European Narcotics

I Am Not A Lawyer

noreply@blogger.com (Pennycook) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:13:00 +0000

As I write this entry, I am sitting on the bus on my way home from work. I've been here for 10 minutes or so, happily minding my own business and listening to some music.

Then the following occurred.

A woman tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and took out my headphones, expecting her to tell me it was too loud -- to make the quite reasonable request that I turn it down.

If only.

"Hey, if you had a friend who bought a Toyota Prius and it had been recalled, but they didn't want to give it back, what would you tell your friend to do?" was the question she asked.

"Um... what?"

"Well you've got a friend -- or two friends -- and Toyota want to recall their Prius because of a problem with the accelerator. They don't want to give it back; do you think Toyota could force them?"

"I have no idea, sorry. Maybe your 'friend' should speak to Toyota."

"But Toyota don't make the law!"

...she is now asleep.

America is weird.

-10 Respect Points For You: Nicky Wire

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:39:00 +0000

We all know the rioting in London was some kind of complex expression of the U.K.'s wide range of social ill's. But not everyone thinks it's that complicated, Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers adds his shit to the bog of opinion here.

"I'm not even surprised any more. I think our brains have been totally rewired by the internet."

"There's a book called The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, about how it has just rewired a young generation's minds to bypass any serious consideration of (politics). They are just much more interested in whether there's a free Wi-Fi zone than the unemployment rates."

I'm Sorry, but WHAT? Please read more books Nicky.

Silencio - No Hay Banda

noreply@blogger.com (Man Cardigan) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Continuing his assault on the at-best ill-defined boundary between reality and fiction, David Lynch has opened a nightclub in Paris based on Club Silencio from the apocalyptically strange Mulholland Dr.. While the real-world Club Silencio is seemingly devoid of familiar Lynch iconography (dwarves, red lamps, curtains, Laura Dern and a pervasive sense of aching postmodern despair), the entire club has been bespoke designed by Lynch over the last two years and it includes the following awesome pieces of furniture:

Lynch's Tati-esque take on cinema seating with sinister lamp extensions:

A Kahlo-esque acoustic monstrosity entitled "Grateful Vanity":

What are we to make of all this though? Certainly the club is beautifully appointed throughout, right down to the dark, cavernous bathrooms:

However, fascinating and delightful and above all ironic as all this is, Club Silencio should not exist. I say this not because of some overly abstruse theoretical point about it necessarily failing, in terms of being the physical manifestation of an impossible psychological scape. Nor that it is the "real" copy of a club from a film which is itself a condensation of "Hollywood" set smack in the middle of Paris. Nor do I have a problem with it being a private members club charging up to 1 500 euros for a year's membership, the first in France. Nor that it is built on 142 Rue de Montmartre, where Moliere is buried, where Zola wrote J'Accuse, and just across the road from where Socialist leader Jean Jaures was assassinated trying to stop the First World War. But then, I'm not French.

No, my problem with this is that Club Silencio took Lynch two years from inception to finished product, and the three years before that he had been focusing on art, with the occasional (admittedly brilliant) foray into music and bizarre sideline into coffee-making (why?). Now, it has been 5 years since Inland Empire and I can understand how making a film like that would take it out of you but come on! Creating a solid version of Club Silencio is all well and good but I won't go to see it - it's too expensive, too far, too exclusive - and that saddens me. It saddens me that David Lynch is creating something weird and beautiful right now and I won't be able to slowly lose my mind to it. I'm not saying he's sold out, because that's a ridiculous phrase, but he does seem to erecting a paywall around his subconscious and I believe, as citizens of world, we all deserve access to that fucked-up meting pot of crazy. Make more films David Lynch!

Oh, and here's the bar:

New Blogger Layout: Much More 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:58:00 +0000

Honestly, what's not to like!

Several problems with your marketing approach, Asus.

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:14:00 +0000

We all love spam, especially when bored at work and trying to internet shop our way out of ~~madness~~ the 'economic growth slowdown'. Particularly I am a fan of targeted marketing, based on my web preferences (porn and mobile phones mainly), and often fall fowl to entering competitions and whatnot and getting associated spam, thankfully its normally for products I'm actually interested in. Until now:

