Notebook 48 Pg 173

notes

• 'Wonderfully divisive' Head of Entertainment C4
• 'Great to have something that polarises people so much' Head of Entertainment C4
• 'You know I live in hope that one day we can have a conversation that actually makes sense' Dr Watson to Sherlock Holmes
• Pigbristles
• 'Most people who'd rather die than think do so. Bertrand Russell
• Airheaded impressionables

commentary

'Wonderfully divisive' - Head of Entertainment C4
Alas he was saying this with no sense of irony.

'Great to have something that polarises people so much'  - Head of Entertainment C4
As above, and you can see his point; the world is after all in such desperate, desperate need of more polarisation.


'You know I live in hope that one day we can have a conversation that actually makes sense'
Dr Watson to Sherlock Holmes
I think I had almost forgotten how laced through with dry humour the whole of the Holmes cannon is.

Pig bristles
No idea, though probably best not to come round to my place for dinner if I offer to cook you my pork surprise.

'Most people who'd rather die than think, do so'. Bertrand Russell
I know I have probably written this quote out at least a dozen times in dozens of books and think I will continue to do so until I die.

Airheaded impressionables 
Just a nice phrase that ecapsulate those who allow others to do their thinking for them.

Notebook 48 Pg 139

Notes

• Who put the overalls in Mrs Murphy's chowder Captain English
• 40 arrows into the audience
• I'm playing Henry V and it's a pity I didn't perish at Agincourt
• Aburning
• Success: The bitch goddess whose smile hides a taste for blood - Hedda Hopper

Comments

"Who put the overalls in Mrs Murphy's chowder? Captain English
Right well where do I begin? My Mum is Mrs Murphy and her maiden name was Josephine English, but these facts only really serve to muddy the waters as to why I would possibly write about chowder and overalls. And then I found this...

WHO THREW THE OVERALLS IN MRS. MURPHY'S CHOWDER?

Mrs. Murphy gave a party just about a week a-go,
Everything was plentiful the Murphy's they're not slow,
They treated us like gentlemen we tried to act the same,
And only for what happened well it was an awful shame.

Chorus
Who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder?
Nobody spoke so we shouted all the louder,
It's an Irish trick that's true,
But we'll lick the "mick" that threw
The overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder.

When she dished the chowder out she fainted on the spot.
She found a pair of overalls at the bottom of the pot.
Tim Nolan, he got rippin' mad. His eyes were bulging out.
He stood upon the piano and loudly he did shout.

...it goes on in similar shades of Shamrock for another couple of verses. I am just glad that I'm not going as completely mad as I thought. I'm guessing this was somehow related to my reading about Orson Welles' trip around Ireland in a donkey and cart on his own when he was just 15.

40 arrows into the audience
What happened during Orson's first production of Henry V in New York where his taste for the truly theatrical led to the entire audience coming under fire.

I'm playing Henry V and it's a pity I didn't perish at Agincourt
A great line from the lead actor in the above performance which pretty much sums up the stresses and strains of working with Welles. Also of note is the fact that that actor was Burgess Meredith  known mostly today not for his Shakesperian eloquence but for being Rocky's Trainer and The Penguin in the 60's TV version of Batman. 

Aburning
I think this was just a word I thought worth remembering, possibly for use in some wet, musty doggerel dogged poetry I was devising.

Success: The bitch goddess whose smile hides a taste for blood - Hedda Hopper
Oh now this is a very good line. So much so that I am tempted to give it the so very now credence of reducing it to a tweet.

Notebook 48 Pg 05

16:04 Notes from the worlds smallest, oldest, stuffiest bar and I'm in it which probably says far more about me than this place, which you'd have to remake out of tweed and pomp to get any more stuffy.

16:08 A sonorous silence- like a broken church bell, a pub where the tick of the clock is louder then the slurp of the beer.

16:09 Amazing, this must be where coffins go to die.

16:10 I feel lost without my powdered wig. Perhaps Mrs Miggins will drop by with some pies.

16:11 I have decided to forge a coalition with Charles Fox and trample those accurs'd Whigs once and for all.

16:12 Charles Dickens spills a pint of porter over Mrs Pintspill, we decide to wait 50 years for the invention of post-modern irony before we laugh.

16:13 Press charges against urchin who stole my silk 'kerchief'. He is to be hung at Tyburn on the morrow.

16:14 Pray for gout.

16:16 Decide to keep this diary - like Pepys who left the pub 5 minutes ago.

16:17 Remind self to learn difference between tipping the barmaid and tupping the barmaid, could be important.

16:18 Learn that the barman is Polish - he probably fought for King Leopald the Badly Named at the battle of Litsterineguard and received a ha'penny pension for each of his lost limbs.

16:19 Broke second best quill.

16:20 Leave, am praying not to meet footpad on way back to my farm in Islington fields.

