John Walker's Electronic House

Forks of lightning as wide as a city.

Living high up on a hill, high up in some flats, is a gift. To see a streak of purple electricity slice across the entire panorama view from our balcony is without peer.

However, as thunderstorms will, its centre was erupting behind an obscuring building. So Jonty and I climbed Bath’s ludicrous hills as high as my lungs were prepared, and then even higher by clambouring on top of someone’s high garden wall. Perched here, quiet conversation was quieted every few seconds by the display.

There wasn’t a moment without light. Each gap between brilliant white/purple flashes was littered with flickers, bursts and sparks from all parts of the sky. And then, for less than a second, daytime. Perfect white light, the clouds black and grey against an ethereal white sky, the ghost of the city revealed below.

People talk about how sheet lightning is much more common that forked lightning. It’s not the case. Most times, people are just looking the wrong way when the bolt appears. Tonight there was sheet lightning. It’s something that deserves a far more respectable name. It isn’t a flash in the sky. It’s a boiling mass of elecricity erupting outwards in a giant circle from within the clouds. Each had its central focus, a swirled purple ball that burst in all directions, the resulting wraith-light a vast, beautiful jellyfish in the sky.

And the rains didn’t come. The thunder was rare. Tonight it was all about the lightning.

So I’ve been a bit busy.

Well, not so much “busy”, as “not busy”.

The important news is: I finally relaxed for a few days, after months of feeling as though my spine might snap from tension. It does mean I now have 5400 words of freelance to write by Wednesday, but that’s still preferable to a severed spinal chord and the accompanying death.

People have been useless in suggesting what to do with the rest of my life. Do better. I shall be more helpful this time.

Firstly, no, I do not want to become a vicar. The pastoral side of the job is something I wouldn’t cope with. I’m lovely, obviously, and am always willing to listen to people and so on. However, I don’t want that to be my job. I’m not convinced that my own brand of pastoral care would be appropriate either – calling someone a “wee-face” when their sister has just been eaten by wolves is not listed as a helpful technique in many counselling guides, despite being something I find to work well. Vicars just can’t do that. And it’s for that reason, the desire to call people a “wee-face”, that I can never take up the vocation. Also there’s the stupid hours, the archaic church rules, the having to take funerals and weddings, and the further three years of university.

I also want a break from youth work. I’ve been doing it for six years, and while that’s hardly a lifetime, I would like to pause before carrying on. Ideally, oh so ideally, I’d like to find a church I could bear to attend, and be a volunteer helper with their youth groups. A spare time thing, rather than a job. Then I could do the bit I’m interested in – the face to face work – and not all the bloody faffing around that has driven me to distraction of late.

The other thought I have is the youth coffee shop plan. Bath has nothing for teenagers to do. Much like every town or city in the country, after school or in the evenings a teenager can either a) go to the pub, or b) go to the pub. Both of which they’re not really meant to do. And if you ask, not what they really want to do every single day. So the idea is, as so many other towns have, to open a coffee shop aimed at young people in Bath. These are generally successful ventures, and it’s something I’m interested in doing. However, I’m not interested in accounts, management, or funding applications. What I need is to find some sort of freakish weirdo who is interested in such tedious drivel, and partner up. Ideally this person will be in their mid 20s, female, single, and attracted to people who look and act a lot like me. So that’s a longer-term goal, maybe something for next year.

But meanwhile, what to do? I still have the treasures of the Knights Templar to discover, after that was delayed last year due to inefficiency. But what else?

Also, Brian has finally been updated after a naughty week off.

Oh dear me, it’s been a while.

The dissertation was over by last Thursday, handed in that afternoon. To answer the question everyone asks, nope, I’ve no idea if I’m happy with it. I know that I wish I’d made some points differently, having thought of some things I really should had said on Monday. I was explaining the logic of the argument to someone, and in doing so said something so utterly perfect (forgotten since) that it would have ensured mathematics would have to increase upper limits on percents in order to mark it fairly. As it stands, I cannot fathom whether it will receive marks in the low 50s, or creep toward the 70s. I can argue it either way in my head. We shall see.

