England 20 - 7 Italy
At one point during the match, commentator Brian Moore wandered unhappily into a thicket of musical annotation, describing the game's 'tempo' as 'flat'.
Dogtooth will very shortly be taking a scalding shower to irrigate his clammy scalp, and wash away the tenacious odours of stale smoke and pedantry.
I've been reading a study of Duelling in late 19th century Germany: the writer, Kevin MacAleer, keeps up an interesting and detailed examination of the motives and signficance of the duel in this specific setting until the last couple of pages, when he rather casually starts talking, with tedious inevitability, about the SS, Hitler, and the Holocaust. This book, which had previously shown no signs of being one of those odious social histories (Lawn Darts - the hobby that changed the world, Cheese and Onion – the flavour that changed the world) decides, upon smelling the irresistible smell of the Fuhrer only thirty years away from the period being discussed, to explode into a silly, imprecise, pan-historical discussion of honour in Germany. The SS didn’t fight duels, and they weren’t around in the 1880’s, but never mind, because a book about Germany has to end with the Nazis doesn’t it? Bleargh.
In other news, my elbow inexplicably hurts, and the area outside my front door smells like chocolate and baked potato skins.
Why have I never heard of this tasty sounding drink, and its effect on Alec Baldwin's marriage, before?
A friend of Dogtooth mentioned recently that she had received a severe dressing-down for tardiness from her rowing cox, accompanied by the prospect of 'being sent on a run', should it happen again. The age difference between Dogtooth's friend and the cox cannot be more than a few years. Dogtooth fumed at the absurdity of the situation. A rowing team or any other kind of team moves forward from the presumption of a mutual interest in the success of that enterprise. Infantile threats made to twentysomething women are not only inappropriate, they are completely unnecessary. Dogtooth might react badly if someone accidentally kicked him in the shins; he does not, however, threaten that person with press-ups. The pathetic image of some scrawny little shit in lycra, red-faced and puffing, and screaming uncontrollably at a group of indifferent students is altogether more than Dogtooth can bear.
At the time, Hamilton was finding his usual eloquence impeded by a crimson bolus of red cabbage and cranberry sauce, but he nevertheless correctly identified the category error.
The relationship, for example, between employee and employer, mused Hamilton, differs markedly from that of a five-year-old boy and his PE teacher in the sense that it is no longer dependent on respect. It is a free and mutual exchange of services for money from which either party can retreat at any time (subject, of course, to their contractual agreement). That someone should feel subordinated to his employer in any way, other than in terms of employment hierarchy, is quite unnecessary.
The short days of winter bring the sun swiftly over the yard arm and I'm already well into the supermarket own-brand alcohol, but the idiocy of every day life still prickles unabated. I'm referring primarily to a campaign currently gaining momentum among the underemployed figureheads of student 'politics': an attack on the Blood Service's policy that a man who has had recently had penetrative sex with another man is exempt from giving blood. I quote from the Facebook group Donation not Discrimination, which has a hefty 1,420 members:
“Gay and bisexual men are banned by the National Blood Service (NBS) from donating blood for life, female partners of bisexual men are also affected. This year we are running a nation wide campaign to change this policy, donation not discrimination.”
This group is clearly insane. I can't believe that anyone would advocate a move which would increase the risk of HIV infection for those receiving blood transfusions. Men who have sex with men are the single most vulnerable group in terms of HIV infection. In brute terms, a sexually active male homosexual is far more likely to have HIV than a man who does not have homosexual sex, assuming that neither are recent immigrants from an area with high HIV infection rates or intravenous drug user (both these groups are barred from donating blood as well). Blood can contain HIV and be infectious for up to six months before it shows up on tests, so it is perfectly legitimate to screen people who have been engaging in high risk activity recently from giving blood, be those activities heterosexual or homosexual. It is virtually impossible to find a heterosexual male who does not pay for sex, travel outside Europe or take drugs intravenously who is HIV positive.
The Post Newt is very far from homophobic. Fear or dislike of gay men is in its basis the most irrational of all prejudices: the member of a specific religion may attack purely on the (perhaps misinterpreted) tenets of that religion, the member of race different to ones own have been known to attack as a result of that difference, but homosexuality has never been known to pose a threat to the heterosexual. There are two logical reactions to homosexuality: arousal and indifference. ‘Gay Bashing’ has more to do with a taste for violence than distaste for sodomy. So once we clean our minds of any idea of discrimination what are we left with? A demographic prone to HIV. This entire campaign is tied up with our continued cultural fear of HIV. To say that a practising homosexual is prone to infection is not some sort of blood libel, any more that to say that I (Hamilton strikes own chest manfully) am more likely, as a fair skinned individual to contract skin cancer is a melanist attack on the ‘Aryan race’. It is pure chance that HIV happens to be prevalent among those individuals that society has traditionally condemned, those who practise homosexual sex, intravenous drug use and prostitution (all activities, incidentally, which The Post Newt heartily condones, and plans to market over the internet in the near future).
Well, back to the Squidcave for me: go forth and sin no more.
One TLS correspondent recently perpetrated the following:
There is yearning in Andrew McNeillie’s third volume, 'Slower', a desire to record and remember; senescence drifts through its pages like bonfire smoke.
(Dogtooth shudders.) Spare us the godforsaken amateur poetry next time. You can't just go around writing things like that in respectable journals! This is the TLS, after all, not the Post-Newt.
Valiant Newtist Merv is 20 today. Merv began his life in the coat-pocket of a consumptive New York con-artist. He fled home aged 12 and emigrated to the UK, earning his passage by washing towels on the steamship. At 13 he began an apprenticeship at a multinational shipbroking firm, under the kindly gaze of a leopard. One year later he was eaten...by the leopard. His funeral was held at Brentwood Cemetary. Attendance was slim.
Happy Birthday, Merv!