Notebook 48 Pg 49

Proof I can not draw for toffee

notes

• Average length scroll = twenty/ thirty feet eight nine inches wide
• Pigeon holes
• Label = titulus
• Papyrus bubulos biblos bible
• Paper, parchment, pergamena, potsherd
  
• Ostrakon = ostracised
• Omni tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci = He carries all the point who blends utility and beuty - Horace

commentary

Average length scroll = twenty/ thirty feet, eight nine inches wide
I just like the fact that we don't see these long cumbersome rolls when they have them on TV or films what they want to read is always contained in the first six inches and not right down the unrolled bit

Pigeon holes
Were invented to hold scrolls

Label = titulus
Scrolls had labels attached which is where we get the word 'Title' for documents

Papyrus bubulos biblos bible
Evolution of the word bible

Paper parchment pegamena potsherd
Backwards evolution of the word paper

Ostrakon = ostracised
 Ostrakon = a bit of pottery with writing on and were used to have ballots  and thus were a way of voting some one to be banished hence ostracised

Omni tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci = He carries all the point who blends utility and beuty - Horace
I am glad I have found this and I may well be using it very soon

Notebook 49 Pg 39

notes

• Universal bookmakers
• 'We are the only things in the known Universe that can predict (dictate)
• What have you got a chiwowa (sic) in your pants about / for?
• Needle in a smack house
• Angels casting off the physical
• When we dream we go back to University
• Paradise Lost Found Regained

comments

Universal bookmakers
Considering the inside of even the most local bookmaker remains a complete and utter mystery to me I can't quite figure out why I would be calling for a Universal one. I think this my have been a (weak) riff on International Peacekeepers / Book keepers / Bee keepers etc.

'We are the only things in the known Universe that can predict (dictate)
I have a suspicion that I thought up the 'we are the only things in the known Universe' bit first and then tried to find stuff  like predict/dictate to fit at the end of the sentence, which is not really how you do aphorisms that will ever be quoted by anyone other than yourself

What have you got a chiwowa (sic) in your pants about / for
Okay so that was a piss poor attempt at spelling Chihuahua, but even so would you want one of these in your pants? Thought not. For once my creativeness stands correct.

Needle in a smack house
Like looking for a needle in a smack housee -I quite like this in a gritty urban, a bit smarty-arsey way.

Angels casting off the physical
I'm very glad I have managed to get over that  poor attention span thing where I couldn't even get  to  the end of a sen

When we dream we go back to University
I never even went to University so what happens when I dream?  Actually I think I know what I am going on about here as it probably relates to my one and only profoundly life changing dream. Alas that will have to wait for another time, but I do come back and link to it here I promise.

Paradise, Lost, Found Regained
Maybe I decided to rewrite the works of Milton the great poet with his amazing lyrical contemplation upon the whole spectrum of belief, life, death, sin, love, redemption and beauty into txtspk:

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

O' Mns 1st dsobdnce + d'frut
o dat 4bidn tre whos mrtl tste
br0 def in2 d wrld + all r wo
Wiv los o' Edn 'til 1 gr8tr Mn

Right now I am vacillating between genuine enjoyment and considering going to commit seppuku

Notebook 49 Pg 23

notes

• Animals Broti - little brothers, siblings
• AI to Actuality
• Our image of something
• Hybrid of images, impressions, thoughts is to us the reality, Image of Soho at night
• Weren't ready until discovered, Quantum Knowledge
• (Prob)
• Eyeball - spectrum
• Infinite knowledge means

commentary


Animals - little brothers, siblings
Of course obviously here I am referring to... who am I kidding? I have no idea and would love to know what a 'Broti' was or is, if only so I can warn my little brother and siblings.

AI to Actuality
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence which, as someone much wiser than me pointed out, we should be banned from talking about until as a species we start to show some signs of actual intelligence. Hang on! That's probably what I was trying to say here. Result!

Our image of something
After the success of above a fairly jarring return to vapidity as 'our image of something' has to be a contender for Harvey Smith to flick V signs upon in the next vague of the year show

Hybrid of images, impressions, thoughts is to us the reality, Image of Soho at night
Honestly beyond bland truisms I may as well have just typed  Pugh Pugh... for all the sense this makes.

Weren't ready until discovered, Quantum Knowledge
Again, I can write this stuff until the cows come home but as for what in actuality it means I don't know

(Prob)
?

Eyeball - spectrum
??

Infinite knowledge means
What a flummoxinlg failtastic way to end a flipping sentence.

Notebook 49 Pg 51

notes

• Baby Drops
• Slightly wounded Penguins
• The Good News is broken
• Parachute in, Airlift Out, Bungee
• Go in drop off money, go out again
• Career for Diane's
• Chain - lowest demon
• I'm his social worker
• Why are people never late for their quests or why no simple quests?

commentary
Baby Drops
Some kind of sweet/ candy perhaps?  Not sweets/ candy made from babies surely? Way too dark. 

