I done a picture

The meaning of life

I got bored today, quel surpise i hear you chunter, and found myself perusing the shelves containing the family collection of retail dvds, to see whether there were any new ones that I hadn't seen, when I discovered that my dad had bought the Monty Python box set. Shunning other contenders such as the likes of Gone With The Wind, I extracted The Meaning of Life as I couldn't remember whether I'd seen it. This choice I did not regret despite having in fact seen it, the joys of timeless comedy and all that coming to my rescue.

There were many things I enjoyed about the film, many of them the trademarks of the Python crew, the tongue in cheek wit, the sarcasm, the incredibly educated humour for which they are famed, but also the fact that throughout the film, they rather astutely comment on the nature of the audience and the ways in which one could attract them. At the very end of the film, Michael Palin's character the Lady Presenter, comments the following:

"here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema."

Whilst arguably over cynical and most definitely a sweeping generalisation, one cannot deny the old argument of no smoke without fire, for which a sense of apathy as supposed to surprise seems more appropriate. I would obviously argue that for many people, myself included, this is not the case. I would like to say most people, but there is no denying that with the advent of films such as Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus* being but a tame example with many more hugely excessive films coming to mind, one can only assume that increasingly people do not go to the cinema to see something that is a genuine masterpiece of film so much as a cheap thrill or shock. Quel surprise again I hear you call out, Hollywood amongst others has been slowly but surely dumbing down cinema for years in the name of profit, to some extent this may be true but there have also been some classics come out of Tinseltown to charge to its aid.

A scathing attack of the film industry is not in fact where I was headed with this rant, no, in fact my disagreement was with the label for Lady Gaga. I say disagreement, I'm not sure whether I should applaud the calculating nature of those controlling the pop sensation. they have produced what, as Palin helpfully summarised, the public want. Whilst these thoughts seem rather tenuously linked, it was in fact a scene called Find The Fish in the same film that made me think of Gaga. A scene deliberately set up to be obtuse drawing inspiration no doubt from the surrealist movements, which in  a way is the very epitome of a deliberate intense shock to induce a reaction and/or material gain, seemed to coalesce the idea of scandal being linked to sale quite graphically with the similar ideologies of the great Gaga herself. I wonder if you can tell why:

Whilst I cannot personally deny that I am not Lady Gaga's biggest musical fan, or the fact that she has most certainly been manipulated by record labels for maximum effect, I cannot also say that I do not respect her for becoming arguably the largest pop sensation around at the moment - the Madonna of the modern age if you will.

Going back to the film however, despite all of the sketches relating to aspects of life and their amusing take upon them, fish number 5 was correct in is prediction that "Personally, I very much doubt if they're going to say anything about the meaning of life at all." In fact, in the true self mocking style of any of the truly clever and often remarkable comedians that have broached the subject, the closest they ever really get is always closely followed by ridiculous notions.

"That's right. Yeah, I've had a team working on this over the past few weeks, and, uh, what we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts.

One: people are not wearing enough hats.

Two: matter is energy.  In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's uniqueability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia."

Whether the answer indeed be a distinct lack of hats, or perhaps even 42 in the case of Douglas Adams, I care not to discuss it because ultimately it is a futile search. Taking advice from Danny in American History X, always end an essay with a quote because somebody else probably said it better before you, "The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know." Socrates might have said it first but it's sentiment has been echoed down by many great men, who would I be to argue? Because judging from this essay I digress too quickly to hold an argument.

*There is now actually a sequel; imaginatively entitled Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus...

Analysis of a typical Facebook debate

I shall keep it short, because anyone that cares about cricket will already know about England's impressive victory over India at Lords, and no one is faintly interested about what string I choose for my Trinity Pros when I get them restrung this week, or indeed my apparent drift towards head heavy racquets from my usual preference for balanced. I shall not even rant about Australia, for which I finally have all the documentation to send off the visa application, that will probably come another time as when it gets closer, I will probably cry myself to sleep many a night before then...

