My review of Spamalot at the Kings

Can be found right here on the Skinny website

Like The Greeks

I finished the first complete draft of Like The Greeks at about 7.45 AM after spending all night up working on it, and I feel, as I've had it in the works for 9 Months I should really write something here about it to commemorate the moment but to be honest I got nothing, I'm nackered, and I have an essay deadline tomorrow, so I guess the update will have to wait till after that. I will try and make it a good one :-)

If you want a life changing experience try living for a change...

I get up between eight in the morning and one in the afternoon. There's no real routine to it, and it doesn’t much matter to be to be honest because I know no matter what time I get up I won't feel human until about six or eight in the evening. Days are a waste of time. It's the night when things really start to happen for me.

Some evenings I might think that because I have no lectures the next day I can use the time to get some writing done. There's no sense in it though, because in reality without something to prompt me to get out of bed and get dressed I'm going to lie there listening to podcasts or watching videos on YouTube. Like I said, days are time to waste.

Around six, as if on cue, I start feeling a little more awake. I have some dinner. I like cooking but I never make anything elaborate since I don't have a girlfriend to impress at the moment and my flatmate is always out. Soon I'll boil the kettle, pour a nice cup of coffee and take it out back for a cigarette which I never smoke all of because I'm restless and keen to get back inside and do things. My mind is busy.

Now I'm ready to write. Well, I think I am. Actually I have about 60 emails (mostly facebook notifications) to get through first, and some of them contain video attachments that I want to watch. I work through my emails one by one while listening to the songs people have posted on groups I'm a part, partly in case there’s anything I might like to hear more of, but mostly to justify the use of time. A slight moment of nihilism permeates when I see that I've reduced my inbox to zero new emails...

...Where was I?

Oh yes. This play. I want to finish it, I just... I think it's got real potential, but actually there is something holding me back. You see there are a lot of big gaps. I have plenty of beginning, a nice amount of end, and too many bits of middle which are roughly in chronological order but resemble nothing approaching the title of narrative... I just don't know that I can piece this jigsaw together, and the thought that I'll do it wrong scares me to death. So I just read what I've got so far and make a couple of tweaks.

It seems like nothing but something inside me is changing... You see now I've got kind of hooked on fixing these little things, and I'm interested in some of that disparate dialogue I was talking about which I've come to. I rearrange it into a semblance of a conversation that could perhaps, potentially, one day, possibly be spoken by someone on a stage somewhere with some kind of credibility. And it links perfectly into the next bit - Hey! That looks pretty good! I'm proud of this!

What else can I fix?

As I go about the business of tidying things up here and there new ideas start popping into my head. They fit really nicely with what I've got so far, in fact, on one level I feel like I'm not quite smart enough to have come up with some of these little gems myself. I didn't realise the characters had the quirks I'm exploiting, but actually if you read it closely, you'll see that they're hinted at all along. They were there the whole time.

I'm enjoying myself now. I really want to make this work! I realise that if I don't like the way something turns out I can always change it, or load a backup. I'm still not sure of myself but I'm just going to let it evolve as though it were out of my hands, because, in a way, it is.

I've got to the point of ecstasy. The new ideas are so pleasing to me. They've surpassed my expectations, taking surprising turns I never could have imagined, that work in so synchronistically that I feel much like the star in a movie with no script, acting simply for my own entertainment. I'm not sure I've ever been quite so happy as when I'm being creative, but my eyes are getting tired. I'm just about ready to go to sleep, so I put the finishing touches on the paragraph I'm on, and shut down the computer. I'm certain I'll jump straight out of bed in a few short hours eager to continue exactly where I left off, so I close down the top, and switch off at the mains.

I fall into the throws of my blankets at 4am, transformed.

I get up between eight in the morning and one in the afternoon. There's no real routine to it, and it doesn’t much matter to be to be honest because I know no matter what time I get up I won't feel human until about six or eight in the evening.

the Mona Lisa

I talk to the Mona Lisa sometimes.

It's not that I'm mad or crazy or insane or anything like that, it's just...
 ...I get lonely walking through these corridors sometimes.

"We'll always have Paris" the movie says.
There's a whole world out there! Romanticised.
And here I am on my own, again. Night after night. Rinse, repeat, "Play it Again Sam."

But the Mona Lisa's always there. Smiling.
Well, almost smiling.

Why don't I speak to any other pictures? you might ask.
Well, to be honest, I just can't imagine any of the others speaking back!

What would a  Sézanne even say? "I've got a headache?"
You can't talk to a Picasso, because his mouth's in the wrong place.
And I wouldn't even try my luck with the cubists or any of that other late-modern junk.

No, No, the Mona Lisa is the only girl for me.

"Vincent," she calls softly "Vincent..."

"...Come and talk to me."

The Habit of Habituation

Schools do not habituate children to the norms of society, rather they forge out themselves the norms of society by having a formative effect on how individuals relate to authority. If their are deficiencies in our democratic and official systems it is in no small part because children are not trained with the responsibility of choosing their own authorities. If their are problems with criminality then the school system must in no small way be blamed for squandering 11-13 years on morally unproductive education.

Let's make a better start of it

Have you ever looked around
To perceive the inner scream
Buried deep within the soul of each living human being
Seems we're agitated, aggravated, jaded and frustrated
Pensive and Defensive,
Are we really so ill fated? Because...

curiously, conflict in conduct conflates to insecurity, and consequently inability to relate,

with divergence in personality effectively, subjectively the experience manifests in many miscommunications consecutively,

and subsequently the agent feels alienated and unappreciated, animosity arises - and until it is alleviated -

attempts to appeal to reason rather than ad hominem may fail,

when the only tool in the box is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

Let's make a better start of it

We'd better make a start on it,

Cos time's a precious gift to waste,

It parts from us in restless haste,

Let's make a better start of it,

We'd better make a start on in,

Each moment is a second chance,

We take for granted, or use it to advance...

The Heroes Journey

The Heroes journey is not the end of suffering.
It's not the end of heartache or stupidity or challenge.
It's the beginning of the excitement of challenge, it's the embrace of chalenge,
It's the beginning of the love of learning all you need to know to become all you want to be

It's the becomming of a self you truly love.

It's the beginning of  romantic relationship of life.

One might say, the bravery of love.

You are nothing but your possibilities are  limitless


You are both nothing and infinite