Unemployed Watercooler Fridge Buzz Commiseration, Alienation and Mental Anti-Stagnation Society (DNRIYHM)

i used to live one street from the beach

Passing Bass Spuddette! I always get happy when I see you on t'Cooler! It is a bit of a "daddy or chips?" dilemma but that's why I asked it. The boundless possibilities expressed by both (the size of the sea, the age of trees.)

And I am jealous that you used to live one street from the beach, Pfunk, it does not make me less jealous to imagine it a very cold and windswept Scottish beach.

I am just back from dinner with a friend of mine who is the final stages of crazy in completing a PhD, and she makes me feel more like a human being again because we can say things like "problematising the indexicality of the Yorkeian craniofacial follicular register" and then piss ourselves laughing going "LOL Judith Butler speak."

I also started reading the most wonderful book, which I thought would be WCC-bait when I saw it in the library but a chapter and a half in, and I'm just o_0 in love with it. It's called Beechcombing (LOL, see why I was asking about sea vs woods?) and it's a natural history of the Beech Tree as a metaphor for human conceptions of Nature and conversation and also lots of botany and art history and just LOVE LOVE LOVE did you ever just pick up a book and think "this is so tailor made for me?"

Yes. It was called Gender Trouble.

Oh, but I'm sorry, I forgot that my experiences and interests are completely invalid because I like something you don't. You can carry on laughing at me now. Cheers.

What?

Like, where did that come from?

Because my friend and I were laughing about Butler's prose at dinner? She's an academic (a linguist with a heavy interest in gender) so she's familiar enough with Butler to laugh about it.

You can like whatever you want, your experiences and interests are as valid as you experience them to be - I think you'll find I'm the person constantly arguing for the right of people to have their own experiences and interests accepted as valid. What I don't like is people expressing random opinions as scientific facts without the citations or studies to back them up. If you want to continue that whole argument here, which I really don't.

You're allowed to love Butler. I'm allowed to dislike her and find her impenetrable. Both options are allowed to coexist, and it makes me really quite upset when you get so defensive as to paint me as a tyrant for not liking her.

I'm just bummed that the thread stopped being about trees and sea.

Not that I should be in here, being employed and all...

Oh, you're welcome to post in here if you're employed, Z! I only called it the unemployed watercooler because the previous ones were office watercoolers.

The conversation was just bizarre because I was explaining how flummoxed I was by the difference in cultures between different internet messageboards. (the sort of thing bored linguists talk about at dinner.) That in the past week, I have had, simultaneously at the same time, open in two different windows on the same computer:

1) a thread on ILX where I am painted as an uncultured rube because I said that I find Judith Butler's prose style obfuscating

2) a thread on atease where I am being where I am mercilessly derided as an intellectual (as if this is an insult?) and accused of being a troll or possibly insane because I used a word like "salient" in conversation

It's just the irony, that both these things are possibly at once, that I am an anti-intellectual in one context for disliking Butler, and an impenetrable and possibly dangerous intellectual - that I am tarred as being *like* Judith Butler in one context while tarred for disliking her in another. It was just funny. But I guess only to me (us.)

I'm staying out of the obfuscation thread and I have no opinion on Judith Butler; I am uncultured in most contexts I suspect.

You are so completely not uncultured. I think it's just the specific thing of being a philosophy scholar which some people have an intuitive feeling for and others just don't - the same way that I can easily wrap my head around maths or code or whatever, but I realise that other people just don't.

I have not set foot in the obfuscating thread, either. I'm glad they started a thread about it, and I'm sure it was an interesting debate, but I'm quite happy to just stay out of that one.

I am resolutely middlebrow and proud of it LOL I'm going to listen to Julianna Barwick and read my book about Beechcombing (complete with Nash paintings.)

fwiw I think the sea/woods combination emil.y mentioned is perfect. Trees and lakes are also awesome.

http://www.landuse.co.uk/sites/default/files/nodes/1237/Lake%2520District%2520National%2520Park%25202.JPG

Oh god I want to go on a painting holiday in the Lake District, I think that is one of those old lady occupations that I was just born for. Mountains! Woods! Lakes! Sea! Is it that bit of Cumbria where the forest covered mountains just go right up to the edge of the wild North sea and just STOP. I was reading about it in another natural history (the under the field guide to British landscape) and it made it sound so spectacular.

