http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/en-EUMokoFeed10http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/9b/31e2133b77f0814642b9e221ae6724_160x200.jpghttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2007/03/19/mugging_the_old_aamp_infirm~1936487/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2007-03-19:/2007/03/19/mugging_the_old_aamp_infirm~1936487/Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:54:25 +0100 <p>Hello,</p> <p>Apologies for my disappearance. I was eaten by a lion on my way back from work a couple of months ago and have only just reconstituted myself from lion-poo distributed over a wide area.</p> <p>I have just been interrupted by some twangling late night dog-walker who rang my bell and asked for "Brendan". I suspect he was just very lonely and wanted to talk. he was holding a poop-scoop in one hand so i thought it best not to open the glass-fronted door to him. he may have attempted to launch some excrement at me. People these days aren't what they used to be.</p> <p>A lot of people write a lot of very boring rubbish about their everyday lives on blogs. I'd like to point out that the dog-walker referred to above is an entirely fictional character. there was a man who came to my front door but he was actually walking a cat. </p> <p>I ate a raw chicken for lunch. it was at a new Japanese restaurant near work. they hadn't even taken the feathers off. or killed it. upon reflection, i wonder whether it was indeed a restaurant i ate in. There was no sign outside. Or indeed any tables or chairs. Or waiters. Or a kitchen. as I recall it now there was only a small house full of straw and poo. i had to take a train to get there from the office. it took ages.</p> <p>Funny weather we've been having.</p> <p>Ted </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2007/03/19/mugging_the_old_aamp_infirm~1936487/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>twinkly-spaijedestroy-the-house-of-christmurderbaphomethttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2007/03/19/mugging_the_old_aamp_infirm~1936487/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2006/05/31/yes~843425/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2006-05-31:/2006/05/31/yes~843425/Wed, 31 May 2006 14:24:22 +0200 <p>Hail!</p> <p>It has been a while since I knew how to type. I realised last night that it had been over two weeks since I had seen letters. They were written in blood on the walls of my last flat. I think I wrote them but I cannot be sure. </p> <p>Since that time many years ago when the wolves howled and the moon gave birth to its most ill-favoured son I have striven to understand as much as I could about the universe and the many elves which support it on their shoulders. Of the elves, I know everything. Of the universe, nothing. Such is life!</p> <p>So back again I am and dressed in new-garblage with which to spew blasphemy into your sweating inbox. Perhaps I will retain command of words for a longer spell this time. Or perhaps Zeus will cover me in a hessian sack and beat me insensible with a hockey stick. </p> <p>Hektor, you piano player, I have been following you. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2006/05/31/yes~843425/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2006/05/31/yes~843425/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/and_another~360615/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-12-04:/2005/12/04/and_another~360615/Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:19:17 +0100 <p>Here is my friend Gert:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_06001.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_06001_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>He's pretty disturbed but he loves animals. There's something about their innocence which appeals to his tortured soul. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/and_another~360615/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>gertinsanityevilhttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/and_another~360615/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/the_indulgent_laughter_of_traitors~360574/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-12-04:/2005/12/04/the_indulgent_laughter_of_traitors~360574/Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:03:58 +0100 <p>Here's my friend Andy. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_0729_01.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_0729_01_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>He is a well-known liar and deceiver. Here he is pictured texting some new and outrageous mendacity to a poor innocent. Mark how he smiles and laughs as he patches yet more untruths to those closest and dearest to him. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/the_indulgent_laughter_of_traitors~360574/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>liartextandy-timlinhttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/the_indulgent_laughter_of_traitors~360574/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/holland~360513/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-12-04:/2005/12/04/holland~360513/Sun, 04 Dec 2005 19:56:20 +0100 <p>I went to Holland this weekend and this was the sunniest it got. Still, it's not as though I am used to anything much different. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_0787.