Slightly wounded Penguin
If (and its a multi storey if) the above entry is related to confectionery then maybe I was referring to a broken one of these. 

The good news is broken
Okay, well I remember this as it is a phrase uttered by the Frenchiest woman I have ever worked with it was her unique and still somehow very elegant way of saying she had some bad news

Parachute in, airlift out, bungee
Known in the SAS as the Hokey Cokey Manoeuvre 

Go in, drop off money, go out again
I'm getting worried that in the past I may have been involved in some kind of international biscuit heist and have been brain washed to forget all about it

Career for Dianes
Perhaps I was trying to figure out what Dianes my glamorous (French?) accomplice would do after the heist.

Chain - lowest demon
The heist hypothesis comes undone here  unless we were daringly planning to do over the Devil's gaff.

I'm his social worker
This seems strangely non-sequiterish even for me - Unless I was attempting to smuggle my other (younger, don't really care if he's French or not) accomplice out of Hell after he failed to carry out my expressly written orders to chain the lowest demons 

Why are people never late for their quest? 
Ignores the small but vital fact that they very often are late as it all adds to the dramatic tension, not too late but often just in the nick of time late.

Notebook 49 Pg 41

Ink. black = serious, red = angry, blue = informal, green = mad, pink = mugged a school girl

Notes

• Drug, alcohol, meditation free up thoughts
• Riong Right / wrong
• Politics / History: Blendment as opposed to movement. Movement implies change
• Blendment implies incorporated fusion
• Turning Opposites to Proposites

           Black            White

            opposites

             <--- --->

                ---> <---

              proposite

comments

Drug, alcohol, meditation free up thoughts
This can be true, more so when one is younger and thus more (fool) hardy in these things. This page also proves that a mind of freed up thought is not always a good thing at all. One man's free thought being anothers waffley boring poison.

Riong Right / wrong
Here we go again with my minds seeming determination to treat language like my very own lexicographic Play-Do'h.

Politics / History: Blendment as opposed to movement. Movement implies change
I think I can be a bit of a cheasel (a charming weasel) when it comes to my presticogineologisticism (a made up word to describe someone with a tendency to make up words) as this on the surface could just appear to make sense but starts to collapse under any kind of scrutiny.

Blendment implies incorporated fusion
Now I just sound like something from a glossy brochure you would read whilst waiting in the foyer of a large serious place.

Turning Opposites to Proposites

Great.  If only I had some kind of diagram to explain what the heck a proposite was supposed to be.

 

           Black            White

            opposites

             <--- --->

                ---> <---

              proposite

I was wrong, this does not help at all

Notebook 49 Pg 52

notes

• Mass intimacy
• Sane Nation Experience
• Biosymbosis
• Quantology
• Emotional incontinence
• Simplexity
• Truety/ Beuth
• Bit unfurnished
• Relightenment
• Practopia

commentary

Mass intimacy
Okay, something I do know is that this is a very early notebook, proven by my determination to paradox myself into a round corner. I don't know quite what I was aiming for with mass intimacy other than a show of smart-arsedness. 

Sane Nation Experience
No idea, maybe they are playing Glastonbury this year.

Biosymbiosis
Sounds like it could be a scientific term for shagging.

Quantology
No idea - though I wrote this in the mid 90's prior to the large scale adoption of the Internet so I was
intrigued when a bit of web surfing turned up this. A site which anyone familiar with my staunch commitment to Occam's Razor will know I wouldn't go near with a ten foot magical barge pole made of Unicorns

Emotional incontinence
I would now reserve using this for those who express seemingly ersatz emotions to events or individuals they can not possible have anything other than basic human empathy for. This git is a prime example.

Simplexity
This is a far better explanation of simplexity than I can ever come up with.

Truety / beuth
Here is me trying (and failing with gusto) to solve in one just word the  Truth / Beauty conundrum that has preoccupied Humanity's finest minds for over three thousand years.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." John Keats -Final lines of Ode to a Grecian Urn

Bit unfurnished
Maybe I was referring about my own mind.

Relightenment
This is an ever so post modern riff on the enlightenment and could be another name for what the era preceding Humanichs may be called.
 
Practopia
Practical Utopia - an attempt to get round the Bertrand Russell observation that 'many is the man who would build a Utopia that they them self could not live within. This was another spur for what eventually has become Humanichs

Notebook 39 Pg 79

notes

• Velcro morality
• Warning - house never unoccupied, large owner within
• Breath of Prince's
• The Great Elder
• I'm having it monogrammed
• Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing
• Santa Claus - Kids hold the spirit of Xmas in their hearts
• Yakkety Yak
• Kill to make a point

notes

Velcro morality
 I'm guessing this is a comment on moral guidelines that appear more convenient then deeply thought out. Perhaps an observation on how morals can easily be stuck to what ever and where ever we need them to be. All in all I think it is a rich, sugar coated, easily digested metaphor that quickly goes soggy when dipped in a hot cup of analysis.

