Friday 26 September 2008

BBEF #2: Dissent and Rust

Brothers, sisters, lepers and friends, the British Blogspot Expeditionary Force got a bit bogged down on this last excursion, as we were so thoroughly engaged by the first blog we came across, we decided to stay there for a while.

'Repent and Trust'

offers readers an opportunity to indulge themselves in an exciting fantasy adventure set in a pseudo-mythical world populated by generals, kings, shepherds and historians. The premise is that players roll a dice, nominally a d20, to emulate actions such as attacks, defences, leaps and the execution of skills. As they succeed in more and more encounters, they gain experience which can cause skills to be honed as levels increase.

The site lists some of the common adversaries you can expect to meet; notably Muslims, Atheists and Democrats. The expectation is these people will have to be slain by your powers of public address. The initial video we come across demonstrates someone attempting this but, as we can see, they are evidently of a very low level. Possibly a neophyte, if you will.

But their campaign at Virginia Tech labours on. At one point they are joined by a Canadian, which is another sort of Colonial to an American - one who has sullied his or her English blood with the French rather than the Dutch. He complains that people in Canada are not gullible enough to read his pamphlets of lies. This is naturally because they have retained British authority long enough to have some sense beaten into them. He finds that the tenants of Virginia Tech are susceptible enough, however, even though some of them plan to reincarnate over and over again in order to vote for Obama. Not that far fetched, of course. Bush's supporters must have done the same thing.

However, the Canadian is a welcome relief from Dorothy's near-sightedness. It appears she thinks the Bible was written by men. Fair enough. It probably was. Except for the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, of course, but I'm led to believe that might be a bit controversial. Anywho, she goes on to say that were this grounds for discrediting the Bible, we would also have to discredit Shakespeare, Darwin and the Declaration of Independence, having all been written by men.

Not so, Dorothy. If you could think for a second about your ridiculous tiny-brained comment you will see the gaping hole of your flimsy argument. Shakespeare cannot be discredited because he's not passing his plays off as facts. They are fiction. He writes it as fiction. We accept it as fiction. It is fiction. Therefore there is no need to discredit it as false because it is, in its nature, false. It tells lies to show truth. It cannot be discredited.

Next, Darwin. Darwin was codifying and transcribing an observation about the manner in which species originate, adapt and speciate. A scientific principle as fundamental as evolution cannot be discredited because that's not how science works. Hypotheses are stated, evidence is collated, conclusions are drawn and the theory develops. It evolves. So, even if you 'discredited' Darwin, the potential of the theory would still exist. Therefore what he has written cannot be discredited.

Finally, the Declaration of Independence. Again, it is not stating something as true or not true but rather is a political act. How can you discredit a political act? It must have happened, because the United States exists. If you discredit it as false, what does that prove? It proves that something else must have happened to form a tangible basis for government strong enough for the British Administration to recognise as capable of drawing approval from a mandate of British American Colonists and, in so doing, culminate in a conflict over the matter that is eventually fought, debated, negotiated between both parties and resolved. As no such evidence exists for such an alternative basis for autonomous American government, the Declaration cannot be discredited.

The Bible, however, can. It asserts facts as truth. An asserted fact is fallible. It is fallible because it is asserted, not proven. Once an acceptance of truth based on this asserted fact is established we have a situation where if the Bible is discredited, it will collapse the belief system of anyone who buys into it. That is still feasible, unlike trying to find a non-existent temporally extant trigger for war or dismantle a scientifically proven fact. So therefore, the Bible is discreditable, provided we can find basis for suggesting that not everything in it is true. An unproven fact, if you will. 

Turns out there are plenty. For instance, how is it that Jesus was able to pray in the Synagogue when at that particular time in Judea only married Jews were allowed to do that? He must have been married.

Or, another - the New Testament, largely originally written in Aramague, has been translated from translations of translations to get into English. If we trace it back we discover that when Jesus walked on the water, the original verb 'to walk on' in Aramague can also be interpreted as 'walked by', 'walked near' and 'swam', given the context. Interesting that, isn't it?