However, handing it in did not secure a few days of sheer relaxation. Thursday night was spent at Sian’s while she finished, which was at about 4am. Then Friday handing hers in and some entertaining shopping in Bristol. And then the weekend was spent in Wales with some of the older teenagers I’ve worked with for the last three years. It was a splendid time, relaxing in Wales, sort of youth work but not quite, and has set my mind thinking about all manner of things about how youth work works, and how youth workers create pretend versions of themselves to present to youth groups, and so on. But that’s all but small fry compared to the mind-thinking that dominates…

I’ve realised (well, I’ve just realised that I’m writing one of those awful diary-entry blog posts, as if anyone cares about the minute details of my busy week, but phew, here comes a valid subject for writing about…) that I’ve never made a plan for my life.

It’s quite a huge realisation, and moreso when I wonder at how I’ve not noticed this before. Warning: here comes the complete life history of John: After failing my A Levels once (NNE, since you wondered. There are two groups of people in the world: those who got an N, and those who didn’t know you could get Ns. They’re like a U, but Not quite), and then doing poorly in the retakes (EED, nosy), I applied for a Radio Film and TV Studies degree on something that I can only think of as a whim. The course was already full, and I had to talk my way onto it in a very strange phonecall. That was a pretty dreadful degree (although the first year was alright) and halfway through the second year I did some work experience at Talk Radio (as it was called then, before evil Kelvin Mackensi demolished it completely). Due to a technical hitch that night I ended up being useful, and I was offered a place on the show’s team. “Poor John” they called me, because I wasn’t paid. So that meant leaving uni, and moving back in with parents. Talk Radio stuff came to an end (not before they paid me for some stuff) after a few months, and at around that time I somehow ended up pitching work to PC Gamer. I forget how that happened now. And at the same time my friend Steve asked if I would help him with the youth groups at the church he vicared for. Three years later and I find myself applying for the youth work degree, just as something to do next rather than as part of some complex plan, and the magazine work kept going. Three years later again, and I’m finally here, now. And I’ve no idea what to do next.

Part of me seems to assume that something will come up. It always has before. But that’s madness – I’ve just been incredibly fortunate so far. To be fair to me, I’ve done a decent job of the stuff I’ve done, but none of it ever happened on purpose.

As of July, I’ve got what alternately presents itself as either a hopeless void of nothingness, or all the potential in the world. Key issue: I’ll need to make enough money to pay rent/bills. But how? Do I try to do more writing? Do I get another youth work job? Find more education? Or something else. If anyone knows, please tell me.

MITCH BENN, as I see your name is still to be spelt, if you’re still out there please come back and argue with me on my blog some more.

You appear to be on Radio 4 again, which is an event I can’t say I whole-heartedly agree with.

What have you done to Robin Ince? He used to be funny. Is your horrible not-funniness catching? I wonder if you should perhaps be put in quarantine, as Radio 4 isn’t exactly overwhelmed by humourous people at the moment.

I was somewhat startled to discover there were new depths to which you were capable of sinking in your unique blend of comedy and music. Your hideously ignorant opinions on “world music” managed at once to be insultingly stupid and enormously racist. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not convinced that all music from the funny foreign countries sounds like a man playing a penny whistle and adopting a Carry On generic foreign accent.

I was just wondering, could you perhaps do some sort of research before you write your programmes? And just before that, saw off your hands to prevent the rather foolish following moment when you write your programmes.

Your statement, “Everything sounds like Coldplay now” is somewhat discredited by your sounding absolutely nothing like Coldplay. Somehow you manage to be even worse than them.

On a well-earned break from my dissertation. So not entirely sure why I’m sat at my computer, other than to add more text to the top of this blog so that hideous photo of me moves further down.

I receive some assurance from Housemate Hicks that it doesn’t look a great deal like me. However, I think the camera may be developing psychic powers, as the picture does look exactly how I feel.

I’ve written 8000 words in the last two days. But it’s not lovely creative writing like,

“Once upon a time there was a happy digger called Jake. Jake liked to dig holes in things, like huge sandpits, the sides of hospitals or people’s children. One day Jake was struck by lightning, and he died.”

