If you ask me what is going to happen tonight is potentially dangerous, irresponsible, inflammatory and lunatic; I love it! Tonight, at brandies, will be held the first (and probably only) arts social, which will run alongside the football social. Now, to understand why this is so dangerous, you have to understand what a social is, so I’ll explain.

A social is a pissup; a weekly drinking match held by the football team.. they all sit in a circle playing drinking games and shouting loudly. I suppose it’s a type of bonding ritual, and it has been held in brandies every Wednesday for a long time.

Someone in my year – possibly Emma – has had the bright idea of mimicking this with arts students. It’s a form of social experiment, to see whether arts students can get into the same frame of mind as their sporting peers. The problem is I find it more than likely that the footballers will take umbrage at it. They will no doubt see it as inflammatory, and accuse us of ‘taking the piss’. Thus the attempt to bridge the gap between the two groups might open it even wider. I rather doubt the sports students will take it in good humour, and might see it as a mockery. Indeed, someone has scrawled cancelled over many of the posters advertising this event obviously, the footballers do not want it to happen.

As for me, I can’t wait. I plan to stay sober throughout, and just observe. My bet is there will be carnage, arguments, possibly even fighting. In the words of James T Kirk, ‘sounds like fun.’

I bought my zentai, thinking I’ll have to keep it as my little secret, but it has proved to be one of the best investments I ever made. It really did surprise me when charlotte said she wanted to wear it to a party on Saturday night, up in Manchester; what surprised me even more is she actually went through with it. She actually wore the damn thing in public, something I am yet to do.

What is yet more amusing is the club offered her a job as a podium dancer, and asked her to bring the suit. Now charlotte plans to buy one of her own, in pink.

I think I’ve started something.

dammit knew I’d forgotten something.

happy 21st birthday to my great little bro!

I spent the weekend at home. We had this odd kind of Christmas two, since we were in Australia in December, so my brothers (including Kat) were there, as well s uncle rich and aunt Jill from Sussex. It was excellent, as ii finally got to open presents (as if a trip to Australia wasn’t a cool enough present).

Everyone seemed to have a good time. Most of the time was spent in the conservatory, playing games and talking. It made me happy to find my uncle was a fellow bond fan, so I got mum to make us two martinis on Saturday night, which put us both out for the count. We also played a game of Lord of the Rings monopoly, which, despite being fun, struck me as something of a heresy – merchandising can go too far.

It was nevertheless great to see everyone, and the weekend went too fast. I see my brothers all too rarely these days, although we talk online – sometimes – and Luke has promised me to send me some more music, including some Berlioz, which I’ve been wanting for ages.

Oh well, back to the slog of uni. Perhaps we can get together in he summer, maybe play some cricket.

I better brush up my Yorker.

as a disabled person, I am supposed to have a ‘climb every mountain’ attitude. If you ask me, this is silly. I ain’t climbing no mountain until jet boots are invented, (and look what happened to the scooter). anyway, adventures are damn uncomfortable affairs, which make you late for dinner. besides, you could fall off, like this.

This cripples not going near no moun-tain.

I was stuck in Crewe earlier, waiting for my bus when I came across this fascinating report of primate tool use. It seems that our cousins are more intelligent than we think. It just goes to show how appearances may deceive – people tend to think I look unintelligent, and historically us spics were dismissed as ”retarded”. But boy did we prove them wrong. I am personally quite expert at poking people with pointed sticks.

link

This morning was the first morning in two weeks where my first thoughts weren’t about rich. They were, ‘better make that bibliography today’. I subsequently made said bibliography.

I am starting most definitely to feel better. I have been going around with a song in my mind all day – one which always cheers me up. Ladies and gents, turn your speakers to max, and click here now!

It’s time to calm down before I kill myself. The last few days have seen me doing some stupid things. On Friday night I was at a house party; I was pretty cut up about Rich and just let rip, downing half a bottle of Jack Daniels. I was at a low ebb that night and frankly didn’t give a rats ass about even getting home, nor perhaps waking up.

But wake I did. God did I have a hangover. The worse ever. Nevertheless, it was necessary – I needed a peak, a focal point for grief. Something to look back upon and think now I have done that I can let go. What happened to Rich was fucked up, but I need now to get on with my degree.