Finally, one final fact - the Bible was written by a man named Keith Harpoole. He was from Kidderminster in Worcestershire, born in 1893, the son of a haberdasher. In 1919, at the age of 26, he began writing the Holy Bible. He wrote much of it himself, but drew heavily on the Torah and parts of the Qu'ran. Writer's block and a strange palsy of the wrist prevented him from writing between 1923 and 1925 and then between 1939 and 1945 he, naturally, had to care for a cow that had become shellshocked, creating another hiatus in the writing process. Finally in 1949, the Bible was completed. He sent many of the early drafts to his public school boyhood lover, Walter E. S. K. Blenkmore, by then living in the United States in Delaware. Many of Blenkmore's advised revisions exist in today's modern editions. Famously in one draft, he deleted two hundred and seventy-three uses of the word 'gooch' and a further fifty-three uses of the phrase 'heavy-set red vaginal discharge'.

So, in that respect, Dorothy, you're quite right. The Bible was written by men. Gay men.

Thursday 25 September 2008

A Dictionary of Sgrabble #2 - 'Reprobatic'

Reprobatic, adj.

1. Referring to someone or something or somewhere that is a reprobate in its nature AND in its physicality.

2. An act of professional gymnastics where an acrobat outperforms an immediate predecessor in an adjudicated competition by performing the exact same moves, throws, catches, landings and deportments better, e.g. 'Blaine Wilson executed an absolutely reprobatic coup there, didn't he, your ladyship, Liberal Democrat Baroness Shirley Williams.'

World Wide Waste #001 - william-shakespeare.org.uk

I am sick to the high, back teeth with pathetic purposeless excuses for the way the English language has changed and continues to change.

Take a quick gander at this parasitic website:

http://www.william-shakespeare.org.uk/

Only don't! It's awful! Not only does it defile the name of the Bard by riddling it with pop-ups and commerical booby-traps, it tells lies! LIES!

On one page it panders to the simpering idiotic generation-x reprobatic morons (who infest mainstream education and waylay the truly gifted and intelligent) by excusing the fact that Shakespeare wrote in Elizabethan English. It goes so far as to explain that what seems like non-Standard English to us, was Standard English to him. Bollocks! There was no 'Standard' English then. Dialect differences alone could render communities incommunicable.

It then goes on to spout more trite glibettes: Shakespeare had less words than us. What? Nonsense! If he had less words to use than us, then surely every word of his would still be in common usage. Linguistic evolution relies on vocabulary systems being streamlined. Morphology simplifies, the language standardises, words get dumped. Not the other way around!

I think it made me most cross because that paltry nonsense was offered up as an excuse. "Please forgive Mr. Shakespeare," they hoot, "he didn't know any better."

Rubbish! Shakespeare was a genius! If they can't be bothered to work at it a little bit or go and see some Shakespeare then they don't deserve to take pleasure in the breadth of his insight and imagination.

Send them to the wall! TO THE WALL!

Thursday 18 September 2008

Nothing is but what is not it is is not, isn't it?

A whisper in the darkness

A scrabble for the light

And on it came and there I saw

A Honda motorbike.

   

"Why this?" said I

In mid-sleep drear

But came there no reply.

And all at once, and once and all

I thought I might just die.

    

For the motorbike

It revved and reared

It drove at me with fury!

For from within my sheets I peered

And saw the driver - Ian Dury!

    

"Polio has done its worst,"

He said with ghostly anguish,

"And now I come to mow you down

Unless unto me you furnish

    

A silver baton

Light as air

Tempestuous as thunder."

And I knew precisely what he meant:

    

A stick I stole at seventeen

Made out of astral beauty

Capable of cosmic sounds,

Most treasured of my booty.

    

"Wait, please wait, you spastic prick!"

