Catmachine

Ah, I'll do it when I get home , I think excitedly. And I visualise it in my head, sitting at the computer and doing the thing which has just excited my mind whether it is writing, coding or photoshopping. Except in my head I am still sitting at my computer in my old flat even though I moved out of there a couple of months ago. The human brain maintains a model of the world around it and when things change in reality it takes far longer for these changes to percolate into the mindscape of the head. The older you are the longer it takes for these changes to kick in. In dreams of course it takes even longer. When asleep I still seem to be living in the house I lived in as a teenager (although oddly am the age I am now). These mind quirks dragging me back into the past have of late caused me to become increasingly worried about dropping dead although I suspect that turning fifty also has a lot to do with these concerns. When I was a kid the idea of being fifty was the same as ...

This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve written a blog whilst miles up in the air, but it has been a while. In fact it’s been a while since I flew anywhere at all – and even then it was the same place I’m heading for now. Why the gap? I don’t know I just don’t seem to have had the time or inclination to go anywhere abroad. Plus my passport ran out a couple of years ago. But the thing is that’s just an excuse, I like travelling about and part of my MO these days is to ensure that I keep doing different things in an attempt to fool my brain into thinking time is lasting longer. Or perhaps when I do different things time is lasting longer. It’s all subjective after all. Anyway I thought it was about time I wrote another blog entry as I don’t yet have one for May 2014 and that month is nearly over. It’s a far cry from the days when I used to blog on an almost daily basis. In those days my blog was something I used to look forward to and I enjoyed uncovering fresh topics to...

I don't have any wisdom teeth. I didn't have them taken out or anything, they're just not there and never were.  I am a mutant.  One of the first things some people say upon hearing about this unusual state of affairs is usually a hilarious variant on the " Why am I not surprised? " gag - the implication being that I'm a bit daft and lack wisdom. Of course that's all a bit arse over front and back to tit. As we all know very well they're called " wisdom " because they appear later in life when (presumably) one has accumulated some.  They're not called " wisdom " because their appearance imparts it, nor because their eruption makes you stagger about calling for Mr Grimsdale (unless that's your dentist's name). Age and wisdom used to be inextricably linked. Not so much nowadays. Anyone who hates Thugg the Caveman and his illuminating antics should skip to the end of the next bit. In Thugg's day reaching the rip...

It's probably a bit unexpected that I'm writing a blog entry with the same title as a Michael Jackson song, but in my defence I'd just like to point out that the late Mr Jackson doesn't hold a monopoly on the concept of mirrors, or the male inhabitants thereof. However, looking in the mirror these days I begin to understand his desire for plastic surgery. I have always had a curious relationship with mirrors. As a child and early teen I disliked them.  Firstly because they were frightening, especially at night. They reflected and doubled the scary luminous shapes that seemed to make their way into my bedroom no matter how thoroughly I closed the curtains. And what if I had to get up in the night?  In the small hours a mirror was an eerie portal into an unnatural perverse world where I could never be sure that the shape moving in there was only my reflection. And what would happen if I looked into it whilst I was asleep? Far better to cover it up with a blanket. ...

"I'm just a face in the crowd / Nothing to worry about Not even trying to stand out I'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller And I got nothing to say / It's all been taken away I just behave and obey I'm afraid I am starting to fade away" Nine Inch Nails, Getting Smaller I don't know what Trent Reznor thinks he has to worry about - he's the same age as me and yet made his mark years ago and chalked up an achievement that many of us would like to, that of credible songwriter rockstar. But I know what he's on about though. Given that it's been written by someone who doesn't know what it's like, the above quote is an uncannily accurate reflection of the thought processes of someone who's reached my age without achieving anything worthwhile. It's easy when you're young of course. You can entertain all sorts of notions about how you're going to be a rock star, a writer, a DJ, and it all seems quite achievable. The only p...

I'm in two minds. Or rather sometimes it seems as if two minds are in me. I can't really work out whether I'm a miserable curmudgeon complaining about the current state of the world and how things were so much better back in the old days, or an immature man-child who refuses to grow up. This means that sometimes I react to things in an unpredictable manner and seem to be capable of holding two contradictory opinions in my head at the same time. It's a kind of doublethink but it's not at if I don't notice the contradiction. I do, but I decide not to let it bother me. For instance, whilst I may bang on about how selfish people are trying to monopolise more than one seat on public transport , I am equally as capable of complaining when someone sits next to me on aforementioned public transport. I don't know if this means that I'm capable of seeing both sides of an argument or am just monumentally selfish. However, I do try not to be selfish in my dealing...

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?" said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh god, I'm so depressed." Douglas Adams, The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy Now that we have our thought experiment of me-as-robot fully set up in the Thought Lab, it's time to start playing with it. Settle down. There are any number of advantages to my new state. Instead of having to struggle with contact lenses and then having to hold small print documents at arms length, I can simply upgrade and get a new pair of peepers from eyeBay. And I'm sure once I get the mechanism calibrated I can do away with all that getting tired stuff and simply go onto standby at the end of the day; no more tedious insomnia. It's only when I start talking about it in this manner that it becomes apparent how complex the human machine is. How many of these things I think I could do without, or...

Sometimes I can't stand being made of flesh and bone. What with my current materialist reading material I've come to terms with the reality that I am in fact a machine. A highly sophisticated machine, it's true. A highly inefficient machine and yet at the same time an immensely, insanely complex one. But a machine nonetheless. What I don't understand is why they had to make it of such rubbish parts. I mean come on . The transportation mechanism is made of meat fer chrissakes. And bones. OK, they have that nifty self-repair process built-in (provided they're properly set after a break), but wouldn't it be better to just make them out of stainless steel in the first place and avoid the whole issue of breakage? If nothing else this is a compelling argument for evolution and against the ridiculous notion of Intelligent Design . Idiotic design more like. Still, as something arrived at by trial and error over the course of millions of years it's not bad ...

"Being born is not a crime, so why must it carry a sentence of death?" Robert Ettinger Who wants to live forever? To be honest, I wouldn't mind. No really. Sometimes I think anyone who doesn't want to live forever quite clearly hasn't properly understood the concept of death. Perhaps this attitude of mine is being affected by my current reading matter; as any regular readers of this blog may have noticed I'm attempting to give my mind a workout by reading a lot of philosophical and scientific texts on the nature of consciousness, the nature of being. One thing that the Champions of Physicalism seem to delight in gleefully pointing out is that we are no more than the sum of our parts, that this is all there is and that we're all going to die. We're all going to stop . Sometimes this becomes horribly clear to me in the middle of the night and I go cold with terror. Something must be done. It may be an illusion, but I'm quite attached to being s...

Yesterday was the first day of the new academic year. Suddenly the university was full of new students. Some people might think this a bad thing - " Oh, the university is a great place to work - apart from the students! HA HA HA HA! " - but personally I think the place comes alive during the term. Some people talk about the importance of research, but students are a university's lifeblood. The frightening thing is that some of the new intake are born in in the nineties. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to call the police. That is quite clearly ridiculous. I've said it before and I'll say it again - they put the twenty-first century on at the wrong speed. Hang the DJ. Freshers' Week seems a lot more exciting now that in was in my day. Everyone just seems a hell of a lot cooler and there are marquees everywhere. If you buy The Guardian you'll probably get a free mug, DVD of Bend it Like Beckham and a cranberry juice box. If you go to the Fre...