Asus got it so, so, very wrong with this - the asus@vibe 2nd anniversary web event. Problems, I will provide for you in a simple list:

asus@vibe makes it seem like one of the worlds largest manufactures of consumer electronics has finally branched out into vibrating dildos. Note to self: If Apple did this perhaps their fangirls would be less stuck up about everything???
I had to read to the bottom of the email just to work out WHERE THE HELL YOU BUY THESE BOOKS! It's appears they are adorning their eeeeeepads with a bookshop! Would have been nice to have told me that before, also, leads to point -
WHY DO THEY ONLY SELL CRAPPY TRASH FICTION FOR ~~PRE-MENOPAUSAL~~ WOMEN! Read any one of these blurbs for a shiver down your spine:

"Sara B. is losing her cool. Not just in the momentary-meltdown kind of way—though there's that, too. At the helm of must-read Snap magazine, veteran style guru Sara B. has had the job—and joy—for the past fifteen years of eviscerating the city's fashion victims in her legendary DOs and DON'Ts photo spread. But now on the unhip edge of forty, with ambitious hipster kids reinventing the style world, Sara's being spit out like an old Polaroid picture: blurry, undeveloped and obsolete. Fueled by alcohol, nicotine and self-loathing, Sara launches into a cringeworthy but often comic series of blowups—personal, professional and private—that culminate in an epiphany. That she, the arbiter of taste, has made her living by cutting people down…and somehow she's got to make amends."

ARRRRRHGHBHBHBHBHEBHE!

AS TRUE TODAY AS IT WAS WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN...

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:12:00 +0000

I've been listening to old CD's that I keep underneath the seats and mats in car, the result, loads of old school lyrics that really 'speak to me'. Any way, this one got me this morning:

Oh yeah!

just a little somethin' to break the monotony
of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be
a little bit out of control it's cool to dance
but what about the groove that soothes that moves romance
give me a soft subtle mix
and if ain't broke then don't try to fix it
and think of the summers of the past
adjust the base and let the alpine blast
pop in my CD and let me run a rhyme
and put your car on cruise and lay back cause this is summertime

Definitely as true today as it was when it was written!

Jehovah's Witness at the Bus Stop

noreply@blogger.com (Pennycook) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:50:00 +0000

While I was waiting for the bus yesterday morning (on what was a rather nice, sunny day) I was approached by a woman in large sunglasses smiling an unnaturally wide smile.

"Good morning." she said, "How're you today?"

I couldn't tell whether she was crazy or just being polite -- maybe she too was waiting for a bus, and wanted some company -- so I replied and we got chatting about the weather.

But suddenly, her attention shifted.

"Are you a Bible reader?"

That's when I realised I'd been cornered by a Jehovah's Witness -- for the first time in my life. I wasn't sure what to do, and didn't want to be rude, so decided to be honest: "No."

She pulled out a stack of Watchtower magazines and started telling me that the Bible isn't just about God; that we can learn a lot more through interpretation of the Bible's teachings, like how to be better people.

I must have looked uninterested, because she decided to change tactic.

"There's an interesting article about cork?"

Wait So?

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:54:00 +0000

I'm getting increasingly annoyed with 'studies' showing us how to live our lives, more over is the fact that said studies get reported as news before any conclusion is actually reached. It does raise a question over the nature of the institutions that release them and the journals that send out press releases, is it just the news papers bigging things up or are academics getting to keen on tooting their own trumpets in the pursuit of a few comlumb inches. Below we see how salt is simultaneously killing us and not making any difference to our lives.

Make your fucking minds up! Case in point comes from a third print you can read here at the Torygraph. Turns out that:

Prof Rod Taylor of Exeter University said the results of his team’s study published in the American Journal of Hypertension two weeks ago had been misinterpreted.
“We do not believe our results necessarily mean that asking people to reduce their intake of salt is not a good thing”, he said.

Someone here is dropping the ball, good and bad might be terms of moral ambiguity but life and death I feel has a little more certainty to it. Seems the crux is that Salt raises blood pressure, and high blood pressure is bad. Salt itself doesn't really matter at all. I propose the headline:

A HEALTHY AND BALANCED DIET & LIFE WITH NOT TOO MUCH OF ANYTHING IS DEFINITELY THE BEST WAY TO GO

And I didn't even have to do a study for that!

OH REALLY IS IT?

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:33:00 +0000

It's shocking the myriad of stupid things you come across, here is today's tiny little discrepancy:

The offending line is part of a much larger email signature about the planet and not printing things and how things people say are their own opinion. Redacted because I like my job, but I still really hate email signatures like this. It's like being given a lecture about things you don't care about... like most lectures.

Blind Black Man on the Bus

noreply@blogger.com (Pennycook) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:43:00 +0000

Yesterday, an ageing blind black man in a beret boarded my bus. I was reading a book and didn't see him at first (and he was never going to see me) which resulted in me being hit by his stick.