Taking that road trip Saturday was also very stupid. When they heard about it my friends told me off. Literally told me off, like an errant child. ”What if you had been run over? What if the battery had run out?” They’re right, of course, but on Saturday I was so full of hatred with the world I didn’t care.

It was on Sunday morning that I smiled for the first time in a week. For one, my hangover had gone. For another, after lunch, Charlie asked if she could try on my zentai suit. She’s going to a party on Saturday and wants to go as some kind of lizard. She seems to like it, for she put it on in my flat and walked across campus in it. Best thing I ever saw – a very pretty lady in a skin tight lycra catsuit, complete with feet, hood, and gloves, walking across campus merrily waving to people. The football team walked past and were highly amused. I knew that thing was a good investment.

It’s time not to get on with the business of doing a degree. This morning’s seminar gave me more impetus for my work on post-structuralism. Yesterday I was able to write for the first time in a week. In all my weekend of stupidity has done me lots of good, I reckon.

Or it might just be the sight of C in that catsuit…

what in the name of crap, fuck, and all that is holy is this?

Sorry, I just had to post it. you give yanks books and thats what happens

all i’m saying today is never drive 6 miles from crew in a chair if you dont want a runny nose the day aftter. especially bad after drinking half a bottle of jd through a straw the night before.

life is fun.

I went looking for Michelle today. She was the fianc of rich, and lives in shavington. I got the bus to crew and thence, after a bit of shopping, got the bus to shavington. Although the latter claimed to be accusable, I had a real problem getting defiant on it.

I spent some time looking about the village. It has become a priority of mine to try to trace what remains of my old class at Hebden. Despite the best efforts of myself and a lady who I got to help me, the search was fruitless. It was getting late, so, given the rigmarole I had had with the bus, I decided to drive back to crew – only about a mile – with a view to getting the twenty back to alsager.

The first part of this plan went well. However, I was sat at the bus stop outside the mmu Crewe campus, when the twenty approached, then, to my horror, drove on without stopping. Looking at the timetable, the next bus was not due till half five, and my PA was expecting me. I decided that I had no choice but to drive home before it got dark and cold.

It is six miles from Crewe to alsager, but I made it in about an hour. It’s surprising how quickly I made it. However, it scared me witless; not something I want to repeat soon.

I got home in one piece, wheelchair battery rather low. Nicky was waiting for me – I had worried that she’d have gone since I was about thirty minutes late. I have never been more relieved to see anyone. We went in, and she made dinner.

What a day.

nicky, a fellow trekkie and bringer of dinner, showed me this. Laugh away! I must say, It’s particularly inventive

For some time firefox has been playing up. I like to scroll up and down with the arrow keys, but for a while there has only been a curser. Thanks to eesther deciding my keyboard was dirty, I just discovered the key which sets this back to normal is f7. yay! I can scroll with keys again.

Things don’t feel right, and they won’t for some time. But the sun continues to rise, there is still fun to be had. Like discos, beer, and pink stuff.

I was going to go to the disco last night. I got myself all dressed up as Cupid because it was Valentine’s Day, and the idea of a spastic Cupid amuses me. Mind you it was pretty damn cold in a pink leotard and tights, but anyway. I got there about 8pm, and waited, and waited, and waited. The place was completely deserted. Only the staff were there. After about an hour, nobody had showed up ad I was getting cold, I decided to come home. I heard this morning, that it was the least attended Brandy’s disco in ages. Even after I left, very few people showed up. Oh well, at least I got to dress up.

I’m rather hoping there isn’t a Heaven, because when I get up there in 70 years or so, I’m going to get such a ribbing.

The events of the last week have made me realise how precious a friend is. Friends really are dear people – people you laugh with, people you cry with, people it hurts to leave behind. Thinking about this, yesterday, I resolved to do something odd. I need now to let my friends know I care about them – the only other option is to shun all friendship, and become a hermit. Then you never have to say goodbye.

This struck me as cowardly. It was then I came up with ‘the hug tax’. I plan to levy a tax of one hug on my friends; I intend to hug them all, showing them a piece of paper with my reasons beforehand. Upon seeing the paper, most launch into a huge great hug.

Not sure why exactly I need to do it, but it helps. I feel less alone. It’s as if the squeeze of another human lets me know I’m not alone. I have friends here, who care for me, and I care for them.

