Introducing...Mira Fiori

'Unforgettable'

His love
came
--> and went
as conception
passed to
deception,
parodied intimacy
confined to
supermarket trips.
With several
women
he remains
familiar -
as do I,
through his
undisclosed
chlamydia.

22nd March 2006, 'Mira Fiori'

Priceless (so to speak)

Only on eBay...and of course, Brian Sack and his leather pants. Plus an urban fairytale.

Oh, and truly, the best of luck to Kucko xx

Last night's Newsnight report on the Rwandan premier of 'Shooting Dogs' is here. Watch it now, as it will most likely be removed in a day or two owing to copyright issues.

In the dictionary under 'Twat'...

...it says 'see this'.

I think you can provide your own inner-sanctum commentary on just what the hell the voices in this guy's head were mumbling:

Here is the deal...as the posting states I am an American frat guy from the midwest. Well, at least I used to be but now I guess I've grown up a bit and got a real job. My situation is that I got transfered over here for work and don't know anyone. I'm in the financial side of things but that doesn't matter. I'm looking for dudes that want to kick back and have a few pints and talk american sports or go out chasing some ladies. I feel weird going out by myself and lets be honest, every guy needs a wingman. I myself love women and i'm not gay. Therefore only straigt guys reply that aren't weirdos. That means if your gay you can stop reading this. I'm sorry but I really have nothing in common with you, so don't be offended. I know these websites attract strange people so I want to be careful. I know there are other Americans in London I just don't no where to find them that is why I'm turning to Craigslists which I thought I'd only use for buying sold out tickets to concerts. Oh well, new city...try new things. Okay if you think you fit the description shoot me an email. Cheers

I bet you he's a fuckin' Republican to boot.

Thanks to Craigslist, I don't necessarily have to go out and bump into these people; I am spared such life-affirming experiences.

A quiet night in...

...yeah right, reading a commercial proposal to send off tomorrow. Mind you, 6 months of fannying about paid off this morning (k'ching), but it has only served to raise the barrier. Next month I get the privilege of doing another APAC tour, this time for three weeks, losing four weekends in a row. Hmmm...should be a blast actually - and I have Krakow to look forward to next weekend...as well as Susana Baca in concert this Sunday. Life doesn't get any better than this, apart from the baldness, piles, genital warts, body odour, premature ejac(excuse me, while I wipe this up) - and sanitised Tourette's/stream of consciousness.

Tonight's Newsnight on BBC2 wil have a report on the film 'Shooting Dogs'. I caught the special preview last week, but a few days ago it had its premier in Rwanda, in front of 1,500 people. John Hurt and Michael Caton-Jones were apprehensive about the screning, so I am keen to find out what happened. What was the reaction of the crowd? By necessity (low budget = small cast & tight storyline), the film didn't dwell too much on the Hutu point of view (shame, given the long historical emnity/tense relationship between Hutu & Tutsi).

Fame at last!

Thanks to Kris & D, while attending GDC San Jose.

What do you do when you go away?

Well I won't answer for myself. But here's what some people (Eddie Berg, creative director of the NFT) do:

Farewell!

It looks like me and the JollyGreenTrundleyTractor will part company this Friday. Barring the usual kind of last minute hitches (paperwork problems, delivery issues, acts of God/Parliament, etc), I will pick up my new chariot, which from a distance looks like a piece of black onyx.

I became a little bit misty-eyed earlier, wondering why there isn't a place where I can set my old car free - out to pasture, free to roam. But of course, it's an object - and the only thing I can think of is stock car racing. That's asking a bit too much, as it needs a new turbo, a new clutch and the suspension is making knocking/thunking sounds - new bushes are cheap, but the labour is not. Still a smooth drive...I think i'm gonna cry-

First cut

Have just completed the first cut of what I will call for now 'Digital Decoys'. Not sure it is quite there, but that's ghostwriting for you.

"Bad memories, welcome... you are my long lost youth"

Went to the NFT again last night and caught the superb 'L'Armée des Ombres' by Jean-Pierre Melville, based on the book by Joseph Kessel (who also wrote 'Belle du Jour'). The late, great Lino Ventura was absolutely fantastic. I would like to get hold of it on DVD, but it doesn't appear to be available. I haven't been big on war movies since I was a little kid, but this wasn't so much about war, but about bonds, honour, and this will sound pretentious, but it was poetry, to me at least.

Looking forward to: each day (obviously), but also this

Not looking forward to: spending my day off with paperwork and filing

Listening to: Bill Hicks and Langston Hughes (but not together)

Oh - the title of this post is the quote that opens 'L'Armee des Ombres'

Talkin' sh*t

Some poems I wrote while waiting for the plane in Taipei a couple of weeks back. These will be moved to the other place, but i'll stick 'em here for safekeeping in the interim.

'Ahoy There!'