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_0787_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>We stayed in Amsterdam and I got pretty whacked from the moment I got there to when I left. I don't know why I do it. After the first day it gets really boring. I have pitifully little self-control. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/holland~360513/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/12/04/holland~360513/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/30/celebrity_agora~348363/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-29:/2005/11/30/celebrity_agora~348363/Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:26:30 +0100 <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/rOBBIE.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/rOBBIE_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/30/celebrity_agora~348363/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/30/celebrity_agora~348363/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/30/the_news~348347/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-29:/2005/11/30/the_news~348347/Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:14:33 +0100 <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/anothe-rtry.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/anothe-rtry_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/30/the_news~348347/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/30/the_news~348347/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/an_unusual_sight~345278/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-28:/2005/11/28/an_unusual_sight~345278/Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:12:55 +0100 <p>I came across this object outside a church in Krakow, Poland. The people of Poland are very holy and I guess they worship this.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_03561.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_03561_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/an_unusual_sight~345278/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/an_unusual_sight~345278/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/title~344823/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-28:/2005/11/28/title~344823/Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:56:22 +0100 <p>This guy is probably one of the most unpleasant individuals in the country:</p> <p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4479404.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4479404.stm</a></p> <p>Hard drugs, paedophilia and attempted murder - he seems to have been trying to win some kind of record. "Britain's Most Hated POS". </p> <p>He was even wearing a dirty mac in the court. He's a real perfectionist. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/title~344823/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/title~344823/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/the_right_to_rock~344628/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-28:/2005/11/28/the_right_to_rock~344628/Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:01:25 +0100 <p>Here's a new idea: playing rock music is not a right everyone has. Rock music is the music of alienated youth. It is the music of rebellion, frustration, anger and passion. It is not music that middle-aged multi-millionaires who are privileged beyond imagining should be allowed to play. They should be banned from playing it. Maybe they should have parts of their anatomy broken once they achieve a particular net worth to prevent them from churning out the shit they inevitably will once all the money and adulation has flooded in and extinguished the fires of rock that burned within.</p> <p>The reason for this idle speculation is that I watched "Some Kind of Monster" last night. If you haven't seen it "SKOM" is a documentary filmed over the painfully long time that it took Metallica to make their last, and shittest, album ("St Anger"). </p> <p>As the film opens they have just parted ways with their bassist and one of the first scenes shows the remaining three band members (Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett) sat around involved in some kind of therapy with a highly-paid professional bullshit-talking shyster aka a psychotherapist called Phil. Everything Phil says is pure motherfucking horseshit. But then so is almost everything the three remaining band-members say. Phil just talks and talks and I don't think any of what he says actually means anything. There is a great sequence later in the film when Phil goes around putting up 'inspirational' notices in the studio. Stuff like "The Zone - Admission is Believing". Pop pysch bullshit galore. It turns my stomach because I am a man to whom words are a means of conveying ideas and to use them as Phil and every self-help American twat does without expressing any fucking thing whatsoever, indeed, to obfuscate and confuse, is a getting-burnt-at-the-stake crime in my eyes. Phil is to all intents and purposes one of the band throughout the two years it takes these pathetic fucks to record their shit album. When they finally tell him they want to end his contract with them he turns the knife in them and goes on about trust issues and stuff like that to make them feel guilty. He is a total leech who says nothing sensible throughout and as such is a great and living symbol of the entire self-help pop psych community of charlatan motherfuckers.