Hebden green, I suppose, is in the past. Finding out about rich is very painful. But now I must leave that behind, and look to the future. It seems to me that it is now rather possible that I am one of the last few survivors oaf my class. If this is so, I must not give up. I must carry on, and enjoy life. Not to do so would be something of a betrayal.

My quest to hug all my friends will continue. it may appear silly, but it’s the only way. They now seem even more dear to me.

I wrote the following last night when my friend vikki was here:

Watching my friend tap away, typing on my bed

She came to keep me company. Tonight, of all nights, I am not alone

For Richard is dead, and I feel like the last of a fellowship. Utterly alone. But not alone for she types away, keeping me company.

And I am deeply grateful for it.

–thanks vicks

I’m still hoping this is premature. I’m still hoping those men last Wednesday were wrong and that I will find my friend Richard alive and well. Yet I must admit to myself that they appeared to be certain, and that their description of the boy I grew up with fitted exactly.

If that is so, then my friend Richard is gone, a fact I hate to contemplate. All weekend, I’ve been looking for confirmation either way, looking for obituaries, getting people to wring numbers. No luck. It’s quite upsetting in itself, not knowing: part of me says there may still be hope, there may still be a happy ending. Another part remembers the certainty of those voices.

Keep thinking back to the nursery – to when we both used to crawl across the vast floor to play wrestling on the mats. I remember how we went through school together: how, before I got my lightwriter, rich used to translate for me. The trip to centre parks; going to Glasgow; how I earned the name slasha. I remember his jokes; how he always had a girlfriend.

I find myself wanting to cry. I want to scream. I want to utterly trash a room. I find myself unable to do either of these things – they will achieve nothing. Rich was one of the friends I expected to grow old, get married, maybe get a family. It probably isn’t going to happen now, and knowing that hurts.

It hurts very much. To a certain extent, this is what comes from going to a special school, since I find it likely that rich’s death was caused due to some complication with his spina bifida. In such places one has to cope with your friends dying, moreso than in a mainstream school, I mean, and it’s no easier after you leave. Looking around at my friends in the wes today, I found myself feeling alone, unable to explain, unable to let them no why I felt so bad. I’m not saying they won’t have had similar tradgedies, and they have all been very supportive, but I still felt alone, like I was the last survivor of a band of brothers, in a battle long since over, returning to a pub full of music.

Soon, I’ll join the singing again I’m sure. Rich wouldn’t want me to get too down. But, at the moment, it feels like someone hit me in the stomach. Writing seems to ease it slightly, but it will probably hurt for some time.

—

I was about to post this when Darren, a friend whom I got to call the vicar at Weston, came. It is true.

no more doubt; no more hope

still miserable so me and est have decided to have a ‘stupid day’ (ie much potty humour as possible) to kick us off, go here

I was working on my exhibition yesterday; going over memories of school with Jim. We now have a video, which dad found, of myself in 1992. I saw old rich S, and, remembering he lived in Weston, decided I needed a roll. I caught the buss to Crewe, and wended my way the two and a half distance to the small village. Then, given it’s size, I decided to ask about for my oldest friends. His imput would be great.

I first asked in a pub – no sign. Then, after a short scout, I saw two men talking outside the village hall. I asked them if they knew a guy about my age in a chair. They did.

‘son of a farmer? Younger brother, older sister?’

‘yes.’ I said ‘do you know where I might find him?’

‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but he died last October’.

I had always imagined rich getting old, married, this wise old Englishman. We went through most of school together, from 5 to 16. my gran always reminds me of him: ‘Do you remember Richard? He was always smiling.’ He was engaged to be married. I remember school unihock sessions with him best.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I’m posting it to make explaining easier. I’m hoping those chaps were mistaken. It’s possible but unlikely.

Oh fuck it. Fuck it all.

I may be accused of blasphemy around here, and my lecturers may call for my immediate disembowelment, but I really think modern artistic criticism is too ingrained in Freud. In my culture seminar today, it seemed Trish wanted to relate everything in Heimat to the oedipal complex, to the extent that she seemed to distort it slightly.

