Category: Musings

I was thinking again about registering a domain to myself… The obvious ones, ultrahi.com and matthewhobbs.com have already gone (strangely ‘matthewhobbs.com’ is not registered to a Matthew Hobbs) although their net equivalents still seem to be around.

Current random URLs that might be cool:

• sushification.com – a site describing the continuing gentrification of Manhatten via Sushi restaurants, the spore of the rich, trendy and white
• diaretic.com – my diary
• unilover.com – a site dedicated to all those people who’ve worked at Unilever that I’ve known and loved (sometimes more carnally than others)
• unileaver.com – a site dedicated to all those who have left Unilever and want to form an ad-hoc community as they go through film school or eat too many pies or make bad relationship choices
• quidpunks.com – the Quidnunc community as suggested by J Pegues, a mastermind

In one of my drunken moments I was struck with a realization. Frantically I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote it down. So, in the cold light of day, here is that ‘insight’: rules make you lazy. Not very exciting really as it stands – I think I was trying to capture some deeper thought but didn’t use the right words. The basic concept stands well though and I think it was more that ‘other people’s rules make you lazy’ than rules in general – good rules help you make quicker decisions from a priori knowledge as long as they are used with the correct context.

Today my brother in law Simon got ordained at Guildford Cathedral so he’s now a deacon. Strange to be back in a church after so long and, of course, nothing had really changed with the good old C of E. Stranger still was seeing Simon with his dad, Lesley, and brother, Matt, all standing together with their dog collars on. An entire family in service to God. Simon’s dad looked so happy though. Bless.

Meanwhile I’m packing to go back to New York taking my usual excessive luggage (two bags) back having been on shopping sprees to CyberDog, Grade A and Muji. The last two weeks have been fun but I’m really looking forward to getting back to doing something rather than just sitting about! Some of the last week has also been quite stressful for reasons involving glasses of coke and a Camden nightclub. Seems to have turned out OK now but it is still in the back of my mind. Strangeness. Watch out New York – here I come…

Sometimes it’s not worth being nice to people. They want you to be nasty to them, so being nice confuses them. It’s like a dog with an injury biting the vets hand. They strike out at the immediate pain, not seeing the long term benefits of seeing it through. I don’t like to think like this but it is true. So that leaves you, the vet, with a bloody hand, wondering if the pain is worth it to help…

Just checked out Brian’s new version of Ironed Fishes. Wow! Looking good. Makes me realize that I need to redo my site again, perhaps spending more than an hour on it. Or at the very least widen the blogging area… What do you think? On the one hand, people are only supposed to be able to take in 7 or so words on a line before it becomes confusing – on the other hand I tend to ramble which leads to a lot of scrolling.

Well – got back late last night from Glastonbury having spent the day sitting around on the site rather than in a traffic jam. Apparently it took some people around 7 hours to get out of the car park! Not fun. As I drove back the four days of sleep depravation kicked in as I dozed fitfully at the wheel, my only savior being a late night garage selling full-caffeine pepsi and pickled onion monster munch.

Glastonbury was much fun though. Caught up with lots of friends, drank way too much and did everything except shower way too much. Weather was pretty good, with Thursday being slightly damp but the other days a good mix of sunny and overcast. I now have a fine farmer’s tan for my sins. Oo ar. Best band was probably Yo La Tengo – a New York band playing in the new bands stage. Elastica were good as well though. I didn’t seem to spend as much time in the dance tent as I normally do (getting old maybe?) but managed to catch a set by David Holmes in the Rizla Lounge – a small venue. So that was frikkin’ cool – he was about 2 metres from me. Star struck or wot.

So now I’m back home in Camberley. I was going to Newquay but lack of forward planning and it being 9pm when I left Glasto put me off!

Bizarre but cool day spent in London shopping, eating and drinking. Most bizarro thing was bumping into Jodi Ann Mullen who I used to fancy like crazy at PGL in summer 1992 but nothing ever happened with. Bob and I were looking at her thinking she was very cute and then I realized she seemed awfully familiar. I told Bob and he didn’t believe me but the more I looked the more she had the correct mannerisms – a cutely askew smile and expression that was ultimately familiar. I went over and asked – she looked surprised then remembered who I was. She also remembered she still had some of my letters to her which is more scary! I can’t even remember what I wrote but I’m sure they’re embaressing now – in a sweet, luvy duvy kinda way. Bless. That’s why our memories are so bad – to prevent overload of embaressment!

OK – I’ve set up my Glastonbury 2000 info page now. Nothing exciting except where I’ll be. If there’s some way at Glasto to update this expect more info then! I’m going down on Wednesday afternoon. Laters.

Hmm… just found out that yesterday’s flight was arriving at Heathrow literally just before the entire automated radar system in the UK failed! Landed at Heathrow around 9.45am in the end (or it might have been a bit later) and the system crashed around 10. Actutally it might have been around the same time as we were coming in as they suddenly delayed us and kept us in a strange holding pattern that I’d never seen coming into Heathrow before. On the plus side the plane landed safely and I was only a bit late unlike 1000s of other poor sods who got delayed hugely. The manual processes still seem to work.

So I’m in the UK for now and about to setup a page for details of where I’m camping at Glastonbury this year. In summary though – the plan is to camp at the south side of the site, at the bottom (ie, southernmost) tip of the field to the west of the Sacred Circle field. This is a nice spot as it’s out of the main flow of traffic – other than people sneaking in of course. If anyone wants to try and reach me call or message – 0779 0145027, it’s an Orange phone and they worked pretty damn well last year. Here’s a map of where we’ll be. There should be a large orange tent and I’m going to try and come up with a cool flag before going.

Back in the good ol’ U of K again for Glastonbury and a few other choice, family events. Today was my little sister Abigail’s 10th birthday party.Being the love buying sibling that I am the simple application of dollars to Pokeman Team Rocket cards (not yet out in the UK) meant that I was top in the sibling ranks for at least 10 minutes. Sigh – such simple pleasures packaged in a nice shiny foil wrapper…

Perhaps more fun is that I’ve borrowed my dad’s Citroen 2CV for my time here. Driving this half tin half fibre glass machine is the driving equivalent of juggling raw eggs. Although the eggs would probably provide more protection in a crash. Luckily it doesn’t go above 50 mph anyway.

I keep thinking – screw the Internet. To really make money I need to invent ‘self-esteem in a can’. That’s gotta be worth something! Unless of course the ingredients are just a good deodorant, body shampoo and vodka. In which case the market’s already flooded.

I need more sleep. Things came up last night in a conversation that got to me more than I’d like and I don’t even know why. Isn’t that strange? How emotions can just rise up in you with no way of knowing where they come from? My normal range is lust, sleepiness, lust and hunger which I can normally source. Other ones… well, they come and go.

People can be fuckers though. Sometimes they know it too and still do it – that’s the scariest thing I know. For everyone who knows me out there – whenever I’m a fucker tell me! I probably don’t realize it! Can’t everyone just be nice to each other? Why do people want pain in their lives? Jeez.