And I am jealous that you used to live one street from the beach, Pfunk, it does not make me less jealous to imagine it a very cold and windswept Scottish beach.

full of sewage and it stunk at times. No locals went in it apart from those from the sailing club. On a hot summers day it got mobbed by glaswegians and the like.
Winters were amazing though, watching the huge waves on a windy day hitting the promenade wall and flying over the grass where my mates and i played football or cricket. My friend lived on a house on the seafront (mentioned him before his big sister is a writer).

The other thing I miss there is the sunset. used to love getting on my bike and cycling all the way along to where the sailing club was and sitting on the wooden benchseat to watch the sunset. Was a great place to think. Sometimes even did my history homework there if i was home from school early.
Good place to be young in and great to settle down in not so great if you're 18-35 imo.
Also Prestwick was quite snobby.
I was glad to move to Hamilton (being a season ticket holder at accies) but I'd gladly move back there in a shot. Our old house had a huge loft and it seems its been converted. Shame we could never afford to move there really.

ours is the one at the end on the left(next to the railway track). It has a fence there now and I can see windows on the roof where it obviously has been renovated.
http://i49.tinypic.com/o7iumc.jpg

I have another pic somewhere of the front of the house but cant find it.

What a lovely looking house! I like beaches so much more in winter - that really sounds great, that whole thing of waves! smashing! on a windy day against a promenade, that's like everything I love about Cornwall. Aw, your whole post makes it sound lovely, despite the smell and the Glaswegians. Watching the sunset and thinking, these are some of the greatest pleasures of life.

We went up to Cockermouth for Christmas the year after my ma died. It was incredible - we had really clear weather. Sun on the water, clean air. The greatest surprise was the night skies! You could really see *depth*. I love London (when I'm not trying to negotiate buses, lolz) but I love to get out to where places where you can feel properly small.

Feeling small in the country (in the face of SEA! MOUNTAINS! FORESTS!!!) is a much different and much nicer way of feeling small than feeling small in the city, which is the smallness of feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of people flooding into your way like lemmings.

And don't get me pining for the night skies outside of London. I've just got used to the fact that the night sky is purple-orange when in Cornwall it is velvety blue and COVERED in so so many stars, like that Kusama exhibit that Lex and I spent an hour gawping at last week.

Looks so different now. The loft conversion, the sheds, the carport, windows,fences. so so different.
My bedroom was on the left.
I remember the estate agents calling it a cottage rather than a bungalow.

If anyone here ever wins the lottery will you buy it back for me please?

http://i41.tinypic.com/kbew7p.jpg

Yeah, I will totally buy it back for you. When I win the lottery. Right after I buy an entire Cornish village for myself!

The other side of the street had proper posh houses
http://i42.tinypic.com/206j1hv.jpg

in scottish terms that is. Quite different to where we lived before and after!

a thread on atease

good lord, what are you thinking? (well, i guess i know the answer to that, but still!) i used to be semi-regular there and still occasionally visit for what i guess is masochism's sake, and what a horrible bunch of children they are.

Are those stained glass designs in the windows? I really like those.

x-post to Merd I know, I know, I'm stupid but I want to talk about Radiohead far more than ILX will really put up with, so stupidly, I thought it might be OK to talk about Radiohead in the Radiohead section of a Radiohead messageboard? But clearly it was unacceptable.

yeah it's 'hoppers' above the window pane and the design is engrained in them.

Walk up my smallish street (we lived at the bottom) and walk up the next street (Ailsa Street) and this is the view

http://i44.tinypic.com/2i82no.jpg

Lovely. So bleak. It makes me want to post up all the beach pictures I've taken, ever, but that would be silly.

Thread is making me want to move to remote villages with funny names on the Antrim coast, or at least make bleak dubby techno tracks named after them.

Have spent all evening going "I caaaaan't do my German homework" instead of actually doing it, have now done really lousy half-assed job which is way too short, will soon go to bed. Exciting!

prestwick sailing club
http://i41.tinypic.com/mlsaqd.jpg

would cycle past that all the way along to that seat to watch the sunset. There was rocks n stuff there too. Will see if i can get a photo of that

The bleakness is just so inspiring and lovely. It's like a Boards of Canada record played at the wrong speed.

LOL, spacecadet, that's me with my Cornish homework. Except I actually forgot to go to class last week. As in, genuinely forgot, I didn't realise it was Friday until I was eating dinner and realised I was supposed to be in Holborn (an hour away) in fifteen minutes.

here we go. The seat was just around where the lamp post is iirc.
http://i43.tinypic.com/2qk8n12.jpg

I kinda wish I were there. Well, except for the smell and the neds.

