Jean has posted a link to this rather cool slice of the dicethrow: F.M. Conford’s famous 1908 satire on university politics. My favourite avatar is the “Young Man in a Hurry.”
The Young Man in a Hurry is a narrow-minded and ridiculously youthful prig, who is inexperienced enough to imagine that something might be done before very long, and even to suggest definite things. […] They meet, by twos and threes, in desolate places, and gnash their teeth. […] Political influence may be acquired in exactly the same way as the gout; indeed, the two ends ought to be pursued concurrently. The method is to sit tight and drink port wine. You will thus gain the reputation of being a good fellow; and not a few wild oats will be condoned in one who is sound at heart, if not at the lower extremities.
One of my favourite passages in this little pamphlet is the following:
Another argument is that ‘the Time is not Ripe’. The Principle of Unripe Time is that people should not do at the present moment what they think right at that moment, because the moment at which they think it right has not yet arrived.
Finally, there is a cosmological inverse to Van Halen‘s most philosophically mind-boggling of big-hair lyrics:
It struck me as I was reading Conford’s satire that I had heard of someting of similar satirical stature, but attacking the ‘media’ wannabe’s ‘who genuinely deserve to die.’
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Nathan Barley is a six part show produced for BBC 4. It is based on spoof TV show called Cunt that was originally published on a website (Google cached) about spoof tv listings (which itself became a tv show, haha). From the official website for the show:
Nathan Barley is 26. He is a webmaster, guerrilla filmmaker, screenwriter, DJ and in his own words, a “self-facilitating media node”. He is convinced he is the epitome of urban cool and therefore secretly terrified he might not be, which is why he reads Sugar Ape Magazine – his bible of cool.
Fuck. The original series of spoof listings is some nasty shit. Here is an example:
I am glad my thing is car stuff… and I am doubly glad I didn’t let a certain ex-girlfriend, in spite of her best efforts, turn me into a Cunt-simulacrum. Edit: [removed] Edit: [sigh] I can’t be a cunt even when I want to be.
I am having *real* trouble working out what happened when!
…but if you can see the Brasseye series by Chris Morris, you should. The paedophilia hysteria was rendered just right to become perhaps the funniest hour of broadcast material I’ve ever seen.
Yeah, might need to up-size to broadband and useful pee2pee ackshun.
We have enough cunts in Australia to start a show up based around them, so I don’t know why the UK gets these progras when we get such cunted tv programming.
Comedy writing is just fucked in Australia at the moment, no one is willing to take a shot anymore, and John Safran, bless his little cotton socks still has to deal with nonsense from tv stations, when he’s really not going that far. I think Kath and Kim is so far off the pace of where we could be in terms of national self-parody.
Watch the previews for the episodes on trashbat.co.ck! Everyone who hates Vice should see them right the hell now.
haha, “positively lethal”! I wish I was positively lethal in the thesis writing department. Forget this romance bullshit. For Aquarians:
Here is your horoscope for Tuesday, February 15:
After yesterday, you’re positively lethal in the romance department. You’ve discovered a
previously unknown talent for romance — and as per with all new self discoveries, you’ll be
taking this one for a nice, long ride.