</p> <p>The band themselves are pretty pathetic. Of the lot Kirk Hammett is perhaps the most sympathetic. He is a total airhead and has almost nothing of note to say but at least he seems pretty good-natured and inoffensive. James Hetfield is a pathetically self-obsessed twat. He goes off to rehab midway through the film but he doesn't even seem to have a problem. He is much the same twat before and after. Lars Ulrich is the archetypal control freak. He has a very annoying voice and is extremely pretentious and arrogant. They are all generally pretty humourless. Apart from a brief moment when they have to do a bullshit radio promo they don't ever seem to laugh or have any fun, and this film is shot over almost two years which makes you wonder why these fuckers actually stay together. Hanging around these guys isn't much fun. They are constantly dwelling on what might be wrong (JH cites "abandonment issues" at one particularly pathetic moment) and acting like humourless egomaniacs. They are pathetically neurotic privileged people. They seem to have nothing to moan about, apart from the fact that life is so goddamn easy but yet they act like they are facing the end of the world. What if they really had to deal with something real, like cancer? It is only briefly, and so shrouded in the pop psych horseshit they are spouting that it is easy to miss, that they stumble towards what might actually be the problem - the fact that none of them has any desire to continue. Being one of the biggest metal acts on the planet has become a dull dull routine (which, if you are unlucky enough to have heard St Anger, you will understand). </p> <p>The film does the same kind of thing as Spinal Tap, in terms of satirising rockstar lifestyle, except this is all for real. There are the usual rockstar excesses of massive art collections (Lars Ulrich's best piece of crit on his own Basquiat is "Fuck, isn't it just awwwesome? I mean, fuck"); fast cars; rehab; mass egotism; bear-killing (man stuff); motorbikes; ranching. It is Spinal Tap but without any jokes. </p> <p>The painful thing is that they hardly ever show any passion for what they are doing - it is just routine and only very briefly do they face up to that. That is clearly the core of their listlessness. They are playing the same music they wrote when they were twenty years younger and twenty years hungrier and it just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense anymore. When they started they were the outsiders but nowadays they are The Man - they are The Industry (as demonstrated by Lars' involvement in the case against Napster). Even the time they spend with fans is carefully choreographed into a "Fans Appreciation Day" - how fucking corporate is that? Then there's the Radio Promo. It might be a cliché but rock music is meant to be a genre characterised by rebellion. But, like rap/hip-hop, big business has moved in and turned the whole thing into a shallow parody of the real thing. Metallica are subverting nothing with any of their releases over the last 15 years except the notion of a good metal album. They clearly don't feel anything for the music anymore. The only reasons I can think of that keep them at it is that they don't know what else to do and enjoy the boost their egos receive when they tour and thousands of people are screaming their names.</p> <p>Let's make the decision easier for them and break their arms and legs.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/the_right_to_rock~344628/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/28/the_right_to_rock~344628/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/celebrity_corner~340925/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-27:/2005/11/27/celebrity_corner~340925/Sun, 27 Nov 2005 11:18:54 +0100 <p>If you want to catch up with the latest vacuous shit from the lips of la grande fica follow the following link:</p> <p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4474006.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4474006.stm</a></p> <p>She doesn't say anything that interesting other than threatening the world with directing a film. Perhaps the US authorities are going to use her films in places like Abu Ghraib or Guantanomo Bay in lieu of torturing the prisoners with Metallica. Given her track record in making generally unwatchably poor, self-indulgent and commercially suicidal films I can't think anyone other than the torture-loving military will be interested in funding another of her forays into 'popular' entertainment.</p> <p>Her horse-riding accident clearly left appalling scars on her mind: "I don't want to go there - I get flashbacks". Millions of vets from 'Nam would be familiar with suffering of this nature, although with much greater reason than this stupid bitch. As an aside, I don't like people saying 'don't go there' in the context of a conversation. It reminds me of 'Friends', and that is enough to put me into a towering rage. People who talk like this should be burnt at the stake. </p> <p>I'm looking forward to the day when Madonna is finally honest with herself. Until then she is nothing but a lie. A pathetic, hollow lie. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/celebrity_corner~340925/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/celebrity_corner~340925/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/the_world_of_balls~340888/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-27:/2005/11/27/the_world_of_balls~340888/Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:53:16 +0100 <p>Simon Jordan's column for the Observer is always intersting and polemical. This week he's having a go at the mollycoddling of players, check it out:</p> <p><a href="http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,4284,1651654,00.html">http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,4284,1651654,00.html</a></p> <p>"Last April a Fulham player liaison officer told the papers about some of his tasks. He said he'd been called out to Alain Goma's house because 'Goma's goldfish was swimming in the wrong direction'. He'd been called to rescue a player lost on the London Underground ('he was helpless'). He'd been called out by Fabrice Fernandes who kept waking up in the morning with a wet head, and discovered the player had been 'sleeping by an open window'."</p> <p>Classic. We usually think of footballers as morons but it takes examples such as these to really give us a definite idea of just how stupid they are. It's very funny but also kind of sad, inasmuch as these dull-witted fools get paid the equivalent of most people's annual salaries in a week or two of retarded physicality. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/the_world_of_balls~340888/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/the_world_of_balls~340888/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/25/the_new_dark_age_is_upon_us~335538/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-24:/2005/11/25/the_new_dark_age_is_upon_us~335538/Fri, 25 Nov 2005 00:33:57 +0100 <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_0643.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/IMG_0643_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/25/the_new_dark_age_is_upon_us~335538/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/25/the_new_dark_age_is_upon_us~335538/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/norwegian_black_metal~334718/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-24:/2005/11/24/norwegian_black_metal~334718/Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:23:44 +0100 <p>Inspired by this morning's story on the BBC website I did a google check for something decent which summarised the whole Norwegian Black metal scene in the 90s. The following is pretty good:</p> <p><a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1415240,00.html">http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1415240,00.html</a></p> <p>There are quite a few entertaining people mentioned in this article - they'd make great characters in a film or book. Check out Dead, for instance:</p> <p>"...The letter-writing also brought Mayhem into contact with Dead, a Swede who joined Mayhem when his band Morbid folded in 1988. Serious illness as a child and a near death experience convinced him that he had died and was now a being from another world. His beliefs are preserved in the vampiric lyrics he wrote for De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Dead reputedly carried around the carcass of a crow in a jar and would inhale fumes from it before taking the stage so he could perform with the stench of death in his nostrils. He also took to donning a white greasepaint visage, designed to mimic the pallor of 13th-century plague victims."</p> <p>Pretty wacky stuff. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/norwegian_black_metal~334718/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>musicdarkthronenorwayblack-metalmayhemhttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/norwegian_black_metal~334718/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/death_metal_murder~333706/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-24:/2005/11/24/death_metal_murder~333706/Thu, 24 Nov 2005 12:49:41 +0100 <p>Hey, I love this stuff. Check out the article on BBC news:</p> <p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4446342.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4446342.stm</a></p> <p>Glen Benton is one of the stupidest members of a scene which isn't characterised by a high level of intellectual achievement. But is this shit still even being debated? Every now and then some new incident occurs somewhere in the vast world in which some dumb kids do somethign stupid and they happen to listen to heavy metal so the old 'does the music make them do it' thing comes up. Fuck. Haven't we been through this already? </p> <p>I guess the debate is turning on whether listening to music which is so dark and bleak and full of anger and hate tips borderline wackos over the edge which they have been teetering on for years. Well, maybe it does. But so fucking what? Maybe a cross word from a teacher in their class would do the same thing. Or the bleeping of someone's mobile phone in a crowded bus. You can't legislate out all the things you think might fractionally contribute to tipping the tiny number of loonies in any community over the edge. Should we all pay the price of missing out on this stuff because when wankers come into contact with it they go loco and kill themselves/each other? Most people would say no. </p> <p>There has been a fair amount of attention given to the church burning and killing that went on in Norway in the 90s but that was pretty low-key and was really blown out of proportion by the media - it was a few middle-class boys who had nothing normal to rebel against because their lives were so damn cushy in good old Scandanivia (wealthy countries, good-looking women, liberal, progressive governments etc etc) and for some reason turned for that need (because people NEED to rebel) to black metal because it offered such a contrast to modern Scando society. Eventually most of the scene morphed into a neo-Viking thing which I thought was much more itneresting. It was actually a deeply reactionary scene: old (Pagan) values and a much older (and whiter - uh oh!) Nordic identity. </p> <p>So much for rebellion.