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The Orcs of Summerleaze Close

Mrs Shadrak put her shopping bags on the kitchen table heavily. "My boys have such big appetites", she said to no one in particular. "Ordinarily I'd be happy about that, but it does make the shopping heavy".

"Aw, bless you, you never let them go hungry, though", said Mavis.

"Oh, I couldn't do that. They need their food. Grishnash is going to be a big lad when he grows up". Her eyes shone with pride. "And Daisy is already a size 14, and she's only 6! Mrs Gorman at the supermarket was only saying today how bonnie she is."

Just at that moment Grishnash came bounding into the kitchen, accompanied by his cousin Chris. "We've been playing on the swings", said Chris. "Grishy pushed me so hard I thought I was going to go right over the top". The boys sat down in the sofa, still grinning at the memory. "What's for tea?", said Grishnash. "Not fish again, I hope."

"No, not today.", said his mother, smiling. "There was a lovely leg of lamb at the butchers counter. Mr Glamper had saved it for me. We're having it with potatoes dauphinois and broccoli."

"Ugh, I hate broccoli", said Chris.

"You don't have to eat it, your mother might have something different for you.", said Mavis.

"But I want to stay here this evening. Me and Grishy need to plan our adventure".

"You're welcome to eat with us. Do you like parsnips? I could do you some of them?"

"I love them, but can you do them with a honey glaze, like you did last week?"

"Of course I can, angel", beamed Mrs Shadrak. "Mr Shadrak is home later from his raiding party. He loves parsnips in honey too."

"Daddy's coming home!" yelled Grishnak. He leapt up from the sofa and bounced around the kitchen like an Orcan Pogo stick! "Are you certain?"

"Yes, dear" said his mother. "The adjutant had just put a notice up on the information board by the camp hut as I passed on my way in to town I thought you two boys might want to go to the great hall to meet him and his squad when they come in".

"Yes, Chis, let's do that. What time are they expected, mummy?"

"Any time between 4 and 6 pm, if the Elves don't get them".

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“There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may.”

― Charlotte Brontë, writing about facebook before it existed.

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We are immortal. We have lived many past lives. Some of the events of those lives are remembered in our present lives. And when we die, we die, but we live on, through our children, or our siblings' children, or any of our relatives' children, and even just in the memories of those whose lives we have ever touched. I don't mean we figuratively die, or that we figuratively live on. We do both. Literally.

Women (those with all the regular bits, anyway) are born with every egg inside them that will ever make its way down the fallopian tube. When your mother was a bump in your grandma's belly, you were inside her. Part of you. You had about 7 million pals in there with you too, some of whom ended up blaming you when they did something wrong. Bastards. And some who are your best friends.

Our fathers weren't as well prepared. They work on the JIT principle - Just In Time. Pretty much how they do their Christmas shopping now.

So, there's this place where they get together, a bit like the Roxy, in Sheffield, in the 80s. And although millions fail to pull, if you're alive today, someone pulled. They didn't die. They didn't create you. They literally got together, and you are the result. And before you, they were the result. They, the bits of your DNA that made you, have existed since the start of life, and I don't just mean human life. I believe these genes that have been present, and succeeded in producing you, the absolute best thing they have made, except your mum obviously (unless you hate her), are not insensate any more than you are insensate. You have feelings, right? Needs? Maybe a few of you have dreams, and the crazy ones still have ambitions. So do your genes. They want to live, or at least have a couple of cousins who live, or at least be remembered, or change the world even just a little bit. These genes feel what we feel, at some level, and if your ancestor was a princess in the 14th century, they felt what she felt. They knew what she knew. We're immortal. We have past lives. We die. But we live on.

Might as well make things better.

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What Are We Laughing At?

Dave Chappelle on SNL made jokes about anti-semitism and mostly Jewish Tweeters tweeted their disgust. His defenders called it edgy comedy, but it seems to be unquestioned that whatever the topic he covered, it was a joke. For some, a joke bypasses all conventions. There is no need for it to be truthful, honest, fair, or respectful. It can always be told, and those who are upset are to blame, because it is a joke. As though making as joke has neutral, indifferent morality, whereas making a statement invites argument. If it's a joke, the only valid response is to laugh (to varying degrees), or not to laugh. To do more - to oppose the content of the joke - is to break the revered specialness of a joke.

But...

A preference or fondness, or alternatively a distaste, or disgust, or disrespect for a thing (a thing said as the content of a joke) can easily make people swing more or less to enjoying or disliking a joke. And my purpose here, having watched a clip of Dave Chappelle on SNL, is to say that this predilection can push something that is barely amusing at all into roaring hilarity, or conversely, into revulsion. I didn't find it funny. Subjective, I know. I think if it hadn't been a declared comedian, performing as scheduled on a comedy show, in front of an audience predisposed to laugh (else why are they there?), I can't see that anyone would have felt the barest glint of a smile. Put the words in the mouth of the dullest TV anchor, people would not spot there was even an intention to make anyone laugh. Some would be indifferent to the content, some would nod sagely in agreement and some would take deep offence to the statements made.

The sacred status conferred on the grail called a joke entirely changes the valid and real reactions to the content, and a joke is just a label wrapped around that content.

