Star Trek Serves Imperialism

When I was younger and on a trip to London, I was offered the choice of either going to Madame Tussauds or the London Planetarium which are next door to one another.

I chose the Planetarium, as I had quite a fascination with space at the time. More so than a fascination with wax figures that vaguely resembled famous people owned by a no doubt sinister consortium that seems to own almost all possible tourist destinations in this country.

But space, like the internet and LSD, owes its popularity in the main to the military. And amongst those involved were a surprisingly large number of wingnuts.

My personal favourite is of course Wernher von Braun, former Nazi, user of slave labour, bought in by the Americans to help them win the space race.

Most of the astronauts and cosmonauts (or космона́вт as I often pretentiously refer to them as) were from military.

And just in case you thought us in this country wouldn’t lower ourselves to such things, our most famous astronomer founded a political party too right-wing to be Conservatives.

I remember reading an anthology of science-fiction of the 1930s and being slightly disturbed with just how racist it seemed to be.

Even by the 1960s the most well-known science-fiction Star Trek was somewhat problematic. Why is it that in a future society where there is no war and all nationalities of the Earth are united do they still put stock in military ranks and still have an armed paramilitary wing?

Thank heavens, if you’ll excuse the pun, for Sun Ra, the antidote to all this space militarism. A native of Alabama, he changed his name to the Egyptian God of the Sun and formed a series of “arkestras” as he styled them becoming a pioneer of electronic music and “space-rock”. Here’s an excerpt from his film Space is the Place. I couldn’t find the scene where he destroys a club just by playing some odd chords on the piano, but this clip is pretty good stuff.

Enjoy.

El-ahrairah Is Here

One thing that seems to be becoming more common and that annoys me somewhat is when they advertise some music, or a film and then say “available at Tesco’s or Sainsburys or Woolworth’s for £8.49″ or whatever, as if that is the only place you can buy it.

I was already irritated by a music advert when this happened and when the one of the songs on the record they were advertising sounded familiar, I thought “Blimey, Art Garfunkel has let himself go a bit.”

Of course it wasn’t Art himself but the songwriter of that song from that film about rabbits: Mike Batt advertising his new album. Apart from that song, Mike is also famous for songs about recycling animals in South London* and scientifically dubious songs about bicycles in China.

Now there is a rule to how you present yourself when you are a “real songwriter” and here’s my non-definitive list.

1. If you are female you have to be staring wistfully out of the window and rather than a photograph of yourself, use a oil painting.
2. If you are a pianist you have to be stood or sat next to the piano but not actually playing it. Think that you are introducing the piano to your family with a theatrical flourish.
3. Look pained. There are these thoughts right, that I have, and the only way I can get them out is by composing these like songs.
4. Don’t be posh, although you can be over 30.
5. If you are a guitarist, the best approach is to lean on the neck of the guitar as if you’re saying “this guitar right, it’s my best, and probably only friend”
6.  Sit on a bed, but make sure you include a counterpane rather than a glamorous blonde. That will give entirely the wrong image.
7. Don’t look like the kind of person who will spontaneously produce an acoustic guitar and/or bongo drums at a party and start playing them, much the the embrassment of everyone present. The only time you are allowed to do this is when you invite a group upstairs to your room to smoke weed. Do not use the “would you like to see my etchings?” line.

* When I first saw the Wombles I thought they were singing “the Wombles of Wimbledon / Common are we” i.e. that they were common in Wimbledon not that they lived on Wimbledon Common. I obviously wasn’t familiar with the Enclosure Act at that time.

Her Money Is Green Like Tea And So’s Her Teeth

The route to my new workplace takes me right through the heart of King’s Cross, the kind of place, despite it’s recent gentrification you always feel a bit out of place without either a rucksack, drugs of some description or a six-pack of spesh or some combination of the above.

“The Cross” as I’m sure it’s never called, or at least I’ve never heard anyone call it that,  is also famous for another thing, a thing that makes it impossible to look inside a phone box. Yes, I’m talking about prostitution.

Every phone box in the general area is just covered all over the inside with cards advertising services of every kind. As long as it is tangentially related to sex in some way of course.

I was tempted to take some photographs of some of the cards and post them on here, or at the very least steal a handful and scan them but I decided against, mainly because it was fairly busy and I’m rather self-concious.