It is a little known fact,
that pirates wearing eyepatches
did not lose their eye in fierce battle.
Rather, it was because of their
early careers as cabin boys,
where a rather unsavoury practise,
engaged to satisfy their captains,
not only made the knees sore,
but would take your eye out,
if you didn't get out of the way.


'Willowy'

He had quite the longest legs.
As a zoo keeper, he made
the giraffes jealous, and
one flamingo tried to mate with him.

But the women were bemused
and the half-pint men tittered,
for his long legs were merely pillars
for his derriere, which was
large and wobbly, prominent
and potentially deadly,
threatening to drown him
every time he had diorrhea.

Whether privately or professionally,
he was forever mucking out,
always in it up to his ears.


'The Dude' (a true story)

He was part of the crowd,
longing for his own entourage.
Hip, tending towards the
sarcastic, frustrated and bitter.
Yet he went silent, vanished,
when it was revealed that
under his baggy jeans,
he hid another pair of slacks.


Thinking about: jumping in the car and buying some ice cream

Decision?

I had really wanted to get a stonkingly fast car, like days of old (my beloved Alfa). However, there were a number of issues, namely:

• I still have 6 points on my license (from an all-time personal best of 12), and although they come off by the end of the year, the insurance companies will long remember them, so insurance for a fast car will be very expensive
• Most of the cars on this list are petrol engined, and I would prefer a diesel as I do 100 miles a day
• If I get a fast car, I will probably get done again
• If I don't get done first, the car will probably get nicked

So I compromised. I wanted something that:

• Was small and fun
• Had great mid range punch for overtaking, but wasn't likely to get me done for speeding around town
• Had low running costs
• Had something of the air of a Q car

Yes, I could afford something better, but what was the point? I needed the cash for my breast enhancement (just the one bap, mind).

I found something. Here's what the reviewers had to say:

Jeremy Clakson in The Times
'What the figures don’t tell you, though, is just how quickly this little car accelerates in the midrange. In a petrol car, the power comes in a smooth stream across the rev range, but in this, all 130 horses seem to arrive at once.

You don’t hang on to the gear, feeling the surge growing in strength. You put your foot down and the power comes in a huge lump, like a wrecking ball. It’s over as quickly as it arrived, but that’s okay because you’ve overtaken the car in front with yards to spare.

Study the performance characteristics of this car carefully and you will arrive at an extraordinary conclusion. It may only be a 1.9 litre diesel hatchback, but round a track it will blow a supercharged Mini Cooper into the weeds. It is astonishingly fast.

At this point I’d love to tell you that by fitting such a huge oil-burning stove under the bonnet they’ve sent the handling all to cock. But I’m afraid not. It hangs on well, there’s lots of feedback through the steering, and, as a bonus I really wasn’t expecting, it rides nicely too. So you get all the thrills of a genuine hot hatchback, in a well-screwed-together, comfortable and practical package which, because it’s a diesel, will go from here to Nebraska on a single tank.

Great, but you’re not interested, are you? You think there must be something wrong with it, and you know that telling people at parties you have a ***** is like telling them you have an embarrassing discharge.'

The Telegraph
'Sharp pricing, stonking mid-range performance, practicality and fuel economy, complemented by a sensible driving range. Got that?'

Autoexpress
'In fact, the comment book is full of praise, with colleagues citing both the great straight-line pace and incredible fuel economy.'

'Although the Ibiza FR will get to 60mph from rest 1.3 seconds quicker than the vRS, it gets obliterated by the **** on in-gear times thanks to the turbodiesel engine's 228lb ft of torque. In the real world, the Ibiza has difficulty keeping up, let alone getting past.'

So what is it? It's this. What I was after though, was the fire-breathing diesel version of this, but it won't be out until the end of the year, and I can't wait. Hey. they're all VW's anyway, with the same platform, engines, suspensions, transmission, etc.

Listening to: 1970s funk music from Ghana and Badly Drawn Boy

Post-iron ramble

I have written a few pages of notes for 'Citizen Zero'. Even if I manage to finish writing it, I am not sure if it will be suitable for live performance. It may be better as a recording.

'Birdsazu' has come back - unsurprising, as he gave Anna the creeps. Prad has returned the 'Uzi' and I have spent part of the evening admiring photos of his mantelpiece, ahem.

Off for a test drive of my preferred shopping trolley tomorrow. It needs to have a hatful of poke yet enable me to stop collecting points around town.

I'm off for a wank, see ya (or hopefully not, unless you like your clothes to be stained).

Pooh

See Pooh in Apocalypse Now. Keep the volume turned up so you can enjoy the dubbing.

I saw the special preview of 'Shooting Dogs' at the NFT last night. It's a superb film. Here's an excerpt from the Q & A afterwards with actor John Hurt and director Michael Caton-Jones:

Interviewer: Michael, you have done several Hollywood films with stars like Bruce Willis. What made you come back to the UK and do low budget films like this?

