Forgot to read The Onion yesterday, so took a quick peek this morning. The Onion AV Club's resident sex column, Savage Love, who as the name suggests doesn't mince its words is this week all about furverts or plushophiles. One in the seemingly endless list of strange things that people are turned on by, furverts are people who are turned on by sex with people dressed as cuddly animals or stuffed toys themselves. I don't see anything wrong with this (personally I find it odd) but do wonder how people are turned on by this. It seems that Dan Savage (columnist and obvious naming inspiration for said AV feature) has a theory...

"Furries emerged in the late 1990s, right when the first generation of children whose entire lives were dominated by Disney products and imagery came of age. After being exposed to images of cuddly, safe, saucer-eyed, anthropomorphized animals throughout their childhood, during puberty these same kids had sex presented to them as deadly and dangerous. The abstinence "educators" and AIDS "awareness" campaigns they were subjected to exaggerated the actual risks of HIV transmission, pregnancy, and death. Is it any wonder that a tiny percentage of this Disney/abstinence generation came to fetishize the safe and cuddly stuffed animals of their childhood?"

Who knows? It is interesting that fetishes seem to be culture and time specific. I remember covering Victorian sexual fetishes in a feminist course at uni. I don't think many people these days would get much of a turn on from their wife dressing as a chimney sweep, but that was hot stuff to some Victorians apparently.

This isn't that related to the above text but this is a 19th century anti-masturbation device. WTF!

posted by Neil at 1:54:00 PM

Wonder if she's still single? :)



Apparently LastMinute.com is to make a profit. The news item on BBC TV featured the fragrant Martha Lane Fox, who I haven't seen on TV for a while and she'd definitely aged in the last two years. God knows what sort of things have happened in her company between the golden dot com dawn and now, but I'm sure they'd be enough to age anyone. They also had, straight from the dot.com class of 1999, the boss of boo.com, who not only looked older, now also had grey hair. Wonder what he does now?
posted by Neil at 12:43:00 PM

Just doing a bit of late night Soulseek downloading before bed, and it occurs to me to look for the Orb's legendary Kiss EP, the first thing they ever released. So I find an Orb discography to get the track titles and I'm reminded just how good they used to be. Alex Paterson has lost the plot now supposedly (although I haven't heard the Badorb twelves). That amount of marijuana intake was never going to do anyone much good in the long run but for a few years he ruled the roost with a sampling aesthetic that no one really bar possibly the Avalanches has ever got close to. His stuff just flowed and tracks like Spanish Castles in Space or the revolutionary Ever Pulsating Brain were like nothing ever heard before. Had a nice Englishness to it, and the soundscapes weren't filled with the cyber cliches that later filled ambient music. It certainly blew my mind when I was 17 and hearing them for the first time. Shame he just became known as the student's smokeathon soundtrack provider.

Designers Republic sleeves too. Little Fluffy Clouds will forever be in my top ten.
posted by Neil at 11:25:00 PM

My lovely horse. For Anna xxx
posted by Neil at 8:14:00 PM

Found out more about the 3 tests I've got to do for the editorial consultant role - one test will be delivered to me 24 hours before, then 5 minute and half hour tests, also on the day. Blimey! Might as well enjoy things in the mean time as it's a quiet time - although fairly productive.
I know fuck all about MIDI. I found this fact out today while struggling to install my keyboard. It's no good I'm going to have to partition my hard drive again. Should put a few demos in the post to labels too.
Oh yeah! How to make £60 from picking books up from the street. When out boozing on Friday with Anna, we were walking through Portobello Road on our way to Ben and Stu's house when what should catch my eye but a book on the floor, which revealed itself to be a 1938 edition of the Michelin Guide. The Guide is, of course, the famous French Gastronomic guide, and is very illuminating - a three star (the maximum accolade) restaurant has beside it the recommendation 'One of the best tables in France ; worth a special journey.' Who could say the English would consider driving half way across the country just for a meal? Then, as now the French took their food very, very seriously.
Anyway, a quick bit of Googling revealed that the 1938 book was worth somewhere in the region of £50 - £150 quid. I wish I could hang on to it, it's a charming volume even if I don't speak French, but at the present time it's a pleasant amount of pure profit.