Suffice to say, such phrases as “I’ll do anything” (not to be confused with the BBC’s latest show helping Andrew Lloyd-Webber pick the leads for his new show) references to “schools of punishment” and many an unsubtle pun on come/cum featured heavily.

The nearest I come to prostitution, if you’ll excuse the pun, is trying to promote my blog. This got me thinking:  maybe I should start putting cards up in phone boxes in the hope of boosting my stats. Of course this could result in a number of disappointed people who don’t want inane observations on a wide variety of topics from me and would only settle for a hand-job, for example.

Despite this obvious downside, for want of something to do on the way home from work today I used the time to try and devise such a card advertising my blog to put in all the phone boxes I could find, but my attempt turned out more like something you’d see in a personal ad.

Recently relocated blogger WLTM readers for lurking and maybe commenting? I enjoy eating standing up,  drinks with citrus in and pithy endings to short stories. Non-smoker. Sorry no DSS.

How would you attract new readers to your blog? Would you do anything?

The Morals Of Ninevah Were Hardly So Lax

I’m quite a fan of Jacobean drama and especially the ridiculous wordiness contained therein. I’m fairly sure, although of course I don’t know, that people didn’t talk like that back then. The curses are the best bit, continuing for pages in some instances and almost as inventive as the grisly deaths often suffered by the protagonists. To quote Mr John Webster:

There was a lady in France that, having the small-pox,
Flay’d the skin off her face to make it more level;
And whereas before she looked like a nutmeg grater,
After she resembled an abortive hedgehog.

Crossing the road this morning, I couldn’t help thinking a Renaissance curse would have been more inventive then just muttering ‘fucking cunt‘ under my breath as a motorist failed to stop when it was clearly my right of way. Again.

But then again, nobody talks like they do in drama do they? And if you did write a play with people talking like they really do it would sound artificial. Now that’s ironic, or something like that.

Take any example of the contemporary sitcom, for example recently returning for a second series Gavin and Stacey, which I was watching recently. I haven’t seen many sitcoms I’ve just realised.
Imagine if you and a bunch of your friends were in the pub and you all were astonishingly witty, bon mot after bon mot falling from everyone’s lips like accidental globules of saliva seem to do from mine, or if I’m drunk, the volume of my talking increasing to a disturbing degree.

Okay some people do take stupidity to new levels, but even stupid people in sitcoms are approximately six million time wittier than me. This pains me somewhat.

There’s only one solution: have a stock listing of witticisms and try and work the conversation round to the relevant subject in the desperate hope that I’ll be able to impress someone.

But I already do that.

Damn.

Ten Thousand Welcomes To You

Bah. So much for the hiatus I had planned. I’m back, back, back and looking slightly different.

For those of you who were wondering, there was no big reason for my hissy fit. It had nothing to do with PMS, or Motley Crue (or as I like to call them Meutley Crew-eh) it was just a massive dose of pique.

I’d managed to delete the short-lived Metro Letters blog, which bless it hadn’t even been given a chance to get going, and my finger was hesitating tantalisingly over the infamous Delete Blog button when I hesitated.

Two things came to mind, firstly a dramatic exit would be better and secondly I knew deep down I’d be back (and apparently in less than a week)

As it turned out, I went for the enigmatic “brb” approach, foregoing the additional k thanx bai I’d often seen elsewhere.

So Oye Billy is returned and what’s different this time?

Not a great deal, truth be told, there’s the slightly different backdrop of WordPress to be considered of course. I had lofty ideas about different styles of posts, different amounts and so on, but if I’ll be honest it’s going to end up pretty much the same.

So if you remember my Blogger blog and you enjoyed it, welcome! I will be adding a full blogroll in due course, so please bear with me.

If you didn’t like my Blogger blog, I question your judgement in coming here, but hope I can convert you.

If you’ve never heard of my Blogger blog then welcome. I’m Billy, even though that’s not my real name and this is my blog.

What else to say. Well I suppose I could have an official press launch, complete with canapés and the finest champagne available to humanity but it’s a bit late for that.

So pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of Cava and I’ll just go and get you a sausage roll (or soya alternative for you vegetarians) and here’s to blogging!

Hurrah!