Well I'll be badgered

[j4]

Since other people's dreams are just so interesting, I thought I'd post some more of mine. You lucky, lucky people. Last night I dreamed that I was at Glastonbury. I've had dreams about being at Glastonbury quite a lot, and -- without wanting to go too deep into my own wanky and unsupported theories of why we dream the way we do -- I suspect it's because it's strongly linked in my mind with (among other, more positive feelings!) feelings of organisational and interpersonal stress. So when I'm feeling both of those things, that's the physical manifestation of the feelings that my brain throws up. See my forthcoming monograph: "Death's dream kingdom: half-assed theories misusing the phrase 'objective correlative'."

Anyway, in the dream I was going to Glastonbury in my car, on my own, and at first I couldn't work out where to park, and once I had parked I knew I had to go and find a place to pitch the tent because addedentry was relying on me to do that before he arrived, so I dragged my rucksack around looking for somewhere (my rucksack was soon covered in dirt, and I remember thinking something to the effect of "I'm sure it didn't get that dirty last time ... or maybe it did and it washed off easily, and it'll do the same this time") but couldn't see any tents, and then couldn't work out how to get back to my car. I wandered around through a frankly absurd landscape of which all I can remember are huge chess pieces, a castle, and a giant badger (and I resolved to remember where the giant badger was so that I could show it to O. and say "See, this is the sort of thing that makes me think Glastonbury is so cool!") and eventually bumped into someone I knew -- a girl called Liz who used to live next door to my best friend back home. I'd wanted to ask someone how to get back to my car, but I never really liked Liz, so I was reluctant to ask her for help because I knew I would then have to feel indebted to her in some way. I think she did help me in the end; I ended up back in my car, driving along a narrow and bumpy path across a field, with loads of cyclists going in the opposite direction and glaring at me; but there were chevrons cut into the grass pointing in the way I was going, so I knew I was going the right way. Later in the dream I was back in the main festival area, full of market stalls and suchlike, sitting on a wall with claerwen and some other LiveJournallers whose names I hadn't quite caught, listening to somebody singing Beth Nielsen Chapman's "I Find Your Love". I woke up to Wogan not long after that, so I suspect the song was played on R2 while I was still asleep and just wormed its way into my dream. In fact, the R2 playlist confirms my suspicion.

So long as my dreams have badgers in, though, really, I'm happy. People sometimes ask me if I get bored of people giving me badgers, showing me pictures of badgers, emailing me links to every news story about badgers. Believe it or not, the answer is "NO!" A picture of a badger will always make me smile. Even this picture from a lame poster campaign momentarily gave me the feel-good factor. I'm seriously considering wandering over to the Cotswolds just to visit a tearoom with badgers in the name. The merest sniff of a stripy-faced member of the family mustelidae can lift my heart a little. They're just so damn cute.

And to be honest, my heart could do with a bit of lifting at the moment: LiveJournal hasn't been the cheeriest place to be lately. Not even any really exciting memes, though I like what keirf did with the age meme. Apropos of memes, or rather LiveJournal's own peculiar brand of misnomemes, I don't think I ever got round to telling anybody that my inner gay man was David Bowie. (Thanks to minkboylove, who thinks too much about quizzes sometimes, for that one.) It's funny how the things that get passed around are always lame, while laugh-out-loud things like Michael Kelly's lateral thinking questions (thanks, kennedybak!) mostly get passed over .

It gets worse, though: earlier this week it looked as though Dark Side of the Moon was going to be voted the Best Album Ever, though this potential disaster seems to have been temporarily averted. (Though who knows what new horrors the vote for Best Single Ever will throw up?) Meanwhile, all-wimmin community theladiesloos is going through the teething problems that all new internet communities face; it's currently at the "You stole my safe space" stage, where people realise that they actually have to at least pretend to play nicely with people they don't actually like. (On the positive side, though, all-blerk equivalent thecompanyofmen proves that boys really can open up and talk honestly about sex, which is truly heartwarming to see.) Not all men are so relaxed, though: I've been enjoying a bizarre bitchfight with a random stranger in the nether commenting regions of barrysarll's LiveJournal; the which shenanigans have, if nothing else, provided me with the best retort ever: "Now who is the one who knows nothing of which they speak?" (Guys, if you put your playground comebacks through the "talk like a grown-up" filter, you have to proof-read them first or else you end up sounding like a prick.)