Most books picked off the street smell of wee. Mine smelt of cash
posted by Neil at 7:54:00 PM

Squirrel Jesus

Not a lot more to say is there really?

posted by Neil at 2:54:00 PM

Just a quick entry before I pop off to the supermarket. I've got loads to do for an unemployed person, and I think that whatever I'm up to at 4:00pm I'm going to start looking for a holiday as it's about time I did that.
Soulseek rules. I've downloaded so much cool stuff. Found two Mogwai tunes I've never heard of and I'm also downloading Vladislav Delay's 62 minute Anima, which I really regret not buying when in came out in 2000. Love this review from Amazon...

"This cd is PERFECT for all you Eminem and Britney loving types, because this quaint little rock and roll album is filled with classic three minute tracks that echo with the sweet sounds of powerpop three-chord riffs. The minute that chorus comes on-line singing out directly to your soul about the pains and tribulations of falling in and out of love, of finding that perfect partner and trying as hard as you can to keep them, and other wonderfully fulfilling subjects - you KNOW that this is the album you have always dreamed of. It's the way Vladislav completely understands the pubescent mind that allows you to fall in love with his immediate over-production - the YEARS that this man has spent in a studio with his four professional song-writing chums, sixteen session musicians, thirty two different backing singers, forty eight different funny plug-ins that correct the slightly off-key singing, the three hundred and sixty four company producers, the six hundred thousand executives making sure he gets everything how they want it... MAN! Vladislav has tried SO HARD to get it right for everybody.... +sigh+

[shhh stop laughing!!!! do you think they'll buy it? aw cummon!!!!! shhh, I think they're listening??! are they?? NO? ok... right, it's ACTUALLY a sixty-two minute long sheer duvet of a track, like Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon it kind of just fluffs out a beanbag, sits on it, and then stays there for an hour - it's a description of place, Thursday Aftenoon was set by your lounge window on a spring day with the light filtering through leaves on to your whitewashed walls, Neroli was in a red velvet lined harem in unspeakably drousy heat, ANIMA is set in the coolest of neon bars. ANIMA is as future as it gets, the roots are in dub, the sounds clink and sparkle with echo - sounds steeped in reference to the dub masters. Unlike his other albums though this is more freeform, with sounds becoming a little more random over a melodic edgily shifting melancholy - more differing noises, gaps and drops yawning out and then falling into half-glimpsed beats and regularities that quickly degrade into forgotten drunken murmur. Breathing and beautiful piano, conversations across a mall, amalgamations of bizarre thrumbling noises gathering pace to remind you of it's dub origins, metallic skips and sparks. what? they're back again? ok shhh? and I'll continue talking to them ok? right, just be quiet for a minute.]

RIGHT GO AND BUY THIS THIRTY FOUR MINUTE WONDER! IT'S GOT GREAT LITTLE TUNES THAT NEATLY END AND IT REALLY FEELS LIKE SOMEONE CARES FOR YOU OK?!

[they're going for it I can see it in their mindless eyes... right, back to business then.. err, what was I saying - yup... definitely recommended. Nice. No you can't hum to it and you'll have difficulty recording bits that stand out on compilation tapes - but maybe, hey maybe Britney fans, that's the idea."


The slightly strange cover of Anima. Honestly it's supposed to be a classic.
Anyway, I'm a busy man so I'm off to Sarfend.
Must phone my Dad today and find out if he's OK after his knee operation
posted by Neil at 10:15:00 AM

Well, what an excellent weekend. Friday aftenoon after a tricky rodent disposal problem I made my way to Notting Hill with Anna for some excellent pub action and then some skunk action which was slightly strong to say the least. Possibly not the best thing when you're sleeping on a hard floor with an early start the next morning but it had to be done. After that it was up to Hull for the big day. The wedding was so English. I got the feeling similar events, in particular in the Church had been going on for centuries, although there was a curious mix of high Anglican, Evangelical and Catholic in the ceremony. I've never heard Ave Maria, and although not my bag at all, the woman singing it kept it together so despite the tones and volume of her vocal chords you didn't get your eardrums damaged.
So good to see everyone and the reception afterwards was a joy, in particular chatting to people I hadn't seen for sometime while eating canapes and sipping bucks fizz on a Sunday summers afteroon, with un-forecast rays beating down. The evening proved drunken but myself and Anna slipped away before we overdid it.
We got back at 6pm today and it's back to the grindstone tomorrow with my second interview not till the 14th of August. I need to find a back up but this weekend as I hope next weekend will be, was a pleasant diversion.

I couldn't find any pictures of the hotel so here's a mouse like the one I had to dispose of
posted by Neil at 10:16:00 PM