Instead I shall simply link to something amusing I saw on facebook via Janis Hopkins, which rather tickled my fancy because it is both comical genius and remarkably true. I hope you enjoy.

Well deserved?

I was struck yesterday that someone, notably Dara O'briain, was complaining on twitter that Andy Schleck had not won the Tour de France despite the near herculean effort on stage 17 with his 60km attack on the Izoard before the climb up to the Galibier because his time trialling is quite so poor and he lost a lot of time. At first I was miffed because I had personally been supporting Cadel Evans courtesy of Contador's alleged misdemeanor with drugs and the poor way in which the case is being handled but I found myself wondering why two years running I'd ended up supporting the other candidate, because Schleck now has 3 runner ups to date (subject to Contador's court for arbitration for sport ruling). Usually I support the underdog with the idea of valiantly failing being a sentiment I frequently sympathise with.

What annoyed me however was not who won, because both Cadel and Andy rode solidly throughout a very strong tour and as has been the case in recent years the victory has looked for the world like it could be down to seconds coming into Paris, but that someone should contest someone's right to win a race because of their personal preference for preferred style of stage. The Tour de France is noted by the sport as the ultimate challenge purely because it is the pinnacle of the sport championing all disciplines of cycling within the road race umbrella group. It effectively starts with a team time trial (so people haven't lost riders to elimination or injury) and ends with an individual time trial, with a healthy smattering of mountain and sprint finishes in between. It is the ultimate challenge because, to win, you need to have a variety in skill base. The great winners are the all round riders. That you should complain that someone has lost yellow because a mountain finish is more crowd pleasing than a time trial is ridiculous, especially bearing in mind the one man fight back from Cadel to drag the rest of the chasers to within a manageable time difference on that stage.

Andy did not lose the Tour de France in the time trial, he lost it when Cadel stuck to his back wheel, responding to every attack on a mountain (the Schleck stronghold) for the entirety of the tour. Yes, Schleck's Galibier attack was one of the most exciting and daring of recent cycling, but should one win a tour from one stage alone? The Tour is about consistent performance, and of the overall favourites, Evans was the most consistent, coming closest to two stage victories.

Rant aside, this years Tour was also notable because the 'Manx missile' Mark Cavendish won the green sprint Jersey with the HTC highroad team, taking in his 20th stage victory at the Tour for his career, if I am not mistaken a record for a British cyclist. What is surprising however is that sprint finishes are notable because traditionally they are a team competition - the team leads out dropping back one by one till a set distance from the finish at which point the main sprinter goes as hard as possible to win the stage, with the odd exception in a couple of stages, HTC were the only organised sprint team. It is no surprise Cavendish won green. He won green despite having been impeded in one finish, unfairly penalised in another and two sets of point deductions for coming in after the elimination time in the mountains. Yet he won 5 stages, challenged for several others losing by the slightest of margins and still finishing 62 points clear of his nearest rival, all this whilst not bothering for the majority of the intermediate sprint points due to the new system limiting their value. Mark truly is an all time great rider, it's no surprise he is dating model Peta Todd (23 from Essex of Top Gear fame).

Space race

Currently I am locked in a race to build a spaceship before Hiawatha the Iroquois chief nukes me. I have no aluminium or uranium with which I can build units to protect myself. I fear all is lost. I also feel like nobody but me cares about this, or that I have felt genuine grievance for every denunciation and declaration of war put against me by the AI, or that despite my best efforts my citizens seem to love being unhappy. I'm not even on the hardest setting. Shocking.

Indeed it would appear I'm addicted to Civilisation 5, have spent a very long time playing it now, steam might even be able to tell me (if i could pluck up the courage to save and quit) since I bought it, I may have tried before I bought but that's a whole other kettle of discussion. I find it difficult to believe that I can become quite so addicted to such immaterial things so easily yet time and time again I go through 'phases' to which I may as well be nailed to the subject.

These things drive me to staying up till ungodly hours of the night and generally dropping into unhealthy lifestyles, but then, I reflect on how bad it is for me but I have to remind myself, this is home and what else is there do to.