Tediously, the whole palaver was an indirect result of the increasingly silly news coverage about Prince Harry's latest gaffe. It may be boring to say that this news story is boring, but I can't help it: it is every bit as boring as I am now meta-boring for talking about it. (Now, if it was Wills, rather than Harry, it would be a different matter: the former Most Desirable Man in Scotland would look positively sizzling in sexy SS gear.)

Predictably, there have already been calls from the baying hordes of peons for fancy dress shops to be banned from selling even the sort of tacky pseudo-Nazi regalia sported by the Party Prince; less predictably, a search on eBay for "Nazi uniform" throws up only a copy of the edition of the Sun containing this non-story, and a predictable overpriced leather trenchcoat given a false frisson of interest by the addition of the words "GOTH NAZI" in the subject line. Surely you can buy anything on eBay? Still, I can't really complain about the internet's biggest jumble sale, when a pair of purple DMs bought for £7 in a charity shop have just fetched me £16, and a copy of the guitar music for "Disintegration" (bought for a fiver in a sale) netted an unbelievable £21. Now that's cheering.

Comments

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Aww boys talking about an@l is so cute. Um...maybe that's just me then...

I still haven't added myself to the ladiesloos. I am more interested in the blokes version to be quite honest, which I think was the idea.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

TCOM were supposed to be setting up some sort of system where non-members could ask questions, I seem to remember.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought we'd just ask our boyfriends to post things there. ;-P

(My grandma was apparently bewildered at women making such a fuss about being given the vote. "Why do we need it?" she said. "We already tell our husbands how to vote.")

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to say that your 'if you want unconditional love, get a dog' post was excellent. And you delivered a good kicking to Email Forward Woman as well.

I know, I know, I'm supposed to log off. See me log off and watch some Futurama...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

(Um, a reasoned, adult kicking, I hasten to add.)

[j4.livejournal.com]

Blushing at the compliments but feeling guilty about the kicking. It might have been a moderately civilised kicking (at least by my standards!) but she seemed to feel that she couldn't ever post again afterwards, which was definitely not the intended result -- I never want to silence people, just to make them think when they don't appear to be doing so.

(Arrogant? Me? Um... yes. Apparently so.)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

(Arrogant? Me? Um... yes. Apparently so.)

Well, yes, but not in ways that aren't a virtue.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Umm, what would be wrong with Dark Side of the Moon getting Best Album Ever ? I'd probably not vote for it as #1, but it would pos-def be in my top 20, and there are endless numbers of things that might get that accolade in any given poll that would bug me more - fans of boy band du jour swamping said poll frex.

Not sure what I would vote for if I could only pick one, actually. If it has to be a single physical object purchased as such.. think for a combination of emotional impact, range of stuff, and sheer Quality I'd go for that Essential Leonard Cohen double album that came out a couple of years ago.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

TBH I was outraged that compilations and Greatest Hits were even eligible.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I'd probably not vote for it as #1

It's not even the best album by Pink Floyd! I think Wish You Were Here is a far better album in many ways: conceptually tighter, musically more powerful and more focused (probably as a result), and lyrically superb.

Okay, okay. Maybe I'm just trolling. I should point out that I do actually like Dark Side; I think it's a good album, even a great album. But is it really the pinnacle of man's musical achievement? Is it really the best thing that's been recorded in the last 50 years?

The problems with "Best Album Ever" lists are obvious, of course -- by what criteria are we judging these albums? Best-selling? Most influential? Most enjoyable to listen to? Most challenging to listen to? Some kind of 'best fit' combination of all of the above (which will inevitably result in a big fat compromise)?

I think DSOTM is a lazy choice; its greatness is self-perpetuating, it gets voted in at least in part because it's always voted in. It doesn't need to be voted 'Best Album Ever', even if it is, even if there were an objective standard against which it could be scientifically measured and proven to be actually, factually, the best thing it's musically possible to record.