Michael Caton-Jones: it was making films like the 'The Jackal' in Hollywood

It would be great to consolidate

Hmmm. I'm pretty full of shit so it's no surprise that I have four note books on the go (plus one more under another pseudonym/imprint) and hence too many writing projects. Now it's time to make sense of it all.

As 'Fearless'

Current writing projects:

• 'Before Brown was Fashionable'
• 'The Syndicate'
• 'Citizen Zero'
• 'Singles Ad for a Hopeless Poet'
• Other fragments awaiting their turn to be prose, poetry or bonfire fuel
• Editing/revising, discarding old poems from 2003 onwards (I have delayed this for as long as possible)

Submissions (thanks to Da Bomb for dragging me, kicking & screaming):

• Collidoscope (done)
• Granta (ongoing)
• Others (considering)

Reading:

• Not poetry (much of it is dreadful)
• Prose! Heller, Robb, Reed, Bulgakov, etc
• Back issues of The Believer
• Back issues of Granta (thanks D)

Performing:

• No firm decisions until I have finished the longer pieces for live performance (they may not work)

Competitions:

• I am too lazy to figure out which poems should go for which comps

Other:

• Website (need to revise the content for 'Aziz')
• Revise two mini collections; 'Ballads & Blues' & 'Stimulus: response'
• Recordings (this is now bottom of the list)

The Other Pseudonym

Current writing projects:

• Come now my love, I don't want to get into specifics (just your pants)

Promoting:

• Project Gazonga (30% there, could do with artwork)

The Third Pseudonym

A slightly loopy pet project designed as an assassin in verse, so to speak. Should be a quickie.

Yes, lots of interesting work. But only if I can be arsed.

I'm off to kip. I have an early start so I can knock off early to go to the NFT.

A few poems

Thanks, as always, to Da Bomb.

'The Revolution (May Yet be Postponed)'

The pigs study Marx
while the crows argue
the case for Hitchcock
against the Chickens and
'The Great Escape'.
The penguins stick
with Attenborough
and the gorillas insist
on 'Planet of the Apes'.
The elephants, however,
hunker down with 'Dumbo'.

All would not be well
in the menagerie.

RISC @Boomtown, 17th March 2006


'I Is What I Is'

I burn between the lips of Gods,
punched pandas in the eyes,
scanned zebra bar codes and
gave seals a voice and the
ability to applaud.
I lent the platypus presence
and the Magic Roundabout purpose,
for I am Sweet Mary Jane -
and it was I who gave you
Richard Pryor, Lennie Bruce
and Bill Hicks.

But I didn't give you Republicans
- even I have my limits.

RISC@Boomtown, 17th March 2006


'ASH'

It matters not that pundits speculate
that intercenine warfare will escalate -
as imminent reduction & withdrawal
prompts politicians to prematurely ejaculate.

The policy wonks are convinced,
contractually at least,
that Iraq has been secured,
and unless they voted Republican,
they will forget the dead and injured.

For wanton destruction and inflated reconstruction in general and Amec, Shell & Halliburton in particular.

Bed, 13th March 2006


'Cheque Please'

In restaurant with all clad black,
you pierce peripheral vision
as darkest turn of promise.

Establishing channel -
communicating succinctly,
yet deeply -
desires are decrypted.

I detect interference
of precious metal band;
as static sizzles,
eyes smile goodbye,
as I slip into the night.

In her presence, 'Va Pensiero', Radlett, 16th March 2006 (thanks to Huggybear for dragging me there)

Get me to the church on time!

I need a wife, or maybe the iPod Perv in a dress, i'm not so fussed. I wonder if wheelbarrows are allowed?

Killing time, with thoughts of killing, killing, killing

Feeling: crap, frankly. Wicked old skool headache and sore limbs (no, not that limb). Worked from home today.

Writing: 'Citizen Zero'

Listening to: Vincius de Moraes (keeps me sane while I write)

Thinking about: how genocide is legitimised through recourse to an ideology unsound.

Genocides never just happen. They are argued for, under cover of intellectual debate and exploration of glories/injustices past, before they are justified, architected and finally, executed.

I think of the pseudo-intellectual arguments made by historians, scientists and poets, many of which suggest that your countrymen are in fact your enemies - foreigners from far lands - and are thieves, and that this mistake can be corrected for once and for all. I think of Ferdinand Nahimana in Rwanda and Dobrica Ćosić & Matija Bećković in Serbia.

Even more sinister are genocides such as that perpetrated in Cambodia (Pol Pot) and PRC (the 'Gang of Four's' Cultural Revolution), where the 'intelligentsia' were eradicated.

