Dogs that bark dont bite.

I couldnt sleep because my mind was going at a million miles an hour. It was peoples lives i was playing with here, my own included. Were other people nodding and agreeing with what I just said? Probably not, since they all had a vested interest in our success and they were outspoken individuals. Was there anything else id left out or forgotten? You reach the point where you have to press on regardless. You could spend the rest of your life thinking about the different options.
I wondered if he was thinking of home, he was a family man with a second child that was just 5 months old. My mind drifted. I hope she wasnt getting affected by anything in the media.
I put on my walkman and listened to madness. I wasnt really listening because my mind was screaming in so many directions, but i must have nodded off about 3, because at 6, when i woke, the lead singer had dropped 2 octaves and they were just about grinding to a halt.
It was quite a frenzy that morning.

stationery thoughts

The world beneath your feet: underneath the hurry of well-polished brogues, battered trainers, Ugg boots and vertiginous hoof-manglers; underneath the joyful swirls of discarded Subway wrappers; underneath the geological layers of chewing gum and cigarette butts…what worlds upon worlds lie beneath your feet?

The underground railway. That marvel of the industrial age – the railway, urging its path across the fields of England, cutting swiftly through hill and dale. The railway, a paean to the ambitions and achievements of the noblest of creatures: man. The railway, with bridges grandly thrown ‘twixt land and land. The railway, delving deep into the earth, and terminating in the hollering yokel-pit that is your average underground station at 10pm on a Friday night.

Basics Gin stared irately at the timetable. Its regimented numbers meant nothing to him. Even his own name was a mystery. This was clearly the annotated version of the timetable, for somebody had attempted to amend the details for the greater benefit of the travelling public. ‘Sha ‘01′; ‘Titch, Pat-o, Chig ‘03′, read these legends, and who knew what that meant? These were marks for more highly evolved minds to interpret.

Teens gathered surreptitiously at the edge of the platform. Basics Gin shuffled towards them. ‘Gorraligh’?', he articulated. The teens stared at Basics Gin with unseeing, dead eyes, their minds ploughed and driven by the subliminal messages fed at deafening volume through their iPods. Basics Gin shuffled away from them. With shaking hands he pulled a tobacco pouch and Rizla papers from the pocket of his stained denim jacket.

‘Hey, mate, you can’t smoke here’, spake a righteous voice in the wilderness. Basics Gin was confused. The wind rushed down the tunnel, seeming to carry with it words of no import. It carried something else, rushing at speed, an orchestra of metallic rhythms. Basics Gin stared blankly in the direction of the impending object. Could he smoke it? The train arrived at the platform. Was it stationary, or stationery? The ill-educated masses awaiting to embark could not determine. The train became acutely embarrassed, and began to wonder if it ought to be a Rexel file and a set of highlighter pens.

In the upper level of the station, the annual Pigeon Olympiad had begun, with its aerial displays. It’s a little-known fact that a pigeon will make a serviceable aerial, but don’t expect to receive a good signal. If you have one, tune in next time.

pigeons

Pigeon (n.): One of the lesser-known unstable gases in the Periodical Table of Elements. Pigeon is unpredictable particularly when exposed to such organic compounds as kebab, chip, and Trill, which may trigger a rapid decomposition reaction leading to explosive detonation.

Pigeon (v.): The act of seizing another’s grain; in extended use, the unauthorised taking of another’s lunch, esp. sandwiches. ‘I were only gone five minutes, and when I came back some bugger had pigeoned me roll’ (E. Grimes, ‘The Working Lunch’ (1942), 4). ‘Bazza, I could see ‘im eyein’ me, right, but I ‘ad nuffin’ to pigeon, innit, so ‘e pisses off’ (K. Sharpe, ‘The Minto Close Gang’ (2004), 87).