I am quite excited that Cornish classes are a thing which exists outside Cornwall!

Last time my parents were in Cornwall they brought me back a book (more of a pamphlet really, probably only 10 or so pages) of Cornish words which I spent a while excitedly crosschecking against the Welsh and Breton dictionaries we stopped mr spacecadet's father putting in a skip when his linguist mother died. The Breton part was a bit tricky as it was Breton-French.

Actually I don't think we got very far on that quest, but I liked that the Breton for rain is "glao", which is like the Welsh but spelt better.

Cornish is a lot like the Welsh but spelled phonetically! It's great that way. It's funny, all Celtic minority language speakers are kind of obsessed with checking how their words translate in the corresponding cognates.

want to explore the seafront?
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=prestwick+promenade&hl=en&ll=55.495784,-4.619318&spn=0.000741,0.002642&sll=55.495755,-4.616803&sspn=0.000748,0.003664&hnear=Promenade,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=55.495784,-4.619318&panoid=Q9jXDPb4MoXVJC_UPa0fIQ&cbp=13,281.97,,0,-2.83

ive taken you to the left so have fun going all the way to the other end

I want to say raining is ow kul glow (pronounced to rhyme with cow) in Cornish but I'm probably misspelling it.

this will make it easier
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=prestwick+promenade&hl=en&ll=55.495785,-4.618807&spn=0.000741,0.002642&sll=55.495755,-4.616803&sspn=0.000748,0.003664&hnear=Promenade,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=55.495801,-4.619555&panoid=GDc0R_dDdZFVqPhMfyXe1Q&cbp=13,339.49,,0,2

Nope, it's spelled Glaw.

Snow is "ergh" which I'm convinced is onomatopoeic for what ppl sailors say when they open their doors and think "I have to go out in that?"

i would like to find a pic of the council flat we lived in EK until i was 2 1/2 as i dont recall it at all. I do remember the council house in greenhills, EK, but cant find it either, it goes to a totally different address. Stupid google.
Doubt the house in Blackwood will be on google maps

Did you have a browse along the seafront?

A picture of the seafront at sunset. That's Arran in the distance

http://i43.tinypic.com/sn036g.jpg

Tides out as you can see. Used to go out quite far in summer. In winter it came up over the wall when it was stormy just in front of my friends house. Along past the sailing club and up where i posted the pic from, you got it the most. Further you went to the right it didn't go anywhere near the wall.

I'd promise to buy your house back, but I've never bought a lottery ticket.

Sorry, I fell asleep reading my beeches book.

That photo with the crepuscular rays on the clouds is incredible, Arran looks so pretty. Can't ever get streetview to work on my interweb connection, which is just as well as I'd be spending hours strolling down country lanes in like, Lamorna, if I could.

On a completely unrelated note, I have just realised that I've spent the past ages mistaking "codex" for "concordance" and I only just found out while trying to look up on wikipedia what "indexicality" actually means (approximately what I thought it meant, but it was still nice to know.)

while looking for info on the cats on iron maiden covers thing i came across this
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Rock-n-Roll/witchcraft.htm
There's no thread on witchcraft in music so i thought hows about discussing it here? It's not really something I know about so not starting a thread on it.

Anyway i just kinda wondered what your mum thought of stuff like this?

and i mean properly, not laughable articles like that

haha it links to this http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/george-w-bush-barbara-bush-and.html not heard that one before

I'm not sure why my mum would be bothered? I suspect, knowing her personality, she'd think it was rather laughable.

I don't know. It seems like a lot of people in rock n roll muck about with ~the occult~ just to be shocking and a bit weird, and some paranoid people within christianity take it all rather too seriously, but they strike me as the same kind of thinking level as conspiracy theorists. Hedonism and rock n roll are all intimately tied up together, hedonism and satanism are all tied up, ergo they are one and the same. But these are people who think that the Devil is an actual gentleman who walks around with red horns and a tail, rather than a metaphorical personification of evil, which is a much more complex topic.

It's strange, I have to admit I've always had a vague fascination with the occult - but the devil worshipping aspect of it (usually christian projection onto older nature cults) always just seemed silly.

But these are people who think that the Devil is an actual gentleman who walks around with red horns and a tail,

reminds me of that witch episode in The Blackadder.

What's Ed & Emsk up to these days? Is Mark C still around? I miss him.

