So there I was, suffering acutely from dissertation exhaustion, and then Jeremy Bentham pornolized to Jeremy “Big Cock” Bentham.
The Dialecticizer’s results bring less glee but are edifying nonetheless, especially Redneck, Swedish Chef and Hacker.
The April issue of New Woman (purchased recently while in a mood for temporary aberration) informs us all that this season’s must-have accessory is a bloke best friend (BBF). This is splendid – for once in my life, not only am I in fashion but I’m quite sure I trump most of the fashionistas because I’ve actually anticipated this trend by two years.
What’s even better, of course, is that Russ is an extremely affordable and hassle-free BBF compared to what the article posits. I don’t need to keep buying him booze or suffer through endless conversations about the footie. I enjoy numerous perks such as company on marathon walks through London, Paris and Amsterdam (he also navigates), escort services to and from clubs complete with protection from dodgy men while within (it also helps that he tends to be the best dancer in the room and carries our bottle of water most of the time), lastly, much spoilage and indulgence but also brutal honesty when needed.
My point, and I do have one, is that BBFs are great, and I’ve got one of those classic ones that’ll be worth millions in years to come. A vintage Chanel, or Vivienne Westwood, if you will. (Russ proceeds to disown Michelle as best friend and sue for libel.) So rush out and get yours if you haven’t got one, girls, and you can only steal mine if you deserve him.
Elsewhere in frivolity, my pop tart of a boyfriend is better acquainted with Gareth’s and Will’s videos than I am. This is most vexing and I think a serious clarification of our respective roles in this relationship should be undertaken, pronto.
Other areas of concern are that he treats the proper cooking of a spatchcock as a matter of import on which worlds will begin and end. This perversion, at least, is mitigated by the dreadful joke he makes later involving the replacement of the “p” in “spatch” with an “n”, which reassures me that he is indeed base and vulgar the way a Real Man should be.
Trying to home in on a dissertation topic, I slave away in my room reading Nonsense upon Stilts: Bentham, Burke and Marx on the Rights of Man (Waldron, editor), Utilitarianism and Natural Rights from Hart’s essays in jurisprudence and philosophy, and Jeremy Bentham and Representative Democracy (Rosen).
I then go down to meet John and be fodder for his dissertation (anthropology). By this time my fried brain is capable only of metaphysical gems such as “I like American prime time drama more than British, because it just looks…glossier” and “I don’t like widescreen TVs, they make all the people look misshapen”.
Juxtapositions. I can delude myself no longer. I am clearly a pleb.
An unfamiliar feeling of melancholy last night: in bed, under blankets, reading Bentham. Feeling extraordinarily drained, longing to switch the lights off and go to sleep, yet unable even to doze off between chapters the way I normally do; genuinely fascinated with this man and his thought, yet listless and distracted thinking about events of the weekend; trying to snap out of being annoyed with myself, yet unwilling to actually do so because I think I should suffer a bit more first (how very Catholic); usual reluctance to sleep when my mind is racing and won’t stop, suddenly replaced with a yearning to escape all that and think of nothing.
At one point Roads (Portishead) was playing. Thank goodness it wasn’t the version off Roseland NYC Live, which feels like Pathos walking the world. Then we’d really be in for some Dawson’s Creek moments.
You never lose the art of wasting time no matter how long you’ve been out of practice. In the euphoria that followed winning my moot on Wednesday I managed to fritter all of Thursday away in languid nothingness, although given the blood, sweat and tears I’d been putting into the moot I contend (still using courtroom language, oops) the R&R was well deserved. It will, however, be short-lived, given my currently non-existent 8000 word dissertation, vaguely on Jeremy Bentham, specific topic as yet unknown, deadline April.
All the same, yesterday began pleasantly when mum woke me up with a phone call at noon, and continued in much the same vein with a surprise meeting and girliness with Jolene, rambling conversation with Tay where Spiritualized and Madonna were liberally pissed on, final retreat to my room for solitaire (literally, I’m not just smarmily including words in foreign languages in normal sentences just for that sense of je ne s’ais quoi) and eventually, reluctantly, work.
Today has been mostly lectures, mostly dreary, with this one little sunbeam of surreality – in the computer room, this overheard conversational snippet: “My dream night out? Ronald Dworkin, sucking my dick.” This probably won’t make much sense to you unless you’re a disgruntled jurisprudence student, but it’s insanely funny if you are.
[Addendum: French spelling mistake corrected by Russ – my thanks. There is probably a flippant remark to be made here about how I’m relieved he has enough proficiency in at least one language to demonstrate its proper use (I conspicuously fail to mention English) (I also remember our trip to Paris where he explained he could go into great lengths in French about his ambitions and what he did during summer but couldn’t ask if the restaurant was still serving food), but I guess I shouldn’t make that flippant remark.] :P
I must do muted decadence more often, it’s so invigorating. After meeting with Sabrina to prepare for our moot on Wednesday and exchanging mutual affirmations of the absolute direness of our case (Suicide bomber blows up airline, killing everyone. Airline’s colour monitors for screening out bombs weren’t working. We have to say YAY AIRLINE!), lunch at Spiga with Ken was looking distinctly appealing, even if I did meet John on the way and find myself unable to debunk his “Ken is Hannibal Lecter” theory.
