Tuesday 31 May 2011

Bring Me The Head Of Carlos Gouveia

Carlos A. M. Gouveia

highschool.com (was university.org)

In the beginning was the Plan, and then the Program; And the Plan was without form, and the Program was void;

And Darkness was upon the faces of the professors;

And they spake unto the Associate Dean, saying "It is a Crock of Shit, and it stinks";

And the Associate Dean went unto the Dean, and he spake unto him saying, "It is a Crock of Fæces, and none may abide the Odour thereof;

And the Dean went unto the Vice President, and he spake unto him saying, "It is a Container of Excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide before it;

And the Vice President went unto the President, and he spake unto him saying, "It is a Vessel of Fertiliser, and none may abide its strength;

And the President went unto the Vice Chancellor, and he spake unto him saying, "It containeth that which aids Plant Growth, and it is very strong;

And the Vice Chancellor went unto the Chancellor, and he spake unto him saying, "It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful;

And the Chancellor went unto the Board of Regents, and he spake unto them saying, "This potent and vigorous Plan will promote the Growth of the University;

And the Board looked upon the Plan, and saw that it was good, and ordered its Implementation forthwith.

The Drones

Monday 30 May 2011

The Other Man's Grass

The famed sociologist Max Weber was once criticised by a fellow academic for writing outside his field. 
"I'm not a donkey," Weber retorted, "and I don't have a field."

A Fortified Wine To Avoid

the port of hamster dam

Insincerity Anagram


Sunday 29 May 2011

The Political Right

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
 — Albert Einstein

Saturday 28 May 2011

Postmodern Mathematics

1 + 1 = 3, for sufficiently large values of 1.

Splimpers

Splitters distinguish splitters from lumpers.  Lumpers don't.

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Hell

Pleasure Is Where You Find It

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness
of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
 — Albert Einstein

Tuesday 24 May 2011

A Well Respected Man

He dresses how he votes.
 — David Bridie '25 stations'

Captain Ahab

Fiasco

We need wisdom more than ever
Even with the best intentions
The centre cannot hold
The centre cannot hold
 — David Bridie 'The Centre Cannot Hold'

Strike A Poseur

The triumph of style over substance is celebrated endlessly at numerous annual awards ceremonies — from the Oscars down.
 — Doug Anderson

'A Demeaning Display Of Anodyne Music And Fantasy Costumes'

Inanity writ large with a 10-tonne DayGlo Pentel.  This utterly unnecessary event highlights the absurd efforts that aspiring pop singers will go to in order to lose a meaningless competition and avoid saddling their country with the expense of hosting the ensuing year's telecast, which costs squillions and advances bugger all.
 — Doug Anderson on the Eurovision Song Contest

Wild About Oscar

Sunday 22 May 2011

The Poetry Of Logic

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
 — Albert Einstein

Synchronised Swarming

Saturday 21 May 2011

Vindicated

Aspersion Syndrome

Bernard Woolley: You could make her listen to REASON, Minister.
Jim Hacker: She's a SOCIOLOGY student, Bernard!!!

Monday 16 May 2011

Proving Chomsky Right

The finding of arguments
for a conclusion given in advance
is not philosophy,
but special pleading.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (pp 453-4)

Intuition And Science

It is not what the man [sic] of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (p514)

Sunday 15 May 2011

Richard Cranium

Phrenology keeps raising its ugly head.

Thursday 12 May 2011

Good And Evil

Binary thinking can be both a blessing and a curse.

Cynicism And Cringe

Millions adored Seinfeld or were addicted to the drollery of The Office and other Ricky Gervais creations while, to me, they never rose above examples of demeaning cynicism and the festering humour of cringe.
 — Doug Anderson

Fœtid World

That he is seldom seen doing the rounds of media glitz or participating in the swill of ego-stroking and narcissism that propels the fœtid world of television is perhaps the most significant indicator that his work is serious.
 — Doug Anderson

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Saturday 7 May 2011

Climates Of The Mind

As I see it, or as I want to see it,
the marvels of the visible world are not things in themselves
but revelations to stir the imagination —
to conduct us to amazing climates of the mind,
which climates it is for the artist
to translate into paint or into words.
 — Mervyn Peake

Friday 6 May 2011

Platonic Essentialism & Zoroastrian Separatism Masquerading As Science

"What makes us human?"
cf
"What makes them cockroaches?"
"What makes them wombats?"
"What makes them bacteria?"
"What makes them magnolias?"
"What makes them truffles?"

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Countertruism

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

A Sociologist's Paradise

Far from crazy pavements -
the taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
on a dirty afternoon
Where the fæcal germs of Mr Freud
are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void
In the case of Beasley Street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds
Somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need
- a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
On the edge of Beasley Street

Where the action isn't
That's where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
In a box on Beasley Street

From the boarding houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men's overcoats
You can't see their feet
A riff joint shuts - opens up
Right down on Beasley Street

Cars collide, colours clash
disaster movie stuff
For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache
Revenge is not enough
There's a dead canary on a swivel seat
There's a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar
an inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
impregnates the walls
the rats have all got rickets
they spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat
Drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat
Nothing La-di-dah
OAP, mother to be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shit-stoppered drains
and crocodile skis
are seen on Beasley Street

The kingdom of the blind
a one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
the doorbells do not ring
A lightbulb bursts like a blister
the only form of heat
here a fellow sells his sister
down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is
that they're not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin,
Sixteen Beasley Street

Vince the aging savage
Betrays no kind of life
but the smell of yesterday's cabbage
and the ghost of last year's wife
through a constant haze
of deodorant sprays
he says retreat
Alsatians dog the dirty days
down the middle of Beasley Street

People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
every time they kiss.
It's a sociologist's paradise
each day repeats
On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy
beastly Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
on a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street

 — John Cooper Clarke 'Beasley Street'

An Inspector Calls

We often talk about the word closure.
From my experience … there is no absolute closure.
It's more a transcendence from one stage to another.
 — Detective Inspector Peter Cotter, Head Of The Homicide Squad

Fellers

If trees gushed blood
When they were felled
By meddling man,
And crimson welled

From every gash
His axe can give,
Would he forbear,
And let them live?

  — Mervyn Peake 'If Trees Gushed Blood'

Monday 2 May 2011

Now And Then

There's something in your soul that makes me feel so old
In fact I think I've died about six hundred times
There's less of me now and more of me then
 — The Human League 'Almost Mediæval'

Unplaced

And I was green, greener than the hill
Where flowers grew and sun shone still
Now I’m darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be
 — Nick Drake 'Place To Be'

Another Place

I've got to leave I can't stay another day
There's an emptiness inside of me
I can't bear the loneliness out here
There's another place I've got to be
 — Floyd Red Crow Westerman 'Quiet Desperation'

Sunday 1 May 2011

Aviation Anagram


Use

Use-by dates — they come and go.
When it's yours, you're bound to know;
Life and love return anew
As everyone stops using you.
— Michæl Leunig