Warning! House never unoccupied, large owner within
Either I saw this sign or thought this sign would be good to see. 

Breath of Prince's
No idea why I wrote this. Could be the name of some kind of flower? Or some type of majestic experience . Alas when I think upon it now I can only think of this, the breath of which I'm sure would not be a particularly majestic experience.

The Great Elder
Nope, again no idea what this relates to. I guess I was scroodling a lot on this page.

I'm having it monogrammed
I'm guessing this is a line from Frasier and was no doubt used in relation to something that usually remains distinctly un-monagrammed - as it is 7:30am I can only think of 'ransom notes' as an example.

Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing
Uncle Bob kept stressing upon us that belief is the death of intelligence. Belief is based on faith and faith means taking things as true without any supporting evidence, thus when you believe you stop thinking - stopping thinking means the brain ceases to process new signals and information. In medicine a brain that no longer takes in new signals is diagnosed as dead.
At least this is what I think I meant. Maybe I was just typing nonsense

Santa Claus - Kids hold the spirit of Xmas in their hearts
This may sounds uber extra schmaltzy but it made a lot of sense and goes some way to explaining the USA's mega fondness for the Holiday Season.

Yakkety Yak
I do do this, sorry.

Kill to make a point
Don't do this, please.

Notebook 48 Pg 21

notes

• Gently dementing
• Petrol and food goes up, shirts and TV 's go down - 
• Africa per capita fallen by 10%
• 2 billion mired in poverty - Robert Wade LSE
• 60% of worlds growth went to top 10%
• "you should have thought of that before your were born poor"
• Humanich theory; aims towards an incorruptable structure immune from the individual will to abuse power and self regulating against tyranny
• Self limit our own power outlet

comment

Gently dementing
A phrase that would be nice were it be a fair description of the process of senility but is not applicable in all but a very few cases.

Petrol and food goes up, shirts and TV 's go down
I think I can infer form the subject matter that I was reading/ watching/ listening (I think I am going to replace all these words with 'absorbing' to save time) a report on  global economics and the reporter was highlighting the ridiculousness of the unfettered free market system where everyday essentials continued to rise in price whilst the cost of non essential items and luxury goods plummeted.

Africa per capita fallen by 10%
As above


2 billion mired in poverty - Robert Wade LSE
Ah here you go it, was this guy Robert Wade formerly of the IMF and a Development Scholar I sincerely think he know of which he speaks. 

60% of worlds growth went to top richest 10%
As above. That is a shocking statistic not matter what way you look at it.

"you should have thought of that before your were born poor"
I believe it was him who used this brilliant phrase to sum up the attitude of many who would prefer to see it as Africa's own fault.

Humanich theory; aims towards an uncorruptable structure immune from the individual will to abuse power and self regulating against tyranny
My response to above as a potential remedy.

Self-limit our own power outlet
Probably what every one of us would probably need to do as individuals, curb our own desires to have make and be more an channel it into the group.

Notebook 05 Pg 70

notes

• 08 Summer of Hate
• Midnight in the Hoegarrden of good and evil
• Village Camden where even the dregs pass you by
• Kathy Burkian woman laughing heartily at the man chav blokes story and his wild gesticulating with cries of 'so I fucked the geezer over like!'
• Story of a group of human beings who with no prior knowledge or experience came(led) together
• Club eventually
• "...I don't know what to ask you and you don't know what to say." Marcus

notes

08 Summer of Hate
A reference  to a job I was working on which I can guarantee was without a soupcon of a slither of an iota of a doubt the singular most balls-upped, clown operated, totally bollixed catastrophe in Western European history and believe me I have seen (and caused) a few in my time. One day when the little pot of seething in my mind stops bubbling I will write all about this 'When Kafaka met Fawlty' period of employment, for now I will just say that it involved mass media attention, huge public clamour, direct highest Government intervention, and me having to spend weekends in Watford to stop it

Midnight in the Hoegaarden of good and evil
This was written whilst trying to cope with the above nightmare by spending elongated periods  in highly insalubrious late night drinking holes consuming very heady wheat beer as a coping strategy.
You already know it's a riff-pun on this right?

Village Camden where even the dregs pass you by
I have alas a well informed observers view of the bleak creatures of the late night who stagger and stumble, swagger and mumble through the quaff troughs of my native town.

Kathy Burke-ian woman laughing heartily at the man chav blokes story and his wild gesticulating with cries of 'so I fucked the geezer over like'
A Prosciutto thin slice of salty red meat life in late night Camden. The Kathy Burke reference was to her character  Linda Hughes and that Kathy herself is a local girl.

