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You are Dream! Many people see you as living in
your own little world. Though you would never
try to harm someone needlessly, you are not
always aware of the consequences of your
actions.
Which Sandman Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Feb. 26th, 2006
You are Dream! Many people see you as living in
your own little world. Though you would never
try to harm someone needlessly, you are not
always aware of the consequences of your
actions.
Which Sandman Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Who's Afraid of the Fourth Man?
Feb. 26th, 2006 08:45 pmThis isn't what I was expecting to be blogging about tonight. I expected to be talking about my Caledonian odyssey this weekend (Drumna-fucking-drochit?) or the kicking we gave the Bastard English or possibly the Guardian giving page one space to a racist and religious diatribe from one of our greatest living postcard illustrators, and probably I will, but I read yesterday's Guardian Review over dinner, and something caught my eye.
In the Guardian Book club column, John Banville writes entertainlingly about his decision to write a novel based on Antony Blunt. At one point he writes:
"Like so many of my generation I have been, and indeed, still am, fascinated by the Cambridge spies."
And I stopped, and crinkled up my brow. I'm not fascinated by the Cambridge spies. I'm not vaguely interested by the Cambridge spies. I don't, if truth be told, really give a shit about the Cambridge spies. Nobody I know gives a shit about the Cambridge spies, and nobody I've ever spoken to seems to give a shit either. I've always thought I was immune from the Oxbridge chip on my shoulder. I didn't go there, nobody else I know did either, and it never seemed even an option to worry about from my point of view. But I do wonder that somone could say that "So many of his generation" did care. I tend to regard myself as pretty mundane, in that my interests and fascinations are pretty reflective of everyone else's, but I seem to have a blind spot here.
So, knowing that some of my F's out there did go to Oxbridge, is anyone out there fascinated by this? Am I in this particular way less than mundane? Or is it an example of the lensing affect caused by so many of our opinion formers coming from such a closeted background?
In the Guardian Book club column, John Banville writes entertainlingly about his decision to write a novel based on Antony Blunt. At one point he writes:
"Like so many of my generation I have been, and indeed, still am, fascinated by the Cambridge spies."
And I stopped, and crinkled up my brow. I'm not fascinated by the Cambridge spies. I'm not vaguely interested by the Cambridge spies. I don't, if truth be told, really give a shit about the Cambridge spies. Nobody I know gives a shit about the Cambridge spies, and nobody I've ever spoken to seems to give a shit either. I've always thought I was immune from the Oxbridge chip on my shoulder. I didn't go there, nobody else I know did either, and it never seemed even an option to worry about from my point of view. But I do wonder that somone could say that "So many of his generation" did care. I tend to regard myself as pretty mundane, in that my interests and fascinations are pretty reflective of everyone else's, but I seem to have a blind spot here.
So, knowing that some of my F's out there did go to Oxbridge, is anyone out there fascinated by this? Am I in this particular way less than mundane? Or is it an example of the lensing affect caused by so many of our opinion formers coming from such a closeted background?
Yes, yes, I know that I'm using CO2 that could be fed to wales, (or Whales, for that matter) and that it's dangerous and irresponsible, and not compatible with my status as a sensitive new man, but in the early hours of Sunday morning I drove from Oban to Kilmartin like a crazy son of a bitch with his hair on fire.
There are mitigating factors. It was late, the roads were quiet, I had a live CD of Steve Earle and the Dukes playing far too loudly and I'd just listened to Scotland tackling the Auld Enemy into baffled impotence... yes, this is all true. But the fact of the matter is that I was on one of what Ian Banks describes as the Great Wee Roads. I was driving a Subaru Imprezza WRX (which develops 225 bhp and will touch 60 in a smidgen over 5 seconds, and is set up as a road-legal rally car) that I know said GWR like the back of my hand, and that I drove the 30 odd miles at an average speed of around 150% of the speed limit. I'll leave it at that, since if anyone knows the road they'll know that much of it must be covered in second gear, espescially the long, lovely sweep of bends up from Bananananaoil, and that, therefore, 100 m.p.h. may have been breached occasionally. I will admit that at one point a car pulled over into a lay by to let me overtake. And that the layby was on the other side of the road.
