Month: November 2015

LordoftheReeves’ 6 perfect traxx

I’ve often made the case that there is a universally ‘good’ sound. I’d still make that claim, based on the pleasingness of the sounds. Really nice pleasing sounds. I usually listen to much ‘darker’ sometimes ‘harder’ stuff in which the sounds are also pleasing but these are all proper noiiiiiiiice, not that I really listen to these any more.

If you have got a soul, I think you’ll like these 6. Sorry if they’re already bigguns to you (In which case, why not read my blog about a Jellyfish instead?)

 

Nightmares on Wax- Les Nuits

This one’s definitely nooooiiice. When I was in Lithuania a bunch of people called it “porn music”and replaced it with something else. All I can say is; they must have a seriously groovy taste in porn. I remember when I was watching Ray Mears’ Bushcraft and he was just on an Island somewhere, disappearing into the night to the sounds of this. It was essentially perfect. I bet he’s had this one on repeat in the jungle a few times, when times get hard in the bivouac. Still yet to see Nightmares, this is very bad.

 

Damian Lazarus & The Ancient Moons- Vermillion

Damian Lazarus is exceptional. I don’t have the musical repertoire to describe why it is good. The sounds are just absolutely lovely, and sounds that you won’t normally hear so they’re guaranteed to have a new effect on your brain, in some way. If you like all these tribal drums and stuff do check the guy out- he is an eclectic phenomenon.

 

Depeche Mode- The Things You Said

Depeche Mode are absolute geniuses. I always appreciate an artist when they have a vast amount of wonderful tracks, which is why I cringe when people worship The Smiths and think they’re all sick and stuff, listening to This Charming Man on nights out over and over again and thinking they’ve found God. Depeche vocals are worlds apart. Dave Gahan’s voice is so authoritative and the lyrics are always elusive and peculiar enough to constitute perfection. Could have picked many tracks but this is my favourite. Can’t describe why.

 

Lovebirds- Want You In My Soul ft. Stee Downes

My mate showed me this one when I was a bit of a lost octopus in first year and I could put my life into perspective listening to this. It is simply something else. Every minute will pick you up like a kite and make you went to hug your friends and smile and loads of other good stuff. You should play it at your wedding, probably, assuming your wife is also a bit funky and you love her (or husband of course).

 

Tensnake- Coma Cat

This is just a fantastic jingle. Guaranteed to make you feel like life is not too bad after all. No one with a soul wouldn’t want to dance to this, let alone like it.

 

Bonobo- Cirrus

Extremely uplifting and pleasing simplicity. Bit popular, this Bonobadger one but this blog is dedicated to universally pleasing music after all and this really does fit the bill.

 

Frankie Knuckles & Jamie Principle- Your Love

I don’t know if you have seen that documentary about how house began in Chicago but that throws some lovely context onto this one. I believe this one was at the beginning of it all. Most people recognise the riff as from a Florence track, I feel sorry for these people. I have probably shed a tear to this numerous times. I had the privilege of seeing Marshall Jefferson playing it with A Guy Called Gerald and the gang at Canal Mills. It was marvellous. The lyrics are sick. The way that this track varies into a myriad of completely different phases, each extremely captivating and building an almost celestial sense of suspense throughout. Making it perfect for the end of this!

 

A Creative Writing Seminar

 

So basically I was in this creative writing seminar. Everyone was reading their poems about things and the lecturer was commenting on how sick we were at poetry and stuff occasionally and we were all handing out sheets of paper with our poems on them to the class and writing things on them if we felt that that was a necessary thing to do.

“I particularly liked the metaphor about (insert metaphor). That was a tremendous image, it really was,” the lecturer might say about someone’s poem.

“Yeah that was really good actually,” someone else might have said.

A guy called Dave who always wore burgundy Superdry clothes had to read his poem. I really didn’t like Dave’s poetry, because it was a bit depressing and sometimes a bit pretentious.

 

We marched together, like imperial soldiers

your arm round mine, tied to my ulna like rope

up the mountains, as if Ben Nevis was only a hill

and you were my perfect future. 

 

“Nice one Dave,” we all said.

One student covered her eyes with her hand in order to conceal a tear which had escaped from her face.

“Are you okay?” the lecturer asked Hannah.

“I’m fine! I’m fine!”

