Blessed Be!

Delightfully Wicked Congratulations! You scored 53!

You are wicked, but you're not quite evil. You enjoy the finer aspects of being wicked, such as letting jerks get what they deserve; but you stop short of genuine mayhem. You are generally well meaning, but not a witch to cross- You probably identify with the much maligned Elphaba of Gregory Maquire's book or the musical.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 1% on Wickedness

Link: The What kind of Witch are you? Test written by Giluinmor on Ok Cupid

Bloody Students!

The Typical Student You are 74% a British student

Well you've stored pretty highly so you are probably living the student lifestyle as you take this test. You may be a student-like person but you're not a complete slob, you occasionally enjoy the finer things in life! Go and make yourself some baked beans with tomato sauce on toast to congratulate yourself!

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on studentness

Link: The British Student Test written by dcx84 on Ok Cupid

Northern Soul!

Northern Munkeh Congratulations! You are 69% Northern!

You're certainly a bit of a character! You are of an advanced evolutionary state and you have every right to be smug! It's clear you have a top sense of humour, the only thing you probably don't have is the swagger but your Northern and you can get away with anything mate.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on northernscores

Link: The How NORTHERN Are You Test written by tricksterisweak on Ok Cupid

Est enim nulla pars mei quæ est nulla pars Deorum!

Oh it is nice to be hung over again! Yesterday was invited to what was possibly the first celebration of the Gnostic Mass in Latin. How’s that for a historical first! Likesay I speak Latin like a native. A native Brit, that is, who has had about 2 Latin lessons in this lifetime to be precise. I would be fascinated if Frater TS could provide a few further Latin phrases such as “Oooo my head”, “more special brew please” and so on.

Ok, after yesterday’s said celebration running on OTO time (Pagan Mean Time (PMT!) plus Y where Y is a variable amount of extra time, PMT being local standard time, in our case GMT, plus X where X is a variable) we adjourned to feast and cocktail party. The coctails had names like “Baphomet” and “Blue-lidded daughter of sunset”

DON’T PANIC!

Trillian DON'T PANIC

You are cautious as often as you are bold. An enviable balance. Your world might explode every now and again, but you were pretty much done with it anyway.

This test tracked 1 variable How the score compared to the other people's: Higher than 66% on dentity

Link: donquixotic on The Hitchhiker's Guide Personality Test written by Ok Cupid

Hitch-Hiking Karma

I was listening to “Excess Baggage” on State Controlled Radio this morning. Only caught the end of a discussion about hitch-hiking. And some things sort of resonated.

One chap said that up to 2 out of 5 of his lifts had been ex soldiers, his theory of why being that ex soldiers often feel despised by mainstream society and hence feel affinity with hitch hikers. Perhaps I prefer the alternative theory that soldiers develop camaraderie and hence why not give a lift to a random stranger. Which sort of ties into my theory that hitch hiking today would probably be impossible without there being lots of ex hitch hikers about who therefore pick up hitch hikers on principal. I have had lifts from at least 2 members of Lilibet Windsor’s Armed Forces and lots from ex members. Cheers guys! More than happy to reciprocate when I get wheels. Goes without saying.

Back to ex hitch hikers. One of the chaps said that he acquired a car and a navigation system intending to pick up hitch hikers and take them to their exact destination. Alas, would you believe it, he didn’t find any, not even at the top notch hitch hiking spots where in the old days there would have usually have been a queue for a lift. I was hitch hiking back to Leeds from Groningen in the Netherlands late one night and got a lift up the M1 from a Post doctoral research wallah heading to Sheffield. He told me that he had been mad enough to hitch hike in Amerika and that now he always picked up hitch hikers but I was the first he had seen for 4 years. Other lifts have said the same.

Another source of lifts to the guests was born again Christians and Mormops. I once got a lift from a Mormop bishop. It was interesting to chat about our respective Churches and so on. Likesay, happy to chat to the Mormops about their theology in the alehouse or out on the road, but please not on Woodhouse Lane of an evening…..

As one lift said “Hitch-hiking Karma, nothing like it, it either confirms your faith in humanity or wrecks it completely”. So far, touch wood (or at least the melamine and chipboard of this computer room) it has done more of the former than latter. Not knowing who you are going to meet and when you are going to arrive and by what route is part of the Magick. Getting half way across Europe without a coach ticket is another (admittedly to Groningen and back I “cheated” and paid the ferry fare).