Don’t get me wrong – I do have time for Freud. Increasingly, I’m using him in my essays, as well as Lacan. They seem, oddly, to fit: lacan’s tripartite of the imaginary, symbolic and real seems, in fact, to relate to my situation. I have my imaginary self – how I see myself – and my real self – my outward appearance, how others see me. The symbolic bridges the gap between the two; but for me, my symbolic is generated by a machine, which has very little to do with either concept, for it cannot fully reflect my Imaginary self in the real. It’s interesting, if unscientific, you must admit. These hypothetical structures seem to fit some sense of reality: we always think of our inner selves ad different from our outer selves.

Mind you, I still think basing most artistic criticism on this is something of a mistake.

and for that matter, who in the hell made this? some people have too much time on their hands. I, however, did 1000 words of my 2500 word film essay. nearly there

what master of cutting made this

Last night was really quite awesome. My friend jenny was holding a 21st birthday party; it was held over in Crewe, by invitation only at the overdraught bar. Jenny expressly mentioned, too, that it was formal wear, which meant only one thing – my tux had to come out.

[at this point I better say my parents rule – they went to the not negligible trouble of dry cleaning my suit and delivering it here. Thanks guys]

so, charlotte having changed me into my suit, and looking stunning herself, we caught a lift over to Crewe. Jenny’s friends and family were there, in kilts, as were most of my friends. There and then, I decided it wasn’t a night for beer.

I went to the bar: ‘Please mix one gin and one vermouth’. I asked. What I got back was quite passable, but not a proper martini. I got talking to my friends, and a while later I saw AF at the bar, so I went over to chat. He complemented me on how smart I looked; I replied I simply had a bond fixation. He asked if I was drinking martini.

‘kind of’ I replied, whereupon he very kindly set about mixing me a proper martini, methodically pouring liquid from one glass to another to a precise recipe. When I tasted it, I recognised it as that which I had in Sydney on new years eve: something which I seem to be acquiring a taste for – Martinis. Quite delicious, even if it lacked the slither of lemon peel and green olive, which seem to give it extra bite.

I was determined, however, not to get drunk last night, so I happily drunk water for the rest off the evening, talking o friends, eating cake and dancing. I had a lot of fun: at one point, Steve thought it would be a good idea to sweep me off my feet and carry me about the dance floor. Everyone had an excellent time; jen made a good speech, and at about half twelve we got a taxi home.

Happy birthday, Jenny. That was great.

Its been a hecic couple of days. Last night, I was in my room, surfing the net, as you do. There was a buz on the intercom – I’d arranged to meet Charlie so I went to answer it. I had just opened the door when I heard a loud smash from back in my room. We got back to find someone had kicked a ball through my window. The uncanny thing is, if charlotte hadn’t come at that precise moment, I’d have been hit by a shower of broken glass. Spooky or what?

Needless to say, security came and put up some heavy duty plastic, and I got a new window this morning. But I still cant quite get over how spooky it was that charlotte came at precisely the right time.

Blimey! I’ve just turned my pc on to find some pleasant news: at time of writing – and I’m currently streaming TMS – England have the upper hand in the cricket. These days, that’s a rare thing indeed, especially against the Australians. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with England this tour, as we didn’t perform quite as well as I would have hoped.

Five nil indeed! What a slaughtering. Ye gads and little fishes, by the time we got there, for the Melbourne test, it was already over! We were all quite disappointed, and I feel sorry for my father, who has always loved cricket.

On the other hand, the great thing about this game is that it’s not just about the winning. This is why they keep playing tests if the series is already won. It’s about the love of the sport itself; about sitting in the crowd sipping Victoria bitter and listening to the barmy army. It almost didn’t matter that we were collapsing, we were still having great fun.

In football, the rivalry between supporters seems very deep – look, for example, at the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers supporters, which often gets violent. In cricket, this rivalry is merely made of songs: as we toured down under, every time the subject came up, it was done so with [Clark gets caught – 45-3] a laugh and a joke.

Peter, the driver of the tour bus, jokingly promised ‘not to mention the sport beginning with C’. it was clear that the idea that treating the rivalry between the countries as anything other than friendly was patently absurd. This is why I love the sport; even though this rivalry is well over a century old, it ends at stumps.

I believe this is how all sport should be, and can’t understand why sporting rivalries such as Celtic v rangers or Everton v Liverpool so often get violent. Doesn’t make sense.

[whats the betting, that when I get back to my pc this afternoon, we have lost?]

what would you get if you crossed tony hawks (the skateboarder, not the comedian), johny knoxville and me?

probably this