“It was a very touching poem,” the lecturer conceded.

“I’m fine! Fine!” she said, endeavouring to cover her face now more than ever- which had turned vermillion.

She was probably fine. She just had an extremely personal connection with heartfelt verses, such as the ones that Dave produced every week, that was all.

“Thank you Dave. Thank you very much.”

Dave smiled to himself and put his pen in his mouth feeling a bit satisfied with himself and also a bit like Sartre. It was my turn to read a poem now. Which one should I read? errrm errrm errrrm errrrm…

As I was deciding, I saw the lecturer withdrawing a pouch of Golden Virginia from his pocket. I decided to read the one about the depressed squid that I’d been working on for a few weeks.

Then the lecturer pulled out a pack of King-sized rizzla.

 

I float through Sea, I float through the salty water

like an octopus (but I am actually a giant squid)

 

“Sorry to interrupt James, does anybody have a train ticket or something? Making a roach you see.”

“Yeah sure,” Caroline handed the lecturer a train ticket (rather obsequiously). Everyone fancied the lecturer to a certain extent.

“Thanks. Do continue James,” the lecturer said as he effortlessly crafted the perfect roach.

 

I plunge through the darkness, propelled

like an extra-terrestrial missile, armed only

with my tentacles of cruelty and contempt. 

 

I looked over to my lecturer who had now ground some weed and was gently dispersing it across the tobacco, until there was little left to see within the paper but a thick blanket of powdery light green leaves. The smell of haze spread across the room like a friendly cloud. I continued…

 

I have an eye that is too big, and terrifies everyone.

Why do I move in bursts, why do I buffer through the sea?

I don’t belong here. I am depressed.

The class showered me with applause.

“Wow James that was probably your best yet I reckon,” one said.

“I loved the buffering. Squids do move like that!” said another.

“I love the way you portray depression as a thing that affects creatures as well as human beings,” another.

“You’re a genius James.”

“Thanks,” I smiled.

There was a bit of a silence. The lecturer revealed an extremely long and perfectly shaped spliff, removed a key from his pocket and packed the top down nicely. Then he folded the top over, preferring the folded approach to the twisted one. We all know that the folded approach is the more sophisticated, and that the lecturer had definitely made the right decision there. The lecturer tapped the finished product on the table and held it between two knuckles.

“Well I have to say James. That was an outstanding poem. How do you come up with stuff like that? You’ll have to tell me some day… anyway in the mean time, I think you’ve deserved it; would you like to do the honours?” the lecturer handed me the spliff and a bright red clipper with a massive yellow smiley face on it.

I lit the spliff and it was really harsh. Then I passed the spliff all the way round and everyone had some.

“Great seminar guys!”

Then we all went home really stoned and wrote a bit more poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry: A Caution

Caution: Do not write a boring or sentimental poem.

Caution: Do not use a word processor unless your fountain pen has broken.

Caution: Do not write on papyrus or about papyrus.

Caution: Do not applaud bad poets because they tried.

Caution: Do not read your poem in a voice like you are slowly dying.

Caution: Do not turn up to a spoken word night, read your own mindlessly

self-indulgent verse with unsolicited pride then leave without realising

how much of a cunt you are.

Caution: Do not write a poem without including death at least twice.

Caution: Death.

Caution: Do not read poems about sexuality or gender politics unless you

are convinced you are performing to a group of open-minded fascists. 

Caution: Do not address your poem to the sky.

Caution: Do not address a poem to you unless you want to address me personally.

Caution: Free verse is a bit shit really.

Caution: Do not pretend you ever understand poetry.

Caution: Do not write poetry.

9 reasons you aren’t getting enough sleep

Sleep is and always has been crucial to humans. Most of us demand at least six to nine hours of it per day. Beds have become impeccably comfortable over the past fifty years, so why are those vital hours of rest proving so God damn unobtainable? Ground-breaking research has been undertaken to reveal why you might be struggling to land those vital hours of shut-eye.

