Communications – Page 86 – Fooyah

June 1 2019July 13 2019

Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols – Sex Pistols

This album means a lot to me. I originally had this on tape bought as a birthday present [I think] by a friend from my village. Lisa and I both went to air cadets and our friendship grew over the years we spent together. Towards the end of my cadet career we would give each other lifts to the squadron. 309 was based in the nearest town to the village and we had to get there somehow.

Lisa bought this tape for me. We listened to it together in the car and I loved the rawness of the sound. As I grew up further it amused me that this band were put together pretty much to sell things at a shop on the Kings Road. Brilliant marketing and hilarious at the same time. Punk being used as an overt advert for the shop Sex. Brilliant!

Not all the songs are brilliant but a good proportion are and the production is excellent. Again, it’s amusing how well produced this album is given the whole punk pastiche [not sure that’s the correct word there, I might have just mentioned a Danish pastry].

Holidays in the sun
Bodies
No feelings
Liar
Problems
Seventeen
Anarchy
Pretty Vacant

All amazing songs. All really well written and produced. This is a one album band, everything else was shit. This album though, it served them well.

This does what it’s meant to. It scares your parents. It makes them worry for your sanity and the future of humanity. It’s ingenious.

Then, while I was at university, in possibly my second year, Lisa died. Suddenly. While playing football. Fuck. My dad told me. In a bar near Goodge Street. “I’ve got some bad news” he said. Lisa was dead. Fuckin’ dead. At about 21 or 22. They didn’t ever find out what happened. She was fit, played sport and ran all the time, smoked all the time, was great to be around.

The funeral was fucking terrible. The church was packed. People sat in the aisles. I think we all, the cadets, wanted to run away afterwards, but her dad asked us to stay a the wake. It was shit. I think we were all numb. We pondered going to look at the coffin in the hole, I said we shouldn’t, let’s remember her the way she was, we didn’t look. That night we all went on a pub crawl around Sawbridgeworth and drank many round to Lisa.

I used to go and chat to her grave for about ten years after she died. I just went there to think. I might have said stuff, but I also know that’s just stupid because she was dead and gone. Once you’re dead that’s it. Your gone. But it felt like the right thing for me to do at those times. Even my mate Rich and I once went to speak to her after a dining in night at 309. We left our girlfriends with my parents at about midnight and just went to chat to Lisa. Fuck knows what the girls thought about that. It’s just what we did.

I have a newspaper clipping about Lisa dying folded inside the CD case of this one. I moved it there from the music cassette when I upgraded.

Life’s shit quite often and then every now and then you get a bit of happiness. Then you die. Some of us die before the others. I miss you Lisa.

Newpaper article about Lisa dying — Lisa Died

We’re so pretty, oh so pretty, we’re pretty, va-cunt.

June 1 2019June 1 2019

Not 4WD

One of the laces on my running shoes died just over a week ago. I’d been thinking of getting new ones as I was sure these were now two years old and running out of steam. I also know I had written about the new trainers when I got them as a way of keeping tabs on when I bought them. It turns out that was just about three years ago! Here’s what they looked like new:

This is what they look like now:

You can see they are worn, with holes appearing, there’s almost no tread on the soles. So, I took a trip to a local running shop and went for blue this time:

I guess we’ll see how long these ones last.

By the way, this is the 1501 communication published on this site. Keep an eye out for more over the next few years!

May 30 2019

Untruth

There’s been quite a bit of moral outrage recently at the Jeremy Kyle show and that it should be removed from television permanently. I haven’t really paid attention to what has happened, as I understand it someone died and the show has been stopped from broadcasting for a while. Newspapers and social media have been very loud about how the show should be pulled completely.

Why does it take something bad to happen for people to be open about what they think is right and wrong? All of this moral outrage wasn’t there two weeks ago when the Kyle show was still on television. There wasn’t anyone loudly calling for it to be stopped. It took the death of someone for the media to declare that they thought it was a bit shit all the time. They did fuck all for many years.

This is strange. This effect that it takes a large news cycle for the media and opinion makers to declare something as bad even though it’s been around for years. What sort of behaviour is this? Where was all the complaining before something terrible happened? I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t bad enough for the media t give a shit, but that someone died before they spoke was terrible.