And that seminal classic, “The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”. It is so much more when you have hitch hiked.

I believe a friend of Merrick is reported as saying that the three topics of conversation that can keep people chatting all night are hitch-hiking, dodgy landlords and acid trips. That thesis is yet to be disproved…….. I for one could continue this blog all evening but it is time I logged off.

Happy Hitching!

The last unpleasantness (not counting the second and fourth Gulf Wars)

General Well done! You scored 76%

Sir, Yes Sir. You know your stuff and should get a medal. Its not often that people take the time to learn about what thier fathers and grandfathers went through. You did. I would'nt mind having a conversation with you about the war.

This test tracked 1 variable How the score compared to the other people's: Higher than 58% on warpoints

Link: The WW 2 Test written by Tentoes on Ok Cupid

Looks like I won’t make Praetor

Aedile Your civic knowledge: 71%

You've got most of the high points down, but you're lacking the qualifications for praetor. Do you want to be approving construction plans your whole life? Of course you don't. Do some reading and you'll be passing judgements in no time.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on civic knowledge

Link: The Ancient Roman Civics Test written by frozen0phoenix on Ok Cupid

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

I was listening to The Westminster Hour and there heard I think a Lib-Dem lord complain about the media being very Tweedledum and Tweedledee in its political reporting. Fair point. His solution though? More reporting of the Lib-Dems, aka Tweedledoo. To be honest, I don’t see how this makes a blind bit of difference. The Lib-Dems are another bunch of men in grey suits who share the basic assumptions of the other capitalist parties and hence their policies. And as a party they are notoriously unprincipled to cite Newbury as just one example. Rumour has it that someone once said that “The Tories are bastards! but at least they are honest bastards!”.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that there is a tribal dimension to politics. I have personal friends of all sorts of political persuasions (apart from the evil Nazi menace). And I am more than a little disillusioned with The People’s Party. That said, it is still needed and will do as a political home for now.

Don’t forget to VOTE GREEN on Thursday 5th of May

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze!

P... Phosphorous You scored 44 Mass, 43 Electronegativity, 51 Metal, and 10 Radioactivity!

You're high energy... really high. Unfortunately, you don't always put your energy to calm constructive use and sometimes let it all out in intense bursts. If your energy can be harnessed however, you will produce truly great things. I suggest you take up a job that runs you ragged... like opening and closing a Sodium-Potassium pump. Socially you ought to hang with a crowd that is even more social than you. If you don't, well... all those people who spontaneously combusted throughout history... you guessed it, phosphorous people who didn't have enough to occupy themselves. When picking friends make sure most of them rated high on the electronegativity scale... Chlorines, Oxygens and whatnot.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 48% on Mass You scored higher than 79% on Electroneg You scored higher than 55% on Metal You scored higher than 34% on Radioactivity

Link: The Which Chemical Element Am I Test written by effataigus on Ok Cupid

Your library or mine? ;)

Hell yeah. You scored 55 bookishness and 68 kinkiness!

You love books, you're down with the kink...you'd almost definitely have sex in the library. Find a partner, find a good spot...and go for it.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on bookishness You scored higher than 99% on kinkiness

Link: The Sex In The Library Test written by missthang8 on Ok Cupid

Tossers!

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor is all over the media, today as ’Identifying abortion as a "very key issue" for Catholics, the cardinal said the "policy supported by Mr Howard is one that we would ... commend, on the way to a full abandonment of abortion".’

Now then. There can be no beating about the bush on this issue. I am pro choice. I am a man, and, without making medical history, I cannot get pregnant. Sure, if I was a woman, and therefore able to get pregnant, then perhaps I would be I a position to take a different stance, but I probably wouldn’t. As it is, I am not, and therefore am not.

I have never quite got the understood how a racket like the Church of Rome can expected to be taken seriously when they actually oppose family planning. How anyone can oppose family planning is beyond me. Yes, it is one of my enthusiasms one young lady even called me “Condom Man”, and why not, think of me as the rubber caped crusader for planned parenthood (and please count me out, want a vasectomy man!) and against nasty infections.

We can laugh I suppose, but in the poor world (including Ireland) such teachings of the Church of Rome cause real human misery on a massive scale (perhaps not as much as the poverty which probably deprives more people of family planning than the Catholic Hierarchy).

But back to reproductive rights. Frankly, there is something obscene about an all male hierarchy pontificating about difficult decisions during pregnancy. SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU TOSSERS!