After lunch Berwick Street yielded Summer Hymns’ A Celebratory Arm Gesture (only 99p more expensive than the tiramisu at Spiga), the latest issue of Wire and a Sonic Youth T-shirt I’ve been trying to chase down for ages.
In Virgin, the Reckless Records plastic bag and the “Old Skool Jungle Anthems” sign above my head at the listening booth seemed to attract attention from the strangest sorts of people, so after a while I pottered off to other parts of the store to see if I could listen to Fog, The Notwist or John Zorn. I didn’t manage to find any of those, but then they played Will singing Evergreen and that made me happy.
Bookhouse on the way home yielded another copy of Cryptonomicon (for Russ), but I managed to prise Denise Levertov’s collected earlier poems, Pale Fire (Nabokov) and Elmet (Ted Hughes, Fay Godwin) out of my own clammy hands before more damage to the bank balance could be done.
Nighttime revels at my hallmate’s surprise birthday party were hardly Bacchanalian given that its highlights included getting to ruffle my priest’s hair (the one with the imaginary mammaries) and ruminating on whether eating tortilla chips deviated from my Lenten sacrifice (potato chips) due to their corn-based nature. (Another weighty dilemma: If I’ve given up Coke, what about Dr Pepper?)
But muted decadence is all I can manage right now. The moot is tomorrow, my point of law absurdly impossible to argue, and the prospect of sleep tonight absurdly impossible to contemplate.
When your priest, while doing a stint behind the hall bar, mimes the plonking of huge pendulous breasts on the bar counter and asks wot you’ll ‘ave, luv, a la East Enders, you suddenly realize that you are no longer thirsty. In fact, you may never drink again. Ever.
Forget gourmet cuisine, decadent drug-soaked clubbing extravaganzas, and entertainment crossroads of the world for a moment. London is also about:
Kangkong belachan, beef rendang, nasi goreng, teh tarik and chin chow in Camden on a quiet Thursday night, when it no longer has the indier-student-than-thou, card-carrying nonconformist feel of the weekend. If you’re a Singaporean/Southeast Asian in London, give Singapore Sling (Inverness Road, across the road from the Camden tube exit) a try for pretty damn authentic tasting stuff, though of course at several million times more than what we’d pay at home.
Trying to blend in with what seems like the entire Irish community of London converging on the Electric Ballroom for an Aslan (described on their promotional poster as “The Best Rock Band In Ireland!”, more like Bon Jovi without sexy lead singer, cowboy fixation or, like, international fame) gig, watching fifty-year-olds sway along and belt out every line, all ultimately quite endearing and actually more entertaining than what I remember of Stephen Malkmus at ULU.
Mentioning to Sabrina that while we’re spending our Friday night in moot preparation drudgery, Alec is drinking the night away at Finsbury Park, getting her reply of “Oh, I used to live in Finsbury Park. A man got stabbed outside my front door.” and then worrying a bit.
Saving, yes, saving England from totally unforecasted gale-force winds and devastating storms by not going boating with Alec in Regent’s Park, although I do confess to unjustifiably endangering everyone all the same by daring to utter “Oh, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s go for a walk.”
Anticipatory exam dread and its accompanying crabbiness seem to have arrived exceptionally early this year. I could say this is mostly because it’s my final year but must admit that it is probably also due in no small part to the strange coincidence between me deciding to give Coke up for Lent and everyone I live with suddenly deciding that Coke is their favourite drink, drinking it everywhere and leaving half-empty cans of Coke around the house.
Still, not all is glum. The early hours of this morning were spent worshipping at the altar of hallmate Michael’s colossal CD collection (which I subsequently plundered, and intend to thoroughly rape and pillage in future), then listening to some of the spoils (Mogwai: EP + 6, then Godspeed You Black Emperor!: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven) while snuggled in bed with Cryptonomicon and peach mousse. It may have been a waste of two hours I should have spent working, but at least it didn’t involve Vegas-style Solitaire, which Alec evilly introduced me to last week and which I have been weaning myself off ever since.
Also, the Ali G movie is coming out soon. A reason to live if ever one was needed.
If God has no sense of humour, you might want to keep an eye out at the Last Judgment for Alec and I trying to explain how exactly we came to be discussing the improbability of Mary allowing Jesus to go out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights without insisting he bring some sandwiches and a woolly jumper, because just think how that would make her look in front of all the other virgin mothers…
Then again, given that my site seems to inexplicably, er, pop up, with frightening regularity and apparent relevance on searches of varying levels of moral degeneracy, I might have a lot more to explain to Him than just that.
There’s also this cartoon on my room door, just below the slip of paper printed with “Where am I going? And why am I in this handbasket?”
I think the evidence is mounting up. Ulp.