You are sleeping in the wrong position– Sleeping on your front? This is not good enough as it puts pressure on the small of your back, which may result in the body folding up into a permanent right angle, making movement and travel almost impossible.
Sleeping on your side? This can be even more dangerous. Humans who do this on a consistent basis have been known to lose their vertebracy. Leaving the joints in an asymmetrical position can be known to have disastrous effects on the back. A man recently consulted his GP after 37 years of side sleeping, and was staggered to discover that his hands and feet had disappeared completely and he had turned into a mollusc.
Sleeping on your back? Good. Sleep flat on your back at all times, with limbs spread out in a star fish pattern. Imagining you are a starfish is optional and works for some people but can prove disconcerting to others. Give everything a try and see what works for you.

Your bed might not be vast enough- With global obesity rates rising in the UK, double beds are no longer sufficient to accommodate the breadth of an average person. Furniture stores all over the country have been forced to rapidly adjust the size of all ‘King-sized’ beds in order to suit the global average size of Kings, which is estimated to have increased by 45% in recent years. Make sure you have enough space to move, as falling out of bed at this rate could at best wake you up in the middle of the night, and at worst result in a heart attack and death or at the very worst floor penetration and death.

You are sleeping with too many pillows- Recent surveys reveal that 92% of people think it is acceptable to sleep with more than one pillow. They are wrong. The truth is that it is extremely hazardous to the neck and back to sleep with even one pillow. In order not to permanently impair these parts of the body and to secure an efficient night of sleeping, sleep with no pillows at all and fight the urge to use your upper arm, as this may violate the terms of the first heading.

You are sleeping with another person– If you are trying to sleep alongside another human being- perhaps a partner- then this may well be the cause of your inability to sleep. These circumstances allow for sex to potentially happen, which is a notoriously confusing and potentially uncatholic experience. To avoid being perturbed into lack of sleep you must sleep alone at all times.

You are sleeping with your mouth open- Sleeping with your mouth open could be threatening to a good night’s sleep for two reasons, firstly because it can leave you dangerously dehydrated and liable to get up in the middle of the night for water (or dehydration could always lead to death, of course). And secondly because it means you are leaving an opening for the arrival of all kinds of unsavoury creatures, from lethal microbes to small rodents and potentially life-threatening birds. Alternatively you must breathe through your nose at all times. The nostrils work effectively as a human sieve from unwelcome creatures, and are designed to protect the body from these, whereas the mouth is designed to welcome them for food.

You don’t have water sufficiently close at hand- Stupidly, many people wonder why they get no sleep and spend half of the night getting up to go to the bathroom for mouthfuls of water to prevent them from death. This entails waking up and moving from the bed and therefore should be avoided. To avoid this, keep a 2 litre bottle of water in bed with you at all times with the cap screwed on (to avoid water disturbance and dampness which could also lead to drowning and death).

The temperature is incorrect for sleeping- One of the most common causes for insomnia is an incorrect temperature. We find that anything in between 0 degrees Celsius and 37 degrees is optimum temperature (if you are unfamiliar with this 21st century unit of temperature, then it is likely your house is too cold and you should address this as a matter of urgency). If you are sleeping outside of this range then you will almost certainly encounter at best sleeping difficulties and at worst- death.

Your life might be too busy and/or stressful- Do you often have future events and occasions which cause you to lie awake in anticipation? If so you might need to cancel these events, in order to ameliorate the frantic state of mind that prohibits you from grasping those sacred hours of rest. Your lack of sleep might be entirely due to a failure to ‘get your shit together’. If you have any personal issues you must try to get rid of them and become a happier person. Also if you have depression- get rid of it. Making these transitions will result in less soul-shaking nightmares, and generally much more pleasant almost utopian dreams that barely relate to your own disappointing life at all.

You’re counting the wrong animal- Throughout its existence the latest species of hominid has always been told that the counting of sheep will result in a greater likelihood of sleep. This has been proven by scientists to be incorrect, as sheep have been proven to be too disturbing as creatures to make this theory viable in practice (their larynxes produce preposterous vibrations, if you haven’t noticed).
A psychological study incorporating a wide range of British creatures concluded that the most effective one to count in order to induce sleep were ferrets. The counting of all other animals proved to be ineffective for all participants. Psychologist Pauline Scuddlen-Fid of Oxford University stated: “It is not clear why ferrets are the best animal to count but they definitely are. So we should count them instead probably”.

Now if you follow every single one of these steps to the letter, you might just start getting those forty winks you deserve. But you must take this seriously or risk wasting your precious time.

Happy sleeping!