</p> <p>Deicide always were a bunch of dumb American wankers and I expect Benton will come across as a mega-spastic white trash fool in the programme. Because that's exactly what the stupid fucker is. It's a real pity that he's used by the media as some kind of spokesman for the scene because although, as I mention above, the scene isn't dominated by intellectual giants, Benton is one of the crassest and stupidest musicians in the whole music industry and shouldn't be given any kind of publicity. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/death_metal_murder~333706/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>deicidedeath-metalchurch-burningnorwaymurderhttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/death_metal_murder~333706/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/the_world_of_films~333648/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-24:/2005/11/24/the_world_of_films~333648/Thu, 24 Nov 2005 12:21:15 +0100 <p>There was an article in yesterday's Telegraph about a tide of gay films sweeping Hollywood. At the time I read the article I assumed it was just the usual Telegraph-whipping-middle-England-into-righteous-indignation thing. But an article along the same lines appeared in the Guardian today so I am beginning to think it might actually have some basis in fact.</p> <p>Check out the article:</p> <p><a href="http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1649398,00.html">http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1649398,00.html</a></p> <p>The quote that sums it up is "The way Hollywood is rushing to reward heterosexual actors playing gay roles does not, really, reflect very well on its engagement. It is just too much like its fairly disgraceful engagement with mental and physical disability, and too much like rewarding a variety turn". </p> <p>There's so much tokenism in American films. What's selling? 'Gayness' is selling - let's make lots of gay films. I think the music industry operates in the same way. Too much of both industries are focussed on what is selling rather than what is good. Coldplay hit the jackpot and before you know it there's a whole heap of similar-sounding fey shit bands being shoved down our throats. That's no different to most industries where companies are focussing on maximising revenues in a new market but I guess I (naively) expect more from those which bring arts into our communities. Like some kind of artistic integrity...</p> <p>Yeah, very naive.</p> <p>I never had any idea that James Dean, Cary Grant or Dirk Bogarde were gay. Is that really true? I heard a radio interview with Lauren Bacall recently and she was going on about how amazing a husband Dirk was. He was an older man when they met, on the set of some film. She never mentioned he was gay in the interview. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/the_world_of_films~333648/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>filmhollywoodmusichttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/24/the_world_of_films~333648/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/23/george_best_the_latest~331719/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-23:/2005/11/23/george_best_the_latest~331719/Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:15:29 +0100 <p>After my post yesterday Georgie boy briefly drifted back into consciousness (the first time since the early Seventies apparently) at which point I thought that the neverending media obsession with him and Death was going to roll and roll until I had to end it all by killing myself. Today's news is brighter though - he's heading south again and things look bleak. Apparently he didn't have a good night's sleep. Boo fucking hoo. </p> <p>The Fiver printed an email yesterday from a reader who was complaining about the media obsession with pisshead Best and I will be interested to see if he's torn to pieces today. Plenty of the public respect people and things which they are taught to respect by the media. The obsession the media has with this withered sack of shit creates an impression in the minds of much of the public that he is actually worth something. Because a bunch of piss-soaked semi-literates aka the red top press corps boorishly cheer on the drinking and sexual exploits of a man who I think lost the capacity for thought and self-expression in the 60's the public at large seems to have been infected with a degree of respect or pity for the man. </p> <p>Strangely, or not, I find Olli Reed a much more sympathetic character. Perhaps because he still continued acting and made a number of high-profile TV appearances (The Word and The Late Show in particular) in which he displayed a lot of craziness. Perhaps I just like my pissheads to be a bit more literate/literary and belligerent than Best. I'm a snob.</p> <p>How many times do you think we'll be hearing that line about 'where did it all go wrong' when the fucker finally puts us all out of our misery and packs off into the void? Christ, it isn't worth thinking about. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/23/george_best_the_latest~331719/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/23/george_best_the_latest~331719/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/23/war_information_media_ideas~331630/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-23:/2005/11/23/war_information_media_ideas~331630/Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:49:31 +0100 <p>Lots of big words there but the lines between all these things are becoming very blurred and today's news story in The Guardian adds to the confusion - it seems as though the Americans had plans to destroy the al-Jazeera news station in Doha, Qatar. They also destroyed the Baghdad office in 2003 despite al-Jazeera having notified the US forces of exactly where they were, leading journos to suspect that it was actively targeted. </p> <p>Check out the article here:<br> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1648988,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1648988,00.html</a></p> <p>It would be easy to take one of two views: (a) aren't the Americans awful, they are constantly doing dodgy things and here they are trying to destroy our access to information, or (b) al-Jazeera are little more than a mouthpiece for various anti-Western Arab interests and don't deserve to be protected. </p> <p>I find it hard to believe the Americans made a mistake with their targeting in 2003 and they had a lot to gain with knocking out al-Jazeera reporting what happened in Baghdad. But I don't think the media are such a great bunch of lads either. They hold themselves out as conscientous independent truth-seekers but how many of them are towing the editorial line which comes from who knows where? These papers are all owned by someone and that someone has an agenda. </p> <p>But this story also itnerests me because it shows how important the media is now. States seem to have increasingly little control over what information we are fed. Whilst this sounds great we need to question who else is feeding us information. As you'll glean from the above, it looks to me like we are replacing one set of vested itnerests (government) with another (media). </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/23/war_information_media_ideas~331630/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bushnewsal-jazeerairaqmediahttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/23/war_information_media_ideas~331630/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/22/jonny_wilkinson_my_kind_of_loony~328728/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-22:/2005/11/22/jonny_wilkinson_my_kind_of_loony~328728/Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:27:02 +0100 <p>Check out the article in today's Guardian:</p> <p><a href="http://sport.guardian.co.uk/rugbyunion/story/0,10069,1647862,00.html">http://sport.guardian.co.uk/rugbyunion/story/0,10069,1647862,00.html</a></p> <p>Standout quote for me was: "He still tries to live by a strict code in which he imagines that every minute of his day is being recorded by a hidden video camera." </p> <p>I know how he feels. Except that they call me crazy!</p> <p>It's actually a very interesting article about someone who has known very high peaks and very low troughs in a relatively short space of time. He's pretty driven - I guess that goes for just about anybody at the top of their profession - and I suppose forced inaction (through injury) must be the worst thing imaginable for a sportsman like him. </p> <p>For Ted, life is just a series of reminders that he's a sorry sack of shit - he always was and always will be. The peaks are drunken and the troughs are hungover. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/22/jonny_wilkinson_my_kind_of_loony~328728/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>dementiarugbyhttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/22/jonny_wilkinson_my_kind_of_loony~328728/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/22/george_best_is_dying_so_fucking_what~328690/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-22:/2005/11/22/george_best_is_dying_so_fucking_what~328690/Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:11:30 +0100 <p>So George Best is "desperately ill" according to doctors. And? I fail to understand why the continual ill-health of a man who hasn't contributed anything at all of interest for the last 30 years should be headline news. The quicker he dies the better. His ongoing touch and go battle with the Grim Reaper is, as well as unjustifiably high-profile, also extremely tedious. </p> <p>For God's sake doctor, don't waste any more of the Earth's finite resources on this pathetic D-list has-been and let Death have his man! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/22/george_best_is_dying_so_fucking_what~328690/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>george-bestdeathmediahttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/22/george_best_is_dying_so_fucking_what~328690/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/18/autumn_s_sweet_melancholy~317945/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-18:/2005/11/18/autumn_s_sweet_melancholy~317945/Fri, 18 Nov 2005 16:26:53 +0100 <p>It's a great late Autumn afternoon in London - the sky is amazing. It's the<br> kind of afternoon when you should be lazily wandering through a beautiful park, sweeping up small piles of dead leaves with your feet as you meander arm-in-arm with the woman who broke your heart and has now come back with her tail between her legs. You are going to drown her in the lake but she doesn't know that. It's just laughter and jokes like the good old times.