what constitutes anonymity in blogworld? If I had my own blog, would that make me less anonymous? Of course not (and I can't be arsed anyway - I keep a diary which I write in a book and keep hidden in my knicker drawer). All bloggers are essentially anonymous behind the masks of their carefully constructed identities. It's a performance like any other - so let your audience cheer or boo, as they see fit!

9:44 am  
Blogger timesnewroman said...

Boo! Hiss! Boo! We want some content, you must be doing something even if it is just swallowing beer!

7:18 am  
Blogger Reidski said...

In between internet deals at the moment - got rid of nthell and getting broadband on Friday. This means that I pay for the phone call every time I'm online. So, come Friday, I'll be blogging away to my heart's content.
Oh, but also - I have sold out completely to obsessive consumerism and the globa media monopoly conspiracy of Rupert Murdoch and this has meant watching footie on Sky sports every night (enjoyed Getafe thumping Franco's favourites Real Madrid the other night).

11:04 am  

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