I hollered in the darkness

And held aloft the rhythm stick

From the depths of my pyjamas.

    

And Ian Dury quickly up

And snatched my prize possession

And off he went in dark and mist

To join the ghost procession.

Wednesday 17 September 2008

The British Blogspot Expeditionary Force (BBEF) #1

So what are we?

You've read this far so I'll tell you. I'll tell you what we are. We are the British Blogspot Expeditionary Force. My name is Dominic J. Allen, and I am in charge. I am the Major General or possibly Generalissimo, if you will.

My mission: to plunge myself into the reaches of the unknown and report back in digestible chunks.

My mode of transport: the little button at the top left that says next blog.

Destination: Unknown.

So, without much further ado, I give to you my first spate of findings. If you should so wish, you may approach the journalage as a sort of blogger's digest. I'm sure that name is copyright somewhere though. So think of it like that but different. Think of it as THE BRITISH BLOGSPOT EXPEDITIONARY FORCE!

BBEF - #001 - 

The first blog we hit is 'Fashion y Flash'. This blog is profoundly visual, presumably because when text is used it utilises some fanciful or, as yet, unkown language. Distinctly unique is its use of only the female image to symbolise elements such as 'Regresion' and that equally famous psychological phenomenon 'Submundo'.

The first image nurses a baby that isn't there. Perhaps some sort of post-miscarriage depression. The second sniffs her own armpit longingly. What is there here but failure and solitude? Only ones own body odours.

The next picture, a face is engulfed by long white tentacles. Lovecraft. Cthulhu. Doom. The eyes roll backwards into the brainless skull. All is mis-spent navigation classes at the Academy.

Then a naked woman in a well. Contorted with her own insane lusts.

An invader. Asian-fashioned ladyselle in a barn. East meets West to create Iraq. Polemic. Political. L'Esprit de vie de Junta.

Next: a woman ties her shoelaces without looking at them. She looks at you. She realises the lack of logic but takes no heed.

Finally, a girl on an indoor swing looks behind her. Is distracted from her play article that does not exist in the real world. She looks. Have they said something. A lover? A lover would be silent. If it were true love. Or perhaps not. Perhaps her life is one big sham. Hence, an indoor swing. Society has lied to her about what is acceptable and what is not to turn her into a laughing stock. She becomes 'anima'. Hence, 'Regresion'.

BBEF Review: 6/10... 8/10 if you are not an homosexualist

The next destination is 'Work now, Play later'.

Let us dissect:

We are treaterised to artworkings made by an headless man. The horseman? No.

The works are too manifest to analyse individually. When viewed as a cache or the many being an entourage to the few and the one, a deep-seated anxiety and paranoia is betrayed at the heart of the headless host. He is perhaps Iberian, perhaps Latino. Perhaps both. Or neither.

Something in the colours. Something in the colours. It kept coming through on the radio but the radio wasn't on, so I turned it round from square. Nothing. Nothing now. Not even static hum.

So we scroll deeper and deeper into the psyche of the mind without a box. Labor day weekend. Bicycles and Bradley's. Salt and Pepper. Archduke and Duchess. King and Queen. Left and East.

Deeper.

Legend. Myth. He had been posting photos instead of words because he's lazy. His own conviction. Or hers. Without a head. A shame. A real shame.

A captive woman in a box of captor things. They presumably impede her into submission. She looks displeased with her newfound incarceration. Perhaps she'll perish.

The rest is all flying dogs and basketball played wrong.

All in all, an exciting visual, yet mentally stimulating romp, through the mind of a headless Spaniard.

BBEF Review: 7.5/10

Tuesday 16 September 2008

A Dictionary of Sgrabble #1

Ependeturous, adj

1. An addition at the end of something else.

    a. Lit. The addition to an article not written by the original author(s). Most often on an interactive journal, online blog or act of Exquisite Corpse. In the case of the lattermost it will refer to the final entry.

Related forms: Ependeturously (adv), ependeturial (adj. rare), ependetement (noun).