I have, in the past, watched a lot of Jeremy Kyle. I used to think it did some good. I thought that it helped people to talk to each other in a safe space when the rest of the world didn’t give a shit. It allowed the chance for people to communicate. I was probably wrong to think this. We shouldn’t forget that Kyle is a television show. It’s there to entertain and make money at a basic level and it probably did little to help its stars.

My biggest problem with the Kyle show was the use of a lie detector. Here was have a television show with a purported “helping people” theme and they relied on the utter bullshit that is a lie detector. The polygraph doesn’t work. It’s incredibly difficult to tell when people are lying. The TV show used the lie detector to try and solve family issues, people’s future relationships relied on the results of a flawed piece of equipment. Families will have been broken up because of the reliance on the polygraph and its results.

The idea that the show declared the truth or lies as fact was an appalling use of a bullshit piece of theatre – the polygraph. It doesn’t work. I guess the show tried to disclaimer the use of the detector with an on-screen caption saying that “it doesn’t work but some people believe it”. That’s what religion does. It’s horrific the hurt and separation using this device caused.

Do you know why polygraph results aren’t permitted in UK courts? It’s because they don’t work. It’s incredibly difficult for humans to tell when other humans are lying. I’ll let you into my reasoning.

Humans learn from toddler age that lying works. The individual will receive rewards for lying, as long as they can keep that lie going. Humans have spent their entire lives lying at times. This behaviour is learnt and used almost constantly. Little lies are easy. Larger lies are more difficult but they get easier with time. It’s amazingly easy to convince yourself that something happened when it didn’t. Human memory is terrible. Eye witnesses shouldn’t be allowed in courts but that is for another time.

I’ll give you an anecdote, which isn’t evidence, but it personalises the story and allows you to connect rather than just concentrate on the plain facts.

Years ago I ran over a pothole on a bend in the road near my village. The weather had been incredibly poor and there were potholes all over the place. The sudden compression on my left front suspension broke the spring and by the time I got to work the other spring had broken through excessive weight on it.

I tried to make a claim through the local council for the damage, claiming that the road was in poor condition. However, I didn’t want to take photographs in the road where the pothole was, it would not be safe to take measurements on that corner. So, I took photographs of a pothole just inside the village, it was of a similar size and depth and along a route that I drive. To ensure that, if questioned, I referred to the nearer pothole I kept going over the story in my head. I also visualised my driving the car over that pothole over and over. I talked through the story while walking the dog and basically formed a memory of me breaking the car by driving over the pothole near the village.

Even now, after more than ten years, if asked I would immediately respond that the pothole was in the village. I would then question myself and remember what had actually happened. With just a little understanding of human memory it is easy to adjust what we “know”. Memory is fascinating and terrible. Humans are terrible.

May 27 2019

My Generation – The Very Best Of The Who – The Who

I don’t remember buying this album and I suspect it was another failed attempt to get into The Who. I can tell you that I don’t think I’ve ever listened to it, or if I did it was decades ago. I wouldn’t even be able to tell you what tracks are on here, although I could guess.

I’ve just looked at the track listing and I can honestly say I recognise about half the song titles. I guess I’m still not a Who fan.

May 27 2019

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

Yesterday I went to watch the Pokémon Detective Pikachu movie at the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. As I drove along the wharf-side I noticed the phase of the tide and it was waxing, slightly more than half high-tide at that time.

I rated this film on IMDB and then tweeted the result. You should read this communication about the rating system, although I have been aware it is still flawed I don’t have the time currently to look into it.

I rated Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) 8/10 #IMDb https://t.co/e0c1FAQjxt

— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 27, 2019

So, I really enjoyed this film. Disregarding the megalomaniac aspect of it, this was what a film should be. There were so many multicultural touches that I’m not going to get them all. The cast were a mix of peoples from around the world. The cities looked marvelous and contained buildings from around the world. This whole film had a futuristic feel to it, the type of melange of the world which probably gives right-wingers the cold sweats.

The Pokémon were cool. They were realistic enough to make it all believable. The story wasn’t great, but overall this film just hit the spot in a world polarised by the politics of hate.

I enjoyed this film and I dare you to too.

May 25 2019

Mutter – Rammstein

I was given this album as a gift during early February 2007, I’m pretty sure it was on my stag do. Anyway, as much as I love Rammstein I haven’t listened to this album as much as I should’ve. I’m not sure why but I seem to prefer the other albums.