At least with the Mormops, although they have an all male hierarchy as well, at least it is one involved in the “family life” they preach, (but steer clear of reproductive rights lads). It was interesting hear a talk by a Catholic Priest about, amongst other things, the joys of an unmarried and at least nominally celibate man running classes in marriage preparation.

It is a wise man (or woman) who knows his (or her) father

Now, with a name like Eikonoklastes, you might be able to work out dialectically that I am a dyed in the wool Republican. Too right! Think I can say that without the beefeaters knocking on the door and whisking me off to the Tower of London, and a portrait of Oliver Cromwell can adorn my Republican Household there being no pic of Lilibet Windsor.

Parenthesis, Republican is a word that has diametrically opposed meanings on each side of the Atlantic Ocean. Or everywhere in the world apart from Amerika it means opposition to hereditary succession as a system of Government.

It would appear that Throne Out and Republic have called for all members of the Royal family to undergo DNA testing. Cheeky buggers! Well, if membership of the Royal Family is according to parentage, then if there are any doubts, about said parentage, then no doubt they will jump to the chance to prove that they are “entitled” to said places in the order of succession. I presume, that if it where ever to be proved that a member of said royal family was not actually descended from said royals then they would be removed from order of succession. Though I suspect if, say, someone succeeded to the throne, then it would be more or less a fiat accompli, but would make the continuation of the line a bit dubious, hmmmmm more ammo to the Republicans.

Now, I hear that that may just have happened with one branch of the greater german/european royal family (they are all ridiculously interrelated) that did indeed happen.

Credit where it is due, I suspect that there is no doubt about the heirs (Charles and Wills), though the spares could be a bit in doubt.

Alternatively though, perhaps we could just switch to matrilineal succession (starting with the present incumbent with or without favour of females), and then there would be no cheating. No need for any dna tests. Would mean that Lilibet Windsor would be ultimately succeeded by a commonor, like the rest of us, viz Peter or Zara Philips.

Might get the feminist vote, but then as King Arthur put it in Python and the Grail, you don’t vote for Kings. Or indeed Queens. Strange women lying in ponds dishing out swords is indeed no basis for a system of government, but it is what we have I suppose.

I tell you these monos are part of a cult!

I once joked with girlfriday that her catchphrase was “I tell you it’s a cult”.

I wouldn’t want to lose my mono friends but I think they know where I stand by now, viz monogamy is sort of ok between consenting couples in private if well not really. “Do what you like in bed but don’t do it in the street where it might frighten the horses!”

I was in the Old Bar at a gathering of folks from the LUU website message boards and when chatting to one chap there, he said that he believed in monogamy but was not prepared to discuss it. Absolutely fine, discussion of sex and relationships is not compulsory. But hey, isn’t it characteristic of cults that you don’t really question the cult?

Funny, but when a cult has some non orthodox sexual practice, they are condemned for it (the only examples that spring to mind being The Family and the Rajneeshis) , whereas I suspect that most cults are into monogamy (examples being Harry Krishna, The Moonies, The Mormops, The Hubbardists, Jesus Army, Opus Dei, the Jobos and we could go on an on here……..).

I tell you these monos are part of a cult! :)

Royal Tradition?

The editor of Leeds Student received a wikid text. To the effect of perhaps there is still time for Prince Charles to revive one royal tradition viz: divorced, beheaded, died………

Tripping in Saddleworth

Yesterday had a field trip to Saddleworth. It was cold even with 3 t-shirts, 2 sweatshirts and a fleece jacket.

First off, the museum, well in the keeper who opened on Saturday morning especially for us! There, I was thrilled and overjoyed to find they had a lant pot! A lant pot is a pot for taking the piss.

OK, herein a brief parenthesis about the history of taking the piss. To get lanolin out of wool soak it in an alkaline solution. Cheapest cheerfulest alkaline solution is err, well wee-wee left for a couple of days contains amongst other things ammonium hydroxide. Hence recycling of pish until relatively recently. In fact there is even a recorded case of a man selling fake pish and being fined by the beak. Somewhere in the dying trade alum was used, it was imported to England from deposits near Rome, a supply which was cut off during the reformation. So somewhere in Yorkshire it was synthesised and they needed an alkaline solution to do so. Hence, barrels of pish where shipped from the bog-houses of London up the east coast. So no doubt, captains and other matelots of said ships would meet colleagues in the alehouse and be asked what they where up to, “Oh, just taking the piss”.