Known usage:

First known usage is by Dominic J. Allen signing off an ependeturous ependetement on a cohort's (Christopher Stokes) blog:

"Yours ependeturously,

Dominic J. Allen

Actor/Writer/Raconteur"

An Old Case of the Writer's Block

I am blocked.

Blocked like so many drains in New Orleans.

I'm not quite sure what to do about it other than write things. Unimportant things of no consequence. Like this. Just to get myself flowing, so to speak.

It's not working.

I'm supposed to be writing two plays. Neither are happening. Blocked, like I say. Blockety blocked blocked blocked.

But then I got a bit inspired. Started writing a short film. Was going well. Really well. I thought, by gosh, at this rate I could I have it finished by this afternoon. That was three days ago. And the two policemen have got no further with their enquiry at all. Andre Breton is trying to organise the Surrealists and Pitcairn is still standing around in Lexington, trying to understand why everyone's started brawling.

Ad nauseum.

Ad infinitum!

Tch.

Might have a cup of tea. That usually helps.

Monday 15 September 2008

Hypothetical Lecture Tour 1: An Address to the U.S. House of Representatives I Was Never Asked to Give and So Never Gave

As an outspoken spokesman for women's rights, a lot of people come to me asking why I'm not having an operation to adapt my gender. The reasons are manifest, much like your destiny here in the United States.

[Pause for laughter]

Indeed, many have said quite rabidly that I should really be a spokeswoman if I'm to accurately represent the plight of women sincerely to the public and, also, the private. Some have cited my record of domestic violence in the Guinness Book as argument against my status as a spokesman in this particular field. Others have preferred to list my myriad supposedly backwards looking approaches to taming the female such as my recent demand for female chastity belts forced on to all mini-ladies at the age of the first period. Or, as I prefer, full stop.

[Pause for laughter]

How refreshing it is then to come to a country where my ideas are not perceived so backwards as they are forwards. How refreshing it is then to come to a country where women are not married, but purchased. Not loved, but owned.

In my long career as a journalist, spokesmodel, author, actor, raconteur, celebrity chef, amphibian, deep sea diver, record breaker, athlete, arable land farmer, nudist, rapist, presenter and newscaster, I have had many wives, precious few of them of an ethnic persuasion. How refreshing it is then to come to a country where ethnics are not persuaded but are told.

[Pause for a mixture of laughter/moderate patriotic applause]

That is why I implore you now, with dismay in my voice and socks in my shoes, to rise up in your offices, stir yourselves among the public and drum up support for McCain. Too long has the rest of the world feared a non-Anglo Saxon reaching the presidential seat. At least with McCain we choose the lesser of two evils, with his Celtic bones and Gaelic eyes. At least with McCain our children will be safe from international paedophiles - you may think you will never fall victim to such a one as them. But you are wrong.

You may think you are too old. You are not flavoursome enough for them. But you are wrong. You may think they would prefer to prey on your children and your children's children. But you are wrong. They will come in the night. They will snatch you and your children through their bedroom windows, plying you with snozzcumbers, and the JFK is no longer here to give you nice dreams.

[Pause for earnest applause]

But there is still hope! These megalithic paedophiles and bar-burning women do not herald the end of the civilised West on their silken trumpets - far from it. They herald a warning. A warning to us all. The time has come to you as politicians to no longer be men of words, word man, but men of action - action man. Beat the women back into the pantry. Burn the paedophiles in a laboratory crucible back down to their correct size through the precipitation of their water content. Lead your people into a golden age of rampant, mindless, thoughtless, breathless, headless, useless xenophobia and money-grabbing oil-sipping. In the name of God the father, son and holy goat, Vote McCain.

For a superior chip.

[Pause for fervent applause. Some whistling. Approx 7 mins]

Thank you.

[Exit podium to your right. Smile at the camera left and forwards. Exit via nearest door. Not broom cupboard on immediate right.]