It’s horrible, academic writing like this:

“In fact, Thomspon goes on to argue that it is a contradiction in terms to suggest that the presence of an author’s ideology determines the reader’s ability to interpret the text in an autonomous fashion (Thomspon 2004, p.146). If the text is capable of deciding a reader’s autonomy, then the reader surely has no autonomy at all! – they are at the liberty of the nature of the text. To imply that an ideology within a text necessarily imposes any control over the reader’s interpretation is to obfuscate, or perhaps even completely dismiss, any notion of a constructionist vocabulary. If a constructionist approach to communication is accepted, then it must be that the manner in which we interpret those meanings held entirely in the language is dependent upon our experiences, and the understandings we have learned and associated with those symbols. It is by these means that one person may read one meaning into a story, and another something quite separate, without either being ‘wrong’, nor indeed the text implying one or the other. The author’s intent is unknown, and even if stated, not relevant to the interpretation of either reader.”

And that appears to be quite significantly more draining to generate. Especially if it’s to make any sense… Um.

(Just think of the Google hits I’ll get for that paragraph)

Possibly the most disturbing development (even more disturbing than the turgid prose above) is the new-found insanity I have developed. I have taken to typing a word that rhymes with the word I intend to write, and then to go on to write the intended word anyway. Earlier I managed to write “book hook” in the middle of a sentence.

Proof reading my dissertation shall be a treat!

New Brian on Brian’s Guide.

Yesterday I awoke to find myself hideously deformed.

Look closely at my right eye. It’s more than just a bit out of shape because of an evil, buried, underground spot. It’s a metaphor for my existence.

You see, if you look closely, using my magic zoom-in-o-camera below, you’ll see there’s more going on than you dared to imagine.

Spots are so often associated with teenagers, despite probably most people (based on the statistics I have made up) still getting them throughout their twenties, and far more people than you think (because you are a horrid person whose spots cleared up on your 17th birthday, and your unblemished epidermis compels artists to stop you in the street because they “just have to paint you right now.”) get them throughout their lives. Despite that, DESPITE THAT, people still think they’re a teenage stigma, and so when I appear in the pub tonight, hideously rendered in red lumps (it’s become worse since that photo was taken. WORSE. Damn you and your clear face), people will think me trapped by youth.

But look again, look to the left side of the picture. (Which reminds me, it’s now time for this utter rubbish of saying “left hand side” to stop. “Left side” says everything. What on earth does the word “hand” have to do with any of it? Really, is everyone so painfully moronic that the only way they can comprehend ‘left’ and ‘right’ is to look down their arms, try to remember which hand they write with, and then deduce which direction to look in based on this? “It’s on the left hand side of the screen.” NO IT ISN’T. It’s on the LEFT SIDE of the screen. Your hand is not a part of the screen. If you turn around, the object does not move to the other side of the monitor. So just stop it right now, for goodness sakes). Because there, circled and labelled, is the sheer ignomy of the beginnings of a wobbly old-lady thing.

It’s in its larval stage currently, but you can see where it’s going. Big, vile, gelatinous evil, that will scare small children and attract blackbirds thinking they’ve spotted a hiding tasty worm.

So there on one side is the evil spot of the youth, and on the other, the hideous growth of the elderly. My metaphor. 27, trapped between youth and… um, oldness. Poor me. Poor, POOR ME.

New Brian uploaded this evening.

It’s meant to be updated Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but I want to keep it moving while it’s new. If people bookmark it and check back, then I’ll be well away.

I’m not sure what I’ll be away with. I think it’s attention I’m seeking. I’ve still not got my head around it.

Dissertation due in 9 days. Please send arrows and bullets.

Cartoon bunnies are clearly the way ahead.

This incredibly beautiful strip has a few sample images on this site, and the books can be ordered via email.

It brings me joy.

Change The World 7

I recently wrote an essay discussing how I believe our attitude toward matters of social justice is driven by an unchallenged capitalist mindset, whereby we donate money in return for product. It’s something I wanted to write about here as well.