Ed's on the bike forum mostly, don't know where Emsk is about. That reminds me, we were supposed to go on a walk to the Wittenham Lumps this weekend, but seeing as I've not heard from anyone since it was first mooted, I'm going to assume that's now not gonna happen? The internet was supposed to make it easier to keep in touch with people, but in many ways it's made it harder.

I do accept that it's a deep problem. As I said above, it's something we're actually interested in helping combat in several different ways. I actually thought you might want to get involved in helping us given that it's something you care about but obviously not. You made several accusations about the Quietus above. I run the site and am the only person involved with it who posts on ILX… so I replied in a polite, explanatory and conciliatory way offering to try and make amends. And as always this ends up being your cue to get even more irate with me.

I'm running a site with the help of four people. It gets five times the amount of readers that NME got at its height - when it had a staff of over 40. There is a limit to what I can do on my own. I'll say again that genuinely the offer is always there if you want to get involved in the Quietus in terms of addressing the gender balance of the stuff we do. You have my email j✧✧✧@thequie✧✧✧.c✧✧. You probably still have it from the last two times you asked if you could write for us but then never bothered getting in touch but if not here it is again.

As for the other stuff. Yeah, I agree with you but I'm not really in a position to comment on the other 8 billion panels other than to say it's genuinely lame.

You are deluded. I have not asked to write for The Quietus.

You approached me once back in 2008, when I was still at Plan B, about using my illustrations, and it was *you* who did not follow up.

And as yet another Cis dude who thinks that they get to toss around a name I've asked people repeatedly not to call me (this is your idea of "polite"? This is actually my idea of showing intense disrespect) I have no interest in talking to you further. Good day to you, sir.

You asked if you could write for me on the Quietus thread over on ILM. Go back and check it yourself if you like. I had literally no idea that it was so offensive calling you by your name it's genuinely the first time it's come up with me but I won't do it again.

I'm pretty mystified as to what it is exactly I've done wrong here. Genuinely: take it easy, there was no offence meant.

And as I've broached this particular rubicon again today - to anyone else who is reading and interested in helping us broaden out the Quietus in any particular respect; please email me: john at the quietus dot com - I'll get back to you immediately.

What is a "government name"? And how is he supposed to know what to call you if he may not have read the threads in which you told people what to call you?

If you're bothered by people getting your name wrong then maybe you should choose a different username again.

Doran, I emailed you/your colleague a while back regarding writing for The Quietus, he asked for some samples of my writing which I sent him but he never got back to me. I guess he didn't like the way I write which is a pity.

In other news

'Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom' on CBBC, ope episode is on Delia Derbyshire

a govt name is anyone's common first name

well these guys ended our season in nov so whatever i spose

lol wrong thread

"Government name" sounds kinda badass I guess. Wait tho can none of us use them or what

Someone who isn't a poster's friend probably shouldn't be wielding their off-messageboard name in the context of debate; isn't it good netiquette to use the name they've chosen for ILX? Bramwell's friends - of which I am one - know the reasons not to address by given name here, no matter how familiar, so standard messageboard etiquette should probably cover les autres.

An interesting article was out recently re: argument strategies by men towards women, and part of the male belittling process under the guise of 'reasonable debate' was using your female adversary's given name (or, more commonly, a nickname version of said name) as a subtle form of diminishment (which is something anybody who is patronising will do to an adversary of whatever gender, but seems more prevalent in man to woman exchange). It's also incumbent on 'nice guys' to *be* that nice guy and gracefully accept a woman's attempt to consciousness-raise about their possible unconscious sexism in the same way said nice guy might reflect on fucking up in a similar way around issues of race.

Re. the Faber Social, all I really have to say it is galling to be at an event where there's a load of networking and men of similar or lower standing are being treated in a more inclusive way than a female equal. Some men notice when that's going on, but many don't or just go along to get along.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sZTA8RMcG8/ToTHq8phCaI/AAAAAAAAD1I/8TImdSrMtIg/s400/bramwell_uk-show.jpg http://echostains.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/branwell-brontes-barbers-tale-by-chris-firth-sm-e1269813533507.jpg?w=227&h=300

anagram: we are horrifically overworked - I try and answer every single email I'm sent by writers but I can't expect the younger members of staff to lead the hermetic lifestyle I do in order to stay on top of work. Email me this weekend with some cuts and I'll get back to you.

I have literally never heard this about female first names before or netiquette about using people's first names & I didn't know what Government name meant until a few seconds ago. However rest assured I am now fully up to speed and won't be doing it again.