Story of a group of human beings who with no prior knowledge or experience came(led) together
This was in regards to the hard pressed people I was working with on the above nightmare job. I am pretty sure I meant to leave it at 'came together' and that Camel was me trying to shoe horn (hoof, toe) in a 'the straw that broke the camels back' or 'having the hump' or some such.

Club Eventually
I think this was a nickname we gave to ourselves as our only crumb of consolation was that the whole situation would end 'eventually'

'I don't know what to ask you and you don't know what to say'
Just a fantastic line I heard the unique, brilliant and much larger than life Marcus Massey who was also working on the nightmare job, say to an utterly flummoxed customer

Notebook 00 Pg 10 Part 5

Notebook 00 Pg 10 Part 4

Notebook 00 Pg 10 Part 3

Notebook 00 Pg 10 Part 2

Notebook 00 Pg 10 Part 1

Notebook 16 Pg 135

So many words so little sense

Here is an audio reading and commentary of the above pages 

Notebook 23 Pg 05

Thought I would try something a bit different

Notebook 20 Pg 77

notes

• Inertia Man and Hermit Boy
• Sub quarks are Dom memes
• Have a drink it makes you different
• Your mind is the modem for accessing the web of life

commentary

Inertia Man and Hermit Boy

I remember having a discussion with friends to try and come up with un-super heroes and these two came out as our un-dynamic duo.


Sub quarks are Dom memes
Obviously here I have simply blended sexuality, Quantum physics and theories of the evolutionary transmission of cultural ideas.  As you do.

The following (taken from Wiki) may be of interest to both my regular readers as to the etymology of quarks as quoted by the Physicist Murray Gell Mann

"In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been "kwork". Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark". Since "quark" (meaning, for one thing, the cry of the gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with "Mark", as well as "bark" and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as "kwork". But the book represents the dream of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the "portmanteau" words in "Through the Looking-Glass". From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry "Three quarks for Muster Mark" might be "Three quarts for Mister Mark", in which case the pronunciation "kwork" would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature."

I have always found it very curious that Finnegans Wake, very probably the very first truly post-modern book should be so entangled with the Quantum world. Both have been responsible for showing that we do not live in a binary Universe; both prove our choices are far more than  yes/no, either/or and that there are many ways of looking at something, that there exists no one definitive answer only stronger or weaker degrees of probability. 
They both demolish certainty which appears to be something that so many of the world's ills are all about: 'There IS a God, There IS NOT a god. This IS the best way. Abortion IS wrong.
Certainty is certainly something most people are petrified of loosing.

Have a drink it makes you different
As a man with a long and complex relationship with alcohol (we split up for good a whilst ago  moderately amicably considering) I do think this provides a key to how it works, it does indeed change your mind-frame.

Your mind is the modem for accessing the web of life
Sometimes, not too often, but sometimes, I quite like my metaphors. This is one of them. Alas most modems are now located inside computers so less and less people know what one is.  In'it always the way?

Notebook 04 Pg 10

notes

• "He was thirteen of the most interesting men I ever met" 
• illegible scribble  since pantyhose
• Make the impossible seem possible = politics
• Human license
• Gays, guns and God
• All hat and no cattle
• 'Fanny patting' = photo opportunities with influential people

commentary

"He was thirteen of the most interesting men I ever met"  
This was said about Lyndon Johnson and makes for a brilliant back-handed compliment.

illegible scribble  since pantyhose
I have tried to decipher the illegible scribble bit alas to no avail, so I'm afraid we shall never know what it was that was whatever it was since pantyhose.

Make the impossible seem possible = politics
A pragmatists view.

Human license
I think this was written whilst under one of my more despairing clouds. I still think it may have merit and that humans should have to earn the right to call themselves such, I can think of no system other then outdated hereditary monarchy where one gets automatic privileges simply on account of being born. I guess it is just a fairly extreme form of with rights come responsibilities. Or maybe I am moving from a young man sowing wild oats to an old man growing sage.

Gays, guns and God
I think this was the first time I had heard about the three G's and how opinions and beliefs about them play such a  pivotal American  politics.

All hat and no cattle
Back to Lyndon Johnson only this was a quote he would use about other people, I think the English equivalent would be 'they talk a good game'.

'Fanny patting' = photo opportunities with influential people
This was another of Lyndon Johnson's phrase, obviously fanny is relating to the American use of the word not the British, though judging by the sheer shameless obsequiousness on display at these events I'm not so sure.

Notebook 09 Pg 75

notes

• Metis - Cunning intelligence
• U-lixes  u-lixez
• Penny Spenda
• Stephen + Milly
• Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes
• Fair go for the workers
• Mindless free markets
• Codex Humanicha
• Jimminy Beckett

commentary

Metis - Cunning intelligence
Poor old, wholly overlooked  Metis.  Written completely out of myth-tory she was Zeus's chief counsellor, the one who advised him on how to defeat the Titans. Jealous of her power he rewarded her by swallowing her whole. Nice.