A word of warning: if you see a pigeon, you’d better watch it. Look at the pigeons, as they strut about the concourse of railways up and down the land with their nauseating gait. Why are they there? Pigeons are notorious confidence tricksters. The pigeon will often don a pinstripe suit and bowler, tuck a copy of The Financial Times under its wing, and pose as a commuter on the 8.10 to London Euston. The pigeon gives every impression of having ‘business in the Capital’. It will peruse the Financial Times with the air of one whose eye is keenly on fluctuations in the bird-seed market. This is not the case. The pigeon opposite you is, in fact, intent on stealing your identity.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Pigeons are predominantly found in three places: railway stations, shopping precincts, and civic monuments. This is not a coincidence. Following a day’s work of credit-card-cloning and identity theft, the pigeon will spend the fruits of his labour at the earliest opportunity. The pigeon’s Achilles’ heel is his delusions of grandeur, manifest in the ambition to replace all commemorative structures with his likeness, and his weakness for the take-away meal. If any solution to the problem exists, it lies in this fact. The only alternative is to convince the pigeon to assume his own identity, thereby causing confusion and, almost certainly, spontaneous combustion. These are dangerous and indeed potentially messy times

Modern art

Modern Art is an anagram of Shit.

This is by virtue of the fact that if you take a lot of shit, and rearrange it, then with very little effort you have Modern Art. Yet whilst the creation of Modern Art lies within the reach of any cretin with a paintbrush and a pair of safety scissors, the interpretation of this particular aesthetic is a skill requiring many years of study to perfect. For the benefit of our readers who haven’t the patience to learn how to tie their shoelaces, let alone embark upon a lifetime of scholarship, here we present a basic introduction to the major schools of Modern Art.

i) The Square School

Squares. Basically, squares, and then some more squares, possibly enclosed within a square. The Square School takes the geometric simplicity of the four-sided shape and hammers the crap out of it. The Square represents the closed-off sections of the human psyche; in its echo of the frame in which it is contained, it enacts the inevitable conformity to one’s surroundings; in its regimented form and hollowness, it depicts the duplicitous nature of modern society. Or, as the great art critic Walter T. Shovepenny so succinctly put it, ‘Gee, that’s a whole bunch of squares’.

ii) The School of Lines

The School of Lines is much like the Square School, only slightly more pointless. These are squares that can’t be bothered making the effort. In vertical form, lines encode the sickening exploitation of the paper-clip in office culture. In the horizontal trend, lines urge the viewer to consider the way in which the pages of a magazine stick together, only to reveal a double-leaf advert for the Honda Civic when finally separated some hours later.

iii) The Primary School

This School employs paint like it’s going out of fashion. In an accurate representation of the behaviour of five-year-olds everywhere, the aim of the Primary School is to arrive at an end product that appears to be the brainchild of a chimpanzee on acid.

iv) The Heap of Metal

This is a heap of metal, skilfully rearranged to look like a heap of metal.

v) The Functional School

The ethos behind this school is that form is function, and therefore nothing should exist that does not in some way answer a purpose. Though if you’ve ever actually sat on one of the chairs designed by a student of Modern Art, you will quickly realise that this is not the case, as you hurriedly collect what remains of your teeth following their sharp and often painful contact with your knees.

vi) FITD

This School is currently experiencing a rapid upsurge in popularity. F**k It, That’ll Do, commonly abbreviated FITD, has produced such great masterpieces as ‘Unfinished Breakfast #3′, ‘Yesterday’s Bus Ticket’ and the seminal ‘Curry Stains’, which has recently been praised by the leading art publication ‘The Chin-Stroker’s Weekly’ as ‘following in the footsteps of Turner’.

This Guide has introduced you to the basic categories and schools of Modern Art. It is now in your hands, and we advise you to rip it up before any further damage ensues.

jazz

Having outlined the basic concepts responsible for the eyeball-insulting phenomenon that is Modern Art, here we turn our attentions to its aural equivalent: Jazz.