Silly, childish, and irresponsible, but boy did I enjoy myself. I drove around 350 miles on Saturday, from Glasgow to Alness and back to Kintyre, with 18 holes of golf and plate of soup in the middle. i went up the A9, which is dull and covered with speed traps, and I loved every bit of it. Stirling Castle looks like Edoras in the early moring, and the Cairngorms had a nice dusting of snow. I came back in the dark through the Great Glen on the A82, listening to the Rugby and whooshing through Drumnadrochit like Ichabod's cranially challenged horseman, skirted Fort William like a turbocharged bobsleigh and stopped in Oban for a fish suppper, which I ate on the North Pier watching the ferries across the bay get ready to haul out to the Western Isles. And then that less than 30 minute dash down into Kintyre with, as Steve Earle sings it, the radio blastin' and the bird dog on. I almost stopped again to stargaze in Kilmartin Glen, but I could have sworn that Orion was waving me on to the finsh.
Some nights you get a feel for what Springsteen was on about, and yes, Paddy, there may be more to life than cars and girls, but some night, some nights they'll do...
There are mitigating factors. It was late, the roads were quiet, I had a live CD of Steve Earle and the Dukes playing far too loudly and I'd just listened to Scotland tackling the Auld Enemy into baffled impotence... yes, this is all true. But the fact of the matter is that I was on one of what Ian Banks describes as the Great Wee Roads. I was driving a Subaru Imprezza WRX (which develops 225 bhp and will touch 60 in a smidgen over 5 seconds, and is set up as a road-legal rally car) that I know said GWR like the back of my hand, and that I drove the 30 odd miles at an average speed of around 150% of the speed limit. I'll leave it at that, since if anyone knows the road they'll know that much of it must be covered in second gear, espescially the long, lovely sweep of bends up from Bananananaoil, and that, therefore, 100 m.p.h. may have been breached occasionally. I will admit that at one point a car pulled over into a lay by to let me overtake. And that the layby was on the other side of the road.
Silly, childish, and irresponsible, but boy did I enjoy myself. I drove around 350 miles on Saturday, from Glasgow to Alness and back to Kintyre, with 18 holes of golf and plate of soup in the middle. i went up the A9, which is dull and covered with speed traps, and I loved every bit of it. Stirling Castle looks like Edoras in the early moring, and the Cairngorms had a nice dusting of snow. I came back in the dark through the Great Glen on the A82, listening to the Rugby and whooshing through Drumnadrochit like Ichabod's cranially challenged horseman, skirted Fort William like a turbocharged bobsleigh and stopped in Oban for a fish suppper, which I ate on the North Pier watching the ferries across the bay get ready to haul out to the Western Isles. And then that less than 30 minute dash down into Kintyre with, as Steve Earle sings it, the radio blastin' and the bird dog on. I almost stopped again to stargaze in Kilmartin Glen, but I could have sworn that Orion was waving me on to the finsh.
Some nights you get a feel for what Springsteen was on about, and yes, Paddy, there may be more to life than cars and girls, but some night, some nights they'll do...
Scotland beat England at rugby yesterday. They beat a heavier, technically more accomplished side by confronting them with spirit, hunger to win and the absolute refusal to break, even when bent so far back they could have seen their own heels.
I couldn't actually watch the game, but I listened on extremely crackly medium-wave between Invergordon and Drumnadrochit and, to be honest, I listened with a lump in my throat. Our line outs were terrible, our scrums just about adequate, and we didn't score a try, but that didn't matter. England came to play to their strengths, and when they couldn't batter or bully their way through they became baffled and, I would have to say, they went down to defeat tamely.
The English coach said that they would have to go home and do some thinking. The Corries couldn't have put it better.
Oh, and Chickenfeet, you owe me a dollar...
I couldn't actually watch the game, but I listened on extremely crackly medium-wave between Invergordon and Drumnadrochit and, to be honest, I listened with a lump in my throat. Our line outs were terrible, our scrums just about adequate, and we didn't score a try, but that didn't matter. England came to play to their strengths, and when they couldn't batter or bully their way through they became baffled and, I would have to say, they went down to defeat tamely.
The English coach said that they would have to go home and do some thinking. The Corries couldn't have put it better.
Oh, and Chickenfeet, you owe me a dollar...