For the record, I thought the content was hurtful, it reeked of self-victimisation (we are oppressed by others not wanting us to be hurtful about this topic), and if Chappelle were a better man and not merely ragging a bone for his mob (those who laughed loudest at their happy thoughts being validated), or a better comedian, he would try to think of other topics now, and be funny.

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Apprehending Serial Killers

There's a common theme with serial killers. Not all if them, but enough of them. When they get caught, it is a relief. They knew that nothing else would stop them. They confess to their killings, to all their killings, they give all the information they can recall.

Dennis Nilsen wrote a letter and left it in his desk drawer on the morning when he knew the game was up. His only concern was that the police would kill him and pretend he had killed himself. He worked that day as he had every day in that job. He knew the drain at his house was blocked with the flesh of his last victim. He knew that the drainage specialists had found the flesh. He knew the police would identify it as human. He didn't try to run. He felt relief. Killing was a pleasure, and a need, and a means to an end, but it was stressful. Society does not allow it for Housing Benefit Officers. And he knew the stress was about to be over. And he knew he wouldn't have to kill again, and the nightmare was over.

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Foreigners

You're still living in the town you were born in, or at least the same county. You still see all the same people you knew when you were 8. You've probably been to London once and even made it to Leeds or Manchester or Cornwall and an Ibizan beach. But they have left their country, their family, their friends, moved to a country where they've had to learn the language, the thousand different ways things are done differently, made it their home, made new friends, made a contribution and work hard, and you wonder why I admire them?! They have spirit! Migrants are the best and most interesting people.

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In a criminal case in 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington noted: Defendant [Kenneth Wayne Leaming] is apparently a member of a group loosely styled "sovereign citizens." The Court has deduced this from a number of Defendant’s peculiar habits. First, like Mr. Leaming, sovereign citizens are fascinated by capitalization. They appear to believe that capitalizing names has some sort of legal effect. For example, Defendant writes that "the REGISTERED FACTS appearing in the above Paragraph evidence the uncontroverted and uncontrovertible FACTS that the SLAVERY SYSTEMS operated in the names UNITED STATES, United States, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and United States of America . . . are terminated nunc pro tunc by public policy, U.C.C. 1-103 . . . ." (Def.’s Mandatory Jud. Not. at 2.) He appears to believe that by capitalizing "United States," he is referring to a different entity than the federal government. For better or for worse, it’s the same country.Second, sovereign citizens, like Mr. Leaming, love grandiose legalese. "COMES NOW, Kenneth Wayne, born free to the family Leaming, [date of birth redacted], constituent to The People of the State of Washington constituted 1878 and admitted to the union 22 February 1889 by Act of Congress, a Man, "State of Body" competent to be a witness and having First Hand Knowledge of The FACTS . . . ." (Def.’s Mandatory Jud. Not. at 1.)Third, Defendant evinces, like all sovereign citizens, a belief that the federal government is not real and that he does not have to follow the law. Thus, Defendant argues that as a result of the "REGISTERED FACTS," the "states of body, persons, actors and other parties perpetuating the above captioned transaction(s) [i.e., the Court and prosecutors] are engaged . . . in acts of TREASON, and if unknowingly as victims of TREASON and FRAUD . . . ." (Def.’s Mandatory Jud. Not. at 2.)The Court therefore feels some measure of responsibility to inform Defendant that all the fancy legal-sounding things he has read on the internet are make-believe......[41] Defendant Kenneth Wayne Leaming was found guilty of three counts of retaliating against a federal judge or law enforcement officer by a false claim, one count of concealing a person from arrest, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.[42] On May 24, 2013, Leaming was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

Wikipedia

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Me: *makes a small irrelevant mistake*

My Brain, banging pots and pans together: YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUC

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It’s strange isn’t it? How we’d rather have them hurt us than to not have them at all.

T.C - addicted  (via thingsilearnedaboutlife)

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Kids

I never wanted kids because I was horrified by life. Horrified by famine, war, poverty, cruelty, suffering, death, and what seemed in the 70s and 80s to be the very real immediate prospect of nuclear obliteration. How could I put a child through that? I should never have had a subscription to Time magazine when I was 14.

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The fact is, I'm being used. I don't mind that. I like to be helpful. But what kills my soul is that when I'm not useful, I'm not told. When people change their plans, they don't tell me - they claim poor signal or dead battery later. When they don't want to talk, they lie to cover why they don't. They lie, and you know what? I don't lie. But they call themselves my friend. And I'm only spewing this out today cos 3 'friends' separately did this today. And I'm spewing it here cos none of them will ever read it here. Shall I carry on as I always have done? I know I will. But my heart has left them. All three. And it ought to leave many more. I'm genuinely not loved.

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They've got me where they want me

All my adult life I've lived in safe parliamentary constituencies; some Labour, some Conservative. It sucks having no say whatsoever on who is elected. So, I might as well just drink lots of vodka. Can't wait for the weekend! I hope to be comatose on Sunday.

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apparently big bird isnt a real bird and has been a person in a costume this whole time. this brings into the question the authenticity of all other birds. are some of them also filled with tiny humans. do any birds actually exist

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do you ever cook something in the microwave but it’s still really cold in the middle and you just keep eating it instead of heating it longer because life is pointless and entropy is unavoidable and the universe is filled with callous and casual destruction

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Lethargy is my friend

Sometimes I get miserable. Money, relationships, life. Then I can't be bothered any more and just forget it and get drunk.