Here's the few-days-old article in question; I admit I didn't see the use of name thing in anything other than an 'I'm trying to manage you and/or patronise you in this argument' outwith the whole sexism/privilege assertion angle before I read this and gave it a few seconds' thought, so...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/28/men-nicknames-for-women-sexist

...argument' *way* outwith... erk!

Will give it a read cheers. Also, I don't know who you are IRL but from what you've said, if you want to get in touch about work stuff please do. I don't have any control over this Faber event but it is an area we're moving more into.

Literary and mixed media events rather than taking over Faber Social that is.

JD, we met at a mutual friend/colleague's wake but that was ages ago. Your plans sound good! Admission-based events seem the only way to make a bit of wodge in certain areas of music and publishing, so hope participants are well looked after.

Well, anything we've done before the artists always get paid first, even if we don't get paid at all, which is often the case. It would be a given that we'd carry this on over to apply to writers, poets, film makers etc.

Branwell on stunning form in this thread

i like it when she tells people what they can and cant talk about on a messageboard

It's really amazing how, back in the days of yore, when some IRL shit went down in Nabisco's life, and he said "hey, you know, can you not use that name on the messageboard?" everybody got the message without a song and dance, and people stopped using his name.

It's really amazing how, back in the days of yore, when some crazy googlewhacking shit went down, Donut Bitch asked "hey, you know, can you not use that name on the messageboard?" everybody got the message without a song and dance, and people stopped using his name.

It's really amazing how, about 4 years ago, when some crazy IRL shit went down in my life, and I asked "hey, you know, can you please not use that name on the messageboard?" and somehow this message never gets through, and people continue to act like this is a bizarre and outré and unreasonable request to make, and I am a terrible person for even asking it.

And then the disingenuous "OMG, I have ~no idea~ what I'm supposed to have done wrong!!!" despite being told in the previous post, followed by "take it easy!" (what, you couldn't manage to slip in a "calm down, dear, no offence intended" while you were there?) is just the exact patronising bullshit I've come to expect from this specific individual.

And now we have the entire fucking rubbernecking peanut gallery of ILX clucking their tongues like a gabble of hens. What a joyful start to a bank holiday weekend!

I actually had a great afternoon! I discovered three new patches of the Great North Woods that I had only glimpsed from afar.

log off m8

Take it easy - as you well know - means I hope you're ok/may the road rise to meet you/I hope things are good for you. It does not mean what you're suggesting it does.

Disingenuous - no. I had no idea about this first name/government name thing. Why would I? Four years ago I very rarely ventured outside of metal threads.

xp booming contribution

Doran, it has been requested repeatedly. I think it's a fairly reasonable assumption that ILXors in general might have taken it on board. Obviously not in this case, but you can understand how it might get extremely tiring and 'real names' should at least not be the default when people are posting under usernames.

Doran, it has been requested repeatedly. I think it's a fairly reasonable assumption that ILXors in general might have taken it on board

I for one have never seen it requested. There are so many threads I never read.

xp it's also a fairly reasonable assumption that not every single person who posts here does so with the same depth of attention to detail and desire to know the ins and outs of everything that goes on

in the case of Doran I don't think I've ever seen him post outside of ILM

This is the crux of it though isn't it? I had no idea. I've apologised three times now and I'll do it again.

I'm really very sorry.

I understand it must be tiring but does it warrant me being called a liar speaking 'bullshit'?

This is the first time I've ever, ever, ever posted on a non-music topic. Why on Earth would I know?

You wouldn't. Bramwell overreacts, most ppl're aware of how she behaves on here

xp I believe you, I'm just saying that if you *know a poster well enough to know their real name*, and keep up with the same 'depth of attention to detail' as to their various username changes, you might have read one of the many posts that they have posted on this topic.
I am not trying to sound arsey - in fact I think you and I have friends in common.

You don't KNOW her, how DARE you say that

XP: Yeah, I get it now. And believe it or not I feel bad about this. Not the least because I was genuinely trying to avoid another pointless flare up between us. Anyway, onwards and hopefully, sometimes, wherever possible, upwards.

i've just eaten a salted caramel brownie, so upwards has happened

I understand yr feeling bad fwiw Doran, yr intentions came across v clearly to me, but y'know

Onwards, and upwards!

What is the German for sausage party? Just ask the Quietus and Faber & Faber:

http://fabermail.co.uk/interface/external_view_email.php?A923429661173225631217534228