Well, I suppose it's for my own good...

I haven't blogged much lately, have I? There are, of course, reasons for this neglect - I expect - but I'm damned if I can be bothered to wonder what they might be, so let's just agree that it's all some kind of unsolvable mystery, shall we? Is that OK?

Good.

Because that always sounds so much more edifying than chronic laziness...

Anyway, while I've been away: somewhere in the back of my head - evidently very quietly and sneakily, because ordinarily I wouldn't stand for such treachery and open rebellion - my brain appears to have been thinking. Yes, thinking. Making decisions even. Bothersome bloody thing. I mean, it would have been nice if it had at least consulted me first, before traipsing off and planning my life without me. But, oh no, not my br...

Well, anyway, I want some sleep, so I suppose I'd better hand over the blogpost now. Or so the blackmail note reads. Sigh.

Go on then, brain, get on with it:

Thanks. So nice to feel welcome... I should imagine.

But down to business:

My grudging host has already referred to his neglect of this blog; sadly, it's not the only one upon which he has been bestowing his abundant laziness. Indeed, over the past year, his taking-place-in-the-future blog has received even more generous helpings. So much so, that it's now in the past. Well, enough of this laxity! There shall be changes around here. Just see if there aren't!

And indeed that's the point: you readers will see quite clearly if there aren't. So, once they've been promised and detailed here, there'll have to be changes. What those changes shall be I shall come to in due course, but first a few words about myself:

Clearly, I am not really a brain, merely a postmodern affectation designed to distance its author from the sincerity of his own intentions. He's woefully fond of postmodern affectations, you'll have noticed. Less so, of appearing sincere when he sets out to do anything at which he might fail. I am here because he has plans: optimistic plans. He's always distrusted optimistic plans. All the more reason, then, to announce them in such a way that, should they fail, it might at least appear, later, that he hadn't been stupid enough to wholly believe in them.

So that's that plan scuppered.

[Sighs] Well, unless this is yet another layer of distancing - delivered by a "brain" from which he has already disassociated himself, can the intentions behind any of these words be trusted either?

Hmm, the brain as unreliable narrator - now there's a metaphor! He'd probably be quite proud of that, if he'd thought of it...

But I digress. It's about time I committed him to these blog changes: I can't keep him awake forever, and he's not weasling out of them again.

So, the changes:

- Not 4'33" shall be revived. Some time within the next fortnight. Exact details still to be decided upon.

- This blog shall, at least once a month, provide some kind of update on the progress of its writer's writing career. The intention being that if progress reports are expected of him, he will be forced to have some progress to report. Exact details to be decided, but will probably include: a rough idea of the kind of jobs done; remuneration; hours worked; practicalities of working freelance; the usual tiresome whinging. It is hoped that such information might prove useful to someone; though the cathartic whinging, probably only to him.

- Across both blogs, there shall be a combined total of at least three new posts a week. Perhaps to include the odd review of things and/or stuff. Probably both: there's a lot more space to fill...

- Only heavy workload/computery difficulties/illnesses-other-than-colds shall be an excuse for lapses from the above. So, another reason to hope for a heavier workload...

- The author will now interject in such a way as to irrevocably collapse this stupid distancing thing.



I said: "The author will now interject in such a way as to irrevocably collapse that stupid distancing thing"!


Hmm?

Oh. You've finished.


[Sighs] Fine:

I'll do all that stuff.


God, postmodern affectations can get you in to some awful messes...

Link for a dull rainy day

Today, I shall say no more than, go here: Bent Objects

It has stuff like this:




Link found a few clicks distant from Patroclus's blogroll.

If I wanted a Tube map, I'd live in London

I've just sat here for fifteen minutes trying to remember what I've done today; which at least accounts for fifteen minutes of it, I suppose. As for the many other minutes between 9:30am and now... Erm, pass. I suppose this must be why people write diaries. What did I do today, they must ask themselves, and there it is, helpfully transcribed. That must be nice. Ah, yes, they must exclaim, that's what I did! Of course. How could I have forgotten? Wrote in my diary. Brilliant, I can get on with the rest of my day now.

At least, not having one myself, that's what I imagine people with diaries must do in such circumstances... (my failure to keep one is longstanding, and often quite literal - I gave away the one I got this Christmas). And if I did have one, I'd only open it to the relevant page and find the words Forgot to write in diary, or something. That sounds like the kind of stupid thing I'd write. And then instantly forget about. Oh, look what that says, I might think, that can't be right. And then lose whole days to pondering the inherent paradox.

Which reminds me: intentionally blank pages in exam papers! That's a bloody cruel trick to play on a philosophy student. I once spent half an exam thinking it was just a particularly obtuse question.

What?

The exam was on intentionality.

Anyway, diaries. That's exactly what would happen if I had one, I'd innocently wonder what I'd done all day and the next thing: paradox. I can't remember half of what I do with my life anyway, without some diary making things worse! And come to think of it, who do they think they are? Calendars, without the pretty pictures! Anally retentive notebooks!



Tsk! Stupid, stupid inventions.




[Woo! It's fun being grumpy :) ]