I find it easiest to explain and refer to as “Comic Relief Syndrome”. Comic Relief raises a fair amount of money. It’s tempting to see the number 37 million and be overwhelmed by it, but we are a generation caught between “million”‘s shift from vastness to mundanity. Look at house prices – it is only a short time before most home owners will be “millionaires”, and the number loses the rest of its power. However, compare that to the response to the tsunami, and Comic Relief’s figures start to look a lot smaller. I’ll come back to that.

Comic Relief says, “We will dance for you, if you give us your money.” But no one watching falls for this. They know the dancing will continue whether they donate or not. The reality is, “If they will dance for me, I might give them some money.” It’s cash in return for product. Then Comic Relief says, “Look at the dying people, give them your money.” But few watching respond to this. Instead it is, “If I pay some money, you will take the images of the dying people away.” We are paying for the unpleasantness to be removed, so we do not need to feel guilty about it. And it’s no secret – Comic Relief knows this and works toward it. Alternating popular celebrities and one-off sketches from comedies of the zeitgeist with films showing intense poverty and hardship ensures the audience is kept in a constant emotional turmoil, until eventually some money is donated or the television is switched off.

That works – it raises money. I don’t condemn it for this. However, what it is the result of, and what it results in, I now think I do. I have attempted to teach issues of social justice in my youth groups. When trying to think of a way to approach the subject, the most immediate and obvious method was to encourage the young people to organise fundraising events for causes that meant something to them. My instinctive choice was to approach the problems through money. But not only that, the next stage was to find a way of raising money that the young people would find entertaining and involving. I have been teaching the same model: cash in return for product.

Money is needed, obviously, and my argument is not to condemn fundraising. It is, however, very much to condemn fundraising without education. I keep returning to Comic Relief as it is both recently in people’s minds and enormously typical of the problem. Comic Relief could not be more guilty of failing to achieve this. There is no education whatsoever. Just guilt, entertainment, and spending. The films show the deprevation, the misery, the pain and the suffering of people all over the world. But they never explain the causes. Why are those people starving to death? Why isn’t their government feeding them? Which war with which nation is diverting funds? And how many pounds worth of arms are the UK selling to that country? Here’s betting it’s more than £37 million.

What I want to argue for is a massive step away from fundraising, and a massive step toward education. I believe that if people knew the realities of the situations, they would find themselves reaching for their wallets anyway. Think this is delusional? Look at the response to the tsunami. Certainly there are dozens of factors that need consideration, but at some point it must be recognised that a world was educated about a situation, and fought to find ways to respond. Far more than £37 million was raised in the UK, and without Lenny sodding Henry’s shrieking gibberish, or Graham Norton’s squealing at Jack Dee’s bored face. Billy Connolly didn’t need to not-quite-swear from a shanty hospital. People just did stuff, shops did stuff, charities did stuff, and eventually the celebrities found ways for them to do stuff in public. And more importantly, people didn’t only respond by throwing their wallets at the problem. Oxfam were having to issue press releases asking people not to volunteer themselves to the project unless they had previous disaster-recovery experience. They were inundated with people wanting to give up their time and skills.

What if Comic Relief included education? What if everyone involved in social justice focussed on consciousness raising, rather than fund raising?

Because giving money is applying bandages. Bandages are necessary. But far better than putting on bandages is preventing the wounds in the first place. And that doesn’t happen by donating a fiver because Jonathan Ross looked quite serious for a moment. It happens by changing lifestyles, changing attitudes, and making a very loud noise in the right place.

We surely must stop perpetuating the notion that charitable donations require a product in return, but even more, we need to learn why the money is needed in the first place. Oxfam will tell you. Tearfund will tell you. Shelter will tell you. Amnesty will tell you.

Meanwhile, this gets halfway there. The new Sarah McLachlan video, World on Fire, cost $15 to make, from its budget of $150,000.

The video explains where the money would have gone, and where it did go. Yes, it’s still about the money, but crucially this video specifically states, “Don’t worry, we are not asking for money”, and indeed they do not. There is no, “How can I donate” button on the site, but instead a list of the organisations their money went to, and their contact details. There’s no easy, ‘pay to make it go away’ option. This is education.