U-lixes  u-lixez
I am a rogue and peasant knave. I remember with shame that this was an idea I had for modernising the Iliad and thus the name Ulysses. What was I thinking?

Penny Spenda
I am guessing this was due to be an updated rendering of Penelope. The original was so, so much better!


Stephen + Milly
For reasons best known (and now entirely forgotten) I have jotted the names of the two children of Leopold Bloom the hero of James Joyce's Ulysses.

Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes
Obviously when I wrote this I was on a complete James Joyce fest as this is the epigraph to his book 'Portrait of the artist as a young man'. The quote is originally from Ovid's Metamorphoses and translates as "And he sets his mind to unknown arts" (in Ovid the line it continues) "and changes the laws of nature."

Fair go for the workers
An Australian expression which I once heard Clive James use as being the best summation of his own politics and thought it a fair explanation of my own.

Mindless free markets
As above, this was his expression for why unfettered Capitalism does not work as the market itself  has no sense of rationality, justice or compassion.

Codex Humanicha
Here I am with no sense of shame or modesty idly jotting down names for what my works will be titled in the future.

Jimminy Beckett
I remember that here I combined him  with him  to create the idea of Disney meeting disillusion.
Jimminy went on to author the play Waiting for Pluto. By the way the original character in the Pinocchio books got unexpectedly crushed and killed by a mallet in the first chapter, which is very Beckett.

Notebook 14 Pg 122

Notes

• "Very confusing fact situation" Kosovo, Sandyberger
• "Accidental deployment of forces"
• When you talk of the people or the masses or the community you are talking about me
• That's evolvulution
• No disinterested outsider ever personally gives you valediction of your worth
• Ontological guerrillas Wilson & Pratchett
• Biggin Hill helicopters

commentary


"Very confusing fact situation"
I believe this was a phrase I heard used by Sandy Berger in an interview he gave  relating to his time as United States Security Advisor to Bill Clinton during the Kosovo conflict. It does seem to be bit of a weasel phrase that could very well be a euphemism for lying-lying-pants-on-fireing. 

"Accidental deployment of forces"
Another phrase from the same interview. Sandy Berger was later convicted of stealing classified documents relating to 9/11 from the National Archives. He smuggled them out by stuffing them down his pants which, had they been on fire would have destroyed the evidence.

When you talk of the people or the masses or the community you are talking about me
Just pointing out that 'people' mostly talk about 'the people' or 'the community' as if it were a single entity with one point of view, and not the amorphous, contradictory ball of opinions we all know it to be because we are it.

That's evolvulution
When evoution meets revolution you get this one simple to make broad brush neologism that manages to define nothing.

No disinterested outsider ever personally gives you valediction of your worth
A phrase specificaly designed to give you mild anxiety and confusion. 
Please don't bother trying to figure it out, I can't and I wrote it.

Ontological guerillas - Wilson & Pratchett
This is what I want to be when I am a grown up like Sir Terry and Uncle Bob
Here is a tool favoured by ontological guerillas

Warning! Any jokes using the word 'Cannon' will result in your exile from this site

Biggin Hill helicopters
They do indeed have helicopters at Biggin Hill, why I felt it necessary to remark upon this remains a mystery. Though I do recall that it is mentioned in the De Vinci code so who knows..?   

Notebook 46 Pg 10

notes

• Arch reader, Pro reader, 'reader, life reader
• Bullet ants - Elgar
• Harpe Eagle
• Wandering Spider  18 x more black widow , exceptionally aggresive 1,000 per year Brazil
• Old as Adams tree and as new as a new cut tooth
• Melissa cork factory 
• Onion Meat 
• Free fleas for all
• Trickpissers will be pairsecluded

commentary

Arch reader, Pro reader, 'reader, life reader
Other than 'this is something about reading' I have no idea what I was gabbling on about

Bullet ants - Elgar
Okay notes about the mean little Bullet ant I can understand, notes about the Elgar the great composer I can understand.  I have wracked and near ruined my brain trying to figure out what in heavens name could have made me write about the two of them in one note

Harpy Eagle
Guess this is this guy. Starting to think I was probably watching a natural history programme.