Let there be no misapprehension: there is nothing pleasant about listening to Jazz. The term alone offends the ears. This is a word that takes the arse-end of the alphabet, and just for kicks, repeats it. Jazz. Note the extraneous ‘z’. For those new to the genre, this serves as some indication of the sort of nonsense one can expect from Jazz.

So what is Jazz? Picture to yourself the following scenarios: a piano keyboard being danced across by midgets in steel-capped boots. A walrus hiccuping into a trumpet. Corks being fired repeatedly at a double-bass. Corks with the bottles still attached being fired repeatedly at a double-bass. An over-excitable sugar addict burbling into a saxophone. A snare drum in a washing-machine. Now imagine, if you will, all of the above happening simultaneously, and you have some impression of the chronic flatulence that is Jazz.

Nor is Jazz confined to the aural plane. The 1950s saw experimental writers attempting to capture the spirit of Jazz in prose form, with variable results. This mode of writing gave Jazz its own language, which unfortunately - or perhaps, fortunately – did nothing to clarify the matter. The following extract from the novel ‘Be-bop!’ by Cal Rutz is typical of the genre.

‘Me and Fats Burger and crazy ol’ Gummy Ninepins, we were souls spilling and crashing like the flush on a broken-down toilet. Headed in the night with the sweet knives of the stars pricking and stabbing the sky. We knew cress! It was cress and the word was with the Big Ol’ God of Cress. Into the bars and clubs with the smokelight jazz noodlings of Slim Tinfoil, he was like wild and holy in the shroud of Jazz. ‘Skee-ba-bop! Skee-bop! Ska-ba-be-ska-bop!’ farted the trumpet. In all and above the cheeks of Slim Tinfoil bulged and puffed like watermelons in a parcel on a train bound for Now. We jumped.

Notice to our readers: Jazz may sometimes cause the following side-effects: numbness; loss of vision; hallucinations; renal failure; allergic skin reactions; death. We can accept no liability for any personal loss or injury incurred as a result of reading this account of Jazz, and advise our readers in the event of any of the above to consult their doctor or pharmacist.

Technology

Technology. Such a harmless word. But no. Technology wants you to die. Moreover, it wants you to die clutching a manual printed in Portuguese, a nest of cabling, three different but similarly useless sound cards, the number for Microsoft Helpline and what remains of your sanity.

Technology is integrated so completely into our day-to-day existence that it is hard to conceive of life without it. But what would technology look like to the uninitiated? Let us imagine.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete

A mystical incantation with the power of dispelling evil influences. Ctrl+Alt+Delete calls up the all-knowing Task Manager, who alone has the power to restore order by uttering the command ‘End Now!’ However, the Task Manager is on occasion a little forgetful, which leads him to ask ’Are You Sure You Want to End Now?’ Tradition dictates that the appropriate response to this question is to beat the keyboard repeatedly with your fists.

‘Internet Explorer has performed an illegal operation’

Who is the fabled Internet Explorer, and why is he such a shifty character? Theories abound that the Explorer is in league with pigeons (see Stationary Thoughts II: Pigeons) and their fraudulent activities. The Explorer is wont to hang around bars bumming free drinks, hence the expression ‘You’ve opened a new tab’. To be avoided at all costs.

Java Update

Technology makes life easier in myriad ways, and one of them is offering to refill your coffee. Two sugars, please. If you press the button on your PC tower, a small tray becomes available in which to rest your cup.

Command not found

The Task Manager, being forgetful, has temporarily mislaid his Book of Incantations.

Fixboot

Yet another of Technology’s many advantages; in this instance, repairing that hole in your shoe.

‘Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close’

Just occasionally, Technology goes wrong. But don’t worry! That 100-page document you were working on will be perfectly safe. Moreover, Word will take the heathenish language contained within your document and convert it into something infinitely more legible, like ‘&&££ulbd+&^£^*£(%£’, which roughly translates as ‘you’re screwed’. Hand this to your line manager. Promotion? Certainly.