Sometimes the older stuff works best for a band because you know the songs so well. I think that’s why I find it hard to get to know the newer albums or ones that are newer to me. I guess I also don’t like bands who keep the same music style? I’m not sure about that statement actually. Here’s my thinking:

I love the early Iron Maiden stuff but the albums after Seventh Son are a little boring. I think it’s because they didn’t really change their sound? Or maybe I just grew out of Iron Maiden, I’m not saying it’s wrong to keep liking them I’m just saying I changed.

I still love AC/DC even though [apart from Let There Be Rock] all their albums sound the same. This contradicts my experience to Iron Maiden so I don’t know what it is about AC/DC or Maiden that makes my response to their new music so different.

Metallica changed their sound over the years and I haven’t liked anything by them since Garage Days Re-Revisited. I mean there are two songs on the black album that are OK but everything since then I’ve not liked. Maybe it’s because they went “mainstream”?? I don’t know. Maiden are pretty mainstream, as are AC/DC, and I still kinda like them so who knows what’s going on. I guess you like what you like.

Since 2009 I’ve been into Aggrotech or Hellectro music and I really enjoy it. The canon isn’t as large as for metal and so I haven’t tired of the music yet. I don’t understand the causation route here. I can’t decide if Andy and I share the same interest in music genres because we have the same music tastes and are friends anyway or whether the fact that we are friends also influences our music tastes so they are the same. There are some small differences in what we like and obsess over but by and large our tastes have grown together. Odd and probably not that odd I guess.

So, Rammstein. I first heard them when a friend, Sara, gave me her CDs of the first two Rammstien albums and I loved them. I remember listening to these CDs in around 2003. It took a few year for me to get to the point of seeing Rammstein because I had a phase when I didn’t go to gigs and concerts, but I am definitely in a music phase at the moment and one that’s lasted about six years so far.

This album is a classic but it just happens to be one I’ve not listen to that much.

May 16 2019

It’s Dying

We all need distractions I guess and maybe laughing at the poor on the Jeremy Kyle show was one of those. It was a way to feel better about ourselves, a way of looking at people who suffer and try but ultimately are just a passing fad for those of us who are OK at the moment, thank you very much.

Perhaps that’s why people watch bollocks like Eastenders and other soap operas where everything happens to everyone because if everyone tried to get along and be nice to each other it wouldn’t be worth watching and it wouldn’t provide escapism.

I’m certainly clear in my head about why I like science fiction. It’s nerdy and requires a little science knowledge but space type stuff often provides a glorious distraction to the mundane. It gives me the chance to live elsewhere and think about the implications of travel and technology that won’t happen in my lifetime.

In reality it’s all fucked isn’t it? Brexit, politics, the planet, it’s fucked. It’s dying. The single GREATEST threat to the human population wherever you live at the moment is the fact that the world is on fire. It’s really depressing. I’m hoping I’m dead before the Water Wars start. They are going to be terrible.

All those politicians worried about maintaining power and trying to get your vote using short-term gains and short-term give-aways. Not one of them is standing up for the planet. We need RADICAL change to society and how everything works. We need to save this planet. I’m not normally pessimistic about things but the planet is dying through human abuse and it’s going to kick us the fuck back and quite rightly too.

I’m scared for the future of my children and the fears that they will face as they get older. I’m scared for my unborn descendants because it’s all going to be shit. Take a look around the world and see where the action is to provide a future for people on this planet. It’s not there. Consumption-capitalism is driving this world to ruin while at the same time killing those who are poor and have little. It’s disgusting. We should be promoting a social-environmental-capitalism. Governments need to incentivise social and environmental good-doing.

It’s not like this is new. We’ve known about climate change and carbon emissions for over forty years. NOT a thing has been done in my life time that will drastically alter the way the planet is going to react. It’s all a nightmare. I’m not sure humans are mature enough to do anything about it either. I’m hoping that the generation after me, once they assume power when the baby boomers and generation X die off can cope and end up being nice to each other and working to create an Earth for the future.

I see the newer generation of politicians kicking back against the obscene capitalism of the last one hundred years and are now talking about social responsibilities and they seem to be speaking a more gentle kind of politics trying to go after the aging fuckers who have taken everything they can and created personal wealth beyond necessity. Here’s hoping that people like AOC can start to change the world to actual care about each other.

In the mean time the Daily Mail and other institutions that gain their power from the want and blinkered view of the older generations print articles implying that solar farms are wrong and will ruin your view.

The headline should have been “locals fight planet saving solar farm (stupid cunts)”. But then the exact people fighting this farm and the ones who read the Mail because they are all old and white. Fuck the Mail.