I guess really I just object to the 'Best Album' concept. It perpetuates the canon without encouraging people to think about why those things are canonical; and while I acknowledge that we probably need to gain the critical distance and perspective that time helps us to attain before we can really describe something as "a classic", it saddens me to see the inclusion of anything remotely modern in a 'Best ... Ever' list dismissed as just the "recency effect" -- just as it would sadden me to think that no advances whatsoever have been made in music since 1973. No, I don't think music gets better and better all the time, but it would be depressing to think that in over thirty years mankind has produced nothing to rival Dark Side.

I am absolutely positive that I couldn't choose one "Best Album Ever", and nor would I want to: music is glorious in its diversity and richness, but nobody can do everything well at once. Not even Pink Floyd. Even the artistes who do many different things well tend to do so across a career spanning several albums (choosing 'Greatest Hits' albums may solve this problem, of course!) rather than all in one album.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

LiveJournal hasn't been the cheeriest place to be lately.

Time of year, I suspect. Everyone is still in extended come-down from the warmth and jollity of Christmas, and having to face the grim reality of day to day life, work, responsibility, and dark, cold. damp January days.

Parties: the only answer...
Although beer is a temporary solution..

[spyinthehaus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure peons do bay - they are agricultural labourers, and therefore by extension surly, truculent and unsocial. It usually takes the presence of a vampire to persuade peons to form a horde of any kind, and that horde will generally focus around burning rather than questing. Could the baying be coming rather from the media sources who rely on such cries to attract trade.

[j4.livejournal.com]

When I said "bay", I think I meant "whine".

Maybe they're not peons at all. They didn't have any flaming torches or even pitchforks. But I was thinking of the people who commented on the BBC website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4170635.stm) rather than the media types who are Just Doing Their Job etc.

[claerwen.livejournal.com]

While going through boxes that had been lying in my parents' attic for years, I came across my home-made "Serious Badger People Society - President" badge from when I was, ooh, probably ten or so. IIRC the SBPS was just me and my friend Sara, but it's possible that Andrea from next door may have joined in, and Sara's dad came with us to watch a sett late one night (we were far too noisy to see any actual badgers). We even had a clubhouse and a library—well, a shed and some books. I'd completely forgotten about all that until I came across the badge.

[sparrowsion]

Your David Bowie (me too) link is broken (and I'm not sure how to generate a good one).

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

"You people are weird !"

[j4.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've taken the link out, as there doesn't seem to be any way to link to the list of possible results (which was what I was trying to link to). If people really care, they can take the damn quiz. :->

[venta.livejournal.com]

Irrelevantly, is the badger in your icon sporting a jaunty red necktie ? This has only just occurred to me. Up til now, I was assuming the little patch of red was his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, thus lending him the air of a somewhat stoned or stunned badger.

[j4.livejournal.com]

He does have a necktie, but it's purple silk. He's absurdly proud of it given that it's only actually an offcut of a shirt of mine[1]. The little bit of red I think you're talking about is actually brown in real life, & is one of his BADGER FEET! ("That's neat...")

[1] it was a patchwork silk shirt, and I wore it to my first gig[2] because that was the way I used to dress up and I didn't know what gigs were like, and it got ripped to shreds[3]; but my grandma managed to use the sleeves to patch the ripped bits, resulting in a lovely sleeveless silk shirt with slightly more haphazard patches.

[2] Suede!

[3] Why am I telling you this? Must be Friday.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

the former Most Desirable Man in Scotland

Gosh, that doesn't say much for Scotsmen, does it? Anyway, since when has Willie Windsor been Scottish?

[spyinthehaus.livejournal.com]

In Scotland, but not of it.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I'm really enjoying recent posts in theladiesloos - thank you all so much for not locking them! Who knew that if you gave a couple of hundred women their own private island they'd turn it into "Lord of the Flies"?

thecompanyofmen is totally amicable in tone, sadly. But I think all we really need to unite the women once again, and set the men at each other's throats, is a third community that allows both men and women in ;)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

I think it may be a critical-mass thing...

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on this post (http://www.livejournal.com/community/theladiesloos/109053.html?thread=1123325#t1123325), by the way :)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Congratulations seconded.