Next exhibit a hand loom, from the golden age of hand loom weaving, a carding machine and the spinning mules which put hand loom weavers out of business, not before some of them had pioneered mathematics, railway timetables and the Great and Glorious Co-operative Movement.

Then off out into the freezing cold Pennines, following the Prof up Uppermill high street to the old Mechanics Institute. The retail co-op in Saddleworth dates from the heroic age of the co-op movement, and would you believe it, they built some social housing.

Next, freezing my balls off, up a lane to look at some weavers cottages, now inhabited by chavs (anyone who wears Burberry is either a chav or disguised as one) and putting all our archaeological and analytic skills to work out how these said cottages developed. Then back through Uppermill to look at some prehistoric council housing. Would you believe it, it would appear that someone once built some council housing without the minimum 10 years of building delays…..

The World’s Favourite Jazz Mag!

How better to cultivate friendship with an old friend than a trip to YUCKEA to browse, window shop maybe and buy an alarm clock for 0.6 UKP? Cheers Nikki!

And I now have a copy of the YUCKEA catalogue to hide under the mattress, or inside “Reader’s Wives” or “Razzle” or whatever lmao!

The scene in “Fight Club” where Jack is on the phone, on the throne, and with the YUCKEA catalogue in his lap, was filmed by Edward Norton with his knickers off.

“So, Ikea boy……..”

I Demand a re-count! PML!

Got home last night, and there was no message on answering service to the effect that I had won yet another holiday to Orlando Florida! Surely there’s been a mistake! I demand a re-count!

Control Freaks!

“Boiling over in my mind, anger and aggression!”

I saw the headlines in the Daily Murdoch this morning

“THE BBC licence fee should be replaced by a tax on the ownership of a personal computer instead of a television, ministers said yesterday.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1508650,00.html

No, I didn’t buy a copy, the capitalist press makes me puke! But thanks for placing said article on the internet boys.

Now. Taxation is the price we pay for civilisation and irradiating Iraq with “depleted” uranium. But a tax on owning a word processor? Anyway, such a taxation is totally unnecessary. If the BBC did not exist it wouldn’t need funding.

Now, proposals to tax books have rightly been viewed as utter philistinism. A tax on computers would have to be seen as the same. Or would corporations and HM government be exempt? Does this government fear the free flow of information? or just that people might write the odd letter to the editor, their MP’s or those fun loving dudes in television licensing (haven’t bothered yet). I am not looking forward to living in a New Labour New Stalinist-Capitalist state where I have to dodge paying a petty poll tax on a word-processor to fund the instruments of oppression in the form of the broadcasting corporations. Hopefully this barking mad idea will be ditched. Can’t be counted on though, barking mad ideas go a long way in politics these days. And if implemented hopefully such a poll tax would go the same way as the previous poll taxes.

Speaking of which. I have not bought a television licence in years. I have no intention of doing so. I get a letter from those jolly chaps in telly licensing about once a month. It is perfectly legal not to pay this petty poll tax just so long as you don’t have a television. And since I have spent most of my adult life trying to avoid television. I am sick and tierd of it’s hypnotic glare. I am sick and tierd of the pro capitalist consumerist propaganda. I yearn for social contact and true community (which is of course a subversive thing in itself, too subversive for some self proclaimed “global revolutionaries" in my experience, but that’s another story).

Wake up to your dreamtime!

Throw your television out of the window (open window first and make sure that it does not land on a fellow creature (woman, man, sprog, puddycat, magpie or whatever) and hurt them).

The BBC is the voice of Babylon. Television is social control. Don’t buy a television licence, they will only spend it on drugs!

It’s raining free holidays to Orlando Florida!

They keep coming you know. Got home last night and would you believe it I had won a free holiday to Orlando Florida. And the night before, you guessed it, I had won a free holiday to Orlando Florida. And when I get home tonight…..

Mormon Missionaries

Mormon missionaries are a scream! A few times I have bumped into Mormon missionaries on Woodhouse Lane here in Leeds. Thing is right. I am not sure that standing out in the cold of Woodhouse Lane is the best way to proselytise, however admirable. Fine during the summer months, maybe, but not really appropriate on winter evenings in Old England. Pity really. If only I where to have a chat about theology and brave the cold for a bit. Then perhaps my soul would be saved. If they want to find me I will be in the alehouse. Now what would Jesus do………..