More amusingly, in thirty years the Hardy countryside won’t look like that at all because the climate will have changed so much it’ll be barren and all the locals will have died of malaria.

May 13 2019May 13 2019

HHOM

Just got back from a lovely weekend being trained in quite specific skills to do with a particular system. I was billeted at Halton House Officers’ Mess and I am glad the course changed from RAF Wittering to RAF Halton. I hadn’t stayed or seen Halton House before Friday and I was slightly worried I’d never get to see it as Halton might be shutting down.

Halton House Officers' Mess — Halton House Officers’ Mess

The light was pretty good when I arrived and you can see that in the picture. I try not to use filters as I think that’s cheating, unless there is a very specific effect you are going for. The above picture is filter-less, just aperture adjustments. I was given Room 8. This looked out over the main balcony.

The Salon, above, is the main hall but we don’t call halls halls anymore. In this particular picture my room was in the top right hand part of the balcony. It was such an amazing place to stay and I took photographs of every room.

The staircase has one of the best rise/step ratios I have seen and it is perfect for people in flowing dresses. I should have taken one with me and glided down this artifact. The house was bought by the air ministry after one of the Rothschilds didn’t want it and sold it at auction. It’s a lovely place and one I can tick off my list of great places to visit that are quite difficult as a member of the public.

The house has been used in numerous films, even a Bond film, and you can see a list on Wikipedia.

May 13 2019

Music For A Jilted Generation – The Prodigy

This is an album which takes me back to the early 1990s almost straight away. I’m pretty sure I bought this in a record shop in Portsmouth. This means I bought it around 1995/6.

I remember spending time at a mate’s flat after being out on the beers in Bishop’s Stortford. He was working as a house master in a private school and we would often rock up to his accommodation and sometimes we’d have the Narcotics Suite on in the background and I remember being very impressed with the music.

I also remember being in a car with my parents and even though they were fine with all my heavy metal and thrash I asked them to put this CD in the player and listen and I don’t think they quite got it. The music has complex beats and I think it broke them slightly. I have loved this album for over twenty years. When I saw The Prodigy last summer at the M’era Luna festival it was one of the best gigs I had ever seen.

Break and Enter – a deep heavy intro to the blistering sounds of The Prodigy.
Their Law – Fuck ’em. Shout and scream this one at the establishment.
Full Throttle – a fast ride to hell I reckon.
Voodoo People – magic people. I think I remember this one from the live show. A guitar based sound to give you full on dance beats.
Speedway – It’s a race isn’t it? Sounds like the soundtrack to a Ridge Racer game, but better.
The Heat – Still great.
Poison – The intro to this, with the spoken word and then the wa-wa sounds makes me shiver. It needs to be loud and hit you in the chest.
No Good – ha ha, this one reminds me of a relationship I was in once. Every now and then this song went through my head before I’d had enough and left.
One Love – lovely.
Narcotic Suite x 3 – a beautifully written selection of songs which will make my spine shiver.

I liked this album before I was into my current electro-aggrotech-industrial phase. It was a forerunner that seemed “OK” for a metal fan to like. I think I used to be worried what people would think about me when I spoke about music and now I don’t care what you think. I like what I like and am what I am.

May 6 2019May 6 2019

K Qual

I just spent a weekend of good fun at a training camp near Folkestone. I was on my K qualification it involved spending some time at the Hythe Ranges run by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and they are part of the Defence Training Estate. According to the DTE website:

An area of low lying, slightly undulating land adjoining the foreshore. Hythe Ranges is one of the oldest ranges in the country and has been used for live firing for nearly 200 years. The whole area is steeped in military history. There are two Martello Towers on Hythe Ranges, and a “Grand Redoubt” fortification at Dymchurch. These were built in the early 1800s to resist potential invasion by Napoleon.

On the Saturday there the weather was somewhat changeable! We had moments of delightfully warm sunshine and a few minutes later we were in a hail storm. We had to do our job in all weathers because there’s only so much time you can be booked onto the range.

I love the clouds and colours in this picture, the light was stunning. In this picture you can see the bullet catcher, one of the Napoleonic Martello Towers and in the bottom left there is part of a Hythe Frame. The Hythe Frame is used to raise and lower targets on the shooting range. It is a manual device and I really enjoyed using it although the sound of bullets passing overhead was a little disconcerting.