I think also of the broadcasts from Radio Mille Collines in Rwanda:

'Death! Death! Graves with Tutsi bodies are still only half full. Hurry, and fill them to the top!'

It wasn't just Hutu extremists. A Belgian-Italian broadcaster at that radio station, Giorgio Ruggiu, had broadcast:

'What are you waiting for? The tombs are empty. Take up your machetes and hack your enemies to pieces'

As I write 'Citizen Zero' I hear screams ringing in my ears and I cannot accept that people should just acknowledge or engage. They need to confront and fight. So many of us are all too passive. Why is that? Don't we share (and fight for) values anymore?

Looking forward to: 'Shooting Dogs' preview on Wednesday and 'Army in the Shadows' on Sunday at the NFT.

In other news...

Woz shuts WoZ down. No, not this Woz, but that Woz. Oh, and lazy journalists. Work permitting, it will be a marathon week for me at the NFT, although I got bored and opted out of 'Ivan's Childhood' by Tarkovsky last night.

What will happen to the San Jose Mercury News, home of GMSV? I hope I can get D or Kris to pick up a copy for me while they're at GDC.

Oh, and here's the Amnesty Film, where arms control meets the QVC shopping channel.

Snails can screw themselves

'A Note on Daily Mail Readers'

I wonder why it is that
despite the potential attractions,
in an atmosphere relaxed and sexy,
swingers are just so god damned ugly.

The District Line, 19th March 2006

Some finds from Foyles on the South Bank: 'You're An Animal, Viskovitz' by Alessandro Boffa and 'Pieces for the Left Hand' by J. Robert Lennon.

The little train that did...

...in front of 3,000 children?

Books purchased: 'A Death in Brazil' by Peter Robb, 'The Third Policeman' by Flann O'Brien and 'Death and the Penguin' by Andrey Kurkov

Looking for: 'Midnight in Sicily' by Peter Robb. I think I know who has it (so best to leave it there, I guess)

Going to have: an Uncle Thakur moment

Happiness is: Akbar Ganji being released

Thinking about: Thursday night

Profiles III

'Big Bird'

Butter wouldn't melt in that beak,
befriending children at that age of innocence,
and stealing their sweets,
pimping impressionable Elmo
and filming him with Mister Snuffle-upagus,
while they generated polyfoam friction burns -
only to supply the material to that perverted grouch Oscar,
jacking off in that trashcan laden with damp towels and asthma inhalers,
while tag-teaming with Miss. Piggy to have Kermit in that carnally reductive way.
It could have been much worse, but he didn't have opposable thumbs.

Taipei, 10th March 2006

One Sick Muppet

Outstanding!

'D' has told me that there is a street named after me in San Jose, California, although to be honest, it's most likely named after one of the co-founders of Apple Computer. But you can dream, right?

'CNN Newsflash'

After a painstaking search,
it has been confirmed that
WMDs have been located
in Eye-Rack:
Alabama hillbillies
driving Humvees.

Copyright © 2006 Chicken Noodle News. All Rights Reserved.

Taipei, 9th March 2006

Bum

Last day in Taiwan. Flying home via HK this evening, landing at Heathrow at the sprightly time of 6AM on Sunday.

It has been a great trip. The seminars went well, the team had a blast and I was able to catch up with much needed drinking - sorry, thinking. I wrote several short pieces, got a new gadget and a variety of teas. I might post some of the photos from the trip, but it might be illegal in some states. The only downsides were the lack of time in Shanghai and Taipei, and the fact that I missed my cousin Kamran in Seoul - he was there for a brief break a few days after I left. I'll have to catch up with him in Tokyo.

Bouquets to:

• Da Bomb, who turned 18 again yesterday
• Max, David, Simon, Kristof and the team at ITRI Taiwan and KL for their backup this week
• D, for progress in his new career as a novelist who gives good commentary
• The Cistern Kid, for booking a break for me, him and the iPod Perv

Brickbats hurled at:

• Puddy, for his 'idea' yesterday, that can only be intended to humiliate
• UK government senior officials who waste taxpayers money (you know who you are)
• The iPod Perv, for threatening to pick a Barbara Streisand CD as a birthday present

I better rein myself in now, or take myself in hand, whatever.

Love, peace & respect,

Fearless

'Sunny Side Up'

Cracking, bubbling, spitting,
his fury matched only
by that of the eggs,
now cooked by
one with an ovary.

Observed during breakfast in The Brasserie, The Grand Formosa Regent Taipei, Taiwan, 6th March 2006

Blur, stagger, zoom-zoom-zoom, crash, bump, stagger...

Just arrived in Taipei from Shanghai. Couldn't blog or access the BBC site from the hotel, although I could surf the shitty CNN (aka 'Chicken Noodle News') website - so fiction was OK. Shanghai was great, as was the resulting hangover. Main conclusion: Dragon Air has the prettiest stewardesses in Asia.