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/18/autumn_s_sweet_melancholy~317945/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>murdermelancholyheartbreakautumnhttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/18/autumn_s_sweet_melancholy~317945/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/11/ted_gives_it_to_you_straight~298690/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-11:/2005/11/11/ted_gives_it_to_you_straight~298690/Fri, 11 Nov 2005 01:12:56 +0100 <p>I have been reading Anna Karenina this past week and am less than a hundred pages from the end. I have thoroughly enjoyed the novel and am impressed as ever with Tolstoy's brilliant understanding of the psychologies of love, jealousy, desire etc but I still feel absolutely no sympathy for the heroine. This would not perhaps be worth noting (as there are plenty of modern novels featuring relatively unlikeable protagonists) but the blurb on the back of my edition describes Anna as "one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature". Am I missing something here? Although I can empathise with Anna's situation I don't feel especially drawn to her. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/11/ted_gives_it_to_you_straight~298690/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tolstoyliteraturehttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/11/ted_gives_it_to_you_straight~298690/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/09/thought_for_the_day~295938/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-09:/2005/11/09/thought_for_the_day~295938/Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:56:05 +0100 <p>A thought from my old friend Felix von Satan:</p> <p>"What man doesn’t find himself thinking almost every day ‘are these people my foes then after all?’ Yes, we all know that we have enemies but their identity is sometimes a terrible surprise. Sometimes, it transpires that our closest friends are amongst our blackest foes. How often, upon feeling the net closing tight, have we turned around to face our cowardly assailants for a final hurrah only to discover that these scurvy wretches are in fact our closest friends! Of course, once overcome (as they always are) and begging for mercy, these curs will always protest their innocence. What else would they say? It takes the most insanely savage interrogation to come to the truth but when it comes the truth is always the same vile and tawdry story – they did it for gold! Bribed by the ancient foes of one’s ancestors to ensnare and destroy you! And for what purpose? To ensure the destruction of one’s noble line! Bacon likens the evil of base cowards such as these to an arrow which flieth in the night and quotes Cosmo de Medici – “You shall read that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends”. Let us rejoice in such erudition!" </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/09/thought_for_the_day~295938/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/09/thought_for_the_day~295938/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/09/meanwhile_at_the_court~295891/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-09:/2005/11/09/meanwhile_at_the_court~295891/Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:38:21 +0100 <p>GREETINGS!<br> I bring news and gifts from the bounty of King Ted's royal court. He sends us this Sacred Cow, made from purest cotton, to protect us from Nuclear Armageddon. And this Noble Elephant, blessed with the ecstatic groans of a thousand masturbating virgins, will cover our vast lands with his enriched faeces!<br> REJOICE!<br> OH JOY!</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/image003.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/image003_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/09/meanwhile_at_the_court~295891/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/09/meanwhile_at_the_court~295891/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/08/delusions~293187/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-08:/2005/11/08/delusions~293187/Tue, 08 Nov 2005 22:39:12 +0100 <p>I think of Ted's Place as a place where different people will air different views. I'd call it a virtual symposium or internet salon, if that didn't sound so shit. Instead, I just call it Ted's Place. </p> <p>As a first step in this exchange of ideas I have asked an old friend of mine from uni days, Japhet Banjolion, to write me a little piece on whatever he's been reading recently. Here's what he sent me to get the ball rolling:</p> <p>"I was orbiting Apollo in my Mahogany spaceship and had nothing to do until my next spacewalk so I picked up the copy of Montaigne (the Cohen translation) I had brought with me to while away what De Quincy called "the unutterably slow space hours of the future Conquistadores" and enliven my spirits (I had fallen into dejection at the thought of having run over that poor otter (was she a mother?) on the way to the space station - I had been late and hastening to the launch). I chanced upon his essay "On the powers of the imagination" - a subject which is ideally suited to a fairly lonely life in space and something which has long exercised my interest. It is a fine piece of writing and contains a number of interesting passages which I would like to share with you as they speak as clearly to us today of matters touching our inner nature as they did