Wandering Spider.  18 x more Black widow, exceptionally aggressive. 1,000 per year Brazil.
See above - probably something with a title along the lines of 'Worlds most dangerous things that you are not going to encounter sitting on your arse watching this programme'

Old as Adams tree and as new as a new cut tooth
This is a quote from the great Orson Welles in his amazingly brilliant (unfortunately flawed by a familiar fatal famish of finance) film F for Fake - A glorious sample:

 


Melissa cork factory
I'm sure I know no one called Melissa and I know I have never been nor wanted to go to a cork factory. Who ever you may be woman from the wine bottle sealing / pin board material manufacturing plant I wish you luck

Onion meat  
The ultimate in pared down back to basic recipes? Actually probably some kind of skin/layers stripping away metaphor 

Free fleas for all
Sounds like a vote winner
  
Trickpissers will be pairsecluded
For once not my own brand of nonsense but a line for the monumental Finnegans Wake which I have been reading for over a decade and know that I will die not having unraveled all its myriad of mindmulching mysteries. Here's a rare clip of Jim reading a bit out loud:

Notebook 42 Pg 117

notes

• Even if it all goes the shape of a multitude of pears, the world changed inside The Crown and Goose - 17th March 1999
• Thousand yard glare
• Fluidity of beauty -fleetingness
• I love the world but its parental
• All urban social regeneration schemes are battlefield hospitals
• Squeak Management = does it need oiling or reduction in pressure?

commentary


Even if it all goes the shape of a multitude of pears, the world changed inside The Crown and Goose 17th March 1999
Alas whatever startlingly profound insight that occurred inside this pub on St Patrick's day has stayed there.


Thousand yard glare
A description of that look that morose people drinking alone often adopt, maybe I was looking in a mirror having just realised I had completely forgotten the world changing insight.

Fluidity of beauty -fleetingness
Perhaps the world changing thing I forgot was sublimely beautiful and thus very fleeting. I really do wish I could remember what it was now. 

I love the world but its parental
I stick by this as it allows me to be very harsh but very fair
  
All urban social regeneration schemes are battlefield hospitals
After a decade and a half later of further  experience through involvement with these I still hold this to be true. In fact many schemes in life are operated as a Battle field hospital (like M*A*S*H ) with the concentration having to be on fixing the immediate problems and not as the remote superiors often believe in tackling the long term causes

Squeak Management = does it need oiling or reduction in pressure?
A good way of managing staff which for me worked much better than the traditional shouting and cajoling.

Notebook 12 Pg 89

notes

• Destroy all files
• Governor God
• Universe as a Carnot work cycle (portions of the system responsible for turning energy into work)important bits
• Knewer
• Tight beam, regular pulse
• You replace things when they are better not newer
• One big thought experiment
• Orgasm male transition from subject to object

commentary

Destroy all files
No idea what this relates to, perhaps I was issuing orders to my imaginary minions as another of my world domination plots was about to go tits up

Governor God
I think this relates to my concept that if God does exists then he / she is probably a bit like any other governor of an organisation and doesn't necessarily want to get emails /prayers for every single thing like the water cooler needing a new large plastic six gallon container that goes 'burlurrrp'

Universe as a Carnot work cycle (portions of the system responsible for turning energy into work)important bits
 I was thinking of this not this - though actually either would do.


Knewer
Your daily neologism, written as usual with neither context nor inference as to application.

Tight beam, regular pulse
hmm maybe something to do with synthetic aperture radar which can produce amazing images such as this one of Venus whose colours just happen to compliments my blog

You replace things when they are better not newer 
Alas most of us Humans now do exactly the opposite


One big thought experiment
I think I may have been thinking (I know I shouldn't) that maybe the entire Universe was one big one of these, to be honest occasionally I still do.

Orgasm male transition from subject to object 
Sounds like something my dear old Grammar would be shocked to hear me talking about.
Sorry but I have nor real idea what I was trying to say here.


.

Notebook 23 Pg 62

The notes

• Blowhole to the state of ignorance
• Keep repeating 'i know nothing' Why? Because I am in a state of ignorance
• Authors the dollies soldiers and dresssing up box in your head
• Arts for unition: Socrates, de Vinci defenders of their state
• Happy Montage
• Either a little man that thinks he's something, or a little something that thinks he's a man
• Blame it ALL on me; Get Into Heaven Free Card

The comments

Blowhole to the state of ignorance
Another bit of food for thought that has been left in my minds larder well beyond its use by date

Keep repeating 'i know nothing' Why? Because I am in a state of ignorance
I still maintain that the very best definition of wisdom is to acknowledge your own ignorance so I guess was probably doing a bit of mental self-flagellating here.

Authors = the dollies, soldiers and dressing up box in your head
Observe the seething jealousy dressing itself up as pseudo-trenchant observation.

Arts for unition: Socrates, de Vinci defenders of their state
I think I wrote this because Socrates fought in at least three wars for Athens and history often glosses over the fact that de Vinci designed the Renaissance equivalent of weapons of mass destruction. Though what exactly Arts for unition means I'm not entirely sure.

Happy Montage
...and a Fabricated Happy Ending to you! Here's hoping your special day is filled with brief vignettes of action that skip merrily over the mundane inbetweeny stuff that makes up what the rest of us call actual real life. 

Either a little man that thinks he's something, or a little something that thinks he's a man
Interesting turn of phrase, but no idea where, when or how it would be applied.