The driver asked him a lot of questions about where he was going to be getting off and told him to take as much time as he needed to find his bus pass. When he found his pass he was already sitting down, but waved the pass around in the air at nobody in particular anyway.

Then he sang the blues.

An Asian woman at the back of the bus was so moved by the attention that the driver gave this man that she leapt to her feet and ran to the front, proclaiming in broken Engrish: "Mr. Driver! You are the best! You are the best driver in the world. You tell your boss, I say you are the best!"

America is weird.

I LOVE PUNS...

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:16:00 +0000

... and when you see a character with a heart as steely as state prosecutor uses one, well you have to wonder if they meant to.

Magistrates banned her from driving for two years, and imposed a two year conditional discharge.
She was told: “This sentence is well outside of the guidelines, but we are imposing it in light of the mitigating circumstances, and hopefully you are now on the road to recovery.”

hehe: full story - Drunken Cornish fool drives pissed

Adverts in Bad Taste

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:09:00 +0000

You have to love the coincidences, not the best one of these ever seen but still made me ~~feel bad~~ uncontrollably amused.

American Malls

noreply@blogger.com (Pennycook) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 22:36:00 +0000

Today, I decided to go shopping in a mall. After careful consideration, I chose Valley Fair in San José, since it is on a convenient bus route.

It was... different.

Not only was it considerably bigger than a UK shopping centre, but it was also packed full of American clichés. Incredibly fat people and youths "hanging out at the mall" were everywhere, and shop staff kept asking me if I was okay every twenty seconds.

Several of the shops actually had fat display mannequins.

On the way home, a crazy man who sounded like Tom Waits (although I have now heard so many of these that I'm sure I'll be saying Tom Waits sounds like a crazy man before long) told me that he had a cellphone like mine in his plastic bag -- I did not believe him.

iPad 2 Vs. Eee Pad Transform - 5 mins down the pub

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:04:00 +0000

So work gave me a opportunity to play with these two tablets for about five minutes. They just got delivered before Friday lunch at work, so we grabbed one of each and took them to lunch.

Packing is very much the same, in fact down to the way the charger and documents sit in the package.

After turning both on and starting up the results where straitforward: the Eee pad was an attractive to use, quick to work out bit of kit, that as the image below shows looks great. Whereas the iPad was returned to its box, needing to be plugged into iTunes before we had any fun. We where already surfing on the Android tablet by then.

The matt patterned finish was great, keyboard and trackpad very usable. I would get one of these over a notebook any day I think. The iPad looked a bit regular and dull next to it.

Even if the interface between the tablet and dock is a bit on the fiddly side, we figured it was worth it to make sure the connection was secure, which it really seems to be.

So, after 5mins the Eee Pad all the way!

Best screen background for work

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:04:00 +0000

Have to say that Futurama's vision of the Nixon election poster (or more a war-time style motivational poster) really cheers me up at work. Seeing it on the program is one of my fonder moments. Cant think about Nixon without shaking my cheeks and shouting CHECKERS! any more.

Bigot's Opinions

noreply@blogger.com (DarcMarc) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:38:00 +0000

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/8445592/Gillian-Duffy-takes-on-Nick-Clegg.html

I think the highlight of this article is when "Mr Clegg later conceded he had probably not won her vote"

Think about that. Politicians are battling for the votes of people who wanted to know where "all those Eastern Europeans are coming from?"

EVEN MORE IRONIC

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:26:00 +0000

On no... spot the mistake on this one.

SLIGHTLY IRONIC FOOTSHOOT

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:57:00 +0000

Turns out people hate shitty fanpages on facebook that bore you, fill your news feed with spam and make you read about things you don't want to but ultimately will buy. Even more they hate them so much some goons have done a study on it over at Gawker.

Trouble is:

Come on guys, practice what you preach.

KEEP BANG UP TO DATE WITH IT: The Modern Toss Swearing Jacket designed by Gresham Blake

noreply@blogger.com (Man Cardigan) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:15:00 +0000

KEEP BANG UP TO DATE WITH IT: The Modern Toss Swearing Jacket designed by Gresham Blake

This is probably the greatest cultural achievement in living memory

European Narcotics: One more thing . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Man Cardigan) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:45:00 +0000

European Narcotics: One more thing . . .