to his audience in the late sixteenth century. </p> <p>In support of his belief in the transformative power of the imagination Montaigne adduces the following anecdote: “Passing through Vitry-le-Francois, I was shown a man whom the Bishop of Soissons had confirmed under the name of Germain, but whom all the village’s inhabitants had both known and seen to be a girl, and who had been called Marie up to the age of twenty-two. He was then old, had a heavy growth of beard, and was unmarried. He said that as he was straining to take a jump his male organs appeared; and the girls of that neighbourhood still sing a song in which they warn one another not to take long strides or they may turn into boys, like Marie Germain. It is not very surprising that this sort of accident happens frequently” continues Montaigne “for the imagination is so continually drawn to this subject that, supposing it has any power of such things, it would be better for it to incorporate the virile member in a girl once and for all, rather than subject her so often to the same thoughts and the same violence of desire”. I recalled with amusement that time when first, as a callow youth, I read this passage. It threw me into such horror! I checked myself frantically for evidence of female genitals, suddenly alarmed by the drift of Montaigne’s logic. Thankfully, following a rigorous and relatively lengthy self-examination, my penis appeared just as tumescently healthy as ever and showed no signs of falling off to be replaced by the delightful feminine cavity. Nonetheless, I have heard of such transformations happening frequently in London, although often without reference to any particularly strenuous athletic activity. Still, they usually occur in areas of the city noted for their depravity so it seems that Montaigne's logic is flawless.</p> <p>Later on in the essay Montaigne relates the story of “a gentleman who, three or four days after having entertained a large party in his house, bragged by way of a joke – for there was nothing in it – that he had made them eat cat in a pasty. One young lady in the company was thereupon so horrified that she was seized with a severe dysentery and fever, and nothing could be done to save her”. I felt sorry for the gentleman referred to, because it struck me as a very funny thing to tell one's guests, and yet he would bear the responsibility for the death of a rather over-anxious young woman. This anecdote also recalls to me the celebrated example of a great French diplomat who, such was his sense of humour, replaced the sweet mince in some Christmas mince pies with small amounts of his own ordure. Having got his guests regally drunk he brought out the warm mince pies. Although heating the pies up had created a vile smell his guests were too drunk to notice and fell on the pies hungrily, devouring all but one left on the plate. There then broke out an argument between two of the guests as to who got the final pie, at which point the host diplomatically disclosed what was in them. One guest began vomiting uncontrollably and the other simply picked up the final pie and ate it. This guest, of course, was the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, who was never the same after Verdun. In any event, although it is clearly an abuse of the laws of hospitality I find both joking about introducing unpleasant elements into food served and actually doing it very amusing. I think Montaigne rather misses the point here. When I return to Earth I will prepare a feast Atreus would be proud of! Ha!</p> <p>In wrapping things up Montaigne refers to a story related by St Jerome concerning a woman who gave birth to a baby girl who was all rough and hairy: “When she was presented to the Emperor Charles, King of Bohemia, her mother said the child had been conceived like that because of a picture of St John the Baptist that hung above her bed”. He also mentions a woman who gave birth to "a blackamoor" as another instance where a woman's fancy has left its imprint on the child being carried in her womb. Incredibly, it doesn't occur to Montaigne to speculate whether these women conceived with someone other than their husbands. Perhaps the first woman took a dog as a lover? And the second kept a Nubian Warrior? It seems as though Montaigne is here wilfully ignoring the most obvious conclusions that can be drawn. Anything to make his point eh?</p> <p>Anyway, those were my observations before I had to put the book down and get back to washing my face with wee wee (one of the stranger rituals of life in space - one to which I am still accustoming myself)."</p> <p>There will be more from Japhet when his spaceship clears the asteroid belt around Saturn. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/08/delusions~293187/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>spacemontaignemahoganyimaginationhttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/08/delusions~293187/#commentshttp://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/07/ted_s_crypt_of_rays~290587/tag:tedsplace.blog.co.uk,2005-11-07:/2005/11/07/ted_s_crypt_of_rays~290587/Mon, 07 Nov 2005 23:52:05 +0100 <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/image001.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/t/tedsplace/img/image001_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/07/ted_s_crypt_of_rays~290587/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://tedsplace.blog.co.uk/2005/11/07/ted_s_crypt_of_rays~290587/#comments