Blame it ALL on me: Get Into Heaven Free card
I have a stack of these if anyone is interested

Notebook 08 Pg 43

The notes:

• Hershey's sponsoring the Tooth fairy
• Advertising proof vest
• Greydar - for detecting boredom makers
• Allowing people to carry knives but not with a handle
• Dark glasses that flash the words 'I'm a complete prat' if worn indoors
• Harsh but fair Fortune Cookies

The comments

Hershey's sponsoring Tooth fairy
I think I was trying to dream up ideas for apposite advertising. I would like to think I could have come up with at least more than one before abandoning the project.

Advertising proof vest
I should go and invent one of these as I am sure many people would pay good money for one.

Greydar - for detecting boredom makers
I have no idea where I was going with this - except if I had one it would go off all the time as I am often guilty of boring myself.

Allowing people to carry knives but not with a handle
I think this would be a good idea - it is amazing how the prospect of slicing your own palm limits your eagerness to wield a blade

Dark glasses that flash the words 'I'm a complete prat' if worn indoors
Okay who is going to be the first to suggests sending a pair to (insert celebrity name here)?

Harsh but fair Fortune Cookies
This would be branded as 'Tough Cookies' and would say things like 'sorry you have not gained any practical insight or wisdom this time', please try again or log onto; www.ishouldnottryandsubvertthelawsoftheuniverse.com


.

Notebook 03 Pg 49

The notes

• Flight reaction in lizard brain caused by  sudden and close contact with supposed adversaries
• Mediums of the world keep a central file plural it (is) called the media
• I've got off the magic bus, I may be walking but I'm standing straight and I know the way home
• de Chardin died on Good Friday
• Not mucked it up, murked it up
• 'Here tyrant Death thy terrors end'  - Handel

The comments
Flight reaction lizard brain sudden and close contact with supposed adversaries
Your lizard brain also is scientifically known as the amygdala on which Wiki says

"The amygdala processes reactions to personal space violations, and these reactions are absent in persons in whom the amygdala is damaged bilaterally. Furthermore, the amygdala is found to be activated when people observe that others are physically close to them–such as when a person being scanned knows that an experimenter is standing immediately next to the scanner, rather than standing at a distance."

Mediums of the world keep a central file plural it (is) called the media
At first glance this appears to make some sense but unfortunately I can not quite grasp where I was going with it. I'll have to have a think whether I really meant 'shawl and ball' mediums or if I was riffing on McLuhan. Quite possibly both.

I've got off the magic bus, I may be walking but I'm standing straight and I know the way home
I just hope you waved merrily out the back window at my dwindling, lost, pedestrian, pompous little self-congratulatory self.

Chardin died on Good Friday
Well actually no he didn't. He wanted to and did die on Easter Sunday, which is even more poignant.
If you do not know of whom I refer I urge further investigation.

Not mucked it up, murked it up
Often a more accurate explanation of what someone, or some group has done.

'Here tyrant Death thy terrors end' Handel
Ah, quotations from the opera Belshazzar, least anyone should ever accuse me of losing touch with the vox populi


.

Notebook 05 Pg 51

If Dan Brown slept with an Enigma Machine

The notes

• Dr Knownot
• Our independence unites us
• The collective intellectuals that combine to form the United State of Vincent would like to know
• Sunniest person
• Dresses like a homeless hair dresser
• Bill Hicks and Noam Chomsky
• Sometimes you just meet a stranger
• Bulgarian mass as if cultural conjoining
• We are as a species amophous without knowing
• Tartric scale of self
• I mean honestly V

The comments

Dr Knownot
I know not, perhaps he was the inventor of a special type of ignorance juice or 'beer' as it is now known.

Our independence unites us
I guess it does, though as it is such a useless truism I'm assuming this is yet another half-thought thought

The collective intellectuals that combine to form the United State of Vincent would like to know...
If it mitigates the pretentiousness of this statement in any way I can let you know that my arse puckers with acute embarrassment when I think that I wrote it.

Sunniest person
Nice phrase but who am I referring to?

Dresses like a homeless hair dresser

 I believe this is how I captioned this very scruffy, flamboyant picture of myself. Please note I now have a partner thus I am quite well dressed and evenly groomed

Bill Hicks and Noam Chomsky
A brace of brilliantly bracing brains, perhaps I was compiling my after-life must-meet list.

Sometimes you just meet a stranger
I can't deny this. Though maybe it was something to do with the Irish saying that a stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet.

Bulgarian mass as if cultural conjoining
I'm not sure, maybe 'mass' as in religious service and I saw, heard or read something on spiritual revival in Eastern European countries as a replacement for Communism, or I was drunk.

We are as a species amophous without knowing
Okay, I'm leaning more towards 'I was drunk.'

Tartric scale of self
Yep, drunk.

I mean honestly V
Hungover.


.