Black Swan - A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Man Cardigan) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Darren Aronofsky's fifth feature-length film is Black Swan, showing the physical and psychic degeneration of Nina Sayer (Natalie Portman) in her guilt-ridden attempt to portray the Swan Queen from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Nina, though talented, is emotionally inhibited and dominated by her mother (Barbara Hershey) who, thwarted in her own ballet career by pregnancy, brutally manipulates her daughter into destroying both her body and mind in pursuit of an impossible dream. Nina's mother infantilises her in an attempt to re-establish the symbiotic relationship of mother and child in utero, where the daughter's identity is completely subsumed within the mother's. The mother's symbolic aim is achieved precisely at the end of the action when both the Swan and Nina Sayer die. Black Swan is ultimately a film where a new generation is confronted with the spectres of an older one and is completely annihilated by them. This is not to say that Nina herself can be conceived of in other way than as complicit in her own destruction.

Nina may be a techinically perfect ballerina, but she initially lacks the emotional depth to portray the both the White and Black Swans (perfect casting btw). However, her melancholic attempts to perfect her performance lead to self-mutilation; violent, sexual hallucinations; paranoia; and eventually suicide. It is then fairly simple to trace a performative continuum between Black Swan and Swan Lake. That is, that Nina's enactment of the roles of Princess Odette and her evil sister, Odile, causes a psychic split in her personality. Put in other words, the film depicts Nina's “transformation” into the Black Swan which ironically culminates in her stabbing herself in the stomach with a shard of broken mirror. Which leads to my first and major criticism: Black Swan is effectively an aesthetic splatter of Freudian imagery, which in itself is no bad thing, but Shakespeare taught us more about than Freud, than Freud could ever teach us about Shakespeare.

Nina's actions follow a predictable course of degeneration, mirroring not only that of her mother, but also the other woman she supplants, Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder). Beth, a prima ballerina for years is replaced due to her age by the male-dominated industry of ballet represented in all its sleaze by Vincent Cassel as Thomas Leroy. It becomes quickly evident that Nina identifies Beth as a role model and ersatz maternal figure. She goes into Beth's private dressing room to steal her expensive make up, subsuming her own personality within Beth's. Later in the film, after Beth has been hit by a car in an apparent suicide attempt, Nina attempts to return the things she stole, explaining that she wanted to be “perfect” like Beth. In response to this, Beth starts stabbing herself in the face with the returned nail file screaming “I'm nothing!”. The symbolism, then, is heavy handed at best: maternal hubris leads to self-destruction, but does Black Swan allow any potential for narrative movement?

Not as such. As in other Aronofsky films, particularly Pi, the downfall of the protagonists is agonisingly slow and gradual, but always rooted in some form of childhood trauma and represented through persistent hallucinatory episodes. In Pi, we learn that as a child Max Cohen stared at the sun against his mother's warnings and caused his subsequent agoraphobia and social paranoia. We see how an initial childhood rebellion can lead and solidify into a self-destructive quest for self-discovery, but we never see the drill coming. Black Swan, though intermittently shocking, has no real dramatic momentum and fans of Aronofsky's previous work will feel there is something missing.

52.5g of Duller Than I Expected.

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Green) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:52:00 +0000

The new Snickers Maximus from Mars promises the maximum load of Nuts & Caramel. Not being the sort of person to turn down something described as having the ‘Maximum Load’ of anyting, and with eager endorsement from Mr. T I purchased and ate one.

I didn't set out out to buy the thing to write about it, my life isn't so boring I need to write about it. But in my hollow desk existence I figured it would be a worthy topic. Hence the pic:

Thankfully combined with a Coke and some McCrips it came to exactly £2. Which is a fucking find for anyone with exactly £2.

Basically what you are getting here is the peanuts from a snickers immersed in caramel then chocolate coated. How is that different from a normal snickers? A normal snickers has that other stuff that is a bit like the soft part of a Mars bar, this fluffs it out and makes it a bit less tedious. I think the peanuts are honey roasted, which was tasty but the caramel prevailed photographically:

Bar Value: (I’ve always wondered what bar gives the best value. I propose a standard for measuring them)

Weight: 52.5g

Ruffage: 7/10 (Cant think of anything with more, so Maximum Load of nuts)

Chocolate: 5/10 (Good but thin)

Caramel: 8/10 (It was a lot more than a normal Mars or Snickers - Maximum Load indeed)

Satisfaction: 8/10 (I’m a big fan of Snickers, and this was a nice change, wouldn't swap the regular for them, but hope they stick around for a while)

Total Score: 80.5

Summary: When Mr.T tells you to buy something, do it.

Sweet Hit but you can get it anywhere.